WEBVTT - Martin Lee on CBD: It's a Molecule, Not a Miracle 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:07.720 Hi, I'm Ethan Natalman, and this is Psychoactive, a production 0:00:07.760 --> 0:00:11.600 of My Heart Radio and Protozoa Pictures. Psychoactive is the 0:00:11.640 --> 0:00:15.040 show where we talk about all things drugs. But any 0:00:15.040 --> 0:00:17.840 of view is expressed here do not represent those of 0:00:17.920 --> 0:00:23.040 my Heart Media, Protozoa Pictures, or their executives and employees. Indeed, heed, 0:00:23.280 --> 0:00:26.200 as an inveterate contrarian, I can tell you they may 0:00:26.239 --> 0:00:30.400 not even represent my own And nothing contained in this 0:00:30.480 --> 0:00:33.360 show should be used as medical advice or encouragement to 0:00:33.479 --> 0:00:44.320 use any type of drugs. Hello, Psychoactive listeners. So today 0:00:44.560 --> 0:00:49.720 we're gonna talk about c b D everything you ever 0:00:49.800 --> 0:00:52.040 wanted to know, and maybe we're afraid to ask or 0:00:52.040 --> 0:00:54.920 I'm sure you're getting good answers about now. My guest 0:00:55.120 --> 0:00:58.080 is a real expert on CBD who I have enormous 0:00:58.080 --> 0:01:00.720 respect for. His name's Barton Lee, and I first heard 0:01:00.720 --> 0:01:02.520 about Martin Lee when he wrote a book in the 0:01:02.560 --> 0:01:07.120 mid eighties called Acid Dreams, The Complete Social History of LSD, 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:09.240 the c I of the Sixties and Beyond, which was 0:01:09.520 --> 0:01:11.319 you know, really became one of the sort of classic 0:01:11.319 --> 0:01:14.160 books in the field. And then about ten years ago 0:01:14.680 --> 0:01:18.560 he did another book, an award winning book called Smoke Signals, 0:01:18.640 --> 0:01:23.600 A Social History of Marijuana, Medical, recreational and scientific um Now, 0:01:23.640 --> 0:01:27.520 Martin in recent years create an organization called Project cb D. 0:01:28.200 --> 0:01:32.000 It's a fantastic website chock full of tons of information. 0:01:32.160 --> 0:01:35.160 He's been my go to person whenever I have questions 0:01:35.200 --> 0:01:38.400 about this. So Martin, thanks so much for joining me 0:01:38.520 --> 0:01:41.840 on Psychoactive. My pleasure. He's I've been looking forward to 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:46.080 this actually, So could you just explain what is c 0:01:46.560 --> 0:01:50.760 B D well. CBD is short for cannaba dial that's 0:01:50.800 --> 0:01:53.880 the scientific name, and cb D and T and C 0:01:54.040 --> 0:01:57.920 are both components of the cannabis plant, part of a 0:01:58.000 --> 0:02:02.960 group of compounds called abinoids. T, C and CBD are 0:02:02.960 --> 0:02:06.520 the most prominent and well known cannabinoids in the cannabis plant. 0:02:06.880 --> 0:02:09.519 If you look at the molecules, you know, the structure 0:02:10.080 --> 0:02:13.800 side by side, you'd be hard trested to notice the difference. 0:02:13.800 --> 0:02:16.480 It's it's very, very minor. They they have the same 0:02:16.880 --> 0:02:20.800 atoms basically in history, and you look at the original 0:02:20.840 --> 0:02:24.200 strains of cannabis, the so called land race strains. Before 0:02:24.880 --> 0:02:27.280 UH cannabis became popular in the United States in the 0:02:27.360 --> 0:02:31.680 nineteen sixties, it was often the case that a variety 0:02:31.639 --> 0:02:35.400 of cannabis would have relatively equal amounts of th C 0:02:35.639 --> 0:02:39.160 and c b D, and these plants were exquisite in 0:02:39.240 --> 0:02:43.560 terms of the the psychoactive effects they conferred, much loved 0:02:43.680 --> 0:02:46.320 by people today even still if you can get hold 0:02:46.360 --> 0:02:50.120 of them, names like Acapulco Gold come to mind. Uh. 0:02:50.200 --> 0:02:54.000 These are the original land race strains, um. But over time, 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:57.800 what happened in in the late sixties early seventies when 0:02:57.960 --> 0:03:02.480 people started to I'm amateur corticulture started breeding cannabis strains, 0:03:03.400 --> 0:03:06.760 they made an effort, uh, not consciously to breed the 0:03:06.840 --> 0:03:09.280 cb D out of the strains, but to give a 0:03:09.360 --> 0:03:13.360 kind of accentuated high, the perfect high they were looking for, 0:03:13.600 --> 0:03:16.519 and they kind of inadvertently pushed the cb D into 0:03:16.680 --> 0:03:20.560 kind of a recessive genetic mode. So we ended up 0:03:20.600 --> 0:03:25.320 with a lot of THHC dominant cannabis, which has significant 0:03:25.360 --> 0:03:29.120 medical medical properties. But we kind of lost the access 0:03:29.200 --> 0:03:33.200 to CBD over time, and these the CBD was rediscovered, 0:03:33.400 --> 0:03:37.960 you might say, um in around and then began to 0:03:37.960 --> 0:03:42.680 be reintroduced into the supply. But CBD is not intoxicating, 0:03:43.280 --> 0:03:46.920 unlike t C, which is an intoxicating compound. But I 0:03:46.960 --> 0:03:50.960 think it's misleading and incorrect to describe c b D 0:03:51.480 --> 0:03:56.280 as non psychoactive. That became kind of a marketing slogan. 0:03:56.400 --> 0:03:59.400 I think for the emerging CBD industry they want to 0:03:59.400 --> 0:04:03.320 distinguish it from th HC So the CBD is non psychoactive, 0:04:03.360 --> 0:04:07.320 t C is psychoactive. But actually CBD is shown to 0:04:07.400 --> 0:04:12.520 have anti anxiety properties, antidepressant properties UM and if you 0:04:13.040 --> 0:04:16.560 consume a compound that can change one's mood and make 0:04:16.600 --> 0:04:20.880 one less anxious or less oppressive, it's clearly then having 0:04:20.920 --> 0:04:25.240 a psychoactive impact. It's just not an intoxicating impact. And 0:04:25.279 --> 0:04:28.000 I think that's an important distinction, because there's been an 0:04:28.000 --> 0:04:32.080 effort or emphasis on trying to bifurcate CBD. It's separated 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:35.560 from T T H c UH, and I think that's misleading. 0:04:36.360 --> 0:04:38.440 I think one of the problems there is that you know, 0:04:38.520 --> 0:04:43.080 initially again that the marketing pitches will CBD it's not psychoactive, 0:04:43.760 --> 0:04:47.240 it will eliminate the high. And originally when we were 0:04:47.279 --> 0:04:51.000 involved at Project CBD and reintroducing CBD into the medical 0:04:51.040 --> 0:04:55.200 cannabis supply in California, the emphasis was not so much 0:04:55.200 --> 0:04:57.960 as that CBD UM didn't get you high. It's that 0:04:58.040 --> 0:05:02.560 CBD helped manage this psychoactivity, uh, that it can lessen 0:05:02.560 --> 0:05:06.080 the psychoactivity um, but not necessarily eliminate all of it, 0:05:06.120 --> 0:05:09.719 and that that was the point. To manage the psychoactivity 0:05:09.800 --> 0:05:13.400 of cannabis, which is really the the first challenge for 0:05:13.480 --> 0:05:18.559 a person using cannabis for therapeutic use um to limit 0:05:18.600 --> 0:05:22.520 the intoxicating effects so it's tolerable. If indeed that's important 0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:25.480 to the person. If one's taken straight c b D, 0:05:25.760 --> 0:05:29.479 is it possible to get high intoxicated in that sense 0:05:29.520 --> 0:05:32.680 like marijuana hire or something resembling that. With just straight 0:05:32.760 --> 0:05:35.400 cb D, even a large amount with no th h D, 0:05:35.800 --> 0:05:39.039 one shouldn't have an intoxicating effect if you take a 0:05:39.080 --> 0:05:42.640 straight CBD or pure cbd um. There's a little caveat 0:05:42.680 --> 0:05:44.599 to that, but maybe we'll get into later in that 0:05:45.160 --> 0:05:49.679 when CBD is extracted from the plant, whether it's hamp 0:05:49.760 --> 0:05:52.880 or cannabis, again, it shouldn't If it's just pure CBD, 0:05:53.160 --> 0:05:56.960 no intoxication. But if it's made synthetically in a lab, 0:05:57.080 --> 0:05:59.359 which I think is the coming wave in the future 0:05:59.440 --> 0:06:04.040 for CBD isolets um. Depending how it's made, it actually 0:06:04.120 --> 0:06:07.440 could have an intoxicating effect. Because not to get too 0:06:07.440 --> 0:06:10.960 far deep into the science right now, you know there's 0:06:11.000 --> 0:06:14.560 a certain um natural form of t C that exists 0:06:14.600 --> 0:06:16.640 in the plant, all same within CBD, N, T A 0:06:16.760 --> 0:06:20.720 C both, but when you create it synthetically, it can 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:23.040 create versions of c B, d N t h C 0:06:23.240 --> 0:06:27.080 that are non natural versions of the plant. And what 0:06:27.200 --> 0:06:30.080 happens in the lab when you synthesize it, it creates 0:06:30.080 --> 0:06:33.760 what's called a racemic mixture. Um So, just to step 0:06:33.800 --> 0:06:35.880 back for a moment, you know, the CBD and the 0:06:35.880 --> 0:06:39.839 t C molecule have like left handed and right handed versions, 0:06:41.240 --> 0:06:44.359 and in nature it only curs in one way. But 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:48.039 if you have the non natural version, that can actually 0:06:48.040 --> 0:06:51.200 have a very powerful effect on on the receptors that 0:06:51.279 --> 0:06:53.359 gets you high. Now are those things out on the 0:06:53.400 --> 0:06:55.120 market today? I mean, I thought I was at a 0:06:55.120 --> 0:06:57.360 part of the night and some woman I met with claiming, 0:06:57.400 --> 0:07:00.800 oh I get high c CBD. Was that just kind 0:07:00.800 --> 0:07:03.359 of imagined on her parts of the placebo effect? Or 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:04.960 was there are there actually things in the market that 0:07:05.040 --> 0:07:07.200 could be doing that Now, I would say it's most 0:07:07.279 --> 0:07:12.240 likely imagined, but it's possible again if it's a synthetically 0:07:12.320 --> 0:07:16.160 created molecule. You have not only actually left handed and 0:07:16.280 --> 0:07:18.920 right handed versions of the molecule which sort of fit 0:07:19.000 --> 0:07:21.559 in differently into the receptor and could do different things. 0:07:22.040 --> 0:07:25.280 And in fact, one of the metabolites, it's been shown 0:07:25.280 --> 0:07:29.480 in a laboratory of these alternative versions of CBD, non 0:07:29.560 --> 0:07:33.480 natural versions, has a more powerful effect than thh C 0:07:34.040 --> 0:07:37.280 on the receptor. So it's conceivable that, uh, that that 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:39.800 will make you feel high. And I've heard from people 0:07:39.840 --> 0:07:44.000 that they purchase a CBD product. It's advertised as being 0:07:44.040 --> 0:07:47.480 on a whole plant spectrum, meaning other components of the 0:07:47.560 --> 0:07:50.280 kind of canvas plant, and they're not just the CBD. 0:07:50.840 --> 0:07:53.280 Yet when we tested some of these, they only had 0:07:53.360 --> 0:07:56.920 CBD in them um and the person claimed that they 0:07:56.960 --> 0:07:59.160 got high from it and made them uncomfortable. That this 0:07:59.240 --> 0:08:01.720 is a person that was and particularly fond of th HC. 0:08:02.200 --> 0:08:05.240 Not everybody is, So I don't know. I think this 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:07.320 is something that has to be looked at very carefully 0:08:07.320 --> 0:08:10.760 and regulated very carefully because it could be dangerous. So 0:08:10.960 --> 0:08:13.400 just going back to the the innovation that was happening, 0:08:13.480 --> 0:08:16.640 you know among horticultural is trying to get stronger marijuana. 0:08:16.640 --> 0:08:19.080 Back in the seventies, eighties when they were trying to 0:08:19.160 --> 0:08:23.040 kick up the th HC, did that sort of inevitably 0:08:23.360 --> 0:08:25.240 lower Remember hearing this, I don't know as a rumor 0:08:25.280 --> 0:08:26.960 or not, that when you try to kick up the 0:08:26.960 --> 0:08:29.160 TC and the plant, it's going to be knocking down 0:08:29.240 --> 0:08:32.520 the cbd um And was that originally true and no 0:08:32.640 --> 0:08:34.839 longer true or is that sort of an edible part 0:08:34.880 --> 0:08:37.400 of that process of trying to increase th HC potency. 0:08:38.160 --> 0:08:40.480 It's kind of an either or thing. I mean, genetically, 0:08:41.000 --> 0:08:45.079 when when the plant is developing, you know, there's only 0:08:45.120 --> 0:08:47.720 a certain amount of cannabinoids that can be in the plant. 0:08:47.720 --> 0:08:51.760 Generally we think of it as maybe you can push 0:08:51.800 --> 0:08:55.800 it up to thirty, but you can't have both. So 0:08:56.120 --> 0:08:59.400 you have certain strains that are kind of half and 0:08:59.440 --> 0:09:02.719 half to fly equal amounts of CBD and t C. 0:09:03.400 --> 0:09:05.760 But I remember hearing at some point years ago that 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:07.679 there were more and more of the very high th 0:09:07.920 --> 0:09:10.839 HC plants and that was knocking down the cb D. 0:09:11.040 --> 0:09:13.199 If it was an either or factor that was resulting 0:09:13.200 --> 0:09:16.160 in people becoming more anxious and things like that when 0:09:16.200 --> 0:09:18.360 they smoked marijuana, that sort that was that was that? 0:09:18.559 --> 0:09:20.920 Was there some truth to that? Yeah, I think that's 0:09:20.960 --> 0:09:23.520 essentially correct with what happened, And it wasn't that it 0:09:23.600 --> 0:09:27.160 was the people were intending to knock out the CBD. 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:30.480 Um It's more, you know, the the breeding in those 0:09:30.559 --> 0:09:33.600 days before we had access to analytical labs that can 0:09:33.640 --> 0:09:36.160 tell us actually what's in the plant was a lot 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:38.880 of it was this as much art, if not more so, 0:09:39.000 --> 0:09:43.120 than science, you know, and people were creating different versions 0:09:43.160 --> 0:09:45.840 of the plant and testing it and see what they like. 0:09:46.000 --> 0:09:49.040 They they picked and choose, and they sort of inadvertently 0:09:49.440 --> 0:09:53.760 bred the cb D into very low amounts Genetically. You 0:09:53.800 --> 0:09:55.800 could think of it this way, if if the th 0:09:56.120 --> 0:09:59.439 C dominant plants or the brown eyes and the CBD 0:09:59.520 --> 0:10:04.000 plants the blue eyes, they kind of bread the blue 0:10:04.000 --> 0:10:07.520 eyes out of it, except those genes were recessive. So 0:10:07.559 --> 0:10:09.760 when you have all this kind of crazy intermixing of 0:10:09.880 --> 0:10:14.480 so many different strains of being bred, inevitably a few 0:10:14.880 --> 0:10:17.480 blue eye plants would pop up. And that's what happened 0:10:17.600 --> 0:10:21.280 in two thousand nine two ten when we identified a 0:10:21.280 --> 0:10:24.800 few plants that had a significant amount of CBD in them. 0:10:24.800 --> 0:10:27.400 And these were plants that were generally what we call 0:10:27.480 --> 0:10:31.200 the type two's of the plants that had roughly equal 0:10:31.200 --> 0:10:34.599 amounts of CB D N t C. Type ones I 0:10:34.760 --> 0:10:37.720 t C low CBD. Type two is mix of each 0:10:38.320 --> 0:10:42.800 type three's high CBD low t C. When once once 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:45.760 the hemp entered the picture, uh, in some ways there 0:10:45.800 --> 0:10:50.520 was less focus on marijuana plants quote unquote with significant 0:10:50.559 --> 0:10:53.240 amounts of CBD that kind of fell off the radar 0:10:53.280 --> 0:10:55.040 and got short shrifted a bit, although I think that 0:10:55.120 --> 0:10:58.720 will come back in the future. I think because I mean, 0:10:58.800 --> 0:11:00.720 you know, al and hemp. I always thought, you know, 0:11:00.760 --> 0:11:04.000 hemp was basically to my mind, it was low you know, 0:11:04.120 --> 0:11:06.760 low th HC marijuana growing wild all over the place 0:11:06.800 --> 0:11:08.840 and being cultivated in many parts of the world, but 0:11:08.960 --> 0:11:11.240 banned in the US until you know, I guess with 0:11:11.320 --> 0:11:14.800 the farm bill um and often it's being used for 0:11:14.880 --> 0:11:19.800 industrial and agricultural purposes. But it wasn't the industrial hemp. 0:11:20.040 --> 0:11:22.440 Was it that was being associated with CBD or was 0:11:22.480 --> 0:11:25.800 it originally or was it incorrectly associated with that? What's 0:11:25.840 --> 0:11:29.679 the story about that hemp plant and CBD relationship when 0:11:29.720 --> 0:11:32.000 you think about it before, when I'm referring to as 0:11:32.000 --> 0:11:36.920 the rediscovery of CBD, industrial hemp around the world, wasn't 0:11:36.960 --> 0:11:40.800 grown for cannabinoid content. It was grown for fiber, for 0:11:40.840 --> 0:11:43.440 the best heard and also in some cases for the 0:11:43.559 --> 0:11:47.760 seed oil. But this was not uh, this isn't really 0:11:47.880 --> 0:11:50.439 little to do with CBD or t a C. This 0:11:50.600 --> 0:11:54.480 was not the focus of of industrial hemp. But what 0:11:54.600 --> 0:11:58.800 happened is when you consider the different categories of him 0:11:58.840 --> 0:12:02.280 they were basically two the hemp grown for fiber and 0:12:02.360 --> 0:12:05.880 hemp grown for seed oil. Hemp grown for fiber is 0:12:05.920 --> 0:12:09.000 really useless in terms of extracting for CBD or th 0:12:09.240 --> 0:12:12.360 HC or any cannabinoid. These are plants that sort of 0:12:12.360 --> 0:12:15.400 look like bamboo almost shoots with with just a little 0:12:15.400 --> 0:12:19.280 bit of foliage. Um. Then you also have the seed 0:12:19.320 --> 0:12:21.760 oil plants. They're a little bit different. They're a little 0:12:21.760 --> 0:12:25.280 bit bushier. And if you actually analyze the content if 0:12:25.280 --> 0:12:28.320 the cannabinoids and the seed oil plants, the plants that's 0:12:28.360 --> 0:12:33.720 grown for extracting oil used for soap or paint or 0:12:33.600 --> 0:12:38.600 also nutritional purposes, they have a little more CBD than 0:12:38.679 --> 0:12:42.480 the fiber plants, maybe three three and a half percent 0:12:42.520 --> 0:12:46.440 if you measured it in an analytical lab. But there's 0:12:46.440 --> 0:12:50.080 always a few outlayers uh that would would pop up 0:12:50.120 --> 0:12:53.240 a little bit higher with the cb D maybe up 0:12:53.280 --> 0:12:55.680 to six or seven percent that kind of a little 0:12:55.679 --> 0:12:58.720 bit wild in the field, and that's what became the 0:12:58.800 --> 0:13:02.959 cb D from hamp uh those type of plants kind 0:13:03.000 --> 0:13:07.040 of the offshoots of enola or seed other seed oil 0:13:07.120 --> 0:13:11.720 varietals um and that's what became UM Charlotte's web initially 0:13:11.760 --> 0:13:14.640 and some of the more well known that was the 0:13:14.679 --> 0:13:18.120 most well known strain of of hemp early on, you know, 0:13:18.960 --> 0:13:22.319 you know, when it first burst into national consciousness in 0:13:23.360 --> 0:13:25.720 and those same plants had th C in them as well, 0:13:25.880 --> 0:13:30.679 added comparable amounts or what not much. You know, in 0:13:31.080 --> 0:13:34.280 hemp in general, there's not much resin in there compared 0:13:34.320 --> 0:13:36.640 to a marijuana plant, and that's where the cb D, 0:13:36.720 --> 0:13:39.720 n t C lives in the plant. In the resin 0:13:40.160 --> 0:13:44.480 hemp is low resin cannabis. Marijuana quote unquote is high 0:13:44.559 --> 0:13:47.920 resin cannabis. That's how I distinguished them. Resin is in 0:13:48.000 --> 0:13:50.640 the flower tops of cannabis. You know, that's where the 0:13:50.720 --> 0:13:53.959 magic is. That's where the cannabinoids are um. If you're 0:13:53.960 --> 0:13:56.960 getting cb D or thh C from cannabis, it's coming 0:13:57.000 --> 0:13:59.600 from the resin in the plant. When you go back 0:13:59.640 --> 0:14:02.800 and look get the actual definition of marijuana within age 0:14:03.480 --> 0:14:07.360 from the Marijuana Tacks Act of seven and the exact 0:14:07.480 --> 0:14:10.480 two sentenced definition was poured it over to the Control 0:14:10.559 --> 0:14:15.840 Substance Act in nineteen seventy. It mentions resin three times 0:14:15.880 --> 0:14:19.120 in the definition of marijuana. And it's very clear that 0:14:19.440 --> 0:14:23.200 anything to do with the resin was considered illegal. That 0:14:23.360 --> 0:14:26.520 was prohibited if there was part of the cannabis plant 0:14:27.520 --> 0:14:30.280 um it was just the stalk and no resin. And 0:14:30.320 --> 0:14:33.040 if it came from a plant that that was low 0:14:33.080 --> 0:14:37.120 resin plant, that anything in the plant that had nothing 0:14:37.160 --> 0:14:40.440 to do with the resin that was considered legal according 0:14:40.480 --> 0:14:44.680 to the Marijuanattacks Act. Essentially, it means that CBD was 0:14:44.760 --> 0:14:49.160 made illegal in nineteen thirty seven according to the Marijuana 0:14:49.280 --> 0:14:53.160 Tacks Act, but it's peculiar because CBD actually hadn't been 0:14:53.200 --> 0:14:56.040 discovered yet. It was only discovered in nineteen forty by 0:14:56.120 --> 0:15:00.320 Roger Adams, the chemist at University of Illinois. So CBD 0:15:00.520 --> 0:15:03.560 was made illegal before it was discovered, simply because of 0:15:03.600 --> 0:15:07.360 the banning of resident. That Marijuana Tax Act banned anything 0:15:07.400 --> 0:15:09.880 to do with the resin of the plant, any derivative 0:15:10.120 --> 0:15:13.200 from the resident and the resident itself. But the resident 0:15:13.280 --> 0:15:17.000 is where ccbd lives in the plant, in residents where 0:15:17.040 --> 0:15:19.880 th C is in the plant. So anything to do 0:15:19.920 --> 0:15:24.160 with the resin was considered illegal. Um. And the way 0:15:24.200 --> 0:15:28.760 that the distinction between hemp and marijuana plays out legally 0:15:28.880 --> 0:15:34.440 now you have an artificial wine drawn across the plant, 0:15:34.520 --> 0:15:38.120 so that any plant was zero point three t C 0:15:38.600 --> 0:15:42.120 or less is considered hemp, where if it has more 0:15:42.200 --> 0:15:45.640 than that amount of t C, it's considered marijuana. But Mark, 0:15:45.720 --> 0:15:48.280 I thought the entire hemp plant was actually banned for 0:15:48.360 --> 0:15:52.520 many decades. Welln't because it produced resin, even if it 0:15:52.600 --> 0:15:55.360 was a tiny amount. I se. So nobody had figured 0:15:55.360 --> 0:15:57.680 out how to produce hemp plants and hemp stocks or 0:15:57.680 --> 0:16:01.920 industrial purposes that would consistently be below point three percent. 0:16:02.720 --> 0:16:05.040 The law didn't say anything to do. It didn't have 0:16:05.040 --> 0:16:09.280 anything to do with Europe with that only comes later 0:16:09.320 --> 0:16:12.480 with the farm bill. Um. You know, the law was 0:16:12.560 --> 0:16:15.760 all about resident Anything to do with residon is illegal 0:16:16.760 --> 0:16:19.760 now because the way things played out politically with the 0:16:19.800 --> 0:16:23.240 Federal Bureau of Narcotics and then in its successors, they 0:16:23.280 --> 0:16:26.120 went whole log and they basically banned hemp even though 0:16:26.600 --> 0:16:31.000 parts of hemp had no residented UM and which is 0:16:31.040 --> 0:16:35.080 also why people could you know, import hemp products which 0:16:35.120 --> 0:16:38.080 were totally sort of you know, cleansed of any th 0:16:38.480 --> 0:16:41.400 C that was legal, right, Yes, and then when, of course, 0:16:41.440 --> 0:16:43.440 I guess that was a little historical period during World 0:16:43.480 --> 0:16:45.920 War Two when he was government encouraged farmers to briefly 0:16:45.960 --> 0:16:49.000 grow hemp because it was part of the war effort, 0:16:49.000 --> 0:16:52.800 but then rebanded thereafter, and I guess it essentially stayed 0:16:52.920 --> 0:16:56.120 on banned until just a few years ago, except for 0:16:56.200 --> 0:17:00.480 maybe some state authorized research programs that age. With that 0:17:00.520 --> 0:17:03.800 farm Farm Bill from that year, it became legal to 0:17:03.920 --> 0:17:10.400 grow hemp um, particularly for CBD H extraction, and that's 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:13.160 really what motivated the interest in the CBD that that's 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:15.679 what led to the Farm Bill, that the explosion of 0:17:15.720 --> 0:17:19.120 popular interest in the CBD. But but the Farm Bill 0:17:19.200 --> 0:17:23.240 is inherently flawed really because I compare it to like 0:17:23.320 --> 0:17:28.080 a software patch that's created two improve or or remedy 0:17:28.160 --> 0:17:31.200 defective software. In this case, that the fact of software 0:17:31.560 --> 0:17:36.960 is the Control Substances Act, except you can't really fix it. Yeah, 0:17:37.240 --> 0:17:40.080 you can't really fix that with a software patch because 0:17:40.480 --> 0:17:42.359 it leads to other problems and then you have to 0:17:42.359 --> 0:17:46.120 have another patch that fixed the software patch and add infinitum. 0:17:46.400 --> 0:17:49.440 What it's done is create a situation where people who 0:17:49.480 --> 0:17:56.640 wanted to grow hemp to extract cannabinoids, in particularly CBD UM, 0:17:56.680 --> 0:17:58.440 they have a lot of problems they had to face. 0:17:58.480 --> 0:18:01.520 I mean, if you have a robust plant, a cannabis plant, 0:18:02.080 --> 0:18:05.439 they don't like. It doesn't really conform very easily to 0:18:05.480 --> 0:18:10.639 this politically correct zero point three limit. You know that 0:18:10.720 --> 0:18:13.480 it is an artificial limit. You know, in in European 0:18:13.640 --> 0:18:17.919 Union it's zero point two c only that's allowed. In 0:18:17.960 --> 0:18:21.399 Switzerland they allowed one percent. It's it's it's an arbitrary 0:18:21.480 --> 0:18:25.240 number that doesn't have a scientific basis. UM. That's really 0:18:25.280 --> 0:18:28.640 imposed in US law, I think to keep quote unquote 0:18:28.640 --> 0:18:33.040 marijuana illegal, to distinguish hemp from marijuana that way, when 0:18:33.040 --> 0:18:37.919 originally it was about resent content, not about th C content. UM. 0:18:38.880 --> 0:18:41.280 And this has caused a lot of problems in terms 0:18:41.320 --> 0:18:44.639 of UM, the industry getting off the ground, UM and 0:18:44.880 --> 0:18:47.199 just how it's really how we relate to it legally. 0:18:49.560 --> 0:19:07.480 We'll be talking more after we hear this. You say, 0:19:07.480 --> 0:19:11.520 there were two farm bills one and one, but you 0:19:11.600 --> 0:19:16.200 have this explosion right of hemp production happening. I think 0:19:16.280 --> 0:19:17.919 all sorts of people trying to get into it for 0:19:18.240 --> 0:19:21.439 industrial purposes, but also I guess CBD purposes. And then 0:19:21.480 --> 0:19:24.680 a few years ago you have this explosion of CBD. 0:19:25.320 --> 0:19:29.400 So are they linked Because most of the CBD then 0:19:29.520 --> 0:19:35.280 or even now was coming from hemp plants or what 0:19:35.880 --> 0:19:38.400 plans that were still that were legal under federal law 0:19:39.440 --> 0:19:43.879 or not. I think that the the the momentum, the 0:19:43.920 --> 0:19:48.080 popular momentum for CBD had been building for some time. 0:19:48.480 --> 0:19:54.560 It really ever since the CNN broadcasts that showed children 0:19:54.600 --> 0:19:59.040 with severe epilepsy or helped by CBD, almost in a 0:19:59.040 --> 0:20:03.560 miraculous way, and every since that time the CBD pierced 0:20:03.720 --> 0:20:07.200 national and international consciousness. Prior to then, very few people 0:20:07.200 --> 0:20:10.479 have heard about CBD at all. So um, it had 0:20:10.520 --> 0:20:12.919 been building and and and it's really what led to 0:20:13.040 --> 0:20:17.440 the passage of the Farm Bills, in which is quite 0:20:17.520 --> 0:20:20.440 limited what you could do with growing hemp at that point, 0:20:20.600 --> 0:20:24.840 and then which legalized the growing of hemp both for 0:20:24.920 --> 0:20:29.399 cannabinoid content and the classic industrial purposes. The problem is 0:20:30.040 --> 0:20:34.120 uh that the kind of hemp that they were allowed 0:20:34.160 --> 0:20:39.159 people to grow was not the optimal source for extracting CBD. 0:20:39.560 --> 0:20:42.720 You know it again, when you look back to those 0:20:42.720 --> 0:20:47.359 original noteworthy strains like Charlotte's Webb, you're talking six seven 0:20:48.080 --> 0:20:52.640 cb D content by Dryway at most. When you compare 0:20:52.720 --> 0:20:56.320 that to a marijuana quote unquote plant with the high 0:20:56.359 --> 0:21:00.760 cb D content um you were talking about, and CBD 0:21:00.880 --> 0:21:06.399 by Drywaight with about one and one at one t C, 0:21:06.560 --> 0:21:09.600 which is over the limits for hemp, but still it's 0:21:09.960 --> 0:21:12.639 it's still very low to h C and it's the 0:21:12.680 --> 0:21:16.760 best source of CBD. So what you had was people 0:21:16.840 --> 0:21:22.320 growing hemp um but not optimal to extract, so they 0:21:22.760 --> 0:21:25.840 always were trying to push the plant for higher cb 0:21:25.960 --> 0:21:30.680 D content, and eventually what what happened is that they 0:21:30.720 --> 0:21:36.560 took these um high CBD marijuana strains um and try 0:21:36.640 --> 0:21:39.040 to breed them in such a way as to draw 0:21:39.200 --> 0:21:42.840 down the THHC levels, and it's very difficult to do that. 0:21:43.320 --> 0:21:47.000 So farmers were growing these plants and they had to 0:21:47.359 --> 0:21:52.600 play cat and mouse with the authorities because the plants 0:21:52.600 --> 0:21:55.000 tended to go hot. You know, hemp plants like that. 0:21:55.040 --> 0:21:57.040 They don't want to stay at the point three percent 0:21:57.119 --> 0:21:59.080 t C. They want to go up to that one 0:21:59.119 --> 0:22:02.439 percent tight C level um. That's the natural form of 0:22:02.520 --> 0:22:07.440 cannabis for these types of varietals, and um, it really 0:22:07.440 --> 0:22:10.560 made it difficult for growers. Uh. They would grow plants 0:22:10.600 --> 0:22:12.440 they go that would go beyond the th h C 0:22:12.880 --> 0:22:15.679 limit and they'd have to destroy them, and you know, 0:22:15.840 --> 0:22:18.359 it became kind of a mess. And so so they 0:22:18.400 --> 0:22:22.000 would actually try to cheat the regulators to to keep 0:22:22.040 --> 0:22:25.080 them in the ground, um, just as long as they 0:22:25.119 --> 0:22:28.359 could to maximize the cb D content. But then it 0:22:28.640 --> 0:22:32.000 pushed the THHC too high and uh, and they would 0:22:32.000 --> 0:22:35.760 try to evade the Agriculture department representatives that would test 0:22:35.760 --> 0:22:40.080 the the plants, and it became very very difficult. Is 0:22:40.080 --> 0:22:44.160 it's still going on now, yes, so to uh, yes 0:22:44.200 --> 0:22:46.879 it is going on. There was a study published by 0:22:46.960 --> 0:22:52.040 the University of Minnesota scientists working there that concluded that 0:22:53.680 --> 0:22:57.560 the genetics of the so called high CBD hem plants 0:22:57.560 --> 0:23:02.040 were actually marijuana genetics. UM. And when you're when you're 0:23:02.040 --> 0:23:04.520 playing with these type of plants, you you can't grow 0:23:04.560 --> 0:23:07.800 them to full turn. Otherwise again, you you exceed the 0:23:07.800 --> 0:23:11.080 the th AC limits. The longer the plants staying ground, 0:23:11.200 --> 0:23:15.040 the more cannabinoids that are in their more cbdn let's 0:23:15.160 --> 0:23:17.479 take a break on this, but let's go to the evidence, 0:23:17.480 --> 0:23:22.000 because my understanding is that the only f d A 0:23:22.000 --> 0:23:25.880 approved CBD product, right is the thing that GW pharmaceutical 0:23:26.240 --> 0:23:29.520 started working on twenty five years ago. Right, it's the statotacts, 0:23:29.600 --> 0:23:33.000 I guess and and epidolens um, which is found you know, 0:23:33.080 --> 0:23:38.240 helpful in terms of dealing with children's epileptic conditions. Is 0:23:38.280 --> 0:23:40.280 that right? Is that still the basically the only one 0:23:40.320 --> 0:23:44.080 that's approved. Correct. That is a pharmaceutical version of CBD 0:23:44.119 --> 0:23:48.080 that's approved by the f d A specifically to treat 0:23:48.240 --> 0:23:53.679 children with three types of severe forms of epilepsy, and 0:23:53.720 --> 0:23:56.840 it can only be used for that purpose. Um. And 0:23:57.000 --> 0:23:59.439 I think that's a positive development to the extent that 0:23:59.480 --> 0:24:03.120 this can really help children with these terrible diseases. It's 0:24:03.119 --> 0:24:05.400 proven to that they went through all the rigorous tests 0:24:05.440 --> 0:24:07.360 that you have to to be proved by the FDA 0:24:08.520 --> 0:24:11.720 as a as a pharmaceutical. I don't think that the 0:24:11.720 --> 0:24:15.400 g W Pharmaceuticals, which was formed in the late nineties 0:24:15.440 --> 0:24:21.200 and nineties, was focusing initially on this kind of CBD isolate, 0:24:21.280 --> 0:24:25.240 which is what epidialects of the pharmaceutical you just mentioned, 0:24:25.400 --> 0:24:28.800