Thinking a lot about ethnobotany in relation to cannabis and globalization as a research associate working on the Legacy Cannabis Genetics: People and their Plants research project.[0]
For people using cannabis as medicine in both legal and illegal markets, the trend to buy higher THC potency products is all about stretching their medicine with their limited budget.
To continue your analogy, it’d be like buying 90% moonshine, diluting it 20:1, and then drinking it as a mixed drink the same potency as a casual light beer.
Of course, if only 90% moonshine is available, cuz of Prohibition or Post-Prohibition, then you’re going to have more people “binging” as opposed to “budgeting.”
The THC percentage variation in different varieties varies from say 0-35%. The better analogy for prohibition’s effects are for the explosion in concentrated forms like hash oil specifically. That is the same prohibition pressure that turned opium into heroin.
Emphasizing this for anyone that reads it. Ceasing use 4 hours prior to going to sleep really helps - and yes, you can “use it for sleep” that many hours before and still be in a more sleep ready State than otherwise.
Without getting too much into the sativa/indica dichotomy - in my personal experience, I find the secondary metabolite profiles (terpinolene as opposed to the beta Caryophyllene dominant profiles associated typical with 8 week “indica dominant hybrids”) associated with longer flowering cultivars to be preferred by those dealing with what would might be undiagnosed ASD related things.
Would love to hear your experiences. What is the longest flowering cultivar you’ve tried, versus the shortest, and difference in effects on your ASD?
How many veterans do you know? How many veterans that you know use cannabis to treat their PTS? I guess I might be living in a bubble but there are plenty of videos of veterans and others talking about how exactly it is that they use cannabis for PTS. I recommend watching some.
That's a great example study to highlight what I really mean by entourage effect. I've edited my post to emphasize most not all - i only looked at the 6 anxiety studies as that's what I have the most experience with - as well as the included table which highlighted that the vast majority of studies included in this metastudy only looked at THC.
That particular study did look at High THC low CBD, mid THC mid CBD, and high CBD low THC. There's no information on the terpene profile of the smoked cannabis preparations, though, and that is a confounding variable in the entourage effect that potentially defeats the part of the entourage effect they did test. Additionally, a quick look at the cannabinoid %s in those smoked preparations rehighlights my point that these are not inclusive of all the chemical compositions that the cannabis plant could present itself in.
I still stand by my point and hope the clarifications bring the conversation back on track to the fact I was highlighting which is simply that this is a metastudy built off of studies that were conducted with restrictions on experimental design that few observers fully understand the research implications of.
Those that are interested to click through should and see the studies cited by this metastudy and whether they used whole plant cannabis extracts, cannabis isolates, or even non cannabis derived isolates.
tldr; "If they're using cannabis in plant form" is a very, very high bar for the current state of cannabis (really cannabinoid) research.
The studies cited by this metastudy all suffer from the same issue: They aren't studying the cannabis plant at all and even if they are, it's not in the chemovars (chemical makeups) that real consumers are actually consuming - due to cannabis sourcing issues stemming from cannabis's continued illegality.
For randomized controlled trials, even in "legal" states, university scientists can't just walk into a dispensary and buy cannabis to then administer to test subjects.
That's Post-Prohibition for you.
As far as I can tell, most (EDITED FROM ALL) of the studies utilize isolates - and not necessarily in conjunction.
For instance, none of the 6 anxiety studies included in this metastudy used THC and CBD together.
The headline could read instead: No evidence cannabinoid isolates help anxiety, depression, or PTSD.
Cannabis advocates are the first to mention the entourage effect. Cannabis prohibitionists on the other hand, love nothing more than to cite incomplete science.
The actual technical thought leaders aren’t necessarily representative of the tech industry at large. Id like to think at least some with a hacker ethos have made it to decision making positions - and hacker news is a spot for em to congregate.
You can’t get banned just for downvoting. Nobody can see someone else’s voting history. You buried the lead, you were banned for your comments not for your voting activity.
[0] https://legacygenetics.org