5 minute read
HEMP: What's the Story?
BY RICH HAMILTON
If you have heard of marijuana then you have heard of hemp, but do you know the difference? I didn’t. I was looking at purchasing some CBD oil and noticed that I could also buy hemp oil. It struck me that items made with hemp surround us all the time, such as clothing, military grade fabrics, ointments and other “well being” and sustainable products, and yet I’ve never given much thought as to what makes hemp and marijuana different, or, for that matter, what makes them similar.
The word cannabis usually conjures up images of smoking and the knock-on effects, while its use as an industrial tool is often overlooked. Cannabis is possibly one of the oldest domesticated crops and early civilisations used it just as much for industrial purposes as they did for medicinal uses. So, what defines hemp from its more taboo cousin?
Hemp is big business: The Hemp Business Journal estimates worldwide CBD consumer sales will hit the $2.1 billion mark by 2020, with $450 million worth coming from hemp-based sources. France, China, and Chile are some of the world’s largest hemp producers, but more than 30 countries grow it worldwide. New discoveries and uses are being found for it all the time, such as taking the fibres to create forms of renewable plastic perfect for the car parts industry. In recent years, a group of researchers at the University of Alberta found a way to use hemp material within a supercapacitor, (a battery which charges up almost instantly and doesn’t degrade) making the idea of creating cheap, fast-charging batteries from hemp a distinct possibility.
The differences between hemp and marijuana seem to depend on whether you are looking at it from legal or scientific perspectives. In today’s world, with the relaxing of cannabis laws ongoing around the world, this simply won’t do. Surely, clear definitions need to exist, be proven and accepted across the board if we are to create justified and responsible laws.
Firstly, and most basically, hemp and marijuana are both derived from the same genus and species of the Cannabis sativa plant. From a scientific point of view, the difference between the two lies in the purpose that the strain of cannabis is bred for the genetic parentage and the cultivation method.
Traditionally, years of selective and manipulative breedingwith plants showing similar characteristics to those desiredin hemp has produced tall, tough cannabis strains containing lower levels of THC and higher levels of CBD. That’s the opposite to marijuana, which contains higher levels of THC and lower levels of CBD. Primarily, hemp plants are male with no flowering buds. They typically grow outdoors and become tall very quickly, ensuring a bigger yield and allowing plants to grow long, strong stalks, an essential characteristic needed to create hemp fibres.
In contrast, cannabis bred selectively for medicinal and recreational use (marijuana) is typically grown indoors where the grower can pay more attention to individual plants and control every factor affecting growth and development, such as food, light, temperature, and even CO2 and oxygen levels. The final product delivers higher levels of THC and the desired effect when ingested via smoking or eating. Controlled growing environments have led to marijuana being stronger than ever before. Unlike when cannabis is left to grow naturally, indoor growers can manipulate the strength and potency of plants by mixing strains together to create new hybrids of female flowering plants with large, resin-filled glands. Marijuana has higher levels of THC than those found in hemp, ranging on average between 5-20%.
The differences between hemp and marijuana seem clear. However, the international standard that has become accepted around the world and written into legislative law to identify and control the growing and distribution of hemp uses an idea arrived at arbitrarily by a Canadian scientist.
Dr Ernest Small received a doctorate in plant evolution from the University of California in 1969 and has long been seen as a botanical expert, acting as an advisor to government and an expert witness in court. In 1979, he wrote a book called The Species Problem in Cannabis that would go on to become very influential. In the book, Small decided on a benchmark to definehemp as a sifted batch of cannabis flowers that contained a THC level of 0.3% or less. In direct contrast to this statement, however, he did admit that many strains of cannabis that he experimented with for fibre and oil did actually have higher levels of THC than 0.3%! It would seem, therefore, that his decision was not based on whichstrains of cannabis held the most value to agriculture and neither was it based upon the THC level required to induce psychoactivity.
Is it justified, then? Are we missing out on better hempproduction because we are ignoring strains that offerwhat we need, but may be slightly too high in THC levels?
What’s one man’s opinion though? Well, this opinion was an important one, as Small’s definition was written into US law for regulating the sale of foreign cultivated hemp products. His standard is also used worldwide. Canada uses the 0.3% rule, and the EU went even lower, using 0.2%.
In 2001, the US tried to go even further when the DEA attempted to ban all products sourced from hemp. Unsuccessful as this was, they did manage to classify any product containing any level of THC as illegal, excluding hemp products that contained absolutely no THC, such as fibres from cannabis stalks, oils, or cake made from the leaves, or products that originate from sterilised cannabis seeds. All other parts of the Cannabis sativa plant are identified as marijuana under current US law. With the passing of the Farm Bill in 2014, hemp can now be planted on US soil, however, it is a pilot scheme for research only and at a federal level, the commercial growing of hemp remains illegal.
Hemp products including health supplements, beauty products, paper, clothing, and building materials are legal to purchase in all 50 US states. And yet, nearly all hemp used has to be imported! There are movements that are trying to have the restrictions on hemp lifted, but at present, any bid to change the legal status remains stagnant.
In our perusal of new, sustainable products to assist in our everyday lives, it seems as though the value of hemp could have great potential. But the regulations placed upon it make it difficult to fully explore. Research into harnessing its full benefits is too restricted and this is where, as many differences as there are, these two derivatives from the same Cannabis sativa plant could not be more similar.
Sources: Forbes Magazine: bit.ly/2zEbC3N
