How I Overcame My Fear Of Terpinolene & My Fear In The Process by Anna Ervin
It’s no secret that the terpene profile is an important factor to consider when shopping for cannabis. This data offers patients a deeper look at the aroma, flavor, and experience that each strain might offer, especially in conjunction with cannabinoid percentages. I recently took on my first bud-tending role, and through a quick training course on the science backing the medicinal benefits of cannabis, I was lucky enough to learn a little bit about the terpenes present in my medicine. I use cannabis to help regulate my mental health, combat depression, and ease anxiety. However, as most patients are probably aware, at times those little green buds can induce or provoke anxiety. For years I had been experimenting with different consumption methods and paying attention to the different applications of cultivation in the industry, unable to crack the code and understand why feelings of paranoia and dis-ease sometimes accompanied my high. Finally, I was being presented with a whole new series of potential triggers to explore, and that’s exactly what I did. Terpinolene is one of the most commonly found terpenes in the plant, and is responsible for the citrusy, piney flavor many active strains take on. Its benefits are reported to be cerebral focus, mental clarity, and mood enhancement; but it’s important to note that in some cases the pendulum can swing too far, inducing anxiety, paranoia, and, well, too much clarity. In my eyes, I had finally pinpointed the root of my anxieties. Terpinolene must be the problem. Now, if you’re under the impression that I am here today to educate on the characteristics of terpenes, I’m sorry to disappoint. However, the majority of the research available can be found through a quick read-up on weedmaps or leafly. The reason I chose to write about this topic is more-or-less focused on consumer experience, and exploring a mindset that I feel I might share with others when shopping for cannabis. Before we dive any deeper, though, I should share a little bit about my background with plant-based medicine. A week before my high school graduation, I lost my dad to liver failure. Years of taking prescribed pharmaceuticals destroyed his already weak liver, leaving me to enter adulthood questioning everything I had ever known about authority, medicine and trusting professionals. I hated the pharmaceutical industry for a long time, and I still remember spending much of my time scouring the internet for studies and stories which affirmed my distrust in big pharma. A few years later, my mom suffered her second major heart attack. By the grace of the universe she survived, but only after a near month in the hospital and a terrifying road to recovery. For weeks I watched doctors poke and prod at her seemingly lifeless body, and signed off on procedures that threatened her mobility, but would ultimately save her life. During this time my perspective on healthcare softened, and I found myself feeling a tinge of gratitude for the life-saving capabilities of western medicine. Instead of blaming big pharma for all of the world’s illness, I decided to take a deeper look at preventative health, and explore how both of my parents ended up in hospital beds to begin with— furthermore, how not to end up there myself. These experiences invited me to consider how I take care of my body; the way I move, the ingredients I feed it, how often I hydrate. I began eating organic and natural foods, cut animal products out of my diet, refusing to even touch pharmaceutical or over the counter medications. I consumed cannabis regularly at this time, but it wasn’t until I dove into Oklahoma’s cannabis industry in 2020 that I began to connect the dots and understand the role it played in my biochemistry as well.
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