EN T E RPRISE
My Funny Valentine Chocolate & cannabis: a romantic pairing.
ADOBE STOCK
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FR OM STAF F & WIRE REPORTS
annabe Your Valentine? The intoxication of Maine’s love affair with
THC and CBD is growing and sweetening the closer we get to V-Day. Maybe that’s what they mean when they say a couple has chemistry. Many of Maine’s cannabis stores are busting loose with imaginative, marketleading chocolates. One touts a “decadent cannabis-infused chocolate bar made of silky imported Belgian chocolate.” Another says, “Our chocolate bars are the perfect
marriage between delicious, fair-trade dark chocolate and rich, full spectrum cannabis oil.” Clearly our state has a glow on. But what makes the cannabis and cacao plants such a mind-blowing match? IT’S ONLY NATURAL “Cannabis contains at least 113 unique chemical compounds known as cannabinoids,” according to the blog Zamnesia. com. “Some of the most famous are THC (the main psychoactive ingredient in the plant) and CBD (a non-psychoactive com-
pound renowned for its medicinal properties).” Chocolate also delivers euphoria. According to “Brain cannabinoids in chocolate” by E. di Tomaso, M. Beltramo, and D. Piomelli (a 1996 study published in the journal Nature), there are three “pharmacological constituents of chocolate whose main target may be the endogenous cannabinoid system of the brain.” SO IT’S FATE Chocolate and cannabis were always highschool sweethearts, even if they didn’t WINTERGUIDE 2022 47
