by Paul Fassa
Health Impact News

Full plant hemp sources of CBD (cannabidiol) are about to become more accessible to everyone in the USA. Growing hemp as a cash crop was reinstated legally December 20, 2018, when President Trump signed the 2019 Farm Bill Congress had approved. 

Hemp has been illegal to grow, sell, or even use since the passing of the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 when hemp was thrown into the mix with its closely-related cannabis cousin marijuana and banned. 

During WW II, it was encouraged among select farmers solely to produce materials such as rope, canvas, parachutes, and other materials for the war effort. When the war ended in 1945, the federal “Hemp for Victory” campaign was shut down.

The USA no longer grew hemp, and hemp products were no longer manufactured domestically. Since then, the 1970 Controlled Substances Act led to placing hemp as a Schedule I substance, the same category as heroin, as a dangerous drug without any medicinal use.

The US Justice Department’s Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) was assigned to enforcing the ban on Schedule 1 drugs and policing the substances in the other three “schedules.” Thus the “war on drugs” began, and even totally innocent hemp was a target of enforcement.  

But the recent law that reinstates hemp agriculture has ramifications that go beyond the material wonders hemp can create. There are health and medical ramifications that we can all use without legal concerns as well with full spectrum hemp CBD oil that will be more available now. 

Also see:

After 80 Years, Hemp, the Non-psychoactive Cousin of Marijuana, is Legal Again in the U.S.

Clarifying the Difference Between Hemp CBD and Marijuana

Industrial hemp is not the same as marijuana.  They are both of the same genus – Cannabis. But they are bred differently. Marijuana contains THC, the psychoactive cannabinoid that pot is famous for. Over the last decade, THC has been recognized for its medicinal values as well.   

It’s important to understand our bodies can produce cannabinoids. Animal and human bodies contain many cannabinoid receptors throughout various organs as part of the endogenous endocannabinoid system (ECS).

During the 1990s, Israeli scientists researched and uncovered the endocannabinoid system’s ability to assist the body toward homeostasis. When the endocannabinoid system is depleted, homeostasis is blocked and diseases occur. Their focus was on full plant cannabis with THC.

That was the most significant milestone for understanding cannabis as medicinal. Cannabis plants are rich sources with over 80 cannabinoids discovered so far. They can all be part of exogenous sources of cannabinoids to supply the cannabinoid receptors of a depleted endocannabinoid system.

There have been CBD oils that contain more than the amount of THC legally allowed by the Federal Government. They are from marijuana plants hybrid manufactured to have low THC and high CBD or cannabidiol. Therefore they’re restricted to medical marijuana states only.

Also see: 

Cannabis Remedies for Epilepsy Were Discovered and Buried in the 1940s

Cannabis for the Treatment of Epilepsy, and More 

Only Full Spectrum Hemp Offers a Unique Synergistic Entourage Effect 

THC’s healing properties became understood as a healing agent when delivered synergistically with other cannabinoids and terpenes, which are phytonutrients that interact and modulate the cannabinoids.

This combination of cannabis phytonutrients working synergistically has become understood as the entourage effect which determines exactly how each different species and strains of cannabis can be useful medicinally. 

Each strain of cannabis offers a different arrangement within its entourage effect. Fortunately, the different entourage effects of many different strains of cannabis have been isolated and categorized despite DEA’s current federal restrictions on cannabis. 

But the hemp that’s considered “industrial,” because of its strong and practical material applications, contains only a negligible amount of THC. In the USA, the legal limit for industrial hemp is 0.3 percent.

Instead, its dominant cannabinoid is CBD (cannabidiol), a non-psychoactive compound which has demonstrated positive results as a remedy for many serious and chronic unhealthy conditions with folks of all ages over the last decade.

CBD products labeled pure are often isolates and are lab-created synthetic CBD products. They lack the complete healing synergy of the many other cannabinoids and terpenes present in cannabis. Big Pharma sticks with its single-molecule approach with its CBD creations.

They isolate and extract the active ingredient CBD from cannabis (hemp) to copy and chemically create a synthetic version of CBD for FDA approval. Other CBD suppliers may simply isolate CBD and extract it without mimicking it chemically and market it.

They both miss the entourage effect that whole plant industrial hemp’s CBD offers, which is important for both efficacy and safety purposes. Full spectrum hemp oil can provide this entourage effect.

New York state certified nutritional therapist and author of several health books on plant medicine, Dr. Carl Germano, put it this way:

CBD is incredibly important, research has generated data behind it. Yes, CBD is the most dominant in terms of the cannabinoids in industrial hemp.

But no, you cannot ignore the entire family. Just because they are minor in number, they are not minor in effect to the body. It has been pretty clear that the entourage of this whole family of compounds is more important than just any one singular compound. (Source)

According to Germano, the burgeoning natural hemp plant CBD industry shouldn’t focus on marketing CBD. Even labeling products CBD may cause problems with the FDA because GW Pharmaceuticals has already patented a couple of CBD products, Epidiolex and Sativex. 

After four years of trials, GW Pharmaceuticals has obtained FDA approval to address issues of epileptic disorders that Big Pharma’s pharmaceuticals have failed to resolve.

FDA-approved CBD Supplement is $32,500 Pharmaceutical Drug – All Others Illegal

Naturally-derived CBD products have had anecdotal successes for thousands of folks with inflammation, pain, sleep disorders, rheumatism, PTSD, and complications from sports injuries, including concussion-type neurological issues and even anxiety without adverse side effects. (Source)

It constantly proves itself for children by greatly reducing epileptic seizures among children with various conditions that fill their lives with major recurring seizures.

Germano recommends the best marketing approach for alternative CBD producers to avoid FDA issues or butt heads with GW Pharma’s CBD edge as an approved drug and even market as a nutrient is to simply claim their full spectrum hemp oils with CBD are endocannabinoid support items.

Congress Gives CBD Oil Green Light but FDA Still Has Stop Sign Up

He feels this is closer to the truth than calling it CBD, since full spectrum hemp CBD is just that. The medicinal effects are not just from CBD. They’re from the aggregate collection of it and other cannabinoids with terpenes known as the entourage effect.  

The full spectrum hemp CBD products are much less expensive for consumers than pharmaceutical CBD products, and they’re better. Newly legalized hemp agriculture opens the gate for greater access to whole plant CBD products that can be sold, bought, and used anywhere.

A complete lengthy in-depth interview transcript of Carl Germano can be accessed here. 

The video below contains another more recent interview with Carl Germano taped after the 2019 Farm Bill legalizing hemp agriculture and products was announced.