Cannabis is popular – there’s no way around that fact. Whether through media portrayal, medical usage, or recreational fanfare, cannabis has cemented a presence in most people’s understanding.
Most people may not know that cannabis is not bound to just marijuana. Cannabis is a family of plants that encompasses both marijuana and hemp.
And hemp is an extremely close relative of marijuana with one significant distinction. It contains very minute amounts of delta-9 THC.
So if the psychoactive effect isn’t there, why smoke hemp instead? Well, cannabis isn’t limited to just chasing a high. Hemp alone has a slew of benefits all its own. Let’s dive into hemp flower today and take a look at why you may want to give it a try yourself.
1. It’s Legal
Regarding good reasons, legality is at the top of the chart. While recreational THC still has a way to climb before it’s universally accepted, hemp and its cannabinoid compounds are now a fully protected crop.
Thanks to the 2018 Farm Bill, hemp with a natural concentration of 0.03% or less THC can be grown, processed, and sold to the general public. With access to hemp as a crop comes access to the many cannabis compounds that this abundant plant produces.
For those who may be unfamiliar with hemp and its composition, it can be easy to mistake that CBD is pretty much all it is suitable for. This is not the case, but it’s easy to see why that misunderstanding occurs.
Hemp contains a plethora of compounds that can be used in products. As a result, the consumer market has already become well acquainted with cannabinoids like CBD, delta-8, THC-O, CBG, HHC, and many others.
All of the usable compounds are derived from the CBD base in hemp or another minor cannabinoid, and thanks to the fact that THC is practically non-existent in the crop, it’s all legal.
2. It’s Easily Accessible
One of the most important things people ask about cannabis products is, “But can I get it near where I live?”
It used to be challenging to get ahold of CBD products, even just a few years ago. changed with the 2018 Farm Bill, however. Thanks to the protected status of the hemp plant, CBD and other cannabinoid compounds are legally and safely harvested for the consumer market.
As of 2022, 47 of the 50 states allow the purchase of CBD hemp and some of its variations. As a result, access to these compounds has never been more abundant.
Hemp contains over 100 cannabinoid compounds, and a handful has already made their way into consumer products nationwide—these range from CBD to CBG, THC-O, delta-8, and more.
With so many different options tailored to different experiences and purposes, it’s not hard to find something specific to what you want to achieve.
It’s always important to check your local laws regarding hemp and ensure you are in one of the many states that allow it. But barring that issue, hemp should be widely available in most places.
3. Better Potency Control
Delta-8 is milder, HHC is somewhere between delta-8 and delta-9 highs, and delta-9 is the baseline with which people are typically familiar. THC-O is three times stronger, so people have control over their potency options.
On top of the different compounds and their strengths, each one is categorized by individual dose potency. The ability to control and experience exactly how much you need has never been more effortless.
Most products, including edibles and even raw flower, will be able to list how much of the cannabis compound (whether it’s CBD, CBG, THC-O, or anything else) is present in totality, as well as how much is recommended per use.
That doesn’t mean the recommended dose of a given cannabinoid is equal to another, however. Things like THC-O pack a much more intense punch than delta-8 or delta-9. But that is another level of control that the consumer has in this situation.
While different cannabinoids cause different effects, it’s easy to find information or ask the seller what would be right for you if you are unsure.
4. Hemp Includes Regular THC Now
You don’t have to smoke weed to enjoy the THC typically in it. The 2018 Farm Bill means we can use 0.3% delta-9 THC or less in any hemp product. The density of that product will determine how much regular THC can be put inside. So, the easy solution? Provide the densest edibles to provide the highest concentration of delta-9 THC on the market.
The whole concept may sound a little confusing so let’s break it down. First, the 2018 Farm Bill allows farmers to farm hemp crops that contain 0.3% or less of delta-9 THC.
Most hemp has at least some THC simply because it IS a cannabis plant. Well, the farming industry has access to vast swaths of hemp now that it is a protected crop, and with that comes a little room to maneuver.
The caveat that allows hemp-derived THC to exist on the market is directly tied to how the 2018 farm bill is worded.
The content of hemp-based THC is based on the dry weight. This distinction is essential because that 0.03% can scale upward quickly once it applies to things like edibles and oils.
A good example would be something like a brownie or other baked goods. Say you make a THC brownie that weighs in at 100 g. That means your THC content can be almost 300mg without considering the legal amount.
The loophole for delta-9 THC is in the gray area for legality for now, but even so, it is receiving massive attention from customers and establishing a market demand.
5. Hemp and CBD can help you quit smoking
This one might come off a little confusing for someone new. How can smoking one thing help you to quit smoking something else? Well, it turns out, Things like hemp have a particular side effect.
According to research, hemp has a very easily measurable effect on smokers. For example, according to a study conducted in 2018, CBD was able to negatively impact aspects of smoking that habitual smokers find appealing in cigarettes.
An example is that the group given an oral dose of 800mg of CBD found they didn’t enjoy the taste or feeling of cigarettes nearly as much as the untreated control group.
That isn’t to say that hemp “fixes” addiction by itself. It does, however, have the potential to help those already working on quitting as an all-natural aid.
There are no simple fixes for getting rid of an addiction, but with hemp, you can at least get an edge on curbing those bad habits.
6. It Contains all the cannabinoids you read about—and gives them to you faster.
The modern cannabis market is rife with new products that center around the ever-growing commercialization of minor cannabinoids. The list of marketable cannabinoids includes CBN, CBG, THCV, and a slew of others slowly finding their comfortable niche on the market.
The thing about this list is every one that makes it onto a store shelf comes from hemp. Since hemp is a protected crop under the 2018 farm bill, it is super easy to harvest and process practically every cannabinoid.
This has even extended to delta-9 derived from CBD (for now) and has made research and utilization of the entire chemical makeup of cannabis super easy.
Let’s look at it even without separating, purifying, and concentrating each of these cannabinoids. Hemp itself still offers one of the most effective ways to access them all at once.
A Bonus Benefit for Reasons You Should Smoke Hemp
Things like tinctures, oils, and edibles have their place. But for people who are able and willing to smoke hemp in its flower form, there is an added benefit.
Edibles, while one of the easiest ways to ingest cannabinoids, can take up to 90 minutes to take effect. This is because the entire journey of digestion and metabolizing is a long process and slows down the delivery of cannabinoids.
Oils and tinctures have a leg up on edibles taking about 20 to 30 minutes to kick in, but that still isn’t the fasted method available.
Smoking takes the entire cake by cutting tincture and oil time in half. Within 10 minutes of smoking hemp, the cannabinoids will find their way through the lungs and directly into the bloodstream.
The secondary benefit is that while hemp is raw, it delivers a wide variety of minor cannabinoid compounds simultaneously. Yes, the doses of each one will be much lower than a concentrate can provide, but the combination allows for interactions, otherwise known as the “entourage effect.”
7. It’s For Your Health, Not the High.
This is reason number one, even though it’s number 7. Hemp isn’t here just to get you high. Work is done on the processing side to make that possible.
No, this entry is about the source benefits. Hemp, in its unaltered state, is primed to help. Hemp’s wide array of cannabinoid compounds makes it a prime candidate for a more holistic approach to minor issues that make day-to-day living rough.
These issues include things such as:
- Inflammation
- Nausea
- Insomnia
- Anxiety
- Pain Relief
- And Many More
Hemp holds chemicals that provide key interactions with multiple points in the human body. The interactions available from cannabis are not, and never have been, solely linked to psychoactive effects.
Smoking itself isn’t the most healthy activity in the world. But what you smoke plays a factor in mitigating the negative impact while introducing some positives.
One of the most important factors is how smoking increases the bioavailability of the cannabinoid compounds found within the hemp flower.
Other methods, such as edibles and oils, lose some of their bioavailable potency due to the method if metabolizing it. The digestive tract slows and lowers the amount of cannabinoids that make it into the bloodstream.
With hemp flower, smoking releases cannabinoids into the lungs, allowing rapid and large-scale distribution. We mentioned the entourage effect above, which really comes into play in helping.
With high bioavailability, quick entrance into the bloodstream, and ease of use, smoking hemp flower is one of the absolute fastest and easiest ways to introduce the wide array of beneficial cannabinoids into your day-to-day.
Wrapping Up: Reasons You Should Smoke Hemp Instead
It’s difficult to cover all the benefits of hemp in a single blog. However, a good overview of the major advantages stands out here. As you can see, there’s a lot to love about smoking hemp. From feeling the buzz you’re after to experiencing a plethora of potential benefits, we recommend you give it a try yourself. Browse through our hemp flower today to see which strain calls out to you most.
Sources:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6099309/