There are hundreds of chemical compounds in the cannabis plant and science is only now deciphering what cannabinoid does what. But we do know a decent amount about the two best-known cannabinoids: tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD).
THC interacts with the brain creating a euphoric ‘high’. However, CBD is not psychoactive and does not produce a similar high. So how, exactly, does it work? It’s important to know that we all have a system within our bodies responsible for regulating the response of our immune systems, our sleep patterns, our moods, and how we experience pain and inflammation. It’s called the endocannabinoid system (ECS), and its function is to deal with the cannabinoids naturally produced by our bodies. It does this via two kinds of cannabinoid receptors found throughout
the body: CB1 receptors (located in the brain and nervous system) and CB2 receptors (located in the immune system).
While THC affects your brain’s endocannabinoid receptors (resulting in the high), CBD does not attach directly to the receptors. Instead, it influences your body into using its own natural supply of cannabinoids more effectively. That is to say, it can inhibit or activate compounds in the ECS, which in turn can impact the amount of pain you feel or limit inflammation in the brain and nervous system. Is CaniBrands’ CBD from the hemp plant or marijuana plant? Why does that matter?
CBD oil can come from the hemp plant or marijuana plant. For CBD oil to be legal, it must contain less than .03% THC, which usually means that it has to be extracted from the hemp plant. However, there are companies extracting CBD oil from marijuana and separating the THC through an extraction process. This method makes the CBD concentration much less therapeutically powerful than when extracting from the hemp plant. It also may leave residual solvents and damage the CBD molecules.