Intro to Cannabis
Cannabis is a flowering plant that has been around for millions of years, and since the founding of the United States has been used as a hemp fiber and for hemp oils, as a recreational drug and, at Kure Cannabis, for its many medicinal purposes.
Some cannabis strains have been used to produce minimal levels of THC (TetraHydroCannabinol), the main psychoactive ingredient, while others have been bred to produce maximum levels of THC (cannabinoids), which is produced by curing the flowers of the plant.
Medical cannabis, which is what we grow and sell here at Kure Cannabis, is essentially cannabis and its cannabinoids, which are used to treat disease or improve various illnesses or symptoms. In the 1990s, studies showed that cannabis provided relief from various types of pain (where morphine-type drugs could not); while other studies proved that cannabis was one of the few drugs that improved appetite in people with HIV/AIDS and cancer and that it proved effective in treating chronic pain and muscle spasms.
The effects of cannabis come largely from the way it behaves in tandem with what’s now known as the encocannabinoid system.
Our bodies, it turns out, produce substances called endogenous (which means growing from within an organism—that organism, then, being our bodies) cannabinoids—or, endocannabinoids.
Endocannabinoids trigger receptors on our cell membranes, especially in those membranes in our brain and our gut, but also in our connective tissues, our glands, our immune systems and in many of our organs.
There are three major types of cannabinoids: endocannabinoids, phytocannabinoids (the plant-based THC produced by cannabis), and synthetic cannabinoids (one of which has proven to be an impressive pain reliever and may have potential as a treatment for Alzheimer’s).
In a nutshell, it seems that the focus of cannabinoids (and the endogenous cannaboinoid system) is in keeping our body in balance. That is, keeping our bodies, our internal world, stable no matter what’s coming at it from the outside—be that pain, cancer cells, viruses, inflammation, injury, whatever.
And because cannabinoid receptors are located throughout our entire body, and because when these cannabinoid receptors are stimulated, by cannabis—that’s what makes cannabis so medicinally beneficial and effective. And best of all: it’s natural, not synthetic.
Kure Cannabis has a booklet for all new patients that educates them and guides them on how to consume medical cannabis safely. Our booklet also gives the safety guidelines.
Choosing Your Medicine
Different cannabis products have different applications.
The various flowers of the plants (the buds, the actual plant itself that’s usually dry in appearance and commonly what’s smoked) come in three different strains: indica, sativa and hybrid (a combo version of indica and sativa).
Indica strains tend to be more like sedatives (a good way to remember what indica does is to see the “C” in indica as couch—as in couch potato). Sativas typically give people more energy and sometimes help with creativity. Hybrids hover somewhere in the effects of these two strains, and will lean more way or the other depending on which traits they carry from their parent strains.
Patients can also take into consideration a strain’s classification. Someone suffering from fatigue or depression might get more out of a sativa strain to help get them through the day, and then turn to the indica for treating their shoulder pain and insomnia.
Then there are the cannabidiols (CBDs), the non-psychoactive component of the cannabis plant that’s considered to have a broader scope of potential medical applications than THC (TetraHydraCannabinol); and THC itself. CBDs are in the plants themselves, as is THC, but there are many products, many here at Kure Cannabis, that have only CBD or only THC in them.
When it comes to choosing the right CBD or THC product, then, even though the CBD is less potent than THC, it’s best to approach both with the same degree of safety when figuring out how much to use. Which, again: start out at the lowest dose possible, gauge how effective or ineffective that dose is, or that product is, for you, and then if you need to, work your way up in dosage or try a different product.
And keep in mind, too, that all flowers, edibles and concentrates have different amounts of THC in them, so pay attention to how much you take and which type of product you use, and go up or down in dosage according to how effective or ineffective you feel that product is for you.