Holy Smoke, How High Can It Get? (VIDEO)
Skippy Massey
Humboldt Sentinel
We don’t necessarily advocate the use of marijuana. But if you haven’t noticed, it’s a big deal industry in the Emerald Triangle. We’re posting this only to keep Humboldt informed
and those in the business aware of the industry curve.
And we don’t think stronger pot is necessarily better, either. Seriously: how high can it go? Humboldt and Mendocino breeders have been as busy as pollinating bees developing new, novel, and potent cannabis strains over the past decade for consumers eager to buy.
This video was released a couple of days ago. It dubiously claims the marijuana strains were “grown in secret CIA labs by Harvard Professors and are the 10 strongest strains of weed on the planet.”
Well, as much as we’d like to believe in conspiracy theories, the latter part of the sentence is the only claim we’ll put any stock into.
The #1 strain shown supposedly pulls in a 33% THC content. To put that into perspective, most strains today run on either side of 15%. Maybe. That Mexican dime bag of Panama Red riddled with those annoying seeds that you scored in 1975? That was around 4% THC– if you were lucky.
It’s a whole new world of cannabinoids out there. Cannabinoids, as if you didn’t already know, are a group of marijuana chemical compounds referred to as terpenophenolic compounds. One specific cannabinoid compound found in cannabis is tetrahydrocannabinol, more commonly known as THC. That’s the sweet sticky crystalline stuff giving marijuana bud its fragrant aroma and psychoactive kick.
And while we’re at it, this brings us to another subject we were curious about: Why does the Federal Government hold a patent for medical marijuana?
The United States Federal Government, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) have all consistently denied marijuana has any medical benefits. Yet, on the other hand, the government actually holds patents for the medical use of the plant.
US Patent 6630507 is titled “Cannabinoids as Antioxidants and Neuroprotectants” and assigned to The United States of America under the Department of Health and Human Services. It was obtained in October of 2003.
“Cannabinoids have been found to have antioxidant properties unrelated to the NMDA receptor antagonism.This new found property makes cannabinoids useful in the treatment and prophylaxis of wide variety of oxidation associated diseases, such as ischemic, age-related, inflammatory and autoimmune diseases.The cannabinoids are found to have particular application as neuroprotectants, for example in limiting neurological damage following ischemic insults such as stroke and trauma, or in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and HIV dementia.”
So, we’re curious why the US government holds this patent yet it doesn’t stop their officials from consistently denying the benefits of medical marijuana.
