Cannabinoids

Cannabinoids

PROBLEMS WITH CANNABINOIDS AS MEDICINE

Hundreds of scientific and medical studies describe the profound therapeutic benefits of cannabinoids, substances found exclusively in Cannabis plants. Most healthcare professionals acknowledge the medicinal potential of these substances, but their acceptance as bona fide medicine is hampered by matters like the lack of relevant “evidence-based” human clinical studies. “Evidence based” refers to the systematic application of scientific methods. “Clinical” denotes treating actual patients rather than just doing theoretical or laboratory work.

Organizations and agencies like the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the National Institutes of Health and the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy recognize the medicinal possibilities offered by cannabinoids. But they uniformly emphasize that these substances should be orally administered. One obstacle to creating such formulations is that cannabinoids taken by mouth have proven difficult to get into the bloodstream. Relative to what may be taken by mouth, only lesser, unpredictable amounts will typically reach there. In other words, cannabinoids have very low bioavailability. Achieving precise dosing and predictable therapeutic outcomes is therefore problematic.

CANNABINOID BIOSYNTHESIS

Several cannabinoids naturally occur in Cannabis plants. All are ultimately derived from the same substances:

Geranyl diphosphate, which is used by organisms to make not only the cannabinoids exclusive to Cannabis plants but also cholesterol, terpenes and terpenoids. Terpenes are a large and diverse class of strong-smelling organic compounds, produced by a hundreds of plant species. These are major constituents of plant resin and make up the essential oils extracted from plants. Terpenoids, or isoprenoids, are the largest group of organic plant substances. Comprised of more than 20,000 distinct compounds, these play numerous vital roles in plant physiology.

Olivetolic acid, a compound virtually exclusive to Cannabis plants and a necessary precursor to the biosynthesis of the more commonly-occuring cannabinoids.

In certain plant strains, geranyl phosphate may react with divarinolic acid, which has 2 less carbon molecules than does olivetolic acid. This results in cannabigerovarin – which is then converted to the following cannabinoid homologues: cannabidivarin instead of cannabidiol, tetrathydrocannabivarin instead of tetrahydrocannabinol, and cannabichromivarin instead of cannabichromene.

Note that cannabigerol, cannabichromene, cannabinol, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD) are actually not compounds that occur in nature. Instead, these are made by applying methods like heat to force removal of the carboxylic acid moiety that defines their immediate naturally-occurring precursors.  Cannabinolic acid and then cannabinol are products of cannabinoid degradation during storage, so very little or none occurs in living plants..

CANNABINOID FACTS:

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