What the Bleep is THC?

dokkie

New Member
Tetrahydrocannabinol??? Its all Greek to me.. :Rasta:
Naturally, I wanted to know more about this.
After a bit of reading I found out that: THC is a cannaboide. Cannaboide is the name for all the psycho active substances in Cannabis.
THC is short for tetrahydrocannabinol, THC hase four extra hydrogen molecules than cannabinol. (Tetra is Greek for four and hydro means water.)

But it started much simpler than that.
In the first years Id smoked cannabis, I only wanted buts with a nice aroma and it hade to be dried properly. Because badly dried cannabis tastes like shit. And only dry THC is really psycho active.

Good quality Cannabis made us feel much more relaxed and we experienced free thinking.
It made it possible to philosophize about everything with my friends, because of cannabis we could reach new highs, the sky was the limit

In that time we thought that hashish gave us that stoned effect and only cannabis could make you feel high, the reality of it all became clear much later.

When I noticed the vaporiser for the first time; it was a new way to enjoy cannabis. And it gave me, for the first time in my live, a clear high.
For me it was all about the high. I didnt care about the fact that vaporizing is healthier than smoking, I took that for granted.

A couple of years later I started to grow my own cannabis and it became clear to me that the THC is visible in the form of crystals (trichomes) on the buts and leafs.
The more trichomes the better became the norm

By reading more about this subject I learned that all plants produce a kind of trichomes.

They do that to protect them selves against the elements of nature, like rain, wind, heat, bugs, etc.

In the last weeks of flowering, the time that breeders look for the best harvest moment, they often look at the colour of the pistels. When they turned from white into brown most presumed that was the best time to harvest their crops. But thats not accurate. The trichomes seem to go trough different stages in their final weeks. And when you have real good look at those trichomes you can see tem changing colour is these stages, from a clear trichome they turn into amber to go to their final stage and colour brown.
When they change into amber its a singe that the THC changes into CBN (cannabinol), a substance u find in older plants. CBN: Cannabinol is a breakdown product of THC. During storage (aging) CBN will slowly increase, while the THC level will decrease in a stoichiometric manner. Oxygen will be the most important decomposing factor. CBN is a light psycho active substance that make you feel stoned, mild psychoactive; sedative; analgesic (3 times stronger than aspirin). CBN is a non narcotic type analgesic like aspirin

Unlike most people think the effect of cannabis is not only caused by THC. The specific characteristics and effect of certain kind of cannabis is caused by the combination of several cannabinoids like, THC, THCV, CBC, CBG, CBD and CBN. All different kind of cannabis contains different levels of these cannabonoids.
Thatâ€s why the effect of every single kind of cannabis is unique. Its that combination of cannabinoids together with the terpines(aroma)what makes us feel stoned or high. I don't wanna leave anything out here, this is still unknown terratory for most scientists, bear with me here...

Know we know where CBN comes from, A new question rises, were does THC come from? Well After some more research I came up whit this:
In 1964 Professor Raphael Mechoulam discovered THC. And because of its molecular similarities scientists presumed that CBD was the predecessor of THC. Bud this is not the case, CBD and THC are independently produced in the plant.
THC derives from another cannabinoid called Cannabigerol (CBG).
The cannabinoide production starts by two Enzymes that join together and form CBG ( cannabigerol).
CBD and CBC separately derives from CBG, also by two different enzymes. And finally, CBC turns into THC in the same manor. But thats not all of it.

In 1992 professor Raphael Mechoulam isolated an, until than unknown, natural protein in our brain.
Witch, just like THC, logs in on the cannabinoid receptor. He called this natural protein Anandamide, after the word ananda (Sanskriet), witch means bliss.
Of course he didn't choose this name because it sounds cool. Its definition expresses the use of Anandamide in our brains, happiness, bliss.

With these new insides I went further down the rabbit hole.
It seems that Anandamide is more present in the higher thinking functions of our brain, instead of the vital brain regions like the parts that control things like breathing or the use of vital entrails. In lay mans terms, Anadamide seems to levels out the extreme emotional high's and lows. It will help you to cope whit life. It will help us to concern fears so we wont get crazy form our daily lifes. So we wont get totally hypes up in the retrace outside.
That way we can concentrate on real priorities witch help us to survive.
So Anandamide is a natural anti psychotic drug in our body.

Its remarkable that Anandamide works just like THC with the same qualities and effects. But unlike anandanide, THC is also active in the visual cortex aswel as in the upperparts of our brain.

I dont think its amazing that because of THC we come up with beautiful ideas, concepts, music, books, theories, etc.

THC is perfect against stress; witch makes it possible to focus on what is really imported to or for you.
Many artists, philosophers, writers and inventors smoke weed. THC is very importend for our evolution. In such a way that, through nature there is to little anandamide in our brain to cope with our fucked up society and come up with creative ideas to make our lives more desirable in the same time.


grtz :bong:







© 2006 Dokkie.
 
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