The BB GoldNApel essay from 10-17-13 is the key
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Formerly, the "whole-plant" cannabis treatment, providing effectively high doses of the powerful cannabinoid complex plus its other important healing components (without unwanted psychoactive side effects that limited dose level) required juicing fresh cannabis and consuming the juice. This regimen, in the doses required, involved the cultivation of 40 to 80 cannabis plants. However, for the very first time, this high dose "whole plant" non-psychoactive cannabis treatment will be available to consumers without the necessity of maintaining a cannabis garden and juicing. The same will now be now be available in Dharmanol tablets and lozenges.
GoldNApel 10-17-13
"All of the politics have forced many researchers to focus on the non-psychoactives, that is why we have so much research on CBD. Also, medical research traditionally utilizes isolated and purified single-molecule medicines for study, as opposed to a blend of similar compounds such as the entire array of cannabinoids and related compounds found in marijuana and hemp.
Because of these two factors, many people attribute specific actions of cannabinoid medicine to specific molecules. THC does that, CBD does this, CBN does something altogether different, etc. While there is certainly a lot of truth in the specific actions of the different cannabinoids against various medical conditions, the ultimate benefit in treating the great majority of conditions that cannabis works well against comes from what we refer to as “whole-plant” medicine.
There are a number of different figures quoted for the number of chemical compounds that may have medicinal benefit in the cannabis plant. I like the number 421. I figure they counted one of them twice. All the anecdotal evidence, as well as some of the scientific research, shows that cannabis medicine works better as a whole-plant preparation, providing the widest array of cannabinoids, terpenes, etc. that the plant has to offer in the medicine.
The exception to this is when psychoactive THC causes unwanted side effects that limit the amount of medicine that a patient can consume. In this case, it is helpful to eliminate the THC, as is the case with medicines focused on the delivery of pure CBD, or consume the THC in it’s carboxylate (non-psychoactive) form, as happens when one juices fresh cannabis plants, or uses Dharmanol™.
Berkeley Bio did not pioneer the use of the carboxylates in cannabis medicine. That honor belongs to Dr. William Courtney of Willits, CA. Another true hero of the movement, Dr. Courtney has been treating patients with fresh cannabis juice for years, and his wonderful results can be seen on a number of videos on YouTube.
The biggest drawback to Dr. Courtney’s work is that a patient must maintain forty to eighty living cannabis plants to get enough juice for the daily treatment. That isn’t that hard to do in Willits, California – the heart of the Emerald Triangle – but it can be impossible for someone who is not deeply immersed in the culture, or lives in another part of the country.
Dr. Apel’s new technology has allowed us to medicinalize the carboxylates, so they can be taken in tablet form, far more convenient than maintaining forty to eighty live cannabis plants. We have been able to extract and stabilize certain components of hemp/cannabis yielding an oil with about 60% mixed cannabinoids and less than 0.2% (point 2 percent) THC. When this concentrate is tableted with 5 mg. of mixed cannabinoids, the amount of THC will be well below that in many of the health food products found on US shelves today.
Along with the 5 mg. of mixed cannabinoid carboxylates, each Dharmanol™ tablet also contains 5 mg. CBD, for a total of 10 mg. of mixed phyto-cannabinoids. Also included is a steam-extracted mixture of a wide array of terpenes and terpenoids, taken from a number of different strains of cannabis.
The medicinal activity of the cannabinoids is enhanced by the naturally-occuring terpenes and terpenoids in the plant. These are the molecules that are responsible for the taste and smell, and they vary greatly from plant to plant. There is the wonderful sweet smell of the strains called “pineapple”, the aroma of blueberry cannabis can be indistinguishable from that of the actual berry, and at the whole opposite end of the spectrum is the aptly named “Skunk #1”, winner of the very first High Times Cannabis Cup, and the marijuana which, in my opinion, provides the happiest high of all.
Certain terpenes and terpenoids found in the cannabis plant, as well as many other plants, have been tested for their medicinal efficacy. And, guess what? The medicinal efficacy of the ones found in cannabis is very, very promising. (Pardon my personal opinion here and let me again note that I will never claim cure until we have double-blind placebo-controlled proof, but I gotta ask myself: “Is there ANY part of this plant that doesn’t fight disease in every possible way it can?” I can’t find one.)
The overall purpose of the Dharmanol™ technology, and the low-dose tablets in particular, is to combine many of the healing factors of the kind herb together into one medicine – a medicine which allows the patient to benefit from phyto-cannabinoid therapy stimulation of the internal cannabinoid receptors on a regular basis, with no THC psychoactivity.
At the opposite end of the spectrum is high dose cannabis therapy with Dharmanol™. The removal of the psychoactivity from larger doses allows consumption of doses far in excess of those recommended by Mr. Simpson. We have been working on appropriate delivery systems for whole-plant extracts and today announced Mary Ann’s Canna-Loz™ product, which makes the recommended gram each day regimen far more palatable. Shortly the Canna-Loz™ will be available in most of the dispensaries that carry YAK edibles, and the lozenges will supplement the Organakoil that the Care and Hospice Program has been supplying to patients in need for several years."