Category: Cannabis

C-5 Hemp Review

Upstate Hemp Co, which has quickly become my favorite hemp flower shop, recently released a batch of C-5 Hemp. C-5 stood out among their other products since it boasted a 2.5% THCa content. THCa is a non-psychoactive version of THC compared to the one we know of delta-9 THC. NY’s pilot program only looked at the delta-9 content, not the potential of THCa. With this, the plant is fully legal under Federal and State law but has a higher potential THC content than most hemp. In addition to the THCa content, it has 0.29% delta-9 THC and 18% CBD!

Opening the bag, the flower had a very earthy smell which gave me a very familiar feeling to this flower. First thing I noticed was the very high trichome coverage on the flower! The flower is also a bit darker in color compared to Deschutes.

Smoking C-5 continued the familiar feeling and provided a bit of a comforting sensation. The smoke gave off a bit of a pine-y scent and was very pleasant. While the overall THC content will be low compared to legal products I have used, the presence is still noticeable.

Shortly after smoking I most certainly felt the THC. My thoughts were starting to drift a bit but were certainly manageable. I found myself being very active and started to experience a bit of the munchies. Overall it was a very mild buzz but it did provide a bit of a clear head from the high CBD content.

CBD Oil – My Thoughts

While I have been aware of the medical benefits of cannabis for some time, using it for such things wasn’t something I had considered. With the explosive growth of hemp based products, I was slightly weary of all the claims CBD companies were making. Also, there were many bad actors in the industry selling product which sometimes had no CBD in it at all.

Once I found that hemp flower, with a high CBD %, was available for retail sale, I purchased some and started experimenting. As covered in previous posts, I found that I could feel the effects of the CBD. Armed with this personal experience, I went ahead and ordered some CBD oil from a local manufacturer, 4Fathers Innovation.

I did not take CBD looking to cure a specific ailment, it was merely a curiosity to see if it help anything. Within 2 weeks, I started to notice a significant improvement in my overall well-being. My back pain, stemming from a college injury, was no longer as prevalent as it once was. Headaches, which I just assumed was normal, were no longer there. For the first time in a very long line, I felt without pain.

Studies have shown CBD helps with inflammatory issues, which is what CBD most certainly did for me. I also noticed I was not quick to anger as I was before. I also have not taken an ibuprofen in months since starting my CBD regiment.

Since we are still studying this plant and getting ourselves out from under 70 years of prohibition, I’m hoping more will come out on the benefits of all cannabinoids.

Everyone’s body is different and I doubt all will have the same positive effects that I have had. I do hope it helps many and we can get actual clinical data to support these anecdotal claims.

History of Cannabis

Prohibitionists try to force a narrative that cannabis use is relatively new in human society. They also try to point out that those that did use it were small in numbers and insignificant to the overall population; especially when it comes to medical value.

There is evidence from 2500 years ago that cannabis was smoked in a ceremonial fashion. Hemp was also mentioned in one of the oldest Chinese texts on agriculture, Xia Xiao Zheng. As for the medical properties, Emperor Shen Nung noted it and they were eventually collected in the Pen Ts’ao Ching.

Jumping forward a bit to India, Bhang is mentioned as a sacred preparation of cannabis for Shiva. This culture and religious use of cannabis continued for centuries in India. It was so pronounced, that when the British occupied India they sent several inquiries into how it affected the native population(the Imperialists were concerned with worker output).

Moving west to the Middle East, cannabis was influential in Muslim society. From the ritual use by the Sufis to the hashish influences of the 1,001 Arabian nights, evidence of cannabis can be seen throughout Muslim culture. On the medical side of things, one of the most influential medical texts written by Avicenna contains referenced to the medical properties of cannabis.

Jumping forward in time, the monk Rabelais mentions cannabis continually throughout his book Gargantua and Pantagruel, albeit under a code name. Cannabis also appears in several medical texts such as the The New England Dispensatory and The Edinburgh New Dispensary. Hashish became common in Europe and in the late 1800s several prominent writers were using it.

In more recent times, Cannabis was also included in the U.S. Pharmacopeia starting in 1851 until 1942.

Just from these few brief examples, I have shown the long use of cannabis in human societies. There are several others that I omitted, but the the general picture can be shown. Cannabis has been used for medical, spiritual, and recreational purposes for millennia. The only thing that changed that was the recent experiment of prohibition.

With the slow repealing of prohibition in several states and aided with modern science, humanity is once again being reunited with the plant and finding truth and evidence in the benefits.