What is the difference between hemp and marijuana?

Let’s start with the short answer: Marijuana has an abundance of THCA (7-35%) while hemp only contains .3% or less of THCA. 

(How small is .3%?  Well, if you had 1000 cookies and gave away 997, you would have .3% of your cookies left.)

There used to be one versatile hemp plant used for industrial products. It made the best rope and fiber, much to the dismay of the munitions company DuPont. By 1927, DuPont had invented inferior products from petroleum – Dacron, nylon and rayon (artificial silk) – and started a massive campaign against hemp and marijuana, culminating in the onerous Marihuana Tax Act of 1937.

The botany is divided between three terms: Cannabis, Hemp, and Marijuana.

(There are many colloquial names for these products, none of which will be mentioned here.)

Let’s avoid any future confusion and use these terms to correctly identify what we are talking about.

Cannabis is a family of plants, and is the term that covers all plants on both sides of the agricultural fence, marijuana and hemp.

Marijuana can be either Indica (origins in India and the Hindu Kush Mountains) or Sativa (evolved near the equator, Columbia, Mexico, Thailand), first named in 1548.  Hemp is from the Sativa family.

Humans spread these wonderful plants to all corners of the earth over 5,000 years ago.

Prior to the invention of the Cotton Gin in 1794, 80% of all clothing and fabric and 75% of paper came from hemp. Betsy Ross’s flag was made from hemp. The Bible was printed on it!

Today, thanks to the skill of many breeders, the marijuana plant has 3,000+cultivars. These very specialized genetics were created through breeding practices, not GMO or gene splicing.  (Here’s a little history on breeding and the founder of the modern science of genetics.

What used to be the lowly industrial hemp plant has been attracting the same breeders’ skill set the marijuana side has used to become more and more specialized. With the help of our skilled growers, Modern Medicinals can purchase only that part of the hemp plant that contains abundant amounts of CBD and Terpenes, with minuscule amounts of THC.

Our growing partners now supply Modern Medicinals with the very best of these newly bred genetics, and cured to retain as many of the Terpenes profiles as possible.

The extra care taken by the grower allows Modern Medicinals to process in a natural, solvent-free manner that retains the sweet natural taste of the mature CBD flower with out re-infusing an outside flavor (chocolate mint and lavender are popular here in Oregon). These essential oils always cause somebody some harm. The main reason we don’t re-infuse anything is to maintain the essential purity of the two certified organic ingredients that make Mm CBD OIL.  Unlike other processes, we don’t force the plant to give more than we can naturally remove.

By using these genetics, Modern Medicinals is getting 40% better CBD numbers in our lab results from Oregon CBD Flower, than marijuana and hemp strains previously processed.  And better CBD numbers for us means better CBD Oil for you!