A brief history of the cannabis plant

It isn't too surprising that teens have a relaxed attitude towards cannabis, one that belies any cause for alarm or concern.

"I feel like a pariah in the Missouri medical community."

Two years ago, when Dan Goulet was going up the stairs in his Toronto apartment, he slipped and smacked his head sharp against the steps. Then when he got up, he quickly blacked out and struck his head again on the steps. He was later diagnosed with...

As stocked as the shelves have been for cannabis consumers in Canada, or the e-shelves if you’re in Ontario, you won’t find a product that is gaining traction in the cannabis community: topicals.

Lynn Wells only nibbles on a cannabis brownie monthly, but she’s one of many Canadian seniors clamouring to a plant they tried decades ago and have now returned to in light of some aches, pains and other conditions.

From the perspective of an adjunctive therapy, cannabis products are some of the most effective treatment tools on the planet. The laundry list of options available to patients and adult recreational users – whole flowers, topicals, oils and capsules...

Cannabis oil has become a ubiquitous buzz term. In the years since cannabis has transformed from a culture on the fringes of society to an industry at its heart, the term has formed an umbrella under which a number of different, and often disparate,...

Cannabis is an exciting industry. Weekly, if not daily, new products come to market that add value to the economy and, one could argue, society.

Robust is one way to define the current breadth of research that involves the cannabis and its chemical parts. Across the planet – namely in states and countries where medical cannabis is permitted – scientists are becoming increasingly invested in d...

To put it simply, CBDA is the acidic precursor to CBD (the "A" stands for "acid"). CBDA is found in the raw cannabis plant and, when heated, the compound then becomes the well-known CBD. The process of transforming CBDA to CBD is called decarboxylati...

The endocannabinoid system is found in all vertebrate animals and even some invertebrates are reported to have an ECS. According to some reports, the number of endocannabinoid receptors in the human body is greater than all of the other neuromodulato...

For two particular reasons, there are few topics being explored in the cannabis space more exhilarating than the endocannabinoid system. First, for a lack of research in the area, medical schools have almost exclusively omitted the system from the cu...

Like any prescribed medication, the therapeutic indications of cannabis are limited and have the potential for adverse effects if used improperly or abused.

As medical cannabis has gained acceptance as a viable treatment option over the past two decades, so too has the list of symptoms the plant has been shown to help grown. No longer is the plant merely used to treat chronic pain or extreme conditions l...

When discussing cannabis, it is important to remember that the line between science and folklore can at times be fickle. In the context of cannabis as a treatment, for instance, there is only one direct scientific source (THC found in ashes) that can...

As a flurry of new products have flooded the budding cannabis market in recent years, so too have those developments come to represent a wealth of hope for medical patients, or anyone looking for an alternative therapy. Where, traditionally, cannabis...

Terpenes are organic compounds that give cannabis strains their unique aromatic qualities. Synthesized with cannabinoids in the plant’s glandular trichomes, terpenes are responsible for the smell and taste characteristics – skunky, lemony, piney – th...

An introduction to the use of medical cannabis flowers and extracts as complementary agents to renewed sexual health.

Cannabis has long been riddled by myth and beaten down by stereotype. Suffice to say, the image of the typical stoner – feet up on the couch, eyes glazed over and red over a perma-smile, with a bag of chips in hand – still finds resonance in the coll...

An introduction to the use of medical cannabis flowers and extracts as complementary agents to renewed sexual health.

While the relationship between sex and cannabis could be developed via anecdotal evidence, the science is much harder to come by, most likely due to ongoing challenge for academics to study a plant prohibited by many countries.

An assessment of the merits of cannabis therapy in sport, including a look at the use of medical cannabis and CBD by professional athletes.

There are some clear misunderstandings about the distinction between hemp and cannabis. The complicated answer is that there is no difference: both are members of the cannabis sativa family, sharing many identical characteristics and, conversely, dif...

If there is a condition that cannabis has been proven to help alleviate, it’s chronic pain. Several studies have demonstrated cannabis’s efficacy in turning the dial down on chronic pain, and Cannvas.me interviewed several experts in the field to lea...

Insomnia, sleep apnea and restless leg syndrome are but a few of the ills that fall under the category of sleep condition. Though not quick to receive much attention from the healthcare community, the threat associated with sleep conditions – from...

Cyclist Floyd Landis relied on opioid-based painkillers for years, both before and after he was stripped of his 2006 Tour de France victory for taking synthetic testosterone. He soon realized smoking cannabis could help him kick his opioid habit, and...

With cannabis concentrates now available in nearly every form, it’s a wonder people still consume whole flowers. The fact is, while products like oils, edibles and tinctures have become increasingly popular over the last number of years, patients con...

December brings with it a flurry of things to be grateful for: the first snowfalls, the holiday season, time with family and friends, and a reprieve from the hustle and bustle that characterizes most every other month of the year. But for people who...

The decision to adopt cannabis as a treatment option is, like most significant changes in life, very personal. Whether you’ve decided to incorporate medical cannabis into your routine to treat chronic pain, sleep issues, cancer symptoms or social a...

As it has been established, medical cannabis doesn’t need to simply be smoked or baked to be incorporated as part of a healthy routine. There are also concentrates, topicals and edibles on the market that have started to pique the interest of recre...

Concrete scientific evidence that cannabis can aid or alleviate symptoms associated with specific conditions is still inconclusive for many ailments. But there are a number of areas of research that physicians, clinicians and patients can turn to for...

In April 2015, Brooke Robinson got bad news: she was diagnosed with MS (multiple sclerosis). Three months later, she stumbled down the front steps of her Toronto home and broke her collarbone. The 31-year-old consultant was soon walking with a cane,...

Since she was an adolescent, Richmond Hill, Ontario, resident Dessy Pavlova has had to live with crippling back pain. Her scoliosis invaded her daily life. “It’s a pain like I’m walking on glass,” she tells Cannvas.me in an interview. “What’s weird a...

Can cannabis cure cancer? To date, there is no scientific evidence to back the theory that cannabis kills cancer cells. In fact, most responsible cannabis professionals – leery of a culture of misinformation – will caution patients to ignore that c...

There are few experts, if any, on the research and development side of the cannabis conversation that deny the holistic efficacy of THC. Despite there being a common misperception that the most popular and notorious of all the cannabinoids in the can...

What is glaucoma? One of the leading causes of blindness, the disease is characterized by a progressive degeneration of the optic nerve in the eye. If it isn’t detected early on, glaucoma can serve as the catalyst to a loss of nerve tissue, leading t...

Medical cannabis has come a long way. First used in the early 90s to help treat diseases like cancer and HIV/Aids, cannabis and its concentrates are now finding a home in medicine cabinets of people dealing with everything from arthritis to PTSD. Rec...

Cannabis has been known to assist those living with a host of conditions, but is Lyme disease one of them?

When Aaron Augustis, 38, returned from his U.S. Army service in Iraq in 2004, he endured bouts of anxiety that soon became PTSD, which many military veterans suffer from when they return to their families.

The list of sophisticated new cannabis products lining product shelves of this new space is extensive, and impressive. More often than not, these products serve as a responsible introduction to medical cannabis. Where pipes and bongs have a tendency...

Cannabis treatment is a moot therapy option without a firm grasp on how to dose. This very fact has perhaps been best illustrated by the fact the medical community, until recently, has shied away from throwing full support behind the plant and its po...