• N&PD Moderators: Skorpio | someguyontheinternet

Cannabis: flavonoids and terpenoids - what do you know?

Blowmonkey

Bluelight Crew
Joined
Aug 15, 2003
Messages
12,861
Location
No
Flavonoids, terpenoids - what do you know?

Can anybody get their hands on these two articles?

(1) McPartland, J.M., Russo, E.B. (2001) Cannabis and cannabis extracts: greater than the sum of their parts? Journal of Cannabis Therapeutics 1 (3/4) 103–132.

(2) Gierienger D. Medical Cannabis potency testing. Bulletin of the Multidis-ciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies 1999;9(3):20-22.

Because I've been told by someone on Overgrow that the variance in effects from different cannabis strains is not due to different percentages of cannabinoids, but flavonoids and terpenoids!

MEDICAL CANNABIS TODAY
Drug Cannabis available to the medical user can be assigned to one of two categories. Marijuana (domestically produced and imported cannabis flowers) is nearly always grown from high-THC varieties (up to 20 to 25 percent dry weight in trimmed female flowers) containing very little CBD. Hashish or charas (compressed cannabis resin) is made from varieties that are predominantly THC (up to 10 percent), but they often contain up to 5 percent CBD. Clean high-THC profiles result from marijuana growers mak-ing seed selections from individual favorable plants with high THC levels. Hashish is produced by bulk processing large numbers of plants, and, there-fore, growers are unable to make seed selections from individual particu-larly potent plants so the CBD level tends to remain at more natural limits. Hashish cultivars are bred for resin quantity rather than potency, so the farmer selects plants and saves seeds by observing which ones produce the most resin, rather than if it contains THC or CBD. Afghan populations con-tain approximately 25 percent plants that are rich in CBD with little THC, 50 percent that contain both CBD and THC, and 25 percent that contain lit-tle CBD and are rich in THC. CBD is suspected of having effects on the pri-mary psychoactive compound THC and in a medical setting it may also have useful modulating effects on THC or valuable effects of its own.

How-ever, analytical surveys of 80 Cannabis varieties in the Netherlands D.W. Pate, personal communication, 1999) and 47 samples in California 4 show that nearly every sample contained predominantly THC usually with less than 5 percent of the other combined cannabinoids. Higher levels of THC and other medically effective cannabinoids and terpenoids are healthier for patients using smoked cannabis as they can smoke less to achieve the same dosage and effect.
http://haworthpressinc.com/store/SampleText/4513.pdf

While much of the product development is focusing on specific cannabinoids, many herbalists support anecdotal reports from patients, which contend that the natural whole plant works better than a single agent. Although plants may contain hundreds of compounds, herbalists believe that the ‘…polypharmaceutical herbs provide two advantages over single-ingredient synthetic drugs: (1) therapeutic effects of the primary active ingredients in herbs may be synergised by other compounds, and (2) side effects of the primary active ingredients may be mitigated by other compounds’ (McPartland and Russo, 2001, p.104). Cannabis contains more than 400 compounds. There is good evidence to show that secondary compounds in Cannabis may enhance the beneficial effects of THC, while other cannabinoids and non-cannabinoid compounds may reduce the side effects of THC. Terpenoids and flavonoids found in Cannabis have been shown to exert beneficial effects as well as THC (McPartland and Russo, 2001).
http://www.pavpub.com/pavpub/useredit/journals/K511202c.pdf

I mean, this is pretty confusing to me..
 
The second ref may be available on the MAPS website. I tried searching for it there... but I think the search engine may be busted.
 
It wouldn't surprise me at all, as cannabadiol is often said to be non-psychoactive... or if it is psychoactive, not to the point where the simple view of Sedating indica = high CDB seems reasonable... The fact remains there are 60+ unique compounds in cannabis, and most of them havene't even been tested in rodent models for psychoactivity, so this question can not be answered.
 
GW Pharmaceuticals (the firm doing the medical cannabis research in the UK) are primarily focusing on the ratio of THC to CBD, as CBD has been seen to reduce the anxiety that can occur using THC as the sole medicinal compound, but as BilZ0r has pointed out, there are a shitload of related cannabinoids present in the plant material, which might all add their tiny effects to that of THC (and CBD) to produce a state not achievable using the THC/CBD mixture alone. Some also have properties that neither of the main two components have; cannabichromene is the compound responsible for the toxic response of dogs to cannabis. It alters their sense of balance, high doses causing dogs to fall over, vomit etc (seems similar to the effect people get from being spun round for prolonged periods)
 
I wouldn't be surprised if there were so GABA-A and NMDA ligands ... those ligand gated ion channels are so promiscuous... and high doses of cannabinoids produce some pretty weird effects... and then theres the effect on the SERT... so who knows...
 
I'm looking for some more articles on the same subject.. If terpenoids, flavonoids and other substances are responsible for the variety in effects people experience, instead of the cannabinoids like, CBD, CBN, THCV, CBDV, etc (that's what I've learned).. Then people should know about it. This is just completely new to me.. lol
 
Flavanoids, in general, are anti-oxidants (flavones with sugar residues attached- don't think I've read anything about them being psychoactive in their own rights, but some of them will inhibit enzymes (the cytochrome p450's being the important ones), and a couple (can't remember which offhand) are thought to be DNA intercalators - they interfere with DNA replication by acting like a tree trunk on a railway line, and prevent DNA splitting and forming two new templates in order to produce two new strands (they do it by forming hydrogen bonds with the purine/pyrimidine bases).

Terpinoids come in all flavours (literally); they range from nice smelling molecules like citral, through to things based on polyterpenes like thujone and salvinorin A.

They could be doing anything (most probably terpinoids that are responsible for the distinct aroma of cannabis plants). For them, you'd have to find which ones were present, then look them up individually to see what, if anything, they'll do once inside your body
 
I once thought about a project which involves collecting the 'aromatic' terpenes from cannabis flowers. The trouble of course is that these powerful turpentine-citrus scents tend to polymerize as soon as the plant begins to dry. This alters the fragrance considerably. So these compounds would need to be collected while the plant is living.

The idea was basically to collect the scents via headspace micro extraction. This could be accomplished using small bags which encase the floral clusters. The bag would also require an air or solvent vapor inlet, and an outlet for the syringe. The air surrounding the cluster is removed periodically via the syringe and the tiny amounts of extracted volatiles collected in a suitable solvent. A larger setup may involve replacing the syringe with an automated vac pump and traps which would then connect to several bags.

I've always thought some varieties of cannabis strains - particularly some "bush" strains - grown around this part of the world (Qld, Australia) - would make the best perfumes. I'm sure most who appreciate the plant would have their own favorites.


The problem as I see it, is obtaining a permit to do such work. If it were hemp related it would be different, but as one would be after the products from drug strains, there are some er.. complications. I guess the idea will sit around until some fragrance and flavours giant thinks it's worth a look :(
 
Certain flavonoids also exhibit SERT activity and others are MAO inhibitors, it could be that still undiscovered flavonoids from cannabis strains also have similar properties, don't rule it out yet.
 
My wife has actually made an alcohol based smelly, by using small stems from a friends grow room. To the alcohol extraxt from the small stems, she added some oil of orange, patchouli, vetiver and a last one I'm unsure about (think it was frankinsense - or some si,ilar purfumery resin type material). I've still got some left, and have had several comments about its subtle, but heady smell. It has a strange calming, heady effect on me, and I'm sure if it wasn't for the verboten component could be popular.

She's tried to reproduce it without the stems extract, but that seems to be intergral to the final smell
 
Top