WeedLife News Network

While there’s no strain that will specifically boost your immune system, you can use these strains to lower stress levels that will then strengthen your immunity.

The ongoing pandemic awoke an important discussion that people haven’t had for a while; how to boost the immune system. People are popping vitamins and eating citrus fruits in a bid to protect themselves from the virus, while some folks have been looking into marijuana as well.

But are there strains that protect against the virus or a prevention treatment that people can look into? We take a dive into what we already know and have.

Does Cannabis Work for Colds and Viruses?

First, one’s immune system would have to be compromised for them to get the virus, which then lets us know what we need to guard. While eating foods rich in vitamin C is great, people also need to manage their stress levels so as not to weaken the immune system. Cannabis helps lower stress, which in turn helps strengthen the system. If you can help it, don’t overthink the pandemic or the virus. Instead, focus on getting through one day at a time.

Second, it helps to be cautious when smoking during these times. You would be putting yourself and others at risk if you passed a joint around, even if the people you are smoking with are known to you personally. The best way to combat this virus is to eat right, observe personal hygiene, lower stress levels through cannabis if you are a user, and mask up as has been recommended. It would also do no harm to try the best cannabis strain for pain if you have inflammation or general fatigue. While it will not protect you from the virus, it will give you relief from pain.

While marijuana is known to treat conditions such as epilepsy and cancer, you don’t just get to pick up any strain and hope for the best. It is recommended that you see a doctor who will administer the right one for your condition as well as the required dosage.

Not all oils are created equal – sesame oil is perfect for stir-frying and sauteing, while olive oil is best for salads and baking.

Hemp oil, on the other hand, is in a class of its own. Hemp oil is a healthy and versatile cooking oil that can be used in many different ways. 

In this article, we’ll discuss the characteristics of hemp oil and how to use it in cooking healthy meals.  

What Is Hemp Oil?

Hemp oil comes from hemp seeds, a plant of the same species as cannabis (marijuana). However, hemp seeds lack Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the substance that gives marijuana its drug-like effects. 

Hemp oil is extracted the same way as olive oil.  The hemp plant seeds are cold pressed to get the oil, then kept in a cool, dark location for processing and transportation. Despite not being one of the most popular seeds right now, hemp seeds have long been a staple of the diets of Chinese and Indian people.

Hemp oil has a mild, nutty flavor and a light, delicate texture that makes it perfect for salads, dressings, sauces, and dips. You can also use hemp oil for baking biscuits, cakes, and other desserts. 

Kyran Adams' face has been recognized by plenty of strangers this summer.

For Father’s Day, his wife and brother bought ads on three digital billboards to recognize him: One in Texas, where he lives, in New Mexico, where he’s near, and in his native Michigan.

“You’re famous, you’re on a billboard,” said Adams, who retired about a year ago after a quarter century as a military photographer.

His wife had problems at first finding available billboards in Texas and Michigan.

The cannabis industry and its fans have a reputation for being earth lovers, but despite its green image, legal marijuana has a massive waste problem.

However the industry’s unique passion for the environment may motivate cannabis businesses to inspire changes in packaging norms well beyond the dispensary.

Visit almost any dispensary, like the Star Buds in Louisville, and you’ll end up standing in front of a massive assortment of multicolored containers.

Edibles, joints, flower, vapes and concentrates, all sold in uniquely designed packaging made of all sorts of materials.

New law does not decriminalize drug.

The City of Pooler has a new marijuana ordinance in place, but that doesn’t mean it’s changing the severity of the charge for marijuana possession. What it does change is where alleged offenders may see their day in court.

The ordinance implementation was merely a formality, said council member Aaron Higgins, as Pooler did not have a marijuana ordinance already, so cases could not be tried within the municipal court. 

Up until the ordinance passage at Tuesday night’s council meeting, those who were caught with an ounce or less of marijuana within Pooler’s city limits were required to be tried in the Chatham County Superior Court, where wait times could be as long as 2 to 3 years. 

The wait for Pooler’s municipal court is around  to -3 months, according to Pooler Police Department pokesperson SHeintzman. 

However, if someone decides to pay the fine, they do not have to appear in front of a court judge. Fines for an ounce or less of marijuana possession in the state of Georgia can go up to $1,000. In Pooler, the fine is $400. 

TAMPA - The Florida Department of Health recently issued an emergency ruling on medical marijuana to limit amounts and dosage.

Some patients worry about what this could mean for future usage. “I started having what they refer to as grand mal cluster seizures in about 2012,” said Jeffery Swoyer, who uses medical cannabis.

The Mayo Clinic defines a grand mal seizure as a seizure with a loss of consciousness and violent muscle contractions.

“I would have those in clusters of up to five to seven at a time,” said Swoyer.

He tells ABC Action News after he got his diagnosis, he was put on heavy doses of pharmaceutical drugs, but they didn’t help.

That’s when he found a new doctor and turned to medical marijuana. He said he noticed improvements almost immediately.

This is the perfect (micro-)home to go with your cannabis car. Irish company Common Knowledge is introducing the first units of its Tigín Tiny Homes project: tiny homes built out of hemp and cork, with rubber floors and a focus on sustainability and low cost.

Like everywhere else in the world, the cost of living is on the rise in Ireland, and Common Knowledge aims to help those struggling with it by offering a halfway product. That would be the Tigín Tiny Homes, a collective name for an innovative type of tiny house that can be either be purchased as a turnkey unit or as a kit for DIY projects, including suggested materials and retailers, and a price estimate.

Tigín means “small cottage” in Gaelic, and it’s just what this is: a trailer-based tiny home that is built with locally-sourced materials that are also agricultural byproducts.

Because of this, it’s very lightweight and with a small carbon footprint, but relatively durable and comfortable. Since this tiny is only envisioned as a stepping stone towards a forever home, the compromise is ideal – especially since it comes at an affordable price.

The tiny is the result of a longstanding collaboration with Margent Farm, a hemp farm in Cambridgeshire, which provides the hemp for the wall panels.

These panels are made through a combination of cannabis plant fibers and sugar-based resin from agricultural waste, while cork is used for the insulation and natural rubber for the floors. In the future, Common Knowledge hopes to be able to offer certain customization options, which would allow customers to opt out of the cork insulation in favor of another material.

Of the 808 study respondents, 77% reported positive effects — with 28% citing reduced pain, 18% noting improved sleep, and 22% experiencing reduced anxiety. (Benzinga)

An online study conducted by Realm of Caring, a cannabis nonprofit advocacy organization, and researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine found that “medical cannabis consumption can improve the quality of life for those who could not find reprieve from traditional methods.”

Study results, published in Frontiers in Pharmacology, showed that medical cannabis helped mitigate various neurological disorders and pain-related ailments that were impacting participants.

“Realm of Caring takes part in IRB-approved (Institutional Review Board) research to ensure we are truly helping individuals to improve their quality of life,” said Sasha Kalcheff-Korn, executive director for Realm of Caring.

Method: Study participants who consumed medicinal cannabis were invited to complete anonymous surveys to provide feedback about their experiences. “Of the 808 study respondents, 77% reported positive effects — with 28% citing reduced pain, 18% noting improved sleep, and 22% experiencing reduced anxiety.

“This research spotlights several concerns that we actively address, such as providing information to the medical community, partnering with quality product companies for more affordable options, and providing free one-on-one support to alleviate unwanted side effects. Realm of Caring will continue to collect and publish data to ensure we fulfill our mission,” Kalcheff-Korn added.

It's time to align federal law with state actions on cannabis by legalizing and decriminalizing marijuana sales, use and possession.

Meanwhile, the District of Columbia unleashed its Cannabis Task Force on the city Tuesday to scrutinize the adult-use industry in the city.

Step past the Dick Tracy caricature on the sign advertising Street Lawyer Services and into the business at 409 H St. NE and you won’t find a lawyer. No lawyer’s shingle is visible anywhere, inside or out. 

“They’re upstairs,” the woman who greets customers assures us in the brightly lit room, directing our attention away from the art on the walls, the couch no customer is allowed to sit in and the large-screen TV on the wall blasting out “Without Remorse,’’ and toward an array of marijuana products known in DC’s burgeoning and unregulated weed industry as “flower.” 

For a $60-$90 donation to the lawyers supposedly a floor above – what is known in these shadowy businesses as the “gift” ‒ donors can walk out with a thank-you of 3.5 grams of the flower of their choice. At other similar DC businesses, which may number more than 100, the gift is a kid’s sticker normally costing pennies, a QR code giving ownership of amateurish art, a “counseling”’ session, a tiny tube of CBD topical muscle balm or other meaningless and inexpensive item. 

This sleight of hand allows I-71 cannabis entrepreneurs to skirt DC’s law allowing only personal use and sale of medical marijuana. I-71 refers to Initiative 71, approved by DC voters in 2014, which legalized possession of up to two ounces of weed, cultivation of only three mature plants at a time and a “gift” of no more than one ounce of pot to another person over 21 years of age. Federal law still classes marijuana as a Schedule 1 substance whose possession and sale are a felony. 

A loophole in the law has hindered regulation of DC’s retail marijuana sector and engendered a probably illegal and rapidly expanding drug business that appears to be spiraling out of control. 

Capital Community News, publishers of the Hill Rag, East of the River and MidCity DC newspapers, supported by Spotlight DC, a nonprofit supporter of local investigative journalism, has identified 60 of these storefronts, 31 of which appear to be operating without a Basic Business License (BBL), which enables consumers, employees and governmental officials to identify business owners. 25 are operating without a Certificate of Occupancy (C of O), which assures consumers the business has been certified as safe and can legally do business at its location.

HUNTSVILLE - While some dispensary businesses are eager to put in an application for a medical marijuana license, others are not. With heavy financial regulations, some CBD businesses are taking a second thought at providing the alternative.

With the possibility of paying $40,000 in annual fees regulated by the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission (AMCC) to keep up with a license to sell medical marijuana, some CBD dispensaries are a little hesitant to fill out an application.

Charlottetown-based Retro Cannabis & Hemp Extracts, a craft micro producer, has partnered with the region’s largest clothing brand to launch East Coast Lifestyle CBD Oil.

Now available in select Maritime provinces and the Yukon, the oil is made with organic extra virgin olive oil and using and boasts a clean extracted formulation, notes a statement from the Retro.

The company’s “state-of-the-art supercritical carbon dioxide extraction process provided by Advanced Extraction Systems (AES),” a sister company also located in Charlottetown, helps to keep products clean.

“All systems meet and exceed safety and design requirements for all pressure and electrical codes for Canada, the United States and Europe,” notes the AES website.

In Reno cultivator Sarah Rosenfeld’s recent experience, the top dollar a pound of marijuana bud or flower might fetch at wholesale prices is about $1,800 to $2,000, and that’s if it’s packaged and has a high concentration of the active ingredient THC.

Something in bulk with less potency might be closer to $900.

The Cannabis Control Board will be reviewing its first retail applications next week

Is the U.S. finally ready to give THC drinks a shot? Some industry experts think so.

Now that people are officially smoking more cannabis than tobacco, it’s time for companies to try to make a profit off cannabis drinks. Weed-infused beverages haven’t amassed much success, mainly because THC is difficult to present in liquid form but also because the drinks tend to taste like grass.

Now, there’s a variety of brands hoping to change things by creating THC-infused drinks and providing a new and more accessible method to get high. Still, these products are in their infancy.

CNBC reports that the market is slowly getting crowded, with various companies trying to be the first to crack the formula and deliver the first successful and mainstream THC drink. “The choice for consumers was not as wide in the past but now we’ve seen dozens of companies get involved in the cannabis beverage space,” said Amanda Reiman, VP of public policy research at cannabis analytics firm New Frontier Data.

Some of the biggest beverage companies in America are getting involved in the cannabis drinks space; Pabst Blue Ribbon, Anheuser-Busch, Constellation Brands, Lagunitas Brewing Company, and Ceria are some of the biggest names on the list. PBR is selling non-alcoholic cannabis drinks containing 10mg of THC. The drinks are available in pineapple, mango, strawberry, and lemon flavors, and, since cannabis remains federally illegal, are sold online or in dispensaries located in legal states.

While cannabis drinks have been brought up in the past, some experts are calling this moment unique, and the right time for the drink to have its breakthrough. “There have been multiple false starts for anointing beverages as the next big thing,” said Keef Brands CEO Travis Tharp. “But I think we’ve gotten to a point where we are showing that the year over year growth is something that is substantial.”

A study that analyzed the hospital patient records of cannabis consumers with COVID-19 reveals new evidence to show that consumers had improved clinical outcomes.

The Journal of Cannabis Research published a new study recently that claims that cannabis can help lessen COVID-19 symptoms. The study, “Cannabis consumption is associated with lower COVID-19 severity among hospitalized patients: a retrospective cohort analysis,” used data collected from two Los Angeles hospitals: Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center and UCLA Santa Monica Medical Center. A retrospective analysis found decreased severity of symptoms and improve clinical outcomes in relation to COVID-19 patients.

Researchers explained the importance of studying the relationship between cannabis and COVID-19. “In the USA in 2020, an estimated 17.9% of the population (49.6 million people) used cannabis during the past year,” researchers wrote. “Given the magnitude of COVID-19 and the prevalence of cannabis use in the USA, it is important to evaluate how active cannabis usage may affect clinical outcomes in COVID-19 patients.”

Among the 1,831 patients whose cases were analyzed, all were 18 or older. Age among cannabis active consumers was a noteworthy consideration, due to the severity of symptoms experienced differently between young or old patients. “Consistent with known trends, active cannabis users were overall younger than non-users,” researchers wrote. “However, when adjusting for age these outcomes remained consistent. Even more, when adjusting for comorbid conditions, demographics and smoking history we found that cannabis users still had less severe disease progression compared to non-users.”

Cannabis’s unique properties warranted further examination from researchers. “Consistent with our understanding of how cannabis may play a role as an immunomodulator, non-cannabis users were found to have greater elevations in inflammatory biomarkers at the time of admission and during their hospital course,” researchers wrote in their discussion. According to the National Cancer Institute, an immunomodulatory agent is known to suppress the immune system, and assist the body in fighting cancer, infection, and other diseases.

Ultimately, researchers found that cannabis consumption was beneficial for some patients, but more research would be necessary to support that conclusion. “In this retrospective review of 1831 COVID-19 patients requiring hospital admission, current cannabis use was associated with decreased disease severity. This was demonstrated in lower NIH severity scores as well as less need for oxygen supplementation, ICU admission and mechanical ventilation,” they wrote. “While there was a trend toward improved survival in cannabis users, this was not statistically significant. To our knowledge, this is the first study looking at clinical outcomes of cannabis users hospitalized with COVID-19. Further studies, including prospective analyses, will help to better understand the relationship between cannabis and COVID-19 outcomes.”

The legal cannabis industry’s problems go much deeper than a lack of access to banking. This piece is part of CoinDesk's Sin Week.

Ethan Andrew started smoking marijuana during his sophomore year of high school in Colorado to help with his anxiety. 

Like many teens, he said he thought it was “just weed” and did not see the harm in smoking the popular drug containing THC, the active chemical found in cannabis that produces a “high.”

His causal marijuana use turned to smoking potent cannabis flower and concentrates, known as dabs, which contain high levels of THC. Andrew said he smoked every day from morning to night. 

“I couldn’t think or sleep without it,” the 23-year-old told Fox News. “When you’re a stoner, you think, ‘I’ll be fine. In the future, I’ll clean myself up.’”

However, it was too late. Two years after becoming an avid marijuana user, Ethan was only 18 when he developed cannabis-induced psychosis, a condition including severe hallucinations, delusions and paranoia.

“I had to quit my job because the voices in my head were so distracting,” Ethan said, adding that the worst symptom was confusing dreams with reality. “I’d wake up and tell my friends, ‘Yeah, remember when we hung out and did that?’ And they would have no idea what I’m talking about.”