Podcast for and by Cannaholic

Earlier we had talked about RSO, ( the Rick Simpson Oil) which is widely used extraction method know in west. I then remembered the Moroccan hashish making method to be an unique tradition in dry regions. So today we will be talking about Moroccan Hashish History, its evolution and how it is adopting the wave of cannabis legalisation globally. Despite Moroccan hash is often considered an ancient, traditional product by many Europeans, the truth is that hashish culture in Morocco is relatively young, especially when compared to traditional producing countries of this cannabis concentrate. Indeed, while hashish production in areas like Middle East and Central Asia dates back centuries, this technique had not been used in Northern Africa until the second half of the 20th century, when Western travellers from the "Hippy Hashish Trail" brought the dry sieving technique to Morocco from Lebanon and Afghanistan. For producing Moroccan hashish, Once dried, they'd put a mesh covering a bucket or a similar container and place the plants on the mesh. Everything was then wrapped with some plastic and the plants beaten with sticks to release the resin glands, which would pass through the sieve holes and collected at the bottom of the container. They soon realized that ground material yeilds more than unbroken plants, at the expense of contaminating the resin even more. Now as I am discussing Moroccan Hashish, Morocco has issued its first 10 permits for cannabis production after passing a medical cannabis legalization law last year, as per the Reuters reports. A state agency said farmers who organize into cooperatives in the northern mountain areas will be allowed to cultivate cannabis to meet the needs of the newly legal market.  The bill approved in February 2021 said that Morocco’s illegal cannabis trade was worth about $15 billion – the majority of which ($14.5 billion) goes to drug traffickers rather than farmers who take mere ($500 million).   Morocco had previously allowed cannabis cultivation in some rural areas under a special status but seven years ago reduced the amount of land where the practice was allowed from 134,000 hectares to 47,000 hectares.  In 2015, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime identified Morocco as the world’s largest producer of hashish, and 235 tons of hash were seized in the country that year alone. The report found 80% of the national hash production is destined for export, leaving 20% for the local market.  The law is intended to improve the incomes of farmers, who had protested over income inequality in recent years, and protect them from drug traffickers who control the cannabis trade and export it illegally to Europe.  Production under the law can only focus on cannabis for “medical, pharmaceutical and industrial purposes.”

Malta by its demographics is and will remain a small consumers market in all sense compared to countries like the USA, Canada, Germany. Singapore has proven that size is not of much prominence in the globalized world. Malta has a unique geographical advantage to be a mature transactional territory when it comes to Cannabis before the American and European nations connected by the Atlantic Ocean develop in this regard.    There are a lot of points to be taken from the depth of detail of Canadian Cannabis Laws for Promotion, Packaging, and Labelling, Selling and Distributing, Commercial Licences and Permits, Cannabis Tracking System, etc. For Canada, these laws are primarily made to facilitate the production and sale of cannabis within the country and then to other nations where it is federally legal. For Malta, the same heads could be used to create detailed, clear, and facilitating rules for driving tourism and export proposals as the EU member nations may soon follow cannabis legalization subsequently.  The suggestions represented by me are very subjective to my perspectives and understanding of industry broadly. The dry flower has become a commodity and requires a lot of physical resources and space. Malta could focus on incentivizing the activities related to R&D, extraction, manufacturing finished forms, and digital ventures like online marketplaces for global name patient programs in medicinal Cannabis space, etc.  I would restrict going into the details but like to see Malta extracting the most from the cannabis value chain by bringing in Foreign Investments from MSOs, LPs, established pharmaceutical and consumer goods companies.   I congratulate Malta, the smallest member nation of the European Union that has beaten out several other countries in the region where legalization could also soon be enacted.

Decarboxylation is the process that activates compounds in cannabis such as THC. All cannabinoids contained within the trichomes of raw cannabis flowers have an extra carboxyl ring or group (COOH) attached to their chain. For example, tetrahydrocannabinolic acid (THCA) is synthesized within the trichome heads of freshly harvested cannabis flowers. THCA has a number of known benefits when consumed, including having anti-inflammatory and neuroprotective qualities. But THCA is not intoxicating, and must be converted into THC through decarboxylation before any effects can be felt. The same goes for other cannabinoids present in cannabis.

Rick Simpson oil (RSO) is a cannabis oil product. It was developed by Rick Simpson, a Canadian medical marijuana activist. RSO differs from a lot of other cannabis oils because it contains higher levels of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). This is the main psychoactive cannabinoid in marijuana that gets people “high.” Other therapeutic cannabis oils tend to contain a cannabinoid called cannabidiol (CBD) and little or no THC. In addition, Rick Simpson doesn’t sell RSO. Instead, he encourages people to create their own using his methods. In this episode, we will also look at, What are the potential benefits of RSO? What is Rick Simpson Oil recipe? What does the research say about RSO? What are the side effects or risks? ....

In this episode, we will understand two genera of the cannabis plant, i.e Sativa and Indica and basic cannabinoids i.e THC and CBD 

In this episode, We will talk about medical cannabis use 2021. In this segment, We only cover drugs whose claims have been validated by trials and approved by one or more drug regulators. We will understand why cannabinoids present in cannabis could have several applications. To understand this we will know what is homeostasis and how our body’s endocannabinoid system keeps everything in balance? We talk about modern-day cannabis drugs and their uses like THC-based medications, dronabinol (Marinol®) and nabilone (Cesamet®), Nabiximols (Sativex®), Epidiolex®. 

We have talked about the history of medical cannabis to better understand the level of its efficacy in treatments and therapies for centuries. 

In this episode we will talk about the history of cannabis in the USA. At last, we will also talk about how the word Marijuana is actually racist. We have talked about colonial time cultivation of hemp in America, medicinal uses of THC-based drugs approved by USFDA. We have briefly covered the acts that were made during the war on drugs and Shafer Commission's report. 

In this podcast, we have talked about the history of cannabis in general. We have talked about its written history and archaeological evidence from China starting in the 5th millennium BC. How this plant was used in several Asian countries then by Africa and the middle east. Who brought hemp(Type of Cannabis) to the western hemisphere and its discovery in the USA by English. We have made another detailed episode about the controversial history of cannabis in the USA from there. 

Hello Everyone. In the introduction part, I have talked briefly about my primary motivation for starting this series. I am from India but try to follow globally what is happening in the Cannabis space. I will try to share most of my learning to help the people interested in the cannabis space consume information by means of a podcast.