Studies, science and all the things Dad Grass can share about CBG without making any health claims whatsoever

From the moment you pop open a pack and inhale the earthy, clean scents of our organic hemp flower to when you put out the embers of your perfectly pre rolled joint, we hope the Dad Grass experience makes you feel good.

Our friends tell us a few tokes is enough to help them calm down at the end of the day. An easygoing and uncomplicated way to set the head right and the soul light. The press seems to concur, and we’ve been getting some pretty glowing praise from places like GQ, Vice and others that we never dreamed would take notice of our little brand. A writer from New York Magazine even said that Dad Grass is “The CBD product that has convinced me that CBD is actually a thing.”

But discussing links between wellness, health and weed is, well, complicated. 

Regulations set by the Big G Guv’mnt abound. What are the health benefits of CBD and CBG? This is hard to say, because regulations on the cannabis plant have made it challenging for researchers to study how their magical mix of molecules impact the body. Doing large clinical trials costs millions of dollars, which is difficult for academic institutions to fund. And a lack of patent possibilities decreases the motivations of private-sector companies to fund clinical trials.

Next we bump into a set of regulations about how we label our products; the Federal Drug Administration says Dad Grass can’t claim that anything we make would “diagnose, cure, mitigate, treat, or prevent disease.”

So we don’t.

There are all kinds of interesting research findings about CBG and CBD we’re keen to share, though. Read on to learn a bit about recent research involving cannabinoids, with a particular focus on CBG (the main ingredient in Mom Grass CBG Joints). Can these 21-carbon molecules do more than give us humans a good, clean buzz? 

Maybe, maybe not. But that’s always been enough for us.

Cannabinoids and Health: Why the Disclaimers?

We can’t point to reams of double-blind clinical studies which clearly demonstrate the medical benefits of CBD or CBG. We wish we could. And it’s not for lack of trying. Every researcher we speak to mentions how tough it is to legally test or trial the effects of the various substances found in cannabis plants, even those which don’t produce a high sensation.

“Despite all the different the progress there’s been in the states, the situation with cannabis research and the ability to make products in this country remains not that different from when I began 25 years ago,” said Ethan Russo, a leading cannabinoid researcher who helped create two of the only FDA approved medicines with CBD, Epidiolex and Sativex. He’s not financially affiliated with Dad Grass.

Russo has often simply gone around the roadblocks, living outside the U.S. and working for foreign companies.

What are some of the roadblocks? 

Firstly: here in the good ‘ole US of A, the FDA doesn’t regulate products made from cannabinoids. This is why we at Dad Grass regulate our ownselves and share our testing results. 

Second, cannabis plants classified as marijuana (those cannabis plants with more than .3% THC)  remain on the federal government’s list of Schedule 1 substances. Researching it requires approvals from multiple government agencies. 

Third, medical schools struggle to find time to teach students about the endocannabinoid system.

Finally, the psychoactive effect of the first cannabinoid to be discovered (THC) quite simply freaks many folks out. So even though hemp plants don’t contain more than .3% THC, the association between cannabis plants and psychoactivity makes the study of the entire plant pretty intimidating, even for the brave and pioneering research institutions of the world

“It’s unclear to me what it is people are afraid of from euphoria,” said Dr. David Bearman. He’s written two books about cannabinoids and is the vice president of the American Association of Cannabinoid Medicine. 

“What one needs to be concerned about in terms of side effects is dysphoria.”

We’ll expand on these issues in future posts. For now we’ll move on to sharing some of what we know so far about CBG, the exciting minor cannabinoid that’s the major ingredient in our Mom Grass CBG joints. If you want to learn more about CBD, the main ingredient in our Dad Grass joints, read this other article on the Dad Grass Blog. 

Scientists Tackle CBG

Cannabigerol, or CBG, is the third most-prevalent cannabinoid found in the cannabis plant. In its acid form within the plant, it is the parent molecule of both CBD and THC. These two cannabinoids are the most prevalent within the plant. Considered to be the major cannabinoids, CBD and THC have been more extensively studied than CBG.

Within the cannabis plant, CBG can be thought of as a waystation. It’s a building block, or base, of other cannabinoids. Cannabinoids like CBD and THC are derived from CBG. This nature of CBG makes it hard to capture for your toking pleasure without specially growing hemp plants bread to have higher concentrations of it. Helpfully, our growers have figured it out.

Turning within our bodies, CBG has piqued the interest of researchers studying pain and inflammation.

An extensive literature review published in 2018 concluded that enough literature exists to demonstrate the “anti-inflammatory effects of cannabinoid drugs in inflammation of the gut” and said that “larger, randomised controlled-trials are warranted.”

And that isn’t the only interesting thing in the literature.

CBG and Inflammation Research

A 2018 study conducted in Italy examined the role of CBG and neuroinflammation, or inflammation of nervous tissues such as those in the brain and spinal cord. The study, which is free to read here, concluded “thanks to its neuroprotective effects, we encourage the use of CBG against neurodegeneration and in those pathological conditions where neuroinflammation and oxidative stress play a main role.”

CBG and Cancer Research

The ability of CBG to inhibit cancer-causing cells such as glioblastoma multiforme cells (U.S. Sen. John McCain suffered from this cancer) has also been recently examined.

In the summary of a late 2020 study of CBG as an anti-cancer agent, scientists wrote, “CBG can destroy therapy-resistant glioblastoma stem cells, which are the root of cancer development and extremely resistant to various other treatments of this lethal cancer. CBG should present a new yet unexplored adjuvant treatment strategy of glioblastoma.”

The study concluded that CBG exerts a clear antitumor effect. It tangentially found that CBG has analgesic effects, a fancy way of saying that CBG can help reduce pain. It also wards off chemotherapy-induced nausea and increases appetite, an important benefit for those who need to increase their overall health by way of a robust diet.

Globally, colon cancer is the second-most common cancer in women and third-most common cancer for men. A 2014 Italian study of colorectal cancer found that CBG inhibited cancerous tumor growth. The cannabinoid both helped cause the death of cancer cells and reduced their growth. Not bad.

CBG and Anxiety Research

Research data also suggests CBG could help reduce anxiety. Scientists say CBG inhibits the flow of GABA neurotransmitters in the brain and thus leads to muscle relaxation and decreased anxiety. 

Conclusions?

The research is promising, and there’s even more studies that could be done to give us an FDA-approved answer on what CBG does in the body. But for now, think of it as an enjoyable smoke that keeps your mind light and your soul right.