Good evening,
Long read below, but wanted to share my experience from a recent trip to Thailand that I have had.
I recently returned from a trip to Thailand, and on this trip I enjoyed frequenting various cannabis cafes and smoking recreationally. This allowed me to experiment with different strains & strengths much more frequently than my current UK prescription allows. I had some profound descoveries about cannabis which I have taken home and I would be interested to hear peoples opinions on these 'revelations'
The first was the importance of CBD when using medicinal cannbis. I have traditionally vaped the usual >22% THC, <1% CBD stains that are most commonly available on my clinics pharmacy, and I was mind blown at how much more I enjoyed using a balanced 1:1 forms of cannabis vs my UK prescriptions. My body felt relaxed and my physical alements in my body faded away, I still felt the euphoric uplift of a head high, but the high was so much more functional. I was so amazed by these results I started looking into balances strains, and I was saddended to read about the current state of the cannabis industry. The long and short of it, is cannabis in its orginal form was much more likely a balanced plant, with equal parts CBD to THC, but due to market demand, cannabis cultivators at the moment are all but completely breading out the CBD from plants in order to achieve highers THC yields, which in turn is removing a lot of the medicinal benefits of the plant. (For those interested the 'original' forms of cannabis smoked by our ancestors are called landrace strains)
The second big discovery on my trip was about the importance of terpene profiles. It's pretty obvious once its explained to you, but I realised that terpine and the chemical make up of a particul flower are much more important in determining the effects that a particular flower will have on you than the type of strain or the THC percentage. I had a very in depth conversation with the 'bud tender' about what symptoms I have and what I was looking to get out of using cannabis. He recommended a balanced 13%/13% strain (I think it was a Mango punch) which provided me with a high unlike anything my UK medical stuff has been providing. This lead me down a rabbit hole of learning all about different terpene and discovering that I love strains with a high Myrcene, Limonene,Linalool profile
This ultimately got me thinking about the experience that I had in obtaining a prescription here in the UK. The experience was night and day. In my consultation calls there was not a great deal of discussion about what I was looking to get out of using cannabis. The conversation went something along the lines of 'what condition do you have, have you tried 2 conventional medications', great here is a 28% strain, have fun' - No one explained the importance of CBD in the cannabis plant and no one explained what a terpene was. In hindsight it did feel as though it was a case of pushing me through the door as quickly as possible so that they could start selling to me, and then lobbing me the highest % strains to keep me happy. I came back to the UK hoping I would be able to replicate my Thailand expierence, but my clinic does not stock any high CBD or balanced strains which is so annoying
Sorry for the long rant but just thought I would share these revalations as they were quite ground breaking for me so thought I would share haha
Anyone else had a similar experience?