Marijuana is getting more common as it’s becoming legal across the United States. However, people are still pretty surprised at the complicated history and science behind weed.
Let’s dive into the 10 most surprising facts about cannabis.
1. Weed Was the First Item Sold Online
We’re going to start our list of surprising read facts with one of the most interesting. Did you know that it was the first thing that was ever sold over the Internet?
This happened in 1972 back when the world wide web wasn’t so world wide. The ARPANET was just an experimental technology used by research universities in the United States. Students in Stanford, located in California, sold some weed to students at MIT on the east coast.
Way before eBay, Amazon, or anyone else, cannabis was getting a digital hookup.
2. Cannabis Cultivation is Ancient
You might think cannabis is a relatively modern substance, but it’s actually ancient. The oldest records of cannabis cultivation go back at least 12,000 years.
This means we started cultivating cannabis right around the time where human civilization learned to grind grain. There are ancient testimonies for the medicinal uses of weed as well as spiritual uses. This means medicinal marijuana users and psychonauts were well ahead of their time!
3. Cannabis Has Surprising Medical Properties
Cannabis and cannabis extracts have a growing presence in medical research. You probably know that cannabis can help with sleep and that THC can work as an anesthetic for pain relief, but there are some more benefits you might not have heard of.
Researchers are currently exploring the potential for cannabis to become part of the treatment for mental health conditions like depression, anxiety, and even more severe problems like PTSD. Researchers are also looking into using cannabinoids to treat everything from epilepsy to cancer.
4. THC Won’t Get You High—When Fresh
This one surprises everyone. Fresh cannabis will not get you high. Cannabis needs to go to the process of decarboxylation before it can have a psychoactive effect.
This works because the THC in fresh cannabis is actually THCA. When heated, THCA converts into THC and becomes psychoactive.
But don’t let this make you think that THCA is useless. THCA is extremely promising when it comes to the medical uses of cannabis. Because it does not get individuals high, it can be used in much higher doses for treating patients without having a psychoactive effect.
5. Number of THC Overdose Deaths = 0
We’ve already established that cannabis is ancient, but across this entire history there have been 0 overdose deaths from using cannabis.
This one is simply down to science and biology. In the world of pharmacology, the amount of any given chemical that it would take to kill 50% of test animals is called the LD50. For weed, the LD50 is 1:20000 to 1:40000.
What does that mean in more practical terms? Well, you’d need to smoke about 1,500 pounds of high quality weed to have a 50% chance of a fatal overdose—and you’d need to smoke that in just a few hours before it starts to clear out of your body.
Now, this isn’t to say that you can’t overdose on cannabis. You can take more cannabis than you’re comfortable with and develop nausea, anxiety or paranoia, and have a generally bad time. However, it’s essentially biologically impossible for humans to fatally overdose on weed.
6. Uruguay Was the First Country to Legalize Weed
In 2013, Uruguay became the first country in the world to legalize cannabis. In Uruguay cannabis laws became increasingly progressive within the next few years allowing individuals to grow cannabis at home in 2014 and expanding their medical marijuana infrastructure in 2017.
Canada followed suit in 2018 and became the second country in the world to legalize weed. There were other countries that had cannabis made legal gray area before these two, but these were the first two countries in the world to step out and say that cannabis is okay.
7. Weed Has Gotten A Lot Stronger
Cannabis has gotten a lot stronger over the last few years. Legalization allowed growers to openly experiment and hybridize strains which means more complex flavors and a higher THC percentages.
Weed is about twice as strong on average from the 1960s.
8. Cannabis and Hops are Related!
Cannabis actually comes from a family of plants that are famous for having an effect on the human psyche.
Cannabis has a close cousin called hops. All you beer aficionados have probably developed a refined taste for hops. This is a major ingredient in beer as well as a close plant relative to weed.
9. The USA Grows the Most Weed
You’ve probably heard some misleading facts on the news about where most of the weed in America comes from. You might be surprised to learn that the majority of the weed in the US is grown right here at home.
America is actually the world’s number one grower of hemp and cannabis.
10. California Was the First State to Ban Weed (But Not the First to Legalize)
The first state in the country to ban weed was surprisingly California. The west coast paradise of cannabis culture used to be one of the most conservative states when it comes to repressing weed.
The first state to reverse this trend and legalize cannabis was Colorado. Looks like they decided to take the Rocky Mountain High literally.
What Was Your Favorite Weed Fact?
Which one of our surprising facts about weed was your favorite?
Were you shocked to learn that cannabis was the first thing sold online or did some of our medical facts change how you look at THC?
Break out these 10 surprising facts about leave in the next time you were getting high.
