Is it hemp, cannabis or marijuana? That depends on who’s discussing the enigmatic plant that’s legal in some forms (for now) but faces new restrictions in other forms this fall.
The confusion comes as no surprise to Nick Johnson, author of the book Grass Roots, which looks at the history of the cannabis plant and its use as both an industrial material and a drug.
“It’s one of the world’s oldest domesticated crops,” Johnson says of cannabis. “And it’s also incredibly cryptic. We still do not understand everything about its biology and why it does the things it does, how it creates the compounds and molecules it does.”
Cannabis “has over 480 constituents,” according to the Drug Enforcement Administration, but U.S. regulators focus on just one: THC, the compound linked to the drug’s famous psychoactive effects.
Federal laws define legal hemp differently from illegal marijuana based on their levels of THC. As long as a plant contains less than 0.3% of one form of THC (with a much stricter limit taking effect later this year), it’s considered hemp, not marijuana. And while marijuana is in the process of being reclassified as a Schedule III drug instead of a more restricted Schedule I, hemp is not a controlled substance.
Despite the different policies, qualities and uses, the plants are more similar than not.
“Botanically speaking, both hemp and marijuana belong to a single species: Cannabis sativa,” says Kelly Vining, an associate professor at Oregon State University who studies hemp genomics. In general, Vining says, taxonomists consider hemp and marijuana subspecies of Cannabis sativa.
Read more at Michigan Public Radio
