Do you want to hear a little-known fact? Europe has been cultivating hemp (any cannabis with less than 0.3% THC) legally for the last 80 years. The United States only legalized commercial hemp production one year ago, in the 2018 Farm Bill. Why is this important? Well, it implies that European hemp growers are 79 years ahead of American farmers in growing hemp and their seeds are far superior ours. Here is why you should care where your hemp is grown:
It is well-known that hemp naturally contains more CBD and less THC than marijuana. And in the 80 years that Europe has had to foster hemp, farmers researched and hybridized hemp plants to create strains yielding higher and higher CBD content, allowing them to formulate products of the upmost quality and potency. They have fine-tuned the DNA of hemp seeds to create some of the most superior plants on the market.
Conversely, before the 2018 Farm Bill was passed in the US, you could only use material from hemp stalks to retrieve any plant extracts. Since hemp has only just become fully legal in the United States, much of the CBD products here have been derived from genetically modified marijuana plants. Thus, instead of exploiting hemp, American growers resorted to genetically altering cannabis plants to yield less THC and more CBD. As a result, these extracts are more likely to be obtained from marijuana and contain traces of THC potentially producing undesired highs. Further, the very recent nature of hemp legalization in America indicates that we have little experience in modifying hemp seed DNA when compared to Europe.
Today in the United States, it is legal to use the more concentrated leaf, flower and bud of hemp plants to extract the desired phytocannabinoids for production, opening the doors to creating higher yielding plants and more desirable products. Globally, however, Europe has decades of experience in hemp growing and exhibit far superior seed DNA when it comes to CBD content. In ending, if you are purchasing CBD products derived from hemp, be sure to check where it was grown, because you are more likely to reap the benefits from choosing European strains.