KC CHRONICLE   September 2022 Newsletter

Meet our resident Director of Health & Wellness, Cody Freeze, PharmD RPH. In this monthly feature, he will field your questions around cannabis and the interactions with the human body. To submit a question, please send to info@kccannabis.org with the subject line "Ask Dr. Freeze."

Q: Are the active ingredients of a chemovar (or "strain") of cannabis always the exact same every time?

A: The short answer is not always, and not exactly. The long answer is much more complex!

While genetics from one seed breeder/manufacturer are generally regarded as stable, and many may be verified as such via lab analysis using a certificate of analysis (CoA), the active and inactive constituents may still vary significantly from source to source. In other words, one dispensary's source of, let's say "Blue Dream" flower could have entirely different concentrations of active chemical compounds than another dispensary's "Blue Dream." With whole plant cannabis and full-spectrum products, we have generally tens or even hundreds of active and inactive compounds. The ratio of these compounds can vary slightly or significantly from one source to the next. And, to complicate matters further, different dosage forms, such as edibles vs raw cannabis flower, will have different concentrations of various active and inactive ingredients.

Also, keep in mind each genetic profile (genotype of a chemovar/strain) may be unique and specific, yet the environment on when and how the plant is grown, harvested and eventually extracted and processed can activate different genetic tools in the plant's toolbox, and constituents can be lost throughout the processing of source material. This may cause the cannabis plant in question to express variations of chemical makeup that can be interpreted visually and chemically.

A common example is found with regards to the universally acclaimed and famed OG Kush chemotype. While multiple seed breeders claim theirs is the original OG chemovar, there are a massive number of marketed phenotypes that span a variety of medical and perceived effects, both positive and negative. The variation in genetic makeup, or genotypes, may even vary wildly from one manufacturer to another, but most commonly yield similar perceived relief and side effects! While the standard OG Kush effects can be reasonably agreed upon online using crowd-sourced open use data (e.g., Leafly.com), patients and providers will still be exposed to what may appear to be sometimes extreme variations in active and inactive chemical components! This is where the CoA lab data that is batch or product-specific become important for more precise patient care.

In sum, it's a lot more complicated than I'd have ever imagined! While this complexity can be seen as a hindrance, it is also a great strength. We are fortunate to have naturally-derived, whole plant cannabis and its product available in our state, offering a wide variety of relief of many ailments across a massive dosing window. That doesn't mean we should stop there! We need more data. Getting good patient and product data will become more readily available over time, and I can only hope Missouri and others continue to enact effective and safe measures to better help budtenders, healthcare providers, patients and caregivers the tools needed for the best recommendations and patient outcomes possible. Federal legalization eventually should allow more cannabis secrets to be determined through flow of research and access to more useful data. While these days are exciting and have a cutting-edge or medicinal "frontier" feel to them, it doesn't make for absolutely ideal patient care. I for one am very glad we have more to learn. We all are still learning, and that's okay.

Until these aforementioned "ideal situations" and caveats are fully realized and delved into, we will continue to learn and improve. I highly recommend keeping a digital or physical "strain diary" that details the chemotype and manufacturer of product used, batch potency, dosage form/route of consumption (e.g., flower vs. concentrate), doses used, helpful and/or negative effects, duration of relief, cost per dose, etc.). The more data we have generally results in better outcomes. Best of luck to anyone reading this, and as always, I appreciate your time.