When talking about hemp, most people immediately think of marijuana. While hemp is a cannabis plant, it’s genetics and properties are very different from a typical marijuana plant.
Marijuana is what you think of when you imagine rolling up a joint or taking a hit from a bong. It typically contains 15 to 30 percent tetrahydrocannabinol, commonly known as THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana that gets you high when you light up.
Hemp, however, is an industrialized cannabis plant that usually contains .3 percent or less of THC and typically contains more CBD than marijuana plants. Both plants are grown differently, as well. Medical marijuana is commonly grown indoors in very controlled environments where temperature, CO2, and humidity can be monitored, and female plants flower the buds that we later smoke. Meanwhile, male hemp plants grown outdoors and do not flower in the same way marijuana plants do.
The biggest difference between the two plants is how they are used. Marijuana is mainly ingested both as an intoxicant . Hemp, on the other hand, has a myriad of purposes. It can be used to make fabrics more sustainably than most other fabrics, eco-friendly paper and plastics, beauty and topical products, and even lightweight concrete.
So while hemp is typically associated with marijuana and is made from a similar plant, it serves completely different purposes and is a material that can be used in place of unsustainable materials to move toward more environmentally conscious products.
