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In The LAB
In addition to the wellness benefit nature identical processing can provide, it is also important to note that there is a connoisseur aspect to cannabis products like that seen in the wine industry. This means that the flavor and aroma of the various cannabis cultivars are becoming well characterized and appreciated. Most of this flavor and aroma comes from a class of compounds in cannabis called terpenes. Interestingly, terpenes also play a key role in the entourage effect and appear to drive much of the varied efficacies between cannabis cultivars. With all of this in mind, it becomes clear why a cannabis processor may eschew a more simplistic single molecule processing approach preferring to extract the full spectrum of bioactive molecules.
Currently, cannabis processing has taken a focus on purification of single molecules from the cannabis plant. Techniques like distillation and chromatography allow for a processor to derive high purity isolates of THC and CBD. These techniques have their place, but are akin to the idea of brewing coffee beans with the sole intent of isolating pure crystalline caffeine. By ignoring the wealth of other bioactive compounds in cannabis, the potential efficacy of the end-product is limited and the potential of the entourage effect is disregarded. With proper analytical tools and processing know-how, one could truly characterize the wealth of bioactive compounds in cannabis and identify ways to maintain them through an extraction process [2],[3],[4].