Maximum Yield Australia/New Zealand May/June 2019 | Page 58

DIFFERENTIATING BETWEEN
INDUSTRIAL HEMP
marijuana
AND
by Chris Bond
Are hemp
and marijuana
the same or are
they different
plants? The truth
is somewhere
in the middle.
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Maximum Yield
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here is a bit of confusion
as to what constitutes
industrial hemp and
what constitutes weed.
Is it the same plant? Is it
different? Opinions vary
from the highest levels of
government on down to the
common citizen. Plainly and
simply put: they are not the
same thing. They are closely
related, but industrial hemp is
not marijuana and marijuana
is not industrial hemp. If you
come away with nothing else
here, remember that.
Both plants are members of
the same species, Cannabis
sativa, but they are not the
same thing. Many people,
including some in academia,
believe hemp is nothing more
than just male marijuana plants.
However, this is not true. They
are genetically different. The
primary difference between them
is that hemp and marijuana have
dramatically different levels of
the psychoactive chemical delta-
9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). In
hemp, THC levels are generally less
than one per cent. Legally, hemp is
generally required to be less than
0.3 per cent THC as these levels are
not thought to have any psychoactive
effects. Marijuana plants, on the other
hand, range in their respective levels
of THC. On average, they have between
three and 20 per cent, though many
cultivated species have levels of more
than 30 per cent.
Besides having different levels of
THC, hemp and marijuana are grown
differently for different market purposes.
Some of the differences between the two
are also semantical. “Marijuana” generally
refers to the flowering tops and leaves
of cannabis varieties that deliver some
amount of body or head high to the user.
“Hemp” often refers to the leaves, stalks,
fibres, or seeds of the hemp plant grown for
their industrial or commercial use.