7 NEW CANNABINOIDS DISCOVERED!

We are one step closer to unravelling the mystery of cannabis, as researchers discover 7 new cannabinoids.

When it comes to identifying and understanding the many cannabinoids within cannabis, science can often be quite slow. This is not out of laziness or apathy; analysing the full spectrum of cannabinoids within a cannabis plant can take weeks, costs insane amounts of money, and require some very specialised equipment. As such, most labs that analyse cannabis dedicate their finite resources to focusing on the major cannabinoids, like THC and CBD - with lesser cannabinoids being present, but falling to the wayside.

However, it would seem the University of Mississippi is not to be intimidated by such factors. Using a multi-solvent extraction process, and 9 kilograms of extremely potent bud, researchers at the university were able to isolate and identify 7 new cannabinoids. This takes the total number of known naturally occurring cannabinoids to 111.

THESE NEW CANNABINOIDS ARE AS FOLLOWS:

8α-hydroxy-Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol

8β-hydroxy-Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol

10α-hydroxy-Δ8-tetrahydrocannabinol

10β-hydroxy-Δ8-tetrahydrocannabinol

10α-hydroxy-Δ9,11-hexahydrocannabinol

9β, 10β-epoxyhexahydrocannabinol

and 11-acetoxy-Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinolic acid A.

Quite a complex list! For those of you who are interested in the research, you can read the original paper here.

Most of these new cannabinoids are yellow oils once extracted, with the exception of the last one, which is a white powder. The researchers managed to get a miniscule 10-150 milligrams of each from the 9 kilograms of bud – showing you just how small the amount of these cannabinoids present within cannabis is. Quite interestingly, when given to mice, some of these cannabinoids had the same high inducing effect as THC. However, they are just not present in large enough quantities to rival it.

It is always good to see our understanding of cannabis increase. By identifying more cannabinoids, we begin to fill in missing pieces of the puzzle. Whilst not too much is known about these new cannabinoids yet, by studying them, our knowledge of this plant grows as a whole.