Study: THC potency relies on entourage effect

A groundbreaking new study has affirmed what cannabis experts have been saying for years: a good high is not necessarily defined by THC percentages.

Instead, it owes its grit to the entourage effect — the way in which all compounds of the cannabis plant come together in perfect harmony.

Musings of the synergistic nature of cannabis became official in 1998 by professors Raphael Mechoulam and Shimon Ben-Shabat, who gave the “entourage effect” its official name.

Since then, the entourage effect has continually clued cannabis experts in on the best way to enhance the benefits of marijuana — the more terpenes and cannabinoids, the better .

Because the main psychoactive component in cannabis is delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, consumers tend to be driven toward cannabis products with the highest possible levels of THC.

But cannabis is deeper than that. It owes its characteristics to a symphony of cannabinoids and terpenes.

The cannabis company PAX collaborated with Zentrela, the Canadian neurotechnology company, to garner a deeper understanding on how the brain responds to cannabis, specifically when it comes to the efficacy of the entourage effect.

But measuring the psychoactive effects of cannabis is no easy feat.

Zentrela’s founder, Israel Gasperin Haaz, and his research team published a peer-reviewed analysis in the March 2022 issue of Neurology and Therapy regarding a new method of measuring psychoactive effects using electroencephalogram (EEG) data to understand varying psychoactive effect levels (PEL). Researchers aimed to measure an array of psychoactive effects, such as onset time and strength.

Zentrela’s team measured the brainwaves of 28 participants after they had vaped one of two cannabis oils provided by PAX; half received a full-spectrum live rosin vape, while the others were given a distillate-based THC vape. This is an important distinction, as the production of distillate-based products tends to burn out many of the cannabinoids and terpenes that full-spectrum products preserve.

After participants inhaled about 8 mg of the oil, which equates to roughly two hits, Zentrela used EEG data to measure the brainwaves of each participant. Both vapes had THC potency levels that reached 85%, yet yielded very different results. The full-spectrum cannabis can result in faster onset and can offer more than twice the psychoactive effects.

Via Zentrela’s official announcement, the company stated that “key findings suggest that whole plant, full-spectrum products can produce a statistically significant faster onset and more than double the psychoactive experience than distillate products with comparable Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) potencies due to the ‘entourage effect,’ or presence of additional whole plant compounds like phytocannabinoids and terpenes.”

Brian Witilin, PAX’s vice president of product development, aimed to use this research as a means to expand upon many preconceived notions among cannabis consumers.

“Consumers looking for psychoactive effects typically shop for cannabis products based on THC, which is a bit of a fallacy,” Witlin said in an Oct. 3 statement.

“In the spirit of continuing to advance cannabis research and understanding of the plant — which has been far too limited for much too long — we wanted to demonstrate through scientific study how full-spectrum products with the full range of terpenes and cannabinoids have a more profound impact on the onset and ultimate cannabis experience. We hope this type of insight helps consumers understand that shopping for products based on THC percentage alone is not the leading indicator of expected experience.”

It is also important to note that the PAX study used a small sample size, and it is not yet peer-reviewed. However, the results still offer an exciting invitation into our ongoing understanding of cannabis.

The full study can be found at Zentrela’s website, www.zentrela.com.

This article appears in Oct 19-26, 2023.