The Case for the Entourage Effect and Conventional Breeding of Clinical Cannabis: No "Strain," No Gain

Abstract

The topic of Cannabis curries controversy in every sphere of influence, whether politics, pharmacology, applied therapeutics or even botanical taxonomy. Debate as to the speciation of Cannabis, or a lack thereof, has swirled for more than 250 years. Because all Cannabis types are eminently capable of cross-breeding to produce fertile progeny, it is unlikely that any clear winner will emerge between the "lumpers" vs. "splitters" in this taxonomical debate. This is compounded by the profusion of Cannabis varieties available through the black market and even the developing legal market. While labeled "strains" in common parlance, this term is acceptable with respect to bacteria and viruses, but not among Plantae. Given that such factors as plant height and leaflet width do not distinguish one Cannabis plant from another and similar difficulties in defining terms in Cannabis, the only reasonable solution is to characterize them by their biochemical/pharmacological characteristics. Thus, it is best to refer to Cannabis types as chemical varieties, or "chemovars." The current wave of excitement in Cannabis commerce has translated into a flurry of research on alternative sources, particularly yeasts, and complex systems for laboratory production have emerged, but these presuppose that single compounds are a desirable goal. Rather, the case for Cannabis synergy via the "entourage effect" is currently sufficiently strong as to suggest that one molecule is unlikely to match the therapeutic and even industrial potential of Cannabis itself as a phytochemical factory. The astounding plasticity of the Cannabis genome additionally obviates the need for genetic modification techniques.

Keywords: cannabidiol; cannabinoid; cannabis; genetically modified organism; genomics; hemp; marijuana; tetrahydrocannabinol.

FIGURE 1

Biosynthetic pathways and enzymes (red) of Cannabis sativa, indication the natural species Helichrysum umbraculigerum, and alternative species (in color) that have been genetically modified to produce subsequent products [redrawn and updated from (Russo, 2011) using ACD/ChemSketch 2017.2.1].

FIGURE 2

PhytoFacts^TM depiction of cannabinoid and terpenoid content of Caryodiol^TM, aka “Kashmir Blue,” a Type III, cannabidiol-, and caryophyllene-predominant chemovar. See (Lewis et al., 2018) for details of PhytoFacts and conventional breeding methodology. Copyright© 2016 BHC Group, LLC. All rights reserved. Any unauthorized use of this document or the images or marks above may violate copyright, trademark, and other applicable laws.