The compound is called cannabizetol (CBGD), and it's only the fourth dimeric cannabinoid ever identified in cannabis. When researchers tested it against 84 different inflammatory genes, it showed significantly higher anti-inflammatory activity than any previously studied dimeric cannabinoid. It works through the NF-κB pathway—essentially a master switch for inflammation throughout the human body—and exhibits powerful antioxidant properties that could have applications in dermatology, chronic inflammation, and potentially dozens of other medical conditions we haven't even imagined yet.

Alright, let's talk about this article that's been making the rounds on multiple news outlets recently. You know the one—"It's Possible to Get Addicted to Pot: Here's What to Know." When you see the same article getting shared across multiple mainstream media platforms simultaneously, your propaganda detector should start beeping. Mine's going off like a five-alarm fire.

Let me paint you a picture of where we are right now with federal cannabis policy: it's a complete shitshow. And I don't use that term lightly. We're living in a moment where the federal government has managed to create the most confusing, contradictory, and dysfunctional cannabis policy in the 90-year history of prohibition. That's saying something.

Before we dive into survival tactics, let's get one thing crystal clear: the criminalization of cannabis has been one of the most destructive social policies in American history. Over 20 million people have been imprisoned for cannabis-related offenses, transforming the United States into the world's leading jailer. Think about that for a second. We didn't earn that dubious honor by locking up murderers and rapists. We got there by criminalizing a plant.

Fifty-five years later, we're watching the same playbook executed with surgical precision. The 2018 Farm Bill legalized hemp—cannabis containing 0.3% or less delta-9 THC—creating a legal market for CBD products, textiles, and agricultural materials. Entrepreneurs seized this opportunity, building businesses around hemp-derived cannabinoids that technically complied with federal law while producing intoxicating effects similar to marijuana.

Here's the counterintuitive truth that this federally funded study reveals: cannabis plants grown in nutrient-depleted, biologically dead soil produced significantly higher THC levels than plants in rich, healthy soil. The conventionally tilled fields—where soil structure is destroyed annually, beneficial microbes are killed off, and organic matter is depleted—created plants pumping out THC at rates that would make any recreational grower drool.

This is the system working exactly as designed: punishing poor people, disproportionately Black and Latino, for low-level participation in drug distribution while protecting wealthy institutions and individuals whose involvement dwarfs street dealers by orders of magnitude. The new sentencing amendments are a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound. The entire framework deserves to be dismantled and rebuilt from principles of proportionality, equity, and actual justice rather than the current apparatus of class warfare disguised as drug policy.

What changed? Policy? No. Evidence? No. Trump's messaging? Absolutely. The same poll shows that 74% of Republicans believe Trump is making progress on illegal drugs, compared to just 33% of Democrats and 34% of Independents who feel that way. Republicans convinced themselves that bombing boats and tariff threats constitute effective drug policy, and simultaneously decided cannabis legalization—which they supported just two years ago—is now bad.

This inconsistency reveals something crucial about drug policy: the psychosis argument was never about protecting vulnerable people. It was about justifying prohibition of a substance that threatened certain interests. Because if we genuinely cared about preventing psychosis, we'd be banning social media, AI chatbots, and countless other triggers before we'd prohibit a plant humans have used for thousands of years.

New research from Oregon State University, published in PLOS One, confirms what many experienced cannabis users have suspected—the cannabis industry's obsession with terpene profiles as predictors of aroma and effects is built on shaky foundations. After recruiting a 21-judge panel to systematically assess 91 samples of unburnt marijuana flower using 25 standardized descriptors, researchers discovered that terpene content is a poor predictor of cannabis's actual scent profile.