Hemp Vs. Cannabis

Hemp and Cannabis come from the same species of plant and, therefore, are commonly confused with each other. This confusion leads to a lot of headache in a new industry which has hemp companies struggling to run their businesses. Most of this headache arises from the fact that large entities view hemp, and products derived from hemp, the same as Cannabis and do not differentiate the two. This results in hemp companies not being able to advertise in traditional ways like Google Ads or paid advertising through social media outlets. It also results in hemp companies struggling to find bank branches that will take their accounts and struggling to find merchant processing for agreeable rates.

While the confusion between plants causes issues, it’s understandable that they could be confused. To the naked eye, it is very hard to decipher the difference between a hemp plant and a Cannabis plant. In most ways, they smell and look very similar. So, what’s the difference? As it is defined legally, the only difference lies in the composition of the plants.

 Hemp and Cannabis both come from the cannabis sativa plant. The cannabis sativa plant is made up of different molecular structures and compounds known as cannabinoids. The two most common cannabinoids are THC and CBD. For this breakdown, we will focus on how much THC is in the cannabis sativa plant. To put it simply, any cannabis sativa plant that contains less than 0.3% THC, is known legally as hemp. Any cannabis sativa plant that contains more than 0.3% THC is known legally as Cannabis.

To go one step further we look at products made from these plants. Any CBD product that comes from a hemp plant, grown under a state-supervised agriculture plan, is legal. Any CBD product that comes from a Cannabis plant is only legal to be sold in dispensaries.