Hemp as a substitute for tobacco, here are the main advantages
The replacement of tobacco with cannabis would lead to the discontinuation of the use of the highly toxic molecule which is nicotine with molecules which are anything but toxic which are cannabinoids and terpenes. That nicotine is dangerous is attested by the fact that the lethal dose of 50 in humans is less than 10 mg / kg. In a single cigarette there are even more than 2 mg and if you extract all the nicotine from a pack of 20 cigarettes and take it as a single dose, a 100 kg individual could die . Another reason is that nicotine is so toxic that the formulations once used as insecticides were so dangerous that they were placed in the most dangerous toxicological class. Now almost all of them have been withdrawn. They have been replaced by neo-nicotinoids whose devastating damage to bees is well known.
Among cannabinoids, only delta-9-tetrahydrocannbinol (THC) has a significant doping action and in no experiment performed up to now has it been possible to accurately identify its lethal dose on 'man. The United Nations Organization itself has reconsidered cannabis and its constituents by recognizing its healing properties and medical use. Such a big difference, which leads to tens of thousands of deaths from tobacco use every year and absolute zero deaths from cannabis, is not enough to shake the current situation, which seems to be “untouchable”.
The economic tour of tobacco & nbsp;
The turnover that revolves around tobacco is worth about 18 billion euros and with related activities, the figure rises significantly. Faced with an internal production of about 15,000 tons of tobacco, 5 times as many already processed are imported. With the excise duties and VAT applied to tobacco products, the State raises 2/3 of the turnover which is an indispensable share of resources, aimed at ensuring the coverage of a part of public spending. The change in the destination of consumption and above all the replacement of the beneficiaries of the resources originating from this supply chain seems to be an unthinkable and revolutionary intervention. The subjects who have enjoyed these privileges for many decades, as often happens in this country, are not even Italians: they are called Phylip Morris, British American Tobacco, Japan Tobacco, Universal Leaf Tobacco .
Tobacco companies invest in hemp
The number of jobs that are at stake revolve around the figure of 50,000 and therefore it is certainly not a painless operation or easily achievable immediately. The fact is that tobacco multinationals have been preparing for conversion for some time and some of these have already made large investments in research to achieve what is already a reality in Switzerland, namely distribution by the large distribution and authorized cigarette packs shops exactly packaged and advertised as tobacco cigarettes, but containing 1/3 of hemp.
For the production part of the agricultural product , the transition would be automatic and instantaneous. In fact, in the most modern tobacco growing areas such as those of Verona and Vicenza there are well-structured companies that have been cultivating dozens and even hundreds of hectares of hemp for some years. This production is not all transformed into cigarettes, but most of it goes up in smoke (cannabis light) or used for the extraction of active ingredients in great demand by the pharmaceutical, cosmetic and food industries. The marketing and management of hemp raw material is not yet well organized. There is a lack of reliable subjects for the intermediation between the producer and the requesting industry and therefore the primary sector is often at the mercy of volatile prices, profiteers who propose contracts that then do not materialize and a Ministry that does not intervene when necessary to solve the problems on the deficient certified varieties, methods of reproduction of hemp suited to the needs of the agricultural world, organization of processing and control over the healthiness of hemp derivatives.
Ethics, money and health
In a country that is attentive and sensitive to problems of citizens and hemp much more would be done because the reasons are ethically valid, but also decidedly practical and useful for the safety of consumers. In the years preceding the introduction of light cannabis, the big and fat smoke cake was shared by multinationals, the state, smuggling and narcotics. Careful scientific work has shown that the number of seizures by law enforcement agencies of marijuana (hemp with THC), between the period before and after the introduction of light cannabis in 2017, decreased about 12%. Also for this fact it could be hoped that the attitude of the Politics would also have adapted and instead there was the opposite reaction, and the shops that distributed cannabis light were pointed out and opposed because they were considered instigators and bad examples for minors. With the spread of the pandemic, due to the difficulty of handling large and dangerous quantities of narcotic substances, cannabis light has in any case been given an advantage because it is easier to find and less expensive than marijuana. The increase in stress and concerns related to the spreading disease has favored the consumption of a smoking product which, due to the presence of cannabidiol (CBD), helps to alleviate the negative symptoms associated with the abuse of other substances (alcohol, hard drugs) and daily worries. At this point it should be added that to make the smoking of cannabis less impacting on health, it should be consumed in a more intelligent and correct way. Just as the way of consuming tobacco is changing, the system of vaporization should also be used for hemp so as to drastically reduce the damage that the substances deriving from the combustion of vegetable substances can cause. With vaporization, the pleasant aspects of the aroma and taste of taking a substance are also better appreciated which, instead of toxicity, has a potential preventive effect from important diseases (even lung cancer). There are more than a dozen positive health reasons that CBD has been shown to possess and these are listed in numerous scientific papers accepted by the research world because they are welcomed by journals that make use of competent scientific reviewers. Let's talk about CBD for the moment because it is the absolutely non-amazing cannabinoid that has been best studied in recent years, but cannabigerol (CBG) is also emerging as a valid plant substance with positive pharmacological actions. Then there is cannabidivirine (CBDV) which for some diseases such as epilepsy seems to be more effective than CBD itself. There would be cannabichromene (CBC), less studied, but which could join the already substantial repertoire of hemp cannabinoids. To this family are added the numerous terpenes which are responsible for the characteristic aroma of hemp. There are more than a hundred and some of them interact with the same switches (cellular receptors), which preside over the control of numerous essential functions of our endocannabinoid system.
Hemp vs tobacco: sustainable cultivation with fewer pesticides
Another positive factor linked to the substitution of tobacco with hemp is the drastic lowering of the demand for health devices used for the cultivation and protection of tobacco. This is also imposed by the fact that very few chemical active ingredients registered by the manufacturers of pesticides ( pesticides ) are allowed for hemp, but above all because the hemp plant would be able to withstand the challenges related to the pest attack much better than what tobacco can do. The level of pollution of the land and of the typically tobacco-growing areas is such that there seems to be a positive correlation between tobacco and the increase in the number of tumors in farmers and in the population living in the surrounding areas.
Already with these few reasons briefly described, one should immediately abandon the cultivation of tobacco to switch to smoking hemp, but in this country what is obvious and logical is extremely difficult to do. In the meantime, our Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies has organized a table to discuss hemp and this is a start, which had already been tried about 5 years earlier without any results, but this time we will be very careful to see if this beginning will be followed by a useful path, with significantly positive steps and attentive to the main problems that afflict hemp.
(Reference Canavsalus)
