Keynote Presentation: A Healthy Respect for the Power Of Plants and the Remarkable Ways Cannabis Engages Us w/ Live Q&A

The Cannabis plant has revealed a complicated human endogenous system involving CB1 and CB2 receptors that are responsible for maintaining essential psychological and physiological balances to ensure health and wellness. Understanding the purpose of endocannabinoid receptors’ mechanism of action is essential to interpret 2025’s limited clinical evidence-based data assessing marijuana’s therapeutic uses.

Cannabinoid science has developed over the past half-century by focusing on agriculture and healthcare viewpoints that are based on how we engage a Cannabis plant for its bioactive chemicals. Perspective matters. Ongoing challenges with Cannabis’ research and education continue to frustrate doctors, patients, and legislators alike; in part because of how Cannabis itself has continued to evolve through selective breeding... thus impacting the many ways how a Cannabis plant engages us.

Botanists readily appreciate that plants are existentially “rooted” ... They can’t flee natural threats. To facilitate their reproduction and dispersal, plants including Cannabis must rely on their natural world’s light, air, and water... all interplaying with that natural world’s animals, insects, fungi, bacteria, and eukaryotic organisms. This talk will discuss not only how plants engage our five senses (i.e.: Cannabis’ smells and taste), but also how Marijuana’s bioactive chemicals impact an elusive “sixth sense” ... our mind’s consciousness.