What Is the Difference Between Hemp Oil and CBD Oil?

The short answer explaining the difference between hemp oil and CBD oil, based on contemporary use of the English language is that hemp oil is an industrial product that comes from fields of cannabis stalks, the harvesting of the stalks, not the flower, and CBD oil comes from harvesting the flowers.

To make hemp oil, one either processes the stalks for industrial use (paper, fuel) or grows seeds for food or seed oil. To make CBD, one is processing the flower of the plant.

The whole subject is confusing because we have government definitions and science definitions and there are many ways to make CBD oil. The cannabis plant is not for simple folk. She is quite complex, in fact.

What Is the Difference Between Hemp Oil and CBD Oil?

Begin with understanding that CBD oil comes in two forms:

a. infused oils — vegetable glycerin, coconut oil, olive oil – most common base for CBD plant infusion
b. pure plant oil — the flower of the plant is processed into an oil and all the medicine is from the plant. One large plant can make just a few grams of oil, because it’s pure oil, whatever oil came from just the plant.

If you go to Wikipedia and ask for the definition of hemp oil, they will explain hemp seed oil. To my knowledge, hemp seed oil has very little CBD and is not an efficient way to get to the medicine. But it is not surprising that the only information we have is information about the only part of the plant that has been legal this past century. It is hemp seed oil that people could talk about and work with, without risk of going to jail.

What Wiki-leaks has to say (in italics):

hemp oil (hemp seed oil) is oil obtained by pressing hemp seeds. Cold pressed, unrefined hemp oil is dark to clear light green in color, with a nutty flavor. The darker the color, the grassier the flavour. It should not be confused with hash oil, a tetrahydrocannabinol-containing oil made from the Cannabis flower.

Refined hemp seed oil is clear and colorless, with little flavor. It is primarily used in body care products. Industrial hemp seed oil is used in lubricants, paints, inks, fuel, and plastics. Hemp seed oil is used in the production of soaps, shampoos and detergents. The oil has a 3:1 ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 essential fatty acids. It may also be used as a feedstock for the large-scale production of biodiesel.

Hemp seed oil is manufactured from varieties of Cannabis sativa that do not contain significant amounts of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the principal psychoactive element present in the cannabis plant. This manufacturing process typically includes cleaning the seed to 99.99% before pressing the oil. There is no THC within the hemp seed, although trace amounts of THC may be found in hemp seed oil when plant matter adheres to the seed surface during manufacturing. Click here to read more from Wikipedia.

Even though the sisters get all our CBD from the hemp plant, we do not use industrial hemp. We do not use seeds or stalks. We use the flowers. It is not industrial hemp, but it is considered to be medical hemp. Medical hemp is really just that old fashioned weed that got everyone high, except it has been bred to be low in THC and high in the non-psychoactive healing compounds.

It’s confusing because before recent prohibitions ended, the discussion was about two things: cannabis (medicinal and psychoactive) and hemp (industrial and non-psychoactive). The identification and isolation and breeding of high-CBD plants brought a new category: non-industrial hemp. Our cannabis plants only qualify as hemp because they produce flowers that are less than .3% THC. That is a government definition, not a scientific definition.

What Is the Difference Between Hemp and Cannabis?

Before asking the difference between hemp oil and CBD oil, one should ask, what’s the difference between hemp and cannabis? (never use the term ‘marijuana’, it’s racist)

According to dictionary.com, hemp is:

Also called Indian hemp, marijuana. a tall, coarse plant, Cannabis sativa, that is native to Asia but naturalized or cultivated in many parts of the world and is the source of a valuable fiber as well as drugs such as marijuana and hashish. To see the full definition cited, click here.

And the definition of cannabis is:

the hemp plant, Cannabis sativa; the flowering tops of the plant; any of the various parts of the plant from which hashish, marijuana, bhang, and similar mildly euphorigenic and hallucinogenic drugs are prepared. For the source of this definition, click here.

So the first definition of hemp is ‘cannabis sativa’ and the first definition of cannabis is ‘hemp, cannabis sativa’ so it’s like saying a stick is wood and wood is a stick and there you have it, hemp is cannabis and cannabis is hemp. There is no difference. They are two words for the same plant. One word is from the Old English ‘haenep’ and the other is from ancient Greek — cannabis. They both reference the same plant.

Modern science, government and the patriarchy conspired to confuse the whole thing, but in the end, it is one marvelous plant with many marvelous possibilities for contributing to the healing of the people and the planet… for fuels that are not fossil fuels… for medicines that are not harmful to the liver… for food and nourishment that doesn’t require killing animals.

The plant can be grown for seeds, for stalks, for roots, for flowers, for leaves, as they all give different gifts. Hemp = cannabis and cannabis = hemp and what you do with those plants, how you grow them, how you breed them, how you process them, makes the difference in getting fuel, food, or medicine.