For those hoping to make the gym a new habit, you might want to consider turning to cannabis if you haven’t already. 

Used by a wave of trainers and gym members, cannabis is reported to help benefit in an array of physical and mental fashions. I had seen positive personal returns from using it when I returned to the gym in 2017 and 2018. During that period, smoking pot pre-workout helped me reach modest fitness goals, like running my first sub-10 minute mile and feeling less fatigue and soreness after workouts. 

If pot helped a schlub like me, I wondered how many others, including high-performing individuals, were finding similar gains.

During the pandemic, I kept up with the pot-fitness combo. But after a while, I often became distracted by something during my at-home bike and resistance band routines. If it wasn’t what was on TV or Spotify throwing me off,

Whether it’s for orchids, berries, or bananas, plant tissue culture has been widely used in agriculture for nearly 40 years to produce uniform and disease-free stock. But when it comes to cannabis, this technology has only emerged within the last few years as scientists working with weed cracked the code of what the plant wants to reproduce successfully at a small scale. Joining in the fight against one of pot’s primary foes, hop latent viroid disease, cannabis tissue culture is a new path forward towards preserving the genetics of one of the most diverse botanicals on the planet. And, while cultivators have been able to get their hands on tissue culture-grown cuts for about eight years, tissue culture clones were made available to the public for the first time through Node Labs at the Emerald Cup Harvest Ball held in December 2022.

“Cannabis is a very tissue culture resistant plant.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear recently held a press briefing detailing many of his successful actions from the past year. Among these accomplishments for his administration, Beshear discussed his move to help patients who want to use medical cannabis. “After the General Assembly failed to take action once again, I issued an executive order to allow certain Kentuckians, like veterans suffering from PTSD and those suffering from chronic and terminal conditions like cancer, to access medical cannabis. That order takes effect soon, Jan. 1, 2023,” he said.

After concluding the briefing, Beshear took questions from the press. Al Cross, a professor at the University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Media who also writes for the Northern Kentucky Tribune, asked about the lack of convenience for those seeking to obtain medical cannabis.

“The executive order isn’t going to make it convenient for anyone on the medical marijuana front. What

Many will attest, alongside myriad additional studies, to the sedative, relaxing qualities of cannabis as a sleep aid. Now, a new study published in the Journal of Sleep Research adds additional insight surrounding the benefits of cannabis for treating insomnia, finding that the short-term use of plant-derived cannabis extracts is well-tolerated and effective for patients diagnosed with insomnia.

Insomnia involves difficulty falling or staying asleep and is relatively common, experienced by up to 30% of the general population. In their introduction, the authors point to the potential for cannabis to help alleviate sleep dysfunction along with the impact of individual cannabinoids on sleep. Specifically, they reference the sedative effect of THC and the potential of CBD as a sedative in higher doses.

The trial looked to assess the tolerability and effectiveness of medicinal cannabis oil on sleep in adults with insomnia. The study was conducted between May 2020 and May