Cultivar Charlotte’s Web was first introduced to the world from Denver, Colorado, via a television documentary. But what viewers couldn’t know is that the high CBD variety actually began many years prior on a farm in Southern Humboldt County, in Northern California.
When the U.S. Cable News Network (CNN) aired Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s documentary episode “Weed” in 2013, Charlotte’s Web seemed like a miracle plant. High in one of the cannabinoids, cannabidiol or CBD, and low in the psychoactive compound of tetrahydrocannabinol or THC, with little to no psychoactive properties, it was the seeming answer to ending the stupid stoner stigma.
What was difficult to wrap one’s head around was the fact that this was the same plant as the cannabis we’d known that tested high in THC. The differences within the some 400 compounds in the plant were minimal, albeit for the excess of CBD.
The cultivar Gupta introduced was named after then-four-year-old, Charlotte Figi, who suffered from Dravet Syndrome, with Figi enduring up to 300 grand mal seizures per week. The toddler benefited greatly from the oil derived from the cultivar, with her story told on national television via Gupta’s documentary, with much fanfare after its airing and international recognition for the Stanley brothers, who provided the plant.
As a sidenote, Charlotte Figi’s mother had found an article penned in 1949 stating that “marijuana” successfully treated epilepsy. When she heard that the Stanley brothers had a cannabis cultivar with little to no psychoactivity, she asked to make oil from the plant to treat her daughter.
Due to the legalities of the prohibition of cannabis, the story of the cultivar’s lineage was left untold. As Charlotte’s Web actually came from a combination of seeds and starts purchased from the Southern Humboldt Seed …
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Author: Sharon Letts / High Times
