BTW, Caffeine is also a naturally occurring insecticide, yet humans tend to repurpose and hack things.

Some argue that THC in cannabis actually works similarly because when herbivores regularly ingest it, they become lethargic and lazy, causing them struggle to survive in the world. Kinda like my roommate.

But cannabis the needs heat to convert, it’s more likely it evolved with Human influence considering the years of overlapping land races tied to our trade routes

But CBD does not need heat to convert.

I have a hypothesis that taking cannabis (and especially CBD) out of our food chain may be contributing to the increase¹ in prevalence of chronic pain.

¹ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12588185/?utm_sourc...

When was cannabis ever in the human food chain?

While not being cannabis, breast milk contains endocannabinoids.

Livestock used to eat cannabis back when it was a weed.

THC comes in a plant in the THCa form. CBD comes in CBDa form.

Both are not bioactive by default in their natural form.

All I'll say is go spend a day picking hops without gloves.

There are a large number of cannabinoids at play, some clearly (as in observably and demonstrably) are bioactive in their natural, unheated form.

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None of which is said to endorse the other theory. Just to point out that claiming heat is required is incorrect.

The farm bill makes 'hemp' anything with below 0.3% THC legal. For this reason, we have a LOT of testing on the THC content of cannabis, since it is required to sell and manufacture. As it turns out, naturally cannabis quite commonly has >0.3% THC even before heating or activation of THCa.

Any human-like animal with our receptors eating a large amount would get high as fuck, cooked or not. A ruminant eating pounds of the stuff raw, would not be that different from a human consuming an ounce of baked pot.

This was killed in the recent budget bill: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/13/congress-thc-hemp-ban.html

Both degrade into actives over time or exposure to air/sun/warmth, and then into CBN, which is itself active.

THCa in cannabis plants is unstable. It will slowly convert to THC as it dries even at room temperature.

I thought it wasn’t generally psychoactive until heated?

your last sentence reminds me of my dorm roommate in college. very standard stoner who was constantly blazing and years later i've never known a lazier dude.

Ibotenic acid, muscarine, psilocybin, amanitin, muscimol, THC, caffeine - these all natural pesticides target bugs primarily. Which are the biggest threat. Sort of funny how it also affects people though

It's a phytochemical that degrades readily in sunlight, it's likely both a UV protectant and aversive.

That's, like, your opinion, man

All spices basically too afaik.

Chilis, tobacco and tomatoes are all in the same family (nightshades). And they are all "New World" plants. Which means Europe had to live without them until 1600 or so. If you can call that living.

And coffee didn't make the jump until around the same time, either. No wonder Europeans wanted to be anywhere on the planet except Europe.

Coffee in Europe predates 1492 I think.

Coffee was around in Ethiopia and Yemen before that, but it didn't really spread in the Muslim world before 1500, and didn't spread from there to Europe until even later.

Don't forget the potato! Europe before the potato seems like a miserable place

yeah before potato they had lots of lots of turnips and rutabagas, it is little wonder they went out exploring the world looking for anything better to eat. the new world gave tonnes of food not just nightshade family plant mentioned earlier (gp left out eggplant btw) corn, sweet potato, chocolate, sunflowers, and pumpkins, squash, peanuts, pineapple, cranberry and turkey.

Eggplant is actually an old-world nightshade! Arabs brought it to Spain as early as the 8th century, probably from Southeast Asia

I've often had the mental image of Galileo trying to order a pizza and being very disappointed at the garlic bread that turned up.

Imagine Indian food without chilies… it’d be as dull as Russian food.

There are some flowers which produce tiny amounts of caffeine in their nectar, apparently to give the pollinators a buzz.

Love me some Capsaicin, even though I’m not supposed too (I guess)

It's even weirder than that. It turns out that at very low concentrations caffeine seems to have similar effects on insect neurology as it does on ours. There are some plant species whose flowers produce caffeinated nectar. Bees seem to like these flowers preferentially, and have an easier time remembering where they are. (Yes, bees get buzzed.)

Capsaicin as well

And birds are immune to it

The brain is a fiber network like the mycelium, likely the same genes (animals are related to mushrooms) and neurotransmitters are involved in its function.

> animals are related to mushrooms

???

Apparently in very early evolution animals and fungi shared a common ancestor. That's a pretty far cry from "related to" as its generally used.

Slightly related as mushrooms are closer to animal than to plants, as anyone in a grocery store would guess.

> anyone in a grocery store would guess.

Actually, I'd challenge that particular point.

Mushrooms seem to be found in the fresh fruit and vegetables area, rather than in the deli (meat and cheese), so that would probably point more towards them being considered "vegetables". Or fruit. ;)

Yep, however one wishes to classify them botanically, mushrooms are a vegetable in culinary usage (similar to tomatoes in that way).

I agree. Sorry, bad English. "as" -> "in oposite of" (or something like that).

It’s “alive” therefore it must have an early common ancestor and thus related… people like stretching definitions.

At some point when aliens are confirmed and if they were carbon based you might have people say earth species and alien species are “related”.

No.

It's not that suspicious- many molecules in nature are made from the same few precursors like cholesterol, amino acids, etc. and on top of that there's pressure for plants/fungi to evolve molecules similar to ones animals use in order to affect them.

>so we farm incredible quantities of tobacco to extract its poisons.

Evolutionarily the best survival strategy.