Although smoking is well-known for a wide range of health risks, smokers just can’t seem to walk away and avoid buying another pack.
Nicotine, the psychoactive chemical found in tobacco, is known for being highly addictive, causing a chemical dependency and creating a physical and mental “need” to light up another cigarette.
With a need to step away from cigarettes, many have found hemp to be the key to success.
How does hemp help?
These are the top 7 reasons hemp will help you kick your nicotine habits to help you become smoke-free.
Curbing Nicotine Addiction by Smoking Hemp
When looking at the addiction of smoking, you must separate the want into 3 main focuses of addiction: the chemical dependency, physical actions, and social triggers.
The chemical dependency in this case is nicotine, and the release of dopamine within the brain. While the body naturally releases dopamine, nicotine increases this release.
The physical addiction of smoking is often referred to as the “hand to mouth” effect, i.e. oral fixation, but extends to the physical action of packing cigarettes, lighting up, and breathing in the smoke. This addiction is often what leads to snacking or overeating when attempting to quit.
Social addiction is the emotional idea that you’ve surrounded yourself by people who also smoke, such as through habits such as smoke breaks. Typically these people’s addictions feed off of each other, and make it harder to quit.
The best methods to quit smoking revolve around relieving one or two of these addictive traits, while allowing you to push through the third.
Relieve Physical Addictions
As you chose to fight the chemical addiction of smoking and pull away from nicotine, hemp cigarettes will allow you to pack, light, and smoke so you can still enjoy the routine and experience of smoking.
While using food as a form of “hand to mouth” relief is often used, this can create forms of unhealthy eating habits resulting in high sugar or sodium intake due to nuts or candies being popular options.
With smoking hemp, when you feel the need for a cigarette, you can have one.
Relieving Social Addiction
All your friends have gathered around for your normal smoke break, and although you’re quitting, you’ll still be able to light up and avoid feeling pressured or left out.
While your cigarettes may smell a bit different, or taste a bit different, you’ll still be able to keep the social aspect of your habit.
Slowly Pull From Nicotine
Just because you’ve decided to quit, doesn’t mean you need to stop all nicotine use in one day or quit cold turkey. Your body can send itself into feelings of withdrawal which could lead to cold chills, headaches, depression, and much more that may eventually push you back into addiction.
Using other forms of nicotine such as nicotine patches will allow you to slowly reduce your amount of daily nicotine over time, while still satisfying the smoking cravings with hemp cigarettes. This allows you to fight these mental and physical challenges, while having some relief chemical-wise.
Smell Better
It’s no secret that cigarettes don’t smell great and are known to stick to your clothes, skin, and all surrounding materials.
Hemp is often referred to as having an earthy sweet aroma, which your family and coworkers will likely prefer over a cigarette stench.
Revive Your Taste Buds
Prolonged smoking is known to damage your taste buds as the poor-tasting smoke rolls over your tongue and nose. Hemp smoke is not only less harsh, but also more flavorful. This will often result in gaining your sense of taste back.
Revive Your Smell
Similar to the effects harsh tobacco smoke has on your taste buds, the smoke also deteriorates your sense and ability to properly smell. Hot smoke itself passing over your nasal receptors are enough to cause damage, and the effects of carbon monoxide and other chemicals worsen the issues.
Stepping away from tobacco and using less severe hemp products will allow your nasal receptors to relax, helping you to get your sense of smell back.
CBD Benefits
Many hemp-based smoking products remain packed with CBD so smokers can benefit from a different compound to ease their mood. CBD is known for soothing and relaxing your body, while studies define a wide range of other uses such as easing tension and discomfort in the body.
Why Does Hemp Help?
Nicotine: The Basics
The first time many smokers light their first cigarette, they simply don’t feel good — nausea, headaches, dizziness, a burning tickle in the throat, pounding heart, and more.
Over time of continuous use however, your body becomes accustomed to these feelings. Nicotine, like many addictive substances, releases dopamine within the brain. Dopamine is often associated with pleasure or happiness, and your body quite enjoys this release.
By itself, nicotine isn’t the worst substance you consume, but within the tobacco and additives accompanying the nicotine are a release of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, tar, and much more, directly released into your mouth, throat, and lungs.
Your addiction to nicotine keeps you coming back, even when the risks are well-known and your body feels terrible from it, even if you perceive it to feel “good” as you smoke.
Hemp: The Basics
Hemp is a plant that has been confusingly misperceived by the general public for the last 10 years, and only recently has begun filling the store shelves with products from lotions, clothing, and much more.
You seem to see hemp used in nearly every corner of our modern lives, from the personal care aisle to the baking aisle — why has hemp become so mainstream?
Hemp is a form of cannabis known as cannabis sativa, which was once grown all across the world.
While marijuana can also be a form of cannabis sativa, the use of the term hemp refers to a plant grown strictly for its industrial and health benefits, with a much lower THC level. While marijuana has THC ranges around 8-35%, hemp by law must contain less than 0.3% THC with the passing of the 2018 Farm Bill, which legalized hemp.
Over the years, every piece of the hemp plant has been used. The stems and leaves are a great fibrous material that can be used for fabrics and building materials. The seeds are extracted for their oils, which are high in healthy fats and packed with health benefits. The seeds can also be used as food for humans and animals alike.
The flowers or buds can be extracted for their oils which could, in some plants, be packed with CBD and other nutrients. The remaining flowers and leaves can then be ground up and even used as animal bedding.
Even the roots are beneficial, first to the soil in which they are planted and then used as a great compost source.
What’s the Difference Between Weed and Hemp?
While hemp and marijuana come from nearly the same plant, selective breeding over the years has created very distinct differences.
Yep, they breed cannabis.
There are both male and female plants, which can be selected and bred together to get an ideal outcome. While growers have a goal in mind, they are still growing plants which often have a range of outcomes.
Cannabis, which has been grown for its psychoactive effects found in THC is often considered marijuana.
When cannabis is focused on the purpose of growth for other uses like CBD or for multi-functional hemp fibers, with major limitations on THC levels, it is considered hemp.
While hemp doesn’t necessarily need high CBD, in many cases the CBD is extracted or intentionally bred into hemp due to its health benefits.
The near absence of THC in hemp is specifically what sets marijuana and hemp apart.
Final Tips and Where To Get Your Own Hemp Smokes
While nicotine remains an addictive substance, the best approach to quit smoking is to withdraw from your nicotine addiction while relieving your cravings within the physical and social parts of addiction.
Events such as irritability and discomfort are extremely popular with nicotine withdrawals, meaning your choice to quit may affect other people. It may be to your benefit to explain to loved ones, work colleagues, and especially your boss that you may be a bit short tempered. These effects typically last around two weeks.
Using a great CBD hemp smoke such as Oklahoma Smokes ensures you’re working with an honest company who has done the research and testing to bring you an amazing product at a reasonable cost. They’re our choice for smoking hemp to help with nicotine because they get what it takes to quit, and we’re sure you’ll have your own piece of Oklahoma in your life, too, after you give them a try.
