Cannabis produces phyto cannabinoids in a carboxylic acid form that are not orally active at least at the CB-1 receptor sites, because they don’t readily pass the blood brain barrier in their polar form.
To enable them to pass the blood brain barrier, they must first be decarboxylated
, to remove the COOH carboxyl group of atoms, which exits in the form of H20 and CO2.
Decarboxylation occurs naturally with time and temperature, as a function of drying, but we can shorten the amount of time required considerably, by adding more heat. The more heat, the faster it occurs, within reasonable ranges, and in fact occurs spontaneously when the material is burned or vaporized.
There is another mechanism at play however, which suggests that we need to control the decarboxylation temperatures carefully.
When we heat cannabis to convert the THCA and CBDA into THC and CBD, we are also converting THC to CBN at a faster rate. At about 70% decarboxylation, we actually start converting THC to CBN at a faster rate than we are converting THCA to THC, so as you can see by the following graph, after about 70% decarboxylation, the levels of THC actually start to fall sharply.
That of course means that the CBN also begins to rise and the medication is becoming more sedative.