Walk into any hemp retailer or scroll through any cannabis-focused wellness community right now, and one question seems to dominate the conversation: what does THCA do? It's a fair question, and the answer is more layered than most people expect. THCA — tetrahydrocannabinolic acid — is the naturally occurring precursor to THC found in...

For decades, cannabis consumers and even many researchers used the terms THCA and THC interchangeably, unaware that this single letter difference represented a fundamental distinction in cannabinoid chemistry. The confusion between these two compounds is understandable—after all, when you light up cannabis flower, you're experiencing THC's effects regardless of which compound started in the...