CBD vs THC: The Difference Explained

Aaron Cadena
CBD Origin
Published in
4 min readSep 30, 2018

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With a rising demand for natural medicines, cannabis compounds, like CBD and THC, are becoming increasingly popular due to their wide range of health benefits. While the close relationship between the two compounds may lead some to assume that both have the same impact on the body, a comparison between the molecular structure of CBD vs THC reveals the exact opposite.

The Difference Between CBD and THC

If you didn’t already know — CBD and THC have the exact same chemical makeup: 21 carbon atoms, 30 hydrogen atoms, and 2 oxygen atoms.

The two are nearly identical twins.

What differentiates the two compounds, however, is the arrangement of a single atom, which you can observe in the illustration below.

For any of you who weren’t paying attention in chemistry class — an atom is about a million times smaller than a human hair…so we’re talking about a microscopic difference here.

Now you’re probably wondering, with such a microscopic difference, how different can CBD and THC be?

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Aaron Cadena
CBD Origin

CBD enthusiast, passionate writer, and Editor in Chief at CBDOrigin.com―the CBD community’s leading digital publication and online knowledge base.