One of the most insightful methods that scientists use to evaluate the ecological health of a geographical region involves honeybees, specifically the European honeybee (Apis mellifera).
The European honeybee, which lives on every continent except Antarctica, is a pollinator that serves as a continuous biomonitoring species for scientists. As bees collect pollen, they are exposed to contaminants that they take back to their colonies.
Scientists around the globe study the contamination levels of honeybee colonies, which is how we know that Slovenia is one of the cleanest countries on earth. Slovenia is world famous for its honeybee population, with an estimated five out of every 1,000 people (all ages) serving as a beekeeper, according to the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia.
The honey in Slovenia is unparalleled in quality because of how clean the bees’ ecosystem is in the Balkan nation. If you have never tried honey from Slovenia, trust me, you are missing out. Soon, Slovenia will also be world famous for something else that bees also have an important role in creating – cannabis.
The cannabis plant grows naturally in Slovenia, just as it does in most other parts of the world. Honeybees thrive in Slovenia and the same is true for the nation’s sustainably grown cannabis. Sustainable, organic, clean cultivation is on the rise, and Slovenia’s cannabis laws have been reformed to allow increased cannabis production. It will likely become a leading international source of quality, clean cannabis.
Slovenia also currently serves as a top international research hub. Inevitably, those two worlds are going to collide, which could eventually yield some of the best therapeutic cannabis products in the world.
I spoke with Petra Marinko, founder of cannabinoid food supplement and skincare company Nabie, about Slovenia’s emerging cannabis industry.
“We are happy to see trends are going in the right direction and the production of clean, nontoxic products is becoming more common. We are noticing high demand for products with clean inputs, with ingredients that do no harm, and are carefully chosen and analyzed. Slovenia is a small country, but we have all the necessary knowledge and know-how to provide top-quality cannabis products,” Marinko noted.
“Plants offer magical support to our bodies if we know how to use them, and we found a way to combine them to boost the effects. Our ancestors knew all that, and today we are taking their knowledge and upgrading it with science,” she said.
Marinko concluded, “Slovenia is one of the great examples of how we can all have more if we connect. Slovenia’s smallness might be a problem [when] finding us on the map, but I am sure that on the cannabis map, we are already in a leading position for providing quality, effective cannabis products. People’s awareness is rising and the demand for clean products is high.”
This article first appeared in Volume 5 Issue 1 of Cannabis & Tech Today. Read the full issue here.