How did cannabidiol (CBD), a non-intoxicating cannabis compound, emerge from near obscurity a dozen years ago to become the most popular health supplement on the planet? , what role did Project CBD play in making this happen?
When California legalized medical marijuana in 1996, only THC-based cannabis was available to patients. Very few people knew about CBD. Fascinated by the euphoric properties of cannabis, talented rebellious gardeners have inadvertently bred CBD-rich genetics from the supply chain to enhance the plant's famous “high.” It's gone.
This situation has been confirmed by a new analytical laboratory in Northern California that has identified several CBD-rich cannabis varieties (Harlequin, Jamaican Lion, Sour Tsunami, and Blue Jay Way). Things started to change around 2010 when it was identified. These were not hemp plants. They were a foul-smelling, high-resin marijuana variety rich in medicinal goop containing high amounts of both CBD and THC.
Project CBD was founded in 2010 to educate the medical cannabis community about the therapeutic potential of CBD. We created the first and longest running website dedicated to sharing CBD-related information. But what good is telling people about CBD if they don't have access to it? So we've planted CBD-rich genetics in the medical cannabis world. We began distributing our CBD-rich clones for free to cannabis growers and medical patients. And we encouraged new dispensaries to offer CBD-rich flower as an option for their patrons in addition to their regular THC-rich dishes.
game changer
It was essentially an unsupervised experiment, a grassroots laboratory experiment in democracy. We wanted to find out what happens when people consume CBD-rich cannabis. Are the effects of whole plant CBD similar to those we discussed at the International Cannabinoid Research Association meeting? At the Cannabinoid Research Association, cannabidiol emerged as a hot topic among scientists who were studying the compound's anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, anticonvulsant, and antitumor effects. Does it have neuroprotective or analgesic effects? The preclinical science was amazing. However, most of this research involved single-molecule CBD (tested in mice) rather than CBD-rich hemp flower, which was conducted in California.
We thought CBD could be the key to freeing cannabis from the drug abuse paradigm.
From the beginning, we felt that CBD could be a game-changer for the medical cannabis movement, which has since come under attack from the federal government and various state and local law enforcement agencies. I did. We thought CBD might be the key to freeing cannabis from the drug abuse paradigm. How can the thugs in the drug czar's office justify the continued prohibition of CBD-rich cannabis, which is not meant to get you high and is a benign medicinal herb with no known harmful side effects?
The re-emergence of whole plant CBD coincided with the emergence of potent cannabis oil extracts that can be taken orally or applied topically. These developments meant that you didn't have to smoke cannabis or get stoned to get its medical benefits. We expected that many people would want the health benefits of cannabis without getting high, or not as high, and with CBD, that's possible. It will be.
turning point
A decisive turning point occurred in the summer of 2013. That's when CNN aired Sanjay Gupta's medical marijuana special, featuring the now-famous case of Charlotte Figi, a young girl from Colorado who suffered from severe epilepsy. She was having hundreds of seizures a week, and FDA-approved medications didn't help. Her parents feared they were running out of options after hearing about a boy in California with similar symptoms who responded well to CBD-rich cannabis oil. Charlotte's mother found the high-CBD/low-THC product at a marijuana dispensary in Colorado. It worked like magic for my daughter, reducing her seizures to just a few a month.
Suddenly, the CBD genie came out of the bottle. Marijuana, once maligned as the “assassin of youth,” can now save the lives of seriously ill children. Additionally, when using this type of medical cannabis, neither children nor adults needed to be stoned to recover. The idea that you might be able to access the therapeutic benefits of cannabis without experiencing euphoria or discomfort proved appealing to millions of people around the world after a CNN special aired. It will be proven.
2013 was also the year that scientists at the U.S. National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, published a landmark report titled “Regulation of the Endocannabinoid System in Health and Disease.” The report by Pal Patcher and George Knos argues that “modulation of endocannabinoid activity may have therapeutic potential for nearly every disease affecting humans.” As explained on our website, CBD and THC exert various therapeutic effects by modulating the endocannabinoid system.
critical mass
From 2013 to 2018, people's enthusiasm for CBD reached a critical mass. This helped remove the stigma around cannabis and restore its reputation as an important medicinal plant. CBD highlighted a pro-cannabis cultural shift that has been gaining momentum in the United States and other regions for some time. As the medical cannabis movement evolved, so did Project CBD. When the Golden State legalized adult-use cannabis, we provided a detailed critique of California's proposed testing requirements for pesticides, heavy metals, and solvents in cannabis products. Some of our recommendations to modify these requirements have since been adopted.
CBD highlighted a pro-cannabis cultural shift that has been gaining momentum in the United States and other regions for some time.
We served as a non-profit educational resource center, sharing information with medical professionals, journalists, product manufacturers, and anyone interested in learning about new developments in cannabis science and treatments. We also communicated directly with scientists who were interested in what was happening on the ground in California and other states where patients were using CBD. Initially, we emphasized that THC was not the only game in the game, but we now realize that there is more to medical cannabis than just CBD, that the whole plant goes beyond the therapeutic properties of a single ingredient. I have felt that it is important to emphasize this.
Part of our efforts are devoted to debunking outlandish claims and misinformation from hemp startups and predatory entrepreneurs seeking to profit from the public's desire for alternative medicine. Ta. The early CBD market was full of poorly manufactured and mislabeled products, and our journalistic work gave some people a bad impression. In 2015, Project CBD was hit with a $100 million lawsuit for defaming the CBD business. A costly legal battle dragged on for several years, and Project CBD ultimately prevailed in court.
superstar supplements
2018 was a big year for CBD and for Project CBD. In June, the FDA approved CBD isolate (Epidiolex) as a pharmaceutical treatment for two types of childhood epilepsy. And in December, Congress passed the Farm Bill legalizing the cultivation of hemp (cannabis with less than 0.3 percent THC) in response to huge consumer demand for CBD. What began in obscurity within the medical cannabis community in Northern California quickly became the most popular health supplement on the planet.
However, the FDA steadfastly refused to regulate CBD commerce, raising safety concerns, especially regarding CBD's effects on the liver. Project CBD submitted testimony to the FDA addressing these concerns and recruited volunteers for a clinical trial conducted by ValidCare, which provides CBD with a clean bill of health regarding liver function. In 2018, Project CBD also released a special report on cannabinoid-drug interactions, warning that CBD can interact with most FDA-approved medications. The report argues that CBD patients should not refrain from taking other medications, but that doctors should monitor changes in blood levels of prescribed drugs and adjust dosages as necessary. .
The following year, Project CBD conducted a large-scale consumer survey to find out who was using CBD and why. This observational study included more than 3,500 respondents from 58 countries and examined the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of CBD on pain, mood, sleep, physical function, energy or motivation, and quality of life. We aimed to assess the effects of CBD on six measurements of . Socialize. Overall, CBD has been found to be effective in helping people with a variety of conditions feel better, with few side effects.
unregulated chaos
When word got out that Coca-Cola might be adding a CBD-infused drink to its diabetes-inducing beverage line, we didn't know whether to take a victory lap or cry. CBD (aka Coke $$ Al Big Dollar) has transformed into a huge and unregulated global market. However, overproduction of hemp biomass for CBD oil extraction has had dire consequences for U.S. farmers as the price of CBD isolate has collapsed. Obvious loopholes in the poorly written Farm Bill could be exploited by suppliers of Delta-8 consumables and other synthetically derived, addictive THC analogs. Initially touted for its healthful, non-psychoactive properties, cheap CBD isolate does not exist in nature and is a sketchy, psychoactive compound that is sold openly across the country with no particular regulatory oversight. It became the starting material for a “Pandora's Box'' of compounds that change the world. In states where marijuana is still illegal.
People benefit most from having access to a wide range of cannabinoid-based treatment options.
Staring into our crystal balls, we see biotech companies releasing large amounts of pure CBD isolate grown from yeast or another substrate that bypasses the need to extract CBD from hemp biomass. You can see it's ready. Hemp-derived CBD, which currently dominates the market, cannot compete with cheaper biosynthesized or lab-synthesized CBD. But traditional industrial hemp industry products (fibers, bast and husk, nutritional proteins) should thrive even in the era of single-molecule mania.
Project CBD clearly warns of the potential dangers of synthetically produced CBD, which can produce novel, unnatural, “chiral” forms of cannabidiol with unknown effects. We have always felt that regulatory policy should not favor single-molecule cannabinoids over artisanal whole-plant cannabis treatments. People benefit most from having access to a wide range of cannabinoid-based treatment options. Pharmaceutical CBD is no longer a controlled substance in the United States. Similar respect should be given to herbal CBD, which includes CBD-rich hemp, gifted by Mother Nature and cultivated by human hands, with varying THC:CBD ratios and exquisite terpene profiles. Contains.
This article was written by Martin A. Lee, Project CBD Director. He has written and edited several books, including Smoke Signals, Acid Dreams, and The Essential Guide to CBD. © Copyright, Project CBD. May not be reproduced without permission.
