- by Dean Pagliaro
CBD isn’t a fix-all and usage should probably be discussed with your doctor first. Formal research and scientific findings on this stuff is pretty limited at the moment, so most of the knowledge we have about effects comes from real-life users. But FDA approval of CBD for seizures and epilepsy could certainly pave the way for more widespread use.
The World Health Organization has said that there’s no evidence of public health-related problems correlated with the use of pure CBD. You could feel fatigued or irritable, but that’s the extent of the bad parts.
But we can’t take that statement and run with it just yet. In the spring of 2018, the Natural Products Expo estimated that the CBD industry doubled in size in the last two years, which is super fast for a product that so many people are clueless about — let alone the fact that it’s associated with marijuana and drags along negative connotations.
It’s awesome that so many people have seemingly found the relief they’ve been looking for, but it needs to be met with caution. Clinical trials are having a hard time keeping up with the demand, and people should chill with their dosages and talk to their doctors if symptoms become too intense.
This isn’t bad news, though, and the trials that have already happened have found that the seemingly too-good-to-be-true compound might be for real, as long as it’s not a mix of THC and CBD disguised as pure CBD. Everyone will obviously react differently, and we’re not trying to play doctor here — we’re just telling you what we’ve heard.
NYU’s Dr. Esther Blessing is a psychiatrist and researcher in the midst of testing numerous possible benefits of CBD — like combatting PTSD and substance abuse — and who has received funding for her studies from the National Institutes of Health, a good sign for anyone who’s been on the fence. NPR talked with her in 2018 about CBD:
“It may seem counterintuitive that a component of marijuana could be useful in treating addiction to another drug. But Blessing says using CBD is very different from using marijuana. Though CBD is extracted from cannabis, it does not lead to altered perception and cognition.
‘Drugs can be non-psychoactive and still have an effect on the brain,’ Blessing says. ‘CBD does have an effect on the brain, but it seems to affect the brain in possibly medicinal ways.'”
Final results from all of Blessing’s studies as well as others likely won’t reach the public for a few more years. So until then, we’ll have to keep scanning Reddit and listening to our friends on their CBD-scented soapboxes.
