FDA, bureaucracy and the pharmaceutical industry are major obstacles to the development of more products derived from the CBD
Popularity of CBD, As the number of states in the USA that legalize both recreational and medical marijuana increases, interest in the CBD is reaching unexpected limits among users and scientists.
The phenomenon is happening everywhere: in beverages, pet food, cosmetic industry and more. Why?
As Dr. Jeff Chen, director of the Cannabis Research Initiative at UCLA, says, it is a cannabinoid named Cannabidiol. There are still people who get confused with the terminology. Cannabidiol is a cannabinoid. But not all cannabinoids are cannabidiol.
What can be CBD used for?
So far, there is only one FDA approved use for CBD. And it was approved just six months ago. Today it is being used to treat a very specific type of epilepsy. They are rare types of epilepsy that affect some children. In other countries, the use of CBD combined with THC (the psychoactive cannabinoid in cannabis) has been approved through a drug named Sativex, used to treat pain and muscle spasms related to multiple sclerosis.
Can CBD be sold in states where marijuana is illegal?
What they cannot do is extracting CBD from marijuana because it is illegal. What can be done? They extract CBD from hemp. Marijuana and hemp are the same species of plant. The terms depend on the amount of THC contained in the plant. If the plant has much THC we consider it marijuana. If the plant has less than 0.3% of THC is legally considered hemp. Of course, having so low amount of THC, the plant is not psychoactive at all. This is how the federal government defines hemp.
Since the new laws in the U.S. classify hemp as an agricultural product, it is not a controlled substance. Therefore, the industry is extracting CBD from hemp in order to remain inside the law.
What can you expect after using CBD?
Above all, don’t expect feeling psychoactivity. The top three indications for CBD are: pain, insomnia, and anxiety. Unfortunately, few studies have been done with humans. But the scientific community expects much more from this extraordinary cannabinoid and we hope that many more applications will be discovered soon.
Potential risks after taking CBD
The profile of CBD is very safe.
There is only a concern about the use of CBD. Can it interact with other drugs that a potential patient is taking? In fact it interacts with the liver enzymes, which could be an increase in the effects of the other medicines the patient is taking. This is the case of benzodiazepines, antidepressants and others. On the other hand, there are still insufficient clinical studies of the impact of CBD in pregnant women. And it has not been used for long enough to draw conclusive conclusions among the population. Therefore, it is important to be patient and cautious.
Regulation of CBD in the US
Unfortunately, there are too many conflicts between state and federal agencies and even it occurs between federal agencies too, which is producing a big problem around CBD.
After the 2018 farm bill passed, hemp and all its derived products were removed from the Controlled Substances Act. The very same day president Trump signed the farm bill, the FDA said that hemp-derived CBD was not a narcotic; it is a pharmaceutical drug.
One pharmaceutical company had been pushing forward all the research and got the CBD approved by FDA. Therefore, the only way to sell legal products with CBD is through the FDA and your product has been approved by FDA. In other words, all the dietary supplement and herbal sales of CBD are illegal in the point of view of FDA.
