Medical marijuana has received a fair amount of attention, good or bad, in the past few years. It seems to hold the promise of treating diseases whose cure has eluded the scientific community for decades. And any subject of therapeutic cannabis is not without mention of an essential component. See https://www.ulu.com/cbd-
Much has been written about cannabidiol (CBD) that may not be necessarily true, false, or somewhere in between. Here’s a short list of statements floating about the substance and assessing the validity of each one of them.
- CBD Is Derived from Marijuana
The CBD commonly used today is extracted from a CBD flower, hemp, a strain of Cannabis sativa. One of the other more popular strains is marijuana. While some recognize sativa as the only species under the genus Cannabis, certain classifications add Cannabis indica and Cannabis ruderalis into the mix or as subspecies of sativa.
As it is, the term hemp is widely used to describe varieties of cannabis that are grown for industrial and nondrug purposes and comply with federal or international narcotics conventions. Marijuana may have been cross-bred with the above cannabis species or subspecies, or made with dried leaves, flowers, or stems to produce an intoxicating drug.
- CBD Produces the High
Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is primarily responsible for the high that marijuana users experience. This mind-altering property can produce euphoria, hallucination, and delusion, among other psychological effects.
CBD extracted from hemp has a total THC of 0.3 percent dry weight. Moreover, CBD is not a psychoactive ingredient, so it does not intoxicate the user. Instead, cannabidiol offers medicinal properties and blocks the effects of THC.
- CBD Oil and CBD Are the Same
CBD is a cannabinoid that can constitute up to 40 percent of a hemp plant’s extract. You can ingest cannabidiol by inhaling cannabis smoke or spraying or dropping it into your cheek or mouth through CBD oil. This product is CBD extracted from hemp and diluted in oil. Another CBD-derived product is a tincture, which is made with alcohol as a base. You can check review sites like AllbestCBDoil as your guide for checking the best cbd products and top rated cbd oil cited by health experts.
- CBD Can Treat Epilepsy
Back in 2018, the Food and Drug Administration approved an oral solution that contained purified CBD to treat Dravet syndrome and Lennox-Gastaut syndrome (LGS). These two are rare and severe forms of epilepsy.
Dravet syndrome, according to the Epilepsy Foundation, is a rare genetic dysfunction of the brain with seizures that can occur within the first year of life. LGS is a severe type of epilepsy that manifests in various types of seizures that often don’t respond to medications.
- CBD Can Cure Cancer
Aside from treating specific types of epilepsy, CBD has been linked to treating chronic pain, anxiety, and insomnia. Evidence to back claims of CBD as a cure for cancer has yet to surface or be published in medical journals. The substance, however, may be used to ease or manage the symptoms of the disease or resulting treatment.
- CBD Has Side Effects
To date, no health problems relating to the usage of purified CBD have been reported. Indeed, CBD is currently sold as a supplement and not a therapeutic medicine except as federally approved. The chemical substance can have side effects, like raising the level of other medications in your blood the way grape juice does.
- CBD Is Legal
The 2018 Farm Bill, formally the Agricultural Improvement Act of 2018, has legalized the research and production of industrial hemp, subject to restrictions. Nonetheless, the legislation is a massive leap for CBD as a derivative of the plant. As of this writing, 11 states and the District of Columbia have legalized the use of weed for recreation, and 33 states and DC have allowed medical marijuana.
The literature on medical marijuana, CBD, and THC is expanding and evolving with ongoing clinical trials or studies proving or disproving what is known so far. For now, it’s safe to assume that CBD has medicinal powers that need further investigation and research.