Does CBD Oil Really Work?

edible gummies. Some baristas are using it as an ingredient in latte's, and hip bars are mixing it with alcohol to serve up cb D cocktails. There's even CBD toast and CBD facial masks and spas. But there's more to CBD than hipster hype. P d X, a drug containing CBD, was recently approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for treatment of seizures related to too rare forms of epilepsy, and a growing number of studies suggests that it may

be useful in treating other disorders as well. And remarkably, that's all happening even though cb D remains technically illegal at the FED oral level, with the exception of the epilepsy medication mentioned above. However, that prohibition, at least for now, is not being aggressively enforced, and at the state level, CBDs legality varies. But underneath all of the hype, what is CBD oil anyway? Cannaby e all or cb D is a chemical compound that can be extracted from the

cannabis plant. Unlike delta nine tetrahydrocannabinal or th HC, which is the chemical ingredient that may lead a pot smoker to get the giggles or play in terminable air guitar solos, CBD does not get a user stoned. Th HC and cb D have vastly different effects, according to cannabis researcher Joshua Kaplan, an assistant professor in the Behavioral Neuroscience program

at Western Washington University. Unlike t HC, which gets its effect from acting upon certain cannabinoid receptors in the nervous system, cb D has sixty five known targets in the brain and body. Kaplan says, for example, CBD activates the same serotonin receptors that are acted upon by selective so tonein reuptake inhibitors, or s sr eyes, which are a frequently prescribed class of antidepressant medications. The CBD does not interact with those receptors in exactly the same way, but the

serotonin system does seem key in treating anxiety. CBDs effect on multiple systems in the brain and body make it a potentially useful treatment for a wide range of different conditions, from inflammation and migraines to spasms caused by multiple sclerosis. Kaplan says, but that doesn't necessarily mean that CBD is a panacea. While there have been large, well designed studies on CBD as a treatment for different types of epilepsy, much of the information about other possible uses comes from

anecdotal reports, case reports, case series, and small studies. That's according to Timothy Welty, a professor of pharmacy practice and chairman of the Department of Clinical Sciences at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. While sources like those small reports and studies can provide interesting information, they're also prone to placebo effects. Well to explained via email, he said, they

are often not reproducible. The situations that are described are usually not well controlled to demonstrate the effect of CBD and eliminate potential confounding factors. For this reason, they are not considered as strong evidence for the efficiency of a drug. Additionally, the limited scale of that CBD research makes it difficult to detect side effects, drug interactions, and other potential problems

because there are too few patients involved. Wealthy says, but many people out there aren't content to wait for more scientific studies or f D approval of medications containing CBD. Instead, they're experimenting with CBD on their own to see if

it works for whatever ails them. But CBD may not work for everything that people want to use it for, though some are using it as an insomnia remedy, for example, there's little evidence that CBD helps people whose sleeplessness isn't caused by an impairing symptoms such as anxiety or chronic pain, Caplan says, and unscientific self experimentation is also a concern to researchers such as Kaplan, who explains that different conditions might call for very different dosages of CBD. He said

that the dose range can be quite narrow. For example, in a Brazilian study published in eighteen on CBDs effect in relieving anxiety associated with public speaking. Researchers gave different doses of CBD to fifty seven male subjects. They found that the dose of three hundred milligrams significantly reduced anxiety for subjects, but those who took a hundred and fifty

milligrams or six hundred milligrams showed no significant difference. Furthermore, dosing can be tricky because CBD products of the sort sold in health food stores or online are not regulated by the f d A. A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that nearly sevent of CBD products from those sources either had lower or higher doses than the labels indicated. And for something that's so widely available in stores and on the internet, CBDs

legal status is murky. Even though it doesn't get anyone stoned. The US Drug Enforcement Administration that's the d e A, classifies it as a Schedule one controlled inbstance, just like cannabis. According to d e A spokesperson Katherine Faff, the agency doesn't distinguish between c b D extracted from a high th HC cannabis plant of the sort grown to produce marijuana, and cb D that comes from hemp, a form of cannabis that contains only a tiny amount of th HC.

The CBD that's available in health food stores is of

the hemp variety. In April, the d e a's position on cb D that it should be a Schedule one substance because it is extracted from cannabis was upheld by a federal appeals court, but the judges also noted that farm legislation passed by Congress in two which allows states to experiment with hemp production, could give CBD marketers a legal out, providing they can verify that CBD was produced from hemp grown in states that have legal hemp programs, and in September, the d e A did announce that

exception for a p d Alex, the FDA approved seizure medication containing cb D, which it classified as Schedule five, the category four medications with a low Potential or abuse. FAFT says that the d e A would do the same thing for other CBD drugs that come up through the FDA pipeline that didn't change CBDs overall classification, though, although CBD technically remains a controlled substance, the d e A is not going out of its way to enforce

that prohibition, and it's not targeting CBD users. Fath explained, quote, We're more focused on major drug traffickers and the opioid crisis. That leaves CBD up to individual states whose laws vary.

According to Justin Struggle, political director and federal lobbyist for the National Organization for the Reformation of Marijuana Laws, CBD is definitely in the clear in the nine states plus the District of Columbia that have legalized cannabis used for adults, and in the thirty one states that have legalized medical cannabis, CBD is legal if a person has an authorization form

from a physician. To other states, Indiana and Kansas have passed laws legalizing CBD from hemp, even though they don't allow medical or recreational use of cannabis. Streuckle says there have been very few instances of consumers actually facing criminal charges for purchasing CBD derived from hemp. And meanwhile, the right Field Group, a market research firm, predicts that CBD will be a twenty two billion dollar industry by the year two. Today's episode was written by Patrick J. Kaiger

and produced by Tyler Clang. For more on this and lots of other topics, visit our home planet, how stuff Works dot com.