What is CBD?

The medical marijuana industry is moving, and boy oh boy, is it moving fast. I was reading an article online recently about how the National Institute for Drug Abuse revised a page on its website to say that whole-plant cannabis extracts can slow the growth of “one of the most serious types of brain tumors.” Developments in medical marijuana research are not uncommon, but this is one of the first times that a national agency has admitted to some medical benefit to cannabis. It’s interesting to note that despite admitting to the effectiveness of cannabis as a medicine in this study, the Fed still considers cannabis a Schedule I drug, which is reserved for substances with a high potential for abuse, and substances with zero recognized medical benefit. While you do have the ability to buy CBD items like cbd edibles online, there are blogs and other online media, like this blog, that are trying their best to explain and educate any possible new and old users. For example, if you are interested in learning more about CBD Tinctures check you can look online and check out a guide to cbd tinctures to get more information on it. To make matters even more confounding, the United States of America, as represented by the Department of Health and Human Services is the assignee of Patent Number 6,630,507, which claims cannabinoids can be “useful in the treatment… of a wide variety of oxidation-related diseases, such as ischemic, age-related, inflammatory, and autoimmune diseases.”

One such cannabinoid, CBD, has gotten quite a bit of press as of late, thanks to its effectiveness in treating seizures, particularly in children. People from all over the globe seem to be raving about how effective CBD products are, and finding a positive cbdpure review could be enough to make you get on board with CBD products yourself. These days, anyone in the cannabis community touts the effectiveness of CBD for medical patients, but that’s typically where the conversation ends. In an effort to learn about the effects of CBD, and who it can potentially help, I sat down with Pamela Clum, who is the head researcher at the Hackett Foundation, which is the research arm of BotanaCare (a medical and recreational dispensary in Northglenn, Colorado). Pamela holds an M.S. in Botany from the University of Washington Seattle.

Max Eliot : What is CBD?

Pamela Clum : I would say that CBD, or Cannabidiol, is the cannabinoid that people are the second most familiar with, behind THC. And that’s probably because there’s been so much press around its effectiveness in treating seizure disorders. It’s a cannabinoid that does not have an affinity for the same receptors in the endocannabinoid system as THC does, and it’s not psychoactive.

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BotanaCare has now become B Good North. Come check out the brand new B Good North in Northglenn, Colorado. While the name may be different, the entire floor staff is still there to help you with your cannabis needs. If you’ve also become a fan of the products that BotanaCare grew, never fear, the same growers and the same products will still be available to all of the B Good North Customers and patients. If you’re new to the dispensary scene, and have been looking for a laid back yet classy location to purchase superior cannabis products, then you’ve found your spot.

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M : What are some of the major medical benefits of CBD?

P: As we have seen in the news, CBD has been proven to reduce seizures in a majority of patients. CBD is also very well known as an anti-inflammatory. So, that makes it effective for all kinds of diseases, particularly autoimmune diseases, which are accompanied with inflammation. CBD can be an effective treatment for Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Crohn’s Disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and lupus. CBD also has antianxiety benefits, helping people with anxiety disorders, as well as PTSD patients who have anxiety attacks. It’s antispasmodic. It reduces nausea. Although it doesn’t have any psychoactive or mental attributes, CBD can be an antidepressant. It is also showing tremendous promise in the treatment of cancer, specifically breast cancer, although clinical trials are a long way off.

M : So, where do all these findings come from?

P: A lot of published research [on CBD] has been done in Israel, because Israel has a nationally funded cannabis research program. The research that is done in the US on cannabis is done using mostly synthetic cannabinoids, but they don’t have the same bioactivity. The research we do at the Hackett Foundation is literature review. However, BotanaCare has a patient tracking system that is providing good information on dosing and cannabinoid blends.

M : If CBD has all of these great medical properties, why don’t we see it more, specifically in medical dispensaries?

P: The research on cannabinoids was cut off with the Marijuana Act of 1937. So, research into the various other cannabinoids became nonexistent in the US. Because the plant was illegal from 1937 on, it was mostly bred for its recreational, psychoactive attributes, and that pushed the metabolic pathways in the plants towards the formation of THC. You have strains now that have gotten stronger with THC, and have gotten continually lower in CBD. Now that CBD is considered the medical “crown jewel” of the cannabinoids, the breeding programs are going in the opposite direction. People are breeding plants now to express more Cannabidiol. Also, it might be the “crown jewel” of cannabinoids right now, but that’s because not a lot of research has been done on the other approximately eighty cannabinoids present in cannabis. There are organizations that are trying their best to discover, through Cannabinoid testing, the seemingly endless mysteries that cannabis has to offer in the realm of medicine. We are hoping to see an increase in research as we try our best to solve these secrets as there is still a lot we don’t know about cannabis and its different properties. There are a lot of other cannabinoids with medical potential on the horizon.

M : Are there any negative side effects to the consumption of CBD?

P: I would say Cannabidiol has “side benefits” rather than side effects. You go to treat one malady, and it helps many different things. For example, somebody may come in and want to treat their lupus, and their anxiety levels improve.

A lot of people ask, ‘Well, how can cannabis be effective on so many different conditions?’ Part of that is because the endocannabinoid system with which it interacts has receptors throughout your body. The result is very broad medicinal applications.

M : What are some CBD products that you would recommend?

P: BotanaCare sells CBD tinctures in different doses, with different ratios of CBD to THC. If you’re looking for pain relief, a 1:1 ratio might be good for you, but if you’re a very naive user, that may result in too much psychoactivity for you. We suggest 2:1 and 3:1 ratios for MS patients. With PTSD patients, we might go all the way up to a 6:1 ratio of CBD to THC. When you deal with seizure disorders, you may need anywhere from a 15:1 ratio, to a 20:1 ratio, and BotanaCare has those products available on the medical side.

M : Why include the THC at all in those tinctures, if CBD is what people are really after?

P: We have found that CBD doesn’t work as well alone. There is something called the Entourage Effect in the whole plant extract. The entourage not only consists of the cannabinoids, but also the terpenes, the Flavonoids, the antioxidants that are in the whole plant extract. THC along with CBD can potentiate the analgesic effects of each other. They utilize different receptors and enzymatic pathways, so there is the possibility of synergy. So the whole plant extractions have proven to be much more effective than isolated cannabinoids.

Thank you so much, Pamela, for this great introduction to Cannabidiol. Dear reader, if you’d like to learn more about BotanaCare’s medical marijuana program, as well as the Hackett Foundation, click here.