Can CBD Really Do All That?

Now that cannabis is legal in Canada and many US states, there's increased interest in its theraputic properties. It's been used as a medicine for many years, but now there's both commercial and scientific research going on into what it does and what chemicals in the plant are effective.

So far it seems that the most medically useful component of cannabis is cannabidiol, or CBD. It's not psychoactive, unlike THC, so it doesn't get a person high, but it may have many uses.

The New York Times has published a long article about CBD, its history, its uses, and its likely future. Its the best article I've seen on the subject so far, completely free from hype or fear mongering.

Seven years later, cannabidiol is everywhere. We are bombarded by a dizzying variety of CBD-infused products: beers, gummies, chocolates and marshmallows; lotions to rub on aching joints; oils to swallow; vaginal suppositories for “soothing,” in one company’s words, “the area that needs it most.” CVS and Walgreens each recently announced plans to sell CBD products in certain states. Jason David now sells a cannabis extract called Jayden’s Juice, named for his son — one of several extracts on the market, including Haleigh’s Hope and Charlotte’s Web, that are named after children who are said to have benefited from being treated with CBD.

Many of these products are vague about what exactly CBD can do. (The F.D.A. prohibits unproven health claims.) Yet promises abound on the internet, where numerous articles and testimonials suggest that CBD can effectively treat not just epilepsy but also anxiety, pain, sleeplessness, Crohn’s disease, arthritis and even anger. A confluence of factors has led to this strange moment. Plenty of legitimate, if still inconclusive, research is being done on CBD. Many scientists are truly excited about it. The laws governing cannabis and its chemical components have loosened up. And the anecdotes that have emerged from what Elizabeth Thiele, an epileptologist at Harvard, calls the “vernacular” cannabis movement have lent emotional force to the claims made for CBD.