What is CBD?
We see and hear about CBD everywhere as CBD brands are storming into the market. There’s CBD water, edibles, smokeables, creams and oils. CBD is everywhere and we are here to help you understand what the fuck is CBD.
What is CBD?
CBD – Cannabidiol is one of the active cannabinoids in the cannabis plant.
Everybody knows what cannabis is right?
If not I will say in short, cannabis is a plant, commonly used by people for medicinal and psychoactive reasons. We mostly associate cannabis on the recreational form, rich with THC (the most famous cannabinoids for his ability to get us high, and talking shit).
CBD – Cannabidiol in one of the unique compounds that exists in Cannabis (cannabinoids). CBD consumption is responsible to multiple health and wellness benefits in human and animals.
While THC interacts and affect CB1 & CB2 receptors, causing high and euphoria. CBD on the other hand doesn’t. Here lies one of the major differences between the effects of CBD and THC. Due to the fact that CBD has almost no effect on the mentioned receptors, it has no psychoactive effects.
Why should I use CBD?
CBD is gaining more and more momentum as a medicinal and wellness product. CBD opens a new option to consume cannabis and enjoy the health benefits that comes with it, without being high. It shows a lot of promise since it can be consumed in so many ways – from water to edibles and oils, doesn’t cause high or any psychoactive effect, and overall is very safe to use.
The main reason for anyone considering to use CBD is to promote health and enjoy its long list of potential benefits.
What are the benefits of using CBD?
Cannabis is known for many health and mental benefits. The use of medical marijuana is rapidly spreading in the US and all over the world.
CBD is known for promoting overall health and wellness in humans, as well as being responsible for several health benefits:
- Help sleep
- Reduce anxiety
- Anti depression
- Help fighting against cancer
- Anti inflammatory
- Support heart health
- Support and improve skin health
- Help treating schizophrenia
- Diabetes prevention
Research is still required to better understand all the benefits that comes from CBD, as research in human was minimal until today.
Is CBD legal?
It might seem like a trivial question that requires a definite answer, however that’s not the case with CBD. I will honestly say it’s almost impossible to answer it by providing a yes or no.
Why? Because there’s lack of definite answer on the legal level as well as many contradicting legislations.
According to most brands online, CBD is legal in all 50 states. However, that’s not 100% right.
CBD is not officially illegal on the federal level, however, from that point reaching a conclusion that CBD is legal is quite a reach.
The biggest claim on the brands side is that CBD has no psychoactive effects, and respectively it doesn’t fall as an illegal substance according to the law.
Especially on the state level where laws are blurry, there’re many contradicting laws and regulations, however those do not specifically legalize CBD as a substance. To follow which states legalize the use of CBD I recommend you to review the following list detailing the states in which CBD is officially legalized and under what terms
Will CBD make you high?
Nope. You are not supposed to get high from using CBD. Why? Because CBD is not interacting with the CB1 & CB2 receptors. The primary psychoactive ingredient in cannabis is tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).
Respectively, CBD will not get you high unless there’s traces of THC in it. In most cases there will be around 0.2%-0.3% of CBD in the products (for the CBD to be legal for growing and extraction see cbd legal section above), however this amount shouldn’t make you high.
In other words, if you get high from CBD consumptions, the product contains more THC than listed (unfortunately that happens due to poor labeling by brands and low quality of products).
Is CBD safe?
Overall CBD has a very safe profile in terms of side effects and interaction with the human body. After reviewing many small scales studies in adults, CBD seems to be very well tolerated and interacts pretty smooth with the human body, as research shows that Cannabidiol consumption in doses of up to 300 mg daily, is safe to use for over 6 months.
Is CBD safe to use for pregnant women?
We do not recommend to use CBD for pregnant women. Naturally risks are greater with pregnant women, and therefore it requires to take further precaution before consumption of CBD. Unfortunately, not enough research was done on CBD for pregnant women use. We will follow WEBMD advice here and recommend to avoid the use of CBD for pregnant women until further research is conducted.
What are CBD side effects?
In general CBD is friendly to use and doesn’t have any dangerous side effects. Still, even though CBD is overall very safe to use, there are reported side effects. Those potential CBD side effects include dry mouth, tiredness, diarrhea, changes in appetite and in weight, low blood pressure, lightheadedness, and drowsiness.
What are the risks in taking CBD?
As we already learned, CBD is usually very safe to use. Most of the risks revolve around the selection of the right product and the right brand.
Why?
The CBD market is unregulated. There’s no real standard on CBD brands that establish requirements for the quality and the ingredients of the products.
Furthemore, many brands fail to even mention dosages and ingredients properly on the products. Or they don’t provide good instructions for how to use the products and what doses are recommended.
It might become a challenge to know whether a product contains the right dosage of CBD for you as well as if the product properties are as specified in the packaging.
Do CBD show up in drug tests?
The short answer is no.
CBD does not show up on drug tests, and If you consume CBD, as long as there’s no THC it will not show up on a urine drug test.
As drug tests search for THC or the carboxy-THC metabolite, and not for CBD.
That’s a big “if” though.
Since the market is not regulated, we can’t really tell what’s happening on the manufacturing process. Respectively, it’s hard to tell what amounts of THC are present in the products. Remember if there’s THC it will show up in drug tests.
Can you overdose on CBD?
It’s a hard question to answer as not enough research on CBD was conducted to review all the possible side effects and dosing.
From one side – research has shown that overall CBD is friendly and safe to use by human
However, lack of research should be considered especially when seeing these news popping out – http://poisoncontrol.utah.edu/news/2017/cbdpressrel2017.pdf where certain products actually caused overdosing from CBD, or suffering from unwanted side effects after consuming CBD products
To sum it all up – after reviewing many threads on Reddit and Quora and reviewing as much customer feedback as possible, our perspective is that CBD is pretty safe to use and should not cause overdose.
However, you want to carefully select the brand and product you want to use, as picking the wrong brand may actually be bad for you simply because you can’t be sure what ingredients are presented in the product. Stay safe, do your research and consult with your doctor 🙂
Conclusion
CBD is one of the key ingredients of Cannabis, and its storming through the health and wellness scene as a new product with many promising signs. It’s pretty safe to use, it seems legal to use, it helps in many ways to improve overall health. The biggest problem right now is the lack of regulation, and that the lack of standard on CBD manufacturers creates a situation where it’s hard to make smart decisions on which is the right CBD product for you.
