For years CBD producers have been hamstrung by FDA restrictions on making any therapeutic claims from the use of their products, notwithstanding customer testimonials touting the benefits of its use. One in 5 United States adults and nearly 15 percent of seniors reported using CBD in the past year.
Purported CBD benefits include pain relief, anxiety reduction, improved sleep, epilepsy and cancer symptom relief, heart health, skin improvement as well as its anti-inflammatory, anti-spasm, and antioxidant properties.
The reclassification of cannabis will dramatically alter the landscape of CBD production and availability moving forward: It will add legitimacy to its medicinal value by eliminating barriers to clinical research which could confirm its effectiveness for several of the above ailments and pharmaceutical companies will now be able to devote research to CBD derived medicines which could be available by prescription allowing doctors to prescribe and insurance companies to cover the costs.
The current CBD market is mostly unregulated, allowing ineffective or bogus products to proliferate, which of course is why many people after consuming ‘gas station CBD’ deny its effectiveness.
Congress recently imposed stricter limits on hemp derived products which will take effect in November of this year. Although this will help extinguish the illegitimate grey market, it will also make it difficult for legitimate producers to provide full spectrum products, that is products containing a small amount of THC which create the ‘entourage effect’, considered an important element in CBD therapy.
Unless Congress ups the limit on hemp derived products containing THC prior to the November implementation, full spectrum CBD products will be reclassified as schedule I under the controlled substance act when the law goes into effect.
Realizing that there will be challenges ahead in balancing regulation, the reclassification of cannabis should provide greater clarity of another path to improved health with the use of real, high-quality, CBD products.