Sorry, Hipsters. CBD Will Not Solve All Your Problems.

Don’t trust everything you read on the internet.

Pete Ryan

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

The wellness world has long been inundated with health trends—“raw” water, probiotics, juicing, you name it—but cannabidiol, or CBD, a marijuana-derived chemical, has taken things to new heights. Retailers market it as a “miracle molecule,” claiming it can treat ailments including nausea, anxiety, cancer, arthritis, and even Alzheimer’s disease. It’s commonly sold as an oil or added to products like candies, teas, and lotions you can find in health food stores, in pet depots, or even on Amazon.

Some celebrities have become CBD believers: UFC fighter Nate Diaz once said it will “make your life a better place,” while Gwyneth Paltrow’s wellness blog, Goop, recommends a CBD-spiked mint julep “for kicking relaxation mode into overdrive.”

Experts estimate the CBD market is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and it’s projected to surpass $1 billion by 2020. But what do science and the law really say about this new “miracle molecule”? We’ve fact-checked some common claims so you don’t have to.

It’s totally legal. False. CBD is illegal under the federal 1970 Controlled Substances Act. As a Schedule I drug, it’s in the same category as heroin, LSD, and ecstasy—even when it’s derived from hemp, a variety of cannabis that, unlike marijuana, contains only trace amounts of THC, the compound that gets you high.

Things become murky at the state level. Although several states have already legalized both marijuana and hemp, users technically can be prosecuted under federal law. (Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell is pushing for legislation that would federally legalize hemp, which is a big crop in his home state, Kentucky.) Still, experts say getting arrested for using CBD is unlikely: As Shanna Babalonis, an assistant professor of behavioral science at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine who helped write a 2018 World Health Organization report about CBD, pointed out, “It’s being sold online with no consequence.”

It can treat a laundry list of physical and psychological ailments. Maybe. Plenty of animal studies suggest CBD can help alleviate anxiety and encourage relaxation, but so far there’s limited evidence showing it has that effect—or any other, for that matter—in humans. To date, the only CBD medication approved by the Food and Drug Administration for medical use is a drug called Epidiolex, which was developed by a British company to treat two rare forms of epilepsy.

Other drugs may be on the way. A medication called Arvisol, developed by a company in the Netherlands, is intended to treat neurological and psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia, and is under­going early clinical trials. In the United States, Zynerba Pharmaceuticals is developing a CBD gel to treat symptoms of a gen­etic condition called fragile X syndrome, which can include anxiety, mood swings, and cognitive impairment. And limited evidence indicates CBD may help with opioid, cocaine, and tobacco addiction, according to the WHO report, though “considerably more research is required.”

Don’t hold your breath on that. Scientists need approval from the FDA and the Drug Enforcement Administration to study any Schedule I drug, and as a 2017 report from the National Academies of Sciences put it, this barrier has “discouraged a number of cannabis researchers from applying for grant funding or pursuing additional research efforts.” What’s more, the federal government typically only fast-tracks trials for Schedule 1 substances that treat grave illnesses—so it’s hard for scientists to actually prove CBD is an anti-anxiety wonder drug, despite its reputation. All the red tape has prompted some companies to move their research operations to Israel, where regulations around marijuana are more relaxed.

There is “great potential” for CBD, says Margaret Haney, director of the Marijuana Research Laboratory at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center. Still, Haney, who is currently testing CBD’s ability to treat nerve damage pain, warns that people may be too eager to tout the drug. “I’m excited about it, but I caution people to not jump 20 steps ahead of the science.”

It won’t get you high. True. While both CBD and its sister cannabinoid THC have the same chemical formula—21 carbon molecules, 30 hydrogen molecules, and two oxygen molecules—their structures differ significantly. So, while THC can bond with receptors in the brain, causing the high associated with marijuana, CBD cannot. International clinical studies show that even high doses of oral CBD do not cause “THC-like effects” such as impairment, increased heart rate, or dry mouth, according to the WHO report.

It’s available for cheap on the internet. True, but be very careful—while most states that permit CBD sales require products sold in brick-and-mortar stores to undergo testing, the online CBD market is almost entirely unregulated. In 2017, the FDA tested dozens of products from four major online CBD retailers based in Florida, Colorado, and California. Many products did not contain the levels of CBD that retailers advertised, and some made unfounded claims like, “CBD makes cancer cells commit ‘suicide’ without killing other cells.” The FDA sent warning letters to all four companies requiring them to correct the information. These “deceptive marketing” techniques may even prevent some patients from getting the medical care they need, the agency wrote.

Haney and her colleagues agree CBD shows promise—and more research and regulation will help weed out bogus products. In the meantime, it’s still best to proceed with caution: What you purchase online might not even contain CBD. “There’s no regulation, so buyer beware,” says Haney. “You don’t know what you’re really getting.”

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate