Higher Learning: 4 Facts to Better Understand CBD
With some estimates projecting CBD sales to augment globally to a whopping USD $22 billion by 2022, we guess you could say CBD has become the hottest thing since sliced bread. That’s a cliché, sure, but CBD really is all the buzz. Which is ironic, considering it’s the nonpsychoactive cannabinoid. (More on that later.)
Anyway, with CBD now seemingly available on shelves everywhere, it’s critical to comprehend some of the facts before you start to benefit from its vast potential for natural healing.
1. The World Health Organization has stated that pure CBD is safe for consumption.
Non-toxic, non-addictive and safe — that’s what the CBD report by WHO actually concluded. If you want it verbatim, the specialized international public health agency said that “CBD appears to have little effect on conditioned place preference or intracranial self-stimulation,” and, in humans, “CBD exhibits no effects indicative of any abuse or dependence potential.” Also, that “CBD has been found to have relatively low toxicity” and “CBD is generally well tolerated with a good safety profile.” There it is, word for bloody word. You can’t ask much more from a natural medicine that is derived from plants, can you?
2. Most CBD gets extracted from the leaves, flowers and stalks of the cannabis plant through three methods.
There’s carbon dioxide extraction, which uses supercritical carbon dioxide to separate the CBD oil from the plant material. There’s steam distillation, which causes the CBD oil to separate from the hemp plant. Finally, there’s solvent extraction, which follows an almost identical process to steam distillation, except that it uses a solvent rather than water to separate the CBD oil. That said, solvent extraction is more efficient than steam distillation, as well as less expensive. As for what the best method is, despite carrying the highest cost, carbon dioxide extraction consistently produces the highest concentration of CBD. This not only results in a quality product, but leaves no neurotoxic residue behind, making it one of the safest methods, too.
3. THC may get you high — and do a darn effective job of it — but CBD won’t.
CBD and THC are two types of cannabinoids found in cannabis, of course. Each wields an impact on cannabinoid type 1 receptors in the brain. Here’s the catch: while THC activates these receptors, causing a euphoria or high correlated with marijuana, CBD is alternatively a cannabinoid type 1 antagonist. It actually blocks any intoxicating impact caused by the cannabinoid type 1 receptors. In fact, taking CBD with THC may even inhibit the effects of the latter. Pretty nifty, right?
4. There’s actually a difference between full spectrum and CBD isolate. A big one.
The cannabis plant contains just over 480 known compounds, roughly 60 or more of which are cannabinoids. CBD is merely one of those compounds. On one hand, full-spectrum CBD is made with an extract containing all, or nearly all, of the compounds naturally present in the cannabis plant. It goes without saying that this includes CBD, in addition to other cannabinoids like CBC, CBG and CBN, plus flavonoids, terpenes and so forth. On the other, CBD isolate contains CBD exclusively. This can be achieved by isolating CBD from cannabis extract, or by making it artificially in a lab. A couple CBD companies intend to produce cannabinoids from sugar, for example.
Want to know even more about CBD and it's benefits, see our other articles here, here, or here.
This article was written by The Blissed team.
Published on October 12th, 2019.