The growth of CBD in the health sector has been a direct assault on the larger pharmaceutical industry, which largely depends on long-term doctors’ prescriptions to make huge sales on select medicines.
The most common examples are pain medication, most NSAIDs, which are sold to millions for conditions ranging from migraines, arthritis, back pain, muscle pain, and many more pain-related ailments.
Another area that “Big Pharma” targets for the sheet size of the market is depression and anxiety, with drugs such as Prozacprescribed to thousands of people every year to manage mood.
The interesting thing is that the selling point for CBD the past five years or so has been pain relief and anti-anxiety; conditions that typically require long-term medication.
Another thing worth mentioning is that pain medication and mood-altering drugs tend to cause dependency in a significant number of users. Combine that with the potential for liver damage, and you have a situation where half of Big Pharma's market are looking for alternative remedies for their most common ailments.
So what are the main reasons people want to try CBD?
- Cost is a serious issue when it comes to the treatment of long-standing medical conditions, and CBD offers an alternative to expensive pills that an increasing number of people can’t afford.
- Safety and effectiveness are important and although we don’t have a lot of CBD studies to use as a reference, the few that have been published are all in favour of using CBD as a healing compound. This has led to more consumers across the board.
- FDA approval of CBD oil indicated to consumers that there really might be some therapeutic value to CBD oil, and this has improved consumer confidence.
- The fact that CBD oil is now used in food, beauty products, sprays, and even pet food, opens up the market to new consumers. CBD products are widely available in health stores, which may encourage people to try them instead of using their regular medicines.
- CBD oil does not make you high. This alone is great marketing because it allows manufacturers to target everybody from children to seniors. Even though CBD is extracted from hemp or marijuana, it does not give you the same experience as smoking or ingesting cannabis because cannabidiol is extracted as a single compound from the leaves and flowers of hemp plants. Another thing; cannabidiol won’t appear in drug tests, so there’s no reason to pack a small bottle to use at work.
- CBD acts on the whole body by engaging hormones and brain receptors, among other things. Users have come to expect a profound healing effect from CBD – which is especially made possible by the way the human body uses cannabinoids, terpenes, and flavanoids. When taking a single dose of broad-spectrum CBD oil to treat something like pain, may also improve your mood, energy levels, appetite, focus; and reduce anxiety.
These are just a few of the reasons CBD is such a big problem for every other drug company. And if all these benefits are not enough to make you want to try cannabidiol, manufacturers are dropping tons of money into research, to find out what other ways we could use CBD.
The legal issue
- For a long time, the marijuana industry has been plagued with outdated legal policies and negative mental attitudes. This has gradually begun to shift because of the positive press surrounding CBD oil, and the many potential uses for CBD in general.
- For states where medical marijuana is legal, they weren’t any significant markets for CBD, because people didn’t quite separate cannabis and CBD. This has all changed as people learn more about how the body uses cannabinoids – and in fact, the old assumption that marijuana is bad or harmful has been challenged through medical research.
- The biggest legal change came in 2018 with the passing of the Farm Bill, which allows for the cultivation of hemp for academic reasons. Once the FDA removed de-classified CBD as Schedule5 (non-restricted drugs), this brought CBD and marijuana into the mainstream.
As of January 2020, cannabidiol is legal in all 50 states, with a requirement that it be extracted from hemp (not cannabis plants) and contain a maximum of .3 percent THC.
Check your THC
The battle against THC is still ongoing, as, by federal law, marijuana is still restricted in most states. This, however, has not held back the CBD market as the fastest-growing alternative-health segment. In the months and years to come, Big Pharma will have to join the CBD market or risk losing millions in revenue.
What CBD trends are you seeing in your hometown?
Feel free to share your own experiences with CBD oil.
