San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Cover story:
Non-intoxicating CBD is being touted as a wonder elixir, found in everything from plant hybrids to chocolate to sodas to the marijuana strains themselves. But is it legal? Yes and no. GreenState contributor Ed Murrieta reports on what consumers need to know.
Ever since scientific researchers identified cannabidiol in 1940 and declared CBD to have no therapeutic value, the molecule in cannabis that purportedly benefits bodies but doesn’t mess with minds has been misunderstood.
In cannabis’ late-20th century Prohibition era, black-market growers eschewed plants rich in non-intoxicating CBD in favor of moneymaking strains high in THC, pot’s primary intoxicant.
Today, CBD, whether it’s derived from heady cannabis or its sober botanical twin, hemp, is being touted as a supercannabinoid, both a wellness agent and a natural therapeutic medicine that’s predicted to be a $22 billion industry by 2020, sold online and in convenience stores and cannabis dispensaries near you.
An increasing body of scientific research encompasses more than 60 ways CBD affects humans. There are claims it shrinks cancer tumors, prevents Alzheimer’s disease, eases menstrual cramps, pacifies psychosis, soothes anxiety and even restores skin’s youthful appearance — all without any of the mind-altering effects associated with cannabis.
Startups, fly-by-nights and a major British pharmaceutical company have flooded the market with everything from cannabidiol-infused teas to pet treats to Epidiolex, a 98 percent pure industrial-hemp CBD formulation to treat epilepsy that was approved by the FDA this month.
Yet across the United States and even in California, historic center of alternative remedies and cannabis mainstreaming, CBD is both lawful and unlawful.
The swirl of controversy and confusion surrounding cannabidiol can make consumers’ heads spin.
In California, CBD derived from regulated and taxed cannabis is legal, available in psychoactive and non-psychoactive lab-tested products — flowers, joints, tinctures, capsules, balms, lotions and transdermal patches — sold in
state-licensed cannabis stores, often priced higher than other products rich in THC.
CBD derived from industrial hemp (hemp is federally classified as cannabis containing less than 0.3 percent psychoactive THC) is unregulated, untaxed and illegal.
In July, the California Department of Public Health declared unregulated CBD to be unfit as a food ingredient or dietary supplement for humans and animals.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration treats both cannabis and hemp the same as it does heroin and LSD. As a result, the industry growing up around CBD finds itself in murky territory.
The health department’s prohibition announcement had a chilling effect on some breweries, bars and cafes that were infusing drinks with CBD.
Emil DeFrancesco, owner of Chinatown boba bar Steap Tea Bar, said a city health inspector visited his Sacramento Street shop in San Francisco in late July.
He had been serving CBD in Steap Tea’s Instagram-famous Green Goddess, a matchamint-lemon-tea-CBD elixir.
“The health department didn’t like that,” DeFrancesco said. “There was some confusion as to what I could sell and couldn’t sell. They cleared it up. It wasn’t like the police came and shut us down.”
DeFrancesco compared his shop’s infusion of 10 mg of lab-tested powdered CBD
isolate to wellness-minded add-ins like grass jelly and coconut shavings.
“Why can’t I make a drink that makes you feel good?” he said.
DeFrancesco said his neighbors in conservative Chinatown, which recently banned cannabis businesses, “are trying to spin it like I’m selling drugs to kids. I think ginseng has more issues, but you can put ginseng in anything.”
Hemp-derived CBD is still widely available in convenience stores, natural foods stores and online in capsules, tinctures, gummy candies and coffee, and it may or may not be tested the way products sold in licensed stores are tested for purity and potency.
CBD laws vary by state, but it’s easy to find. Most adults in America can text a New York company and have CBD-infused lemonade shipped to their front doors like any other online purchase.
The California Department of Public Health is focusing on education, not enforcement.
“CDPH is aware that there has been some confusion on the legal use of CBD and CBD oil since the legalization of medicinal and adult-use cannabis,” the agency said in a statement. “We will continue to work with all of our partners, including industry and local public health departments, in order to educate them on CBD and CBD oil and to assist manufacturers as needed to assure compli- ance.”
Further muddying CBD’s legal status: Pending congressional action on a provision in the federal farm bill to legalize industrial hemp and California’s December deadline to create regulations that will allow farmers to grow hemp under a limited federal program.
“What’s compelling about CBD is that its therapeutic potential highlights the contradictions in federal policy,” said Martin Lee, a Bay Area CBD activist who helped reintroduce CBD-rich strains among Northern California cannabis growers. “It’s a controlled substance, but it’s available everywhere. It’s federally illegal, but it’s in gas stations in Bakersfield.”
San Francisco’s Can-Can Juice Cleanse shop in Pacific Heights is waiting out the confusion. After California banned unregulated CBD as a food additive in July, proprietor Teresa Piro halted plans to infuse fresh-pressed raw fruit and vegetable juices with CBD, including a full-spectrum lab-tested hemp extract containing terpenes and flavonoids and non-intoxicating flavor and aroma compounds.
“I truly believe CBD and the hemp plant have been missing from our diet,” Piro said. “But we’re in a holding pattern.”
Steap Tea’s DeFrancesco is eager to move forward.
“The second I’m legally allowed to sell CBD, I’ll do it again 100 percent,” he said. “CBD’s the future. It’s crazy they went backward with CBD when THC and marijuana went forward.”