CBD: The Shop

“As I learned doing the research for what was supposed to be one article but instead turned into three, CBD is a complex subject. ”

I walked into Get Me Some Green in the Hoods CrossRoad Shopping Center in the same way I’m sure many of their customers do: with a head full of misconceptions. Admittedly, I hadn’t hit the books (Google) yet on the science and the history of CBD, so my expectations for a CBD store were a little more headshop/bud bar than health food store.I had imagined glass cases and shelves full of different CBD products - pills, vaporizers, gummy bears, and baked goods all for my choosing.

But in reality, Get Me Some Green had some classy wooden shelves with a sparse selection of pills, smokable hemp located in glass cookie jars behind the register, and a small assortment of creams and roll-ons. Oh, and one small jar of CBD gummies. They do have a green accent wall though behind the register, which livens up the place. The vibe is much more health food store than trendy bud bar.

Heather and Eric Wiskes, the owners of Get Me Some Green, say there is a very good reason there shop is set up that way: they want their customers to feel comfortable inside of their store. All of their customers. They want to have a place where you are comfortable to bring your kids-a place where your grandparents would be comfortable to shop. 

“We’re not a Walmart for CBD, we have very specific products for very specific reasons”

— Heather & Eric Wiske

Heather and Eric’s goal is to help demystify CBD and the plants that it comes from and to help our community understand the potential health benefits. That’s why they say the only offer their trusted brands to their clients. "We're not a Walmart for CBD, we have very specific products for very specific reasons.” 

In creating a space that’s comfortable for everyone, Heather also wants potential customers to feel alright walking into the shop and asking questions, even if they don’t buy anything. She says her bottles are all on display because she wants her clients to feel secure in picking them up and looking at them, even if they know nothing about CBD, or everything they thought they knew was wrong. “We’re on a mission to provide education and high quality products, both local and national, to really demystify the plant to help the whole community.” 

And of course, she wants everyone to stop buying their CBD from the gas station. “Every business has their specialty. Gas stations know their gas. I know my CBD...I always encourage people first get educated before you go buy it. I don’t care where you buy it, but get educated. So if you want something in a specialty arena, go to that specialty store and get educated. And I’m not the only one in the area. There’s a couple of others that are really highly educated but do your due diligence. Anything you’re going to put into your body, do your due diligence.”

After leaving her shop and doing the research for this article, I can understand Heather’s insistence on wanting to educate the community. As I learned doing the research for what was supposed to be one article but instead turned into three, CBD is a complex subject. But hopefully now you know that all those stores aren’t trying to get you high, where its been all your life, and that if you have more questions, you can go ask Heather at Get Me Some Green (or one of the other CBD shops. Just not the gas station.)

CBD: The Law

“Hemp has a multitude of uses both historically and today: textiles, building materials, livestock bedding, bioplastics and, of course, potentially in health care. ”

Last time we covered the science behind CBD and left you wondering where it's been all your life. Well, cannabis, hemp, and CBD actually has a rich history in the United States and around the world. 

It’s possible that CBD has been used medicinally since 2737 B.C., when Chinese Emperor Sheng Nung used a cannabis infused tea to alleviate many of his ailments, while the very first known cloth was made of hemp.

Spanish colonists originally brought the plant to the western hemisphere in the mid 1500’s, and a mere hundred years later, it had become a staple crop of the New England colonies. In fact, in 1619, the Virginia Assembly actually passed legislation requiring every farmer to grow hemp. 

As cotton became more common place and part of American culture, mixed with the importing of other products, hemp production began to decline after the Civil War.

And it’s easy to see why. Hemp, the cannabis plant that does not produce THC, has a multitude of uses both historically and today. It can be used to make textiles, building materials, and livestock bedding. In modern culture, it also has the added benefit of being able to be used in bioplastics and, of course, potentially in health care. 

In agriculture, it helps to maintain healthy soil by adding diversity to crop rotations, the practice of planting different crops in the same plot of land in order to improve soil health. Different plants deplete and return different nutrients into the soil. By rotating crops, agriculturists are able to maintain the best possible level of nutrients without adding synthetic compounds.

As cotton became more common place and part of American culture, mixed with the importing of other products, hemp production began to decline after the Civil War. However, as hemp fell out of vogue, interest in marijuana and its potential medicinal effects began to rise. In the United States, medical cannabis was used to treat nausea, rheumatism, and labor pain, and was available over the counter. 

But by the 1930s, marijuana use became associated with Mexican and black communities, and politicians began to condemn it as a threat to poor, hard working Americans. In the era of the Great Depression, marijuana became linked with public resentment towards immigrants and the rising unemployment rate. By 1937, the Marijuana Tax Act made the plant illegal in the United States-both hemp and marijuana. In 1970 the Controlled Substance Act banned cannabis of any kind. 

Fast forward to 2014, where a Farm Bill legalized hemp containing less than .3% THC to be grown for research purposes to study market-interest in hemp derived products. This past winter, another Farm Bill was passed expanding the 2014 Bill, allowing broad hemp cultivation and the “transfer of hemp-derived products across state lines for commercial or other purposes.”

The 2018 Farm Bill effectively removes hemp and hemp products from being classified as a federally controlled substance as long as the hemp is produced in ways outlined by the Farm Bill, follows all federal and state regulations, and is grown by a licensed grower.

The 2018 Farm Bill effectively removes hemp and hemp products from being classified as a federally controlled substance as long as the hemp is produced in ways outlined by the Farm Bill, follows all federal and state regulations, and is grown by a licensed grower. Additionally, in North Carolina, adding CBD to food or drink is also illegal.

However, current CBD regulation may change for North Carolina with impending legislation.The problem is, while the 2019 Farm Bill essentially legalized hemp, and by extension CBD so long as it's produced under the parameters of the bill, smokable hemp containing less than .3% THC looks almost identical to marijuana, which remains an illegal substance within the state. Therefore, law enforcement is unable to tell the difference between the two and wants smokable hemp to be banned. Initially, talks were in place to begin the ban this year, but that has recently been pushed to 2020.

So for the time being, this leaves CBD on the shelves and available for purchase, seemingly everywhere. For the final part of this series, I'll look at one CBD business and its role in our Matthews community. 

Top image via NCSU Industrial Hemp Research Program; bottom: example of Hemp Certificate of Analysis, including THC content.

CBD: The Science

CBD. We have CBD. WE HAVE CBD!

Have you noticed signs like these as you drive around town? At the health food store, at that sort of seedy looking Vape store, at the new place that just opened up down the street, even at the gas station? Overnight, it seems CBD appeared on the shelves of every business in the state, and everyone wants you to know that they have it.

But what, exactly, is CBD? You think maybe you’ve heard that it’ll get you high, or maybe that it’s a miracle drug that will cure all of your ailments (it’s neither). Or maybe you really have no idea and were too embarrassed to ask.

Luckily, in three fun-filled articles covered the science, the law, and the business of CBD, you can call yourself a CBD expert. Or, at the very least, have an educated conversation with your friends. 

Before getting into the scientific explanation of what CBD is, I need to preface this with a reminder that I am not, in any way, a medical professional. I have no scientific training beyond high school chemistry. Any errors I’ve made are entirely unintentional and a result of my own lack of scientific understanding. If I have made any in my explanation, I welcome any corrections. 

Now back to your regularly scheduled Beacon article. 

Let’s first start with what CBD is short for, which is cannabidiol. Cannabidiol is just one of many of a type of molecule called cannabinoids. These cannabinoid molecules are produced exclusively by plants in the cannabis family.

All cannabis plants produce cannabinoids. The two most famous cannabis plants are marijuana and hemp, but there are about 170 species total, including hops, hackberries, and some small species of evergreen trees.

Different cannabis plants make different cannabinoids. You've probably heard of THC, a cannabinoid exclusive to the marijuana plant that is attributed to giving marijuana its high.  Cannabidiol (AKA CBD) is another type of cannabinoid molecule that both marijuana and hemp create. While it doesn't get you high like THC does, CBD may have other positive health benefits.

“The endocannabinoid system, may be influential in controlling our sleep, mood, fertility, appetite, memory and other bodily functions necessary to help keep the body in homeostasis, or equilibrium. ”

We even have an entire system in our bodies dedicated to these cannabinoid molecules, and it's active inside of you regardless of whether or not you partake in any type of cannabis or cannabis compound. This system, called the endocannabinoid system, may be influential in controlling our sleep, mood, fertility, appetite, memory and other bodily functions necessary to help keep the body in homeostasis, or equilibrium. If something interferes with your body’s ability to maintain its homeostasis, like an injury or a fever, that’s when your endocannabinoid system begins to put things back into order.

Scientists have identified three main components to our endocannabinoid system: endogenous cannabinoids, receptors, and enzymes. 

The endogenous cannabinoids, or endocannabinoids, are actually molecules made by our bodies similar to the cannabinoid molecules produced by cannabis plants. These endogenous cannabinoids bind themselves to receptors throughout your nervous system and provide a signal that it's time for your body to respond in some way. There are two known receptors that accept cannabinoid molecules, CB1 in the central nervous system and CB2 in the peripheral nervous system. The receptor the cannabinoids bind to helps determine your bodies response. Once the body has done what it needs to, enzymes break down remaining endogenous cannabinoids.

THC enters your body en masse and works by binding itself to the endocannabinoid receptors, but can’t be broken down by the enzymes, so it sticks around in your brain a lot longer than your endogenous cannabinoids. It’s not 100% clear how CBD interacts with our endocannabinoid system, but it doesn’t bind with our receptors. Instead, it might prevent the enzymes from breaking down our naturally occurring endogenous cannabinoids, allowing them to have a greater impact. 

There are currently about 150 clinical trials worldwide testing CBD as a treatment for a wide variety of health conditions.

Photo by Cyma Shapiro

Since the body being out of homeostasis covers a wide range of illnesses and ailments, CBD may be able to help in the treatment of an assortment of problems by increasing our own endogenous cannabinoids.  A LiveScience article from this past June stated that there are currently about 150 clinical trials worldwide testing CBD as a treatment for “a wide variety of health conditions, including autism, alcoholism, skin conditions, and schizophrenia”. It also may help with anxiety, migraines, chronic pain, inflammation, epilepsy, and many other conditions. 

But, if CBD is so great, where has it been all your life? Why are you just now learning about it and your endocannabinoid system? Why is a self-proclaimed non-scientist writer for the Beacon the one to explain it to you? 

I will have all (at least most) of those answers and more for you in the next article in this CBD series.