CBD is about to revolutionize the veteran community and PTSD, taking America by storm
Melissa Leon
CBD is the latest product taking the United States by storm, and chances are you’ve probably already heard about it by now.
The CBD market has grown so much that it has drawn in everyone from U.S. senators to multi-billion-dollar companies – and the veteran community, where it already has a huge following of vets who use the product to help with PTSD.
Even Coca-Cola, the world’s largest soda company, released a statement earlier this year saying it is closely watching the growth of CBD “as an ingredient in functional wellness beverages around the world,” leading to speculation of a future CBD-infused drink.
The CBD market is expected to grow to $22 billion by 2022 – an astronomical growth compared to its expected $591 million this year.
Many people already swear by CBD’s pain-relieving, anxiety-relieving properties, delivered without a “high” or any psychoactive effects on body functions. There are veterans who say it has helped them deal with anxiety and PTSD more than anything they can get prescribed by the VA or a doctor.
Veterans’ Experience
We spoke with several veterans who have experience using CBD oil, specifically to treat PTSD.
U.S. Army veteran Mike Stedman said he was taking anti-depressant and anti-anxiety pills for PTSD after he got out of military in March 2017.
A friend recommended CBD oil to him, so he tried it.
“I tried and it said ‘wow, it’s actually really good,’” Stedman, 24, recently told American Military News.
He has been taking it for about a year and six months, Stedman said, and he orders it online.
“When I wasn’t taking it, I had really bad anxiety and was constantly on the alert. I’d go out to public places and it was too much,” Stedman explained.
“I started taking it, and everything calmed down. I’m more tolerable in public places. I love flying again. I used to hate being in planes with other people,” he said.
“The good thing about CBD is, it doesn’t get you high or anything. You have THC and CBD [from hemp] – there are two compounds. THC gets you high, but CBD is what helps you relax and takes your nerves away, makes you calm,” Stedman explained.
Plus, you don’t get addicted to CBD oil, he pointed out.
Any port in a storm. To read the entire artical (and you should) go to American Military News.
Category: Health Care debate, It's science!, Veterans Issues
A relative of mine is a venture capitalist.
He was on to this four years ago. The money is in keeping it fresh from production through eventual packaging. You would not believe the money at stake here.
This should lead to some interesting developments on the “legalize” question.
Personally, I care not one whit what you use to get hammered, as long as it is on your couch, and not the public roads. I wouldn’t touch that crap if I was paid to try it. I obstain from all of it. (Well, not chocolate or caffeine. Such a junker…)
Having said that, if the “legalize” crowd may lose the “medicinal benefit” argument if the “helpful” compound is readily and cheaply separable from the “get small” component.
They are back to arguing on “personal liberty”, which too many folks have turned into a dirty word.
You are exactly on point. CBD is effective in medicinal applications, THC is not. Doppers will go bat-shit crazy (if they aren’t already) when the “legalize movement” is jeopardized.
Look for further studies to bolster THC medical usefulness and downplay CBD effectiveness.
This is gonna end up looking much like “climate change” research.
There will be the inevitable argument that “deceptive capitalist pharma” wants to crowd out “natural traditional cheap” cures, for evil profit.
“She’s so pneumatic. Have you taken your soma today?”
David,
Excellent Brave New World reference!
I am always impressed by how much knowledge is on display here in the comments on TAH.
Anecdotal testimonies are nice. I am glad some people are getting relief from CBD oil.
From a medical and scientific viewpoint, the evidence for any benefit from any marijuana compound is very weak.
It is -very- hard to get a pharma to drop $20-$40-$100 -million- on phase 1 2 and 3 studies when the feds can arrest everyone at whim and confiscate any value, including from every -other- thing.
And to call it an -effective- drug, those double-blind controlled studies are -essential-
You’re not developing a drug. The product already exists. The double blind construct is not in itself expensive. High School students have done double blind studies on substances like echinacea. This is OTC
If studying MJ…there’s plenty of states to choose from and once again the product exists, simply analyzing it for efficacy is not a cost prohibitive endeavor.
If you make an extracted item, and sell it medicinally, I believe you have to jump through the hoops.
It is absolutely 100% federally illegal, thus federally prosecutable anywhere in the USA. Under the existing seizure laws, they could sieze the -entire- company, and any even tangentially associated personal property of all employees.
It’s on the federal books. It can be enforced. That no one has done so is not a guarantee.
The gov recently demonized -lawful- businesses, telling banks to avoid “risky” businesses.
Until SCOTUS says the federal statutes are void, they remain in play. And those confiscation laws are … draconian.
Maybe someone can do the proper studies offshore. I certainly think it a worthy effort. I just don’t want a bunch of folks permanently felonized, and thus effectively un-personed, who were genuinely trying to mitigate suffering and improve our pharmacopeia.
It’s also a sad commentary that if aspirin were invented today, it would likely take a couple decades to get it approved. And I suspect it would -not- arrive as OTC.
short answer…nope, not necessary when simply studying the effect of what is regulated as a supplement. This is no different that studying the effects of B-12 supplementation on anemia or vitamin C on scurvy…and as I previously mentioned echinacea
The main thing you have to observe in such cases, especially if you want to publish the findings, is the regulations on the use of human subjects.
They’re pretty common sense overall and not prohibitive.
It’s a coming on strong. Lots and lots of money at stake here, not only for providers, growers, sellers, but for the tax man too. even with the “buzz” removed, somebody got to grow, package, transport, ect. Cannabis has long been used for medicinal purposes, some old pictures of original drug stores had a big 5 pointed leaf painted on them. Cannabis is reputed to be whay Kentucky was originally called the “Blue Grass State”, when D. Boone and the boys came thru the gap, the sun shining just so on the weed made it appear blue. Remember being at Ft Hard Knocks in ’71, going up Misery and Agony Hill, you could see it growing wild. The whole illegal part of it started back in the ’30s with ol’ Aslinger (?) pushing to have it outlawed because it was “used by musicians and Negros to influence white women to do immoral acts….” I don’t care what you do to get a buzz as long as you keep it at home and off the highway, and away from kids. Anything that can help a person suffering is OK in my book. When Mama was dying from cancer back in 80/81 the only relief she got was from the brownies I made for her. She had no clue what was in them. Made a separate batch for the little ones so they would leave her “special ones alone”. It worked to relieve her pain, where as massive dosages of morphine wasn’t.
What we need are actual double blind, controlled scientific studies. People swear by putting copper bracelets on or magnets on their sore spots. Doesn’t mean it’s actually helping. It’s all just snake oil to me.
I’m investing heavily in this new drug called “Placebo”. I hear it’s at least 40% effective, vegan, gluten-free, and environmentally sustainable with no GMO or lab-made chemicals. It’s gonna be yuge!
Yeah.
Only problem with CBD – It does not get you high.
I imagine a lot of Vets will walk on that and prefer THC.
Yep – all of what Mason said.
“I’m investing heavily in this new drug called “Placebo”.”
At the ground level of patient care we call it “Obecalp” or “SR NACL” (Sustained Release Sodium Chloride):)
That is a damn salty response.
I have been told by some of my “statistics” oriented coworkers that US Based drug studies have to deal with a statistically noteworthy issue:
Placebos work better on Americans.
That just makes my head hurt.
Mason: Let us know when this ‘Placebo’ of which you speak has an IPO. I would like to get in on the ground floor.
/s
You can buy a box of it at the grocery store for about $1.00.
It is a cure-all for almost everything from clogged pipes to sour stomachs. You can even use it to clean your toilet or make cupcakes with it.
And it’s legal, too. Na+2xCO3 – Try it.
The two stores that opened here in Mass about two weeks ago are making close to a quarter million a day in sales…largely because there’s only two and also because they can only physically get so many orders done during operational hours.
The drug war has always been a massive failure designed solely to restrict the rights of law abiding Americans. There’s no law ever written that has ever saved anyone who is determined to head down a path of personal self destruction. The drug laws don’t save anyone, they have instead allowed the government to seize the property of parents whose kid sold some drugs in asset forfeiture schemes designed to enrich the government.
A truly free society doesn’t legislate morality in regards to personal behavior. It legislates morality that stems from one person victimizing another person or that other person’s property. Beyond that we should limit government to the constitutional requirements and nothing else.
When consuming a plant you can grow in your backyard is something the government can determine is illegal you have to accept your government owns you and not the reverse.
The drug war was a massive failure because, like Democrats fighting a real war, no one had the stones to really TRY. Like spies – execute dealers summarily, and you make the profit motive moot. One of the few intelligent things Hillary ever said was to blame the whole narcoempires on US user demand.
Weirdly, China can’t kill or Gulag it’s smugglers fast enough to wipe out drug use.
Or even to seriously dissuade smugglers.
We are far to squeamish to duplicate their methods.
Capone was replaced by bloods/crips/whatever, and now we have the follow-on gangs displacing them with greater depravity and fewer scruples.
The only reason the stuff is pricey is prohibition. None of them are hard to make, or require exotic feedstock.
We are coming up on the century mark for major prohibition attempts, all unsuccessful. “Try harder/harsher” is probably not the answer.
I’ve been saying this for YEARS.
Follow the money…avoid the research.
Worked with a guy briefly that had legit PTSD, added about a tablespoon of CBD oil to his coffee every morning. He thought it helped, but he’d also add that between CBD oil, yoga, a couple of support groups, and a job he enjoyed, it’s impossible to really say.
Good that it helped him but he wasn’t indoctrinated.
Best way to say for sure is randomized double blind control methodology that submits the data for scrutiny which is then followed by reproduced results using similar methodology and publication of the data….anecdotal evidence/qualitative stats have little value until/unless the research then progresses as expected to the randomized double blind model and is reproduced.
..but it’s also possible to ignore criticism and make a lot of money instead 🙂
Why, it is almost like there are well documented processes to evaluate medicines, and legions of folks who do it professionally.
Should take about three years? Five tops? Let’s be thorough.
Sometimes I weep for my country…
You seem to be confused about the principles of medical ethics.
I read in some magazine a while back that Thai people living in the countryside make a butter that will make you dizzy out of the oil from marijuana seeds.
If you want to spend your life getting dizzy on intoxicants, that’s your business, but if others of us don’t want that crap, then drop it.
“Dizzy” is Non-Western speak for ‘High as Fuck”
I make it right in my kitchen out of bud and coconut oil. You just have to remember to decarboxylase (toast) the herbs in the oven 200 for 30min, for maximum potency.
I don’t normally support these kinds of things. However… if eating, smoking, rubbing, or sticking this up their ass will cause them to leave their God Damn Dog at home I am all for it.
I just want to go to Lowes and buy that little wax ring for under my shitter in peace. If you are one of those needy pricks please take off your hat and vest full of veteran patches. Its bad enough you are being a dick…try not to shit all over the rest of us during your needy notice me episodes.
Better yet, stay at home.
Magic oil, they used to call the people that sold this stuff something years ago…
Shit has gotten redonk…
Aaaah, now THAT’S my Dave. Got to admit, though, at least for me, it’s entertaining to try to figure out which are bullshit artists and which are really veterans.
Bang on! I’m sick of all the PTSD and emotional Support dogs. I believe PTSD exists, but not in the numbers claimed, and by many of those who claim it.
Don’t “welcome home” me, or tell me about “the Nam” and how high you stayed. Before I became a Warrant, I was a platoon sergeant in a combat unit. If you were a doper, or a regular drunk (not a party drunk), you burned shit, and not much more.
If there were anything to it we wouldn’t be hearing about it from the ‘supplement’ crowd of beverage companies, new age hippies, and various youtube losers. I’ll believe it when it’s a real thing, and even then I wouldn’t dare put it into myself until at least a decade after that.
Blue Emu Oil Popsicle’s work for me…
Real, double blind, statistically significant, peer-reviewed reasearch has been done and continues in Europe. While proof is a very hard measure to meet, enough has been gathered to warrant removing cannibis from the Schedule 1 list. This status is what prevents research in this country, as any lab or institution that receives fed money cannot conduct this research as long as it remains a Schedule 1.