Project CBD

Move over 420. August 28th should be a national cannabis holiday. On that day in 1964, folk legend Bob Dylan ascended the elevator of the Delmonico Hotel on Park Avenue in Manhattan for a momentous first meeting with the Beatles, who were touring the United States. Beatlemania was then at its peak, and twenty police stood guard in the corridor as Dylan and his entourage entered the Beatles’ sixth-floor hotel suite. After an exchange of courtesies, Dylan suggested that they all smoke some grass.

A recent clinical trial raises questions about the safety of widely consumed CBD capsules, gummies, edibles, oils and lotions that are omnipresent in the United States and many other countries. But pioneer cannabis clinician Bonni Goldstein, MD, cautions patients and physicians not to overstate the findings of the new FDA study, which was published in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Wade Laughter passed away last week after a long battle with cancer. Beloved within the cannabis community as the modest, softspoken horticulturist with a big heart and a great last name, Wade is one of the unsung heroes of botanical CBD that took root in northern California in the early 2010s. At that time, hardly anyone knew about nonintoxicating cannabidiol and its remarkable therapeutic potential outside of a small group of scientists who were studying the endocannabinoid system.

Consider it a testament to the ubiquity and flexibility of the endocannabinoid system: we can inhale medicinal cannabinoids via combustion or vaporization; ingest them via food or drink; and absorb them directly through the skin, the body’s largest organ. This latter category is broader and more complex than many of us give it credit for.

Project CBD is an independent media platform with 100,000-plus subscribers. Our educational website is visited regularly by people from more than 150 countries. We’re proud to say that we’re not backed by billion-dollar multistate operators, whose bottom line depends on stiffing labor unions and engaging in phony equity scams. We don’t make money by advertising products infused with sketchy “hemp-derived” intoxicants like delta-8, delta-10, HHC, THC-O, and other unregulated synthetic compounds.

CBD has exploded in popularity over the past decade. Ethan Nadelmann talks about the power and promise of this cannabinoid with one of the world’s leading experts on the subject: Martin A. Lee, author of two highly acclaimed books, Acid Dreams and Smoke Signals, and cofounder and director of ProjectCBD.org.

Cannabis contains compounds that directly target cannabinoid receptors. Psychedelics like Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD) target serotonin receptors.

Think of your brain as an ocean, an ecosystem inhabited by numerous species of fish-like neurotransmitters and their receptors, with currents of electricity connecting and delicately balancing all the different components. Inflammation is like a bloom of red algae, harming everything around it and upsetting the homeostasis of the environment.

On Jan. 26, the FDA issued a CBD policy statement that reaffirmed its longstanding unwillingness or inability to regulate nonpharmaceutical CBD products.

Heart disease is the leading cause of death globally. Millions of people treat heart disease by taking statins to regulate their cholesterol. Unfortunately, these drugs can cause muscle weakness and myopathy in some patients. Doctors once thought muscular pain was psychosomatic, but there’s more to it. Statin medications deplete cannabinoid receptor function, according to a recent study by a team of distinguished Italian scientists.