An Alt CBD | The Source Weekly - Bend, Oregon

An Alt CBD

Citrus and evergreen bark do a CBD product make

CBD is great. A cannabinoid that doesn't get you high (and actually levels off or reduces THC's effects when introduced together), but has all sorts of awesome benefits like treating epilepsy, pain, nausea, inflammation, insomnia and even cancer. I'm pro-CBD.

Unlike cannabis, I have yet to meet a single CBD prohibitionist, waving "CBDon't!" signs at rallies and warning against the "violent multinational organized hemp cartels threatening our children." (Not saying they don't exist. Times is cray-cray, y'all.)

Even rabidly anti-cannabis states such as Georgia and Alabama now allow CBD to be used for specific ailments. Because no Georgia politician wants to appear "pro pediatric seizure, apparently. Those states allow CBD products, provided they have no more than 3 percent THC relative to CBD, so a product with 10 mg CBD could have no more than .3 mg of THC.

My cat has a higher THC content than that.

Which isn't an issue, except we know CBD is an entourage/ensemble cannabinoid that, for some uses, works better when introduced with higher ratios of THC. So there is a camp that believes the best CBD is taken from a cannabis plant's buds and leaves.

But CBD is also found in hemp, and as hemp has a naturally low-THC content, hemp- derived CBD is increasingly available in products so ubiquitous that they show up in sponsored ads on Facebook.  

Critics decry that form of CBD as inferior to cannabis plant-extracted CBD. Hemp fans respond that CBD with miniscule amounts of THC is legal to ship across state lines. And if you are hoping the Feds can help sort out what's "best," oh honey child...

But what about CBD produced without cannabis or hemp plants? What then, well-educated trousers? And is that even a thing, or am I just super high again?

Both. The answer is both. I know this because I received a 1,000 mg sample of a new botanically-derived CBD that was a single gram in weight. Its white powder barely totaled a tablespoon, if that; 25 mg mixed in some tea made me warm and sleepy, so it works. 

Jake Cormier, President of Portland-based Clear Bright Dawn, gave me the breakdown, and sent over extensive third party certification and analysis that its PureForm CBD "consistently tests above 99.7 percent as pure, molecular CBD." And that, in its crystalline form, is virtually tasteless and odorless. (True.) They go on to say that "trace remnants make up a .02 percent remaining portion. These include: (1) less than .01 percent propylene glycol (< 1,000/ppm) – a GRAS Class I food solvent; (2) less than .001 percent (< 100/ppm) ethanol; (3) a trace of a natural, orange citrus terpene."

It's food grade, free of solvents, all natural, organic (though non-certified), water/oil soluble and "created from abundant, natural plant materials." Natural plant materials such as... Devil's Lettuce? I asked Cormier, who replied it's a combination of  "citrus byproduct and the evergreen bark from an invasive species commonly found." There are patents pending, and proprietary tech and such, so as to which evergreen bark from what particular invasive species, I can't tell you for now, because I don't know.

But I do know that because no cannabis or hemp plants were hurt during its production, the Drug Enforcement Agency and any other agencies getting the vapors over the possibility that the finished product may have the merest whiff of THC can chill out. No cannabis = no THC, narcos.

Pure Form Botanicals, the L.A-based company that handles the manufacturing duties, tout that the product is free from solvents used in extraction, so is better for research, and is up to one-third the cost of other comparable CBD products.

In an ideal world, we would have access to CBD and THC without overreaching, prohibitionist rulemaking, regardless of the source of those cannabinoids. But we don't (yet), and if a clean, pure form of inexpensive CBD can be made from citrus and evergreen bark? I'm down, because more access to CBD is a great thing.