It's the practical way to ask…
"Look, is there anything bad I don't know about CBD".
We totally get the question.
Afterall, CBD comes from a plant that still has illegal Schedule 1 status at the Federal level despite what any website is trying to sell you.
Furthermore, it's plant cousin, THC, has some serious issues to address despite EVERYTHING online singing its praises.
Let's try to separate the fact from the fiction and more importantly, just clear up the confusion.
There are a few reasons not to take CBD.
There are dozens of reasons that counter those but we need a full accounting.
Again, if we have all the information, we can make a good decision.
So, let's get into the reasons against CBD.
Otherwise, we're just marketers like everyone else.
We'll cover these topics:
- Legal reasons not to take CBD
- Health reasons not to take CBD
- Reasons not to take full spectrum CBD
- Reasons not to take un-tested CBD
- Medication reasons not to take CBD
- Affordability reasons not to take CBD
Let's get to it.
Legal reasons not to take CBD
If you're in Alabama and get pulled over by the police with CBD, they MIGHT arrest you.
That's the story we're getting from customers there.
A few other States require it to be purchased through a dispensary which doesn't preclude you from getting it shipped via a website.
Some more clarity would be great there.
You can get a full update of CBD legality by State here.
CBD Isolate (by itself with base oil) with ZERO THC should not cause you:
- To fail a drug test
- To get you in trouble with drug dogs at airports, etc
- To have a high feeling or become habit forming
That's a very specific type of CBD though.
Many brands on the market have up to .3% THC level.
We can't make those same claims with so called "full spectrum" CBD since it can build up depending on how much you take, weight, metabolism, etc.
With the Farm Bill passage (2018), we expect further adoptance of CBD products across the States and even legally as long as it's sourced correctly.
Until then, there is good reason to avoid any CBD on legal grounds that:
- Contains any THC (still a schedule 1 drug)
- Doesn't specify grown in US with licensed farm
Not every State is California!
We basically crafted our CBD to meet these requirements.
Let's look at health reasons.
Health reasons not to take CBD
There are a few reasons on the health side to avoid CBD based on RESEARCH.
NIH research. Not your aunt's experience at the Red Lobster after CBD.
By the way, it was probably the Red Lobster at fault!
Here are the specific reasons to avoid CBD based on health:
- Interference with medication (see section below)
- Increased temporary eye pressure (in mice study)
- Sperm numbers and libido (in mice study)
- CBD and chemotherapy
- Side effects (see below)
Let's look at these.
CBD and Medication
We discuss the medication interference below but a quick synopsis.
CBD uses a very popular (and busy) pathway in the liver to be metabolized.
If take with other medication, it can affect how they're processed by the body.
Check below on how to offset this effect.
Eye pressure and CBD
There was a study on eye pressure and CBD which might a concern if you have glaucoma until we get more studies.
The study showed a temporary increase in eye pressure within mice.
There are other positives of CBD for Glaucoma including powerful anti-inflammatory and blood pressure effects.
Either way, we would like clarity on the eye pressure issue before using CBD.
You can learn about CBD and inflammation or CBD and diabetes here.
A recent study showed an effect of CBD on sperm formation and libido in mice.
We want more studies on this of course, especially for people.
The dosage used in the study was extremely high.
Other effects of CBD have been shown to be positive. See CBD and Orgasm (plus other bedroom topics).
CBD and Chemotherapy
Interestingly, chemotherapy works by significantly jacking up inflammation in a cell till it dies.
CBD has a powerful anti-inflammatory effect.
Does it offset the effects of chemotherapy?
Actually, CBD appears to apply this affect to healthy cells while INCREASING inflammation in cancer cells.
This is why it's called anti-tumorigenic.
The issue is that we haven't seen broad research on different types of cancer.
It may not have this effect on certain kinds of cancer or least, research hasn't shed any light on this yet.
Side effects reasons to not take CBD
There are some noted side effects for CBD in research.
We'll discuss below but there's a key way to reduce these significantly.
Take CBD Isolate!
We've seen countless examples where a person has side effects with full spectrum CBD that go away with CBD Isolate.
It is THE reason we focus on Isolate at IndigoNaturals.
The common side effects (moderate) listed are:
- Dry mouth
- Lower blood pressure
- Drowsiness
- Lightheadedness
Let's get into these next as well as the side effects that can appear if you take Full Spectrum CBD and/or bad CBD.
Side Effect reasons to avoid with CBD
Research has shown a strong safety profile up to pretty high doses (300-600mg) and even up to 1500mgs!
There are some side effects noted in the research.
Dry mouth appears to go away after repeated use and it's a simple fix.
The lower blood pressure side effect is an issue if you already have low blood pressure due to meds or general genetic makeup.
Most people these days are taking CBD to help bring down blood pressure which research shows that it does.
The last two, drowsiness and lightheadedness are common but moderate side effects.
Don't start taking CBD when driving or using heavy machinery!
- The lightheadedness is a common result of lowered blood pressure.
- The drowsiness may be the calm of CBD's anti-anxiety effect.
There are other side effects that people report but this may be a result of the type of CBD they're taking.
Full spectrum!
It's being pushed everywhere and there's one big reason for a good percentage of the population to not take it.
Let's look at that.
Reasons not to take full spectrum CBD
Full spectrum just means that more of the original plant is making it into the bottle:
- Terpenes
- Flavanoids
- Other Cannabinoids including THC up to .3%
- Many other substances naturally occuring in the plant
There are purported health benefits to all of these but they are not well researched to make such claims.
Especially, in the very low amounts naturally found in industrial hemp.
Here's the reason to avoid these.
Roughly 40% of the population has allergy issues.
That number goes higher for women and even higher for age 40 and over.
Those people may well have many side effects to all those plant materials.
Histamine and allergy issues!
The side effects we have reported back to us which GO AWAY with CBD Isolate:
- Fever
- Diarhea
- Cramping
- Skin hives and rashes
- Clicking in throat
- Runny nose, itchy eyes, etc
Basically, the tell-tale signs of allergy or histamine response.
CBD itself is a powerful calming agent for the histamine pathway.
Learn all about CBD and histamines here
If you have tried CBD and had side effects from taking it, try CBD Isolate to rule out this effect.
Roughly half the population will have negative effects from full spectrum CBD and it's being touted EVERYWHERE.
Simply a result of lack on understanding Or...ignorance.
We want people to feel better, not worse on CBD.
Let's look at why the brand of CBD you take matters.
Reasons not to take un-tested CBD
We talked about the type of CBD above (full spectrum and CBD Isolate).
That only weeds out SOME of the bad CBD.
There's plenty more to avoid taking!
A CBD brand and product MUST have 3rd party testing available right on the site or buyer beware.
Some very important to reasons to avoid untested CBD:
- Solvents
- Pesticides
- Bacteria
- Mold
- THC levels
- Heavy metals
The hemp plant is an amazing soil remediator.
That's a fancy way to say that it sucks up everything in the soil, good or bad.
In fact, they'll plant it in old gun ranges to suck up nasty chemicals that are left in the soil to "clean" the soil.
We must have 3rd party testing for this.
It also must be grown organically.
There are many fly-by-night brands of CBD which source it from China or Mexico, throw CBD on the able and try to make a buck.
We listed the reasons above for why you don't want to take that CBD.
Medication reasons not to take CBD
As we mentioned above, CBD uses the P450 pathway in the liver for metabolism.
It's a very busy thoroughfare and many medications (estimated over 60% of the most popular) use this same interchange.
If you take CBD at the same time, it can either boost or negate the effect of the medication in the body.
We don't want to do that.
For this reason, take CBD at least 2 hours away from medications.
Preferably after your fattiest meal.
You can learn all about the best time to CBD here.
Affordability reasons not to take CBD
Simply put, most CBD being sold on the market is over-priced significantly.
This is primarily due to the fact that there is such a lack of knowledge by the general consumer on how to compare CBD pricing and products.
The real way to compare CBD pricing is by cost per mg of CBD.
Assuming, we have 3rd party tested, US organically grown CBD with the enough actual CBD in the bottle, cost per mg of CBD is the great translator.
You can compare CBD brands by price here.
We'll take that challenge every time as many of the big brands are 2-3 times the cost per mg of CBD than IndigoNaturals.
This upsets us.
Over 60% of people taking CBD are doing so to address a health issues.
If they can't afford it, that's bad mojo.
At about .04 to .05 cents per mg of CBD, we'll go head to head with anyone out there.
There dozens of (dollars) reasons not to take expensive CBD.
Most of that CBD happens to be full spectrum by the way.
Hope you like the bonus gastro issues like diarrhea and cramping.
That's free if you have allergy/histamine issues!
Those are reasons not to use CBD.
The growing list of reasons to use CBD is here.