The cannabidiol craze
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 12 September 2019
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The cannabis extract CBD or cannabidiol is legal in many countries, and now it's finding its way into everything from soaps to cosmetics. But is it just a fad, and are its health claims bogus?
Manuela Saragosa asks Harry Sumnall, professor in substance use at Liverpool John Moores University, whether it is true that CBD is not a psychoactive substance - unlike the more infamous cannabis extract THC. And is it true that it can be used to treat the symptoms of Alzheimer's, anxiety and cancer amongst others?
Meanwhile Katie Prescott explores the booming market for CBD products. She speaks to Jim McCormick, president of cannabis brand Ignite International; Eveline van Keymeulen, head of life sciences regulations at law firm Allen & Overy; Alex Brooks of financial services firm Canaccord Genuity; and Chris Tovey of GW Pharmaceuticals.
(Picture: Cannabis leaf; Credit: digihelion/Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC. I'm Manuela Saragossa. Coming up, the growing craze for CBD. It's the |
| 0:10.5 | cannabis compound that doesn't get you high and it's finding its way into everything from soaps to food to |
| 0:17.1 | cosmetics. I think people like the fact that it's a natural product. It's a soother. |
| 0:22.4 | I think that's what people are attracted to. If people are looking for something to be able to |
| 0:26.6 | soothe and calm. But is it all just a fad? And who's making money out of it? It's a very |
| 0:33.0 | infant market and people believe they can profiteer from it. There's an awful lot of mislabelling |
| 0:37.3 | and there's a huge amount of it. There's an awful lot of mislabelling and |
| 0:37.5 | there's a huge amount of misunderstanding. That's all here in Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:47.9 | If you believe the marketing, CBD may help to successfully treat the symptoms of everything from |
| 0:54.1 | Alzheimer's to anxiety to |
| 0:56.0 | cancer and diabetes. What's more, it's legal. And that's because it's a cannabis compound that |
| 1:01.6 | isn't psychoactive. So unlike cannabis-based products that contain THC, it's not classed as a drug. |
| 1:08.8 | In the past few years, sales of CBD have exploded into a multi-billion |
| 1:13.3 | dollar market globally, with some estimates suggesting the market in the US alone could be worth |
| 1:18.9 | more than $20 billion by 2024. But does the science support the marketing? More on the marketing |
| 1:25.7 | and how effective it's been in just a moment. |
| 1:28.7 | First, let's hear from Harry Sumnell. He's Professor in Substance Use at Liverpool John |
| 1:33.8 | Moore's University. I started by asking him, what exactly is CBD? So cannabis contains many |
| 1:40.5 | different natural chemicals and probably the most well known is THC, which is responsible for some of the |
| 1:48.5 | intoxicating effects. But CBD is also important and it's a non-intoxicating product. It's often |
| 1:57.6 | described as being non-psychoactive, but increasingly we're finding evidence which suggests it might be psychoactive. |
| 2:06.1 | Just to clarify then, at the moment, CBD is entirely legal. It's not regulated in the UK or elsewhere in the EU and as far as you're aware, not in the US. |
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