Article Mention: I Substituted CBD Chocolates For Wine & This Is What Happened

In December 2016, I spoke with reporter Kate Smith about CBD (cannabidiol) products for an article about her personal experience trying CBD chocolates that she had purchased online. Since CBD is non-psychoactive, it has gained tremendous popularity for its medical and wellness benefits, but without government regulation or industry self-regulation, there have also been many cases of imitation products or overblown health claims.

Read the excerpt with my comments below, and read the full article here: https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2016/12/133738/cannabidiol-cbd-chocolates-sakara-life

I Substituted CBD Chocolates For Wine & This Is What Happened

It was a few days before the election and I was three episodes into a Sex and the City mini-marathon. As the credits rolled, it suddenly hit me that I hadn't checked my phone since I’d turned on the TV — but instead of scrambling to find my iPhone, my reaction was relief.

That’s the exact moment when I realized I was really going to like CBD chocolates.

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"CBD oil is in a really interesting area of debate and is very much in a legal grey area," says Sam Tracy, a marijuana consultant at Massachusetts-based 4Front Ventures. CBD isn't technically illegal, because states usually regulate THC, not CBD. But Tracy says it's not 100% legal, either, because it's incredibly difficult to completely isolate CBD from THC, kind of like how decaf coffee still has a little caffeine or non-alcoholic beer has a minimal amount of alcohol. And now, things have gotten even trickier — last week, the DEA announced that CBD is now considered a Schedule 1 drug, a.k.a. the same category as heroin, LSD, and MDMA (yikes), which means CBD products can’t cross state lines and companies that make the products will need to apply for a new type of registration. (Sakara says the DEA findings will not have an impact on their product, and it will continue to be available.)

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According to Tracy, this is essentially the first time that a relatively well-known company has taken CBD into the mainstream. Most other CBD products are sold exclusively at dispensaries or websites and stores specializing in marijuana-related products. Until Sakara's introduction of the chocolates, if you weren't already a marijuana user, you probably wouldn't have stumbled on CBD, Tracy said.

In Sakara's case, each small, pyramid-shaped chocolate packs two milligrams of CBD, an amount Tracy called "a sizable dose." For context, the potency of a standard edible product sold in a state that allows marijuana use is five milligrams of THC, Tracy told me.

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To me, having a legal way to forget Twitter and Facebook for a couple hours — sans hangover — is well worth it.