The main issue with marijuana is its psychoactive nature that tends to give a feeling of “high” when consumed; making it a cause for concern in the US. However, in recent times, with awareness seeping in about the plant and legalization of it in many places, there has been a paradigm shift happening with studies dedicated to the nature and attributes of the plant. It has been established that only certain parts of it cause the psychoactive effects and devoid of it, one can avail the medicinal benefits of marijuana without getting the proverbial ‘high’.
Cannabidiol, or CBD Oil, is a marijuana compound which according to a study, The New England Journal of Medicine, had displayed potent health benefits without inducing the feeling of ‘getting high’. The study from New York University School of Medicine dictated on how a small dose of CBD when administered to a set of patients with severe form of epilepsy brought about a considerable reduction of seizures one experiences with the illness.
A medical condition called Lennox-Gastaut syndrome which usually onsets during childhood can culminate to clusters of severe seizures in adults causing people to abruptly faint or stiffen. The existing anti-epileptic medications often do not evoke any response in patients with this underlying condition.
Dr, Orrin Devinsky, director of NYU Langone’s Comprehensive Epilepsy Center who headed the study, stated, “These are real medications with real side effects, and as providers, we need to know all we can about a potential treatment in order to provide safe and effective care to our patients.” Derived from hemp, CBD-based products like CBD Tinctures and CBD Capsules are legal in most states and are gaining popularity.
Divided into three groups, each group received a different set of doses involving high, medium and placebo dose of CBD, twice a week. The study period, which involved 4 weeks before and after the administer of the drug, tracked the number of seizures with researchers finding that people who had received a high dose (20 mg per kilogram body weight per day) had a 41.9 percent reduction in seizures followed by those who got a medium dose of 10 milligrams reporting a decrease of 37.2 percent, and the placebo group with a 17.2 percent reduction.
