A Guide to the History of CBD

A Guide to the History of CBD

Description: CBD has a long and rich history, and people have been using it for thousands of years. How has humanity’s knowledge of CBD developed over the years?

Though you may have only heard of CBD within the last few years, CBD is an extremely ancient supplement. The thing is, many people don’t know much about CBD, both in a historical sense and in a modern one. When you ask, “What is CBD?” it’s equally important to understand where CBD came from. With this information covering the timeline of CBD, you can understand more about how people have used CBD throughout the years.

Ancient Uses of Hemp

Hemp may have been one of the first plants cultivated by humans, and it makes sense that it would also have other uses. Before people started to be able to extract CBD directly, ancient civilizations would use hemp in its natural form as a tea and a general supplement. These uses date back to as far as 1400-2000 BC, more than 4,000 years ago. The earliest recorded information about hemp as a supplement is from 2737 BC, when a Chinese emperor used it for his various ailments.

The Scientific Community’s Understanding

Although these ancient uses of hemp showed that it had promise as a supplement, the modern supplement community didn’t look into it much further until the 1800s. In 1839, Irish scientist William B. O’Shaughnessy published possibly the first study on the topic, investigating hemp’s calming effects. He also considered other potential benefits of hemp. Though it would take over 100 years for the scientific community to build upon these findings, he opened the gates to allow that future research.

Modern Discovery

Though the historic existence of hemp as a supplement showed that it may have value, it wasn’t until the 1940s that CBD research really took off. In 1940, American chemist Roger Adams extracted the very first cannabinoid from the hemp plant, which we now know as cannabidiol, or CBD. German scientist Walter S. Loewe built upon these studies in 1946, when he conducted the first laboratory tests on CBD, showing some differences between isolated CBD and the hemp plant as a whole.

Introducing CBD for Managing Everyday Stress

Though the 1940s saw scientists starting to understand CBD’s existence as part of the hemp plant, the existence of different compounds within hemp was still somewhat of a grey area. That’s why some people cite Israeli chemist Raphael Mechoulam as the scientist who “discovered” CBD because he identified the compound’s three-dimensional structure.

He also made huge strides in understanding the differences between CBD and other compounds in the hemp plant. His research continued into the 1980s, and even today, his legacy lives on in current CBD research. By the 1990s, more people were looking into CBD for managing everyday stress, leading to the discovery of the endocannabinoid system, which is the body’s system that reacts with CBD and other cannabinoids.

CBD in Today’s World

Today, people are still researching CBD’s effect as a supplement. In the United States, the FDA almost exclusively classifies CBD as a supplement, meaning that in many cases, there isn’t enough scientific research to draw a distinct conclusion on its efficacy. However, as hemp and CBD become more broadly legal, it’s likely that scientists will do more research, establishing CBD’s effectiveness in certain situations.

Because the FDA currently regulates CBD as a supplement, it’s important to check the quality of your CBD supplements yourself. A high-quality retailer like Charlotte’s Web will provide third-party batch reports and provide you with plenty of information about its products, instilling confidence and making sure you have all the information you need to make a decision about your CBD products.

Although people have known about CBD’s benefits for thousands of years, it’s only been in the last few decades that scientists have been able to extract CBD by itself and understand more about the compound. You can benefit from thousands of years of experimentation both in laboratories and in the world as a whole. You just need to make sure that you use CBD from a high-quality source like Charlotte’s Web to get the best benefits.