As consumers learn more about the potential nutritional benefits and possible medicinal benefits of cannabidiol, better known these days as CBD, companies, and retailers are offering more and more products with higher levels of CBD. In the illegal black market for marijuana, the trend over the past number of decades has been the pot with higher and higher levels of THC, the compound in cannabis that produces the high. This has been in response to consumer demand, as pot smokers wanted the biggest bang for their buck. Senior citizen pot smokers (there’s lots of them!) tell us that the pot today is much stronger than the pot in the 1960’s. But now as the benefits of CBD become more understood, that is all changing, as many people want a better balance of THC and CBD.
So, higher levels of CBD on marijuana products are increasing as public awareness of the potential benefits from the CBD compound grows. In Washington State, for example, sales of cannabis products with high levels of CBD make up only a small portion of that state’s retail pot market currently, but that sector has seen significant growth in the past 12 months. And, it is not just recreational marijuana products seeing the growth. There is also a strongly expanding market for CBD oil products such as the popular product Vita CBD and others. These CBD oil products are mostly non-psychoactive products meaning they have zero or minuscule levels of THC. In order words, CBD oil products do not get people high.
Makers of higher CBD cannabis-infused products are expanding into a number of niches such as vapor pens, concentrates, capsules, tinctures, topicals, and edibles. In the Washington State market, high-CBD mints have become the eighth-most popular segment with total sales making up 5 percent of the total CBD market in 2016. One newer company offering CBD is a firm called Green Gorilla CBD that not only makes CBD products for humans, but also for pets.
Industry research has indicated that women account for 32 percent of cannabis sales in Washington and 38 percent of high-CBD sales. But still, in the recreational weed market the economics still strongly favor the high THC products over high CBD products.
The CBD oil market is dealing with a maze of confusing laws and regulations. There is a big market for these products outside the states where pot is legal for recreational use. Many of the prominent CBD oil companies ship to all states in the United States. For some companies, there are banking hurdles such as credit card processing issues. For other companies, there are controversies as to where the CBD is derived. Some companies are able to source from cannabis in the states where legal while many sources from industrial hemp in Europe. Others are using suppliers from China. So, consumers seeking quality products need to be diligent consumers in order to identify authentic quality products.