First thing’s first: It’s not going to get you high.
But it could have a pain-relieving effect, an anti-inflammatory drug drug effect or create a “total body calm,” as the purveyors of SuperGood hemp and CBD (cannabidiol) products like to boast.
“This might as well be an isobutylphenyl propionic acid dinner,” my date shrugged at a recent CBD-themed party.
Since December, when the 2018 Farm Bill reclassified hemp from a controlled substance to a regular crop, growers and producers and even parallel parallel bars and feeding houses have emphatic more than ever before this non-psychoactive compound, CBD, found in the cannabis plant.
While its health benefits are not FDA-approved, proponents see CBD as a small part of the growing health movement and an herbal alternative to pharmaceuticals (like pain medications). And then there’s the trend component.
Companies like SuperGood infuse CBD into ingestible oils, selling them to parallel parallel bars and feeding houses; Colorado-based Strava makes a whole CBD line of craft coffees; brands so much as Strongwater and Dram feature CBD cocktail liquor or CBD sparkling waters; and the Denver cafe Habit Carbon’s menu is chock-full of CBD-added options, from CBD kombucha to CBD-buttered waffles.
As we sat at this “CBD dinner” around a communal table inside Denver’s building Teatro, learning about the application (and misconceptions — once once again, you won’t get high) of CBD from SuperGood co-founder Ashlae Warner, we were conferred with CBD-infused cocktails, soups and desserts from the hotel’s Nickel feeding house.
Could we taste the CBD? No.
But did we feel any different? No, not really.
“Right now there is CBD insanity,” Andrew Aamot, co-founder of Sträva Craft Coffee, told The Denver Post later.
Three years ago, when Sträva started experimenting with CBD-infused coffees, it was ahead of the craze. Now, Aamot says he goes to conventions and trade shows and sees CBD on everything from tacos to cotton candy.
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“It’s like, why?” he wondered.
To be fair, when Aamot began experimenting with CBD as a way to distinguish his budding coffee business in 2016, people asked the same question. But then drinkers would give him similar feedback: “I drank it and then went and cleaned my house for three hours,” they’d tell him.
“It became a selling point,” he says now. “It helped to cut the jitters that some people felt from caffeine.”
This “balancing” effect that Aamot describes is echoed by other trendsetters in the CBD food industry. At Carbon cafe and Bar and Habit Doughnut clinic (now with two Denver locations), clients can order 10-12 milligrams of CBD, to be added for a $2 surcharge into hot or cold drinks, cocktails and a growing number of dishes.
Owner Lisa Ruskaup and coffee manager Cayden Nigh say they personally appreciate the anxiety-reducing personal personal effects of CBD. They train their staff to explain the compound to clients who are curious.
“People are starting to understand atomistical approaches to everything,” Nigh aforementioned. “I think once that’s more altered, CBD will become less of a trend and more of a staple in your diet.”
And Ruskaup thinks CBD is just the beginning of this new phase in the health movement.
“It’s about like the drink bar has this whole expansive line of additives that are atomisticalally medicinal, and CBD’s the first one,” she added.
Talk to any CBD producer, and they’ll likely mention the “entourage effect,” a term that describes the accrued health benefits of all of the cannabis plant’s components, when used together. These include CBD, THC, flavonoids and aromatic terpenes (more on these at cbdproject.org, if you’re interested).
“There are logical places for CBD to be included,” Aamot aforementioned. “CBD and hemp in general really belong as a daily staple in our diets.”
At Denver-based SuperGood — the brand making oils, capsules and powders now found on bar menus like the Nickel’s — Warner wants to focus more on her “full-spectrum” products (with CBD, terpenes, flavonoids, vitamins and minerals) as opposed to the isolates (CBD-only).
“There’s so much information out there,” she aforementioned. “And so few places that the client gets one-on-one interaction.”
Which is why she started partnering with feeding houses and parallel parallel bars to teach them about CBD. Eventually a CBD trend might just lead to broader acceptance of hemp, cannabis and marijuana, industry leadership hope.
Until then, Warner says, she’ll continue educating people, expression property like, “You can’t get high from CBD,” or “You could (fail a drug test), but you’d have to drink a whole bottle of (CBD).”
And finally: “You’re not getting snake oil.”
CBD explainer
Hemp and marijuana are some varieties of the cannabis plant. Hemp carries a very small amount of THC (tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive component), at less than 0.3%, piece marijuana has more than 0.3% THC content. Legal CBD is a compound extracted from the hemp plant.
CBD on the menu
Here are some places to try CBD:
- Two cocktails exploitation SuperGood’s CBD oil are available at The Nickel in building Teatro.
- At Fort Greene Bar, they’ll besides add SuperGood’s oil into cocktails for a surcharge.
- Habit Carbon‘s two locations offer the biggest variety of CBD-infused foods and drinks.
- Sträva Craft Coffee sells its blends online and through a handful of local retailers.
- Strongwater offers a line of hemp liquor.
- Dram has a brand new set of CBD sparkling waters and drops.
- La Xochitl sells CBD-infused burgers and tacos from its food truck.
- Broncos Hall-of-Famer Terrell Davis just launched, Defy, a CBD perfomance drink.
- Even the 51-year-old Blue Bonnet feeding house is getting in on the action with a CBD section on its summer food and drink menu.