By: Karishhma Ashwin By: Karishhma Ashwin | July 12, 2021 |
CBD oil has been all over online stores for the last handful of years. Is it time to accept that it has become part of modern culture?
We are not sure how they did it, but CBD sellers seem to have finally convinced the general public that CBD is not only good for you but that it also has nothing to do with cannabis. They have managed to make whole businesses out of selling CBD-based products.
With everyone from middle-aged mums to grandparents seeking out the nutritional and health benefits related to CBD, is it time to finally admit that it is ingrained into the modern version of a healthy lifestyle?
We wanted to reflect on CBD through the last few years to find out how it has evolved and if it is as integral to the modern diet as we believe it to be.
CBD in the 2010s
Although CBD (short for cannabidiol) was first discovered in the 1940s, it gained notoriety in the late 2010s as a health food supplement. By now, we should all be aware that CBD and cannabis are two different things. While CBD is one of the cannabinoids in a cannabis plant, there are 113 others… and those are only the ones that we know about.
Due to its increased popularity as of 2018 onwards, many scientific tests were run on CBD to see if the health claims made regarding the planet were true. Papers were published, most with the semi-surprising results that CBD was nutritionally good for you. Since it doesn’t contain any of the psychoactive components of cannabis, it is safe to gain health properties from the plant without getting high.
Culturally, we all breathed a sigh of relief.
CBD Businesses were Everywhere
It isn’t as hard to start a CBD business as you might think. All you need are a few white-label products, and you can start selling through a website. In some cases, you might dropship so that you never hold any physical stock of your own.
Running a CBD business in 2018/2019 was similar to the 2020/2021 rush of people to run crystal shops. The next big thing, but getting to gain, unlike crystal healing, CBD proved scientifically that it came with health benefits. Some of these included anti-inflammatory properties, antipsychotic properties, and anti-epileptic properties.
How CBD is in our Culture
Now that it has been around for a few years, we are less shocked by it than we once were. There has been a sort of cultural acceptance of it, where enough of the middle-aged white people demographic enjoyed the product as a health supplement, that it became socially acceptable.
Although pop culture initially touted CBD is a miracle cure for all manner of issues, this turned out not to be true over time. Nevertheless, there is a persistent belief that it is ‘safe’ cannabis, and that our bodies need it to survive. This is proven by countless people taking drops in the evening to help them sleep, taking drops in the morning for pain management, and using CBD creams to soothe swelling.
Where will all this lead? To an acceptance of legalized pot? Maybe. But it is so far proving that Gen Z are overwhelmingly liberal and that the country is catching up with them, one baby step at a time.
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