America Loves Its Unregulated Wellness Chemicals
The middle-aged woman in front of me in the Atlanta airport’s check-in line surely meant well. “You should try some CBD for your dog if she gets nervous,” she said, motioning to my chihuahua, who sat atop my suitcase, peering uneasily through the mesh panels of her travel carrier. “They say it’s great for that.”
She didn’t say who “they” were, but at this point, it could be anyone: her teenage kids, her elderly mom, the barista at her local coffee shop. A shop selling only CBD—short for “cannabidiol”—in oils, vapes, tinctures, and gummies might have opened next to her suburban grocery store, or she might have heard that Martha Stewart is developing a line of CBD products for both pets and people. Purveyors of the chemical credit it with alleviating everything from anxiety to autism, with widely varying levels of proof to back up their claims.
Seven months ago,. During the high point, in May, Google received more than three times as many queries for CBD as it did for Beyoncé. CBD belongs to a class of chemicals called cannabinoids, dozens of which have been identified in cannabis and hemp plants, and just a couple of years ago, it was virtually unknown in the U.S. Americans spent last year trying to answer the same questions my parents asked me after Christmas Eve dinner, three days before my airport encounter: What is CBD, why is it everywhere now, and what does it do?
