Worst of these claims are the (almost literal) "snake oil" companies and sellers that are selling 10mg of CBD to people as a 'dose' and implying or telling them it is anything other than placebo at this level. All professional journal studies that have made claims about CBD do studies that use at least 300mg and more often 600mg as the absolute minimum dose and repeat this daily for weeks. Unfortunately 600mg of CBD (with the THC removed down to <0.5mg levels) is expensive. Literally multiple hundreds of dollars. At the typical dosages sold in headshops and the like CBD is a placebo. It is snake oil.
It doesn't even have an significant affinity for the CB1 receptors at reasonable 0.6g doses. The mechanism of action is actually through binding to the serotonin-1a autoreceptor, much like the atypical antidepressant buspirone.
This unregulated wild west of CBD and non-THC pot products is only going to backfire on the charlatans and ignorant users caught up in it. It's going to hurt the legalization movement.
Unfortunately we don't have enough research to establish much of anything beyond the current FDA approved usage. However, that usage is 600mg/day for an average person (10mg/kg/day). So the claim of 600mg being the "absolute minimum dose" is absurd.
Plenty of studies have occurred at levels as low as 25mg/day and shown effects. The quality of those studies isn't great, but there aren't any good quality studies on CBD to begin with. But considering those poor quality studies together with the body of anecdotal evidence which suggests that CBD's anti-anxiety effects kick in between 15mg and 50mg, I'm inclined to believe that CBD is not a placebo at these levels.
My dose is between 5 and 10mg a day, and I can feel as little as 1mg (I'm hypersensitive to the stuff).
All of that said, I agree with you on your last point about charlatans. There's plenty of woo-woo and snake oil in the CBD "industry". But there are real benefits here that I wouldn't want drowned out.
This post also ignores how quickly tolerance builds up in the system before leveling off. Even if they truly felt threshold psychoactive effects from only 1mg, that would subside within a month at most. This leads me to believe parent is experiencing placebo effect. I'd bet they haven't done a blind study.
Nothing with any scientific rigor. Of course I, like I'm sure everyone else, believe I have a decent "placebo detector" and to that end CBD isn't behaving like a placebo for me.
But I'll try to add a little more strength to my claim for CBD not being a placebo at the original comment's supposed "low doses".
I've used it in balm form to treat physical pain. I use it at ~50mg topical doses (again much lower than 600mg) to treat carpal tunnel, TMJ, tweaked back, etc. It's been many times more effective for me in that regard than anything else I've tried previously, which includes placebos. I've tried everything from "real" treatments like NSAIDs and menthol rubs, to Chinese "medicines", to snake oil off Amazon. Nothing has worked as well as the CBD balm. So if CBD is a placebo at these doses then it's the best placebo I've ever found.
I had no reason to believe that CBD would be any more effective than my previous snake oil attempts, and indeed I had every expectation that it would be snake oil because of the many comments on HN saying as much.
Besides that we know THC, a related cannabinoid, is effective at these doses (e.g. 5mg). Why wouldn't CBD be? Most drugs that interact with the CNS are active on a wide spectrum, and in fact have different overall effects based on dose. Even in extremely low doses, for example LSD micro-dosing which we've seen a few studies reporting as effective. Is CBD the one special one that cures epilepsy at 600mg but nothing else at any other dosing?
So my general argument is that, though we lack concrete evidence, everything else from related chemicals to anecdotes to weak studies points in the direction of CBD being effective at doses as low as 15mg. So, why would we assume that 600mg is somehow an absolute minimum? And why would we assume that my claim of being able to detect the application of 1mg is entirely placebo? None of this precludes the absolute necessity of rigorous scientific study and deferring to said studies when possible. But I see absolutely no basis for claiming that anything less than 600mg dosing is bunk.
EDIT: I'll add the addendum that most of my CBD usage is "full-spectrum", which highly conflates my personal anecdotes. That doesn't negate any of my other arguments, though. In fact I think all the "weak" studies that we have on CBD are done with pure CBD. I do have CBD isolate that I've tried a few times. I can feel that at low doses as well, but I've never assessed it for pain relief or anxiety so I can't personally make any arguments for or against pure-CBD. Sibling comments suggest that it has effects at low doses though, just like all the weak studies show.
> Nothing with any scientific rigor. Of course I, like I'm sure everyone else, believe I have a decent "placebo detector" and to that end CBD isn't behaving like a placebo for me.
This statement invalidates everything that follows after. Do multiple blind trials with a control substance at varying threshold doses, then you can say whether these "feelings" are from the drug itself.
Placebo creates a very real, measurable physiological effect, so relying on your subjective experience is more than "scientifically unrigorous", it's actually flawed reasoning. And citing a lack of evidence doesn't mean you can suddenly use your own anecdotal data as evidence.
I understand where you're coming from, but do you expect all people to discount their own experiences because they don't meet some threshold of validity? Humans don't live daily life like that. I think there's value in anecdotal data, especially when presented with the appropriate caveats. Otherwise, is my entire life a sham unless it is backed up by double blind trials?
It's not about the threshold of validity. It's about the threshold dose used, whose psychoactive effects are generally placed at higher doses.
There is no value in anecdotal data when this is something that can be properly measured, especially when it has to do with medical science and people's lives are involved. OP is making bogus, unsubstantiated claims and does not need to be defended.
Anybody who believes in the placebo effect is not to be taken seriously. If you think you can measure the placebo effect, what did you use as your control in your double blind study? That is, your control group which did not get a placebo, but believed they were getting a placebo, how exactly did you manage that?
> Anybody who believes in the placebo effect is not to be taken seriously.
Uhhhhhh no, sorry. Anybody who believes placebo is not a real physiological phenomenon is not to be taken seriously, because they have not done their basic homework.
> what did you use as your control in your double blind study?
I didn't do one, because I am not here claiming that 1mg of CBD is enough to feel. The responsibility is on OP, not me. But to answer a hypothetical, what would I use as my control? The same solution I would be placing the CBD in, sans the CBD. It's not hard.
Please don't take me so literally. I understand you didn't do a study on the placebo effect or anything else. I'm asking something that I wish you would seriously consider.
If you only believe in things that are proven through double-blind studies, and you believe the placebo effect objectively exists, then it must be possible to do a double-blind study proving the placebo effect exists.
Have you read about such a thing, or can you imagine such a thing? Do you, if you look again at my previous comment, see any possible logical problem?
I'm questioning your belief structure - I have no particular opinion on CBD, nor do I think controlled studies are useless.
Not all text on the internet is meant to be a scientific paper. It's totally valid to claim that something works for you without having to do "multiple blind trials with a control substance at varying threshold dose".
My experience is mostly with epilepsy, but CBD at dosages of 25-100mg (varying on the intensity of the siezure) really does help better then any prescribed medication my partner has tried. It's not ridiculous to me that it's effect on other systems in your body we don't know much about could be significant.
I do agree though, regularily using 500-1000mg's a week gets expensive.
It drives me crazy that they sell CBD at gas stations. It’s not the same as the products I buy at the dispensary and is snake oil.
However, my medical cannabis packages don’t give that kind of dosage information.
I don’t have a high CBD product on hand but it typically says something like “1 dose is a [3|5] second inhalation” or 1mL of a tincture. The whole package typically includes less than 600mg CBD.
Are these studies for shrinking tumor growth? Could you provide links?
As an aside, I met some guys from a company in Colorado that sells pounds of high CBD flower by mail for around $130... can’t imagine that making RSO from their hemp would be hundreds of dollars a week.
It doesn't even have an significant affinity for the CB1 receptors at reasonable 0.6g doses. The mechanism of action is actually through binding to the serotonin-1a autoreceptor, much like the atypical antidepressant buspirone.
This unregulated wild west of CBD and non-THC pot products is only going to backfire on the charlatans and ignorant users caught up in it. It's going to hurt the legalization movement.