Come Join the Celebration: January Is National CBD Month

The start of a new year is the perfect time to try new wellness routines, like CBD. CBD may help you with a variety of issues, both physical and psychological. Whether heading into winter has you feeling anxious or you need something to help relax your muscles and relieve chronic inflammation, CBD could be the solution for you. Even people without health concerns have found CBD is a wonderful way to relax and enhance their sense of well-being—all without a heady psychoactive high, impaired function, or the potential for addiction. And, it just so happens that January is National CBD Month.

Join us in celebrating CBD! To get the celebration started, there is a vast range of CBD products out there, from vape pens and smokeable flower to edibles and ointments. Finding a CBD product that works for you this January could be the key to keeping your body and mind feeling their best all throughout the upcoming year and beyond. Before you add the cannabis compound, let’s explore the origins of National CBD Month.

How National CBD Month Started

National CBD Month is a fairly new celebration—the first official National CBD Month on record was celebrated in January 2020. The creation of the occasion coincides with the recent rise of CBD products in the marketplace. The exposure and popularity of CBD products rose sharply over the course of the past few years because it made an abrupt transition from being mostly illegal to widely available across the U.S. CBD stands for cannabidiol, a chemical compound derived from the cannabis sativa plant. Unlike marijuana flower, CBD products in medical and recreational marijuana markets differ from other consumable marijuana products because they don’t contain high levels of tetrahydrocannabinol or THC, meaning no psychoactive high is produced. Even without the THC featured in other marijuana products, CBD retains useful therapeutic benefits.

CBD had technically been illegal in the U.S. since the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act, although it was not discovered until 3 years later, in 1940. Early science regarding CBD was limited and often slowly paced due to the sticky legal status of cannabis sativa plants. This prohibition was only reinforced by the 1970 Controlled Substances Act, which effectively outlawed the plant altogether. 

Unfortunately, the Act didn’t merely make psychoactive cannabis an illegal drug - itundermined the possibility of the hemp industry flourishing in the country and stymied research on CBD and other medicinally useful cannabis derived compounds. Prior to the mid-20th-century prohibition campaign, hemp had been cultivated by humans for use as food, material, and medicine for as many as ten thousand years.

Hemp once again became legal to grow and distribute in the U.S. with the passage of the 2018 Farm Bill. This legislation greatly relaxed regulations and limitations on the production of non-THC hemp products, including consumable CBD. Just a year later, CBD was one of the top five wellness search terms on the entire internet. In fact, CBD became a more popular search term than perennial hot-button keywords like “veganism” and “vaccination,” and shockingly even surpassed “meditation.”

There’s no question about it—people in the wellness world and beyond are getting excited about CBD. Yet there is still a great deal of work to be done when it comes to exploring the full potential of CBD’s medicinal benefits and banishing some remaining stigmas. Perhaps, then, it's no surprise that CBD’s advocates organized an entire month in the substance’s honor.

CBD Month Fast Facts

Let’s dive into National CBD Month, then celebrate by learning some interesting CBD facts and discovering where to get top CBD products.

Who Started National CBD Month?

The month-long celebration of all things Cannabidiol was founded by cbdMD, a well-regarded CBD brand known for using U.S.-grown hemp in its operations. Deriving CBD products from hemp produced under high quality control standards allows brands to ensure their products are of a consistent potency. Just as importantly, these standards ensure the plants contain no psychoactive THC or other unwanted byproducts.

What’s the Purpose of National CBD Month?

National CBD Month’s founders were not merely looking for a gimmick to promote their brand for thirty days. They wanted to highlight CBD’s positive impacts, spread awareness of its medicinal potential, and celebrate all the hard work that has been done to make CBD legal and widely available across the U.S. To quote their mission directly, they aim to “raise awareness, provide education, and bust myths.”

How Do You Celebrate National CBD Month?

CBD use is personal, and the way you observe National CBD Month can be just as unique to you. Here are a few things you can do to celebrate this hemp friendly holiday:

• Talk about CBD. Spread awareness by talking openly to your doctor about CBD and what it has done for you. Then, share the good word with people in your life who might benefit from trying CBD.
• Ask about CBD. Ask your favorite CBD supplier about National CBD Month specials and promotional deals.
• Be an advocate for CBD. Stay informed about CBD and the many good things it does for people. Be prepared to have conversations with people who are misinformed or influenced by anti-marijuana stigma.

What About National CBD Day?

If January sounded wrong to you, or if you thought National CBD Month was in the summer, it could be that you were thinking of National CBD Day instead. National CBD Day is a similar, but separate, celebration and awareness-spreading event that takes place on a single day— August 8. National CBD Day was established before its month-length counterpart, having kicked off on August 8, 2018.

National CBD Day is another great time to visit your favorite CBD suppliers and inquire about special deals and promotions. National CBD Day was organized by cbdMD, the same folks who organized National CBD Month.

5 Facts About CBD

While an increasing number of people are becoming familiar with CBD and its benefits every day, there are still many questions to be answered and just as much misinformation. In the spirit of National CBD Month’s mission to educate and spread awareness, let’s look at five interesting facts about CBD many people don’t know. 

1. The first therapeutic use discovered for CBD was in treating epilepsy. 

CBD’s anti-seizure effect was first demonstrated in rats and mice and later proved in clinical trials in the late 1970s. It required many more years of CBD proponents and patient advocates fighting for common sense reform before CBD became widely available to epilepsy patients.

2. CBD oil is made from all sorts of different plant material. 

In plants grown for THC rather than CBD content, the only part that gets consumed or processed is usually the flower. Not so when it comes to hemp and CBD—you could extract medicine from the very same fibers you might braid into a rope. CBD can be derived from the leaves, stems, plants, stalk, and, of course, the flower of a hemp plant.

3. The global market for CBD is expected to hit almost 10 billion dollars by 2025, with projected growth over 21%.

That’s an impressive estimate for a product that barely existed five years ago. CBD’s role in the U.S. economy decreased by about 6% from 2019 to 2020, but this is believed to be due to supply chain issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic rather than a decline in CBD’s popularity.

4. There is still plenty of healthy debate and ongoing research regarding how CBD and THC work when taken together. 

Even though they occur together naturally in most cannabis sativa flower, conventional wisdom around the industry once said that high CBD levels in a strain of cannabis would mitigate or lessen the THC high. 

Recent research, however, has come away with contradictory results that suggest CBD might enhance or exacerbate a heady THC experience. This “entourage effect”—the combined effects of the many different cannabinoids, terpenes, and other associated chemicals in a cannabis sativa plant—is the focus of much ongoing research. In fact, this effect may hold the key to understanding the medicinal potential of cannabis.

5. Since the ban on hemp production was lifted in 2018, CBD has begun showing up in a staggering number of products. 

Today, you can find CBD in mouthwash, bubble bath, clothing, coffee, food, and hundreds of other unique CBD forms. Depending on how you intend to use CBD and the desired therapeutic outcomes, a combination of different products administered in different ways may serve to improve its effects. Pairing edible gummies with a topical lotion for someone dealing with inflammatory pain, is an example of this strategy.

Find Top CBD Products for National CBD Month

Are you ready to celebrate National CBD Month with quality CBD products from a brand you can trust?Find the Zen Leaf dispensary nearest to you and let our friendly and knowledgeable staff walk you through the many options available. We are here to help those ready to enhance their health and wellness routine by adding CBD. Feel free to stop by or contact us anytime to learn more.