OPINION


CBD The rise and rise of By Terry Maguire s


adly, that wish remains unfulfilled and was painfully dashed when I attended the


UK Pharmacy show in the NeC Birmingham at the start of October.


Twenty-three stands featured CBD oil products and it seems pharmacists are being educated, coerced, bullied or brainwashed (not sure which) into the ideological belief that CBD is, must be, has to be, the panacea mankind has been seeking since we climbed down from the trees onto the savannahs of Africa.


The commitment to this ideology from venture capitalists is, to say the least, impressive. Not since the infancy of e-cigarettes has venture capital splashed out so much on glitzy stands at the Pharmacy show. This year there was only one vaping stand.


I picked a CBD stand at random and, when I asked what I thought to be fairly innocuous questions, I was assigned to ‘Joe’ as he, I was told, was the most knowledgeable person on CBD and the best qualified to deal with me. Joe told me that he was currently writing a book for the company on CBD and that he had a first-class degree in english.


Firstly, he assured me his company was an ethical company – unlike, he intimated, some competitors at the show - an assurance I found naïve. He


44 - PHARMACY IN FOCUs


referred me to studies listed online on a website ‘NCBI project cannabis’.


This, he informed me, was set up to advise government which, he felt, really had failed to keep up with all the exciting scientific findings about CBD.


My questions, I told him, were on three issues: the quality, safety and efficacy of CBD products. Firstly, Joe wanted to talk about safety as he knew something about CBD safety and he quoted a paper published by the UK government that he claimed confirmed CBD products are completely safe. Absolutely. I knew this very study, I told him, and he was perhaps exaggerating the study claims.


It was designed to confirm that by manipulating CBD oil - either in vivo or in vitro - consumers could not easily convert some CBD (the safe molecule) into some THC (delta 9 tetra-hydrocannabinoid) (the dope molecule) no matter how they tried.


In this context CBD was safe. Yet we agreed that, on the whole, CBD was probably not a dangerous product. efficacy was a difficult issue to discuss, he told me, as his company cannot make medical claims for their CBD products yet. This was in contrast to the billboard advertisement recently across Belfast reading: ANXIeTY? CBD oil, or PAIN? CBD oil, or even


OVeR THe THIRTY-FIVe YeARs OF MY CAReeR, IT HAs BeeN A CHeRIsHeD WIsH THAT THe PUBLIC GeNeRALLY, AND PHARMACY COLLeAGUes sPeCIFICALLY, WOULD BeCOMe eNLIGHTeNeD TO THe VALIDITY AND sUPeRIORITY OF sCIeNCe IN DeCIsION MAKING, PARTICULARLY IN THe CHOICe OF MeDICINAL TReATMeNTs We eNDORse AND Use.


INsOMNIA? CBD oil. No doubt legal advice has assured such advertisements comply with the law.


Joe could quote scores of papers that show efficacy across a range of conditions. The products he sold were licensed as ‘foods’, which restricted what he could say, but, he affirmed, CBD works. such as? Well, a medical product for Dravitts’ syndrome (a rare form of epilepsy) will, he proffered, soon get a marketing licence (epiduox).


I told him I didn’t see many such patients in my pharmacy and, if I did, I might be reluctant to treat. Had he nothing more, well, common conditions? Well, I was told, eczema is a good example where CBD oil is very effective as it has both antibacterial and anti-inflammatory effects. CBD oil is infused into a cream and I could recommend this to my customers as long as I don’t claim it works. I asked about the cream formulation and if the cream itself might be the active agent, but he dismissed this out of hand.


We then talked about quality. How did I know that the CBD oil he was selling contained the stated percentage of CBD (one, five or ten per cent)? Joe told me that all product quality was verified by an independent laboratory so no worries there. I noted that the label of the CBD oil he sold stated: 15 ml containing 10,000 mg and a direction


to use two drops up to three times daily, along with a warning not to use more than 200 mg per day. If a drop is 0.6 ml - one drop contains a massive 400mg.


Joe didn’t want to comment on this and said he would ‘come back to me’. I enquired as to the oil that the CBD was contained in and was told it was coconut oil. He seemed unaware that coconut oil would be solid at room temperature and, when I pointed this out, again, he told me he would ‘come back to me’. It turns out, and both of us should have known, that CBD oil is hemp oil as that’s where it comes from - the hemp plant.


By now, Joe’s boss was hanging over us and it was clear he was uncomfortable. He mentioned to Joe that he had an ‘appointment’, which had arrived. Joe thanked me for the insightful conversation and, yet again, promised that he would ‘come back to me’.


Perhaps unsurprisingly, he never did. I think his boss knew that I was unlikely to be the kind of pharmacist, who would stock CBD oils, creams, facial washes and, oh yes, suppositories.


Perhaps five years from now I will read this column again and think how stupid and wrong I was about CBD.


These views are entirely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of either Profile Publishing or UCA-NI Ltd.


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