It’s time! Let’s welcome Austin Flohrschutz (@aflohrschutz) to the forum! Go ahead and ask your CBD questions!
Interested in checking out TruPotency? Head on over and use code : GN20 at check out for an amazing 20% off your purchase!
About the AMA
Austin Flohrschutz will be talking all about CBD, from the basics to the advanced. Austin is the Director of Science at TruPotency, the curated marketplace for rigorously tested CBD products. There is a lot of poorly made mislabeled products and misinformation, so drop in to the AMA to learn about the CBD facts, myths, and question yet to be answered. Is CBD safe? Where do you get quality CBD products? How much should you take? How does CBD work? What is CBD good for? And more! Start asking your questions now!
Austin Flohrschutz is the Director of Science for TruPotency. He holds a Masters of Science
degree in Neuroscience from the University of Arizona, and a B.S. in Behavioral Neuroscience
from the University of Kansas. Austin has worked in a broad variety of research laboratories -
first in social psychology, then cognitive neuroscience and finally medicinal chemistry. Austin
focused on extracting biologically active compounds from plants, which were then purified and
used to synthesize new potential drugs to treat pain without addictive properties.
Austin! Thank you so much for hosting today’s Ask Me Anything! I’m really excited to hear what kind of questions our awesome members have for you @memberdirectory
I have a question: Is CBD legal? There seems to be a lot of confusion around this point. Thanks!
First, I want make sure to let you know I am not an MD. But many different drugs can be taken together as long as you closely monitor the interaction or changes in both your physiology and behavior.
One thing to be wary of is that CBD can inhibit enzymes the break down other drugs, effectivly increasing the amount of other drug in your body, similar to why some medication tell you to avoid grapefruit jiuce. This has been shown with blood thinners, but probably extends to other drugs as well.
The best advise would be to talk to your doctor about dosing and potential interaction.
The process we use is to first vet brands that we believe have good products that fit with TruPotency. We then reach out to that brand for samples of their whole line of products.
After receiving the products, we will anatomize the samples so that the lab testing the products are blind to the brand and concentration. We use a variety of labs, including many ISO certified labs, like SC Labs in California, Botanacor in Colorado, and ACS Labs in Florida.
We test for a variety of chemicals to asses the products safety (lack of bad stuff) as well as the potential efficacy (cannabinoid and terpene profile). If the product passes (having correctly labeled CBD and lack of harmful chemicals), then we will use the cannabinoids and terpene information to rate a product based on its content.
This is where our algorithm come into play. Let’s say a CBD product contains complementary cannabinoids CBG and CBC with terpenes beta-caryophyllene and myrcene at moderate levels. When the algorithm evaluates this, it will take into account that all of these are reported to be pain relieving and rate the product favorably for soreness and pain.
That is a great question. The research is limited, but here is a good review. Overall, it seems terpenes may help enhance absorption of some through the skin, but the literature is lacking. It also seem like essential oils/terpenes can enhance molecules that are less lipophilic than CBD, but not quite have the same effect on more lipid like molecules.
According to the 2018 Farm Bill, Hemp based products containing less than 0.3% THC are deemed federally legal. This includes CBD extracted from hemp and the products made with this extract.
However some states have their own law that still list hemp under their “marijuana” laws, effectively making CBD illegal in those states. So if you are traveling, check the state laws of where you are going to stay safe.
Another issues comes around when CBD is treated like a supplement added to food and drink. because CBD is an FDA approved drug (Epidiolex) it becomes a somewhat gray area. We are hoping the FDA make some final rules and regulations regarding CBD, so there is not so much confusion.
Dosing is a major issue for everyone. One complication is that everyone’s biology is different and will respond differently to the same compounds; think about caffeine: some people cannot even have a sip of coffee without getting the jitters, while others need a double shot of espresso to get the morning started. There is even a website, similar to 23andMe, that will analyze your genetics then come up with a theoretical “best” THC to CBD ratio based on your particular genes. So a “one size fits all” is probably not realistic.
Another complication is that the research is lacking. We have a pretty good idea on dosing for epilepsy because of studies surrounding Epidiolex, but this might not translate to unrelated ailments, like pain or anxiety. And the other cannabinoids are even further behind in our knowledge. As for Epidiolex, the amount can vary, but about 5 milligram per kilogram of body weight twice a day can be used. So a 70kg person (about 155 pounds) would take about 350mg of CBD twice a day to help control their seizures, but we do not know much about dosing for anything else.
Some people will find relief with just 5-10mg of CBD while other may have to take more than 100mg. The best current advise is to start low and go slow. See how your body reacts and adjust from there.
I have som cbd plants going fight now. I was told to harvest them earlier than usual because the thc could pass the.3% mark. Do you have any idea when I should harvest?
There are over 100 cannabinoids in the cannabis plant, so we could see a number of potential popular cannabinoids making appearances.
For me personally, I have troubles sleeping, so one cannabinoid that I am interested in is Cannabinol (CBN). CBN is gaining popularity as a sleep aid and showing up in cannabinoid products claiming usefulness for sleep. At TruPotency we just picked up a brand called Plant People that has a sleep tincture designed with CBN. although I have not been able to try it quite yet, I am excited for the potential.
From my interests in pain, there are many potential cannabinoids that are promising. Both Cannabigerol (CBG) and Cannabichromene (CBC) are thought to reduce pain and inflammation. This is important because opioids are one of the main drugs we used for chronic pain and has lead to the current Opioid Epidemic, so finding non-addictive and deadly alternative for pain relief is a major concern.
Unfortunately I am not as familiar with growing/harvesting, but have heard harvesting earlier will reduce THC levels as well. I know this does not help you very much, but maybe someone else can jump in and provide you with the info.
The major concerning factor is similar to the finding published in 2017 by the University of Pennsylvania. Overall, even from popular CBD brands we found many that had vastly different CBD amounts than labeled and some products that were labeled THC-free actually had THC in them. We did not find many products with other contaminants (heavy metals, pesticides, etc.), but there were some we found with arsenic and residual solvents like alcohol.
