The Roanoker - January/February 2020 - 30

HEMP mania
A few years ago, hemp was a little-known darling of the hippie movement.
Now it's everywhere. written by CHRISTINA NIFONG

Walk through the aisles at Earth Fare or Roanoke Co+op,
and the hemp products are hard to miss: packages of
seeds, brownie mixes, granola bars, milk alternatives,
gummy bears, lotions, tinctures, essential oils.
Drive past any strip mall. Chances are you'll see
giant, feather-shaped flags barking, "CBD products
sold here!" Hemp in some form is available at
Dollar Tree, Sheetz, Kroger, CVS and Walmart.
Eighty-year-old grandmothers are swearing
hemp lotions aid their arthritis. Nearly any
conversation about chronic pain leads to CBD.
Doctors are quitting hospital jobs to investigate
hemp's healing powers. More than 1,100
Virginia farmers have applied to grow hemp, as
of November 2019. That's up from zero in March
2019. Nearly any informational session on hemp
is standing-room-only mobbed.
So, what, exactly, is going on?
We're in the midst of a moment. 2019 was
a no-holds-barred race to be the first to study,
grow, process, package, sell and experiment with
the many, many applications of a plant that only
became widely legal in the U.S. one year ago.
"I talk to a lot of people who all say they've
never seen anything like this before," says John
Fike, associate professor in the School of Plant
and Environmental Sciences at Virginia Tech.
"Part of the reason it has captured people's

30

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

imagination, is, well ... my wife likes to say stolen
apples taste sweeter."
It's the newness, Fike explains. And the thrill
of working with an ingredient that has been
prohibited for so long.
To be clear, hemp is a non-psychoactive
variety of the marijuana plant. Where marijuana's
pharmacological effects are derived from
tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, hemp has only
trace amounts of THC and does not get users high.
But since the 1930s, hemp has been lumped with
marijuana and considered by many to be contraband.
Today, hemp is celebrated as everything from
an environmental alternative to plastics and
insulation and fabric to the next super food. But
a relatively new chemical compound found in
hemp, called cannabidiol, or CBD, has been the
break-out hit of the year.
By various accounts, CBD can reduce acne,
anxiety and depression. It can help you get a
better night's sleep and shed unwanted pounds.
It fights pain and stress and inflammation and
maybe even cancer. It can improve heart health,
epilepsy and Parkinson's.
The catch is that almost no scientific studies
exist to prove any of this. The Food and Drug
Administration is now in charge of regulation,
but they don't have the data to make decisions.

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The Roanoker - January/February 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Roanoker - January/February 2020

The Roanoker - January/February 2020 - Intro
The Roanoker - January/February 2020 - Cover1
The Roanoker - January/February 2020 - Cover2
The Roanoker - January/February 2020 - 3
The Roanoker - January/February 2020 - 4
The Roanoker - January/February 2020 - 5
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