Cannabidiol is a nonpsychoactive component of cannabis that interacts with CB1 and CB2 receptors in the human body. It’s grown into a wildly popular cultural phenomenon over the last several years, likely due to its over-the-counter availability. Its easy access is because of the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, which removed hemp from the Controlled Substances Act. That’s why you can buy delta-8 flower at your local smoke shop.

Part of this cultural meme is the idea that CBD is good for anxiety, but can it be used to cure the college finals jitter? According to James Baumgartner, chief research officer at Panacea Life Sciences, it’s a hard maybe under penalty of law.

It turns out if you work for a CBD company and try to say CBD is good for anxiety, the Food and Drug Administration will give you something to really be nervous about.

“It should bother anybody in the cannabinoid space or the pharmaceutical space, people saying, ‘This product right here is going to cure your cancer,’ and they’ve got no data on it whatsoever.” -James Baumgartner, Panacea Life Sciences chief research officer

“As a dietary supplement, we’re allowed to develop materials that support physiological systems,” Baumgartner said. “We’re not allowed to prevent, diagnose or treat disease.”

When I tried to press the issue on whether these broad-spectrum products would actually help with central nervous system overactivity, he said they make a p.m. product with melatonin in it that can help you get a good night’s sleep if you have anxiety-related insomnia. Also good for this: melatonin.

Baumgartner went on to say that until clinical trials are able to fully verify the efficacy of CBD against a placebo, all we have are anecdotal stories of people it has helped. People write to him to say Panacea’s dietary supplements have replaced their Ritalin, which is sometimes their pain medication, but much of his work is about developing products that might help.

“Our industry is littered with people that make claims and false claims about what this material actually does,” Baumgartner said. “It should bother anybody in the cannabinoid space or the pharmaceutical space, people saying, ‘This product right here is going to cure your cancer,’ and they’ve got no data on it whatsoever.”

I was under the impression CBD isn’t terribly useful without a full spectrum of cannabinoids to go along with it, including a bit of THC. According to Baumgartner, this isn’t exactly accurate: Most of the spectrum will do the trick.

“For those that are hypersensitive to THC, I mean, nothing would be worse than going into a final and feeling a little loopy,” he said. “So there are some products that are available with a broad spectrum, and so that contains the rest of the components of the hemp oil but has the THC removed.”

Panacea Life Sciences is a Golden, Colorado-based purveyor of CBD extract products and recently became the first CBD company to sell its wares inside the Denver International Airport. They fund research at Colorado State University and recently paid to open a cannabinoid research laboratory with their name on it.

Baumgartner’s ultimate message was one of hope for the future of CBD. As we were wrapping up the call, he mentioned he worked in the pharmaceutical industry for most of his career but made the jump to cannabinoid science after seeing promising preclinical results about the effects of CBD.

“I couldn’t believe what I saw,” he said. “I’d never seen anything like this.”

If you have anxiety about finals, you might try using CBD — or don’t. It might work for you; it might not. You could also take a hot bath, but who’s got the time?

Reach Hayden Hawley at cannabis@collegian.com or on Twitter @hateonhawley.