Who’s using CBD products? We see them advertised everywhere, maybe have heard of professional athletes or movie stars using CBD, and see actual products in more and more stores. If you’re thinking about giving it a try for the first time, you might be asking yourself whether or not it is right for you and if people like you are taking it.
Sometimes, when things receive an explosion in hype like CBD has over the past couple of years, it’s helpful to look behind the curtain and make sure it’s all not just some façade created by very talented marketers.
So, let’s pull back that curtain a bit and look at what the numbers say.
Who Uses CBD?
According to a Gallup poll from last year, 1 in 7 or 14% of American adults report that they have used a CBD product before. The numbers go up for 18-29 year olds, 20% of whom said that they have used a CBD product at least once. They are followed by 16% of 30-49 year olds and 11% of 50-64 year olds. Once you get to 65 years old and older, only about half of respondents were even familiar with CBD. With that said, however, 8% of that oldest age group still reported using the products at least once.
A different Gallup poll from 2019 found that 33% of Americans agree that CBD has “a lot of health benefits”, while 45% agree that CBD has “some benefits.” 61% of respondents think that it should be sold over the counter at drug stores, while 33% think it should be available with a prescription.
Another recent survey conducted by the Brightfield Group and HelloMD looked at a sample size of 2,400 CBD and cannabis users in order to dive deeper into the types of people who use CBD products. They found that, despite what might be a popular belief, 55% of the CBD users were women. They also found that women tend to prefer CBD products, while men tend to prefer products that contain THC.
The first Gallup poll we mentioned seems to also support the claim that women like and use CBD more than men. They found that 47% of women were familiar with CBD, while only 44% of men were. Furthermore, 15% of women reported having used a CBD product to only 12% of male respondents.
Why Do People Use CBD?
Both of these surveys also drilled down into the reasons why many people use CBD products. Let’s go over the 2019 Gallup poll first. According to this survey, two fifths or 40% adults who reported using CBD said they did so to fight pain. Another 20% of respondents said they used CBD products primarily to fight anxiety. A further 11% reported using it to combat insomnia, 8% said they consume CBD to relieve arthritis, 5% for migraine and headache relief, and 2% to help them with their depression.
Looking at the other survey, we seem similar trends. Dr. Perry Solomon, Chief Medical Officer of HelloMD, reported that the primary reasons people use CBD products are to combat or relieve insomnia, depression, anxiety, and joint pain. What’s interesting about this second survey is that 42% of the cannabis user respondents said that they had stopped taking traditional pain medications like Tylenol and Vicodin and had switched completely to cannabis instead.
80% of the respondents in this survey reported that they found CBD products to be “very or extremely effective.” On the other hand, only 3% found the product to be either ineffective or only slightly effective.
Why CBD Is a Good Thing
As a Forbes article from 2019 points out, the fact that Americans seem to be turning more and more to CBD is a surprising development. Not because people in the US may be hesitant to a cannabis derived product, but because we tend to much prefer getting high or intoxicated.
What the author points out in this article is that Americans have a long history and love affair with intoxicating drugs. According to the Boston School of Medicine, about 40% of adults in the United States who drink alcohol do so in amounts that are dangerous to their health. When you consider that 86.3% of adults reported drinking alcohol in their life and 70% in the last year, these aren’t trivial numbers.
Not to mention the fact that the US markets for cocaine, heroin, opioid pills, and methamphetamine are the largest in the world. Americans spent $150 billion on illicit drugs (or legal drugs obtained illegally) in 2016.
So, why does this matter at all? The explosion of CBD products is interesting because it is unique. Never has a substance or drug that produces no psychoactive effects and does not get you high become so popular so fast. It is even thought that CBD and hemp product sales will soon surpass sales of THC products in states where recreational use of marijuana is legal.
The point is, it seems that people might have finally found an alternative substance that may help them with pain, anxiety, depression, etc., that does not have such intoxicating, harmful, and overpowering effects.
The Outlook for CBD
The outlook for CBD products is quite simply, very good. Even the federal government and World Health Organization are coming around. The 2018 Farm Bill that was signed into law in December of 2018. This law removed the hemp plant from the list of Schedule One federally controlled substances, legalizing the cultivation and sale of hemp at the federal level. It defines hemp as a cannabis plant containing less than a 0.3% concentration of THC.
The World Health Organization published a report in which CBD was found to be generally well-tolerated, non-addictive, and safe. Both the shift in federal policy and this study by the WHO lend new credibility and opportunity to CBD companies across the country and across the world.
Put simply, many people are trying CBD and finding that it successfully helps them with a wide range of their health problems. People of all ages who suffer from all types of ailments.
The time to benefit from CBD is now. The affordable and effectively dosed products from Urban Roots Hemp Co. can be shipped to your door.