"It's not about taking risks, but becoming healthy": Hemp-based CBD manufacturers go to Sundance to serve food and fight the "Reefer Madness" stigma

Park City • The bazaar of corporate-sponsored ephemeral salons that dot Main Street during the Sundance Film Festival in 2019 is home to a familiar array of tech companies, beer and spirits manufacturers, and performance publications.

This year, Main Street has launched a new player: a company that makes cannabidiol, or CBD, a non-psychoactive derivative of cannabis plants.

The Wellhaus Ephemeral Lounge, sponsored by Charlotte's Web / Stanley Brothers, offered festival-goers a weekend to sample the CBD and learn more about the CBD.

The salon, which will remain open until Sunday, at 4:12, in an effort to educate the public about the potential benefits of CBD for health, as a treatment for pain and epilepsy.

"It's not about getting high, but getting healthy," said Josh Stanley, one of seven Stanley brothers who founded the company, based in Boulder, Colorado.

The name of the company, Charlotte's Web, was inspired by Charlotte Figi, a Colorado girl who had serious crises. When Charlotte was 5 years old, her parents first treated her with CBD oil, and the seizures stopped. Her story drew public attention when Sanjay Gupta told her about CNN in August 2013. Josh Stanley said Charlotte was now 11 years old and "99.9% seizures".

The brothers point out that they make no definitive health claim about the DBC because of FDA regulation. But they support research that, hopefully, will reinforce the stories told by their clients.

Many people badociate hemp and CBD from it with the corresponding marijuana plant. The difference is that hemp, from which CBD is extracted, contains less than 0.3% of THC, the psychoactive ingredient that creates the "high" of marijuana.

For years, hemp has been listed alongside marijuana as a controlled substance, illegal to grow or own. This changed last November with the pbading of the federal agricultural bill, which removed hemp without THC from the list of controlled substances.

Even before the legalization of hemp, 10 states and the District of Columbia had legalized marijuana for recreational purposes and 33 states had legalized the medical uses of marijuana. Voters in Utah approved proposal 2 in November and Utah legislators quickly rewrote a more closely monitored plan a month later.

In 2014, lawmakers in Utah legalized CBD oil for medical purposes, but asked patients to register with the Utah Department of Health to be able to to possess it. Utah was the first state to legalize the CBD without legalizing other forms of cannabis.

The CBD is gradually gaining ground among consumers in Utah. For example, Atticus Coffee & Teahouse in Park City sells teas and tinctures at the CBD. The industry is growing nationwide; According to the Vox news website, CBD represented a $ 350 million industry in 2018 and experts estimate that it could exceed $ 1 billion by 2020.

The company is also fighting against stigma on the screen. Charlotte's Web supports the dysfunctional family comedy "Before You Know It" which debuts in the American drama competition Sundance.

The health benefits of the CBD are not new, said Josh Stanley. In a TED talk that he made in 2017, Stanley released a Salt Lake Telegram title, the evening edition now missing from the Salt Lake Tribune, titled "The Marijuana Leaf Is Playing role of a cure for epilepsy ".

The Stanley said anecdotal evidence of CBD benefits reduced stigma, but the reputation of "Reefer Madness" would not go away overnight. "Ninety-five years of fear-based propaganda take a long time to break," said Josh Stanley.