(Photo by Syosset Pharmacy)
Just a handful of months after Syosset Pharmacy opened its doors, its dedicated team of pharmacists are trying to help educate the community about the benefits of cannabidiol (CBD). CBD can help patients who have anxiety, pain, depression and other chronic issues.
It’s an organic compound extracted from the flowering herb cannabis. It’s non-psychotropic and is an all-natural product that is helping many patients. But there are many misconceptions as to what it is and how it works.
“We have everything from drops, cream, ointment, gummies, chocolates and honey,” Jonathan Sholder, a pharmacist at Syosset Pharmacy, said. “I knew the therapeutic effects of it were really good for a lot of people. That’s when we decided to make the plunge down that road to buy stuff and see how it worked.”
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently legalized hemp products in the 2018 Farm Bill. Hemp is no longer considered a controlled substance. Now, it is being sold in pharmacies throughout the country. It serves as a natural resource versus prescription drugs, a major factor amid the opioid crisis.
“I’m getting a lot of positive feedback,” Sholder said. “I think out of all of the months we’ve been selling it, maybe one or two people said it didn’t help them. It seems to be really heavy cases of bone-to-bone pain, where there’s not much to even help them with.”
The CBD products are likely to become a multi-billion dollar industry within the next five years thanks to the new bill. But pharmacists like Sholder have plenty of educating to do. The misconceptions often have people believe that hemp-based products are marijuana. That is not true.
“The main reason they are against it is because of the education of it,” Sholder said. “It’s a recently discovered system in the body, and a lot of people associate CBD and hemp with marijuana, which is completely not true.”
And the benefits of CBD products have paid off for the many individuals who have used them to relieve pain.
“It helps with inflammation, pain, anxiety, depression and more,” Brittany Carbone, who founded the CBD company Tonic, said. “I’m being very mindful of what I’m doing. These are products that are meant to heal mentally and physically, and the intention behind that is important.” With very minimal sideeffects, Sholder believes CBD products will become more popular over time.
“We tell patients to start with a low dose at night to see how the body is going to react to it,” he said. “Per the World Health Organization and the FDA, it is effective for the general public.”
