CBD Shop Opens Doors in West Virginia
The first store to sell medical products containing CBD in West Virginia celebrated its grand opening on August 18. The Kanawha County-based shop Appalachian Cannabis Company have begun to sell products that are rich in CBD. It will take another year, however, until products containing CBD and THC become available in West Virginia.
The CBD products are all made from hemp. “What we do is all hemp-derived CBD products,” owner Chris Yeager told WSAZ. “In cannabis, you’re going to find somewhere between 100 and 110 cannabinoids. In those, they have different effects. They do different things like for instance, THC is psychoactive. So when you consumer THC, that’s when people say you get high. There’s other cannabinoids and the CBD portion of that is going to be the non-active. So folks will not get high by consuming CBD but it has great medicinal value.”
The store carries CBD-infused gummies in childproof containers, tinctures, capsules, vaporizers, syrups, lotions and topicals. Yeager himself used CBD for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Because hemp-based CBD is regulated as a dietary supplement by the FDA, the store does not require a doctor’s recommendation or prescription.
Yeagers customers travel from hours away get their first taste of CBD products. Last April, Gov. Jim Justice approved HB-2526 which included provisions to allow the sale of hemp-based CBD products beginning July 7. Gov. Justice also signed SB-386 in April which legalized non-smokable forms of medical cannabis, but with THC, and HB-2453 which expanded the state’s industrial hemp program.
Yeager’s CBD shop does not fall under West Virginia’s medical cannabis program, because there is no THC or intoxication involved. West Virginia’s medical cannabis program will not issue state ID cards until July 1, 2019. Releasing CBD products and medical cannabis products is one of the ways West Virginia can begin battling its prescription drug overdose crisis.
