Over the past few years, signs proclaiming "We have CBD!" and "CBD sold here!" have appeared in the windows of coffee shops, cafes, convenience stores and smoke shops.
CBD is sold in smoothies and brownies, coffee and cookies — even as a standalone tincture, oil or balm you can add to anything you like — with the promise that it will calm anxiety, help you sleep and ease your aches and pains.
But what is it?
The first thing to understand about CBD is not what it is, but what it isn't: marijuana.
Mike Majeski sells standalone CBD in the forms of oils, balms, creams and adds it to juices and smoothies at his stores, Wake Wellness and Pulp in Asbury Park, Point Pleasant Beach and Verona and soon in Long Branch and Moorestown.
He explains CBD this way: Think of cannabis, the parent plant of marijuana, as an umbrella. Two varieties — marijuana and hemp — are below.
Marijuana contains a large amount — more than 20 percent — of the intoxicating compound tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). THC is a cannabinoid, a naturally occurring chemical compound found inside the cannabis plant. The plant produces hundreds of different cannabinoids; another is cannabidiol, or CBD.