On healthcare by popular appeal: critical assessment of benefit and risk in cannabidiol based dietary supplements

Abstract

ABSTRACT Introduction: In recent decades, federal legislation in the U.S. has recognized a new paradigm of pharmacotherapy in which ideology and popular demand, as opposed to sound clinical evidence, drives the marketing of ostensible herbal therapeutics as ‘dietary supplements’. This vogue of democratizing medicine has more recently manifested in the ongoing legalization of cannabis products at the state level, where an arbitrary variety of definitions, restrictions, and assumed therapeutic uses are applied to a family of phytochemicals with no definitive evidence of efficacy or safety. With the recent publication of clinical trials submitted to the FDA in efforts to gain approval of the cannabidiol based therapeutic Epidiolex, a rare opportunity exists to examine high-quality data for a drug which has in recent years been marketed as a greatly unregulated dietary supplement. Areas covered: A critical analysis is offered of data regarding efficacy, dosing, exposure, adverse events, drug–drug interactions, and non-specific effects associated with CBD – all of which raise questions regarding the wisdom of assuming the safety and efficacy of cannabinoids in particular and dietary supplements in general. Expert opinion: Ongoing lack of meaningful regulation of cannabinoid supplements continues to put consumers at undue risk without clear evidence of therapeutic value.