cannabidiol

cannabidiol /ˌkænəbɪˈdaɪɔːl/ n. Abbreviated CBD. A cannabinoid made by the cannabis plant that does not cause the high THC does.

1. (chemistry) The compound C21H30O2, molar mass 314.5 g/mol (PubChem CID 644019). The plant makes it in the resin glands of its flowers, mostly in hemp bred for it.
2. (commerce) Loosely, any product sold for its CBD content: oils, capsules, gummies, flower. In this sense it is a label word, and the label may be wrong (see the notes below).
3. (pharmacy) The active ingredient of Epidiolex, the one CBD medicine the FDA has approved. See what CBD does.

Origin From cannabis + -diol, a chemist’s ending for a molecule with two hydroxyl (–OH) groups. Roger Adams and colleagues isolated it in 1940 from an extract of Minnesota wild hemp (Adams, Hunt and Clark, 1940). Raphael Mechoulam and Yehiel Shvo worked out its structure in 1963 (Mechoulam and Shvo, 1963).

See also CBDA · CBDV · CBG · CBN · hemp · full spectrum

Checked against the sources below on Oct. 4, 2026.

Notes

How does the plant make cannabidiol?

Not directly. In the resin glands an enzyme, CBDA synthase, turns cannabigerolic acid (CBGA) into cannabidiolic acid (Taura, Morimoto and Shoyama, 1996). Whether a plant leans to CBDA or to THCA is largely set by one gene locus (de Meijer and others, 2003). CBD itself appears when the acid is heated, by smoke, vapour, baking or a lab’s extraction line. The CBDA entry covers that step.

What does “total CBD” on a lab report mean?

The CBD a sample would hold if all its CBDA were heated: CBD + 0.877 × CBDA. The 0.877 is a weight ratio. Heat strips a carbon dioxide group from each CBDA molecule, so 358.5 g of CBDA leaves 314.5 g of CBD.

Why is CBD said not to cause a high?

THC is the compound mainly responsible for cannabis’s effects on a person’s mental state (NCCIH). CBD does not act on the brain’s CB1 receptor the way THC does; lab work describes it as changing how that receptor responds rather than switching it on (Laprairie and others, 2015). In 2018 the WHO Expert Committee on Drug Dependence reviewed pure CBD, found no abuse or dependence potential, and recommended it not be placed under international control (WHO ECDD, fortieth report).

That is about the pure compound. A product sold as CBD can also contain THC, and the label is not proof. In a test of 84 CBD extracts bought online, 18 contained THC, 36 held less CBD than the label said and 22 held more (Bonn-Miller and others, JAMA, 2017).

What does federal law call it?

Defined, not argued. CBD taken from hemp falls under the federal hemp definition when the plant or product meets its THC limit (7 U.S.C. 1639o). The FDA treats CBD as a drug ingredient: it may not be added to food or sold as a dietary supplement (FDA).

From Dec. 11, 2026, the hemp definition counts total THC, THCA included, and a final hemp-derived cannabinoid product may hold no more than 0.4 mg of total THC per container (P.L. 119-37, sec. 781; date set by H.R. 6500, sec. 2019). States add their own rules, and some restrict CBD products. Check yours.

The shop on this site

The shop sells hemp THCA flower, not cannabidiol. Our menu today is high-THCA hemp flower, not CBD flower. Smoked, it gets you high and shows up on THC drug tests.

Sources

• National Library of Medicine. PubChem: Cannabidiol, CID 644019.
• Adams R, Hunt M, Clark JH. “Structure of cannabidiol, a product isolated from the marihuana extract of Minnesota wild hemp. I.” J. Am. Chem. Soc. 62 (1940): 196–200. doi.org/10.1021/ja01858a058
• Mechoulam R, Shvo Y. “Hashish—I: The structure of cannabidiol.” Tetrahedron 19 (1963): 2073–2078. doi.org/10.1016/0040-4020(63)85022-X
• Taura F, Morimoto S, Shoyama Y. “Purification and characterization of cannabidiolic-acid synthase from Cannabis sativa L.” J. Biol. Chem. 271 (1996): 17411–17416. doi.org/10.1074/jbc.271.29.17411
• de Meijer EPM and others. “The inheritance of chemical phenotype in Cannabis sativa L.” Genetics 163 (2003): 335–346. doi.org/10.1093/genetics/163.1.335
• Laprairie RB and others. “Cannabidiol is a negative allosteric modulator of the cannabinoid CB1 receptor.” Br. J. Pharmacol. 172 (2015): 4790–4805. doi.org/10.1111/bph.13250
• Bonn-Miller MO and others. “Labeling accuracy of cannabidiol extracts sold online.” JAMA 318 (2017): 1708–1709. doi.org/10.1001/jama.2017.11909
• World Health Organization. WHO Expert Committee on Drug Dependence: fortieth report, 2018.
• NIH, National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. Cannabis (Marijuana) and Cannabinoids: What You Need To Know.
• U.S. Food and Drug Administration. FDA Regulation of Cannabis and Cannabis-Derived Products, Including Cannabidiol (CBD).
• 7 U.S.C. 1639o; H.R. 5371 (P.L. 119-37), sec. 781; H.R. 6500, sec. 2019.

Questions

What is cannabidiol?

A cannabinoid, one of the resin compounds the cannabis plant makes. Its formula is C21H30O2 and it is abbreviated CBD. The plant makes it first as an acid, CBDA, which heat turns into CBD.

What does CBD stand for?

Cannabidiol. The letters come from the name: CannaBiDiol. In a medical chart the same letters can also mean the common bile duct.

Is cannabidiol a medicine?

One product is. Epidiolex, a purified CBD, is FDA-approved for seizures in three rare conditions. The FDA has approved no other CBD product for any use.

Does every CBD product contain only CBD?

No. In a 2017 test of 84 CBD extracts bought online, 18 contained THC and only 26 held the amount of CBD the label stated, within 10 percent.