What Do Cotton, Contraception And CBD Have In Common?

By Dr. Robert Portman, founder of CBD Validator. 

CBD has been touted to cure almost every condition from anxiety to cancer. Although many of these claims are unsupported by scientific studies, one claim that has not been made for CBD is contraception. Interestingly, there actually is a fascinating link between contraception and CBD.  This connection begins in China in the 1920s, when researchers noted the correlation between low fertility rates in males and use of crude cottonseed oil for cooking. The compound in cotton that is responsible for the male contraceptive effect, gossypol, was then isolated and identified by an American organic chemist, Dr. Roger Adams.

Fast forward 20 years later, Dr. Roger Adams, is now world renowned, and isolates CBD from the cannabis plant. A direct descendant of President John Adams, he is often called the father of CBD.  In 1942, he received a patent for his work on CBD and was the first to report on CBD’s analgesic or pain-relieving effects in the 1940s, though many of the pharmacologic effects of CBD became apparent decades later.

He was also the first individual to synthesize THC, the psychoactive agent in marijuana, and published 27 studies on cannabis. In fact, the “Adams Scale” is still used today to measure the potency of cannabinoids.

In case you’re wondering whatever happened with gossypol, the Chinese government initiated clinical trials for its use in male contraception in the 1970s, but the studies were discontinued because of side effects. In the 1990s, a pharmaceutical company attempted to use low-dose gossypol as a male contraceptive, but it was also forced to discontinue studies for the same reasons.

Eighty years ago Dr. Adams, working virtually alone, conducted the seminal research that defined the chemical structure of CBD. Today, hundreds of researchers worldwide are working to define how and where CBD can best be used. Dr. Adams would be proud.

Noticias sobre cannabis en Español, aquí.

The preceding article is from one of our external contributors. It does not represent the opinion of Benzinga and has not been edited.