CBD has been around far longer than most people realize. While it entered mainstream awareness only in the last decade or so, the compound was first isolated from the cannabis plant in 1940. And the plant itself has been used medicinally for nearly 5,000 years. The modern story of CBD is really a story of science slowly catching up to something humans have relied on for millennia.
Cannabis as Medicine in the Ancient World
The earliest known use of cannabis as medicine dates to around 2700 BC, attributed to the Chinese Emperor Shen Nung. Ancient texts describe the plant being used for a range of ailments, though nobody at the time understood why it worked or what individual compounds were responsible.
Physical evidence backs up the written record. Archaeologists excavating the Yanghai Tombs in northwest China in the early 2000s found a well-preserved stash of cannabis buried with a shaman roughly 2,700 years ago. Chemical analysis confirmed the plant contained THC, making it the oldest physical evidence of pharmacologically active cannabis ever discovered. Separately, a fourth-century burial site near Jerusalem revealed that cannabis had been burned and likely inhaled by a young woman during a difficult childbirth, suggesting its use as a pain-relief tool across multiple ancient cultures.
Of course, none of these early users knew about CBD specifically. They were using the whole plant. The idea that cannabis contained distinct chemical compounds with different effects wouldn’t emerge for another two thousand years.
CBD Is Isolated for the First Time: 1940
The first person to pull CBD out of the cannabis plant was American chemist Roger Adams, working at the University of Illinois in 1940. Adams successfully isolated the compound, but the technology of the era couldn’t fully reveal its molecular architecture. Scientists knew CBD existed as a distinct chemical, yet they didn’t understand exactly how its atoms were arranged or how it differed structurally from THC and the dozens of other compounds in cannabis.
That gap persisted for over two decades. In 1963, Israeli chemist Raphael Mechoulam and his colleague Yoel Shvo published a landmark paper titled “Hashish. I. The Structure of Cannabidiol,” which mapped CBD’s complete chemical structure using advanced techniques like nuclear magnetic resonance. This was a turning point. Once researchers knew the precise shape of the molecule, they could begin studying how it interacted with the human body and how it differed from THC, the compound responsible for marijuana’s high.
The First Human Trials: 1970s
It took another decade and a half before anyone tested CBD in people. Brazilian researchers led by Professor Elisaldo Carlini conducted the first rigorous clinical trial of CBD for epilepsy. In a double-blind, placebo-controlled study, 15 adults with drug-resistant epilepsy received either CBD or a placebo alongside their existing medications over four and a half months. The results, published in stages between 1978 and 1980, were striking: by the end of treatment, only 10% of participants taking CBD still experienced generalized seizures, compared to 90% in the placebo group.
Despite these promising numbers, CBD research largely stalled for years. The global war on drugs made cannabis-related research politically difficult to fund and legally complicated to conduct. Most of the world classified the entire cannabis plant, CBD included, as a controlled substance. The compound sat in scientific limbo for decades.
The Endocannabinoid System Changes Everything
Research picked up again in the 1990s when scientists discovered that the human body has its own system of cannabinoid receptors, now called the endocannabinoid system. This network of receptors and signaling molecules plays a role in regulating pain, mood, appetite, immune function, and more. The discovery gave researchers a biological framework for understanding why plant-derived cannabinoids like CBD and THC have effects on the human body at all.
In 1998, a related concept emerged that would later reshape how CBD products are sold. Researchers led by Shimon Ben-Shabat coined the term “entourage effect” to describe how multiple cannabis compounds might work together more effectively than any single compound alone. The idea gained traction in the wellness industry, where it’s now used to market “full-spectrum” CBD products. It’s worth noting that critics in the scientific community have called the concept insufficiently proven and argue it’s used more as a sales tool than a reflection of settled science.
FDA Approval and Legal Recognition
The modern CBD era really began in 2018, when two major events happened in the United States within months of each other. First, the FDA approved a CBD-based prescription medication for the treatment of seizures associated with Lennox-Gastaut syndrome and Dravet syndrome in patients two years of age and older. This was the first time any cannabis-derived medication received FDA approval, lending significant medical credibility to a compound that had been studied since the 1970s.
Then, in December 2018, the Farm Bill removed hemp from the Controlled Substances Act. The law defined hemp as cannabis containing no more than 0.3% THC on a dry weight basis. Because CBD can be extracted from hemp that meets this threshold, the legislation effectively opened the door for a massive consumer market in CBD oils, capsules, topicals, and edibles. Sales exploded almost immediately.
Global Recognition of CBD’s Safety
Around the same time, the World Health Organization’s Expert Committee on Drug Dependence reviewed CBD and recommended that pure CBD preparations not be placed under international drug control. The committee found that CBD does not have psychoactive properties and presents no potential for abuse or dependence. This distinction between CBD and THC at the international level helped clear regulatory paths in countries beyond the United States.
The WHO’s position reflected what researchers had been observing for decades: CBD does not produce a high, does not appear to be habit-forming, and behaves very differently in the body than THC. That clarity has been central to CBD’s rapid shift from an obscure research compound to a product found in pharmacies, grocery stores, and gas stations around the world.
A Timeline Spanning Millennia
To put it all in perspective: humans have been using the cannabis plant medicinally for roughly 4,700 years. The specific compound we call CBD was identified 85 years ago, its structure was decoded over 60 years ago, and it was first tested in humans about 45 years ago. But the legal and commercial boom is barely a few years old. CBD’s history is long, but its widespread availability is remarkably new.