cover image Healing with Hemp Oil: A Simple Guide to Using the Powerful and Proven Health Benefits of CBD

Healing with Hemp Oil: A Simple Guide to Using the Powerful and Proven Health Benefits of CBD

Earl Mindell. Square One, $16.95 trade paper (160p) ISBN 978-0-7570-0455-1

Pharmacist Mindell (The Vitamin Bible) offers a thorough examination of hemp (marijuana’s “cousin”), relating the oft-maligned plant’s history and health benefits. Hemp has been grown worldwide for various purposes for thousands of years (America’s founding fathers were cultivators). In the 1930s, hemp—high in CBD, which Mindell terms a “healing compound,” but low in THC, marijuana’s psychoactive ingredient—was demonized and effectively outlawed, along with the marijuana plant. Mindell links this move to “the narrow-minded agendas of powerful politicians and industry leaders” who were concerned that hemp threatened competing cash crops. The author addresses hemp’s use as a treatment for conditions from acne to ulcerative colitis, going over each ailment’s causes and symptoms, conventional treatments and their side effects, and how hemp can help. He warns consumers to be savvy, especially if ordering online from countries that may not have strict laws about pesticides and herbicides. Mindell shines a bright light on hemp’s potential benefits, and his spirited defense of the plant may even (as he hopes) stir up the reader’s ire against those who would suppress it. (Oct.)