As more states legalize marijuana, there’s growing interest in cannabidiol, a cannabis extract also known as CBD. It’s marketed as a compound that can help relieve anxiety – and, perhaps, help ease aches and pains, too.

A new round of funding from the National Institutes of Health, is allowing a group of collaborators to begin a clinical trial to test whether CBD can help people with post-traumatic stress disorder, who also have moderate or severe alcohol use disorder.

Another Phase 2 clinical trial is exploring whether CBD might help prevent relapse in opioid abusers by reducing craving for the drug.

Though CBD is extracted from cannabis, it does not lead to altered perception and cognition.

“CBD has gotten a lot of buzz,” says Richard Ferry, the retail manager of Home Grown Apothecary in Portland, Ore., as he displays an array of CBD products, including capsules and bottles of liquid CBD oil that users dispense under the tongue with a dropper. Ferry says that his customers are buying CBD for “stress relief.”

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