CTIA is a nonprofit membership organization which represents wireless carriers, suppliers, manufacturers, and companies that provide wireless products and services. It also created and monitors all content sent on all SMS platforms with its lovely acronym SHAFT. CBD has been lumped in with the illicit content of shaft: Sex, Hate, Alcohol, Firearms, and Tobacco. This means CBD companies cannot SMS their customers as their content is classified as illicit. If you were wondering? Yes CBD was nationally legalized in 2018, but we still have a long way to go; obviously.
CTIA defines the following as banned content:
➔ Endorsements or Depictions of violence
➔ Adult or Inappropriate content
➔ Profanity
➔ Endorsement of illegal or illicit drugs
➔ Hate/discriminatory speech
Meanwhile cannabinoids support sexual and genital health, mental health, and overcoming addiction. Cannabinoids are the antidote for everything on the list. Cannabinoids offer stress relief, by decreasing inflammation in the brain and body, plus neurologically providing GABA and stimulating serotonin production; therefore the endocannabinoid system can help to decrease any sway to violence or profanity. It’s a drug in the way any medicine is a drug, and it was made illegal by hateful and discriminatory speech. Check out the history of cannabis (and how it was made illegal) in the United States here: Fear Propaganda and the American Psyche
Photo by Caleb Wikman on Unsplash
Why does it matter?
This organization has made the decision to ban CBD now, which I find to be a bit odd, as this ban is coming at the brink of some truly transformative research into just how medicinal this plant is. Currently, upon new research findings, scientists are even proposing to change the name of the endocannabinoid system to the endocannabinoidome (ome meaning all encompassing) because it seems to be regulating just about everything our body does at a cellular level. Phytocannabinoids, such as CBD, can help a depleted endocannabinoid system function again. This is critical to human health, especially as we age and inflammation can get very out of control. In such a hectic world where we are constantly in need of cannabinoids to calm our fight-or-flight response/HPA Axis/stress axis pathways.
It’s a Kafkaesque bureaucratic nightmare that continues to deny the power of nature without being informed in any way. I must say, even Republican senators are on the hemp train. This kind of ban adds to further stigma and a larger shift away from nature and humankind’s connection with our world. Until we as individuals and as a collective realize we are connected to this earth, we will never heal our fractured psyches.
In Conclusion
The name shaft seems apropos. This is another phallic gesture of a legislative body attempting to control the natural world and encroaching upon freedom, without any argument to back their actions up. CBD is nationally legal, there is so much science going into it, and abundant healing resulting from it; I see everyday how CBD changes lives. How these organizations, and the individuals within them, can deny access to information about a natural medicine due to their own investigative slothfulness and close-mindedness is exactly what is wrong with modernity in the United States. It’s a time of reckoning, a time of deciding who we are as individuals and as a collective, and it’s time to stand up for nature and the earth.
Sign the petition to free CBD here:
Photo by Sane Sodbayar on Unsplash
An Article By Evie Louise
Evie Louise is a recent psychology graduate from New York University. She is a certified in International Cannabinoid Clinical Therapy. Evie sees all forms of the cannabis sativa plant as the future of psychiatry, and hopes to use it in her therapy practice as a full spectrum approach to mental health and wellness.
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