Epidiolex
The first FDA-approved plant-derived CBD medication, approved in 2018.
In June 2018 the US Food and Drug Administration approved Epidiolex — purified plant-derived cannabidiol — for seizures associated with Dravet syndrome and Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, two severe and treatment-resistant childhood epilepsies. It was the first medicine derived directly from the cannabis plant to receive FDA approval.
Researchers stress the difference between a pharmaceutical-grade extract that has been through controlled trials and unregulated CBD products, where dose and purity vary far more.
The idea was not new. In 1980 Brazilian researchers working with Mechoulam's group gave CBD to patients with drug-resistant epilepsy in a double-blind study; by the end of treatment generalised seizures persisted in ten per cent of the CBD group against ninety per cent on placebo. The finding went largely unnoticed for four decades.