New cafes are beginning to spring up on college campuses. These little shops are selling coffee, tea, brownies, cheesecake, and other snacks — all containing cannabis compounds.
Its co-founders, Jim Castor, and Joel Jacobs foresee the cafe as a place for students to study and relax. This will be aided by cannabidiol, known as CBD, and other molecules from the cannabis plant that can help reduce anxiety and improve focus said, Jacobs.
CBD is a cannabinoid or a compound found in cannabis plants. However, unlike the mind-altering compound THC, also found in cannabis, CBD does not give people the high that THC does and is non-psychoactive.
Tests show that CBD can also aid in situations involving pain and nausea, as well as benefit people with diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis and other medical issues. “It doesn’t alter how you can function,” Castor said. “You can still do your job and go to work and go to school and study and relax, and it just kind of takes the edge off.”
Cannafe is a “grand experiment” that is different from Castor and Jacobs’ main company, Life Organics, which has dispensaries in Norman, Castor said. “Everybody’s kind of ingested marijuana a little differently than this. This is actual food.”
Oklahoma became the 30th state to legalize medical marijuana this June, with 56 percent of voters getting behind it, according to Vox. The Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority was established soon after to enforce new regulations. The program only regulates medical marijuana in the state, not CBD businesses or products, said Melissa Miller who is the communications manager for the OMMA.
Castor and Jacobs say that changing attitudes toward cannabis in Oklahoma are making Cannafe a viable business. “We wouldn’t be here without the law,” Castor said. “There was a landslide victory for medical marijuana, to where people and our reception in town have been great.”
The Cannafe founders hope to educate the community and change the stigma surrounding cannabis, Jacobs said. “Tobacco has never been scientifically proven for any therapeutic benefit,” Jacobs said. “It’s never been approved by the FDA. Cannabis has — twice.”
The owners also want to give a non-alcoholic space where students too young to go to bars can be at during the daytime or between parties. Ben Cottrell, a microbiology junior from Colorado, said he would try out Cannafe. While sometimes cannabis has been given a bad rap, Cottrell thinks fear about CBD itself is “a little silly.”
Cannafe does not have a confirmed opening date but will most likely open in the next couple of weeks. Opening hours will be flexible, ranging mainly from the afternoon to evening, but will probably expand in October, when there will be a Halloween party, Castor said.
