It’s happy hour at the MeloMelo kava bar in downtown Santa Cruz. The afternoon weather is warm, and I’m looking to “wet my whistle,” as Dean Martin might have said. But there isn’t a drop of scotch or gin or even beer to be found here—it’s not that kind of place—so I saddle up to a suitable bar stool, motion to the barkeep and order a tall frosty glass of CBD brew on tap.

“Blood orange or lemon ginger?” she says.

“Lemon ginger,” I say, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world (thank God Dino’s not alive to see this). The drink is white, fizzy, opaque, kind of like a Tom Collins without the maraschino cherry. It’s also pretty refreshing.

CBD is shorthand for cannabidiol, a once-obscure chemical compound found in cannabis that is having its moment in the pharmacological spotlight. If chemicals were pop singers, CBD would be Cardi B.

Unlike its cousin THC, which is the chemical that produces the high in marijuana, CBD is non-psychoactive. The brew I’m drinking will deliver no buzz, no tingle. Its benefits are all theoretical. CBD is marketed on its promise to reduce inflammation, manage anxiety and combat insomnia, among other claims. But hard evidence is scant.

It is a truism of contemporary capitalism that markets operate on a different time horizon than science. Markets have often made a couple of passes around the block before science has put its pants on. And there is no more vivid illustration of this phenomenon than CBD.

It can now be found in hundreds of consumer products, including tinctures, oils, capsules, topical creams, lip balms, salt soaks, vaporizer mists, and soaps. It’s been added to chocolate bars, coffee, candy, and cocktails. A company called MaxDaddy sells CBD products for dogs. And, in an “SNL” skit waiting to happen, you can even buy something called Jack’s Knob Polish, a CDB-infused “personal lubricant.”

This avalanche of commercial opportunism is centered on a chemical that is still in a weird legal limbo. Almost every state in the country has some laws governing legal cannabis use, and a few allow legal use of CBD only. Marijuana is legal for all uses in 10 states, including California. But, in the eyes of the federal government, cannabis is still a Schedule I controlled substance that is highly addictive and has no medical value, no different from cocaine and heroin.

Complicating the picture is the recently passed federal farm bill, which legalized the production of industrial hemp, the non-psychoactive variant of cannabis (which has a noble role in early American history). The bill, championed by that notorious stoner Mitch McConnell, opens up new avenues for the sale of CBD products in states not yet on board with marijuana legalization.

But to what end? The only controlled study that has proven CBD’s therapeutic effectiveness comes from the U.K. company GW Pharmaceuticals, which has developed a prescription CBD tincture called Epidiolex, recently approved for use in the U.S. by the Food and Drug Administration. But that study was tightly focused on the treatment of two rare-but-severe forms of epilepsy, and makes no claims about the treatment of anxiety, depression or other ailments.

Josh Wurzer is a chemist and pioneer in the field of CBD research. In 2008, he was the director of the first quality control lab measuring medical marijuana, Oakland’s Steep Hill. Shortly thereafter, he and a few partners started their own lab, SC (Science of Cannabis) Labs in Santa Cruz. His lab tests strains of commercially grown cannabis for a variety of organic compounds, including CBD, as well as pathogens such as E. coli, pesticides and heavy metals.

Wurzer says the ambiguous legal status of cannabis is hampering efforts to more rigorously study physical effects that might validate health claims.

“If I’m a cannabis researcher,” Wurzer says, “and I want to do any kind of research in an organization that gets federal funding, I’m very limited to the cannabinoids I have access to.”

The feds maintain a farm to grow cannabis for study at, of all places, the University of Mississippi. “But the diversity of that plant material is very limited,” says Wurzer.

Even if there were studies confirming CBD’s potential healing properties, that doesn’t mean the bag of CBD gummies you buy on Amazon is going to do anything for you. California law requires mandatory testing on all cannabis products, but that only applies to products sold in licensed dispensaries, which use companies such as SC Labs to give consumers precise chemical profiles of nearly everything they sell. Products sold at grocery stores, health food stores or online do not necessarily use such testing, and this lack of a standard regulatory structure has created a kind of anything-goes environment in the commercial market.

What’s more, there is evidence to suggest that ingestion of CBD through the digestive system is inefficient, if not useless. “CBD has almost no oral bioavailability,” is the way Wurzer says it. He says that the most efficient ways to get CBD into the bloodstream are to inhale it, dissolve it in your mouth or (ick) use it as a suppository.

CBD research is a rapidly evolving field, and the range of possibilities is still wide. Wurzer has faith in the promise of CBD’s potential to help with any number of medical issues. At least, he says, taking CBD is not going to hurt you: “The upside is the super-low toxicity. We have still yet to have a documented case of THC or CBD overdose leading to any kind of death. You can’t say that about aspirin or ibuprofen.”

Back at the MeloMelo kava bar, my bartender tells me that my 12-ounce beverage has 25 milligrams of CBD in it, which means nothing to me. When I finish my non-intoxicating drink, she lays a much more meaningful number on me. The final tab? $7 (with a tip, $8).

I left the place, as promised, with a lighter spirit, though it could have just been the effect of a lighter wallet.

Since California voters legalized cannabis more than two years ago, nonviolent criminals have had their records cleared of minor violations, and governments have seen slight boosts in revenue.

Hospitals may be seeing a different kind of boost.

Greg Whitley, chief medical officer at Dominican Hospital in Santa Cruz, says he’s seen visits for cannabis-related symptoms in his facility trend upward over the past couple of years.

The increase hasn’t been a large one, given that cannabis use was already high in Santa Cruz County. Any shifts in hospital trends are also hardly unique to the Central Coast. A recent study in Colorado found that cannabis legalization there a few years earlier led to an increase in hospital visits, much of it driven by patients taking edibles.

In Santa Cruz, the symptoms that users most often come in with, Whitley says, can be broken down into four categories.

The first is severe anxiety—to the point where patients experience shortness of breath or feel like they’re going to die. Another symptom is vomiting. Whitley considers these responses “paradoxical adverse reactions,” since many users take cannabis in order to quell anxiety or nausea. A third cannabis-related symptom, which the hospital doesn’t see as often, is an exacerbation of asthma or emphysema.

The final category is where Whitley has noticed the biggest increase as of late, and that’s from users who end up getting way too high, often from ingesting edibles. “Those people can come in with symptoms of just basically feeling really, really stoned—off-balance, difficulty walking, dizziness. Sometimes people are lethargic,” says Whitley, a doctor who’s worked at Dominican since 2001 and served as the emergency room’s medical director until taking his new position April 1. “Sometimes people look like they’re having a stroke because they’ve had basically an overdose of THC.”

Many dispensaries promote a “low-and-slow” campaign for cannabis usage, particularly when it comes to taking edibles. If someone’s never tried a certain edible before, they might consider starting with a small dose—maybe about 5 milligrams of THC—and then waiting an hour before taking any more.

In the two years since legalization, Whitley has noticed anecdotally that the number of patients coming in with acute cannabis-related symptoms has skewed older. A decent-sized chunk of the patients have included fathers and grandfathers who’ve gotten into a family member’s pot brownies without realizing there might be any special ingredients, he says.

Even baby boomers familiar with cannabis may have issues. If it’s their first time trying cannabis in many years, they might be surprised by how much more potent the drug has grown in the intervening decades.

Santa Cruz cannabis attorney Ben Rice says the difference between cannabis from 30 years ago and herb these days is analogous to the difference between beer and hard liquor. In many cases, Rice argues, higher-THC chronic is not necessarily a bad thing, given that users don’t need as much of it to get high, and therefore end up putting less smoke in their lungs.

Over the years, Rice has represented everyone from industrial-sized cannabis farmers to a guy who had a 2-pound joint confiscated by UC Santa Cruz cops at a 4/20 celebration six years ago.

Rice is generally cheery on most things cannabis. He sends out frequent email blasts in which he debunks bad anti-cannabis science and weighs in on regulatory hurdles getting in the way of mom-and-pop operations. Nonetheless, the lawyer acknowledges that the increasing prevalence of the drug in a legalized market can have unintended consequences, particularly when users aren’t familiar with proper doses.

“It’s hard to dispute that those are problems,” he says.

Rice says he’s personally never had an edible make him sick, although he did once miss a flight.

“It’s usually people who don’t know what the heck they’re doing,” he adds “It’s people who think, ‘I ate that brownie a half-hour ago. I don’t feel a thing. It’s really tasty. I’ll eat another one. Ten minutes later, they’re on the floor and really ill.”

Dr. Whitley has never used weed himself, but he’s seen it help those with chronic conditions, and he says the drug doesn’t seem to create any deleterious long-term effects.

Whitley says it would be wise, though, for cannabis users to come to the ER if they feel they are in crisis. Doctors can treat patients who are suffering from severe vomiting or dealing with debilitating anxiety.

Additionally, Whitley adds that anyone suffering from frightening symptoms that may not be cannabis-related should also go to the hospital.

“If you’re not sure and you’re getting chest pain or shortness of breath, those are things we should see you for, because marijuana is one thing that can cause those, but heart attacks and pneumonia can also give you chest pains and shortness of breath,” he says. “If you’re sure it’s from the marijuana, it’s probably just going to wear off. If you’re not sure, we probably should check it out.”

When a user does end up in the hospital for gulping down a giant pot brownie, they should not expect a quick trip in and out of the emergency room.

“We wait until patients are safe to go home—make sure they know what’s going on, make sure they can get up and walk safely, make sure they can drink water, and of course that they’re not driving home,” Whitley says. “Most of them don’t come in driving, so that’s not usually an issue.”