What brought you into the hemp world? Share your stories here!

[A. Quinn]

I love a good story…please tell us how you decided to enter this space and a little about your journey!
I personally have always loved cannabis as a whole. I entered CBD in 2012 to assist a friend who had cancer and could not use THC products. Started drop shipping and created a brand, now we have 2 hemp farms in Michigan, a thriving CBD line, and I work with a great processing lab in KY. I have strived to keep the ideal of healing and forwarding cannabis activism into local spaces.
Enough about me…tell me your inspirations and goals if you wish to! Looking forward to an amazing set of triumphant legacies.

[RAW Moderator]

Great question. When the growing of industrial hemp became legal in Colorado in November of 2012, I realized this was going to be a HUGE opportunity. I searched around for the group responsible for the ballot initiative and learn that there was no organization to help grow the industry … so I created the Rocky Mountain Hemp Association in early 2013 which grew into the National Hemp Association a year later. I was the Founding Executive Director from 2013 till the end of 2016 and after stepping down started up the Hemp Marketplace. The rest as they say … is history.

[csuits]

Hi everyone, to continue with this thread, we are asking and encouraging everybody to share their stories here about themselves, maybe 100-200 words, about either how you got involved in the hemp industry, or something unique about anything you are involved with currently in the hemp space! Looking forward to learning everyone’s origins!

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by csuits.

[A. Quinn]

Thanks everyone for responding. I would love to leave this open for more discussion and realization of the “why” we are all here is this amazing space!

[Tim LeGrand]

Hello,
Tim from CBD Outlet in Tn. I own a vapor store, to help people get off smoking. Our gov is doing what they can to close that down, so with CBD being legal, and knowing how it helps so many, we have been selling it in our store for over 1.5 years.

Now, I am looking to wholesale flower to stores in our area once I source valid bulk sellers, because there are just too damn many scammers out there. I will build my customer base by driving store to store to start off with this upcoming harvest.

[Rachael Yamanoha]

I am brand new to this space but so very excited to be apart of this industry. I have always been fascinated by Eastern Medicine and healing and wellness done in the “old ways”. I love all things herbcraft and have been making and sharing herbal remedies with friends and family for as long as I can remember. I also love making my own skin care products and have found as good or better results than any store bought product, using hand-crafted oils infused with beneficial herbs.
With all that said, I live in California, though I am from KY(hopefully moving back in a few years). I have been fascinated with the healing properties of the cannabis plant and have been experimenting with cannaoils in salves, tinctures to deal with pain(I have an arm injury and don’t want to take any meds for it). I have decided I want to start a business doing what I love and have a passion for, healing and herbs.
I am excited to share this space with all of you.
Regards,
Rachael

[zpd369]

Outer Space!

Pre-face
In the Summer 2016, I was a senior Engineering student at the University of Central Florida interning at Jeff Bezos space company, Blue Origin in Kent, Washington. I was completely out of my element here, being from across the country in Miami, Florida and my previous Engineering experience was building Formula 1 style racecars. I had no clue about anything aerospace because for years I was obsessed with Electric Vehicles since Tesla released the Roadster and Model S!

Everything changed Week 7 of my Internship! We had a meeting with Mission Assurance Officer, Jeff Ashby. He detailed the journey of a Blue Origin customer preparing for a rocket launch into low earth orbit. The acceleration of the rocket, the views from LEO and Zero Gravity experience is going to leave people speechless and coming back for more! This moment changed my life 180 degrees and I knew in that moment I wanted to work on building bigger rockets to send humanity into outer space!

How I got to Hemp!
Fortunately, at the end of my Internship I got the news I was not going to be returning to Blue Origin after graduation. So…. I decided to start my own space company, and I studied the only two guys in the world who had a private space company (Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos) and realized I was going to need make 100’s of millions before I can start this type of company.

At the time, I was a recreational Cannabis user so somewhere in the back of my mind, I remember hearing people making a lot of money in the Cannabis industry. So I did my research and holy smokes was I amazed at the Medicinal benefits of Cannabis specifically the 80+ Cannabinoids and 100’s of Terpenes that will replace entire pharma industry. After some months, I thought I knew it all until this rabbit hole of research led me to Industrial Hemp. Again, I was blown away by the opportunity Industrial Hemp offers to sustainably replace the raw materials for dozens of Industries while providing additional benefits to the environment.

I quickly realized the enormous opportunity can help many communities around the world leapfrog out of poverty and provide better, healthier alternatives than the mainstream. I thought this is an industry I can make my dreams happen while helping people around the world. WIN-WIN!! However, I soon realized the threat big companies pose and their history of dominating industries for profit over people.
I had to take a stand.

So I set out on a mission, moved to Los Angeles, CA to develop a solution that will provide communities the infrastructure to establish Hemp businesses within a cooperative model that uplift communities and humanity towards sustainable production of goods.

Two years later I’m happy to report the mission is almost complete! The strategy has been designed, multiple leaders around the world are involved and the troops are assembling! Our next step is to deliver the package and let the Hemp community roar!

That’s my story, If you want to find out more, give me a holler!
If you want to join this war, give me a holler!
If you are not sure, stay home. We need warriors in this battle!

[Cannessentials]

In 2016 I realized that college was not on my ideal path or journey. I ended up looking into industries that I was passionate about to find opportunities for a young college student to start a business. My business partner now and I love cannabis and all that is has to offer. Unfortunately with low captial funds and the regulations necessary for a start up cannabis business in Massachusetts, it was near impossible for me to get something started. I realize CBD was going to be HUGE! sometime in late 2017, we started to work on starting a CBD business but because we were so small and working against the growing saturated market of cbd oil and lotions we hit a wall. After finding out smokable hemp flower was available that was legal, didnt have psychoactive properties and that we could source for a much lower cost, we knew this was the time to act. We quickly moved all of our efforts to hemp flower. We have been building our brand for most of 2019 and focused on wholesaling. This past 4 months in business we have almost tripled are sales each month. Things are finally starting to shift into gear and we are now taking a step back to see how we can operate on executive levels with a learning curve. At 23 years old, I would have never thought id be wholesaling large deals for hemp flower or creating a really high quality brand I can feel good about. Check us out online! @cannessentials or http://www.cannessentials.co

[A. Quinn]

Hi all,
wow, what amazing responses! I appreciate all your candor and awesome stories! We are a great community and can only be as solid as the market we create! Please feel free to keep sharing and “friend” me if you choose!

[Michael Jacobs]

4 years ago I would be getting “black market” cbd to help me with my back problems. I thought why wasnt more people selling this in the open market.
I was offered to team up with a veteran and incredible professionals in the Hemp space.
I did not think twice and we decided to invest and now we opened one of the largest facilities in New York.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by Michael Jacobs.

[cbdofnv]

Hello all, My S.O. kept hinting that he wanted to grow. He was a grower back in the 80″s in Humboldt and recanted his stories of being chased by bears and havalina and the police. He made it through with some amazing tales. Well, I wasn’t about to do something illegal until one day I was reading online and I read that hemp could be grown legally. That was the answer!! I read about all of it’s amazing properties and benefits and after doing my research I asked him if he would be interested in growing hemp instead? He was fully on board!
We went full steam ahead with licensing and setting up a grow facility to discover which plants work best. We had our first harvest last month and had 3 out of 4 strains make the cut with the NDA. Now we are negotiating with a few different ventures to enhance our line and move forward.
We have been giving a lot of product to friends and family to help them with pain and other ailments. Our goal is to bring knowledge and relief to our community.

[Anne Jefferson]

We each have a unique story, yet yet these stories all fit within a larger narrative. Like many of us, I came to the hemp and CBD space as a means to heal pain. Upon learning more I became a hemp enthusiast, spreading the gospel of cannabis. As a chemist, climate scientist and former Kansan, I saw the strong synergistic relationship of hemp’s environmental sustainability, an economic engine to save failing farm communities and hemp’s potential to turn around the opioid crisis.

I talked with many who used hemp. They loved the product, for some it was a lifesaver, but everyone complained about the cost. I thought an easy remedy to this was to form a hemp coop that sold CBD tinctures and creams at cost. I bought a kilo of crude extract and started making tinctures and balms. The tinctures and balms worked moderately well, but not great. I took a look at the ingredients on other CBD products and my chemist’s brain lit up. I could do better. I set out to formulate products with high bioavailability that are targeted for specific conditions.

I looked into what medical reserachers were doing with cannabinoids and read every clinical and scientific study on cannabinoids I could find. I ditched the beeswax, shea butter and other exotic oils and found ingredients that worked synergistically with CBD. I started talking to people in the pharmceutical and cosmetic industries. What methods did they use to promote bioavailability? I then conferred with my neighbor Pamela, an essential oil wiz, and got the low down on how terpenes in essential oils can heal certain conditions. I set off and made my own formulas.

Today, I’m the owner of CBD Rescue. I make transdermal products that are formulated to help heal specific conditions such as insomnia, migraines, psoriasis and eczema, arthritis, acne. CBD Rescue’s tinctures are formulated to fully absorb sublingually directly into the bloodstream. Fancier methods that use nanoparticles are out there, but they’re expensive. I think the transdermal compounds are far more effective and less expensive.

• This reply was modified 4 years ago by Anne Jefferson.

[Elizabeth Gray]

I have suffered from growing levels of anxiety for many years. It had gotten to the point that I was unable to function very well and my husband was concerned for my overall health. He suggested that I look into CBD – I did and tried it. For me it was a life saver! I decided then that I wanted to know what goes into what I am putting into my body and want to grow plants myself that are organic and safe to be consumed. So…we started a company and are going to grow a few plants and see if we can make others have the same freedom I received!

[Author]

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