by HempingtonPost | Nov 23, 2019
Knowledge of the health benefits of cannabinoids appears to be spreading to the general population and many people are asking how cannabinoids work to benefit health. The short answer is that cannabinoids act through the Endocannabinoid System (ECS) to modulate the activity of many organs.
If the biological action of cannabinoids is a new subject to you, let’s begin with a few facts about hemp. First, hemp is not Marijuana. Hemp does not contain significant amounts of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive compound in Marijuana. Secondly, hemp has been an important crop in the USA for its industrial and health uses since the early settlers of this country. U.S. Presidents including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, Zachary Taylor, and Franklin Pierce grew hemp as a cash crop and for personal health use. Ben Franklin owned a paper mill that used hemp as a raw material for paper. Hemp has saved millions of trees from being cut down for paper.
Hemp has advantages over many materials and once was a multi-billion-dollar crop accounting for about 80% of textiles and fabrics. However, the Uniform State Narcotic Drug Act in 1934 and the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 lumped hemp in with Marijuana, which led to falsely making hemp illegal. As a result, millions of citizens were not able to achieve their best health as they couldn’t optimize their ECS.
Fortunately, my colleague Carl Germano, CNS, CDN, has recently written a book that explains why cannabinoids are important for optimal health, so I have called upon him to chat with us.
Carl Germano, CNS, CDN, is a NY Board Certified Clinical Nutritionist and Vice President for Verdant Oasis. He holds a master’s degree in clinical nutrition from New York University and has over 37 years’ experience as VP of product development for several of the largest vitamin supplement companies in the trade. He is a prolific author with several bestselling trade books including The Misled Athlete, Nature’s Pain Killers, The Osteoporosis Solution, The Brain Wellness Plan and his most recent Road To Ananda: The Simple Guide To The Endocannabinoid System, Phytocannabinoids & Your Health. He has also held a progressive nutrition practice at The Nutrition Therapy Center in New York and is a frequent lecturer and radio guest.
Passwater: Well, it has been a quite a while since I have collaborated in this column with my old colleague and friend Carl Germano, CNS, CDN. Far too long. He has always been ahead of his time and an interesting and informative lecturer.
Carl, you have written a new book called “Road To Ananda: The Simple Guide To The Endocannabinoid System, Hemp Phytocannabinoids, and Your Health.” You have written several groundbreaking books over the years, and this book undoubtedly covers one of the most important topics for this decade and many to come. Please provide a glimpse as to this subject and its importance.
Germano: Thank you for your kind words and thank you for the decades of education, contributions and support you have given so many—it is truly a pleasure to be your friend. The subject of cannabinoids, while controversial, has always intrigued me and the way hemp (Cannabis sativa L.) has been mistreated in the U.S. for the past 80 years has served as a springboard for me to further investigate the science and unravel the truth about this plant. It is without question that hemp signifies the most important botanical on this planet. Its active class of compounds called phytocannabinoids (CBD being only 1 of almost 100 phytocannabinoids in hemp) represents the most important, clinically relevant plant compounds to come to the marketplace since the inception of this industry.
Passwater: That covers a lot of ground.
Germano: I make such a bold statement based on the fact that phytocannabinoids help to influence and support one of the most important physiological systems in the human body called the Endocannabinoid System (ECS).
Passwater: As important as the ECS is, many readers are not familiar with it yet. Please explain a little about the ECS and why it is so important.
Germano: The ECS is composed of cannabinoid receptors (CB1, CB2, and others presently being investigated) and the components that attach to them called endocannabinoids (anandamide and 2-AG). Our CB1 and CB2 receptors are doorways into the cell to pass on information activated by endocannabinoids. While anandamide and 2-AG initiate activity to the CB receptors found on every organ, they are quite promiscuous in that they influence other receptors such as the GABA, 5HT3, PPARS, TRP, opioid, and endorphin receptors as well.
Globally, the ECS acts as the conductor of the beautiful symphony of intricate communication that occurs between organs and cells throughout the entire body. There is no physiological function that is not influenced by the ECS. Its proper support is essential to maintain health and its dysregulation is associated with numerous disease conditions. Unfortunately, due to the stigma attached to cannabinoids, the ECS has been buried since the 1990s and there has been little to no education or research conducted here in the U.S. In December 2018, the Farm Bill was signed into law that deregulated hemp and we are just beginning to unravel the stigma and begin the process of education and research into the ECS.
Unfortunately, decades of stifled education and research on hemp, phytocannabinoids, and the ECS has represented both a travesty and tragedy in medicine. Therefore, in order for people to embrace and understand phytocannabinoids such as cannabidiol (CBD), it is crucial to understand how they influence and support the ECS. Road To Ananda (roadtoananda.com) was necessary for me to write so that people can begin the journey into this very subject.
Passwater: Your book is indeed an excellent road to the ECS scientific literature, and you make it easy for the non-scientist as well as the scientist to understand. There are many faces behind its discovery. Who has been your inspiration on this subject and why is it so important?
Germano: While the U.S. has been in the dark ages regarding the ECS, hemp and phytocannabinoids, Israel and Europe have been championing research on the ECS as well as cultivation and commercialization of hemp. The 1990s happened to be a most
important decade of discovery for the ECS, and at the helm of this unearthing was the work of Dr. Raphael Mechoulam at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He has been my source of inspiration in this field. He is best known for his work on the isolation and synthesis of THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) as well as the cannabinoids we produce in the body(endocannabinoids) called anandamide and 2-AG (2-arachidonylglycerol). He has been called the “Father of Cannabinoid Research” and has published over 350 scientific articles and the recipient of numerous prestigious awards. In addition, there were several of his colleagues that played instrumental roles in the discovery of the ECS and its inner workings including Hanus, Devane, Howelett, and Herkenham who collectively belong on what I call Mt. Hempmore.
Passwater: I notice that he wrote an Introduction to your book.
Germano: Yes. While there were several players involved in the discovery of the ECS, Dr. Mechoulam stands out the most. Due to its role in modulating most, if not all, physiological functioning in the body, the ECS is one of the most important medical discoveries in quite some time. Thanks to Dr. Mechoulam’s work and many others around the world, we are getting closer to unraveling the enormous potential of how supporting the ECS can impact health and its usefulness in preventing and treating diseases. From the earliest moments of development to the last stages of your life, your ECS is involved in constant mass communication with every organ system in your body and intimately involved with modulating their activity.
Passwater: Briefly, in what ways? We’ll discuss this in more detail later.
Germano: Through its communication with all organ systems, the ECS helps regulate all biological functions, including your appetite, digestion, immune function, inflammation, motor control, mood, memory, sleep, etc. It does so by influencing various intricate pathways that the CB, TRVP, GABA, 5HT3, etc. receptors control. At the cellular level, the ECS exerts numerous regulatory roles too lengthy for this article, but here is a glimpse:
Brain: The ECS governs neurotransmission, brain cell development, mood and memory, and provides antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects that help protect the brain from further damage after trauma or stroke.
Metabolism: The ECS governs energy storage, involved in energy production, insulin sensitivity.
Stress: The ECS regulates the HPA pathway by altering stress response hormones.
Bone: The ECS influences brain to bone communication, suppresses osteoclast activity (cells that break down bone) and stimulates osteoblasts (cells that build up bone).
Inflammation/Pain: The ECS is intimately involved in nociceptive pain signaling to the brain and as well as being intertwined in many inflammatory pathways including the eicosanoid pathways that omega 3’s influence.
Anxiety/Depression: The ECS exerts its regulatory effects on various hormones and neurotransmitters involved in the development of several psychological pathologies.
Passwater: Many people will be surprised to learn that their bodies produce cannabinoids. About how many naturally produced compounds in the body activate the cannabinoid receptors, and are any of the phytocannabinoids produced in hemp bioidentical (the same) as cannabinoids produced in the human body?
Germano: In addition to anandamide and 2-AG, other lipid-based molecules have also been classified as endocannabinoids due to their effects on cannabinoid receptors including arachidonoyl dopamine, virodhamine, palmitoyl ethanolamide, oleoylethanolamide, and several byproducts of omega-3 fatty acids. Which brings us to an important relationship between omega-3s and the ECS. Several papers have been published to demonstrate this intimate relationship. Basically, when you are omega-3 deficient, your ECS suffers and we see the same conditions as those who are endocannabinoid deficient—pain/inflammation, stress/anxiety, etc. With omega-3 deficiency, your CB receptors are not as active, and omega-3s are used as backbone materials to produce cannabinoids in the body. Therefore, it makes sense to take omega-3s when taking hemp phytocannabinoids—the collectively serve as a “multivitamin” for your ECS.
Passwater: What happens when they don’t produce enough cannabinoids?
Germano: They are so important that when we don’t produce enough, disruption in the normal state (homeostasis) occurs and sets the stage for acute and chronic conditions. In certain ways, our endocannabinoids serve as biomarkers and are associated with certain disorders when their levels are too low. Stress, anxiety, pain, inflammation, insomnia, eye health, bone health, neurological maladies are conditions where we see depressed levels of endocannabinoids requiring dietary ECS support. Clinically, we are seeing that utilizing hemp phytocannabinoids serves as the foundation for any nutritional protocol addressing these issues. Dr. Ethan Russo’s papers on this very subject provides greater insights into conditions such as migraines, fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, and many other disorders associated with inflammatory and neurological origins to be what he called Endocannabinoid Deficiency states—all of which can be suitably treated by providing dietary phytocannabinoids. Hemp happens to be the richest and most important source!
Passwater: Disruption of homeostasis opens up one’s susceptibility to illness and the ECS plays a pivotal role in maintaining health, balance, and well-being. With that said, we have been hearing a lot about CBD these days and wondered how it fits in to supporting the ECS. What are your thoughts?
Germano: Homeostasis is critical to the body and your ability to adapt to the daily bombardment of stressors. When your ECS is not supported properly, you enter a state of imbalance that can jeopardize your health and well-being and set the stage for illness. In order to support the ECS, it is the entire family of phytocannabinoids that are required, and no single one can properly do so—this includes CBD!
CBD has been popularized due to the significant results achieved in trials on treating epilepsy and cancer therapy induced symptoms utilizing GW Pharmaceuticals FDA approved drugs that contain isolated CBD. Unfortunately, some companies have been trying to follow the popularity and media attention of CBD by big pharma and have myopically focused on single magic bullet CBD only. This is quite a disappointment for so many reasons. First, when has the dietary supplement industry ever followed big pharma’s single magic bullet approach to health and disease treatment—NEVER! So, why begin here? With all the botanicals sold in the industry, have we ever just focused on one compound in a plant? The answer is simply no.
There is not just one ginsenoside in ginseng, there is not just one curcuminoid in curcumin, there is not just one ginkgolide in ginkgo, etc.—I can go on, but you get the point. So, knowing there are close to 100 different phytocannabinoids in hemp, why in the world do we think that the only clinical relevancy of hemp is due to one phytocannabinoid—CBD? Those of us in botanical medicine know very well that the synergy of all compounds in a botanical is more important than singling out just one—no difference with hemp.
Dr. Ethan Russo wrote an eloquent paper on this very subject that was published in the British Journal of Pharmacology where he discussed how all of the phytocannabinoids in cannabis have unique properties that contribute to their clinical benefits and are greater than any single magic bullet approach. So, why all the attention given to just CBD when we know there are so many other phytocannabinoids that are equal to or have greater activity than CBD? There is no answer or excuse to focus just on CBD—period! Some of the more important synergistic players such as cannabigerol (CBG), beta caryophyllene (BCP), the cannabis flavonoids (CannFlavin A, B & C), and many others will share the spotlight as more research is unravelling their effects in the body. The bottom line is that the importance of the entire class of hemp phytocannabinoids and how they support the ECS should have been the lead-out story.
Unfortunately, it is bad enough that the U.S. government has misled us for the past 80 years, now we have been misled by companies trying to minimize the story and make it just about CBD, diminish hemp’s importance and efficacy of all of its phytocannabinoids, and insulting our intelligence by shoving the myopic CBD story down our throats.
Passwater: With many focusing on inflammation and stress, what are some of the more interesting conditions where the ECS is involved in?
Germano: With data supporting the role of the ECS in inflammation/pain, stress/anxiety, sleep, ocular health, bone support, and neurological conditions, emerging data reveals applications of hemp phytocannabinoids in addressing the GUT/brain/immune connection—a subject I covered in my book The Brain Wellness Plan many years ago. We know the ECS regulates motility and inflammation in the GI tract, but new studies demonstrate an interesting role for our endocannabinoids assisting with foreign antigen tolerance, HPA stress pathway, and immune response in our GUT—the largest immune organ in the body! In addition, what is unraveling is a major communication in the GUT between our microbiome and what I call the endocannabidiome.
It seems that probiotics and our endocannabinoids and receptors are involved with an intimate dance of communication to keep the GUT/brain/immune system functioning properly—a system that is crucial in maintain health and prevent disease.
Another fascinating topic is the role of the ECS in consciousness. Knowing the ECS governs neurotransmission and is involved with all aspects of how we perceive the external environment, it is no stretch to understand the connections here. In general, our consciousness is tied into our thoughts, sensations, and feelings. Every conscious thought, perception or feeling and everything we think of or do is influenced in many ways by the level of endocannabinoid tone in the body.
In subtle ways, the ECS helps to form our personality—are you clear thinking, focused, laid back, relaxed, anxious, etc.—all this is due to the ECS and its regulatory roles in the brain.
Lastly, the role of the ECS in sports medicine is about to explode. In my book The Misled Athlete, I cover many aspects of sports nutrition including energy production, reduction of inflammation, and recovery as major concerns to address nutritionally as opposed to stimulants and excess protein. Supporting the ECS with hemp phytocannabinoids will serve as a foundation to all nutritional protocols since is involved with ATP production, protecting mitochondria, reducing elevated inflammatory and oxidative markers after activity, and responsible for the “runners high.” Yes, you will have to rethink your thinking about feeling good after exercise being due to endorphins. We now know that elevated endocannabinoids influence the endorphin and opioid receptors responsible for the euphoric feeling after exercise.
Passwater: You and I have actively been involved in research and clinical practice for many decades and have witnessed the scientific/clinical story being diminished by not focusing on the entire class of phytocannabinoids. Nevertheless, the CBD story continues for now, yet legal issues abound. What are your thoughts?
Germano: I am thoroughly disappointed in the industry, legal counsel, and the FDA for letting an inept story and market develop the way it has. I am also perplexed by the complete dismissal by companies and legal counsel of a federal law you and I have been involved in back in 1994—the Dietary Supplement Health & Education Act (DSHEA). DSHEA law is very clear and tells us that if a substance has not been in commerce prior to 1994, it cannot be grandfathered as a dietary supplement.
CBD has not been in commerce prior to 1994, yet hemp and its naturally occurring class of phytocannabinoids have been as a food ingredient—strike one against CBD on a label being called a dietary supplement. The only option is to submit a New Dietary Ingredient (NDI) application to FDA for CBD. Why has no company submitted such? Probably due to the other clause in DSHEA that states if a pharmaceutical company takes a natural substance and obtains FDA approval as a drug, it’s hands-off to the dietary supplement industry. Well, GW Pharmaceuticals has done just that with its approved Epidilox drug with isolated CBD in it—strike 2 against CBD being a dietary supplement.
While there are some that make the case that CBD was on the market before GW’s approval, I have yet to see this challenged. Even if this was the case, you still have the issue that CBD was not in commerce prior to 1994—back to square one! So, while the scientific/clinical case was made in favor of phytocannabinoids as a naturally occurring class of compounds in hemp over single magic bullet CBD, so is the case legally. Why are we trying to waste our time fighting an uphill battle with the FDA about getting CBD approved as a dietary supplement? Unless FDA is planning to change or dismantle DSHEA, it is futile and wasting a great deal of time and money. Rather, the industry should be embracing hemp as a botanical, phytocannabinoids as the most important class of naturally occurring plant compounds, and how to nourish/feed/support the body’s endocannabinoid system. Lastly, FDA needs to enforce DSHEA and the simplistic and inaccurate CBD story will go away and make room for the more important story to be told.
Passwater: So, how best do we support our ECS and do we rely only on hemp?
Germano: While I have been telling people to get over the fact that we produce cannabinoids in the body, similar to some of the ones found in hemp, they are equally shocked by the fact that we have been eating phytocannabinoids in the diet! While hemp is undoubtedly the richest source of phytocannabinoids in the diet, there are other foods where they may be found. Yes, carrots, hops, chocolate, Echinacea, pepper, clove, thyme, etc. are all foods that have minute levels of phytocannabinoids in them. I said minute, so don’t rely on them to truly have therapeutic value unless you either consume huge quantities or they have been standardized in certain foods.
Just placing milligram levels of some of these spices/foods in a product is nothing more than marketing hype and comical at best. Nevertheless, the best example of a truly beneficial phytocannabinoid in food that can be standardized in large quantities is beta caryophyllene (BC) as found in abundance in clove and unripe black pepper seeds. When standardized in specially processed oils, BC is a perfect complement to CBD since it attaches to the CB2 receptor that CBD does not. It is the CB2 receptor that is involved in bone building, inflammation and pain, insulin sensitivity, and many other functions. This is yet another example of the importance of having other phytocannabinoids present and not to rely on just CBD. CBD cannot support the entire ECS on its own—you need the full family present—period!
Passwater: With that said, what should consumers look for in products in this category?
Germano: First and foremost, they should get to know the strains that are being used in products. It is important to know if the strains have a history of proven use in humans prior to 1994 (DSHEA). The EU Commission has a website where you can see what strains have been used for human use for decades. These are strains that have been cultivated and consumed by humans and represent many decades of what true industrial hemp looks like. Also, they can request DNA analysis and proof that the strains are actually coming from true industrial hemp as opposed to the genetically manipulated “Frankenstein” marijuana hybrids that pervade our industry that have no history of human consumption.
In addition, are the products non-GMO, organic, Kosher, solvent free, and tested for all pesticides including Monsanto’s glyphosate? Are the products free of CBD isolate?
CBD isolate is a drug yet is found in numerous products in the market—either directly or indirectly. I am amused by looking at chromatograms of products showing CBD to be 70%, 80, or 90+% calling themselves full spectrum oils. It is absurd to think that such products can be full spectrum and retailers/consumers need stop “drinking the Kool Aid” and be diligent about the products and companies they choose. Essentially, the term full spectrum has been diluted in the marketplace. Ask for chromatograms of the material that can be very telling about whether the oil is spiked with CBD isolate or come from marijuana hybrids.
Essentially, when millions of marketing dollars get spent by companies trying to follow the coattails of GW Pharmaceuticals CBD approved drug, it is apparent that botanical medicine, the science of the ECS, and the legal aspects that plague CBD got completely ignored. There are a lot of questionable companies out there that have no clue about the science nor the DSHEA law—it’s buyer beware at the moment until FDA does its job.
Passwater: Carl, you have been researching this topic for many years. Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us about the Endocannabinoid System and the health benefits of phytocannabinoids.
This story first appeared at Whole Foods Magazine
by HempingtonPost | Nov 23, 2019
It’s a fast-growing business with vast domestic potential across the continent, and our advanced know-how can help make it happen.
Africa is asserting itself as a high-potential emerging region for large-scale cannabis grow operations. With South Africa leading the continent’s entry into the market along with the Kingdom of Lesotho and Zimbabwe, savvy investors are jockeying for position. But the future health of the African cannabis industry faces several challenges: maintaining consistent, sustainable product quality, overcoming regulatory uncertainty and promoting social justice are long-term considerations that should inform current decisions.
The African Legal Cannabis Landscape
South Africa began licensing the production and export of medical cannabis in 2018 and is expected to become a global frontrunner in the industry. The South African Supreme Court’s decriminalization of cannabis for personal recreational use in September further propelled the country’s entry into the market.
According to a recent UN survey, more than 10,000 tons of cannabis are produced in Africa each year. With abundant land, an experienced labour force and climates conducive to cannabis cultivation, if legitimized, cannabis could contribute to a continent-wide economic uptick.
While Africa is eyeing global cannabis export, local markets are also of interest. The continent’s unregulated market is estimated to be upwards of $10 billion. According to Prohibition Partners, five of the world’s top 30 countries for cannabis prevalence among adult populations are in Africa. Nigeria alone has 20 million cannabis consumers. This translates to the potential for legal cannabis to generate an economic surge for African nations that have been historically disadvantaged and exploited.
The potential for cannabis to usher prosperity has induced many African countries to weigh regulatory changes. The Kingdom of Lesotho, a sovereign nation of 2 million bordered on all sides by South Africa, granted the continent’s first license to grow and export legal medical cannabis in 2017. Currently, several countries including Eswatini, Malawi, Zimbabwe, and Uganda, are examining legalizing cannabis cultivation for medical or industrial applications.
What can Israel offer Africa’s cannabis industry?
Africa’s potential for export has attracted some of the world’s largest cannabis companies, including Canadian giants Tilray and Canopy Growth Corp. While expansion into substantial local markets and global export holds promise, in order to keep the cannabis value chain local, ensure sustainable growth and improve efficacy, infrastructure and tech will play an important role.
This is where Israeli expertise can offer an advantage. As the “Startup Nation,” Israel’s biggest commodity is its intellectual property (IP). The concentration of talent and tech makes Israel’s cannabis-specific offerings a perfect match for Africa’s big-grow potential.
Israel is a global leader in advanced cannabis production solutions, including unique extraction techniques, targeted formulations, plant quality monitoring technology and novel delivery platforms. This can offer greater cost-efficiency and standardization to ensure the health of Africa’s expanding cannabis industry. Anticipating a cannabis boom in the near future, Israeli aggrotech companies are already planting roots in Africa.
This partnership is mutually beneficial: Israeli companies have an opportunity to expand their global footprint and African growers benefit from the leading-edge cannabis tech and research that are Israel’s cottage industry. Another reason why integrating the African supply chain is particularly important is to ensure that local businesses and workers are not cut out of end-product profit. Israel can help promote social equity by contributing to post-production cannabis infrastructure and technology.
African Cannabis, Global Impact
Beyond mutual financial benefit, the partnership between African cannabis farms and Israeli tech stands to help people around the world. By expanding the African market and ensuring supply chain sustainability, patients with a wide range of conditions will enjoy increased access to high-quality, cost-effective cannabis-based medicine. This growth, however, should foster and protect the interests of local stakeholders including farmworkers, local patients and small cannabis businesses.
Novel cannabis-derived therapies are impacting global health, with numerous researchers and policy-makers sanctioning cannabinoid drugs to treat epilepsy, AIDS and chemotherapy-related symptoms, and muscular disorders. The benefits of a thriving African cannabis industry extend beyond economic growth. A healthy African market could become a main source of bulk medicinal cannabis and cannabis-derived products, and Israeli cannabis know-how can help achieve this while promoting sustainability and social equity.
Saul Kaye is the Founder and CEO of iCAN: Israel-Cannabis and CannaTech, a global cannabis industry conference founded with the mission of expanding the global cannabis ecosystem and contributing to the ongoing post-prohibition dialogue. CannaTech will be holding an African conference in Cape Town, South Africa, November 24-26 where the most pressing issues facing the industry will be discussed with regional and international cannabis business and thought leaders.
by HempingtonPost | Nov 21, 2019
Ajit Singh strode across his 16-acre hemp field toward a broken-down harvester. He’d been hoping all day that the mechanic now crouched beside the machine could get it back up and running.
It was late October and Singh still had thousands of stinky green and purple cannabis plants across 425 acres to pick, dry and sell before winter. Like many hemp growers here in Jackson County, Oregon, he was harvesting slowly, facing a mold problem and unhappy with prices offered by potential buyers.
“We want a better price,” said Singh, a soil scientist and former garden store owner — and, he said, he was prepared to hold out for one. He sold 50 acres of hemp for $70 a pound last year and now was being quoted prices less than half that.
Hemp growers nationwide scaled up this year after Congress legalized the non-psychoactive cannabis. They hoped to cash in on the booming market for cannabinoids such as wellness darling CBD, an ingredient in oils, tinctures and salves. But as harvest winds down, it’s likely that many growers will go bust.
More than half a million acres were licensed for hemp production this year, though Vote Hemp, a hemp advocacy nonprofit based in Washington, D.C., estimated in September that less than half that was planted.
“People went in thinking they’d be instant millionaires. But the reality is, they’re broke.”
Matt Ochoa, founder JEFFERSON PACKING HOUSE
Some of the more than 16,000 licensed growers will profit from their crops and say hemp is a better investment than traditional commodities such as corn. However, because of crop failure and other factors, Vote Hemp estimates that between 40% and half of the crop planted this year won’t be harvested.
“People went in thinking they’d be instant millionaires,” said Matt Ochoa, founder of Jefferson Packing House, a cannabis drying, processing and distribution business in Medford, Oregon. “But the reality is, they’re broke.”
In late October the mood was so grim in Jackson County, home to about a quarter of Oregon’s 1,957 licensed hemp growers, that rumors were swirling of husband-wife growing teams divorcing, farmers selling in a panic to low bidders and despairing entrepreneurs dying by suicide (the Jackson County Sheriff’s office told Stateline that it investigates all suicides in the county and is not aware of any involving hemp growers).
“I’ve literally had a tightness in my chest from all these failures the past few days,” said Mark Taylor, founder of the Southern Oregon Hemp Co-operative, when he met with Stateline at a Medford restaurant last month. He still thinks the hemp industry has a bright future but worries that a lot of the crop planted in Oregon this year isn’t going to make it. “I believe we’ve lost a substantial amount of hemp,” he said.
Nationwide, bad weather, mold, disease, pests and inexperience have crushed some crops. Now lack of capital, harvesting equipment and drying space — challenges affecting rookie and veteran farmers alike as growing expands — means that some healthy plants may not make it out of the ground.
“People can’t get it out [of the fields] because there’s not the infrastructure, the capital or the labor to get it through,” Ochoa said.
Wholesale hemp prices, while higher than for other agricultural commodities, are expected to decline for key cannabinoid products this year as new suppliers flood the market, according to Washington D.C.-based cannabis industry research firm New Frontier Data. And even farmers who thought they had buyers lined up are finding there are no guarantees.
Singh is optimistic that he’ll find a buyer for the crop he spent millions of dollars planting, even though much of it is blighted by mold. Moldy hemp, while less valuable than the unblemished stuff, can still be processed into CBD oil.
Other parts of the country have faced different diseases and pests. Bipolaris leaf spot, which limits the photosynthetic area of the plant, was widespread in Tennessee, said Katy Kilbourne, a plant pathologist with the state’s agriculture department.
Zach Hansen, an assistant professor in the entomology and plant pathology department at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, has seen about 10% crop loss in worst case scenarios to another fungal disease, Southern blight. “It’s basically a death sentence for the plant,” Hansen said.
Corn earworm, a common pest to sweet corn in the South, has transitioned to hemp nicely, according to experts, prompting growers to hire people to walk up and down hemp rows and hand-pick the pests off individually.
‘The Money Is in the Plants’
In Southern Oregon and other regions where hemp production exploded this year, people up and down the hemp supply chain are feeling the pressure.
Ochoa is a tall man with a gentle smile who radiated calm as he walked through his 100,000-square-foot hemp-drying warehouse, fielding nonstop phone calls, video calls, emails and urgent questions from his staff.
His Zen demeanor is misleading, however. “I’ve never been this stressed in my life,” he said as he headed from the curing room, a cool space where dried hemp lay in plastic-lined packing crates, to the cavernous hall where freshly harvested plants lay drying on racks.
Not only was Ochoa trying to manage a rapidly growing business, but like his hemp grower clients, he was squeezed for cash. “The system is out of money,” he had explained earlier, in his bare-bones office. “The entire industry segment is all in. All the money is in the plants right now.”
Ochoa said buyers are out there, but it’s hard to know who’s serious. In other parts of the country, even farmers who entered into contracts well ahead of the growing season also are having problems.
When Stateline met Michael Calebs earlier this year, he proudly wore a clean gray cap emblazoned with the green, upside-down V logo of the company that processes his hemp, Atalo Holdings. With a contract, Calebs wasn’t worried about investing $200,000 in hemp seed, clones, fertilizer, land, diesel, insurance and labor across 33 acres in London, Kentucky.
In September, Atalo CEO William Hilliard sent its growers a letter alerting them that an investor had pulled out, and it could not offer a “specific or dependable date” for when growers could expect to get paid.
“Matter of fact, they recommend if we can find a place to sell our crop to sell it,” said Calebs, who’s also thwarted two attempts by thieves to steal his hemp. “That’s scary, isn’t it? That could bankrupt us.”
Hilliard told Stateline that Atalo continues to seek funding and intends to pay in full about 80 growers, including Calebs, who collectively this season planted about 1,700 acres in Kentucky and neighboring states. Hilliard attributed Atalo’s challenges to specific investors and outside forces, such as news of overproduction that has investors wary of getting involved, lackluster financial results among cannabis companies and uncertainty in the vaping industry.
“Our enthusiasm for the hemp industry has not dampened at all,” Hilliard said.
Meanwhile, GenCanna — another heavyweight in growing and processing industrial hemp crops — is being sued by a group of hemp farmers in Kentucky over a deal that fell through to create a drying facility and pay an increased price for processed hemp.
The farmers want $5 million, but GenCanna disputes their claims, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader. In addition, there are at least 37 liens against a property the company leases in Mayfield, Kentucky. Records show the company owes just shy of $52 million, according to Tammy Flint, Graves County clerk.
Neighboring Tennessee licensed roughly 4,700 acres of hemp last year. This year, it’s an astounding 51,000 acres, according to the Tennessee Department of Agriculture.
The number of licensed growers increased nearly 1,600% this year, from 226 to 3,800, “and that has had some catastrophic effects,” said Bill Corbin, a third-generation tobacco farmer in Springfield, Tennessee. Corbin fears he’s made a “massive mistake” by forgoing tobacco this year to grow hemp exclusively.
Corbin suggests Tennessee institute a narrow window for growers to obtain licenses and restrict growers’ hemp acreage and pounds based on averages from previous years of documented production. “That should be the case with hemp, so we don’t travel this path again.”
Meanwhile, hemp prices are all over the place. Pete Gendron, president of the cannabis advocacy group Oregon SunGrowers Guild, says he’s seeing a range of prices nationally — from about $12 a pound for hemp with low cannabinoid concentrations to $1,000 a pound for top-quality flower that can be rolled into joints and smoked. Last year’s price range, he said, was also huge.
Many hemp growers in southern Oregon, even experienced ones, aren’t going to be able to sell for premium prices this year, thanks to early rains that spread mold across hemp fields.
Stormmy Paul, a longtime cannabis entrepreneur who runs a hemp drying business in the area, said mold can turn a $250 a pound crop into a $25 a pound crop. Because hemp is so expensive to plant and harvest, he said, once prices drop below $20 a pound, farmers start losing money.
It generally costs between $8,000 and $20,000 an acre to grow hemp, not including harvest costs, Ochoa said. Many rookie growers underestimate the expense. “People think they can grow it for $4,000 to $8,000 an acre, and then they get in,” he said, “and all they can do is keep borrowing money all the way to the finish line.”
Pushing Forward
By late October, between 75% and 90% of the viable hemp crop in Oregon should have been out of the ground and in drying barns, Gendron said. But in the Rogue Valley, a cannabis-growing mecca near the California border, hemp fields were still bursting with plants toward the end of the month. Many fields, such as Singh’s 16-acre plot, were partially harvested. “Not everything that’s sitting in the field right now is going to be harvested,” Gendron said.
Singh is pushing on, despite mold, harvest challenges and the accidental fertilization of the Phoenix field by male hemp plants from a neighboring farm — which filled Singh’s once-pristine hemp flowers with seeds.
He initially planned to pay field workers to hand-shuck the hemp flowers, but that proved prohibitively expensive. Mukesh Sheoran, Singh’s business partner and cousin, said that an initial crew of 100 workers for the Phoenix field put the company back $20,000 a day.
Determined to cut down on labor costs, the hemp growers, both in their mid-40s, bought a green-bean harvester from a farmer in Idaho and modified it to suck up hemp leaves and flowers. Even with the machine, the harvest has proceeded slowly, because the cousins can only harvest as much hemp as they have space on the farm to dry.
The harvester’s breakdown, thankfully, was short. After conferring with the mechanic, who welded adjustments to the machine in the middle of the field, Singh climbed gingerly into the cab and worked the harvester slowly round until he could drive it along a line of hemp plants.
Sheoran watched silently as the harvester inched its way down the line, spitting hemp debris into a tank at the back of the machine. “We had very high hopes. See the amount of flowers we had?” he said, looking out at the top-heavy plants. “It’s all seedy.”
Even longtime farmers are facing challenges. Steve Fry, a 68-year-old organic vegetable farmer in the Rogue Valley, grew about 20 acres of hemp last year and twice as much this year. “We did so well last year that we thought we’d do more. That’s how dumb farmers are, you know,” he said, sitting on the tailgate of a truck parked beside his red barn on a glorious October afternoon.
Fry estimated that he’d harvested about 15% of his hemp crop, which also has been afflicted by mold. He said he’s wondering whether it’ll be worth harvesting the most damaged plants, given the prices they’re likely to command. “I’ve got to talk to my processor guys,” he said.
Next year, Fry said, he’ll be better prepared, with more drying space ready to go early in the season as well as modified harvesting machinery.
And this harvest, while disappointing, won’t be crushing. Conventional crop prices are so low, he said, that even if he harvests only some hemp he’ll be better off than if he had planted vegetables. “We’re still going to do better than we would have if the whole place was in veg,” Fry said.
Fry said he hasn’t made a profit on vegetables in three years. Last year’s hemp, not carrots and squash, is paying the bills on a new food processing building on his family farm. “Thank God hemp came,” Fry said.
This story first appeared at Pew Trusts.
by HempingtonPost | Oct 4, 2019
The House of Representatives made history on Wednesday, passing landmark legislation that would protect U.S. banks that provide services to legitimate cannabis businesses in states where cannabis is legal.
“Prohibition is over,” said Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-Colo.), who introduced the bill. “Our bill is focused solely on taking cash off the streets and making our communities safer.”
The Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act passed 321 to 103 with substantial support on both sides of the aisle. Walking into the vote on Wednesday, the bill tallied about 200 sponsors ー 26 of whom were Republican.
A Congressional aid familiar with the SAFE Banking Act said that drumming up bipartisan support was partially the point ー that padding the bill with a broad base of support will increase its odds when it heads to the Republican-controlled Senate, where it faces a much heavier lift.
With support from about 30 percent of the Senate ー including only five Republican Senators ー some suggest it won’t have enough traction to pass. But comments earlier this month from Senate Banking Chair Mike Crapo reignited proponents’ hopes. He told Politico that he hopes to address cannabis banking issues by the end of the year.
“We’re working to try to get a bill ready,” he told Politico. “I’m looking to see whether we can thread the needle.”
Following passage of the bill in the House, Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), one of the bill’s lead sponsors in the Senate, urged his fellow Senators to deliver SAFE Banking to President Trump’s desk. And Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), who introduced the Senate version of the bill, was hopeful of its momentum.
“While we continue to work to address broader issues related to the harmful legacy of cannabis prohibition across the country, I am hopeful that we can get the SAFE Banking Act moving quickly through committee, to the Senate floor, and ultimately, to the President’s desk,” Merkley said in a statement.
Meanwhile in the House of Representatives, proponents celebrated. Cheers could be heard throughout the chamber the moment votes in favor surpassed 290, or two thirds of the chamber ー the margin needed to pass a bill under suspension of the rules. Perlmutter was especially excited. He’s been working to push versions of the legislation through with sponsor Rep. Denny Heck (D- Wash.) since 2013.
“After six years of working on this bill, the SAFE Banking Act will go a long way in getting cash off our streets and providing certainty so financial institutions can work with cannabis businesses and employees,” Perlmutter said in a statement.
But even as they celebrated, proponents of wider legalization acknowledged the need for further reform ー especially for social justice. In the weeks leading up to the House vote on the bill, criticism emerged from within the Democratic party, as well as from advocacy groups, which argued such a bill undermines more comprehensive and socially focused reform. Three Democratic Presidential candidates ー and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer ー have criticized the bill for not doing enough to repair damages from the War Drugs.
But proponents of the bill argued social justice and incremental financial reform don’t have to be mutually exclusive. In the hours leading up to the vote, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer released a statement affirming the concerns of advocates and his colleagues, and calling for more action on cannabis equity following passage of the bill by the House.
“I am proud to bring this legislation to the Floor, but I believe it does not go far enough. This must be a first step toward the decriminalization and de-scheduling of marijuana, which has led to the prosecution and incarceration of far too many of our fellow Americans for possession,” Hoyer said in a statement.
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), chair of the House Committee on Financial Services, which passed the bill in March after days of amendments and deliberation, said much of the same.
“This bill is but one important piece of what should be a comprehensive series of cannabis reform bills,” she said.
Many of SAFE Banking’s more prominent cosponsors, including Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), Rep. Early Blumenauer (D-Ore.), Rep. Perlmutter, and Rep. Waters, also support more comprehensive and socially focused cannabis legislation like the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act, introduced by Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) in July.
This story first appeared at Cheddar.com.
by HempingtonPost | Oct 4, 2019
Paragon Processing, the nation’s largest hemp processing facility, is looking to start full-scale operation in the Colorado City area within the next 20-30 days.
“We’re actively hiring people so that we can ramp up,” said William Chavis, partner of Paragon Processing, located about 23 miles south of Pueblo. “It wouldn’t make sense to ramp up with our current staff, so it takes time to get people in the building, train them, have a good understanding of what’s going on.”
Paragon Processing currently employs between 30 and 45 staff members. It is looking to expand to 250 workers by the end of the year and 500 in approximately two years. Available positions include maintenance people, general laborers and skilled tradesmen, according to Chavis.
“We have found very strong people out of the oil and mining industries that have experience using these types of equipment, but not necessarily for this purpose,” Chavis said. “We invite as many local people as we can to come in and help out with some of the general labor.”
The Paragon Process extraction facility is 256,000 square feet. At the facility, hemp biomass is tested for pesticides, heavy metals, and microbials. Biomass that passes each test is stored and processed. Currently, the facility is capable of processing 1 million pounds of biomass each month. Climate controlled storage is available for 50 million pounds.
“In the event that a farmer has 2-3 million pounds, we’re able to take that all in at one point in time, even if we can’t process for them in a single month,” Chavis said.
Through extraction, a winterized crude is produced from the biomass.
“That crude material consists of some of the other plant extracts other that the actual cannabinoids,” Chavis said. “That crude is around 50% cannabinoids, a mixture of everything from CBD, CBM, CBG, CBC as well as minute amounts of THC.”
Product must contain less than 0.3% THC content in order to be transported out of the facility.
“Just on the science side alone, if you were able to take a product that started with 0.3% and you concentrate it, it’s likely going to have over 0.3%,” Chavis said. “To further refine it, we use distillation.”
After distillation, THC content can also be removed through THC remediation or through production of a CBD isolate, a 99% or pure CBD product that contains no THC.
“Hemp is currently one of the largest cash crops that people are switching to,” Chavis said. “There is actually 15 times more volume of hemp being grown and produced this year than previous years.”
Paragon Processing currently has a sister facility located in Colorado Springs handling goods manufacturing. CBD distillate and isolate produced at the extraction facility may be used for food products, lotions and other consumer goods.
“We’re very interested in taking applications of all sorts,” Chavis said. “We invite people to go to our website to take a look and fill out the application.”
This story originally appeared at The Pueblo Chieftain.
