Let’s get right to it. With the sensational local news media stories from the Boston Herald and WBZ News, among others, have you been contacted or warned by local police or Boston Police who were quoted in those stories?
No, I have not and I suspect what is stopping them is both cluelessness and politics. Where Deval Patrick and the Department of Public Health (DPH) are concerned, no news is good news. Headlines about medical marijuana are not good for Deval’s national political ambitions. In national politics, cannabis is like a smelly poop and you would not want any of that stinky poop on your hands. MMJ headlines would bring more attention to the ongoing ineptitude of a department so consumed by scandal and mismanagement that they are too busy putting out fires to do anything else—much less help patients who need cannabis. Also, since it is not clear whether CBD-only products are illegal, any trial would be a long arduous affair with many more embarrassing headlines.
We at CBD Please would not mind being busted at all. We are ready and waiting. It’s a trap. An arrest would make more patients aware of the safe, effective medicines we offer. All news is good news.
The products you are selling to me seem very likely to be legal? Am I correct on that? Federal law allows industrial hemp to be imported with less than .3 percent THC. Are many of these CBD products likely made legal that way?
CBD is not addressed in Massachusetts law, which prohibits THC in particular. The legality of the importation of CBD-rich oil under federal law is less clear. The burden of legal responsibility for the importation of the oil lies primarily with the manufacturer and is of little concern to a retailer like CBD Please. Yes, the raw hemp oil will likely be imported for a few more years until the domestic industrial hemp market is re-established. Processing of the oil is done stateside. Even then, the scale of hemp-growing in Europe and China (thousands of hectares), the fact that overseas producers’ costs of equipment are either fully or partially depreciated (where American farmers will have to make new equipment investments), and that the cost of both land and labor are much lower overseas leads us to conclude that the cost of goods sold by foreign producers will be lower even over the long-run.
Do you know of any local or national CBD busts of late for products such as these?
Now that DPH shut down all the legitimate caregivers, patients, unless they have a cregiver serving that patient and that patient only (hardly likely), depend entirely on black market drug dealers. Knowing this, Massachusetts police are now systematically (it seems) tracking down Facebook pages and Craigslist ads, and busting providers falsely claiming to be caregivers. While these types of busts seem to be burgeoning, I am not aware of any CBD-only busts.
There’s been some controversy among the activist community about some of the CBD products on the market, that some of the product could be using the legal industrial hemp paste imported from China with heavy metals and contaminants versus the alleged better alternative grown in Canada. Have you looked into where your products are sourcing their hemp? Or having any testing data for contaminants in them?
The raw oil made to produce the products CBD Please offers comes from Eastern Europe not China. The CBD Project, a not-for-profit CBD consumer advocacy group, published a report titled “Hemp Oil Hustlers.” The report rightly points out that the process of extracting oil from hemp plants tends to concentrate contaminants if they are present. The most dangerous contaminants include heavy metals, aflatoxin from fungus and solvents. The manufacturer of the oil CBD Please is offering now is Plus CBD. CBD Please offers Plus CBD’s most highly-refined oil—plus CBD Gold Oil only. The Gold Oil is tested by the manufacturer who publishes the results and it is tested again by CDB Please at MCR Labs in Framingham. CBD Please has had the current batch of Gold Oil tested five times and the oil is 23 percent CBD, 1 percent THC, 2 percent CBC, 1 percent CBG, .1 percent CBN. The Gold Oil has also been tested by MCR Labs for heavy metals, aflatoxin, and solvents, and has proven clean.
CBD Please is an independent retailer and can offer products from any manufacturers it chooses. We hope to offer oil from a variety of manufacturers in a wide variety of medical delivery systems. If there is CBD coming from Canada, it is not in sufficient quantity yet to make it’s way here. It is much cheaper to make CBD in Eastern Europe and until Canada, Colorado, Oregon, etc. ramp-up to large volume production, their CBD products will remain relatively noncompetitive. If the oil is potent and clean, the only other measure for CBD Please is the price.
What is your attorney advising you on your business and the law?
My attorney is Steven S. Epstein, Esq. of Georgetown, and I doubt anyone knows cannabis law the way Steve does. While Steve is very concerned that CBD Pleases’ business operations are compliant, the fact that we sell CBD products does not particularly concern him.
What types of patients are being helped by CBDs?
Patient demographics are across the board. Young, old, fat, thin, tall, short, rich, poor, knowledgeable, clueless, blonde, brunette, redhead, etc. The only common theme seems to be intractable medical issues. You do not need to be ill or injured to get CBD and you do not need a doctor’s recommendation. You do not need to contact DPH before you can get CBD.
Are CBDs also very much like herbal medicine in that they might prevent genetic or environmental conditions, prevention as well as for treatment of the pain?
Yes. Current research is probing many cannabinoids (chemicals particular to the cannabis plant), including CBD, for their preventative abilities. I am not, however, aware of any studies investigating the use of CBD in preventing genetic mutation or helping the body shed environmental toxins in particular. The many conditions CBD and THC can moderate have been charted by CannLabs of Denver. You can see their chart at CBDplease.com. Both THC and CBD are shown by the analysis to treat: pain, depression, spasms, neurodegeneration, and nausea. In addition to those conditions, the analysis shows CBD can also help: inflammation, anxiety, psychosis, epilepsy, indigestion, bacterial infection, diabetes, psoriasis, itching, immune disorders, bone issues, tumors, arterial blockage, restricted blood flow and organ rejection.
Would CBDs help a patient in daily pain such as mine with daily back, nerve pain? Do you have any patients reporting good results for treating that sort of existing pain?
It is likely CBD would help with your back pain. There are many variables that make it hard to predict how useful CBD will be for any given condition. People who have low-preforming endocannabiniod systems (low internal production of naturally occurring human cannabinoids) will probably find more relief. The best way to find out is to try some. It is relatively inexpensive to try. For back pain we usually recommend a combination of mouth spray or oil and a topical salve. Standard oral dose (sublingua) for CBD is 50mg. Each syringe (no needle) of Gold Oil holds one gram which contains about 230mg of CBD and gives you just about five days of 50mg/day treatment.
Patients with doctors’ recommendations are offered the One Gram Syringe of Gold Oil for $30. Cost for that treatment is $6/day. The topical salve should be applied generously near the pain, costs $25 for a jar and lasts about a month. Your initial investment to try the products would be $55. If you decide to use them daily, your cost (at current pricing) is just under $7/day. To us 99 percenters, it’s a lot of money, but relative to the cost of other meds, these products are very inexpensive. Seven dollars a day to be pain-free? Probably worth it. Fifty-five to find-out? Probably worth it.
Unfortunately, CBD is considered a nutritional supplement and, therefore, is not covered by health insurance. These are products your endocannabinoid systems are accustomed to and they do not have the body-jarring physiological effects of weird-science pharmaceuticals your body sees as alien. For psychological issues, the action of CBD is immediate. For physiological issues, CBD can take a week or two of daily use for full effect.
Yes, many patients are coming back again and again having found effective pain relief for a wide variety of pain issues—both pain from injury and pain from illness. As CBD treats both pain and inflammation—pain resulting from inflammation responds particularly well. Inflammation often triggers pain in lingering injuries such as yours.
Are you going to be exhibiting your products at the Park Plaza in Boston at the New England Cannabis Convention on January 31 and February 1?
Yes! You and I and the whole Northeast community, I’m sure, are looking forward to the New England Cannabis Convention with great anticipation. There has never been anything like it, that I know of, east of the Mississippi. CBD Please will be offering samples of CBD products and lots of edifying literature. CBD Please will answer what questions we can and we will get you answers for the questions we don’t have answers for already. I predict this event someday will be larger for Boston than Mac World was.
FURTHER READING
BLUNT TRUTH: ‘THE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH HAS BLOOD ON ITS HANDS TODAY’
BLUNT TRUTH: CAREGIVER HEROES VS. THE MASS DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH
