Got questions about hemp? In episode 8 of the Ministry of Hemp podcast, we do some Hemp Q&A, answering questions submitted by our listeners.
Kit O’Connell, Editor in Chief of Ministry of Hemp, joins Matt. One great resource Kit mentions in the show: the Reddit CBD subreddit. It’s a very useful and shockingly friendly resource for your hemp questions.
We want to hear from you too. Send us your questions and you might hear them answered on future shows like this one!
Send us your written questions to us on Twitter, Facebook, email matt@ministryofhemp.org, or call us and leave a message at 402-819-6417. Keep in mind that phone number is for hemp questions only and any other inquiries for Ministry of Hemp should be sent to info@ministryofhemp.org.
Don’t forget to subscribe to the Ministry of Hemp Podcast on iTunes or your favorite podcast app. If you really want to help us out, we’d love for you to rate or review the show.
Thanks again for listening! Contact sales@ministryofhemp.org if you’re interested in sponsoring our podcast or other content on our website.
More resources: CBD & chronic pain
This week, many of the questions were around using CBD oil for pain. Here’s some resources from our site:
- Comparing CBD & THC for Chronic Pain
- How To Pick The Right CBD For Your Pain
- Science Explains Why CBD Could Help Your Chronic Pain
- Vaping CBD For Pain
In this episode, we recommended Medterra 3000mg CBD Tincture to a listener looking for a very high potency CBD isolate. Look for our complete review of several different high potency CBD oil products later this month.
We also recommended LifePatent CBD-A Tincture, from one of our Top CBD Brands of 2024.
Hemp Q&A With Matt & Kit: Episode Transcript
Below you’ll find the complete written transcript of this episode.
Matt Baum: 00:06 Welcome to our very first Q and A episode of the Ministry of Hemp podcast. I am so excited. We’ve had our Google phone number open for a little while now. You can always call it and leave a message at (402) 819-6417. Funny story, when I started doing this I was saying a slightly different number where I mixed up the numbers and a very nice man was getting your calls. I ended up calling him and apologizing. Great guy. doesn’t know anything about hemp but thank you for being cool about that. So we’ve been collecting your questions about hemp and today I am going to sit down with the editor in chief of ministryofhemp.org, Kit O’Connell, and we are going to answer some of your questions. Let’s get into it, shall we?
Matt Baum: 00:57 Kit, I appreciate you joining me today and answering some listener questions. You ready for this?
Kit O’Connell: 01:03 Yeah, it should be fun. I’ve been looking forward to coming on the show some more.
Matt Baum: 01:06 Cool. Let’s get into it. Let’s start right here.
CBD Tips: Dosing, drug complications and more
Christina: 01:10 Hi, I am just researching this now. My cousin has been a nurse, she’s just retired, a nurse all her life, and she’s taking CBD oil or tincture. I’m not sure what the difference is yet, but she’s taking 3.3 milligrams a day I believe, or per serving. So as I’m going through your bottles, I’m seeing that, 300 to a thousand, to 2,500 whatever in a 30 milliliter bottle. So in a 30 milliliter bottle, is that to be taken twice a day and how many days would that last? Would that be a 30 day amount?
Christina: 02:11 Anyway, I’m just kind of trying to figure out the difference between tincture oil, how many servings a person normally would take. I had to quit taking naproxin, which was helping me from arthritis in my back and neck and that’s mainly what I was trying to find something for sure. So what would be best for that? Then also the full spectrum versus the isolate, kind of trying to find out more detailed information on what those two forms offer. My name is Christina.
Matt Baum: 03:00 We’ll cut her off there so she doesn’t give away anything personal. So Christina, basically is breaking it down. Let’s, let’s go one by one. She wants to know the difference between an oil and a tincture. She’s curious about dosage. She’s worried about other drug complications and a little bit on full spectrum versus isolate. What do you think Kit? Oil versus tincture?
Kit O’Connell: 03:20 Cool, yeah, let’s start with oil versus tincture, good point. So this is a kind of a funny thing with the way the industry is right now. Classically speaking, an oil is where you have the hemp extract in oil, like hemp oil or coconut oil, MCT oil is that really common one? Whereas a tincture would theoretically be the extract mixed with alcohol. What you’re finding today though is that most products on the market are what we would call an oil, but they’re using the term oil and tincture interchangeably. So it’s a bit confusing, there are some actual tinctures out there where it’s alcohol plus CBD or hemp extract and you should try those and see if they help but most of the time you’re going to buy an oil, though sometimes it’s going to be labeled a tincture.
Matt Baum: 04:08 So the oils are really beneficial because the hemp actually bonds to the fats in the oil and that’s what carries through and where you get the benefits from CBD. Right?
Kit O’Connell: 04:19 That’s true but alcohol also can have a similar effect. Alcohol, it has fats in it, or any way it can bind with the cannabinoids in a similar way to the fats in an oil, so it’s kind of a more old fashioned way of doing an extract. Also it’s obviously can have a much stronger flavor. You’re taking something that’s made with essentially grain alcohol, so it’s going to taste like doing a plant filled shot of Everclear. So it’s not a very pleasant-
Matt Baum: 04:46 So go with the oil is what you’re saying?
Kit O’Connell: 04:48 Yeah, stick with the oil if flavor is your thing but some people do find that that traditional tincture is helpful, so investigate.
Matt Baum: 04:54 So what about dosage for an adult like her? She was saying that her sister was taking three milligrams a day, which seems pretty low.
Kit O’Connell: 05:02 Yeah. We recommend everybody start with a low dosage and sort of see what happens for them. We don’t usually give specific amounts, just because everybody is so different and they react so differently. We’re going to recommend starting with one of those lower strength CBDs, like a 300 milligram bottle and taking some every day. Try it before bed just in case you’re just one of those people that makes you feel sleepy. Start with a quarter dropper, or a half dropper, or a full dropper. It’s hard to even guess, but just start with a reasonable small amount and see how that feels for a week or two and see what that does for you and then you can increase. I sometimes take CBD two or three times a day, but I know that I’m somebody who can handle a lot and can benefit from a relatively high dose. Whereas some people that might leave them feeling a little out of it or sleepy, or just be more than they need to take for the benefits that they’re looking for.
Matt Baum: 06:00 Yeah, I know I started with about a quarter of a dropper a day and that seemed like it was starting to work and so I went up to a quarter twice a day and that worked for me. When I went half twice a day, I was a little loosey goosey, I didn’t feel sleepy or anything but I was a little more loosey goosey than I wanted to be. So, other drug complications, as I understand it you’re pretty much safe there. You don’t really need to worry about complications?
Kit O’Connell: 06:26 So for the most part that’s true. You should obviously always talk to your doctor. One thing that’s been discussed recently in a couple articles, we haven’t gotten anything about this on our site yet, but I’ve been talking to some medical experts and I’ve been planning to do that. So this is a little complicated, but there’s a number of drugs out there, I believe, some heart medications, definitely some antidepressants and similar stuff to that, where they tell you to avoid grapefruit.
Matt Baum: 06:55 Really?
Kit O’Connell: 06:56 Yeah, because grapefruit can kind of slow the absorption of the drug in your system and you might end up with more than you want in your blood.
Matt Baum: 07:05 Nice.
Kit O’Connell: 07:05 Now, one thing is that theoretically CBD might do something similar to those drugs. Now when I say theoretically, what I mean is, that connection is very well-documented with grapefruit. It’s not that well-documented yet in everyday CBD users. If you look up the medical research on CBD, you’re going to find that in the labs they’re using extremely high doses. We’re talking like 100, 150 milligrams or more daily, maybe even more than that. At those extremely high doses, they found some worrying interactions, with the same class of drugs that are affected by grapefruit.
Kit O’Connell: 07:46 Whether that’s something that’s going to happen when you’re taking 10 milligrams a day, I’m not going to say because I don’t really know, and the experts at this point don’t really know either. So that’s something that hasn’t been publicized a lot. So many people are taking CBD that it’s hard to say that it’s a very widespread problem because we’re not really hearing about it in the end user yet but it’s definitely something to be aware of. That’s kind of the main interaction that we know about but again, talk to your doctor because there could be stuff that’s just starting to come out. We’re definitely planning on covering that topic in the near future because it is kind of important.
Matt Baum: 08:20 Now, full spectrum versus isolate.
Kit O’Connell: 08:24 Sure. So what happens is, is that when they extract from the hemp plant, they get all kinds of chemicals and stuff in there, a natural compounds and they filter out certain stuff that just doesn’t benefit people, like chlorophyll, but then different types of extracts are going to leave different amounts of these other compounds in them. So CBD is what everyone’s heard about and it’s considered the main beneficial compounds in hemp extract but in a full spectrum, you’re going to find tiny, tiny, tiny trace amounts of THC, less than 0.03%, you’re also going to find other cannabinoids like CBA or CBDA, CBN. You’ve talked about that a little bit on your program recently.
Matt Baum: 09:08 Yeah, definitely.
Kit O’Connell: 09:08 So full spectrum leaves the terpenes and all the cannabinoids intact and some people find that that is more beneficial. It’s not a proven thing yet and plenty of people are also getting benefit from isolates. So we recommend trying both if you’re on a budget and this stuff is expensive, you know, I would try the full spectrum first, but isolates sometimes are less expensive, so there’s nothing wrong with giving those a shot and seeing if they help you.
Matt Baum: 09:36 Yeah, there could be one isolate in a full spectrum that is the one that you want and you can find it, basically by throwing some darts at a dartboard.
Kit O’Connell: 09:45 That’s true, yeah. Although we’re mostly just seeing, of course the CBD isolate, we’re not really starting to see that many of the other cannabinoids getting pulled out just by themselves yet, although I think we’re heading in that direction. Some people have told me about those kinds of products being on the horizon, so that should be pretty interesting.
Matt Baum: 09:59 Cool. Christine, thanks for your question. I hope that helps. Let’s move along to question number two.
Smoking hemp and drug testing
Speaker 4: 10:04 Hey, how’s it going? I was just wondering if I smoked CBD hemp flowers, if I could pass a drug test, if it’s under 0.3% THC?
Matt Baum: 10:19 That’s a great question. So he’s smoking CBD hemp flowers and he’s worried about a drug test.
Kit O’Connell: 10:25 That’s a tough one.
Matt Baum: 10:26 Right?
Kit O’Connell: 10:28 In a perfect world, you’d be fine because legally a hemp flower is a fully legal under the Farm Act. It’s interesting actually here in Texas where I am, they just passed some hemp regulations and they specifically said hemp flower was fine to own or even smoke. So that’s becoming a really, common product that people are finding on the market. As far as the drug testing though, it’s complicated. If you’re below 0.03% THC, in theory it should not show up on a drug screening. But we have heard reports from people who it has shown up on them. There was a woman who actually-
Matt Baum: 11:09 Kind of depends what screening it is, right?
Kit O’Connell: 11:11 … she lost an EMT job because she was taking CBD and she failed a drug screening. So what happens is that some of these tests are really imprecise, so some of them can’t tell the difference between THC and other cannabinoids and it’s just if your job, or your livelihood, or your organ transplant, or your child support arrangements depend on that, I wouldn’t chance it, we just can’t guarantee it.
Matt Baum: 11:41 Yeah. Right now especially, I would assume it also depends on what kind of tests they’re doing, how sensitive it is. Like you said, are they looking for THC or just cannabinoids, period? There’s just too many questions unless you know exactly what the test is. Also what strain you’re smoking and is there less than 0.03% THC in it as well?
Kit O’Connell: 12:02 That’s right. It’s not like there’s a regulatory board right now that’s testing every form of flower that you buy in those markets. So there’s really no way to guarantee that you’re not. You can hopefully check the third party lab results for the manufacturer but unfortunately we’ve even seen situations where those were like faked or more accurately what happens is they, you know, they’ll publish an old result from a previous batch, but the current batch is actually high THC. There’s no way to be sure.
Matt Baum: 12:28 Yeah. It’s kind of Wild West right now, so play it safe basically.
Kit O’Connell: 12:31 Yeah.
CBD and severe spinal pain
Matt Baum: 12:32 Okay. Next question here.
Jim Case: 12:34 Hello. My name’s Jim Case. I have multiple myeloma, a lot of damage was done to my spine and I lost four inches in my height.
Matt Baum: 12:46 Oh wow.
Jim Case: 12:47 So I have chronic pain in my lower back. I’m looking for a high potency CBD oil. I do not want hemp oil, has to be CBD oil, so if she could help me out finding a company that manufacturers the pure CBD oil, and [inaudible 00:13:16] information about potency.
Matt Baum: 13:18 Okay, so I think he might have a definition problem here. Am I right? When he’s saying it can’t be hemp oil, it has to be CBD oil.
Kit O’Connell: 13:25 So I think yeah, it’s another one of those confusing issues because CBD oil is also sometimes referred to it as hemp extract. Of course there’s hemp seed oil out there, which is just like olive oil where they pressed the hemp seeds to make an oil that’s for cooking or nutritional purposes. I think what he’s asking is he might be looking for a CBD isolate versus full spectrum. That’s my best guess based on that.
Kit O’Connell: 13:52 So we’re actually working on an article that’s … we’re hoping to come out later this month, that’s going to be about high potency CBD extract, so that means like we were talking about in the previous call, a lot of them say are like 300 milligrams per 30 milliliters.
Kit O’Connell: 14:09 For this article, we’re looking at articles, or excuse me, looking at products that are at least 1500 milligrams per 30 milligram bottle. So that’s not really for beginners, but some people know that they use a lot, or their particular conditions just require very high doses and that can be a very economical thing then for people like that.
Matt Baum: 14:29 Right and he sounds like he’s in an amazing amount of pain too with what he went through, so he might need something a lot stronger.
Kit O’Connell: 14:36 Exactly, that would totally make sense for someone like that. So with this article coming out later this month, we’ve got a handful, probably about a dozen different products, and most of those there are going to be full spectrum, meaning that they’re going to have all the different cannabinoids them. But if he is looking for just an isolate, it’s very high strain. One brand that we’re including in that article that we love is from Medterra, M-E-D-T-E-R-R-A, Medterra. They actually have a bottle that’s 3000 milligrams per 30 milliliters and that’s just CBD isolate.
Matt Baum: 15:10 Wow, so that’s going to be excellent for somebody with the back pain that he’s experiencing. I would think something like that would be great.
Kit O’Connell: 15:16 For people who need a really high dose to knock out whatever they’re feeling and find out that that really is helping them. Yeah, and if they want the isolate, then the Medterra is a great choice. If you’re choosing between isolate and full spectrum, keep an eye out for that article a little later this month, in a week or two, because we’re going to have a whole bunch of great choices in there.
Matt Baum: 15:33 Great, okay. Let’s get our final audio question and then I’m going to read you one. Here we go.
Choosing CBD oil for chronic pain: Vaping, CBDA and more
Speaker 6: 15:38 I’m trying to find the best hemp oil for pain. I have a slipped disc that started about four days ago and I have some CDD oil here and it don’t seem to be doing much at all. I’d like to have a recommendation on the best CBD vape oil for pain. Thank you.
Matt Baum: 15:59 So he doesn’t say that he is vaping right now, but he did say he has an oil. It sounds to me like he wants to try a vape instead of an oil maybe? In that case, can you think of any that would work really well for pain?
Kit O’Connell: 16:10 So one thing is, again everybody’s different, but some people do report that vaping can for them be a very immediate way to feel the effects of CBD. So that may be one reason he’s interested in that.
Matt Baum: 16:25 Correct me if I’m wrong, that vaping hits you faster, but it doesn’t last as long as say like taking an oil.
Kit O’Connell: 16:32 That’s probably what most people would report, yeah, and oil is going to be great for that long lasting effect, but the vape might be a faster way to to offer immediate relief from whatever you’re reporting a pain. Another thing we hear is a lot of people who suffer from anxiety find that vaping is a really immediate way to cut through those difficult feelings that they’re having. We don’t necessarily recommend, again a specific brand for any particular condition, because again, people are so different and different kinds of pain are very different.
Kit O’Connell: 17:08 I have chronic pain myself and I really like … There’s one of our top brands, if you go to that part of our site has a combination, CBD, CBDA tincture that I really feel like is good for the inflammation I deal with, a brand called LifePatent, but I don’t know if … I know they’re planning on marketing a vape, but I don’t know if they’re doing that in a vape yet.
Matt Baum: 17:33 That sounds like it could be really good for a slip disc too because he’s obviously dealing with information, pardon me, inflammation.
Kit O’Connell: 17:41 Could be, yeah it could be a sesame to look into, generally recommend just trying some different brands. If you go to our top brands page, we do list several that have vapes. Our advice for pain, we did recently published an article on picking the right CBD for pain. We’ll make sure to put that in the show notes, but the advice is not that different than what we advise for any condition, which is basically to look for brands that are clear about their labeling, that are transparent about the ingredients and the manufacturing methods and for a vape, that’s extra important because there’s some weird attitudes they try to slip into vapes.
Matt Baum: 18:12 Yeah, definitely.
Kit O’Connell: 18:14 Yeah, we want to make sure there’s third party lab tests and then, experiment with the isolates and with the full spectrum, with different ways of taking it. So that’s kind of what we recommend. So I would look in our show notes for that article on chronic pain and on how to shop for that.
Kit O’Connell: 18:33 One thing I do want to bring up too, and this is a touchy subject, but CBD is not a miracle cure. It doesn’t help everybody and there are some people out there who also find that the combination of CBD and THC, which of course is the active ingredient in psychoactive cannabis or marijuana, that those two together are really the powerhouse that cuts their pain but of course a lot of people aren’t in legal states or where their lives are, they can’t consume THC cannabis.
Matt Baum: 18:59 Sure, sure.
Kit O’Connell: 19:00 So I want to mention that, but obviously that’s not going to work for everybody.
Matt Baum: 19:03 No and I will say, as someone who dealt with chronic pain in my hands and whatnot, I use CBD and THC and it works very well for me. Now that’s a choice that I’m making and I’m allowed to do so because my work doesn’t have a problem with it, but not everybody’s in that same position, so got to be careful there.
Kit O’Connell: 19:20 One thing I want to toss out there that’s good for any of these people looking for advice, obviously you can come search our site and look for information, but we also really like … if you go onto the CBD subreddit, that’s just reddit.com/r/cbd. There’s a great little community there of people who are offering advice so you can ask questions, or you can just search like for example, with this caller’s search, CBD slipped disc and see what other people are doing and what they recommend. It’s a really friendly space, it doesn’t have some of that hostility you might find elsewhere on that website and-
Matt Baum: 19:52 Reddit? Hostile? What? What is this?
Kit O’Connell: 19:55 Right? Yeah. No, it’s a good resource that we use all the time and we’re always telling people to go check out the CBD subreddit, see if someone else there has had a similar experience to yours.
Matt Baum: 20:06 Great. That was an excellent question too. I liked that one and I think it’s cool that we’re dealing with a couple of different types of pain and a couple of different ways to approach it. Again, we’re not doctors here, we’re not giving out medical advice, but I mean we’re all learning together and we’re here to help.
Growing hemp and protecting the soil
Matt Baum: 20:22 So our last question comes in from email. It says, “Matt, I’ve been reading and searching for answers centered around cannabis and end products of cannabis, including hemp and marijuana products. Mostly I’ve been attempting to get a handle on the confusion over the cannabis family of plants and the mixed up regulations concerning the end products.” Yeah, you and everybody else. “I credit the FDA and media for much of the ongoing confusion.” I totally agree with him there too. “I have very much appreciated reading your web blog and articles online.”
Matt Baum: 20:52 Okay. I don’t do those. I just do the show. So Kit’s the one that’s doing most of those. “Across the world, all plants are products at the soil they’re growing in. I feel there’s a great need to control and know how and where our crops of cannabis are growing. Is the soil over-used, fertilized and fertilized with what and where is the location grown? Soil in Wisconsin, Florida and Arizona are very different quote ‘organically.’ Is there a plan to protect our new farmers and our source of cannabis from damaged or depleted soil? Aside from the potential accidental tainting of these soils, there are areas of Mother Earth that had been previously contaminated landfills, dumps, et cetera. We always rotated our crops and had greater success than most of our neighbor farmers. We rarely fertilize or treat … ” I think he’s talking about someone else is saying this kind of stuff.
Matt Baum: 21:41 “As I understand things, cannabis is a plant that is known to draw a great volume of nutrients from the soil, much like ginseng. An article I read about ginseng several years ago told me that ginseng crop will strip the soil nutrients to the level that the soil needs to rest for several years before it can be reused for the same crop, creating a great need for crop rotation. I’m confident that not all plants reach this radical usage of nutrients, but cannabis seems to come close. Sincerely, Dale.”
Matt Baum: 22:09 So basically he’s saying he’s worried that a lot of farms may not be taking care of the plant themself or the soil that they’re in and those that are, he’s worried that they may be stripping nutrients directly, way too many nutrients from the soil, which I’ve kind of heard the opposite from some of the people I have interviewed on the show.
Kit O’Connell: 22:33 One thing that is a really good point that he’s making is that hemp is what they call a bio accumulator. So that means that hemp is extremely good at absorbing toxins and heavy metals from the soil. It’s actually really cool because they’ve used it, for example, some areas around Chernobyl have even used it to clean up their soil. But obviously if I plant hemp near Chernobyl to clean up my soil, I don’t want to eat or take CBD made from that hemp later.
Matt Baum: 22:56 For reasons that should be obvious, yes.
Kit O’Connell: 22:58 Yeah.
Matt Baum: 22:59 We all saw the show on HBO, it was horrifying.
Kit O’Connell: 23:02 Oh my gosh.
Matt Baum: 23:03 Jesus.
Kit O’Connell: 23:03 I couldn’t even watch that one.
Matt Baum: 23:05 Oh my God.
Kit O’Connell: 23:05 I heard all about it from my spouse, I got the highlights reel and that was horrible enough. But yeah, obviously most soil’s not going to be like that, but there is a real risk and that’s why we’re always recommending that our consumers … Because of course we’re mostly dealing with the consumer end of things and our site but we do talk to the farmers, but we always tell consumers to make sure that the hemp products that you grow, if you’re going to eat it, or consume it, or put it on your body like a topical, it’s made in good clean soil. That it’s grown in responsible ways.
Matt Baum: 23:35 It’s kind of the same for anything that you’re going to grow and eat, right? I mean, you want to make sure that it’s coming from a good place and from good soil and they’re not using a bunch a toxic pesticides and whatnot.
Kit O’Connell: 23:49 I think it is yeah, and I mean as far as like … The other issue with the nutrient use, one thing if you look at traditional use of hemp, like in the, say pre-prohibition eras, when it was grown like all over the colonial United States, they would grow it in a lot of fields that were not really being used for other purposes, that weren’t being easily able to be used for or other crops. So, I mean it’s obviously not something that requires the best, most rich, most perfect soil, but I think it may be more intensive than other crops in that way. I’ve certainly heard that it’s somewhat more water intensive than some crops. It’s not as much as almonds by any means.
Matt Baum: 24:35 No.
Kit O’Connell: 24:36 But it is a water intensive crop.
Matt Baum: 24:38 Yeah. I talked to Josh Hendricks back in episode three and he’s a farmer in Kentucky and he was saying that hemp is one of those plants that actually leaves the soil better than it was because it doesn’t use as much nitrogen as lot of other plants like soy, or corn and whatnot. It is water heavy, but it’s also not water heavy, like you said, like almonds or even corn on that level.
Kit O’Connell: 25:01 I’ve heard that too.
Matt Baum: 25:02 Now, I haven’t heard that it’s stripped as much nutrients out as something like ginseng, which yeah, leaves farmland toasted for years after you’ve grown on it. But, I mean like anything you have to rotate crops, period. It’s just the right way to farm.
Kit O’Connell: 25:17 I think this is something … This is a really good point. I’m glad that Dale wrote in about this because something I always like to emphasize with just about any part of the hemp industry whether we’re talking about growing hemp, or making plastic from it. Hemp is such a miraculous plant. We can do so much with it, but it has to be part of a solution where we’re fixing all kinds of other destructive things we’re doing to the earth. So that does mean you know, rotating crops, being conscious about how we feed our plants and what fertilizers we use, how much fertilizer and how we mediate our water use all these kinds of issues of sustainable agriculture. Hemp can be part of that but it’s not just a magic bullet. You can’t just plant hemp and expect all your problems to go away.
Matt Baum: 25:59 Right. I just talked to Peter Page in the last episode actually, from Green Entrepreneur and he wrote an article about how these farmers have come to the FDA and there’s all the discussions of how we’re going to do the state by state. One of the things they’re most concerned about is that we make sure that hemp, that it’s an American crop, because we can control how that crop is grown and we can say it needs to be grown the right way without certain pesticides, it needs to be grown in certain clean soils and stuff. So we’re not importing junk hemp coming from questionable places.
Matt Baum: 26:32 That is one thing, we don’t know yet, but I’m hoping the FDA really does take that into account and say, “Yes, this should be a uniquely American crop and we should … ” We have a chance, unlike a lot of other crops to say, “This is how we’re going to do this from now going forward,” as opposed to a lot of food crops which have been grown forever and have been allowed to be grown a certain way, whether it’s strawberries or corn. We started growing that a long time ago. Hemp’s been illegal for 75 years, 75 something. Now we have a really unique chance to say, “We’re going to grow this and grow at the right way.” I sincerely hope the FDA pushes that issue.
Kit O’Connell: 27:09 I think, yeah, we’re waiting not just on the FDA right now, but also, you know, the USDA.
Matt Baum: 27:12 Yes.
Kit O’Connell: 27:13 So I really hope that both of those agencies look at what the best practices are, and even study what the worst practices are of the industry right now.
Matt Baum: 27:20 Yeah, no doubt.
Kit O’Connell: 27:23 And maybe find something better, but also just, this is kind of related, we do hear from hemp farmers pretty often about how do I get into this? The best piece of advice is just really, really make a strong plan. Plan every aspect of what you’re going to do from growing it, to how you’re going to sell it and how you’re going to maintain your soil health and all those things before you put that seed in the ground. One example that we don’t want to model in the US as we move into this is, you know, Canada actually legalized hemp back in the ’90s but what they saw was that so many farmers just threw themselves into it without a plan of how to sell the products when they were finished, how to sell those crops, that there ended up being just all this spoiled, unsold hemp. So part of being more responsible is just making sure we have a plan as we’re starting into this.
Matt Baum: 28:08 Yeah, we want to have enough but not a glut basically.
Kit O’Connell: 28:11 Exactly.
Closing thoughts: Send us more questions, well do more hemp Q&A
Matt Baum: 28:11 So we’re not sitting on piles of soybeans for example. Kit, you have been excellent today, thank you so much man. You can read Kit’s stuff over at Ministry of Hemp. He’s the editor in chief there. He’s a fantastically smart guy, as you can tell, and I appreciate you coming in here and making me not look like a dummy. Thank you.
Kit O’Connell: 28:30 No, this was fun, I hope … Keep calling in with your questions so we can do this again.
Matt Baum: 28:33 Most definitely. This was such a great time, thanks Kit. Thanks again to everybody that called in today. This is exactly what I pictured and I would love to do more of these shows every once in a while, so keep your calls coming. (402) 819-6417, you can always find that phone number in the show notes for every show. I also have a link to the subreddit about CBD that Kit had mentioned, and of course a full written transcript of the show too.
Matt Baum: 29:06 If you’re digging on this show and the information that we are handing out, please leave us a review over at iTunes or leave us a star on your favorite streaming service, it helps with searches and it helps to put this information in front of other people that might not know where to go to get it. Remember to check ministryofhemp.org every day, where Kit is constantly posting all manner of important information related to CBD and all things hemp. And as always, remember to take care of yourself, take care of others and make good choices will you? This is Matt Baum and the Ministry of Hemp, signing off.
I am trying to figure out if CBD oil would work for me for brain fog, anxiety, and overall on-edge mood. I don’t take anything on the regular right now, Xanax for the occasional (3 times a year) need to rid anxiety, but it makes me SUPER sleepy so I can only take it when I know I can sleep. I would like to see if CBD oil is something that I can use daily and function with work, kids, all the above 🙂 Any helpful tips on what I should go for? I understand start with a small dose, maybe a CBD Isolate or Broad Spectrum from what I’m reading (although still confused on what those are) and possibly any safe and reasonably priced brands to choose from, from your opinion. Anything else to add would be great. Thanks