Where can you buy hemp fabric and why isn't it easier to find? What's coming in the future for hemp plastic? It's another episode of CBD and hemp questions answered!
In this week's episode of the Ministry of Hemp Podcast it's time for another Q&A session with Matt and Ministry of Hemp's Editor in Chief Kit O'Connell. This round of questions touches on everything from where to buy quality CBD, vaping CBD safely, and industrial uses for hemp like plastic and fabric.
Thanks to our friends at LifePatent, one of our Top CBD Brands, for sponsoring this episode of the Ministry of Hemp Podcast. Check out their site now to try free samples of their great sleep capsules.
We're also big fans of their CBD-A tincture, which we reviewed last year. Our editor Kit still frequently reaches for this product for help with his chronic pain.
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 [email protected], or call us and leave a message at 402-819-6417. Keep in mind, this phone number is for hemp questions only and any other inquiries for the Ministry of Hemp should be sent to [email protected].
In this episode we answer questions about industrial hemp, hemp fabric, and using CBD safely.
Thanks again for listening! Contact [email protected] if you’re interested in sponsoring our podcast or other content on our website.
Below you'll find answers to some common CBD and hemp questions like we address in this episode of our podcast.
Oh, and one of our callers had a doctor concerned about the calcium content in hemp milk. It turns out hemp milk has the highest calcium content of any alternative milk.
Below you'll find the complete written transcript for this episode:
Speaker 1: 00:00 The Ministry of Hemp podcast was brought to you by LifePatent, purveyors of high-quality CBD products that just happen to be one of our favorite brands too. They care very deeply about their customers because when it comes down to it, LifePatent understands their customers are people seeking relief. You can learn more about the entire line of CBD-related products at lifepatent.com.
Matt Baum: 00:31 Welcome to another episode of the Ministry of Hemp podcast. Today on the show, I am joined once again by ministryofhemp.com's editor-in-chief and all around brilliant guy, Kit O'Connell. We are going to be answering your hemp-related questions on our second Ministry of Hemp Q&A show. I am super excited, so let's get to it, shall we? Kit, welcome back for another Ministry of Hemp Q&A. It is always good to have you, sir.
Kit O'Connell: 01:11 It's good to be here. I enjoy dropping in for these.
Matt Baum: 01:14 This is where I bring you on to do my job for me and I appreciate that. Thank you. We got a few voicemails today and, again, the questions are kind of all over the place, which is great. If you guys want to call, like I said at the beginning of the show, you can always do so. Just call us at 402-819-6417 and leave your message with your hemp-related question. Kit, should we get into the first one? You ready?
Kit O'Connell: 01:37 Let's jump in.
Matt Baum: 01:38 All right. Here we go.
Speaker 4: 01:40 Hi, I'm trying to get ahold of the company that makes first-class, full-spectrum CBD, [inaudible 00:01:50] hemp oil. Please give me a call.
Matt Baum: 01:54 We do get a lot of calls like this. I wanted to play one, rather than responding to everybody and saying, "Hey, we don't actually sell it." Kit, maybe you can explain for people that are listening to the show where can they go to find quality hemp oil that they can trust?
Kit O'Connell: 02:09 Sure. Yeah. We don't sell products. That is a common misconception that we get a lot of emails to about that. We're trying to provide useful information and really clear, honest, transparent basics about what's happening in the CBD and hemp industries. The good thing is we do have a lot of information. We've tried out a lot of different products and we list a lot of our favorites on our website. You can go right up to the top and search right where it says, "CBD Reviews." We have a best CBD oil review, which is our favorite, overall brands in the industry. Under that, you'll see breakdowns. If you're looking for tinctures or a topical to apply to your sore muscles or gummies and so on, we've got all of that in there. We've recommended some of our favorite brands beyond that. We'll put a link to this in the show notes.
Kit O'Connell: 03:04 We've written a couple articles about how you can pick a really good brand of CBD. Check the show notes for this or if you want to just go directly on our site, you can even just go search for the word. A good word to punch in is actually the word quality and that'll bring up a couple articles about why quality matters in CBD and some guides and tips for picking the best products. In general, you want a brand, of course, that's transparent, that's offering third-party lab results. For a lot of people who are going to prefer that full-spectrum hemp extract, which has CBD plus traces, at least, of all the other compounds that are naturally occurring in the hemp plant. That's a good choice for a lot of people.
Matt Baum: 03:51 It looks like some of our latest reviews, she was looking for hemp oil. Right now, we've got some of our top brands up there that include like Populum, Lazarus, Ananda, Everyday Optimal D-Stress, CBDfx and Joy Organics. Again, right under the CBD reviews, it's the first link you'll see, best CBD oil reviews. If you want to start there, can't go wrong. Let's go for our next question here.
Kit O'Connell: 04:17 Yup. Yup.
Speaker 5: 04:18 Good morning. It is 2:39, eastern standard time in Columbus, Ohio. I'm calling. I'm an artist. I do turn tree limbs into Moses or as we say in Arabic, Musa's staff, for my artwork, bags, wall hangings, what I call urban survival clothing, my own design and I wanted to know where I can buy hemp fabric. I'm retired. From Michigan, Detroit, but I live in Columbus, Ohio, right now, and I wanted to buy some hemp fabric. Probably will have to save up for it, but I would like to know how I can do that. Just happen to be up in the middle of the night like most artist's are. A farmer who had done some clothing for some fashion show to the awareness of hemp farming, so African-American farmers, so I thought I would just research it on Facebook and I found you all. I was trying to find out … I'm 70 tomorrow on the 18th, September, so I'm trying to figure out how to use all this technology to find your podcast and listen to you. I hope you have it archived. Blessed to have found you. Much success.
Speaker 5: 05:29 Once in a blue moon at Trader Joe's, we can find hemp milk, which is really neat. I have to look up the calcium content though. My doctor frowned when I mentioned it, but I'm like, "Whatever." I like to try different milks. I used to farm and I get tired of that. I will look that up also. Any place I can find or buy hemp fabric in America. I saw one place in UK, but I don't know if that's legit or dependable or not. I would appreciate it. I will email you to send you my telephone number.
Speaker 5: 06:04 All right. Thank you. You guys have a blessed week, month and keep it going. I miss farming. I used to raise cows, sheep, goats, chickens and selling animals, slaughter them, sell them and then process the hide for artwork. I brought a few back with me to the city once I left the country down south. All right. Again, take care. Have a blessed, successful podcast. You're growing. Take care. Bye-bye.
Matt Baum: 06:30 She sounds like the coolest. I really like her.
Kit O'Connell: 06:33 I want to hang out with her.
Matt Baum: 06:35 Totally.
Kit O'Connell: 06:35 Pop open a beer and talk about crafting. I'm a writer, so I'm up at 2:00 a.m., scribbling away-
Matt Baum: 06:43 Oh, yeah.
Kit O'Connell: 06:43 … sometimes getting my best ideas, so I totally get that. I think our caller is a great example too of how the stigma around hemp is disappearing because we are hearing from people from the older generations that are really interested in hemp. Some of them might not have been in the past. I don't know about this caller, but a lot of them might have turned away from it because of the associations of it with the war on drugs and all that.
Matt Baum: 07:08 Absolutely. Absolutely.
Kit O'Connell: 07:10 I love to see this kind of thing. This is great. In terms of the specific topic with hemp fabric, that is an area … Unfortunately, it's hard to buy domestic, US-produced fully hemp fabric. That is one place that our video producer, Jessica, recommended to me because we had this question come in at least once before via email. What she recommended was this site called Nature's Fabrics. Again, we'll put this in the show notes, but it's just Nature's, with an S, Fabrics, again with an S, dot com. They do have a small collection of hemp fabric. That's one of the only US sources that we've personally worked with.
Kit O'Connell: 07:54 We've also engaged with a company in India called Hemp Fabric Lab. Now you are obviously going to be paying a little more because of the international shipping, but one of the nice things about Hemp Fabric Lab is that they don't have any minimum orders. They have several different hemp fabrics that they've made, as well as some blends of hemp with other fabrics. You can pick up just one yard of it to play with if you want or obviously make a big bulk order too. They're really cool people. They're working with some really interesting fashion designers. But, overall, some of their stuff is affordable, especially with that no minimum, so Hemp Fabric Lab. We'll drop a link to them.
Kit O'Connell: 08:34 This is an area that we really hope is going to expand a lot-
Matt Baum: 08:38 Definitely.
Kit O'Connell: 08:38 … in the coming years.
Matt Baum: 08:39 Definitely. This is one of those areas where it is a little more expensive right now I'm sure, but the only reason that is, is because we don't have as many producers yet.
Kit O'Connell: 08:47 Exactly.
Matt Baum: 08:47 As you see more producers getting in the game, we will see the price of hemp fabric come down.
Kit O'Connell: 08:54 We don't have exact figures on this year, but we probably in the US grew, give or take, about 150,000 acres of hemp, let's say as a generous figure. It's probably a little less than that. Out of that 150 or so, from the experts I've spoken with, we only had about 10,000 acres of hemp that was grown for anything other than CBD. That means for fiber, to making the fabric, to making the building material, to making the food. Almost all of those uses of hemp are still bringing it in from Canada, from China, from India, eastern Europe, places like that. This is going to come down. Prices are going to come down. The availability is going to go up. It's all going to happen over the next couple years is our prediction.
Matt Baum: 09:37 One of the things we've been talking about on the show with guests is that there is a very big CBD bubble right now. Like you said, everyone is growing hemp for CBD, literally everyone, because that is where the money is at the moment. But, again, that is going to change too. Unfortunately, you might have to dig around to find hemp fabrics right now, but they are out there. Like we said, we'll put this in the show notes. You can check it out. As far as hemp milk goes, you had mentioned you had talked to your doctor and he kind of aargh because he wasn't sure about the calcium. I took a couple years of nutrition when I was going through culinary school and it is an absolute fact that you get more calcium from plant-based milks like soy milk or almond milk or oat milk than you are from cow milk and that's just because there's lactose in it. If you're not a baby, you are lactose intolerant to some degree. You're going to get more calcium, as long as it's in there. I haven't seen the Trader Joe's hemp milk, but I would think it's pretty weird if there's no calcium in there. Be one worth looking into though.
Kit O'Connell: 10:42 Of course, also with hemp milk, the hemp seed has a ton of great benefits apart from the calcium you gain all kinds of amino acids, Omega-3's and 6's and all these other beneficial nutritional substances that are in the hemp seed. It's a real nutritional powerhouse. Even if it's not your main source of calcium, it's definitely … can be really good to make hemp milk. We've even got a video and some instructions on our site to make your own hemp milk with seeds, so check that out.
Matt Baum: 11:11 Again, all things are you're not going to get from lactose-based animal milk.
Kit O'Connell: 11:17 Hey, if you do get this, drop us a note and tell us more about the artwork you are doing. That sounds really cool.
Matt Baum: 11:21 Yeah.
Kit O'Connell: 11:21 We'd love to learn more about what you're doing.
Matt Baum: 11:22 Yeah, email that to us, we'd love to us. You can send that to-
Kit O'Connell: 11:25 Please.
Matt Baum: 11:25 [email protected] or [email protected]. All right. Let's move to our next question here.
Speaker 6: 11:32 Hey, so I was looking at some stuff online and I have some questions. I'm confused about CBD dosage on products. Some of the bottles say that they're 1,000 milligrams or 500 milligrams or 250 milligrams. Is that the total amount in the bottle? Then it kind of goes hand-in-hand like why are some of them 25 milligrams? Is that just like a really low dose amount or is that the amount in the dropper? Appreciate some answers on this. Thank you very much for taking my call.
Matt Baum: 12:12 This is an excellent question. I'll be honest, I get a little confused sometimes looking at these labels. Can you shed any light on this one, Kit?
Kit O'Connell: 12:20 It is confusing and it even throws us off a little bit. There's one thing I want to say at the beginning here as sort of a preamble is that it's just a good reminder and something that has come up recently to say that CBD is not currently regulated by the FDA. The FDA and the FTC will come down on the worst of the worst actors in the field. Those are the people that are claiming that CBD is going to cure cancer.
Matt Baum: 12:44 Right.
Kit O'Connell: 12:45 But as far as the other side of things, they're not setting any standards. There's no one looking at CBD and saying, "Every CBD bottle should be labeled like this."
Matt Baum: 12:54 Right. Like you-
Kit O'Connell: 12:54 In the same way that there's standards around buying vitamin C, we just don't have that.
Matt Baum: 12:58 Yeah. It'll say, "250 milligrams per pill" or whatever and you know exactly what you're taking. Unfortunately-
Kit O'Connell: 13:03 And that's just not the case for CBD, right now. Exactly. Yeah. When we look at products, because we review products here, the gold standard to us is that your label should say how much total is in the bottle. Some brands that are still very reputable brands have made the choice to instead list, like you said, the total amount in a dropper. If a full dropper is 25 milligrams, they're going to put 25 milligrams on the bottle or if it's a capsule, they're listing how much is per capsule, which obviously makes a lot of sense to do it with capsules. The short answer is it varies from product to product and you need to read the label a little more carefully with CBD than you would with other products. For a tincture it should be the total amount on the bottle. Obviously, for things like a gummy or a capsule, it makes more sense to put a per dose list on there too. That's what we think it should look like, but you are seeing stuff that's all over the map. You see people that are just putting the per dropper. Occasionally, you're seeing people that are listing a number that's based on say the full amount of hemp oil in the bottle. It's kind of an inflated number that doesn't accurately reflect on what's actually in the bottle.
Matt Baum: 14:25 Is that where we start seeing labels that say 5,000 milligrams and stuff like that?
Kit O'Connell: 14:31 We do see some of that. Yeah. We're going to see some of those. Unfortunately, there are some people that, as far as we can tell, are just straight up scammers. If you search for CBD on Amazon, we've talked about this before, you're going to see those ridiculous ones where they claim that there's 25,000 milligrams in the bottle. On a more reasonable level, we did encounter a product recently. I won't name names, but they had … theirs listed 3,000 on the bottle. When we took a closer look, we found that the actual amount of CBD was closer to about 2,250 say, 2,250 milligrams. The rest of it, they had made up by saying that there was hemp seed oil in there, so you're still getting the hemp nutrition. We decided because they did provide a real honest breakdown on their website that they were a brand that we wanted to work with. Even with some of these good brands, it does require a little more research on your part. You need to go look at the brand information on the website, see what kind of breakdowns they're offering. Even if a brand says that they have 500 in the bottle, unfortunately you still have to go look at their lab tests to find if they're telling the truth about that. It's really important to check those third-party lab tests.
Matt Baum: 15:46 Definitely.
Kit O'Connell: 15:47 A good product is going to be within 10% of what they say they are on their bottle or more exact, obviously, but you don't want to go with anybody that's any further off than that.
Matt Baum: 15:56 The TLDR version here and correct me if I'm wrong, but if we see a bottle with something that says 25 milligrams, typically that means it's 25 milligrams per dropper. Anything above 100 is technically saying there is that much CBD in the bottle. If you get something that says 250 milligrams, that's 250 milligrams per bottle.
Kit O'Connell: 16:21 That's a good rule to follow in general at least as a starting point as you're looking into a product [crosstalk 00:16:28].
Matt Baum: 16:27 Okay. All right. Yeah, because honestly I had a friend of mine who has been having some knee and hip trouble. I gave him CBD that someone had sent me and he really liked it. Then, I gave him another one that somebody else had sent me and he's like, "Well, this one only says 25." I said, "Well, I think means it's per, you know, dropper, but I don't really know." I knew they were very reputable and he ended up really liking it, so good to know I wasn't lying to him.
Kit O'Connell: 16:58 Mm-hmm (affirmative). Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Matt Baum: 16:59 Before we move along, I am super excited to introduce you to our first sponsor for the Ministry of Hemp podcast, LifePatent. With a full line of high-quality and responsibly-sourced CBD products, LifePatent offers relief from pain, anxiety and even some help getting to sleep. It even offers CBD tincture for dogs and personally I have a pug with a nerve issue that was causing pain and she was shaking like crazy. I found giving her a CBD tincture with her meals has helped her stop shaking and reduced her pain quite a bit. The LifePatent site is currently offering free samples of their new LPX Technology, which harnesses a natural delivery system. The most effective delivery method available for the ingestion of cannabinoids on the market. You get to try two, 15 milligram sleep capsules on LifePatent and enjoy the power and efficacy of nature's delivery system at lifepatent.com.
Matt Baum: 18:00 Also, check out a glowing review of LifePatent's CBD/A oil over at ministryofhealth.com and you'll learn more about the antiinflammatory and nausea-reducing properties of CBD/A. LifePatent cares deeply about their customers, because when it comes down to it, they understand their customers are people seeking relief. Like I said, you can learn more about their entire line of CBD products at lifepatent.com and, of course, we will have links to their site in the show notes. Huge thanks to lifepatent.com for sponsoring the Ministry of Hemp podcast.
Matt Baum: 18:41 Okay. Next question, here we go.
Speaker 7: 18:43 Hey, yeah, I had a question for you. It's kind of been bouncing around my head a little bit. I've been hearing a lot about flavored vape pens that can cause serious injuries and sometimes death with people that have been using them. With all this CBD stuff going around out there now, I was wondering has there been any similar reports with CBD and stuff like that? Yeah, I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. Thank you.
Matt Baum: 19:06 This is a really good one and I think this has been on a lot of people's minds. We talked about it briefly on the show a little while back when they were still investigating what the ingredient was that was causing problems. As I understand it, all of the deaths were related to cannabis, like full-on, marijuana-related products, is that correct?
Kit O'Connell: 19:30 Yeah. Specifically, it seems like it was an issue with an additive that … It was vitamin E acetate.
Matt Baum: 19:39 Right.
Kit O'Connell: 19:39 Vitamin E is something that gets added as a preservative and I don't want people like … Because you will see the edible products like the tinctures with vitamin E in them and you shouldn't panic. That's a very safe ingredient in something that goes on your skin or that you eat. But as far as inhaling, it seems like vitamin E is really bad news. That seems to be, again, as we often say, "We're not doctors and we're definitely not medical researchers." It seems like the current consensus is that all of the issues seem to have been this additive called vitamin E acetate. I remember reading some research that also maybe pointed at this terpene-based additive that some of the black market brands were also adding to make their stuff go further. That's also kind of with the vitamin E acetate is these black market cannabis or marijuana vape brand makers found out that they could keep having a thick looking extract inside of that capsule, inside of that cartridge, but have to put less of the actual THC extract in it by spacing it out with these terpenes or with the vitamin E.
Kit O'Connell: 20:59 Bottom line, don't buy illegal vape cartridges. That's unfortunate because I know that there's a lot of people out there that are still stuck in black market states and it looks real tempting, but just don't do it. It's just not worth it unfortunately. Stick to the legal stuff, especially when it comes to vapes. It does seem like you're relatively safe if you're going to a legal dispensary and buying a vape there or buying these CBD vapes. As far as it looks like, there were not any issues with CBD. We're still waiting to see if there's any more research to come out before we're personally picking up on the vape reviews again at Ministry of Hemp. I think we're heading in that direction. It does look like it really … almost all or all was this vitamin E.
Matt Baum: 21:48 I did a, not a deep dive on this one, but I couldn't find any reports about CBD vaping being involved even in the sicknesses, let alone the deaths. Again, not doctors here, but you're probably okay as long as you're buying your vape product from a reputable company.
Kit O'Connell: 22:10 Just like with CBD, I think, especially with if you're going to be vaping it, you should make sure you know every ingredient that's in that cartridge that you're buying from a reputable company-
Matt Baum: 22:20 Absolutely.
Kit O'Connell: 22:20 … and that they're a company that has really comprehensive third-party lab tests. There have been issues in the cannabis field where even outside of vaping where people got sick from inhaling moldy marijuana flower. As far as I know, that hasn't happened in hemp yet, but it is potentially a risk because mold is mold and it's bad for you no matter where it pops up, so it doesn't-
Matt Baum: 22:43 Right. Whether you're eating it or inhaling it.
Kit O'Connell: 22:46 Exactly. Especially with vapes, look for the brands that are offering these comprehensive third-party tests where they show not just the CBD content, but also that they've been checked for mold and pesticide residues.
Matt Baum: 23:00 Okay. Last question here. It's a longer one.
Speaker 8: 23:06 Hi, this is Rico, from Southern California. I recently discovered the possible impacts that hemp may have on our society and culture as a whole. Obviously, it's come a long way in the size as far as external use products, topical products and obviously oral products. I am interested in getting into the field as soon as possible. I'm apparently making plans to get myself involved. I wasn't thinking so much on the food or dietary supplement side of things, what I was thinking was more like in the industrial product or production of industrial use products made from hemp. What was I thinking, to be more specific, was plastics. My question is where do you see the process or how soon do you see something on the horizon in terms of processing plastics for the industry because as far as I've read up on this topic, decortication is heavily outdated. Because of all the years of being outlawed, so to speak, there's been real no new manufacturing techniques or methods developed over the last 70 years or so, ever since the Marihuana Tax Act.
Speaker 8: 24:47 My question is, like I said, how soon do we see some major processing revolutions taking place for industrial goods, like plastics in particular. Thank you. My name is Rico. I'm from Southern California. I'll be listening. Bye-bye.
Matt Baum: 25:04 Thanks for your call, Rico. That is a fantastic question. The short answer is the sooner guys like you get involved, the sooner we will see more, but I think there's a longer answer here too.
Kit O'Connell: 25:18 Yeah. It's really good, Rico, that you pointed out the effect of the prohibition, because we lost decades of development in every aspect of the cannabis plant.
Matt Baum: 25:28 Absolutely.
Kit O'Connell: 25:29 There's so much more we could be doing with it right now if we hadn't had this huge gap. That affects everything from the farmer planting the seeds in this field, all the way up to the guy trying to make the hemp plastic and everybody in between. The people processing and decorticating and drying and all the other processes, all those steps would be much advanced and more convenient and more efficient if we had the years of research. As far as the state of plastic right now, there is some hemp plastic out there in use. Now, of course, car manufacturers are pretty cagey about exactly what they do and how they make their cars, but we do understand that if there is some composite use of hemp in things like doorframes and some other very durable parts of vehicles are actually, in certain cases, using hemp. It's usually mixed with other materials, but it is basically a hemp plastic. Beyond that, what we're seeing is there's these … They're kind of crude, these hemp composite plastics and you can look at that them and tell that it was something made from a plant. It's got little bits of plant in it. It's not a clear plastic bottle. We just can't do that yet.
Matt Baum: 26:35 Right. I remember seeing like a-
Kit O'Connell: 26:36 Not just the hemp-
Matt Baum: 26:36 … surfboard and stuff that we saw at NOCO that was completely-
Kit O'Connell: 26:39 Yeah, exactly.
Matt Baum: 26:41 … made of hemp. It was kind of fibrous if you looked really close.
Kit O'Connell: 26:46 You saw too, of course, there's those people, PF Design Labs and they're printing these very advanced composites. They had a bicycle frame that was made from hemp and it just looked like any other bike frame.
Matt Baum: 26:58 Yeah, it was amazing.
Kit O'Connell: 26:58 It was real light. It was real light.
Matt Baum: 27:00 Like virtually weightless, it was incredible.
Kit O'Connell: 27:02 Yeah, it was amazing. But that's obviously super experimental. We're seeing these great advanced, really cool experimental stuff. As far as practical use, there is this great company that we love called Sana Packaging, S-A-N-A, and they're taking hemp plastic and they're making products for the marijuana, for the cannabis industry where they're taking … If you're buying a doob tube or whatever, you can have it made out of a recycled hemp plastic. Even in some experimentation with taking the hemp waste from CBD production and turning that into plastic or paper, which is really cool.
Matt Baum: 27:37 See, that's very cool. That is amazing.
Kit O'Connell: 27:39 I love that idea.
Matt Baum: 27:40 Yeah.
Kit O'Connell: 27:41 Yeah. That's like where the future is to us is closing the circle so that the waste products of the hemp industry get made back into the packaging for the hemp industry-
Matt Baum: 27:51 Absolutely.
Kit O'Connell: 27:51 That's super cool to us. Beyond that, someone's just going to have to see the potential, get people involved who can throw money at it and do the research because that's what we need to get to having really good, modern plastics made from hemp.
Matt Baum: 28:06 Absolutely.
Kit O'Connell: 28:07 Now, of course, we do have to say too that just as us being lovers of the planet here that there's a lot of potential in hemp plastic. It is more biodegradable than conventional plastic depending on how you make it. Not all hemp plastic is automatically biodegradable, that's a myth. It really depends on the type. Beyond that, we still, as a whole, have to be more responsible as a species about plastic-
Matt Baum: 28:31 Absolutely.
Kit O'Connell: 28:32 … no matter what we make it out of.
Matt Baum: 28:32 Absolutely.
Kit O'Connell: 28:33 We've got to be better about it. But, with what said, Rico, I hope you get involved with this because there's so much potential for hemp plastic. It's kind of a catch-22 in that we need the money to put in it and we don't have anything to show for that yet, so how do we get the money? We just got to have some people that are willing to see that potential there and invest in it and put their time and their blood, sweat and tears into really making a progress in this. We have people out there doing it, but there's a lot of room for growth, so I hope you'll get involved in some way.
Matt Baum: 29:03 This is one of those things where I don't shop at Walmart and I don't agree with all their politics, but they were one of the first companies to start massively buying plastics that had been recycled for their vegetables and whatnot like that. It's going to take someone like that, a giant, that is willing to put their foot in the market and say, "Okay, we want to look at hemp plastic because it's not going to use petroleum like regular plastics. It will degrade faster. But just like with CBD where we keep saying, "This needs to be done organically, it needs to be done the right way" plastic has to be done the same way. It has to be able to biodegrade. We can't just come up with another product that we're throwing in landfills. Otherwise, what is the point?
Kit O'Connell: 29:48 Exactly.
Matt Baum: 29:48 It is going to take some titan of industry out there to say, "Let's go for it and give it a try" and throw a bunch of money at it, unfortunately.
Kit O'Connell: 29:56 There's an article that unfortunately it goes viral every few months. It's this headline saying that LEGO is switching to hemp plastic and they're not unfortunately. The article has this headline that's very definitive that LEGO is doing this, but if you actually open the article, it just says that LEGO is considering switching to a vegetable plastic. The article makes the argument that hemp would be a good choice, which it would be. They're not doing it yet, but that is another great example. If someone like LEGO said, "We're going ahead and doing … and putting the money into learning what it would take to make the switch to hemp plastic." If someone like them did that or-
Matt Baum: 30:34 Oh, yeah.
Kit O'Connell: 30:34 … a Hasbro or somebody huge like that, that would make a huge-
Matt Baum: 30:37 Or a DuPont [crosstalk 00:30:39] or somebody. I mean, like-
Kit O'Connell: 30:40 Oh, yeah. Somebody like that. Yeah.
Matt Baum: 30:41 That would be massive, but for right now-
Kit O'Connell: 30:44 And it is this weird place because I'm not a big fan of Walmart either. These big corporations are problematic, but at the same time some of them are starting to see the way the wind is blowing. Even fossil fuel companies are investing in renewable energy. Hopefully, we'll see one of these big plastic manufacturers realize, hey, not only are we destroying earth, but we're going to go out of business if we don't change.
Matt Baum: 31:05 Right.
Kit O'Connell: 31:05 We need to start looking into this now. Hopefully, we'll start to see them realize that and to make the choice to investigate hemp.
Matt Baum: 31:11 The thing we can do on our end is start demanding stuff like this. That's one thing you can do as a consumer. Start demanding it and when you do see it, buy it, throw your money at it and let them know I'm interested in this, I like what you're doing and the more we do that, the more these larger companies will see there's money here. I'm not fooling myself that they're going to wake up and go, "What we have done to this planet?" That's not going to happen anytime soon. But, if we can show them we as a consumer are genuinely interested in this, then we can make a change and we can interest them in making a responsible change, even if it is just to make a bunch more cash.
Kit O'Connell: 31:49 I think one other thing to add too is that it's important with these sorts of topics to look at transitional steps. We see this with hemp fabric too where it's really expensive right now to make a 100% hemp shirt.
Matt Baum: 31:59 Right.
Kit O'Connell: 32:00 But you can still make a shirt that's 50% hemp and 50% cotton and you still have a healthier shirt that's more sustainable for the earth. You're taking that step. I think we probably are going to see some intermediate steps where we see, for example, plastic bottles that are 40% hemp and 60% fossil fuel. Let's not turn up our nose at those intermediate steps because they will hopefully get us where we need to be.
Matt Baum: 32:22 Yeah. That's a really good point. We have to be cheerleaders right now and if we start screaming everything down because they are not doing it the sacred way, then we're not going to make any headway unfortunately. We got to keep our eyes on the prize. You know what I mean?
Kit O'Connell: 32:36 Definitely.
Matt Baum: 32:36 Kit, thank you so much for joining me and answering these questions. This was a great group of questions we got this time.
Kit O'Connell: 32:43 Great variety. Yeah. Thanks for calling everybody.
Matt Baum: 32:46 Yeah, definitely. I can't wait to do this again. We will definitely, maybe in the next month or so, we'll get together, answer some more of your questions. Sound good?
Kit O'Connell: 32:54 Sounds great. Anytime.
Matt Baum: 32:55 Awesome. Kit, thanks again for joining us. Huge thank you to everybody that called in today and if you have hemp-related questions, just like I said at the beginning of the show, you can always call us at 402-819-6417 and you can leave a message with your hemp-related question. Now, do me a favor, don't leave your personal information because we don't want to broadcast that to the whole world, but feel free to followup with an email to me, [email protected], if you'd like me to follow up on your question or let you know when it's going to be played.
Matt Baum: 33:46 Once again, I want to thank Kit for coming on the show and helping me out. He does an amazing job over at ministryofhemp.com where you can find all the latest hemp and CBD news stories and reviews and a fantastic list of quality companies that you should be buying CBD from, including LifePatent, our first sponsor. Thank you much guys. It's great to have you on board.
Matt Baum: 34:11 Recently we've been talking a lot about hemp in the industrial world on the show and next episode we're going to do just that, so tune in to hear more about the future as hemp as an industrial commodity. As always, you can find a full written transcript of this show in the show notes to make it a little more accessible for everybody. If you like what you hear in this show, then please do us a huge favor, go to iTunes and leave us a star rating. It really, really helps to put this information in front of people better looking for it. Hey, if you hate the show, let me know that too. Shoot me an email to [email protected] and tell me what you would like to hear, what you think we're doing wrong and what you think we could do better. I would love to hear your thoughts. That is it for today's show and for now this is Matt Baum with the Ministry of Hemp telling you to take care of yourself and take care of others and make good decisions, will you? This is the Ministry of Hemp podcast, signing off.
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