CBD: Quality Counts

Happy Friday!! Its May, its Friday, and all is right with the world. For us here at Cali Craft today marks the beginning of FESTIVAL SEASON!! WOOHOO!!! We have literally been waiting for this moment for the last 2 years.

When we first launched in 2020 a large part of our marketing plan relied heavily upon festival season. Needless to say, 2020 was the year that the festival season died, a tragic victim of Covid-19. And so, began our long, dark journey into isolation, self-reflection and binge watching any serial programming we could get our hands on.

But that’s all over now. We have run out of content and there is only so much self-reflection a person can do before it becomes seriously counter-productive. So now it’s time to pack up the van and get your festival on!!

If you are going to be around the San Luis Obispo area this weekend come over to the Shebang Festival (www.shabangslo.com)and stop by the California Craft sponsored Hush Silent Disco to say hi and pick-up a sample of some of our amazing new CBD gummies.

Our new gummies are of the highest quality and efficacy and we know you are going to love them.

And speaking of quality, lets jump into today’s topic.

In The Beginning…

In the beginning the cannabis experience was all about quality. But what beginning are we talking about? We probably aren’t referring to the very beginning when the first humans observed animals with specific ailments eating wild cannabis and benefiting from it. We are going to hazard a guess that the first use was as a sleep aid or a relaxant, or simply as an intoxicant.

The ability to identify plants of quality would take time. But over time our ancestors would learn how to identify and eventually cultivate plants of high quality. The main reason being that our ancestors were using cannabis medicinally and medicine is only as good as its ability to heal. High quality products simply work better.

So, let’s flash forward to the modern era. CBD was first “discovered” or extracted from cannabis by Roger Adams in 1940. Dr. Raphael Mechoulam went on to describe the chemical structure of CBD in 1963. But it probably was not until the 70’s that people in the highly illegal cannabis community started to extract CBD and begin experimenting with oils and tinctures.

At that point it would have been a very underground kind of thing. But again, it would have relied heavily on quality. Due to the fact that CBD has no psychoactive properties it would have been used for medicinal purposes. As we said before, with medicine quality is everything. So, people who were making CBD treatments at the time would have been chasing quality. Cut to now.

Free Market Blues

Jump forward to the present, CBD is seemingly everywhere now. Ever since the passing of the Federal Farm Bill 2018 everyone and their yoga instructor has started their own CBD brand. To say that the market is saturated is an understatement.

But what about the quality? Unfortunately, too many people started their brand for the prestige or for the money. But mainly it’s the money. The funny thing is that the people who do it for the money are not necessarily interested in quality. The people who do it for the money are interested in profit margins. Since the market is saturated the normal “rules of the market” apply.

The rules of the market go something like this: over-supply leads to under-demand. Under-demand leads to lower prices. Lower prices lead to lower margins. Lower margins lead to need to find lower pricing on raw material. Inevitably this leads to a lower quality of goods both in regard to raw materials and finished products.

Saying The Quiet Part Out loud

The FDA specifically forbids any medical claims in regard to CBD. As we have stated many times before in the blog, we are happy to comply with their requirements. However, it cannot be denied that CBD has clear and definable benefit for its users.

We cannot look at it like a medicine, but we can look at it like an herbal supplement. Anyone who takes herbal supplements regularly, quality most definitely matters. The bottom line is that high quality CBD products are far more effective than low quality CBD product. This is especially true in the case of sublingual CBD oils, CBD tinctures and CBD edibles. So, while CBD in general cannot be considered to be a medicine it is good for your health and quality does matter.

Next week we will be taking a closer look at what makes a CBD product high quality and what you can expect from a high-quality product. Have a great weekend and see you next week.