There’s thousands of CBD products on the market, and many of them are poorly made or even, in rare cases, dangerously impure. CBD education is vital to help consumers make informed choices, which is where today’s podcast guest comes in.
In this episode of Ministry of Hemp Podcast, our host Matt talks about the new Cannabis Institute at UC Davis. Then, he interviews PlusCBD Oil‘s National Educator, Maggie Frank, about combating myths, proper dosage, and taking CBD education to the streets.
PlusCBD Oil is one of our Top CBD Brands. Our guest Maggie Frank contributed some education to our roundup of the best CBD skincare products, which also features a review of PlusCBD Oil Hemp Body Lotion.
This episode is part of our ongoing Women in Hemp series.
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CBD education: Complete episode transcript
Below you will find the full written transcript of this episode:
Matt Baum:
I’m Matt Baum, and this is The Ministry of Hemp podcast brought to you by ministryofhemp.com, America’s leading advocate for hemp and hemp education.
Matt Baum:
As you’ve probably heard, there are a lot of false claims and bad information about CBD out there. And today on the show, we’re going to talk to somebody that is taking hemp education to the streets. Her name is Maggie Frank and she is the national educator for PlusCBD Oil. PlusCBD are good buddies of ours over at ministryofhemp.com. You can find them in our top brand section.
Matt Baum:
Not only are they a great company putting out great CBD, PlusCBD was also one of the first companies to hire and send a national educator out in the wild to teach people about the benefits of CBD, how to take it, how and why it works, and to dispel some of the myths that are out there. But before we get into that, there are some pretty exciting news coming out of California on the subject of hemp education as well.
Cannabis research at the University of California
Matt Baum:
Last year, The University of California, Davis set up one of the nation’s first cannabis institutes. And just recently, they’ve named two researchers, a schizophrenia researcher and a plant expert to lead its new center for the research in study of hemp and marijuana. UC, Davis has named professors, Cameron Carter and Lee Tian as co-directors of its cannabis and hemp research center, which is charged with increasing academic collaboration around hemp and marijuana, and establishing external partnerships related to cannabis.
Matt Baum:
What this means is we now have an American research center on a well-respected agricultural college that is going to actually start doing the first real American research into hemp and marijuana, and that is very important. Carter, the first professor, researches the effects of marijuana in the brain and Tian studies plant metabolism and diseases. Her work includes identifying candidate genes in the cannabis plant affecting the delta nine THC biosynthesis.
Matt Baum:
If you’ve listened to this show before, you’ve heard several people lament the lack of American research, and that’s exactly where the FDA goes when they start looking at Canadian studies or European studies, they instantly want to throw them out because they want to see controlled American research studies. Well, that is what UC, Davis is going to be doing. UC, Davis is just one of several private and public universities setting up cannabis studies and trying to lock down funding for cannabis research, which couldn’t be better news for the future of cannabis in the United States and will certainly help a lot the next time the FDA tries to point out some murky warning about the possible dangers of CBD.
Meet Maggie Frank
Matt Baum:
Next up is my interview with Maggie Frank. I caught up with Maggie from her hotel room in San Diego. She was just about to go do some hot yoga, so I really appreciated her time and I hope you do too. Maggie was super personal and a lot of fun to talk to, so much so that I forgot to press record when we started talking. So, this interview picks up with her talking about her background and where she came from.
Maggie Frank:
My background was nutrition, personal training. And then I, the way I ended up connecting to education within the natural product space, was, I actually worked retail. I was a buyer for what is now Sprouts Farmers Market, which is on the West Coast. And I used to sit with companies and work with who we brought into the store. And it was really through that job that I got to understand the manufacturing side of supplementation and for me, it really clicked with the background in nutrition and personal training. It brought it all full circle.
Matt Baum:
And how did you find your way into hemp then, just through that or was there an experience you had?
Maggie Frank:
Yeah, I found my way through to nutrition through living on a sailboat down in Mexico for two years.
Matt Baum:
Not bad.
Maggie Frank:
Literally like left the standard American world diet behind. I was catching most of my own food or trading with fishermen for fruits and vegetables and stuff.
Matt Baum:
That’s amazing.
Maggie Frank:
It was pretty awesome and I literally saw my health transform. I had always suffered from really bad eczema and bad asthma. There literally is not a winter in my childhood memory that my sister or I were not in the hospital for pneumonia.
Matt Baum:
Wow.
Maggie Frank:
Breathing treatments, the whole deal.
Matt Baum:
I did that when I was a kid too.
Maggie Frank:
All that stuff, right? And I got away from the way I was eating, and I got away from the medication, and I literally saw my health transform. My hormone issues disappeared, the inflammation issues disappeared. I had control over the way I felt. And now I know that my parasympathetic system was becoming aligned. It wasn’t as stressed.
Maggie Frank:
And it really just, it inspired me to bring that knowledge back with me and really connect that to people. Because I realized, “Oh my gosh, we don’t have to feel that way.”
Matt Baum:
Yeah. Yeah.
Maggie Frank:
And I learned that bit early on, right? So I was only 21 when I took this trip down to Mexico. So, it really changed the path. I came back, I studied nutrition, personal training. That got me into the natural product space. And then I worked as a national educator for a company called Vibrant Health. They make efficacious super food, clinically formulated probiotic combinations. And they really talk about the benefit of cellular health and how our modern life is setting us up for failure.
Maggie Frank:
So unfortunately, they were having some issues with finances and sending somebody like me out on the road is extremely expensive.
Matt Baum:
Yeah I can see that.
CBD education and PlusCBD Oil
Maggie Frank:
So I left that company and five days later Stuart Tom, who is the VP of human nutrition at CV sciences, who makes PlusCBD Oil called me up and said, “Hey, we’d really like to talk to you about becoming our educator.” And Matt, I didn’t know, I mean, I had used cannabis. I went to school in Santa Barbara, I grew up in Huntington Beach. I definitely had experience.
Matt Baum:
Hard to get away from it, I’m sure.
Maggie Frank:
Right. I’d used it out in Mexico and it was a different-
Matt Baum:
Again.
Maggie Frank:
… caliber, like totally right. We would expect that. But I thought that he had perhaps gotten misinformation about me. I was like, “Listen Stuart, other than knowing I enjoy it. I’m not a hemp expert in any way, and I’m definitely not an endocannabinoid expert in any way.” He was like, “There’s really nobody who is.”
Matt Baum:
Yeah, that’s just it.
Maggie Frank:
Educating his face. He’s like, “We can teach you.” So, I’d be at a kind of now in today’s timing, that opportunity would have never been given to me because there’s people who know this stuff, right?
Matt Baum:
We’ve got people doing the tests now.
Maggie Frank:
Who are now doing what I do, but I just happened to have this weird combination of expertise at a time where nobody was willing to do the job because it wasn’t legitimate yet. And it’s then so, so fun.
Matt Baum:
That’s awesome.
Maggie Frank:
And so inspiring. And just such a wonderful experience.
Matt Baum:
So like you said, there are a lot of people now that are doing the testing and have real medical and research backgrounds looking into this, which is great, but those people aren’t doing what you do. They’re not leaving the laboratory to go out and educate the public. What does that look like? Like what is your job? How does it work?
Maggie Frank:
I consider myself a bridge. I was never the smartest kid in the classroom. I had to work pretty hard at it.
Matt Baum:
Fair enough.
Maggie Frank:
I think that as a result I have a unique way to take very, very complex information and break it down for a normal person. So-
Matt Baum:
That’s teaching.
Maggie Frank:
… how do I have this conversation about the benefits of not only hemp from an agricultural standpoint, environmental standpoint, socioeconomic standpoint, but how do I also take this extremely complex plant of the endocannabinoid system, something they’ve never heard about and really take that to a point where they get excited about the potential that this amazing plant has to really facilitate better physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing while also changing the landscape socioeconomically the way we manufacture. We create bottles for water, we build homes. I mean, it’s a rare opportunity in this world where we get to do good for ourselves and do good for the planet. And it’s also controversial, and sexy, and political and it’s just so cool.
Matt Baum:
It’s tied into everything right now.
Maggie Frank:
Yes. So, I get to have this conversation with people and watch, and it’s a wide range of people. I talk to moms, I talk to great grandmas who are 85 and just want something to help them feel better on a daily basis and feel more mobile. I talk to people who are dealing with sick children. I deal with people who just want to recover from their CrossFit. I mean, the range of people this touches is so huge.
Matt Baum:
It’s all of us.
Maggie Frank:
It really [inaudible 00:10:00] to humanity.
Matt Baum:
Yeah.
Maggie Frank:
And then I get to see the doctors, people who literally are opening their minds to this come in and talk to somebody like me who, I mean there’s nowhere near…
Matt Baum:
Not a doctor.
Maggie Frank:
As educated or capable as they are in their fields of expertise. But you get to see these lights go off in their eyes. Like, Oh my gosh, this is such a missing piece.
Matt Baum:
Right.
Maggie Frank:
Things that confounded them over the years. It all connects.
CBD education and the medical establishment
Matt Baum:
Can I ask you, are you seeing more doctors accepting… Doctors actually going, “Okay, there might be something here.” Or are you still seeing a lot of pushback?
Maggie Frank:
You see both.
Matt Baum:
Yeah.
Maggie Frank:
There’s no consistency. I tell people all the time, there are doctors I talk to who literally tell every single patient they see that they should be using this like a super food to support this very profound system that is really in a modern world set up to fail us. The endocannabinoid system wants us to have a balance intake of Omega three and Omega six fatty acids. 93% of America doesn’t do that.
Matt Baum:
Go figure.
Maggie Frank:
And the endocannabinoid system wants us to have a really healthy gut. Most of us don’t do that. Our endocannabinoid system needs us to eat a colorful diet, and herbs, and spices, and most of America’s eating brown and beige. So, there’s a lot of doctors that I’m seeing see this as a way to support the body in an imperfect world. But I’m also still meeting… I don’t meet the doctors because of course they’re not coming to my lectures. But I meet their patients who say, “Listen, my doctor’s just very resistant to any of this.”
Maggie Frank:
And I mean, this is probably a bit of a controversial field, but I feel this is empowering and we all have to be honest about the fact that sometimes we have to kiss a lot of frogs to find our prince. Right? If our doctors aren’t working in a way that aligns with our goals and our chosen pathway for physical, mental and emotional wellbeing, find a new frog.
Matt Baum:
Yeah, it’s okay to question that. I work with a guy, his wife has Crohn’s disease and she has extreme pain from it. And her pain doctor has said absolutely not. Absolutely no hemp-based medicine, no CBD. I won’t have it. And went as far as to say, “We will test your urine. We will test your urine and if you test positive, then we will not give you any more painkillers.”
Matt Baum:
She found another doctor who was like, “I don’t care at all. If that helps, absolutely do it, by all means.” So like you’re getting one message from a doctor saying, “No, not only does it not work, it’s dangerous.” And then you’re getting another message from a doctor’s like, “Not only is it not dangerous, if it helps you and I’m prescribing less opioids, then by all means, please.”
Maggie Frank:
And not only that, but that doctor is also looking for ways to learn more as to why. I get doctors, nurses, specialists, immunologists who come to my lectures all the time. And the reason they tell me they’re there is because they had so many patients who hadn’t gotten relief from other modalities, yet amazing response from this.
Maggie Frank:
And they wanted to be, “I’m able to understand the why.” And it’s so beautiful when they have that perspective. So I mean, honestly though, what we’re seeing in CBD, I’ve seen with probiotics and the medical community. When I started 15 years ago in this world, I mean I was told I was a quack. [inaudible 00:13:49] suggesting that maybe somebody dealing with anxiety or depression, look at that help?
Matt Baum:
Right.
Maggie Frank:
It really wasn’t until the 2012 human microbiome project that we see doctors really opening their minds to the fact that that microbiome is so integral to our health. I’ve seen pushback from the medical community when it comes to things like fish oil.
Matt Baum:
Yeah, absolutely.
Maggie Frank:
Right? So, we always have this very wide range of reactions with our practitioners. And I think that that’s why we as a society need to be empowered enough like your friend did to say, “You do work for me and I understand and respect your opinion, but it doesn’t align with what I want for the body I live in forever. So I’m going to find somebody-“
Matt Baum:
And counterpoint, pushback works on both sides. Pushback is important because when you push back and say, “I don’t know that I think this might help with me.” It’s also good if a researcher or a doctor pushes back and says, “I want to learn more about that before.”
Maggie Frank:
100%.
Matt Baum:
And then we find out, “Yes. Oh look, it’s science. It’s not quackery. This isn’t magic,” you know?
Maggie Frank:
Yeah.
Matt Baum:
So, what do your lectures look like? Where do you do like a… If I want to come see you lecture, where would I go?
Maggie Frank:
So, I do a lot of health food stores, stores like Freshtime, independent health food stores, health fairs. So, a lot of times those are sponsored through either health expos or fitness expos, supplement expos. Myself or one of our other educators will speak at those type of events. I do integrative practitioners, some pharmacies. There’s quite a few compounding pharmacies-
Matt Baum:
That’s cool. That’s very cool.
Maggie Frank:
… that sell our products and we’ll host events. Yeah, so it’s a very, very wide range the way I’m going.
Matt Baum:
And who comes? Who are you talking to at these?
Maggie Frank:
It can range as well. It can be retailers who work within the natural products food space. It can be integrative practitioners. I speak to pharmacists, not as often because I’m not as clinically trained as our other educators are.
Matt Baum:
Sure.
Maggie Frank:
But I even go and speak to medical groups in hospitals at times.
Matt Baum:
Wow.
Maggie Frank:
So there’s definitely a wide range. That’s my least common avenue to go to just because we have the people with the master’s degrees and the PhDs.
Matt Baum:
That’s awesome.
Maggie Frank:
We don’t have any other people who go more direct public.
Support the Ministry of Hemp
Matt Baum:
Let’s take a quick break to hear from Kit O’Connell, Ministry of Hemp, editor in chief about our new patreon page.
Kit O’Connell:
Hi, this is Kit O’Connell. I’m the editor in chief at Ministry of Hemp. I hope you’re enjoying the Ministry of Hemp podcast and the articles we’ve been publishing recently. But today I want to talk to you about the newest way that you can support what we do.
Kit O’Connell:
So, we’re launching a patreon at patreon.com/ministryofhemp. And this patreon will help our readers and fans contribute to what we do. With your help we’ll be able to make our podcast and produce even more great articles about science and information about hemp and CBD. We’ll publish more recipes and more guides, we’ll be able to work with more journalists, chefs, and authors of all kinds.
Kit O’Connell:
Not only that, but by joining our patreon, you’ll become a hemp insider. We’re launching a special newsletter just for our patreons. Each month we’ll work with experts and advocates and other industry professionals to give you an inside look at hemp and offer you ways to help the return of our favorite plant nationwide.
Kit O’Connell:
To get access to this new newsletter. You can donate any amount on our Patreon, even as low as $3 a month. For a few dollars more, we’ll send you some Ministry of Hemp stickers and even samples of our favorite CBD products. If you join before February 15th at $25 or more, we’ll give you a Ministry of Hemp T-shirt as well. So if you love hemp and the work that we’re doing at the Ministry of Hemp, I hope you’ll support us. You can join at patreon.com/ministryofhemp, that’s P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com/ministryofhemp, which is all one word. Thanks.
Educating the public about CBD
Matt Baum:
So, one of the most common things that I hear when I tell people that I host a podcast about hemp education is they say something to the effect of, “Oh, I tried CBD and it doesn’t work.” That seems to be the first thing they say. And it could be a matter of, “Well, maybe you tried garbage CBD or maybe you didn’t do it right.” What do you say to people in that situation that have been burned, because there’s so much garbage out there?
Maggie Frank:
Well, I mean, that’s a big part of what my lectures are when I go direct to consumer and I’m in a health food store is, number one, de-stigmatizing it for the people who are still scared.
Matt Baum:
Right. Is it marijuana? Is it drugs? Am I taking drugs?
Maggie Frank:
I mean, just all hemp, all cannabis in general. They still are holding on to the propaganda that created the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act. So, it’s breaking that down like, “Hey listen, there’s a really good chance that your grandma had Eli Lilly cannabis oil in her cabinet if she was born or lived, went to a doctor during this period of time.” This is silly like let’s… We deconstruct that.
Maggie Frank:
But then a big part of mine is talking about how to make this work for you. And what I find is that there are some very specific mistakes that people make. You touched on one is they don’t pick the right product. We don’t pick our CBD based on cost per milligram. We don’t base our CBD on what we can get the most out of for the most value. We don’t pick our CBD because it has a whole bunch of buzzwords and all these things. But I mean, if somebody is promising you that this will cure your… That’s an indication you should run.
Matt Baum:
Yeah. They are liars.
Maggie Frank:
They have different molecular structures in all of those different bottles and they all say hemp extract. So it’s realizing that they’re not all created equal, first. And number two, really giving yourself the opportunity. So at CV Sciences, our big catch phrase on dosing is start low, build slow, it’s all the way to go.
Matt Baum:
Yeah, I’ve heard that a lot. That’s a great… Yeah, start low, and build slow.
Maggie Frank:
Always the way to go. We also talk a lot about how no two people are the same. So, when I’m talking to somebody, they find out I know about CBD, they’re like, “Well, if I took CBD, how would I feel?”
Matt Baum:
Right? What would it do? Would I feel dizzy?
Maggie Frank:
I’ve absolutely no idea. You could, right? If you take way too much, you could.
Matt Baum:
Absolutely.
Maggie Frank:
I have no idea how you’re going to feel. I personally take CBD before the gym every morning.
Matt Baum:
Really?
Maggie Frank:
Because the way that it affects me personally is to make me extremely focused, I feel motivated. I’m like, “Okay, yeah let’s go.” Whereas I know people who take this at the end of the day because for them, the way that their initial reaction to it is, is that they feel a little bit calmer.
Maggie Frank:
I have friends who can take it in the middle of the night if they wake up, have it by their bed and they can go back to sleep.
Matt Baum:
That’s what I just did last night. I woke up and I took some of the American Hemp Oil sleep tincture that they have and right back asleep and you wake up, no hangover. I feel good. I’m don’t feel fuzzy at all. You know? Love it.
Maggie Frank:
Yeah. And if that was me and I took CBD in the middle of the night, I would be up organizing my closet which is like…
Matt Baum:
Fair enough.
Trying CBD: Everyone’s different
Maggie Frank:
Right. Because that’s not when it’s ideal for me to take it. So, I tell people, “You have no idea. I have no idea until you give it a try and play with it.” People will then say, “But what dose?” Again.
Matt Baum:
Again. Yeah.
Maggie Frank:
I have no idea. I’m sorry. It could be one. I’ve seen people do well on one milligram, literally take one milligram of our product and have complete benefit at one milligram, whether they were 80 pounds or 300 pounds. It’s not weight dependent. It’s not pain dependent. It’s none of those things. Right? And then I tell people, we have no idea how quickly you’ll respond. We all hear the story, right? I had a guy, 42 years old, come to one of my lectures. He’d had Tourette’s. He had been diagnosed with Tourette’s early on in his childhood and it was a bad case.
Matt Baum:
Wow. Like really staggering kind of.
Maggie Frank:
Oh, the adverbial expletives. The body movements.
Matt Baum:
Oh wow.
Maggie Frank:
To a point where his mother had done all of his shopping, all… Like he couldn’t, if he went out in society, he was picked on. Right. He couldn’t live a normal life.
Matt Baum:
He probably couldn’t drive.
Maggie Frank:
What? Couldn’t drive.
Matt Baum:
Yeah, I would assume.
Maggie Frank:
Had never gone to a normal school. Had never really had friends. I mean, his mom was really… she couldn’t have her own life because she had this child. So he had guilt about that. There was all these components that fall into when a family is dealing with that kind of an illness.
Maggie Frank:
And he tried everything, medical, holistic. Literally he had tried anything there had been at that point. He found our gold tincture, our drops. He takes one full squirter of our largest size bottle, which equals 10 milligrams of our gold concentrate. Literally 42 years of Tourette’s where he could never live his life. He sits down and 10 minutes later, no more expletives.
Matt Baum:
That’s amazing.
Maggie Frank:
No more physical manifestation.
Matt Baum:
That is amazing.
Maggie Frank:
It literally was the miracle answer for this man, right?
Matt Baum:
And it’s the kind of thing where they’re using CBD in a medication, like a pharmaceutical medication for children that are having seizures.
Maggie Frank:
100%.
Matt Baum:
And that Tourette’s is not far from small seizures inside the brain. As I understand it, I’m again not a science or a doctor.
Maggie Frank:
Not a doctor. Yeah, I know. It’s definitely a neurological component there [crosstalk 00:24:04] trigger.
Matt Baum:
But I can see that, yeah.
Maggie Frank:
Right. But unfortunately, so those are miracles and I love those miracles. Unfortunately, everybody believes that they’re going to have that miracle response.
Matt Baum:
Exactly. That is lightening striking what you just talked about.
Maggie Frank:
Yeah, and it’s inspiring. And usually when I tell that story, I cry and I mean, he got to have a girlfriend. And he was so sweet. His biggest win on that. His mother was getting older and he said, I always knew that she worried about what would happen to me when she was gone.
Matt Baum:
Of course.
Maggie Frank:
I get to tell her now that she can go in peace.
Matt Baum:
That’s wow.
Maggie Frank:
Like it’s just one of those, it’s so amazing. But really the reality for most of us with these products is that it’s going to be part of our health protocol and our answer to whatever it is that we’re trying to deal with, whether it’s maintenance and just lifestyle wellness or it’s stress anxiety or it’s serious, right?
Maggie Frank:
Most people, it’s going to take a couple of days to a couple of weeks playing with dose, time of day with or without food. How many times do I do this? Building slowly and paying attention to their body. On the far end, I recently met a woman who it took three straight months of taking these products regularly before there was any actual physiological noticeable difference to her.
Matt Baum:
Three months.
Maggie Frank:
Three months.
Matt Baum:
Wow.
Maggie Frank:
And she was very candid. She said that if she had not been working with the naturopath who was telling her, “I don’t care what you think, you have to stay on this protocol [crosstalk 00:25:43] me.”
Matt Baum:
Right. Just try it.
Maggie Frank:
Right? She wouldn’t have stayed on it, but it wasn’t until three months. Now, this specific woman had been on two rounds of chemotherapy in the last three years.
Matt Baum:
Oh wow.
Maggie Frank:
And had been taking quite a bit of pharmaceutical medication for seven.
Matt Baum:
That’s another side of it. If you’re full of other medication that can slow things down. Right?
Maggie Frank:
Right? It affects the endocannabinoid system’s ability to utilize cannabinoids over time.
Matt Baum:
Right.
Maggie Frank:
So we know that in this woman’s case, we don’t know for sure, but what her doctor believes is that there was quite a bit of work going on underneath the surface before she acknowledged it happened.
Matt Baum:
Yeah. You can’t tell because you’re on so many… And that is not to say don’t go to chemotherapy. No, not at all.
Maggie Frank:
No, and I [crosstalk 00:26:23]. I mean, and I love that about this plant. So, if you’re 100% holistic and that’s what aligns with you and makes you comfortable, awesome. This works.
Matt Baum:
Sure.
Making CBD part of your routine
Maggie Frank:
If you’re happy with that east meets west approach and you take a little bit from each, awesome. This works. And if you are 100% conventional, but you’re looking for ways to mitigate symptomology, looking for ways to just increase overall wellness or resilience to your treatments, I mean there’s been very early, of course, research showing that CBD A, the acid bound form in its raw form CBD can actually help people with chemotherapy induced nausea. Awesome.
Matt Baum:
That’s amazing.
Maggie Frank:
If that’s how your proper healing works-
Matt Baum:
That is amazing, yeah.
Maggie Frank:
… I’m all for it.
Matt Baum:
And also that is-
Maggie Frank:
It just [crosstalk 00:27:14] really, it grabs on to all of us.
Matt Baum:
That is one of the things that it sounds like a small thing. Oh, it’s going to help with your nausea, but almost nothing else does help with that nausea, it’s really bad and-
Maggie Frank:
For a lot of people it’s life-changing.
Matt Baum:
I think in a lot of these situations where people that are resistant or they think it didn’t work or whatever, I think a lot of them, from my experience and probably more so from your experience, are thinking of CBD as medicine and they want to come up and say, “How many CBD pills do I take a day?” And you go, “You take two, and you take them with water and make sure you eat something so it doesn’t upset your tummy.”
Matt Baum:
And that’s not how this works. This education that you’re out there doing, how much are you just trying to break down the understanding of this is not medication?
Maggie Frank:
Almost all of it.
Matt Baum:
Yeah, right?
Maggie Frank:
Almost all of it is breaking down how to make this work for you. Breaking that American mentality that if some is good, more must be better.
Matt Baum:
Right.
Maggie Frank:
Right. So, I see a lack of patience, but I also see people far too often super dosing. We see people benefit from three milligrams. But if it’s very hard for me to convince most of America to start that low. They want the most CBD on that shelf for the lowest cost. That’s how they’re painting products.
Matt Baum:
Because you just told me it’s not a medicine and it’s not going to hurt me. I can take whatever I want. Right? I’m taking a million milligrams.
Maggie Frank:
I can take whatever I want.
Matt Baum:
Yeah.
Maggie Frank:
Often then ended up at a lecture like mine going, this isn’t working for me. I invested $100 into this, it didn’t work. And what I explain to people is that these products work in a tri-phasic way and they have a bell curve response. And what that means is that we get immediate benefits, we get mid-level benefits and we get high level benefits or long-term benefits from modulating the endocannabinoid system with CBD products.
Maggie Frank:
But all of these products also have a bell curve response. And that means that you find a response, maybe let’s say like in my case it’s eight milligrams. That’s where I start to really notice the PlusCBD Oil makes me feel more optimistic, more resilient to stress, I’m less likely to react when somebody cuts me off in traffic, my luggage loss for the 10th time in the last three months.
Maggie Frank:
Now I can take that level up a little bit, play with it, you know? But we have a bell curve, all of us do. And that range is unique to each of us. And it’s the point at which adding more gives no additional benefit, could give less benefit than the low-dose, or could actually make somebody feel slightly worse. People are going over their bell curve all the time.
Matt Baum:
I know I did. When I first started messing around with it and trying to figure it out, I did the same thing. I was like, “Well, I don’t feel anything. I don’t feel anything. Well, I’m just going to do A bunch of it.” And then I was like, “I feel really weird now.”
Maggie Frank:
Yeah.
Matt Baum:
And it wasn’t like and-
Maggie Frank: (crosstalk)
Matt Baum:
… my heart’s going to stop, but just like…
Maggie Frank:
Really good.
Matt Baum:
Yeah, it was like a different, like this is a little more than what I’m looking for. And when I dialed it back, I’m like, “Okay, this is that level that I need to be in. Not too high, not too low in that bell curve,” like you’re saying. And then, yeah, I can focus a little better. My ADD is definitely not kicking in like it normally does. I can have another cup of coffee and not turn into a monster, you know?
Maggie Frank:
Yes. Exactly. Yeah.
Matt Baum:
Something like that.
Maggie Frank:
But for some people that too much can be anxiety.
Matt Baum:
Yeah.
Maggie Frank:
It can make them feel panicked.
Matt Baum:
That’s exactly what I got.
Maggie Frank:
For some people, yeah that tachycardia, that heartbeat racing thing.
Matt Baum:
Yeah. Like I feel good, but this doesn’t feel right.
Maggie Frank:
No, [inaudible 00:30:58]. That’s how I feel if I go anywhere above 25 milligrams. I just start to feel like I can’t quite catch my breath.
Matt Baum:
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like butterflies in your chest almost.
Maggie Frank:
It’s not ideal.
Matt Baum:
Yeah.
Maggie Frank: (crosstalk) you’re good.
Matt Baum:
I mean, you don’t need to go to the hospital necessarily, but it does. I don’t want to go to work like that either.
Maggie Frank:
No, it’s not what we’re looking for when we’re taking something that’s supposed to be balancing us.
Matt Baum:
Exactly. Exactly.
Maggie Frank:
And some people can feel like they have to have a bowel movement.
Matt Baum:
Really?
Maggie Frank:
It can loosen your stool and they can feel that way. Some people if they go too high, too quick or too high one day because they’re like, “Ah, I just feel like I want to do it.” They can feel slightly nauseous. I’ve actually met a few people who threw up.
Matt Baum:
Really?
Maggie Frank:
I mean, it can make people feel slightly dizzy.
Matt Baum:
So that’s what it’s all, it’s starting low.
Maggie Frank:
They’re all trying to take in too much.
Matt Baum:
Start low and build slow and find-
Maggie Frank:
Always the way to go.
Matt Baum:
… that middle lane where you’re going to be and you will feel better. It’s going to make everything feel different, but you will feel better.
Maggie Frank:
You will. You should. And if you’re eating a standard American diet and you’re not somebody who’s really focusing on intake of healthy fatty acids, statistics show us that 93% of America is deficient in Omega three.
Matt Baum:
Sure.
Maggie Frank:
Co-administration of Omega three with our hemp extracts is highly recommended. Not only by maintaining that ratio do we lessen our need for phytocannabinoids because our endocannabinoids are more capable of being produced to utilize, but we also really enhance the potential of sensitivity to cannabinoids like CDB if we make sure those ratios are good. So that’s a big area too. I mean, a lot of America who if they would just take more Omega three, they could take 10 milligrams instead of 30.
The future of CBD education
Matt Baum:
Let me ask you, if there was one thing that could happen tomorrow, whether it’s the FDA coming in and saying, “This is how we’re going to treat CBD,” or maybe the government loosens up on it. What would be the thing that you think would help at CBD education the most?
Maggie Frank:
I mean, I guess that that’s the problem, right? That’s the difficulty that there’s so many things that people think they know that they have no idea about when it comes to this category that it’s hard. I mean, I guess the regulation from the FDA and just knowing how we’re all going to move forward would probably be the most impactful thing at this stage. Because right now we’re all just theorizing how we think that this is going and we’re all doing what, not all of the companies but the companies who are trying to do it well, we’re doing what we think we’re supposed to be doing. It would be nice for everybody to have defined terminology on what is full spectrum versus broad spectrum? Are we keeping isolate? Is that still going to be a competition factor here?
Maggie Frank:
Where’s Nanotech and [inaudible 00:33:54]? Are we going to get efficacy studies on these type of new scientific approaches and extraction methods? That would make my job a heck of a lot easier.
Matt Baum:
Well you did just agree on the rules basically. That would make everything a lot of easier.
Maggie Frank:
Yeah. Yeah if we can all just… And really I think that that would make it so much easier for a consumer.
Matt Baum:
Absolutely.
Maggie Frank:
If this was what all the labels looked, if this is how what the terminology meant for every company, if we knew that these were the testing standards and that every company who was selling a product in the U.S in a legal way was required to follow them. You don’t always immediately know that.
Matt Baum:
Right. The same way you would go buy acetaminophen and you would say, “Oh, there’s 25 milligrams in there. I take two of those.” And the box looks the same. It says there’s X amount in here. This is how much CBD you take. Start low, go slow and find where you’re supposed to be.
Maggie Frank:
Yeah. And I would love for them to really… I mean, I would love personally for them to cap milligrams on products sold.
Matt Baum:
I agree. I totally agree.
Maggie Frank:
The fact that we have 15 milligram grass affirm products sitting next to 55 milligram products, it’s confusing. People are, I feel like they’re being marketed into the more is better mentality because companies are willing to give people what they think America wants. And it’s really hard to evolve in a conscious way and navigate your company in a conscious way and only follow the science if everybody else is doing it for money.
Matt Baum:
Yeah. Maggie, thank you so much. This has been great and you’ve got-
Maggie Frank:
Okay, Matt.
Matt Baum:
… a hot yoga class I don’t want to keep you from. So, it’s important. We’ve got to stay flexible. Thanks again to Maggie coming on the show. And you will be able to find links to her information and links to PlusCBD in the show notes for this episode.
Final thoughts from Matt
Matt Baum:
Well, that about does it for another episode of the Ministry of Hemp podcast. Thanks for joining me and thanks for supporting. And like Kit mentioned earlier, if you want to show your support, check out our patreon where this week we’ve got a special article detailing Ministry of Hemp’s time at South by Southwest. And in this week’s Ministry of Hemp podcast extra, I am going to give you a recipe for a delicious and very simple and easy to make hemp oil vinegarette that you can adjust to your needs to add to just about anything.
Matt Baum:
Thank you to everyone that is already supporting, and like I said, if you want to support head over the show notes where you can find a link to our patreons. Speaking of our show notes at the Ministry of Hemp, we believe that an accessible world is a better world for everyone, so you can find a complete written transcript of this episode right in those show notes I mentioned.
Matt Baum:
And while you’re at ministryofhemp.com, check out Elijah Pickering’s latest article on how hemp fabric is made and why it’s better than traditional fabrics. Next time on the show, I’m going to be talking to Doug Fine about his new book that’s coming out. Doug was an NPR contributor and he is a fantastic author. This is his second book about hemp and this time he’s growing it himself. I can’t wait for you to hear this one. But for now, this is Matt Baum reminding you to take care of yourself, take care of others, and make good decisions, will you? This is the Ministry of Hemp podcast. Signing off.