Natural Products Expo West Highlights: Thursday

There was just one event on Thursday about CBD, but it was also one of the most inspiring. Three of the Stanley brothers, the founders of Charlotte’s Web, and Charlotte Figi’s mother spoke about how their story put the spotlight on the CBD movement. Joined by Jonathan Lawrence of Fresh Thyme Farmers Market, the group discussed the importance of quality and innovation in the industry and what to expect in the future for all types of businesses.

Thursday Highlights of Natural Products Expo West 2019

Thursday at Natural Products Expo West featured an inspiring and informative one-hour session from one of the biggest brands in the hemp and CBD industry.

Five Years Later And Beyond: Seven Brothers And One Brave Little Girl Kickstart The CBD Movement

Joel, Jesse, and Jon Stanley of Charlotte’s Web, Paige Figi of Coalition for Access Now, and Jonathan Lawrence with Fresh Thyme Farmers Market were the speakers for this event.

The Stanley brothers and Paige Figi began with the story of how Charlotte’s Web came into existence.

Charlotte Figi was three months old when she had her first seizure, and her life would be changed forever because of it. This was the beginning of what doctors would eventually diagnose as Dravet Syndrome.

Charlotte experienced 300 seizures a week, which is about two every hour. Medication, diets, and everything else doctors prescribed did not help.

With their options running out, Charlotte’s parents decided to try marijuana high in CBD and low in THC.

After buying the marijuana from a dispensary and extracting the CBD with the help of a family friend, Paige gave Charlotte the oil under her tongue.

Charlotte had no seizures that day after taking high-CBD oil.

However, the dispensary Paige had gotten the marijuana from ran out, and she did not know where to find more.

That’s where the Stanley brothers came in.

They had been growing high CBD hemp and did not know what to do with it.

After finding out about their supply of CBD, the Figi’s convinced them to allow Charlotte to use it. The CBD again worked, bringing Charlotte down to just one seizure per week.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta made a documentary of Charlotte’s story that aired on CNN, which garnered much attention.

The documentary helped change minds on CBD and cannabis, leading to the start of the CBD movement which was now led by the brothers and the business they named after Charlotte.

After sharing the story, the group discussed how the benefits of CBD has led to hugely popular consumer health products.

In turn, this popularity has created massive opportunities for businesses and products of many kinds.

However, the industry must focus on creating clean, high-quality products with transparency for consumers. Along with this, innovation should continue to help improve the quality and efficacy of these products.

Finally, the speakers shared stories about how they have overcome obstacles as both legislation and education about CBD lags behind the demand for CBD products.

Meeting the Exhibitors

Our team took some time to meet up with some of the CBD brands at the expo today, including CBDistillery and RE Botanicals.

CBDistillery has done great work for several years and has emerged as one of the leading CBD brands in the industry. They were the number one retailer of hemp-derived CBD products in 2018, beating out heavyweights such as Charlotte’s Web and Elixinol.

RE Botanicals is a unique brand in the industry as they have the first USDA-certified organic hemp CBD in the United States. They also commit 1% of all sales to regenerative agriculture.

Want to catch up on what’s been going happening at Natural Products Expo West? Check out the summaries for Tuesday and Wednesday.