The tree of life, CBD’s are under attack by the Cannabis industry.
Many people have heard the George Santayana’s quote: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”. I say, “Those that ignore history seek their own demise,” Dr. Allen Miller.
A friend recently recommended I watch the movie “ The Founder,”
the story of Ray Kroc and McDonald's. It’s the 1940’s, and Ray Kroc is selling equipment to what is to be the fast food industry. It was the beginning, the Car culture meets the restaurant; hamburger stands have carhops, women on roller skates, skating from car to car taking orders and delivering food. These drive-in restaurants had large menus with many different food items to satisfy the various flavors of the town. These drive-in restaurants had high overhead, food spoilage, and no identity. They thought everybody that ate food was their customer, so they acted accordingly. There is a scene in the movie, “The Founder” where Ray Kroc is sitting in his car waiting for his food. He asked the carhop several times about his order, only to be told, “They were working on it”. All Ray wanted was his burger, so he could go on his way. The restaurant had to cook all those different orders in the sequence they were given. This took time, continuingly slowing the delivery of the orders. So the restaurant while trying to please everybody, but nobody was pleased.
I experienced this in reverse in the early days of Chiropractic. In the beginning, the Chiropractor only treated the back and neck. The charge for an adjustment was $8:00 and people were lined up around the block to receive their adjustment. The Chiropractor had an office with 1-2 treatment rooms, and 1 assistant to answer the phones. The patients went into the room, laid down, received there adjustment, paid their $8.00 and left to return 2-3 times a week. Chiropractic was the fast food restaurant of the medical industry. People received what they couldn’t get from their medical physician, a non-prescriptive affordably quick, effective remedy to physical pain.
Then a terrible thing happened, Chiropractic became reimbursed by insurance. That $8.00 adjustment eventually became a $150.00 with insurance picking up the bill. The MD’s had no respect for the Chiropractic education or the Chiropractor for that matter, but they tolerated them because they were treating the patients they didn’t want. For a short time, everything was symbiotic in the medical profession. This plucky group of “doctors” the Chiropractors stayed in their lane conservatively treating back pain. Most doctors didn’t concern themselves with Chiropractors because they knew they would eventually see the patient for surgeries and/or prescriptions. The Chiropractor realized that the insurance company paid for many services they could offer. The Chiropractor added physical therapy, massage, exercise and rehabilitation for increased services. The quick adjustment was traded for a pseudo medical look. As their offices grew more sophisticated, they alienated their initial clientele, trading them for patients from the medical community. The Chiropractor had to buy more equipment and hire more staff to fulfill what they promised. This combined model of chiropractic and physical therapy was appealing, taking more and more patients from the medical community.
The medical community retaliated through new laws limiting the Chiropractors’ scope of practice, reducing or eliminating insurance reimbursements, and slowly taking back the services they lost. Chiropractors encumbered themselves with large expensive offices, many employees, and thousands of dollars in equipment for an ever-shrinking customer base. The changes in healthcare all but took away the patients from the Chiropractors ruining their businesses, and ability to help people. Now the chiropractor has one competitor itself, and its name is “The Joint”. This facility has a chiropractor for every room, the patient comes in, receives a no frills adjustment, pays their $20.00 and leaves shortly after the treatment only to return 2-3 times a week. Yep, Chiropractic has reverted to a low-cost version of itself. Chiropractors have given up the offices and staff they could no longer afford, to work for at The Joint being paid $15.00 an hour. The Chiropractic movement that helped so many is now an irrelevant member of the medical establishment.
Now, I am seeing the same story playing out in the Cannabis industry, mimicking the car hop restaurants of the early days. Before these new manufacturers ran into this market, there was Rick Simpson Oil. The McDonalds of the Cannabis world, raw, pure natural hemp CBD oil that saved lives. A product you could either cook yourself in the kitchen, or purchase from local shops or even have it delivered to their door.
Large manufactures have populated the Cannabis Industry, providing many different types of CBD products with an ever-increasing list of ingredients. They have taken a very simple effective low-cost catalyst to health, the CBD, and complicated it. They added many ingredients to the product when they only needed one thing, the raw plant extract. Ironically, some of them were toxic to the body actually inhibiting healing.
Studies indicate CBD’s act as the body’s air traffic controller in a sense. They make the body work right; they attract the right vitamins, minerals to fight the disease wherever it is located. This heritage plant contains all the vitamins, minerals and essential amino acids to sustain life; this one plant is a complete meal. Our prehistoric ancestors carried this raw plant in their packs like a modern day lunchbox. It's not like there were Arby’s on the trail serving Brontosaurs burgers. This plant gave them everything they needed to be healthy, survive and thrive. It has everything your body needs to live; and your body was made to use this plant as a complete source to life.
Seeing the potential for profits, the manufacturers began utilizing artificial methods to enhance this plant, making it unnatural. Are the manufacturers really trying to outthink nature? Isn’t that what big pharma did?
One guy, Ray Kroc sold a uniformly quality product, quickly and affordable, and he changed the way the world ate out. Why doesn't the cannabis industry, follow the example of Ray Kroc; Manufacture the best product with the same high-quality plants, with uniform consistency at a fair cost?
We are battling the environment, the water, the food, and this one antidote to civilization is the answer to so many ill’s that plagues us. Lets follow the lessons of the past, give the patient a best quality, natural product, at an affordable price. Let nature do what nature does, heal us.
The life you save may be your own.