stacy deprey purper

Native Roots Hemp in the News!

By Lee Reinsch
Correspondent

DE PERE – The story of Native Roots Hemp is rags to riches and seed and soil to essential oil.

Native Roots Hemp owner Stacy Deprey-Purper had her own need and worked to solve it.

She’d suffered from innumerable symptoms since she was a child, finally diagnosed at 16 with ulcerative colitis.

It’s an autoimmune condition which causes a range of serious and often painful symptoms.

Deprey-Purper said hers ranged from inflammation and pain to severe fatigue.

“I almost died when I was a kid and was hospitalized for 30 days when I was a teenager,” she said.

Deprey-Purper said the side effects of the medication her doctors prescribed weren’t much better than the symptoms.

As an adult, she said she had barely enough energy to cover the basics of working and taking care of her family.

“I had lots of arthritis and nerve damage, and I was in pain constantly,” Deprey-Purper said. “I didn’t want pills in my body; I wanted something pure that would help.”

Then a few years ago, a friend gave her a tincture of CBD oil (cannabidiol), which comes from hemp.

She took a few drops three times a day, and within a week, she said her symptoms disappeared.
So Deprey-Purper dove in head first.

Nearly three years later, Native Roots Hemp, 365 Main Ave. De Pere, has a network of organic hemp farmers around the state, a hemp-plant processing facility in Algoma, and retail stores in De Pere and Luxemburg (inside PharmHouse Cafe and Market).

The processing facility processes thousands of pounds of hemp, pressing and processing it to extract the oil.

“If a farmer grew a really good plant, you could get 1 kilogram of oil from 30 pounds of raw plant material, if it was extremely high quality,” she said. “Sometimes it takes 100 pounds.”

The company makes a multitude of products, including lotions, soaps, bath teas, beauty products, tinctures, drops, relief rollers, and more, and sells online as well as through its retail stores.

At the De Pere store, customers can sample products and order something from the hemp bar.

Hot cups of hoffee (hemp coffee – their invention) and smoothies enriched with hemp are popular items.

“People use our bar and lounge as a safe place to explore hemp education, or just come in for a cup of hemp tea or hoffee,” she said. “Many take it to go in the mornings to start their day off in the right headspace, relaxed and ready to take on anything.”

Hemp and marijuana could be considered cousins; both belong to the cannabis family.

Hemp is higher in CBD and lower in THC (the psychoactive chemical tetrahydrocannabinol), than marijuana, while marijuana is the reverse.

CBD has been credited for reducing anxiety, pain and inflammation, but hasn’t been FDA approved.

For that reason, Deprey-Purper said she can’t legally make any health claims.

She said she requires the organic hemp farms she works with to be third-party and lab-tested to produce what she calls “the highest quality products at the lowest prices.”

It’s guaranteed: if a customer finds a higher quality product at the same or lower cost, they’ll get their money back.

So far, Deprey-Purper said she hasn’t had to make good on that.

Earlier this year, she announced a partnership with Potawatomi Business Development Corp., which bought a controlling interest.

Deprey-Purper continues to lead the company and reports to a board of directors, which includes the CEO of Potawatomi Business Development Corp.

“The Potawatomi Tribe itself was interested in the hemp market across a number of different factions, growing it and processing it; they looked at it as a high-growth market,” said Potawatomi Business Development Corp. CEO, Randy Mueller. “We found Native Roots Hemp, we liked it, we liked the company and the person who owned it, Stacy, and they were participating in two really good high-growth sectors of the economy for hemp, and that’s why we picked it. It’s worked out great so far.”

Deprey-Purper said the partnership offers her company the chance to do things it otherwise wouldn’t have been able to.

“They have the power of the tribe behind them to help us expand,” she said. “(This) will allow us to continue to hone the product and expand the product line to keep up with customer demand, and it will allow us to expand nationwide.”

How to Incorporate CBD Into Your Chiropractic Practice

As a chiropractor, it’s important to keep up to date with industry trends to ensure you are offering patients a comprehensive approach to treatment. Over the past few years, topical cannabidiol (CBD) products have grown in popularity, especially in the chiropractic market1as they have been linked to alternative relief for sore muscles and joints. With so many hemp-derived CBD products on the market, it can be difficult to choose the right ones for your patients and practice. 

Let’s dive into the steps you can take to begin incorporating CBD products into your practice. 

Legalization & CBD

When the  Agricultural Improvement Act of 2018 AKA 2018 Farm Bill was passed, it removed “hemp” from the definition of “marijuana”, so long as the THC concentration does not exceed 0.3 percent.Despite the fact that on a federal level, hemp crop regulation is in the hands of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the legislation preserved the FDA’s responsibility over such products.3 For chiropractors looking to incorporate CBD products into their practice, it is crucial to understand the legal status of CBD in your state of practice so that you are acting in line with the law.

Do I Need a License to Sell CBD at My Practice? 

The 2018 Farm Bill recognizes the federal legalization of hemp-derived CBD in the United States—but not statewide regulations about CBD, which vary by state. Before integrating CBD into your practice, research your state’s laws regarding hemp-derived CBD.

In terms of a license, your chiropractic practice should have a business license, as well as a seller’s permit if you intend to sell any products to patients in your practice.4 This type of permit is handled on the state level, so refer to your local or state government for guidance on obtaining a seller’s permit for your chiropractic practice. 

At MeyerDC, we sell topical, hemp-derived CBD products to chiropractors in the following states: Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Wisconsin, and Washington. This is changing frequently due to state regulations on CBD, so check individual products for their availability in your state. 

 

 

Earth Power: Hemp Batteries Better Than Lithium And Graphene

By Barnaby De Hoedt

Henry Ford’s Model T was famously made partly from hemp bioplastic and powered by hemp biofuel. Now, with battery-powered vehicles starting to replace those that use combustion engines, it has been found that hemp batteries perform eight times better than lithium-ion. Is there anything that this criminally-underused plant can’t do?

The comparison has only been proven on a very small scale. (You weren’t expecting a Silicon Valley conglomerate to do something genuinely groundbreaking were you? They mainly just commercialise stuff that’s been invented or at least funded by the state.) But the results are extremely promising.

The experiment was conducted by Robert Murray Smith – who has built up quite a following on his YouTube channel – of FWG Ltd in Kent. He observed a Volts by Amps curve of both the hemp and lithium batteries and found that the power underneath the hemp cell was a value of 31 while that of the lithium cell had a value of just 4. Although he does not claim to have proven anything, he said that the results of his experiment showed that the performance of the hemp cell is “significantly better” than the lithium cell.

It comes as no real surprise, which is presumably why he conducted the experiment. In 2014, scientists in the US found that waste fibers – ‘shiv’ – from hemp crops can be transformed into “ultrafast” supercapacitors that are “better than graphene”. Graphene is a synthetic carbon material lighter than foil yet bulletproof, but it is prohibitively expensive to make. The hemp version isn’t just better, it costs one-thousandth of the price.

The scientists “cooked” leftover bast fibre – the inner bark of the plant that usually ends up in landfill – into carbon nanosheets in a process called hydrothermal synthesis. “People ask me: why hemp? I say, why not?” said Dr David Mitlin of Clarkson University, New York, in an interview with the BBC. “We’re making graphene-like materials for a thousandth of the price – and we’re doing it with waste.”

Dr. Mitlin’s team recycled the fibers into supercapacitors, energy storage devices that are transforming the way electronics are powered. While conventional batteries store large reservoirs of energy and drip-feed it slowly, supercapacitors can rapidly discharge their entire load.

This makes them ideal in machines that require sharp bursts of power. In electric cars, for example, supercapacitors are used for regenerative braking. Releasing this torrent requires electrodes with high surface area, one of graphene’s many phenomenal properties.

Mitlin says that “you can do really interesting things with bio-waste”. With banana peels, for example, “you can turn them into a dense block of carbon – we call it pseudo-graphite – and that’s great for sodium-ion batteries. But if you look at hemp fibre its structure is the opposite – it makes sheets with high surface area – and that’s very conducive to supercapacitors.”

 

The Benefits Of Using Hemp In The Construction And Textile Industries

Ever since the cannabis legalization process began to gain global momentum, much has been said about its medicinal and therapeutic potential, as well as the huge market that awaits behind the doors of adult-use regulation.

However, the cannabis plant has even greater potential, of which today we’re seeing but the tip of the iceberg. Hemp is a subspecies of the cannabis plant; it lacks most of marijuana’s psychoactive effects but can be used as raw material for several industries -such as textile and construction.

In fact, industrial sales are expected to triple in the next 7 years, rising from $4.71 billion in 2019 to $15.26 billion in 2027.

Reducing The Carbon Footprint

Steve DeAngelo, one of the most recognized cannabis activists of the last decades, says that hemp has the ability to replace virtually any petroleum product. 

“Hemp can be grown without pesticides. Captures 22 tons of atmospheric carbon per hectare. It is a powerful phytoremediator that extracts industrial poisons from contaminated soil. And, likewise, it is a powerful tool to control erosion and remedy unproductive or marginally productive lands,” says DeAngelo. And adds: “We are only now harnessing the industrial hemp plant’s potential as a rotating crop with regenerative agriculture qualities.”

The Textile Industry

Hemp fabric has been around for a long time, from Rembrandt’s canvases to the sails in Columbus’s caravels. Now, the textile industry is strongly experiencing hemp’s disruption, especially as a replacement for cotton.

The material can be processed to be lightweight, soft, breathable, and durable, replacing most cotton applications in the textile industry. Considering that cotton represents 43% of all fibers used for clothing and textiles worldwide, hemp has huge possibilities ahead.

For instance, iconic jeans company Levi’s recently announced a pilot project to replace 27% of its denim’s cotton with hemp, as part of an overall sustainability push. Why? Cotton requires much more water, pesticides, and soil to be grown than hemp.

 

What Are the Benefits of CBD?

More than 60 percent of CBD users were taking it for anxiety, according to a survey of 5,000 people. Does it help?

By Dawn MacKeen

The CBD industry is flourishing, conservatively projected to hit $16 billion in the United States by 2025. Already, the plant extract is being added to cheeseburgers, toothpicks and breath sprays. More than 60 percent of CBD users have taken it for anxiety, according to a survey of 5,000 people, conducted by the Brightfield Group, a cannabis market research firm.Chronic pain, insomnia and depression follow behind. Kim Kardashian West, for example, turned to the product when “freaking out” over the birth of her fourth baby. The professional golfer Bubba Watson drifts off to sleep with it. And Martha Stewart’s French bulldog partakes, too.


Cannabidiol, or CBD,is the lesser-known child of the cannabis sativaplant; its more famous sibling, tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, is the active ingredient in pot that catapults users’ “high.” With roots in Central Asia, the plant is believed to have been first used medicinally — or for rituals — around 750 B.C., though there are other estimates too.

Cannabidiol and THC are just two of the plant’s more than 100 cannabinoids. THC is psychoactive, and CBD may or may not be, which is a matter of debate. THC can increase anxiety; it is not clear what effect CBD is having, if any, in reducing it. THC can lead to addiction and cravings; CBD is being studied to help those in recovery.

Cannabis containing 0.3 percent or less of THC is hemp. Although last year’s Farm Bill legalized hemp under federal law, it also preserved the Food and Drug Administration’s oversight of products derived from cannabis.


CBD is advertised as providing relief for anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. It is also marketed to promote sleep. Part of CBD’s popularity is that it purports to be “nonpsychoactive,” and that consumers can reap health benefits from the plant without the high (or the midnight pizza munchies).

Just as hemp seedlings are sprouting up across the United States, so is the marketing. From oils and nasal sprays to lollipops and suppositories, it seems no place is too sacred for CBD. “It’s the monster that has taken over the room,” Dr. Brad Ingram, an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, said about all the wild uses for CBD now. He is leading a clinical trial into administering CBD to children and teenagers with drug-resistant epilepsy.

 

How Mainstream Media Botched the Vape Lung Story

David Bienenstock

In 1989, a mysterious figure known as Dr. Lunglife sent High Times a set of detailed instructions for transforming a handful of easily obtained equipment into a low cost vaporizer. He included a guide to making a highly potent cannabis concentrate that optimized the contraption’s effectiveness.

Soon thereafter, the magazine published a letter to the editor from K.O. of Clarksville, Mississippi:

Just thought I’d let you know I built one of Dr. Lunglife’s vaporizers. Tell the good doctor that it has worked well for me. Now if I can just get a really long extension cord for the Hash Bash in Ann Arbor.

30 years of user data on vaping

Clearly, many cannabis enthusiasts must have started experimenting with vaporization around this same time.

Commercial products required a little more time to make it to market. The first Volcano vaporizer, made by Storz & Bickel, appeared in the US in 2003. The first pen-size vaporizers appeared around 2006. Cannabis vape pens hit the American scene starting around 2010.

That gives us—at the very least—a solid three decades of anecdotal user data to work with when evaluating any potential harms involved.

So when a rash of people started getting seriously or even fatally ill after using vape pens earlier this year, it was obvious that something other than cannabis must be the culprit. The overwhelming number of cases of VAPI, vaping associated pulmonary injury, have been attributed to counterfeit products produced and distributed illegally without any regulatory oversight whatsoever.

Tainted illegal THC pens are suspect

At Leafly, our reporting team tracked these dangerous counterfeit pens from production to sale. We found a supply chain operating wholly outside the law and with a blatant disregard for public health. Theories on what’s causing VAPI range from dangerous additives to poorly manufactured pens, or possibly some combination of the two. No evidence has emerged to show THC, CBD, or any other cannabinoid is to blame.

 

 

 

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