Original Articles

In today’s world with Fedex and DHL, Google Translate, maps with GPS on your phone, scanning, Zoom, PDFs, email, text, WhatsApp, fast wifi, broadband internet, cheap SIMs and phone cards in foreign lands, people don’t realize just how hard it was to do business internationally in the ‘80s and ‘90s...

Despite a massive increase in tons of hempseed processed the last twenty years in Canada, prices today are much higher than the laws of economics dictate. Between economies of scale and competition, shouldn’t prices have come down? Odd. Like throughout history, farmers get the short end of the stick. Some hemp farmers in Canada had … Continue reading "The Farmer: Last To Get Paid, First To...

Type 1: THC dominant Type 2: CBD:THC mixed (~1:1) Type 3: CBD dominant Type 4: CBG dominant Type 5: no Cannabinoids Type 6: CBC dominant (proposed) From (click for link): “Identification of a new chemotype in Cannabis sativa: cannabigerol-dominant plants, biogenetic and agronomic prospects.” Planta Medica 53:277-280 “Potential of marker assisted selection in hemp genetic … Continue reading...

Amazon has been a big retailer of CBD as early as 2014, maybe still today with over 9,000 products. Even in Australia I bought CBD from Denver via Amazon.com.au. Yes, their Terms Of Service claims you can’t, but that’s more of a litigation/regulatory CYA. It keeps away the milquetoast sheep, they want brave lions as … Continue reading "Amazon: Largest CBD Retailer or Just One Big Fraud?"...

The 2018 Farm Bill (“FB18”) in December descheduled hemp Cannabis at the federal level, turning regulation over to USDA, which is delegating it to the states. As passed it only legalized growing it and its fiber, but also banned drug felons from low-THC drug-free industrial hemp. Surprisingly, an hour after Trump signed it, the FDA … Continue reading "Hemp Farm Bill Winners and...

Here’s why Hemp Flower Products should be classified as a food ingredient existing before October 1994, for the purposes of DSHEA to FDA. This submission is a stakeholder comment to your “Development of a List of Pre-DSHEA Dietary Ingredients” issue. My name is Richard Rose and I’m an award-winning food industry professional of 37 years … Continue reading "Hemp...

We need better nomenclature for discussing Cannabis, beyond Indica/Sativa or even NLD/BLD/NLH/BLH. Why? Because “strain” names are about as informative as band names, and that’s because… The same genotype could produce wildly different chemical composition depending on growing practices. There are virtually no pure or true Indica or Sativa cultivars anymore, they are all...

When Cannabis Prohibition 2.0 begun in 1970 with the Controlled Substances Act, it was Scheduled in the most-restrictive category, that of One. Although hemp stalk and nonviable seed had an exemption, that still meant all marijuana and hemp flower products such as CBD, terpenes, flowers, viable hempseed for food, an hempseed oil made from viable … Continue reading "Academics Drove the CBD...

In Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution, April 2018, Volume 65, Issue 4, pp 1071–1107, by Ernest Small, 13 December 2017 is Dwarf germplasm: the key to giant Cannabis hempseed and cannabinoid crops: Abstract After a century of banishment, both euphoric (“marijuana”) and non-euphoric (“industrial hemp”) classes of Cannabis sativa are attracting billions of dollars of … Continue reading...

One way to move the millions of pounds of hempseed still sitting in bins from the past few seasons in Canada is by making a 1-kilogram re-sealable brick of a flexible gas-flushed package of HempNut (the original generic name for shelled hempseed, branded by Richard Rose in 1996). Donate it or sell at cost for homeless and … Continue reading "HempNut To The Rescue"...

Every big city in the world will be watching what NYC does with legalization. Taxed and regulated for-profit dispensaries aren’t the only answer; Cannabis is FUN to grow, it’s cheap, and many adults want to do so… and of course they should be allowed. If Ficus and Spider Ferns are allowed in apartments, so should … Continue reading "New Cultivars Needed For Legal Urban...

"You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before." Between this incident and the MORE Act passing the House last December, it's a golden opportunity put the nail in the coffin of Prohibition...

I can't help but think that if Henry Ford realized just how nutritious the seed of hemp is, he would have done what I did and pivot from using soybean to hempseed to make foods like milk and ice cream...

When sampling a new product to people, the worst thing you can hear is “that’s good.” “That’s okay” or “that’s not bad” or “that’s good” is the wrong answer. While hearing “that sucks” tells you what you likely already know, hearing “that’s good” will lull you into going to market prematurely...

Regulate Cannabis Like Zucchini, Soft Secrets (Italy), 2020 #4, page 27/28. Interview of Richard Rose by Fabrizio Dentini. 1) How do you present yourself to the Italian public? Now in my sixties, I came to Italia 4 years ago to retire. My wife is Italian, born in Brazil. We love Italy for many reasons and … Continue reading "Regulate Cannabis Like Zucchini"...

This image explained, found in Non-psychotropic plant cannabinoids: new therapeutic opportunities from an ancient herb: CBD and THCV are anti-epileptic, reduce seizures (calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II indirectly causes reduction). CBD is anti-psychotic, reduces psychosis (transient receptor potential vanilloid type 1 direct action). CBD is a neuroprotectant, protects against or helps...

In the “oldest cookbook ever written,” known as “De Honesta Voluptate Et Valetudine” (“Of Honest Voluptuousness and Health“), is a 543-year old drink recipe calling for Cannabis/hemp flower products. It is even decarbed in “nard oil” (spikenard or muskroot, aromatic amber-colored essential oil derived from Nardostachys jatamansi, a flowering plant of...

By Richard Rose           When hemp’s potential for commercialization is discussed most people think of clothing, fabric, cordage and the like.  Even though hempseed is far more nutritious than soybean in virtually all respects and almost as versatile, the typical reaction to hempseed as a food is that it has limited application beyond nut bars...

Lynn and Judy Osburn were the first to write about hempseed as food that I know of. Alan Brady was the first to make hempseed ice cream that I know of. While both used whole hempseed, my vision was to shell it in order to increase the nutrition and palatability. Dr Udo Erasmus was the … Continue reading "1992: Hempseed: Nature’s Perfect Food?"...

One of the most-persistent canards about hemp is that it was banned. But that’s not true, it always just needed a permit. In 1994, HIA co-founder Chris Boucher grew a ½ acre plot of Fedora and Kompolti hemp in Brawley California, with USDA’s permission on USDA land. But in mid-summer, with little warning, Imperial County … Continue reading "1994: Secret Government Hemp Crop Destroyed"...

I might as well wrap up Hemp History Month 2021 with a watershed event. This was a big moment for hemp, and to this day the biggest stage for hemp foods. Roseanne Barr had an afternoon talk show on CBS-TV, and I answered easy questions about hemp and made a hemp potato salad. We had … Continue reading "1999: Hemp Foods on CBS-TV; Roseanne and Richard Make Potato Salad for Millions"...

"This is how you sell not just a product, but social change. Normalizing Cannabis, one bite at a time."...

“I cut off my hair and wore suits and stuff for a couple years,” he says. “I thought I needed to do that to make it in the business world. And it didn’t work. So I went back to plan B and that was to be myself. And it’s working just fine.”...

In 2001 HempNut, Inc. had a European distributor in Switzerland. We offered 11 items: Original HempNut, Cheese Alternative Mexican Flavor, Peanut/HempNut Butter, HempNut Smoked Veggie Burger, Blue Corn Chips with HempNut, Lip Balm w/SPF-15 in two flavors, Hempseed Oil, Chocolate Chip Cookies, Chocolate Whole-Food Bar, and “The HempNut Health and Cookbook.” It was too early, way too early for the...

Richard Rose BA, marketing, 1989 Richard Rose came to SSU after running his own tofu business for six years. Although widely acknowledged for popularizing tofu as a food suitable for American palates, he felt empty. “There has to be a better way,” he thought. After receiving his BA, Richard decided that his ultimate goal was … Continue reading "Distinguished Alumni, Sonoma State University...

“When we introduced hemp cheese they said we must be smoking something. We are now.”...

No woman has had as much impact on the global hemp movement as the late Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop. In the mid-90s she introduced a number of skin care products containing hempseed oil, sold in thousands of her stores around the world. She fought mall owners to be allowed window displays featuring … Continue reading "Anita Roddick: Hempseed Oil Pioneer"...