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Victoria Flores has made a career of breaking into the boys’ club. First, on Wall Street as a Morgan Stanley associate and later, as chief of staff for Katz Capital, a private equity fund. Then, as one of a handful of Latina entrepreneurs in the U.S. ever to do so, Flores raised $750,000 in venture capital funding in 2017 for Lux Beauty Club, the e-commerce beauty startup she co-founded that sold natural hair extensions to salons and direct to consumers.

But despite her fundraising success, navigating global supply chains and quality control became increasingly challenging for the startup. She and her business partner, registered nurse Leslie Namad, finally made the gut-wrenching decision to pivot. They were so stressed out trying to deal with overseas contractors in disparate time zones that Flores says she and Namad had begun experimenting with CBD tinctures to help them sleep and to manage their stress. That’s when a new idea was born. They began eyeing opportunities to get into the male-dominated hemp and CBD industry and started researching the space. CBD is the acronym for cannabidiol, the non-intoxicating sister compound of THC, and plentiful in hemp varieties of cannabis sativa. In 2018, they decided to invest in a joint venture with suppliers they could oversee much closer to home.

“We mourned for the old company but then we picked ourselves back and up and said, ‘This is a huge 25-billion dollar opportunity and we want some of that,” explained Flores of their decision to transition from hair to CBD.

It turned out, the timing couldn’t have been better. In late 2018, Congress passed the Agricultural Improvement Act, also known as The Farm Bill which took industrial hemp off of the federal government’s list of most harmful controlled substances and threw open the door for a massive consumer products industry. It happened so swiftly, the FDA is still formulating consumer safety guidelines to catch up to the explosion of products and health claims landing in mainstream retailers.

The two entrepreneurs initially decided to focus on a female market and began pitching beauty and wellness products to gift shops and small retailers in 2019. Then earlier this year, they scored a brand new opportunity that gives them entree to what was once a strictly men’s only club: the sport of golf. In a new licensing deal with Perry Ellis International, the iconic black and white image of the legendary PGA champion Ben Hogan will be emblazoned on new CBD products made by Lux Beauty Club and expected to be sold in at least 500 pro-shops around the US by the end of the year.

“Deals like this usually go to a bunch of white men. So it was really exciting to be able to close this deal with them (Perry Ellis). And more to come,” enthused Flores in a telephone interview. She believes the line represents the first major branded CBD products for golfers to hit the market.

The Ben Hogan items join a number of other new CBD wares capitalizing on the potential pain-relieving applications of the phytochemical that they hope will appeal to weekend warriors and amateur athletes. Over the last 18 months, a number of CBD companies have announced partnerships with pros including, Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ tight-end Ron “Gronk” Gronkowski and U.S. National Soccer Team superstar Megan Rapinoe, who started a CBD company with her twin sister.

“It is kind of cool and exciting for us as brown founders that they saw that as a win for them. It is a testament to them because it is Latina founded,” the New York-based executive explained.

The hemp-derived products include a pain-relief roller, salve and cooling cream that will be sold in packaging that resembles a sleeve of golf balls. The prospect came about when Namad’s husband Richard, a CPG branding expert and adviser to the company came on board as the third founder and together, they brought the idea to Perry Ellis, where Namad served as sales director for more than a decade.

Flores, a mom of a young daughter, says building the business has been an exercise in persistence, especially as the Covid-19 pandemic hit shortly after the company secured the Perry Ellis deal which slowed down the roll-out of the products. What helps, she says, is that as a small family-run business, all hands are on deck.

“We weren’t the founders that got $5-million dollars pre-seed to find something that might have a product market fit. We weren’t able to just blow through money and test and see what worked and what didn’t work We didn’t have an option but to be scrappy and to succeed. We have our whole lives invested,” she said.

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Article written in collaboration with Natán Ponieman.

After his departure from cannabis behemoth Canopy Growth, former CEO Bruce Linton kept his senses open for new opportunities.

A brief, 7-month tenure as executive chairman of Vireo Health showed the world that, in spite of pursuing other non-cannabis ventures, the entrepreneur is still interested in the cannabis plant.

However, Linton appears to be sailing against the CBD current.

“I’m not super sold on CBD as a segment, but I’m hugely sold on the hemp plant,” he told us in a recent interview, conducted minutes before hopping on the virtual stage of the Prohibition Partners Live conference.

For Linton, the CBD craze will blow over, but the hemp plant is here to stay. And he doesn’t intend to be left behind.

Earlier this year, Linton launched Collective Growth, a special-purpose acquisition company that went public on the Nadaq exchange in May, and aims to exploit the potential of hemp, seeking to disrupt many industries that go well-beyond medical and recreational cannabis.

“The biggest disruption opportunity related to cannabis plants at large is to use the whole plant and hemp for what it can do. And there’s over 200 categories of things that you can disrupt,” he said.

Not CBD, Hemp!

Linton says he’s “on the outside looking in, as far as the belief in CBD.”

CBD is definitely a powerful cannabinoid, he adds. The therapeutic effect of high-dosage CBD in specific cases, like reducing spasticity in children affected from refractory epilepsy, has been clinically proven.

See also: Magic Johnson Talks CBD: ‘I’m A Believer’

“That dosage response is true. But that’s super high dosages, right? This is like a thousand plus milligrams,” adds Linton.

And he has a point. While CBD has shown consistent results for the treatment of specific ailments, the panacea-mentality associated with the compound in recent years is likely to be far-fetched. In fact, some have gone as far as claiming CBD can cure COVID-19 – a claim that has not been proven anywhere and prompted the FDA to send a warning letter informing it would pursue “legal action, including, without limitation, seizure and injunction,” should the people behind it not retract it immediately.

“If you just rubbed it on your elbow and it is allegedly a 20 milligram total dose cream in the container, so you rub two milligrams on your elbow, I’m highly suspicious of any efficacy to your benefit.”

This position is consistent with Linton’s signature stance of looking at science and research before making big decisions. The executive lamented how in the past 18 months, research and science related to cannabinoids in general has slowed down immennsely, in benefit of more market-oriented practices and studies.

This disbelief in CBD as a segment led Linton to analyze hemp’s sustainable and economic potential.

See also: More Potent Than CBD, THC: Dr. Raphael Mechoulam Explains His Latest Discovery

“The more I went around and the more I looked, the more it was evident that everybody was growing the wrong kind of hemp plant,“ he explains.

In his eyes, many farmers are trying to make a quick buck off CBD, while failing to recognize the immense value of the by-products of the production of CBD from hemp.

The Collective Growth Corporation

Turning his ideas into action in a classic Bruce Linton fashion, the executive founded Collective Growth Corp, a blank-check company that aims to fuel the U.S. hemp industry.

In spite of the financial crisis, the company was able to raise $150 million and IPO on the Nasdaq on May 1, under the symbol CGROU. The company’s core team even got to ring the bell – virtually, as the only company that went public on the exchange that week.

Linton currently serves as chairman and CEO.

In his own words, if the company is able to execute the strategy it has planned out, it can grow to a billion dollar enterprise within 18 months.

Hemp’s ability to be used as an industrial material in countless supply chains in a sustainable way makes it a valuable commodity in the post-COVID world. In the “new normal,” global supply chains are starting to raise concerns arounnd logistics and sustainability.

See also: University Of Toronto, Canadian Biotech Company Collaborate On Cannabinoid-Based COVID-19 Treatment

Hemp is specially viable as a building material. Its fibers, says Linton, are stronger than steel, when looking at their tensile strength per diameter.

Opportunities In Europe

As opposed to the U.S., Europe never placed strong restrictions on hemp. That has put the region in a competitive advantage in terms of production capacity and technological development.

For Collective Growth, Europe is where the best purchase opportunities can be found. The company was founded as a special-purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, a type of company that raises funds in order to acquire other companies. SPACs has become very popular in the cannabis industry in recent months, and some argue they “saved” the cannabis market in a time of limited access to capital.

“You can buy a BMW right now, the E series…one of them is 21% made of hemp, and none of it comes from America. None, not a scrap of it. It’s all from Europe,” says Linton.

Collective Growth is looking at hemp companies that produce food and pharma products, as well as others that focus on disruptive uses of hemp for industrial purposes. Although Europe is where the best hemp technology is found today, Collective Growth’s mission is to bring hemp back as a significant crop into the agricultural system of the United States.

According to Linton, farmers in the U.S. who want to grow other crops are in trouble nowadays: soybeans face strong competition from China; corn, which is largely produced for the extraction of ethanol as a fuel, is bad business because oil prices are at record lows. The situation is starting to look dire.

Hemp, on the other hand, can become a viable source of revenue for U.S. farmers. According to Linton, if the plant is cultivated and processes correctly, every part can be utilized. This means revenue sources are increasigly diversified.

“By the time you get to the CBD, you’ve made enough profit off the whole plant that you can actually take a small part of that profit -less than half- use it to extract and get free CBD.”

See also: UNM Study: Cannabis Is Effective In Treating Depression, Improving Mental Health

Linton will be leading purchases for his new SPAC, while filling board seats at MindMed and Red Light Holland, two up-and-coming psychedelics companies he’s involved in. Linton also holds an executive post at Gage Cannabis and has co-founded a P2P rental marketplace called Ruckify, which already employs 100 associates and has country-wide presence.

On July 1 CBD-based sports supplements business Champions Legends introduced with the statement of the brand’s first set of professional athlete partners.

Signing up with the company were two-time Super Bowl champ James Harrison of the Pittsburgh Steelers and Thor “the Mountain” Björnsson, winner of several Greatest Guy competitions, world deadlift record-holder, and star in the hit series “Video game of Thrones.”

Throughout a current conversation, Thor explained his decision to join Champions Legends originated from the quality of the company’s products, but also from the fact that they are made from hemp, and not psychotropic cannabis.

See also: More Potent Than CBD, THC: Dr. Raphael Mechoulam Describes His Newest Discovery

” I am always looking for methods to end up being a much better athlete. CBD is still a new kid in town as far as supplements go,” he said.

Strong Outcomes For A Strong Male

Thor disclosed having attempted other CBD products prior to Champions Legends’. He had constantly knowledgeable disappointing outcomes.

He ‘d seen other athletes around him utilize it, and wondered why it did not work for him.

” I was absolutely reluctant to use CBD at the start, however after trying the Champions Legends CBD products, I can say they are effective for athletic preparation, efficiency, and recovery,” he voiced.

Thor then shared some stories about completing in the World’s Strongest Man contest, which forces professional athletes to take their bodies to their very limits.

” Often, this causes swelling and pain,” he described. Among other approaches he utilizes to deal with these is CBD.

See likewise: Isiah Thomas Discusses His Journey From NBA Champion To Champagne To Marijuana

” My body feels excellent. I seem like I’m able to recover faster, and even press more difficult throughout my workout sessions. Far, for me it’s been working marvels, I’m feeling much better during and after my sessions.”

In truth, CBD products are as good for healing as they are for real exercise, Champions Legends CEO Sonny Mottahed, a fan of strength-based sports himself, interjected.

” From our view and the product line that we have actually established, a lot of it is based around how the item is used and created, in addition to the does you’re taking for a certain time, when you’re looking for a particular type of effect. In the case of sleep, you require a greater dose of CBD, while as an athletic preparation tool, it’s a much lower dosage and various items.”

CBD And The Athletic Neighborhood

When prompted about the approval of CBD amongst the athletic neighborhood, Thor said it is growing fast.

” As an athlete, when you train hard, you push yourself, you get a lot of inflammation and pain in the body.

Strengthening his point, Mottahed raised the WADA’s (the entity that establishes doping criteria for professional sports, among others things) decision to get rid of CBD from their list of prohibited substances beginning in 2018.

” We are seeing numerous sports permit CBD too. It’s still the early days and the movement is slow, but the tide is definitely turning as we see a shift towards approval. A case in point is Major League Baseball, which has actually eliminated CBD, and even cannabis, from their testing lists,” he said.

” Attempt CBD out and see if it works for you. I know it works for me,” Thor concluded.

To end the discussion, a random Video game of Thrones question: Do you feel the series would have been different if the people in it would have had access to CBD?

See also: Mike Tyson Will Print (Yes, Print) Cannabis Drinks

” Yeah. For sure,” stated Thor. “Absolutely when I think of it now, it would have been fantastic to have Champions Legends items when I was shooting for Game of Thrones. Particularly, for the battle versus the Red Viper and the Cleganebowl battle, since those fights were incredibly difficult, not just psychologically, however likewise physically … And I’m sure it would have likewise made me look better on screen.”