Companies Donate CBD During Coronavirus Pandemic

A few companies share why they decided to give away product and how they’re getting it into the hands of frontline workers.

Green Gorilla Sales and Marketing Director Katherine Guevera Saxton, left, and CEO Steven Saxton
Green Gorilla Sales and Marketing Director Katherine Guevera Saxton, left, and CEO Steven Saxton
Photo courtesy of Green Gorilla

Health care workers continue to risk their own well-being to treat people who are ill with COVID-19, and numerous people are out of work due to state government restrictions on business. In response, some companies in the hemp industry are donating CBD to help frontline health care workers and others push through the global coronavirus pandemic.

“We will know exactly who needs CBD”

Flora’s Mercantile, a Lakewood, Colo.-based business that sells cannabidiol (CBD) products online, is donating tinctures to frontline workers and people who are struggling financially during the coronavirus pandemic.

Chris Bedrosian, owner and founder of Flora’s, said she has sent nurses, hospital workers and people who can’t afford CBD about 10 bottles but would like to send hundreds.

Business has been tough, Bedrosian said. Although giving away the bottles is eating into her profit margin, she felt the need to help.

“I’m just self-isolating, and I sent out an email and I got a couple sales. There's nothing I can do,” Bedrosian said. “So, I was like, you know what? I'm just going to give away my profit. If I can't make any money—if I can't move forward with my business—at least we could use this to help people not die. That's what I want to do. I want to give it away to doctors and nurses and other people on the frontlines.”

Bedrosian uses her own CBD salve for a torn meniscus in her right knee and uses medical cannabis for asthma.

She said she likes the efficacy of full-spectrum CBD products—testing below 0.3% THC content and containing numerous cannabinoids and terpenes—but she received requests from workers who get tested for THC and cannot have any in their system.

“We made the isolate tincture for those folks—doctors and nurses and truck drivers and teachers and folks like that who have to have a urine analysis test once a year and can’t come up hot,” she said.

Frontline workers who report to hospitals and other health care facilities, as well as cannabis dispensaries, can send their work badge or a paycheck with confidential information blacked-out to Bedrosian at [email protected]. She will donate one 2,000-milligram CBD bottle, which she sells for $140 each, to workers who can prove they work in those fields. People who don’t meet those work criteria can still request product but will receive lower-dose bottles.

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Photo courtesy of Chris Bedrosian
Flora's Mercantile owner and founder Chris Bedrosian

Once people send her an email, Bedrosian said she will email them a link to a page where they can choose to pay $5 for shipping and enter their address. She said she hasn’t had a problem manually entering addresses so far, but once she receives more orders, they would be easier to handle if people enter their addresses into the system.

Flora’s has recently run into tough times for a few reasons. Banks have shut down its credit card charge systems multiple times. The company is competing with companies that have large marketing budgets. And on the wholesale market, acquiring deals on isolate is difficult because Flora’s purchases in small quantities compared to others. Now with the coronavirus, isolate prices are down, but so are Flora’s sales.

Still, Bedrosian is determined to continue aiding front-line workers and people who need CBD but can’t afford it. She is applying for a grant from the state of Colorado to continue her donations. In addition, she’s also looking at where the demand is for CBD and how people are using it in these unprecedented times.

“Every donation that we make, I am specifically keeping track of what I’m giving them and who they are and what they are doing,” she said. “At the end of this, we will know exactly who needs CBD and how they're using it, because I’m also asking them that. At the end of the day, if we can help this couple hundred people … that’s the least I can do.”

“Our mission is to restore balance to women”

Equilibria is a women-run and -focused CBD company that sells product on its website, a well as in some salons, spas and fitness outlets. In April, Equilibria began donating bottles of full-spectrum, organic CBD oil with 300 milligrams of CBD to women on the frontlines. The donations will continue until supply runs out, Coco Meers, CEO of Equilibria, said in an email.

Following an online nomination process, Equilibria sends the product to women on the frontlines with a focus on health-care workers, many of whom Meers said “have been separated from their families to keep them safe while they put their own health and safety on the line.” 

“Nominations are rolling in every day and we’ve allotted $100,000 of total inventory to be donated to women on the front lines,” Meers said. “To date, we’ve donated over half of that to over 800 women.”

Equilibria is a part owner in the 1,100-acre partner farm and lab partner in Colorado that grows and processes its CBD, Meers said, adding that it was important to her and her co-founder, Marcy Capron Vermillion, to vertically integrate for transparency reasons.

The company clarified on its nomination form and advised to nominees that full-spectrum CBD contains trace amounts of THC, Meers said.

Because CBD has health and wellness benefits, Meers said multiple people at Equilibria decided to begin helping women workers “as quickly as possible.”

“Our mission is to restore balance to women,” Meers said. “It’s hard to think of a more mission-centric initiative than offering premium full-spectrum CBD to the women who need it most, putting their mental and physical health at risk for others every day.”

“Buy one, give one, get one free”

Green Gorilla, a CBD company headquartered in Westlake Village, Calif., began donating 1,200-milligram bottles of full-spectrum CBD oil to first responders. For every bottle of the product purchased on its site, it donates to workers such as doctors, nurses, firefighters and police. It is also donating a complimentary bottle to customers for every bottle they purchase.

“We’re basically doing buy one, give one, get one free. It’s a way to encourage our people to help us support the people [on the frontlines],” said CEO and co-founder Steven Saxton. “Obviously, we're not a ginormous company, so we can't just give away millions of dollars’ worth of stuff, so it's kind of a sustainable way for us to contribute.”

Five years after Saxton founded Green Gorilla in 2013, the Woolsey Fire took both his family’s home and Green Gorilla’s old company headquarters, he said. Throughout the experience, the Saxtons spent a lot of time with firefighters and other first responders.

“With this pandemic—with the nurses and all these people on the frontlines—it's just our way of trying to give back,” he said.

If first responders reach out to Green Gorilla, the company has a secure way to collect identification information and verify people meet first-responder criteria, Saxton said.

“Obviously, we can't make any medical claims, but I’m sure they’re under enormous stress and anxiety, and [may need something] just to help with their immune system,” he said.

Green Gorilla supplies its hemp through Gorilla FarmCo, which has more than 1,500 acres of organic hemp farming in Arizona and hemp-grower partners with more than 10,000 acres in California, Colorado, Nevada and Oregon.

In addition to running Green Gorilla, Saxton continues a decades-long career producing Hollywood films—among his credits are as executive producer on "Gotti" starring John Travolta, and “Lone Survivor,” starring Mark Wahlberg. 

Now, during the pandemic, Saxton said he doesn’t see his celebrity neighbors—Barba Streisand, Julia Roberts and the Red Hot Chili Peppers—as much as he used to.

But he’s spreading the word about Green Gorilla in as safe a way as he can, like putting CBD in Gerard Butler’s mailbox.

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