The “Discovery” of CBD

We’re talking plant medicine here, so, of course the story of Care By Design started with a seed… of an idea. Cannabidiol (CBD) has been a part of the cannabis plant since forever. And it has a long history of being used to treat health problems. (Queen Victoria reportedly used CBD-rich cannabis for menstrual cramps in the 19th century!) But in recent years, many people had forgotten about cannabis’ therapeutic potential. Under pressure from a government that used the plant as fodder in a war against the people, cannabis had retreated to the shadows. Modern folks started to think that cannabis was all about the high.

But some scientists were paying attention, including Dr. Raphael Mechoulum, Dr. Ethan Russo, and others. Some journalists were also paying attention, in particular Martin Lee and Fred Gardner. In fact, they thought that the emerging understanding of CBD’s potential therapeutic benefit was so important that Lee took a break from being a journalist to evangelize its benefits, culminating in the founding of Project CBD.

But here was the problem: In the capital of cannabis—northern California’s Emerald Triangle—CBD had been nearly bred out of existence in favor of high THC cannabis. To be blunt, it was a casualty of the decades-long Drug War, which suppressed medical marijuana while leaving a robust black market fully intact.

So, Project CBD worked with labs to identify high CBD strains, secure clones, and drove around the state trying to persuade farmers to risk federal prosecution and allocate valuable land to grow a plant with no black-market value whatsoever. Lee found one taker, CannaCraft co-founder, Ned Fussell, who embraced the opportunity enthusiastically.

The People’s Remedy

But what to do with all that resin-rich, high CBD cannabis? Ned consulted with Dennis Hunter, who would go on to become CannaCraft’s co-founder. Dennis suggested extracting it. They then set about figuring out how to do just that. After several stops and starts, they settled upon a CO²-based method. But the existing equipment wasn’t quite right. So, they went off and built better equipment.

Once the CBD crew had a bunch of CBD oil, the question was: Now what?

That turned out to be a relatively easy question to answer. These high CBD cannabis strains were grown for patients. It was always about the patients. In part because many people on the team were patients… struggling with epilepsy, stroke, autism, cancer, pain, anxiety, and sleep disturbances.

What did patients need? Smoke-free options, precise and consistent dosing, clean product, and the ability to manage cannabis’ psychoactivity so as to comfortably harness the full therapeutic benefit of both CBD and THC.

Thus, was born the Care By Design ratios, and a growing number of modes of administration. We started with the sprays, of course. Today, we also offer gel caps and infused chocolate for those wanting a long-acting affect, vape cartridges for those needing immediate relief, topicals for those wanting pain relief with no mood-altering effects, and more.