Our Story: 2018 - 2019
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Weeks after these seeds started to germinate, the lab results from our three acre pilot crop had arrived after being extracted and concentrated into a CO2 extract for research and development with children similar to Noah. Apothio learned that the crop contained trace amounts of chlorpyrifos, an organophosphate insecticide that has been produced by DOW chemical company since 1965, and something that would be later banned after it was identified as a neurotoxin. Though the pilot farm had been practicing organic farming principles of the Rodale Institute for decades, the source of public water being used contained this poison; a relic from nearly a century of human nature to attempt to control nature.
As a permaculturalist whose values clashed with that of the paradigms of industrial agriculture, this was a trigger point for Jones, who has lost several children to exposure to similar abuses by chemical companies, and the subsequent abuse to our natural ecosystems that he looked to for the answers. The Apothio mission and strategy evolved to address these abuses, and innovate into solutions that addressed these fundamental challenges with industrial scale production. Whereas our organic practices while farming in the unfarmed Mojave produced a clean and unique end product, the nature of the organic methodology in Kern County became increasingly questionable due to a legacy of abuse and misuse of natural resources.
The product that could have been used to help thousands of children similar to Noah had been compromised, leading us to acknowledge that we would not be able to extract the 140 acre field using currently existing extraction methodologies. In an abundance of caution, we would store it until we found a solution that mitigated risk associated with potential contamination, and allocated this asset towards our research and development to pioneer new methods of extraction.
Apothio partnered with a publicly traded company in order to develop an extraction site in Arvin that would research emerging technology associated with water based extraction. These harmful reagents are water soluble, and could be easily removed from the oil by extracting with water via cavitation, a technology that the petroleum industry utilized in order to remove oil from shale. This joint venture would be responsible for extracting the material that would be coming from our current 140 acre farm, and subsequently, 512 acres that would be farmed the following year.
As this agreement came to fruition, Apothio leased a 30,000 square foot facility to build a cutting edge extraction facility. We quickly learned, as many do in their first few years navigating the cannabis industry, that there were constituents in this organization with questionable ethics. Instead of using the material from our grow in 2018, these bad actors transported marijuana across state lines and into our facility for extraction.
Contrary to many players in the industry, Apothio has always gone by the book, allowing legal counsel to help us navigate the tumultuous waters of a space whose regulatory landscape was and continues to be in a constant state of change. However, some actions are so explicitly illegal that they cannot be forgiven, and can compromise what is otherwise a very promising partnership. Our approach to any business relationship has always been that they live and die with trust. We could not risk five years of hard work to lose it due to a few bad actors. As a result, we were forced to notify the police, document the legal violation, and issue a ‘no trespass’ on the property intended for the extraction of our 2019 crop.
As the industry started to take note of the fact that our farm was likely the most successful in the country in terms of biomass per acre, we had created a powerful gravitational pull of industry leaders with solutions that addressed our concerns about the risk of contamination. These leaders had developed impressive infrastructure to extract the 19 million mature plants that stood at an impressive 15’ in height. A year had passed since the findings from our pilot crop, and our portfolio of extraction partners with alternative approaches to extraction, which would result in a safe and highly profitable end product, had matured extensively.
The time for harvest had arrived at the beginning of November. To say that this time was the most exciting moment of our lives would be an understatement. We put in five years of hard work, anticipation and hopes of the legalization of industrial hemp, and overcoming infinite obstacles to get to this point in time. The day after we began our harvest, the Kern County police accompanied by California Fish and Wildlife arrived at our fields on Friday, stating that they believe that the fields being grown were marijuana. After having met with local officials time and time again to officiate our legal status as an established agricultural research institution, this obviously came as a surprise. After all, we had been growing this product adjacent to their highways for over a year. At noon that Friday, when the courts were closed to our access for an appeal to have our case reviewed, our 19 million plants were plowed into the ground.
This event, documented in our legal complaint, went down as the largest wholesale destruction of private property in the history of the United States. But we were not defeated, and far from it. We had amassed a wealth of intangible assets, intellectual property, valuable and trusted relationships, and a library of unique and proprietary genetics that gave us a massive leg-up into a 2021 action plan and alliance that we could not be more proud of.
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Dr. Trent Jones was in his practice one evening just before Christmas of 2013 when he received a call from a grandmother of a 7 year old child named, Noah. Noah suffered from a terrible disease called Dravet’s syndrome. One of Dravet’s leading consequences is chronic inflammation throughout the brain, specifically in the microglial cells. This inflammation leads to relentless epileptic seizures ranging from petit mal to grand mal seizures. The slightest changes in light, temperature, or immunity can cause a seizure; thus, making these children some of the most fragile humans on the planet. Noah averaged about 50 seizures per day and he was getting worse. Even though this little boy was receiving the finest allopathic care available, he could not talk or walk; he could not get out of his bed and required constant assistance. Noah was taking multiple “off label” epilepsy and neural suppressant prescriptions and he was literally dying from the relentless, chronic inflammatory patterns in his brain.
Lola did not know Dr. Jones, but she did know that Dr. Jones had been growing fish, plant foods and natural plant medicines via aquaponics for decades in Indiana. At the time, hemp derived CBD was emerging in the news media as a possible way to slow or stop catastrophic seizures. So, as longshot, Lola called Dr. Jones to ask him if he could grow hemp and CBD for Noah. After hearing Grandma Lola’s story about Noah and their family, Dr. Jones, who cared for more than 20,000 patients throughout the of his Chiropractic career, decided to retire from his Indiana practice in order to pursue the promise of helping Lola’s grandson, Noah.
His new mission and life’s work was dedicated to helping Noah, his family, and many others like them, to overcome this terrible disease. By February of 2014, the USDA Farm Bill fully legalized Industrial Hemp research and development. California was the only state that had local, state and federal legal hemp laws on the books. So, Dr. Jones began his journey by buying an off-grid property in the raw, mysterious and very sparse California Mojave Desert. The Mojave is a vast and very inhospitable place that would offer him seclusion and security from the potential dangers of cannabis (marijuana) cultivation. Dr. Jones ended up living on this property for over 2 and ½ years off-grid, without any running water or electricity.
There were several concerning issues at the time. Law enforcement did not know the difference between hemp and medical marijuana or cannabis. Industrial Hemp had to be under 0.3% THC content by weight, and developing plants that were that low in THC, while much higher in CBD would be very difficult to achieve. The current scientific literature suggested that it could take up five to ten years to selectively breed the THC out of the marijuana plants that exhibited naturally high levels of CBD.
When Jones drove from Indiana to California Mojave, he trailered a considerable amount of the same fish and pea gravel that he used in Indiana aquaponics farms so he could replicate his aquaponic farm designs in the California Mojave Desert. Initially, Jones built 4 aquaponic beds on this new farm. Without reservation, California is known for growing some of the finest Cannabis plants in the world. However, at that time, there weren’t any Industrial Hemp plants that were high in CBD and below 0.3% THC in the entire United States. So, Dr. Jones purchased various California grown Cannabis plant chemovars (varieties) that were high in CBD, but low in THC, and planted them in his new aquaponic beds in the California Mojave.
What happened next was what at first seemed like nothing short of a disaster, but as his often quoted parable of the Taoist farmer story proves, it was the blessing of a lifetime.
Sometimes ignorance is bliss. During the month of March 2014, Dr. Jones was ready to grow plants. He did not have any experience growing hemp or cannabis, nor did he have any experience growing plants in the very intense Mojave Desert. Within 24 hours of planting, the very small, green cannabis plants had been sunburned and scalded so badly that the leaves had become white. After a week of various efforts to save these plants in their new Mojave aquaponic beds, all of these plants finally died. Not knowing what would happen to the now “dead” plants, Jones left them in place within the grow bed. After another week or so, these “dead” plants began sending up new cannabis plants! Somehow the roots survived the sun’s intense assault upon the leaves, stems and stalk, and sent up another plant that had genetically mutated into a high CBD Industrial Hemp plant that did not exceed 0.3% THC content.
Upon further investigation, Dr. Jones learned that these plants had genetically mutated in order to survive by dropping out the THC, and producing only CBD. Out of good faith and pure grace, Nature created and gave Dr. Jones and his Team a new Industrial Hemp strain that is named “Noah”. The chemistry of the “Noah’ Hemp was immediately verified by several independent cannabis and hemp testing laboratories.
In the Mojave Desert, Dr. Jones learned how to properly extract the oils from these plants, formulating various tinctures that were given to Noah. Within a few days, Noah’s seizure count went from about 50 per day down to 1 or 2 per day, and within a month or two, Noah’s seizure rate was down to 1 or 2 seizures per month. Not long after this milestone, Noah and his Family felt well enough to visit Walt Disney World in Florida!
It’s safe to say that this event was validating Jones' purpose, with each sequential month unearthing more and more opportunity to help people with a wide range of symptoms and chronic diseases, and expand the scope of his impact.
Another year had passed, and Jones learned how to recreate his mutation with plants that exhibited higher variability and diversity of biochemical compounds that are reputed to correlate to specific effects, target specific symptoms, and can collectively offer a more effective product when extracted as a whole plant. Removing THC from the plant was only the beginning, and adding individual variables that collectively form what we refer to as “the orchestra” became the subject of his research within his genetics program.
That year, the plants at his remote farm were destroyed by local police, and Jones was arrested, under suspicion of marijuana production without proper legal due diligence. Through a relationship he had made with a potential university research partner over the course of that year, his story made its way to a local district attorney, who testified on Jones behalf. After troubling and traumatic destruction of (most) of his plants, he relocated his farm to a new county, rebuilt, and pushed forward with his mission.
In anticipation of the 2018 farm bill, which legalized the production of industrial hemp, Jones had prepared nearly 30 million seeds on this farm. Partnering with local farmers just south of Bakersfield, CA, Jones successfully farmed a pilot of three acres with exceptional yields, which quickly transitioned into the first industrial scale hemp farm in the state of California since prohibition.
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In 2014, when the USDA began clearing a way for the American Farmer to legally grow hemp, the DEA continued to protect its “legal territory” regarding Industrial Hemp. Even though, hemp is genetically separate and apart from marijuana or now called cannabis, the DEA falsely claimed that hemp and marijuana are the same and that Hemp will be a vehicle to sell cannabis. Thankfully Senator Mitch McConnell had the DEA Commissioner removed in 2015 for a more progressive DEA Commissioner, so the DEA openly rescinded its position against Industrial Hemp in 2016, admitting in writing that the USDA superseded the DEA in all matters regarding Industrial Hemp. However, under the Trump Administration and Attorney General Barr, the DEA raised its ugly head again, stating in its 2019/2020 Interim Final Rules against hemp that any extraction of legal hemp biomass would become a felony as soon as the THC content exceeded 0.3% THC. We suspect the DEA will now back down against Industrial Hemp since the U.S. now has President Biden managing all things hemp and cannabis, and without Attorney General Barr.
The most devastating activity against the U.S. Industrial Hemp market has been the FDA’s low key, pernicious attack against Hemp derived CBD. The FDA has far more money than the USDA. The American Farmer cannot outspend the Health Insurance and Pharmaceutical Industry. So far, the FDA has only approved ONE cannabis-derived drug. This drug is owned and manufactured by a joint venture company that is held by GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Eli Lilly, Bayer and Monsanto. Will the American Farmer ever be able to “out lobby” Big Pharma, Big Ag and the Insurance Industry? No. Thus, all markets for the U.S. Industrial Hemp industry have been muted. When the Drug Industry is ready to sell CBD and other Hemp derived cannabinoids, then the FDA will approve hemp derived CBD as a “food ingredient”, then hemp will have an open sales market in the U.S. worth billions.
Canada is a completely different story. Canada is not beholden to the drug companies, and Canada sees good science-based cannabis and hemp production as a tax revenue generator that can help millions of Canadians, as well as the billions of other humans and animals that will purchase Canadian made cannabis and hemp products. This is pure genius on Canada’s part, as the Canadians are managing their decisions with objective, qualified data, instead of who can pay the political lobbyists the most money.
So, as the regulatory market in the United States dwarfed the dreams of a fruitful Industrial Hemp regulatory and business climate, Apothio looked abroad for a business friendly environment fit for scalable international export markets that would allow us to see out our vision for a “genetics first” approach to whole plant hemp extracts that address specific symptoms.
This journey starts with patenting our unique library of proprietary genetics, which will be done at the DNA Lab of the Innovation Center for Advanced Manufacturing and Prototyping in Ontario, Canada.
These novel cultivars will be grown in off-grid indoor modular farms developed by EnerDynamic Hybrid Technologies, allowing us to eliminate the variability in biochemical outcomes that would otherwise be associated with farming outdoors. Hemp is a highly adaptive plant, whose chemical signatures are an epigenetic blueprint that reflects the soil type and seasonal weather patterns.
Without standardizing the “nurture” variable behind our cultivation program, the “nature” of the plant will never yield the same results. Our ability to standardize the biochemical outcomes of our production unlocks a massive opportunity for us to pioneer whole plant extracts.
Without these preliminary steps, the end result of our cultivation efforts are akin to a vintage, which cannot be replicated. This creates an environment in which isolated cannabinoids are our only option towards standardization, which compromises the integrity and effectiveness of the final product. Our cultivation pilot of 30,000 square feet of indoor growing facilities will become the blueprint for infinitely scalable cultivation of whole plant extract with standardized outcomes, anywhere in the world.
2021 will be the first year of cultivation of our patented novel varieties of industrial hemp in standardized shipping containers, which will allow us to begin clinical trials for opiate replacement therapy, and a wide variety of other symptoms. This massive milestone will enable us to make claims on the consumer, pharmaceutical, and nutraceutical products that our we, and our partner brands, will be able to make. Without the ability to do this, the entire industry is stuck attempting to sell a product that is reputed to do something , without being able to tell the consumer actually know what it does due to regulatory restrictions. It leaves the industry selling a one size fits all solution, in a consumer that demands a product this is customized to their needs.
The Canadian market has been incredibly welcoming to the Apothio team, we could not be more excited to take our next step into actualizing this vision, and believe that we have put together a world class team to make it happen.
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