CYPRESS HEMP One CBD Company's Quest for Wellness for Louisianians is Personal By Abby Meaux Conques
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risty Hebert of Cypress Hemp out of Baton Rouge, Louisiana is the true definition of a survivor. In 2012 as a LSU freshman, she survived a drunk driver rolling over her seven times in attempts to flee, shattering her pelvis. “I spent six months recovering in a rehab hospital and figured out I had a chemical sensitivity to opioids. It got to the point where they were going to implement a feeding tube for me and I simply refused to keep going down that road.“ Hebert began to look into alternative therapies to help with her physical condition, recovery, and mental anxiety/PTSD that she experienced from her horrific accident; it was then that she discovered CBD. “This was before the time where CBD use was widely accepted. I faced a lot of negative backlash when I was in the rehab hospital. People told me that I should just do what the doctor said I should do. But I was just really getting sick on opioids and they weren’t helping any of my mental anxieties. What attracted me the most to CBD besides the therapeutic effects was that there was no chance of abuse, addiction, or overdose,” Hebert explained.
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“After I was able to recover, I had even more of a drive to obtain my formal education in agriculture and biomechanical engineering. Upon graduation I moved to Kentucky, which at the time, was the epicenter for hemp production,” Hebert said. While in Kentucky, Hebert worked For various companies that had ties to the wonderful world of hemp. She worked as an engineer in food processing at Victory Hemp Foods and also researched the efficiency of Hempcrete in the construction industry. “My eyes were really opened when I worked doing lab testing for CBD products. There were companies selling products that weren’t consistent with what they were labeled as containing,” Hebert said. Hebert had been ingesting CBD oil for years and began to question if what she was putting in her body daily was really what was written on the label. “It wasn’t uncommon to find products that were labeled CBD that weren’t anything more than a bottle full of vitamin E, or worse, just loaded with heavy metals!” she explained. “That's when I knew there had to be more regulation in this industry and more transparency. I had to do something to help that happen,” she said. L OU ISIA N A H EM P M A GA ZIN E
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