Cynthia Cabrera of the Texas Hemp Business Council exposes federal and state attacks on hemp-derived products, like Mitch McConnell’s 2025 legislation capping THC at 0.4mg/serving, effectively banning full-spectrum alternatives. Texas’s lieutenant governor pushed three failed bans in 2025, including hemp seeds, while doctors remain prohibited from recommending CBD despite its proven benefits—like veteran Dave’s reduction from 14 opioids daily to just two after using Delta-8. Brighteon’s AI research engine, brightanswers.ai, with 240K+ science papers, offers uncensored verification against misinformation campaigns. Health freedom, she argues, mirrors revolutionary grievances, requiring resistance to pharmaceutical lobbying and nanny-state regulations through education and direct action—supporting lab-tested hemp products and rejecting flawed medical systems. [Automatically generated summary]
Seems like our government is always trying to prevent people from taking care of themselves.
True.
And I tell people, don't take my word for it.
Go do your own research.
Go figure it out, but read past the headline because there is a definite effort out there to keep Americans from having access to natural medicine and making their own decisions.
The entire medical establishment and doctors, the way they're trained in medical school and the way their licenses are enforced by the Texas Medical Board, prohibits them from recommending CBD or CBDA or THC, even when it might be the perfect thing for a patient.
Welcome to today's interview here on Brighteon.com.
We've got a really special guest who's fighting for your health freedom access to natural medicine.
And as you know, as I'm the health ranger, I've been fighting for your access to nutrition, natural supplements, everything from homeopathy and natural remedies and powerful medicine for over 25 years now.
And, you know, it's an ongoing battle because the FDA doesn't want you to have access to it.
And now, with the Republicans in charge in the Trump administration, they're attacking hemp, you know, of course, to protect big pharma who are the big donors to Trump's campaign and all that.
So joining us today is Cynthia Cabrera, and she is the founder of the Texas Hemp Business Council.
She's also got a company called Hometown Hero that we'll talk about here in a little bit.
She's fighting for your freedom to access hemp, including THC variants as well.
So welcome, Cynthia.
It's an honor to have you on the show today.
Thank you so much for having me.
It's great to have you here.
So this is the first time that we've had you as a guest, and we reached out to you, you know, because I saw some of your tweets and said, yes, yes, we have someone fighting here in Texas for our right to access natural medicine.
So can you introduce yourself to our audience and what you're all about and why you're doing this?
Sure.
So I am the chief strategy officer for Hometown Hero, which is an Austin-based company, and I am the president of the Texas Hemp Business Council.
And without getting into a lot of detail, Hometown Hero hasn't sued the state of Texas years ago to be able to sell hemp products because they tried to unilaterally just ban them.
And so we have a lawsuit with the state that has allowed everyone in the state to access these products all this time.
And that's kind of like our driving force there.
Okay, now let me just show your website too, because I want to give our audience a look.
So you're talking about not smoking.
You don't sell smoking products.
You sell supplements or oral products.
Is that correct?
Consumables.
Consumables.
Just so you can help set the context, tell us a little bit about what Hometown Hero actually offers in terms of the product line.
So Hometown Hero is a veteran-owned company.
The founder is a veteran, and all of us are in the company.
And we all support this mission of making sure that people have access.
We believe in freedom.
We believe in people's ability to choose for themselves.
And Hometown Hero offers products that people can use however they see fit.
So I, for example, if I go a few nights where I don't have good sleep, I will try a gummy.
I'll have a gummy to help me relax and that kind of thing.
But ultimately, it comes down to people's ability to decide for themselves what they can have.
Right.
Yeah, we completely support that.
That's what freedom is supposed to be all about.
And, you know, here we are in a country right now that where the administration is at war with all varieties of hemp and they've made no distinction between the oral supplements, the gummies, or even just CBD or CBDA.
And I know many people who use CBDA as an anti-seizure supplement, by the way, it's very effective for many people.
And also pain control, anti-inflammatory things like that.
But there's no distinction in the administration.
They just say all hemp is bad and all hemp needs to be completely outlawed.
What's wrong with that grouping all in the same basket in your view?
Well, the initial problem is that you eliminate choice and options from the market.
And I will tell you that having been involved in this fight for many years, there are several interests, meaning industries, that do not want to see the natural products category expanded through hemp.
It does not serve them.
It doesn't make them money.
They want a captured audience.
And that goes all the way from alcohol, pharma to actually marijuana companies, all looking to get rid of this alternative.
So that's interesting.
You mentioned Big Pharma.
That's an obvious one for our audience.
They understand Big Pharma, you know, wants monopoly control over everything.
But alcohol, the alcohol industry, that's a surprise to me.
So why is that?
Because they think that if people have access to hemp, it might reduce alcohol sales.
Alcohol sales are already in the decline, excuse me, are already declining.
And I think last year, 2025, alcohol sales were down 13% from the year before.
And there are a variety of reasons for that, right?
It's because young people are drinking less.
It's because people have just woken up to the fact that alcohol is toxic and they don't want to put that into their bodies.
So hemp has become a target because there are hemp drinks, hemp-derived THC drinks that have become extremely popular.
And so the old established guys, you know, in the alcohol industry would rather see the entire industry go away than generally get on board with a new product that they don't control.
So it sounds like you're describing gangsters defending their territory, really.
That's what it feels like to be on the receiving end of it.
I would imagine.
I would imagine.
And hemp is still listed federally as a Schedule I substance, isn't it?
No, no.
So in 2018, President Trump signed the 2018 farm bill, which exempted hemp below 0.3% Delta 9 THC from Schedule I.
So what this latest legislation that happened in Congress, November, I think it was, where they passed what was essentially a ban bill, what they did was redefine what hemp was.
And that was that effort was led by Mitch McConnell from Kentucky, the bourbon state.
Yeah.
Well, Mitch McConnell is not our favorite senator, that's for sure.
Is he even, isn't he retiring at this point?
You know, I've heard that for so long, but yet he's still there.
It's bizarre.
Yeah.
His nickname is the turtle, by the way, for those watching.
And if you look at him, you'll understand why.
Seems like he could actually use a little CBD because he really could.
I tell you what, there are so many prohibitionists that really could use this.
And I'll tell you, last year, 2025 in Texas, we had a really vicious legislative fight because the lieutenant governor was looking to get rid of, he just wanted to eradicate this industry entirely.
There was a beverage carve-out for a minute there that would have benefited a small number of companies and the alcohol industry, but that didn't go through.
Thankfully, Governor Abbott vetoed the ban that the lieutenant governor pushed through in the first regular session.
There were, I think, three sessions in 2025.
One was the regular and then two special sessions.
And he tried it every subsequent session.
But the governor issued a veto.
And so we live to fight another day.
But there are so many people who would benefit from using these products.
We have a lobbyist whose wife has terminal cancer and she depends entirely on these products.
I mean, she gets medical treatments, you know, traditional stuff, but she wouldn't make it without having these options available to her.
And why does anybody get to take that away from someone?
Well, this is also part of my argument.
If I were to speak to the legislature in Texas, I would say simply, look, if you want to reduce state expenditures on healthcare costs, including in your pensions, including in state-funded Medicaid programs, et cetera, you need to allow people to have access to these things that can help them.
It can help with their symptoms.
It can help them self-care better because they have more access to a wider assortment of products.
And we're not talking about, you know, opening like pot smoke shops on every street corner in Austin, although that might actually fit Austin, who knows?
But that's not what you're talking about.
You're talking about, hey, just let everybody in Texas have access to these natural molecules that frankly were, you know, they're here.
They're put here by our creator in all the plants that we call a weed because it's so widespread.
Isn't that a kind of a message that this is medicine for all the people?
Well, what's interesting is that, you know, this legislature, the Texas legislature, calls itself a conservative legislature, but it literally is the opposite of a conservative legislature because conservatism implies small government, independence, accountability, people being able to make their own decisions.
And Texas, this whole hemp battle was literally fighting a nanny state.
And again, thank goodness for Governor Abbott.
But I talked to a legislator last session who was on one of the committees that would be deciding the fate of the hemp industry.
And we had a very good conversation.
And at one point, he said to me, Well, he said, What you're saying is that people should be allowed to self-medicate.
And I said, You self-medicate every time you take a Tylenol or an aspirin.
And he said, Well, that is an excellent point, young lady.
Well, and also, did you point out to him that acetaminophen causes extreme liver damage and thousands of deaths every year?
And that's over the counter.
You can buy it at Walmart.
You can buy it anywhere.
Governor DeSantis in Florida had a study commission.
I think he had a study commission, but it came out the other day that candy on the market has, I think, 100 times the level of arsenic that it's supposed to.
Some of it does, yeah.
Yeah, it's insane.
And so you're going to come after this thing.
And the interesting part is that Texas, and I have to give the state of Texas credit for this, in 2019, when they passed their hemp regulations, there were good comprehensive regulations.
The only thing they forgot to do is to put in an age gate if needed.
And I don't think you need an age gate for CBD or CBDA or that kind of thing.
But that was all that was missing.
And they mounted a campaign to make people think that if you took a gummy, you were going to die tomorrow.
There's never been a recorded death.
There's, you know, adverse injuries.
If you look at adverse reportings, there are more adverse injuries from toothpaste and Tide Pods than from hemp products.
Yeah, that's right.
CBD extracts are incredibly safe.
And in fact, you know, I use them.
I use CBDA in particular.
I like a high CBDA extract from hemp.
But also, you know, I'm in the nutrition industry and people love hemp seeds because of the natural oils that they contain.
And also hemp seed protein is very popular among vegetarians who don't want animal protein options, right?
So is this new attempted crackdown, wouldn't this also outlaw hemp seeds?
If the lieutenant governor had been successful in his effort to ban the industry, yes, it would have affected hemp seeds.
It would have affected the most basic hemp item.
I mean, Heb wouldn't have been able to sell anything.
That's crazy because now they're banning food.
Yeah.
You know, or they would have.
Yes, that's exactly right.
And it was this one big broad stroke approach.
And, you know, the worst part about it was the prohibitionist mindset.
And I don't know if you saw the press conference.
A lot of people did see it, but the lieutenant governor had a press conference at some point last year.
And a reporter said to him, well, he was going on about how he didn't want children to have these products.
And a reporter said, well, what about adults?
And he said, I don't want anybody to have it.
So you have one person who's got this dogmatic prohibitionist approach that affects millions of people.
How is that even possible?
Yeah, you know, and I would even point out that, you know, getting back to our Cedimenophen comparison, right now you can go to any grocery store in Texas and you can buy bacon that's laced with cancer-causing sodium nitrite.
And that's perfectly legal.
And yet the state says that it's up to each individual to assess the safety or risk of the foods they purchase or the supplements they purchase.
Except in the case of hemp, they want to be the nanny state, like you said.
They want to step in and say, no soup for you.
You know, that's not acceptable for me.
Yeah.
And you have to ask yourself, why?
Why so dug in?
So we had a regular session.
The governor banned, I'm sorry, the governor vetoed the ban.
Then we had another special session where the lieutenant governor tried to introduce a ban again.
And then there was a second special session where the lieutenant governor tried again.
And you have to ask yourself, what is the motivation here?
Yeah, what is it?
What is it?
I'm baffled by that question too.
Where is it coming from?
Exactly.
We have no idea.
I mean, you cannot absolutely, I mean, the lieutenant governor used to own bars.
You know, he's not unfamiliar with the alcohol industry.
The alcohol industry is responsible for tens of thousands of deaths every year, cirrhosis, liver damage, all kinds of things.
That doesn't happen with hemp, but if you go into a legislator's office, more often than not, they've got a bottle of booze in a drawer somewhere.
Well, that's just so they can make it through the legislative day.
I don't blame them for drinking.
So how much of your effort actually comes down to just educating legislators on the basic facts?
Because it seems like they're coming from a place where they really don't know much about hemp often.
You know, it's a difficult position to be in because education is probably the biggest thing that we have to do.
But there are many legislators who will just go along with whatever their lieutenant governor says to do without reading through the material or without paying attention to it.
Somebody commented to me that they were at a conference recently and there were two or three Texas legislators who said that they had no idea how big the industry was and they really supported it and everything, but they had to vote for a ban because the lieutenant governor made them.
Action Needed00:06:33
And it's like, how is this?
How are you serving your constituents by bowing down to someone?
Where's your integrity?
Where's your backbone?
Yeah, yeah.
No kidding.
And also, this is my guess, but you correct me if I'm wrong.
I think there's a perception among lawmakers in Texas that hemp is only supported by people on the political left.
And I would say to them, absolutely not.
That in fact, the MAGA base of Trump supporters, which I once was a strong Trump supporter, I have a lot of issues with what he's doing right now.
But even as roughly a conservative myself in terms of economics and so on, I am 100% in favor of health freedom and health choice.
And that includes natural medicine.
And we learned this in COVID, that the state is not good at making decisions that are in the best interest of people.
It comes down to health freedom.
So I think this is an issue that resonates with the left and the right and frankly, everybody.
It absolutely does.
And I'll tell you that during the legislative session and in Washington, D.C. as well, congressional staffers will tell you that they use the products and they cannot believe that this has happened.
And I mean, it happened here in Texas.
It happened in Congress.
And so you have legislators who are completely out of touch with what American voters want.
There have been several surveys that have been done of Republican and conservative voters, and none of them want a ban.
The overwhelming majority do not want a ban.
And so it's an interesting approach that you can use cilantro at home, which has medicinal value.
You know, some people use it for stomachache or chamomile or something like that.
But you get the hemp plant.
And one legislator said to me that what I did, he said, what you don't understand is that we don't want anybody to feel good.
Well, that's clear.
Yes.
And I was like, but why is it your decision?
Who gets to feel good?
Well, but obviously I would even push back on what they said because we have a massive industry of psychiatric drugs that directly alter brain chemistry.
And I would say dangerously so.
And, you know, we have school shootings of all the kids that are on these psychotropics, psychiatrics, and antidepressants, which, again, in my view, can be very, very dangerous for society.
And yet, I don't know of any case, maybe it's happened, but I don't know of any case of anybody that takes CBD or CBDA or THC gummies and runs around shooting up a school.
Like, I don't think that's happened.
It does not happen.
And I will tell you that the lieutenant governor was digging deep, trying to find stories about things that had happened or not happened that did not happen.
There was a woman whose son apparently was hit by a train.
And he used that kid.
I don't remember his name.
I'd have to look it up.
But he used that kid as an example of how you could just become completely psychotic.
That woman called me.
She found our information and she got in touch with me.
And I talked to her for three hours on the phone one day.
And she said, my son is being used as a prop.
That is not what happened.
And her son had had a history of mental illness.
He had had a history of using other drugs.
And she was appalled that they were using her son as a prop.
And it just like the depths people will sink to to try to be right is really amazing.
Yeah, well, that's for sure.
So they were using her son to try to discredit the hemp industry.
Correct.
Wow.
Wow.
Okay.
So let's, you know, our audience is both national and international.
And you represent the Texas Hemp Business Council.
We have lots of listeners in Texas.
So I'd like to ask you for an action item recommendation.
First, what can Texas residents do to help your efforts to keep hemp free in Texas?
And then secondly, what can people outside of Texas do to learn from your experience or learn from your business council so that they can help restore freedom of hemp access in their own states?
Well, the first thing is we're not done fighting and people need to remember that.
And I know that people get fatigued and they like to think that, you know, the session is over, so we're done.
We're not done.
It's not done.
It's not over until it's over.
And so for people in Texas, I would say this is a non-session year, but something called interim charges will be issued by the lieutenant governor, which is the things he wants to focus on in the next legislative session, right?
So what he wants the Senate to focus on.
People need to contact their legislators and let them know that they do not want their legislators supporting a ban of any kind.
Texas has had regulations since 2019 and the governor issued an executive order asking for additional regulations.
People need to tell their legislators they do not want a nanny state and they do not want a ban.
Outside of Texas, folks need to be focused on Congress.
In November, Mitch McConnell pushed through a bill in the continuing resolution that would have, that funded the government reopening the government.
He pushed through language and Rand Paul tried to get it struck out and was unsuccessful.
But Mitch McConnell pushed through language that essentially amounts to a ban with a one-year runway when it was passed.
So people need to contact their legislators outside of Texas also, their federal legislators, and let them know that they do not support this.
They want an extension.
They want regulation.
They do not support this.
And you can go online and you can find who represents you.
You can go on the THBC website, which is TexasHempBusinessCouncil.com, or you can go to who represents me and it will tell you who your representatives are.
Okay, so you've got like a lookup right there on your site.
Okay, is that what do I click on there?
Federal Action Center or for legislators.
I can look it up.
Take action.
Here's a take action button on the top right.
That's probably it.
Okay.
Opioid Alternatives Limitations00:15:26
All right.
So that's great.
Now, so let me ask you a question about demographics then also, because my perception, and again, please correct me if I'm wrong.
My perception is that most of the resistance against hemp gummies or hemp oral products comes from people who are on the older side.
You know, like, let's say, well, yeah, again, let me finish, but then you can correct me if I'm wrong.
But that most of the younger generations support access to hemp.
Am I wrong about that?
No, you're not wrong about it, but it comes down to education.
And I will tell you that as part of us lobbying for a veto, one of the things that we did in addition to gathering over 150,000 electronic petition signatures was we did a handwritten campaign.
So handwritten letters that went to the governor and we collected about 10,000 of them.
And between myself and a couple of volunteers, we read every single letter before we packed them up and shipped them off to the governor's office.
And I can tell you that overwhelmingly, these were grown-ups.
I mean, it was things like, it were things like, I'm 71 years old and I use these to sleep.
I'm a 58-year-old veteran and I need this for back pain, you know, that I got during combat.
There were so many older, and you could always tell, it was so funny.
You could tell who were the older people because their handwriting was so much neater.
True.
Yeah.
They grew up in an era without keyboards.
Yeah.
Yes.
Yes.
And so, but I was surprised.
And I would say that probably 60 to 70% of those letters were from older people.
It was remarkable.
Well, that's really interesting.
Yeah.
And at Hometown Hero, our customer base skews 35 and over.
Yeah, that's that's interesting.
I want to ask you also about some of your products, but I can definitely see a lot of veterans using these products, you know, because of injuries, because of inflammation, you know, all kinds of pain issues.
And not just from combat, but just from living.
Yeah, life.
Life will do it to you.
Right.
Life will do it to you.
But I'm curious.
So on your website, Hometown Hero, do you currently sell then THC containing products, right?
I think that's what you do.
And you sell those in the state of Texas, correct?
Yes.
And so how is, I'm just curious because I'm in the supplements industry and we've never touched anything that's got THC in it over the 0.3% because that's just not our focus.
But we have, you know, affiliated with CBD providers, et cetera.
But how is it that you are able to sell THC products in Texas in this current environment?
Because according to Texas state law and according to federal law, as long as we sell products that are below 0.3% Delta 9 THC, we are in compliance.
And so all of our products are below 0.3% Delta 9 THC.
Oh, I see.
Okay.
Okay.
So you send them off to a lab for analysis.
You make sure that's below 0.3.
Correct.
Everything, well, first of all, we test about six different times throughout the manufacturing process, but state law also requires that you test the products.
Got it.
All right.
No problem.
I'm very familiar with that.
I've actually published a paper on quantitation of cannabinoids using MassSpec.
I run a food science lab.
So that's great.
But are you trying to target like 2.8% THC to make sure they have some, but I'm sorry, 0.28% or something like that?
Yes, we will not go over the limit, but we try to get as close to the 0.3%.
I mean, you know that there's an entourage effect.
And so we're trying to not leave anything out, but we're trying to stay, but we stay compliant as well.
So this number, and I'm sorry to get technical, but the 0.3%, that is the number, that's the limit of the total product.
So like a finished gummy can only be 0.3% THC.
Delta-9 THC.
Delta 9.
What about Delta 8 and the others?
Those aren't.
So Delta 8 exists in trace amounts.
And there was a time when Delta 8 was pretty popular, not so much anymore when people discovered how to more effectively extract Delta 9.
I see.
But it accounts for, and there are some states that have a total THC requirement.
And so you have to include, you have to calculate for all THCs, but that's not how Texas or the federal government is.
I see.
Okay.
Yeah.
And you're right.
Delta 9 is the predominant molecule there.
So then if a person just wants to have more THC, they just eat more gummies, correct?
Well, yes.
And this is an interesting thing.
You know, a lot of legislators who were uninformed on the subject to begin with would go down the road of talking about, well, you know, 10 milligrams is too much for a person.
Well, you don't actually know that because I'm sure that you know this, Mike.
The human body has an endocannabinoid system that is actually built with cannabinoid receptors and every person is different.
So to say that I'm a lightweight, for example, I am a total lightweight, but I know veterans who do 25, 50 milligrams a day.
I was with an attorney the other day who said she does about 100 milligrams a day.
There's a guy in my office who does 100 milligrams a night to sleep and he wakes up the next.
I mean, that would be too much for me.
That would be like me drinking, you know, two six packs or something like that.
It's not the same equivalency.
But the point is that when you talk about putting a limit on the milligrams per serving, what you're saying is I'm going to make this product more expensive for the consumer because if they need more, they're going to have to purchase more.
That's good for us because we sell more product, but it's actually a disadvantage for the consumer, which is of concern.
Yeah, exactly.
So, how many milligrams are there in one of your gummies?
I'm curious.
The best seller is 25 milligrams per gummy.
That's per gummy.
Okay.
And then you sell like a pack of gummies.
There'll be like 10 in a pack.
Okay, got it.
Got it.
And so here's another question.
Are you able to sell outside of the state of Texas to cross state lines?
Oh, sure.
That's the difference.
So everything is the cannabis plant.
That's the botanical term for, you know, when you see the picture of the plant.
That's what it is.
It's the cannabis plant.
The legal distinction between marijuana and hemp is whether it's above or below that 0.3% Delta 9 THC.
So interstate commerce is absolutely allowed as long as you do not go above that threshold.
And again, just to just for my clarity, that threshold was set by the Trump administration in 2019, did you say?
2018, and then in Texas in 2019.
Okay.
And is that number being threatened at the federal level right now, or is that number?
No, go ahead.
Well, yes.
So what the federal government has, what Mitch McConnell did, his language is that he limited the gummies to 0.4 milligrams and made it a total THC, which takes out all the CBDs.
It takes out everything because it won't allow for full spectrum.
Well, that's crazy.
And also that would just force companies like you to make really tiny gummies.
It would, but nobody wants really tiny gummies.
And so what you do is you force people to go underground or in Somali or something to find something that isn't tested, that hasn't been documented.
And why would you want to do that?
And I don't know why our government, for so many, I mean, as long as I've been alive, it seems like our government is always trying to prevent people from taking care of themselves.
True.
Yeah.
Well, you know, you and I both know the health insurance industry is very lucrative.
You know, it's a repeat business model, you know, the hospitals and pharma and all that stuff.
And look, I stay away from that entire system.
I self-medicate all the time.
I mean, you should see like the shelf in front of me.
It's got like a thousand products on it, tinctures and everything you can imagine.
But the average American consumer maybe doesn't have access to all that knowledge yet.
How can people actually learn more about THC, Delta 9, CBDA versus CBD, and what might be efficacious for them?
So I think that people, just as a general starting point, people should research the endocannabinoid system.
Okay.
The endocannabinoid system is a fascinating.
We have a map of it in our office.
So it's like a person's body and then all the different cannabinoid receptors.
If someone has a specific issue, they should look and say, so for example, if they have, you know, mild anxiety or, you know, occasional sleeplessness or something like that, plus CBD, plus THC, they will get a ton of results.
There are a lot of studies out there.
We've got some on the THBC website.
There's information.
We have blogs on the Hometown Hero website.
People can't, There's an expression that says people don't read past the headline.
And that is unfortunate, but true.
And so a lot of consumers get scared off of trying something or researching something because they'll read a crappy headline that, as it turns out, isn't true.
And so I really always encourage people, and I tell people, don't take my word for it.
Go do your own research.
Go figure it out, but read past the headline because there is a definite effort out there to keep Americans from having access to natural medicine and making their own decisions.
Yes, 100%.
And I would add to that that the entire medical establishment and doctors, the way they're trained in medical school and the way their licenses are enforced by the Texas Medical Board, prohibits them from recommending CBD or CBDA or THC, even when it might be the perfect thing for a patient.
You know, doctors can't even recommend really vitamin C.
They could lose their license.
Go ahead.
I'll tell you something funny in Texas.
Texas has a medical marijuana program.
And the medical marijuana program last year only had like two and a half companies in it.
So it's really a state-sponsored monopoly, right?
And one of the things that they did was say, well, you have to get rid of the hemp industry because it's causing financial damage to the marijuana industry.
And so you think, oh, marijuana, these are, you know, more liberal people.
These are people more interested in freedom and that kind of thing.
No.
As a matter of fact, the medical marijuana program in Texas is extremely expensive.
A patient has to pay $100 or $125 per visit to get a refill, not counting what it costs to get their refill.
Wow.
So here is hemp where you can just go online and you can select a hemp-derived product and see whether it works for you or not for $30 or $40.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No kidding.
Okay.
Here's another question for you then.
Gummies.
How well is the hemp actually digested out of the gummy and absorbed by the user of it?
Can you speak to that?
Because me being in the food industry, I've known of sort of different kinds of gummy formulations.
Some of them are better than others at dissolving indigestion.
So what's your approach or your company's approach?
So there are two kinds.
There are some that are fast acting and there are some that are slower acting.
The fast acting ones have smaller molecules and so they pass through quickly.
And you know that depending on what the method of ingestion is.
So if you were to vape something, it would get through much faster than eating a gummy, right?
Because it immediately gets into your bloodstream.
It passes that blood-brain barrier.
I talked to a chemist one time who said to me, if you want an effective drug, he's like, put it in your eyes.
He's like, that's the fastest way to reach blood-brain barrier.
Yeah, like a dropper.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
I mean, obviously, we're not, nobody's going to do that.
But his point was that there are effective ways of getting it and then there are slower ways of getting the effect that you want.
So a lot of people don't vape or don't want to vape or whatever.
It is a harm reduction option.
But for people who use tinctures or a gummy, and actually the fastest acting thing is a nano, like mouth strip, you know, the like the little Listerine things you use to do.
That's like the fastest way of absorbing something is putting it on your tongue.
But some people enjoy the slow onset.
We have a product that has two different kinds of emulsification.
And so it will hit quickly, but it lasts long.
So we took the nano and then we took the long acting one and put them together into one product because customers were asking for that.
So whether you've eaten something, whether you're working out, if your body's taxed, are you hydrated?
All those things will affect how quickly something affects you.
And it's not just products.
It's pretty much anything.
Yeah, that's true.
Yeah, good point.
Okay.
Let me ask you to address, I think, a common misunderstanding.
Some people believe that even at these small doses, that these could be habit-forming.
But I want to point out that the worst habit-forming substances are the opioids prescribed by doctors to treat pain.
And the way I see it is self-medicating with CBD or even THC or CBDA is the alternative to extremely addictive prescription opioids and other substances.
That's my take on it.
But how do you address that question?
Well, I will use veterans for this example.
We deal with a lot of veterans.
They were instrumental in helping us during the legislative session.
And we have one veteran, his name is Dave, super nice guy, who talks about being on a cocktail of opioids for pain and other stuff, you know, PTSD and all this kind of stuff.
And I forget the number of prescriptions that he was on, but let's say it was like 14.
Whoa.
Yeah.
And daily, daily.
I mean, he just, it was like a meal, the number of pills he would take every day.
And his wife discovered Delta 8 products way back when, and he started taking them.
And he's down to like two different prescriptions.
One is for like a chronic back pain.
But these guys have, they don't want to be on opioids.
Everybody knows that opioids are not good for you.
They want an alternative.
Everybody wants an alternative to opioids.
People get addicted to opioids and then it becomes this terrible revolving cycle that they can't get out of.
And two, in all the time I've been doing this, I've yet to meet someone who said they were addicted to gummies.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
I haven't either.
And I would also like to point out that when people are relying on their doctor to prescribe opioids or other prescription painkiller medications, then that doctor becomes their gatekeeper.
And they have to keep going back to the doctor.
Sometimes those are long trips, you know, into the city or wherever to visit your doctor, you know, to wait the appointment time, the travel time.
It's very expensive to take all that time out of your day just to get the prescription.
And then you got to go to the pharmacy.
And then the pharmacy has a three or four hour wait time because everybody's on drugs.
I mean, prescription drugs, right?
So the option to be able to just purchase and self-medicate with your own knowledge, your own decision, your own freedom, that's just, that's just win-win-win all around as far as I'm concerned.
It keeps you in power.
It absolutely does.
I remember my mother recently passed away, but before that, I remember calling her on the phone one day and my mom just sounded loopy.
And my mother was a big believer in the medical establishment.
And, you know, if the doctor said it, well, it must be true kind of thing.
And she was just super loopy.
And so I decided to go over there.
And two different doctors had described her drugs that contraindicated each other.
Oh, wow.
And she had this episode.
It was like she was six years old.
It was unbelievable.
And, you know, I called these doctors and it was like, hey, what are you guys doing?
And nobody wanted to take any responsibility for it.
Nobody wanted to do anything about it.
It was like, oh, well, okay.
Well, is she okay now?
You know, that kind of thing.
And it is just such a lack of accountability.
So there's this lack of accountability.
And then also people are not allowed to make their own choices.
Right.
Right.
And if you have a family member in the hospital and you want to bring something like CBD tincture to them, you actually have to smuggle it in.
Yes, that's exactly right.
Because the hospital staff won't allow it.
That's right.
That's exactly right.
And, you know, we have someone in the office, one of the owners of the company, his sister had leukemia and she's 2026, maybe, 27.
She had this terrible leukemia and they loaded her up with CBD and THC combinations.
And her doctor knew about it and he applauded how much progress she was making.
But that's a rarity.
You know, the doctor was okay with it and said, keep doing it.
It's really, really helping her.
I mean, that's a living, breathing example.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
There are so many success stories of people using various hemp extracts or THC, CBD, CBDA, et cetera.
But they don't have the financial backing of the pharmaceutical industry.
So that's one of the things that you must run up against because every time that you, maybe you meet with a legislator in Texas, when you're going in the office, you know, pharma lobby just came out of the office and they wrote him a check for $20,000.
Third Amendment Health Freedom00:03:21
He wrote a much bigger check than we did, for sure.
So that must be a very difficult situation.
You're up against, you know, pharma is what, I think there's pharma and there's oil, maybe a couple others, but those are the biggest lobbies in the entire system right now.
Absolutely.
That's exactly right.
And I think pharma may be the biggest one of all of them.
Maybe so.
Yeah, it's really fascinating.
You know, you listen to these legislators talk about how terrible pharma is, but then you look at the financial reporting and they've all taken money from them.
You look at Mitch McConnell and this language that he shoved into this funding package.
So essentially, he held Congress hostage.
And, you know, there were very few legislators willing to come out and speak against this language because everybody wanted to get the country funded.
And so people's freedom, the hemp industry, all of that became collateral damage in an effort to get this continuing resolution, which was only for 90 days.
Right.
And so freedom was literally thrown away because people wanted to be able to say they voted to open the country.
And, you know, we as Americans, as humans, we have to ask ourselves, what are our principles?
What are we willing to stand for?
What are we willing to fight for?
Because that's what, and every time they take something away from us, we are that much weaker.
And, you know, I'm sure you're aware of this, but one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, Dr. Benjamin Rush, he recommended another amendment in the Bill of Rights, which would be a health freedom amendment.
So, you know, we have the First Amendment, freedom of speech, we have the Second Amendment, freedom of firearms.
The Third Amendment actually speaks to the British quartering their soldiers in your homes without your permission.
Right.
So I think we should replace the Third Amendment with a health freedom amendment, because I'm not worried about the British sleeping in my home right now.
What I'm worried about is the government taking away my access to natural medicine.
So how about, what do you say?
Let's have a Third Amendment health freedom amendment.
Let's do it.
You have my full support.
We should do this.
Yeah.
But that was shot down at the time, right around 1791, as they were debating this, I guess.
That was shot down because it was considered absurd that the government would dictate what kind of medicine you're allowed to choose.
It's like, we don't need a third amendment like that.
Government's never going to tell you you can't take medicine.
And now everything is impossible until it happens.
I was talking to somebody, it was last July 4th and I forgot what they were going on about.
And I said, listen, I said, we have more regulation in this country, this free country.
We have more regulation than we did when this country revolted and decided to fight.
I said, this country went to war over a three cent tax.
One tax.
And we are taxed to death today.
And it's just death by a thousand cuts.
And every time you give up your medical freedom, you become less and less of a person.
Yeah, absolutely.
Okay.
So look, let me, I apologize for doing this live, but I always, I want to give our audience a benefit.
Kept Awesome, Survived00:04:04
You know, is there any kind of like, could you set up a discount code for our viewers to buy at your site or something?
Is that possible?
Yes.
Yeah.
I will get it done today and we'll do 15% off health and we'll make it Health Ranger will be the code.
Can you make it just Ranger, just the word Ranger?
Ranger.
Yes.
I will write that down.
15% off.
Use the word Ranger.
Awesome.
You're awesome.
Thank you so much.
I didn't mean to just surprise you with that.
But I think many of, I mean, like in my company, we don't sell anything with THC in it.
And some of our audience may really want to try what you offer.
You've got a number of things here.
I just do want to mention, you know, to everybody, be responsible, be cautious, do your research.
And, you know, if you're working with a naturopathic physician, you should probably talk, you know, discuss your plans.
And also, I just want to say to my audience, and thank you for your patience here, Cynthia, you know, no one thing is a magic bullet.
If you have health problems, you might also want to look at your lifestyle.
Like, are you eating processed junk foods?
Are you lacking a level of physical exercise and fitness?
Are you inundated with toxic chemicals and personal care products, things like that?
So always have a holistic view of your health as you are using supplements or potentially these products to help you.
Does that make sense, Cynthia?
Absolutely.
And, you know, it's a lot of work to be responsible for your own health care.
My favorite story is I had an eye doctor that I had been going to for like most of my life, you know, for 12 years or something like that.
And then all of a sudden I started having this eye issue.
And this famous doctor who, you know, graduated med school at 21 or something like that, just could not tell me what was wrong.
And it was just sheer laziness.
And I had to, and I went into a depression for like two or three weeks.
And then I had to pull myself out of it and figure out what was going on.
And as it turns out, it was just terrible doctoring.
It was just a simple, yeah.
And, but literally, she thought I, you know, I thought I was going blind.
She didn't do anything to make me think that I wasn't going blind and was just trying to sell me more glasses or contact lenses or something like that.
But the journey of self-discovery and like taking control of my own health issue, it was a big deal and it was scary.
But I tell you, I'm so much better for it now because I don't, I'm not going to let anybody decide for me anymore.
Yeah, yeah.
We love that attitude.
That's really, that's the only way to survive this system, in my opinion.
I mean, I think we all learned this during COVID, that the establishment has horrible advice, horrible advice.
And also the legislature doesn't know what they're doing when it comes to responding to a health crisis.
The number one thing that you could have done to survive during COVID is to reject everything that the government was telling you.
Yes, I was very grateful to be living in Florida at the time.
And our lives barely changed.
We just kept doing whatever we were doing.
We kept working out, being outside, having barbecues.
It was great.
And nobody got sick.
So.
Yeah, well, I'm the same here in central Texas.
I'm a Texan and our company, which manufactures food products, was considered part of the, what, like the critical infrastructure.
Yeah, essential.
Yeah.
So we never shut down.
We didn't do anything different.
Yeah.
And nobody got sick either.
You know, and then, of course, we're all slamming ivermectin all the time.
So, you know, prescription for pets or whatever, whatever, whatever it takes to actually self-medicate with knowledge and with responsibility.
And so we didn't fall victim.
We didn't end up being a burden on the hospital system.
Yeah, that's exactly right.
And more people should do that.
And I tell people all the time, I'm like, listen, don't take my word for it.
I mean, I'm going to tell you the truth.
I'm not a liar.
I'm going to tell you the truth.
Plug Your AI Engine00:08:15
And go look it up yourself.
I forgot who said trust but verify.
Go verify.
Go look it up.
Take control of, and it's very easy to let somebody else be the boss of you, but it is not in your best interests.
Let me, I'm going to plug your website here again in a second.
But in response to what you just said, let me plug our AI engine.
It's called brightanswers.ai.
That's where you can do the best research.
It's knowledge without censorship.
This is the only AI engine in the world.
It's free that you can use that is well informed on nutrition, natural health.
We've indexed over 240,000 science papers and now 100,000 books are used in formulating the answer.
It's a slower engine because it's deep research, but it's free.
And you can look up everything about CBD, THC, CBDA, hemp, things like that.
And then check out.
Is there a plug-in for it?
Is there a plug-in?
No, but that's something that we could build.
That would be great.
Well, let's talk about that after the show then.
Okay.
You mean like a widget you could put on your website that, yeah, we could build that.
That's very straightforward.
Cool.
All right.
Okay.
We'll talk about that.
And then the Texas Hemp Business Council website is right here.
It's just like it sounds, TexasHempBusinessCouncil.com.
And remember, council is spelled, it ends with C-I-L, in case you're trying to spell it the other way.
And then the website with the products, the THC products is right here, hometownhero.com.
And they're legal.
They're lab tested.
Now, just for the record, I haven't lab tested your products yet, but you have and you have the documentation for it.
Yes.
And maybe in the future, we can test your products, but this is the first time learning of your company.
But discount code Ranger will get people 15% off, correct?
That is correct.
I will make the call after we hang up.
Okay.
And are you, you're located in Texas too, right?
Yes, I moved from South Florida to Texas thinking I was moving to the land of the free.
Yeah.
So are you in the Austin area?
Yes.
Yes.
So you know our office is in South Austin.
Well, then our studio is not that far from you.
Yeah, I wondered why we were doing video.
Yeah, we actually could do this in person.
Perhaps in the future, we'll do that.
But we're both Texans.
We both care about natural health and freedom and, you know, what Texas is supposed to stand for.
Yeah, we need to stick together.
Yeah, for sure.
Well, thank you so much, Cynthia.
Is there anything else you'd like to add as we wrap up the interview today?
No.
If anyone has any questions, they can email info at TexasHempBusiness Council.com or they can email Cynthia at hometownhero.com and happy to answer any questions or direct people to where they need to go.
Okay, that's great.
And I would only say get your team ready for real because when this interview airs, you're going to get slammed with a lot of orders.
I hope so.
Thank you.
It will happen.
So just get ready.
I think I'm going to run this tomorrow, by the way.
I'll let the team know.
Let the team know.
Yeah, they might need a few extra gummies themselves to get through the fulfillment side of this.
All right.
Thank you so much, Cynthia.
Thank you.
I appreciate you.
All right, you too.
Take care.
Bye-bye.
And thank you for watching.
Mike Adams here, the HealthRanger, Brighteon.com.
And remember, you can read articles about all of this at naturalnews.com.
I'm now publishing several articles a day.
And you can use our AI research engine right here at brightanswers.ai.
And then remember, you can also check out all of our free books at, let me bring it up, books.brightlearn.ai.
Right here, we have over 30,000 free books that you can now download and you can create your own books.
And if I type in a search term here, let's just put in THC just in real time.
Let's see what comes up.
Here we go.
Mitochondrial Mastery, the Essential Guide to Rejuvenating Your Cells, the Menacing Medicalization Machine, Unshackling Healthcare, CBD Code, the Cannabinoid Code.
All of these books, if you want to get a better education, they're all available free of charge.
You can download them right now.
And if I put in the word hemp, you know, you're going to get a bunch of books on hemp.
Again, 30,000 books, all completely free.
Wow, sweet alchemy, the science of chocolate.
That goes with hemp.
That's great.
Anyway, you get the idea.
So check it all out.
And thank you for watching today.
And check out all of our other interviews at brighteon.com.
Take care.
Get ready for this Valentine's Day by giving the gift of great nutrition to those you love.
Here at healthrangerstore.com, we've got a special sale for you to get those gifts with some bonus items.
Now, this sale runs February 3rd through February 6th from 11 a.m. Central on the 3rd all the way to 11 a.m. Central on the 6th.
And if you go to healthrangerstore.com slash Valentine's, plural, you know, with the S on it, then you're going to see all of our specials.
Now, we've got a lot of items on sale.
Many of them are on sale for up to 20 or even 30% off in some cases with our third-party vendors.
Got a lot of extra items that are back in stock as well.
And we've got bonuses for you.
So if you purchase $199 or more, you get this collagen stick pack product, which has 14 stick packs in it, all laboratory tested, really outstanding clean ingredients.
You get that free of charge.
That's what you're seeing on the left there.
If you spend $2.99, then you get both that and the chocolate super protein, which is formulated on the Boku protein product line.
That's available for you for free.
Combine, those two are worth $70.
So you're getting quite a bit of value back.
You can use those as gifts or you can use them, enjoy them yourself.
That's up to you.
Some of the items we have on sale include the all-in-one seed kit, 30% off.
Also, the backyard seed kit, great for getting ready for springtime planting and food preparedness.
A lot of products 20% off, including our Omega-6 healing cream.
We've got the Transdermal C Serum and many other items.
We've got 20% off on our Super Protein, our plant-based zinc, our golden flax seed powder, and so much more.
And then at the 15% off level, we've got the 24 karat gold liquid gold nourishing oil from Nahaya, as well as we've got at 10% off, we've got bamboo, three-piece towel sets, bed sheet sets with bamboo cotton, and many other items there that are available.
We've got also 100% organic cotton kitchen towels from Delilah Home.
We've also got all the Bearded Brothers, the yo bars, the yumster, the mini, the cookie dough, chocolate brownie.
Oh my goodness.
We've got almond butter crunch and almond butter jelly bars from regenerative organic certified companies and so much more.
So check it all out at healthrangerstore.com slash valentine's.
In any case, you know that everything that we offer at healthrangerstore.com is laboratory tested.
It's formulated with pristine ingredients.
And also your support of us helps support this platform.
All of our free speech platforms and our free AI platforms that are spreading knowledge and helping to decentralize information away from the central controllers.
So by shopping now, get your Valentine's Day gifts early at healthrangerstore.com slash Valentine's.
Not only are you giving the gift of great nutrition, which is a great way to express love towards others.
Hey, I'd love you to be healthy.
I'd love you to have amazing food.
Love to help boost your nutritional intake.
But also you're helping us create the free tools that help keep you informed.