Rio Rancho company produces CBD meds
Family uses cannabis crystals in products
With no website or advertising budget, one Rio Rancho home business is thriving with only a phone number and a few customer referrals.
Simple CBD (cannabidiol) Solution, which is in its second year of business, is the brainchild of Irene Leaton, her son William Mora and her husband, local business owner Manuel Rascon.
This home business became a reality after Leaton and Rascon found themselves making multiple trips to the doctor’s office and became concerned about the side effects they were experiencing after countless years of ingesting manufactured drugs.
“Manuel was on arthritis medicine and was constantly going to the doctor’s office or visiting the emergency room for migraines,” Leaton said. “A neurologist suggested one day that we take him off of all the medicine he was taking altogether and put him on cannabis.”
Leaton said Rascon didn’t want the high from THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), the ingredient in cannabis that causes euphoria and mild hallucinations, to interfere with his work.
“We quickly learned about CBDs (cannabidiols) as an alternative which contains 40 percent of the cannabis plant’s extract without the high that THC would otherwise give a user,” Leaton said.
With both Leaton and Rascon taking the oils for their pain daily, she said the cost was like an expensive monthly bill.
“So we started researching what it would take to make the lotion from scratch here at home,” Leaton said.
Mora said he found a distributor in California that would supply CBD crystals that contained the most potency for the most economical price.
“Everything we make, from our lotions to our caramels, are made from the crystal concentrate,” Mora said. “We make the products here in house with natural additive ingredients that can be found at any local Sprouts.”
Mora added that each product he and his mother produce is free of artificial preservatives and dyes.
There is no license required for manufacturing CBDs in-house, he said, because no THC is involved.
“We don’t touch any cannabis plants, so that means that we don’t need any license to create our products,” Mora said.
Many of the recipes Leaton uses come from years of traditional holistic medicine known in some native New Mexican communities as curanderismo or natural healing.
“We pair natural oils that are known to help with certain ailments in different ways that have been proven over generations,” Leaton said. “Our product has been two years in the making with a lot of testing and development ... some failures and some victories.”
As for the stigma many people have with CBD oils coming from marijuana, Leaton said it comes down to education.
“Just like any prescription drug, education is a big factor,” Leaton said. “You are not going to take a drug from your doctor that you don’t know anything about.”
Leaton said CBDs will not show on a drug test and no matter how much one person takes, it is impossible to overdose. The only side effect, she said, is drowsiness or extreme relaxation.
“Our clients know the difference between THC and CBD, and they know what they are buying and what to expect,” Leaton said.
For more information on Simple CBD Solution, call 800-9243.