Hemp's outlook has backers seeing green

By Shelley Widhalm
Source: reporterherald.com


Don't Smoke My Hat owners Kasey Weeks, left, and Jesse Weeks chat about their hemp-based products like such as yarns and handmade hats with Nathan Leite and Steven Silva during the NoCo Hemp Expo on Saturday at The Ranch. (Steve Stoner / Loveland Reporter-Herald)

Justin Petty of Los Angeles isn't too keen on laundry, so he likes to wear his T-shirts for a week.

Petty can wear the shirts multiple times made by the company he co-owns called Recreator Hemp Apparel, because of their material: hemp. Hemp is twice as durable as cotton and is hypo-allergenic and microbial, which prevents the buildup of odor, he said.

"We like to think of hemp as having the performance capacity of synthetics, but it's natural," Petty said.

Recreator Hemp Apparel, a KickStarter project that launched a year ago, imports the fabric from China because of legal issues and then cuts, dyes, sews and prints its line of T-shirts in Los Angeles.

Petty had a display of a few of the shirts at one of the more than 70 booths set up Saturday at The Ranch for the second-annual NoCo Hemp Expo. The first event, held in Windsor, had a turnout of 15 to 20 vendors.

"There's a lot more interest in the industry, and the awareness is increasing," said Morris Beagle with Colorado Hemp Co. and the organizer of the expo. "It's something that farmers want, and there's been hemp advocacy for decades. ... The entire cannabis movement has reached a new level of awareness, and it's bringing everything to light."

Many Uses of Hemp

More than 1,000 people attended the eight-hour hemp expo and trade show, featuring samplings of hemp-made products, artists painting and sketching on hemp canvases, musicians busking and vendors selling hemp food and beer.

There were 40-plus speakers and panelists, including featured speaker Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., who spoke on the Industrial Farming Act of 2015. Entrepreneurs, such as farmers and coffee growers, hemp world experts and hemp activists spoke in two presentation rooms on the local and national politics of hemp, the technological future of hemp, the genetics of hemp and the medicinal uses of hemp.

Hemp can be made into food, energy drinks, tea, beer, bath and beauty products, paper, clothing and material to build anything from instruments to homes.

Samantha Sandt and Jake Browne founded Denver-based Hemp Box in May 2014 to provide a distribution channel for companies that make health and beauty products out of hemp. They sell hemp-of-the-month club memberships to send off boxes filled with hemp products made worldwide, such as seeds, granola bars, lotions, shampoos and soaps.

"It's great for dry skin," Sandt said about the benefits of using hemp as an ingredient in lotion. "It has Omega 3 and 6, all essential-9 fatty acids, and it's a complete protein."

Hemp can be eaten in three ways, shelled or unshelled or as a hemp seed oil, Sandt said.

Laina Corazon, partner of Hemp I Scream! in Denver, had ice cream cookie sandwiches for sale with the ice cream made out of hemp milk and the cookies out of hemp flour, millet and oats.

"It's high protein, easily digestible and it's delicious," Corazon said. "It doesn't have to be cooked in order to be digested."

From Flags to Guitars

Shelby Floyd had hemp at his booth and demonstrated the steps he uses as a student farmer to help produce fiber to make American flags for Freedom Seed & Feed in Lexington, Ky. He used a hemp-brake to separate the fiber from the herd and a comb device to remove what remained.

"It makes the fibers finer. It gets the rest of the debris out," Floyd said.

Josh Rabe of Loveland Hemp Co. had photos on display of the process he's using to use hemp for wall insulation for his first customer, a homeowner who lost a home in the High Park fire.

"This is 100 percent natural," Rabe said, explaining that hemp takes carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and becomes stronger over time. "It's sustainable and fire resistant and mold-and mildew-resistant."

At the booth for Canadian Hemp Guitars, David Ketelaar, sales director, showed off the bodies of the ukuleles and guitars the company builds out of hemp, instead of the typical wood varieties.

"You're going to get different tonalities from different woods," Ketelaar said. "When you play this, there's a different sound. There's a different texture to the sound. ... They're lightweight, and they're durable."