"The potential of CBD is undeniable. It’s my mission to help people learn about CBD and the second renaissance of industrial hemp in the United States." Your 15% discount code is LTH when you visit medterracbd.com MedTerraCBD.com   CBD http://learntruehealth.com/cbd When we talk about CBD or hemp, some people think it’s an illegal substance. But in fact, hemp and marijuana are different. I had fun doing this episode with Jay Hartenbach who happens to be a leader in the industry and will be explaining to us all there is to know about CBD and hemp. CBD is a legal substance. It is a safe and beautiful essence of an herb. Many benefits are attached to CBD and topping the list is its ability to support the nervous system and immune system. That’s why many states in the United States have legalized it for therapeutic reasons. Early Years Jay Hartenbach started getting into the industry with a group of friends in 2017. A college friend of his was very involved in the hemp industry and wholesale distribution. That friend was working with hemp farms in the US and abroad. And because Jay Hartenbach had experience in online marketing, that became an asset into establishing his company later on. He also had experience working on an online skin care product in graduate school and was involved in networking, website building, driving traffic and other skills. Medterra Jay Hartenbach started Medterra with the sole goal at the time of providing various manufacturers with high-quality CBD. His company established a partnership with the farm GenCanna, which was a pioneer in the hemp industry. Medterra worked with various manufacturers. During the early days, they had around 20 to 25 clients that they were supplying raw products to. “A lot of people were charging a high price for the CDB products they were selling. And we thought there might be a way to make it cheaper especially since we knew what the raw cost was. We also wanted CBD products to be more accessible,” said Jay Hartenbach. The company shipped their first product in June 2017. Within two months, they were selling in all fifty states and started getting orders internationally. “Our priority was to meet the demands of our customers which at the time were mostly family and friends,” shares Jay Hartenbach. “We have focused as just industry and educating people, making sure that they understand what they are getting.” Marijuana Vs. Hemp When we look at the cannabis plant, which encompasses both marijuana and hemp, the distinction you make between the two is the concentration of THC. Jay Hartenbach says if it has less than .3 percent THC by dry weight, it is considered as hemp. “More than .3 is marijuana. If you’re looking at it at a genealogy standpoint, they are from the same family of plants. It just the actual expressions of those genes that determine how much CBD and how much THC that they are producing,” Jay Hartenbach explains.  Choosing Hemp Jay Hartenbach says his company chose hemp plants to extract because they have a higher concentration. Plus, it is more efficient and allows them to sell nationally and internationally. They can’t derive it from marijuana. It takes a lot of processes to make a good CBD product. Jay Hartenbach narrates that upon harvest, the CBD plant begins to degrade almost immediately after it is cut down. So, Medterra’s target is within 24 hours; they have to have the biomass dried and dehydrated to very low moisture content. “A hemp plant may have 30% water by weight at the time of harvest by the time we are dehydrating it, so we can preserve CBD if it’s down to about 3%. That happens through a drying process which activates the CBD,” said Jay Hartenbach. He adds, “So, it converts to a CBDA molecule to CBD. That is very similar to the process people are familiar with where marijuana has to be activated.” Jay Hartenbach furthermore reveals that because they are aware that people want the whole plant extract, Medterra started working with another lab who de