Vital Ones,
Vital Hemp celebrates sixteen years in business this Earth Day! Thank you for your support all these years!! I want to give you a big hemp hug when I see you, invite you to our party (Earth Day @Night), and thank y’all with a website discount code below.
I just returned from San Miguel de Allende in Mexico, where my cousin’s daughter and her handsome mensch held their wedding. What a gift! What a city!! Clean and cultured, creative and alive. The night before the traditional Jewish wedding, three-hundred or so guests gathered, all dressed in white, in the plaza front of the Cathedral as the sun went down. We followed an adorned burro, tall paper-maiche puppets called mohigangas, and a fantastic mariachi band down the colorful, cobblestone streets of the town.
This callejoneada ended up at a wonderful patio bar with fountain, musicians, dancers, tapas and endless libations. Most of all the guests shared a love of the couple, and a love of each other. Sipping tequila with some younger guests, I layed a little hempjucation on them, and found they were hip to hemp.
 Earlier this month, we attended the Sixth annual NOCO Hemp Expo in Denver, Colorado. Vital Hemp has attended every year, and each year we’ve seen the size double. The growth of the event is both a testament to the rising awareness and popularity of products made from industrial hemp, and a manifestation of the dedication and generosity of the founders, Morris and Lizzie.
Beyond experiencing the range of products coming to market, from tasty hemp-based burgers to innumerable high-quality (but not high-producing) CBD lines, participants come together to revel in each others’ offerings, sharing the enthusiasm and joy that accompanies a growing industry.
We meet a lot of new people, from hemp farmers to CBD store owners, enjoying the company of kind souls -- old friends like Barbara Filippone and Summer Star from Envirotextiles, who we’ve known since the beginning, or others, who we may have met five years ago, and who now feel like old friends.
Before the festival began, my friend Scott took me to Vail for my second day of the ski season. As I have for the last fifteen years or so, I wore hemp as base layers—both tees and long underwear, because they perform as well as everything else I’ve tried regulating body temperature and staying fresh better than plastic “performance fabrics.”
Did you know the largest customer for hemp-based clothing is the Chinese military? Considering China produces most of the world’s clothing, one can surmise they would choose whatever was best for their soldiers…and when it comes to anti-microbial base layers that let skin breathe, that’s hemp clothing! I wonder if we treat our soldiers (or police officers or firefighters) as well…. There’s a business there. Anyone with resources or connections want to collaborate? Our servicemen will thank us.
 Near the end of the pre-expo ski day, Scott and Elmo (his buddy and my new friend) took us down an off-piste run through the trees, at last arriving at a secret spot, where, beneath a half-fallen tree, they had buried a pack containing margarita glasses and mix. Fresh snow fulfilled the ice function, creating the best margarita al-fresco I’ve ever imbibed…and while the glass was cold, my core stayed warm.
Back at the festival, I gave a talk called, “In an Age of Global Warming, Cooling the Globe with Hemp.” (#cooltheglobe) I went through my history in hemp, including a lot of what I’ve learned along the way that keeps me inspired and committed to this path of a creative and healing business. For a vintage pic from the early days on the Venice boardwalk, check out the tenth anniversary newsletter.
I bonded with lots of people at Noco. We were all collaborating for a better future, working with the plant to heal soil, people, animals, ecosystems, economies and ultimately all living things. As Jack Herer knew, and so profoundly espoused, this plant is a most vital part of the process of improving the world. As we destroy and deforest, let us line the lungs of the Earth with hemp!
Since a picture can tell a thousand words, as the saying goes, I’ll share a few pics from my time in Colorado, before inviting you to a party.
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