MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (OSBORNE) -- Middle Tennessee’s first hemp store opened recently.
Tennessee Hemp Supply was packed the day WMOT visited. Owner Trinty Mealor was handing out free hemp body cream samples. He believes hemp has pain relieving properties and could help customers get off of dangerous medications.
“Opioids are being prescribed to them in multiple, multiple doses per day. If they could just reduce that count or even eliminate it by just rubbing some CBD on their joints…”
Customers visiting the store’s Facebook page seem to agree. Some claimed relief from “muscle soreness and nausea” while others spoke of anxiety relief.
Hemp is a close cousin of the marijuana plant. The state Department of Agriculture keeps a tight leash on the 226 farmers licensed to grow the crop. Tennessee Program Coordinator Katy Kilbourne says hemp has many uses.
“They’re using fiber material to make car parts. We’re also seeing interest in production for animal feed, as well as juicing the plant itself, and just grain production in general.”
But retail hemp products like those Trinity Mealor is selling aren’t regulated by any government agency and research on their efficacy is scarce. Mr. Mealor isn’t deterred.
“The 500 people who’ve left my store with a sample on their back or their neck or their hand or wherever they’re hurting, that have told me and cried in my arms to say that their pain is relieved…I don’t need any kind of peer review.”
Over the last three years the Federal Food and Drug Administration has issued a series of warning lettersabout hemp extract products.
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