Health Makers: A Search for Clean, Organic CBD Leads to Ojai Energetics
Will Kleidon launched a cannabis technology company and became a leading voice of the industry.
About seven years ago, Will Kleidon decided to do what he calls “inner work” on himself. He took a deep dive into his psyche to see what came up. The results were illuminating and anxiety-provoking. He needed to find “a solution for anxiety that was not intoxicating,” says Kleidon, now 30.
Kleidon thought that cannabidiol oil, or CBD, would be a great option. CBD is thought to help with many symptoms from joint pain to insomnia to depression to, well, anxiety. The problem was that he wasn’t sure where to get it. “I thought I’d have to go to a medical dispensary,” he says, but he didn’t have a prescription.
He managed to find some on Amazon and promptly ordered it. But “I had no idea what was in it,” says Kleidon, who lives in Ojai, California. “I couldn’t get any certificate of analysis on it. It was all synthetic fillers. The company was deriving it from industrial hemp, and it was loaded with heavy metals and contaminants.”
Helping People and the Planet
Kleidon scoured the web for clean, organic CBD, but he couldn’t locate any. And it occurred to him that there had to be other people out there in a similar predicament. “I thought, if I can’t find anything I feel good putting in my body, other people are going to be like me,” he says. “So that was the impetus. I wanted to generate a vehicle to help people and the planet.”
As it happened, Kleidon, who majored in sustainable community development with a minor in holistic health at Prescott College in Arizona, met a chemist who taught him how to whip up a CBD formula that would be both organic and water-soluble. This was a big deal, as regular fat-soluble CBD oil doesn’t absorb into the bloodstream as quickly as the water-soluble variety can.
“Ninety percent of what is eaten is destroyed by the liver and stomach acids before it is even able to be used,” he says. “That means if you eat 20 mg [milligrams] of a regular CBD oil, only 2 mg of CBD is usable, and even less if the CBD is isolated.”
Water-Soluble Means Faster Results
In 2014, Kleidon launched Ojai Energetics, a cannabis technology company that sells a full-spectrum, totally organic, water-soluble CBD-infused elixir, a CBD coconut oil, and even a CBD sports gel. Because the products are water-soluble, they can deliver results in as little as 30 seconds, says Kleidon, who’s also chair of the California Hemp Council, which is the voice of the industry in California.
“We use only certified organic ingredients in our CBD, unlike anyone else who uses synthetically modified or synthetic compounds to encapsulate,” he says. “This makes our CBD products the fastest-acting, safest, and most bioavailable CBD on the market.” If you don’t believe Kleidon, you can check for yourself: Ingredients and lab test results are posted on the company's website by lot number.
“With a fat-based CBD, you are shooting in the dark to find the ideal dosage,” he says. This is why regular CBD oils often stop working so quickly. Not because users need a greater dosage but because they need a smaller one.
Varying Ratios of THC to CBD
The federal legal limit requires that products contain no more than 0.3 percent of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the psychoactive component in marijuana that gets you high.
You can get CBD with varying ratios of THC to CBD, but some companies mislabel the ingredients. This can present a real problem for those looking to avoid THC, including those who react negatively to THC.
"There's a subset of the population who are vastly more affected by THC than the majority of people," says Kleidon, noting that he's one of them. For him, exposure to THC is substantially more psychedelic and very uncomfortable. This led to Kleidon's inspiration for creating a patented nasal spray for Ojai Energetics that could offset THC intoxication.