The Many Uses, Products and Benefits of Hemp

It is a plant in the botanical class of cannabis that is grown for industrial and consumable purposes. Hemp can also be used to make a wide range of products, including cloth, and refined into a variety of commercial items, such as paper, rope, and biodegradable plastics. In fact, hemp can be used to make a number of biproducts. This month, the government reactivated its Hemp Oversight Committee, and it is in the process of reviewing an application for an industrial hemp license. In this edition of Belize on Reel, Marion Ali headed north to Chunox Village where businessman, William Conde shared with us the hemp products he imports to sell to the Belize market. Here’s that report.

 

Marion Ali, Reporting

These are hemp seeds, imported into Belize by businessman, eighty-one-year-old William Conde. He has been selling hemp products from Canada, the U.S and China for the past twenty-three years in Belize, through his online business page, belizehemp.com.

 

William Conde, Importer of Hemp Products

“We bring in hemp seed oil. and hemp protein powder and hulled hemp seed, hemp hearts they call it and we bring that in bulk. We also bring in some – I don’t have any, I’m sold out of it right now. They call it Sopa. It’s a hemp fiber that they put into the cracks of the boats. That we bring in now and it lasts for years and years.”

 

 

Conde says he has also been using the products for much of his eighty-one years of life and they have factored into his overall good health.

 

William Conde

“This is the hemp protein powder and we have this in half-pound and one-pound packages. And then this is the hemp seed oil that we have in these two hundred and seventy-five .”

 

 

 

Marion Ali

What do you do with that?

 

William Conde

“I eat them. I drink this in my coffee every morning, just about every morning. I miss a day here and there, but I put in a big heaping tablespoon of this and three tablespoons of this into my coffee when I get towards the end and I stir it up and yeah, it gives me all the protein I need. It gives me amino acids, gives me a lot of stuff. I’m 81 years old and I’ve just, recent tests that I did over here, my PSA for my prostate. Actually I use –.”

 

Marion Ali

“How is your health?”

 

William Conde

“Outstanding.”

 

 

 

 

Conde says hemp seed oil is good for much more than your health. He decided to distribute the product in smaller, easy-to-carry bottles for people who have skin issues. This one he calls Itch Away.

 

William Conde

“We call it Itch Away and it’s pure hemp seed oil. As a matter of fact, it’s the same thing as this, only in a smaller bottle. We’ve been selling this in Belize now for well over 20 years. It’s probably, Belize’s number one selling. Skin first aid, it works for amazing different things: bug bites, burns, different kinds of infections skin issues, right. And actually, we drink it because it works inside and outside of your body.”

 

Then there’s this little bottle called Coco de Rasta, which is a mixture of the same hemp seed oil and coconut oil, used for healthy, smooth skin.

 

Joshua Rivero is one of eighty retailers who sells Conde’s imported hemp products. He does this next to his parents’ booth, Indira Spices at the Michael Finnegan Market in Belize City. He tells News Five that the hemp seed oil is a very popular product for its healing properties.

 

 

 

 

Joshua Rivero, Herbalist, Indira’s Spices

“It’s a product that is – we get a lot of customers from the recommendation of the users. So that’s why it’s a product that I trust giving to people because we always get, you could say, maybe 200 percent return on this product. The most used for it would be anything regarding your lungs: a lingering cough, a stubborn cough, maybe somebody just wants to detox their lungs. Cause we have a lot of products on the market to detox your body, but rarely to detox your lungs.”

 

Marion Ali

And you’ve tried it yourself?

 

Joshua Rivero

“Yes, and it works quick. That’s one of the things – it works really fast. One of the other benefits, as it says here, is the omega 3, 6, and 9 oils, and these regulate cholesterol, HDL, HCL cholesterol.”

 

 

 

Those hemp seeds you saw earlier; Conde says they are not only tasty. They were the subject of debate with authorities before getting the permits to import them.

 

William Conde

“And I had to go to battle. I had to be persistent because nobody wanted to sign off on this thing. I had to go to the Forestry Department, and go to the CITIES Convention, to BAHA. I went here, I went there. I went to the Health Department. I went to the Police Department and nobody wanted to do it.  Eventually, I convinced – the first people – I got the Commissioner of Police to test some of this stuff. They took it down there and they tested it at the lab. The difference between marijuana and hemp is the way you cultivate it. There’s thousands of research that’s proving that this thing is beneficial for a whole, whole bunch of stuff.”

 

Conde opines that the global community has subscribed to a misleading narrative that hemp, like marijuana, is detrimental to health.

 

William Conde

“Worldwide they’ve taken and they’ve made this fallacy that it’s a special seed. It’s a different plant, and it’s a special seed. Now what does that do? That allows people to patent the seed. And therefore, if you want to grow hemp and you have to have this special seed right now, they cost over a dollar 50 us for each seed. And they own it. And that’s the problem with this country. They bought into the same thing that other countries have bought into that. You got to have this seed. The seeds are patented, so our farmers, if they go along with this, they never own the crop. They ruined it. I’ve got 25 acres sitting up there that’s licensed to grow hemp.”

 

Marion Ali

“And you can’t.”

 

William Conde

“I can’t. We’ve tried growing it. Not only that, the seeds are expensive, but they don’t work here. We have local seed. That would work here. If they would just allow the plant to do what it can do, you’d have a billion-dollar crop.”

 

 

Conde showed us a few of the items that he says were made from the hemp tree, like this hammock he made over twenty years ago with his neighbour, and these pieces of wood that can be used for construction. He hopes that the law would allow for hemp cultivation and harvesting across the board to let the industry develop to its full potential. Marion Ali for News Five.