The Hustler's Digest StaffSanta Cruz Medicinals
Chances are you’ve heard about CBD. With the advent of state-legalized cannabis, CBD (cannabinol) products have flooded the market, offering a non-psychoactive, therapeutic alternative to cannabis products that contain THC (tetrahydrocannabinol). While many customers are glad to have a sober option for pain relief, sleep aid, anxiety and inflammation reduction, many customers in need of high-potency CBD can’t find a high-potency brand.
Santa Cruz Medicinals CEO Brendan Ruh is here to change all that. Ruh identified a gap in the CBD market for effective, high-potency, affordable products and set to work creating a brand that caters to those in need of higher-dosage CBD products typically unavailable on the market today. “A lot of studies with humans and CBD show effectiveness in a variety of conditions from anxiety to pain to inflammation,” said Ruh in a recent interview “ But the dosages for humans in these studies range between 2-20 milligrams per kilogram of body weight, so we’re talking about a dosage between 100 milligrams – 500 milligrams a day of oral CBD.”
Affordable Pricing in The Market
“Most CBD brands don’t offer that dosage at an affordable price at all, so we looked into what it would take to offer that dosage to customers. If we cut out the middleman and didn’t go into stores, we could offer that therapeutic, potent dosage for people to use daily.” There’s a lot of debate over the relative benefits and differences between the two natural compounds in the hemp plant: THC and CBD. THC and CBD work with receptors that release neurotransmitters in your brain, affecting pain, mood, memory, and sleep. While CBD and THC have the same chemical formula (21 carbon atoms, 30 hydrogen atoms, and two oxygen atoms), they work differently on the human body. THC is psychoactive that makes you feel “high” while CBD does not.
“We specialize in CBD because there’s a need in the market for a potent dosage at an affordable price. I’m a huge fan of THC, but until federal legalization, there are only so many people you can help, so we wanted to spread the word about potent, legal CBD.”
Ruh doesn’t just make CBD products–he uses them, too. Great for pain relief and sleep aid, Ruh tries all the products that he sends to the market. “I would never create a product I wouldn’t use myself,” said Ruh. “I’m an athlete, so I get some pain and inflammation just from training. I use SC Medicinals CBD topicals daily for pain and sleep. I like to mix my CBD into my protein shakes and morning coffee, and I also ingest it at night to enhance sleep. For athletes, topical formulas, like pain salves, are really easy and effective.”
Going the Extra Mile
Santa Cruz Medicinals goes the extra step over typical CBD companies, adding healthy adaptogens, amino acids, and other paleo-friendly, gluten-free, vegan, and ketogenic ingredients into its tinctures, creams, oils, soaps, formulas, and caps. “One of our most popular products is our adaptogenic mushroom formula,” said Ruh. “Basically it’s mushroomed like Lion’s Mane, Cordyceps, and Reishi that have been shown in multiple research studies, to assist cognitive function, word recall, oxygen utilization, and boost your immune system.”
“Valerian Root is another herb we use in our formulas that’s been used to aid sleep for thousands of years. We purposefully did not put Melatonin in our sleep formula because it’s a hormone, so it’s not a good idea to take it every day. We wanted to make a sleep formula you could take every single evening.”
Santa Cruz Medicinals employs a minimal, sleek design on all its branding and packaging, creating clearly-labeled products that look as good as they work. “I feel like a lot of the younger audience are good at sifting through bull****,” said Ruh. “People know what they want. They want a potent dose of CBD, but CBD companies are constantly trying to hide the ball in terms of their dosage. We chose clean and simple branding to show people exactly what they’re getting. We’re not trying to sell fancy packaging; we’re trying to sell potent doses of CBD for the people that need them.”
Customer support has been through the roof, according to Ruh, with messages from satisfied customers streaming in from all over the country singing the praises of the new, modernized CBD brand. “It’s been amazing,” said Ruh. “People have been really thankful that they can take a potent dose of CBD in an affordable way. I check our Instagram DMs daily, so our customers always talk to me and it’s been great to see people that rely on our products for pain, inflammation, and anxiety improve their quality of life by incorporating CBD doses into their daily routine.”
Ruh hopes to partner with micro-influencers within the industry to promote Santa Cruz Medicinals as the new CBD standard.
