If you’ve been following the news lately, you’ve likely heard about the lawsuits facing the German chemical company Bayer AG, owner of Monsanto, and maker of glyphosate-based weed killer Roundup. The company is facing more than 13,000 cases alleging that glyphosate causes cancer. And so far, juries are agreeing that the company failed to warn users of the herbicide’s cancer risk. In the third and most recent case to be tried, a jury awarded $2.055 billion to a California couple who claimed the glyphosate-containing weed killer was responsible for both of their cancers.[1]
So, what does this have to do with RE Botanicals? A lot.
RE Botanicals just received Glyphosate Residue Free certification from the Detox Project, which ensures our products are free from one of the most toxic and most frequently used chemical herbicides.
Here, Max Goldberg, founder and publisher of Organic Insider and Living Maxwell, explains why this certification is so important for hemp CBD products. “Glyphosate is the most common herbicide—approximately 250 million pounds are sprayed on crops in the U.S. annually and 1.65 billion pounds globally. If you are using hemp CBD, you’ll want to make sure it does not have a cancer-causing weed killer in it. CBD consumers need to be discriminating about what they are buying. Products that are both USDA certified organic and Glyphosate Residue Free are the best of the best.”
Conventionally grown hemp not only requires a lot of synthetic fertilizers to grow, explains Goldberg, it’s also a bioaccumulator, which means it acts like a sponge soaking up everything from the soil—glyphosate and many other chemicals. If you’re not using organic or Glyphosate Residue Free products, then there’s a high chance the CBD you’re using – which is extracted from the hemp plant – will very likely contain glyphosate.
CBD products have exploded onto the marketplace, but initially there weren’t many brands offering certified organic products. So, customers got into the habit of not looking for or asking for certified organic hemp products. There simply was little to no choice.
3rd-party verified certifications are the only way to ensure that a product is what it says it is. USDA certified organic should be the first certification a consumer looks for and Glyphosate Residue Free certification is crucial given how ubiquitous and dangerous a chemical glyphosate is.
“The Glyphosate Residue Free certification helps provide an extra level of assurance that a company is serious about delivering a clean and safe product,” says Goldberg. “Glyphosate Residue Free certification is a third-party certification which test its products in an independent laboratory. It’s not companies saying, ‘yes, we tested for glyphosate.’ When companies take the extra effort to get this certification, it means they are serious about the health and safety of their products.”
See RE Botanicals’ Detox Project Glyphosate Residue Free Certification
[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bayer-glyphosate-lawsuit/california-jury-hits-bayer-with-2-billion-award-in-roundup-cancer-trial-idUSKCN1SJ29F
