Let's Talk Hemp

Tag: Morris Beegle

  • Five Questions With Morris Beegle, President Of WAFBA (We Are For Better Alternatives)

    Five Questions With Morris Beegle, President Of WAFBA (We Are For Better Alternatives)

    Morris Beegle and I share more than names, (Morris is my middle name) — we are both a part of a much larger world of cannabis. In Morris’ case, he is a leading cannabis/hemp advocate and entrepreneur. As co-founder and president of the WAFBA (We Are For Better Alternatives) family of brands, including the NoCo Hemp Expo, Silver Mountain Hemp Guitars, Tree Free Hemp, The Hawaii Hemp Conference, and more, he stays quite busy engaging audiences in N.A., Europe, UK, Nepal and beyond, presenting at a dozen or more hemp conferences each year.

     

    Read the full article here at Forbes

     

  • Heavy Metal Meets Hemp: A Journey to Birmingham

    Heavy Metal Meets Hemp: A Journey to Birmingham

    By Morris Beegle

    This story begins in the summer of 1971, in the attic of my grandmother’s farmhouse in Beaver, Oklahoma. I’m sure most folks are unfamiliar with this town, as today the population is still less than 2,000 people. It has one claim to fame, however: Beaver is home to the annual World Cow Chip Throwing Contest. Yes, this is a real thing, picking up hardened circular chunks of cow shit and flinging them like frisbees.

    While I never competed in the event, this tiny town holds a special place in my heart, and it’s not because of my family heritage or this oddly unique annual tradition. This peculiar place grabbed me at the age of four as I was sitting in the farmhouse attic with my older brothers Dave and Brad listening to my very first Black Sabbath experience.

    I can still remember War Pigs, Iron Man, Electric Funeral and Hand of Doom all off the Paranoid album like it was yesterday. This was my introduction to the greatest hard rock band in history, a rowdy group from Birmingham, England, that would change music history and play an important role in my life as I got older.

    So, what does Black Sabbath have to do with hemp?

    Inspiration, energy, and motivation to get LOUD about what I believe in. Since I’m discussing the mighty Sabbath, I’ll also throw in Judas Priest, another legendary Birmingham band. Both bands provided me with influence and imagination to pursue my entrepreneurial ambitions, first in the music and entertainment industries, followed by the hemp and cannabis industries.

    This influence led me to printing hemp t-shirts, hemp hats, and hemp posters. Then to producing hemp events, hemp conferences, and hemp festivals. And most recently, to creating a line of hemp-bodied guitars, hemp-board guitar cabinets, hemp guitar straps, hemp plastic picks, and hemp plastic volume knobs that go to 11…because when you need that little extra push over the cliff, and 10 just isn’t cutting it, you need to take it to 11, and be #OneLouder!

    This has been the Birmingham influence on my life, with a little extra help from the lads in Spinal Tap.

    Hemp awareness, CBD, and medical and recreational cannabis are literally blowing the F up all around the globe. It certainly is here in the United States where we finally passed historic legislation that unequivocally clarifies hemp and all parts of the plant, including cannabinoids, extracts, and derivatives, as no longer included in our Controlled Substances Act, and removes jurisdiction from the Drug Enforcement Administration.

    We Americans are pretty excited about this even though we still have a big battle with the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) on how this will play out in the world of food and supplements. This issue isn’t unique to the USA, as the UK and Europe and most parts of the world are struggling to figure out a path where we can free this plant in all of its forms, for not only consumption, but commercial industrial processes and regenerative agricultural practices.

    This is where I have placed my efforts and intentions as I continue on my journey, one in which I get to visit a place that unexpectedly inspired me to promote a plant and a planet that both need to come together for the future of society and the future of humanity.

    You can find Morris Beegle at the Hemp & CBD Expo in Birmingham, England, March 2-3, 2019, the UK’s leading hemp exposition and conference. Visit www.hempandcbdexpo.co.uk.

    Morris Beegle – a veteran of the music entertainment industry – is the Co-founder of the Colorado Hemp Company, producer of the NoCo Hemp Expo, Southern Hemp Expo, Hawaii Hemp Expo, Winter Hemp Summit, Hemp on the Slope, Let’s Talk Hemp Newsletter, and with Rick Trojan, he co-hosts the Let’s Talk Hemp podcast. Check out Season 2 at www.LetsTalkHemp.com. Morris is also the founder of Tree Free Hemp Paper and hemp-made Silver Mountain Guitars.

    Photos:  Black Sabbath: Wikipedia; Morris Beegle: Compass Natural

  • Exploring Hemp’s New Horizons With Morris Beegle

    Exploring Hemp’s New Horizons With Morris Beegle

    Hemp is where it’s at right now, especially in Colorado. Legal cannabis is cool and all — and we welcome Michigan and Vermont to the recreational party in 2019 — but that’s so 2015 in this state.

    More about substance than style, industrial hemp’s many uses were finally recognized by the federal government in December, when President Donald Trump officially legalized it by signing the 2018 Farm Bill. Now that the plant is out from under the shadow of the Controlled Substances Act, it’s regulated by the Department of Agriculture and legal to farm in all fifty states.

    But that doesn’t mean that growing hemp is just like growing tomatoes. The USDA’s regulations for farming hemp will be much more strict than they are for other crops, while the Food and Drug Administration will oversee how cannabidiol (CBD) from hemp is added to food and other products intended for human consumption. Colorado doesn’t necessarily have to follow those rules, however, since it legalized adult-use cannabis cultivation in 2012 and subsequently implemented laws allowing the sale of hemp- and CBD-infused foods within the state.

    To predict what legalized hemp will mean in the new year, we checked in with Morris Beegle, former music promoter, founder of the NoCo Hemp Expo and an expert on the past, present and future of the hemp industry.

    Read the full article here…

    Westword Magazine
    THOMAS MITCHELL | JANUARY 4, 2019 | 5:53AM

    (Photo: A hemp farm in Greeley, Colorado, welcomes visitors during a daylong tour in July. Danielle Lirette)

  • U.S. firm launches ‘Silver Mountain Hemp’ brand of guitars, accessories

    U.S. firm launches ‘Silver Mountain Hemp’ brand of guitars, accessories

    POSTED BY: HEMPTODAY SEPTEMBER 4, 2018

    U.S.-based We Are For Better Alternatives (WAFBA) says it has ordered a first shipment of specialized guitars molded from hemp composite as it launches Silver Mountain Hemp (SMH), a new brand.

    The guitars are the centerpiece for a line that also includes components and accessories. WAFBA has organized several strategic partnerships to source the products, said Morris Beegle, founder and owner at Ft. Collins, Colorado-based WAFBA.

    “We’re demonstrating the potential to establish a supply chain with great partners who are committed to earth-friendly practices,” Beegle said of the development of the products, all of which have hemp in them. “Our entire business model is really centered around that.”

    WAFBA founder and owner Morris Beegle

    Highly customizable

    SMH looks to stand out in the highly competitive musical instrument market by offering guitars built to customers’ specifications. “The plan is to let buyers customize their guitars with different color finishes, electronics, bridges, fretboards, tuners and knobs,” said Beegle, a 30-year veteran of the American entertainment industry. His firm also is owner of the Colorado-based NoCo Hemp Expo as well as Southern Hemp Expo, which debuts in Nashville, Tennessee this month.

    WAFBA will roll out its first two models – the Silver Mountain Hemp Guitar (SMHG), and the HempCaster – during the Nashville event.

    Classic designs

    The guitars, supplied by Canadian Hemp Guitars (CHG), Quebec, are inspired by classic designs from legendary guitar makers Gibson and Fender, the SG and Telecaster models, respectively, Beegle said.

    Marketing and sales of the SMH line will initially be through online channels and at hemp and cannabis trade events.

    CHG guitars have a wood core underneath a molded composite of pressed hemp bast fibers on the back, sides and top. The Canadian company, started in 2012 by musicians Boyd Pellow and Stewart Burrows, makes a line of eco-friendly, hard-bodied instruments designed with a nod to the classic American chambered-body guitars of the 1960s.

    Hemp in speakers

    Meanwhile, Beegle has assembled Hard Truckers, a boutique cabinet group that’s building speaker cabinets with hemp board supplied by Sunstrand, a maker of natural composites based in Louisville, Kentucky, USA. Sunstrand makes natural fiber-based products for the construction, automotive, electrical & electronics, and recreation industries.

    Speakers inside the cabinets are from San Francisco-based Tone Tubby, whose Tone Tubby Cones substitute the paper component in high-quality speakers with more durable and tear-resistant organic hemp fiber-based material.

    A range of hemp-plastic control knobs and picks made by Green Spring Technologies, Ft. Worth, Texas, with guitar straps from Poland-based Natural Materials Unlimited, Warsaw, round out the SMH line, which Beegle says will expand over time.

    Silver Mountain Hemp knobs of hemp-based plastic are from Green Spring Technologies.

     

  • 15 NoCo Wrap up and The Bahamas meets Judas Priest

    15 NoCo Wrap up and The Bahamas meets Judas Priest

    Episode 15 of #LetsTalkHemp and #The422 is the post NoCo wrap up episode.

    Plus the Bahamas meets Judas Priest as Rick is in the Bahamas and Morris just got done going to 11 with the mighty Priest and Rob Halford.

    The LTH422 intro and outro music is powered by MoTron and the #HempCaster Guitar.

    We hope you love this episode of Let’s Talk Hemp & The 422!

  • 11 Boston for NECANN

    11 Boston for NECANN

    Episode 11 was done on the fly this morning as Rick flies to Boston for NECANN so this is recorded at the Denver International Airport.

    Next week will be the countdown to NoCo5 and we’ll have a special guest joining us on the show. So don’t forget to tune in next week for another episode of Let’s Talk Hemp & The 422.

    We hope you enjoy this episode!

  • 09 REBROADCAST Episode 01

    09 REBROADCAST Episode 01

    Rick is in Colombia and Morris is in Los Angeles.

    Please enjoy the rebroadcast of our first episode if you haven’t caught it before.

    Next week we will be back with a special guest on Let’s Talk Hemp & The 422.

    Till then have a great week and hemp on!

  • 08 Operation CBD Gummy Bears/Candy Crush

    08 Operation CBD Gummy Bears/Candy Crush

    Episode 8 was created on the move and crossing paths as Rick is on his way to Colombia and Morris just got back in town from the 1st annual Central US Hemp Growers Conference.

    This weeks episode provides a recap on what is going on in Wisconsin, and coming up in Colombia.

    We talk updates on Operation CBD Gummy Bears/Candy Crush in Tennessee, Tide Pods… again, and a fundraiser taking place this Sunday in Denver at Cervantes for Puerto Rico relief.