While this new development is certainly exciting for Idaho residents and farmers, those growing hemp have been told to keep their expectations low this first year, since never before has Idaho land been tested for hemp cultivation.  Besides that, although industrial hemp is famously easy to grow, being lenient about all kinds of conditions and resistant to many diseases, Idaho’s farmers are inexperienced with the plant, with many learning as they go.

Still, lawmakers and hemp industry experts all over the nation have been cheering Idaho farmers on since they hold the key to a potentially successful hemp industry within their own state, which could provide a nice boost to Idaho’s economy and benefit the state as a whole.  The hemp market is worth billions upon billions of dollars, and Idaho has a lot to gain from burgeoning hemp cultivation.

IND Hemp, a hemp processing company located in Montana, has been closely working with Idaho hemp farmers to guide them toward success.  On February 4^th, 2022, chief operating officer and co-founder of IND Hemp Morgan Tweet met with new hemp farmers in Idaho as part of an orientation into the industry, which took place in Buhl.  She encouraged the over 100 farmers and processors on their commitment to cultivating the plant in their home state and urged them to remain dedicated over the next few years to support the state’s industry.  She also reminded them that hemp cultivation is “a marathon, not a sprint,” meaning that it can take a while for farmers to really get acquainted with the unique demands of the plant and have consistently successful yields.  She has agreed to counsel farmers to help guide them through the process of getting started, and IND Hemp is looking to build contracts with Idaho growers so that the two industries can support one another and give Idaho’s hemp industry a much-needed boost.

A New Hemp Frontier

Only in November of 2021 did the Idaho State Department of Agriculture begin accepting applications for hemp cultivation within its state, which means that this marks the first growing season for those whose applications were approved.  The ISDA has made it clear that farmers must follow state and federal law, which means that the hemp plants must contain a maximum of 0.3% delta 9 THC to be sold legally – about the amount that naturally occurs in the plant material anyway.  This is to make sure that the hemp being cultivated and sold remains non-psychoactive.

These changes come with the passing of House Bill 126, which was formally signed by Governor Brad Little to finally legalize the hemp trade at large within the state, beginning with the processing and production of industrial hemp and various hemp product forms.  The law determines that farmers must obtain an official license from the ISDA to be legally allowed to grow hemp on their land.  Individuals may transport industrial hemp on behalf of a licensed person. 

Off to a Slow Start

Casey Monn, the ISDA bureau chief for hemp, said that the state only received 22 official applications from farmers since the law first changed.  That’s after 81 applications were officially started, with a small percentage actually getting completed.  Of those 22 applications, 12 are farmers and 10 are handlers or processors. 

Farmers who have been approved make up a combined total of 270 acres of Idaho farmland.  Compare that to the 1 million acres devoted to wheat cultivation in the state, or the 350,000 acres for corn, and you can see why Idaho does not expect anything remarkable from this year’s hemp yield.  It’s also worth noting that this is a mere fraction of the cultivation that goes on in many other states where hemp cultivation has been legal for some time.

Many farmers have shared their apprehension about investing in hemp cultivation because of how new the industry is.  They are largely waiting to see how other farmers do before handing in their own applications.  Should these farmers make considerable profit off of their crops, it’s safe to assume that other farmers will be eager to follow in their footsteps.

Still, trailblazers in the Idaho hemp industry are very supportive of the individual farmers who are leading the way.  Hempitecture, an Idaho-based company that uses industrial hemp for building materials rather than CBD products, believes that industrial hemp farming in Idaho can benefit a multitude of industries besides natural health.  Industrial hemp was a commodity in the early days of our country primarily because it could be used to make rope, paper, and other valuable materials.

It will be interesting to see what comes of this first hemp season in Idaho, and even more interesting to see how many more farmers join in on next year’s harvest.  For the time being, it’s good to see the state catch up with the rest of the country when it comes to hemp laws affecting state residents in all kinds of ways – from the ability to profit off of industrial hemp crops to the ability to experience the effects of CBD itself.

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On October 7, 2021, Governor Gavin Newsom of California signed AB 45, allowing hemp products to be sold as ingredients in foods, beverages and dietary supplements.  The new law went further to finally permit the sales of smokable hemp products as well. It’s worth pointing out that this law extends to the pet industry, as CBD is becoming a popular option for cats and dogs.  The use of raw hemp and hemp-derived extracts in these specific types of products has been a subject of controversy throughout many states in the country, with cited fears of marketing CBD to minors while reflecting concerns about how an unregulated market could lead to unsafe products sold to the general public.

Cannabis laws in California remain some of the most lenient throughout the country, and the state has largely been a pioneer when it comes to legalization for well over a decade.  So, hopes are that this new legislation will act as a catalyst that will influence other states still denying hemp businesses the right to sell their CBD in these product forms.

What the New Law Means for Californians

California residents have understandably been confused about which hemp products can be legally purchased throughout the state.  Hemp businesses have been equally puzzled, as state and federal laws pertaining to hemp-infused products has seen a lot of back and forth since the initial passing of the Farm Bill in 2018, which broadly legalized the plant under the stipulation that no hemp product sold commercially contains more than 0.3% delta-9 THC.

Over the years, states have scrambled to come up with ways to regulate the hemp industry, which has been something of a “Wild West” since its legalization 3 years ago.  AB 45 aims to regulate the production and sales of hemp throughout the state so that companies can maintain specific safety and quality standards when producing CBD-infused foods, beverages and dietary supplements, as well as raw CBD flower products.  One particular restriction is the marketing of these products to children and pregnant women. 

Manufacturers of these products must register with the California Department of Public Health and comply with good manufacturing practices (GMP), a set of manufacturing standards maintained throughout the country, in order to begin selling these types of hemp products.  Products must also be tested by a state-registered third party to verify that they contain the legal limit of THC permitted by the state and federal law.  Further, companies may not make any health claims, as this is forbidden by the FDA, and must prove that their product is made with hemp derived from a state or country that has a regionally regulated industrial hemp program.

Meanwhile, the California Department of Public Health is given control over regulating the hemp market, which allows them to set standards when it comes to serving sizes of hemp products, how they may be marketed and how sales can be tracked throughout the state, among other things.  AB 45 also requires that the CDPH study the impact of these products on the statewide cannabis market.

For now, these products are not yet available on the market, as California legislators must first come up with a means for taxing them. 

Hemp Businesses Breathe a Sigh of Relief

Even in a cannabis-friendly state like California, manufacturers of hemp products have been on pins and needles due to often unclear and ever-evolving legislation on how they may produce and market their products.  Companies located in the state have largely felt hindered by their fears that products and practices they’ve invested in could suddenly become illegal at any given time.  Further, they’ve felt held back by a lack of clear guidelines on food, beverage, supplement and smokable products, which has prevented them from expanding their businesses.  AB 45 is a clear win for California hemp companies, finally allowing them to explore new CBD formulations to sell to customers throughout the state.

If you’re a California resident who has been eager to explore these particular types of hemp products, you can find them at CBD For the People.  Our Gummy Noids and our smokable CBD flower products are among our best-sellers and are fully compliant with federal law by containing no more than 0.3% delta-9 THC.

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• Wash your hands!
• Keep your distance from people you suspect to be sick. Right now…that’s everyone.
• Exercise! Just don’t be a crazy person and push yourself to the point of near-death.
• Avoid nicotine, alcohol, and excess stress.
• Fruits and veggies make you healthier, happier, and more resistant to all diseases.
• Sleep! It’s your body’s recovery mode.
• Drink enough water to make you pee mostly clear, every 2-4 hours.
• Vitamin C might help up to a point, but it’s vastly overrated. Mega-doses will only give you diarrhea.
• Vitamin D, on the other hand, is incredibly underrated for many aspects of health, and can be supplemented if you don’t get out much.
• Multivitamins are generally good to make sure you’re not deficient in any random micronutrients although most healthy people don’t need them as much as they think.
• Herbs and dietary supplements might help, but focus on the basics first.

Hey peoples!

JT here, again.

We’re in a pretty unusual situation these days, what with the whole “unprecedented global pandemic” thing going on. There are a couple things everyone can and should be doing to minimize potential exposure, namely social distancing and self-quarantine whenever possible, but what else can you do? How can you reduce your chances of getting sick throughout the year? Well fear not gentle reader, for here are some science-backed strategies you can use to keep your immune system firing on all cylinders.

Handwashing

This should go without saying. Our hands are the primary means by which we interact with our environment. Chances are, most of the time you get sick it’s because your hands touched something icky and didn’t get thoroughly washed before you touched something delicate. Like your face. You’d be surprised – and perhaps slightly horrified – just how much you touch your face without even realizing it, as the various mucous membranes located on/around/inside the face make it a pretty common infection region.

Washing your hands means more than just throwing water on your fingers and calling it a day. Wet your hands, lather soap and scrub all surfaces of your hands/fingernails/wrists, rinse thoroughly, and dry off. It should take at least 20 seconds, which is roughly the length of time as the chorus to “Stayin’ Alive” by the Bee Gees. [“whether you’re a brother or whether you’re a mother you’re stayin’ alive…stayin’ alive…feel the city breakin’ and everybody shakin’ when you’re stayin’ alive…stayin’ alive…ah, ah, ah, ah, stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive…ah, ah, ah, ah, stayin’ aliiiiiiiii-iiiiiiii-iiiiiiiii-iiiiiive…”]

If that song now gets stuck in your head every time you’re at the bathroom sink…you’re welcome! Fun fact: “Stayin’ Alive” also has the perfect tempo for performing chest compressions during CPR (100 bpm). Who knew that song was so aptly titled?

Anyway, this link here from Harvard Medical School has some good tips for preventing infection through basic hygiene. Here are some bullet points:

• Wash your hands whenever they’re exposed to dirt, pets, bodily fluids, raw meat, or sick people
• Cover your mouth & nose with a tissue (or the front side of your elbow) whenever you cough or sneeze
• First aid: Wash and bandage all cuts, and get serious cuts (or bites from animals or humans) checked out by a doctor
• General grossness: Don’t pick at scabs, don’t squeeze pimples, and don’t share eating utensils or dishes with other people unless you’re okay with sharing whatever diseases they may have

Exercise

This one is near and dear to my heart. There is a great body of evidence showing that exercise improves immune function, and while personally I’m a fan of hard workouts with lots of heavy lifting and breathing, remember that it is possible to have too much of a good thing here.

What does “too much” mean? For our purposes, it just means “don’t exceed your body’s ability to recover.” If you have to rebuild half the muscle fibers in your legs while churning out additional lymphocytes to fend off a cold, it’s not going to end well for you. There is a common notion that intense exercise weakens immune function, but this is false…up to a point. The immune system is perfectly capable of upregulating its function and distributing needed cells to peripheral tissues, but as with all things there comes a point of diminishing returns.

Whatever your workout style of choice, try to keep your training volume (total workload, for non-exercise-geeks) from getting out of control. Don’t expect to stay healthy if your idea of exercise means a bootcamp session, bro-split chest & tris, a CrossFit “hero” WOD, and a 10k run back-to-back. You should feel GOOD at the end of a workout, even if you’re tired. It’s totally fine to strain and sweat and push the envelope, but if you frequently collapse in an incoherent heap and are debilitatingly sore…you’re overdoing it. (This is good advice in general, really.)

Don’t smoke, drink, or get too stressed out

Smoking kills.

It weakens your immune system, introduces a gnarly carcinogen load to vulnerable lung tissues, and dramatically increases the likelihood of a negative outcome from COVID-19.

Don’t do it.

Alcohol kills.

It weakens your immune system, damages the cardiovascular system, causes brain damage, and reduces the lungs’ ability to resist injury.

Don’t do it.

(On second thought…this may be more difficult to avoid while in quarantine, so at least try not to do it too much.)

Stress kills.

Chronic stress keeps your body in a sympathetic nervous state (aka fight-or-flight mode), which interferes with digestion and general recovery. Try to find healthy outlets for stress, like cardiovascular exercise, yoga, meditation, or a good ol’ fashioned “scream into a pillow until you collapse on the bed” sesh.

Eat your plants

This means lots of fresh fruits and vegetables (frozen is just as good). Foods to eat more of include tomatoes, garlic, berries, apples, leafy greens, and cruciferous vegetables like broccoli. Multiple studies and literature reviews have shown reductions in all-cause mortality from increased consumption of these and similar foods; one particularly relevant study showed reduced risk of upper respiratory tract infection among pregnant women who ate more fruits and vegetables. Additionally, breakdown products of dietary fiber (found in fruits and veggies) help control the body’s immune response and maintain homeostasis.

More fruits and veggies = more resistance to disease. Mom was right!

Eat enough protein

Protein gets a lot of attention in the fitness community since you can’t build muscle without it, but it’s also very important for T-cell production and immune function.

“Enough” protein is something of a controversial topic, but recommendations from health and sports scientists range from 0.5 g/lb/day (half a gram of protein, per pound of bodyweight, per day) if you’re just sitting around, up to 1.0 g/lb/day or more if you lift lots of heavy stuff on the regular. And don’t worry, high protein diets do not cause adverse reactions in healthy adults that do resistance training. If you’re worried about eating too much protein, go lift something and give your body something to do with all those amino acids.

Pro tip: Make sure that you get SOME kind of protein at each meal, preferably low in saturated fats (fish, lean cuts of meat/poultry, egg whites, legumes, nuts/seeds, low-fat dairy) for the sake of your cardiovascular system. I personally don’t do well with legumes or dairy, so I eat quite a bit of the other things listed – lots of fish, chicken breast, hemp protein, and egg whites.

Sleep

Sleep is HUGELY underrated in its ability to keep you healthy and happy in pretty much every way. For our purposes here, it has a big part to play in immunity – getting lots of sleep reduces risk of infection and improves ability to overcome infections in progress. What’s more, prolonged sleep deprivation increases the risk of all kinds of maladies including Alzheimer’s, heart disease, and diabetes.

Get your Z’s.

Hydration

Proper hydration levels are important for basically every homeostatic function. Immune regulation, cognitive processing, athletic performance…all of it requires good hydration. You should aim to pee every 2-4 hours while awake, assuming you don’t have any issues with your urinary tract. If you’re running to the bathroom more often than that, maybe cool it a bit with your Hydroflask.

Vitamin C

One zombie idea – a notion contrary to all evidence but that stubbornly refuses to die, like flat-earthers or anti-vaxxers – is that super-high doses of vitamin C knock out viruses like Mike Tyson. This isn’t true.
Vitamin C, also known as ascorbic acid, is a water-soluble vitamin; the body will absorb as much as it can and then excrete the rest. If you go WAY overboard, you will get very uncomfortable diarrhea. Remember, ascorbic ACID…it’s not fun.

That said, if you want to supplement up to a gram or so per day you’ll most likely be fine, and there’s a chance it might help your overall health if you don’t currently eat lots of fruits or veggies. Probably best to work on that though…it’s pretty low-hanging fruit as far as health goes (ah ah ahhhh! …not sorry).

Vitamin D

Vitamin D, it turns out, does much more than help your bones absorb calcium – it’s also integral to protein synthesis and preventing atrophy of skeletal muscle. Not only that, there are vitamin D receptors on all immune cells, and deficiency makes you more susceptible to autoimmunity as well as infection.

If you aren’t getting out in the midday sun on a daily basis, supplementing up to 5000 IU vitamin D3 can be a safe way to avoid deficiency. (Some people advocate higher dosages, but I’d get bloodwork done and ask a doctor first. Don’t take potentially dangerous medical advice from strangers on the internet.)

Other Things

“I heard [insert herb/supplement here] does a lot to boost your immune system! What do you think?”

Most herbs and other dietary supplements have not been validated through high-quality research to actually reduce incidence of viral infection. That’s not to say they DON’T work, merely that we can’t say for sure that they DO. (Science!)

A multivitamin is a good idea to cover your micronutrient bases, but many trials have failed to establish a benefit for preventing disease if you don’t have any actual nutrient deficiencies – in other words, if you eat a healthy and varied diet with lots of different fruits and vegetables, you probably don’t actually need a multivitamin. You might just end up with expensive pee, but at least it likely won’t hurt you.

Also, anything with a large amount of phytonutrients (greens powder, dark hemp extract, herbs and spices) will have either a neutral or positive effect on inflammation and immunity, though evidence for that is limited.

And hey, if you try something random and it works…go for it! At the end of the day, efficacy is king. But remember, always start with the basics: Hygiene, sleep, exercise, and healthy lifestyle are your go-to’s for keeping the bugs away. They will always outperform whatever fad your aunt Gertrude shared on Facebook.

Until next time:

Get your Z’s, eat your greens, do some exercise, and wash your hands!

-JT

• We are in the middle of a global virus epidemic unlike anything we have ever seen.
• This is something we at FTP are taking seriously, and we sincerely hope you do too.
• Protect yourself and others by maintaining social distancing (6 feet/2 meters) and clean hands. Quarantine yourself if you have ANY suspicion that you’re sick. Stay home whenever you possibly can.
• FTP has implemented heightened safety precautions in accordance with CDC recommendations and local ordinance, and will continue servicing our customers for as long as circumstances permit. Any interruptions, should they occur, will be temporary.

Dearest peoples,

Hello!

JT here – I’m known as the “science guy” and resident health expert around these parts. Maybe you’ve seen me in our X3 battery video.

Anyway, in light of recent developments concerning the COVID-19 outbreak that has taken the world by storm, we would like to pass along the information that we have gleaned. We have been watching the situation closely ever since it caused severe disruptions in China’s manufacturing sector months ago. Things have not gotten better since then, to say the least.

“What is COVID-19?”

Well, sir/madam, I trust the rock under which you have been living for the past several weeks was quite comfortable. Allow me to inform you.

COVID-19 is the shorthand codename for a newly discovered strain of coronavirus. It was first transmitted to humans in Wuhan, China around the third week of November 2019 – epidemiologists think it originated in bats, then jumped to pangolins (anteater-armadillo-like things that I honestly didn’t know existed before last week), then to humans. The likely point of transmission was a live-animal meat market common in the region.

“It’s like the flu, right?”

Nope. It’s actually much worse.

Influenza virus, commonly referred to as “the flu,” is bad. It’s quite contagious, it hits you like a ton of bricks and lays you out for a week or two (unless you immediately go to the doctor and they give you an antiviral drug), but generally you get over it and life goes on. Last flu season saw about 35.5 million people get sick and 34,200 people die – this is a death rate of about 0.1%, which is actually pretty typical. Yes, lots of people die from the flu every year…but that’s because LOTS AND LOTS of people come down with it.

From what we can tell so far, COVID-19 is significantly MORE contagious than the flu – more comparable to measles, in fact – and causes a death rate many times higher. What’s worse, it being a coronavirus rather than an influenza virus means it doesn’t care what the weather is doing; all climates and seasons are fair game.

“But wait, it’s not like Ebola or anything – most people don’t even get that sick from it.”

This is true.

Ebola is pretty much a death sentence with 90+% lethality, and it’s just wretched, but it’s not nearly as easy to spread as COVID-19. This infectiousness makes COVID-19 even more dangerous to society at large – people either get mild to moderate symptoms (or none at all) or they get life-threateningly ill with permanent lung damage, and are contagious the entire time. Obviously more severe symptoms increase ease of virus transmission, but there is substantial evidence that infection can be spread simply by breathing the same air as someone with the virus who, let me remind you, may be completely unaware they even have it. This data has not yet been corroborated in the US for the simple reason that we were VERY late to the party in terms of public health response, and we don’t have nearly enough testing kits available to get a true figure of how bad the infection rate actually is. [By the way, that statement has nothing to do with politics, merely simple fact. I shouldn’t even have to say that, but 2020 is a nightmare reality in more ways than one, so here we are.]

We have NO idea how many people really have this, but whatever the official number is, it’s probably a dire understatement.

It is true that the younger and healthier you are, the more likely you are to avoid catastrophic illness with COVID-19. However, this also increases the chances that you are an unwitting carrier who could be infecting everyone you touch. Additionally, if you have ANY circumstances that may compromise your ability to fight infection – respiratory insufficiency, smoking, heart disease, immunodeficiency or autoimmunity, obesity, diabetes, cancer – your risk of a poor outcome from COVID-19 increases. The more risk factors you have, the worse your chances. Given that nearly half of American adults are obese and/or diabetic, it doesn’t look good for us if this goes wide.

“Okay, so how bad is it NOW?”

It’s pretty bad, but so far it’s only REALLY bad in a few hotspots throughout the country and the world at large.

It is currently Thursday afternoon, and by the end of the day worldwide infections will likely top 240,000 with over 10,000 deaths (which is a 4% death rate). Even if ¾ of infections are undiagnosed – meaning a million people were actually infected with COVID-19 but most were never tested for it – that still puts the death rate at 1%.
We’re dealing with a virus that is AT LEAST ten times deadlier than the typical flu. This is comparable in severity to the infamous Spanish flu epidemic of 1918 that infected half a billion people and killed 50 million. Possibly worse.
This is the first time in history that a global pandemic originated from a coronavirus, especially from a city in the middle of eastern China and within a four-month span. We’re all in uncharted waters here, folks.

“Why don’t we just let it run its course? It’ll be over a lot quicker, right?”

It absolutely would be over quicker.

However, literally millions of people would die in the US alone.

If we did nothing, we could expect 80% of adults to become infected within weeks – that’s about 200 million cases just in the US.

Roughly 1 in 20 people who come down with COVID-19 develop serious illness, many of which will require a ventilator for weeks on end, so that gives us 10 million very sick people in a very short time span. The main problem is we don’t even have 1 million ventilators in this country, let alone 10 million.

It’s more like 175,000…and that’s not even talking about the number of available personnel with sufficiently advanced training to administer the treatment. ICU-quality ventilators cost upwards of 25 grand apiece – not exactly something you can cobble together out of spare parts unless you’re a cardiopulmonary specialist and also a mechanical engineer. If you need one of these things, YOU NEED ONE.
This means that if half of the seriously ill patients require ventilators, that’s well over 4 million Americans who have no chance. That’s the entire population of Los Angeles, gone.

“So?”

…what, are you a psychopath or something?
Okay, intrinsic value of human life notwithstanding, EVERYONE who may not statistically be vulnerable knows someone who is. Parents, grandparents, friends, colleagues…not only that, there have been a disturbing number of severe cases among adults under age 50 in other countries. Youth may be protective against COVID-19, but it does NOT grant immunity.
If we do nothing to mitigate this, society will endure a cataclysmic shock that will be forever burned into our cultural consciousness on a level far worse than 9/11. We will ALL lose loved ones.

“Okay fine, what can I do?”

First off, we won’t have a vaccine for this for at least a year, probably two years.

The best shot we have is slowing transmission of the virus to give our healthcare system the best possible chance at treating critically ill patients and minimizing the death toll.

It’s akin to spotting a stampeding herd of elephants running directly at your house. You don’t have an elephant gun (vaccine), so you can’t stop them. If you do nothing, the house will get ripped to shreds and the foundation crushed, so rebuilding will take a very, very long time. However, if you throw out a whole slew of obstacles – water barrels, discarded automobiles, giant sheets of fly paper – you can at least slow down the elephants so that they only take out a non-load-bearing wall or two and you can rebuild relatively quickly. It’s in everyone’s interests to slow down the stampede; that’s seriously the best we can do here until we can overhaul our medical system’s ability to respond to crisis.

The main tools we have in our anti-elephant arsenal are simple: Social distancing, quarantining, and frequent handwashing.

Social distancing: Maintaining 6 feet (2 meters) between you and any other humans when you’re out in public will reduce the likelihood that anyone infects you or that you unwittingly infect anyone else. This also means don’t go out in public unless you ABSOLUTELY have to. Work from home if you can – I’m actually writing this while sitting on my couch – and I understand that not everyone can do this, so please just be extra careful and maintain a large personal bubble. No more hugs, no more handshakes, no more sketchy Tinder dates. This is not going to be a fun time. Besides, bars are closed in most places anyway.

Quarantining: If you think you might possibly have the virus, STAY. HOME.

We live in a world of Instacart, Grubhub, Amazon, and Facetime. Don’t go to work, don’t go to the grocery store, just stay home. Your avoiding minor inconvenience is not worth other people’s lives. If you’re sick and you leave the house for any reason other than going to the doctor, you are a monster.
Additionally, if you’re over age 60 you should SERIOUSLY consider staying home in general until the worst has passed and hospitals aren’t imminently worried about ventilator shortages.

Handwashing: This virus can survive on hard surfaces for an astonishingly long time – two weeks or longer, in fact. Any time you touch something (or someone) that might conceivably be contaminated, WASH YOUR HANDS, especially before touching your face or any mucous membranes. This will kill and/or remove any viruses that might be present.
Hand sanitizer is hard to come by these days, so good ol’ soap and water will do just fine if you’re extremely thorough.

“What is FTP doing about this? Are you still able to make my [insert item here]?”

We have been largely unaffected by this…for now.

Our local jurisdiction of Orange County, California has not implemented a shelter-in-place order; as such, FTP is taking appropriate safety precautions like social distancing and borderline obsessive cleanliness while continuing to fulfill orders. So far everyone is still healthy (knock on wood), and we’re doing everything possible to keep it that way.

If our situation changes and we are forced to suspend operations, we will immediately update our customers and wholesalers with a timeframe as to when we expect to be back online.

This is an unpredictable and constantly changing situation, but we are a resilient company hell-bent on providing our customers the best possible service. If that means no service at all for the sake of safety then so be it, but we’ll let you know if that’s necessary.

In the meantime:

Stay safe.
Act responsibly.
And remember…we’re all in this unfortunate mess together.

I’ll post an article soon about natural ways to boost immunity (backed by actual science).

Sneak peek: Megadoses of vitamin C do not help you do anything other than rapidly deplete your now-precious toilet paper supply.

More Information:

• World Health Organization – COVID-19
• Centers for Disease Control – COVID-19
• YouTube – Coronavirus Explained And What You Should Do
• Joe Rogan Experience – Michael Osterholm (infectious disease expert)