Why I chose to enter the Hemp industry to sell products compliant to the 2018 Hemp Farm Bill.

       My name is Peter LaFontaine. I have lived in Cincinnati, Ohio since late 2016 moving from southwest Florida. I first started using cannabis when I was 15-16 years old as a Sophomore in High School. I got my first bag of really good cannabis from a female friend I dated for a short while called Brandi. Til this day I really appreciate this new world she showed me of being a true stoner. At this point of my life, I did not know I had autism and that this was the reason I felt so much better mentally after using cannabis. It relieved a lot of my stress, anxiety, agitation, and aggression. It reduced a lot, if not ALL, of my destructive behavior by stopping these impulsive thoughts and actions I wanted to take. I learned this first hand when I was arrested for theft as a teen for being impulsive. I did not have any cannabis and my behavior got out of hand. I did not understand any of what was going on with my body at this time and my endocannabinoid system. With the lack of access to cannabis, I was self-medicating routinely and engaging in destructive behaviors until I eventually served a 15 month sentence for committing prescription fraud when I found a vulnerability within the prescribing system in place after I gained access to data containing sensitive information of physicians and medical professionals with DEA numbers. When I did my actions, I did not know how serious it was. I just thought it was cool that I found this vulnerability by means of data use and social engineering. I spent the next two years without being able to use cannabis. This was the most miserable period of my entire life filled with anguish, suffering, and pain. I was not able to receive the proper care I needed with my psychiatric meds. I still wasn’t even back on a stimulant as an adult to control all these behaviors as well. Autism is so complex and many autistic individuals are polypharmacy patients like myself. After I completed my sentence, I received my first diagnoses for autism as Asperger’s disorder. This is where my journey into my treatment first begins and where my life changed completely, I stopped engaging in destructive behavior once on the right medications for the most part. The main element missing was easy access to cannabis. I was still relying on only smoking it. I spent years using cannabis secretly hiding from the police and law enforcement of my activities. I became the biggest stoner you’d ever get to know throughout the 2010s educating myself deeply into the knowledge surrounding this plant.
       I sold cannabis in marijuana form before I entered the hemp industry and went legit. I no longer sell marijuana based cannabis and only deal with hemp based cannabis selling it though my online platform The Fountain Cannabis Company. I got the idea when I visited Puerto Rico in May 2024. While on the island, I had my medical card for Puerto Rico and was visiting dispensaries. While dispensary hunting on Old San Juan, I ran into a business called The Puerto Rico Cannabis Co. which was openly selling cannabis under “THCa flower”. They explained how it was federally legal and no medical card was required. This threw me off because I heard of this before but didn’t think you were able to openly sell it this way. Long story short, I spent the next 7 months studying the 2018 Hemp Farm Bill along with state level hemp programs. I enrolled into USDA classes on growing hemp legally. The downside is I cannot grow hemp until 01/01/2026 when it falls under USDA hands in Ohio making THCa flower a reality once it starts.

        I got my business license on September 2024 with the intent to start sales on 01/01/2025. I started sales on the planned date and now I serve the entire Cincinnati area as one of the only few hemp operators in the area. I made sure my company only sells to people 21 years of age or older as well to bring common sense to what regulation could look like for hemp in Ohio. Ohio dispensaries have no incentive to grow CBD flower or Type 2 strains. It’s up to the hemp industry to fill this void as well as allowing cheaper access to THCa dominant flower for those who really need it. I learned overtime that flower from the hemp industry is almost ALWAYS fresher than dispensary flower since it does not have to undergo METRC quarantine. This could be good and bad. Good if your flower was grown in sterile, clean conditions. Bad if your flower was grown poorly maintained. This is why you always have to know your source and question where the flower came from.

       We made a commitment to only sell NATURALLY occurring cannabinoid products meaning we DO NOT sell delta-8 THC, HHC, THC-P, and other bio semisynthetics on the market. We only focus on what occurs naturally in the plant. 

       So why the hemp industry? Our politicians have failed us so much so, that with their poor legislative actions, they accidentally legalized psychoactive cannabis flower as long as the delta-9 THC levels were 0.3% or less. This was possible with some adjustments in how the plant is dried and cured and even harvested to maintain THCa from converting to delta-9 THC. The cannabis industry on a state level has become so perverse that we need a fresh start on how the cannabis market should really look like. The hemp industry is the equivalent to the farmers market when it comes to product such as flower. No one controls the market as well unlike state level industries which buy out all licenses and prevent others from entering the game. If the United States has to federally legalize cannabis under the name “Hemp” and call the flower “Hemp flower”, then so be it and kill the state level industries. Force them to switch over to being federally compliant. Adjust the farm bill to increase the delta-9 THC limit from 0.3% to 0.9% like a recent proposal suggest. We can correct the terminology later as long as we finally legalize this plant and have easy access to its medical benefits. The state level industry has been ruined by greed and corruption by its owners in coordination with certain politicians like Trulieve and the owners husband. With the current hemp vs mj war going on, we need to either compromise on a solution as one or we need to kill the state level industries slowly and restart the cannabis industry on a federal level by removing it as a controlled substance entirely. No restrictions, no legal questioning. My company will continue to lobby for improving the farm bill and to finally legalize cannabis on a federal level eventually. We are The Fountain Cannabis Company of Cincinnati, Ohio. We will dominate. Bless