Tommy is a huge influence in the cannabis community, specifically in the Pacific Northwest. His extremely generous donations of RSO to cancer patients truly makes him a modern day cannabis saint. Tommy started his cannabis journey when he was 14 and says he's been 14 ever since. His genuine compassion, kindness and love for his patients was an honor to experience. This is Tommy's CBD journey...
My CBD Journey | Tommy Massegee
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Why does you use CBD?
“I use CBD to supplement and accent my cannabis. I dab pure CBD. You know, a lot of people would get a tincture as a quarter of a gram of raw solvent less CBD, I take that jar full of raw CBD and it’s beautiful. It’s even got terps of its own --- it’s quite good. You know how a lot of that CBD you’ve tried in the past has that kind of cherry cough syrup taste, well the real shit, not so much. It has a distinct flavor but that depends on the terpene profiles. Every one of the CBD plants has a different terpene profile which is cool as fuck in itself. I’ve had an opportunity to walk in a field of CBD with many different varieties which gave me an opportunity to smell and touch all these different strains and smell the terpenes they were putting off and that gave me a whole new outlook on CBD. All CBD is not created equal.”
Does anyone else in your family use CBD?
“Currently, not as a regular thing in my immediate family. Because most of my immediate family lives in an illegal state where cannabis in any form is bread in to them to be bad. Un-God like. I’m trying to work on it. And I don’t want people to separate marijuana from CBD, just the stigma. If Grandma gets benefit from CBD or some good ol’ fashioned left-handed cigarettes as we used to call them down in Texas --- I don’t care. She got her benefit and that’s how it is.”
Is CBD for you easy to acquire?
“No, no it’s not for other people. Very little is known about CBD and people just don’t know. It’s not hard for me, though. I’m very rich in the asset of people I know in the industry. Not only in this state but all up and down the west coast. The Pacific Northwest has been really good to me in that sense because I’ve had a lot of support in helping cancer patients get their RSO.
A lot of people have made donations of material, actual RSO, cash donations. So for instance, they donate to help me go buy a case of Everclear. Half gallons of Everclear are expensive so if I’m taking that Everclear and I’m doing the 5-gallon bucket challenge like ol’ Rick Simpson it does gets expensive.
So, I make it, I give it away, other people give me product and say they want to help too. And I did it to the tune of half a million dollars last year. Did I make any money? No, I did not. There ain’t a dime to be seen. I’m not trying to get rich and I don’t want to be.”
How has CBD made a difference in your everyday life?
“I noticed the very first time that I tried the CBD isolate that it intensified the effects of my other cannabis. Otherwise, lowering the amounts I had to use of my high-powered cannabis, be it Sativa, Indica or whatever combination I was using that day to address my needs. I saw an immediate difference in my daily life just from trying it.”
Tell me about your life before CBD.
“I was a pot head. I didn’t know much about CBD. A friend and I used to talk a lot about CBD in the morning and the effects of it. She swore by it doing wonders for her husband, but I was seriously skeptical about CBD. Because in the very beginning a lot of the CBD that was available was hemp derived from China and being imported from China. And we were taking on, initially in the industry, unfortunately, 99% of the CBD products were derived in China and not the United States of America, and they made a lot of money by giving people a great big fuckin’ lie.
Now that they’ve made the money to build the farms, and they’re producing from farms here, all their past dirty deeds are just supposed to be overlooked. The biggest majority of CBD companies in the beginning came in to the industry in a shady way by deceiving the public and their customers and deceiving me too and making me a part of it because they gave things away in giveaways.
You know, I know so many people in the industry, but in the CBD industry it’s not been a real trusting thing for me and I guess that falls back on the PTSD. Trust is a big deal. It’s not all from China anymore but it was that way two years ago and some of the farms here have been financed by selling China CBD in the beginning.”
Do you take any other meds?
Now I do, since my heart attack last week. And a stomach pill for reflux disease, upper GI, that kind of thing. Other than that, pretty much just an aspirin a day to keep the doctor away, that kind of shit, because I’m an older 14 year old, ya know.”
Do you feel there is a stigma with CBD?
“Yup. There’s definitely a stigma. It’s attached to cannabis or marijuana and even though it has enormous benefits people think that maybe it’s not even legal where they’re at and that it wouldn’t help them. They go through a vicious regiment of chemo therapy and different things like that and never get CBD and their quality of life could’ve been so much better. They’re just uneducated and it’s a pity. Fortunately, the government has finally come out and said, ‘Yeah, hey there may be a benefit in this shit now seeing that we’ve owned the patens for how many fuckin’ years now.’”
Explain your CBD journey in a few words.
“If you can’t grow it yourself, know your grower.”