This article appears in the September issue of 400 Life.
Ashland Kayne grew up in Gainesville in a health-conscious family, so when a longtime family friend started a retail company that sold products with cannabidiol, or CBD, a chemical component of the hemp plant, they were intrigued.
The family got involved in the business and started using CBD, and they found it helpful with a variety of ailments among the group. It helped Kayne’s father with his blood pressure and arthritis. It helped Kayne with pain she’d been experiencing from previous car accidents. It helped her mom and brother with “all sorts of issues,” she says.
“There’s so many things that CBD can be helpful for,” Kayne says.
The family now owns four Your CBD Store locations in Georgia, including their latest that opened off Peachtree Parkway across from The Collection at Forsyth in June. The store offers a variety of CBD products, from water-soluble solutions to gummies, hard candies to skin creams and even dog treats.
In June of 2018, the FDA approved the first prescription drug to contain a substance derived from cannabis, a CBD oral solution called Epidiolex, used for the treatment of seizures associated with some rare forms of epilepsy.
The CBD industry is in the midst of a boom, and the Kaynes are right in the middle of it. Your CBD Store is projected to have 750 locations across the country by the end of the year, Kayne says, and the family is planning to add to their own footprint. Kayne’s parents have plans to open three more stores, while her brother and an uncle are planning to open new locations in the near future. Kayne herself plans to open a Your CBD Store in the Atlanta area.
“There’s not a lot of quality [CBD] retailers, especially in the suburbs,” Kayne says. She added, “We wanted to do something a little different.”
Most customers seek out CBD products for two reasons, Kayne says: pain and anxiety. But Kayne says they get customers looking for CBD to help a variety of health issues, including diabetes and neurological conditions like Parkinson’s disease.
Kayne says that the store’s 1,000-milligram topical cream recently won “Best Pain Cream in Show” at the USA CBD Expo and provides relief from poison oak.
“We’re meeting people every week who are coming in for something new,” Kayne says.
There are challenges in such a new industry, Kayne says. The CBD market is still largely unregulated. Reliable information about the science and the best uses for CBD is scattered across the internet. Kayne says many Georgia politicians have been unfriendly toward CBD too.
But Kayne and her family have found customers are embracing CBD products, so they keep themselves informed and trained on Your CBD Store’s SunMed products.
“I think the thing we really sell is information and a service,” Kayne says. “... We want to make sure that when you leave that you have peace of mind.”
