Hal Elrod: Cannabis changed my life, and it can change your life too. If you struggle with sleep, you deal with pain, or anxiety, there are so many things that the miracle plant, that is cannabis, can help you with. And today I am talking with someone who knows this very well. He is Joe Sheehey, the founder of CURED Nutrition, formerly at NASA, a contributing aerospace engineer. And today, we’re talking about why the cannabinoids, CBD, CBN, and THC, in very small doses, specifically have such a transformative effect on the human body. I’m going to share my story of how, at the most painful moment of my life, when a nurse accidentally injected chemotherapy into my nerve aiming for my spine, missed the spine, and I went through 11 days of horrific migraines, how a tiny bit of cannabis completely eliminated my pain, gave me my appetite back, and set me on a road to recovery.

Also, my grandmother, why she is now using cannabis because I convinced her that the stigmas attached with marijuana from the old days do not apply to the reality of what research has proven the cannabis plant can do for human beings, for all of us. So, dive in today if you’re cannabis curious or you think it’s bad because you grew up in the 80s and you were told it was a drug, and whatever other beliefs were established at some point in your life, I think today you will find very, very interesting, and informative, and helpful on your health journey. Here we go.

[INTERVIEW]

Hal Elrod: Joe, what’s up, brother? Good to see you again, man.

Joe Sheehey: I know. It’s so good to be back here.

Hal Elrod: Dude, I had you on two years ago. It was episode, I think, 526 and we’re on like 621. So, it’s been a couple of years, man.

Joe Sheehey: I know. I know. I feel like we just dove right back in. I appreciate who you are and the way we connected on that first episode, and like right when we got back on, I was like, “Oh, man. Got a lot of love for Hal. Feels like a brother.”

Hal Elrod: I appreciate that.

Joe Sheehey: Even though I’ve only spent a little time with you.

Hal Elrod: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, there are those soul connections. I think we were like, “Oh, this is an authentic human being who’s doing good work in the world,” and I think that we’re all on the same team, if that’s the case.

Joe Sheehey: A hundred percent.

Hal Elrod: So, there’s something that I really want to get into with what you’re kind of moving almost into politics in a way, advocating for some changes the government’s trying to make that would put your company at risk, put products that have changed my life at risk. I want to get into that, but I actually, for those that don’t know who you are, I want to start with your background with NASA, right? So, you were an aerospace engineer who worked on NASA projects through Lockheed Martin.

Joe Sheehey: Yep.

Hal Elrod: And now you run a plant-based wellness company based in cannabis called CURED Nutrition, which I’m a fan of. In fact, I had you guys sponsor my podcast now. But that’s a huge leap, right, from NASA aerospace engineer to entrepreneur, running your own company. How did that leap occur?

Joe Sheehey: So, when I was in college, if I went back before college, I was the Lego guy, like little kid, Legos, building things. I always wanted to understand how things worked. My dad was a pilot, and I had terrible vision, and I was like, “Oh, so my pilot aspirations, they’re not going to come to fruition.”

Hal Elrod: Got it.

Joe Sheehey: So, I’ll figure out how to build things, and that’s what led me down the engineering route. And I got really interested in space. And so, I went to school for aerospace engineering. But like many people that go into college, I was very lost. I knew, I was like, “Okay, this is where I think I want to go.” And I was good at math and I was good at science, and so I was like, “Okay, cool. This is what I’m doing.” And I got to a really dark place in college. And one night in 2012, I actually found myself on the edge of a bridge. I had climbed over a guardrail, and I went to go jump off the bridge to end my life.

Hal Elrod: This is at what age?

Joe Sheehey: I would’ve been 21. And somebody was below that bridge. He stopped me. He said, “Hey, can I come up there and talk to you?” And he pulled me back over the guardrail after he climbed up all the rocks.

Hal Elrod: Wow.

Joe Sheehey: I just completely broke down. And my girlfriend at the time was way behind me but had caught up to me. Ben, who saved my life, handed me off, and my girlfriend walked me home. And when I got home, I took a handful of Xanax, and the next day I woke up in the hospital, and I was under surveillance for suicide watch. And my parents came to the hospital, and I remember the doctor asking me, “You know, we’re going to run some tests. Is there anything we’re going to find in your system?” And like the truth was, they were going to find a lot. And when I said that, I saw the life just get sucked out of my parents because not only did they almost lose their son the night before, they saw that their son had completely lost himself.

Hal Elrod: Wow.

Joe Sheehey: I was in such a dark place, and then the weeks and months afterwards, I instantly went the traditional route. Orange bottles, white caps. There was no question. It was like, this is what you’re going to take, and this is what’s going to make you better. And things just got worse. And so, that really…

Hal Elrod: What were you taking, by the way, do you remember? Antidepressants or what was it?

Joe Sheehey: Both. Yeah. So, I was prescribed anti-anxiety medication, benzos, and then after. But that was before. So, I was struggling with anxiety, but I was also drinking. If anybody knows, like you do not want to combine those two. And that’s why I blacked out consistently. And then I got put on SSRIs, antidepressants, and things just got worse. I was numb, I was disconnected. I was like, “This is not the path.” And so, that was really what started to spark this interest in an alternative path. At the same time, I was trying to finish up my engineering degree and start a career. And so, I was like, “I got to get my act together.” And my parents said the exact same thing. They pulled me out of school, out of Boulder.

I moved back home and finished my last year of college, like from their house, driving up to school, coming home. And at the same time, was when I had first scored with the luck of God, an internship at Lockheed Martin. And I was like, “Okay, I have to get my act together because I’ve worked so hard to get this degree and I’m teetering on the edge of being alive or not.” And thankfully, over the next year and a half, I found the bodybuilding and the fitness world, and I just left my friend group, and I restarted my life, and thankfully ended up graduating and then getting a full-time job at Lockheed Martin.

And then I spent seven years at Lockheed Martin. I was working on projects contributing to, I worked on one called Maven, which was a Mars orbiter; Juno, which was a Jupiter orbiter; Insight, which was a Mars lander; and then I worked on Orion for a little bit. And my job was I worked in a lot of mechanisms, so anything that moved on a spacecraft, spacecraft legs that deployed on a lander, solar arrays that deployed and powered a spacecraft to travel to Jupiter or Mars. And I was slowly living this, like I was dying the death of quiet desperation. I was like I worked so hard to get here, but I showed up every day and sat in my cubicle, and I looked around, and I was like, “I worked so hard for this.”

And I see my colleagues that have been there 25, 30 years, a lot of them just feel like they just kind of like gave up. It’s like, “This is how it is.” They’re sour. And I was like, “Man, this doesn’t feel good. Like, I’m not excited to be here every day, but this is like what I thought I was supposed to do.”

Hal Elrod: Yeah.

Joe Sheehey: And I saw this image of where the next 30 years could have led. I was like, “I got to figure out something that’s going to feel like I’m creating a tangible impact in this world,” but then also fueling, like, what is my soul and feeling like I’m living purposeful. Because I tell people I worked for NASA, they’re like, “What?” I was like, “Yeah. It was awesome, and the missions that I worked on were incredible.” But I sat in my cubicle, and I worked on this little part so I couldn’t feel the impact of that whole mission. And I started listening to Rogan a bunch, and I was like, “Okay, what would it look like to carve my own path?” And a couple of years into working at Lockheed Martin, cannabis was legalized in Colorado.

I remember Lockheed Martin sent out corporate-wide communication like, “Just because it’s legal in Colorado, this is a federally funded company, and you cannot use this substance because you get randomly drug tests, and you work for the government, essentially.” And I remember watching my colleagues’ reactions to reading that email, and some being holding their lips like, “I don’t want to say anything because I don’t want to give away if I ever used it or not,” and like, “What are people going to think about me?” And I had used cannabis while I was in college, but I was also combining it with a bunch of different substances. And so, I had spent several years in sobriety after a very dark place, but I still had questions. I was like, this industry is interesting to me. And then I started seeing CBD and non-intoxicating cannabinoids that were helping people with relaxation and recovery. And I was like…

Hal Elrod: Pain, sleep.

Joe Sheehey: Pain and sleep. And I was like, “Okay. And for myself too, I was like, “Okay, I’m going to take a non-THC product because I know I get drug tested for THC.” And hopefully I don’t get drug tested like, for some reason, they’re testing for CBD now. But it started helping me with my anxiety, with my racing mind, which then helped me sleep, which then helped me recover, which then showed up in every area of my life because I was sleeping good. And that helped my mental health in combination with, of course, exercise and diet and everything else. But my mom had introduced me to Dr. Andrew Weil a couple of years after I had first been prescribed antidepressants.

And he was one of the original individuals who wanted to study marijuana and like the medical benefits of it. And he ran the Center for Integrative Medicine. I think it’s at, I don’t know if it’s ASU or UofA. It’s in Arizona. He also started True Food Kitchen. So, if you’ve ever been to True Food, that was Dr. Andrew Weil.

Hal Elrod: Oh, he did start True… I forgot about that. I read his book, Living Foods (Eating Well) for Optimum Health, in my early twenties, and that totally, totally transformed my view on using food as fuel and diet and all of that.

Joe Sheehey: Yeah. He’s so good. I think the book that my mom gave me was, it was like Spontaneous Healing.

Hal Elrod: Okay. I’ve read that too. Yeah.

Joe Sheehey: And it was like, okay, like how can you use high-dose fish oils and vitamin D and herbs? And I was like, this is so interesting because I was quickly prescribed antidepressants, and I know I’m not alone. I know that there’s this whole world of people out there that are looking for an alternative option. And so, finally, like seven years into my engineering career, I had been playing around with the idea of what would it look like to start my own business. And I saw this cannabis industry coming to fruition in California and Colorado, and I had such an interest in it, but I was like, “I don’t know how, like what am I going to do in this? I don’t know. I’m an engineer.”

Like, I’m an engineer, and I’m very interested in the health and fitness industry. And I had started a podcast because I was like, “This is like a way to create a community, and maybe I could become an entrepreneur outside of this, or this could lead to something.” And I called it…

Hal Elrod: What was your podcast?

Joe Sheehey: It was called Higher Health, and what the definition was, it was like not to get high, but it was really like what is health at a higher level of consciousness. Because I was looking at the health and fitness industry, and I was like, okay, well, all these like pre-workouts and everybody on steroids. I’m like, that’s not really health to me. It’s like, what’s this higher consciousness or higher level of health? And I started to talk to people about cannabis on that podcast, and it was like left and right, people were raising their hand. A lot of times, they wouldn’t want to talk about it on the podcast, but we’ll talk about after. I was like, “There’s something here. There’s a lot of interest, but there’s also a fear of the stigma.

Hal Elrod: The stigma. That’s it.

Joe Sheehey: Like, what are people going to think about me if I’m like, “I’ve used cannabis and it helps me sleep?” Like, okay, are you labeled the stoner? Are you part of like Cheech and Chong culture? And I was like, “Here it is. I need to change the face of an industry to then change the perception of who can use this product to then reach a completely different demographic.” Because I saw person after person saying, “Yes, I’m just using this for stress relief. I’m using this for sleep. I’m using this to calm my mind,” but like they didn’t want to tell anybody else about it. So, I was like, if I can package this in a way that changes the narrative around who a user is and what the effects of cannabinoids are, then I think there’s something here.

And I was like half one foot in, one foot out in engineering at the time. And when I looked back on the time, I could recognize that my boss could tell, but at first I was like, this guy just like…

Hal Elrod: Your boss, what?

Joe Sheehey: He could tell that I was one foot in. I was like one foot in, one foot out.

Hal Elrod: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joe Sheehey: I wasn’t producing results in my engineering career like I would expect of myself. And one day, my boss just completely belittled me in front of a bunch of my colleagues. And I went and saw an employee services therapist because I was starting to get depressed. There’s like this path that I want to take. I was very interested in becoming an entrepreneur, and then there was who I really was. Like, there was the path that I wanted to take, and there’s who I really was, and it caused this massive dissonance. And I believe that when you live in that world of like who are you really, who do you show up as every day, and then if there’s a gap between that and who it is you really want to be, you live in this…

Hal Elrod: Your soul is crying out to be…

Joe Sheehey: Yes. That’s like I’m not yet who it is I want to be. I’m trying to portray to the outside world that I am this other person, but my actions aren’t showing it. And so, I was just like…

Hal Elrod: And sadly, so many people never have the courage to do what you’re about to share, right, which is like they lived their whole life there.

Joe Sheehey: A hundred percent. And so, when I went and shared with my therapist, I saw this therapist one time, and I was sharing it with him like I had a relationship that had fallen apart. I was like not happy in my career. I had worked so hard, and I was getting depressed again, but I had been depressed before, so I could look back and say, “Okay. Something’s going on here. I’m this person. I’m not who I really want to be.” And I sat with him for about 30, 45 minutes, and he just stopped me, said, “Joe, can I give you something?” And I was like, “Yeah.” He’s like, “I’m going to give this to you. I don’t think you’re ever going to come back as a client, though.” And he turned to his desk, and he pulled out a card, and he wrote something on it, and he handed it to me.

On the back, it just said ‘permission.’ And he was like, “Joe, you’re looking for permission from everybody in the outside world, but nobody’s going to give it to you besides yourself.” That day, I left the therapist’s office, put in my letter of resignation, and the next day, I started CURED. And I had no idea what I was doing, but I had never felt more free in my entire life before. I had like $6,000 worth of savings and an idea. And that was in August of 2017. And now we are here in 2026, and on this bookshelf behind me, you can’t really see it, but like there’s a card on that picture, and that’s the permission slip that it just sits there. It’s like the card that I always look to because I just had to give myself permission.

And I jumped and I haven’t looked back since. I left the corporate career in the corporate grind, and we’ve been focused on creating an alternative path for health for the millions of Americans that are looking for that solution but have been conditioned to believe that cannabis is something that it’s truly not. And that’s what we do at CURED every single day.

Hal Elrod: I love that, man. And there are so many things I want to say, and I want to ask you. In fact, my grandma is on CBD now, so your products are helping my grandmother deal with pain. She fell and broke her back and cracked her skull, all these things. And she was on pain meds. I go, “Grandma, would you try something if I sent it to you? It’s CBD.” And I think she actually did. She’s 93, and I think she went, “Wait. Like marijuana? Hal, no, no, no. That’s bad.” And I go, “Grandma, the government told you it was bad. They told you it was a drug. And it’s a plant, and it was made by God, if you will, like, if you want to go there, right? Like it comes from the earth, versus the things that are chemically made in a lab that have worse side effects than the benefits.”

In fact, I want to take a minute. I don’t know. I might have shared this story with you last time we spoke, but I don’t remember. But I want to share this with my audience because if anybody listening, trust me, and they’re just getting to know you, like I want to bridge this gap. So, when I had cancer, one day a nurse intended to stick chemotherapy in my spine with a big, thick needle. That alone was like, I’m like, “What have I gotten myself? Okay.” It’s like, “We’re here. Okay.” So, she attempts to stick chemotherapy in my spine, and she misses my spine and injects it into my nerve. And the next, I think it was 11 days. I’d have to ask my dad. I was so out of it. I don’t know if it was 9 or 11. It was somewhere in that range.

I had the most horrific migraines 24 hours a day, every single day. Did not stop. And I grew up with migraines, so I’ve had migraines. I’ve never had migraines like this, and they were nonstop. Usually, I have it for the day, sleep it off. And they tried morphine. They tried OxyContin. They tried every hardcore pain med, and not even morphine, nothing worked. And then they finally kicked me out of the hospital because they needed my bed for the next patient. And I was like, I’ve got earplugs in, and my dad’s like pushing me in a wheelchair. And we go back to this apartment by the hospital, and my poor dad is watching his son. I’m already on chemo, I’m bald, I’m skinny, I’m on death’s doorway. And now I can’t eat, I can’t stomach food.

So, he is watching, I’m already on death’s doorway and I can’t eat. And he’s like trying to get me to eat things, and he is bringing me things, and I’m telling him like, dad, “Don’t even talk to me. I can’t. It hurts so bad when you talk to me.” And one day he says, “Hal, what about that marijuana that your friend dropped off when you first started this cancer journey? Do you want to try that?” And like something inside me, I go, and I hadn’t done marijuana in years. And I said, “Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, let’s try it.” And so, the funniest thing, my dad, it was a flower. My dad’s never put marijuana into a bowl, so he is like, “How do I do this?” And I’m like, I got one eye open on the bed, my earplugs are in, and I’m going, “Okay, dad, put like, just fill it to the top, you know?”

And I get a lighter, I take two hits of marijuana. Again, in my mind, not a drug, a plant that grows in the ground. To me, it’s so important to shift that paradigm in people’s mind. We were told it was a drug. Cocaine’s a drug. Heroin’s a drug. Marijuana’s a drug. It’s like, well, no, no, no, no, no. Some of these are made in the lab. One of them grows out of the ground, right? Anyway, so I take two hits of marijuana, and my dad leaves. And keep in mind, my wife had not talked to me in 11 days because I couldn’t bear to hear sound or see light. So, all she’s getting is these updates from my dad, and she’s calling my dad, “How’s Hal doing?” She’s distraught, crying. My dad, we’re all a mess.

And two puffs of marijuana, and my dad closes the door, and white noise is on, earplugs, and he leaves. Five minutes later, I open my eyes. I sit up straight. My headache is virtually gone. I have an appetite. I feel fine, and I walk. I take out my earplugs. I walk out in the living room. I go, “Dad, I’m starving.” He like the look on his face, he goes, “What the…? What? Like, you haven’t been able to move in 11 days. How are you?” Like, his brain couldn’t even comprehend. I go, “That marijuana you gave me. It’s a fricking miracle. It’s a miracle.” And I pick up the phone, I call my wife, I go, “Hey, sweetie.” She goes, “What? How are you talking right now?” I go, “I took two hits of marijuana and five minutes later I feel fine.”

And simultaneously, Joe, and I know you can relate to this at some level, very quickly that day, I felt very angry with our medical system, that I was two puffs away. And for someone that doesn’t want to smoke marijuana, which I don’t smoke it anymore, it’s like I take mostly CBD, very small THC, right? And it’s like through CURED Nutrition. It’s through either gummies or capsules or oil or whatever. But anyway, regardless, I was so angry that I go, “Man, you’re pumping me full of all these chemicals that are just destroying my liver and you’re doing that with millions of people across the country when I was two hits away from a plant that grows in the ground, that has little and no side effects in that small of a dose from complete relief.

So, it was both a miracle, and I never went down that road, but I actually thought, “Man, maybe this is my path. Maybe being an advocate for cannabis, and maybe someday that will be my path.” And indirectly, as someone who really supports CURED Nutrition, I use your products every day. And you guys sponsored the podcast. That’s like my indirect way of supporting the cannabis movement, man. But, yeah, any thoughts?

Joe Sheehey: That is such an incredible story. I don’t think you told me that whole thing last time on how the chemo missed where it was supposed to be, which is what caused it. And that even adds to, literally, what you just said. It’s like you take a full-spectrum extract, cannabis, like the side effects are you might sleep more.

Hal Elrod: Yeah.

Joe Sheehey: But like this other route and like, of course, like modern medicine, there’s like this yes-and. We need so much of it, right? Like, my mom literally just, well, now she is free of cancer in her body.

Hal Elrod: Amen.

Joe Sheehey: But she had breast cancer, and she had to get a double mastectomy. And I sat with her with every appointment with the oncologist. And the first thing that I got was like, I was like, “I want to be here to help my mom through this process,” but the first question I got was, “What are your qualifications?” I was like, “I want to be here with my mom first off. And second, I run a cannabis company, and I know the properties of cannabinoids. I know how it can help my mom, and all I’m going to ask is, ‘Are you open to me helping my mom and her taking some of our products?’” And it was interesting how I was met, but I’ll keep that as an aside. But I couldn’t agree with you more that there’s like this visceral reaction to, which is like not founded on anything that makes sense to me.

And that’s why it’s become my mission, like quite literally. That’s why it’s become my mission to change this narrative, to allow so many people that are maybe like a couple steps away from interest in trying it, but have this fear that is founded on propaganda and a narrative that it’s existed for far too long, which has put, just like you said, marijuana in the DARE program and has classified it no differently than heroin. And just recently, there have been some shifts at the federal level where we’ve moved it from a Schedule 1 controlled substance to a Schedule 3, now saying that it has medical benefits, but at Schedule 1, it was never considered that way.

And so, it’s like, I pray about this all the time, Hal. I do believe that this is a part of the purpose that God has put on my life. And I was really for some time questioning if that was true because I was like, I’m very involved in my church and I started a small group and I was like, should I even disclose that I run this company? And I prayed about it a lot. And then I’m like, okay, maybe I should step away from this business. And then this hemp ban went through and I’ve prayed about it every day, and God has showed me that this is part of the purpose that he’s put on my life and that this thing is from him. This plant is from him. This mission that I’m on and that we’re on is necessary. And of course, it’s going to be met with resistance. Of course.

So, every single day, like, I couldn’t agree with you more. There’s this deep like drive and energy that I have to help people, but you can only do it through stories like yours. That helps start to shift the perception that has been ingrained in so many people’s heads.

Hal Elrod: Yeah, absolutely. Let’s start, before we get to the hemp ban, which I want to talk about, talk for the folks that aren’t aware of what are the benefits of the cannabis plant, and I know what’s one important thing about CURED Nutrition is it’s the whole spectrum, right? It’s the whole plant. But talk about CBD for example, I have taken your Night Oil, CBN Night Oil. This is a part of like, I struggled with sleep for six months after I did three years of chemo. Something inside my brain snapped around November 2019 and for the next six months, I slept two to four hours a night. This is actually, I think, how I discovered CURED Nutrition, if I remember correctly.

And I tried every sleep supplement off Amazon. I tried everything, different combinations. I did research, trying to figure out what can help me get through a night. And this was one of the main products, and I’ve taken this every night, I think, for the last six years, something along those lines, your night oil.

Joe Sheehey: That’s incredible.

Hal Elrod: I like your new Dream Gummies too, by the way.

Joe Sheehey: Those have CBN.

Hal Elrod: Talk about what are the benefits of CBD, CBN, THC. Any other aspects of the plant? What are the differences? What are the benefits, et cetera?

Joe Sheehey: Yeah, so the best place to start is that there’s over a hundred node cannabinoids in the cannabis plant. We extract all of ours from the hemp plant, which used to be defined as having less than 0.3% THC. That definition was changed, which is what will lead us to another conversation. But in full-spectrum hemp extract, what you get is high doses of CBD, and then you can get lower doses of THC, you can get CBN, you can get several other cannabinoids, CBC, CBG. But to just zoom in on CBD, CBN, and THC because those are the ones that we use the most.

CBD is non intoxicating. It has anti-inflammatory-like properties, so you can use it over the course of time for recovery. And it also has an ability to help calm your body. It interacts with the GABA receptors in your body, which helps your mind calm down and helps you get to sleep. And if you just kept it there, like calm your mind, sleep, and then recovery, kind of take it like a vitamin where it helps your body achieve homeostasis and helps with your stress response. That’s CBD, non-intoxicating.

CBN is similar to CBD and lives kind of between THC and CBD. I’ll go to THC real quick and then come back to CBN. THC is what is in typically what people associate with marijuana. It is the intoxicating cannabinoid at certain concentrations. So, at very low concentrations, it’s actually not intoxicating, but it is the thing that gave you that instant relief. When you smoked it, it was THC. You got the instant relief. That’s what a lot of people use for pain and for quicker relaxation, quicker onsets.

The problem, however, though, with THCs, most people, if they’ve ever tried it for the first time, they go into dispensary, they take a 5, 10 milligram edible and they’re looking for calming properties, they get too much THC, they get anxious, they get turned off, and then they never come back. They’re like, this is what I thought it was. And that’s been confirmed and I don’t want to try this ever again. For CURED, we put about a milligram of THC in most products, which is a 5th to a 10th of a standard dose that you would get in a dispensary. It’s non-intoxicating, but it gives you the more instantaneous relief. So, that’s like CBD and THC on two spectrums.

And CBN is more sedating. So, I always explain CBN as like THC actually degrades into CBN. And so, CBN is actually, it’s a cannabinoid that when you take it, it almost feels like you have a weighted blanket over your body. If you think about CBD kind of calming the mind, CBN would be more calming the body.

Hal Elrod: Interesting.

Joe Sheehey: And when you get both of those in combination, it really helps your overall sleep because if you wear your WHOOP or your Oura, there’s the deep sleep component, and then there’s the REM sleep. And I learned this from Dr. Mindy Pelz. She said, the deeper REM or the deeper deep sleep you get, the more REM sleep you typically get. So, if we can get into deep sleep, then our overall sleep score and our overall recovery is going to be better. But to get into deep sleep, you really need the whole body to slow down.

And so, when people take CBN, they notice that their deep sleep score first gets better and then their overall sleep score gets better. But you would never take CBN in the middle of the day because it is more sedating and more heavy. And it is closer to like almost the intoxicating realm, but it’s so nuanced because all of these cannabinoids can show up in full-spectrum hemp extract. And that’s where like this greater conversation on like, what is legal and where is this industry going to go goes. But that’s how I explain those three. Do you want to zoom in on any of those a little bit?

Hal Elrod: No, that makes sense. I mean, I can just say, like if it’s a weekend, if I want to really sleep deep and long and I don’t have to wake up the next day, I’ll do more Night Oil and it keeps me asleep longer. I’ll sleep like eight, even nine hours, so I can really control what the dose. And like when I travel, I take the Night Caps, which are like, that’s the perfect dose to sleep seven hours for me, and then if I really want to go even deeper or longer or rest or recover, like after a hard day of workout or exercise or something. No, man, I think that’s helpful.

Let’s talk about the ban. I mean, right now, your mission is at risk, right? Your mission is at risk. The plant that has helped me and millions and millions of people, the cannabis plant is at risk. The hemp plant’s at risk. Talk about what’s going on, and what are you doing? Actually, before you do that, let me just say if anybody wants to get CURED Nutrition, I grabbed all my products that I take off the shelf. Serenity Gummies, Flow Gummies, Rise Nootropic, on and on.

Joe Sheehey: You got them all.

Hal Elrod: You can go to CuredNutrition.com/Hal and use the code HAL at checkout. And again, I was a customer before y’all were a sponsor. I think it’s important. Like I do not take on sponsors unless I use a product. I love the product and I want to share it with folks. So, again, CuredNutrition.com/Hal and use the discount code HAL for 20% off your order of that. Let’s talk about the mission that you’re on now to protect the mission that you feel God’s given you.

Joe Sheehey: Yeah. So, we talked briefly about like marijuana and marijuana concentrations of THC and those, marijuana is sold state by state in dispensaries and that’s how it’s controlled. And hemp, like hemp and marijuana are both cannabis, but in 2014 it started, but then 2018, it really defined the 2018 Farming Bill defined hemp as cannabis with less than 0.3% THC by dry weight. So, it’s essentially marijuana and hemp are both cannabis, but one has a much lower concentration of THC. Marijuana is regulated state by state in dispensaries, and then hemp had the ability to be sold at the federal level as long as the concentrations of THC were meeting that 0.3% per serving.

So, what has happened, and this is wild and just shows you how frustrating it can be and how that visceral reaction is so founded. The bill that reopened the government in November 2025, there was a provision slipped into that bill at the very last minute that redefined hemp. So, I just gave you the old definition of hemp. A provision was slipped into that bill that reopened to the government and there’s all this pressure to get the government back open. There’s all this other language in the bill, but it changed it to less than 0.4 milligrams per container. So, one of those bags in front of you has 60 gummies in it and about a milligram per gummy. For that to be legal after November of this year, it has to have 0.4 milligrams of THC in it. Right now, we have essentially 120 times that much THC in it.

Hal Elrod: In the bag.

Joe Sheehey: In the bag.

Hal Elrod: Wow.

Joe Sheehey: So, there is, in one gummy, 1 milligram of THC, which is not enough to get you high. It is enough to get you relaxation and relief. But it was basically just, the definition of hemp was just changed literally to reopen the government. And so, now, when that happened, it created a ticking time bomb, which is basically in 365 days from when the bill that opened the government was signed, saying that hemp is essentially banned, there can be no, essentially zero THC in any hemp product.

The problem is, is that is quite literally impossible because the hemp farmer, when the hemp farmer is growing the hemp plant, THC is going to show up in it at very low concentrations. And then as soon as you go to extract, the extract from the plant to get CBD, they’re not saying that CBD is illegal, but they’re saying that any concentration of THC is essentially illegal. As soon as you extract the cannabinoids from the hemp plant, it is going to have THC concentration in it, and it is now deemed illegal.

So, right now, what’s happening is basically 95% of the products that are in the industry that are being sold online become illegal in November of this year, and the hemp, full-spectrum hemp industry, I should say it that way, the full-spectrum hemp industry is dead unless something changes. Now, the problem is, is that in 2018, when that bill went through and the farm bill, it opened up this ability for things to happen, which you mentioned before we started the podcast, and if you live in Texas and several places, you’ll see this happening. You can walk into a gas station and you can buy a 20-milligram edible of something called Delta-8 THC, which is synthetic and is not naturally occurring THC. You can also get Delta-9 at 20 milligrams. That is a serious problem because a kid could walk into a gas station and buy it and they could be high as a kite, and that was never intended to be our mission at CURED ever.

But there are so many companies that have basically exposed the ability to do that and are now essentially becoming marijuana operators without any rules. So, they’re selling high-dose edibles online. They’re selling them in gas stations.

Hal Elrod: Who knows what and all sorts of crap.

Joe Sheehey: No supply chain, third-party testing rules, nothing. So, you could literally have heavy metals, pesticides, everything showing up these, and it is a serious problem. So, we’re faced, and then like the other component of this, which is actually probably a really important thing to talk about is that over the last four years, alcohol sales are down $840 billion.

Hal Elrod: Ah, interesting.

Joe Sheehey: And people are using low-dose THC products as an alternative for alcohol. So, there’s a couple things happening right now. The bourbon industry is lobbying hard against the hemp industry. The marijuana industry is lobbying hard against the hemp industry because they have been regulated state by state and sold products in dispensaries, which is where those high-dose products should go, and I completely agree with, but they’ve been paying taxes at the state level at an exorbitant amount, but the operators that are basically like, oh, we can do the same thing online, basically exposed a loophole in the tax component of all of this.

So, there’s like infighting in the cannabis industry, which is a problem. Then there’s the bourbon industry that’s lobbying against the hemp industry, and then there’s the hemp operators like myself that have sold low-dose THC, full-spectrum products that are non-intoxicating, that are intended to get people relief and relaxation without getting high. But we got swept up in this whole thing because we’re not being treated any differently than the companies that are selling these high-dose edibles online and in the gas station. And so, like, the problem is very complicated.

And if we don’t do something within the next 11 months up until November, our business is gone. So, we have started a public advocacy group. It’s a 501(c)(4) called the National Coalition for Responsible Cannabinoid Access, and our mission is to go to DC and present a framework that is viable, non-intoxicating, protects children, has clear testing regulations, and creates a viable future for the full-spectrum hemp industry, which is where we live, but it is a long road ahead of us.

Hal Elrod: Yeah. And did you co-found this advocacy group? Or is this something you started yourself?

Joe Sheehey: Yeah, I started myself. I’m the chair. I didn’t know I was getting into politics in November of last year. And now, I also run a nonprofit, which is separate from CURED, but it’s on the same mission. Companies that operate like CURED, we’re inviting all of them to join us because we’re all being threatened and we all have a mission to help people. And I’ve met a lot of the operators that operate their business just like us, and we’re like, yeah, this is frustrating because we can agree with so many components of like the synthetic cannabinoids, the high-dose edibles that are in gas stations, like that has to go away. It’s not how this should work, but like, is the answer to make all of it go away or is the answer to create a real framework that’s saying, okay, as long as it’s non-intoxicating, yes, it could be sold online. As long as it has childproof packaging, yes, it could be sold online. So, yes, I started it and it is a mission of ours at CURED to obviously support this public advocacy group because we run both, but we will take this public advocacy group to Washington, DC, within the next several months here.

Hal Elrod: Yeah. Well, I was telling you before we started recording, right, that it reminded me of Vani Hari the Food Babe, known as the Food Babe online, and how she all of a sudden went from being an entrepreneur with Truvani, it’s a line of health products that don’t have any pesticides or dyes or any toxins in them. And she was successful. And I feel like that’s where my energy is right now for you, man, is that you’re going to make a huge impact, make a difference.

I love what you said about when you pray about this, you get this, hey, this is your mission, and it’s going to come with resistance, right? Like, that’s part of most meaningful missions. You’ve got to overcome challenges and adversity along the way. And Joe, I believe you’re the person to do that, man. Like just hearing your heart and that you use these products to help your mom with her cancer journey, which I can so relate to that as someone who did the same on my own journey, yeah, man, thank you for the work that you’re doing.

Joe Sheehey: Thank you. And thank you for having me here. And I remember the first time we talked and you shared a bit of the story that you shared earlier, I’m like, man, like, that’s what it takes. We have to hear those use cases because here’s what’s being threatened. Millions and millions of Americans that rely on low-dose THC products are going to lose access to something that is helping their, not just like to have a livelihood, but like their life, because like, first off, it’s going to allow them to move through the day, to sleep, whatever, and then allow them to work. So, like, we put this out to our community and we said, we asked the question like, what would losing access to low-dose products, how would it impact your life?

And man, I got to tell you, like when I was reading through what people were saying, it was like I would have to result to pharmaceuticals. My quality of life would be gone. This story after story after story after story, and it was just like, man, like I got the chills because I was like, that’s why we’re doing this. And man, like, it feels scary and it feels big because it feels like exactly like you said, like I know I’m going to be met with a lot of resistance and I would’ve never expected myself to be like, okay, I now have to run a political movement and I have to do it quick.

But it does feel like my purpose. And I could have never imagined that it led to this point, but now as I look back, I’m like, of course it did. Of course, it was going to have to lead to something to this. So, that’s our mission right now.

Hal Elrod: Is there anything that folks watching can do to support right now? Or is this really just something that is beyond the average person, what they’re going to do and it’s up to you and the other operators in your industry?

Joe Sheehey: Yeah, so obviously, the more CURED can set the example of how we believe the companies in this industry should operate, the better. So, we’re aggressively growing our company right now. And we would love to support as many people as we can through our company. But NCRCA.us is the URL to our public advocacy group. And on there, there’s really two calls to actions. It’s to one, share a testimonial, and two, if you feel so inclined to donate $5, $10, like we’re going to get as many people as we possibly can that represent CURED as part of the public advocacy group out to DC to create noise and really get the attention of the right politicians because the truth is it’s to no fault of their own, but they don’t really understand the intricacy of the industry.

Hal Elrod: Sure.

Joe Sheehey: And so, what happens is, like lobbying happens, bourbon comes in with a lot of money, and bam, cool. This can make it into the bill that reopens the government and just vroom. And so, we just have to create awareness. We have to get as loud as possible. So, my ask would be to, one, just like share with as many people the products that can help people through a non-intoxicating path, and whether it’s CURED or not, like that doesn’t matter to me, really. What matters is that there’s a future for this industry.

And so, we will be creating more noise around NCRCA and if any type of product has impacted you in a way similar to the products that CURED have, if you’re listening to this, I just ask you to share your story. And what we are doing through CURED and through the public advocacy group is sending out emails so you can contact your local politicians and congressmen and women because the more noise we create, the more at every level, the politicians will say like, this is something that really needs to be considered and talked about, and that will help us at least get an extension. Because if we don’t get an extension, I fear that like, it could be a little bit chaotic towards the end of this year. And right now, the other piece of this is like the extension is what’s going support the farmers because the farmers have to start putting their crops in the ground here in the next couple of months. And if they don’t do that, the entire supply chain for the industry is just gone.

Hal Elrod: Yeah. To think about how it trickles all the way back and how many people are affected, and my grandma’s one of those 93-year-old customers that her– so she was on all these pain meds and I said, “Grandma, have you thought about CBD?” And that’s when I had to explain that it was a part of the marijuana plant. She didn’t know anything about it. And then she got, “Oh, no, I don’t know.” And this was just a few months ago and I said, “I’m going to send you a bag of these gummies. Try them and let me know if they help you.” Because she was taking, I didn’t know, but she’s like, I take this pain medication every day and I forgot what it was, but whatever it was, I’m like, “Oh, grandma, you should cut back on that and see if you can find something natural.” And now, by taking the, I think it’s just your CBD oil, she cut her pain meds in half, which is wild.

Joe Sheehey: Wow.

Hal Elrod: So, immediately, like within the first month, she’s like, “I cut my pain medication in half because you said it’s not healthy for me and this is better for me.” And so, yeah, I mean, so that’s like a real life example. And dude, I will come to Washington if you need somebody to speak and share that story I shared earlier. I will bring my grandma, like, let’s go, dude.

Joe Sheehey: I will. I would love to enroll you and I mean, I just want to thank you for allowing us to, like, of course, you are so enrolled in this, but I still have to thank you because having the ability to share these stories on platforms like yours is going to help us. So, when you ask, like, what can we do? Like, just literally, this message and creating this space and sharing your testimonial is the momentum that we need to make a change happen. And I’m confident we can do it. I know we’ll be met with resistance, we already are, but I see on the other end of this that when I pray about this and I view the future, I see CURED as the gold standard in the full-spectrum hemp industry. And I believe that because you could just rip the curtains back. And I’m not afraid to share anything that we do, our supply chain, our testing, our everything, our formulations, how we believe this industry should be ran, which means our margins get compressed all the time because we move slower because we have to do those things. So, yeah, it’s just from me to you and everybody that listens to the podcast, just thank you because we just got to get the message out there.

Hal Elrod: You got it, brother. Thank you. And everybody listening, again, CURED Nutrition, if you want to try the products, Serenity Gummies, Flow Gummies, Night Caps, Rise, I mean, so many, I’m looking at all of them. And obviously, if you’re a fan of the show, I talk about CURED Nutrition every week on the podcast. So, I appreciate you, Joe. Thank you so much, man. And, let’s not take two years for this. I’ll have you back. Let’s have you back next year after the work you’re doing has come to fruition and we can celebrate together.

Joe Sheehey: Thank you, Hal. I appreciate it.

Hal Elrod: You got it.