Wellfounded Botanicals

 When Sara Rotman, founder/farmer at Busy Bee’s Organics cannabis farm in Buellton, set out to create a line of botanical tinctures, she knew what she wanted, and what she didn’t. A steadfast non-smoker, Rotman needed a way to medicate her Crohn’s disease that would allow her to experience the positive effects of both CBD and THC in predictable, repeatable doses. After extensive research and her own trial and error with other products on the market, the result for consumers is Wellfounded Botanicals, a line of holistic care crafted for wellness seekers and cannabis connoisseurs alike. The first product to launch is a line of three tinctures (Rotman’s preferred vehicle for achieving the therapeutic benefits she sought), each containing carefully measured doses of THC and CBD suspended in safflower oil and flavored with sweet pomegranate, with additional products including capsules and topicals to follow very soon. 

At a recent pop-up outside the Farmacy in Santa Barbara, Rotman answered questions about the three formulations and the intentions behind the choices she made in creating the Wellfounded line. 

Your three products all come in 30 ml dropper bottles, but each one combines THC and CBD in a different ratio. Can you take us through what went into these decisions about volume and ratio? 

Sara Rotman: One of the things that was really important for me when we created these products was to give people an opportunity to have a sufficient amount of medicine in the bottle. As a habitual user to treat my Crohn’s disease, these are the medicines that really make my life possible, and sometimes other products just don’t have enough. The other thing that’s really important is that we’re able to give each customer a way to customize their own therapy and their own system of wellness. So we offer three ratios. We have our 20 to one, which is 20 times CBD to one time THC, and we have a one to one, which is an equal balance. And then we have our one to five, which is our high THC ratio. What we try to do with all of the ratios is make sure that we have about 1,200 cannabinoids in every single 30 ml bottle. That’s our hero product. This is the thing that I use all day every day to keep myself healthy and in remission. 

What’s the logic behind the different ratios? 

SR: Broadly speaking, THC is for pain relief, and CBD is for anti-inflammation. There’s an enormous amount more, but if you want to pare it down to its most simplistic terms, those are the basics. Of course, THC has psychotropic effects, and for some people, myself included, high levels of THC are sometimes challenging, so we wanted to make sure that we have an all-day-every-day formula. For us, that’s “Restore,” which is our 20 CBD to one THC ratio. That’s the thing that I use the most to treat my condition. If I’m feeling a Crohn’s flare coming on, I’ll take a quarter dropper eight or nine times in a day just for maintenance. 

If I need a little bit of help sleeping, or I’m feeling anxious, the one to one ratio, “Relief,” is a great option. It offers a little bit more pain reduction, it’s a really great sleep aid, and it has a high volume of CBD. 600 milligrams of THC and 600 milligrams of CBD is a very generous portion for 30 ml. “Relax,” our one to five, is our high THC product. It’s for people who are experiencing severe pain or who need a more powerful sleep aid, or who have a higher tolerance for THC. We wanted to have that therapy in our system because THC in and of itself actually offers other benefits too. By having this full landscape of options available, I feel like we meet most patients’, or wellness seekers’, or even recreational users’ needs. These ratios help people customize a program that makes sense for them, and that’s really important to us. We’re able to produce consistent, repeatable experiences for people so that they can get into a program they can believe in and trust. 

These are “farm to tincture” products. Could you talk about that aspect of your business? 

SR: Yes. A huge point of difference for us is the farm. That separates us from most of the tincture brands on the market today. We grow all of our own cannabis, and we harvest it fresh and freeze it immediately. Because we grow it ourselves, we’re able to manage and maintain the kind of genetics that we think are going to make the perfect ingredients for this line of products. The quality of the plant has always been our main differentiator, and that’s as true of the tinctures as it is of the flowers. 

Wellfounded tinctures are available at the Farmacy in Santa Barbara. For more information, visit wellfounded.com. 

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