Dude, Store Opens in San Angelo to Sell Oil from Hemp Leaves

SAN ANGELO, TX – A new CBD shop has opened on Tuesday. 

Nexcel Health and Wellness center opened it's doors at 11 a.m. They are located the intersection of Johnson and University across the street from Angelo State University.

"In the states where they are using CBD, these states have had less disease," claimed Steve Smith owner of Nexcel. "I then started to find the best CBD manufacturer in the world."

CBD stands for Cannabidiol and is made from hemp leaves. Hemp is in the same plant family from where marijuana is produced. There are two primary species of the plants: hemp and marijuana. It's complicated. Rest assured the CBD oil is legal in Texas.

Back in 2017, when Congressman Michael Conaway was the House Ag Committee Chairman, hemp activists converged on San Angelo at a Conaway forum on agriculture here asking that growing hemp be legalized in Texas. According to hemp proponents, smoking hemp does not create a "high" like traditional marijuana does. For years, one could import hemp into Texas, but not cultivate it. That changed this year with the passage of Conaway's 2018 Farm Bill. According to the Texas Farm Bureau, since the bill's signing into law, Texas farmers await the federal government's Department of Agriculture to write the regulations allowing cultivation.

Once the regulations are in place, it will be the first time since 1969, when the Nixon administration outlawed growing hemp and many states like Texas followed. 

“Scientifically, they’re (hemp and marijuana) all cannabis sativa. What delineates the two worlds is the amount of THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) that is in the plant,” Michael Bowman, a hemp advocate who co-authored parts of the federal legislation in 2014, told the Texas Farm Bureau . “If you’re below 0.3 percent THC, you’re considered industrial hemp, and if you’re above, you’re considered marijuana.”

THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, is the main ingredient that causes Marijuana to be psychoactive drug. The way THC makes one "high" makes marijuana illegal in Texas.

The CBD being sold at Nexel is 100 percent legal since it has 0 percent THC in it.

"Our product has no trace of any psychoactive stuff in it," said Smith. "It's just pure oil."

This Nexcel center will be a company store and a company training center.

"San Angelo feels like home," said Smith, who is from El Paso. "When I drove through it the first time I felt the way I felt as a kid in El Paso."

After the ribbon cutting, Janet Henshaw the health and wellness advisor displayed foods where CBD is infused to show multiple ways to use the oils.