As someone who started in the medical cannabis space, I was completely freaked out when the hemp CBD craze emerged. To this day, there’s no head of the hemp world. That’s why, for many years, when someone asked for a reliable CBD topical for sore muscles or a tincture for mental calm, I recommended TONIC. I interviewed the founder, Long Island native Brittany Carbone, for an article that centered around the tours she’d hosted at her hemp farm in 2018, and the more we talked, the more I was impressed. Carbone and her husband grew and harvested their own hemp, processed the plant material themselves, and formulated their own products. Carbone was among the only independent CBD brands growing their own hemp in 2017, and she was also an early face at cannabis-related events in general, helping build a new cannabis community of people looking to get into the legal cannabis or hemp game.
In addition to inviting tours out to the farm, Carbone is passionate about empowering people to make the most of their newfound right to grow cannabis at home and connecting good people, like when she helped Housing Works, New York’s first legal shop, get in touch with trusted, licensed brands when they were frantically filling shelves for launch. Now, TONIC has a THC line of vapes, gummies, and pre-rolls stocked in New York dispensaries in addition to their hemp CBD offerings, which is a damn good thing because while I am a fan of their gummies, their CBD face oil remains my skin’s favorite weed-related product.
Excerpted with permission from Green Scenes by Lauren Yoshiko, published by Hardie Grant Publishing, March 2024.
