The Archive
206 guides · page 3 of 18
Field Notes
Who Is Cornbread Hemp? A Brand File on the Kentucky Organic Leader
A cousin-founded Kentucky company that built its whole identity on transparency — USDA-organic, Flower-Only, Kentucky-grown, with a named lab on every batch and its ownership on the public record at the SEC. It earns an A−, the top grade any brand has reached without full public-company audits; the honest gaps are self-asserted cGMP, uneven label accuracy, and a live BBB grade lower than its fans assume.
Read the guide →12 min read
Field Notes
Who Is cbdMD? A Brand File on the Public, NSF-Certified CBD Brand
A publicly traded, NSF-GMP, US-Hemp-Authority-certified CBD brand with full-panel COAs — credentialed and transparent on paper. The asterisks: it won't name its testing lab, it carries a disclosed going-concern doubt after narrowly avoiding delisting, and legacy SEC matters trail its former leadership.
Read the guide →11 min read
Field Notes
Who Is CBDistillery? A Brand File on the Value-CBD Heavyweight
One of the biggest, most affordable CBD brands — and a more transparent one than its low prices suggest. It names its accredited labs, carries NSF and US Hemp Authority certifications, and rolls up to a publicly traded parent. A strong B, held just short of the top by thinner sourcing disclosure.
Read the guide →11 min read
Field Notes
Who Is Cann? A Brand File on the Celebrity-Backed THC Drink
The best-selling THC beverage in California publishes some of the most rigorous lab reports in the business — and still got hit with a prosecutor's settlement for selling drinks whose THC didn't match the label. Both things are true, and you should know both.
Read the guide →11 min read
Field Notes
Who Is Charlotte's Web? A Brand File on the CBD Brand That Set the Standard
The company that started the modern CBD industry is also the most transparent brand we've graded: a publicly traded, USDA-certified-organic, B-Corp company that grows its own hemp and posts named-lab, full-panel batch COAs. Our first A — with a couple of honest, mostly-old asterisks.
Read the guide →12 min read
Field Notes
Who Is Cookies? A Brand File on the Iconic Cannabis Lifestyle Brand
Berner's Cookies is one of the most famous names in cannabis — a global lifestyle and licensing empire. It's also a different kind of company than the hemp brands we usually grade, and on our consumer-transparency rubric it scores low: testing lives at the dispensary level, not the brand's, and its public record is dominated by a thicket of (unproven) partner and investor disputes.
Read the guide →12 min read
Field Notes
Who Is CBDfx? A Brand File on One of the Bigger, More Open CBD Names
A large, founder-named California CBD company that posts public lab reports with QR traceability and earns an A+ at the BBB — more transparent than most. The asterisks: it won't name its testing labs, its 'organic' is marketing not certification, and it drew an FDA warning letter in 2022.
Read the guide →11 min read
Field Notes
Who Is STIIIZY? A Brand File on America's Best-Selling Cannabis Brand
The #1-selling US cannabis brand is a real, regulated, vertically integrated company with named founders — genuinely more accountable than the anonymous operators we usually grade. But on transparency and record it's weighed down by a confirmed pesticide recall, a major data breach, and a thin voluntary-COA trail, especially on its hemp line.
Read the guide →12 min read
Field Notes
Who Is Just Delta? A Brand File on JustCBD's Intoxicating Sister Brand
The delta-8 arm of Just Brands — the company behind JustCBD, founded by a Forbes 30-Under-30 entrepreneur and once bought by a NASDAQ-listed company. That public chapter makes it more traceable than most. The catch is weak product-integrity transparency and a history of 'how much is really in it?' lawsuits on the CBD side.
Read the guide →11 min read
Field Notes
Who Is Torch? A Brand File on the Anonymous Smoke-Shop Vape Giant
One of the most-stocked hemp vape brands in smoke shops — high-potency disposables full of novel cannabinoids — sold by a company that won't name its founders, its factory, or even the lab on its own COAs. For a disposable vape, the unverified contaminant testing is the part that should give you pause.
Read the guide →11 min read
Field Notes
Who Is Cycling Frog? A Brand File on Hemp's Most Vertically Integrated Name
Made by Lazarus Naturals — a hemp company that owns its Oregon farm, runs its own cGMP factory, and uses naturally-occurring delta-9 instead of chemically converting it. It's the most transparent supply chain we've scored, and our highest grade. The soft spots are workplace reviews and a settled data breach, not the product.
Read the guide →11 min read
Field Notes
Who Is Diamond CBD? A Brand File on a Troubled Public-Company Name
One of the older, larger online CBD brands — and one with the most complicated public record we've examined: a disputed 2018 contamination study, 2019 FDA and FTC warnings, a settled mislabeling suit, and a now-revoked penny-stock parent whose principals (not the company) were criminally charged. We lay out exactly what's proven, what's disputed, and what's just old.
Read the guide →13 min read