ENDO Healing Provides Northport With Hemp CBD

NORTHPORT, NY — ENDO Healing, which sells hemp CBD products, opened its doors to Northport (112 Main St.) back in May.

The small but intimate hole-in-the-wall shop is ran by husband and wife team, Clark and Chrissy Ruggeri. CBD, which stands for Cannabidiol, is commonly used for stress and anxiety, pain, sleep and inflammation. Chrissy Ruggeri, 34, said that most customers have come in looking for a relief to their anxiety.

"Anxiety trickles down into the other issues that CBD helps, like sleep and inflammation," she told Patch. "Stress leads to so many health issues, so just targeting something that could help you deal with stress is going to help your overall health."

The store sells a wide range of CBD products. One of the most popular is CBD oil, which users take under their tongue. Once the oil is swallowed, it's absorbed into the bloodstream.

There are also capsules, gummies, teas and coffees, topicals for muscle pain, inflammation or arthritis, and a pet wellness line for anxious dogs and cats.

The store name comes from the body's endocannabinoid system, which allows CBD to benefit the body. Ruggeri said CBD interacts with preceptors throughout your endocannabinoid system, which is present throughout the entire body. She believes that one day, the endocannabinoid system will become as well-known as the digestive system, among others.

Ruggeri's knowledge stems from her staff writer position at DrAxe.com, which goes hand in hand with the store, Ancient Nutrition Supplements. She is the head CBD writer, which is what inspired her to start a hemp business.

"The more I learned about it and the more I got the studies and research, I realized this would be kind of explosive and really beneficial for people," Ruggeri, also a certified health coach, said. "I decided to bring all the worlds together and be able to help people by offering products that I’ve been researching for so long, including the product that my own company makes, Ancient Nutrition."

Her five years of writing experience has also been invaluable as far as her customer service goes, in addition to teaching her husband, 35, everything he knows about CBD.

"People come in and want the whole rundown. They ask questions specific to their conditions, so it’s helpful that I write about health conditions. If I didn’t have these answers, I don’t know if anybody would really want to use CBD, because it wouldn’t be clear to them how to use it right."

ENDO Healing only sells CBD for medicinal purposes, as opposed to recreational. A federal law prohibits the sale of hemp made of over 0.3 percent of THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, the main psychoactive substance in marijuana. Hemp contains high amounts of CBD and low amounts of THC, while cannabis is the opposite.

"Nothing in the store can get you high or intoxicated," Ruggeri said. "It doesn’t have any euphoric effects. So it doesn’t really make sense to use it recreationally because you’re not going to really feel anything from it like you would from a glass of wine or even from cannabis."

For the time being, the Ruggeris will sell exclusively hemp products. Recreational marijuana isn't currently on their radar. According to Ruggeri, the process to sell recreational cannabis is extensive, only available to limited businesses, and merchants must have at least $250,000 to even fill out an application.

Along with her expertise in hemp, Ruggeri believes the quality of ENDO Healing's products is what separates it from other stores; the CBD her store sells is organic and straight from a farm.

"I’m really interested in helping educate people and trying to find the best stuff we can find in the CBD market, because there’s a lot of garbage out there right now since it’s an unregulated market.That’s what we like to think is making us different than other places, where people can’t get the information that they need to make the best decision for their health."

Photos

All photos by Michael DeSantis/Patch