Meet Charlie Stivers of Phytorite CBD & Hemp

Today we’d like to introduce you to Charlie Stivers.

Charlie, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
With the middle name of “Garden” it is fitting that my life’s journey has taken me back to my roots in the agriculture community.

My great – great – great grandfather, Alexander Garden, was a medical doctor, botanist and zoologist during the late 1700s. When the Gardenia was discovered it was named after him in honor of his work in helping to explore the new America and add new species of plants and animals to the binomial nomenclature. My roots grew, living and working on an Angus cattle farm as a child in the Garden State – western New Jersey – the reason why they call it the Garden State.

I developed a green thumb – I loved growing plants at home and in the garden and raising animals. My experiences as a child and young adult had a huge impact on my beliefs with plant-based medicine. When the medical marijuana movement began, I was skeptical like most people. I tried it in my younger years recreationally, then later medicinally for gastro-intestinal issues. It helped! As I crossed into my 40’s I began feeling the aches and pains of working on the farm and being an athlete. (I still play adult competitive baseball in my free time.) I would wake up sore and not feeling rested. I heard about CBD and its anti-inflammatory properties and I began researching all the different uses and tried CBD. I bought a tincture from my friend in the industry. The next morning, I felt immediate relief! I now wake up rested and the aches and pains are gone. Now, I rarely even take an anti-acid or ibuprofen – I feel it’s because I take hemp extract rich with CBD, daily.

My journey with plants, my story of pain, and countless other stories like mine are the reason why I am in the hemp industry. This hemp industry is growing at enormous speeds because of people’s own stories of positive and sometimes miraculous outcomes. It’s nice to know that we have the science backing up the medicinal applications and possibilities.

I have been in the cannabis industry for a few years. I’ve come across some dark and light business practices. Many of the activities I was involved in were networking, making deals for other parties and building our portfolio. This led me to events, entertainment and cannabis tours. Eventually, I met a few people along the way and some of them didn’t like what I was doing. It was out of the box – very out of the box.

I licked my wounds for a year and began my search to solve problems in the industry.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The transition from a typical profession to the cannabis industry was the biggest hurdle. I knew my employer would fire me, and I wondered what would my family, friends, and clients say. To have the opportunity to get into the emerging cannabis industry – that was probably the most exciting thing that happened to me and something I could be passionate about again. My career path was focused on financial services and retirement planning. I wrote a book on Social Security and retirement income strategies. I was a licensed, independent, investment advisor.

Some clients came to me about eight years ago saying they wanted to invest in Colorado’s cannabis industry. I kept my ears open and began networking in the cannabis industry four years ago. We found what we thought was a great opportunity – to invest in a medical marijuana grow in 2016. Long story, short, that’s where we experienced the unprofessionalism and saw even more risk than we had time, money, and resources to manage. About six months later, a financial services client complained. That is something advisors and regulators take seriously, as they should. Even though there were no findings against me from this complaint, it opened a can of worms when the complaint also stated that I solicited them in a marijuana company.

Regulators saw that we were trying to participate in this crazy green rush, and I made mistakes along the way that I was transparent about. I tried to do the right thing and used my financial background with the help of a securities attorney to open a Private Placement offering. The lesson there is you must dot every “i” and cross every “t”. Anytime we are trusted with someone else’s money it is serious business. The regulators dug deep into what I was doing and saw there were deficiencies in the offering. We encountered typical business risks that caused us to lose money. We lost the money through poor investment in bad business activities.

The result was no charges, no restitution, and no rescission, because it broke me, too. They saw I was not stealing other peoples’ money. Faced with what I thought was a fair deal because of my deficiencies, we came to a settlement for me to Cease and Desist any Private Placements offerings. Little did I know that they would try to make an example out of me. The headlines read “Marijuana advisor admits to fraud”. Some of the mistakes I admitted to, fell under the Anti-Fraud provisions of the Colorado Securities Act. When I read the headlines, I was devastated – so badly most people would quit. I kept on moving forward towards the bigger vision of natural wellness and sustainability. It’s too important of a cause for me to quit. And, as you can see, I am very transparent about my struggles.

Own it and move on!

The journey through the hemp industry over the last three years ago has been my favorite part. The hemp industry is the part of the cannabis species that is even more versatile and purely righteous. The current momentum is behind all of hemp’s CBD wellness benefits because it does not get you high, but the coming hemp sustainability movement within the food, textiles, building materials, manufacturing, and composites is what we’re really getting excited about.

Please tell us about Phytorite CBD & Hemp.
Because of my financial background, I researched more – I discovered that the US Government has a patent, 6630507, on cannabinoids as a Neuroprotectant and Antioxidant. My daughter had brain surgery when she turned three years old. My son had a terrible concussion from a fall at school. I use CBD for them as a supplement to help their bodies heal their injuries. And, they love the topical salves for pain relief, too. All with no side effects!! Regarding brain injuries and mental health – this is where we are going to see the next biggest benefits of cannabinoids like CBG, CBN, and CBC. I encourage you to research the science behind why our bodies benefit tremendously from the cannabis species of plants. Our bodies’ endocannabinoid system and plant-based Phyto-cannabinoids will be common topics in future science books and teachings.

My “why” for getting into this industry and launching Phytorite.com and Phytorite CBD and Hemp continues as I hear more stories of healing and pain relief for others. Some are miraculous and so many people are getting their quality of life back, naturally!

Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
Growing up on a farm was full of real-life experiences. My favorite was I remember my mom bringing home an Aloe plant in the early eighties. She taught me that its sap is medicine. I pinched off a small piece and rubbed it on a cut on my skin to try it. That was the beginning of plant-based medicine for me. I learned from my dad – what we gave our cattle and livestock to consume we ended up consuming, too.

Some memories were sad. We saw pets dying of cancer at an early age. This prompted me to learn more. As a student, I researched and used natural remedies and alternatives to heal our pets from mange and seizures. I learned how commercial pet food and some grains fed to livestock were poisoning our animals. After seeing my dad passed from cancer at a young age and many of our pets getting cancer that turned the light on for me. My hypothesis is he ate way too much red meat, and we were feeding our pets commercial food. After treating our animals with natural remedies and seeing that it worked more safely and more practically, I was hooked on alternative wellness as a part of my lifestyle and for pets and animals, too.

1 Comment

1. 

   Charlie Stivers

   January 5, 2021 at 9:22 pm

   Thanks for publishing this article about me and PhytoRite. We are excited about the hemp and cannabis industry and all the people it is helping. We just launched our digital catalog – check it out for easy browsing of many CBD brands and products: catalog.phytorite.com

   Reply