The story below is from our May/June 2019 issue. For the full issue Subscribe today, view our FREE interactive digital edition or download our FREE iOS app!
Photo By Dan Smith
LilyHemp, a new Vinton store, is on a mission to help create a hemp economy.
If Debbie Custer is feeling a bit of déjà vu these days, you’ll understand. She’s been here before, resting at the front edge of a significant movement, though in times past, the profile was a smidge higher. Today, she sits on an overstuffed sofa in front of a picture window of her business—Coeus Research—at the corner of Pollard Street in Vinton, far, far from the madding crowd.
But the mission—helping to create a hemp economy—may well be her biggest. She is, at the very least, an enthusiastic, knowledgeable spokesperson for the eyebrow-raising qualities of one of the most versatile plants on earth, one that until recently was illegal, mostly because of its close relationship with marijuana.
Without hesitation Custer predicts hemp/cannabis “in five years will exceed [sales of] beer and wine and will become a $22 billion industry. About 85% of everything in a home—including the home itself—will be made of hemp,” she predicts.
Imports of hemp last year (it was legal to import, but not to grow) for insulating cars topped out at $1 billion. Hemp has only been deregulated since December, so the infrastructure for this surge isn’t in place yet (“Virginia needs a point person” for that, she insists).
Custer has been out front before. As a 27-year-old in the late 1980s (she’s 61 now), she helped establish and promote the Virginia wine industry as a national player, then in the ‘80s and ‘90s, she helped bring Quibell sparkling water to prominence in the beverage industry.
The lure here is that hemp could change just about everything we do. It could replace plastic. Think about that for a minute and take a look around you at all the plastic. It is already proving to be healthy in our diet, a pain reliever (CBD oils recommended by area physicians; “The VA is sending pain patients to me,” she says), as a land purifier (it was used to bring back Three Mile Island and Chernobyl). LilyHemp, owned by Susan Cromer, shares the space in Vinton with Coeus (founded 10 years ago) and sells some of the creams, oils, seeds, etc., and grows the plants on-site, where they are processed, as well. They are both part of the Innovation Mill within the Advancement Foundation.
Custer, a Virginia Tech grad (sociology BA and an MBA) has mostly taught herself about hemp and has spent a good while spreading the gospel. She is finding a lot of resistance to her vision (“banks still list it as a high risk,” she says, noting that financing is hard to come by), but sees a future full of hemp health.
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