Reverent Entertainment → The Gypsies of Amazon |
This May I purchased hemp oil on Amazon. I was looking for something else but hemp oil came up in recommendations. The product description stated that it relieves pain and helps sleep. I decided to try. It appeared of no effect. I went back to Amazon website to study the product description more carefully. It indeed says that it relieves pain and helps sleep.
However when you click the answered questions link you find the following:
The active ingredient of the hemp plant which can possibly help for pain and sleeplessness is cannabinoid or CBD. It is held in flowers and leaves of the plant, not in seeds. The real CBD oil is the seed oil enriched with flowers and leaves extract. The hemp oil sold by Amazon can help for pain and sleeplessness no more than olive oil. And I can't get my money back because 30 days since the purchase had passed.
It made me recall an old story. Glozstein and I traveled to Odessa, Ukraine, for a Physics Olympiad. In spare time we went shopping. It was in Communist times and the stores were undersupplied. One had to buy many needed things at flee market. Glozstein bought eyeshadow palette for his girlfriend from a Gypsy peddler. For a very good price. Glozstein started having doubts. He opened the package and discovered that it was colored chalk stuffed in checkers. Glozstein went back to the paddler and demanded his money back. She denied selling anything to him. Glozstein then pressed a charge she could not possibly deny. He called her a Gypsy. She responded with anti-Semitic swearing.
And what the Gypsies of Amazon do? I suspect they buy hempseed oil for $3.63/lb (below you can see a snapshot from Bulk Apothecary website) put it in little bottles and sell for $15/ounce. It's not just one store. There are hundreds of those on Amazon.
Mikhail Simkin
October 14, 2019