This episode of Decisions at the Fulcrum starts with the Brandywine River, instead of inventiveness, innovation, or even chemical synthesis. This is an account of how a few generations of refugees taught in European scientific disciplines morphed into an institution much bigger than a company. Instead, this institution gradually became a kind of infrastructure the United States grew to rely on, from the War of 1812 through the First World War due to timing, partnerships, regimen, and the predisposition of an emerging nation that was also unprepared to exert control over its own threats.

Following DuPont's development from gunpowder manufacturer to biochemical organization, this episode explores why nineteenth-century science, grounded in the criteria of reliability, rather than inventiveness, was the primary fulcrum point. Gunpowder was infrastructure in 1802, not an item of goods. Political, tumultuous, and heavy, it revealed the operational vulnerability of American independence. DuPont was the only arrangement that met all of the demands simultaneously but not the most suitable one, as imports failed, domestic producers were insufficient, and government control was still ideologically untenable. When an arrangement solved a shortcoming, despite the fact it was not flawless, the state continued to construct it on that answer. This was not inevitable; rather, it was dependency on the path.

This episode, which speaks directly to a Wilmington audience, contends that DuPont was not a chemistry legend in its entirety by the time of World War I. This recounted a story of how private organizations balance public susceptibility while staying entirely insoluble, and how modern institutions absorb responsibility without absorbing visibility. DuPont's history, from the Brandywine to a world conflict, is not filled with surging patriotism or heroic entrepreneurship, but rather the careful, reliable establishment of stability in an environment that was increasingly realizing how vulnerable it is. Part One of a longer analysis of how empires are subtly constructed on risky theories is presented herein.

A note:

This episode discusses topics that could be close and unsettled for many people. This work isn’t meant as an allusion to events in the present (i.e., the time you listen to it), though the information could be examined in that way. Nothing in this episode is meant to sensationalize harms, minimize dangers, or draw parallels across time. It’s an attempt to understand how societies organize and how decisions persist long after the moment that produced them.

Part II shifts focus from federal legislation to the marketplace, revealing the painful truth that, after years of expansion, the CBD business in 2025 remains fundamentally unstable, poorly regulated, and dominated by bulk isolates and white-label manufacture. Laboratory tests, including JAMA's 2020 review, continue to demonstrate considerable mislabeling, with products having considerably less or significantly more CBD than promised, as well as detectable THC that should not be present in officially compliant hemp.

Against this backdrop, a few companies stand out as exceptions, impressively! With vertically integrated, whole-plant, solvent-free extraction technology, one company called Sunsoil in Vermont shows us that reliability is action, and those activities do the marketing for them. The disparity between what is standard practice and what is necessary for systemic legitimacy is apparent in this case study.

Vertical integration and lab reporting aren't glamorous, but they're remarkable decisions. They are remarkable in that they center their work on quality standards while unintentionally exposing the greater reliance on bulk processing and marketing marshmallows.

Part II looks at Sunsoil as a comparison to demonstrate that CBD's credibility dilemma is the market's current operational situation, and it doesn't have to be this way. Integrity is not a branding effort in this context; it is an organizational decision at the fulcrum.

Part I investigates the federal hinge that enabled today's CBD scenario via a minor provision: Section 7606 of the 2014 Farm Bill.

This section enabled universities and state agricultural agencies to grow hemp for research purposes, unwittingly establishing the first legal road for contemporary cannabinoid study in more than 70 years.

It created the structural circumstances that would ultimately sustain a multibillion-dollar market.

This episode discusses the distinction between legality and legibility.

CBD's early legitimacy was established by clinical data arising from pediatric neurology, including efficacy evidence for Dravet and Lennox-Gastaut syndrome. These reports provided a very strong therapeutic signal for cannabinoids in 21st century U.S. medicine, resulting in Epidiolex, the FDA's first cannabis-derived treatment. However, as we'll see in part 2, the scientific data is not broadly understood by the wellness industry.

Part I establishes the foundation: a federal research provision, a scientific signal strong enough to resist regulatory examination, and the ambiguity that would characterize what followed it from 2018 to 2025.