Ben Dronkers, Mystery Oil and Extraction Footprints

0:02BubblemanHey everybody, welcome to Hash Church, episode 49. And I'm going to send out the links, as always. I'll try and wait for the stream to start so I can mute out my voice that's going to be coming through the secondary YouTube chat. Just send that off real quick. I hope everyone's doing really nice this morning. I am here live from Creekside, Whistler, British Columbia. Always, always enjoying my time up in Whistler, British Columbia.

0:36BubblemanIt was a couple of last rainy days, but luckily, High Integrity Glass Art was up here for a few days as well, so I got to go check out him with some of his new glass. He had, Jeezy had the new Coyote piece. He had his FTK from Scott Deppie and the Mothership crew all, you know, done up super unbelievable. Marbles and colors and just, And hopefully we're going to see him at one point today dropping by my room here for a little bit of a session.

1:09BubblemanI got to see Phil, our friend from, well, he was from True Genetics. He was from Saka Genetics. And now I believe he's doing a solventless consulting for a new crew. And I got to give it up to him. He is making the fire. This right here, which is not rosin, is not oil. This is some 73 micron bubba kush. Really stable, really, really impressed with this particular job that Phil did, so I've got to give him a shout out.

1:39BubblemanAnd hopefully he will come into the room today. And of course, as always, first in the room is my good friend, Etienne. How are you, my friend?

1:48SpeakerI am good, sir. How are you?

1:51BubblemanLet me get my power on so I can hear you, brother.

1:55SpeakerWhere are you recording from, sir?

1:58BubblemanI am in beautiful Whistler, British Columbia today. I am up in the creek side. Nice. Is it hazy there due to the fires? You know what? We did have a fire here yesterday. I remember a woman at the restaurant that I was at yesterday morning, a local diner called the Southside Diner. She said her house almost caught fire because the fires were right next to her house.

2:22BubblemanI'm not sure if those fires were in the forest or if they were other houses that have caught fire, but... Thank you for joining us.

2:43SpeakerYeah, here on the coast in California, it's not so bad, but when we were on our summer trip, when we got over to Yellowstone and Grand Tetons, the haze was so bad. It only got worse and worse and worse until we completely got to the coast again in California because there's just so many forest fires that are burning. It's just... Thank you for joining us.

3:23BubblemanAbsolutely, and props to Jeff Murch for coming in and muting his mic like the second he came in. That's the type of shit that I appreciate more than you can possibly imagine, so I want to welcome the Cannabis Reverend into the house today. Mr. Jeff, how you doing, buddy?

3:41SpeakerGood morning, everybody. Yeah, I'm in the lab. It's a little bit noisy here. I got the machine running, so I figured I'd hit the mute right away.

3:50BubblemanWell, we appreciate it, you know. We definitely appreciate it. We got a whack-schwack of people in the YouTube chat. I guess there's almost 300 people in there. And they're chatting up and I just wanted to say hello to some of them. You know, Silly Simon and Taste Bud and Rusty, 70's Mama, she's a regular in there, Adam Aceves, Red Lion, Brad Richardson. All of you guys and girls, thank you for coming and sharing your time with us this wonderful Sunday afternoon.

4:17BubblemanWe'll see who shows up today. I sent out a bunch of different... Links this morning, but Dr. Horatio, unfortunately, Horatio is in a power outage right now, so he is probably not going to be making it on. He doesn't have the power, he doesn't have the internet, so we'll miss you today, Horatio, but we will make sure that we cover some great topics that you would appreciate.

4:44BubblemanJeff's doing it at the lab, that's it.

4:47SpeakerI was going to ask, what's he making there, but I think he's out of listening distance. He's definitely got his CO2 machine running. I'm working on the distillation process right now, getting some CO2 broken down into some ethanol, and on the other side over here I've got the machine running. All right, so you're cleaning out any type of... Sorry? Go ahead, Jeff. I said what variety are you running, Jeff?

5:20SpeakerLet's see. Today we've got some L.A. Confidential that we're running this morning. We've got, I guess that's the third or fourth batch of the same material we've got running in the machine. And then, yeah, other than that, I was feeling some euphoria in Kirk's juice a little bit earlier.

5:44BubblemanExcellent. Well, it's always nice to see people mixing up the medicine because we know how important that medicine is, as you guys have heard right here on Hash Church. Quite a bit of incredible information over the course of the last 49 weeks. I mean, talk about, I mean, I knew I was an extractor, but I never knew that I could extract information out of the community like I have with this Hash Church in the last one year.

6:09BubblemanHoly smokes, guys. It's been incredible. Some really top quality information. It feels like we've been harvesting 90 micron and 120 micron and 73 micron out of all the different things that we've talked about over the course of the last year. It's been pretty pimp.

6:29SpeakerIt's been amazing just the diversity of people you've been able to call as well as the different people who have come through the How many different patients have we heard amazing stories from all the way around? It's been a beautiful experience for me and thank you for allowing me to be a part of it because it's been a humbling opportunity to share as well as more than anything to learn

6:54BubblemanWell, you know what? You've been a wonderful part of it, Etienne, and I'm glad once again, you know, Todd bringing in the good folks. I never know, really, you know, like this really, it's not like I just knew exactly who I needed in here. What I really had to do was I just kind of had to invite people in and see how they performed, and eventually we kind of came together with our little core group, and it's just been wonderful.

7:19BubblemanWelcome, Mr. Scaldone. Hey, Mark.

7:25BubblemanMark is in the house holding molecules made out of berries and some other sort of thing. I guess he's out and he's back. We haven't seen Mark for a week or two. He's been out fishing.

7:36SpeakerYeah, hardcore, man. He's been out touring. It's like the old school dead shows. Wait, aren't they, isn't it like a Dead and Friends now? They're going to be doing fall tour?

7:48BubblemanYeah, something along those lines. I haven't heard the exact accurate information about that, but I did hear that right afterwards they were going to do some other, you know, I don't think it involves Phil, because I believe Phil and friends is doing his own little tour at the time.

8:04SpeakerEveryone but Phil. Phil's doing his own thing. But I saw dates for the end of the year here in the Bay Area. I saw that for sure. Because I won't be around for it, but I know my friends will be going nuts, and Mark will probably be out here for it. Won't you, Mark?

8:23SpeakerMark me? Mark you. Yes, Mark me. I figured you'd be out. We were talking about the dead shows. Well, not the dead shows, but everyone but Phil's shows coming up at the end of the year. Yeah, I don't know. I think... I think I'll be going to those fish shows at the end of the year and not the dead shows. Probably. Oh yeah. Fish has got my concert going dollar right now at this point.

8:53BubblemanThey really do. Fish is on the ball.

8:57SpeakerThey certainly are. It was a great festival they had last week, Mark. Unbelievable. It was really good. The Magna Ball. Yes, Magna Ball was a lot of fun.

9:12BubblemanThat's awesome. That's wonderful to hear. I, once again, of course, wish that I could go, but I cannot, so I will sit here at Hash Church and smoke ridiculous, homeless, bubble-cush resin that looks like rosin, but it's bubble hash. Wow, that is beautiful.

9:31SpeakerI take it you made that, sir. That's looking really good.

9:33BubblemanYou know what? I'd love to say that I did make it. But it was a good friend and ambassador who's come in to Hash Church on a multitude of occasions. He always comes in late because he suffers from cluster migraine headaches, my good friend Phil. He showed up yesterday. He dropped off this little tiny piece, and I'm telling you, I woke up this morning and my whole room smelled like Bubba Kush.

9:56BubblemanSo thank you, Phil. Good job on the solventless extraction. It's, you know, it's hash like this that had Matt the Great Gardener when we first started doing the rosin. He would be like, well, why don't you just grow the herb good enough so you don't have to squeeze the resin out of the shitty herb or hash. And he did have something of accuracy there because with all the wonderful things that rosin can do, I'll tell you, when you get yourself a product of hash like this from dry sifting or wet washing, You really have already acquired what you're trying to do.

10:35BubblemanI'm going to have a nice little rip of it right now.

10:40BubblemanWell, Aaron says no church for him today. That's okay. No DNA in the house today. Those guys are busy. It's nice that they can spend the time that they can when they're able to make it, but totally understand when they can't. We'll hold the room down with 419 viewers. We just need one more. Oh, 429. Damn, that jumped fast. I thought we'd kind of go up to 420 there, but all right.

11:06BubblemanI'm just going to hit the rip at the closest to. It's 424 now, so good morning, everyone. And as Rob Clark would say, it's time to blow smoke rings at the Vatican. Here we go.

11:38SpeakerWell, Mark, it's a credit to you and what you've been able to also bring together because of your knowledge is the reason why 400 and something people are awake at this time of the morning every morning on Sundays and that you have almost 10,000 watchers a week on the show is because you're putting out knowledge and information that no one can find anywhere. The biggest problem we've always had has been misinformation from Too much information from the Ed Rosenthal books, which were just filled with just too much stuff, not enough information.

12:19SpeakerAnd here we actually are speaking about real world information. Hey, Todd, welcome.

12:25BubblemanHi, everybody. Welcome, welcome, Todd. How are you doing this fine, fine early evening?

12:37ToddEvening in Europe. It's great. Good morning, everybody, from 6 p.m. That's awesome.

12:45BubblemanI saw you posting pictures, like, hours ago, and I thought, I was like, what the hell is he doing up? Oh!

12:56BubblemanI figured it out. Let me tell you. No.

13:07ToddHow y'all doing? Doing good. You blinked. Hey, I got a special guest for us today.

13:16SpeakerOh, who's that? Who's that?

13:19ToddWhat's going down?

13:23ToddWhere does Mark go? What is happening? I think we have a technical glitch, guys. You're cutting out a little bit on your internet.

13:32SpeakerWe did hear that you said you had a special guest. Not so great internet connections.

13:42SpeakerI found that out when I was traveling in the hotel room is that I was always having problems of cutting in and cutting out.

13:50BubblemanI didn't seem to be having a problem until... Todd seems to be cutting out. Am I also cutting out, guys? You were. Now you're not. Now you're stable. Yeah, everybody seems to be stable now when they speak. I just keep getting drop boxes from Mark.

14:05SpeakerMy phone's like, boo-doo-doo, boo-doo-doo, boo-doo-doo.

14:09BubblemanThat's funny.

14:10ToddSo Todd...

14:12SpeakerWho did you bring in today?

14:15ToddBen Dronkers.

14:17SpeakerMr. Scentsy Seed Bank himself.

14:19ToddYeah, Scentsy Smile, first coffee shop in Rotterdam, followed by one of the first Scentsy, first seed bank in the world, really, Scentsy Seeds. First to call himself a seed bank by far. And then that was followed by the museums, the hash marijuana museums, which we all affectionately love so much. He now has three, two in Amsterdam, one in Barcelona. And then that was followed by him reading The Emperor Wears No Clothes and having an inspiring conversation with Jack Kerr.

14:47ToddAnd he felt like if hemp is so good, why is nobody doing it? So he did it and he launched Hempflax. In the early 90s, and now Hempflax is one of the world's largest hemp companies. They have over 2,000 hectares in the ground this summer, and they are growing all the fiber and cellulose. The fiber is going directly into the door panels in products like Mercedes, BMW, Jaguar, Bugatti.

15:09ToddBugatti has his hemp in it. Pretty crazy.

15:14SpeakerThat's completely crazy.

15:21ToddI'm going to go get something to drink and a lighter, so why don't you guys talk for a minute.

15:25BubblemanAbsolutely. I'm always impressed to have Ben Drums come share some time with us. He's one of the people early on in the industry, like in the early 90s, I think I was out in Germany, mid-90s actually, Germany in Dortmund, Germany. There was a cannabis show that happened back there. I can't remember if it started in 96 or 97 or 98, but it went all the way through to 01 or 02 before it started moving around Germany and ended up in Berlin and some other places.

15:56BubblemanBut I'll never forget seeing back in that day, it was the 90s for sure, Ben Dronkers rolling up in the 500SL, you know, dressed to the tits, everyone else pretty much potentiating the type of the stoner. I'm still kind of caught up in the potentiation of the stoner stereotype. They're promoting kind of what they just promote lately, which is the normalization of cannabis. There's Ben dressed to the tits in a beautiful suit and driving up in a beautiful suit and just looking like a classy guy.

16:31BubblemanI appreciated just that moment that he refused to try and fit in. It was all back then. A lot of people definitely potentiating this stereotype of the stoner.

16:52SpeakerBen has always been the consummate professional. I mean, representing himself always. I mean, I remember my first Cannabis Cup in 95, and I got married there at the Cup, and he invited my then wife and I to the Cannabis Castle. And we got to, you know, be guests, have dinner, go through. It was with Jack Herrera, which is hilarious, because, you know, he was at our wedding.

17:18SpeakerTodd was my best man at my wedding. So it was a crazy time. And just how humble, how nice he was, how kind, how gracious. But on top of that, how successful. I mean, back then, no one had a catalog like Sensi Seeds. Holy shit, no one at all had, I mean, how many award-winning strings. I mean, he was the first. He was I mean, the leader.

17:42SpeakerHe was the one leading everybody along the way. Like, oh, this is how it's done, people. And today, still with Hempflax and everything, he's still the world leader. And to maintain that for 30-plus years just shows, one, the team that he has in place, the professionalism he's been able to exude. But he also operated at a loss for almost two decades just to carry Hempflax forward. I mean, if you think about what that would take of any business, and how many of us here are business people, businessmen, right?

18:16SpeakerWe have our own businesses. Can you imagine operating at a loss for almost 18 years? That is beyond unheard of. And the respect is huge and immense for a man who can carry that to where now, I mean, his hemp is in everything. Like I said, my car has his hemp in it right now. He didn't sit there and tout himself and go around, oh, me, me, me, me, me.

18:39SpeakerBen's been quietly doing this shit all along, people. I mean, he's been leading us all along the way and showing us how it's done. We just haven't been paying attention so much.

18:52BubblemanYeah, I'm sorry if I'm lagging. I guess I am. This is going to just be a shitty church for me. I'm sorry, guys. Bummer. Bummer internet connection for me.

19:07SpeakerJust don't pop in real quick. I'll just be quiet. If you just come in and speak consistently, it comes over. You're doing great, Marcus.

19:23BubblemanYeah, I don't know how long I'll be in a connection like this.

19:29BubblemanBut I'm not too sure how long. I can't make almost anything out that you...

19:35BubblemanI have many things open. I'm not paying attention to the YouTube chat if anyone wants to. No, there's no plug-in at this hotel, Todd. Unfortunately, it's all wireless.

19:51BubblemanSo it's unfortunate. I'll see what I can do. I'll just kind of be talking and maybe it'll still record a nice connection.

20:04SpeakerPeople seem to be getting a good, you know, people are watching this, so it seems to be coming through. I haven't seen anybody saying no. So, you know. Nobody's talking. Can you hear me, Mark? Yeah. Mr. Scaldone, anything new in the world of science? Sorry, I had my mute on. Yes, I can hear you just fine. Anything new in the world of cannabis science?

20:38SpeakerLet's see. Not really. Cannabis is known to be a very medicinally active plant. That's already known. I guess what we keep on finding out more and more is that the... Thank you for joining us.

21:28SpeakerSo there's no wonder that we're hearing about stories about tumors going away or seizures being completely reduced to the point where we're not having any seizures anymore without the dreaded effects of medications that just basically cut off the nerve endings and turn the patient into a walking vegetable. So there's some discussion on the... Facebook page this week around juicing and whether or not that's still going to provide a positive result.

22:06SpeakerUnfortunately, if you're taking in cannabinoids into your body, yeah, they are going to be eliminated through your urine because your urine is basically what's coming out of your blood. If they're in your bloodstream, they're going to be in your urine, and they will show up as a positive result, even though you're not gaining from the psychological or psychotropic effect of All of the cannabinoids that are still in your system are still going to be metabolized and degraded and detected in a urine test.

22:40SpeakerAnybody hear about anything from the Michigan Cup? I really haven't heard that much about the Michigan Cannabis Cup. That just happened.

23:02SpeakerJeff, were you going to say something? I'm sorry. Yeah, I got nothing. Yeah, Michigan Canvas Cup, I really haven't even been following what's going on out there at all. Saw a couple pictures pop up through Instagram, but that's about it. You know, just wishing we had a Seattle Cup coming up here or a Portland Cup, but both of those got postponed or canceled this year, so...

23:35SpeakerWell, the Seattle one, they claim that the legislation that was passed here in Washington, 502 is what they claimed in this article, but really it's 5052 and 502. You know, there's... There's always been this law in Washington State that makes it illegal for you to pass a joint to anybody else, to pass any cannabis at all. We legalized cannabis and we didn't legalize the ability to pass it.

24:05SpeakerAnd so what was happening was all these people were, you know, giving out free samples and things like that at the cup, and even if it was just med patients, it was kind of A gray area. And the authorities just basically said, hey, no, we're not going to allow this to happen. So Seattle, Washington State, no more high times tough. And I don't know exactly what happened in Portland, but yeah.

24:36SpeakerYeah, that's a shame.

24:37ToddBut somebody will fill that void.

24:41SpeakerSo Todd, what's going on over there in Europe? Anything new and interesting?

24:47ToddWell, wow, where to start? Yeah, a lot of very interesting stuff's going on. We're in the middle of hemp harvest season right now, and one of the interesting things was we went to the supermarket yesterday and Ben found his hemp in the largest supermarket chain in Holland growing as a matting for sprouts. It's really quite amazing. I posted a photo on it on Instagram and it's, you know, what's nice about it, it's a mainstream product heading into supermarkets and it's hemp and feels like we're winning, if that makes sense.

25:21BubblemanDid Ben hear about Manitoba Harvest selling for $133 million?

25:25ToddOh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, he heard that for sure. And their number one product is what? Is hemp protein, right?

25:34BubblemanYou know, I think they ended up coming out with, yeah, probably hemp protein is number one, but hemp milk, I remember back in the day, was going to be the one that they said, if we can get this hemp milk thing happening, we should be able to, you know, really move the company for a good amount of money. Because it was usually milk companies like Unilever, And like other big companies like that that were looking at the hemp milk market because, you know, it's going to be obviously at least as big as almond milk and that became quite a big market.

26:05ToddYou're absolutely right. We have it at Whole Foods in California commonly. We've got chocolate, vanilla, and regular. And I forget what the brand name of it is.

26:14SpeakerThere's multiple brand names now. That's the thing is that people found what Manitoba was doing and did it better.

26:22BubblemanYeah, that's what competition's all about right there. You know, you inspire your competition to outdo you. If you don't yourself have the ability to make something better, but you have this great product and you put it out in the world and then your competition is like, wow, that's a great product, but it could be better and they tweak it a little bit and you look and you see, wow, this product has been made better.

26:42BubblemanWell, this is how competition works. This is why competition is healthy for the end user because they end up with a better thing. It's not about, oh, that was my idea and only I'm allowed to do it. No one's allowed to make it better. It has to stay the way it is, just the way I invented it. That's just not the way the world works. I thank God.

27:00SpeakerNo, it's all about sharing. The products evolved so much better as well. Remember, the first hemp milk wasn't that great, but today it's a consumer market, but also the consumer has responded to it. It's because, you know, hey, give thanks to Jack Herrera and all those back in the day for going out and spreading the word so people know what hemp is to actually ingest it. Straight up.

27:22SpeakerBuying it off the shelf in droves so that there are multiple varieties on our shelves in multiple flavors to choose from. That's pretty awesome in its own right.

27:31BubblemanI'd like to give a shout out to Alan Brady. Alan Brady, back in the 90s, he was some dude from California. Great guy. He went by Dr. Alan Brady, did he not?

27:43SpeakerYes, because he was a nutritionist.

27:45BubblemanRight. We flew him out to a hemp field in Manitoba to serve hemp ice cream, his Dr. Brady's hemp ice cream, to all of our sort of dignitaries that we invited to this hemp event that we threw. This was after we had imported low THC hemp seed from the Ukraine to grow in Manitoba, and It was an interesting situation how it all happened, but Holland was involved as well because we bought or rented, I can't remember if it was a purchase or a lease, but we flew a machine over a harvester, that big crazy Dutch harvester with the two big wheels on the front.

28:26BubblemanIt was incredible to watch the guy harvest just five acres. We had never seen anything like it. It happened so fast. It was like that thing was like a race car. Good times.

28:37SpeakerYeah, so he went, he separated the, well, he crushed the hemp seeds and then he took the hearts and then he froze them and made them into a, it was a very kind of a little crispy ice cream, but that stuff was amazing. He used to go to all the events back in the 90s and that's how I met him because I was working for Steve Angelo's company, Pollution, and so every event all around the country would go to, there would be, you know, Alan Brady with his hemp ice cream giving everybody samples so everybody could Got to taste it.

29:07SpeakerOnce they tasted it, we gave a, you know, it was flavorful. It still tasted like hemp, but it still gave people an opportunity to, you know, ingest it in a way that was different from any way they had seen it prior.

29:21BubblemanAbsolutely. Yeah, no, people were impressed. Even, I mean, keep in mind, this was 20 plus years ago now. It's pretty wild to think about that it sort of was a long, slow journey to get to This mainstream, which is really all we want, we want in. We just want to stop being put at the kiddie table. We want in. There's no reason to keep us out. We're your brothers and sisters and fathers and uncles and mothers and grandmas.

29:53SpeakerWe're everywhere.

29:54BubblemanWe are the enjoyer of the cannabis plant. Don't try to get rid of us.

30:00SpeakerBut that's what Ben's been proving all along. That it can be done and that it can be done responsibly and intelligently and not, I mean, he's not just in the Netherlands, correct? Todd, he's growing hemp all over Europe right now as well as factories.

30:16ToddI believe Hempflax expands three countries, Holland and Germany were the two first countries because they share farms on the border and a processing facility and now he just moved into Romania and he is expanding Hempflax as the demand increases.

30:33BubblemanAnd then I would only add that he also does it with panache. Panache.

30:40ToddHis class is unmatched. The museum in Barcelona, I think, is the crown jewel of all cannabis collections, to be truthful.

30:50BubblemanI think that that's an understatement, to say the least.

30:53SpeakerWhich hash church was that? Because that was one of my first. And I have to say, that was amazing to just be sitting in there, one. And two, that we were allowed to smoke in there was too amazing. Because if you realize what that collection in there is and is worth, that's amazing.

31:14BubblemanYeah, it was an incredible experience to, I mean, for many years I've heard and seen parts of what he's collected, but to see it all done in such an incredible fashion, in such a beautiful building, in such a beautiful country. It was all around, the hair on my arms were standing up in most of the rooms.

31:35SpeakerWelcome, Ben.

31:37BenHey, nice to see you guys.

31:41ToddSo do you know everybody, Mark? Ben, this is my friend Mark, Bubble Man makes the bubble bags, you know, of course. ATN, you know, from forever ago, yeah. And this is my friend Mark and Jeff. Hey, Mark. Having a stone moment, Jeff.

31:59BubblemanGood to see you. Yes, welcome, Ben. Good to see you as well. It's an absolute honor to have you on Hash Church, and we were just sort of talking a little bit about... The impact that you've had on our industry over the last 30 plus years here.

32:19BenI'm sorry, the line was not good for a minute.

32:23BubblemanOh, just welcoming you and letting you know that it's an honor to have you here in Hash Church. My honor.

32:32ToddYou know, Ben, when did you start growing?

32:36BenOh, that's a long time ago. And we did it on a solar, you know, the typical Dutch houses. Yeah. With a teepee of neon tubes.

32:49ToddReally? Yeah. Neon light grows cannabis? Yeah. It grows. It did? Yeah. Like fluorescent tubes in a way. Yeah. One of the first fluorescent tubes. And neon lights. I never even thought about that.

33:01SpeakerBen, what was one of the first strains that you can remember growing specifically?

33:07BenWell, the first strains, we call it spinach. It was the Dutch hemp, you know, from Keeshoeker and the guys in Amsterdam who had started to sell hemp seeds and even small clones for a gilder each. And so we had some of those, you know, and it was just for fun in the first place. And then later on, on my trip to Afghanistan and Pakistan and places, I started to collect the seeds and I brought the seeds and then we grow the same thing, you know, but then actually it was a year later.

33:40BenIt was really grass. You really get high. The first things, it was like a hemp variety. You didn't get stoned. We had small buds, and right away, also, we get in a greenhouse, and everything worked better. We blinded it with plastic, black plastic.

33:59ToddWow, blackout greenhouses back then?

34:01BenYeah. We had, there was a lot of work. Manual, manual.

34:06ToddThey have that automated now, really nice, yeah.

34:09BenWe had it automated later also, but in the first few days we had to, every, you know, every night we go and every morning we go open it.

34:17ToddWow. It was fun. And Sensi Smile, your coffee shop, is the first one in Rotterdam? It was the first coffee shop in Rotterdam.

34:26BenWow. It was fun. Do you remember when you started that? Uh, well... I had enough grass, you know. And there was a... I was angry there because Amsterdam had coffee shops legally. And in Utrecht, another city in Holland, they had coffee shops legally. And not in Rotterdam. And Rotterdam is the second biggest city from Holland. So, you know, I disagree. So I opened the coffee shop and I put a big marijuana leaf on the window.

35:02BenAnd we're on the highway, sort of, through Rotterdam. So it was really, people saw it. And the funny thing is that the cops informed the journalists that they're going to raid it. So right away in the newspaper you see the cops scratching the marijuana leaf out the window, you know. But in the article it mentioned where it is, the address, and everything. And I mentioned I opened again.

35:28BenAnd we had lines of people, you know, and they Well, they buzzed me many times. They harassed me many times in those days.

35:35ToddI asked, how many times do you remember you've been arrested? Over 80 times. Yeah, I lost count.

35:41BenBut, you know, it was sometimes, it was just, you go, you go in the bus, they bring you to the police station, and, hey, you go. Yeah. Many times, like, when you just took my grass, put me to the police station, and sometimes they make a paperwork, most of the time.

35:58ToddThey just take it? We experience that now in America. We call them smash and grabs. Even ATN, one of the places in LA, they came in September of 06, I think, and just took everything, broke the glass doors, took it all left. Yeah, they like to smoke, I think. So some police in southern Los Angeles, Santa Ana, were caught after they raided the place taking the edibles because there was hidden cameras and they didn't know they were on camera, you know, stealing the evidence and eating it and getting high.

36:26ToddHypocrites. Yeah. You know, Ben, I interviewed you 20 years ago and you made a comment that you did what you were doing with hemp and everything because you did not want to be a hypocrite fighting hypocrisy. And I thought in that moment you summed up so much of our struggle and we fight a lot of hypocrisy in the way they treat us against alcohol or tobacco or some of these similar substances.

36:48ToddYou know, we send kids into convenience stores and they're surrounded by adult use items, cars, Have gas that the kids can't buy, and knives they can't buy, and beer they can't buy, and liquor, and porn, and tobacco. But the kids grow up okay, but cannabis is always this, no, no, it'll fuck up the children. And the truth is it won't fuck up the children. You have a family running your business now, don't you?

37:11ToddYeah. They're all stoners. They're all stoners, yeah. I love it. You know, what got you into the seed bank? I mean, obviously you had a coffee shop and you're growing weed. Is just the seed bank a natural extension?

37:25BenWell, I grow, like I said, you know, I grow beautiful grass. I already was in the greenhouses. And then it wasn't that I really studied the law. And then I read one particular thing. It was every part of the plant is forbidden except the seeds. So if the seeds are accepted, Yeah, legal or exempted. Exempted. So then I should be able to grow it. So I looked at the agricultural law, and there it was, you know, seeds.

37:59BenNo problem. So I went to a bloody expensive lawyer who is a specialist in agricultural law and regulations, and I said, I think I can grow legal seeds. And he said, well, you You paid me 6,000 guilders at that time. It was a lot of money. And, you know, for one console. And the next week I came back, he said, you're right. I think you're right. You can grow seeds.

38:25BenSo then, because I had coffee shops and I worked already with the seeds, with Neville, then I, you know, I started the first seed shop in Amsterdam, the One Nose Seed Shop. And then I started to work more close with Neville, exchanging Varieties, my Afghans, and his varieties, that's how we worked together in the first place for a couple of years, and then I never went. I wanted to go back to Australia, and just totally, and he wanted to sell the business to me.

39:01BenWe didn't come to an agreement, but he went to Australia, and then he was busted there because of America. Wanting him for serious. Wanted him, so then...

39:18ToddYou know, and right, the rest is history in a way, but you mentioned Afghan. I mean, a lot of us smoke Afghan, and we know what it looks like, but you actually went to Afghanistan to get your seed stock. Yeah, many times. Many times. Yeah, yeah.

39:32BenYeah, it was nice. You had the Mujahideen, you know, supported by the U.S., and you had the Taliban. But there were a small group also supported against the Russians. Right. And, you know, and I was especially, I took the seeds from the farmers already, but I hear it was in the mountains. There were also some seeds. And I really went into the mountains to find the wild seeds.

39:58BenAnd there's all over the place.

39:59ToddReally?

40:00BenAnd that was...

40:01ToddThe Hindu Kush Mountains, literally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Literally. Right. Wow. Did you travel further into India and collect further down? India I went also, but

40:10BenI had friends also that brought seeds from there, from several places, but my particular thing was like Turkey, you know, I took some interesting things from Turkey, Lebanon, Morocco, but you know, mainly I was with the airplanes.

40:29ToddIt's remarkable for me to have this conversation because we've got a lot of seed companies these days that are, you know, 10 years old and they're mixing together your old hybrids to a large degree and they're acting like they're, you know, Reinventing the wheel. And to listen to you talk about going to Turkey and Afghanistan and India and the Hindu Kush Mountains to collect the seeds that are part of the seed bank, it's amazing.

40:52BenYeah, well, it was quite a job. And, you know, many times disappointing. You come out and it's not much. Nothing that, yeah, you don't get shit from that. You know, at this moment, I do the same thing about We've got about 400 varieties coming. We've got 200 already here, all from the Ukraine, Russia, the whole eastern part of Europe. Right. And I hope we're going to get something from there as well.

41:18BenRight. So it's not strain hunting, but collecting. Yeah. Collecting is like, you know, the five little things you do in Russia. Yes. They're doing that, so we've got seeds from there. It's probably disappearing. So it's interesting to look to strains and varieties, you know, to see what's happening, what's there. And our varieties, as you know, we keep them alive already. Three, 30, 38, yeah. So that's interesting, the same varieties we work with.

41:53BenRight, yeah. There's been a consistency to your product for a long time. And we didn't do much new varieties for quite some time because of regulations, you know. Right.

42:05BubblemanWow. I have a question, Todd. Go ahead. I was wondering what year these travels started for Ben. What year he started traveling into Afghanistan?

42:18Ben1970, I think. 1970, 71, maybe. I think like that. Yeah, something like that. Nice.

42:32ToddSo that was a long road to growing and cultivating You advertised it since he started in 1985, but I was born in 1970 and I was waiting for my first car in 1985, so I remember how long my life felt at age 60, 50. That's how long you were practicing before you actually opened the seed bank, collecting seeds.

42:53BenI had a boutique, you know, I did textile as well, and I brought that from Dubai. Right, back in the day. It was also one of the reasons I traveled. And then of course I go for the hands.

43:08ToddYour body is now toxic in Dubai. Probably. That's easy of course. But this is fantastic. You've always encompassed kind of a whole cannabis whole. You looked at the whole thing. I mean I know of no other cannabis entrepreneurs that moved into history and opened up not one museum but a hemp museum but then a third museum. And, you know, your passion for the whole picture, it's hard not to miss.

43:33ToddYou know, it's obvious. And, you know, where do you see things going?

43:41BenIt's a bloody difficult question. It's a very difficult question.

43:46ToddWell, more than, how do you feel about the advancements that we're seeing in America? Because a lot of the educational efforts that you and people like, you named Jack Kerrick, Jack Kerrick. Well, let's see that, you know, we see that

43:58BenTime stood still. For 75 years, there was not much research concerning cannabis, right? And now, hell breaks loose. Like, you guys in Russia, Israel, Spain, everywhere, you know. There was a seminar. There's every year a seminar. There's about 700 specialists only concerning CBD. They come in together. I wasn't there, but a friend was. And You can see how much research is done in the last 10 years.

44:33BenCompared to the last 75.

44:34ToddYeah.

44:35BenIt's monumental. It's incredible. And it will go, of course, it's the magical plant. It is the magical plant concerning medicine for the future, but also concerning the rest of the world, how it would look like. We don't need so much aluminum anymore. We don't need so much steel anymore. If you make planes and cars and What they do now, the cars are already dead, made of M. The motorbikes here in Holland are made of M. The planes, they're working on one plane I know, also without our fiber from M-Flex, and it's amazing.

45:14BenThere's a very famous Lotus Eco Elise, is that all your fiber? I'm not sure, it might be fiber from England, we're not sure about it. We're not sure.

45:24ToddYou know, the new thing is obviously CBD. I mean, now that you guys are growing, I mean, how many thousands of hectares do you have growing this season?

45:36BenI think altogether 1,600 hectares. A pound, obviously. This season? Yeah. And this is, you're like 20? Over 20 years of growing with M-Plex? We've grown average for the last 20 years an average of 1,000 hectares all the time. Now we grow up to...

45:56ToddWe opened a new factory. Right, right. It's amazing to me, you know, when I learned that you've got your hemp in the Bugatti, you know, the world's most expensive sports car, I thought how incredible. It's funny, yeah, yeah. Hemp is everything.

46:09BenThey don't want to advertise or say something about it.

46:15ToddYeah, I've seen the door panels at the museums and It strikes me as funny that, you know, all these people with their Mercedes Benzes and their BMWs are driving around with them right next to their arm, you know. And the museums, I mean, what caused you to get into, you now have three museums, you easily have the world's largest cannibalist collection. No, that's two museums.

46:37BenOkay. And Amsterdam is the museum and the gallery is one ticket. It's two buildings, yeah. They could almost be two different museums, though, honestly. One is the Hemp Gallery, and the other one is Hashem Marijuana.

46:52ToddRight, which was the original.

46:53BenYeah. It was Hashem Marijuana Museum.

46:56ToddAnd then the more you got into hemp... Info. Yeah, it expanded into... When I was living here 20 years ago, that building that you inhabit now was the Tattoo Museum. I remember how beautiful it was, and then you took it over and made it even nicer and put my favorite plant in it, so I like it even more. But I think that's beautiful that you opened up into two buildings and made it the same ticket and just to expand on the education and the experience.

47:22ToddAnd maybe that's why I see it as two And then a third, of course, because the one in Barcelona does encompass both of the vibes of the culture and the history. What got you into Barcelona? I mean, you bought the building in 2000, you opened up in 2012, and only in like 20, what was it, Mark, 2011 did we start seeing smokers clubs in Barcelona? You were like ahead of the game by like a decade.

47:48BenI had some friends, you know, the guys from Canyamode, a magazine in Spain. They were nice, very nice people. Good friends. And we had a lot of Spanish customers that were mainly the quick customers in Spain. San Sisi. And the interesting part in history is that in Amsterdam and around it, there was a lot of hemp the old days. But in Barcelona and Andalusia, around it, there was a lot of hemp also.

48:18BenAnd somehow, Barcelona and Amsterdam, the people like each other. Like the football club, Barcelona, like the guys from Asia, because all the famous players and coaches came from Holland who worked with Barcelona. So there's a camaraderie between cities. And then my daughter Shanti started to study Spanish there, and I went there two times, and it's a beautiful city, and I thought, wow, you know, it would be nice.

48:42BenI have enough stuff to open a new museum. Yeah. And it would be nice to make another museum. So I was just looking for the right spot, the right space, And I found this building, but it was, you know, it needed a restoration. It's going to take years. So every year I put some money in it. Slowly.

49:02ToddTwelve years later. Yeah.

49:03BenIt finally opened up. Well, about ten years, I think. Ten or nine years later. Something like that. Yeah. But it took a long time.

49:11ToddYeah, but it is. It's beautiful. Yeah, it is beautiful. Oh, it's beautiful. Yeah, you allowed us to do Hash Church in it. We didn't have the best internet connection, unfortunately, but it was... Me and ATN and Mark, and we appreciated that. It was a lot of fun. You even let us do the awards for the Secret Cup last Spanibus. Yeah, I think they script something from the window without the smoking.

49:35ToddWe were, it was smoking that day. We appreciated that too. Mark and I were sitting, and Jeff, and we were all pressing rosin, you know. Jeff had his hair straightener going and we were squishing buds. And doing dabs off of fresh cannabis for the first time and it was actually a great experience. It classied up the place. It was easily the coolest smokers club in Barcelona that night.

50:03ToddWe had over 100 people that compete that were there with the competition and it was a really great time, you know. Anybody you guys like to ask some questions?

50:18SpeakerWhat strain of hemp is your most successful varietal?

50:23BenThe hemp variety, well, we did have good results with the user. We got it from Professor Boccia from Hungary. We bought it from him, that strain, and the bugger, he sold it right away, two years later, also to the Germans. And Alan was working with it, and he made some very interesting things with it, but Somehow we lost it. You know, it happens. In the field, we had a multiplying field, and they harvested seed grown, and it was all, you know, they put it on a pile to its outside, and it was all gone.

51:07BenEven the, we called it the elite seeds, you know, the small selection you're supposed to have, the calf was lost, so. And on this moment, you know, you've got the hemp varieties, mainly from the friends, and then we use them, but we multiply it still, but not the special one. And now we've got about 400 new varieties to test what I got from mainly Russia and the whole Eastern Europe.

51:37BenAnd I'm very curious for that, because I think the hemp varieties came from there.

51:45SpeakerAre you growing for vast fiber or are you growing for herds? I guess because, you know, different varietals will, you know, do different things.

51:55BenThere's some, of course, there's some, in the yield you've got plants that gives about 22% of fiber and you've got plants that get 30% of fiber. And this is something to look at, but for us, you know, it's always important to have different varieties because also the Different kind of yielding or harvesting. And this is, because we're in Holland, the weather is always unpredictable. So we have some early races and we have some later races.

52:28BenSo that's how we feel for now. But we're working on new varieties. They're in test fields now.

52:36ToddWhat were some of your favorite cannabis varieties? I mean, going back to Sensi, what were some of the strains you enjoyed working with, or some of the country origins? When you think of cannabis, do you think Hindu Kush, Turkey, Lebanon, or do you think, we think in strain names, and you probably think in countries when you smell things. Whoa.

53:02BenMy favorite was always hash, you know. You're all smoking beer now, and grass, right? And I just so caught my old collection of hash, you know. And it's hard to find some good black Afghani hash, because then we're talking about the ensemble entourage of this plant, you know, actually the hashes are in centuries or ages. Hey Ben, Chris Bennett here. How are you doing? Hey man, how are you?

53:55SpeakerGood, good. Hey, have you heard anything new on those gold bowls and cups that showed proof for cannabis residue recently?

54:03BenNo, no. You know, what I cannot imagine, you know, they say it's bong or what?

54:11SpeakerThey say they were reported as bongs in the press, but the press got it wrong. One newspaper got it wrong and the rest followed. According to the archaeologists, they were gold bowls and cups used for drinking hayoma. And it had cannabis and opium in it in that case. So it kind of fits in with what I've been writing about. But what do you think are the most major archaeological cannabis finds that you can think of?

54:40BenYou know, the China one is really... Yeah. Because it's all there, right? The shaman and the medicine... The whole thing is there.

54:56SpeakerYeah. Yeah. Preserved, great preserved cannabis, like two pounds of female, you know, buds, basically.

55:02BenAnd there's also one grave found here in Holland, you know, that people were buried on a complete bed of sand.

55:11SpeakerWow. Well, the Syrians used cannabis in burial rites, right? So that kind of fits in with that whole Indo-European cannabis burial stuff.

55:20BenAnd even Japanese connected, right? Yeah.

55:27BenYeah, so it's very interesting. One of the things I just, I collect, on top of pharmacies in the old days, they had a head of wood, big, like a statue, like that, and then the tongue out, and there's a tablet on it. I don't know how you call them in English, but every pharmacy in Europe had one in the In the window on most of the time it was on top of the shop, you know, outside.

56:01BenAnd it's a hat and an interesting thing is that the figures are always Arabic kind of, Moors, you know, Moors and Arabic kind. And it was in Western, like England, Poland, France, pharmacy shops on top. And that was to show the client that they had this exotic Medicine from cannabis. I just found that out a week ago.

56:33SpeakerYeah, there's a Latin name for a medieval pill made from cannabis. I forget the name of it, but it was famous back in, I think it was about the 14th, 15th century or something like that, but I'll dig it up. There's like a specific Latin name for this one pill that was mostly containing cannabis that was really quite a popular medicine at the time, you know? What do you think of the stuff about Shakespeare's pipes?

56:55SpeakerThat's come up again in the press big time.

56:58BenYeah, we had it in the museum and it's good it's coming in the press again.

57:01SpeakerYeah, we brought the Professor Thackeray, the South African professor whose theory it is, out to Vancouver in like 2004 I think to speak and I got to hang with him for a while. Pretty interesting stuff for sure.

57:16BenAlan had the idea to go to the museums here and get some pipes that we know exactly the dates from and Send them over to South Africa. And then see what's in there. Because for sure, you know, at the old paintings, you see all the inns, they're drinking beer and smoking pipes, you know, and then you see the seats on the table. They smoke tobacco like we smoke marijuana now.

57:44BenIt was so expensive. So they just put, you know, they put hemp and then a bit of tobacco in it, like we Well, the general view is that people didn't even smoke cannabis in pipes or

58:19SpeakerThank you for joining us.

58:47BenThe thing is, you should talk to Alan about it, because in Amsterdam there's the pipe music, the pipe tobacco music. And this guy is always, no, no, no, no, you know, there was no cannabis smoking before tobacco. And we proved it from you.

59:02SpeakerWhat's the oldest pipe that you have?

59:06BenWow, that's hard to say. To be honest, I have no idea just now. I don't know. I was going to say, you have a few. I have a few, yeah, so it's hard to say who's the oldest. What is nice, Hans-Joachim Beer, the German guy, the writer, he had some collection pipes from the Tsar, from Russia, who used to be a good hash smoker. He had hash pipes from the Tsar.

59:35BenGolden ones and beautiful ones. I think they're in the Hump Museum in Berlin now.

59:41SpeakerWow, cool.

59:43BenI hope so. Berlin, you lent that museum? No, no, no. Hans-Joachim Bier was a German. Oh. And he gave some to the collection of ours, mainly paperwork, and he gave the rest of the stuff to Germany. So it'll stay in Germany. And that museum, that's really great. Yeah, nice. How cool is that? Wow. Nice guy. Wow. Well, it's fun. And I was, I'm not sure I talked about it.

1:00:11BenYeah, I told already, right? The remedy. And between... No, go ahead. I was talking to Donnie Worsheft, and he's also having quite a collection of old bottles, right? And what you had was Remedy, hold on, help me, Remedy, a tincture, and Elixir, an Elixir, right? And the Elixir was, it works for everything, you know, if you drink this, you're going to be powerful, and the Quacks, it's all that, right?

1:00:43BenAnd these three things, these three remedies, if you look at the old bottles, all the cannabis bottles, you know, they all worked. The crazy thing is those medicines really worked, you know, the remedies. Because those guys, like we dabbing and you playing with all this modern stuff now with laboratories and stuff, and the old alchemists, you know, they played also around. They make also all kind of stuff.

1:01:08BenSo it's very interesting to see what is in the old bottles, you know, and not only to find what people smoke, but what kind of remedies, elixirs. You can imagine, you know, this quake came by in a small town, and you have this elixir, and you drink this, you know, everybody's stoned, and everybody feels good, you know. Oh, I feel better. You know, they work, you know, that's amazing.

1:01:30SpeakerWell, Rabelais was an alchemist, you know, he also wrote the first novel, right, you know what I mean? And the Rabelais Encyclopedia says that the Pantagruelian was hashish, not just, you know, hemp or anything like that, you know. And it seems, I've read his book, Pantagruel, a couple of times. It seems like there was some sort of cannabis-infused wine in you. Cannabis-infused wines are very popular, you know.

1:01:52SpeakerI actually had that collection that Donnie had. I started that, then Malmo Levine bought it off me, and then I saw Donnie in Oregon and told him about it being for sale, and he came up and bought it.

1:02:03BenRight, I know, I just nearly bought it in front of Donnie, but now Donnie got it, it's good.

1:02:10SpeakerI think alchemists were definitely preparing cannabis extracts, you know, and that's something that I've been researching on and off for years and collecting bits of information on for sure.

1:02:22BenIn the museum we have a belt with certain remedies in it and some certain medicine, so the guy can have a belt around and visit people at home. And there's the cannabis as well. It was a very important medicine, for sure.

1:02:41BenWell, it's interesting. You know, it's always good. I love to see your comments and your writing.

1:02:48SpeakerYeah, we don't get to talk very often. You know, I think I saw you a decade ago or so at the Cannabis Cup. We communicate, but yeah, great to be able to actually vocalize and see you.

1:03:01BenWell, I was out for a couple of years because I was really tired. After the museum in Barcelona was open, I was really, I was working my ass off for a couple of years, day and night, seven days a week. And now I'm retired, you know, I live in Malaysia. Well, it's slowly a bit. So once in a while, I'm very slow in reactions or what, but it's also fun.

1:03:23BenSo it's the same with Alan. Slowly we come back, you know, and do some things again.

1:03:30SpeakerYeah, Victor Mayer, who actually was the guy who, a professor who identified the mummies in China as Caucasian, has asked me to write an article showing that the Chinese Hu Ma, cannabis, became Haoma, and this became Soma, via the Gucci mummies for a peer-reviewed academic journal recently, you know, so. Kind of stoked about that, you know, it's like he's the top guy in those Chinese mummies. He's the guy who broke the story, really.

1:04:04BenYeah. It's interesting, you know, I see Robert Clark once in a while, he comes to Disney in Borneo, so he talked about those things also, like it is still happening, you know, that in the old days, plants travel like people travel. Yeah. And plants travel along, and that's already a long, long time. It's very interesting.

1:04:27SpeakerWell, you know, it's funny that you say that because the first evidence we have of cannabis use is from the Ukraine region among a Proto-Indo-European group known as Sredeni Stag. And this evidence was cannabis burnt in a polypod clay bowl in a cave.

1:04:51SpeakerThese people were also credited with domesticating the horse, and the horse is thought to have been brought into domestication via the use of hemp ropes. They needed ropes to tie the horses and bind them, right? You know what I mean? In order to domesticate them. And so the earliest people to discover cannabis were also the first really nomadic people, and then their descendants, the Scythians, who were also horse-riding nomads, are widely credited with spreading cannabis use and the linguistics for cannabis throughout the ancient world.

1:05:22BenYeah. Yeah. That's bloody interesting. You connect a lot of things together, Chris. I love it.

1:05:30SpeakerYeah, well, the plant does. You know what I mean? I think it's kind of like when Jack Kerr was writing The Emperor Wears No Clothes. Once you put that key in the door of industrial hemp and open that door, everything just kind of starts flooding into space. So you just got to pick the right question to ask, and that's all there, you know?

1:05:48BenWell, that's all what I say, you know, if you look. You look in the past, you see the future. Yeah. Because everything is done already in a way.

1:05:59SpeakerWell, it's like you were saying about those medical bottles. It's all stuff that people think they're just discovering now. You know what I mean? Prior to Prohibition, they were already labeling and identifying cannabis for specific ailments.

1:06:12BenYeah, and it was all organic, right? Yeah. It was all organic. It was great. It was fun.

1:06:23BubblemanI wish my computer was better internet. I would love to join in on the conversation, but it's nice to hear you guys having a great conversation.

1:06:32BenWe can hear you.

1:06:35BubblemanWe can hear you.

1:06:36SpeakerYeah, you're coming through clear now anyways.

1:06:38BubblemanYeah, you're coming through clear as day, sir. It could, it can, and will change quickly.

1:06:44ToddThat can happen to any of us, first of the internet. But you can ask questions, Mark. You can interact. We can totally, you're completely audible.

1:06:53BubblemanCool, excellent. Well, yeah, I'm trying to keep my microphone muted when everyone else is talking, but it's nice to hear the conversation between Ben and Chris. I know that they're definitely both been avidly collecting, I guess, what would be considered sort of the lost cannabis history that would otherwise not exist if it weren't for people like Like Ben and Skunk Man and Chris and even David Malmo Levine had an incredible museum there for a while in Vancouver.

1:07:25BubblemanIt was pretty awesome.

1:07:29SpeakerIt really brings it to life when you start seeing these artifacts. You know, it's one thing to read about cannabis medicine prior to Prohibition, but then when you start seeing dozens and dozens and dozens of different medical bottles and finding out things like Piso's Cure or the most common cough medicine, It was based with cannabis indica and that 90% of the corn and bunion plasters were based with cannabis indica.

1:07:55SpeakerIt really brings it to life and validates the work that we're doing for sure.

1:08:00BenYeah. Well, you can see that with the visitors in the museum as well. You know, first there's a sort of unbelief if you're talking about medical cannabis like they come out. And then when they see the history and you see all these different bottles. There's aphrodisiac, you know, there's against woman hysteria, you know. So we know what to give the wife.

1:08:26SpeakerAbsolutely.

1:08:27BenIt goes a long way. But then they see, they realize, hey, it was here before.

1:08:33ToddAnd then something changes. That's fine. How many of the different strains, you mentioned NO5 by Hayes, and honestly it was always one of my favorites. It was one of the first strains I experienced that picked me up and made me feel energized and didn't just sedate me. And, you know, what was that? You know, what is Hayes? What was that? And how many other strains? I mean, Jack Herrick also was a similar parentage.

1:09:01BenIn the early days, we did mainly the classic breathing, you know, and then Ellen was

1:09:11BenSo we did most of the work. Right, right, right. And we had material already that we were very happy with.

1:09:20ToddAnd then go on from there. So, you know, you made Jack Kerr's name synonymous with a flower instead of a book. You know, I know, I was standing next to him, that's when I met you, that you christened that pot Jack Herrer for Jack, but, you know, how did you meet Jack? Obviously he became an inspiration to you.

1:09:43BenJack came, I think a couple of years before, I don't know the date, he came to Rotterdam to see me. And I, it's in YouTube, you see the, like 10 episodes of it, and it's nice because it's Still, like now, you know.

1:10:04ToddBut what you mean is you were being just like Mark and sitting with a video camera pointing at Jack Herrer and interviewing Jack.

1:10:11BenYeah, that's what I did. And you should look it up because it's very nice, you know. It's the same thing. It was how many years? 27 years I've lost it. You know, it's about 27 years ago, is it? Yeah, in 91, I believe you did it. Could it be like that? Yeah, in 91. Something there. I saw the footage. I couldn't. I lost it. I found it because I digitalized all my pages.

1:10:38BenWow. Well, it was fun with Jeff because we had the same ideas, you know, and the same story. And I told you already that in the museum it was nice. We had to give the information. We had all the arguments and all the stories. But One question I never could answer, and that is, if hemp is that and this and that, why nobody's doing it? And I couldn't answer that.

1:11:09BenAnd I don't know if I knew Jet already or not, but we decided to do it. I had money in the bank because we did very well with the coffee shop and the seat. So I had money in the bank. Well, we put it there, you know, and we bought an old linen factory, Flex. Flex, yeah. Flex, yeah.

1:11:29BubblemanThe flax potter, hemp flax.

1:11:31BenYeah. And the meaning of the name was just to make an association, a commonality? You know, it's always something behind it, like hemp and flexible.

1:11:41ToddAh, hemp and flexible.

1:11:43BenFlex, flex, but it's also flexible. It is flex, right. But it's fox, you know, it's real, the flax name.

1:11:49ToddGoing back in the history, what was the number one fabric used before? We didn't have a cotton gin until the 1790s, so everything when we landed in North America was hemp and canvas, you'd call it canvas, and other... What was the number two? Linen? What was the number two? Flax?

1:12:05BenNo, no, no. Hemp was the most common, and wool. Wool and hemp. Wool and hemp. And flax was more for the rich people. Really? Yeah. It was a finer cloth, you know, and actually in the city where I live, you know, There was a company, and they just stopped. They started in 1700 or so. And those, they did flex in this area. Even the name of this street is Flex.

1:12:35BenAnd they have in this area flex, and they refine it to a very exclusive material, and they call it linen, right? Ah, and... All the closets in Holland still now, we call it the linen closet. Correct, yeah.

1:12:50ToddWe do in America, too, there's a linen closet.

1:12:53BenBecause everybody wanted to have linen. Oh, I get it now. It was the desirable fabric. It was the desirable fabric. But it was actually in a hem closet because most of it was in a hem.

1:13:04ToddBecause mostly all they could afford was a common thread.

1:13:07BenThe famous Southwestern, where the fishermen and the sailors used, it was hem and coats, you know. The wax coats and the oil coats they still use in Australia. You know, the leather, not leather, but it's hemp with wax and oil.

1:13:25ToddAnd wax and oil, yeah. I have one from Australia that's, and it's oiled, it's oiled canvas, oiled canvas, yeah. Most of the time it's oiled linen what you get now. Ah, yeah. Right, right. Absolutely they do, you know. Well, clothes didn't wear out, I guess, for a while. You know, when my grandmother was a kid, I remember her saying, you know, clothes you used to be able to pass down, and now everything goes to, you know, to shit so fast.

1:13:51ToddAnd it's because we're using these short fibers that break down quicker. But, you know, Levi's Jeans doesn't mind because they get a turnover in jean sales. So, yeah, it's good for them.

1:14:02BenYeah, well, I don't know. One of the most interesting parts of hemp fabric is that it is antibacterial. That is now for hospitals with all these funny Thank you. Thank you.

1:14:41ToddWell, Ikea would be perfect because all their stuff is press board anyway, so if they could press it together with hemperds, that would be really cool. It would be nice. Yeah, it would be. Yeah, I'd then buy it probably because that's... Well, I don't know. No, I don't know. Well, I would definitely think it was a good thing.

1:14:58BubblemanDo you guys agree that it seems as though we're lacking a certain amount of infrastructure for hemp to really step into its area? Like when we talked about the 50,000 commercial products and all this amazing, incredible stuff that hemp could do, in Canada it seemed to really turn into a one-trick pony for just the food aspect. And I'm not just saying just the food because it's an absolutely incredible food product and it's healthy and it's wonderful.

1:15:27BubblemanBut the whole trip about hemp is that it has the ability to do so much. Are we lacking infrastructure to get all of this done? Is that what the real problem is?

1:15:37BenIf I'm well informed, but I don't know for sure, one of the reasons of they do only the seeds, because they're only allowed to do the seeds in Canada, but I'm not sure about these. And the other thing is, you're absolutely right, I have every month a few people who want to start growing hemp in Germany, in Austria, whatever, you know, wherever. And that's the first thing I ask, how much you have to invest.

1:16:04BenAnd the second thing, you know, you really need to be informed if you do something with hemp. I really give the advice because there's so many different factors why hemp growing works or not. And, you know, you... The best thing is if you can go to end product, like we do with the herds, we sell it to horse bedding and small pets, so we sell it directly, you know, near directly to the consumers.

1:16:34BenBut if you have infrastructure like in America, if you have to, you know, you shouldn't even grow hemp further away than 80, like 40 miles from your factory, because then you're fucked already with the infrastructure. And so there's a lot, many, many things.

1:16:50ToddMeaning transport decreases profit so much it's not worth growing it so far away.

1:16:56BenThere's many, many things.

1:16:58BubblemanWell, it also becomes if you're doing something for the reasons of, you know, you're trying to be more to the environment or you're trying to be more healthy to your body, it doesn't do you any favors to try and drink coconut water if you have to fly them on jet airplanes from the other side of the world to get them to you. And it's why a macrobiotic diet makes so much sense.

1:17:20BubblemanAnd of course, that's really like macrobiotic hemp farming. Of course, you want to farm that hemp close. So you're not having to use big trucks to move it back and forth. What is that purpose?

1:17:31BenYeah, you're absolutely right. You know, if somebody say, I want to grow a few hectares, you know, a few hectares, I say do it. You know, do it for the seeds. And you play with it with the sheaves if you want. You can grind them and do something else with it. But... On a commercial scale, you know, industrial scale, there's a lot of factors that you have to consider.

1:17:57BenYou know, we're starting a new factory in Romania, and I'll just give you one example. You know, when we grow here in Holland, we do that now 20 years, and all the lessons we learn, you know, it's why I say there's so many factors, because we have to overcome all the different factors That were involved in growing hemp successfully. And now we go to Romania. I'll give you one example.

1:18:25BenIn Germany now, right away, not far from our border, they have this, I don't know the name in English, but they gas corn. And they gas chicken shit. And they make energy out of food. And they pay the farmers now 1,250 euro a hectare

1:18:47BenTo go there. And we with hemp, we paid $900, $800, $900, and that is already too much because we don't make the money. We lose, we have 20 year hemp flex and we lose 20 years money, a lot. So now we go to this, they took away all the subsidy from hemp. In Europe, I think, there's still subsidy on tobacco. But they took all the subsidy on the only sustainable plant there is, is hemp.

1:19:17BenThere's nothing else. Maybe bamboo, but nobody grow it. So there's no subsidy on it. And now we go to Romania and we pay about 200, 250 euros to the farmer and we got 175 euros back on subsidy. So it cost us 75 euro instead of 1250 plus, plus, plus. You see? And then it makes it

1:19:44BenAnd then the infrastructure there is also, again, enough to say, okay, the fiber we are able to bring anywhere in the world. It's no problem. We can, you know, we're going to ship fiber to America soon. Also for the automotive industry, that's very interesting. It's just starting. The factories still have to be open. But the herds, the ships, again, is going to be a problem for us.

1:20:11BenBut even If we send the herds in bales for the horse bearing to Holland, we still end up cheaper than we do in Holland. So you can imagine all these different factors, also the land prices, what is the rent of the land, you know, and that's what, farmers are beautiful, sweet people, you know, but more there, they go for the dime, you know, that's, And if you have a bank who's short, they are angry to you and they, you know, I don't want hemp anymore.

1:20:43BenSo it's really difficult to work with farmers. In Romania, a hectare of land costs about 4,000 euro. In Holland, between 40 and 60,000 euro for a farmer. So you understand the farmer needs the 1,250 because he's already dying, even if they got the 1,250. You know, and so...

1:21:08BenIt is logical that if you want to do it industrial, you have to find all the different factors that makes it convenient to grow hemp for a price, and that is also for the CBD oil, you know, we're making a lot of CBD oil at the moment, but I want to have it for a price that people can afford it, and that is the big problem. If I see the CBD prices, I'm going crazy, you know, like, what?

1:21:30BenYou know, this is, how can people afford to buy that? You know, even if it's sick people, you It's prevention. It should be cheaper. So then you need an industrial approach. And then the soil in Romania is more clean than we got in Holland. And all these kind of factors start to count. And that is the only target for me is to get hemp really on the map and really profitable and really giving the products for the fair price that it can do, if The big companies allow us.

1:22:07BenIf not, then not. We cannot come without pet litter. We cannot come into the supermarkets here. They do sell about eight very unfriendly poison shit. They bring lava from Iceland. To bring it here for the cat litter, they throw it in the garbage, in the garbage they throw it in the ovens, and the ovens, they have a lot of shit, they have 5%, because it doesn't burn.

1:22:39BenSo they got so much shit, you know. So it's interesting to see what happens, what can happen with hemp, but then you need also the mainstream, and you know, now there's CBD oil, is it legal, is it not legal, you know, what the fuck, you know. It's getting too far, the THC level. You know, I tell you one funny thing. We grow flowers now also for the cows, you know, for food, right?

1:23:06BenI'm sorry my English sometimes. Yeah. So now we have different varieties of plants, and I put two plants in the green here, and I bring a cow. And now one plant the cow can eat, the other he cannot, he's not allowed to eat. It's really the law now. So can you imagine? Because there's going to be THC in the cow. And if it is 0.1%, then the cow can eat it.

1:23:38BenBut if it is 0.2%, the cow cannot eat it. It's not allowed. It's forbidden. The meat will be forbidden, the milk. What they find out is the cows are much healthier and they produce more milk. Eating cannabis, you know.

1:23:53ToddCan I just tell you what I thought as you said that? Because obviously they're worried about, like same with urine tests, they're going to show up in its cheese and its milk cannabinoid levels, right? Because the cow's eating hemp that has significant enough cannabinoid levels is going to pass through. And I was thinking just like 50 years ago, bread started advertising that it was fortified with vitamins and minerals.

1:24:16ToddAt what point will food, mainstream food, start advertising that it's fortified with cannabinoids from exactly this process?

1:24:26BenListen, we got already the omega chicken, and we got the omega eggs. The eggs, it's the same thing. If you give them the seed, they will produce the omega. So good. And then they say, no, man. This chicken is stoned, man. This cow is now, he's too stoned to get his milk. Come on. You see how ridiculous it is? It's very ridiculous to me. But we have to still, it is the law that I'm facing with hemp.

1:24:55BenIt's the law that I fight. Lucky they don't bust me anymore. They don't put me in jail anymore for this shit I'm telling them.

1:25:03BubblemanWell, you know, Ben, you're kind of comparable, you're kind of our Elon Musk, you know, the guy is just putting so much, he has a vision, he believes in his electric cars, he believed in his SpaceX program, he put more money into it than anyone could fathom, and as he builds the infrastructure that's necessary, the batteries become cheaper and everything becomes more cheaper in a way that the infrastructure can actually exist, and you've kind of done the same thing with hemp, you know, operating at a loss, continuing to believe Continuing to have the faith in the plant and I got to applaud you on that because it hasn't been a short journey.

1:25:41BenNo, it was 20 years, you know, and when you're worth 20 years with hemp, you're 40 years old.

1:25:48BubblemanNo doubt. Hey, I had another question in regards to a product I saw probably at least 20 years ago when we had our company out of Manitoba. We had just received our license and we had just received commercialization from which was originally experimental. We changed that to commercial and we are now allowed to grow for profit. And I think it might have been 1998 we had an event where we invited many different people in and We had a Swiss guy named Beat Studer who came and he had interest.

1:26:18BubblemanWe had David Ratke from the cardboard manufacturers from the U.S. showed up. This gentleman now, Peter Steiner, showed up with a product called Hemp Metal. Have you ever seen Hemp Metal?

1:26:35ToddI've muted it because of the airplane.

1:26:37BenGo ahead. Two things. Hemp Metal probably you've You mean Hempstone?

1:26:46BubblemanAll I remember was that it was stronger than titanium. It was lighter than aluminum. It was 9.7 on the hardness scale. It could cut glass if you just held it in your hand and put an X into an ashtray. And the reason we kind of believed it was because the people who were a pro that showed up as well were these brothers, the Hack brothers. They owned diamond mines in Africa because apparently diamonds were the only...

1:27:13BubblemanThere was a substance that could cut this hemp metal, and it was Peter Steiner. I haven't seen it since, but I did get to hold it in my hand at the time.

1:27:21BenHe had a beautiful wife, Peter Steiner. You know, this is how I remember him very well. The wife was beautiful. I like women. Beautiful woman, you remember. And Peter Steiner was with a company, with a friend lady. She came everywhere. I forgot the name. There was an American company. They collected money together, and they hired a Swiss guy and a lawyer, and they all promised them big shares in the company when they come along.

1:27:58BenI forgot the bloody name. Was that Sue Branagh? Sue Branagh, right. That was Sue Branagh. She was connected with Steiner, and Steiner was the guy. Who said he was one of the investors. They came with a whole group in Paris, in the Hilton Hotel, as I recall, and everybody in the hemp industry was invited to come over there. And we went, and I saw it right away, this is not kosher, there's something wrong here.

1:28:26BenBecause all the hemp people needed money. Everybody was thinking, now the Americans come with money, because they are interested in taking it. Taking shares in each company, the French, the Germans, the British, me. And it wasn't phony. And then Peter Steiner, later on, he came and he tried to sell me the Vortex energy. He had a beautiful plan, you know, it looks good with some documents. He had a student who'd make energy out of the Vortex with water, right?

1:29:02BenRight. He played about it, but it was an independent... Energy source, blah, blah, blah, and they need a few million investors. So, Peter Steiner is a guy who runs with all the wins. He's a nice guy. He's a nice man. But, you know, at the end, when Subrena and the whole thing collapsed, I had some contact. He came to me with the Vortex thing, and then he told me that he didn't have any shares, and it was all phony baloney.

1:29:30BenThe professor was sitting there. They had enzyme methods for... To make textile and I don't know what they, but you know, you know Sue Brennan's story I think.

1:29:41BubblemanOh yeah, I know the story all too well for sure. That's interesting that you, to hear your take on it though, I thank you for that.

1:29:49BenPeter Steiner, like I said, is a nice man with a beautiful wife, but he's also looking for opportunities. And so I don't remember the steel, I only remember the stone. And And stone is something you can make of everything. The Austrians did that. But if you do it in a newspaper, the same method, you'll have the same result.

1:30:16ToddCan I ask a question? To talk about your real, obviously, your true love. Can you guys see this?

1:30:26BenThe hash church.

1:30:28ToddIt is hash church. And while we're sitting here having hash church...

1:30:34ToddHep for Hash Church, everybody. Seth, does that mark focus in?

1:30:40BenYou know, what you guys shouldn't forget, you debbers, that the whole ensemble entourage of Hashis is already thousands of years old. So respect, okay, brothers? Yes.

1:30:53ToddYou dabbers. Look at Mark. Mark, you dab. You do. You dab. You dab that dry sift. You do. I tell you, you know.

1:31:00BubblemanListen, the dabbers would all be blown away if they could ever put their lips on an Afghani Hubble bubble pipe.

1:31:09SpeakerHey, what countries are those big, big balls from there, Ben and Todd? The ones I got here?

1:31:17ToddDefinitely the country of Ben's desk.

1:31:20BenWell, actually, this is an Afghan plant growing in Morocco. I know he's growing there. And the other thing is a Moroccan, and I think, I'm not sure what this is. Somebody gave it to me. That's amazing.

1:31:33ToddI think it's a water. Ah, it's beautiful. The sheen on it's amazing, Mark. And you touch it to the lighter, it just, I don't know if you can see this, can you? It's very nice.

1:31:46BenYeah, see what it does in the life. No, but, you know, I smoked a lot of good shit in the world, you know. One of the best hash was turkeys, actually. They had such a beautiful ham and the Lebanese, they could make it. And the Lebanese make, they make oil. They make beautiful oil. I saw it already 25 years ago there. Beautiful oil.

1:32:09BubblemanI always appreciate the difference of maturity in the Lebanese bond and the Lebanese race.

1:32:18SpeakerBen, if you were left on a desert island with only one genetic for yourself, what genetic would you take?

1:32:26BenFemale, I guess.

1:32:29ToddNo, no, no, which strain he means, which strain. Yeah, I'm joking.

1:32:35BenWell, the J.

1:32:40ToddHow long were you working on that before you named it after Jack? About three years, I think, three, four years. Wow. That's how long you put into developing a strain back then?

1:32:50BenMinimum two years. Minimum two.

1:32:52ToddAnd we had four times a year. Right. So four cycles of tests, and you're talking like 12 times of testing to get to a place where you felt comfortable to release it. Wow. I would say a lot of seed companies don't practice that today.

1:33:09BenNo, no. But, you know, the modern technology probably don't need it anymore. But because, like, in our sense, it's really amazing. So, I think, the laboratories there, the people at the universities work better, everybody got this different kind of, you know, angle to go into cannabis. It's amazing. For me to follow up, it's hard to do, so I'm snatching up a bit from here and there, and then you realize that Like what Chris also do, you know, from the history, you see the future as well.

1:33:45BenYeah.

1:33:47ToddAnybody that can read Native Lander can go and see my Twitter. I posted an article that was in yesterday's newspaper calling you Mr. Marijuana. Yeah, and outlining what's going on with hemp flax in a very positive light.

1:34:02BenYeah, it's changing, you know. 20 years ago it was a weed factory from the coffee shop owner and For, yeah, more than 15 years, they never believed what we did. Right.

1:34:15ToddA lot of prejudice against you.

1:34:16BenOh, they took our subsidy away, and, you know, it was a lot of shit. I was in jail for it. Of all things, not cannabis, not growing cannabis, not growing seeds, not the coffee shop. No, because we have hemp varieties. The two farmers, you're supposed to have this variety, and he's supposed to have the Swiss around. It's both hemp, and they said we do something wrong. They busted through the factory.

1:34:42BenThey arrested two workers and my director at that time. And then I went to see them in the north and they put me in jail for two days.

1:34:55ToddTwo days in jail? Yeah. For growing the wrong hemp that was legal to grow in the wrong field.

1:35:00BenYeah.

1:35:00ToddTechnically. Yeah.

1:35:02BenWow. And then I was in court and they acquitted me totally, anonymous. Yeah. And the prosecutor going, uh, An appeal. And I come to the appeal. There's three guys. And they call me guilty right away. And I give me a... Back to guilty. Yeah. And then there was one more way I could appeal again. And then my lawyer fucked me because I was in Asia. He said he forgot or he was too late.

1:35:29BenHe sent me on Wednesday, he sent me an email that the timing was on. But I told him already to go to the Tell me that I have to decide if I want the appeal. And it was already the day before. What was the punishment at the end of your finding you guilty for growing that wrong hemp? 80 hours social service and 90,000 fines for hemp plants.

1:35:54BenYou had to do the social service? Yeah. What the heck did you do? You're shitting me. Yeah, no. Old folks home. You're shitting me. No. A journalist came to see me. Good guy. Good guy. Because now the story is more and more complete, you know? Because, like, what I wanted to say is, like, all these years, if you see the publications, and there was a lot of radio, television, always, I was always the funny guy, the crazy guy, with the stupid thing, like, aya, impossible, terrible, you know?

1:36:27BenRight. And now they come up with, hey, this guy, he did this, and he did this, and even the museums, the right-wing newspapers, I mean... And in a very positive way. And they write in a positive way. So that is really new to me. Right.

1:36:44ToddIt was a different experience.

1:36:46BenWell, it happens a little bit more, but then it's, you know, more on the side magazines or on the internet. Normal, regular newspaper, the biggest in Holland, right wing. It's nice to see this. Right. Very nice.

1:37:06BenWell, we did a lot of talking about CBD oil. We talked, you know, and I see you guys in the church here, and you are all the guys you can talk for days, right? If you talk with Todd, you know you can talk for days. And there's a lot of topics we test by. It's fun. I like it. It's good.

1:37:27ToddYeah. So CBD is something now that Hempflax is going to pursue. Obviously CBD is predominant in the hemp varieties that you grow and that have grown for two decades.

1:37:38BenYeah.

1:37:39ToddThere was just never really a market for the CBD. Right. And now we got it. And now people are waking up to it. Yeah. We got a lot, guys. If anybody can sell it, sell it. So that means you have this stuff. You're here up in Europe. You guys are doing CBD extraction from? Hemp flowers that are naturally grown. Wow. And how are you doing it? CO2 or?

1:38:02ToddCO2 extraction. By large volume. By large volume. The big companies that do that. Legal. Legally. Right, right, right. Wow. That's incredible.

1:38:13BenThere's other legal matters that you have to hurdle. I understand. You can only sell a piece into business. Stuff like that. Not to the consumer. You can't give it to cows. No cows. Wow. If the CBD is too high, you can give it to the cows.

1:38:31ToddWhat an interesting side product of it because they limited your THC. How much THC can you have in the hemp you grow at HempLax?

1:38:39BenOfficially, it is by the European law, it is 0.2%. Wow. The friends, you know, the Ministry of Agriculture always hated me and did everything to make it impossible. They stole my subsidies and they did everything what they can do to stop me, but I didn't stop. Well, on the other hand, the friends who do this already a long time ago, mainly for paper, they have varieties and they come up now to 0.7% and 0.4%, 0.5%.

1:39:16BenSo all these varieties have been officially at the height of THC. So the friends come after having a ministry after Dutch, if they can ask in the community that they hire... To raise the level so that their farmers in France are compliant. Yes, exactly. And the Dutch did. Complied. So did the level go up? I still wait for the answer. What will it bring it to? 0.5.

1:39:39BenBut then France would still be out of France.

1:39:42ToddStill.

1:39:42BenBut then they say, well, then... They'll budge. They'll budge.

1:39:47ToddNow, if, you know, if this, I've always found it rather stupid or peculiar that they force us to have conversations about cannabinoids when for historically, you know, 20 years, it wasn't what you harvested. You harvested cellulose, fiber, and seed, you know, proteins, horse bedding, you know, what became fabrics and wood chips. And instead you had to count cannabinoids, which seemed like a chasing your tail kind of a scenario.

1:40:16ToddAnd how do you think the cannabinoid levels would look if that wasn't the conversation? If you were just growing hemp that acclimated well to the Netherlands, where do you think your THC or CBD levels might be at in a natural space?

1:40:30BenProbably not far out of the range of what we grow now. Really? Yeah. But in Romania it's a different story. In Holland we are very wet. This is why Holland was so popular with hemp in the old days, because we have the Jew retin, right? It means you cut your fiber and the retin will be done by the Jew, right? Yeah. And it makes it easy for you to be porticated.

1:40:58BenRight. So, hold on now. I have to do portication now in the retin. But you asked something about the CBD, right?

1:41:09ToddWell, I was saying that the levels in the phenotypes now that you're allowed to grow legally are reflected in legislation and not really in climate.

1:41:19BenWhat I want to say is that the varieties is really like textile wood. They have very thin fiber and you put them more together. Right. You're growing four bass, this variety of work grass. Four, four, four. That's all if you do that. Right. If you do it for seeds, one of the biggest seed producers is probably skunk. Skunk. The skunk. Yeah. Okay.

1:41:43ToddRight. They produce a lot of seeds. So if you were grown for food or seed source or protein, you would literally, skunk one might be the phenotype and not him.

1:41:52BenRight. And that is very interesting, I think, because there's one variety, phenola. Right. That might be also a very good seed viewer, but there is really...

1:42:06BenWhat is his name? Jason. Jason, I forgot his last name. He originated this farm, especially for the north. Oh. It's quite short. It doesn't grow so high.

1:42:20SpeakerJason Calloway?

1:42:22BubblemanSay that again, Mark. Jason Calloway?

1:42:26BenYes, yes. Calloway. Nice guy. And he made this for NOLA. It took him many years to get it on the market. He got it on the market now. So we're testing it out this year. So I think, I hope, that it's like in Romania, it really works for the seeds, because, you know, the seeds, yielding seeds is also very important. And then, again, the whole bloody story comes again, what are the most potential seeds, what is the difference in seeds, you know.

1:42:55BenThere's still a long way to come with all the varieties of different purposes.

1:43:04ToddSpecific purpose in the industrial application.

1:43:07SpeakerYeah.

1:43:07ToddAnd, you know, I wanted to comment on Canada was explained to me by people pitching an investment to a wealthy friend of mine that the Canadian hemp industry would spool up in three phases. First phase would be the proteins, the seeds, because it was the cheapest. The second would be the cellulose, the paper, because the mills were the cheapest. Third would be fiber, where we'd see clothing and sales and ropes and things like that, because that was most expensive.

1:43:30ToddIs that correct?

1:43:30BenHmm.

1:43:32ToddSo it's just an evolution of time for Canada to find other applications. You mentioned antibacterial, but is that one of the reasons why horse bedding did so well for you? You really sold a lot of horse bedding.

1:43:46BenYeah, and horse bedding is especially for the lungs of the horses. The immunity in the stables, in old stables, if you use strong, the urine and everything evaporates quite fast.

1:43:58ToddAnd they breathe it in.

1:43:59BenAnd they breathe it in, so it's... If you go in our whole post label, it's also muffy, it's smelly, it's moist. So with this, it is much more dry, and again, it regulates the humidity in the room.

1:44:16ToddWow. And is it also antibacterial, like the fiber?

1:44:22BenI cannot give you the answer. I wouldn't be surprised, but I don't know in what sense, you know, what kind of bacteria This is a good question.

1:44:32ToddSorry asking, you know, I mean, you're one of the few people I can ask anything I can think of in cannabis, you know.

1:44:37BenSince the fiber has, you know, probably the root for mine also, but I'm not going to say that.

1:44:42ToddYeah, anybody listening, yeah. I remember reading, I think.

1:44:47SpeakerIt's an alternative to sawdust. When I worked in, after the war, when I worked in horses in Pennsylvania, we actually physically went down to sawmills by the Amish Thank you so much for joining us.

1:45:29SpeakerI can see why your hemp herds were so successful because finding trees in Europe just for putting down for your horses to piss and shit in is not necessarily the most environmentally sound until your product was consistently available.

1:45:49BenThere's one thing I have to tell you. The product is successful. It's a beautiful product. But nevertheless, the horse owners don't go for it because the straw is so much cheaper, even if they, because if they really calculate it, the hemp herds will be not much more expensive. But they buy it very cheap from the farmers, and there's always a price tag, you know, to keep people away from it.

1:46:13BenSo it's not like you can grow hemp on the knowledge that you want to sell her. That's why I said to some friends in America, if you want Thank you. Thank you very much.

1:46:55ToddThe paper was invented in China, and the first cloth we really were using was these longer fibers. The easier it was hemp and, you know, canvas sails. It's amazing.

1:47:06BenAnd also, I have to say that the hemp herb has to be really dry, and otherwise you have a problem. The mold is coming when it's really, if there was something wet. And the magic of it, you know, if you just leave it, the mushrooms come. You know, they come by, so they love it. Mushrooms coming.

1:47:26ToddThey pop right out of them.

1:47:28BenYeah, they pop out. Alan did a lot of experiments with it. Sadly, none were psychoactive. We tried also to grow on it, and it didn't work well.

1:47:42ToddWell, now it is working well. We did find that product in the supermarket just yesterday. I could go grab it, everybody. But It's actually your hemp fibers matted down as a rooting mat on organic sprouts, correct?

1:47:54BenThat's the fiber, but not the wood chips. The fiber is not for sprouts. We got it here.

1:48:03ToddIt's an alternative to rock wool. It's quite amazing. I'll actually get it.

1:48:14BenRock wool, and they also have now the cocoa fiber, right? It's also already in the market.

1:48:21BubblemanWhat do you think about the market for just protein powder isolate, just the leftover from pressing the oil out of the seed?

1:48:32BenWe got it. What I hear, it's a very good product. We grow seeds now in about 800 hectares, I think, 600 or 800 in Romania. Mm-hmm. Also ecological part of it. And those seeds we sell to companies that press the oil. And they do the whole thing. And we kind of sell it on our brand.

1:49:01ToddSo if you can see this, everybody, these are sprouts. And what's amazing is, see the roots?

1:49:11SpeakerYeah, looks like a little rock seed.

1:49:14ToddThis is the mat. That's exactly it. And then this is the mat here. Let it focus. Isn't that... So now you can see that this is a biological delivery device for health food.

1:49:29BubblemanAbsolutely. Very cool.

1:49:31SpeakerWell done, Ben. Well fucking done.

1:49:33BenNo, it's not me because I've tried to send these busters already for 20 years or something. They never did. So we owe this other mat now to another guy who made it. Thanks. It's the same with BMW. They win the ecological prize in car making, and they didn't mention it was because of the hemp in it. They don't mention hemp. And it is with this thing the same.

1:49:57BenIt is our hemp, but it doesn't mention hemp or what, nothing.

1:50:02ToddSo they still don't want to know it. Still facing bigotry.

1:50:06BenHe's still facing hypocrisy in that sense.

1:50:10SpeakerDamn Germans.

1:50:11ToddBut it might be soon that we're seeing hemp mats instead of rockwool mats in our hydroponic growing because that's all this is, people. This is just like a rockwool mat. Instead of this being rockwool, this is natural hemp fibers.

1:50:30SpeakerWell, from a chemist's perspective, this is just cellulose, which is sawdust. It's just cellulose. It's all the It's all the same thing. It's a glucose molecule taken really, really long. They're called polymers, right? These things called fibers are basically just long molecules of cellulose. And so whether BMW gets their cellulose from wood or they get it from hemp or jute or any other natural fiber, it's just cellulose.

1:51:04BenYeah, it's cellulose.

1:51:06SpeakerCellophane can be derived from any kind of cellulose that comes on a plant. It doesn't need to be derived from trees. The reason why it's derived from trees and paper is derived from trees is mostly an economical one because the large multinational paper and lumber companies are like one in the same and they own the lumbering rights or negotiated lumbering rights on public lands to basically process those things into wood and And paper and fiber and pulp.

1:51:36SpeakerSo Mark, you were talking before, the investment in infrastructure that needs to happen is to be able to turn a paper mill that processes wood and wood fiber to be able to process hemp and hemp fiber. I mean, that's the investment that needs to happen, that needs to occur. And that needs to be done on a large scale by a large company, probably.

1:52:03BenI bought two paper mills. One is there where we work, but it wasn't a paper mill before. And then the next door, there was an old paper mill I bought as well, mainly for storage because I have a lot of storage space. To make paper is impossible. It's too expensive. We even have a small machine. They call it a lab machine. I tried, maybe we can just make art paper.

1:52:29BenWe didn't do it. So paper, and then the other one, The thing is that the paper mill has to be right around the corner, otherwise you have your infrastructure problem also, and you have to bring it too far. And like what you mentioned as a grow medium, it doesn't work too well because it doesn't hold too long. After two weeks, it starts to rotten. So they did experiments with it, and the cocoa fiber guys, they did it.

1:52:59BenWe didn't go on because, again, a factory to make a factory to make this product is bloody expensive. And a patron mill is also impossible to start. And that is the same thing with making fibers for textile. You know, you're talking about these companies are so huge. If we want to press our wood, if we have 2,000 hectares, how much we have? About 6,000, 7,000. A thousand ton of wood chips.

1:53:31BenYou know, those guys, they press that in plates in three days. It's two, three days work for them. And say that they don't want to adapt the machines, even for what we think is a very large volume. But for them, it's nothing. You know, those factories, if you see them, who press the wood plates, it's obviously crazy. Proportionally. And the cars running in and out with

1:54:00ToddSo do you think there's going to get to be a time where we unfortunately deforest our planet and then have to replace it with hemp? I think so, yeah.

1:54:11BenI don't know what they do. They say they have a lot of production food, you know, they say. But the amount they work with, you know, it's tremendous. And then you got from Canada, you know, this is also a funny story. In Holland we got What they call green electric, right? You can go to your electric company, you can buy the normal electric or you buy green and you pay a few cents more.

1:54:35BenAnd the electric company, they have the green energy because they're bringing wood chips, pellets, from Canada, from production, what they say production for us, you know, but they bring pellets from Canada with a huge tanker to here, to Holland, and they call it green energy. You know, how about the harvest cost there? But it is highly subsidized. It's bloody highly subsidized. So, because all the transportation and the harvest of the trees and drying it, palletizing it, is the same we should have done with hemp here, but we don't have a chance because they are cheaper, because they got so much subsidy from the government to call it green energy.

1:55:18BenWell, that's, you know... It's disingenuous. Yeah, but it doesn't work even if you put it on... And the bell, you know, nobody would say, you know, it's something like, hey, yeah, what, you know. And the media, they don't give a shit also. But for me, it's very obvious, because I took the chance, and I put even some people on it, to find out the price, how much you pay for the bloody pallets there, you know, what come out of, how much is the cost, how much you pay, and they didn't answer.

1:55:49BenAnd then finally we had an answer of something like 80 cents or 85 cents, Well, we cannot produce hemp for that price. But they don't tell us how much subsidy is on it. So they probably, it costs $250 or more. And then hemp is very much super. Right. For $200 we can bring it. Especially shipping it. Exactly. But they have these huge tankers, they have huge ships.

1:56:17BenOf course. But it is, you know, it's not sustainable, it's not durable. To get wood from the other side of the world and bring it here to burn it, right? It's completely insane. It doesn't make sense at all. While we have so much land here, we could grow enough of that balance, right? But that's probably the future, you know? There's one of the things, I think, those huge companies, they invest so much ahead, in front.

1:56:45BenAnd it takes time to switch over. That's the same now, you see this... The social acceptance is coming on board in a strong way. People are walking around with cell phones and they're doing more than just staring at them.

1:57:08ToddMindlessly, they're actually learning a lot from them. They're reading, they're looking at photographs, they're seeing cultures from all over the world, and no wonder everybody's stuck to their cell phones, because never in history have people been walking around with a library in their hand that's full of color and video and got great data, and they're able to actually explore it in a way they want to without the embarrassment of having to ask some asshole, you know, their opinion of something, and I think it's fantastic, and I think now with that in mind, the consciousness around cannabis is becoming global.

1:57:40ToddPeople are all over the world watching this. I mean, it doesn't matter where they are. They can tune in to what they want to pay attention to, and it changes the way that we learn from each other. You know, Mark and I used to talk about 20 years ago when we met, you know, it was amazing to us to meet at Positronics and sit around and talk and be able to, well, how do you grow?

1:57:59ToddOh, how do you grow? Because where we came from, we were very We couldn't share these things. We had to hide this, you know, and you had this openness that all of us, I mean, when I say all of us, a lot of the American friends I had that came here and witnessed the cannabis castle and the seed bank and the museums and the other coffee shops, we walked away inspired on so many levels to go and to pursue our own Ideas of freedom, you know, I wanted a cannabis cow so I won't lie, because I saw that place with the basement full of ganja and the hemp drapes and the hemp sofas and the hemp rope, that nice chair that was out front.

1:58:40ToddI was enamored, I won't kid you. Simple farmhouse, you know, but I realized in a way what I wanted was really a simple life just with hemp and cannabis and freedom. I wanted freedom. Well, it was legal, you know.

1:58:52BenEverything I did was legal, so that's... That's a big point. And now you guys, you are in a country with many places legal. And it's going very fast, isn't it?

1:59:04ToddIt's moving at light speed. I mean, and even now to think, I mean, ATN has been now a Berkeley patients group over 15 years in Berkeley selling medical cannabis under the auspices of the city. It's really fantastic to see what's going on actually in California and Colorado and elsewhere and I think a lot of us that was in it 20 years ago owe the inspiration that we saw out of the coffee shops and the openness that we witnessed and experienced because our lives were never the same.

1:59:37ToddIt was like entering the Wizard of Oz and feeling freedom and going, oh, fuck, I'm never going to be able to go back to the way it was. Thank you, though. Thank you very much for opening up your world back then. I appreciate it, Eric. Got me in trouble. No, I got me in trouble. But it inspired me to want more freedom in my own country. You know, we celebrate that we're the fucking number one country of bullshit, but we're really not the freest country.

2:00:06ToddAnd when you witness freedom and you drive down these roads in Holland and you see hemp as far as the eye can see and then corn as far as the eye can see and it looks, you integrated the normality. Yes. Yeah, and who would have done it if it wasn't for Hempflex?

2:00:22BenNo one's been pushing for hemp here. But everybody, you know, like people here, they all inspire each other. Yeah, we do know. All these people who came to me, I learned from them. They learned from me, but I learned from them.

2:00:40SpeakerRight.

2:00:40ToddA lot of people that have been politically active know that when they wrote to Sensi, aside from you, Sensi responded with kindness and You were very supportive of many foundations when you weren't at the wheel of your own ship. And I have had, because of my contact with you, people contact me and just show me letters they receive from Sensi with contributions to whatever they were trying to do in their hometown.

2:01:04ToddAnd that fostering of political identity and freedom is something I wish more cannabis companies that are listening would do and follow your lead. It's always important to be around you.

2:01:17BenRight. And you have to see that, like, I live in Malaysia now, beautiful country, beautiful people, very nice people. But, of course, they are in a different country that I respect and have to respect. But if it is Singapore or China or, you know, around the corner here in Europe where people still go in jail for a crime, we shouldn't forget the activism, you know, and we should try to give as much information, positive information around the world

2:01:51ToddIt is. You know, I wish, there's only really one hash marijuana museum in the world that's been out there for 30 years. As someone who's been peddling history trying to convince everybody that cannabis was important and it had this great legacy, your museum was a real great cornerstone for me to experience that it was all real and it existed and to see the machines and the paintings.

2:02:16ToddAnd the pipes, and it all laid out. It's not something I have available in North America.

2:02:22BenNo, but I think Chris will agree with me that it's, I don't know with you, Chris, but with me it was like sometimes every week there's something new. Something new happening this way or something new from the history. Right. And every time there's something new from the history and every time there's something new for the future. And that is amazing. Doesn't stop, will not stop. So that is beautiful.

2:02:49BenAnd the only thing is, we had 75 years of prohibition. Right.

2:02:57ToddAnd we had to catch up. Right. We are playing catch up now. We were pushed back in our progress for almost three quarters of a century, for sure. And in America, we're only catching up now. We're starting to see hemp fields popping up Thank you so much for joining us.

2:03:38ToddYou know, we do this every weekend, and I think my biggest motivation in doing it was to share the rich experiences and the information that I had accumulated over the years of spending time with people like you and Jack and Rob Clark, and I could go on and on. And to have you kind of interact and share, it's beautiful, because there's so many people now that are just getting into cannabis that are trying to do more than just read through old high timeses and And try to figure out what happened back then and to have people like you that were literally roaming around Afghanistan back in 1970 looking for broad leaf drug varieties as now Rob Clark would call them so that you could 15 years later when I was still unable to legally drive start a seed company is pretty astounding to me.

2:04:29BenIt was fun too. Thank you. Thank you. Ten years ago, we founded the European International Hemp Association, the AIR. And the last Congress they had, there was more than 150 countries, people coming. From 150 countries. That's what I hear. A lot of people, 2,000, 3,000 people came. That's what I hear. Lots of news I hear. But it is... Every year, there's more and more people coming from all over the world, interested in him.

2:05:03BenThat is also something. I can recall, it's 150 or 50, maybe that's 50-something, I'm sorry. It's 50-something.

2:05:11ToddHey, dozens and dozens wanting, it will be fine still, too. I mean, it's growing. It's growing like that. That's interesting. Right. It's because I think that we're all thinking at the speed of light. We're communicating. Mark's sitting in Canada. Right, Mark?

2:05:29BubblemanI am in beautiful Whistler, B.C. Nice. You sure are.

2:05:36SpeakerYou're a lucky guy. It's beautiful up there, isn't it?

2:05:40BubblemanWell, you know what, Phil? It's made more beautiful by the absolute epic water hash that you gave me yesterday that's basically like see-through, opaque, you know, stained glass window. My goodness, my whole hotel room reeked like Bubba Kush this morning, so I'll say thank you for that.

2:05:58SpeakerYou're very welcome. Not a problem, my friend. Not a problem. It was nice to see you last night, bud.

2:06:06BubblemanAbsolutely. So welcome, everyone, to the room that I wasn't able to welcome. We've been listening to some great stories between Todd and Ben Dronkers. I still had a couple of questions I wanted to ask Ben about. I desperately wanted to know when you first met Eagle Bill. Wow. Wow.

2:06:29ToddThat's a long time ago. I'll get you a coffee. I'll get you water and a coffee.

2:06:34BubblemanYeah, because Eagle Bill was a big inspiration. He was like, I just thought he was a great energy at those early Cannabis Cups, those last ones at the PAX Party House on the top floor. He was just always such a hilarious buffer for all the Americans and North Americans that came to the Cannabis Cup and you bump into Eagle Bill and of course my first Cannabis Cup It was in 95, and I had a booth.

2:07:01BubblemanAnd Jack was there with, I believe, his daughter, and then there was Eagle Bill with the big vaporizer, and it was just... You must go back quite a ways with Bill.

2:07:14BenBill came to Holland, and I still had my office in Rotterdam. And he came to Rotterdam, and he told me two things, that he wasn't... From Indian side, you know, he wasn't Half Indian and lived somewhere with the Indians and stuff. And he wanted to come to Amsterdam because we are free with smoking and everything. And, you know, he was there, right? And I didn't know what to do with him and to say with him.

2:07:45BenAnd I said, well, you know, and he was planning to go back to the States and come back again and stay longer in Holland. So then I said, I remember that I had a small vaporizer in the museum and it looked like a coffee bean machine, you know, it was a hot plate, you put your drawers on top and you close it, there was a tube and you smoked it, you know, just a hot plate.

2:08:09BenAnd I had it in the museum before, but it was not from me and somebody picked it up and took it away again, so I missed it. And I said, Bill, you know, I know there is some vaporizing equipment that I saw in the One in the museum, and I would like to have one more, and I would like to know more about this vaporizing, because I think it's bloody interesting.

2:08:33BenSo he went, and the second thing he did, he said they were growing grass with the Indians, and he said, but every year, they get busted, most of it get busted, because there's one road to go there, and one road back, so there's always the cops know when they harvest, and they get busted. So, I recommend in the early pearl and early girl, you know, the more early.

2:09:02BenAnd for a few years, they succeeded, you know. He was very happy, the Indian state, because the cops were too late, you know, to block the roads. And that was food fun. And he came back with the vaporizing idea, and we had this glass bowl, you know, a small glass bowl, and you put...

2:09:27BenAnd we met also the guy who do the volcano. And the guy from the volcano came with Bill. He came to the museum and sent his seeds. He needed an investor for the volcanoes. Well, I wasn't really into the volcanoes at that time. And also in the German, they needed a lot of money to start it there. You know, the complication to make a new company and shareholders.

2:09:56BenYou know what? I buy the first 50 vaporizers you're going to make, and I pay them now. So I pay 50 vaporizers in front of 200-something, something like that. And Bill is supposed to be in a partnership with this guy. So they're going to sell the vaporizers, and they're going to sell the little ball Eagle Bill's vaporizer just for a hand. And it ended up that they had a fight with a guy from the volcano, and he didn't get another dime from them.

2:10:32BenBut he works in the museum a lot, and he was a very close friend.

2:10:37BubblemanYeah, I mean, vaporization was definitely his thing. It was, I think...

2:10:42BenI just looked, we thought there's a YouTube thing with Bill and Paris Hilton, you know, he's vaping with Paris Hilton in the museum. But he don't know it's Paris Hilton. I love him. We miss him.

2:10:56BubblemanYeah, for sure. Bill was awesome. My best story of Bill is... You know, someone comes up to the vaporizer and they take this big rip and it's the one where he's got the huge globe now. It's like 1995 or something. And he's got the heat gun in the top and the big glass. And this person comes and takes a big rip and literally before even exhaling, it used to get real hot on the top floor of the PAX party house.

2:11:23BubblemanHe just like broke the glass arm, went down, like fell on the ground and Bill, without even skipping a beat, yells, yells. Because everyone's quiet. He yells, you see that, ladies and gentlemen? The amazing healing properties of cannabis. This man hasn't slept in three days. Only one hit and he's out. Holy shit, he laughed. What a character.

2:11:53ToddWhat a guy. Yeah, I love him.

2:11:57BenYeah.

2:11:58BubblemanThat's amazing that you turned him on to the vaporizing. That's amazing that you were like, hey, you should look into this vaporizer thing.

2:12:05BenYeah, and then you have the guy in Holland with the verdumper, you know. Everett. They were playing already with the paint stripper, right? He's going up. He works in the museum and works with the vaporizers.

2:12:19BubblemanI'll tell you, that verdumper is potentially one of the greatest vaporizers for the pure hit that you get. Nice.

2:12:28BenYeah.

2:12:31BubblemanIncredible.

2:12:32BenAnd of course, bottom of the day. The guy who sells them is also a beautiful guy.

2:12:36BubblemanYeah. It's Everett, correct? Yeah. Everett. Everett. Everett. Yeah. Okay. I wouldn't pronounce his name. Great guy for sure. He used to carry around like a pickle jar on a harness around his body as his portable battery pack. I was like, dude, you are a serious character. Yeah, he is. Yeah. He's from Friesland, isn't he? I'm not sure. Somewhere there. Yeah, I think that's his area. Very cool.

2:13:06BubblemanVery cool. I'll tell you, it might be time for another rip watching you smoke all those joints and I'm barely hitting anything over here.

2:13:14BenYou guys should look up Eagle Bill and Paris Hilton. You look it up, right?

2:13:19ToddYeah, I just actually put it on my Twitter, HempXXX. I went and I was laughing. Eagle Bill obviously has... He doesn't, he, no shit's given, you know. He doesn't care who this girl is. But he's willing to get her quite high. It's quite amusing. Yeah.

2:13:38SpeakerAnd that was the amazing thing about Eagle Bill. It didn't matter who you were, I'm getting you high. End of story.

2:13:43ToddNext. She was video, she was so enamored with him, she videotaped it. It's clearly her doing it. And he was a Casanova.

2:13:54BenJackie would give it around his finger.

2:13:56ToddGiving her all day, of course, yeah. That's cute, though. You see her getting high. It's really quite amusing.

2:14:03BubblemanYeah, well, I'll tell you, I'm glad I got to hit many, many times the vaporizer with Eagle Bill.

2:14:12ToddSo we were in the PAX party house one day, and I walked over to see him, and this guy was in front of me doing the hit of that big, huge, Upside down, light bulb, giant size vaporizer with a gun in it. And the guy took a big hit and fell right over.

2:14:28BenI'm just telling you.

2:14:29ToddOh, no shit. All right. I'm quiet. No, it's good, man.

2:14:32BubblemanMy friend was right next to him that year.

2:14:35ToddOh, dude. He was slaying people, dude. And then he didn't know what to do. And he looked around. He looked at me. And the guy's friends already had kneeled down to help out their friend. And I was just standing there like, holy shit, Bill, and he goes, another satisfied customer, next!

2:14:49BubblemanThat was a classic, too, yeah, another satisfied customer.

2:14:54ToddI literally leaned over the guy who was on the ground and did my pay pay.

2:14:59BenI saw once somebody's really warming thing and everything, you know, going out, and he said, this is the museum, the only museum you get higher out than you get in, you know, somebody going, you

2:15:13ToddYou still vaporize people of all places. Okay, so in Amsterdam, you go into the Hemp Gallery Museum, and there's a guy there with a vaporizer demonstrating it. It's a demonstration, folks. Joseph.

2:15:27BenJoseph is a good replacement for Evil Bill.

2:15:31ToddHe's nice. I like Joseph. He's a very nice, very beautiful guy. Yeah, so you use, they use donation, but they use grass. Donation grass just shows up, grass? Magic grass. I think so. And then it's just, everybody gets high. It's legal grass, I think. What a way to enjoy a museum, huh? You go to the museum, the museum gets you high and wishes you well.

2:15:52BubblemanI love this. That's the way it should be. I don't disagree. Nice that you guys are sitting outside in the trees and the flowers.

2:16:03BenIt is nice here now. It's a bit summer still, right? Yeah. It's not so bad. Did you want to ask anything else, Mike?

2:16:17BenWell, let me think, let me think. Let me think, let me think.

2:16:20ToddBen, Ben, years ago I gave you a book.

2:16:30SpeakerA bound copy, Todd and I were talking about this, of hemp patents that was found with a friend of mine. Do you still have that book, or have you played with any of those recipes?

2:16:42BenTo be honest, I'm not sure. I'm not sure. You know, because I was so bloody hard working with the museum, because we did two museums in two years, right, the Amsterdam renovation, and then And one of the big problems for me was books, what to put in there.

2:17:06ToddThis was actually a binder collection of patents. And it was a long time ago. But it was like this thick, and it was all early 20th century, from 19th century. You have to look it up. You have to look it up. No, yeah, you know, everything that... It's hard to really put into perspective the amount of stuff you've collected over the years.

2:17:29BenI walk through the museums and I'm... Well, we all documented it, so we should be able to tell you. Yeah. But, you know, my collection was really a collection like many collectors have. It was a mess. And then... About seven years or what more ago, I started to really document it, and it's done now. Everything is done, and we make all scans of all the books, and so you should find it.

2:18:06BenBut it's a big thing, you know, from there, again, also to choose your topics and where does it fit in. But it's very interesting. Thank you again for the information. I'm sure we'll find a place for it again. And if not me, it's the new generation that find it.

2:18:25BubblemanI guess I would like to ask a question about the Northern Light Haze No. 5. You were saying that's one of your favorites? Yeah. What was it like when that came to be? I'm sure you were around before it came to be, and then as it was happening, as that breed came to be and you first tasted it, you have a little story about that experience?

2:18:47BenI don't know much, because if I recall well, it was a plant that Alan and Neville, I think it's maybe Neville's plant, Neville had it, if I recall it well, but Alan knows better, because we worked on it those days, we put all the genetics together with Neville, and we sold it, right?

2:19:10BubblemanAnd what year was, did you guys work with Neville, like what was the...

2:19:19BubblemanI'm asking all the hard-hitting questions here, Ben.

2:19:23BenIt's a good question. I don't recall very well.

2:19:29ToddIn the 70s? Did you know each other back then, or was it the 80s? Was it the seed banks that brought you together?

2:19:37BenI didn't have the shops or nothing yet.

2:19:42ToddOh, so early 80s.

2:19:44BenYeah, yeah. Wow.

2:19:48BenI think I met him through app, but I'm not sure. I don't know. Oh, really? I'm not sure. That would make sense, actually.

2:19:55BubblemanCould be.

2:19:56BenI'm not sure.

2:19:58BubblemanWow. And then what year was the Super Sativa Seed Club? Weren't they out of Rotterdam?

2:20:06BenNo, they were from the night. Oh. Main case. I met him once, I think. Nice guys. They were doing good things. But they also had problems, right? I don't know much about it. I forgot also.

2:20:24ToddThat's a long time ago. We're talking 30 years.

2:20:27BenYeah, also, but it was also a bit mysterious at that time. All the guys were, everybody was hiding.

2:20:34ToddThis is literally Sensei's 30th year of being in business, fell in seeds, in Amsterdam. It's incredible, yeah.

2:20:44BubblemanThat is incredible. Congratulations. 30 years spreading the seeds. Holy smokes. Truly, holy smokes.

2:20:54ToddWe've all smoked something that's passed through the Sensi Seed Bank. Everybody listening has inadvertently gotten their hands on something that has your genetics.

2:21:03SpeakerGenerations of cannabis users, thank you, Ben. We would not know cannabis without you.

2:21:11BenI always used to say from the beginning, we're bombarding the world with seeds in the threat war. Ah, that's nice. The drug war is on. We're bombarding the world with seeds.

2:21:23ToddIn all honesty, in the 80s, to me, a young grower, you existed in the advertisements as a fairy tale. Like, you know, it's Jack and the Beanstalk. You're going to go get these great varieties of cannabis just that easy. Come on. To me, it seems crazy. No, I came. I got on the plane.

2:21:40SpeakerI visited.

2:21:41ToddBut it took me a minute to realize that that could come true. You were a fantasy. Yeah, Fancy Seeds, the whole idea of buying sprained flavors.

2:21:55BenIt was fun. You know, I started in Amsterdam, where we still are, and I had to do it with flower seeds. So I put a lot of flower seeds there, and cannabis seeds, and people like that, to see what the government would do with it. And then, of course, they came by and they looked at all the flower seeds. And they saw the hemp varieties, you know, I have a special package.

2:22:22BenAnd they, it was okay. And then I changed it more and more. And the flower seed went out. But the flower, I keep this flower seed for quite some years, you know. Just the one part because I wasn't sure we could legally sell the seeds or not. Right? And, uh,

2:22:43ToddIt's interesting to me that you seem to have taken on a diversity and genetics approach where you had a lot of different kinds of cannabis and not just some winners you thought would make you money. You had Afghan ones, you had Big Buds, you had Hazes, you were all over the place.

2:23:01BenThe interesting thing was cannabis cost over in Amsterdam. Everybody from all over the world came and this is how we met and how you met Jay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

2:23:44ToddWell, you're a dreamer. I'm manifesting some crazy dreams, getting your hemp into cars, you know. You participated in the documentary that I was kind of proud to have been a part of, and it was the Culture High, and in it you make a comment about when you were younger, you used to see the Mercedes drive by, and you were a left political looker, and you didn't like it, and you thought, fuck them, and then years later, now they drive by, and your hemp is in their car.

2:24:09SpeakerYeah.

2:24:12ToddAnd I think that's a great accomplishment, you know.

2:24:15BenYeah, but I like it just to become the mainstream, right? Right. It's huge.

2:24:21ToddYeah, you proved your point. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, Jack, I love the book. I helped edit it since 94, and, you know, people that haven't read it should read it. It was very inspirational. It'll get you angry. It'll motivate you to want to do something, and You really proved Jack's point. You really, you put your money where your mouth was and you risked things and you now have a hemp industry inside of this country where one potentially wouldn't have existed even to this day.

2:24:49ToddOf course, yeah.

2:25:01ToddIt's a dream come true. First time I visited your factory was 20 years ago and I couldn't, it was astounding. I mean, you know, when I first was driving and my focus was on, it's like you said it before, when you visited, was it Thailand or someplace, and you didn't see the cannabis until you saw the cannabis and then it was everywhere. And when we were driving down the road and I was looking at the green and I was thinking that's nice and then I, it then for whatever reason my eyes focused on the fact that that's all cannabis.

2:25:30ToddAnd it just hit me like, wow, you know, and they're far as the eye can see. Hemp, I never saw that before, you know, hemp as far as the eye can see, no. And Mark, you must be able to visit it now in Canada, of course, but.

2:25:45BubblemanYep, we definitely can since 1995.

2:25:48ToddYeah. And it's happening. We were talking to Richard Rose and he was showing us some hemp varieties that were growing. You know, more like cultivation style for CBD, and it was, the varieties looked really beautiful, you know, and it's funny to see cannabis cross, it's like a cross trainer. It's kind of like, fuck you people trying to separate me. I will have medicine as much as I have medicine as good weed, and I think it's really kind of funny to see it all working its way out.

2:26:22ToddYou know, who would have known 20 years ago that you would be selling cannabinoid For people to use in a medicinal way from hemp that wasn't supposed to have anything other than paper and fiber and protein. It's the irony of hemp in a way. We were squishing buds in your museum down there in Barcelona. We were saying this is how long have we had been making ash and no one was like, hey, let's squish the buds.

2:26:53ToddWho would have thought? Have you gotten to try any of the rosin yet? I had some of them before last time. Yeah.

2:27:28ToddMaybe not by an angel, but everything else was totally true.

2:27:32BubblemanYes, it was almost all true.

2:27:35ToddRight to the angel?

2:27:37BubblemanRight to the angel, right to the angel. Tony says he does use angels, I know it. Tony caught a glimpse of the angel in, where were we, in Spain?

2:27:52ToddYou know, I'd like to apologize to everybody else. Usually we have more of a roundtable discussion, and I hate to feel like the asshole. I feel like dominating this, but talking to you for us is, I think, pretty amazing.

2:28:07SpeakerYeah. Absolutely. Look, we're all humbled and honored, man. Honestly, we're just happy to listen because, you know, Ben, you're one of our forefathers. If it wasn't for you, a lot of us would not know our reality currently, so... I'm just happy to sit back and watch, so just roll another one and keep talking.

2:28:26BenYeah, he said he doesn't really go to church, but this church, he'll come.

2:28:51SpeakerThe only church this ACS will show up at, that's for sure, as is stated, and as I will state.

2:28:58BubblemanA church inspired by Hash. A Hash church.

2:29:05SpeakerI have a question for Ben. Ben, so you spoke earlier and you said that it took you several years to breed your varieties and to stabilize them and to narrow your phenotypes down before you released a strain. Nowadays, there's just lots of so-called F1 hybrids being made. Breeders and seed makers aren't really taking the time. Have you noticed this at all? Do you have anything to say about that?

2:29:32BenWell, it's hard to say, you know, because there's a lot of people Saying a lot of things. And by practice, you have to figure out if it's correct or not. And to be honest, I didn't look at it. Because that's, you know, how to say, for 10 years, I had the freedom to breathe in Holland. That is what, maybe that is essential of the Sensei Seed Bank, that I had coffee shops, but they were actually illegal to buy grass, right?

2:30:11BenAnd I didn't want to go to jail anymore because they passed me so many times. And I found out that the Lord made it possible to grow seeds, and nobody else knew. So I had legal greenhouses where I did all my seeds, also the breeding, you know, and I had several, and also like in the Cannabis Castle. And that gave me the advantage that I really could breed And all the other people were still hiding their drawing.

2:30:40BenBut not me, because I was legally drawing seeds. And that was legal. And all the other guys were drawing grass. Illegal. And that advantage that makes our company for all these years, because we make also the money to go on, to do better. And it was mainly Alan's work with the breeders To go on in the greenhouses, and while I started to concentrate more to the hemp and the museums.

2:31:13BenBut it's still, that advantage we have, and we still have a license, and that is interesting because there's only a few people having a license at home. And so I cannot do anything more, I cannot grow grass or something, but we still have our seed bank in order. Gene Bank is still what we got, and we fill it in and fill it in with a lot of, and varieties like I told you, and a few new varieties as well.

2:31:43ToddRight. Of cannabis. Right. Yeah. That's right.

2:31:46SpeakerI have a question. The question is actually from Nick. He was wondering, what was the most difficult artifact, Ben, for you to find for a museum or museums, and what, if any, you are still searching for?

2:32:05BenWow, that's a good question. That's a good question. Because I still collect it, and right away here in my house I have maybe six, seven objects, quite big paintings, and I don't know where to put them anymore, but we're still collecting it, and it's beautiful to collect, and I have to go on. The most desirable, it's hard to say, because I think Chris will agree with me that every time something come out, I like, I have this old Italian movie that shows how they grow the hemp in those days.

2:32:47BenAnd it is so beautiful, you know, I like it so much because you see real people working hard. And you can dream away in the past. It's the same thing that you discover that in Amsterdam you have this The prostitutes and the widows were arrested when we go to war because they go into what they call a spin house where they have to spin the yarn. Wow.

2:33:11BenFor the labor. Yeah. And in the same spin house, the noblemen came to the farm. You know, they choose the girls who are taken out of the prostitution, who dare to spin, and then they come there. So only the noblemen could go there. Sort of a frontal. Right. You know? And those kind of things, so what is that? Shakespeare, you know, the story, or the shaman, it's always something new to discover, but it can be very small, and I can be very happy with it.

2:33:42BenYou know, it's a small Japanese bowl that I got, and it's all hemp fabric made, and it is something like, wow. Right. So it can be all kind of objects, but something missing, I'm not sure. I'm sure what You know, we should like to give more and more depth information, like also Chris had the same thing, you know, we have a very short section of religion, and Chris played a head role there, he's very much there, and with a big poster as well, and we should like to give more information about the ointment, oil, and all these things, and it is very difficult to tell this story Shortly, to people who just visit a museum, and they go in, and within 20 minutes, half an hour, they're out again, because most people do that.

2:34:37BenNow we have earphones, and they can listen, and so you can already give them more depth information. But it's very difficult, because, you know, what subjects you can stand by, because before we have an average of maybe 15 minutes, people stay in the museum, 15, 20 minutes, And now it's erased already to 45 minutes. That's nice. You can give more information. But when it's very busy, it's not convenient.

2:35:04BenThen they stay too long. We can talk for days. They listen for days.

2:35:09ToddHow long have you had the audio tour? It seems extremely popular. Everybody had a little device to their ear as they stared at the artifacts.

2:35:19BenWe have a booklet. We used to have a booklet. What is nice also? Audi.

2:35:25ToddIt's fantastically informative.

2:35:28BenBut you know, it's always difficult to, and I think Chris agreed with me, to, I always say my next door neighbor, you know, the wife of my next door neighbor, I have to explain something. And the wife don't know nothing. So you have to choose the words how to make her understand what you're saying. If you say Jesus baptized with fire and Cannabis oil, you know, you're nuts, right?

2:35:55BenRight. So, but if you, like we had in Barcelona, Chris, it was very funny, we had three priests walking by the museum every day because it's a beautiful church. Right next down the street, yeah. And they came in, I waved them in, I said, come in, come on, come in. No, no, no, no, no, yeah, yeah, come on, there's something about Jesus. And they came in, And on the poster, I don't recall exactly what, but it's one, how do you call that, verse from Judas, and they're looking at it, you know, and right away the guy took his Bible, looked it up, and in Spanish, ah, you confirmed, you know, the other one confirmed, you know, and it was amazing, you know.

2:36:40BenSo three pieces were convinced in a few minutes. But how do you do that to your next neighbor to say, hey, there's something They're in religion and in the Bible that connects with cannabis, you know, that is always the challenge. So it's the story and the culture and the whole thing of cannabis that is how you teach a child, you know? Right.

2:37:05ToddAmusingly enough, we're having this conversation on Hash Church, and the Barcelona building that you now have the Hemp Museum, Hash Hemp Museum in is formerly a church. It was a church, right? No, no, no, no.

2:37:18BenIt was not used as a church? No, it was a castle. It was really a castle. Oh. And then they, on the ruins of the castle, they renovated this whole building, put this whole building. Right. It was in 19, the old wall is still from the castle.

2:37:34ToddDoes it have like, is that a private chapel that's inside of it then? It's a private chapel. A private chapel, because when you're that rich, you don't go to church, you have church come to you?

2:37:44BenOh, that's nice. Wow.

2:37:48ToddSo would like a priest show up and be able to deal with these people and like they could have their own little ceremonies in their own house?

2:37:55BenIt's actually what I was trying to say is you're talking about documentaries, you know, the Culture High, the Union, and there's so many documentaries. And every time I admire, especially now in Culture High, sometimes people can say very short words and they can explain Thank you very much for joining us.

2:38:39BenI really shout them out. But they have more backup also now, right? So we need that. If anybody has to collect those items for the museum, let me know. Thank you very much. And I hope you come to visit in Barcelona one day, because Barcelona is really... We're smoking.

2:39:14ToddMark, what are you doing?

2:39:19ToddYeah, ATN smoking. Oh, I don't feel so alone.

2:39:24SpeakerYou got to remember, there's two Marks.

2:39:27ToddI know. I'm just looking at you, buddy. That's funny. So how are you doing over there, Mark? I should just call you K. Well, no, I can't call you K. Call me Dr. Mark.

2:39:38SpeakerDoing fine. All's well.

2:39:45SpeakerWhat part of the world are you in?

2:39:50SpeakerIn Pennsylvania.

2:39:53ToddI was wondering if you were spending more time in California.

2:39:59SpeakerI'm going to be coming west pretty soon.

2:40:04ToddDo visit when you do.

2:40:05SpeakerI will, absolutely.

2:40:17SpeakerHow's Holland, Todd?

2:40:22ToddI'm having a great time. I love Holland. It's the best social climate I've ever visited. I've always said.

2:40:33SpeakerEven the birds sound social.

2:40:35ToddThe people here are great. Everybody's awesome. Cannabis and the social scene in Amsterdam was really what was probably so genuine to me because People like, they shared so much. They shared so much of their knowledge with each other and were really trying to instigate or enable one another, you know, to be able to do the things they were doing. And I thought that was so fantastic. And it's still happening here on a great scale.

2:41:09BenWell said.

2:41:12BubblemanSorry about that. I just got to get out of this room in the next 18 minutes. So I'm going to have to call it a day on Hash Church in the next 15. You guys have 15 minutes to give or a go. Thanks for bringing Ben in, by the way. That was great.

2:41:26SpeakerHey, people have asked me to chime in on something that's going on in California. AB 2366 is legislation that the state is trying to push through. It was all kinds of stuff originally in it, but on Thursday evening the governor gutted it immediately, completely, and passed it with legislation that said the California legislature shall regulate medical marijuana. So right now we are currently waiting on, we don't know the language, supposedly the language is being done by the governor's office.

2:42:06SpeakerSome of the language will carry over or is similar from the previous language. We don't know what it is, and we won't know what it is until tomorrow. Also, next, we have until the 7th of September in California, so stay diligent. I'll keep you posted via the Hash Church link regarding it, one way, shape, or form. But at this time, that's all it says at this point, so And regarding initiatives, we support all initiatives.

2:42:39SpeakerIn fact, all initiatives that are currently on can come and gather signatures outside of BPG. We completely support the process for legalization for 2016. So just wanted to state that. Thank you.

2:43:02SpeakerYou say you want to legalize marijuana?

2:43:07ToddYes.

2:43:09SpeakerIn California. Whoa.

2:43:12ToddWhat about the kids? What are they going to do?

2:43:15SpeakerThey're like the Dutch kids, going to grow up educated, and when they learn about the good and the bad, then they'll realize, oh, it's not so scary, and as they've learned in the other medical states or in the legal states, that, oh, the youth haven't gone crazy for cannabis, so... Just, again, proving them wrong.

2:43:38BubblemanHey, and I just got a late checkout till 1, so we can keep chatting away, and that way people that came in to chat with us, it won't be a waste. Namely, Khalid, who came in from Jeff Church, he was going to come in and talk a little bit today about CO2 extraction and... Sort of the footprints that are potentially left behind, not just in that particular extraction process, but every extraction process, which we've been talking about for the last couple of Hash Churches.

2:44:07BubblemanAnd I see they even covered it as a topic on the Adam Dunn Show recently. So it's pretty cool that the topic is getting covered and talked about and more people are into it. So welcome, dude.

2:44:23BubblemanGot to unmute yourself there.

2:44:24SpeakerHey, how's it going?

2:44:27BubblemanVery good, very good. Sorry about the confusion earlier.

2:44:29SpeakerNo, it's great listening. Thank you for having Ben here. Todd, that was pretty awesome.

2:44:38BubblemanYeah, talk about your rare appearances.

2:44:43BubblemanMy rare appearances? Well, Ben is a rare appearance, but you are as well. Sure, this is your first time here on Hash Church, so thank you.

2:44:53SpeakerYeah, so we just run a really small company here in California and got into it coming from a state and an environment where cannabis just represented something different and kind of tried to stay away from it. But coming into California about 15 years ago, I had a broken femur, a broken tibula, a broken hand, and people started introducing cannabis in a medicinal capacity to me and Trying to have me eat it and trying it in other ways and it just opened up my state of mind to what the capacity for cannabis to heal was outside of just, you know, the good time.

2:45:33SpeakerAnd I always thought of it as like a medicine for terminally ill people but not so much for people, you know, just as like a wellness thing. I don't know, maybe it just didn't all register but once someone really introduced it to me in that capacity and I saw it that way, I grew up around enough people up in Seattle, Washington and kind of a, You know, people kind of recreationally do a lot of drugs up there traditionally and have kind of a looser and a more tolerant consideration towards that kind of stuff.

2:46:06SpeakerBut coming down here and thinking of it in medicine, I really wanted to approach it from a clean point of view. My brother-in-law and partner was the same way. And as we started learning about concentrating cannabis hash, I'm... Half Saudi Arabian and have like pictures traditionally of like people in my family who are Bedouin smoking like really long wooden pipes with brass fittings, smoking hashish out in the desert.

2:46:34SpeakerAnd so for me, hash has always been like something that's really cool. This whole thing is really neat for me because you've been an awesome gateway for hash in a more recreational capacity and then now medicinally. But I went to India as a 19-year-old then that. That was the only place I'd ever experienced cash. Someone brought me a large ball of Kashmiri cream, is what it was called, and it was like the stuff that Todd was showing earlier, except for it was rolled in a big ball, but when you broke it off and warmed it up, it was really pure.

2:47:04SpeakerAnd so my mindset is concentrates are supposed to be clean and pure, and Ben was kind of joking, like, we all worry about organic and clean now, but before, you know, when it's grown simply, it's all organic, so we're just kind of, you know, circling around. But I like a lot of people, and I hope it's not offensive if I throw it out so roughly, but I got really sold on the pseudoscience of solvent extracts.

2:47:31SpeakerAnd when I say solvent extracts, I should be more specific. Solvent extracts in general, but more specifically hydrocarbon extracts. And even more specifically butane and its low boiling point and a lot of the, you know, just kind of things that are true. But when you leave them just at their face value and you don't have a chemistry background and other things, you don't have the capacity to understand really what's going on.

2:47:56SpeakerSo we deal with Harborside and a lot of larger collectives and really try and focus on patient access and treat it as medicine. And as we started bringing our BHO to some of those clubs, we would take them in for testing and they would fail. And that really... Kind of drove us to push and push what was going on here. This doesn't make sense. Everyone's telling us low boiling point.

2:48:19SpeakerIt should all be gone. What's really happening? And so as we continued to play with that, my brother-in-law and father-in-law decided to build a closed loop. And when they built the closed loop, they just had a simple theory. If we put in this weight of butane, we should be able to weigh what we take out. So they just loaded the machine up with a bunch of butane and they took the butane out.

2:48:47SpeakerOnce they did that, what they actually found was a whole bunch of clear heavy petroleum distillates. And this is what we found out later through testing and through a lot of sampling and sending it out to labs. But I know you guys have talked in the past about lubricants. I don't have one in front of me, but Really the nozzles and the cans, it's not the issue as much as, and we have Dr. Mark on here so maybe he can chime in on some of this because I'm not a scientist.

2:49:19SpeakerIt's really just like I'm as far removed from understanding science but I'm a photographer and I've always found passion in things I'm interested in and so As we found that, we kind of came to the community, and my brother-in-law is a little bit more abrupt person than I, and he just was like, this is poison. Everyone has to stop. We can't give this to patients. We need to find out more and see what's going on.

2:49:42SpeakerAnd we got a really abrupt response from people. And so we kind of just pursued, and a lot of people now coin the term mystery oil. We started a webpage, mysteryoil.org, and a Facebook page, facebook.com backslash mysteryoil. And they just talk about what kind of heavy petroleum distillates are in the places that we sent stuff out for testing. We sent some stuff to an analytical lab in Oregon, California.

2:50:11SpeakerI think my brother-in-law maybe sent some out to one or two other places. But we list all the tests, all the results. People said that we were lying, so we would go buy a master case and... Go out in 100 degree weather with a hazmat suit and a little mask over our face because at the time the environment was much more touchy and we would just blast like hundreds of cans in front of the camera just try it and I'd be out there videotaping and we would just, you know, try and just, you know, here it is.

2:50:39SpeakerIt's in there and there's been a lot of pushback about it and to skip ahead, we threw everything away and abandoned it the minute that we saw it and it was a little shocking You know, to step away from something that was making us money and that we enjoyed smoking, but we mostly just consume like all organic meat and organic vegetables and don't believe in the food system and the way that people kind of manipulate what they put into people's body anyway.

2:51:09SpeakerSo it wasn't too big of a jump to say this isn't right for us to just put some alien clear stuff. And when it came out, It smells like a tire shop. It's clear and it looks clean, but when you touch it and you put it on your fingers, it lingers for two days. It's not something you can touch and wash off with alcohol or with that orange stuff from the mechanic shop.

2:51:33SpeakerNothing cleans it off. It just leaves the smell. It gets on your food, gets in your nose. We burnt it on bowls to see what the reaction was and what it looked like. One of the things that has a high boiling point that's in it is called toluene. And it has a boiling point of around 400 degrees. So it may be in trace elements, but part of toluene's MSDS is that it shuts down lung function.

2:51:57SpeakerSo sometimes you take a dab, and we're really comfortable. We can taste that smell now when we do try a dab here or there because we are very curious and kind of use ourselves as the testing place sometimes, I guess, to push the limits or see what's possible. And it does, it feels like there is something that restricts your lung function. And so to see that be spelled out on the MSDS, I mean obviously the cannabinoids and the expansion and everything else, but I mean there are a lot of interesting correlations.

2:52:32SpeakerBut anyway, we left that and went to CO2 and we were actually encouraged by the CO2 company that we were working with to use food grade CO2. And It was all right, but just because the way we were kind of looking at things, we started off by going to Airgas and to Praxair and just looking like, where are the clean solvents? And the same thing that we did with the hydrocarbons, which are where is the clean solvent?

2:52:58SpeakerIn hydrocarbons, the cleanliness of a hydrocarbon ends, I think, at research grade, or at least that you can get from Praxair. And so it's 99.99%. And the food grade was 99.9 for food grade CO2. So we had our suspicions anyway, but we did try and distill it. And what we found was much, much, much less and not as toxic and stuff that wasn't testing, petroleum distillates. But there is just very clearly a contamination.

2:53:28SpeakerSo we just kind of kept searching for something cleaner. And what we found was there is one solvent that they sell that's extraction grade. And that's SFE grade CO2. It's super fluid extraction grade CO2. And to give you an idea why I think a lot of people don't dive into it is it's cost prohibitive. If you get food grade CO2, and if the company is telling you you feel comfortable with it, but it's $35 for a tank.

2:53:55SpeakerWhen you go to air gas and you get SFE grade CO2, you pay about $435 for 40 pounds, which is a standard size cylinder.

2:54:05SpeakerSo you're paying a lot more. So companies, I feel like, unfortunately, sometimes, especially in California, they are driven by profit. And so when you've built in your business in a certain way, jumping up to investing that much more, I just don't think a lot of people spend the time. I know Jeff did mention that we distill our SFE-grade CO2, but I did want to just make a correction.

2:54:32SpeakerWe have distilled the SFE-grade CO2 On multiple occasions to check its cleanliness, but it's actually the only solvent that we've found that's completely free of anything that comes in it. And I'll show you guys this test. But SFE grade CO2 is one of the few things, I don't know if you guys can see any of this, but I'll find it with my finger here. It's 99.9995% pure, but that's a requested purity.

2:55:06SpeakerIf you actually look, this kind of CO2 is one of the few things where they run it through a cleaning process and then they test it afterwards. So it tests for like the moisture, total hydrocarbons. It really just runs the gamut and tries to leave the cleanest product as possible. And when we get the tanks, they're all sealed and wrapped up. They haven't been broken from the factory in New Jersey.

2:55:37SpeakerThis last test I have is from July 2015, so it was just cleaned and tested recently and then sent out to California. It's always tests probably about, if the requested purity here is five parts per million, it's testing at under a half a part per million for total requested hydrocarbons. And the difference is that CO2 is a singular thing and it doesn't have any molecular close cousins, so separating out hydrocarbons from it is much easier.

2:56:13SpeakerThe problem with hydrocarbons, just the inherent issue with them, is that there's such a slurry of hydrocarbons because of the way that they distill it from crude oil that really to isolate just a single molecule, a butane molecule or a propane molecule, it's really hard. So you get these condensing, heavier petroleum condensants that I guess they gather, and that's most of what you're finding in a lot of the mystery oil.

2:56:44SpeakerAnd so not to keep just running on and on and on and on about the cleanliness of the solvents, but that's really where we are now. We're just trying to use the cleanest solvent possible to provide the patients with something that, Hopefully they can consume comfortably without it being a variable in their treatment or their care. Because the biggest thing to us is if you've got somebody who's really sick and they're consuming cannabis as medicine, why would you let them consume a variable?

2:57:14SpeakerWe don't know what it is, but we do know it's there. So if they're consuming it, it could be affecting their overall treatment. And I would argue, especially for senior patients, You know, things like toluene and pentane and hexane and a lot of that stuff. It's just, you know, I see a lot of people dabbing with their grandma. And not maybe in a literal sense, but where seniors are really, you know, being promoted, here's a dab, take this dab.

2:57:42SpeakerAnd a lot of people are just, you know, entrusting us to provide them with something that they can enjoy. And so it's really up to us to not, you know, Poison Grandma or somebody who has a weakened immune system or someone with damaged lung tissue or just any number of things that we don't really know about our friends when they sit down to have a dab with us.

2:58:09BubblemanYeah, well said. I agree 100% on that. It's this sort of conscious thing that you're just, are you looking to destroy people or are you looking to help People in a way that, you know, can improve the quality of their life. I choose the latter for certain.

2:58:25ToddI want to just play devil's advocate for a minute as a guy that rode motorcycles since I was eight years old and I sat behind a bus that used to spew hydrocarbons in my face as it would take off in front of me at a light and I had to grow up going in and out of garages and pumping gas, especially pumping gas. When you're standing next to your car and you're breathing in that cloud of vapor coming out of your gas tank, You really don't think that you're inhaling that?

2:58:53SpeakerYou are, but as a producer of a medicine, when you know you're adding in a contaminant, that's different than atmospheric or environmental contaminants. Totally different. You can't compare the two. I don't think that's a fair comparison.

2:59:11ToddWe're making... I agree with you.

2:59:17SpeakerBut there's people who can't live in L.A. because of all the disgusting hydrocarbons. There's people with weakened immune systems and damaged lung tissues who have to move out of places that are overly polluted because it's killing them. Those same people look to cannabis as a cure sometimes.

2:59:33ToddNo disagreements in that. But we are surrounded all day with hydrocarbons and, you know, a lot of people... And pesticides and other things, but we don't concentrate them to...

2:59:43SpeakerI mean, if I concentrate a N-butane, a tank, a 40-pound tank of N-butane, you get over a coffee cup worth of heavy petroleum distillates out of it. Over a coffee cup. So, I mean, I... I understand what you're saying, but without regulations and clear guidelines, and I'm not saying, I'm not one for regulating one way or the other on a lot of stuff. I do have, you know, beliefs about the way things should go, but I do think that as long as it's a medicine, and in a recreational market, quite frankly, it scares me.

3:00:18SpeakerWe stay away from most commercially processed foods as a family, and what I feed my son. Based on the fact that things are, you know, highly polluted for commercial purposes, it's cost prohibitive to take these things out that I'm talking about, but it's not impossible.

3:00:33ToddWe've been lighting pipes with these lighters for four decades plus, and you know what? We haven't been promoting it as a medicine for millions of people who move to the state.

3:00:46BubblemanYeah, I think it's different when he's not talking about the oil being the bad, or the solvent being the super bad thing.

3:00:53ToddNo, no, we're not, we're not, we're all pro-contaminants.

3:00:56BubblemanI'm just saying... We're concentrating contaminants, Todd, we're concentrating the contaminants into a concentrate. That's the difference. Light like your lighter with a hundred of those lighters, or five hundred of them, it could be...

3:01:13SpeakerI've burned a dab of heavy petroleum distillates, like on a dab, and we've also figured out the percentage, because what you don't realize, too, is that you guys aren't testing for any of this stuff, so we went to Steep Hill with Mystery Oil and really pounded it in on them, but they didn't have the testing capacity to find the full spectrum, and that's why we sent it out to other testing labs, but when we went back to them with a lot of the information, it boiled up to what eventually became Pentane coming out At the Secret Cup, which was like this whole like, oh my goodness, we have this extra like thing in our thing and screw Steve Hill for telling us.

3:01:51SpeakerWell,

3:01:52ToddNo, that's not how it was. I was there. That's not how it was.

3:01:55SpeakerWell, I mean, I was in their office every day throwing papers and tests and bringing in samples of Mysteril and telling them. I'm just saying there's still a whole skew of things that I brought them that will be tested for at some point that will come out. And some people are getting it out. The argument isn't for BHO or not for BHO. It's just clean solvents. That's all I'm talking about.

3:02:16ToddAnd there is something great. And the stuff in the cans is not as clean. And it's all, you know, this is where we're going with regulation though. I mean, look at Colorado. They actually get the stuff and they clean it up when they run it. I mean, you know, so if you look at the… No, no, no.

3:02:31SpeakerAnd I agree. Yeah, you have to clean it up.

3:02:33ToddAnd, you know, people listening to this, you know, Boulder or whatever, going, dude, down the street I got clean BHO all day. What are they talking about? And I just want to acknowledge that because, you know what, that's reality too.

3:02:44SpeakerNo, no, no, that's fine, but I would still argue whether or not it's clean or whether or not they're just not testing for the things that may be in it. Some of this stuff has a boiling point at over 400 degrees, and I do fractionally separate off just cannabinoids like the clear or whatever they call it. And when you're doing that, I mean, you have an entourage effect as you get up in temperature.

3:03:05SpeakerSo if you haven't cleaned your solvent to the point that you're getting out stuff that's coming off at a high temperature, then it's coming out with the cannabinoids. And in a simpler level, when you make BHO, the same thing happens. So if someone's running a single pass distillation system, it's not the same thing as running a recirculating pass distillation apparatus for like a long period of time specifically To clean it, I mean you can't buy this stuff that clean from Praxair because there's not a big enough market and it's too cost prohibitive and expensive for a big company like that to do it.

3:03:39SpeakerSo it's hard for me to believe that guys even with hundreds of thousands of dollars have the capacity. When we called to follow up about this, I mean we kept getting pushback because it's so proprietary and it's so expensive and it's something that's So specific to make such a clean, expensive solvent that they, you know, it's very guarded, but they don't, you can't buy a solvent higher than research grade.

3:04:03SpeakerAnd I'm just, you know, I'm not akin to the idea that I'm a research project and people without PhDs have the knowledge on how to fully distill all these solvents when there aren't standards requiring them to. And that's all I'm suggesting. There's no way to force these people. So you can tell me that it's a clean solvent, but can you show me that it's a clean solvent?

3:04:27SpeakerI mean, can you show me that slab and prove to me that it's clean? Yeah, I can. I can show you if it's a clean solvent. Hey, you're a Ph.D., though. Yeah, I got a Ph.D. There it is. Yeah, I'd happily smoke your Ph.D.

3:04:41ToddAnd actually, residual tests are done for all of the concentrates and extracts that are sold at BPG as far as I know. ATN?

3:04:47SpeakerOh, I know, but those tests are insufficient. I have a regular testing relationship with those people. I mean, with the same labs, you know, Steep Hill, SE Labs, Sequoia Labs. Yeah, those labs are just looking for what they know to look for. I mean, you have specifications around what is in the mystery oil, which again are These high boiling hydrocarbons or branched isomers of higher boiling alkanes that just happen to be in there.

3:05:18SpeakerLook, you're absolutely right. There is no sizable market right now, and until there is a sizable market, they won't clean it up until basically it's regulated more like a standard food product. When you're doing multiple distillations, remember that any high boilers are left behind. If you do one or two or three passes, you could probably almost assure yourself that everything that's coming off the top of those distillations essentially are going to be 99.999% butane.

3:05:56SpeakerIf it is coming off and it's a lower isomer, those are just going to volatilize out of your product anyway. So I'm not sure if the concern is that you have to use the butane after it's been distilled multiple times to make sure that there are no high boiling materials left in the gas before you use it in cannabis extraction. There could certainly be some regulation around that.

3:06:29SpeakerAnd I fully just want to, like, if I in my personal life, and part of the reason that I understand, like, the different, you know, levels of what I feel like is sometimes contamination and BHO and isn't is because as an individual, I can make the choice to consume something that has a misnomer and make a judgment on it. All I'm talking about is when we get to the level of providing for patients where we have a brand, a polished brand that looks a particular way and provides to somebody a sense of assurance, There aren't the standards to really assure those people.

3:07:01SpeakerSo in the hydrocarbon realm, I would happily a friend who can tell me how they did something, you know, maybe try something. It isn't the same to me though as putting it on the shelf as a branded medicine. And in a recreational market, I think there's more latitude for that. But I think in a medicinal market, and this is just me standing on a moral soapbox because I feel so privileged to have the capacity to be in the environment where I have a business and work with people and have cannabis be my day-to-day life that I feel obligated to the 80-year-old grandma who's deciding to try her first dab.

3:07:37SpeakerOr the six-year-old who's having this stuff put into an edible that they're eating because the seizures or something. You know, I just, I look at it from as humble a position as possible and try and, you know, as Todd said earlier, he's playing devil's advocate. Well, you know, there's not very often that I feel like in any industry people just play, you know, consumer advocate. And so in this situation, as long as it's medicinal...

3:08:02SpeakerMy opinion is just to err on the side of caution and beat everyone to death with an opinion that unless we know The 1% of our community who gets forgotten about at high times events, who gets forgotten about at every cannabis social, those people who are really what the laws were written for, who were really why people went out and voted yes on California 215. I mean, nobody on this panel could pull enough heartstrings to get us voted in for medical in California.

3:08:30SpeakerIt's these people that I'm talking about that I feel obligated to provide. Clean Medicine, too, and just try and, you know, make and hold everyone to the highest standard possible because I just don't think there's anyone out trumpeting that thing. It's like it's very dismissed, you know. It's clean. It's tested. It's this. It's that. But like you said, unless they have the standards and unless they're looking for those specific things, it's clean only to a certain percent.

3:08:57SpeakerIt's only as clean as what we're looking for.

3:09:02BubblemanYeah, you know what, Khalid, I want to hear more about that. I have some questions for you and Mark, and we're just going to hear from Ben Dronkers to say good evening. And I wanted to thank him.

3:09:14BenKhalid, worth to think about. I'd have to say goodbye to all of you guys, and I hope to see you next time in the church again.

3:09:23SpeakerIt's a pleasure to be on while you are, Ben. Yeah, you're always welcome. All right, well. Thank you, Ben. Always a pleasure.

3:09:32BubblemanI had a question in regards to, you said the best quality butane you'll be able to get is research grade?

3:09:43SpeakerAs far as what I've found at Praxair and at Airgas and a lot of the providers here in California is that 99.99 is the highest level of purity that you can get. And a lot of what I'm saying, and I'd be happy to be called on any of it at any point, We've invested money into all of these solvents for just cleaning them, playing with them. We make a product that's very terpene rich that a lot of people sell for a high dollar.

3:10:15SpeakerWe sell it for a very reasonable price. We're doing this from a humble position that people have allowed us the privilege who are sick. Coming at it too commercially doesn't feel okay for us. I think in a recreational market we are very eager to try and recoup some of the losses that we've put in being the good guys or whatever, but it's really just been about trying to get people to focus on something other.

3:10:44SpeakerAnd that's why we love you so much, quite frankly, and not to throw it your way, but it's just because Promoting hash has really been where it all started for us is like it's a clean product or organic weed, you know, something that people can consume on a regular daily basis. And, you know, I mean, we just watched Todd smoke 10 joints with Ben. And if that was like, you know, just concentrated with disgustingness from crass commercialism where we're spraying pesticides and all sorts of, you know, God knows what else, it wouldn't be the same experience for Todd and Ben.

3:11:19SpeakerThank you so much for joining us.

3:11:50SpeakerIt's awesome. It's amazing stuff. I'm purely just talking about from a moral high ground. And I apologize if I'm veering a little. I do feel like I got a little excited there. And I don't want anyone to think that I'm trying to say what anyone as an individual is consuming is a bad thing. I know BHO has helped a lot of people too. And for people with stronger immune systems who aren't affected by the trace amounts of pollutants that are in there, it does really seem to...

3:12:18SpeakerYou know, help a lot of people.

3:12:21ToddYou know, thanks for saying that, because, you know, I have experienced just that with it, and, you know, extracts have given us the ability. I have chronic neck pain. You know, the little old lady friend of ours, LV Musica, that gets weed from no less than the U.S. government, used to come over and smoke all my shit, and now she comes over and dabs, and she's cool.

3:12:40ToddShe doesn't have headaches. She'll watch TV. She's content. And to see that contentness on somebody, realizing... We have to join after joint didn't get them to the level of cannabinoid saturation that gave them real alleviation from the medical problem they were pursuing gave me a different view of shatter, butter, extracts, cannabinoids, terpenes, the mix of it and starting to look at it from just a matter of fact standpoint without prejudice because You know, look, I like my iPhone.

3:13:09ToddI like technology. I'm not against learning new ways to do old things. And to me, that's what's happening. And when you guys started pushing for residual tests, I was really excited because I just was starting to interact with Dan and Jeremy and those guys. And when they dropped those tests, I thought it was the end of the industry for them. I thought people were going to go, oh, fuck.

3:13:29ToddAnd instead, everybody figured out, oh, gee, neopentane, 94.5 degrees, crank up the ovens, and away it went. And we all started learning chemistry when, in a way, now it's one of the pursued most cleanest areas of cannabis that we have because, hey, a lot of people that grow outdoor pot would rather you not test for mold. Now they're not test for fungus because you know what, outside it's really hard to combat that shit because it's in and on everything around us and naturally and it's part of our life.

3:13:56ToddWe shouldn't fear everything and we don't live in a sterile environment and I think some ways and when you look at the benefits of cannabis in an extracted form and it's a small risk for a great reward.

3:14:09SpeakerYeah, no, it definitely depends on the individual and it's why I don't go out Trying to make patients feel bad about what it is that they're buying off the shelves at collectives. Really, I guess the only time I stick the hornet's nest is really in these conversations that are with producers. The people who can hear what I'm saying and either take something from it or not take something from it.

3:14:35SpeakerI don't like to make a patient feel like what they're consuming. And I've had those conversations with people And I can see how it hurts them. I mean, it's a hurtful thing to say to someone, like, this might not be good for you. And so it's not my point to go out and tell someone, like, if they're getting relief, and if they're feeling better from this, that it's not good for them.

3:14:56SpeakerMy point is more to try and go to the producer and say, you know, what can you do, what can we do, what can I do to make the best products so these people cannot have, you know, any sort of concern that if they have a headache or they have this, you know, new Thank you so much for joining us.

3:15:39SpeakerAnd they have to all come back positive at the same time. Now, none of my product goes to my shelf without it being tested first. Who has to come clean? I set the standards, but it doesn't mean that every club's following it. I know Harborside is, but who else is? I hear a lot of problems down in LA. I hear a lot of problems in San Jose.

3:16:04SpeakerI hear a lot of problems in San Francisco, but I myself, I got turned on to BHO because of my older patients who were using it and my curiosity was why are you spending so much on so little as opposed to at the time flowers were 90% of the business. That has completely changed now where second after flowers is now concentrates where it used to be edibles.

3:16:35SpeakerIt forced our hand to actually go, like you said, so I want to know what's in here because I know there's sulfur, I know there's residual solvents because I can smell the sulfur, etc., etc. And as Todd stated, it did force people to learn chemistry. It did force people to push the industry. And out of that, look, we have companies that are making vacuum ovens and pushing the technology because, exactly, we found dirty shit.

3:17:00BubblemanAnd thankfully, a lot of others challenged people to find that dirty shit.

3:17:06SpeakerBut it doesn't mean that we can't always improve ourselves and make ourselves better. And we're better where we were and we're better today, but we can always do, as I said, better tomorrow. Well, and I have a, you know, I totally agree 100%. I think that, you know, the stuff that we were, you know, smoking 10 years ago, even two years ago, was, you know, hundredfold dirtier than a lot of the stuff that we're seeing today.

3:17:33SpeakerAnd like I said, a lot of it's just a moral high ground issue, but I guess also I do see a lot of these young people coming into the industry, you know, people maybe between like the age of 19 and 25 who have never even smoked flowers, and maybe, and I don't mean that in a literal sense, but where flowers has really never been what cannabis was about for them.

3:17:56SpeakerBHO dabs from day one, and Because it was so amazing and because it was so interesting and because it was so much more than anything cannabis could provide them. I mean, I, you know, when I first got in the industry, I probably spent three years dabbing nothing but concentrates coming from having smoked hash and weed. And for no other reason but it relieved my lungs to some extent.

3:18:19SpeakerTaking such a small dab, it was great. You know, you take a little dab and you just, you know, felt like you had smoked a whole joint. It was an amazing sensation. But if these trace amounts of things are in there and we think about the food industry and other things and all the cancers and stuff like that, and I have a skewed perspective too. My mom's a 30-year practicing respiratory therapist and has always just given me hell about consuming any sort of smoke.

3:18:47SpeakerAnd we fought a lot about cannabis as I was younger. And at some point, and to the credit of my mom, she came to me on her own one day and said to me, you know, I want to Apologize to you. I've been looking a lot, and I really cannot find anything about cannabis in particular that there's any credence or any science that would say that what you're doing is bad for yourself, but the consumption of hot smoke and the potential to inhale pesticides and toxins and things like that, so with the mindfulness of consuming something that's clean and And having some sort of filtration or mindfulness about the way that you're treating your esophagus and your lungs and the rest of it.

3:19:30SpeakerSo though I look at these young kids as if all they do is dab until they're 50, are they going to be the first trial patients of new diseases that we've never heard of forming in the soft palate and the esophagus? You know, down into the upper brachial part of the lungs where a lot of this expansion happens with VHO real rapidly and is it, you know, forcing extra, because that's the difference too, like the lighter, it passively goes into your lungs, but when VHO expands, I mean, there is something different happening into the way that it coats and pushes the cannabinoids.

3:20:04SpeakerIt's such an immediate high and maybe it looks like Mark is still here, Dr. Mark, but I

3:20:11SpeakerIt's also, it's a psychedelic that's produced between the lung and the brain that's the trigger. That's the fascinating part that we can't study, that even Mark can't study because it's in the humans currently and it's what we're experiencing and it's that high and I think that's what amazes a lot of us is we've all gotten high off of really kind butt, but the first time we've hit BHO it's like, holy shit, this is a whole other level of what the fuck that meant.

3:20:36SpeakerSo it's really that kind of way of where we really knew that you couldn't really get that high. So I'm fascinated as when Dr. Shulgin, I was very blessed to have Dr. Shulgin, Anna, and Sasha at BPG, I think back in 2004, and they came and they spoke to us. And he spoke to the fascination of the chemical compounds that happen when we ingest them, how we ingest them.

3:21:02SpeakerAnd so when we ingest them through the lungs, Something has created in our own bloodstream between there's a carrier, but there's also something that's created nonetheless. So I agree, there is something that is happening there that we don't understand, but I think we have to have human trials to really understand that. Am I correct, Dr. Mark? Yeah, absolutely, because a big part of it is like individual body chemistry and how our bodies are different and our tissues are different and how each of us metabolizes these Thank you for joining us.

3:21:53SpeakerThank you so much for joining us. We'll be right back.

3:22:22SpeakerThank you so much for joining us today. We'll be starting in about a minute or so.

3:22:48SpeakerThank you so much for joining us. We'll be right back.

3:23:19SpeakerBut I would think, again, for chronic users, you may not see the effects acutely, but chronically you could certainly see effects of having stuff in your lungs that just shouldn't be in there. Non-volatile, higher boiling hydrocarbons shouldn't be in your lungs.

3:23:39SpeakerAnd just to throw it out there, too, I mean, for us it is like a total mindset. So, I mean, I understand that we do Thank you so much for joining us.

3:24:09SpeakerYou know, trying to be cognitive of what you're consuming. And I think there's been a real big push in every industry to, you know, create sheepish behavior where we kind of blindly follow rather than having any sort of, again, just cognition towards what it is that we're, you know, putting into ourselves. And I applaud places like, you know, BPG and Harborside and Magnolia Wellness who are You know, they're forcing people when they come in, not to just show them some incredible, incredible, incredible.

3:24:43SpeakerIn some of my personal experiences at like Harborside and Magnolia Wellness, they, you know, they take product from you. If you have a trusted relationship, but it's still sent out for testing before it ever hits the shelf, and when they see a new customer, or I mean, I apologize, a new vendor who's gardening, They always make them leave a sample and come back in a week whenever the test comes back, and it's what dictates the purchasing.

3:25:10SpeakerI mean, it also still has to look good. It has to, you know, have great bag appeal. All the same requirements we've always had, but now they're requiring that that scrutiny be there, and it's really what drives me. I mean, if the clubs are doing it, they're our conduit to patients, and we have to, you know, Thank you for joining us.

3:25:51SpeakerFor a lot of places, it had to slow business for a little while, and maybe you can speak to that specifically for BPG, but I know some of my friends and some of the smaller things that we were a part of. Testing has always slowed us down compared to other places. The fact that we have such high standards, I feel like doesn't allow you to have the turnstile business that people who just will take anything.

3:26:17SpeakerIt's all just purely bag appeal. And that's how we got sold on BHO. I mean, half-hour flips, you know, at 60 degrees to leave the turps, or whatever. It's just bag appeal, you know, and you just turn them in. But for us, it always limited it by having clean stuff. And I don't know, at a big place like BPG, do you even feel that, you know, when you push those things?

3:26:38SpeakerOh, absolutely, because, I mean, everything you test on top, we've seen it.

3:26:49SpeakerAnd because of that, you know, that's the reality of the market. I'm very fortunate that we have a lot of patient cultivars in California that, and also I have a, you know, I'm getting ready on 16 years here. I have a 16-year reputation. So, I mean, that helps as well. But the reality is also is the city of Berkeley has made its own standards. And because of that, everything has to be tested beforehand.

3:27:17SpeakerSo that went into place already and all the other dispensaries in Berkeley have that. And that's one of the things we've pushed through for, such as in Berkeley we have a thing called the Berkeley Medical Cannabis Commission that we fought for back in the day and it's appointed by the city council people and they actually regulate us. And so with the law that passed allowing for the fourth dispensary and the regulations that this new fourth dispensary in Berkeley is that they had to follow what the other ones were doing.

3:27:45SpeakerAnd so they literally listened to what we were doing. And we don't have anyone on that board. We used to until they changed the law in 2010, and then they became all appointed by the city. And so we were already complying. And the thing is that I have to turn down a great deal of people. My purchasing patients are, as I teach them, it's the art of disappointment because we see so many people We're disappointing more people than we are making happy.

3:28:17SpeakerAnd as you said, you can talk to me all you want, but you're coming back a week later, and it's what the tests say. It's actually around 72 hours. We're getting it better with the different labs that we're doing. But, you know, that's the reality. But the cannabis and the science are telling me otherwise. And so... Once we get past that science, then we can open the dialogue of talking and discussion.

3:28:44SpeakerSo the standards have changed considerably from 10 years ago to even a couple years ago where it used to be, hey, how's it going? It wasn't until 2007 that Debbie, who's over at Magnolia, and I were wondering, all right, what is in our cannabis? We want to really know what's in this stuff right now. What is actually, what is this stuff? What's in here? And so we found Steve Hill.

3:29:07SpeakerWe found these other people. And Fortunately, we now have other labs and other people and we've been able to do satellite testing because these other labs couldn't do it. So fortunately, there was Halent. Halent was these guys out of, you know, UC Davis that were testing for Central Valley and doing all the tests for UC Davis. So here we were dealing with people who were experienced in pesticides, herbicides, who had a list of 20 to 30 that we could immediately screen for.

3:29:35SpeakerAnd so it helped open up and broaden the science. So again, it's because guys like us, guys like Harborside, people like Magnolia who are taking the opportunities and we're just putting our money where our mouth is and investing in the science because we know the science has to be there. Because if we don't have it, how does the patient know? Because I'm a patient. I'm a patient, have been.

3:30:01SpeakerI'm a Gulf War veteran. You're Saudi? Love you. I served in the Gulf War, okay? So I scored hashish when I was in Saudi Arabia, and it was some of the finest Lebanese hash I've ever had. So great love, great respect. But as a patient myself, I was given five years to live for a while there because of how the reality of Gulf War syndrome was. I was exposed to nuclear and biological chemicals because I was a combat and I was involved in it and the Iraqis left, I mean everywhere we went there was rounds, nuclear tip rounds everywhere.

3:30:37SpeakerAnd I had to heal myself. So myself, I had to heal. And so out of that I've always challenged myself as a patient because I get tired of making criminals out of you and you and you and you who are my friends to medicine that I needed. And so out of it, it's always challenged me as a patient to know what I'm putting inside myself. So thank you, Khalid, for also challenging yourself, but challenging the industry and challenging others in the industry, because you're right.

3:31:06SpeakerThat's the only way that I could affect was through my business, through BPG, and by uniting with Harborside and uniting with Magnolia and these others. By forcing people to these changes, change happens. And what we know as change today... It's going to change and we're going to have stricter standards. That's what 2366 and that's getting ready to regulate. Were you one of the clean green founders? We have to regulate concentrates in California in a way that you say that's safe.

3:31:36SpeakerAnd unfortunately, we don't have that. And people are blowing themselves up and hurting themselves. And that's why I'm glad there's so many other ways like rosin and water hash that are out there and available for people so that they don't have to blow themselves up. They don't have to hurt themselves. So that there are alternatives so that we can show people through the science as well as we learn and understand how to help and make ourselves better so that I can know that I'm providing the best medicine for my patients because I don't need any more deaths on my conscience.

3:32:06SpeakerOkay, I got enough from my war. I don't need any of my patients dying from being sick. So thank you for challenging us and continue to challenge us. And I challenge you all to continue to push us to do better for you because we're here for you as patients. We listen to you because we want to know. So thank you. And were you one of the first people who signed your collective up for Clean Green?

3:32:32SpeakerNo, Clean Green wasn't. And I know it's not something that really holds any credence now, but just in regards to what you're saying, the industry has continued to evolve, and it's been great to watch. People make good efforts and keep trying to push things forward, so we're just trying to continue in that tradition.

3:32:53BubblemanSo Khalid, the majority of the labs are not testing for these mystery oil compounds?

3:33:03SpeakerOh, absolutely. I mean, I just know from, you know, our own personal experiences of taking high concentrations of pure mystery oil where there was no cannabis to interfere with the testing and the explanation that we got from a lot of places was that they just don't have the standards and so they don't have the capacity because of those limitations. And it's understandable and so that's why we continued to push and really it wasn't until we got to Sunrise Analytical up in Oregon where they have other analytical experience so they had access to a lot more standards and they were able to give us at least these 12 initial ones and I don't know them all off the top of my head but I know that we keep them up to date on the Facebook Mr. O thing and Well, and the only reason too that I brought up, you know, Clean Green is that we do those like ethos, you know, try and do everything that we're doing clean and organic, and we participate in Clean Green.

3:34:02SpeakerAnd, you know, I wouldn't say it's a great program, but it's also not a horrible program. And it's all about just, you know, providing consumers with a peace of mind and also trying to make a good effort. And I wish there were more people who would provide Thank you so much for joining us today.

3:34:46SpeakerNo one can use, and why he's talking to Clean Green is because we can't use the term organic people. If you put the term organic, you can be fined, what is it, $2,000 per actual printing because it's an actual thing you have to go through. So that's why we've never used that term organic because we realize and we're told by them that they will sue us and that's the reality.

3:35:09SpeakerSo hopefully out of this at least people can get that organic certification which We'll be a challenge in itself for, I mean, the Organic California Association, but I think that growers would welcome it because they want to say that they could uphold these standards, and I would love to be able to say to my patients, here's organic, because you know how many people come in asking for organic, and I have to go through this same story of actually stating that, well, you should actually term organic.

3:35:38SpeakerWe use the term bio, outdoor, we use the term sun-grown, because we can't use organic, because We will be sued by the Organic Food Association for the actual use of the term. So hopefully out of this, and again, I don't know what the realities will, but one of the main discussion points was the allowance for organic certification for Canada's gardens, which I think we can all agree would be a great step forward for a lot of our patients and a lot of our cultivars.

3:36:14BubblemanMark, you're on mute. Yeah, I was telling Khalid he needed to unmute himself, and I was on mute telling him that.

3:36:26SpeakerI was just curious if you knew any more about the AB266 than I did in regards to, I know since they gutted it, obviously no one really knows anything about what's going on, but I know in a lot of the Legalization jargon that's going around for 2016. A lot of things are requiring for everybody who's involved to have prior city approval for what it is that they're doing and to be in a space that also approves that.

3:36:55SpeakerAnd so I don't know if with these, you know, with the medical regulations coming, obviously the medical industry is just a boutique industry at this point. So, you know, how do you think that... AB 266 will affect even like your capacity to get things like concentrates where a lot of people are having to, you know, use warehouse spaces or get leases, but maybe, you know, approval. It's the only city in the entire state that has its own health department.

3:37:24SpeakerSo I could have a regulatory. We've been working with people who are working on actual regulatory kitchens so that bakers can come in and have an actual space to actually, a regulated area so actually to manufacture and produce. Same thing for, I have had various different producers of various types of extracts who have come to me and said they want to build labs here in Berkeley. Because of access of that type of department, that will allow for that.

3:37:51SpeakerOkay, so for me, fine. But that's only three of us currently and only four. Alright, I could see Oakland as well for its eight. Okay, it will protect them. But the rest of the cities, how many other cities? We know of Over 150 different municipalities now in California who have passed laws against dispensaries, okay? So they don't have access to it. Patients don't get access to it, so the patients lose out.

3:38:20SpeakerYou know what sucked? Way back in the day, I used to have patients have to come from San Diego to me to get their medicine. That's fucked up, people. You don't realize how far it is. That's almost a nine-hour drive, driving straight, straight. That's what AB 266 looks like to me. And its previous form was bullshit, so I'm concerned about where it goes in its current form because that type of jurisdiction blackballing puts patients decades back.

3:38:51SpeakerThey don't have a chance. That's the problem with the police that were actually crafting this is that they want to keep it out of where they currently kept it out of. As well as the insurance agencies because they don't want to end up paying insurance for this. And this is big money against these people. You don't realize what's really going on behind the scenes. But there's multiple industries going behind the scenes including the prison lobby which we all know is the largest of the lobbies in California.

3:39:23SpeakerAnd if you don't think they're not going to come out guns blazing against us, We're kidding ourselves. They came out semi-hard against us last time because we didn't come out hard to the paint with 19. And from what I'm hearing currently, it's a clusterfuck still currently for 2016 and no one has anything that has brought to the table that is a reality that we can all get behind.

3:39:48SpeakerPeople have some token ideas and some utopian ideas, but The reality where the rubber hits the road is not going to end up with the signatures or the backers, and I hope that changes. And that's why the legislation in California is currently being pushed through so fast with AB 266 is because the legislature knows that in 2016, or they have the idea that legalization is coming down the pike, and if they don't do something now, they've missed the boat.

3:40:18SpeakerBecause they were also given this when 215 passed in 96, almost 20 years ago, that they had to actually regulate cannabis, and they haven't. And the only thing that they've passed, as you know, pretty much was SB 420, which turned out to be an accidental, why that number was what it was. It wasn't done on the purpose of 420. And now what they're currently trying to do now with AB 266, which is keeping us all in the dark.

3:40:44SpeakerThey haven't come to us and consulted with us. We have no idea what's coming down the pike. So I'm afraid. I'm nervous. I have no idea what I'm going to be subjected to. But I'm already self-regulated with my city. So to go to your question, where do I feel? I'm safe. But that's because I work hard with my city. I have worked with them for 16 plus years and have educated them.

3:41:08SpeakerAlong the way, and I realize that's also part of my goal. I can't just sit back with my little castle and go, everything is great for her. No, I have to go out there. I have to be active. My people have to be at events. We sponsor events. We have to be active locally. You have to get with your city council. You have to go to their fundraiser.

3:41:24SpeakerYou have to get on the phone. You have to go to the events. You're in the Chamber of Commerce. It's real business, people. It's real business, people. Well, you know, the unfortunate thing, though, is, you know, places like where we came, we got pushed out of the Central Valley, and, you know, a whole unfortunate thing that happens there is, you know, we went to the legislature, people rallied downtown, people, but when it's 20 of you, and the whole state doesn't understand that, you know, as those judges are making those judgments...

3:41:55SpeakerThose are what are defining the gray areas in our law and leave us at the place that we end up. And you're right, we've really been a Bay Area brand for a long time with the stuff that we produce because it's been the most patient access. People do, they go there from everywhere so you can trust That if patients are what you're worried about, you go to the Bay Area to deal with those collectives, you know, because it is, it's a desert in most of the rest of the state.

3:42:24SpeakerAnd I see something like AB 266 with what it, you know, had as far as being able to vote out municipalities on their own agenda when it's a state-voted law to be able to have medical cannabis but letting individual municipalities. And that's what most of the legalization framework looks like is the same thing where they're going to allow for, You know, dry county, wet county types. I believe that's been tested at the California Supreme Court level.

3:42:50SpeakerThe California Supreme Court has deemed that local municipalities, due to the previous law, can do that. So unless we craft the law that's going to do that, I don't see the legislator Later doing something about it. Again, because again, grabbed by the actual police as well as other lobbies, they want to keep it out of where it's out of. And so, unfortunately, California law, even though it was and how it's written, it's been challenged at the California Supreme Court level.

3:43:19SpeakerAnd I completely agree with you. Unfortunately, we don't live in that reality. No, no, and I agree, and I see 266, though, as hopefully a call to action for everybody towards legalization, and you're right. I mean, the only way to really make anything is for, you know, us who produce to, you know, scrape together some money and go to some of these political events, and I've tried to, you know, go to legalization rallies and donated to, you know, a couple of them on behalf of our business, not even Knowing exactly which one is the best one but trying to find out as much as we can and then go there and try and, you know, shape the conversation and go and convince whoever it is who needs convincing that hopefully, you know, they consider everybody, you know, people coming from areas like the Central Valley and really try to champion getting rid of verbiage like that.

3:44:08SpeakerAnd I think it's easy. I mean, I think that delivery has been around as long as it has even in these dry county areas. Because it's, you know, this short passage, these tiny knots, you know, that allow for patient-to-patient access through things like, you know, fair and equal or fair and equitable exchange for cannabis or other things that got formed in SB 420 that kind of, you know, re-secured the idea of delivery.

3:44:33SpeakerBut I don't see a lot of people involving themselves except for people maybe on levels like yourself. And I don't know, do you see a lot of people who are coming in just dealing with you and As far as vendors having any questions about what's going on or even aware that this kind of stuff is coming down the pipe? Well, we're active, so we talk to our people, and our people talk to us, fortunately.

3:44:54SpeakerSo that's the reality of us being active. I've always been an activist. I've been an activist since I got involved with Debbie and Can back in, you know, 92, 93, 94, you know. For me, it's always been about education. So usually whenever our next-door purchasers There's usually a jar for some sort of benefit or sort of situation as well as it's an active conduit of discussion because we're patients.

3:45:21SpeakerWe try to also stay up on what's going on and we get a lot of active feedback. But at the same time, we don't have huge amounts of lobbyists up on Sacramento. We can only do so much in the reality and it's not like This legislature or vendors are coming in and, hey, what's going on? How's things going? What's things been going? We've invited them to come, and some have actually come and toured through.

3:45:50SpeakerAnd when they actually see medical cannabis and what it actually looks like in the proper environment, they all go, oh, wow, this is totally different than what I thought it was going to be. But we can only do so many of those. And fortunately, all those around are doing the same, but We don't all have the time now. I mean, this one's got until the 7th of September, and they're going to push something through.

3:46:13SpeakerSo strap in. It's going to be a bumpy ride, people. But do you think that any legislation in 2016 obviously has the capacity to correct or override anything that happens through AB 266? Absolutely. Absolutely. Really?

3:46:38SpeakerIf they give an open-ended that allows for functioning and for that change, yes. But I've heard of everything from a new tax that's coming down the pike for a tax for medical cannabis, and the SBOE has been through that whole test case, so I know because that was that test case. So I've heard also that it's going to allow for delivery Throughout the state and even municipalities that have outlawed, there was a rumor, I don't, I'm not against seeing actual paperwork, but again, we have rumors.

3:47:16SpeakerThose are supposedly in there, but I don't know if it's also going to, like the previous version, force mandatory unionization, which I'm against, sorry. You know, I pay living wage, I take care of my people well, and my people don't want union. But some places have union and deal with union, and that's fine, that works for them. But not everybody should be forced into mandatory unions. I think that's a tad unfair.

3:47:41SpeakerNo, I totally agree 100%. I think that, you know, the way that you guys are operating in the Bay Area, quite frankly, has been an inspiration for us, you know, coming in the Central Valley, and we had a A small collective a long time ago, but even though we operated under legal framework and did all the right steps to create ourselves as a collective, we still had to operate like a speakeasy because of the environment and the way that the laws were written and adjusting down there.

3:48:11SpeakerSo it's great to hear that you at least feel like you guys are relatively insulated from things up there because at least if they're somewhere in the state, You know, it gives somewhere for growth, but I do think, you know, the more we can crack the whip at the people who are in the position like me to get up and hopefully get involved in some sort of real legalization, you know, verbiage, the better.

3:48:34SpeakerAnd I'd love to talk to you more sometime because I'm actually up in Sacramento now, kind of, you know, with the goal of trying to be more involved. If I couldn't be in the Central Valley, being close to somewhere where I could be, you know, more active seemed better than not. Please reach out. Well, you know what, guys? We have about seven to ten minutes, so I'm going to have to call it a short one here for ten minutes to one o'clock.

3:49:07BubblemanThanks everyone for coming out. Definitely enjoyed having you, Khalid. I'll make sure that you get an invite another time so we can talk a little bit more. And Etienne and Jeff and Mark and Tony, who we didn't get to hear much from today. Appreciate you guys coming and making an appearance. And of course, Todd, with really the special Ben Dronker's Hash Church. That was amazing for him to come in and answer all those questions and be a part of our little thing.

3:49:32BubblemanWe sure appreciated that. He is someone that we all have looked up to over the years. And thank you all, the thousands of people that watch Hash Church each week. We really appreciate it. And keep watching. We'll see you guys all next week for episode number 50, two weeks away from a year after that. Peace.