Technical Difficulties and Legal Battles

0:06SpeakerGood morning, everybody. I hope this is going now. Let me get the link over to Mark so we can get this going and see what happens. Hope everybody's having a great day. And I hope this works. Most importantly, I hope this works. So let's see if Mark comes in.

0:29SpeakerAnd hopefully everything is smooth. I hope.

0:37SpeakerEvery time, I always feel like a dare in the headlights. Good morning, everybody. So let's see.

0:48SpeakerMark is sending out links and should be joining us soon, like momentarily. Yes, I think this is working.

1:04SpeakerI hope everybody had a great weekend. A lot going on in the weed world. Hopefully all going for the better. Can you hear me, buddy? This is great. Hey, Todd, can you hear me? Yes, let me just get my headphones to where they should be.

1:25BubblemanWelcome, everybody. How's everyone doing?

1:31Etienne FontanDoing good, buddy. Where are you at in the world?

1:35BubblemanI am in the...

1:40BubblemanI'm in the Dominican Republic. Just lots of crazy drama this morning trying to get hashed. Church really opened up the Facebook five times to add all of your names so I could send it to you. And if someone sends me a new message while I'm opening a new message, I would have all 12 names, 10 names listed, and then they would disappear.

2:03SpeakerOh, a little bit of Facebook drama.

2:10BubblemanMy email's not going out. We're going to have to make sure that works because, oh, the link's not working.

2:19SpeakerThe link's fine. I got it. Morning, skunk man.

2:32SpeakerI like the illegally alive sweatshirt there.

2:36Etienne FontanYes, shout out to Colton's crew there because it looks like Bubble Man froze up there for a sec. Yeah, Colton had these to support. Oh.

2:50SpeakerOh, now I'll say howdy with my mic actually working.

2:52BubblemanSo I got a bit of a problem. My email will not email.

3:00Etienne FontanOkay, Todd, from what I could get, his email is not...

3:05BubblemanIf I can send you Mark's email.

3:08SpeakerOkay, yeah, you can do whatever you need to, Mark. I'll figure it out. Tell me where you want to send it. So how are you doing, Sam? How's Amsterdam?

3:20SpeakerIt's still here. Still wet, still cold? What's up? Well, it's been a little bit sunny. I mean, it was 16 the other day, which is, what, like 75 or something?

3:36Etienne FontanI was about to say, is that Celsius or Fahrenheit there, Sam?

3:40SpeakerYeah, it's real temperature, you know, like they have it here. It's fucking real. This is crazy.

3:48BubblemanAnd on that link... So, Todd, when I'm copying the link... Want me to send the link again, sir?

3:57SpeakerSure.

3:58BubblemanYeah, but not... I don't know if you know who everyone is, but I can list them off here while we're live.

4:08SpeakerHere you go. Hold on. Let me see. Let me try to do this one more time with you.

4:12BubblemanJordan, Jordan Beckerman, Jordan needs the email. Yeah, I don't know why...

4:21BubblemanI'll quit that. I actually want to go force quit. And boom.

4:29SpeakerIt always works if everybody's watching.

4:37SpeakerYeah, this is amazing.

4:41SpeakerWell, I'm trying to get it out to the email.

4:45BubblemanEverything I say is delayed by 25 seconds, and I just won't be able to probably be a part of this today, but let's see if I can help get it all organized.

4:59Etienne FontanWell, in the meantime, people, I can read off some IACM news. In the downtime here, medical cannabis use could decrease prescription opiate abuse. That came out of a study that's going on in New Mexico. In Germany, the law on medical use of cannabis went into effect. So, it allows prescription of cannabis flowers by every doctor. It went into effect... On the 10th of March, standard medications do not work sufficiently.

5:27Etienne FontanHealth insurances will have to pay for the treatment with cannabis flowers, cannabis extract, as well as cannabis-based medicines, such as the cannabis extract set of extra nabanol or an abalone. So Germany has definitely stepped up in science. Proceedings from the 26th Annual Symposium on ICRS are now available on CCR. Philippines Parliament wants to legalize the medical use of cannabis, which is interesting. Netherlands, of course, Bedrocan becomes the world's first high standard approved medicinal cannabis producer.

6:01Etienne FontanAnd Israel, government wants to decriminalize the use of cannabis across the board.

6:10Etienne FontanExercise and diet influence endocannabinoid levels in the brain. Something we've always sort of known, but there's some actual science to back that up. From Université Léonard de France. And there was another one. An inhibitor of FAAH did not influence pain in patients with chronic prostratitis. The study of 239 patients suffering from chronic prostratitis, chronic pelvic pain syndrome participants... And if we're given 650 milligrams up to 600 milligrams daily on a placebo, reduction in pain did not differ between placebo.

6:51Etienne FontanSo just an interesting study there going on. So that's basically what came out through the IACM this morning, just to give a little update in the absence of some stuff going on here. So behind the scenes, though, how's things going there, Todd?

7:08SpeakerKeeping me a hard time. Is that what you're doing? Keep reading. Is that all? I'm kidding.

7:14Etienne FontanOkay. Well, I've actually gone through the IACM news. That's absolutely. Yeah. Okay. All right. So.

7:25BubblemanStop this. Why don't we?

7:27Etienne FontanI know today we're going to be discussing hemp.

7:30SpeakerI just sent it to John, and hopefully he's getting in. And I did send it to Mark, but that didn't work. But Mark, I sent it out to the email that you just asked me to send it to as well.

7:42BubblemanWell, I'll do my best to keep my camera off and make sure everything works out. But I don't hear most of what you guys are saying, and...

7:53BubblemanThank you so much for joining us.

8:24BubblemanWe're going to give it a go. We're going to continue to keep trying and continue to get everyone in here, but link out. So all the people I was going to email the link to, I'm unable to. And I guess the majority of our panel, it's not working for it.

8:41SpeakerGo ahead, Sam. What happens if you send the list of emails to all of us and we try sending it out to other people? Does that help or is it the link is fundamentally broken?

8:57BubblemanYeah, my computer won't let me send an email. So I'd actually have to go into my email. Type each person's email, copy them as I type them, paste them on vacation. But we'll figure something out. Yeah, they're going to hold down the chat. Enjoy on YouTube. The whole panel can't get on. Well, we got the core here. We got it.

9:26BubblemanAnd I'll make a joke about it. Yes, we could make a joke about it. Did you see the post, Skunk Man Sam, in regards to our guest Joy Beckerman today?

9:38SpeakerYes. I saw it about her, correct? Did you...

9:46BubblemanI invited Richard on just because he has a huge problem with her and started a big sort of stink in the thread. I thought, well, let's invite Richard on. But he says it's not, even though I do believe it is his circus, he refuses to be a part of it. But it would have been nice to have him on and be able to ask the questions to Joy.

10:08BubblemanIt's always the same thing. I saw someone say that she's trying to kill CBD because her partner is Donnie Wershaft and he owns $22 million.

10:18BubblemanJust all this crap. I don't know about it. I'm not saying it's real. It's not real. I'm just like, wow. I woke up this morning to look at all this and was like, this should be a good everyone in.

10:30SpeakerHey, Mark, you sent just the link that's on top of this screen, the main screen, correct?

10:36BubblemanYes. It worked for Etienne, and it worked for me. You notice that, Todd? I clicked on the exact same link.

10:46Johnny BIt just works for me. Morning, guys. Welcome, John.

10:49BubblemanWho will be muting his mic when he's not talking?

10:53SpeakerI'm glad that four times was the charm with you there, John.

10:57BubblemanYes, excellent. So remember... Yeah, I got a better idea.

11:06Etienne FontanJust remember to mute your mics, people. We all have new microphones. Everybody is upgraded across the board, it seems. Very nice black one there you have, John. I like my black one. I like things black. Well, that's too easy of a joke to go there.

11:22BubblemanHey, Johnny, can you hear me, Johnny?

11:28Johnny BYou can? Yes, I can hear you. Can you hear me?

11:31BubblemanI can hear you perfect in your beautiful, lovely new microphone.

11:36Johnny BI had to. It was just like, you made a step up.

11:41BubblemanSo listen, a whole lot of people wanted to hear about what Health Canada said in regards to your thing.

11:47Johnny BWell... Quick notes. And I even have the link sitting here, which was quite an impossible link to find. Welcome, Martin.

12:01BubblemanHello. Hey, I wanted to welcome Martin.

12:11BubblemanOne of the founders of Manitoba Harvest Hemp Food Company and actually my old partner back in the day with the Hemp Exchange and Hemp Seeds Unlimited and a few other little... Yeah, good friend and definitely stoked that he's here with us today.

12:27MartinHey guys.

12:30MartinCan you hear me?

12:31Etienne FontanYep, we can hear you just fine. Welcome to the discussion. Right on. We're having some minor technical difficulties this morning, so we're just trying to get everybody ordered to the group right now. So we're just going through some minor technical difficulties due to where the location of Skunk Man, pardon me, not Skunk Man, where Bubble Man is, there's so many man, where Bubble Man is, and so Todd's trying to send out the links currently while that's going on, so.

13:01Etienne FontanWe're trying to get Joy Beckerman and make this hemp episode happen, but it's just some minor technical difficulties, but we're almost there, so. Yeah, I apologize for being late on the end. No, it's all good. We were just starting in with John, so John, you may want to give kind of an update on what actually transpired to you this past week and why we're even having this discussion because apparently you were pulled over, am I correct?

13:32Johnny BYes, once I'm pulled over, what happened is I went to the Edmonton Pen Fest. This little place here. There was a hemp fest happening in Edmonton. Fantastic event. Had a really good time. Spent the day last day on Monday at West Edmonton Mall and we proceeded to head to the airport. Got there, you know, an hour and a half early. Checked our bags. Went through security. I had my cannabis on me like always.

13:55Johnny BI had two little vials like about this big here full of cannabis cream. And then I had a little bit of a tincture and I had another little container like this full of hash. And we went up to the lounge type deal right across where we were getting on the plane. We proceeded to order some calamari. By the time the calamari showed up, name came across the PA.

14:15Johnny BI was like, what's going on? So I proceeded to head down to see what the officers wanted. And right away they had one of Medtainer in their hand. And the first thing he said to me, he says, we found large amounts of cannabis. In your bag, and I went, what? Large amounts of cannabis? Like, I don't have any on my bag. And I kind of, he looked at me and goes, well, you know, we're going to have to search you.

14:42Johnny BI said, no problem. He goes, do you have any cannabis on you? Marijuana. I didn't say cannabis, I said marijuana. I said, of course I have some of my medical cannabis on me. And at the same time before I even got into that, I handed him my driver's license and I handed him my old MMR car that expired in 2012. So from what I, you know, I have protected underneath the injunction, under the Allen injunction.

15:03Johnny BSo for me handing him a card and telling him the officer to contact Health Canada 24 hour contact line to verify who it was. Well, he did not want to do that. He persisted that I was illegal. There was two officers. You'll see that on my Facebook page. The bald one was probably more the lieutenant, the guy, the gentleman with the glasses. He was quite nice. You know, he was the good cop, bad cop type scenario.

15:29Johnny BHe asked me what my, you know, put my hands, turned around. He goes, you know, I asked you what your problem is. I kind of reached behind my neck. He says, well, they took out my C4, C5 cervical electomy fusion. I shot him in my arm, shot him in my arm. And he's like, whoa. I say, yeah, I'm fully medical. It says I'm licensed through Health Canada.

15:45Johnny BHow mean? I have my own robe. Since 2006, I have eight cards at home. And I proceeded to explain a few things to him. And then they proceeded to tell me that I was under arrest for possession of marijuana and that I was going to be charged. And I was like, whoa, are you kidding me? So he goes, well, we have to go down to the, you know, down to the, to the headquarters down, I guess.

16:08Johnny BAnd I can't remember exactly what he said, but I had to, had to follow him. They asked me if they had to put me in handcuffs. I says, there's no reason for that. He goes, you don't have to use force or anything like that. And then I grabbed my carry-on bag and proceeded to walk down to the airport. And it's probably the longest walk. And I was carrying my bag, holding it like this.

16:25Johnny BAnd the officer saw that I was in so much pain trying to carry this bag. He stopped, grabbed a little cart so I could put it on so I can actually push my bag down to the police station they had in there. So he was, you know, he was just basically doing his job. I really just felt like when I started talking to him, he said I was above his payroll.

16:43Johnny BAnd then at the same time, the lawyer called and they were still, you know, do you want to go home? Do you want to get to the plane? Because they now have the, they, they... They made the plane wait for an hour, so that was kind of cool. They delayed the plane for me to get on the plane. But at the same time, they charged me with possession under 30 grams under the CDSA, Drugs and Substance Act.

17:02Johnny BAnd when the officer read when I had to go to court, I have to go to court on April 20th in Leduc at 9.30 a.m. Coincidence? Coincidence that I've got to go to court on April 20th? So they put me in court for April 20th. They gave me a promise to appear with a $500 discharge. If I don't show up, I owe the courts $500, but I didn't have to pay for it by $100.

17:23Johnny BAnd jumped on a plane an hour later and came home. So at this point, I get home and there's all kinds of rumors. Everybody's telling me this, this, that, what to do, what not to do. I got on the phone. I spent two hours and 41 minutes the first day on hold with Health Canada, and then the line went down. I got on the next day. I spent over two hours and eight minutes online, and I finally got Cheryl from Health Canada.

17:46Johnny BGreat lady. We've been talking to her since like 2007 when I said, hi, Cheryl. She said, oh, hi, John. How are you doing? I haven't talked to her in years. She proceeded to tell me exactly what steps we need to take as MMAR patients, which is really, really important in what's happening here in Canada. I mean, basically, they have no grounds to reply or say anything about the MMAR.

18:09Johnny BWe have to tell officers in question that if we are being questioned, that they have to call Health Canada 24-hour line simply for officers. It's a 24-hour access line to confirm. Now this is also interesting because they told me I can actually go into a website and I was going to kind of bring this up here and just kind of show you what they're trying to say here.

18:29Johnny BIt's completely ridiculous.

18:32BubblemanThere's a screen sharing option that you can share it so we can see it good if you like.

18:37Johnny BOkay. How do you do that? I'll figure that out right now. So screen share. Nice.

18:46Etienne FontanYeah, it should be on the left. There should be an actual green.

18:49Johnny BYeah, there you go, buddy. Perfect. Okay, so I'm going to show you guys, if you guys can see me working here, this is probably pretty important stuff. You go to this Health Canada website here. It says Cannabis and Medical Purposes. Now, here's the thing. This is like almost a boss plan. You have to click on As a Patient and As an Officer. You don't go to Access to Medicine.

19:07Johnny BYou don't go to Regulations. You go to Apply for a Licensed Producer. So you click on Apply for a Licensed Producer. You scroll down to Enhanced Screening. You go all the way down. And then you click on additional information down here on a security clearance. You see this section here, guys? Right here. You have to go down to this section here. You have to go on to additional information.

19:27Johnny BClick on here. And then over here is information from medical and law enforcement. Like this is like the purple page now. Now you got to click on law enforcement. And this is going to give you all the information of what the officer needs to read. And he's going to tell you that you're on the injunction, you're protected, any indefinite information that they can call. So, I mean, these are like steps that the officers should have known to begin with, but for some reason they did not know and they were ahead at the airport searching everybody for cannabis and they do not know this information.

19:57Johnny BSo, they now know this information. This has been sent to them and we're going to send this to every law enforcement in Canada so they know exactly what to do if they are talking with MMR patients. Now, in regards to that, guys, now, this is the next thing they have to do. So, We've done that. Now, that's the steps you have to follow with Health Canada on their website.

20:19Johnny BYou can tell an officer to do this. You just tell him, go to the website, and it's hc.gc. Tell him to go to the medical section. He'll know where it is. Now, here's something else that you have to do as an MMR patient. Now, there's very few of us that are left under the injunction that we don't have to see doctors. Basically what Health Canada says is straight up, they're not sharing or providing any information on the MMAR.

20:43Johnny BBut Cheryl, an old friend, and I won't say she's a friend, but I've talked to her probably over 20, 30 times over the last 11 years of my license. So I had great conversations with her, and she told me exactly what we have to do as patients. At first, we have to request a copy of our old MMAR. We have to include our full name, date of birth, address where the license was issued, your phone number.

21:05Johnny BYou have to date and sign this piece of paper. You have to take a photocopy of a valid ID, email it to omc-bcm at hc-sc.gc.ca. So you email them that documentation. Then you put that documentation into a regular letter and you send them that documentation. Thank you for watching.

21:44Johnny BBut the main thing that comes with these two pieces, this photocopy of your license comes with it, is a cover letter. Now this cover letter explains exactly to the law officers, to anybody, exactly what to do and who you are as an MMR patient. It sucks we have to carry this around, ask them to take a picture and keep it on my phone. She says, well, you know, any documentation that proves who you are.

22:07Johnny BAnd they have to call the 24-hour hotline if there is any question with your license. So there's things that I did not do and there's things the officer did not do. We both failed to do two different steps. I didn't have a proper piece of paper on me. Thank you for watching.

22:39Johnny BSo they're really getting an education of what's happened here to me across Canada because they started support groups. We're going to get into getting in contact with all the major police departments that are dealing with airports, making sure that they have a copy of these letters and they know exactly what to do when they come across a patient. Because I was treated like a criminal and it was pretty much easy and simple.

22:58Johnny BYou Google my name, anything about me, you know I'm fully medical and that I am licensed through Health Canada. But they chose not to take those steps. So here we are. I've gone through the proper procedures of what to do. These are the procedures that Health Canada is telling me to do. And this is what we also need to do as MMAR patients, as AMCPR. That's a different program.

23:19Johnny BAnd they'll give you all the information on that. And there's access on the website, of course. Right. So. Just kind of like a little heads up there and what's kind of going on and telling you guys exactly what happened. Now, this has happened to me twice since February 26th. I was pulled over, searched, and released when they verified my card. And in Edmonton, they charged me and let me go.

23:40Johnny BBoth times they gave me back my, they said it was invalid ID, but they gave it back to me. The first officer handed me back my cannabis. The second one, they seized two little creams, a little tincture vial, and about two grams of hash. Like, you can't even smell that. So they're specifically looking for it. Like I told, I basically had it to almost sit here with my card.

24:00Etienne FontanBut Canada seems to be going backwards. Why do you think this is happening? Why do you think you're being targeted now? Or why are officers being instructed to play ignorant to the law that they've well known and been aware of for some time but seem to be directly acting against it?

24:19Johnny BThe officer said to me, do you have a doctor's note? I'm like, I have my MMR card. I felt like if I had a doctor's note and then like an Aurora card, because Aurora is the cannabis producer of Alberta, the cop would have let me go. This is what I mean, even though I was telling you exactly every step Everything that needed to be done was at Targeted.

24:41Johnny BI just left a ham show. There's a lot of stuff going on in Canada, what's happening with cannabis culture, the Emory, stuff like that. Everybody knows I'm always down to Cannabis Culture News Live. I know these people. I've been on the shows quite extensively over the years. I'm always down there advocating and helping and educating. Thank you so much for joining us.

25:20Johnny B30 years probably plus, right? So it just seems kind of ironic what's happening here in Canada with legalization around the corner, what's happening on 420, they're saying. Now all the main activists are being, well, that's what they're saying, the people saying, I don't call some of my activists, I classify myself as a patient, educating people, and they're trying to keep us away from our biggest events that are happening in Canada here, so...

25:41Johnny BOf course, I will have my charges dropped by then and make sure all the information is sent to them properly tomorrow. I've talked to Health Canada about this. That's what we need to do. And if you're in Canada, make sure you go and follow these steps. Take those letters down to the officers. Let them know exactly what they need to be doing. Educate them exactly and stop harassing medical patients in Canada.

26:00Johnny BIt's bullshit anywhere around the world. But I mean, as it stands right now, we have a legal program and they had no right detaining me because I was detained. And I was charged and I was released and I was publicly embarrassed in front of all kinds of people as a company owner and what I'm doing and what I represent. It's kind of like, you know, really?

26:16SpeakerReally, guys?

26:17Johnny BBut at the same time, everything happens for a reason because now we're finding the proper steps. Because even I went down and saw Jason Wilcox and talked to him because we were all about that. He didn't even know about the purple page. None of us did. Like I had to be told exactly what directions to go to find this particular page. Do you think he would have found that?

26:34Johnny BNot in the heart. There's no way. Like, how are you going to find these particular information? They bury it so deep that it's hard for us as patients to even find them when we get so frustrated to begin with, right?

26:43BubblemanWell, Johnny B's out there reports fucking do them dirty because I knew when they arrested you it was going to be their worst nightmare and that you would end up educating them and you would end up saving many, many other people. Same experience. Great stuff, John. Really, this is good stuff.

27:00SpeakerJohn, print the letter to the police on hemp paper. You don't have to tell them. Just do it.

27:08Johnny BI'm going to, I love that. I mean, I'm just great, great ad at the end. I'm going to do that. But 100%, I mean, I want to send this to every detachment across Canada. Anybody that's dealing with any airports, they need to know exactly what steps to take. Because I just had a friend who called me before we went on a hashtag. She goes, I'm flying to so-and-so because I'm on a fishing trip.

27:28Johnny BAnd if I bring an L to me, am I going to be okay? They're scared. My people are scared because they saw what happened to me on Facebook because I was sharing everything. They're like, what do I do? I'm like, well, this is the steps you need to take. He's like, okay, so I'll just take a photocopy with me. I said 100%. So, education.

27:44Etienne FontanJohnny, can you make a small YouTube video going through that exact instructional situations and then we could post it on the Hash Church site and it'll also allow people to spread that information around because... You have the direct links and the direct knowledge which you just showed. If you could make just a small little YouTube video and that way we could post it and send it around, that would be great.

28:05Johnny BYeah, because here's the email addresses exactly where to go that I haven't really set out. But I was planning on doing that for Monday morning, everybody on my page.

28:14BubblemanWe should do that together and also I absolutely want to come with you to Edmonton and get that dry sift value.

28:23Johnny BI will be doing at the Lyft event, April 1st and 2nd at the Edmonton Canwest event. I'm flying in, so I'll definitely fly up high and pick it up.

28:30BubblemanFilm it and everything. It's going to be great. I want to film it.

28:36Johnny BThank you for joining us.

28:55Johnny BThank you so much for joining us.

29:10Johnny BThank you for joining us.

29:29Johnny BHow many people are being harassed that are nowhere like ourselves and are taking it and going to court, being arrested, being charged, paying fines, feeling like they're criminals when they have no need to do that. You know what I mean? It's just, I don't know what to say, but Justin Trudeau's got to step up and start educating his Force, that's his force. That's his people on the ground that are forcing the law.

29:50Johnny BHe needs to do the education. He needs to tell exactly what his, that his people need to do for patients like ourselves. Because even someone like Darren, I mean, he asked me, what do I do, Johnny? Well, you got to carry that piece of paper. We talked about this. None of us really knew because no one's ever told us. Health Canada never said anything because they're not, they're not, they don't have to.

30:08Johnny BSo they never sent out anything in regards to the injunction. They just went, well, you have to find out yourself.

30:14Etienne FontanSo print it on hemp paper, people, so you're carrying on your hemp paper as well.

30:21Etienne FontanThank you very much, John. That was a great breakdown. And I want to welcome Joy to the room, as well as Martin, who's working on his camera right now, as well as D420. Welcome. D, do you want to say it?

30:36JoyAbsolutely. Bon rep, everybody. It took a while to get in. It just worked magically. He was trying to mess us around a bit. He wouldn't be with his dry sift. That's pretty nice. I had some of that the other night. It was tasty. Very curious to hear what Joy has to say, though. All right, Martin's got his camera going.

30:59Etienne FontanHi, Martin, Joy, and just to remind people, whenever you're not speaking, if you could just mute your mic, it just helps everybody, and then when you speak, it's kind of like a walkie-talkie, just turn it on.

31:14Etienne FontanSo welcome, Martin, and welcome, Joy. Thank you very much.

31:21Etienne FontanWe can't hear you, Joy. You're muted. You may want to...

31:24BubblemanMartin has a long history in the hemp industry. I think, I'm not exactly sure the year that we opened the hemp exchange, but what year were we getting into this, Martin? Was it 91 or 92 or 93? I really kind of don't remember.

31:38MartinI think it was 92. Spring of 93 is when we made our first public plea for hemp legalization at the Forks in Winnipeg. We did an Operation Restore Hemp to sort of make fun of Operation Restore Hope. But Alan Middlemiss and I kind of had some hemp stuff and were flogging it or telling people about hemp at the Forks in Winnipeg and everybody was coming up to us.

32:06SpeakerYou guys are dreamers.

32:08MartinIt'll never happen. There's no way the cops will ever listen to you. But they were wrong.

32:16MartinIndeed they were.

32:20Etienne FontanMartin, what got you into hemp? What called you into the scene here?

32:28MartinWell, I never really smoked weed growing up. I never actually drank alcohol or did anything. I was like a good school kid. But I was always kind of involved in human rights stuff. When I was a teenager, I used to give money to Amnesty International and I always thought that it was really a thing that everybody should be involved in. And then I started reading, went traveling and started reading and found a little bit about hemp And thought that that was a real good way of fighting the bad guys or fighting the system.

33:03MartinThat if the people started talking about hemp and learned what hemp could do, that would sort of undermine the whole drug war that was going on because they were trying to tell us that Thank you for joining us.

33:39MartinBrought that, was doing that for business. People were kind of copying me and I learned that if I had a good business idea, people would copy my good ideas. And so then I thought, well, if I started doing hemp stuff, people would copy my hemp stuff and that would just work more towards bringing this message of contradiction to the propaganda that was going on at the time.

33:58MartinSo it was more about just trying to put a wrench in the works of the oppression that I was feeling was going on. And that's kind of what got me into hemp.

34:10Etienne FontanSo what made you believe that you could actually produce hemp?

34:17MartinWell, we... Had a lot of people that were resonating with our message. And we never really came across anybody that would say what we were saying was wrong or no. And we just sort of had this perspective that until somebody says no, I'm just going to keep going. And so we just kept bringing it to different people. Areas of the government and they could never deny us.

34:44MartinThe evidence was there. And then this fellow, Sean Cornish out of Saskatchewan was part of our group and he pointed out to me that there was, well, let me get back up a little bit. We wanted to ask specifically the different government parties. There was a meeting in Saskatoon, sorry, in Regina of Health Canada Bureau of Dangerous Drugs and Surveillance or something. Ross Hossie, remember that guy, Marcus?

35:12MartinHe came and had to address a whole bunch of farmers that were asking why they couldn't grow hemp. And he said, well, we can't grow hemp because of the Single Convention Treaty of 1961, I think it was. We're a signatory to that. And he goes about proceeding to read the Single Convention Treaty article on cannabis, and then it says Part A, and then he goes, you have to treat cannabis with respect to heroin and opium and other things.

35:38MartinAnd so he reads all that part and just puts the thing down. And we're like, well, everybody was discouraged because we all thought, well, we can't grow hemp because we have to change the single convention tree. We have to go.

35:50MartinThe next week or whatever we thought, you know what, let's go have a look at that document. We called the UN in Vienna, had them send over the single convention treaty and there it was in part B, this convention shall not apply to industrial hemp or horticultural, you know, for cannabis use for industrial purposes or horticultural purposes. And that was our little loophole. And once I saw that, I took that to the Minister of Agriculture in Manitoba and sort of had him Thank you for joining us.

36:39MartinThe St. Lawrence Seaway and the British Columbia ports, we had to pay the most in order to get our wheat. And wheat is really cheap. So without the crow rate, without the subsidy, Manitoba farmers were really going to hurt. So the Minister of Agriculture was very open to new crops and new ideas. And so I took that loophole from the Single Convention Treaty to him. And basically he...

37:01MartinPut me in, well, he gave me his new crops agronomist and said, hey, can you lead the charge with our clout? The province of Manitoba is now behind you and they're not going to say no to us. They have to answer us as Health Canada and the Canadian government has to talk to the province of Manitoba. So basically I was playing one government body against the other government body and that was kind of how it all came together.

37:26MartinAnd there's a lot of history beyond that, but...

37:34SpeakerCan I ask where do you see...

37:35BubblemanI'm always worried to talk... What are you worried about? Sorry, Todd, I won't... No, go ahead, Mark, try to get your whole photo. Try to get your whole photo. My whole photo? What does that mean?

37:50SpeakerNo, try to get your whole thought out. I didn't mean to cut you off. Ah, okay.

37:59Etienne FontanAnd so I've been utilizing, I've been using your hemp, Martin, for years myself to keep me happy and healthy. Previous to that, it was German hemp, hemp seed oil, et cetera. So now that you've seen where things have been, where do you see the future of hemp there in Canada as well as North America?

38:26MartinI just see more commerce. I don't really know what's happening in America regarding hemp. I am surprised that it's not a bigger thing down there or that there is more production of industrial hemp. That does surprise me a little bit. But it seems like medical marijuana is more Prevalent and more, it's easier to grow than industrial hemp is to grow down there for whatever reason?

38:51Etienne FontanWell, the laws have been, have made it such. It's now with these recent laws, you're seeing the farmers taking greater chances in Kentucky as well as here in California. The problem that we have still is infrastructure or lack thereof. We used to be a very industrialized nation, but back in the 30s after we had taken down hemp, Here in America, the majority of our factories, jute factories and rope factories, we basically up and exported to South America or just scrapped all together.

39:22Etienne FontanSo we don't have the industrialization to do the type of previous methodologies that had brought hemp to its limelight with the huge manufacturing equipment to produce pulp for paper as well as for industrialization just for You know, the cloth itself, it's very difficult. I used to work for Ecolution back 20 years ago. And I was the sales rep for Steve D'Angelo's company. And so, as you know, we grew in Eastern Europe.

39:54Etienne FontanAnd so we were very... Thank you for watching.

40:12Etienne FontanBut we saw the hemp industry really start to push forward and that all seemed to kind of take hold in the clothing department until we saw Calvin Klein put in an order for what, two million meters back in the day and when that was not able to be met, It basically was a saw the fashion industry and a lot of people step away from hemp so we saw a surging hemp industry in the United States that I was very happily part of pretty much collapse very quickly and we saw the resurgence of what was going on in Canada and so you basically kept the hemp flag flying.

40:51Etienne FontanI have a whole knowledge of hemp that I don't even use anymore. And it's a shame because I wish I could here in America because there's a lot of knowledge here, including Skunk Man Sam worked on phenola, which is genetic that would pretty much be grown industrially here because of the treaties that keep the 0.04% or 3% THC toward the industrial hemp varietals.

41:19Etienne FontanWe in America are looking to you in Canada because we are burgeoning. We're just literally starting off all together, just all over again. And you had to start from the beginning. So what would be crops that, or pardon me, products that initially that the American farmer could produce so that they could build a viability of a market so that it could expand further?

41:51SpeakerSorry about that, just I'm unmuted now, I think.

41:53MartinYeah, all your points are very astute regarding infrastructure, and that was one of the pieces that we were facing here in Canada as we had no infrastructure as well. The last time we had a hemp industry was in 1923. The Portage Cordage Company, they used to make industrial hemp in Portage La Prairie, about 70 kilometers away from Winnipeg here, and they had a... They were able to make rope and twine.

42:22MartinWe looked at all the infrastructure that was involved with getting into the fiber part of it and realized that that really was a non-starter for us. First of all, Manitoba farmers never really grew for fiber. Growing for fiber wasn't a thing. All the farmers here grew for grain or seed. And so we thought that if we're going to make it applicable to the economy here, it has to fit in with the skill set that the farmers hold.

42:45MartinAnd they were really good seed farmers here, best seed producers in the world from my understanding. So in order for hemp industry to happen for us here in Western Canada had to be seed. We had to be able to grow it for seed. And when we were first starting, there was a group out of Ontario Thank you for joining us.

43:20MartinReally, I guess in Southern Ontario, it would work for them, but it really would work for us here in Manitoba. We needed a seed crop ability. So when we ended up going to Health Canada to talk at the stakeholders meeting and draft out what the regulations would look like, I made kind of an impassioned plea To Health Canada saying, listen, if you're going to do this, you might as well leave Manitoba and the prairies out of it because we're seed farmers.

43:46MartinWe're not fiber farmers. There's no industry here for us. If we do, it's just the fiber. You have to put the seed into the equation.

43:55MartinSo they listened to that and they put seed in and allowed us to grow the seed. And it's really the seed where you would have to start if you're going to rebuild your industry. From my perspective, it's you can start processing the seed without $10 million of infrastructure. You can buy a $20,000 press, put up a, you know, get a, get a, get a, A warehouse that you could rent, which is what we did, bought a $20,000 press, actually put it into the Food Development Center in Portageville Prairie.

44:22MartinThere was a subsidized operation in Manitoba called the Food Development Center that the government Thank you for joining us today.

44:47MartinThank you for joining us.

45:02MartinWe, uh, we, we, we grinded it up into butter. We made a hemp nut butter for a while. We, we sifted out, uh, the seed cake after the pressing to sift out the protein powder. Uh, we just, just, uh, you know, I was really the operations guy who kind of invented a lot of the products that Manitoba Harvest has. I invented all of them, I guess. Um, so it was, it was a very, uh, um, Peace by peace, step by step process in order to figure out what we could make of a decent quality, of a saleable quality, and then...

45:35Johnny BYeah, that's about how it all... What did you do with the resin? I was at a seed separating plant there in Manitoba a couple years ago, and I just saw, like, on the windowsills, it looked like trichomes everywhere, and it was all, like, high in CBD, because I know we did some extractions with it. I mean, do you know, like, I was in a couple farms in Manitoba and taking a look at what they were doing with the seed separating and stuff like that, and they just had, like, the totes full of resin sitting there, and they were putting it back into the fields.

46:04Johnny BI mean, what's your thought on that?

46:08MartinWell, there's a provision in the regulations that prohibits using any other part of the plant other than the seed and the stalk, any leaf matter or any kind of residual matter that is prohibited to use. So we were very much on staying on the right side of the regulations because we had a lot of money invested. I had everything riding on this thing. I didn't want the cops showing up at the time.

46:32Johnny BI was in these places and it was, they were, like it was Hugh's place there and they were, they, he was telling me they tilled it back into the fields and as far as I could see in these hemp fields, I didn't see one weed. I was just kind of curious because I know they used all that and they just kind of like re-put it back into the fields, he was saying, because it wasn't used.

46:49Johnny BExactly what you say, they never touched it. I just remember seeing it. I was like, wow, what is that? And it just kind of fell over and I was like... I was surprised, right? So I was just, yeah, no, I know they, I saw that. It was really amazing to see how, as far as you can see, you can see these hemp fields and they're all about certain height that they're grown for seed.

47:05Johnny BAnd it was, it was a brilliant and interesting education to see that.

47:08SpeakerWhat variety did you grow the first year?

47:12MartinWhich variety?

47:14SpeakerYes.

47:16MartinUm,

47:18MartinWe imported seeds from the Glukiv Institute in Ukraine. We were growing, like the first years, we grew Zola Tenosha and, oh gosh, we ended up growing some French varieties as well. And then we grew Felina and Fedora. And gosh, so long ago now, 20 years ago, I think we grew, there was the Polish Institute as well. I can't remember which one's varieties we were growing in there.

47:56MartinBut that was like, we ended up testing those ones. And then... Things got all weird once the regulation started. I got involved with this crazy woman, Susan Branagh, who started a company called Consolidated Growers and Processors, and she was a banker out of California. We kind of went through this whole process of bringing hemp to the world, and as it turns out, she was a scam artist.

48:22MartinShe's in jail now for fraud. But she basically took... My best intentions ran with them in a way that was kind of misrepresented what hemp could do, I think, and basically I had to leave that whole operation, left all my friends and family, and lost a lot of money in investing with her in the whole process.

48:45SpeakerI met Susan. She was a real sweetheart.

48:48MartinOh, yeah? Well, I think the people in prison think she's a sweetheart now, too.

48:55SpeakerI was joking.

48:56Etienne FontanOkay. So Martin, how did you, you start of course growing hemp, but how did you convince other farmers to start shifting their crops into growing hemp? I mean, that's real. That's a whole other level of discussion. It's one thing to be, you know, discussing it out in the world. It's another thing to convince farmers to shift their economy, literally.

49:19MartinWell, I think we had a unique situation because of that CGP, consolidated growers and processors. We had a tremendous amount of media, a tremendous amount of attention, and we created a... A market, well, we were hoping to create a marketplace. We contracted six million pounds of seeds with farmers. And by the time it all came to roost that Susan was a fraudster, we had to basically renege on all those contracts, leaving all these farmers with all the seed that they couldn't sell to anybody.

49:53MartinSo after Consolidated Growers in Process, well, I left Consolidated Growers in Process because I realized what was going on. And then I started Manitoba Harvest with, Alex and Mike. And it was consolidated grows and processors basically went bankrupt. There were six million pounds of hemp seed here in Manitoba that the farmers were expecting to get paid for. Nobody was buying it. So we convinced them to give us the seed and let us use the seed to make products with and that we would give them share in the company for that seed.

50:27MartinSo we ended up literally getting a seed investment from Thank you for joining us.

50:49Etienne FontanMartin, now that you're growing hemp, okay, you started to grow hemp and of course you heard that all the, you know, the rhetoric that was said about it. What real world problems did you find as in pests or problems when you actually put seed into the ground and started growing crops?

51:07MartinThe birth of army worms, it wasn't like a perpetual infestation, but when they did show up, they like to eat the hemp. The biggest problem we deal with when we're processing hemp seeds is sclerotinia. Sclerotinia is a fungal root disease that shows up in the stalk of the plant, and when you harvest the seed, Thank you so much for joining us.

51:49MartinPeople call. It's very, very hard to clean out.

51:53SpeakerThe fruiting of botrytis?

52:02MartinWell, they call it sclerotia.

52:04SpeakerYes, but it's the fruit of botrytis, gray mold.

52:12MartinI think you know more about that than I do, David.

52:15SpeakerOkay, no problem.

52:18MartinYeah, but from a practical application standpoint, that's the biggest issue that we had from a processing perspective. There were other diseases that the farmers had to deal with, and they had figured out how to get better yields. I think the biggest issue for the farmers was how do you harvest this stuff? It's so much. There's so much mass there. It was taking its toll on their harvesters, taking its toll on the...

52:47MartinThe Baylors.

52:50Etienne FontanDid you have specific companies now start to manufacture stronger steel or better tempered manufacturing products?

53:01MartinI don't. I'm not qualified to comment on that so much. The farmers that are growing from Manitoba Harvest now have really kind of figured out how to get all those issues. I don't think there's any businesses that came to market with anything specifically for hemp, but there were a lot of adjustments and modifications made to the equipment. That said, Most of the hemp that comes to Manitoba Harvest these days, and I haven't been there for about four years now, but it comes from a few big farms and it's mostly in Alberta, not even Manitoba based.

53:36MartinIt's becoming just another commodity crop and the bigger growers are making more money on it and those smaller guys are having a harder time with it because there is a lot of handling.

53:47Etienne FontanAnd have you had any problems of people trying to steal the hemp to try to make cash or anything like that?

53:52MartinNot that I was aware of. I think it became pretty business as usual after the first few years of seeing it. And it isn't like there's hemp fields all over the place. In Manitoba, it's mostly concentrated around the Dauphin area. There's a lot of hemp growers in that area. But farmers will look at any crops. Hemp tends to be harder to handle for them.

54:15Etienne FontanSo do you have to prep your soil any different for hemp to go into the ground? Because I recall back in the day it was 300 to 400 seed per square meter.

54:25MartinAgain, I'm not so much familiar on the common farming practices, what the farmers are putting in there. I know we were putting in 20 pounds per acre. That was our recommended. But, you know, the best thing for the head crop is just have good soil. Make sure that you have good biology in your soil, which is kind of what I do now these days. That's my new business that I'm involved in.

54:47Etienne FontanSo do any of the farmers have to use any pesticides or herbicides at all, specifically?

54:54MartinThere's an abundance of hemp seed right now that's conventional, and there's a shortage of hemp seed that's organic. So at Dental Harvest, we can't sell enough organic hemp. We just can't get it. There isn't enough. We're always looking for more organic hemp. The company these days is always saying that if they had another...

55:17MartinYou know, 20 million pounds of organic hemp seed, they could easily boost their sales, but they just can't get it. So, yeah, the whole pesticide herbicide thing with hemp, there's a lot of guys who grow with conventional techniques and the hemp is just sitting there. It's not selling anywhere near as quickly as the organic stuff is.

55:36SpeakerI have a couple questions. I enjoyed your presentation so far today. Mostly around yield. So at industrial scale, what type of biomass per acre, oil per acre, and protein per acre are you seeing at this scale? You know, this really is the pending of hemp taking over soybean to be the preferred source Thank you for joining us.

56:26SpeakerThe fiber is a wonderful byproduct, but ultimately it's the oil and the protein that we need to feed more people on less-heritable land. So can you give us a range, or just in your experience, at large-scale industrial production, what type of yields of biomass per acre, protein per acre, and refined oil per acre do you see? Thank you.

56:53MartinWell, if you're talking about oil from an edible standpoint, because quality of the oil is very dependent. I know canola can make a whole bunch more oil per acre than hemp can. There are other crops that can produce a lot more oil. So if you're, in terms of like a bio energy or a biodiesel idea, hemp's not your choice for that. No, I'm not talking about buying.

57:16MartinI'm talking about strictly food, no fuel. Right. Protein-wise, you know, yields are, you know, guys are getting, I've heard, you know, 1,000 pounds an acre for seed, and probably a third of the seed might be protein.

57:36MartinYeah, roughly, maybe a little less than a third, a little less than 30% of the seed would be protein. So 300 pounds of protein per acre. Thank you for joining us today.

58:10MartinIt would be the hemp heart delivery system that I would be looking at in terms of giving farmers an idea of how much money they could be making if we pay the most for it. That's our biggest market for our seed. That's the biggest demand for our seed, and organic, obviously.

58:26Johnny BI was going to ask, how many different strains are you able to choose from? Because I know when I was talking with you, they have different hemp varieties. Some produce more seed or more oils and stuff like that, just like cannabis. There are different strains for these farmers to choose from.

58:40MartinUh, yeah, I think, uh, Most of the seed that they're getting today is the fin variety, finola. That's what a lot of the guys are growing. The Ukrainian varieties didn't really pan out for the farmers the way that they were. It's mostly finola, and there's a couple of other Manitoba varieties that the seed breeders were working on, I think, that some of the growers are growing. But I think...

59:12MartinThey've settled in on that variety of vanilla for most of the growers. It produces a whiter hemp heart. We liked it from that perspective. The other varieties were more yellowish.

59:24SpeakerI developed vanilla for speed of maturation and seed yield. It yielded about double of any other variety out there.

59:33MartinRight, and it's a shorter crop too.

59:36SpeakerI've also developed a variety for seed size. So it's got 19, 20 seeds to the gram, which is about three times the size of any other seed.

59:51MartinYour contributions are appreciated, Dave.

59:54SpeakerThose ones have not been made public yet, but possibly will.

1:00:04SpeakerWell, can I take a minute and say, Joy, can you unmute your mic and join us? Please jump in. Everybody kind of just jumps off the cliff and says what they want. But you have to unmute your microphone, Joy. I can't do that. And everyone else, if you could mute your microphone when you're done talking, because I can mute it, but I cannot unmute your microphone.

1:00:29Etienne FontanYeah, Joey, there should be a speaker up on the upper left, and it's mute microphone or not. If you click that, it should be, no, it's not working.

1:00:38SpeakerJoey, you might need to click on the gear and make sure that your chosen microphone is selected and see if you can get that going.

1:00:48SpeakerAnd Martin, thanks a lot. I mean, it's really interesting. I've been, you know, obviously involved with Jack for a quarter of a century. Mark? Mark?

1:01:00SpeakerSorry, everybody, about the lag we're having.

1:01:03Etienne FontanYes? We can hear Marcus. We still can't hear you, Joey. You're still marked as mute, unfortunately. If you go to the upper right, well, there's this thing that says settings, and if you click on settings, it gives you your microphones, and you've tried that as well.

1:01:30Etienne FontanWell, what's up, Marcus? What's going on there in the Dominican Republic?

1:01:33BubblemanTodd, can you hear me, Todd?

1:01:37SpeakerWe did. We did just hear that, Mark, but you're coming through really shoddy.

1:01:58Johnny BWell, I'm going to go back to the hemp, and I didn't really enjoy visiting the hemp fields when I was in Manitoba. As far as I can see, it was really cool. But like I was stating, Aaron, I didn't see any weeds. As far as I could see, like in any other kind of crops I've ever been in, they had to weed them. But as far as I could see, it was just hemp.

1:02:16Johnny BThere was no weeds in these fields. And this was in Saskatchewan. And it was, I went to the seed separating plants there and I saw all the different turbines and I was there for the harvest. It was really, really cool to see this all happen live. And then, and then the seed separation, how it was a three stories kind of separation, how it's separated. That's where I saw all of the, the trichomes, all of them, what they saw was like a powder.

1:02:38Johnny BIt was everywhere. And they were like walking all over and stuff like that, made me regards to it. That was several years ago. And I know they've been working hard in Manitoba with the hemp farmers out there and stuff like that. And it's just good to see how it's progressed because I know I was looking in at the hemp. It was a carousel car. I remember it was about eight or ten years ago they were building something like that.

1:02:58Johnny BIt was on the Manitoba and it kind of never happened. I kind of wanted to get one. It's all hemp panels. It was kind of cool.

1:03:07SpeakerYeah, I mean, that's actually one of the underpinning reasons why hemp is superior to other fiber crops, and in particular cotton, because cotton requires an extremely large pesticide load to control weevils and other insects. And so when you calculate that into the carbon footprint of the fiber that you're producing from the field, what you find is that Cotton is heavily handicapped compared to hemp because of the very large pesticide load that's required and these fields basically get destroyed after a while and as you know some of these pesticides are causing all kinds of other issues like colony collapse disorder and other things so I mean certainly this is again one of the beneficial aspects is not just the plant itself but the carbon footprint and what's required to actually produce product.

1:04:12SpeakerMartin, you need to unmute there.

1:04:14MartinYeah, yeah. Sorry. Yeah, I think that, you know, hemp obviously can, addressing the weed thing from earlier before, because the way the hemp grows, it can prevent a lot of the other plants that grow around it from accessing the light, the daylight, because it grows faster and shoots up higher. The ability to grow without a lot of chemicals, you know, makes it that much more appealing for cotton.

1:04:44MartinBut that said, trying to replace cotton with hemp is, I don't think, Thank you so much for joining us.

1:05:18SpeakerYeah, there's new fiber processing technology in making bicomponent fibers and certainly sheath fibers. So, I mean, there's a lot of different new fiber technology out there that can give hemp a much softer feel, not as the same feel as cotton. I mean, certainly I don't have hemp underwear on, but I would think that you'd want to be able to take some of this modern technology that we've learned to do with bicomponent fibers and sheathing fibers and be able to apply this to hemp.

1:05:48SpeakerI think where hemp really is going to stand out, again, is in its engineering properties because it's high molecular weight cellulose that's extremely strong. And again, I'm just completely against converting it into some small molecule biofuel because it just does not make economic sense or does it make a good carbon footprint. So I think you look at that high molecular weight cellulose as stored sunlight. It took a lot of sunlight to make those high molecular weight polymers.

1:06:17SpeakerDestroying those polymers takes a lot of energy and resources that's probably derived from fossil fuels.

1:06:25MartinYeah, I agree with that. I think, you know, one of the things that we were able to sell people on at the beginning of the early days was modern technology meets industrial hemp because hemp's been illegal for 70 years that we weren't able to give our best scientists and best researchers access to this great resource. But now that, you know, now that it's legal, we can put our best minds and best people onto it.

1:06:50MartinBut, you know, The reality of the situation is money, money, money. We just need, you can put as many minds onto it, but until you have multi-millions of dollars to buy equipment to process and try it all. So there's a lot of enthusiasm, but not necessarily a lot of risk takers. So that's what we need a little bit more of if we're going to get the fiber game going, I think.

1:07:14Etienne FontanWell, it's a longer term investment. It's not a short term. And the unfortunate thing is most investors are looking for the short term thing. They're not thinking the long arc game, which hemp truly is. And that's one of the things where I spoke to earlier was the big problem we have in the States here is the lack of proper mechanization, much less the industrialization to make something that is equipped to handle hemp.

1:07:38Etienne FontanYou know, it's a very difficult, it's very, Thank you for joining us today.

1:08:09Etienne FontanHave you played with making any of the limestone?

1:08:15MartinWe, I have not, no, we didn't focus on any of the fiber side of things at Manitoba Harvest. Although that said, I'm super interested and passionate about the idea. I've seen people build hemp houses in BC with a hemp herd and the insulation quality, the noise levels, just the quality of life that goes on in a hemp house is very encouraging. I would love to live in a hemp house myself, but we, you know, my, that's, you know, my wife's, My mother-in-law's cousin started a company that was doing something like that in southern Manitoba near the border, Emerson, Manitoba.

1:08:52MartinEmerson Hemp Company, they're called. Wally Empson, I think, is the guy's name. And he was making... We're trying to make ISO SHOM or Manitoba, you know, a version of that and trying to do different things, but it never really went anywhere. I think, again, it's money. It would, there was a lot of interest, but just trying to get the investment to go into it and get that payback would, you know, There's all these other places that people can put money.

1:09:20MartinEverybody's wanting money. And so a quicker return is always more appealing and a known commodity versus an unknown. So like I said, there's not enough economic risk takers out there right now.

1:09:32Etienne FontanSo what do you do with your cellulose then if you're just using majority of it is for food crop? What do you then do with your cellulose?

1:09:41MartinWell, the farmers, the issue was, one of the reasons why they liked growing finola because it was shorter, there wasn't as much resin to have to do or residue to have to deal with from the farm perspective. A lot of the farmers would just cut it and then swath it and then bale it and just store it or burn it. So yeah, there just wasn't, there were a few markets that were trying to open up.

1:10:09MartinThe one in Dauphin, there was a guy from China that had come in and invested a whole bunch of money into a Dauphin fiber processing plant, but that never took off. So yeah, the farmers, the residue from the field is a problem for them. The smaller crops are more appealing because there's less residue, and so there's less of a problem.

1:10:30Etienne FontanI was surprised something like the horse bedding didn't take off, which I know that out of the Netherlands that was a product that was able to sustain them because, you know, getting wood chips for animal bedding for horses, et cetera, is very difficult to do. But they found that the hemp herd was also very resistant to molds and problems there. So I was surprised that it didn't take off up in Canada as a product such as that as well, just for the herd alone.

1:11:00MartinYeah, I'm not 100% sure of the economics around the hemp herd. I can't really point to the specific reason why that didn't happen. But...

1:11:14MartinI think probably proximity to market is a big deal in Europe. It's a much smaller place. As soon as you start shipping anything that isn't high value, any kilometers at all, it starts to really eat into the profit margin. So if your market for your hemp herd isn't really nearby and they're not paying a good dollar, you're going to eat all that margin up in shipping it every kilometer for the ship.

1:11:38MartinIt just eats up more and more money.

1:11:41Etienne FontanAnd that's the reality we found in Eastern Europe. Sorry, say that again? And that's what we found in Eastern Europe when we were taking the hemp in Hungary and Romania and then shipping it to Czech Republic to have it put into, you know, bolts and then ship it somewhere else to have it made into a finished product or, you know, just have it... Then put into trucks and then taken to port.

1:12:06Etienne FontanIt just eats so much of whatever is available. It's such an economic challenge and that's where I go back to that industrialization is you have to have these industrial manufacturing points close to the farm and those don't exist throughout the United States and throughout Canada and that's a challenge to the farmer because it's the farmer's costs. And that's where the investments needed is we need infrastructure to come closer to the farmers so that it makes it there.

1:12:35Etienne FontanIt's just as stated, it's economically not there. So you've been able to still with Manitoba Farms make viable products and get them to market that even I still use to this day. So what would be your advice to American farmers then with these challenges?

1:12:54MartinYeah, the advice is... So hemp seed, an organic hemp seed is the first way to break into any kind of viable economic activity regarding industrial hemp. And then with that said, if the farmers would look at some sort of hemp processing or cheaper hemp herd,

1:13:23MartinThank you for joining us.

1:13:49MartinWe went with a press as our first little investment. We bought a $20,000 press out of Sweden and started processing the hemp seed with that. And we were able to start generating a little bit of the economy. And then we were able to, with that, create enough interest to get more investments to buy other equipment and generating more economy. So the advice is to start with the seed and then Look at some of these newer technologies that are out there to process and get extra money for your fiber.

1:14:22MartinBut it's the fiber really, the money I think in the fiber that you could extract would be in the herd easier than you could in the aligned fibers or unaligned fibers. Save the fiber part of it. Use the hemp seed first, hemp herd second, hemp fiber third, and approach it from that priority list. That would be my advice.

1:14:44SpeakerRight on. Can we see if your mic is working this time?

1:14:52SpeakerOkay. We're still not getting audio from you, Joey. I'm really sorry. Your microphone is not working. But she's unmuted at least. No, she's not muted. Absolutely not muted. Nope. Not muted, but her mic is not happening. Try to turn your volume up, Joyce.

1:15:15Etienne FontanNow you're muted.

1:15:15SpeakerNow you're muted again.

1:15:19Etienne FontanNow you're unmuted.

1:15:20SpeakerNow you're unmuted. Try and turn the volume up.

1:15:23Etienne FontanTry to turn your volume up.

1:15:30SpeakerSorry, I have no idea what to say. We can't hear you at all. I would just say try to restart your computer. Re-plug in your microphone or your webcam. It could be just as simple as your USB.

1:15:41Johnny BWe always have this problem when we first come in and it's always like a little click on the button up there that allows you to talk.

1:15:50SpeakerNo, it's always something simple.

1:15:54Etienne FontanYeah, no, it's just not happening. Yeah, you may want to go check your settings again and make sure your internal microphone is set up there now that you restarted. Martin, again, thank you so much. I can't thank you enough, one, for your leadership and what you've been able to actually go out as a leader, as a pioneer even, and actually accomplish and continue forward. You've really led North America greatly in showing us that There is potential, but it also goes back to, you know, many of us were brought on here because of Jack Herrera and his book, The Emperor Wears No Clothes, and the knowledge that he spread to us that we, I mean, it heartened me enough to, you know, work with Ecolution to take a company that was what, 40,000 a year to 3.5 million.

1:16:40Etienne FontanAnd hey, say something, Joy. Nope. Almost. We heard something.

1:16:48MartinWell, the Emperor Wears No Clothes was such an inspiration to me that my very first hemp company that I started was called the Emperor's Clothing Company. And we imported hemp from Thailand and from Nepal and sold it to head shops around Manitoba with the little fanny packs and wallets and hats with the word hemp on it. And we took an ad out in the Emperor Wears No Clothes called, at first, well, for the Emperor's Clothing Company.

1:17:20MartinAnd then, in fact, Mark was at the Hemp Expo with me. We met Jack Herrera, and he signed a 100% copy of the Emperor Wears No Clothes for us. And that was a very special copy. We met Jack, and he's always been a hero to us. You know, it was that information really that I guess I should have prefaced the whole conversation to start with was it was Jack Herrer's book that inspired me.

1:17:47MartinI came across it in the alternative literature that I was, you know, there was a A revolution in magazine publishing that happened in the early 90s. As desktop publishing happened, people started putting out all these magazines and alternative perspectives on things. And Jack's book was advertised in one of these alternative magazines that I was reading. And that was what inspired me to really go and do what I did.

1:18:17MartinSo, lessons to Jack.

1:18:20Etienne FontanJack was such an inspiration to all of us. Like I said, this forum wouldn't even be here if it hadn't been for Jack's inspiration as well as perspiration and kicking us all in the ass along the way and inspiring us. And then when you get to actually meet the man, he was quite a stoic figure as well as a hell of a motivator. And he's sorely missed to this day.

1:18:44Etienne FontanThere was no one quite like him and there's been no one quite like him to come along since

1:18:51SpeakerI appreciate y'all saying that it definitely he's mark on the industry is forever known. It's ironic to me how many of the kids today think that he's a grower and that he came up with the strange egg carer. It's fucking amusing. But yeah, no, Jack never grew pot and no. He didn't create the strange Jack Herrer. He wrote a book. Jack actually got shook down at a customs in Europe, and the guy at customs also thought, the cop at customs thought he was a grower, and Jack had to pull out The Emperor Wears No Clothes.

1:19:24SpeakerIt's like, no, I'm an author. I wrote this book. It's about history. You have to learn it. It's really funny stuff. What people like you, Martin, have done with the inspiration that we all got touched by is so incredible. I really applaud you for bringing hemp into the mainstream and putting it on the shelves of supermarkets all over North America.

1:19:49MartinWell, as kind of you say, Todd, you've actually, I've been following your story for a number of years as well. You were one of the first people that I saw stand up and, you know, make a, put it on the line, you know, really put your beliefs on the line. So, yeah, you're, to me, you're, Mark said, that's Todd McCormick. He's, and I know who Todd McCormick is.

1:20:10MartinI know who this guy is. You don't have to tell me. So, yeah, yeah, I'm impressed by all of you guys. You know, everybody here is really cool.

1:20:17SpeakerI think we're all just doing what we can. I think we were put in a situation where we had the opportunity to try to make a difference, and a lot of us did. And it's as simple as that. I would like to think that other people would have done what I did, you know, if given the opportunity to try to help other people. They would have said, sure.

1:20:33SpeakerYeah, there's a... Can you hear me by any chance?

1:20:35MartinWhoa! Hey, Joy. You there.

1:20:38SpeakerThere's a girl on the line. I figured it out. Great to... Welcome to Astroge. Could you tell everybody who you are and what you do? Sure, of course. Joy Beckerman. I'm the Principal Industrial Hemp Specialist at Hempace International. So I do legal support, advisory, public education in industrial hemp. I've been involved in industrial hemp for a little bit over a quarter of a century, opening the first hemp store in the state of New York in the early 90s.

1:21:04SpeakerAnd then when that inaugural hemp bill passed in Vermont in 96, was appointed to serve as Secretary of the Vermont Hemp Council by Representative Maslach. And then Came to Seattle with my two boys who are now 22 and 24. I've got two college grads to commence a dual career in compliance and complex civil litigation with industrial hemp. But was able to form HempBase in 2014.

1:21:34Etienne FontanSo what inspired you to get into hemp drawing?

1:21:37SpeakerWell, we just spoke quite a bit about him. My very first dead show, actually, in the spring of 1990, I received a flyer about industrial hemp. And I remember at the time just my feeling was that we were all going to die and the planet was being killed, but that we should be like in peace, love, and music while we kill the planet and just did not realize that there was any type of a solution.

1:22:03SpeakerAnd And so when I read that flyer, and I'm in law, I teach all the continuing legal education seminars in Washington for hemp, so it's not like I believe everything I read, but that flyer hit me on a cellular level, particularly in that, A, there is a solution on some level. Hemp is not going to save the world. It will be a vehicle to that, and a vehicle to regenerative agriculture even.

1:22:28SpeakerBut that not only was there a pathway, but that that pathway was criminalized. And that combination excited me and disturbed me on such a level that it literally changed the trajectory of my life.

1:22:47SpeakerSo I opened that hemp store anyway after having babies and we were still on dead tour a little bit. Jerry didn't die there until August of 1995. And really dead tour was obviously just such a tremendous vehicle. It truly was the ship of the sun is, In the land of the dark, the ship of the sun being driven by the grateful dead in terms of clearly this consciousness, even home birth.

1:23:13SpeakerI had my two babies naturally and I learned about natural childbirth on the parking lot, you know, at a dead show, tripping on acid. So all of that was just really... Thank you so much for joining us.

1:23:54SpeakerAnd all manner of tourists as well. And it was always so hard to not be able to help them out and be like, well, if you just look at this guy on the Village Green, he'll buy you some. But I was a young mother and here I was in a hemp store. So eventually... I, though, and it's a great story, received a letter, a cease and desist letter from the U.S. Secret Service because we were stamping I Grew Hemp, Little Bubbles, of course, part of that movement out of George Washington's mouth on every $1 bill that came in and out of the store.

1:24:29SpeakerI was so excited to get this cease and desist letter. It was wonderful. I was an activist. I am a grassroots activist. And so I immediately called High Times. They were the first person that I thought of to call was Steve Hager, who was editing at the time. And ultimately, a gentleman who at the time was writing under the name Richard McCabe, but who we all know is Rick Cusick now.

1:24:51SpeakerAnd this was prior to his High Times incarnation and prior to his topicals company with Maya. He was writing under his grandmother's maiden name for a small weekly publication called The Aquarian out of New Jersey. And as a young investigative journalist, he then embarked on investigating where on earth this cease and desist letter came from, what the nexus of it was. So we had sent it to him.

1:25:18SpeakerAnd keep in mind, 1995 at the time when I got this letter, we didn't really have such great access to the internet and so on and so forth. But he had a faxed copy because the cease and desist letter included with it a photocopy of one of the bills. And it had a fax number on the top of that photocopy. Well, Rick Cusick looked it up and it was the fax number for the Woodstock Police Station.

1:25:43SpeakerSo he called the Woodstock police station and I believe may or may not, I wouldn't want to get him in trouble even though I'm sure it's way past the statute of limitations, may or may not have led them to believe that he was a conservative writer, reporter, very much against any form of cannabis. What does this girl think she is, this hippie girl opening up this store?

1:26:06SpeakerAnd what's going on with this cease and desist letter? So the Woodstock police then open up to him and say, we have been trying to buy marijuana from her time after time. She won't sell it to us. So we sent her seeds, which of course, as we all know from the 90s, were totally sterilized. They weren't hulled or de-hulled. In the hemp world, in the hemp bulk food world, we call them hulled when they're de-hulled, so it gets confusing.

1:26:27SpeakerBut the point is, they were sterilized seeds with a hull still on. They sent those up to Albany and spent taxpayer money to test them for THC, which of course they did not test for, was not positive results. Then they tell Rick Cusick, so then we sent her twine, her hemp twine to Albany to test that for THC. Shocker, that also came back negative. And then they said when we could not get her for anything, we sent a photocopy of the $1 bills.

1:26:56SpeakerThat she stamps to the U.S. Secret Service and yay, now they've sent her a cease and desist letter. So Rick Cusick writes this piece called Theater in a Crowded Fire with the results of his investigation and the Associated Press somehow picks it up. And it turned into her hemp dollars draw U.S. haulers in all of these newspapers across the country which resulted in a flood of phone calls to the U.S. Secret Service office in Albany, New York.

1:27:23SpeakerAnd they were shocked and they were burdened and they did not expect these calls and didn't want these calls. They were unwarranted. So the Secret Service ended up calling me and telling me and there is a great lesson to the end of this story. Ended up calling me and saying, listen, we only sent you that letter because we had to act on it because the Woodstock police sent it to us.

1:27:44SpeakerThe reality is you're not really breaking any laws because under the statute, in order to mutilate or deface US currency, that's what the cease and desist was for, for mutilating US currency. They said under the statute, it has to be your intent to take that currency out of circulation. Clearly, that is not your intent. Your intent is to spread this message and to keep the money in circulation so you're not actually violating anything.

1:28:06SpeakerBut would you do us a favor? And here's the lesson and the takeaway for this. Would you please use red ink? Because the purple ink that you're using is messing with the money counting machines at the bank. And if you use red ink, it won't stop the money counting machines. So I thank them very kindly for their call and I will ask everybody to please make sure they will always use purple ink when stamping dollar bills.

1:28:45Etienne FontanAll right. Yeah, we had the same problem in Berkeley. We were back with the Cannabis Action Network right at 94. Actually, no, it was 93. We were stamping every single dollar bill and Wells Fargo seized our bank account and told us that and then turned it over to the Treasury Department. And we had a Rob Rach, who was actually the lawyer who took Angel Rachel's case all the way to the Supreme Court.

1:29:10Etienne FontanHe's also a banking attorney. So he immediately, as a friend of ours, called the bank and said, what you're doing is illegal. You can't just hold the money because we're just having it with blacking. And made Wells Fargo aware of the law. And then they very quickly released our bank account and went through that. But we had to do that as well. But I found myself, I do believe a few years later with Ecolution selling you hemp, correct?

1:29:38Etienne FontanBack in the day?

1:29:39SpeakerYou most definitely did. And I'm so thrilled right now to hear you say Cannabis Action Network of Early because brothers, I even had a business cards back then. The very first Cannabis Action Network day in Woodstock, New York was a big march. Then we rented the community center. It was, and I have some great letters that I wrote to the, um, Thank you.

1:30:13SpeakerNew York liaison to the Cannabis Action Network of Berkeley. And it was a gal. There was a gal that I was always interacting with. And I'm terribly sorry that I don't remember her name. But it was a sister.

1:30:25Etienne FontanAnd I think it might have been Rachel. Rachel, yeah, it was Rachel, my ex-wife.

1:30:29SpeakerIt was Rachel!

1:30:31Etienne FontanIt was Rachel or Debbie because they were running the office while we were out on the road.

1:30:35SpeakerI was the New York liaison, so there's a picture of the Statute of Liberty on my little card. I had no idea, ATN, and I got to witness you and Rachel actually, of course, get married at that Cannabis Cup in 1995 at your hemp wedding, but I didn't know we had the Cannabis Action Network of Berkeley connection, too. That tickles me pink.

1:30:57Etienne FontanYep. Wow, that's 20-plus years. Yeah, wow, almost 25 years ago.

1:31:06SpeakerI would love to talk for a minute, if I could, just about some interesting legal issues here in America with regard to industrial hemp. We don't have the luxuries, of course, in Canada of having federal legalization. We have these little 50 little countries here. And so just wanted to talk a little bit about what's going on here on a federal level and then kind of how this federal action is unfolding in the different states and how Washington is unique in that we have legal outdoor marijuana.

1:31:41SpeakerWe're the only state that has legalized outdoor marijuana on an adult use scale and how that makes us unique in conjunction with the other 49 states. Is anybody interested in hearing about that? Okay, cool. So thank you, sir. Excellent. So as we know, we had the Marijuana Tax Act in 1937. Then we had the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, which adopted the definition of marijuana word for word from the architects of the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act.

1:32:13SpeakerSo the Nixon administration didn't bother to do a thing with that. So then we have nothing really having to do with hemp until in terms of federal legislation until 2005 when the first house version of the Industrial Hemp Farming Act is filed. The Senate doesn't start to get involved in the filing of this Industrial Hemp Farming Act until 2013 and it continues to be refiled. And just to To explain what that is, it's a very simple one and a half page double spaced bill that simply defines industrial hemp without any carve outs for the resins and removes it from the Controlled Substances Act.

1:32:55SpeakerSo that's the first time we started to get federal legislation within the House in 2005. In 2014,

1:33:04SpeakerWe get the Agricultural Act of 2014, which we short name the Farm Bill. And within it is this glorious little amendment called Section 7606, the Legitimacy of Industrial Hemp Research. And what that does is it's saying in states that permit the growth or cultivation of hemp, so it's not giving a free-for-all, unfortunately, to all the states. It's saying your state is going to have to pass their own legislation, But in those states that permit the cultivation, your institutions of higher education, which they define in section, I believe it's 1001, U.S. Code 20, section 1001, which is great because that definition is intentional.

1:33:46SpeakerAnd when you look at that definition in U.S. Code, it describes institutions of higher education as not just well-funded universities and colleges, but also technical schools and community colleges and vocational schools as long as they meet different accreditations. So in any event, it says institutions of higher education and state departments of agriculture are now free to promulgate rules to start what they call agricultural pilot programs. Then we go on to the two definitions within this two-page double-space amendment, Section 7606.

1:34:22SpeakerIt defines agricultural pilot program, and it defines industrial hemp. In this definition of agricultural pilot program, it says it means to study the growth or cultivation, apparently there's two different, that means two different things, growth, cultivation, or marketing of industrial hemp. And that marketing is a pretty big deal because we see the marketing as a whole big enough to drive a hemp truck through in terms of being able to commercialize and sell the biomass and the incredibly raw valuable materials that we are producing.

1:34:55SpeakerAnd certainly the fact that they defined industrial hemp without any carve out for the resins. And for whoever who is watching to understand that the definition of marijuana in the Controlled Substances Act, which again is adopted from 1937, it looks like a full paragraph. It looks like it maybe says a bunch of stuff, but it's two sentences that make up that paragraph. And within that two sentences, they use the word resins three times.

1:35:23SpeakerSo they use it twice as an inclusion to marijuana, and they use it once in the second sentence, which is supposed to be the exception to marijuana of industrial hemp, but they put the exclusion of resins within the exception of marijuana. So point being that, and I apologize, I teach, again, those continuing legal education seminars, so I get a little nerdy with that stuff, but those architects of 1937 of the definition of marijuana chosen to be kept by the Nixon administration wanted us to know That whether we're talking about marijuana or whether we're talking about industrial hemp, they wanted those resins to be off limits.

1:36:00SpeakerOf course, all the while they're forming their patents. First one in 1942. So, but the point being that when they define industrial hemp without that carve out, that is telling the rest of us in hemp, whoa, no carve out for the resins? We're going to start extracting. And that's why you have this incredibly brave state of Kentucky. That said, we're going to grow for oil, seed, and fiber.

1:36:25SpeakerWe're definitely going to reinvigorate our farming industry. But we're going to go right now for what requires the least infrastructure cost. Because as we know, that's a very big hold back here is the chicken and the egg and the cart and the horse in terms of trying to encourage farmers to grow a crop for which there is no infrastructure and trying to encourage investors to invest in infrastructure For which the farmers are not growing a crop.

1:36:49SpeakerSo Kentucky said, hey, we're going to do extraction. And they're moving forward very boldly with that. And they, of course, have tremendous help on a state level and a federal level there, which we don't enjoy here. Neither of our senators, our federal senators, Cantwell or Murray, have co-sponsored the Industrial Hemp Farming Act versus Kentucky, which prime sponsored the Industrial Hemp Farming Act, so on and so forth.

1:37:14SpeakerSo they really get a lot of protection. And if anyone is interested later on, I'd love to then discuss this marijuana extract final rule, which I think is fascinating and how Kentucky is dealing with it versus how Washington is dealing with it is fascinating. So in any event, they in Kentucky are not defending or having to protect a legal marijuana market like we are here. So they're really moving forward with their agricultural pilot program to extract phytocannabinoids.

1:37:44SpeakerHere in Washington, we have legal marijuana. So we have to deal, going outdoors. So we have to deal with cross-pollination issues, which are of hysterical concern to many of our licensed producers. And it's a balancing act for me to be able to Work with that hysteria and also have their backs because cross-pollination is most definitely a valid concern. This idea that we need mountain ranges between each other, I think time will tell and hard data and science and things of that nature will hopefully solve some of those questions.

1:38:20SpeakerWe, of course, are painfully aware of these studies of it travels 200 miles, it travels 2,000 miles, and then we hear, yet at the same time, Thank you so much for joining us.

1:38:54SpeakerWe have this Section 7606, this legitimacy of industrial hemp research, and all of these benefits come with being compliant with Section 7606. So we have these 31 states that have passed some form of legislation to cultivate industrial hemp, but only 10 that have ever put seeds in the ground, and only a few of those because they have been compliant with Section 7606 and have been able to actually get Thank you for joining us today.

1:39:41SpeakerBut as you know, in Canada, most of the hemp that is grown in developed countries and certainly in Canada is contracted for prior to the seeds even being put in the ground. And that is based on certified seeds. Because hemp is a wily crop that in order to compete in commerce, large scale needs to be maintained in a breeding program. So the benefits that come with this compliance are you get the DEA permit to import seeds so that your state can get up and running.

1:40:14SpeakerYou get USDA organic certification. And as Martin explained, it is just, You know, very much in demand hold seeds. They don't have to be genetically modified anyway. But this demand for certified organic hemp seeds is unbelievable. It is monumental. In fact, and I'm sorry to go on a slight tangent here, but I will say that I, with John Rulak of Nutiva, was able to lobby at Senator Cantwell and Murray's office a few years ago with him.

1:40:43SpeakerAnd I'll never forget him saying to them, and this was like November of 2014 or something, and he was saying to them, Listen, I am having to hire new employees every week. I need to put in a whole new facility. Costco has asked me for a $30 million, this is three years ago, a $30 million a year organic, certified organic hemp seed contract, and there's not that much being grown on the planet Earth.

1:41:06SpeakerWe've got to legalize hemp here. We should be able to fill these orders, and the demand for certified organic hemp seed is tremendous. We also get the benefit of USDA organic certification. They will not certify organic if you're not compliant with Section 7606. It's a written policy. They just came out with it in August of 2016. You also get the benefit of USDA NIFA grant research funds, and NIFA is the National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

1:41:34SpeakerAlso, here in the state of Washington, bank loan eligibility, federal water rights eligibility, protection from civil asset forfeiture, and a tremendous problem that we're seeing in states that do not have Any type of seed program as they implement the reintroduction of this crop is the horrible exploitation of farmers who are being sold seeds by unknown sellers from unknown sources. And some are totally legitimate, believe me. Doug Fine, Doug Fine, Doug Fine in Vermont.

1:42:03SpeakerThere were some great legitimate sources. But for the most part, we're in states that have no seed program. We're seeing the exploitation of farmers. These seeds are being sold to them at exorbitant prices. And of course, they're not actually industrial hemp seeds. So they do not test compliant at the end of the season and the crops have to be destroyed. So there are all of these issues that come along with your state not putting in a compliant program.

1:42:29SpeakerNow here in Washington, we have to deal with, and our WSDA is wonderful, our State Department of Ag, but they have to deal with the Attorney General's Office. So even if the State Department of Ag wants to implement something in our rules, and we just filed our rules, it's important to note that we did not legalize industrial hemp when we legalized marijuana. We legalized marijuana in 2012 based on Initiative, Initiative 502, Thank you so much for joining us today.

1:43:22SpeakerBut the AG's office, our Attorney General, they are the ones that can even trump, and they often do trump, the Washington State Department of Ag, and they don't want our hemp farmers extracting on any level any phytocannabinoids from hemp. Secret, there is a little amendment that made its way into a bill because we're in session right now. Legislative sessions make me crazy. And there's a little sneak in the bill right now that would change our law that would at least allow, I was just made aware of it, allow our hemp under our program to be sold and I'll get to the shitty but we'll get there part.

1:44:02SpeakerThank you for watching.

1:44:26SpeakerSuper side note, there's a gentleman who has created this fraudulent Washington Hemp Commission. Now, a commission, an agricultural commission in the state of Washington has to be lawfully formed and state sanctioned by the actual State Department of Agriculture. And he's done none of those things. And he calls himself the Washington Hemp Commissioner, which is, it's actually a crime, a true, what he does to me is a civil crime.

1:44:50SpeakerBut what he does in terms of impersonating that state agency is an actual crime. Thank you.

1:45:13SpeakerConfusing these issues because the bill that we have in front of us, somebody must have, a marijuana interest must have asked for it. We think it was from this organization called WACA, which is a highly funded trade organization for the licensed adult use market. And so they're the ones who put this amendment in. And when I first heard about it, I said, thank you very much. The hemp growers and the hemp processors will process the hemp we're growing.

1:45:41SpeakerWe don't need you marijuana market to process our own hemp. We thank you very much. We'll process our own hemp just like Kentucky. Thank you so much for joining us.

1:46:04SpeakerAnd our legal state legal marijuana market. They do not want the hemp processors at this time processing the hemp that we grow. So at least it will go into into that marijuana market. And so that's the question. What are the cannabinoid levels that are acceptable in the bill? They don't say, not only did they couch it completely so that they don't even mention it's about extraction. In fact, you'll find this brilliant, Todd.

1:46:32SpeakerNo, not the extraction part. What did they cap the cannabinoid levels of the plant requirements at? Oh, they only discuss one cannabinoid as usual, which sucks. Yes, of course. What number? 0.3. Oh, so it's typical. Yeah, absolutely. And for what it's worth... The various evolutions of the bills, because the only reason why we didn't pass these bills a long time ago is because we had competing Senate Democrat bill and competing House Republican bill.

1:47:02SpeakerThere was unanimous support on both sides of the aisle for the last three fucking years. Unfortunately, it boiled down to that. Having been raised by a lawyer and working with lawyers most of my adult life, They live for their law to become case law. And these legislators, they live for their bill to be what became law. And that alone is what took it. But in part of that, discussing cannabinoids, at one point, one of the bills defined it as 1%.

1:47:27SpeakerAnd our Washington State... That'd be great. Yes. Yes. Our Washington State Patrol at that point inserted itself into the amendment process and said, yo, we've just legalized marijuana here. Do you understand what you are going to do to burden the entire system over seven tenths of a percent of THC? Please, while we implement this, while we go through this experiment, while we lead the way for the country to liberate cannabis, will you please bring it back down to point three?

1:47:55SpeakerBecause you're going to cause a burden and a clusterfuck for the State Patrol Crime Lab. And then you just... You're not really leading the country. Colorado's been growing hemp and CBD hemp now for years. I mean, we've all seen the flyover videos and Kentucky's got like 400 frigging acres in the ground last year. And the facilities look incredible. 923 acres last year.

1:48:16SpeakerOh, yeah. What Kentucky's doing is first class, and they're going to have CBD hemp oil coming out actually soon. Oh, they've had it for two years, brother. And CBDRX was the first to get certified organic, actually, out of Kentucky. So this is the other thing, you know, and I get that, you know, we have, you know, Sir Sam on, you know, the separate the rope from the dope, I think is a tired argument.

1:48:40SpeakerAnd the reality is, is cannabis has to be seen as a, as a whole market, because realiztically, the hemp industry, who would have thought would be benefiting from potentially selling CBD cannabinoids to the world? I mean, and there could be a time when You know, CBD is put into our foods like a vitamin is listed once we understand the endocannabinoid system better. So I think that the hemp industry really shouldn't shun or try to paint black the marijuana industry because it's all fucking cannabis.

1:49:12SpeakerAnd the reality is, is that it's all going to work together. And the people that are enthusiastic about hemp and how it can help the environment are the frigging potheads. There's no two ifs, ands, or buts about it. If you see somebody carrying a hemp backpack or wearing a hemp fanny pack or wearing hemp clothes, the chances they smoked pot are pretty damn high. And we need to not forget our heritage of where the whole hemp movement came from.

1:49:37SpeakerSo true. And I think that is what's wonderful about new leadership with the Hemp Industries Association. And I, my brother, Eric Steenster, God bless him. You know, we, It's been an issue because I sit on the normal board. I'm a national board of directors for normal. I come from a state with both. We don't hold it against you. I know. Believe me. I get so much for that.

1:50:00SpeakerAbsolutely. But the point is that I have to be both marijuana and industrial hemp, and I strongly, strongly believe in educating people. In that way. And not only that, I have to do public relations for both here because to keep peace between marijuana and industrial hemp. And in fact, to a degree, you know what, though, the shit about contamination is baloney and hemp has a right to grow.

1:50:25SpeakerAnd if anyone's seriously growing medicine, it should be in a greenhouse with controlled air circulation and you're not vulnerable to outside pollutants, which is what that would be at that point. So anyone seriously growing medicine shouldn't be talking shit about not being able to grow it seedless because, you know, if a bird can shit on the plants that you're growing outdoors, I wouldn't call that medicine. Amen, brother.

1:50:47SpeakerThat's reality. And we need hemp again. We really need hemp. When everybody looks at the covered wagons and everybody going west, That's cannabis. That was cannabis hemp on those covered wagons because it wasn't freeing cotton. And we really need to go back to our history and hemp needs to be part of the whole thing. And now that we know so much about EFAs and the proteins and it's an obvious go-to for a lot of our environmental problems right now.

1:51:12SpeakerAnd I look forward to seeing it everywhere. California is going to be is now out of drought and going into a season where hemp is legal and cannabis is legal i mean if you multiply the amount of households we have which is over 12 million by six plants a household you got like 60 to 80 million legal pot plants growing this year all over california and that doesn't include hemp which now is also going to go into the fields this year and there's no way that people will not be growing Thank you so much for joining us today.

1:51:46SpeakerWe'll be right back.

1:52:12SpeakerHemp is not even legalized as feed for ag right now. But going back to the cannabinoids, it's very important for me to make sure that folks understand that, especially under our new leadership, when this marijuana extract final rule came out, and I teach not just the industrial hemp federal and state law parts of the continuing legal education seminars. I actually teach a standalone one. And this isn't because I created these CLEs.

1:52:37SpeakerIt's the folks that do the CLEs that call me to do them. I don't create them. And they've asked me to create one which I've done called The Curious Legal Status of CBD and Hemp-Derived Cannabinoids. And in preparing for it this summer, I wanted to get to the nexus of why this DEA Form 225, and if you're not familiar with it, please go ahead and Google DEA Form 225.

1:53:00SpeakerIt will immediately pop up. And it's a form that you have to use, apparently, to register with the DEA If you're going to research, conduct business, import, export, manufacture, or distribute a controlled substance. Well, that form was in its regular state since November of 1999 until it was revised in April of 2012. And in April of 2012, all of a sudden on page three of that form,

1:53:30SpeakerCannabidiol is spelled out and listed as a schedule one controlled substance. So I wanted to get to the bottom of what on earth was the impetus of them to revise that form in April of 2012 to all of a sudden for the first time since the existence of the form, add cannabidiol. And I couldn't figure it out. So I ended up getting on the phone with the Office of Liaison and Policy for the DEA's Drug Diversion Control Unit.

1:53:56SpeakerAnd I explained to her. I just was trying to figure out what the impetus of the revision was. And she put me on hold. And about five minutes later, she comes back. And she says to me, well, in July of 2011, there was a proposed rule to define marijuana extract and give it a drug control number. And I say to her, well, was it ever finalized, that rule?

1:54:16SpeakerNot that that would have done anything. There's a specific process that you have to go through to add something to the fucking schedule, and it isn't finalizing a rule, but I asked her. Hold up, wait a minute. The whole schedule? The schedule hasn't been finalized. If you go back and look at where marijuana was placed, it was tentatively placed, and they never amended that. So all of this is highly questionable, and I've brought it up, and federal judges have gone, I don't see that, Judge King, if you're listening.

1:54:43SpeakerAnd, you know, we haven't seen it successfully argued anywhere, but the truth is, Congress never, after putting it tentatively in Schedule 1, it never... Thank you for joining us.

1:55:21SpeakerThank you so much for joining us.

1:55:35SpeakerSo much of it is crap. That's why we need science. And it's interesting to me to perceive that I'm actually creating a rift when I'm really just discussing legal issues with a sophisticated group here. But I'm actually the one here in the state of Washington bringing it together. But explaining how the evolution of this takes place is that this is a five and a half year proposed bullshit rule that they come up with in July 2011.

1:56:02SpeakerThey don't do anything about it. Meanwhile, the farm bill happens. Kentucky starts extracting mass scale. Colorado comes out into the broad light of day with their extraction mass scale. Letters start to go out when the Statement of Principles comes out by the Joint Statement of Principles in August of this year by the DEA, the USDA, and the FDA saying, Redefining industrial hemp under the act and saying, we have to, you are not exempted from the Controlled Substances Act.

1:56:35SpeakerAnd in fact, industrial hemp does include all the salts and compounds and isomers and derivatives and putting in that language from the Marijuana Tax Act that doesn't exist. So we have Kentucky, then immediately the University of Kentucky, Kentucky Department of Ag, Senator McConnell, Rand Paul, and 17 other federal legislators All send these letters, which are all available on the Kentucky Department of Ag site. They're actually very, I love, these letters are very inspiring in terms of the rights of Americans and their farmers.

1:57:04SpeakerThey don't, and saying we're going to keep extracting, we want clarity, this wasn't the legislative intent, so on and so forth. So the DEA doesn't respond to any of these letters until they finalize that five and a half year in the making marijuana extract rule on December fucking 7th. And then that's when Chuck actually signs it. Then they put it in the Federal Register on the 14th.

1:57:27SpeakerAnd that's how they respond to all of those questions is they say, any extract from the genus cannabis. So now we have the DEA. Thank you so much for joining us.

1:58:00SpeakerWe've also had to file a second action in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals just recently, and Martin probably knows about this. And that's because we, of course, sued the DEA twice in early 2000s because they had come up with this interim and proposed rule, an interpretive rule, to make hemp seed derivatives and hemp seed foods a Schedule I controlled substance. And then we had Dr. Bronner, Nutiva, the HIA, and some other named plaintiffs, of course, spent nearly a quarter of a million dollars in the early 2000s, which is pretty big money, to beat the pants Off the DEA and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

1:58:42SpeakerWell, the DEA to this day, and I work very closely with my own WSDA, who keeps pointing to the fact, and I see it as well, that the DEA's website, if you go to look whether or not hemp seed foods or derivatives in oils from anything pressed from the seed is legal here, you get shot off to the same bad law that we beat from 2003. They haven't updated it even though we beat them a long time ago.

1:59:09SpeakerSo we end, they just went on television dispensing the same bad advice that no, it's a schedule one substance to actually deal in cold pressed hemp seed oil, literally on television. So now on February 17th, the HIA has had to file an action called the Motion for Order to Show Cause as to why the Drug Enforcement Administration should not be held in contempt of For violating this court's prior ruling.

1:59:34SpeakerSo, you know, really just updating you on some of those actions. But for me, it doesn't have anything to do with separating the two. It has to do with sophisticated legal issues with a wonderful group who can understand these issues because I find them all fascinating. In the end, fucking cannabis, man. That's all I do. I live it. I breathe it. Nobody has ever paid me or reimbursed me for any of my grassroots activism for 25 years.

1:59:57SpeakerSo, These trolls, which again is really the nexus of it is this one, you know, sociopathic malignant narcissist that we've all had to deal with. Certainly during Prop 6-4, I remember way having your back, Todd, and ATN, of course. You know, you get these sociopathic malignant narcissists out there, but we, I have one particular one, and he is a failed marijuana activist and a disenfranchised homeless man named Steve Sarich and the Washington Hemp Commission.

2:00:25SpeakerSo, The Hemp Commission is a fraudulent organization that would be a state-sanctioned agency formed legally with approval of the Department of Agriculture. None of that's been done. So, you know, we get some of that stuff out there, but I am the opposite of the divider. I'm actually the unifier. I just have to deal with that pig on Facebook.

2:00:50SpeakerWell, You know, the internet is, you know, the internet. But, you know, you got to kind of cruise on and do the things that you think are right. That's what I do. That's what I do. It's interesting, you know, what's happening. I mean, I think Washington will come along nicely. I think that the whole thing is at a tipping point, to be honest. And when you are taking a step back and looking at what's happening in states like Kentucky, Colorado, what will happen in California is going to be, I'm sure...

2:01:19SpeakerAlong, you know, the lines of how large the state is, it's just a very cannabis friendly place. And now given the chance to move forward with the feeling of freedom, I think that we're going to see a lot of stuff happening really, really fast. I mean, what's happening in Kentucky alone is very impressive. And I'm sure this is going to be coming along really, really quick. It is, as a matter of fact, I had a phone call recently with somebody from last year.

2:01:50SpeakerNow, it's quite a reliable source. I won't tell you his name, but you'd freak out if I did in terms of, and he said, Joy, I have 25,000 kilos. Thank you so much.

2:02:26SpeakerLove to give some other folks a chance to talk, but man, would I love to discuss hempcrete. I heard you discussing it, and I do. I'm the lead instructor for hemp technologies, and it's only about 10% of what I do because I only sleep about three hours a day, but hempcrete is just, the science of hemp and lime is fascinating, and I love to talk about it.

2:02:46SpeakerNo, you know, the building materials that are happening in Europe and other places, I guess I say Europe because of hemp flax and my connection to Europe for so long. But it's incredible to think we can have, you know, materials that won't catch fire. We could live in houses that would be structurally sound and fireproof, literally, on a lot of levels. It's quite incredible. I mean, is that over there?

2:03:11SpeakerAnd it's pest resistant as well. So mold, rot, fire, and pest resistant. And as you mentioned, carbon sequestering. So when we say turn to stone, what we're really saying is that the limestone wants to become a stone again. So once we slake it, we heat it, we slake it, then it becomes the powder that we use as a mortar or a binder. When we wet it and mix it with our herd, all of a sudden now it starts grabbing carbon molecules from the atmosphere so that it can be a stone again.

2:03:38SpeakerAnd that's how it fossilizes and petrifies. Yeah, can I take a minute to say hi, Chris? You guys, Dave just joined us over at Clear. Mark, can you hear us? No? Hold on, hold on. What's going on, folks? What's up? What's up, guys?

2:03:56Etienne FontanI was about to say, you should start a shakedown stream with that much deadheadness altogether.

2:04:02SpeakerOh, no, we are. Say hi to Jibs and Chris, everybody. Hey, Chip.

2:04:08Johnny BIt's great to see you, my friend. It's been a long time.

2:04:12SpeakerHey, guys. How's it going, Chris? Good. Taking some dabs, doing some chemistry with Mark. Can't complain. Life's good. That sounds great. I've been enjoying some of your nitrogen posts. Have you been enjoying the product yet? I can't wait till... But the posts look cool, literally. Yeah, it's certainly cold. Heated jackets are now a thing, apparently. You can plug in a jacket, so that might be the next tool on the list.

2:04:42SpeakerOh, where's our jar of solid, dude? So what have you got making up? What have you been working on lately? Yeah, what kind of stuff are you cooking up? Yeah, what's up? Are you extracting any hemp yet? We do some CBD like hemp extractions and stuff, but you know, it's just a time thing and in Colorado kind of a pain in the ass for us as far as getting deals going.

2:05:04SpeakerBut yeah, I got Mark here. Basically, we're going to be investigating the hydrogenation chemistry that Mark has a patent on. So, so far we've hydrogenated THCA. THC, we're going to do CBD. I got some acetate. We'll probably make some CBD acetate. Basically, we're just going to investigate what the properties of all these different hydrogenated cannabinoids are. Probably fuck around with some extracts and do some rosin maybe and see what the effects of that are.

2:05:32SpeakerBut yeah, this was our first white powder that we made, which is... We call it HHCA, so hexahydrocannabinol, and basically... Cannabinolic acid. Cannabinolic acid, yeah, and that's basically the hydrogenated THCA, which has a nice white solid, and when you heat it, it decarbs, despite what that asshole on my feed yesterday was rambling about.

2:05:58Etienne FontanAnd how do you feel of the onset and effect?

2:06:02SpeakerSo we dabbed it. Let's see, I think one, two, three, five, six of us dabbed it. And it's definitely psychoactive in the similar way that THC is, we'd say. Maybe a little bit shorter lived. And honestly, I would say that if I had to guess, the ingested effects are going to have the biggest divergence from THC. Like the normal cannabinoids, just by given the fact that they're going to have different cannabinoids.

2:06:30Etienne FontanWas it immediate onset or it took some time?

2:06:34SpeakerLet's try it out on camera and find out. What do you think?

2:06:39Etienne FontanI'm all for science, people.

2:06:41Johnny BIt was a pretty quick onset yesterday when I tried it.

2:06:44SpeakerIt was definitely pretty short. It's different than like the acetate. It's a much slower onset compared to the...

2:06:52Etienne FontanDoes the fade out fade as slowly out as the fade in?

2:07:02SpeakerI don't know. Let's find out. I would say like similarly, yeah, like down to baseline a little slower. Kind of hard to tell because, you know, we're like sitting around ingesting a bunch of dabs all day anyway. Right.

2:07:12Etienne FontanYou already had your own titration level, but at the same time you had to notice some difference.

2:07:17SpeakerYeah, so yesterday morning I specifically didn't dab any, but the first cannabinoids that I ingested in the day, or not ingested, but took in was the HHCA. So I would say it came up the same speed and went, came down a bit quicker. Maybe like a half, half as quick maybe.

2:07:39Etienne FontanAnd the last thing, about what, a half hour less? Yeah.

2:07:43SpeakerYeah, I would say. I'd say like the immediate stoniness is gone in like probably five to ten minutes. And then you kind of just fade on down back to baseline over maybe the next 30, I would say. In my opinion.

2:07:59SpeakerThank you. Yeah, no, thanks. Shameless Product Plug, Baroni, ChemSys, IC Collective, whoo!

2:08:13Etienne FontanYou guys are killing me. That's great. So y'all have been, Mark, I take it you've been there all week and y'all are playing chemistry?

2:08:24SpeakerYeah, I wish I was in better shape. I had about a 48-hour bout of food poisoning that kind of straddled me to the bathroom. But once I got over that, no, yeah, it was really good. I think it was the Caesar salad at Denver airport. So Caesar at Denver airport from the French place. But yeah, we've been having a good time and it's like, how much more fun could I have?

2:08:53SpeakerI mean, this is like chemistry, cannabis, nirvana, right? I've been trying to collaborate with this guy ever since we met, right? It's been a minute.

2:09:08SpeakerSo what were we all talking about before we came and interrupted your flow? We're talking about hemp making, getting hemp growing in Washington and elsewhere. Honestly, we're talking about Kentucky, Colorado. You know, cannabis is kind of all coming to light on so many different legs now. And I think that it's nice from my perspective to see the whole cannabis industry grow. I mean, I kind of root for all areas of it, to say the least, you know.

2:09:38SpeakerBut I like the cannabis get you high side, but I also like the idea of, you know, driving by hemp fields and seeing it as replacing trees and making medicines and proteins for everybody.

2:09:59SpeakerAll right.

2:10:05SpeakerI mean, I think the hemp,

2:10:08Etienne FontanI was going to say, low on the conversation, bong rip, so now go.

2:10:13SpeakerYeah, I think the hemp creed is an awesome thing. I know you guys were talking about that right when we tuned in, but I think it's gangbusters to, you know, I think it's just a fucking no-brainer. I mean, if you can make a building material out of a plant, I mean, like, hello, it's kind of like... Really a no-brainer. And really with a 12-inch wall, it would keep, in most climates, a 12-inch hempcrete wall is going to keep that indoor air quality at about 60 degrees Fahrenheit year-round.

2:10:39SpeakerJust proven, just straight up. And frankly, it is the ideal. And to your point, by the way, on medical marijuana versus outdoor adult-use marijuana, bird poop and indoor, Todd, I will say that we can't, as you know, it's an environmental travesty in terms of putting all marijuana indoor. That isn't going to work either. And I have to fight many state legislators here who want all of our marijuana to be forced back.

2:11:05SpeakerCan I talk to you for a minute? Most of the vegetables and foods that you eat are grown in greenhouses because producers of your foods cannot afford the rain. Thank you for joining us.

2:11:36SpeakerWell, I live also in quite an agricultural state, and to really think that we're going to... If really you're suggesting here that soil ecology and that all of our food should be grown indoors, my God, that would be the first thing you've said here that I would have to disagree with, that it isn't a true statement. Most things are grown outdoors. Certainly the hundreds of thousands of acres of industrial hemp that we get this...

2:12:01SpeakerIncredible nutrition and protein from grown outdoors. Right, but sensitive food crops have been grown in glasshouses for hundreds of years. I mean, this isn't a new thing to say. I mean, you know, I mean, it really, and honestly, now, if you're growing cannabinoids, you're growing in light deprivation greenhouses. So it's not just a greenhouse. It's being able to control the dark period because that's how you actually cause the plant to flower.

2:12:29SpeakerAnd there are multiple, multiple runs a year. I mean, so if you're getting into it on a larger scale, I mean, this is just not, this is not new news. No, and certainly there's plenty of crops that are grown indoors, but when we say all tomatoes, not all tomatoes are grown indoors. There are some, but certainly not all. I mean, I think that for us to take the stance that we're going to, in the future, grow all of our food and all of our agriculture in an indoor setting, I think I don't think that we can do that.

2:13:00SpeakerNo, I think the word that you're ignoring is sensitive. Sensitive crops and cannabis is, and if it's a high value crop, yeah, it's worth putting it under glass. It's worth controlling the environment. It's worth making sure a bird can't shit on your flowers if you're going to actually then use it to make something like medicine. I mean, I'm not, I don't think that this is a stretch of the imagination to say this.

2:13:22SpeakerNo, it's not. Yeah, I mean, defecation doesn't sound like a cool thing to roll up in my joint. Yeah, and yet I wonder how much bird poop and paraquat and mold and everything else that I've smoked. It's certainly, I am blessed to say that I don't need to use marijuana at this time. I'm knocking on every piece of wood I can knock on for medical reasons. I'm using...

2:13:45SpeakerWell, when you say marijuana, it's about an endocannabinoid system. And it's about the way we understand how that works. And consuming cannabinoids is a smart and healthy thing to do if we're looking at science with any sense of reason. I mean, a lot of the diseases that the people that are using cannabis beneficially are probably helping with are balancing out their endocannabinoid system. So, you know, choose it to use it or not.

2:14:12SpeakerI mean, it You know, come on. It's just environmentally unsustainable. And, you know, we have already great statistics out there. It's environmentally unsustainable to grow. So are you saying that the... To grow what's unsustainable? For bio for phytocannabinoid extraction from hemp that those hundreds of thousands of acres should be put inside, you know, I think that look, I think that what you're going to see happen is cannabis explode on a lot of levels.

2:14:39SpeakerI mean, if the people that are growing hemp can find another way to harvest it and make money, then it's good for them. I mean, that's the bottom line. A farmer needs to be able to pay for the fertilizers and the water and the land. And the trucks and everything. It's just part of the economy. So if they can find another solution, another source of income from their crop, I think they should embrace cannabinoids because if our science is correct and the endocannabinoid system is as important as it appears to be, we could all use to have it in our diets.

2:15:12SpeakerI mean, we could use to have it in some cases in its acid form so that there is no psychoactivity. And my point is that that's going to be coming from hemp, brother. That's biomass is being grown outside where it got bird shit on it. I'm just giving you the reality of that. But my whole point of bringing this up, I don't disagree with that either. That's all I'm saying, bro, is that, you know, clearly.

2:15:34SpeakerAnd people will be using that medicinally, and they'll be using it in other things. And certainly, I use it as a dietary supplement. I have access to all manner, thank God, of CBD tinctures, but I smoke my fucking weed to get high. That's why I smoke my weed. And until further conditions warrant otherwise, I just smoke to get fucking high. So... I will say that it is the point of bringing it up, and Martin, I promise I'll defer to you.

2:15:59SpeakerI feel so honored that I get to be on the show with you. I just want to say that hempcrete is the ideal for the indoor marijuana production facility. You wouldn't believe what we have going here in the Pacific Northwest, although the folks in Vancouver, British Columbia might, in terms of mold. They are brand new facilities have gone up that have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and they already are dealing with...

2:16:21SpeakerBuilding syndrome, mold problems that they can't control. And we're talking about a building, a construction infill. Chemcrete is non-structural. It still requires timber steel framing that can actually self-regulate humidity and thermal energy. It is ideal for the indoor marijuana production facilities. And that was my whole point. Martin.

2:16:40MartinYeah, I have a question. Maybe this council can help me out with more direction on it. But I left Mantable Harvest about five years ago and I went, you know, the company is doing its own thing and I really got into cannabinoids and started juicing some hemp leaves and learned a lot about the endocannabinoid system. And then last year, my mother-in-law got sick with breast cancer and we started doing a lot of research on cannabinoids and cancer and how to deal with cancer from the cannabinoid perspective.

2:17:15MartinMy wife started calling people all over, talked to this one nurse, cannabis nurse, Elaine I can't remember her last name. And then she also spoke with Dr. Frankel in LA that consults about cancer and cannabis and cannabinoids. And the point I want to get to is he insisted to my wife that CBD from Hemp fields is not the same as CBD from resin marijuana crops. Does anybody have a comment on that?

2:17:49MartinBut he was saying that it just does not have the same medicinal value that growing marijuana, if you grow a Charlotte's Web or a CBD rich plant as marijuana in the marijuana way, it's a different CBD medicinally than the CBD that comes as a byproduct or co-product of industrial hemp. Does anybody have anything to say about that?

2:18:11SpeakerWell, look, I got some CBD isolate here and from Guild Extracts and CBD is CBD is CBD. But if you're talking about a plant based medicine that is, you know, got an ensemble effect where there are multiple cannabinoids there, then, of course, the cannabis that You know, was bred for cannabinoid content is going to be richer in other cannabinoids that are medical. So the CBD that was attached to those other cannabinoids would be more beneficial than the stuff that was unfortunately in hemp required to have very Thank you for watching.

2:19:03SpeakerBut if you get to the point where you just have CBD isolate, I don't think the CBD is any different from hemp or if it was from another cannabis plant because CBD is CBD is CBD. Am I wrong, Mark? Mr. Scaldone? Whether you get it from

2:19:25SpeakerUh, you know, one variety or the other, it's, it's CBD. It's a, it's a molecule and then molecules defined as a unique set of, you know, structure and it's atoms. And yeah, they're, I'm still real nice at this. I just did. So I'm just coming down to earth. But, um, you have a point, Todd, you know, like the high CBD varieties that have, uh, you know, are rich in terpene content.

2:19:52SpeakerIt'd be great to be able to, you know, Really dial that into a manifestation of the ensemble effect by being able to show that you could actually increase efficacy by looking at, you know, extracts taken from, you know, quote unquote drug varieties where you can get, you know, low THC cultivars where you're, you know, taking advantage again of all of the molecules, the, Trace molecules in there, the flavonoids and the other things that are in there too as well.

2:20:25SpeakerSo yeah, I would certainly think that, but you know, once you get crystalline CBD, once it's like a white crystalline solid, it doesn't make a difference where you got it from. It's, it's, it's chemically unique in that CBD is CBD.

2:20:39Etienne FontanYeah, and I will pile on here because it's my experience too that, you know, straight CBD because I have it as well. I like it. But without a doubt, the ensemble effect from, you know, CBD rich strains by having a THC there. There is science that backs that as well as, you know, patients that themselves have Thank you for joining us.

2:21:21Etienne FontanAll ensembles that seem to be naturally incurrent and those plants that tend to be the CBD rich ones as opposed to just straight hemp.

2:21:31SpeakerIs that primarily a small dose of THC with the CBD?

2:21:36Etienne FontanCorrect. Yes. You're talking anywhere from two to one, five to one ratio where CBD to THC, the CBD is the higher when possible and the lower number is THC where possible.

2:21:49SpeakerYeah, that's what really a lot of people have told me informally also. And Martin, I'll say that there are some folks in the medical community, you know, that are really anti-hemp CBD. And I always have interesting conversations with them. They call it like Frankenstein CBD and stuff like that. And the reality is that I just agree with everything that has been said. Because they're beholden to the medical dictatorship that we live in, which is run by a billion dollar pharmaceutical industry, which is a for-profit industry.

2:22:19Speakerwhich is not in the industry to cure people it's in the industry to create customers for life Drug companies, drugs sold by drug stores at drug companies, it's all bullshit. Cannabis is a medicated herb, and when given the opportunity, a medicated herb should be used in advance to any prescription pharmaceuticals. And right now, the U.S. medical industry, including a large number of large research hospitals, are basically locked up by the pharmaceutical industry.

2:22:50SpeakerAnd to qualify, I actually meant the medical marijuana community. It's our own medical cannabis community that I was talking about. And they are the ones that I oftentimes have to have these arguments with. They're very anti-hemp CBD. And the reality is, if you're just trying to get an isolate, we'll take our CBD where we can get our damn CBD, people. If it has to come from hemp, it has to come from hemp.

2:23:15SpeakerNow, we're talking ensemble and entourage, of course. One-to-one would be a great place to start. And again, as ATN completely underscored, subjective and, you know, to the individual, distinct to the individual, but we'll take our CBD where we can get our CBD at this point, whether it comes from industrial hemp or not, if we're talking... In the long run, it won't come from industrial hemp. Industrial hemp gives 1 or 2% CBD by dry weight, whereas you can have modern varieties with extremely low THC still that have over 20% CBD.

2:23:55SpeakerSo industrial hemp... It's a function of prohibition. Hemp-derived CBD is a function of prohibition in many ways because we will, once we can get particularly approved for feed for ag, you guys, be able to pelletize the flowering leaves and the flowering parts and leaves and use that biomass for many other things. As I often say, if you're trying to get resin out of a crop, then start with a high-resin crop.

2:24:22SpeakerSucking resin out of a low resin crop is silly, which is why exactly what Sam I am, I think that's who just said it, you know, I totally agree. Right now it's a function of prohibition, which is why I say we'll take our CBDs where we can get our CBDs for now. Right. I agree that in the short term, people have had to do what they had to do.

2:24:45SpeakerBut that is changing, especially for CBD. There's a lot of choice and a lot of high CBD varieties around. Now, before they all had THC significantly, but They're getting to be now some that are extremely low in THC and they could be registered as hemp if somebody would go through the process. But the future will bring that and all the other cannabinoids too. I mean, the next target will probably be THCV.

2:25:14SpeakerWell, can I ask, I mean, when are we going to start arguing that hemp should be able to be grown with, you know, realiztic or any sized amounts of cannabinoids? I mean, now that we can have high grade growing in fields under 502 and under 64 and under 64 in Colorado, why the hell can't we have, you know, middle or crappy Thank you for joining us today.

2:26:03SpeakerIt's actually pretty easy nowadays to breed extremely low THC varieties of hemp. But I also do agree that a 0.2% limit or 0.3, depending on where you are, is pretty stupid. I mean, if it's less than 1% THC, nobody's going to be trying to be diverting it for a recreational drug. Maybe for medicine, but not for a recreational drug. May I ask you a question then, Sam?

2:26:34SpeakerWhat in your research has been like, what do varieties that are grown for industrial use in indigenous areas, what is their range of cannabinoids when they, you know, obviously they haven't gone through the EC challenge and, you know, had to lower their cannabinoid levels artificially. What would hemp varieties be at an avenue level? It depends where these hemp varieties are. In China, in Yunnan, where they grow hemp, it's actually pretty low.

2:27:05SpeakerYou once in a while see one that has 1% or 2% THC, though, because they're not selectively bred one way or the other because people really didn't use them for that.

2:27:22SpeakerAnd I think one of the other issues is in terms of saturation of the market. When I sit here and tell you, and you've even sent, Marcus actually even sent the link to it. When we talk about one or two farms that have in back stock from last year, 25,000 kilos of CBD that they're trying to offload this year, you know, It's going to bubble a bit.

2:27:51SpeakerIt's way beyond that because I know people in China who have tons of dried flowers they're processing by CO2 extraction. Can I say, dare I say, not bubble, but realiztically cannabis will start getting treated like any other product where it has to be You know taking into consideration of what its cost of production is and once you have competing industries or competing parties being able to actually sit down figure out their bottom line in this double their price that'll be the new cost of cannabis and all of this inflated value shit is going to be right out the window because now you'll have people looking at their ledgers talking to their investors and trying to just come through with an honest uh profit and not you know 500 times or 50 times or a thousand times Thank you so much for joining us.

2:28:45SpeakerYeah, well, trying to offload biomass of industrial hemp for no infrastructure other than extraction, it went down. It was like, I think Pure Hemp Technology out of Fort Lupton, Colorado said that in 2015, they were paying $500 for a ton of hemp biomass to put into their fractionalization technologies. They separate hemicellulose, cellulose, sugars, and linens. It's a fascinating technology. And last year, They paid $800 for eight tons.

2:29:17SpeakerSo it's very much, but again, they're doing it for fiber. So as opposed to for the extraction, but to have this giant backstock, you know, we don't want everyone to start growing it and extracting it and then not being able to sell it at all right here in America to say nothing of, especially when it's easier to import. It just sucks. As long as it's an isolate, obviously there's not a lot of whole plant stuff coming in or anything that tests positive for THC coming in, but it's fairly easy to import this foreign... What can we do to open up the international market?

2:29:54SpeakerBecause now we're in a situation where that is the next step. You know, there's companies like Hempflax in Europe looking at how can they ship their CBD to, you know, Georgia, for instance. You know, they're wondering all of this. And we should have these type of open, equal rights with the hemp industry that other industries also have. On a federal level. Yeah. On a federal level, that Industrial Hemp Farming Act is going to have to, the whole plant needs to be descheduled.

2:30:26SpeakerI mean, obviously the major drumbeat here is defucking schedule or challenge the scheduling of it as you very brilliantly raised that it doesn't belong there. Even in terms of procedurally, it doesn't belong there as marijuana to say nothing of cannabidiol. So on a federal level, it needs to be descheduled. And so those various acts have to pass. And we have to continue to march forward. So if we look now, I mean, how long has it been since alcohol prohibition has been, you know, killed?

2:30:53SpeakerAnd yet, if you pay attention to, and I'm sure many people on this panel do in the United States, Pay attention to the bills in your own state legislature. Right now, you will see the liquor industry fighting for more and less hysterical bills. Now, having said that, to qualify my statement, I, of course, think it was a mistake for us to legalize under a vice model. And I hate even comparing us to alcohol at all.

2:31:16SpeakerBut in terms of oranges and oranges, we see that alcohol prohibition has been 70 plus years or whatever, 80 plus years, it's gone. And we had a bill this year to make it legal to have growlers that could be filled with wine instead of beer. The liquor industry is constantly trying to fight for more fair and less hysterical laws. And we're going to be doing that, hopefully not for 70 years.

2:31:39SpeakerWe're not alcohol. We're cannabis activists. And our shit is... Organize. As a matter of fact, I want you to know that the state legislature here and the regulators here, some of them just cannot believe. They have seen new industries come and go and form, and they cannot believe how the cannabis community and the cannabis industry has formed their various alliances, how they lobby, how they perform their activism.

2:32:02SpeakerSo we're not alcohol, and we won't have to fight as long, but the march is on, and we just have to keep moving forward, moving forward. And I get really frustrated, not with anyone in this panel, Thank you so much for joining us.

2:32:41SpeakerMartin, can I ask, where do you see the hemp industry going in Canada?

2:32:50MartinYou know what I find is that the discussion can happen in the legal system and You can change the law per se, but if people aren't informed about the change or if there's no common regular reminder of what the status quo is, they just default to what they most recently heard on TV or some sort of... Thank you. Thank you.

2:33:38MartinThank you so much for joining us.

2:34:01MartinYou know, feel comfortable with the situation. I could see us losing ground. You know, people could, there's just a lot of nefarious directed people I've found. Not everyone loves everybody else the way we do in the cannabis world. And for whatever reason, there's just an ego or whatever it is, there's just some people that Thank you for watching.

2:34:50MartinThere's profit in the seed part of it, and we need to really use some of that to encourage the fiber part of it. I mean, I'm a little bit, you know, we sold Manitoba Harvest last year to a big company on the stock market, the NYSE called...

2:35:10MartinCompass Diversified and Holdings. And so now, you know, I'm a little bit sad that the profits of that thing are going to go to this big company and that we're not going to really steer, you know, into that, putting money into a fiber industry or anything like that. But, you know, I'm not 100% sure where it's going to go. I certainly hope that we grow. I know the organic part of it, there's a huge demand for, and if we can get that piece figured out, and that's kind of one of the things I'm kind of working on in my other company is trying to figure out how to get better results and more organic hemp in the ground.

2:35:53MartinThen I think that there's a strong piece, a strong possibility for good growth, but the conventional hemp thing, you know, I just, I immediately don't see the huge market, the huge opportunity in that, but the organic hemp thing I do. So, does that answer your question?

2:36:10SpeakerYeah, the futures and the proteins and the seeds for sure. You know, it's what it's what the Canadian industry was founded on. And it's always I've always understood it was going to take longer for fiber and paper to come along after the seed industry. So it makes sense. I mean, this is why also I kind of hope that farmers find alternative ways to, you know, monetize their crops and to make money, bring in hemp back into the community and I think CBD is kind of funny that out of nowhere hemp became a medicinal crop.

2:36:49Etienne FontanIt is rather ironic if you look at it because we didn't find that spike again to what 2008 and then this has all been within you know the last nine years this whole new CBD phenomena.

2:37:01SpeakerRight. And, you know, and if we fight for equal rights and if we could start growing varieties of cannabis hemp that had marginal cannabinoid levels that were more appropriate for extraction, it could help the world, I think, on a large level. We have to get the fear of THC out of the legislature. I mean, There's no question, especially now with the current government we have that we all have to really unfortunately engage the political side of this and be active towards our goals or we will not make much progress with the hurdles that are in front of us right now.

2:37:39MartinThe squeaky wheel gets the grease.

2:37:43SpeakerWe need a lot of Greece in America now with the new administration. I'm really glad that we got legalized in so many places because you have to be high for this shit.

2:37:55Etienne FontanWell, we also saw Sessions say that, you know, there can only do so much. And they're only going to go after the bad actors. And you saw there were busts this week in Colorado where the DEA actually came in and busted some large grows that were shipping things out of state. I feel very bad for those poor fellows because they're going to be made examples of. Thank you for watching.

2:38:34Etienne FontanOh yeah, it was Obama who went after me, it wasn't Bush.

2:39:00Etienne FontanIt wasn't Clinton.

2:39:01SpeakerThat's a good way to look at it.

2:39:02Etienne FontanThat's the reality.

2:39:04SpeakerAfter Stevie D, after all of you, right? That was under Obama.

2:39:08Etienne FontanFlat out. So when everybody starts to say how wonderful Obama was, I backed that conversation up quickly because that locked me up in court for years. And that was very painful to experience. But at the same time, it showed what the limits of the federal government are. So it's interesting to see the new front open up this week. Thank you for watching.

2:39:42Etienne FontanAs this, again, Sessions let it be known that, you know, marijuana is still evil and bad, but at the same time, he doesn't have the resources and is going to allow the Cole Memo to continue to be in place. So it's an interesting situation where we're still facing that we see sort of, it's not a white flag people, so they haven't given up. But at the same time, worst feared.

2:40:07SpeakerNo, I think the problem we have, don't you think, is the lobbyists that are getting louder and louder. I mean, if some of the headlines are true, that was it was at 24% of beer drinkers, In legal states are not drinking beer. They're smoking pot instead now that it's a legal option in places. I mean, that means that the beer industry alone would want to spend a ton of money to lobby against things that would take a quarter of their business away.

2:40:34Etienne FontanIt's an economic driver for them now, without a doubt.

2:40:37SpeakerMore than it's ever been. Absolutely. Our opposition is more political now than they've ever been, in my opinion, because they're seeing the dollars fly out of their own pockets.

2:40:49MartinI think that's a valid point. And going forward, I've learned that it's not a one-directional, like once we make progress, it doesn't guarantee that we're going to continue to make progress in that direction. It's a consistent effort that needs to be made on all fronts. And we have to fight so we don't lose ground because as things change, other people get affected in a different way. And the example that you just gave, Todd, about the alcohol industry having an incentive to keep Thank you for joining us.

2:41:40SpeakerBut the reality is, is they did and they have so much money. And if we're seeing these kind of headlines that are sort of sensationalistic, talking about beer losing a quarter of its business to legal pot, I got to think that the pharmaceutical industry is already more tuned into this and more aggressively spending money lobbying. So these politicians, a lot of which don't already agree with our position, Are getting people stepping to them with briefcases of money from all sorts of industries that are hugely profitable.

2:42:14SpeakerAlcohol, tobacco, pharmaceutical, and there's no two ways around that right now. The only way it will change is through re-education. We have to reach the people who are non-committed or against cannabis and help them realize that, you know, the medical uses, the recreational uses, the industrial uses are beneficial to mankind. And they've been better than bull crap.

2:42:45MartinIt seems that people open up to this when they're pushed to some extreme. I've gotten involved with a lot of sick people, you know, trying to treat with cannabinoids and get cannabinoids into people. But that's kind of when people's eyes open up and their minds open up and they receive things. It just seems that there's a certain kind of mentality that you need to...

2:43:11MartinWe opened up to in order to receive this information. And I'm not sure exactly how to strategize, but almost everybody goes through it. Somebody gets somebody in somebody's family gets sick.

2:43:21SpeakerI read back in like 94 when I first became vegetarian that one out of three people had cancer at the time. And the projections for the year 2000, which seems so far away, was one out of two. And I've had cancer numerous times, and I think that it was a beneficial thing that was hard to deal with. If it doesn't kill you, you can learn something. But I thought immediately, wow, that's great.

2:43:48SpeakerHalf a society will be affected by this very compassionate and empathy enabling disease. It will open them all up and could make the world a better place. I know it sounds like a crazy thing to say, but a lot of cancer patients or people that have survived Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

2:44:33MartinThank you for joining us.

2:44:53MartinWe need to strategize as a group about how to deal with some of these opportunities. Because without a good battle plan, we're just going to get picked apart. Our foes are way better funded and organized.

2:45:07SpeakerThe other key thing is we really need to focus on the non-committed, the unconverted. We can strategize among ourselves, but we've got to reach them.

2:45:20MartinYeah.

2:45:21SpeakerThat's a big part of what I do here. It's great in the legal states to be able to do that because then we're being reached out to by all these various agricultural groups and civic leaders and county commissioners and folks who really do straight up mainstream folks. They don't even want to hear marijuana and I have to keep all my marijuana jokes inside and gnaw holes inside of my cheeks while I'm presenting to them.

2:45:45SpeakerBut they see hemp. Thank you so much for joining us.

2:46:05SpeakerHIA, I think, which I, you know, my love for the HIA has waxed and waned since 1994, but I've got my full love back. I'm feeling good, you guys. I'm giving it another try here and have reformed the Washington State chapter under our new leadership. And again, God bless my brother, Eric. But we need hardcore leadership to get us together. Colleen Cahey, the new executive director of the HIA, she has successfully run trade organization before, Water Rural Rights.

2:46:35SpeakerShe's a great unifier of people and she has to deal with so many competing interests, but she understands exactly what you're saying, Martin, and I want to believe that we're going to be able to do it with The HIA and other organizations, the THC, and it's hilarious that they chose this, including the HIA, have formed the Hemp Coalition. I mean, I'm just like so over the THC jokes, but anyway, the Hemp Coalition has formed, and that's the HIA and the NHA, the National Hemp Association, and three others, and I apologize that I don't know what they are.

2:47:11SpeakerI was just, I think once I saw the THC part, I was like, oh God. But as the hemp coalition, we actually were the first ones to respond to that ridiculous statement of principles. But unifying and converting the unconverted. And we're working hard at that. The key, absolutely key, both of those things, gentlemen.

2:47:33MartinSo to convert the unconverted, is there a... Thank you for joining us.

2:47:56Etienne FontanIt's still done one-on-one, person-to-person. If it were such a broad and easy way to send it across the bow, we would have already have reinvented that wheel. However, that wheel is still the same, which is get out there, get active, engage.

2:48:14SpeakerI always used to try to engage people is to ask them what they did in their life. And then just explain to them how cannabis connected into that element of whatever it is they did, because cannabis is like a hub and its folks touch almost all aspects of life. It's just you have to see what interests them. And it doesn't matter if they're a chemist or a paper maker or they're into, you know, sewing fabrics or whatever they're into.

2:48:37SpeakerYou can almost find an angle with cannabis. And I think once they find their angle, then they go from there. And I found that focusing on the leadership, and there was a time when, of course, and when I say a time, I'm talking about in the recent five years, because clearly in the last 20 years, anybody who gave a fuck, I would give them three hours of my time just because they were interested.

2:48:58SpeakerThat ship has way sailed. But having said that, in the last five years, in the more recent past, Thank you so much for joining us.

2:49:26SpeakerLeaders and farmers, because once it's okay with them, all of a sudden you start to see the industries percolate. And having said that, I have spoken in front of textile trade associations as well before here, and it's important to reach out to that leadership, but really to get to our civic leaders and to see and to feel. In Washington, I can't speak for the other states, Thank you so much for joining us.

2:50:15SpeakerBut in terms of that receptacle, Martin, that you speak of, where can we point them to on the web? That's a legitimate fucking awesome question and idea. And I'll go back to the HIA. I am waving that flag. But again, understand that the founders of the HIA are in my heart. I find, for me, the founders of the HIA, it is even an extension of Thank you so much for joining us.

2:51:01SpeakerBut we lost a bunch of fucking old data and all this. We changed to this new Apricot software for the HIA website and Colleen is trying so hard. Again, she just was hired on January 8th to two lawsuits. Crazy, you know, growing pain. So she's amazing trying to get her footing here. But we're doing an overhaul of that website. My dream is that we'll be able to have a place for legislators to go to, specifically for civic leaders.

2:51:28SpeakerAnd you're right. It doesn't exist right now. It needs to.

2:51:34MartinGood points, Joe.

2:51:35SpeakerYeah, and never in the history, I think. Well, always are. Or in contrast, always in the history has it been that the people have had to lead the leaders. You know, there's no two ways about it because the lobbyists are leading them in a very different direction from where honesty and science should be taking them.

2:51:54MartinYeah, I just had another notion that popped into my mind about These days, there's a lot of people that smoke weed that don't know anything about hemp or don't know any, but it seems like when you're high, you can open your mind up to it, but there's also apps that people use on their phone. All the kids are into these apps, and there's like Leafly or some of the other ones that talk about Thank you so much for joining us.

2:52:41SpeakerAnd clicking on freaking Wikipedia and reading. And that's all it takes. And you know what? I think that it's fucked up that we don't hold our now elected officials to a higher level of accountability because now they're all walking around with these fucking iPhones in their hand. And when I started this, we had to hang out at Kinko's to give them copies of books that were in the Library of Congress that they hadn't seen and tell them about M for Victory, which they'd never heard of.

2:53:10SpeakerAnd now they can Google that shit and be done with it. And I think that there's no way that these people should get away with acting ignorant towards our history or the realities of cannabis anymore because of that little fact. I mean, it doesn't take a hippie like me showing up with Jack in a van and handing them fucking copies from Kinko's to understand our position anymore.

2:53:35SpeakerI mean, they can go to reputable sources. There's more information on the U.S. Department of Agriculture's website about hemp and hemp history than I've ever photocopied, and I've photocopied a shit ton. The best thing we could do is anybody who converts somebody, be it for medical use, industrial use, if you really help them see the light, insist they pay you back by doing one thing, convert 10 other people.

2:54:07Etienne FontanWe're making our own hemp pyramid scheme, people. You're going to make this happen. It's going to be made out of hempcrete.

2:54:13SpeakerRemember to send $1 to my mail address, 649-999. Pueblo, Colorado. Yes, that's a self-addressed address. That'll do. Pueblo, Colorado. Well, you know, though, doesn't it take us all talking to one another? I mean, this is really what we have to do is just be proactive. You know, and if, but now more than ever, more and more people are being proactive. And I do believe we're at a tipping point without question.

2:54:38SpeakerI think we're at a situation where there's so much money on the table in such an obvious way. There's so many people that are interested in making this happen that it's the future. I mean, you know, as we're having this conversation, I was looking at the website for the Kentucky people and it's incredible. I mean, what's really going on. Todd, for years I said if we wanted marijuana legalized by the white middle class majority, what we needed to do was to prove it worked like Viagra.

2:55:13SpeakerThen all the old white guys would vote for it the hot second. Well, what we got instead is it's being legalized, and white business guys and anybody else who's interested in business, they're jumping on it. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I mean, it's really beautiful to see fields and fields of cannabis growing in America, you know, and it's amazing to look at these colas, you know, swaying in the breeze.

2:55:43SpeakerIt's beautiful. I mean, I think this is the future. I mean, this is the hemp car, you know, and it looks just so incredible next to the fully flowering hemp varieties behind it.

2:55:58MartinYeah, that's super encouraging what's going on in Kentucky. It sounds like there's going to be new things that are going to pop up. Americans always do things great. So, you know, I have to leave this conference call at the moment. I've got another appointment at 2 o'clock. But it's been really awesome to talk to you folks. And I will hope to do this again. I'm going to stay in touch with Mark and maybe next Sunday or the day after that.

2:56:22MartinBut I feel like... Your community of people that might actually be able to get some stuff done and that we could maybe keep things going in the right direction. So I appreciate all your time and hope to do this again sometime soon.

2:56:38SpeakerWell, thank you for joining us. Mark had to dip out because of his connection issue, but we were all really grateful that you joined us. Mark, a real honor, a real honor. I do hope we cross paths again.

2:56:48MartinYeah, I hope so too. All of you people are very informative and I'm sure that this will go on again.

2:56:54SpeakerLet me know if you ever have any chemistry questions.

2:56:59Etienne FontanAbsolutely, absolutely. Mad respect, Martin. Carry on, keep on what you're doing. We look forward to the next time. Super. Talk to you soon.

2:57:10SpeakerNo, and also, Joy, thank you for joining us. You know, it was really interesting hearing what's going on, you know, your experiences. Undeniable in this industry. So it's interesting to hear your perspective. And, you know, hopefully, I think we're all, you know, rooting for it to move in all directions. It's good to see freedom finally happening. It seems like such a distant concept 20 years ago. And now people are actually fighting for cannabis equality.

2:57:42SpeakerThe tipping point, you know, the hundredth monkey has happened to many, certainly has happened in marijuana. It's fascinating, you know, when there's media all over Seattle and, you know, constantly giving my card and saying, as soon as industrial hemp becomes as sexy as marijuana, you know, give me a call because it's the trend. Stop with the marijuana, please, my gosh. Educate yourself. Cannabis, cannabis, cannabis. I love this conversation.

2:58:10SpeakerI was hoping we would get there. So if I could be, if I was any more educated, my head would explode, brother. So here's the thing. I actually, and I, and I understand the controversy, but I actually want to reclaim the word. You understand that I travel and I'm sure you do too. No controversy, ma'am. No controversy whatsoever. It's the cannabis sativa plant. Please call it. I hear you.

2:58:30SpeakerAnd when we get a bunch of marijuana folks in Canada, for example, at the cannabis, No such thing as marijuana. Marijuana is a politicized term that you shouldn't be using on this program, Joy. Sorry. I'm going to explain. We can go ahead and have this conversation, and I'm so happy to have the opportunity to have it with you. Let's go, Carla. That when we discuss cannabis, say we're at the Canadian Hemp Trade Alliance with a bunch of hemp farmers that really don't, most of the folks in the Canadian Hemp Trade Alliance don't have any idea about what marijuana is.

2:59:03SpeakerSo we'll have some, so when we talk about cannabis, when we're in a hemp situation, we're talking about industrial hemp. So it's really about using a dictionary. So when we say cannabis and hemp, we're actually saying cannabis and cannabis or hemp and hemp. And hear me out here, brother. So on top of it, I travel all around and I go and I speak at conferences internationally. And our Spanish speaking brothers and sisters are offended, brother, at why all of a sudden there's this sort of hippie consciousness in America that marijuana, which to them is a beautiful, sacred word.

2:59:37SpeakerHey, I'm fat.

3:00:08SpeakerOkay, well, I wouldn't... And I'm white, okay? I'm white. I'm offended by that. And I apologize for offending you. Can I say something, actually? Come on, let's go. I've got to say, you know what, Mark? Let's go. Hold on. Can I say something to you guys? Yes. All right.

3:00:26SpeakerYou know what? Look, you know, it almost doesn't matter if you call it weed, chronic, you know, ganja, marijuana. I mean, depending on where you're standing, it's what it is to the person that's understanding it. If you're talking about it scientifically, sure, call it cannabis. I would call it medical or recreation. That's the thing. If you want to... Again, hold on, let me repeat my thought, Joy.

3:00:48SpeakerThe reality is that it's a descriptive word, and it's nothing we should be afraid of. I mean, the reality is that, you know, fake news has been used against cannabis for 100 years, and it's not the same. I mean, you know, the big thing, Mark, that I think people should do is communicate, and the reality is if you say marijuana to somebody who is, you know, from Mexico, they'll understand completely what it is you're talking about.

3:01:14SpeakerAnd part of the problem I think going back to the 30s is they called it that because, and I've pointed this out to many people, that you couldn't go look that up. At the time in the 1930s that the government called it marijuana, you couldn't go look in the Department of Agriculture and find a plant called marijuana because it was a slang word just like Dr. Dre called it chronic.

3:01:36SpeakerAnd it was a great way to mislead people. And that was why most of the people who testified actually against the Tax Act didn't learn until right before the hearings that it was actually cannabis hemp that they were calling marijuana. And they protested that to no avail. I mean, the American Medical Association, the American hemp seed manufacturers that were making paints at the time, And selling bird seed with it, where they're testifying that birds wouldn't foliate properly if they didn't have hemp seed in their diet.

3:02:10SpeakerAnd I mean, this has been honestly a huge part of the problem. But now, Mark, I mean, the reality is we do have Google. And if you say marijuana, people can look it up and they can cross-reference the terms and depending on how they're talking about the particular application of cannabis would be the best way to use a descriptive term that applies to that use. And marijuana is just one more of them and you shouldn't take such great offense at it.

3:02:35SpeakerBut I do apologize for saying fat white brother. I won't use that again. I'll just keep it to special interest. I happen to be fat and I happen to be white. Sorry about that. Hold on a second. Look, I'm a scientist, right? I classify plants according to the way they're classified by science. It's the plant cannabis sativa. So we call it cannabis. If you want to call it marijuana, that's fine, but you're probably not talking in the right audience to really, you know, this audience prefers cannabis.

3:03:07SpeakerWe've had this discussion several hash churches ago. We're all basically cannabis purists, cannabis enthusiasts, and I feel your energy, sister. I mean, but I would just say that, you know, Maybe tone down your rhetoric a little bit. We get it. I get it. But I think that it's better...

3:03:42SpeakerCannabaceae, then the genus cannabis, then these various divergent subspecies, which don't really matter. It's the type. And that's the truth. And that's what should be taught, not the word marijuana. We should strike that from the human vernacular so that people who are born on this day forward do not hear the word marijuana associated with the cannabis plant. Okay? But Mark, can I stop you? Go to Tijuana, bro.

3:04:05SpeakerYou're not taking it out of the vocabulary. We know it. Marijuana is what it's called. And, you know, don't be mad at it. It's just what it is. I mean, I used to live in San Diego. I've been throwing some energy into the discussion. Go to Rosarito's. I think we should grind up all the marijuana and make cash out of it and smoke it.

3:04:32SpeakerI go, I second that. I'll also say, and this is fascinating, you guys, that one of our clients is the Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church, the Rastafarians that formed, you know, this Supreme Court law here in America and in Jamaica. They're the second largest landholders in Jamaica. And so when I was hired to work with Andrea Herman for them, as soon as the Dangerous Drug Act Amendment passed in February of 2015, I then got into...

3:04:59SpeakerThe Dangerous Drug Act is the Jamaican version of the Controlled Substances Act. And so what changed in February of 2017 was called the Dangerous Drug Act Amendment, at which point they legalized sacramental ganja, medical ganja, and industrial hemp. But their legalized term there is ganja. Thank you so much for joining us.

3:05:37SpeakerNow, we've had this discussion on Hash Church and, you know, a lot of it like ensemble versus entourage, marijuana versus cannabis. I mean, these are the kind of things that we're trying to educate people on, and I think everyone on here is passionate about it. Right, but you don't want to flip on a doctor's waiver calling someone a chronic, right? Guys, can I fucking finish, Todd? Hold on.

3:05:58SpeakerWhat are you smoking? Hold up. Take a deep breath. Zen for a minute with us. We need Darren as well. We need Jesus Christ. You need to take another hit of that. You need a bong hit, man. I think my problem is I'm out of my time zone or something. Well, welcome back, bro. You can come visit me for a weekend. I just wanted to finish my thought before you interrupted, which was I feel joyous passion and I love it.

3:06:25SpeakerAnd I just like to drive this notion that we were talking about before, which it's in all of our benefit to be the educators. And the educators, to me, have to do whatever we can to dispel the notions of prohibition. And so what I like to think of is, again, whether you use the word cannabis or marijuana, yeah, it's a personal choice and everything, but I would like to know that, like, Thank you for joining us today.

3:07:14SpeakerWe could just be getting people to start thinking about changing that mentality, and I think that that's part of our job, Todd.

3:07:21Etienne FontanBut we have, doctor, and we have for a long... Go ahead. Go ahead, Sam.

3:07:24SpeakerActually, Mark, cannabis sativa is really just for industrial hemp. Cannabis indica is all drug varieties. Yeah, I know. I'm sorry, Sam. I meant dot, dot, dot. No problem. No problem, Mark. I'm just trying to help. Yeah, you know, so I, Joy, I mean, I feel your energy and I love it. And I think we just, as panelists on this program, which gets a lot of views from people who are just learning about the plant and just beginning to understand about it.

3:07:58SpeakerIt's just, you know, something that, you know, I just take a little, you know, not militantly, but just a little try to responsibility to make sure that we all understand that this is how the plant should be called. It should be called, We've talked this issue to death. Can I say this? In relation to having everything in context, right, Mark? I mean, because really you've got to take things in context.

3:08:28SpeakerAnd when you are in a room having a conversation about hemp and you refer to cannabis, then you have to further define what you mean by the use of the word cannabis. But if you say the marijuana market, People would understand that you meant like the I-502 market, the adult use of sales, you know, that whole side of it because in all reality, that's what that sub-definition would mean.

3:08:50SpeakerSo in context, it could actually help to clarify what it was you're trying to make a point about because in reality, this is what they're having these conversations about now. It's apples and oranges but you've got to describe the orange and if you just say, Citrus or, you know, fruit, because cannabis would be like saying fruit. And now you've got to further define what fruit. So in some ways, the use of the word could be quite beneficial.

3:09:16SpeakerIt boils down to, and as I often say, you're either saying medical cannabis, adult use cannabis, or industrial cannabis, and then it just gets to where it's too many syllables. An analogy is, in Seattle, there are so many agnostics and atheists that you don't ever want to use the word God. And my God is like just some universal... Intelligence, whatever, made up of many different things. But if I want to say that, I have to use all these, I have to use all these syllables and I'd rather just say God, but then I'll offend everybody.

3:09:47SpeakerSo I don't fucking say it at all. I have a suggestion, Joy. I've changed the word God in my vernacular to dog because I love dog. I love my dog. Whenever I say God bless you, I say dog bless you. I'm taking that. I'm taking that. I just used the word God, dog, and it totally makes sense. Yeah, but wait a minute. My cat objects to this.

3:10:14SpeakerWell, your cat's a pussy. That's true. I want to know what kind of aggressive hash you're making over there with Chris over here. It's like, Yeah, usually cannabis calms one down, but you're over here like hyped up like you're fucking Floyd Merriweather or some shit. I'm out of my time zone. I just recovered from a 48-hour stomach bug. I'm full of life. I had my first solid meal last night.

3:10:39SpeakerI had a nice New York strip steak and a nice steak out. I'm ready to rock. Go to the beach to have a sunset. Take in some negative ions, bro. Eat frozen yogurt, Ruth Kale. Truth be told, I worship every second that I have in this building right here between now and my flight back home on Tuesday because, you know, the opportunity for me to work with Chris, I mean, Chris is brilliant.

3:11:09SpeakerThose of you who don't know Chris, we're talking about Chris Perrone from Clear. And so I have the opportunity for two chemists like us to get together and collaborate like this is just, I've been waiting all my life for this, really.

3:11:25Etienne FontanAnd let me guess, you guys had a chemistry together?

3:11:30SpeakerWow. Yeah, I mean, it's just a great opportunity because there's a lot of people who are going to come in on our heels and we need to establish, you know, that... We're going to be the people who are going to do this and not some big douchebags from the pharmaceutical industry. No, proper terminology is important, but I don't get mad at any of the words. I don't care if it's chronic or gondra or marijuana or moto or whatever the hell they're calling it.

3:11:57SpeakerAs long as we're communicating about what it is we're talking about, I'm kind of happy at this point. And, you know, as the markets develop, it is helpful to have description that would describe a market like the marijuana market. And we all would understand that or the hemp market. And we would all understand that you say the cannabis market. And it seems all encompassing to me. You know, it sounds like you could be talking about anything.

3:12:23SpeakerAnd when I, and unfortunately or fortunately, my life revolves around it's legal support and legal stuff and dealing with the law. And because it's two completely separate areas of law, understand that that's another reason why for me in particular, in my line of work and my, my career choice where the distinction has to be huge. So it's, Unfortunately, if I just say cannabis, I'm talking about two completely separate areas of law with different rules, and I have to deal with the stupid rule part.

3:12:55SpeakerAnd they're different. I can't wait till they're the same. We got lots more work to do, guys. No, we got to melt down the walls, you're right. And it all will be cannabis someday. It'll all just be, won't matter. There'll be fields of, you know, high quality ganja growing just like there's low quality hemp growing for something else. And, yeah, I think it will be cool. Well, I want to thank you all for joining.

3:13:17SpeakerWe're kind of a little past where we usually end, and it's Sunday, and it's nice out, so I hope we can all go enjoy ourselves. And, you know, thank you for everybody watching, and Mark will be back on next week. He just, his internet sucks, so. Yeah. Does anybody have... I really appreciate being on the show, guys. Thank you so much. It's really an honor. You're just, ATN, Todd, really, Todd, we didn't meet back in the 90s.

3:13:44SpeakerI just knew who you were, brother, and you're my hero, and you've done Jail Time. You're an amazing activist. So many people on this that participate on the panel. Obviously, everybody here, just thank you very much for having me. It's really my honor to interact with you. Well, thank you very much. You know, it's been really nice to hear what you had to say. And, Mark, thanks for bringing Chris on, for sure.

3:14:08SpeakerYeah, thanks, guys. Thanks for letting us join. Oh, it was pretty cool, man. Nice meeting you, Troy. Please don't make any offense at anything. I was just having fun. Believe me, brother. I love you, brother. It's so all good. I trust. I'm an entertainer, and part of this is to create a little entertainment out here. It makes the show less boring. Dig it. Dig it. Totally. Well, everybody have a great day.

3:14:30SpeakerThank you everybody for watching. And Mark, have fun wherever you are. Peace.