Community vs. Industry in Cannabis

0:02SpeakerHow about that? I love that as a starting point, sir. That's a great conversation right there. We are a community. We're also an industry, but we were and still are a community. Thank you. Absolutely. Well, we're going to just start now. We just went live and we just showed up. So I'm going to copy this.

0:27SpeakerThere we go.

0:31SpeakerBoom, boom, boom, boom. Sharing the link. Good morning, everyone. And thank you for joining us today. We are here for Hash Church 4.0 Episode 5. And what an incredible crew of OGs we have in the room just right away. The early birds, really. The five minutes. I think Valerie actually was even in the chat like at 8.20. I got an email saying Valerie went into the Zoom chat.

0:57SpeakerI was like, oh, hey, she is ready to be a part of this. That was exciting. Welcome to everyone. Welcome to Etienne and to Wade and to Skunk Man Sam and Valerie Corral, who I actually met for the first time at Skunk Man Sam's apartment in Amsterdam many years ago for a nice dinner. So thank you, Sam, for that introduction. And here we are so many years later and We're going to have another nice little chat.

1:25SpeakerAnd the other day when I was thinking about what we were going to chat about, for whatever reason, it came to me that we are not an industry. We are a community. And that was sort of the conversation starting point I thought that we would have this morning. I know it'll head in a whole variety of directions, but yeah, we are not just an industry. We are also a community.

1:49SpeakerAnd a lot of the people who are in the room right now Really have fought for that community more than most. So hats off to all of you with my new very short haircut. And welcome. Nice to see you all. That was a nice visit in Amsterdam so many years ago. Sort of the kind of the awakening, part of the awakening. Been going on a long time.

2:17SpeakerGreetings from Amsterdam, Valerie. Well, thank you. It's a pleasure. Pleasure, Skunk Man. It's just so sweet. Really nice to connect with you and your cute little hat. Well, I think a lot of us are community, but I think the industry is usurping and growing stronger and stronger. Only some of those have community links, to be honest. Sure, because that's any corporate... State, ah, there you go. Where's my red hat?

2:51Etienne FontanGot my Phrygian cap of freedom and liberty going. Nice.

2:57SpeakerWell, you know, corporations sometimes talk about family, but it's mostly a conversation, right? And a lot of things are changing in the world that we live in. Corporations are driven by profit. If they don't profit, they cease to exist. Community doesn't have to profit. It just has to survive.

3:21Etienne FontanAnd Valerie, you were the example early on of those that fought strong, combined with patience and fought hard to survive. You were the leader to us that were the dispensaries. You were out there showing compassion, and we wanted to reflect that as well. And some of us did and carried that reflection. And as we're aware, that community was overgrown needless to say by those profiteers who didn't necessarily seem or have the same ideals that you and others instilled in us in compassionate giving to those that were less fortunate than us that were able yeah well thank you thank you i appreciate that you know i think uh well i probably would be

4:10SpeakerJust a few years out of prison had it not been a community that we were all part of. Wham was something that was driven by arrest and injustice, but really the fruit of it came through the community itself and really recognizing that so many great things happen with the effort of a lot of people like this movement. I really joined a movement that was already well ensconced in this Our worldwide community, you know, our worldwide cannabis community, marijuana, back when we called them marijuana.

4:49SpeakerSo I, I, I've just been pretty lucky. So, and get to hang out with all of you on a Sunday morning for a bit.

4:58Etienne FontanWell, not only were you lucky, you fought for that change and pushed for that change and worked at a, which was most important, you worked at a local level, you worked within your region of your state, and everyone rallied around you when they saw what you were doing and why you were doing it. There were little of us that were like, no, what they're doing is wrong.

5:21Etienne FontanNo, you were taking patience and making sure that they contributed at one point or another to the Thank you so much for joining us today.

5:56Etienne FontanWe're a saint to us on a hill showing us how to do it right. And not only that, you would take us in and you would say, okay, this is how it should be done. You're doing this wrong. You should be doing it this way. And you mentored us as well and kicked us in the ass. So we're all so humbled and thanks for that.

6:16SpeakerYeah, I'd like to jump in and add to what Etienne was saying. I think it was the first time the feds raided you, Valerie. I had been living in San Francisco for a number of years at that point and had kind of heard about your work, but was not really aware of the extent and the compassion that you brought to that work. And honestly, The news coverage of that event, that first bust that you experienced down there that Etienne was just referring to served as a model for my, I created a series of collectives and co-ops that up till today, it's still the model that I work with.

6:58SpeakerThank you, Valerie. You set a high standard that I'm deeply grateful for. So thank you. I appreciate that. I didn't do it alone. You know, Mike worked with me. We don't work together now, but it was all built, you know, built from the strength of many. And that's what really is one of the it's it's elemental. It's key. Well, it's key to our conversation today. Community. Right.

7:23SpeakerSo we start our families are our first community. And then we build from there, relying on each other and and not nobody co-opting. The working cooperatively, but nobody co-opting the the ownership. And, you know, everything changes. This is 30 years later. It's really it's wild to watch it. I'm glad to see a lot of what's happened, especially freeing the freeing the plant, freeing freeing the people. Of course.

7:57SpeakerAnything that's this inviting and magical and has the opportunity to create a lot of revenue is going to be co-opted by You know, by the corporate state, by corporations, by industry, create an industry around it. That's just the way it is. This is we live in a very commercial, competitive, capitalistic world. Problem with capitalism is that it You know, I say this a lot. It only measures profit in one way, but there are many ways to measure profit.

8:27SpeakerAnd I think the balance comes when we begin to see beyond the narrow scope of financial profit and that we realize that people's happiness is part of that profit. People that work People who benefit from all of those things are profit and they aren't necessarily commercialized, but if we could, you know, if they, whatever, if it could be figured a way to commercialize that, make money off of it, probably would work better for an industry.

8:53SpeakerBut enough said about that. That's just, that's one of the frailties of a one-dimensional system. Oh, that's not a one. Communities like love. You've got to give more than you take. It's also the way you make healthy soil. You give more than you take. Yeah, you're right. You open your hand to give something before you know it, it's full. Right. That's interesting, Sam. You give more than you take.

9:24SpeakerCapitalism is pretty much the opposite, where you take more than you give. And you can definitely see those two systems are at I mean, cannabis has shown us so beautifully how those two systems are at odds with one another, particularly because they removed cannabis for so long from that system of legal profiteering and capitalism and all of that. Of course, many of us use cannabis. I certainly, one of the first things I learned about cannabis before I knew of its medicinal properties, before I knew of all the magical things that it could do, What I noticed, and this was, you know, I didn't realize at the time, but it was really because of the prohibition of cannabis, it allowed me to remove myself from the slavery of a wage job.

10:09SpeakerI figured out cannabis in a very unique way. I wasn't trying to like, you know, make money so badly or whatnot, but what I figured out was like, I figured out a way to monetize enjoying being with my friends by getting them something that they seemed unable to find on their own, at least to the caliber of which my olfactory was allowing me to find because I had this heightened sense of smell and taste.

10:35SpeakerAnd I used that to go out and really curate great cannabis and find people who took this plant a little more serious than others. And that was really my first experience. I mean, obviously, I still have to join. I was 14 years old. I had the time of my life. And it slowly moved into this, oh, wow, like, I can kind of monetize this. And so it's a strange tension that we find ourselves in now, especially with the situation here in Canada, with the situation down in California, with so many lifelong people kind of getting pushed out of this ability to use cannabis to monetize their life.

11:12SpeakerAnd it's It's sad. It's a bummer. I don't really know how to feel about it. I don't love the idea that it's just moved over to a different group. Yet, I understand that everything else in the world is like that. And it's, I find myself questioning it constantly. Like here I am in this legal regulatory framework of cannabis. I remember what it was like. I remember my friends serving 10 plus years in prison.

11:39SpeakerI remember guns. I remember dogs being shot, children being taken away. And when I remember those things, I think, well, it's way better than it was. It's way better than it was. But then I hang out with younger people who are like, oh, they're taxing us this and they're doing this and they're crushing our business. And that's terrible, too, but not quite to the level of what a lot of the people in this room experience by being arrested for basically being a habitual florist.

12:09Etienne Fontanon providing and taking that risk by doing so and that's something that we always realize that it wasn't just about money that there had to be compassion and always attach that there were always going to be people who could not afford cannabis people that were going to be surprised you've just got cancer and now you have to figure out How to deal with regimen to get healthy and you hear about this cannabis.

12:34Etienne FontanAnd it just, again, it reminds us of that human element that it's still done one to one. I mean, as much as I love going on Capitol Hill a few weeks ago and trying to affect change at a national level. It still requires that one-on-one, somebody coming in and says, hi, I just found out I have stage four breast cancer. I need help. And that's where all of us here have been involved because we weren't thinking necessarily about the money as much as this human is hurting and needs help.

13:08Etienne FontanAnd we've all found ourselves healing through the cannabis. So we kind of all took it upon ourselves to then help and do what we can to risk our freedoms. To help other people, because again, this was still very much a gray area. What Valerie was doing was legal. But what we as dispensaries were doing, we didn't have the legal right and we had to actually work illegally to actually change the laws at the state level so that we could finally be accepted and not necessarily continue to be prosecuted.

13:40Etienne FontanBut somewhere in that situation, the compassion has been lost. We continue to do it at Berkeley Patients Group. We still give away free cannabis every week to those that have established the need. And unfortunately, as the industry has grown, the compassion has shrunk and we need to remind the industry of the compassion that Valerie and others established and weighed for us to continue to follow. Because as we know, the cancer rates have gone from one in three to one in two in the past couple of decades, which means there's going to be a long need for many decades for humans to require the need for medical cannabis.

14:26Etienne FontanAnd everyone on here has made sure that is a possibility. And I am humbled and thank to call you family at some point.

14:36SpeakerYou know, I think one of the things that we're looking at most assuredly is with the pharmaceutical industry's move toward absconding with, I'm going to say absconding with medical because when cannabis is created into, it's not that it isn't a medicine, but when it's created into a pharmaceutically owned medicine, we won't be able to supply Thank you so much for joining us today.

15:32SpeakerNeed and service. And I think that that's, you know, it's one of the reasons we changed our name because medical marijuana is soon to be something of the past as far as people supplying or offering from one to another. That is not that we can't do it on the down low, the way we probably all started, right? I mean, I know we did. We started on the down low.

15:59SpeakerAnd

16:02SpeakerDiane Goldenberg- Moving away from these these in industrializing and pharmaceutical izing these things move us further away from the unity of building family of being present with one another. And when we aren't present with one another. We miss the connection of each other's eyes, of observing one another's suffering, of being able to lend a hand in whatever way that is. And someday it's going to be me.

16:32SpeakerIt's going to be everybody. We're mortal. And so as we serve ourselves, as an industry serves us, it's as important to serve each other. And everybody's at the job of service. Everybody has a commodity to sell if you're in business. And it's all the same thing. The service industry is this huge thing. It's life. We just get kind of mucked up in our needs. Hey, you guys.

17:04SpeakerMuted. You're mute.

17:07Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineGood morning. Good morning, everybody.

17:10SpeakerGood to see old friends. Old friends. It's making my heart feel really full. So incredibly wonderful to see you, Wade, Valerie. ATN Mark, it's been a while as well. And of course, Marcus, all the love to you all. Thank you so much for being here this morning. I feel super honored. And talking about, I just think that this is, this is where the most important thing that we can really talk about in humanity, what, no matter what corporation or what entity or what family or what religion or what socioeconomic group that you're in, When we talk about compassion, we're talking about a very humanistic quality, just like what Valerie said, this one on one.

17:58SpeakerAnd unfortunately, you know, the big education, the big pharma, they come in to try to take that away. And when we don't have compassion anymore, we lose what it is that we came in here to begin with. You know, I know that I entered into cannabis because of compassion from the very beginning. And although there's lots of different sort of sharks along the way that want to take us out of compassion, you know, I feel like when it is me and I am making those last breaths on my deathbed with my friends around, I just want to know that I continued on with compassion because then, you know, it's just not worth living my life, honestly, unless we're doing it in a way that All of that is connecting with other human beings in this wonderful, amazing collective consciousness that we have that we often forget about the power of it.

18:52Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineIt's almost interesting that modern medicine goes down to places like South America, places like the Amazon, and they go and they Try and take those compounds out of the forest and make a synthetic version. They kind of do that to us. Like as a human population, we're like the rainforest medicine makers of the people realm. And then they come into our people and they try and fragment us and isolate us and isolate our things.

19:19Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineAnd it just doesn't work as well. So give thanks that there's still people like us in the world and that they're still intact environments for us to learn from. And, you know, there's some people out there that just don't go along with everything. And I think that's a positive thing.

19:34SpeakerAnd I wanted to say one thing just to share with everybody this morning is that speaking of large corporations that are trying their hardest to make things non-compassionate is that we got a letter, Dragonfly Earth Medicine got a letter From the Environmental Protection Agency.

19:56Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineAnd this would be our nutrient company.

19:58SpeakerA cease and desist on dragonfly earth medicine because nettles, alfalfa, and kelp are now going to be listed as a pesticide. So if you are to be using them in any nutrient that's not a synthetic NPK, then you are to be registered with pesticide EPA. And they told us that they've been watching us for over two years. And they said, if we use the word healthy, biodynamic, anything having to do with plants well-being at all, then we're stepping into the pesticide area.

20:40Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineAnd fertilizer era.

20:41SpeakerAnd I want to let you all know sort of what Josh was saying is that they have taken all of our education That we've been doing for the past couple of years and they're integrating it for self to own. So very interesting and very much so along the lines of what we're talking about today. And we're dealing with it. We're getting through it because that's what we do.

21:04SpeakerThis is just another roadblock and we're really good at roadblocks.

21:08Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineSo it's three o'clock roadblock and then roadblock. Yeah, it's just, you know, we have micronized herbs with bacteria found all over the earth and mycorrhizal fungi, and they're actually trying to stop that from going into people's farms simply because Going to a Wikipedia page as simple as that and just saying, what does nettles do in a garden environment? You can't just copy what's online, say off of Wikipedia, whether you'd want to do that or not.

21:40Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineBut I'm just talking about the simplicity aspect of it. It's mind blowing that they're saying that.

21:47SpeakerThis is the danger of compelling speech. When you compel speech, you create a very, very dangerous environment. And this is compelling speech because now they're controlling what is a pesticide and changing that language and moving the goalposts and affecting and creating this obstacle for you guys. I have zero doubt that the tension that this creates will turn that obstacle into, well, you guys will turn that obstacle into an opportunity because you're on the right side of this and they're clearly on the wrong side of this.

22:20SpeakerSorry for cutting you off. I think what we were just going to say is that it just goes along with this long line of the people and the community continuing in compassion and them finding out that that's a popular game over and over again. They find out that togetherness is a popular game and they want to own it. But we know that You know, love will win because just like, you know, if there's only love and fear, we're really interested in staying in the love and we'll just let them define and take care of fear.

22:57SpeakerAnd pretty soon they're going to tell us that love needs to be listed under as a pesticide as well, because health and biodynamics and everything is, but that's okay.

23:06Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineThe positive thinking thing. Come on, come on. There's no statistics.

23:11SpeakerAnd then actually, just like you said, Marcus, as soon as we got it, it was an incredible, Thank you so much for joining us today. I'm so happy to be here with you today. I'm so happy to be here with you today.

23:41SpeakerWe all know that, but now that we're stepping into something, yes, exactly.

23:47Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineGiving thanks.

23:48SpeakerGiving thanks for that. Yeah, so it's given us opportunity to look at other things and cannabis has opened the door for all of the other plant medicines and all of the entheogens. So as she opens up the door, we all just need to walk through and remember that love guides the way.

24:07Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineEnergy never goes away. It just moves to another area.

24:11SpeakerI just wanted to mention too that I do not believe that all corporations intrinsically are evil. I mean, a lot of them certainly are the sharks, but you got to remember that some of the corporations like the owner of Patagonia, he gave his entire company and fortune to help All of these companies that will fight the climate change and help sustainability. So, I mean, yeah, good things can be done.

24:46SpeakerWe're not talking about corporations. I think that it's really important. We're talking about like public, you know, ones that are associated with big government, associated with lobbyists. We're not, you know, when we're talking about a corporation like Patagonia, they do not have lobbyists. They do not have people that are trying to continue to talk about, you know, how they can shut down people so they can make their way up.

25:11SpeakerSo it's really a little bit different. Right. It's a B Corp or Patagonia is a B Corp and they're, they're principled in a different foundation. Right. So, and again, you could be a B Corp and not really be principled. I think it's, you know, it's endemic. It's, you know, the, the, the kind of it's the new conquering the way that, that One culture is conquered by another where you tear down the temple and build the church.

25:44SpeakerAnd we see, I hope that's not too vague of a metaphor, but I see this is happening in many cultures and what's happening with the plant, with plants. Now, we're science. Now, I love to be able to have Access to scientific data and information. And I feel very fortunate to live in a time when I am able to do that. And I also see that one of the issues that appears to be arising is again, the dismissal or the removal of the shaman or the teacher from the process.

26:26SpeakerSo we have a medicine or we have a claim and a claim that we associate with it. And then You know, how did it even become, how was it even discovered that it was a medicine? It wasn't in a laboratory. It was through messaging from the plant connection with nature and that kind of exquisite opportunity that we have to be, to deeply listen and be taught because we're all, you know, we get, I get confused sometimes thinking that I'm teaching something when really I'm, you know, I'm just Thank you so much for joining us.

27:28SpeakerCan be pushed aside or will be pushed aside. And we have to look at that in our own lives. And as we reflect on the ways that it is happening around us, we're, you know, we're oppressing our own planet at a great cost.

27:44Etienne FontanI think evolving. Go ahead. Thank you so much for joining us.

28:02Etienne FontanWhen we found out about B Corps, BPG became the first in the industry to actually be a beneficial corporation. And that's a full vetting cycle that is making sure that you have diversity, you hire diversity, you're paying fairly and all that. So there's even in the corporate world, there are things like beneficial corporations, which are the standards. Now, we lost that when the government forcefully evicted us, had to lay off 50 people, therefore putting us below average.

28:30Etienne FontanThat 70 or 75 person threshold they needed to have beneficial corporations. It also shows the need that even in the the new beneficial corporation there are even limits that there need to lower to be more accessible to everyone because i would love to continue to still be but i due to the industry itself and its collapse i can no longer have 75 employees in one necessary location to necessarily arrive back at that beneficial corporation status which i would like to have to show to others that we're doing everything Thank you so much for joining us.

29:31SpeakerI think the division that human beings tend to create naturally can be really viewed at both ends of life, in the birth and in the death of a human being. And when you look at that, you know, when Valerie's talking about connection and how this connection has been lost in the pharmaceuticalization of cannabis, we'll look at the pharmaceuticalization of birth and the lack of connection that's there.

29:57SpeakerOf course, very important. Something goes wrong. A hospital is an amazing place. Thank you so much for joining us.

30:17SpeakerAnd I'm sure, you know, there's this, there's always this tension. And I somehow think that it's part of the human experience because we're not here to be the same thing. We're here.

30:46SpeakerTo have our free will and to have these experiences, both sides of the coin have to exist. And in that tension, and I don't really know how to put this into words, but I feel that the value of life can be found in that tension. You know, the tension between life and death, the tension between one person's vision versus another person's vision. I'm sure, Dr. Mark, you could get into metaphors of chemistry and how all sorts of magic happens in tension of chemistry.

31:18SpeakerIt's just it's a really interesting thing how we're constantly creating division naturally. It's like, oh, this side wants to do it this way. Well, we want to do it this way. And, you know, Josh sort of spoke upon it earlier. It's good that we exist. But, you know, in the in the words of one of my neighbors, Heather, this 80 plus year old woman, she said, well, it's all love, Mark, isn't it?

31:39SpeakerIt's all love. So don't worry about it. It's all love on both sides, even the side that you think isn't love. It's love too, just from a different perspective. So there's my sort of flaky love. I think that that's all. Marcus, I love that because I feel like also what's happening with, you know, what happened with cannabis, we saw that anything that has a nature connection is something that can be looked at and can be attacked.

32:14SpeakerScience is definitely very helpful, but unfortunately, science likes to say that it's more important than nature sometimes. Science likes to say, hey, I've got it more figured out even than nature does. Whereas nature never goes back and says, oh, that was the wrong experiment. We didn't have it right. But science is always redoing it. Oh, 10 years later, that wasn't totally right. And I'm not going to throw the baby out with the bathwater, because I feel like science is really important.

32:50SpeakerBut I feel like we're going more towards the technical side of science, more the mechanism side of science. And demonizing a lot of what nature has to show us and nature has to guide us. One thing that's becoming incredibly apparent with that Bethany Hrachovec, Ph.D.: As well, I think that maps is incredibly helpful in pushing forward plant medicine and what they're doing. Bethany Hrachovec, Ph.D.: i'm also incredibly concerned because it's taking a lot of the science side of it, so you go into an office you put something over your eyes you listen to a certain music you have this incredible.

33:32SpeakerWhich people say is like a near-death experience or like a birth experience. It's that life-changing that then you take the mask off and you go to work the next day. Nature is not involved. Sorry, excuse me. I apologize. No, go ahead, Val. I want to hear it. Go ahead. Everything is like that. Whatever our experience that awakens. I just want to back up the thing with maps.

34:04SpeakerIn order to bring these experiences to people, there are certain safeguards within the context of the scientific community. And therefore, that's the way they've socially been built. It doesn't in any way change our experiences with psychedelics. We still have those opportunities. um to use them and i see why that you know i think we can all see why there are problems somebody might you know flip out have a bad experience may have a heart attack these kinds of things can rarely can't but they can happen and guidance is a really important tool having the teacher the connection between the shaman or the the guide and the intention of our journey But I think it's true with everything, you know, like I'm sometimes surprised.

34:58SpeakerI'm like, did anybody get, not anybody, but I'm working with people in cannabis, like, did they ever get high? Like, I mean, did they, what happened to the experience? What happened to that piece that changed us or opened our hearts or, you know, What is it that we lose when we walk away from the experience? Because we walk away from an experience. It lasts for an instant.

35:24SpeakerIt opens or changes us in some way. But then what do we take with us from that? So I see that that's just part of the problem, but it does not in any way change, I think, the need for science. Science is going to take it to people that we You know, in Dubai, it's going to take it to people all around the world that would not in no other way have an opportunity or may not have another opportunity to experience it.

35:57SpeakerI do totally agree with you, Val. And I think it's a really important part. But I think the concern that I have in this is that these are plants that come from nature. They have a message of nature. And what therapist or the mentor is only another human being. Taking nature out of the factor as a mentor, as a teacher. When you, when I work with people and I'm working on plant medicine, I could have somebody for a half an hour looking at a leaf.

36:28SpeakerAnd downloading nature and downloading what it feels like to lie on the ground. And I have a concern that if we take nature out of the picture as nature, I mean, as a mentor in this, as a teacher, as an expansive knowledge, then we're only looking towards another human being who is incredibly limited. And I feel like that's where the clinical setting, yes, it may bring it to more people, but I feel like it's lacking.

36:57SpeakerAnd I feel like if we could at least go to where the plants are grown in the ground and get out of the clinical setting, maybe we need to bring the clinicians out to nature more. Something has got to happen where nature is. I mean, and sometimes I go through a whole six hour plant medicine therapy session with somebody and we don't talk at all. Because nature is downloading everything that that person needs to do by just simply going on a walk.

37:27SpeakerAnd I feel that if we're gonna juice people up with plant medicine and they're gonna go to these incredible psychedelic spaces and they're gonna be really looking at why they're here, they're gonna be looking at their soul path, they're gonna have an understanding I feel like if nature is not involved in that conversation and that guidance, then that person is severely missing out on the potential possibilities of where they could go.

37:54SpeakerWell, they're just missing out on that possibility. It's not... One doesn't negate the other. So not everybody would be comfortable laying on the ground in the forest and not everybody can access it. Somebody who's paralyzed is going to have a hard time doing that. People won't necessarily, people who are sick, who can't get out of bed. I guess what I'm trying to say is I fully agree with you.

38:19SpeakerAnd that's one path. And there are 8 billion of us or so. And there are 8 billion ways Kelly Cervantes, To leave behind whatever was an open to a new path, and I think that that's one of our one of the things we want to do is to stay open to.

38:41SpeakerStay open to the other pathways because what I think is happening is that door is getting shut. I mean, lots of people are taking off and doing ayahuasca journeys and connecting and this is, you know, it's remarkable what's happening today. It's really quite remarkable. And does it have to be in a, I mean, I think there are great grave issues that arise when we remove the teachers, remove the shamans, when we take the, take the institutionalized, the, the, The gift, the medicine.

39:15SpeakerAnd yet, I believe the more, the more pathways we open, the more opportunities for people to have the experience to carry it to carry both their intention and the outcome. It only broadens and it broadens our language and it broadens our connection with one another. And it gives a chance, you know, like, how How amazing can we be? Well, get in traffic and see how amazing you are.

39:48SpeakerAnd that's where it, you know, what we take from our experience and what we give. I think the room for others to have theirs experience is one of the keys that I hope we don't Erase, I hope we don't miss. And I mean, I would fully agree with you that that's remarkable healing. And people are very fortunate to be able to be in your service with you serving their needs and attending to them.

40:20SpeakerAnd that's a pretty sweet, that's a very sweet and beautiful gift. But not everybody can get to you. And you really don't want everybody to get to you. I mean, I don't think that's my opinion. I like a small community because I can be more at peace with who I serve. Yeah, and it is true. It's hard to reach everybody. And the people that we are reaching now are the people who are working with other people to give them another look.

40:53SpeakerAt what a healing session can look like, what it feels like outside of walls, what it feels like without, you know, something over your eyes and just being internal and gathering what nature has to offer. And it is changing the way that they're looking at their sessions is changing the way that they are making their clinics. And it is changing the way that they're seeing patients. So, you know, the more that we can We have influencers and people that are working with other people understand the power of the mentorship of nature and the power of nature as the shaman.

41:33SpeakerThen I think that we've got a much better opportunity to reach those 80 million people on the planet or whatever, 8 billion people on the planet.

41:44Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineWe're 8 billion versions of nature. We're eight billion versions of evolution. We're not eight billion versions of Petri dishes, but we do.

41:57SpeakerYes and no. Nature is science. And if we take it back, think of this. First of all, you guys might be forgetting how savage nature is. Do you know that the wildebeests in Africa give birth twice? First, they give birth for the lions to consume their babies live as they're coming out of the vaginas of the wildebeest live. It's the most savage thing you've ever seen. And then they give birth a couple of months later.

42:21SpeakerAnd those are the ones that actually succeed the bloodline of the wildebeest because the lions damn near consume all of the first born of these wildebeest. So science, our ability to create and discover has allowed us to remove ourselves from the food chain. We used to be a part of that food chain. And let me tell you, it was super savage. Like there's you cannot imagine we thought it was bad when the DEA were hunting us down with guns.

42:50SpeakerIt was worse when lions and tigers were hunting us down with their teeth and eating us alive. Forget about putting you in a cage. They were just consuming you whole. And so that and if we're if we're in all nature, well, then our science is a part of nature as well. You know that that like, well, think about this. Think about the ability to even use the medicine you guys are using for healing right now without science.

43:15SpeakerScience created that medicine. You know, the tools of science help transform nature. We're not diminishing nature by science or nature by any means.

43:26Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineGo ahead. I was just going to say basically that like mycelium grows in an isopropyl hooded stainless steel environment that shows that nature lives in all environments. We can all be enhanced or... We are gifted by every part of life. Totally understand that. Everyone's invited. Life is amazing. That's why we have fractals and the Mandelbrot theory and all these things that show that there's a never ending possibility.

44:01Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineI love connecting with nature whenever possible. Let's just leave it at that.

44:06SpeakerWell, and I also think that the conversation of the wildebeest, you know, eating us with their big teeth, that's nature, but human beings that are sort of killing each other to become a higher position, I feel like maybe that's a little bit out of, it just, It feels like competition has taken over natural intuition. And I think that we are out of balance with science being looked at more as the thing rather than, I think we're just a little bit out of balance.

44:41SpeakerI think nature is equally as important as science because we've created and we're natural beings. But at the same time, science has just taken the main news. It's on the front page, science, science, science. So people are forgetting. That we can learn so much from nature. So we're just trying to continue to be a loud voice for nature because science has such a main spot right now.

45:07SpeakerThis is the study of nature. Science is the study of nature. You can't have it without nature. I agree.

45:16Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineWe study the cannabis plant. We're part of the cannabis community. The cannabis plant doesn't express the same type of diversity in its cannabinoids synthetically as it does organically in a regenerative setting. Why would everyone be going into the earth with their cannabis, not just because the bills are high in an indoor setting? The cannabis is different when it grows in the soil with rocks and crystals and spring water and everything.

45:48Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineWow, that plant's different. Thank you for joining us today.

46:08Josh Dragonfly Earth Medicine100% we're from nature. We use electricity. It's not like it's nice to not have to go down the rabbit hole of like, well, hey, what about this and that? Like, it's fine. Everything else is happening. It's awesome. It's just odd in the last three years that the nature side of life has been demonized. It's the way it is. Ostracized, witch hunt, whatever you want to call it.

46:32Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineCan't travel, can't live. There's not an actual equal playing field. So it's kind of It's kind of just, sure, life's happening.

46:42Dr Mark ScialdoneLet's hear from a scientist, right?

46:44SpeakerI know we all think we're scientists. You want me to speak, Mark? Is that what you're saying?

46:51Dr Mark ScialdoneYes, to all of that.

46:53SpeakerBecause I honestly believe the universe is perfect. I truly, truly believe this. And any people who can't see it, You know, I feel sorry for you, but the universe is truly perfect. But Sam, how much acid did you take to see that? Was it like 100 hits? Like 200 hits? No, it was only 50 hits of orange sunshine. 50 hits of orange sunshine. Because I know, I know this was an acid trip.

47:27Dr Mark ScialdoneFor him to come to the conclusion that it's perfect, He's on the assumption that the universe is finite. And if we know anything from Einstein, we know that the universe is ever expanding. So I'll quote Einstein in saying that my sense of God is my sense of wonder about the universe. So let me just chime in from the science point of view for a second and say, well, okay, science is...

48:00Dr Mark ScialdoneMarcus, science of living things, science of nature is biology. There's all other kinds of disciplines in science, but it's, so think of it this way. So humans are naturally inquisitive, right? We want to learn about ourselves and our environment. So we're all scientists, but we're not all paid scientists, right? So just there's a few of us who are paid. The rest of you, we're all scientists and we're all building on the knowledge.

48:31Dr Mark ScialdoneWe all stand on the shoulders of the people who've come before us that have, you know, led us down this path. And so let me go back to the EPA for a second, too. So that's interesting that you guys got a notification from them. But remember that theoretically, the EPA, which was started Uh, in 1970 by the Nixon administration, uh, was there to basically protect the environment, right.

48:59Dr Mark ScialdoneAnd make sure that, you know, people weren't just making really big piles of waste or pollution or somehow damaging the environment where yes, like it or not, food is grown in industrial ways and the environmental protection agency make sure that, you know, things that are sold into agriculture, Have no long lasting impact in the environment. And while it's true that like what you sort of like the living soil approach is is less impactful on the environment as taking advantage of the natural organizms and using Mother Nature's own biopesticides, if you will.

49:46Dr Mark ScialdoneIn fact, the EPA for several years now has had a category called bio And if you look at the various regulations, there are no commercial products right now whose registration covers the use on hemp or cannabis or very, very few. And the reason why is because the onus is back on the people who own that registration for that active to run All of the trials to make sure that the application rate of their product on that agricultural product, whatever it is, doesn't have to be cannabis, could be anything, tomatoes, strawberries, anything, whatever you're applying to that has the efficacy that you claim it does.

50:33Dr Mark ScialdoneSo it kills fungus or keeps insects away or whatever, but it also has to be shown to be safe by the time that produce gets to the market that You know, either it's been photolytically or hydrolytically decomposed to the point where whatever metabolites from that treatment that's left on those strawberries or string beans or lettuce is all below the point at which there is no effect on human health.

51:02Dr Mark ScialdoneAnd if there is effect on human health, they don't get a registration in that market. So so now add cannabis to this. So in order for a company to show to get an EPA Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

51:41Dr Mark ScialdoneThank you so much for joining us.

52:08Dr Mark Scialdoneinto developing that safety package and to know that when you brew that tea or when you use that living soil product on cannabis at that rate that it doesn't affect there's no residuals there's no runoffs that poisons you know water supplies there's no i don't know i mean they go through this whole environmental analysis And that's what the EPA is supposed to do, right? It's the Environmental Protection Agency.

52:38Dr Mark ScialdoneThey're there using our tax dollars to supposedly protect our environment. So I'm not just coming down as being pro-EPA. What I'm saying is that we, and you guys especially, we need to work with them so they can properly regulate the use of these products in commercially grown cannabis. Because let's face it or not, I mean, you guys were talking about corporations before. And I know Sam has dealt with large corporations.

53:09Dr Mark ScialdoneI've dealt with large corporations. That's how I built my resume and got all those things on the wall. I mean, ultimately, at the end of the day, this is a money making business where people are in the business to basically make a profit and either return that profit to their shareholders or their investors or whatever. I mean, that's just Corporations, that's just free enterprise and like it or not, that's what we got.

53:35Dr Mark ScialdoneWe can't really do anything to stop it. So you might as well just get used to it. There's big companies that provide everything from the gasoline we put in our cars to the fast food hamburgers, if that's what you choose to eat, everything. If there is a market for something and something wants to be bought and Delta 8 THC is a perfect example of this where There's a market where cannabis is illegal in certain states.

54:04Dr Mark ScialdoneSo what do they do? Well, I turn this CBD into something that can get people high. And now you can go to websites or gas stations or bodegas and get all kinds of products that are made outside the regulatory framework that most cannabis operations are having to live under. I say that I'm living in Vermont, guys. This is new. We moved from Pennsylvania to Vermont and Vermont went recreational yesterday.

54:35Dr Mark ScialdoneThat was the first time I've lived in a state that's turned from medical to recreational. And I got a big joint to smoke here on camera so we could celebrate it. But, you know, it's just really cool what's happening up here. There's a lot of innovation. Vermont's kind of like the Humboldt of the East. A lot of great growers. A lot of really dank weed up here in these mountains.

54:58Dr Mark ScialdoneAnd I'm living on Lake Champlain, which is really kind of cool. I look out and see sailboats go by. That's kind of cool. But just to go back to science, just and I'll end there, is that, you know, again, anytime you learn something, you're being a scientist. When you learn something new and you're expanding your knowledge over something, it doesn't have to be scientific. It could be, you know, just a quicker way to get to work.

55:24Dr Mark ScialdoneOr it could be, You know, gee, if I stirred my coffee more, it wouldn't be so sweet at the bottom. You know, just little realizations like that. You're learning new things. And as you learn new things, you're basically being a scientist. So we're just explorers. Those of us who are paid scientists have to explore right at the current frontier on what's known and what's not known. And we all know people have been asking for years.

55:52Dr Mark ScialdoneAnd I think part of my attraction I hear on church, right, has always been the science and the research and geez, what can we do to really push this thing forward? Holy shit, folks, be careful what you wish for. This is what the end of prohibition looks like. I'm getting a faculty position here at the university to study the use of cannabinoids to treat traumatic brain injury.

56:15Dr Mark ScialdoneI mean, I have to pinch myself to understand that, you know, when we were out doing, Steve Adubato, MD, MD, MD, MD, MD, MD, MD, MD,

56:47Dr Mark ScialdoneThat's really fucking cool. I have one kid born in one millennium, another kid born in another one. I was alive during Jerry Garcia's lifetime. Really, really important for me anyway. So, you know, it's, it's at the end of the day, we're all scientists, we're all explorers. And, you know, there's nothing wrong with being inquisitive and wanting to learn more about your environment or what you're smoking or what you're growing.

57:12SpeakerAnd we just totally agree. I think that that's really awesome, Mark. I think that, you know, what you're saying is true and inquisitivity is awesome. And I love you, of course. But, you know, as far as the EPA, one thing that I did want to say is I think that we could entrust in more of these overbiding sort of corporations or fractures of the government if their track record was more accountable.

57:42SpeakerWhen we look at the EPA, what have what they have allowed in and what they have allowed in to our soils and what has happened to our soils with their allocations and their licensing to me should not have the word protection on it. So I think what we continue to come down to is They're supposedly protecting us, but their track record really doesn't show that they've done a very good job.

58:10Dr Mark ScialdoneSo I feel like if we had more accountability, I'm not even talking about just all the way back. For sure, I just feel like if we're going to do this work in action. We can bash pharmaceuticals all we want, but There's life-saving medication out there that's saving people's lives every day. Oh, I'm not bashing that.

58:34SpeakerI feel like it's really important.

58:36Dr Mark ScialdonePharmaceuticals and what, like you guys were talking about the pharmaceuticalization. I mean, that's exactly what I'm working on. I'm working on trying to understand, you know, there was a really important paper that was published a couple of weeks ago that showed that Uh, uh, cannabinoid acids. And I think in particular CBGA showed a complete blocking of something called store operated calcium influx, which is a way that helpers, uh, uh, T cells turn on the release of pro-inflammatory cytokines.

59:11Dr Mark ScialdoneThis is extremely important. It didn't get any press whatsoever. It's an extremely important discovery that basically says how cannabinoids work to control inflammation. It's always just kind of like a black box. So they they hit the cannabinoid receptors. Then there's downstream stuff that happens. We don't really know. This group has figured it out. So to me, I read that paper. I've read that paper eight times. I'm just I'm so excited.

59:38Dr Mark ScialdoneI'm so like this is the current frontier. This is right where knowledge ends and where we could start looking into the crystal ball on what could be. And when you start looking at all these ways that, you know, cannabinoids work on the body, I mean, there's no class of compounds like that, that have the safety in humans, the long term, you know, I mean, humans have been using cannabis for a while.

1:00:07Dr Mark ScialdoneSo if there was toxic, you know, effects, we would, we would have seen it, we would have documented it. Yasmin Hurd's research at Mount Sinai, New York is extremely important. What she has now shown, and this is all very, very recent research, is that cannabis use in adolescence affects the distribution of gray to white matter as the brain matures. And this is extremely important. And you can't say, well, okay, yeah, kids who smoke weed during those ages, they can, You know, maybe have compromised, I don't know, intellectual capacity later on in life.

1:00:45Dr Mark ScialdoneThat's not really what they're saying. But the endocannabinoid system and the cannabinoid receptors are so important that you couldn't imagine that using lots of cannabis isn't going to somehow affect it one way or another. And I think her research is really important to show that. The last thing I want to say is this whole renaissance in psychedelics is just really, That's mind-blowing. Super exciting. And it's things that, you know, again, us deadhead hippies, we knew it a long time ago that you can take mushrooms and it changes your life.

1:01:24Dr Mark ScialdoneAnd what they're finding is that people who are taking, again, very, very modest doses, six months later, they're still showing efficacy in that treatment. It is just, it's amazing. And so I applaud The scientific frontiers in these areas, which are moving faster and faster and faster as regulation changes. And yes, that is driven by profit and the almighty dollar. I don't know. I can't fix that. And I don't think we can fix that on Hash Church, but we can coexist in that system and make sure that your guys' knowledge is passed on to these people who are regular.

1:02:06Dr Mark ScialdoneSo basically there are products that are going to come out That's going to mimic, you know, what you guys do fly, right? So you have to be part of that discussion and part of that regulation. People are going to do this. People are already doing this. People, everything along the value chain. I know ATN seen it for years. If you could make it and you could sell it into the cannabis industry, It's going to go and it's going to go forward and it's going to make money and it's going to grow.

1:02:34Dr Mark ScialdoneAnd before you know it, you're going to be 10,000, 20,000, 80,000 orders and you're going to be, oh, I need to hire people. I need money. I need a larger warehouse. I mean, things are just growing. Things are happening. And so there is a role, I think, and a responsibility for governments to play in regulating how that rolls out to make sure you don't get a bunch of You know, fuckery and thieves and people who are poisoning people.

1:03:00Dr Mark ScialdoneThere has to be some government oversight and some regulation. I don't know what the right level is. It's not nuclear waste. It's an herbal medication. It needs to be regulated as such. But if you're talking about treatments that go on to plants that are being mass produced, yeah, they're going to regulate that kind of thing. They should be. They always have should be. But companies, large companies, We're afraid to do the research to basically bring that package forward and say, okay, here's a fungicide that you can use on cannabis to control powdery mildew.

1:03:34Dr Mark ScialdoneYou could apply it at this rate, at this time, and there's no degradation byproducts that are gonna affect the end product. I'm not saying that that product exists, but in order for companies to develop that product, they need a regulatory pathway. And then they've just spent millions of dollars They need to recoup that investment. You know, welcome to big business.

1:03:57SpeakerThis is just that's that's. And Mark, that's the thing that that they're motivated by, of course, by profit. So they're afraid the fear comes in when there's not enough security to protect those investments. So because right now, we know we know they're going to be profitable. I think if you look at that, that's not the issue. That's not the issue. That's just that's just You just accept it.

1:04:24SpeakerYou just accept it. You buy a Cheerio, you buy a corporation, you buy a car, you buy a Tesla. Whatever you buy, it's all contextualized within that understanding. That's what capitalism is. I drive a car. As a matter of fact, I have to go do that pretty soon. And I think here, you just said it about being able to use cannabis in TBIs. You're going to have this job.

1:04:51Speaker50 years ago, I had a TBI and as a matter of fact, when I got it, I was rolling a joint in the car That we got in a car accident and it was Nevada, so TBI or not, I had to go back into that car and find that ounce or go to prison with a TBI. I think it's a profoundly important point. Not everybody's gonna be able to roll joints and smoke them so that they can mitigate their seizure onset.

1:05:20SpeakerThere has to be a way to access. Science is a tool, a profound tool. We're the fuck the fuck uppery as you're saying is not the tool it never is and neither is our what inspires us it's never the tool it's how we are changed and how we carry that forward what we're willing to what the cost is whether that's what we're willing to spend or what we demand of of others and so right now I think we are in a very tenuous position but You know, as Sam said, it's all perfect.

1:06:03SpeakerAnd that's eventuality, not in the finite sense, in the sense that, you know, in the quantum sense, I mean, you have, I sort of have said, you know, I'm going to just, if it's all perfect in the quantum sense, then I'm just going to step into that space because It makes what I can't handle a whole lot easier to handle in the potentially the potential. And then that potential takes it out of the moment.

1:06:32SpeakerSo, you know, in this infinite moment, It's all perfect. And I really, I'm going to just say, yeah, I can't wait to see what you do, Mark. You got to share it, share some of your coursework that you're.

1:06:45Dr Mark ScialdoneWell, I'll just finish. I think ATN could probably provide a lot of experience or at least maybe share some of his experiences. Like when you're dealing with, when you're dealing with vendors, I'm not talking about people who are touching the plant. I'm talking about everything else, everything else that supports going at that. You're talking about, you know, people who have, you know, payrolls and employees and those employees have, you know, benefits like health insurance.

1:07:19Dr Mark ScialdoneSo I think it was really quick to see like when you go to like an MJ BizCon, that if there's something that can be innovated, that can be sold into this industry, it might be a corporation, but it might just be a mom and pop corporation Two people, just garage inventors who are coming up with the next little widget or all kinds of different innovations because we're kind of at the birth of this new phase for the cannabis industry.

1:07:52Dr Mark ScialdoneAnd I hate to use that word industry because it always sounds like such a dirty word.

1:07:56SpeakerIt is industry.

1:07:58Dr Mark ScialdoneI mean, for the lack of a better word, it's just the word that we use. But the question is, I guess, you know, again, when you have, Like, especially with CBD and the whole Delta 8 market, the whole loophole that the Farm Bill created, which created this, well, it basically satisfied a market that was already created. Look, people want to get high, right? And those people in most cannabis unfriendly states in the country, are, you know, gun ho on Delta 8 because people are making a shit ton of money.

1:08:39Dr Mark ScialdoneAnd I've seen videos where I've seen pallet racks three high like you'd see it like the Home Depot of finished goods going from somewhere to somewhere. And those products are being sold without any real process specification on this conversion of CBD to Delta 8. So there's a lot of other stuff in there. And because it's unregulated, unlike the stuff that ATN has to, you know, I mean, everything that's sold in a regulated market, Delta H says, well, fuck you.

1:09:11Dr Mark ScialdoneWe're just going to do this in an unregulated fashion.

1:09:15SpeakerAnd that's only... We've all been there. It will become regulated.

1:09:18Dr Mark ScialdoneIt's just... It's only made possible through the prohibition of Delta 9. If there was no prohibition, Then we dealt that we would think Delta eight is a version of COVID or something. Delta eight is irrelevant. Delta eight is not extracted from the plant. It's made as an active pharmaceutical ingredient from CBD isolate. So this is a market that exists because people want to get high. And if people want to get high, they need cannabis grown Delta 9, not Delta 8 made from CBD.

1:09:53SpeakerIt's only a matter of time. It's just satisfying. It's the market. And this is really endemic of a problem that's created when you're just when there's a profit driven um uh creation so they're creating this because it's driven by profit so they can make money when you can just really get high it doesn't you don't need to go through all of this the people who own those warehouses that are facing and that's that and there you can we work it out on hash church well it's it's always worth the conversation and this is why cannabis is legal whatever So, however long it's taken, to some degree, it's legal.

1:10:42SpeakerBut it's motivated, the legality has been motivated in two different ways. One, because people desire it, know it, it frees, it helps to heal the mind, body, consciousness. And because of profit. The potential to make a great deal of money. And because of that, that we're sitting in the middle of a kind of mosh pit. And I think that what can happen is that these conversations, but really taking, creating accountability, forcing accountability, demanding accountability from, you know, you're never, I want, I don't buy anything from Amazon.

1:11:26SpeakerIt's a principled piece. Maybe those things will change. Maybe that industry that owns just about everything, probably the house I live in pretty soon, or many people live in, I think we have to really work from this space as individuals, speak to our community, support our community, and ask of it the greatest possibility.

1:11:52SpeakerWe're always asking for something greater because that's how we get it. And we demand it from one another and from our communities. And it's not going to get better if we buy into it. Only if we demand we join it. Dropping out, we should have bought some radio stations and television stations in the 60s. I'd like to add that the profit driven corporations We're birthed out of something different.

1:12:23SpeakerYou know, the first time I really understood the importance of regulation and cannabis was not from a corporation, but from my friends in Jamaica who were just growing weed on the side of a mountain. And then, you know, I'm kind of like I made bubble one time with the flower and it was really fucked up bubble. And then I walked around my friend's field. And what I found was some illegal fungicides that can't even be used in North America that they just shipped to Jamaica.

1:12:52SpeakerAnd he used these. And we had a conversation later on that night on the beach. And I asked him, like, what were you thinking? He was like, I was thinking of putting food on my table, man. Like, I can't afford to leave this crop. And so it wasn't a big corporation putting people at risk. It was a poor Jamaican farmer who just wanted to feed his family and who was because there was no regulations.

1:13:14SpeakerHe was able to do it, but at the cost of everything. I mean, John Burfellow smoked some of that bubble and he said that he got extremely sick from it. It was really bad. Keep in mind when we're concentrating the resins off of these plants, often you'll concentrate these chemical powders that have been put onto the plant and are stuck on that resin. So it's not just corporations.

1:13:36SpeakerIt's not just, I got to pay my shareholders. Sometimes it goes all the way to the other side and it's, I just got to put food on the table. I'm not trying to buy a Ferrari. I'm not trying to, you know, be some corporate douche nozzle with a private jet. I'm really just trying to feed my kids and maybe get them some shoes and some clothes. And so that's the importance of regulation.

1:13:58SpeakerWe need to have a little bit of it to hold each other accountable. And it's not always a corporation that you have to hold accountable. Sometimes it's regular old people. Who produce those additives? A corporation?

1:14:11Collin PalmerOf course. Right.

1:14:14SpeakerThere is. It's cyclic. And it goes back. It goes back there. Anyway. I hate to jump out of this conversation with y'all, but much, much love. I'm so thankful for having this opportunity to hang out with you all. Much, much love.

1:14:32Etienne FontanIt's an honor for us as well, Valerie. Be safe on your journey.

1:14:35SpeakerYou bet. Many big highs and much expansion. Love you so much, Val.

1:14:41Collin PalmerThanks for coming out.

1:14:42SpeakerYou guys too. Fills my heart. See you soon. Big hug.

1:14:46Collin PalmerMarcus, just I wanted to add to what you're saying. I think it's, you know, look, Colin. Hey, buddy. Nice to see everyone. Hey, Colin. How you guys doing? It's been a while. Mark, everybody. Dragonfly fam, good to see you guys. Etienne, Best Friend Farms, always awesome. Wade.

1:15:07Dr Mark ScialdoneYou came up often in a conversation I had yesterday.

1:15:11Collin PalmerI bet, man. Adam's a G. He's a good guy, man. And if he's still listening, we love you, man.

1:15:18SpeakerYes.

1:15:18Collin PalmerIncredible grower and what a good family they have up in Mendocino. So Mendocino Grasslands, for those that don't know what we're talking about, great family of individuals, really good growers.

1:15:30Dr Mark ScialdoneBut he calls Vermont home.

1:15:32Collin PalmerThat's true. He calls Vermont home. So he's like us in East Coaster. So, but yeah, I mean, look, I think over the years we've all, I think it was a lack of knowledge at first in North America. We were being, we were using things on plants that we didn't know because we were so young at the time, at least my crew was. Aaron Ward, Green Cure was pushed onto us as a product to use to bring the pH level of the surface level down so botrytis and powdery mildew wouldn't grow.

1:16:01Collin PalmerBut then later we learned that you can't light it on fire. And we've learned so much. And I think that's the honest truth from my side of it is like, we just didn't know. And we didn't have this big community that's so open today. We didn't have conferences. We didn't have like private events and sessions where we were sharing. You know, like back to, you know, like I had Marcus on truestoners.com chat room, you know, like, and we would chat and like Plural Mongoose and Kaka and OT1 and all these guys would jump in.

1:16:36Collin PalmerAnd that was the only space that I really knew to ask live and direct questions that would have direct call and response. So I think it's also a bit of it all together. And as we learn and evolve, having stages such as Kelly and Josh around and others like you that have been so deep in just learning about what agricultural practices mean, And consciousness means together and how that kind of plays a role.

1:17:08Collin PalmerSo that's something that, you know, together we've kind of, at least I should say personally, I've really, you know, it's been a battle and a learning experience this whole journey. I think it's really important for us to think about what we're doing and what we're not doing. I think it's really important for us to think about what we're doing.

1:17:34Collin PalmerWe just didn't have for so many years.

1:17:38Etienne FontanCross and print, right? Yeah, it was.

1:17:40Collin PalmerThat was it, man. I read those books front to back, back to front every almost every day for years, you know, and that was just the way it was because I didn't have anywhere else to go. There was no YouTube channels.

1:17:52Etienne FontanSo no Internet with information or basis of but. As you stated, I mean, we started off as, you know, individual dispensaries. And then we realized, well, I realized that I got sick from cannabis off something I couldn't see. And so in 2007, I was like, well, what are the standards for testing? And everybody, there's no standards for testing. What do you mean there's no standards? There's no one testing except the University of Mississippi.

1:18:18Etienne FontanSo when I reached out to them to actually say, hey, can we get the standards? They were like, But we need the standards. And so there were no standards. And of course, I didn't know Sam at the time. So, you know, I used Ethan Russo and others to find Arno and then bring, smuggled him into the States with his testing solution. And then, you know, started to calibrate an actual laboratory because I didn't want to kill people who have AIDS and cancer.

1:18:48Etienne FontanThank you so much for joining us.

1:19:11Etienne FontanIf we didn't have our semi-legal slash illegal dispensaries, I mean, we spent BPG over a million dollars ourselves in that testing. OK, who could have been in the private industry would have spent that money to actually do that testing to bring the at least the testing from THC and then finding CBD from the darkness into the light. You know, it was us that took the chance because we realized there was a hole.

1:19:38Etienne FontanAnd if we didn't necessarily fix that hole. There's always going to be a hole there that we're always going to trip over. So we even as I'm a professional lay scientist realized that there was science that needed to be so that I didn't kill the people that I was selling my quote unquote legal slash illegal cannabis to because I wanted to be an ethical steward because it felt right because I self-healed myself from cannabis.

1:20:06Etienne Fontanbecause of my gulf war syndrome right because of my multiple chemical exposures because you know i was gun fodder in a war over oil okay i lived under the oil fields it was literally 28 degrees under the oil fields whereas and out from under the oil fields it was 120 degrees that's how thick the smoke was ladies and gentlemen and that of course destroyed my my nervous system and my you know immunity system To the point where I had to figure out how to heal myself and by figuring out from cannabis and exercise was able to stimulate my appetite to eat, motivated me to say, you know what, I need to step outside myself and find a way to help others.

1:20:48Etienne FontanSo sometimes we have to be self impacted or find a way or someone in our lives has been impacted because I cannot tell you how many people have come to me and said, hey, My family member has this, that and the other and they can't get it and I need to get it for them because there's no other way for us to go. Whereas two weeks ago, my group, the Veterans Action Council, was using science on Capitol Hill.

1:21:10Etienne FontanWe had 26 meetings in two days and we were using that nasal spray that the medics are using currently in Israel. As the litmus, because the majority of people we met with were on the Veterans or Armed Services Committee. So they had military fellows there. So what we found is the arrow through in the conversation was this TBI nasal spray, because it caused immediate shrinkage and non expansion that continues to happen in the brains.

1:21:41Etienne FontanWell, Right now, Israeli medics have that in their kit. And right now, if you're hit with a TBI, no matter what, they are giving this right there on the spot. And it is having great effect. And when we talk to these fellows who are just military people in regular suits for the next year, this is what got through to them because they understood how many of their brothers and sisters are also suffering and will continue to suffer from these TBIs because of the new level of warfare that we are experiencing.

1:22:09Etienne FontanThank you so much for joining us.

1:22:34Etienne FontanAnd we know that, oh, a lot of our military has to be taken care of and they're not being taken care of. And these TBIs follow everybody to their grave. So it'd be best as we can to do as best as possible to do as a preventative, which as we know, THC or ingestion of cannabis right after a TBI seems to stop that and stop the advancement of that psychosis as well as the, the, The death, which is the swelling of the brain itself, which causes untold amounts of life damaging realities that not only does the soldier have to deal with, but their family and their whole support units have to deal with, as well as we ourselves have to pay for it as their care.

1:23:16Dr Mark ScialdoneYeah, they have to be doing this on the sideline at the NFL, as we've tragically seen recently, right? That these guys are out there getting their brains literally beat in and in Somehow they let that guy go back out and he got re-injured, you know? And it's just, it's fucking nuts. And the government knows it because they got their own patent on the neuroprotective properties of cannabinoids.

1:23:42Dr Mark ScialdoneSo, I mean, this is going to happen. This is good. This is going to happen. Like you said, ATN, the nasal spray is a quick, immediate onset into the brain. And so I think we're going to try to stack So we're actually writing a grant to DOD and NIH and others to basically help pay for this work because this is really, really important work. And I think we all know it's going to work.

1:24:10Dr Mark ScialdoneWe're going to see the needle is going to move on this. We don't know exactly, you know, again, dose and you have to look at a lot of different impacts when you're trying to develop a new therapeutic for something like this. But you can imagine if you can deliver across the blood. So the blood brain barrier is a very interesting kind of gateway that limits what's in your bloodstream going into your brain.

1:24:37Dr Mark ScialdoneAnd so if you can get things across the blood brain barrier, and what we know about cannabinoids, because they're very hydrophobic, is that they can get in. We can get cannabinoids into the brain during that golden hour of trauma. So there's that, right? That one hour, it's like you have an hour to basically intervene. And even like with other brain disorders, ATM, like stroke, right now with stroke, I mean, just take two aspirin and call me in the morning.

1:25:05Dr Mark ScialdoneYou know, there's really no way of treating, but you figure that, you know, again, maybe it's the fact that the government had a patent on it, maybe the fact that these things are off patent now, and now in order, Steve Sorenson, MD, For a pharmaceutical company to get the return on that investment, they'd actually have to develop new medications to see if they work. Steve Sorenson, MD, You know, I think, again, the phyto cannabinoids can give us a clue on what might eventually be the treatment that gets used.

1:25:34Dr Mark ScialdoneSteve Sorenson, MD, You know that gets FDA approval and all that kind of stuff. But yeah, all that research needs to be done. And it seems like, you know, again, I don't know why, but when the NFL They didn't look at concussion at all. They just looked at pain because all they want to do is dull the pain and send that drone back out onto the field.

1:26:00Dr Mark ScialdoneBecause there's million dollar sponsors that need to make money on that football game. And I tell you what, if you haven't seen it yet, you all should watch the movie Concussion with Will Smith. Yeah, Will Smith's a dick and everything. But anyway, get beyond that. And go watch that movie, Concussion. You'll never watch a football game in the same way again. And you'll learn that again, the NFL is basically conspiring to basically keep this thing quiet.

1:26:30Collin PalmerYeah, they want to keep it under wraps.

1:26:32Dr Mark ScialdoneRight. And it's the same treatment, OTN, for soldiers. It'd be the same kind of thing. It'd be like full assault of cannabinoids into the brain during that golden hour trauma. Chris Brown, Maybe this could have saved Bob Saget's life, right? Because Bob Saget, the comedian, they think he just fell in his bathtub or something, hit his head, fell asleep and never woke up. You know, so there's definitely, you know, the cannabinoids are definitely on the therapeutic, you know, radar to use These things, not just to get high, but to use them for their medical benefits to treat disease like this.

1:27:10Etienne FontanAnd I was speaking with Rob Clark and Rob Clark said, Ms. Shulam said, you know, in the 80s that within that hour, if they smoked a joint just on the way to the hospital, The amount of neuroprotection that is untold. But I'm very interested now because you brought up strokes because as we know that when you smoke cannabis, it dilates or can dilate the blood, the blood vessels, right?

1:27:36Etienne FontanSo if you're having a stroke and you've got a blockage, could that also send the blockage to another area and causing more danger? So that's where I kind of wonder.

1:27:46Dr Mark ScialdoneWhat I'm thinking, ATN, is just And it's sort of like a something where you're going to take advantage of the anti-inflammatory pro-apoptotic modes that so cannabinoids are biologically active on so many different levels. And you would think, again, that the best thing you could possibly do is get as much into your brain at that point right after that traumatic brain injury and just see what happens. You know, I mean, Could it be worse?

1:28:22SpeakerSo there are people working on this and cannabinoids are definitely key. But one of the things you guys are missing, the most important factor are these membrane bound extracellular vesicles that are called exosomes. Exosomes have the ability to get through the blood brain barrier. My friend who works at the neurosurgery department in Florida, Miami, Dr. Brent Reynolds, he discovered brain stem cells for his thesis in the late 80s.

1:28:52SpeakerBrilliant guy. Awesome guy. He's been doing some research at the university on these exosomes. And when they put exosomes into the nasal spray and up the nose, they found that it was delivering a 45 times payload from any other method that they have at the university there. 45 times. So they are working on concussion medications that will be available in every, not just professional athletes, but your children's sports games as well, where you'll be able to use these exosomes.

1:29:20SpeakerAnd exosomes are produced by pretty much, you know, most cells, like not only mammalian, but also fungal and plant cells. So what Dr. Brent did was he isolated exosomes from the hemp plant, and lo and behold, those exosomes contained cannabinoids. This is really, really exciting science. And I hope that this little blip gets you lit, Dr. Mark, and you start going out and reading a bunch of articles on this because these exosomes, people have been studying them for probably about 20 to 30 years now.

1:29:58SpeakerBut it's getting exciting.

1:30:02Dr Mark ScialdoneSend me a link or something like that.

1:30:04SpeakerI can send you a ton of papers. I have about a dozen papers that I can send you on exosomes. And you will be very excited because, like I said, you can extract them from the cannabis plants and they do contain cannabinoids in the exosomes. Exosomes are used for cells to communicate with one another. So they send, and Dr. Brent's even, you know, the belief system now that a lot of the amazing work that is being done with stem cells Are actually their exosomes that they're releasing to communicate.

1:30:35SpeakerSo everyone, there's your homework for the week. Exosome, E-X-O-S-O-M-E. They're membrane bound extracellular vesicles produced in the endosomal compartment of most eukaryotic cells. And they're interesting. They're nanoscopic. They're like 20 to 80 nanometers. And they definitely break the blood brain barrier.

1:30:59Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineAlong with medicinal mushrooms. So let's make sure that medicinal mushrooms continue to be in the conversation when we're talking about blood brain.

1:31:09SpeakerThey produce exosomes. They produce exosomes. And if you extract the exosomes from medicinal mushrooms, you'll find the medicinal compounds from those mushrooms in those exosomes. It's unbelievable.

1:31:21Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineThe system is perfect. And they are bioavailable to our body immediately and you know they help our body's receptors and neural and neurology become more regenerative they regenerate they if if every cell in our body has 380 trillion pathogens in it basically every single cell which how many cells 180 million i forget how many cells are in the body but every 180 trillion, right? And then every one of those cells has 380 trillion pathogens in it.

1:31:54Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineI mean, it really shows you that exosomes and when your body's exuding, it's because it's out of balance and it allows those pathogens out of the cells. It creates an environment where that part of the cell can exude. And so that's why this health and well-being regimen, this nod to herbalism and mycology comes back in because That group of people never got into chemicals and they continued to walk that line of cellular regeneration and bioavailability to where your body doesn't have to, it can accept it.

1:32:32Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineSo that's why it's important. It's why it continues to show up at the table. It's why it continues to be part of the conversations because it's natural to us and it helps Aaron Wiggins, Ourselves. Kelly's been doing amazing work with athletes and trauma in mountain biking and specifically downhill mountain biking and with incredible fractures, incredible breaks, concussions, people hitting trees, rocks, and working with top athletes, which also have All kinds of sponsors that need them to do, you know, 720s and backflips and trips and all the things then, you know, they can't be out for a whole summer.

1:33:13Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineAnd so I would love maybe Kelly will get into it. But, you know, to bring in professional athletes is also a type of trauma. It's different than soldiers. Thank you so much for joining us today.

1:33:52Josh Dragonfly Earth Medicineorganic chemistry higher level higher self and with that i really appreciate and love you all i have to go outside and do some work some hand digging on the in the earth and stuff so big big love to all you all and every fractal of knowledge that comes out of us you know is a positive one a special big up to wade laughter haven't heard enough from you today but just know every single day is a day that we are Kevin, thanks for you and your journey on earth and everyone else in the world.

1:34:28Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineEveryone else. Thank you so much. Blessed love.

1:34:34SpeakerYeah. And Josh had mentioned, I've been, I have been working with a lot of people with heavy duty brain trauma, and I also am a brain trauma, you know, I think an incredible success story. When I was seven years old, I had a car accident that I lost my sight for a long period of time. And I was cross-eyed for nine months. And it was not only an incredible concussion, but it broke my skull.

1:35:05SpeakerSo I have an opening in my skull. And then from that, I have suffered really tremendous

1:35:15SpeakerI mean, headaches, I don't really even, you know, it's beyond migraines, some migraine that goes beyond. And so when my brain has been looked at in a CAT scan or in any other MRIs, I have showings of maybe a thousand different strokes. In my brain. So I had the ability to either go totally natural, which is why a lot of where I'm coming from. And I'm really tried and true.

1:35:45SpeakerAnd I work with several hundred patients right now. I call them gems. I don't even want to call people patients. I don't I don't even feel like it's a practitioner. It's a this or it's a that or it's a seeker. It's just Being human on this planet right now is traumatizing in and of itself. Being in a body is yet another traumatizing thing in and of itself with all of the different toxins that it's getting and all of the different wars of different whatever spiritual means, whatever you want to talk about, we're getting hit on all levels.

1:36:19SpeakerSo the reason why I'm going to continue to be the voice for nature is because I understand that in a way that I don't need to look towards other things. I understand that of course science is a representation of nature. Of course science is a way for us to explain nature. But it's the misrepresentation of where science has to go to where then we have to correct it.

1:36:47SpeakerBecause ATN, you're talking about So many important things. What you're talking about is compassion beyond. And yet I hear so many different dichotomies and fractions of science and war and industry has caused these ailments for then people to have to go and seek nature, to then go and seek more science because people are utilizing what is registered And what is allocated by maybe the EPA or science to then try to get it out of them to then go back to nature.

1:37:25SpeakerWhich is exactly what Val said. It's cyclical. And maybe cyclical starts with an S I C K because humans just tend to do that. And I think what we really can do is we can come together and have this beautiful understanding that all of the beautiful points of science that are truly trying to help us Thank you so much for joining us today.

1:38:18SpeakerBut really what it comes down to is that there are people who need to heal. And that is where we are going to reach the highest collective consciousness of all of us, because we're all at that highest level of healing that we all understand. And we're all following that highest level of healing. That's where we're going to actually go to the next level. That's what we're all seeking.

1:38:45SpeakerWe're all seeking that. And I just wanted to say that, first of all, I appreciate everything that you all are doing, every single one of you, because, and I don't even mean just on this, anybody who's watching as well, because you're wanting to be better because you want to be a gem on this planet who is making us all better. And I know I got caught off on a tangent there, but thank you all for listening.

1:39:11SpeakerAnd mostly I'm just saying that I have a deep, deep, deep appreciation for all of you. And I just thank you. Thanks for the tangent. I'm smoking good weed. Love you, Kelly. What are you smoking on?

1:39:30Etienne FontanYeah, Bubble Man, we haven't asked this in a long time. What's everybody smoking on? I mean, I'm smoking on some rosin here myself here. So this is some tasty little squeeze squeeze. What about you, Marcus?

1:39:43SpeakerI'm smoking on my own rosin. I'm smoking on my live hash rosin from Snow God. 84% cannabinoids, 8.9% terpenes.

1:39:57SpeakerI'm smoking on some beautiful bubble with flower that just came off the hangers from this year, 2022. And obviously it's a really nice uplifting sativa with some really beautiful heady space. Thank you to the breeder of that. And I can't remember who it was. And Ed Chen, I just wanted to say that when did you start doing your lab testing? Was that in 2008 or soon after?

1:40:32Etienne FontanWe started in 2007 and I had to switch labs. So 2008 is when I really had a real lab and I know you were doing it. You know, decade before, but the lab we were doing with was in Berkeley. They were doing over testing for Novartis and Bayer. So they had six HPLCs and like four gas chromatographs. So I knew that I had sound scientists who could at least And then we brought Arno over to teach us the extraction because back then it's $10,000 fine per test, right?

1:41:10Etienne FontanIf you're caught with cannabis in a laboratory. So he taught us to do the suspended solution. So we would take the 100% alcohol, shake the cannabis for grind it at an equal part, then put it into a tube and then shake it for one minute. And then we would extract that. And then that solution, then we would take to the laboratory. And then that's what we would do.

1:41:36Etienne FontanThat's what we would do. Fifteen hundred tests on between.

1:41:39SpeakerI understand what you're saying is the parts were so low of the active ingredient, but in the measured amount that you could use it for calibration of your GCs and HPLCs. But it wasn't illegal to have the standard. Also to remember that when they first started testing in California and in the Netherlands also, more than 80%, closer to 85% of all of the samples tested had either pesticides, insecticides, and or mycotoxins.

1:42:20SpeakerSo yeah, protection for the consumer absolutely was needed.

1:42:26Collin PalmerHey Sam, I have a question for you. When you guys, when you and Rob were doing your work at War Farm, was there any sort of testing that was at your fingertips when you guys were doing that work or was it hard to do that type of work or?

1:42:44SpeakerNo, no, we had a legally licensed lab. We had HPLC, a prep, HCL prep, so for isolating small single amounts, you know, gram amounts of a single cannabinoid. And we had GCFID for doing terpenes and cannabinoids also. I preferred a GC because when you smoke cannabis, Thank you. Thank you.

1:43:30SpeakerThank you so much for joining us. We'll be right back.

1:43:47Etienne FontanThe ignition was coming up the machinery so badly that that's why they gravitated toward the UVHPLCs is because of the maintenance that was happening because of the turnover at the gas chromatographs because of the ignition.

1:44:06Dr Mark ScialdoneSo the HPLC is used so you can quantify plant material and plant materials enriched with cannabinoid acids. What they often do is they just apply the correction to correct for after decarboxylation what the cannabinoid acid, which is measured this, produces this amount of cannabinoid. So they should have like either what's called a total THC or theoretical THC. But yeah, I mean, Sam, that's true that, you know, what you smoke is what goes up the GC.

1:44:40Dr Mark ScialdoneBut I think for... To be more precise on what is actually in the plant, and especially if you're doing native like live resin extractions or if you're making, you know, again, really quality hash and turning it into rosin. Really having the cannabinoid acid profile is going to give you a more complete Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

1:45:31Dr Mark ScialdoneYeah, now there's an issue, and I don't know if you're dealing with this at all, ATN, that there's this so-called thing called lab shopping where producers are, again, going around to different labs and trying to get the highest potency results that they can possibly get on large batches reproducibly so they can have a more reliable route to market without it You know, I'm covering, you know, people trying to negotiate to lower prices because, again, this is also just the pain of prohibition, I think, is that there is a downward pressure on producers to basically, you know, I mean, again, the margin, especially if you look at a mature state like California, is the margins that you're seeing at the dispensary and distributor levels are certainly not Chris Brown, Equal equalized across the whole production supply chain.

1:46:33Dr Mark ScialdoneAnd certainly I think like if you look at states that are rolling out new programs where you have vertically integrated organizations where underneath one license or a group of licenses, you have cultivation, extraction, manufacturing, and dispensing. I know California inserts distribution, right? So those distributors can make a lot of money. But really, so my son who's out in LA right now and doing really well, I mean, just to break into that market is really difficult because you really need to have some kind of stratification through that distribution dispensing market to get enough volume to make your teeny weeny margin enough to...

1:47:28Dr Mark ScialdoneYou pay the bills, right, Colin?

1:47:30Collin PalmerYou're hitting it on the head, man. But yeah, I also find it at what Marcus said earlier with spraying and IPM management. It's also on the farmer's end. They're looking for higher COAs too so they can sell it into the market because that helps them, right? Because there's this weird smoke and mirrors that tack means something, right? And quality is not quantitated and qualitative through any of these numbers.

1:47:58Collin PalmerIt's a glimpse of what's there in terms of weight and chemical classes, right? So this is the problem, right?

1:48:06Dr Mark ScialdoneThe current issue right now that's led to this so-called phenomenon called lab shopping is that when you get bud at the dispensary, it's not dry. There's still moisture in it. And so certainly like if you're looking at a COA and you're reporting potencies based on a dried weight basis, dried weight means bone dry. That means no water. So you have to really have good techniques And to do the water activity measurement to understand what fraction of that cannabis as received at the dispensary, because it's not bone dry, right?

1:48:44Dr Mark ScialdoneIt has moisture.

1:48:45Collin PalmerIt has like 12. So, but Mark, here's where I'd argue through my journeys and even the last month where I had an issue, not even an issue, this is just how it went. All right. Thank you so much for joining us.

1:49:13Collin PalmerAnd it was, again, these are the, to your point before, it was the same lab, right? So same lab, same, you know, same, same.

1:49:24Dr Mark ScialdoneEven within a lab, it's statistically problematic to make comparisons because There's so much fucking variation here. And so what what this really relies on is the fact that so when you so so OK, how to describe this quickly. So you have to do the water activity measurement, right? The water. So actually, there was a woman who gave a really good talk on this at the online cannabis symposium that I think is on YouTube.

1:49:55Dr Mark ScialdoneAnd I think she's also giving the American Chemical Society's Journal Club presentation this month. I think if you Google it, her name is Ginny, I think. And she gave a great talk on it and describes exactly what this phenomena is. And so what you need to do is when you're assessing potency and you're reporting it on as is, it's different than dried weight, right? And Colin, this is really important.

1:50:25Dr Mark ScialdoneAnd again, goes to what Sam was saying is that when they're determining the moisture content in a moisture balance, which is just a little mini oven that you put a sample on and it just weighs before and after, that's just, you heat it up, the water goes away. But what else happens? Terpenes go away. Cannabinoids decarboxylate. So now you've totally changed Everything, you no longer have the same denominator that you had when you started with that experiment.

1:50:57SpeakerSo that's why we used to use a glass desiccator. So we leave it in overnight with those blue crystals that turn.

1:51:08Dr Mark ScialdoneRight, right.

1:51:09SpeakerAnd that would get rid of... It's got an indicator in there that tells you that it's... That would get rid of 99% of the moisture, not 100%, but as close as we could get in our lab in an easy way. And that's what we always did before we tested anything with our GC.

1:51:26Dr Mark ScialdoneBut Sam, the key thing is you're not heating it up, right? No, we're not keeping it up at all. Okay. So when you're in a cannabis testing lab and you have hundreds of samples, do you think you can wait for a desiccator? So again, what this woman showed is that you could do just do a room temperature vacuum desiccation. And even at that room temperature vacuum desiccation, you're still losing a big chunk of terpenes, but you're not doing the cannabinoid decarboxylation.

1:51:59Dr Mark ScialdoneAnd it turns out, again, when you're testing something and you're in the 20% regime of cannabinoids, total cannabinoids, that amount of CO2 is significant. So when you decarboxylate it, and again, this is going back to the original discussion about using gas chromatography, which is when you decarboxylate it, you've chemically altered The plant, there's no other way of saying it. I know what you're saying, Sam, that while you're smoking it when you're decarboxylating it, but if someone's using it as like a tincture or if I know some people who are now putting live rosin into gummies and they taste delicious, they taste like the rosin they were derived, man, they taste really good.

1:52:48Dr Mark ScialdoneSo there, I don't think there's any decarboxylation. I don't think there's, I think it's just, Rob Rosen going into the gummy itself.

1:52:57Collin PalmerNo, they're, we didn't know they're G carbs. Yeah. And then you can put, drop that and do whatever you need to, but yeah.

1:53:05Dr Mark ScialdoneOkay. But I don't know if you agree with me, Colin. I mean, I'd certainly, I think I like seeing the HPLC data because the HPLC data shows me what that flower contains. Certainly the GC data is cool and that's what you need for like a headspace measurement for 13.

1:53:23Collin PalmerNo, I think it, look, I think any, look, anytime you have more data to compare against itself and pit against itself, as you know, the 10% variance in each state is also a problematic aspect that gets tacked onto all these things. Like Colorado, for instance, is a, is a really, it's just kind of confusing to be honest, in terms of how they calculate milligram serving. So, Because there's a denominator that they have to do math on to get that actual milligram serving that they believe is in your product.

1:53:56Collin PalmerSo if you test for, let's say, 85%, there's a 10% variance that gets tacked onto that that knocks it down to 70, maybe below 70, maybe 68. Right.

1:54:10SpeakerThere's a reason why we had an HPLC and a GC and an HCLP prep, because that allowed us to isolate several grams of a single cannabinoid. And it was really important to have all three of those. But what we used the most actually was GCFID, especially for terpenes. You know, that was our go-to tool.

1:54:37Etienne FontanThe big ethical problem that we found when we started to do testing was exactly the whole problem that we're talking is because we realized also the majority of those original 1500 tests that the majority of them were very chemically close together. And what we realized is that there was going to be a perception that Thank you for joining us.

1:55:17Etienne FontanThank you for watching.

1:55:39Etienne FontanThis is the thing that's also missing for the nasal spray is, of course, it's THC dominant, but it needs all the other spectrum added to it.

1:55:50SpeakerThe easiest way to understand that, Etchan, is if you smoke 100% pure THC, it does not get you high as... Pure cleaned up resin of skunk number one that's only 50, 60, 70% of THC at the most. But the resin gets you higher.

1:56:12Etienne Fontanagreed by weight but we didn't also understand in 0708 the terpenes and all of that because we were still quantifying the thc and then finding that secondary spike which was cbd so this is also the understanding we've been able to gain as we were able to strike all right this off the map and so it opened up these other opportunities to where Now we're testing CBG, CBGA and all the other acid precursors in our understanding and finding our newer ones because now science can play and we've checked off that list.

1:56:46Etienne FontanNow we have to continue to add to that list but also add to our understanding of why it matters because science is still not replicating what the plant is producing, right? Nobody's been able to take a terpene recipe Thank you so much for joining us.

1:57:09Etienne FontanHave you found it?

1:57:10SpeakerThat's because they're not using the other volatile organic compounds that are present in the profile. They just start thinking about terpenes. There are other volatiles, but besides that, they're not using all of the 150 terpenes which are found in cannabis. They might be using 10 of them or 20 of them, but the average terpene, we were able to find about 50 or more terpenes. And we only had maybe 100 or 120 of the terpenes to do our testing with.

1:57:47SpeakerSo there was terpenes that we didn't have, which even if they're in tiny, tiny amounts, I mean, terpenes are there in tiny amounts to start with. And yet they really have a Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

1:58:31Dr Mark ScialdoneYeah, ATN, I kind of hear what you're saying about, you know, THC percentage. I think of also like the psychology of the dispensary buyer. And when they go to buy a product, they, you know, okay, they can look at the product, they could smell it, but what's its THC percentage or THCA percentage if they know what you're talking about, right? And so it's just, again, a metric.

1:58:55Dr Mark ScialdoneMaybe it's not the right metric, but it is a metric. And when you're talking about Say buying large quantities of plant material and you have, I don't know, 50 kilos at, you know, 14%, but you have 50 kilos at 18%, you know, which one are you going to, you know, I think that there's like, there's a business mentality there, but also like if you're in our business where you're extracting, well, that now the THC percentage makes a big deal.

1:59:29Dr Mark ScialdoneYou know what I've seen now, and I've seen this on a couple of different COAs where, you know, the plant makes cannabinoid acids, but obviously the dispensary or the COA is going to report that total THC number. Well, I think what people do to up their THC numbers is they spray distillate. There's a lot of like spraying and dipping and all that kind of shit going on.

1:59:51Dr Mark ScialdoneThese days, shit, they're putting what, HHC distillate now onto hemp. And selling HHC flour, which totally doesn't exist, right? So now that there's that infrastructure that, okay, we can just take a distillate, we could just do that on the sample we send off for testing. The thing about that is that here's where HPLC makes the difference because if you're testing flour, you're gonna see those cannabinoids as cannabinoid acids.

2:00:22Dr Mark ScialdoneIf they're spraying with THC distillate, that's been decarboxylated. So you'll see a THC- That will come up and we'll be like, well, total THC is, you know, 25% because we add the THC that's existing with the THCA. Now, granted, there is some, you know, adventitious decarboxylation that just happens after harvesting. But you guys know as well as I know that, you know, we all like fresh material.

2:00:50Dr Mark ScialdoneAnd I think part of that freshness is exactly what you're saying, Sam. There's that whole underlying symphony of Terpenes and even, you know, they're not necessarily terpenes, but they're terpenoids, I'd call them because like those pre-nolated sulfides, which that group out in Oregon has now, you know, basically used a volatile sulfur detector to detect are the skunky essence of cannabis, pre-nol sulfides and the disulfide of pre-nol sulfide.

2:01:24Dr Mark ScialdoneAnd so they now have actually a method That they're using at testing labs to assign the gassiness of a strain based on the detection of these volatile sulfides. And Marcus, we had that dude on church, right? Before they published their paper, that guy came on Hash Church because I remember that was the first time we had that conversation, I think. What was his name?

2:01:53SpeakerYeah, he was talking about files.

2:01:55Dr Mark ScialdoneYeah, the files.

2:01:56SpeakerOh, Nick.

2:01:57Dr Mark ScialdoneYeah. Yeah, that's right. That guy.

2:02:01SpeakerWell, he's coming back for sure.

2:02:04Dr Mark ScialdoneYeah, there's a professor there and he's involved in the American Chemical Society subdivision. And I've met him at a couple of meetings since we had that discussion on church. And yeah, so they basically have a gas, you know, scale of gassiness of how gassy your weed or your hash is based on the detection of these volatile sulfides. And again, that's just, that's a recent discovery just with like in the last, what, two years, right?

2:02:34Collin PalmerMax, Max and his team at Abstract, they're the ones who kind of discovered it, right? And wrote that paper.

2:02:40SpeakerWell, keep in mind, Nick discovered it about 20 years ago. So when that paper came out, he did chuckle to himself a few times. Got it. If I remember, he did it in hops.

2:02:54Dr Mark ScialdoneYeah, he did it in hops.

2:02:55SpeakerHe discovered 1400 different styles. In hops with that very machine that Mark is talking about. And it's like some ridiculously like one to the trillion or something like it was. He came on and explained it. I think they found five or so in cannabis so far. And one of them is suspected of being much stronger smelling than all the rest. I've got several of the files here, but nobody has proven.

2:03:22SpeakerOf course you do.

2:03:24Dr Mark ScialdoneI asked if they can do the terp profile of dog shit.

2:03:30SpeakerWhat I want to do is I want to know do the files contribute to potency or modulation of terpenes?

2:03:38Dr Mark ScialdoneI'm sure they do. Don't you think, Sam? Oh, you can't assume that. Most of the terpenes don't. Oh, but I'm sure what they do is they, I'm sure they modulate in that they help create, and I've said this before on church before, and I think there is references out in the literature, you know, just increases the fluidity at the membrane, at a cell membrane. So terpenes help exchange stuff across the cell membrane.

2:04:08Dr Mark ScialdoneAnd I think what happens in that, Sam, and it might be adventitious, Michael Sink, M.D. : Is that there are things that now come into the cell that up regulate cannabinoid receptor expression and I think part of the entourage effect is that up regulation of the cannabinoid receptors that has to happen that happens with full. Michael Sink, M.D. : Full spectrum extracts that just doesn't happen with the.

2:04:31Dr Mark ScialdoneMichael Sink, M.D.

2:04:32Collin Palmer: Like kind of. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

2:04:40SpeakerThank you.

2:05:04SpeakerMore of them modulated, but all of them did not do things. And like you say, caryophylline, I felt was negative.

2:05:11Collin PalmerYeah. Yeah, there's a few that do that. So it's interesting. Menolol might be actually one of them as well, I find.

2:05:19Dr Mark ScialdoneCaryophylline is known to be a CB2 agonist, right? So it acts as basically a cannabinoid. And there's been this discussion about calling it a cannabinoid. Because the people who found that out called it a dietary cannabinoid, you know, beta-caryophyllene because it's in, you know, a black pepper, ooh, you know. But yeah, I mean, like, I think there's all kinds of new recent data on that kind of like fleshes out some of the entourage effect because they're finding, Not only more compounds in cannabis extract that contribute to the overall biological effect, but they're discovering new receptors that these things are hitting.

2:06:11Dr Mark ScialdoneSo they're learning more and more and more. When I say they, we, I mean, collectively, us scientists and everyone, the whole human race. I mean, we do have a crystal ball. It's called the scientific literature. And, you know, science is just a fascinating subject for kids. Aaron Ward, To learn and to be fascinated in. Aaron Ward, It just there's all kinds of fascinating when you have a microscope and you have a kid you have a whole day of activity man there's all kinds of things, but I just want to go back and say one other thing, so this is again talking about some of the things that these.

2:06:46SpeakerAaron Ward, Your mic's caught Nick.

2:06:49Collin PalmerI'm sorry.

2:06:55SpeakerYour mic is hot. It's not muted. I was just letting you know. Thank you. And welcome. We're talking. We're talking about files. So I thought I'd invite you in because you're one of the guys that opened that. You were the guy that opened that conversation up with me. And so, yeah, Dr. Mark, if you want to catch him up. The question is, do they modulate?

2:07:14Dr Mark ScialdoneYeah, there you go. Ask that question. So the discovery of these sulfur compounds that you guys have found and now I met with Ian and that group at the APS meeting where they were looking at the so-called gas factor and assigning gas factor based on the quantification of these volatile sulfides. So yeah, there was just a question on, because I think Sam and other people are again discussing about different compounds that modulate the effects of cannabinoids.

2:07:51SpeakerIs it known whether or not... Nick is the co-party who sent me my terpies. Which, from, who'd you get them from?

2:08:06SpeakerWhat's that? Who said what? I'm sorry, this is Nick. Which party did you get them from?

2:08:16SpeakerWhat's the name of the lab? Abraxas? I'm afraid I can't remember the name of the lab. Well, yes, that's correct. Abstract.

2:08:29SpeakerGotcha. No, actually, I have not been working with them, but I've communicated with them on some of their research and some of what they're doing. I think some of their claims are a little bit broad, but they're definitely doing some really good work. A lot of people in the space are.

2:08:47SpeakerThey were the only people I was able to obtain the pure thiols from, and I need to do the work, but I have a little bit of trouble getting pure THC, so until I get the pure THC, I can't do the thiol work. Where are you based? Amsterdam. Oh, okay. Let me see what I can do. I'll see if I can find you some fun stuff. And just, you've got my email on here, so go ahead and shoot me your address.

2:09:19SpeakerAll of the terpenes are legal here. I mean, the cannabinoids are legal in Holland, except for Delta 9 and Delta 8. All the rest of them are, maybe even Delta 8 might be legal, I forget. But Delta 9 is not legal. So you can't buy- Delta 9 THCA, is that legal?

2:09:43SpeakerThat's exactly what I was going to say.

2:09:47SpeakerWhat is what legal? THCA. THCA. No, that's not legal because what you have to do is heat it up and it turns into THC. So, of course, that's not legal.

2:10:03SpeakerOkay. In any case, I'll see if I can find somebody from the medical space. They might have some. Speaking of standards, I just wanted to mention too, when we were talking about standards and labs before, that one of the big problems when we first started, because we started our lab more than two decades ago, Uh was the problem that uh when you would order analytical standards from sigma or from the united nations uh drug uh people that when we would test them on our HPLC we would find they weren't as stated so if you calibrate your machines according to what they say they are Thank you.

2:10:49SpeakerThank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

2:11:17SpeakerUm, we found that you needing a sulfur chemo, a medicine detector array is, is really one of the things that drives, drives up your, your accuracy. Um, and then the other issue is that, uh, there hasn't been a tremendous amount of research done into them. And so the, the bands are not as narrow, um, for, for what they're saying. So they're, they're clustering a lot of things together.

2:11:36SpeakerAnd so you actually see things like, um, for MMP, um, is listed as, you know, being this one, one very important file file in, in aromatics and. In reality, the standard we use is actually covering several isomers as well as some other compounds that are right next to it. And so in terms of purity, that's the indicator vial or that's the indicator that they use for the vials and vial weights that are in that region.

2:12:01SpeakerBut it's not necessarily specific Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

2:12:32SpeakerThere was no way to separate really without really, really specialized columns, which were rare and expensive, C and CBD. So everybody was co-allucinating all of those together and reporting them as one peak instead of, in fact, they were two peaks. Exactly. And then the other tricky aspect is, especially if you're using GCNS, the sulfur compounds, most of the detectors don't like them. So you need to have a separate detector for them.

2:13:05SpeakerAnd even then, it's really just a method development that has to continue because there aren't a lot of established methods. Agilent has been working with us and improving public access to those methods. So it's a good thing. But we're still a couple of years out and getting it really, really nailed down. That's the reason why we never looked at files, because we had no way to determine the file percentages or anything else in our lab.

2:13:30SpeakerWe wished we could, but there was no way, so we didn't try. And not only that, the best detectors are actually really good at detecting and good at isolating, but they're not very good at quantitation. So it's a challenge all the way around. David, you said something earlier about what's known about the co-effects and the impact and whether or not they sort of potentiate or they interfere with.

2:13:56SpeakerAnd really, that research hasn't yet been done. I was just speaking to Ethan Russo last week about this. He's very interested in it as well. So I'm going to try to see if I can set some sort of studies up with everybody. What, to me, from an evolutionary, evolutionarily, evolutionarily, second, Jesus, I'm having trouble talking with one, sorry, is it makes sense that there would be some sort of neurological impact because they're so important in human evolution.

2:14:23SpeakerAnd then mammalian evolution in general. Looking at the way that they predict ripening and they predict fermentation and they also predict putrescence. Those are three very important survival tools for mammals. And that's the one thing that's really interesting I found is that if you, you know what durian is, it's a very sort of the stinkiest fruit in the world, they call it. It's extremely high in 3-MH and 4-MP as well as some other thioates and pentane thioates that are kind of more the gassy, garlic, dank, easily nastiness in very, very high quantities when they're high proportions.

2:15:01SpeakerTigers, who are obligate carnivores, will make their way to a durian tree and defend it because they like the durian so much. It's got a lot of protein. It's got a lot of fat in it as well. But the fact that they're able to detect those dials and they use it as a source of food for an obligate carnivore is pretty impressive. Well, I'm very curious. I also used to be curious in flavonoids because I know that they can modulate and potentiate things.

2:15:34SpeakerBut orally, they can. But if you smoke them, it deactivates them. So the flavonoids are not responsible for the smoke different effects in cannabis. For orally, that could be a completely different story. 100%.

2:15:53SpeakerThere's an awful lot of terpenes that really have no effects. I mean, they don't get too high. Excuse me. I'm not talking medical here. I'm talking recreational. And the same thing with the cannabinoids. Most of the cannabinoids do not get too high.

2:16:15SpeakerYeah, but they do have an impact on sort of CB1, CB2, as well as the other receptors, and they have an impact on modulating, say, for example, your gut health. Some of them certainly do. A prime example is the way CBD will delay the onset of Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

2:16:56SpeakerYou know, give them a teaspoon or tablespoon of black pepper to munch on. And it pretty much nerfs it very, very quickly. And the mechanism is not understood, but it seems to be the case of anecdotal experiences driving research. And it's really exciting to see that sort of stuff start to happen. Well, for years, I've been trying to get too high on THC products, but so far I've been pretty unsuccessful.

2:17:24SpeakerYou know, and just for conversation, I would love to bring in, there's a lot of people out there who the more that the plant is concentrated, the less high that they get. So I've talked with Ethan Russo at length about this. And at first it was like, no, that's not possible. But yes, it is. There's a lot of people who don't get high off of a dab at all and maybe a little bit of hash.

2:17:50SpeakerThey will. They really don't feel the effects. So the more natural that it is or the more flower or joint or maybe out of a bong that it is, they would be getting a higher effect. And what was brought up at conversation after a couple of years at length, sort of bringing it up too, was the amino acids. That are present in the plant that I haven't heard in this conversation.

2:18:18SpeakerWe've been talking about the acids and the cannabinoids, but the amino acids. And then that definitely now brings the entourage effect back into the conversation without having to elude it. The amino acids are destroyed during vaporization or smoking. So like in terms of edibles, you can certainly get some of those, but in general, they are destroyed by smoking. Yeah, like the flavonoids. Yep, and the polyphenols. Well, there seems to be something that's happening when, you know, the more raw that people, whether it's even combusting, whether it's an edible, you know, people that are getting more effects off of an edible, even if it is in butter.

2:19:06SpeakerAnd I hear and I understand that the amino acids are alive there, but there's something that's happening. For a lot of people that need the more raw compounds, even if it's decarboxylated, even if it's heated up. So that's a conversation that we don't understand yet. And I'd love to hear what you all think about it. Could it be as simple as when you take cannabinoids, THC especially, orally, then you don't get high on THC.

2:19:40SpeakerThe THC, you get high on the 11 hydroxy after it goes through the liver. And so what reaches the brain and the blood is, Thank you so much for joining us today.

2:20:17SpeakerBut sort of going into that, that's sort of an interesting thing. So anecdotally, I, some people don't have the enzymes, the liver enzymes or functionality to process some of the THC into the bioactive form from oral consumption. And it depends on the form that it comes in. As an example, I've consumed upwards of 300 milligrams of Delta-8 orally and had zero effect. Whereas, you know, a vape, it instantly affects me.

2:20:42SpeakerIt is definitely very, very much lighter than Delta-9. But orally, I just, For some reason, my body doesn't process the material. My cousin, he has the same thing with Delta-9. He can consume just insane quantities of Delta-9 edibles, and he gets no effect from them at all. And this needs to be studied more, but I suspect that there's probably some gene deletes or some enzyme Deletes in in different people to explain that um the like but what are you talking about sort of the overall it is that way for alcohol american indians don't have and and yep uh so there's migration um by that um there's a really interesting uh but the point you bring about the whole sort of full spectrum material is i think salient um i think that the Total quantity of all the material in working together will give you a different effect.

2:21:40SpeakerAnd so as an example, I'll go back to saying the pure, pure THC, like pure THC beverages do almost nothing. They do get me like sort of instant, like instantly intoxicated and then It's a very thin, very narrow experience. I don't get some of the relaxation. I don't get the enjoyment of it as much. And it's not just from the aroma and flavor of it, but it's the combination of everything.

2:22:05SpeakerSo I 100% agree that the full spectrum material is a quantifiably Thank you for joining us today.

2:22:33SpeakerSo it is different. I think that the complexities of those interactions are very, very difficult to disentangle and study. And the typical approach of doing one compound plus one modulator is where we need to start doing this research. But we really need to start looking at significantly more complicated

2:22:53SpeakerYou know, probably all significantly more complicated arrangements of all of these compounds. And instead of doing sort of additions, doing deletes from a sort of full spectrum mix. So you say, okay, we've got a full spectrum that's completely quantified. We know what everything that's in it. Now let's remove one of those fractions at a time and see what the result is. It's going to be, it's going to take, you know, probably decades to complete that research because of all the possible combinations.

2:23:21SpeakerAnd some would say, rightly, that it's probably not worth doing because of the amount of time. Well, that's why we do it.

2:23:27Collin PalmerIt's worth doing, Nick. We got to do it. We got to find out because it's.

2:23:30SpeakerYeah, but it's maybe a million different combinations you're talking about. I would say trillions. Yeah. Every person is different. And every person is different.

2:23:45Etienne FontanYeah. Let's go subjective.

2:23:51SpeakerSo Nick and Sam, still getting to that question, do you think, I would just love maybe even to marinate on it and get back to me or what you all think, but just that idea that people who can feel effects off of, say, a joint or any other raw form, but as soon as it's concentrated or the more that it's concentrated, even whether it's rosin, Even whether it's from a full spectrum plant, it's just the actual idea of concentrating those cannabinoids, what's being left out that the person no longer has effects.

2:24:30SpeakerAnd so I think that's the key point. It's not about the level of concentration. It's about the exclusion of other components. And I think that's, I think that's a very, very important distinction to make is that it's not necessarily the concentration is the problem. It's that the elimination of any of the compounds will provide an attendant experience is, is what's going to be driving that. And. Oh, go ahead.

2:24:55SpeakerExcuse me, Nick. I didn't mean to interrupt. No, go ahead. Oh, what I was going to say was that what we found was that the other materials in the plant Thank you so much for joining us.

2:25:34SpeakerAnd tolerance is an issue here and it's subjective, but I think that in general, from all of the research that I've done and all of the work that I've been doing, and obviously the work Marcus has been doing with hash and bubble hash and cleaning those up, we see that the vast majority of effects do come from those resin packs. That's not to say that there isn't other, that there aren't other compounds in the other material that won't change that experience, but that the vast majority of the sort of recreational interest is concentrated, and medical interest, is concentrated in the resin heads, except when it comes to things, like you mentioned, the amino acids and the proteins, as well as the The polyphenol groups and the flavonoids, which are a huge group and they're starting to be studied, but it's complex to study them.

2:26:24SpeakerYou're only going to get an effect from in edible form through oral consumption just because of the nature. Flavonoids are very important for a lot of people. But I was really, really focused on just the recreational focus. And once I found out that when you smoke flavonoids, it deactivated them, then I did not focus on them anymore.

2:26:52Dr Mark ScialdoneThat was the end of that. They thermally degrade. Correct. They don't volatilize. No, they just turn to ash. Yeah, that's the problem with the spice cannabinoids too, the synthetic cannabinoids is that they don't keenly vaporize, right? They thermally degrade.

2:27:15SpeakerEarlier when you said the exclusion of components, is it always the exclusion of components or are there different genetic makeups that have blind spots in some form or another where they can't experience these? 100%. So there's every reason in both the plant and the person. So there's there are ways human beings have have anosmias and there are I like doing it both ways, Nick.

2:28:07SpeakerYou eliminate one thing at a time and then eliminate two things at a time and then three. And you also do it the way we did it, which was we had 25 milligrams of THC and we spiked it with a single terpene, then another single terpene, then another single terpene and smoked them on different days so that we could evaluate what they did. We were primarily looking for ones that potentiated and if they modulated, we wanted to know how.

2:28:39SpeakerExactly. I mean, I would love to talk about more about this and there's some groups that I'd like to possibly bring into this conversation at some point because it's a It's really, I think it's fascinating and I think the implications are huge for the recreational market as well as for therapy as medicine. And I think that it's one of those things where we need to move away from the dogma of single compounds, single effect into The compounding effects of multiple compounds together.

2:29:10SpeakerI mean, as an example, there's a, you know, Adderall, dextrophetamine sulfate is sort of the major component in there, but the generics only have like that one major one. From my personal experience, I take it every day. I have, you know, Finally, well-managed ADHD, and cannabis is certainly a part of that, is that the combination of multiple salts of amphetamine salts is more effective than the single primary component.

2:29:37SpeakerAnd this is one of the big things that a lot of sort of analytical chemistry and just Western medicine and science in general has struggled with is the focus on principal component analysis. Well, I think vitamin C is the same way. I mean, vitamin C, if you make it synthetically, it works. Or natural, pure vitamin C works. But if you take vitamin C and you extract it from plant sources and you're getting the other associated compounds with it, it's more effective.

2:30:13SpeakerAnd I think that the focus on, honestly, and this is for ease of analysis, on just looking at what makes up 90 or 95% of the compound is like that gets you into the, not even the ballpark, but into the city where the ballpark is located for what's really driving all these effects. And it's It is a very important shortcut to take, but it also, once you've identified those, what are the key components that drive the most of the effects?

2:30:43SpeakerYou need to start branching out and looking at all of the attendant components that come with it and why whole spectrum, full spectrum extracts or plants are more effective Then single, like sort of single compound dose. And it's not true for everything. And that's important to realize. But I think that in this case, there's enough evidence that we should really start looking into this in great detail.

2:31:08SpeakerOther research that I've always found really interesting is why are some varieties of cannabis seedling-less? By that I mean, no matter how much you smoke, you always get higher when you smoke another joint or another pipe or another dab of that material. Where some materials, you smoke, you smoke, you smoke, and then you get to the point where it'll kind of make you more stone, but it won't make you more high.

2:31:35SpeakerAnd I don't know about everybody else, but I want to get higher. And this is something that, you know, coming from my background, I love the community around it, but what gets me a little bit wonky sometimes is the use of terms like high versus stone versus heady versus, you know, like body buzz, all those things, like trying to define, and this is also because I'm very particular about terms, But trying to define those in a way that gives us a sort of a shared understanding that is quantifiable, that we can track it and we can trace it and analyze it across different users and different strains is really important.

2:32:14SpeakerBut again, this may be me being just a little bit more picky. And what you said earlier about certain strains, and that was the other side of this, the genetics of people that are sort of anosmia, but there are also strains that simply don't, like there are chemovars, let's focus on the proper term, there are chemovars that don't express the same cannabinoids and they don't express the same aromatic balance, and that's why we're interested in all of these different strains and these different cultivars.

2:32:44SpeakerAnd using that variability as a feature rather than a bug is what I like to do. Let's celebrate the variation in between people and plants because we can then create blends of these things that do Everything we want. And you can tune them, which I'm really excited by, is taking the components that we want and then from different strains and combining them to create something that is not sort of expressed in the natural genetics of the plant.

2:33:16SpeakerAs a plant breeder, I'm very interested in knowing what it is that people prefer and why so that I can breed a plant that's tailored for that. Exactly. What's interesting is we've been doing a lot of accessions or studies of different chemo bars and working with Jeremy Plum, I wish he was on this call because he'd start laughing right now, is the terpenylene dominance that we're seeing in the U.S. market, recreational and hemp, is massive.

2:33:47SpeakerAnd the point where, like, We're seeing a potential loss of genetic diversity because people are selecting so heavily for that terpenylene dominance because it lifts up the citrus, it lifts up the tropical, and it lifts up the diesel and gassy character so well, and piney as well, that it seems like we might be sort of selecting ourselves into a corner with breeding stock. And so I think it's really important to not just go for what people currently want, But to also look at what we see there are sort of attend with those, or not to attend, that follow those clear customer preferences.

2:34:28SpeakerAnd so we know that turpentine is very, very exciting for a lot of people. And people judge their butter and say, oh, that smells amazingly gassy and citrusy. Great. But maybe they like something that has a lot more tropical character and a lot more of the burnt rubber and guava character that comes from the vials. Just to bring it full circle here and making sure that we can protect those genetics so that breeders like yourself can combine them and produce something that has both.

2:34:58SpeakerPeople have often asked me, what is the best? And I say, what do you mean by best? Do you mean the strongest, the best tasting, the best? What do you mean by the best? Because without understanding what they mean by the best, there is no single best cannabis for everybody. It just isn't that way. Or for every situation.

2:35:21Etienne FontanThere also needs to be a germplasm institute to protect all the genetics so that there can be biodiversity of what Nick is talking about, yet protecting and breeding the other characteristics that are still there that people come to know and love. And the problem is those don't exist domestically and they don't exist in Canada at this time. So we need to start thinking about something like that so we can protect it because I mean, this genetic tattooed on my arm has gone well over a decade, and it was one that helped many patients that I wish had been saved, but it's gone from the face of the earth.

2:35:57Etienne FontanSo I think, Nick, you bring up a very real point that we have to be protecting the genetics that we have, but also the biodiversity that exists so that in future generations can understand much less appreciate.

2:36:12SpeakerIt's kind of hard because to maintain a germplasm, for example, let's say you have just one landrace. Every time you reproduce that landrace, to not lose genes from that gene pool, you've got to have a minimum of 1,000 males and 1,000 females, every reproduction. And those 1,000 males, they can't be clones all of the same male. They've got to be from seed, 1,000 males. Then you limit your loss to really, really a small percentage.

2:36:50SpeakerBut yeah, the only place that's really done is in third world countries. People aren't growing. Thank you for joining us.

2:37:27Collin PalmerAll right, so we're going to take a quick break and then we'll be right back.

2:37:47Collin PalmerYou know, but not whole revisions and, you know, whole new drops of just completely different things from clone.

2:37:56SpeakerMost of the seed companies in the world can't even maintain clones for 20, 30 years for seed production. So if you can't lose clones, how are you going to save varieties?

2:38:10Collin PalmerSo Sam back in the in like the 90s when like Ben Donker like you or you or you created the the you were there right so at what time did the did those mother plants start to be really difficult to obtain was it like the late night late late 80s late 90s like what was it difficult the whole time like obtain them from who from where I don't understand how long did you how Basically, when did people like Sensi start losing their mother plants?

2:38:39Collin PalmerProbably from day one. Yeah, I mean.

2:38:47SpeakerIf you keep a plant as a clone and you keep it virus-free, so keep the pests away, and it doesn't pick up more viruses, which will cause it to lose vigor and vitality.

2:39:06SpeakerI didn't see any difference between clones 30 years later if you kept them clean, safe, and secure. And that's actually something that's becoming a very large challenge right now because of the amount of unregulated growth that's going around and people are sharing the cuts and all that stuff. One of the ways to do that is actually through tissue culture because you can actually preserve certain cells that don't have the virus yet and you can grow it from that.

2:39:34SpeakerCompanies like Segra and Power Plant are doing this for the community. Yeah, and there's a lot of...

2:39:42Etienne FontanThey're working on the hop-laden viroids.

2:39:45SpeakerOh yeah, and this, from my experience in the hop industry, that's a big problem. And we, I mean, it's not a problem for hops as much, but for if you're growing cannabis near them or if you're processing the same facility, there needs to be very, very good phytosanitary controls. One of the things that, going back to the sort of the preservation of genetics, one of the things that I've done in my own breeding and curation is to try to always seed out All of these are genetics that I like for whatever particular reason.

2:40:16SpeakerAnd I always keep the seeds of the crosses that I'm not too happy about because there might be something that pops up in them. And I've got some genetics that have abhorrent agronomic characteristics. So just they're terrible. They're spindly. They're incredibly mite sensitive. One of the things I really do breed for is We've got a couple of questions here. We've got a couple of questions here. We've got a couple of questions here.

2:40:57SpeakerCategory most people don't want to do that. I understand why, but it's a fun thing for me. Come on, tell the truth. You say you did that. The truth of it is you just can't get rid of the little boogers. No, no, no, no, no. I introduced them. I actually drove somewhere where I knew there was a spider mite infestation in a hop field, took some and put it into my mite tent, which is inside another tent.

2:41:24SpeakerAnd have you found plants which were mite resistant and didn't get mites? Yes. Why? I don't know why.

2:41:36SpeakerIt's very possible that it's, I mean, I would say that it's likely that it's something to do in the aromatic profile, but also that their immune response is probably quicker. I have grown millions of plants in my life, Nick, and I've grown thousands of different land races of cannabis. I have never seen a plant that could not get mites. Okay, so there's not getting mites and then there's resisting mites at the load that it's currently affecting other plants.

2:42:03SpeakerAnd so they're always together in the same tent. And so the plant, the mites might go to other plants over this particular cross. I've seen it myself. I've seen it myself. I've seen it with a Congo in a room. Yeah, exactly. Way lower levels though. Like 90% were on the crop and maybe like 10% or less were on this other plant. And speaking of resistance and susceptibility, those important mildew papers came out where they found both genes for susceptibility and genes for resistance.

2:42:40SpeakerAnd they found out that it's more important to not have the susceptibility genes than it is to have the resistance genes to avoid mildew in your plants.

2:42:51Collin PalmerHey, speaking of resistance, Brian, you're working in a climate, I think, that is more challenging than anyone here. And you've been raining for years. Like I have on the East Coast, we have a tremendous amount of rain. Like today is a great example. We're in the thick of a tropical event that's just been broken up.

2:43:14Bryan Best Friend FarmsYeah, it's challenging. How's it going up there? There's plenty up here today. It's sunny up here today, but it's really windy, which isn't bad. The land I have here is opened up for good air drainage airflow. But yeah, this is interesting. I was going to bring it up or ask anyone that if they've seen any resistance, which I've to Botrytis from the lemonine group, I've seen the lemon oriented.

2:43:40Bryan Best Friend FarmsTypes, and I can't break down the science in terms of the breakdown for the family of terpenes, the profile, but I've seen things in the lemon category be very resistant into the later season for botrytis and resistance. And then I've seen this year out of a whole list of types, I've actually seen only powdery mildew pop up late season on the gas mask, phenol number six, back cross one.

2:44:06Bryan Best Friend FarmsAnd which is ironic because the mom doesn't show that. So it's something reached out and is not resistant in it. But otherwise, it's not bad. It came in late and everything else very, very clean. And I've been breeding like five years back here towards that. So it shows with mildew being a challenge, but I found it to be a challenge, cultivar specific, strain specific more. And yeah, so kind of leaning off of things that might go that way.

2:44:35Bryan Best Friend FarmsAnd I'm finding definitely in Maine that more that the fruit forward, cookie back type still kind of working with that complex of Uh, genetics with some other tie-in. I've, I've got a whole list of some exploration this year, which I can list off some strains that I'm working with, since if that is interesting to anyone.

2:44:57SpeakerI, I, uh, I was trying to breed. Sounds like there's some science happening here. I was trying to breed against Botrytis also. I was trying to do it in skunk number one. And, uh, I grew several years and, uh, It was so difficult that I gave up. But there definitely could be, because if you think about it, I never see botrytis in a variety like original haze.

2:45:27SpeakerSo I'm working with it. I really wonder what comes down, because Brian, I really want to hear your strain list. And I just wanted to add, there's people that want to hear it. Yeah, and we also created 40 new varietals. And everything that we did this year was off a seed. And I think we did about 1300. All from seed, all our old varietals and then mixing in some others.

2:45:57SpeakerBut I'm wondering too, wanted to bring it into the conversation that maybe more than having to do with varietals because we've been growing in this area for so long. We've been adding to our soil for so long. We've been getting it right for so long. We only do seed varietals. We'll keep our clone. You know, we'll keep a mother maybe only because we've grown it out from that year or something.

2:46:23SpeakerBut normally we'll just continue to grow seeds. And I just realized that now it's not really mattering what varietal that we We are working with, if we've been working with it for a long time, because I think then that involves the endophytic relationship within the plant that then goes into the seed. Because I think if you're building something that's super resistant, you're building it through biology as well, which Thank you so much for joining us today.

2:46:53SpeakerWe're going to get started in about a minute.

2:47:18SpeakerKelly Cervantes, Thank you. Kelly Cervantes, Thank you.

2:47:39SpeakerAnd this year we didn't have hardly any Botrytis. No, and that's in stock and bud in early and late. And it just sort of goes on and on. But the ones that we did have the problems with were the ones that were early. And Brian, I want to roll right over to you because I'd love to hear your list.

2:47:59Bryan Best Friend FarmsOh, well, we've had a great success summer too for health, actually, and have really not seen much of any Botrytis. Um, really into this later finish where we're kind of a better cold main, sunny and breezy finish this year. So that helps, but the health is really up and I would share one straight. I saw that it was interesting is from Dominion Seed Co. from Duke Diamond.

2:48:26Bryan Best Friend FarmsThat's a local skunk. I don't know how much skunk one it has in there, but I was going to let Sam know that that one was actually a resistant and a reparative strain where I say it cracked down the middle, even with some support and did a little quick bind job. And this came back late season where it looked like it was about to die off and it had great resistance repair.

2:48:49Bryan Best Friend FarmsWhich I've seen with hemp, but not as much with cannabis. And then it's got no mold. There's no mold, no botrytis, no septoria. And that's an old scratch pile compost that had actually a sour best shit ever with a Romulan called candy coated that took some septoria pretty hard, like almost the hardest in the yard. Picked clean leaf, you know, killed the spore colony or tried to and it came back on it right away.

2:49:15Bryan Best Friend FarmsAnd then on the backside of Black Dominus Super Skunk seems to be throwing lay, but catching Botrytis really kind of quickly, otherwise looking healthy in this little three plant set of just experimental run. But the Dominions work there, the local skunk, this one, you know, just really awesome gassy kind of skunky gas skunk or sweet gas skunk more than just raunchy skunk, I would say. So, Yeah, anyway, I have the strain list though.

2:49:45Bryan Best Friend FarmsSo I'll read it off this year what we're working with. We've got some Cherry Chem. I've got a Tropicana Kosher Tangy on my gas mask called Masquerade. I've got a Strawberry Lime Fino of my Holy Road. I've got some 91 Royale and a Grapefruit Skunk Sided Holy Road. I've got a gas mask, Bat Cross 1, some Black Wilson Reserve, Coff BX1, the candy coated ROM, SBSC. We've got that local skunk.

2:50:21Bryan Best Friend FarmsGuava mask is doing amazingly well. Just really kind of running the number of phenos. Not a whole ton, but enough of them to get a good look on it and had great results there. So the cherry mask. is doing really well also and I would share back that the cherry chem was from South Fork Seeds I got given to me at an emerald cut right before I came back here like six to seven years ago and usually see the indica sided stuff in Maine kind of go like you might have mentioned with newer indica types introduced to the land even though we like some of them I've had to breed with like a blackberry pie local cut to get the resistance out a year or two later from it And I'm seeing it even a year later, but, you know, going back to it, I've saw cherry chem this year from a seed phenol that really showed such good health that it did hit a septoria a little bit of challenge, which, you know, to bring it up, septoria is like crushing trees that are 20, 30 feet tall now in Maine over the last two years.

2:51:23Bryan Best Friend FarmsAnd the locals are talking about, I walk the woods and see it. And it seems like a climate change, but a different conversation type of thing. And I'd get, you know, information from the people on that one actually seems to be where we're at with it. But it's like we're having to breathe through.

2:51:38Collin PalmerFusarium and Fusarium, too, in the in your areas in just just this area in New England. It's been that's what I've heard. It's new for me in the last few years. But, you know, New York, New York, you never had these types of things. So it's yeah, I don't know. It's like, you know, Yeah, we're having to treat, you know, even reverse osmosis water has to be treated and, you know, even with, you know, going through systems.

2:52:09Collin PalmerSo it's, it's really challenging. I don't know, you know, what you're doing to.

2:52:12Bryan Best Friend FarmsYeah, we're seeing these different blights pop up, Colin, like that, like this, you know, Septoria Fusaria, you might see more Septoria, but it's added a whole new level of, of not negative, but actually positive movement for plant adaptation in the breeding that we're doing with the, I'm doing all that. Yes. And I'm finding, I'm breeding more for Septoria resistance now than any of the Botrytis or PMs like old news.

2:52:38Bryan Best Friend FarmsBotrytis hard in Maine, but the Septoria is such a kicker with even big trees. Other, I can see it in nature, take certain types, not others. So I'm seeing it back to the plants with cannabis. It's not, it's not strain specific. It's phenol specific. I've seen sisters touching each other, like my guava kush. And I documented it this year where it's literally knocked off the flowers healthy, but the septoria hit everything, even with a clean out twice.

2:53:04Bryan Best Friend FarmsAnd we just took it down early and it was finished. It was on the Indica side thing too. But the more sativa expressing sister right next door, touching it a foot and a half away, So I'm kind of like having to breed more through that these days than anything else, but seeing things that are resistant, you know, on one thing and not another. The light hit of septoria at the end on cherry cam, but otherwise it like moved on from no mildew, no botrytis, even into second stage cut off the tops.

2:53:36Bryan Best Friend FarmsYou know, right now, checking it every day. And I would share back to that as the lemonine family. And then now into the whatever cherry you guys would know more makes up into the cherry pie on Chem D. Like I think it was back across three or four on the Chem D. And it's all cherry pie sided too. It's just got a little glass, you know, gas glist and it doesn't wash.

2:53:56Bryan Best Friend FarmsAlthough you might be able to pull something. It doesn't wash for us, you know, but it's a flower strain. I'll come up. I'll come up. Yeah, I was going to say, I got a few goodies that I can't wait to, like, throw you in to see if you pull something off them. Like the Grapefruit Skunk Holy Road, you know, it goes back to that Callio Skunk One Cut from Humble Clone that's not like your typical Tangy.

2:54:20Bryan Best Friend FarmsThat's one of my all-time favorites, yeah. Yeah, and it goes Grapefruit Skunk, you know what I'm talking about. It's a really Grapefruit Skunk thing. Hey, Jim. So I can't watch.

2:54:34SpeakerI hate to interrupt, but I need to, my flight's boarding in like seven minutes, so I need to just say goodbye, but also in relation to this specific thing, if you look at the, obviously the limonene and linalool dominant, so for citrus, there typically is also a lot of alpha and beta pinene and sedrine, and those combinations are what make up All right. Thank you so much for joining us today.

2:55:24SpeakerFinish this, and I would love to talk to you guys more. You have my email, and likewise, I'm going to see if I can reach out, because this is fascinating. I love it. Thanks for sharing, Nick. Always a pleasure. Peace out, everybody. Peace out.

2:55:42SpeakerWow, that was a good solid three hours. I wanted to hear a little bit more from Wade, because we haven't heard enough from Wade. How is everything going in Wade's world right now?

2:55:55SpeakerThings are going pretty good in Ward's world. I've been loving this conversation and seeing some of the faces and enjoying my dab rig here.

2:56:13SpeakerIt occurred to me to try and do a memory test and review what I've heard today. I know early on in the conversation, Kelly and Josh were talking about getting a letter from the EPA about their products.

2:56:30SpeakerAnd it occurs to me to say that that's a sign of respect. They recognize that you're actually doing something in the market. And to some extent, you're a threat to an existing business model. And One of the thoughts I had as that conversation progressed was I live in California where we have an abundance of rules and regulations for everything, and especially cannabis. And to be quite honest, in my opinion, especially as a patient myself at a whole new serious level now in my life, We've made a hot mess of legalization.

2:57:08SpeakerIt's not really legalization. It's commercialization. But that wanders off to a different topic. And I wanted to try again, like a memory thing. After that, we got into this thing about science and nature. And I think of science myself as, and I'm not a paid scientist, Mark, but I understand your point. Well said.

2:57:36SpeakerTo me, science is really a method of trying to understand nature in all its various aspects. Everything from the stars and the universe that we live in to how our bodies work. And we wouldn't know so much about how cannabis has the effects it does in the body in addition to psychoactivity. Hi, Sam. If it weren't for science, I mean, science wanted to learn about cannabis and did and has and has revealed an incredible amount.

2:58:11SpeakerAnd Mark Scaldone, Dr. Mark Scaldone pointed to a paper, I think he referenced CBDA and some of the effects that it's had. And yeah, I'm a big fan, as you can imagine.

2:58:27SpeakerLet's see, after that, it went towards, oh yeah, we got into thiols and the effects and their presence. And Sam was talking about doing the 25 milligrams THC and then adding a terpene one at a time, one day at a time. I love that kind of methodical approach because that's science. Actually, that's especially if you keep track of what you're doing. Records. I'm sure Sam does. Breathing into scale.

2:58:57SpeakerYou know, I'm just stunned at the breadth of knowledge in this group of people that you invite, Marcus. And in a certain way, I feel very humbled to sit here with you all today.

2:59:17SpeakerBut I also feel inspired.

2:59:21SpeakerMy life has changed pretty dramatically in the last year. But in a good way, because there were some health challenges happening in my life four or five years ago that didn't make sense to me. It wasn't the person that I always thought lived in this body. You know, the body was going through some changes. I think it's part of getting old. But for me, it was specifically a form of cancer that has manifested in my bones and And so on that conversation about science and nature, I love nature very much.

3:00:01SpeakerI've spent a good portion of my life trying to understand how a garden works and what the diversity of nature can do. For a plant that I love very much. And now what I found as a patient myself is that in the regulated market in California, even in Nevada County, which is where I live, I live between Nevada City and Grass Valley in the Sierra foothills.

3:00:38SpeakerEven here where our local cannabis alliance has created a program through the whole supply chain where any patient who has a medical recommendation from their physician can get free product that's been donated by the The supply chain, all of the license holders in our area contribute, not all of them, a good portion of them. And I've taken advantage, I helped set that up.

3:01:08SpeakerAnd over the last year, I have actually taken advantage of that program quite a bit. But even me, with all of the people I know, it's kind of hard to find Versions of the cannabis plant chemistry in products where I can get. The couple of hundred milligrams that I want a couple of times a day, I'm not really so much trying to control my cancer because the back to science for a second.

3:01:41SpeakerAnd if this is too much information, anybody interrupt. But back to science. I ended up in a series of hospitals in December of last year. Bill Meyers, MD, About coming on 10 months ago now. Bill Meyers, MD, And at one of them down in Stanford, I got a course of radiation in one day, one dose. It worked wonders, at least my experience, other than a sunburn around my mouth, but My appetite improved.

3:02:15SpeakerI slept better. I was less pain. And meantime, yeah, I was on a pretty aggressive course of chemo. And I think it kept me alive. I'm really grateful.

3:02:32SpeakerI have a really renewed and profound sense of how life really is a gift. Your chance to To be involved with family, to be involved in a community, back to the theme of this morning's church, the idea that we are in fact a community. And as Wade sitting here on his little patio, looking at my pond and these big beautiful trees,

3:03:14SpeakerIn my situation, I feel really grateful, actually. I don't know many people who are better situated in their life to be doing what I'm doing right now.

3:03:30SpeakerMultiple myeloma is the kind of cancer that I have. It's a specific bone marrow cell called a plasmid. It kind of goes crazy. Thank you for joining us.

3:04:01SpeakerI think that in my case, at least, because every person's different, our metabolism, our body's needs, our body's ability to respond to something like a cancer. It's been a fascinating question to me trying to understand because this is a cancer of cells of the immune system. The effects of high dosage cannabis use, and specifically in my case, of course, I'm mixing CBD and THC in various versions, ingesting as well as dabbing on my mini nail thing.

3:04:37SpeakerAnd yeah. The combination of having done some time trying to understand how my mind works through a form of Buddhism, if you will, that I did for a number of years through a really lifelong interest in how things grow, how do things work, and specifically how do plants work? How does that happen? How do you put a seed in the ground? And the combination of moisture and soil and sun produce this plant that feeds us or provides these beautiful flowers or these incredible aromatic plants that can have such profound effects on our experience.

3:05:24SpeakerAnd in the meantime, here I am. What's true is my cancer seems to have responded really well to treatment. At this point, I'm on a fairly low dose of a chemotherapy drug, which so far my oncologist is saying, no, you don't want to stop it, Wade. Look at the good results you're having. And it's true. All my blood work's going in the right directions. I've known enough cancer patients.

3:05:52SpeakerI don't remember who it was that referenced the patient is not really a great term for cancer. Who we are because yeah i've been i've been a patient under california law for glaucoma since well before there was such a thing um i was diagnosed back in 94 95 and um anyway cannabis i i love this plant one of the other points that i came to mind to say is We've already looked at or can see in medicine, they have a high THC.

3:06:27SpeakerMarinol is one of the names of it that you can get prescribed to by a doctor and get it in a hospital here in the United States approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Same is true with Epidiolex. You can get it delivered to your home. One of the reasons I am celebrating today, despite all of the other. I've been crying a lot, but I really am.

3:06:48SpeakerThese are tears of gratitude.

3:06:53SpeakerBecause, yeah, that made me, Epidiolex made me think of a couple of the families that I know who have Family members who are dealing with severe epilepsy. One of them's been on our show a couple of times here. Your show, Marcus. Thank you. Our show. Forrest Hurd, speak of community. He and his son, Silas, have had a huge effect on the conversation about cannabis in Nevada County.

3:07:28SpeakerWe're proposing, anyway, back to Silas. He is, this is a boy, if you don't know the story, I'll tell anybody that wants to hear it for a second. When I met Forrest and Silas, Forrest, yeah, Silas was seven years old and Forrest was at a public meeting where he was showing pictures of his son in the hospital. Because he had just been told that his son likely wouldn't make it to the age of 10 due to what was eventually diagnosed as Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, which is you've got to have like 10 different kinds of seizures.

3:08:07SpeakerAnd this kid was seizing 100 times a day or more. Well, today or now, let's see. September 11th of this past month is one year since Silas had a seizure. He's still doing several hundred milligrams of CBD and THC. There's a specific cultivar we found back in 2014 or 2015 called Medihaze. The results of it were published in O'Shaughnessy's in that issue that year. Uh, called Medi Hayes.

3:08:46SpeakerAnd yeah, that specific version of Medi Hayes, the seeds came from Europe, um, gave Silas really profound and immediate relief from his seizures. And we still have a couple of I think we still have like 100 and some grams of a high potency extraction of that oil that seems to work pretty well. But that original cut, the clone is gone for a variety of reasons.

3:09:17SpeakerAnd Forrest did at one point try and titrate Silas off of the dose of the Medihaze that he was mixing into the other plant oils he had access to. And he started showing signs of a seizure might be coming on. And so he went right back to using the Medi-Haze. So, you know, there's a lot of good news there. Silas is now in high school. He's actually coming out of his shell enough that he's doing dance class as a sophomore in high school.

3:09:58SpeakerSo this is a huge change and improvement in his well-being. In the meantime, The other story I just wanted to say, one of the other reasons I'm feeling deep gratitude. I met a family when, I don't know if ATN's still on the call, but back when Steve Pill moved from Oakland to Berkeley, They did one of their first public facing events, invited a whole bunch of their clients to come see their new place.

3:10:29SpeakerAnd I went down there thinking I would meet a bunch of farmers. Silly me. The place was full of people in Chinese, you know, big watches and shiny shoes and suits. And I was dressed like a farmer, kind of like I am today. And I was one of like two or three people in a crowd of 100 or 200 that were there. But I visited with the Reverend Dr. Cameron, and my friend, friend Fred Gardner.

3:10:59SpeakerAnd we shared nice food in the conversation for a while. And Cameron was pretty excited about it. But I understand that's kind of closed down now because I met a family there that night. One of the few folks that weren't in shiny shoes and suits and whatnot was his family who had a young man in a wheelchair. And he was covered in a blanket and he had a mask on and he was in a catatonic state, rictus, I think it's called.

3:11:30SpeakerThat might be the wrong term, but his hands were clenched and his legs were locked up and he was in a fetal position in this wheelchair. And so I walked up to him and I asked him, what are y'all doing here?

3:11:49SpeakerThey were looking for somebody who could grow some ACDC or might have some for their son who was 21 when I met this family. And I won't name anybody because where they live is actually still a threat to their home if their community knows that they use cannabis in California. Homeowner associations. Anyway. That family, they were there. I had some ACDC in my garden that year, and I had already figured out its genetics did not do well in the hot, dry summers of Nevada County.

3:12:32SpeakerIt was discovered, if you will, identified as a plant of interest over on the Mendocino Coast, I guess, is my understanding of the story there. Where, you know, there's a lot of moisture in the air and the peak heat in the summers might get into the 80s. Well, here we, you know, we just flirted with 100 here and single digit humidity levels this past summer for at least a few weeks.

3:12:57SpeakerAnd anyway, ACDC was not doing well in my garden. But I said, you know, well, if you're looking for CBD, I have some because I was already starting to, I was creating a product we called Wonder Drops. It was a 25 to one and had, I was so proud of it, man. It had a label, had all the milligrams on it. It was tested. We had 350 milligrams of CBD, 14 milligrams of THC.

3:13:26SpeakerAnd every one of those milligrams came from my garden. And meantime, we had hundreds and hundreds of these bottles going out to a bunch of dispensaries up and down California at one point. Anyway, I handed it to mom because she was the one who was really engaged on the cannabis thing. And she said, yeah, this is exactly what he needs, but he would need two of these a day.

3:13:48SpeakerI went, wow, okay.

3:13:56SpeakerAnyway, over the years since then, that family has learned how to grow their own indoors and on their porch patio. And one of the daughters of the family has We've been engaged with an indoor operation that allows them to preserve some of the genetics. We found a specific high CBD, low THC version that did well in our neighborhood called Remedy and another version of similar genetics called Therapy that passed through here.

3:14:32SpeakerBoth of those did quite well for that young man who is now Just turned 30. Like I said, his family is now providing his oils for him. But the mother and one of the other, a son of that family came to visit to tell me how well they were doing and to give thanks.

3:15:00SpeakerI think it's why we do this work. When you, I mean, I love the cannabis plant personally for the psychoactive effects that Sam is such a devotee of, and most of us are, but I also love her for some of the other effects that I have seen in

3:15:34SpeakerAnd just to loop back into the conversation that we've been having here and to stop taking up so much time. Science helps me and us understand the magic, if you will, that is nature. There's a deep wisdom in nature if we take the time to look. The fellow who's doing that series of books, Teaming with Microbes, Teaming with Fungi, Teaming with Bacteria. Lauren Frohs, I think is his name, saw him speak a couple of times.

3:16:09SpeakerAnd yeah, he's pointing in a really great direction, the woman who's Uh, recognizing the importance of mother trees and regeneration of forests. Um, those of us, Kelly and Josh, who are pointing to the importance of living soil and regenerative practices. And I, I went into regenerative practices myself a long time ago, uh, one, because I didn't want it to reduce the impact of my indoor gardening in San Francisco when I was doing that.

3:16:40SpeakerAnd then when I came up here, because Despite doing Wonder Drops, I was still giving a lot of my product away because when somebody's sick, how can you tell them they have to pay you for what you have that might save the life of their child?

3:17:05SpeakerAnyway, that's my testimony, if you will, for today on Hash Church. This is my gratitude for the love that is this plant and what she offers to us. I think of her as a manifest. Can I go into God for a second?

3:17:30SpeakerI think in discussion with my friend, Swami Chaitanya of Swami Select, he's a full Hindu holy guy. I've known him for a long time. And I talk spirituality sometimes, and it's really far out to dig into the Vedic traditions of spirituality. And we, if you will, argued for a while back and forth about, If there is God, what is it? And it was what we arrived on that I like is God is the sum total of all sentience, not just in humans, but humans play a huge part, at least on this planet, but the trees, the rocks, the crystals, the fish, literally the fungi, the bacteria in the air that we breathe.

3:18:30SpeakerAnd all of that, all the way out to all of the stars and galaxies and everything that we can conceive of where there is sentience contributes to what we think of as God. And you can find God within yourself. You can find it by looking at flowers. You can find it by

3:18:56SpeakerComing to peace with who you are and what you're doing and why you're doing it. Because I think every one of us is unique and it's really important to figure out who you are and do that to the best of your ability. And Marcus, I want to really call you out and appreciate you for pointing to the importance of only smoking and using the best that you can make or find.

3:19:25SpeakerThank you for the platform, the opportunity, the community, because, yeah, this is to me at heart really about what cannabis was always about when we were all hiding and

3:19:54SpeakerWe're, you know, used to be when you met with a group of cannabis activists, it was, the news was about who'd gotten busted, what was their trial looking like, what were the charges, blah, blah, blah, blah. And now, you know, it's about taxes and what's the new VCC regulations going to look like and how is Appalachian's origin going to work and yada, yada, yada, yada. But, but, but we've come so far and we still got a long way to go.

3:20:19SpeakerWe still got a long way to go. I, um,

3:20:24SpeakerI want to call out a thing that's happening next weekend. I don't know if you're going to do another church next weekend, Marcus, but a group of hash makers, some of the beautiful rosins and What not I've been hitting on here this morning and all week have been some of them come through to me through the donation program, but some of them come to me through folks who aren't really licensed or permitted to do so, but are, if you will, sharing their personal use

3:21:03SpeakerBeautiful work. I got to say, because I'm really stoned. And yeah, I wanted to do that memory test to see how stoned I am. And I'll have to go back and listen to this at some point. But I really do feel deep gratitude. I am getting stronger every day is how it feels to me.

3:21:25SpeakerI will point to most of my cannabis use at this point is focused on my enjoyment. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

3:21:58SpeakerBecause I find that, especially for long term relief, if I don't want to have my dab rig fired up and going all day long right next to the bed or out on the patio like I am today.

3:22:12SpeakerYeah, I'm taking some what's colloquially known as RSO.

3:22:19SpeakerBut yeah, next Sunday, next Sunday, a group of folks is going to gather here at my farm. And we're going to celebrate hash in the same way that we are doing here today. And honestly, I'm such, I'm not even sure what time we're gathering next week. But if we're doing hash church, I'll be here. And then at some point, I might I invite a whole bunch of other people who all love hash and are here to celebrate it with me.

3:22:46SpeakerBecause, yeah, I'm starting to get out. I'm going to public events again.

3:22:55SpeakerThe neurosurgery people still want me to have their hooks in me back to science and nature. I'm doing everything I can to heal my bones because, again, this kind of cancer kind of blows them out. But. That was a very, very, very, very long winded way of saying, actually, I'm doing really good for anyone that wants to know. Deep gratitude here. Really, I'm kind of stunned. And a big part of that is, hey, I survived.

3:23:28SpeakerWhat looked like might be And that survivable moment. And that's pretty far out.

3:23:36Etienne FontanAnd thank you for working with us and our veterans as well, because not only have you been sick, you've been working with us. So thank you.

3:23:44SpeakerATN, I really want to appreciate you for calling me out on that. I have, again, in the same way that this has been an incredible nourishment to me today, I don't usually say a lot in the Veterans Action Council meetings, and I certainly don't make them all. Because yeah, there's a lot of drama going on here on the farm. But again, me personally, I'm doing great. Yeah, heroic effort you guys did last, what, two weeks ago now?

3:24:21Speaker12 veterans and spouses of veterans going to Washington, D.C. and putting in the time and the footwork. 12 miles, you said, over two days on concrete.

3:24:36Etienne FontanYeah, Stone, yes.

3:24:37SpeakerYeah, yeah. And meantime, because you're veterans, I'm a veteran too, that's why I'm sitting in on it. Again, I feel humbled to be in the company of the folks that are on the Veterans Action Council. Myself, I joined the Navy to avoid being drafted to go to Vietnam because I was of the era where my draft number We had a lottery in place at that point, and I was number 34.

3:25:09SpeakerAnd meantime, I didn't want to take student loans. College, I went for a year and a half. It made no sense to me at all what was going on. And so I quit that. And yeah, I ended up joining the Navy on a Saturday, and my notice to report for induction would have meant you're in the Army now. And going to Vietnam, hello boy, arrived on that following Monday.

3:25:38SpeakerBut I had already signed a contract to join the Navy. And meantime, yeah, the Navy and I didn't get along great. We'll just leave it at that. They kicked me out at my request.

3:25:53SpeakerAnother long story. And at the end, I will write my bio for the Veterans Action Council thing. I know you've asked me a couple of times. Again, I'm humbled that in the company of people like yourself or Al Byrne or Michael Krawitz or Todd Scatini, I mean, you just go down the list. It's like Pearson Crosby. I mean, it's just wow. So thoughtful, impassioned people who are really a lot on the same page we are, trying to change the laws, trying to educate the people who actually can change the laws.

3:26:42SpeakerAnd I think to your point earlier, Etienne, local is where you can really bring change to bear. And there it's at least partially about making the story personal. When you can touch people's hearts, you can change their minds. And on that note, I'm going to stop. That was, yeah, I would love to come back if you're doing it again, Marcus. And I actually do have a science question for you, Dr. Mark.

3:27:12SpeakerCan I say, I think I still have an email for you and or Sam about, yeah, yeah, I don't know if I could take, we should take it offline or.

3:27:25Dr Mark ScialdoneJacob, go ahead, fire away. If you have it, probably other people are thinking the same damn thing, right?

3:27:30SpeakerWell, you reference. Okay. If you don't mind, Marcus, I, um,

3:27:37SpeakerI am kind of bound by an agreement not to get too specific. I'll start there. A state health department is in a certain state is struggling with the fact that a limited number, this is in the United States, a limited number of their licensed producers. And for the sake of conversation, we'll say there's 10. Four or five of them in the last few months have consistently started popping up with analogs of Delta 9, Delta 10, Delta 6, probably some OHCC I think you referenced.

3:28:19SpeakerIn products that typically shouldn't have it, like in flour or in other products at concentrations that are completely inappropriate for something that hasn't been treated in some way. Meantime, the rest of the licensed producers in this state are not having this problem.

3:28:42SpeakerAnd there's only one lab that the state accepts COAs from. And there is an independent lab who's also looking at it and they're finding the same results. The Department of Health's response to this is to just have the manufacturers who are producing product that have these analogs at a sufficient concentration to put it on their packaging and labeling as one of the cannabinoids in the product. And I personally feel a strong objection to that But I would love to hear your or Sam's thoughts on that.

3:29:22SpeakerAnd obviously, to me, it's a public health and safety issue because we don't really know what these analogs do as well as what else is along for the ride when those analogs are in. I can pipe in really short and fast that we don't find tanderate when we're looking at our lab. So something's wrong. What do you say, Mark?

3:29:47Dr Mark ScialdoneYeah. So, so this is prohibition economics at work and, you know, it costs a lot of money to put THC into a product. So the cheapest, the, the, the guy who can do that for the cheapest makes the most money in a free market economy. And so if we're just talking about cannabinoids in general, yeah. So, um, Again, Wade, we were talking about this earlier, this loophole that's in the farm bill that legalized industrial hemp, which is CBD, blessing and a curse because I think I've said it before on Hash Church, as long as there's prohibition anywhere, there'll be a black market everywhere.

3:30:35Dr Mark ScialdoneAnd what that means is that legal licensed producers have to somehow economically keep up To have a competitive product in the marketplace. And if the only knob they have to turn is the cost of their ingredients, you know, you could basically make THC cheaper from readily abundantly available CBD isolate and a chemical conversion, put that into your products cheaper than, you know, hire a team, get a greenhouse, grow cannabis, Extract cannabis, make cannabis oil, put it in the gummies.

3:31:17Dr Mark ScialdoneIt's cheaper just to buy the commodity, mix it into the gummy, and you're there quicker, cheaper, better, quicker. And so I think it's interesting because different states are taking different approaches to this, and they realize that, I think, again, this can only happen because of prohibition of Delta 9, right? So if Delta 9 was available and everybody was making Delta 9 across the board in the entire country and even in the entire world, right?

3:31:54Dr Mark ScialdoneWe wouldn't, there wouldn't be a need for Delta 8. This Delta 8 market came up from, yeah, the Farm Bill and the fact that in the language of the Farm Bill, they only referenced, what they did, the Farm Bill removes industrial hemp From the Controlled Dangerous Substance Act. And it's defined as cannabis with less than 0.3% Delta-9 THC. There was no mention about Delta-8. And they never contemplated the fact that, you know, Roger Adams first did it in the 40s and then Mishulam redid it back in the 70s, is that you could chemically convert CBD into THC.

3:32:36Dr Mark ScialdoneAnd when you do that conversion under certain conditions, you get Delta-8. Which they don't mention in the Farm Bill. And what's now complicated things is that because Delta 8 is actually mentioned in the Controlled Dangerous Substance Act, now they're hydrogenating that Delta 8 and making HHC. That's where HHC comes from. And they're like, well, HHC is not on the Controlled Dangerous Substance Act. But be that as it may, this is all made possible because of the ridiculousness of probation itself.

3:33:08Dr Mark ScialdoneAnd if you're If you're making a psychoactive substance in a chemical reaction vessel, it's different than extracting it from a plant, right? It's different than from nature itself. And when you get that. Mark.

3:33:26SpeakerWhen you make Delta-8, you're semi-synthesizing it from CBD, which is illegal under the Controlled Substance Act. So, I mean, it might fit through the loophole of the Farm Act, but Delta-8 is not legally produced.

3:33:48Dr Mark ScialdoneWell, where CBD runs into issues, and again, they never contemplated this, So I think, Sam, my feeling, again, you know, all your work and everything that went into GW's Epidiolex besides, is that the legislatures got snookered on seeds, rope, and oil. And they're like, CBD, what's that? We don't care about CBD, just THC. We only care about THC. So that's the only thing that went into the language of the bill.

3:34:20Dr Mark ScialdoneI don't think they realize that again, CBD being the active ingredient of an FDA approved drug, there's another law called the FD&C Act, which is the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. And what that law says, which is enforced by the FDA, is that the active ingredient of an FDA approved drug cannot be used in food, feed, or cosmetics Or, you know, topical use for interstate commerce. It's interesting that they put that interstate commerce in there.

3:34:54Dr Mark ScialdoneSo what they need to do is they need to make an exception to the FD&C Act. Like I think they've done for like things like caffeine. So caffeine is like an active ingredient in drugs and stuff like that. But it's also in Coca-Cola and Mountain Dew and all that other shit, right? So they made an exception to the FD&C Act. I think caffeine actually got Grandfathered in, but I think there's other examples of things that the FDA approved as active ingredients, but are okay to use.

3:35:25Dr Mark ScialdoneAnd you'll know, and Wade knows this in spades, is that what Charlotte Webb, the company Charlotte's Webb did, I don't know if this is the Stanley Brothers anymore or not, but what the company Charlotte's Webb said, okay, fine, we'll submit CBD extracts as a dietary supplement from hemp. Because industrial hemp, right, cannabis with lower than 0.3% THC was removed from the Control Danger Substance Act. So the Farm Bill enabled now the production of hemp.

3:35:58Dr Mark ScialdoneIt's like, well, okay, hemp is an agriculturally produced food, I guess, in a matter of speaking, right? You can make seed oil, you can make seed protein from it, right, Marcus? So it's essentially a food and there's different, Regulation there. So the USDA, the Department of Agriculture only cares to the point where the crop is grown, right? So all the amendments that go on the land, you know, whether it's organic or non-organic and all about farming and agricultural production and the USDA kind of washes their hands after that, it sort of becomes the FDA's bailiwick to pick up, okay, now that corn has been grown, Now it goes to market.

3:36:44Dr Mark ScialdoneYeah, if you're going to, if you're Del Monte and you want to make cans of corn because that's what you do with corn, right? You need an FDA inspected facility, certain levels of quality and production standards that have to be held to because you're making a variable agricultural product that's being put into these Del Monte cans of corn that people are eating, right? So, yeah, I mean, I...

3:37:14Dr Mark ScialdoneI think where this goes, again, is this run into big corporations because now you're talking about industrial agriculture. You're talking about Archer's Daniel Midland. You're talking about big chemical companies that bought the seed companies that engineered seeds to be resistant to the chemicals that they sell. Oh, boy.

3:37:41Dr Mark ScialdoneAnd again, yeah, so like we were talking earlier, the EPA regulates that. So I know the USDA regulates the genetically modified soybeans and corns that are grown today. But I've said it before, I think, and I think Marcus, you agree that one of the big drivers for hemp to overtake soybeans is going to be on protein production per acre. When it comes down to it, if you need to grow protein, you need to grow this crop because this crop produces way more protein for acres than soybeans and it requires less chemicals.

3:38:22Dr Mark ScialdoneBut when you say less chemicals, now those chemical companies get upset because they want to sell the chemicals. Right?

3:38:30SpeakerYep. It's not just the protein. It's also the fact that you simultaneously create oil. So you're producing protein, but When you're defatting the protein, you're creating oil simultaneously. So it's two products. I wanted to say thank you to Wade. I didn't think that was too long at all. It was awesome. It was so good to hear from you. I love the whole recap of the hash church that we had.

3:38:55SpeakerI love the update of how you were doing. I know I'm not the only one because I heard, read a ton of people in the chat saying, oh, I've been thinking a lot about Wade lately. I always think a lot about you, Wade. And it's... It's just nice to hear your humanity. I know how you feel things because when you speak, you get us to feel the things that you feel.

3:39:16SpeakerIt's a very profound and powerful tool that you have at your disposal. But it's wonderful. And it couldn't have been a better part of Hash Church for you to share everything that you did. And of course, I'll do a Hash Church next week and we'll talk to you and all the Hashmakers that are coming by your farm. And I'm really glad to hear that you're getting better.

3:39:47Etienne FontanBetter? I think you said better.

3:39:50SpeakerI'll be back. Me too. What it is when we're going through those things. Oh. Lack of hope, but you're such a positive, vibrant person. And I appreciate you sharing with us on Hashtag. It is our show, not my show.

3:40:16SpeakerThere's community again. Again, it's an industry, but it's at heart, really. It is a community.

3:40:26SpeakerAbsolutely. And on that note, I think I'm going to wrap it up for this week. So many wonderful people to come in and share the vibes. Last minute often, you know, got to really thank all of you for coming and doing this every time. I'm realizing more and more how much I need it myself. And it's terrible to sometimes feel like I don't have time. I have to sacrifice going to see my son skating.

3:40:51SpeakerYou know, this is just skating lesson time. So and I'm sure there's sacrifices. For all of you to be made as well. And I do appreciate it. It doesn't go unseen or unfelt. And I thank the more than 200 people that have been watching with us since we started at 9am for almost four hours of what I just thought was awesome conversation. I'm going to dissect it, maybe listen to it again, and maybe create specific hash churches for the specific conversations that we had, because there was at least four or five really good ones.

3:41:25SpeakerBig thanks to Valerie Corral for coming on. Big thanks for Hillary Black for showing up when she's not feeling the best in the chat room and sharing a bit of her vibes. I want to shout out Ron, one of my OG mentors who was in the room as well. There he is right there. He just chimed in. Shout out to you, Ron. Hopefully we can have you come on one day and tell some stories.

3:41:47SpeakerAnd of course, Skunk Man Sam, ATN, Dr. Mark, Best Friend Farms, Colin and Wade and the Dragonfly Earth Medicine. Love you all. Really give thanks for everything. And we will see you all hopefully again next week. Peace out, everybody. May the full melt bless your bowl sooner than later. Ciao for now.