Marble Slinger Origin Story

0:01BubblemanAll right, third time is a charm. Let's see if I can get this going here. And if I do, I will, yeah, it's gonna go now. Just had to give me the glitch, had to be a little bit of a faqur this morning, but there I am. All right, so I will quickly send out this link to the people in the wrong room. Which will be great because that's a bummer.

0:33BubblemanBut hey, I'm just glad it's going to work out. I would love to shout out our sponsors here before I let anyone in. First of all, I'd like to welcome everyone to Hash Church Season 11, Episode 39. I am super stoked on this episode. I was in Whistler this morning and I drove back for an hour at 630 in the morning just to get back so I could be in my office.

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3:57BubblemanYou can go to www.bubblebag.com and hit in hash church for a 10% discount. But I'll tell you, we just slashed our prices. In fact, we just slashed our prices by 50%. So if you go to bubblebag.com right now, you will see that the bubble bags are actually 50% off plus that 10% will get you 60% off. So hopefully you can go do that, do some supporting. And in the meantime, I'm going to let in our guests for the day.

4:25BubblemanI'm actually really excited about this particular episode because I got an old school friend coming in that I'm super, super stoked to talk to. Let this all get set up. Yeah, buddy. Let me make sure I got my shit working here. There we go. There we go. Let me just turn my voice off in the background here.

4:52BubblemanThat's that's old. And this is new. There we go. Sorry about that. How you doing, buddy? Hey, what's up, man? Dude, it's good to see you, man. Yeah, dude. Dude, I drove all the way from Whistler this morning because I was like in Whistler for the weekend. I have a shitty laptop. I don't have a good away from home scene. And I was like, I'm going home.

5:16BubblemanSo I have no technical difficulties. So I raced home this morning, drove like an hour and then spent the last 20 minutes trying to get this going because I had full technical difficulties for the last 20. Yeah, yeah. Of course. That's how it goes, right?

5:31SpeakerThat's what's up. Yeah, yeah. I feel you. I was a little more on point with that. I made sure I downloaded the Zoom app and made sure the link worked and all that. Dude, I love it, man.

5:40BubblemanIt's fucking great to see you. Great to see you as well, Etienne.

5:45SpeakerGood to see you.

5:46BubblemanHave you met Etienne before, Slinger?

5:49SpeakerI don't know if we've actually met, but you're incredibly familiar to me. Either Mark's talked about you a lot or I've actually met you. There you go.

5:57BubblemanDude, ATN, he's your people for sure. ATN started the Berkeley Patients Group. He's a veteran. He's got this incredible... I could blow smoke up this guy's ass for the next like 40 minutes straight. He's a huge collector, a massive puffer, just a supporter of all things slinger and all things cannabis. So good that you guys are meeting. Thank you. That is fucking beautiful, by the way.

6:23Etienne FontanYeah, this is, yeah, this is how old it is, right?

6:27BubblemanYeah, totally, totally.

6:30Etienne FontanGet some updates for a long time. So I'm proud to have at least a piece in your collection.

6:34BubblemanAnd we got my homie Colin. Colin in the room as well. He's over on the East Coast on your side of things. Vessel Life Science. Known him for 25 plus years on the, you know, overgrow and cannabis world. And he's kind of been around really since day one that I've been doing this. So, yeah. He's been around for a lot of the story, so I'm sure he's super stoked.

6:55BubblemanI didn't want to invite too many people in today, but I thought Colin and Etienne would be perfect support people for our conversation. So they are here with us today. Welcome, Colin.

7:07Collin PalmerI got roots in Philly too, Slinger. I spent a lot of time with Hippie West and the FDR crew. I built a lot of the stuff at FDR.

7:14SpeakerHell yeah.

7:15Collin PalmerI used to have... I spent a lot of time in Philly just coming up.

7:20SpeakerNice. I'm originally from New York, but I've been living in Philly since 2007.

7:26Collin PalmerYeah, I remember meeting you at a party after a show at, I think... The Electric Factory. Yeah, just we met at like some party. It was in passing kind of thing. We talked. Right on.

7:42BubblemanBut yeah. Colin's a big fish head as well. I remember there was a time where he knows the band pretty good. He knows Trey really well. He's gone to probably as many shows as you, you know, in the So it should be a fun conversation because we're definitely, you know, I want to start it from the beginning. Kind of want to give us, you know, give you give us a little bit of history of you before I met you.

8:06BubblemanBut then really our first meeting, I don't know if you remember this, was in 1995.

8:12SpeakerWell yeah I mean we confirmed that like after the fact so I never remembered it you know what I mean although there's something about you from day one that I was like this guy seems familiar you know what I mean like so it didn't surprise me um that yeah that we originally met in 95 um in passing basically at the Cannabis Cup I guess in Amsterdam which is Which is wild actually, which is a huge part of my, I mean, I'll tell you what, honestly, this week I was thinking a lot about this podcast and you, and I was thinking about different stories and I was like, wow, this guy has really been there and influenced my career in all sorts of little crazy ways that the more I thought about it, I was like, I don't know if everyone knows the full story of how many different ways you've honestly influenced me.

9:02SpeakerIt's crazy. And vice versa. Well, sure. I mean, I knew you before you were a bubble man.

9:08Bubbleman100%, dude. You turned me on to smoking out of glass pipes.

9:12SpeakerYou gave me my first dab ever. You know what I mean? Like, dabbing is a thing now, but you gave me my first dab ever, which I'm actually proud to say, when I talk to people now, and I'm like, when did you take your first dab? A lot of people are like, 2010, 11, or 12, or 13. 1999 for me.

9:32SpeakerAnd not out of a typical device, out of the mayor. Oh, fuck. The mayor. Dude, that's amazing that you remember the mayor. Well, yeah, dude, that was a really kind of life changing experience for me, really, as a cannabis head. I don't know if we should start there or whatever, but it's definitely a story to tell since I'm on it, basically. I mean.

9:52BubblemanYeah, I mean, you know, I've kind of got a little breakdown here. We could potentially go there. We could go back a little bit. Sure, we could start over. Yeah, I have a really trippy, trippy, you're a part of a very unique thing. And I'm sure I've told you this before, but it's my 95, 98 connection with three very specific people who I met you all in 95 within about a month and a half of one another.

10:22BubblemanThank you so much for joining us today.

10:41BubblemanWhy don't you just tell us, we'll get to that story and how I'd love to get there is, I'd love to tell you to tell us about finishing film school in Ithaca and going to the Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam. Okay. And how, how influential, you know, how that was, this path that you were on, like, how did you end up at the Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam after film school in Ithaca?

11:05SpeakerWell, I was actually, it wasn't even, I was still in film school when I went to the Cannabis Cup. In fact, I was there. The story is this, right? So I've, by the time I got to college, I had been smoking weed since high school. I had read The Emperor Wears No Clothes, Jack Herrera. I'd understood that this was a crazy conspiracy to like make this plan illegal, et cetera, et cetera.

11:29SpeakerAnd I got to a point where even in college, I was like a part of like the legalization club. There was a club at college for legalizing hemp, legalizing cannabis. All right.

11:37Etienne FontanI have to ask you a question then, because I did a rally in Ithaca, New York in 1994. Were you there? Yeah.

11:47SpeakerWas it with the Think Club, Tompkins County Hemp Information Network? Yes. That was my club. Yes.

11:52Etienne FontanYeah, there was an older guy.

11:55Speaker1994 is the first year I started going to Ithaca College. And that, yes, I was there. Yes.

11:59Etienne FontanHoly fucking shit. Small world. Hi.

12:01SpeakerYeah, what's up? It is a really small world. Dude, you guys probably met before we met. But my point is, is that, you know, I, when I was going to college, like I was like, what am I doing here? I always was ready to like kind of break into the regular world. And I was really into like, you know, cannabis. Activism, basically. And and I was going to school for film.

12:28SpeakerI was going to school for documentary film. And I was reading High Times one day and they were talking about the eighth annual Cannabis Cup. And on the bottom of the advertisement, it said for media coverage or something, something called his phone number. And I was like, OK, I called the phone number down in New York. And I was like, hey, I remember what I said. I don't know how honest I was, but I basically said something like I'm going to film school.

12:47SpeakerI'm doing a documentary about Cannabis. And I was like, damn, I got free passes at the Cannabis Cup. I was like, I guess I'm going to go, go to, I actually had no plan on making a movie, by the way. I just wanted to go to the Cannabis Cup. So, you know, I told a bunch of my friends, I was like, hey, I got these free passes at the Cannabis Cup in,

13:16SpeakerHolland and Amsterdam and a whole bunch of my friends wanted to go. Nine people ended up deciding they wanted to come with me and make, we were going to make a documentary or some kind of film about cannabis there. And so one of my friends was like, his dad was a travel agent. I remember even how much the tickets were $300 round trip actually to Amsterdam. And so we went there and we actually, we hung out for a whole nother week after the cannabis cup and we had a crazy time and we filmed all sorts of stuff.

13:45SpeakerBut when I got back, I had like, Tons of footage of like people's feet and like we were just, I didn't know what I was doing. And I literally went there more for an experience than to make a film. So at the end of the day, I actually never made any movie at all. It was kind of my excuse to go there and experience it, which was a crazy experience for me.

14:03SpeakerI mean, actually, I actually ended up meeting that dude, Jason Harris, who had some Bob Snodgrass marbles. And I think that was some of the first time I ever saw Bob Snodgrass marbles. And I met you and I met tons of different people. I smoked in a coffee shop in Amsterdam and got to experience what it was like to like Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

14:48SpeakerI met a couple young ladies from BC, from Vancouver.

15:06SpeakerWe were smoking in a coffee shop one night and they were like, oh, BC is awesome. Vancouver is amazing. We smoke in the head shops and we sell seeds and cannabis is almost legal there. And I remember when I heard that, I was like, I need to go to BC. I was like, I need to go there because going to Amsterdam changed my life because I was into cannabis enough And it was illegal at that point.

15:29SpeakerSo completely illegal that I was like, OK, either I should stop smoking or I should move somewhere where it's tolerated more or else I'm going to probably get in trouble eventually. You know what I mean? The amount of times I've driven around with cannabis in my car and had police behind me, you know what I mean, in New York, et cetera. So that trip. was really influential for me planted a seed of honestly Vancouver the Pacific Northwest and you know I kind of like I was going to college but I didn't really know what the hell I was going to do when I got out of college and I wasn't really trying to like go to LA and be a part of the film industry I didn't know what I was going to do at that point in my life at all um but a lot of seeds were sown in that trip um Agreed.

16:14BubblemanIt was my first trip to Amsterdam as well. So I had a very similar experience. It's funny because the footage I found of you and me talking was on the third floor of the PAX party house. It was in the corner and it was right in front of a cloner. It was one of the first cloning machines where it was bubbling underneath. It was like a hydroponic cloning machine and it was in the corner.

16:37BubblemanAnd I have audio footage. It's our feet. It's our feet that I'm filming. Which is amazing that you said that. It's just our feet. I don't have any footage of your face or anything.

16:49SpeakerI mean, we were ripped out of our gourds.

16:51BubblemanWe were ripped out of our gourds, but we were also coming from countries where it was totally illegal. So I didn't feel like super confident in just filming all the Americans that I bumped into. Because there was kind of an... I'll tell you, it was the first year I ever saw Skunk Man Sam. I never got to meet him. I remember being like... Thank you so much for joining us.

17:23BubblemanPeople were like, oh, oh, oh. And I was like, oh, who's that? And some dude that I knew was like, oh, apparently that guy's a CIA agent. And I was just like, what? That was my introduction to Skunk Man Sam at the 95 Cannabis Cup. I also met Jay Harris through Adam at, he was blowing glass at Hemp Works off the Neuendijk there. And that was incredible.

17:48BubblemanBut yeah, that was, that was a, You know, that was, it wasn't the first Cannabis Cup, right?

17:53SpeakerIt was the sixth or the eighth. It was the eighth annual. Actually, two crazy experiences I had. One, I interviewed Jack Herrera there. I specifically knew about him because I had read his book. And that was like his strain had just come out recently, the Jack Herrera strain, but he was there. And I did an interview with him and I, whoa, my biggest regret, honestly, one of my biggest regrets was I wish I still had that interview somewhere because that was an amazing experience.

18:19SpeakerI remember because I was an activist type person, so he was the person I wanted to talk to almost more than anybody. And I started like really kind of feeding him questions and kind of like provoking him to like get into like the bullshit of, you know, prohibition and everything like that. I remember he was sitting down during the interview and at one point he stood up and got right in the face of the camera and was just I was in that mode of wearing big raver skater, big pants or whatever.

18:42SpeakerAnd I got Alex Gray to sign the bottom of my pants.

18:58SpeakerThank you for watching.

19:14SpeakerYou know what I mean?

19:15Etienne FontanLike, well, a lot of a lot of converging influences, it seems at that one. I got married on stage at the at the milk bag, you know, during that one in particular. But what was you did? Yeah, I did. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Adam and then they had a cake. They made my wedding cake had a pound and a half of trichomes in it.

19:39SpeakerWow.

19:39Etienne FontanThey didn't tell me till after we all ate a piece, right? Because I gave a piece to Jack. Todd McCormick was my best man. It was Stephen Gaskin did that ceremony, right? So it was really surreal. It was in the milk bag. So and of course, the naked women that were all painted up dancing and we're like, I was there. Yeah, it was so fascinating how all these different people came together there and how we all exploded everywhere.

20:09SpeakerYes, definitely. That was, yes, definitely. A hundred percent. A hundred percent.

20:14BubblemanWell, I would go home after that and I would end up, now that was in November of 95. So in fact, I would have met Zach before November because we were on fish tour in 95 and I bumped into this kid, Huck. And Zach. And I watched this kid, I watched the cops bust this guy with his glass pipes. And it was the most horrific thing I ever saw.

20:43BubblemanHe made, the cop made Zach take the glass out of his little, no, they all had these like gun cases that they used to carry around. And it was a pretty decent sized one. He had to open it up and he had to put the pipes down on a sewer grate, one of those circular manholes, and then smash the glass with his feet, his shoes, until the glass pieces fell down.

21:07BubblemanAnd I watched it from a distance and was fucking mortified. It was kind of like the first, and really in reality, I'm sure the cop could have probably been even a bigger dick to him. Maybe that was a blessing, I don't know, but it seemed like the most horrific thing I'd ever seen. Witnessed, I just, I was like, oh my God, this cop is just like violating his, so I went, I approached the guy afterwards and I was like, hey man, like that was some bullshit.

21:31BubblemanI can't believe it. And listen, we're from Manitoba and we got a whole thing going on. We're doing some glass, but it's importing and maybe you could come blow glass in Manitoba and you know, just these fucking delusional utopian fucking hippie fish head nut bars, me included. Thank you for watching.

22:10BubblemanBut I wouldn't see him again for three more years. The guy that I just randomly met on Fish Tour. And, you know, it's always Fish Tour for some reason. And in 1998, which is the last time I went to the U.S., truly, this is the last time I was in America. And I remember kind of- Wait, have you not come since?

22:32SpeakerNo. Oh, I thought maybe you had once or twice or something. No. I've seen you post that maybe you were going to. I don't know if you were just teasing me.

22:39BubblemanI tried to go to Portland last year and got denied at the border. They were like, where is your waiver? I'm like, I don't have a waiver. He's like, oh man, you got to get a waiver. So I've applied for a waiver and hopefully we'll all be at a fish show here in the next six months or something. Right on. That was wild. Meeting Zach, meeting you.

22:57BubblemanI simultaneously met this kid, Steve, who we called Smiley Steve. He was just the nicest, happiest fucking guy. I met him in Amsterdam. He had his own place. I went to his grow in 95, the same year I met you and Jay Harris and Adam and all these people. I met him as well. And once again, did not see him for three years. And it wasn't until 98 on my way to the gorge, which was super random.

23:22BubblemanI hadn't gone to the US in a while. And I just was like, I had just cut my hair. And I'm pretty sure I had already been busted. I can't remember if I had or not. But I feel like that was the year I got busted. So if I hadn't been already busted, I was soon to be busted, which was going to keep me from going to the US for the next 30 years.

23:45BubblemanAnd I'm driving in my car. Actually, I'll let you tell the story because I've told it on here before.

23:49SpeakerWell, it's interesting that it's interesting to get the two perspectives because I'll tell my side of the story. So I had moved to Seattle in the end of 97. And when I moved there, I met Jason Lee. And lo and behold, we ended up working next to each other, becoming really good friends and bonded over the fact that we love fish. And so next thing you know, we were just jamming shows, blowing glass, going, let's just make a pile of glass and go on fish tour together.

24:15SpeakerSo here comes summer 98. And we're like, all right, let's go on a fish tour. Now, at this point, I don't think I even had a driver's license. And Jason definitely didn't have a driver's license. And I think that our plan was Jason's girlfriend at the time had a van and we were going to go on tour with her. So we went to the first show was in Portland, Oregon, raged that show, got in her van, started driving to the gorge and somewhere on the way to the gorge, a few hours away, we broke down and we pulled into like the parking lot of like a fast food place right off the highway.

24:47SpeakerAnd it was three of us. And I've had a lot of experience hitchhiking before. And I was like, OK, guys, listen, let's we have we are we're just ready to go to the shows and deal with the van after the show. So I was like, let's just go to the gorge, rage the shows and come get the van afterwards. And I was like, there's probably no way the three of us are going to get a ride together.

25:05SpeakerSo I'm going to go to the road. I'm going to hitch to the show. You guys hitch to the show and we'll meet there, et cetera. So I walked to the road by myself, put my thumb out. And who pulls over but you in your rental car, which was crazy because you had no one in the car or whatever. And you were said you were flipping around because you were trying to get French fries on like a Wendy's basically.

25:27SpeakerThat's the only reason you were even like going my direction or you had seen me, I think. And then you flipped around. So anyway, you picked me up. We went inside the Wendy's, you're ordering fries. And you were like, I'm going to the gorge. I was like, I need to go to the gorge. And I pulled out a little pendant. I had an own symbol in it and I gave it to you.

25:44SpeakerAnd I was like, Hey man, thank you so much for like picking me up. I was so stoked, like happy to share something with you. And I was like, Hey, I got two more friends in the parking lot who also need a ride. Seems like your car's empty. Can we grab them too? And you were like, okay, why not? And we circled back and Jason and his lady were still there.

26:00SpeakerI remember we all went to the show together. Um, Yeah, and that's crazy, honestly. And I'll tell you what, I've been listening to those shows this week and they're some of the most insane fish shows ever. Like, they're insane. Like, nuts. Like, so good. The reason I love fish is like a show like that. And yeah, that was, you know, I'm pretty sure I gave you a hit of ecstasy there.

26:22SpeakerYou did. You did. We absolutely, we ate E, we tripped out, we had a great day. And like, you know, We really bonded. My friend Kratty was there, who ended up going to visit you before I ever did. Remember that? My friend Matt Kratty. It was his birthday at the shows. I had given him a pipe. We just had a whole squad at those shows and had the most amazing time.

26:43SpeakerIt was the gorge. I mean, camping out at the gorge. Those are some of the best fish shows I've ever, ever, ever been to for a million reasons. The music is some of the most amazing music, but the... Even the time we spent in the lot was just magical. You know what I mean? Like, I remember just the vibes and the party going on or whatever. And, you know, you talking about your life in B.C.

27:03Speakerand stuff and you got to come visit me, man, and whatever, you know, just that and the other. And I don't remember exactly how we exchanged information back then, because, you know, I don't think I even had a cell phone necessarily. I don't know if I don't think I even had a phone necessarily. I don't remember like how I was keeping in touch with people or how we kept in touch exactly.

27:23SpeakerUm, but it's probably a landline. Well, you know, another nugget here of you influencing me is, you know, my first emails ever. The first time I ever did email in my life was to you. That's crazy. You're the one who got me to sign up for email accounts. So now after these shows, I'm back in Seattle and you and I are keeping in touch. I think we had talked on the phone a little bit somehow, but, you know, talking on the phone from Canada to New York was super expensive.

27:48SpeakerWhichever way you did it, even on a cell phone, it wasn't like a like, you know, it wasn't a universal plan. It was super expensive. So you were like, hey, dude, like you do email. You have a computer. You were like, sign up for an email account. We can talk. On email, basically. And I was living in Seattle. Honestly, I remember at the time, I was living in my own apartment.

28:08SpeakerI didn't even have my own phone line. I shared a phone line with my neighbors, three ladies who worked at an internet cafe. And you could go in there, and if you bought a coffee, you got 20 minutes free internet. But because I was friends with them, I could use the internet as much as I wanted to. And I would go there, and I would email you.

28:24SpeakerAnd I think maybe you even got me to use Messenger at that point. It might have been the first time using Messenger, and we would actually chat on... Like Hotmail Messenger. I had a Hotmail account. That was my first account. It was a Hotmail account. And I would chat with you. And then you were like, hey, I want to buy some glass off you. I don't know if I'm going too fast, but I'm just going to keep going.

28:46SpeakerAnd I remember so literally like, you know, so you basically were like you were the one who introduced me to Overgrow.com. You were like, hey, I'm on this site, Overgrow.com. You're like, I want to buy this glass and put it on there. I remember the first time I ever visited you up in Vancouver. You like had your computer and we like sat there and you like loaded up the form like showed me what it was like literally like I wasn't like I graduated college in 97 and when I graduated I barely used a computer so when I was in college I used a word processor to type my papers which is basically a digital typewriter right it wasn't connected to an internet or anything like that I used the internet in the library in college only once ever.

29:26SpeakerAnd it was to try to order seeds from Mark Emery, to be honest with you. Whole other story. That was one of my, yeah, after, probably after the Canvas Cup, I was like, oh, this guy, Hemp BC, they sell seeds or whatever, right? That was my only experience with the internet. And then I, you know, I'm making pipes and I moved to Seattle. And, you know, I meet you and I'm trying to keep in touch with you.

29:47SpeakerAnd you're like, yo, get on the internet, messenger, emails. You're like overgrow.com to forum or whatever. And you were the first person like selling my glass on the internet. And you encouraged me. You're like, hey, you should like get on this forum. And I got on that forum and that's when I became Marble Slinger. Like that's, you know, like I, that's my, that was the screen name for the forum.

30:07SpeakerAnd, you know, overgrow.com is this like international, crazy platform Super busy site of people growing weed and consuming weed. And here I am like, you know, cannabis is super illegal. Pipes are, you know, I'm worried about manufacturing and distribution paraphernalia and stuff like that. And here I am, you know, at a head shop in the United States, you couldn't say the word bong and everything was for tobacco use only.

30:30SpeakerNow I'm worried because people are like getting my pieces and they're posting pictures of Thank you for watching.

30:55SpeakerI'm televising my crimes to like any moment. We ended up in a court of law and they were like, hey, you're manufacturing distribution paraphernalia for drugs. I would say, no, no, it's for tobacco use only. And they'd just pull up overgrow.com and be like, oh, actually, here's the evidence right here, you know? I'm saying all that to paint a picture, but partly that's why I chose the name Marbleslinger.

31:16SpeakerIt was my feeble attempt at being like, no, no, I make marbles. I don't make pipes. That's not my main gig. I'm a marbleslinger. I make marbles, and I guess I did make a pipe or two here and there, but I'm not like a pipe factory.

31:30Etienne FontanHold on a second. So how did you decide on marbles? I mean, there's all kinds of things that are made with glass. You could have been cup slinger. You could have been plate slinger. I'll tell you why.

31:39SpeakerIt's pretty simple, pretty simple. So I started blowing glass in upstate New York, and it started in the spring of 97. And I moved to Seattle in December of 97. When I was in upstate New York blowing glass, there was barely any glass blowers and tons of college kids. So I would make spoons and sell them to kids all day long for like 25 bucks. And I could like make a great living.

31:59SpeakerDidn't have to work my job at a restaurant. When I moved to Seattle, I didn't know any college kids or any customers. And there was a ton of glass blowers around me and they were all better than me. And they were making cooler spoons and cooler pipes than me. And so people would come by our studio I was trying to like buy stuff and there was Jason Lee and Ezra and all these guys making these amazing pipes that I was years, I was less experienced with them, not making as cool of a pipe.

32:24SpeakerSo I had to survive and I didn't want to get a job. So I actually started making these little implosion pendants because they were fun and quick and I could charge 25 or 30 bucks for them. And then those pendants evolved into marbles. And so it kind of became a side gig, like a little thing I was just kind of doing organically. Like we made marbles to put them on the pipes.

32:44SpeakerSo I'd make them to wear as a pendant or... Just as a marble and people were buying them. Like, in other words, these guys would come by the studio to check out everyone's pipes in my, I have pipes too, but my marbles and pendants would be there and it was an inexpensive thing that people could buy and et cetera. And I actually started getting orders for them and stuff like that to like distributors.

33:04SpeakerSo it became like a little bit of a thing. That sort of happened organically. So, yeah, that's kind of like why it was sort of an easy form to make as a beginner. When I met Mark in 1998, I was only been blowing glass for one year. One year. And I became a professional glassblower after like six months of turning a torch on. So I was an amateur, even though I was professional and I made a living off it, I was a total amateur.

33:33BubblemanCan you tell a little bit of the story on how you guys all ended up in Bellingham and the Ezra, Herbert Arnold sort of connection? Because I feel like that's an important aspect of how it all went down.

33:46SpeakerI mean, well, here's the story. So you were talking about homie Zach earlier. And Zach is like my great-grandfather on the family tree of blowing glass in my squad. He's my great-grandfather. So Zach was from Ithaca, moved out to the Pacific Northwest. Long story short, learned to make spoons, learned to blow glass a little bit. And he taught a few of the other guys from back in Ithaca, one of them being this guy Ezra.

34:10SpeakerAnd Ezra's the first guy I ever saw blow glass. Ezra Was a dude that was really connected with the weed scene in Ithaca. And I was a college kid looking to buy quarter pounds and half pounds and pounds of weed to sell to other kids. So that's how I knew Ezra. He was like my weed connection. And then one day I went to his house and he's in his garage and he's blowing glass.

34:28SpeakerAnd I was like, holy shit, this is so cool. You know, I never seen anyone do it or anything like that. So Ezra was my first person I ever saw doing it. And then he moved out to Idaho and started growing weed there and got busted. By like the feds or some shit. And so he had to he had to like he moved to Oregon because his parents were there and he was like trying to figure what he was doing basically.

34:54SpeakerAnd when he went to Oregon, he met Jason and Marcel and Clinton and Ham and Pedro and all these guys. And they all bonded over blowing glass. And then Ezra was trying to like kind of quote unquote go straight. So he decided to go to the Seattle Art Institute to go to school, to get a degree of some sort in art or whatever. So Ezra moved up to Seattle.

35:19SpeakerThose guys followed him basically. And Ezra, at that point I was going to school and Ezra would send me his pieces and some of those guys' pieces to sell. And I was like selling their glass. And then one of the other guys that my friend Zach had taught to blow glass, Pat Kiefer, had come back to Ithaca, needed a place to work. Me and Derek were living in this house growing weed, invited him over.

35:47SpeakerWe're like, bada bing, bada boom, we're growing weed. You can live here. Set up a little glass blowing studio in our side room in our kitchen. And that was it. We kind of like apprenticed with this dude, Pat Kiefer. At the end of 97, Ezra invited us out to Seattle to visit. And like, that's basically how I went out there. I went out there and met all those heady dudes and was like, holy shit, this is the sickest glass I've ever seen.

36:13SpeakerAnd Ezra's like, yo, I'm going to get a warehouse together and there'll be plenty of room for you guys to blow glass if you want to move out here. And so that was it. We packed our shit up and moved there.

36:25BubblemanThat's incredible, dude. That is a massive inspiration because us meeting each other, that's a part of it for sure. We definitely spoke on the phone because you called me soon after you got back and you said to me, I think you know my roommate, Zach. And I was like, I don't know, dude. And he's like, no, no, apparently you met him on fish tour. And I was like, dude, listen, at that point in time, I had probably seen...

36:52BubblemanMaybe 12 fish shows? Like I'd have to go back and count, but it wasn't a lot. I wasn't like you guys. I wasn't like able to just go to shows and I've been to 27 shows. I've been to 93 shows. I just wasn't that guy. You know, I was the Canadian guy that was like, fuck, I can barely get across the border. Most of my fish shows at the time were in Vancouver.

37:14BubblemanLike when you said that tour, oh, we started in Portland. Well, I started that tour in Vancouver, right? I saw the Vancouver show and then I got it in my head I was like, fuck, I bet you I could, I had just, you know what? I had for sure been busted because my hair was cut. I had short hair when I met you. I didn't have long hair.

37:30BubblemanI cut my hair.

37:31SpeakerNo, actually, I think you're, I think you did have long hair and I'll correct you. They didn't play Vancouver until 99, which we also did those shows together.

37:40Etienne FontanOkay.

37:40SpeakerThey didn't play, they didn't play Vancouver in 98. They started Portland to the Gorge and down South. So you had literally just come over the border to see those two Gorge shows.

37:50BubblemanThat's crazy.

37:51SpeakerAnd I'm pretty sure you had like, there was other people supposed to come with you. You weren't supposed to be in a car by yourself, but whoever was supposed to come with you from Canada ditched you or couldn't come over the border or whatever.

38:00BubblemanThe other thing that's weird is my memory is that when I picked, okay, so I'm type A, I don't ever turn around. But when I saw you standing in front of the fast food place, Like I'll run out of gas before I turn around. I'll go buy a gas station and just be like 100 feet past it and have the light blinking and be like, I'll make the next one.

38:18BubblemanThat's just my personality. It always has been. So in my recollection, you were standing in front of an A&W. That might've been it. And in my mind, I got the idea that I needed onion rings, which first of all is so fucking bizarre because I don't need onion rings. I don't really eat onion rings. I don't really eat A&W, to be honest. But I convinced myself to turn around to get onion rings.

38:43BubblemanAnd we were actually in line buying onion rings when you gave me that old marble.

38:49SpeakerI remember all of that. I remember, I think you even said to me, Hey, you're kind of lucky I wanted onion rings or else I wouldn't have turned around. That's exactly what you're saying. You're like, my personality is I don't turn around, but it was the onion rings that I think solidified it for you. You had your other motivation. And so you're like, okay, I'm turning around.

39:07SpeakerI might as well get that guy too.

39:10BubblemanThat is so fucking weird, dude. Like it was like I was having a conversation with my higher self that absolutely needed me to meet you. I honestly can't imagine what my life would be like without having met you, dude. You definitely were a huge inspiration. On me. What the fuck? Bubble Man, he's making all this hash, but he just smokes joints. I only smoked joints when I met you.

39:34SpeakerWe smoked a ton of joints together. And a ton of teeth. You loved like grinding it up in the coffee grinder and collecting all the teeth and stuff like that. You were really into Keith. And then, of course, I think we should almost get into the mayor conversations. We're getting to that 99 of me coming up to visit for my first couple of times. Which, I don't know if I was with Zach at the time, but yeah, Zach, I hadn't even met Zach, honestly, until I moved out west, but then became a very good friend of mine and a roommate in Bellingham, of course.

40:01SpeakerBut yeah, we started coming up to visit you, which was honestly, to me, like, it was a magical place. Coming up to Vancouver was the most beautiful, magical, I just loved it up there. I knew I was going to live up there at some point, because I just loved it on so many levels, like, the people and the place and the mountains and the ocean and the city just...

40:19SpeakerJust an absolutely gorgeous, amazing, amazing place or whatever. Um, but yeah, coming to visit and you would always just, there was, I don't know. You were like, I just looked up to you. You knew a lot about cannabis to a whole nother level. One thing I want to point out that I was thinking about this week, I never heard anyone use the term terps, terpenoids or terpenes until I met you.

40:43SpeakerYou're the first person that used those terms around me. And I remember you explaining them in more of a scientific way. And then it wasn't a decade plus, 15 years later that all of a sudden I'm in the States and people are starting to use those terms regularly. I'm like, holy shit. You were ahead of your time, my man. But I'm saying, you know, I went up there and you showed me like oil, like cherry oil, amber oil, like that blew me away.

41:09SpeakerI had never seen hash oil as a stoner. And you gave me my first dab. And do you want to describe what the mayor is exactly?

41:19BubblemanYeah, I mean, I got to shout out the boys, the Holy Smokes from Nelson, B.C., the Kootenays. This was a huge inspiration for me, probably almost 10 years before I met Slinger. I was lucky enough in the early 90s to go on a tour with my hemp partners, Martin and John Geo. And we went to the Kootenays and we met the Holy Smokes guys. And that was Paul DeFeliz.

41:43BubblemanThat was Alan Middlemiss, who would end up moving back to Manitoba and becoming a part of our Manitoba Hemp Alliance and getting hemp growing legally, et cetera. And that all sort of would play out over time. Sorry, Dr. Mark is just texting me and he threw me off a little bit. What was I saying? I lost my train of thought. I was about to pack a dab here.

42:07SpeakerOh, yes.

42:09BubblemanThe Holy Smokes. So the mayor and the mayor and Dustin Sunflower. That's right. And Dustin Sunflower. Shout out to him. Rest in peace. He passed away of ALS here recently. He was a super good brother. But these maniacs from the Kootenays. So they had a buddy named Terry and Terry was the oil guy. And Terry figured out quite a bit. Thank you for watching.

42:48BubblemanIf he ran the solvent soaked resin, so the, you know, you do a quick cold wash and now you've got this resin that's this inside the solvent. If you ran that through activated charcoal, you could remove the black and green color and the first color you would get to would be cherry. And if you kept doing it, you could get to gold or honey. Amber, whatever you want to call it.

43:12BubblemanBut it would it would be a massive loss, at least how he was doing his extraction at the time. He was losing like 10 grams of cherry oil to get one gram of honey oil. But he had figured this process out. These guys came out, they were full-blown maniacs, like psychonauts, right? These were the guys that would do like mop-up acid trips where, you know, a mop-up acid trip is when you've bought your crystal gram, you've turned it into liquid, and all the little tools that you use, there's these little bottles that you'll be using, They would wash orange juice through all the tools at the end of turning the gram into like 10,000 hits.

43:53BubblemanAnd you could turn it into liquid and then you could put that liquid on paper if that's what you chose to do. Anyway, they would do mop up psychedelic trips where they were just like sharing a glass of orange juice with like 200 hits of LSD in it, right? So these guys were on another level. I was young. These were some of my earliest mentors. And they had designed, and I'd have to get Paul on here one day to talk about it.

44:19BubblemanI don't know if it was Terry or Paul or all of them, but they created a pipe, which was just basically any glass pipe. Back at that time, it was almost guaranteed imported from China or maybe Eastern Europe somewhere, but not a lot of North Americans making glass in the early 90s for glass pipes. So we had these glass pipes and it had actually, The glass pipe had a tube coming out of it and that tube would go into a glass bell and that glass bell would sit just how you would think over top of a propane acetylene torch that had a spoon clamped to the top of it and then bent over the flame.

45:04BubblemanSo the spoon was clamped. Yeah, it was so fucking ghetto, Dr. Mark. The chemist comes in for this shit. He's just laughing at us. So this was this was called the mayor of Nelson. And these guys. Now, first of all, we had we did not have A temp tech or a terp, you know, we had none of these tools at all.

45:27Etienne FontanAnd so you have a mayor in town is what is what people are. Why the mayor? Why was it called the mayor of all?

45:33BubblemanThey just called it the mayor because there was a mayor in the Kootenays. They would have to tell that part of the story. But yeah, dude, it was insane, bro. Like you have to understand anyone like us that came across this thing. It was like.

45:48SpeakerWell, it was like chasing the dragon. It was kind of like free racing. When I did it with you, we didn't have a glass apparatus at all. I think we did it a couple different ways. One, we took a pen and took out the ink part and the end and it just was a tube. And we would basically turn on the torch, keep, I'm talking like a spoon from your kitchen that you eat soup with.

46:13SpeakerWe would get that random spoon red hot. When the spoon wasn't glowing, you drop your glob, your blob, glob, glob, I forgot what we called it. You drop your glob on there and when it's smoked up, Thank you for watching.

46:44SpeakerThank you for joining us.

47:14SpeakerBack to Washington State. And I went right to Bellingham, right to like Marcel's shop and a bunch of different people. And I was like, yeah, you got to check this out. I was like, we got to make something cool to smoke out of it. We need to make like a better device with that filters through water. Like, let's go. Like we would be in the glass studio.

47:29SpeakerI was with Marcel and you know what I mean? Right away we were coming up with like some kind of like an air bong where, you know, it was like it had the right seal so you could have water and it wouldn't spill out and you could have a bell and you could just, you know, hover it over there. But That like, that really, that kind of like, that changed it for me.

47:46SpeakerTo be honest with you, to further that story, I ended up smuggling like an ounce of that oil over the border right before I went on fish tour in 99.

48:01SpeakerAnd I took that shit, the other way that Mark taught me how to smoke it was off a hot coal that you use in a hookah. So I would be on the lawn at a fish show and I would have a soda can. I turn the soda can upside down and I take a hookah coal and I get it hot and get it burning. And then I sit there with a little glass one hitter, dropping globs and smoking globs off this hot coal.

48:24SpeakerAnd I think a lot of people thought I was smoking heroin, to be honest with you, because I was offering it to a lot of people that did not want anything to do with it. But that was epic. And if I can throw The crazier part to this story, while I was on fish tour in 99, smoking globs off coals on the lawn at various fish shows, mostly on the East Coast, on the West Coast as well, I had a cell phone at the time.

48:49SpeakerIt was one of my first cell phone ever. And Mark, you called me on the phone while I was on fish tour and you were like, hey, I did it. I did it. And I don't remember exactly what you said to me after that, but what you had done is started making water hash is what you had done. And you were sort of explaining it to me.

49:08SpeakerYou had this organic way of making hash, basically, you know, better than the dabs. Like, forget about the oil, you were basically saying to me. You had something new. And I was taking acid, liquid acid, every single show. So I was like, oh, cool, dude. You know what I mean?

49:24Dr Mark ScialdoneCan't wait to be back there.

49:26SpeakerYou know, I was a spun. Yeah, I was a spun, totally. But I still registered what you said. And then, of course, randomly finally made my way back up to BC to visit you. And, you know, you showed me Water Ash for the first time. And, you know, holy shit. Yeah.

49:45BubblemanFuck, that's unbelievable, dude. And it's funny when you say I grabbed a gram and I brought it back because and then you started naming the people you smoked it with. I still have the double bubbler straw that Jason Lee made. It was like an orange one with a funnel on the bottom. I actually just went to look for it when you mentioned it, but I. I got so many glass pipes in this box that I don't want to rush through it.

50:06SpeakerI mean, I helped you engineer that trade with Marcel. Like Marcel was one of the first people to start making these like really crazy sculptural intense pieces that he wanted like a few thousand dollars for, which at the time was like, whoa, a few thousand dollars, dude. Like who spends that much on glass? Like it was a new thing. And you, I showed you some of those pieces or I brought him up and you were enamored with them.

50:28SpeakerYou were like, oh my God, like I want this. But I don't want to spend money, but I've got this hash, you know what I mean? And bada bing, bada boom.

50:38BubblemanThat was incredible, dude. I ended up, listen, he brought that pipe up, the big dolphin, octopus, madness pipe. Number one. Number one of 1999. He made three pipes in 99. I got one in three, and two, I believe, was raffled off at the Weed Festival in Oregon.

50:58SpeakerI believe you're correct.

50:59BubblemanYeah, yeah, the con, those, those, what's his name? Condo? Condi? I can't remember the guy, he had the... Bill Condie. Yeah, Condie. I think it was on Bill's property.

51:13Etienne FontanYeah, he was a former redwood farmer who created hemp plywood.

51:17BubblemanRight, exactly. So yeah, that's a crazy timeline, you know, and then it was within, I don't know how long it was that he went back with that oil, but then he started coming back with this incredible group of people. It was like he'd come back and he'd have like D-Rack, or he'd have Pedro, or he'd have Zach, or he'd have Marcel, or he'd have, you know, Jason, not so much.

51:43BubblemanI think Jason only really ever came once. I did get him to come up once.

51:46SpeakerYou did.

51:47BubblemanYou did get him to come up once for sure, dude.

51:49SpeakerHe was not a fan of crossing the border, but I got him to come up once. MNP, I can remember coming up with you and having an epic session of making hash. With you and MMP at a house in Lions Bay or whatever. We made some just, oh, there you go. Wow. Look at that thing. It's so beautiful. I love that piece so much.

52:06BubblemanYeah, well, you're a big reason I have this piece.

52:08Etienne FontanThat's a lot of work and fuming and all. Look at that, the cobalt in there, too.

52:13SpeakerI remember when I came up with M&P, we made some bubble hash out of the Rene, and that shit was white. I mean, this was pre-Rosen, you know what I mean? Like, that shit was amazing. Like, I've been dreaming of that ever since. Right? Is the Rene still around? Do you still smoke that?

52:33BubblemanI see it now and then. I smell it in resin. It's definitely around. I know that it's on the island, but it's definitely not, it's not the way it once was, you know? It's like everything. Romulan, Renee, these certain things, they come for a short period of time and then they sort of dissipate and disappear.

52:53SpeakerThat was a crazy moment in time. That was such a unique strain. It was the crazy, the turps, the flavor, the like, it was so... It was, and it made amazing. It was such a dumper. Like you were ahead of your time. I mean, I don't know why I keep blowing smoke up your butt with all that, but I'm just saying like you were thinking ahead of time.

53:09SpeakerYou're trying to like find strains that dumped resin. In the water hatch situation with the fresh frozen and all that stuff or whatever. I got to say at this point, I'm just really thankful that everything's come around in the scene because not to fast forward too much, but it's crazy how eventually when I moved back to the States, the BHO scene blew up here. And at first I was like, okay, whatever.

53:30SpeakerI've smoked oil before. I'll smoke some of this oil or whatever. But the whole time, I had been, you know, just living in Vancouver smoking solventless hash for so long. And now here I'm back in the States smoking BHO. And I was like, man, there's just, there's just a better way out there. And then the solventless revolution came back around. And I remember, I remember when you first started making water hash, when I first started visiting you in Vancouver and you were like, bro, one day people are going to spend like a hundred dollars a gram for stuff like this.

53:59SpeakerAnd I was like, whatever, dude, come on. You know, You were right. I've been waiting to tell you that forever. You were fucking right, bro. You were right. I got something right?

54:12BubblemanCan you call my wife and tell her?

54:14SpeakerI have to give you props. This is my experience. You know what I mean? This is how I saw it. It's how I experienced it. It's just my truth that I lived or whatever. But wow, dude. And then I look at whatever. I'm smoking hash rosin today and stuff like that. And to me, I'm dabbing like, I still, I dab every day. And I think about you all the time because it all comes back.

54:35SpeakerLike that's my whole experience comes back to like meeting you and having these crazy experiences, starting with the mayor and dabbing off a fucking hot spoon to like you showing me, you know, and then eventually, you know, you helped me move to Vancouver. And, you know, I remember being in the garage with, uh, Christine. Christine. I almost was going to say Susan. I was like, no, it's not Susan.

54:57SpeakerBut with Christine and like we had a 20 gallon set and like a pulley thing and we were like making hash and you taught me about decarboxylation and you had your little way. You probably don't do it anymore, but your way of like pressing the bubble hash with the newspaper and the electric pan. I would like. You run it over with the car in the driveway to flatten it out.

55:16SpeakerIt was pretty fun, actually, or whatever.

55:18BubblemanDude, that house is two doors down from the house I'm living in right now. The house that I bought. Yeah, it's right over there, dude.

55:24SpeakerThe house that you lived in with fucking, that was my old buddy Blue's house. You live in one of the most beautiful goddamn places in the world. Holy fucking shit.

55:32BubblemanYeah, we're blessed for sure. Dude, honestly, to blow smoke right back up at you, you bringing Dorky Jeff into the scene was really how the Bizarre Brothers became massive fucking bubble ambassadors for the Bubble Bag Company. And that happened from you.

55:52SpeakerWell, you know what? Because I was one of the first people to go up to Canada Get a set of bags from you in the very early days and bring it down to Seattle. And I was like showing everyone I knew, I knew all sorts of growers and ballers and weed heads and whatever. And I was like, yo, I got this shit. If anyone has material, let's, I was making bubble hash in my, You know, in my bathroom, in my little one bedroom apartment or whatever.

56:18SpeakerI remember these dudes, like Seattle was really famous for a lot of purple strains. And so guys were, I mean, we were just processing a lot of stuff that was just units that were dry already, right? We didn't know, we didn't have necessarily access to fresh frozen right off the bat. But I remember we were processing some purple nugs and like I was pouring the water in my bathtub.

56:36SpeakerIt looked like wine. It was just totally purple, red water. It was insane. But I was turning a bunch of people onto it. And the Bizarre Brother homies, I mean, one of the dudes, Space, I knew him because, RIP my homie Space, because he was living, he was working and living at this hydroponic store next to a studio I blew glass at in Seattle. We became friends.

57:01SpeakerAnd I guess I had like come back from Vancouver and like introduced him to Waterhash and Bubblehash at some point. And then fast forward to, I moved back to United States and I moved to Philadelphia and him and I connected through social media or something like that. And he sends me a message one day and he goes, hey bro, we haven't talked in like a long time, but I live in Northern California and I make a ton of bubble hash and you're the first person ever showed me what was up with that shit.

57:29SpeakerAnd I really want to like pay you back for it. And he ended up like sending me like an ounce of milk, like to Philly.

57:35BubblemanThat is incredible. Thank you.

57:37SpeakerAnd this is like everyone I know was smoking BHO and this dude sent me like an ounce of milk and I was like, yo, check this out. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, it was really, it was really, really cool. And I was like, no shit. I was like, that was some cool karma coming back around because I don't know. I was just smoking and doing my thing.

57:52SpeakerAnd who knows who you're hanging out with and you're influencing. You never know who you're influencing and what they're

57:56BubblemanDude, you influence. Okay, so really the history has changed in my mind because you are the first bubble ambassador. Because I will say, I will say truly that Space and Corpy were two of the first true bubble ambassadors, like designing large systems, just fucking coming up with the star rated system with Jeff, like having that little place, their little hash sort of cafe thing that they had going on.

58:23BubblemanI mean... I can't believe that they're both gone, to be honest.

58:28SpeakerYeah, it's incredibly sad. But I mean, yeah, they were incredible human beings.

58:33BubblemanThey really were, dude. That's insane that you turn space on. It's a small world.

58:39SpeakerYou know, I didn't even really realize it until he's the one who let me know. And like, again, yeah, that means some hash or whatever.

58:46BubblemanDude, see, these are the things we never know. You know, JP, like, 10 years after he creates the Terp Slurper, he sends me a magazine article from some magazine out east. And I wish I still had it here. But he's like, yeah, so I read the magazine. And I said, oh, there's an article with him in it. I was like, oh, he probably wanted me to read his article.

59:04BubblemanSo I read his whole article. And as I get about halfway through the article, he's got this little, he's got a part that's underlined in yellow. And the guy's like, oh, so how did they come up with the Terp Slurper? And he's like, he goes, well, actually, it was a conversation that I had with Bubble Man. And I'm like, The fuck? I'm a part of the Terp Slurper?

59:25BubblemanI had to call him up. He was like, yeah, dude, don't you remember? You were talking about sipping Terps. And I couldn't get that out of my head. I was like, Bubble Man said sipping Terps. What does sipping Terps mean? And he's like, sipping Terps was the line that led me to the Terp Slurper. I was like, fuck, you never know how you're inspiring people, dude.

59:44SpeakerJP gave me my first ever dab off like a dome and nail. Yeah. So like when I first moved to see it to Philadelphia in 2007, after I just left Vancouver. He came down here and brought some crazy rig. And, you know, he basically invented with another guy, JC, the whole original, I think it was a boron nail original before it was even coarse, because obviously it was something they could make in the studio, you know, with the like male joint and then the boron nail and then the dome you'd put on top of it with the female or whatever.

1:00:16SpeakerThey gave me my first dab like that. You know what I mean? Like you gave me my first like dab of oil ever, but they gave me my first like the modern style dabbing where we've entered that realm in the like, you know,

1:00:28BubblemanSo we're lucky we met, we linked up, we connected, you know, Ezra, Zach, all of these things pulling you to the West Coast, all of our love of fish intertwining and connecting everything, which is mental. And you end up moving up here. You're blowing glass. You meet Rat Dog, Brian Ratcliffe. You meet Jesse Hippo. I think we would be, it would be important to tell a little bit of that story as well.

1:01:04BubblemanSo you blew glass next door here for a short period of time. How did you end up over with those guys?

1:01:10SpeakerWell, I mean, the general story is that I always kind of wanted to move to Vancouver. Even when I first moved out to Seattle and Pacific Northwest, I always had this dream of going up there. And what actually happened was the house that I moved into, a couple doors down from you, when I first ever visited the house, you lived there when I first ever. And I always thought that's the coolest, what a great house, what an amazing house.

1:01:34BubblemanWasn't it cool?

1:01:35SpeakerWhat a crazy place. And you had moved out to a different house, but I think you were somehow connected, like you were subleasing it and you were renting it to Hillary. And Christine, and maybe someone else or something. And I had kind of met a lot of your friends. I had come up to Vancouver enough times. I'd come up for a drum and bass night at Sonar.

1:01:51SpeakerOr I remember I came, I think the one time I got Jason Lee, maybe it wasn't that time. I came up to see like Disco Biscuits at Sonar one time. But I was, I remember I would come up to Vancouver to like buy records. For whatever reason, I would come up there, meet up with you as much as I could. And I met a lot of your friends.

1:02:08SpeakerAnd so I'd met Hillary, probably met Christine. Anyway, somehow or another, Thank you so much for joining us.

1:02:36SpeakerIt was either you or from one of those ladies. And they were like, hey, we've got an extra room in our house. You can rent it. You can blow glass in the garage if you want to come up here. And I was like, no shit. The crazy thing is, actually, is that I almost didn't move up there. And I almost honestly quit blowing glass around 9-11. So I moved up there February of 2002.

1:02:58SpeakerBut obviously, September 11, 2001, the towers hit. And I'm from New York. So, you know, I got to also preface this with another thing you influenced me into a lot was we were reading a bunch of conspiracy theory books back then, like David Icke and the Bible Code and Behold the Pale Horse and stuff like that. And you had influenced me to reading a lot of that stuff, which I was devouring and loving it.

1:03:24SpeakerBut when the towers got hit, my mind was scrambled. Like I was like, holy shit, this is it. Like the whole world's about to change. Who cares about blowing glass or anything anymore? I was like DJing, drum and bass. I sold my turntables and my records. I had like a little collection of pipes. I sold them off. I was from New York and I flew back to New York three days after 9-11.

1:03:46SpeakerI ended up linking up with my ex-girlfriend from high school. We ended up actually getting back together and I was thinking oh fuck I'm in love with this woman and I love New York and I need to be here right now and the shit's about to hit the fan who cares about anything else I need to like figure out I don't even know what was going to happen next but I thought there was going to be a radical change in the world and I need to be ready for it so I spent like a month in New York just kind of like thinking that what am I going to do with myself and then Long story short, the girl that I was seeing in New York ended up actually being like, actually, I really have another boyfriend.

1:04:19SpeakerYou were like kind of a side gig and I want to be with my boyfriend and kind of broke up with me all of a sudden. And so I came back to Seattle with my tail between my legs being like, OK, I was like part of it was heartbreak and part of it was like George W. Bush in 9-11. I was like, OK, I gotta get the fuck out of this country.

1:04:36SpeakerAnd I always loved Vancouver. And then I got, I got the invite to come up there basically. And I was like, that's it. I'm going up there in February of 2022. I moved up, sorry, 2022, February of 2002, I moved up to BC. And really it was as simple as throwing up. You moved up to Lions Bay. Dorky Jeff moved me up. I was like, I didn't have a car or a ride.

1:04:58SpeakerAnd I basically, Dork was like, I'll drive you up there. So I had like a bag of clothes, like a kiln, a torch, and I put it in his car and we got to the border and we said, oh, we're coming up to see a concert for the weekend, like usual lie. And then we drove up and I unloaded my stuff in Lions Bay. He slept over, he got in his car and left.

1:05:18SpeakerI stayed and now I was living in Vancouver. Or Lions Bay, which is actually right. Most amazing, ridiculous place. But what happened was to bring us to what your question is, how do I meet Rat Dog and Hippo? Well, Christine knew Hippo, Jesse. They were good friends. And so I was blowing glass in the garage by myself. I didn't even have a car. So I'm up in Lions Bay and I don't I knew you and a couple of people, but like I'm sort of trapped up there and don't.

1:05:42SpeakerThank you for watching.

1:06:01SpeakerLike I live in kind of a crazy neighborhood in Philadelphia. It's like a, it's a, it's not a bad, it's an up and coming neighborhood, but there's like a lot of drug. It's crazy. It's like, it might as well be living in Hastings street. Okay. For, to give you a reference point, basically. So like lion's day is like, it's the most, the air is so clean. It's a beautiful, beautiful place.

1:06:19SpeakerAnyway. So Jesse. Would drop by. I think Christine was like, yo, this American dude's like blowing glass in our garage. Come by, meet this guy. So Jesse would come by and chat me up. Jesse was actually still working like in a snowboard skate shop, basically. He wasn't even blowing glass full time, but he eventually he met Brian Ratcliffe, aka Surf Rat, Rat Dog. And. Brian invited him, had a little studio somewhere down in the city and he invited in North Vancouver and invited Jesse to like set up there.

1:06:48SpeakerSo Jesse set up there and Jesse told me about it. And so I went down and checked it out. And then at some point, the guy who owned that house who lived in the Middle East somewhere had like hit you up and been like, hey, I'm coming back. I need my house back. And we all got noticed that we had to move out. And so at that point, like that was my entry point into Vancouver.

1:07:09SpeakerLike in order to take the leap of like, I live in Canada, Vancouver, like that invite is what gave me the courage and the like, the like, okay, I'm going to do this. Now I'm up there. I wasn't ready just to move back to the United States. You know what I mean? But it made sense to try to team up with some other glassblowers. I actually was pretty broke, didn't have a lot of money.

1:07:24SpeakerAnd at that point in my life, I didn't care about amassing money or think about it that much. I was way more into life experience, which, hey, led me to take a lot of great chances that put me in great places with great people. But I ended up going down to the city. Actually, it's crazy. We moved out of the house and I basically went down to the city.

1:07:42SpeakerAnd to be honest with you, I was more experienced than Brian and Jesse in terms of glassblowing. I had been blowing glass for longer. And I had worked with a whole bunch of crazy top artists and had privy to all sorts of techniques and information that they didn't know about. And I saw- 100%. I was going to say the same thing. I saw lots of room for improvement.

1:08:02SpeakerAnd, but I, so I saw they needed something, but I needed something. I needed a place to work. And to be honest with you, they didn't even have room for me in my shop. If you remember how that shop was, remember how I built my bench behind their bench? Yes. And I like piped my vent into their thing. I remember I was so New York about it because, OK, so, you know, Brian's from Colorado.

1:08:24SpeakerI'm from New York and I'm a little bit assertive, aggressive type person. If I want something, I'm going to like try to really bulldog my way in if I have to. Right. I basically remember not even barely asking Brian, I think I was like, hey, can I work here? And he was like, I don't, I was like, I'm going to work here. And he was like, and I was like, I'm going to move in.

1:08:44SpeakerAnd I just moved in. I kind of like forced my way in there. And to be honest with you, I was homeless when I first moved in here. I think I like moved into their shop. And then after I moved into their shop, We had to actually be out of that house. And I didn't know what I mean. Honestly, I had a hard time getting an apartment in Seattle and I'm an American because I don't have proof of income.

1:09:06SpeakerI make glass and I sell it. Like, how do you convince a landlord that you can pay your rent? You know what I mean? So here I am in Vancouver in another country. I was sleeping on the couch in the back of their thing, in the back of the shop there for a little while. I don't remember how- You were in North Vancouver. Yeah, North Vancouver. Yes, in North Vancouver.

1:09:26SpeakerYes, yes, yes. On Pemberton Avenue. And I was determined though that we were gonna get a better studio. I was like, we're gonna get a better studio. And I was also living in the studio. So that's when I kind of discovered the ARC, the Artist Resource Center down on Powell Street. That's right. And it was a really cool building. So this is a building in Vancouver that was called the Artist Resource Center.

1:09:50SpeakerAnd some real estate developers had bought the building and got some kind of tax break if they had like allocated the space to like emerging artists. So you literally had to show an art portfolio to move into the building. You had to be an actual artist basically. And they gave you like, you know, a better deal on your rent. And it was a live workspace. You could work there and you could live there.

1:10:15SpeakerBut yeah, that's how I met those two guys honestly was just sort of like forcing my way into their studio. And that was cool. You know, that was that was we were like a little squad there or whatever. That was a crazy that whole time was such a crazy time in my life. I mean, I just come from a whole situation in Seattle and Bellingham where I was surrounded with a whole like heady boy group of people like collectors and like artists.

1:10:42SpeakerAnd in Vancouver, it was a little different. There was like the scene was the border stops culture. So there was a bit the scene was filtering up there, but it was like, you know, A lot of people up there were still smoking joints with tobacco even. You were way ahead of most people up there in terms of like using glass and stuff like that or whatever. But what we had was like the tourist spots like Blunt Brothers and Hemp BC and stuff like that.

1:11:07SpeakerAnd then eventually...

1:11:09BubblemanThe Melting Point.

1:11:10SpeakerThe Melting Point.

1:11:11BubblemanWe would have The Melting Point. The Melting Point was on Commercial Drive, and Commercial Drive ended on McGill Street, right basically at the Ark, where... Where my building was, where I blew rocks. Where his building was, exactly. So that's sort of... You know, Aaron knew so many glassblowers at this point in time that when I got this building and it was kind of, it was another one of your friends.

1:11:37BubblemanIt was, it was Jay, Jay Fried, who, do you remember Jay, Dready Jay? He's in Hawaii now. Sounds familiar. He's good friends with Zach. Yeah, he was the crazy dude that like came over the border in a limo one time. Like, just like, he's just a wild character. He's in like Maui now, but he called me one day and was like, I was in Jamaica. He was like, I found your place.

1:12:05BubblemanI'm like, my place? He's like, yeah, yeah, it's It's I&I and I&I Commercial Drive, which was 1111 Commercial Drive. And I wasn't really, I was looking for a small office space, but somehow his phone call sparked this insanity because holy shit, that was a lot of insanity. And I ended up renting that space. This, you know, I think it was around 3000 square feet or 2500 square feet on Commercial Drive there.

1:12:32BubblemanAnd I had no idea what I was going to do. It was honestly.

1:12:35SpeakerWell, I think you knew you were going to sell bubble bags, but you had aspirations to do more.

1:12:39BubblemanYeah, I knew I was going to sell bubble bags, but this place was way too big and nice.

1:12:42SpeakerI mean, I remember a little bit because you were also getting into vaping. So you were like going to have a I'm going to take this one.

1:12:49BubblemanOh, yeah, it's a good idea. Get puffy.

1:12:54SpeakerYeah, this is really the volcano. That's right. The rips, the V rip and the volcano. And so I think you were trying to have like a like a like a vape bar. You would have the volcano set up and people would come in. You were like, hey, hey, stranger, let me teach you about vaping. And you would give them a speech and offer of a vape. You were like all about spreading knowledge.

1:13:13SpeakerThat was your whole thing. You were like, you were like, I'm going to make water hash online so that people just know how to do it. Everyone's going to be doing it.

1:13:22Etienne FontanThat rip tech net technology was the shit for a blip there. Oh, dude. That Steinel hot air gun.

1:13:30BubblemanDude, listen, I have no idea. I'm sure you're the same way, ATN, but I just met all these people from their day one. Like, I met Mark McCoy super early on. He came up with, like, Naboo from Overgrow Days and, you know, came right to my house to show me his riptack and the volcano.

1:13:46SpeakerHe was obsessed with, like, grass-fed beef and stuff like that, I remember. That's right.

1:13:50BubblemanThat's right.

1:13:51SpeakerEveryone's got their quirk, but this is the beginning of you starting to be like, I don't want to smoke The flower anymore. I don't want to smoke the hemp material. I just want to smoke the resin. And you were like, you were like, I don't want to smoke the rolling paper. I don't want to smoke the like the hemp material. I only want to smoke resin. Like that was like the beginning of that thing for you.

1:14:11SpeakerYou were like, I'm done with it. I don't smoke joints anymore. But you know what? A part of that.

1:14:15BubblemanGo ahead.

1:14:16Etienne FontanDon't you kind of sometimes feel like Forrest Gump because of what you were saying before of how you meet people and these, all these historic things. I mean, I met Marvel before he was even blowing glass, but he was in college. You know what I'm saying? It's just, it's fascinating how you find yourself at all these pivotal moments and listening to you, you know, go on on the history is fascinating, but you gotta kind of feel like Forrest Gump at a bit, you know, you were just at an in-between or in the same room Smoking, rolling a joint, vaporizing, or, you know, all of the above.

1:14:48Etienne FontanYou know what I'm saying? It's really fascinating how, you know, just wanting to get high finds yourself literally at the center of an orbit sometimes.

1:14:58BubblemanYeah, it's been super trippy. There's no doubt about it. And there's been so many different people, so many different experiences. You know, like, I think the year the volcano came out, I was in Dortmund, Germany at an event. I knew no one. In fact, I remember that event very specifically because Mila's daughter came up to me at that event. And she started to talk to me. And she said, full disclosure, I'm Mila's daughter.

1:15:21BubblemanI said, oh, well, no problem. Welcome. And at that point, there was this really strong, aggressive energy between our two camps, which really was between me and Mila. And I get it. She was pretty upset with me. And so her daughter came over and said, I just have to meet you because there's just no way you're as big of a monster as what we're talking about in my group over here.

1:15:45BubblemanAnd I said, oh, well, OK, well, fuck, yeah, let's have a talk. And I had a really awesome talk with her. It was like an hour long. And I remember right at the end of our talk. Another girl came over and it was actually Marcus's stores or is it Marcus stores? And yeah, I believe it's Marcus stores. One of the half of stores in Bickel, his daughter came over to my booth right as I was ending the conversation with Mila's daughter and I had brought some full melt Renee bubble hash to Germany and I was puffing it in Dortmund at my booth, giving everyone dabs and people were just like,

1:16:25SpeakerWhat the fuck?

1:16:26BubblemanThey couldn't believe it because I'm not even home anymore. I'm now in fucking Germany and I'm not even in a big city in Germany. I'm in like a small industrial, like not big city in the south. Basically, it wasn't safe. She smelt this hash. Everyone smelt this hash, in fact. She came over. She said, my dad just invented a vaporizer. Would it be possible if we just got a little bit of what you were smoking?

1:16:49BubblemanAnd I'll never forget it because the piece I had was longer than a pack of rolling papers. It was probably about that long. Thank you for watching.

1:17:16BubblemanThe Canadian rights for the volcano. And that's why I had the volcano at my vapor bar at the melting point. And if you remember, the vapor bar had a name. It was called the inhalation station. Yes. Yeah.

1:17:30SpeakerTotally. Totally did.

1:17:35BubblemanCrazy dude. And then with all of them, with Mark McCoy, with Sean from Vapyr, from that crazy dude in Horseshoe Bay who had the volatizer. Did you ever meet him? David Wheeler?

1:17:46SpeakerAll I know is that in my time in Vancouver, I met a lot of crazy characters would come from all over the world to meet you and seek you out. And I would end up at your house or someplace down in the city. And we'd be having a session. You'd be introducing me to all sorts of crazy characters. But also this leads me to say that at the melting point, we did the degenerate art show in 2004.

1:18:14SpeakerThat's the first time I ever used the term degenerate art.

1:18:18BubblemanYeah, that's incredible. You know what I mean?

1:18:20SpeakerThat was a seed right there. And that was obviously inspired because in 2003, I just moved to Canada, so I'm living in Canada, but in the States, they did that whole crackdown, the paraphernalia industry or whatever, the Operation Pipe Dreams, right?

1:18:32BubblemanThat was your passion at the time, dude. You had a real passion about that. You were on the fence with this being very public and being very true and authentic to your art form, but at the same time, being an American and being like, fuck, I don't want to go to jail like Tommy Chong. I don't want to get busted for selling bongs. But yet you were, you know, I'll say it in all honesty, we threw this art show together, but truly and really, that was your baby.

1:18:59BubblemanI had the space and I had some money and I had the ability to fund a lot of it. But you curated the entire show. You had personal relationships with every single glassblower. You picked and chose them. Like really, dude, that glass show was kind of the beginning of you like stepping into who you were going to be, not just a glassblower, but a glassblower with authority.

1:19:25BubblemanAnd you, dude, every single person there that came from Marcel to Ham to To Amber Pelling Greeny, every glassblower came there and they saw what you were doing, dude. You put together an absolutely phenomenal, dude, we had cops at that event when we released it and opened it up to the public. Oh my God, dude, I'll never forget throwing that show with you, dude. That was incredible.

1:19:50SpeakerI mean, I appreciate the opportunity and the idea was to try to If you want to call something art, you've got to put it in the context of art. So if it's only ever found in a head shop around things that are, you know, borderline illegal or whatever. Oh, wow. Got footage from the show. Then, you know, you're you're you're you're always going to be like you're you're arguing in a court of law.

1:20:14SpeakerI always imagine being in a court of law and trying to argue, have a lawyer and trying to, like, give them the right information, arm them with information that they could defend me basically. And so I, you know, this is the kind of stuff that I was like, okay, if we actually put the work in a gallery and have an art show, if I'm in a court of law and I'm trying to tell the judge that, hey, I'm an artist, I have a defense for that to some extent.

1:20:35SpeakerYou know what I mean? If it looks like, if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, it's a duck. So let's, you know, let's apply that to art basically and like put it into that context or whatever. Yeah, there's like some cool, I've seen the footage of Hillary Black interviewing me on your back porch during this show actually um but yeah i still have i actually still have a stack of flyers from this show um i can even send you one i have i have plenty of them and on the flyer is one of my first attempts at writing a little like not a manifesto but sort of a like explaining that like this art's illegal and you know this is and you know blah blah blah or whatever and exactly what you're saying It started to birth me as an activist, which I kind of was already.

1:21:21SpeakerIf you take it back to the beginning of the story, you know, there's Hillary. When... Flashing me. When I was in college, I was like a part of the legalization club and that's what kind of like led me to this whole lifestyle or whatever, basically, you know, so... The whole like the fact that cannabis is illegal and that's bullshit has always been a huge fuel for me on so many different levels.

1:21:47SpeakerI just love the plant. I love smoking it or whatever. And yeah, you know, I've always gone off about how like a beautiful pipe Thanks for watching.

1:22:15BubblemanDude, we had no idea what we were doing. You guys clearly had an idea what you were doing, but we had, I had never thrown an art show. We handmade all of these little podiums.

1:22:24SpeakerIt's so cool that you have this footage. It's so cool to be able to like talk about it. And then you're like, actually. There's a 20 pound Max Poland. Yeah, it's insane. So this is, yeah, it's amazing. You know, I'll tell you what, this is a good example of how it's so important to document. Even if it's just done like this, like just random footage going around the room or whatever, like.

1:22:47SpeakerBut yeah, that, you know, in some senses, I was sowing the seeds for eventually making a film here. You know what I mean? Like, in terms of like, you know, again, what you were just saying, like after Operation Pipe Dreams, I'm looking at my future and I'm saying, what am I doing for my future? Like, you know, The dream is to be able to have a business and build your business.

1:23:07SpeakerBut if your business becomes too successful, you're selling drug paraphernalia as defined by the federal government. Your business can be taken down at any moment. So what's the point of putting your life's work and energy and your resources and money, et cetera, into building something like that, that at any time could be taken from you, you know? So then you're like, well, what am I doing? You know, like, and now again, like business wasn't the reason I got into glass.

1:23:32SpeakerGlass is something I did on a whim one day, and next thing you know, it's a thing I'm just doing all the time. You know what I mean? But it came from two things, my love of the plant and smoking herb, and then it came from my love of making things and art and making objects and crafting things and wanting freedom to not have to get a job.

1:23:50SpeakerBasically, there's my piece right there.

1:23:53BubblemanHell yeah. I remember you were so busy doing everything else that you were like, You're like, dude, I haven't really blown a piece. I'm like, well, you'll make one, dude. And you like, you blew that one.

1:24:07SpeakerBeautiful. Yeah. What a crazy, it's been, it's definitely been a long, strange trip. And I still, I still have that one. Damn. Yeah. That's crazy.

1:24:18BubblemanYeah. That's the you and Rat Dog. I think it was my 31st birthday or 33rd birthday. You guys gave me that pipe.

1:24:27BubblemanI absolutely still have it. Yeah, I think that was the one.

1:24:30SpeakerI think that one's a solo, actually. Is it a solo? Yeah. Yeah, you're right.

1:24:35BubblemanIt's a triple. It's like that. You guys blew it probably right after that. Now I almost have to find it.

1:24:41SpeakerYeah, no doubt. It's a triple.

1:24:46BubblemanThis glass show was actually very successful during a time where... Look at young me. I know, it's awesome. You and Hillary, oh my God. With the trichomes done in stained glass windows on the back of the thing. You know, this, yeah, this was pretty incredible, this whole experience to do. To me, the melting point, obviously the biggest thing that was ever done there were these shows. We did two of them.

1:25:11BubblemanWe did Regenerate. DeGenerate Art and then Regenerate Art the next year. But bringing all that glass in, the amount of work, the amount of people trusting you, that was probably over $300,000 worth of glass in like 2004. And all those people were sending it over the border. The border, man.

1:25:33SpeakerThe border makes it very complicated, extra complex.

1:25:36BubblemanYeah, it was scary, the responsibility that we had, you know, as running the show and, you know, like I had fun, but I was just really nervous about people, you know, not touching, not moving, not bumping into any of our little homemade podiums with aquariums over the top of each piece. Yeah, I get it, for sure. Yeah, well, that was a lot. That whole experience was... Well, you know, it wouldn't be long after that my father would pass away suddenly on the motorcycle with his wife and I would close the melting point.

1:26:15BubblemanUnfortunately, I never wanted to sell it. It didn't seem like a thing that was for sale to me. So I just took the hit and I'll always have the footage and the photos and the sort of the history of... Thank you so much for joining us today.

1:26:55BubblemanI'm going to now use my skills that I learned at film school and do something special. Tell us a little bit about that.

1:27:02SpeakerYeah, I mean, it was definitely a passion project. Basically, I think I started discussing it on like, you know, a glass blowing forums and stuff. And I was You know, honestly, I saw a documentary about graffiti and then I was watching some other graffiti videos and I liked of like more modern guys and they were all talking about how they all got influenced by this graffiti video and the graffiti video.

1:27:29SpeakerWell, the original movie I'm talking about Star Wars, a documentary. Yeah, it took something vandalizing on public property and it kind of legitimized it. I went to school for film and documentary film. And the first thing I learned in film school is that all films are propaganda, basically. And I understood that. And I learned about it a lot. Without going to film school, I never would have known to make the movie I did because I was trained how to look at images and deconstruct images and use the power of images to try to tell a story or try to influence people, right?

1:27:59SpeakerSo I watched this film that glorified graffiti in a sense and kind of legitimized it. And I was like, I need to do that same thing For glass pipes. That's how I can have a future. Like I'm basically at some point in Vancouver, right? I'm going through an existential crisis. I'm like 10 years almost in the blowing glass, not making a ton of money. And I'm worried about the law.

1:28:20SpeakerAnd I'm also living legally in another country. That's a whole nother thing. But I'm trying to figure out what am I doing? You know what I mean? Like what's next? Like what's the game plan? What's the long plan basically? And again, I kind of realized, wow, like it seems like these graffiti guys kind of like because like documentation has come out about what they do, even though it's like illegal, it kind of gave them a career.

1:28:43SpeakerLike it gave people something to like understand and latch on to. And it sort of like gave them legitimacy. So I kind of like... I developed like a passion to want to do this. And I decided that I was going to kind of like tell everyone and anyone I knew that this was my idea and see where it led. And honestly, there was a guy named Brian Carson.

1:29:05SpeakerWho opened a little head shop on commercial drive. And I was in the back of his shop one day selling him a couple of pipes. And I gave him like a super half-ass pitch about how I was going to make this documentary film. And I even mentioned that I needed this certain equipment or whatever, blah, blah, blah. Literally 24 hours later, him and his other buddy showed up at my studio with like the camera I had mentioned to him in passing.

1:29:34SpeakerAnd he was like, hey, yeah, we bought this film equipment and we're not like giving it to you to have, but we want to like invest in your film. We want you to we want you to make this film. We won't be a part of it. We'll like lend you this equipment for you to go like do your project. And I was like, holy shit, this is it.

1:29:49SpeakerLike at this point it was kind of like, okay, I actually looked at them and I was like, this is great, but I need like another $10,000 worth of film equipment. And they actually went and bought all this film equipment, video stuff. And I was like, holy shit. And you know, I'm living in Vancouver. And I don't even have a driver's license. But actually, Marcel was getting married in Eugene that year.

1:30:11SpeakerThis is 2006. And I was planning on going to his wedding. And I was like, all right, fuck it. I'm going to drive over the border, get over the border with his film equipment, and go to his wedding. I actually had met some girl. Who was like pretty cool that I was like, I think I had a crush on her, but nothing ever happened. But I convinced her to come with me on this journey.

1:30:30SpeakerShe was a Canadian chick up there. I don't even remember her name. I didn't know her very well. And she drove me down to Marcel's. And after one or two days there, she was like, I don't want to be here. And she just drove back to Vancouver. Right. And just left me there. So that was how I got down to Marcel's. Um, and I'm down at Marcel's place and I go to his wedding and then after his wedding, I'm like, okay, I got all this film equipment and Jason Lee and Marcel are blowing glass and they're like big barn, basically the big warehouse on Marcel's property.

1:30:57SpeakerAnd I was like, okay, these are the two, these two guys are super important to the story. Definitely. But I also know them personally. So let's start with these guys. And I spent a bunch of time hanging out, blowing glass and filming them and talking to them. And the interviews were actually horrible. I actually, I had to learn to do an interview. I had to learn how to use my film equipment.

1:31:16SpeakerI had to learn how to white balance. I had to learn about the aspect ratio. Because I went to school for film, which is 16 millimeter film, and video is a bit different. So honestly, long story short, it was a huge learning process of learning my equipment, learning how to conduct an interview and do all this stuff. I probably shot 20, 30, 40 hours of footage that pretty much was garbage.

1:31:36SpeakerI ended up Months or even a year later going re-interviewing Jason and Marcel. And those are the actual interviews I use in my film. But the story gets even more interesting. So I'm down at Marcel's and I'm basically stranded though. I don't have a car or a driver's license, but I have all this film equipment. And I don't remember how. You know what it was? There was this guy.

1:31:58SpeakerHis name was Chris Gardner. And he was an Australian guy that had moved to Vancouver. I think he was engaged to a lady from there. And he had some money. He had basically grown a ton of weed. He was an interesting guy. He had grown up in Australia. His dad grew weed. He grew up growing weed, but he didn't smoke weed. But he grew a bunch of weed in Australia, made a bunch of money and moved to BC and he bought into Cannabis Culture Magazine.

1:32:23SpeakerHe owned a third of it at some point or something like that. And he went down to a glass show in Seattle and he was trying to do like an article. He was into photojournalism. He was into taking photos. He's a really good photographer. And he was trying to write an article about this thing. And he had like gone down there and shot some pictures, but I don't think he talked to anyone very much.

1:32:44SpeakerSo he went back up to write the article and he didn't really know any information. And so people connected him with me. This is right before I went on my trip for the film. And so we met once. And when we met, I like he interviewed me and I helped him write this article about this glass show. And I said, hey, I'm about to go to the States and start making this film.

1:33:05SpeakerYou should come visit me and check out what I'm doing if you really want to see what's going on. And somehow we kept in touch. And he those guys, actually, Brian Carson and his friend. So upset. I think his name was Daniel. And I still talk to him on the Internet. So I'm ashamed that I can't remember his name right now. But anyway, I'm a stoner. Anyway, those guys lent him a car.

1:33:29SpeakerAnd he drove this car down from B.C. and met me at Marcel's. And I was like, hey, like, let's. So the first person I decided to interview that I didn't know was Eugene randomly. This was back in the like glasspipes.org days, like 2006, 2004, 2005. All the glass pipe makers were starting to use the Internet more and post their stuff on glasspipes.org. And Eugene was posting super cool stuff.

1:33:55SpeakerI remember contacting him and being like, hey, I want to come on, talk to you and film you and whatever. And he was like, cool. And we drove down to Southern Oregon. I was in Eugene. I remember the first thing Eugene said, he's like, I can't believe you came down and talked to me. Like, why are you here to talk to me? And I was like, what are you talking about?

1:34:10SpeakerYour work is amazing. But that was the first time I ever met Eugene. And I kind of made Chris my assistant. He was like, we set the camera up. He put the headphones on, was watching my sound levels, and I would do the interview and he would take still photos. And I remember he was also trying to just write articles for cannabis culture because he like own part of the magazine and was trying.

1:34:31SpeakerAlso, he was he was actually writing articles for cannabis culture under like five or six different names, fake names. So there were some issues that came out of cannabis culture where half the articles were written by him, but it looked like they're written by six different people. And anyway, while we were interviewing people, he would be like, hey, hey, mate, you know, he's Australian. He'd be like, hey, you know anyone who grows wheat?

1:34:55SpeakerAnd they'd be like, oh, I kind of do. And next thing you know, he get connected with a grow and he'd go off and photograph the grow and write a whole separate article for cannabis culture about some grow in Oregon or whatever. And he kind of looked at me and was like, hey, this is fun. He's like, he basically was like, I'm down to like ride around with you.

1:35:11SpeakerAnd he ended up just riding with me for like a bunch of months. Like for most of 2006, from like June until like November, we had this beat up car. I'm talking like it had VC license plates. Okay. And we're driving around all in the U.S., And the gas gauge was broken on the car. So we ran out of gas multiple times driving on the highway. Like literally, we would just be driving and all of a sudden the car would like just start slowing down.

1:35:39SpeakerWe'd pull over and realize we were out of gas, even though we looked like we had a half a tank. And me and this dude rallied around. We went up and down between Seattle and Humble all over the place, like going down to Banjo's, up to hang out with Bearclaw and Dizzle and everyone, all the guys in Seattle, back down to Eugene. And we just rallied around and like I would connect him with growers and it was great actually because every time he would do these articles about people growing weed and smoking weed and hash and whatever, they would give him a bunch of weed and hash and he didn't even smoke.

1:36:11SpeakerSo he'd give it all to me. And I didn't have a driver's license and he did. So he literally drove the entire time. Like I didn't drive at all. I was just the navigator basically. You know what I mean? But he ended up becoming really good friends with everyone we met. Like he was such a personable guy. Like him and Marcel got along real good. Him and Derek, him and Bear Claw.

1:36:30SpeakerLike he loved to drink and stuff like that. So he would have some drinks with these guys and he would become best buds with these guys. He loved it. Like he was just kind of down for the adventure. And like him and I were just diving into like the underbelly of cannabis and glass culture in the Pacific Northwest. Cause it was like our mission. We were like investigative journalists basically trying to like uncover the story of Who these pipe makers were and what they're doing.

1:36:52SpeakerAnd, you know, it started with the guys I knew. And then obviously now I'm interviewing Bob Snodgrass, who like, I didn't know Bob that well, you know what I mean? So here I am with a reason to get to know him, you know what I mean? And so it was really fun and interesting and amazing, actually.

1:37:09BubblemanAnd even on a mission from Jah.

1:37:11SpeakerI was. I spent most of 2006 just driving around making this film and like, I don't even remember what my deal in Vancouver was. Like I was still technically living there, but I think so most of the time I was living at the Ark, but there was a small moment in time where I had an apartment off Commercial Drive for a little while, which was actually cool because I had a Japanese female roommate and she was actually trimming weed.

1:37:36SpeakerThat was her gig. And I had a set of bubble bags. And so I told her, I'm like, yo, when you get the trim and the little popcorn nuggets, give it to me and I'll make hash out of it and I'll give you some hash and yada, yada, yada. And so the way I smoked a lot in Vancouver for a while was actually really funny. So this chick would trim all this weed and give me like a garbage bag full of trimmings and little bottom buds.

1:38:01SpeakerI would bring it down to the arc. I would hit up Hippo's girlfriend. Her name was also Hillary, probably I think wife now or whatever. And I taught, I had bubble bags and I taught her how to make bubble hash and she would make bubble hash in the back. She would, you know, do the, go through the steps while I was blowing glass. And then I would pay her some bubble hash for doing the process.

1:38:21SpeakerAnd then I would take some of the hash up to my roommate and give it to her and I would keep the rest of the hash. And so I had this little I had a little thing going for a little while actually. So like, you know, truthfully, I smoked bubble hash more than even probably flour when I lived in Vancouver. So, you know, when I came to the States, when I moved back to Philadelphia, the first thing I was like, yo, where's the fucking hash at?

1:38:45SpeakerLike, and this was 2007 and everyone's like, what, the what? You know what I mean? Like no one, no one knew about it yet. In fact, one of the first people I met when I moved to Philadelphia was GZ. And when I moved here and we bonded over art and smoking weed and I was like, yo, do you know anything about bubble hash? And he's like, I kind of do.

1:39:06SpeakerAnd then he actually found bubble hash and I was like, yo, I found some. He would buy it and share it with me. He's like, you're the only one. This is back in 2007. Him and I would hang out and smoke. Again, we were smoking like this is before rosin. So just like bubble hash, probably smoking it the way we used to smoke it. Off a titanium screen out of a bubbler, right?

1:39:26BubblemanHow much later would I go to Amsterdam and meet him? I can't remember that, actually. I wonder if that's a couple years, because he was like, Slinger's my best friend in Philly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Probably not. I mean, probably a few years. I bet you.

1:39:42SpeakerI bet you.

1:39:43BubblemanDo you know I ran around Amsterdam at night spray painting with that guy?

1:39:48SpeakerIt's a small world. He is one of my best friends. You both are two people that have had a huge influence on my life and I love you both dearly forever. So that makes sense. It's totally, you guys are both amazing and both lovers of the plant and hash in general or whatever.

1:40:07BubblemanI also wanted to bring up a coincidence that the Style Wars video that inspired you, that one of the main guys was this guy, Dondi White. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dondi also was the name of my manager at Bubble Bags for a very long time. And it's not a super, like, you don't know a ton of Dondis.

1:40:29SpeakerYou know, randomly, the last time I saw Dondi was in San Francisco because In 2007, after I moved back to the States, I taught a glassblowing class in Berkeley or Oakland or something like that at Revere. And Dondi came down and took the class randomly. And so that's the last time I actually saw him. It was actually pretty cool. That was an amazing class. I had a couple of Japanese students and that actually was inspiration for me to later go to Japan.

1:40:58SpeakerBut yeah, small world, Dondi. I never forget that guy, of course. Yeah.

1:41:03BubblemanSo I guess there's some pretty good value in a person like you doing these classes. I get it from the perspective of the students, no brainer. They're going to access, you know, all of this work that you've done, all of the, you know, from an artistic standpoint, maybe not even an art, but a skill standpoint. I always say, I always thank my bad ones for my good ones.

1:41:26BubblemanPeople are like, oh, why do you want me to pay you so much for some pictures? And I'm like, well, you're not paying me for like the 20 awesome pictures I'm going to take. Thank you so much for joining us.

1:41:55BubblemanValue of the student. There's value for you as well. I'm guessing you get to see what's fresh, what's out there, what's being inspired, and not only what's being inspired, but what you can inspire, right? Because it's interesting to talk to you after all these years and see the influence that we had on one another. I always knew the influence you had on me because it was, you know, there's key people in your life that have these massive influences on you that like really shift your Not necessarily your pathway, but just the energy in which you take those pathways.

1:42:28BubblemanAnd you are certainly one of those people in my life. You must feel that when you're teaching that sort of next generation of glassblower.

1:42:36SpeakerYeah, you know, I think a big thing on top of everything, if you think about the school of life and being a student and all that kind of stuff, the most important thing I think anyone can teach or give an example of is just critical thinking. In other words, learning how to think for yourself and be a critical thinker. And you are definitely a critical thinker. So spending time around people like you, it rubs off and it influences, you know?

1:42:59SpeakerAnd so, and that's how I try to do it exactly. It's like, you don't, it's not about necessarily, it's teaching people to like, You know, to like think basically and engage things a little bit deeper, a little bit further, you know, opening their minds or whatever. Yeah. And like, so to sort of go out and have the confidence to make a film like that, there's a bunch of factors that led to it.

1:43:17SpeakerBut like relationships with people like you are also a big part of that factor. You know what I mean? And again, like I said. Before this podcast, I was thinking of all the ways we're connected and all the little things. And I was like, holy shit, my first dab or like the first time degenerate art or like the really obvious things, giant things. Like there's all sorts of little things we could talk about too or whatever.

1:43:37SpeakerBut yeah, like that's it, right? You know, I used to sign my work with an OM symbol before I actually kind of put slinger on there. And part of that was like, I almost felt like instead of taking ownership for the piece, like Jason Lee and Marcel and Ezra and all these guys that were influencing me, it was like all their piece too. It wasn't just my piece.

1:43:55SpeakerSo there was like this, it's sort of that universal signature, the OM symbol of like all of creation is involved in the creation of this piece. Like it wasn't created just by me in and of itself in a vacuum. Like nature is influencing me. Everything, everyone I've talked to, everything I've done is influencing me to get to this moment in this point. You know what I mean?

1:44:14SpeakerSo.

1:44:15BubblemanDude, when you gave me that OM pendant, had I just gotten back from India?

1:44:20SpeakerProbably. I mean, you know, again, you were definitely telling me about your crazy story, the traveling places like that in Thailand.

1:44:26BubblemanAnd yeah, so I had, that's insane. I went to India in 98, right before I met you, dude. And you gave me an OM marble. Damn, that is so trippy. I also thought, I don't know how long, when, did you know Zach in Ithaca? Not really, no, no. So when did you meet, because I thought just the other day for the first time, I thought, holy shit, I might have met both Slinger and Zach before they met each other.

1:44:57SpeakerI, you, you did meet us. No, no, when you met me, I already met Zach. Okay, 95%. No, no, 95, I hadn't met Zach. No, that's what I'm saying.

1:45:07Archive SeedsOkay.

1:45:09SpeakerI always just assume that the 98 is sort of where, even though I know we technically met at 95, I have no memory of it. So I always just go to the 98 meeting. But yeah, like the guy that, Pat Kiefer, the guy that first got me on a torch, Learn from Zach. So when me and Pat moved to Seattle, Zach was living in Bellingham and he would come down and hang out all the time.

1:45:31SpeakerAnd then eventually I moved up to Bellingham and eventually me and Zach became roommates. So we actually eventually became really good friends. You know what I mean? But I hadn't met him until I moved out Pacific Northwest. But between Pat Kiefer and Ezra, him and I were like, it's like we almost knew each other. And crazy thing was I was on Fish Tour in 96. Before I blew glass in my VW bus with a whole bunch of my friends and we were at the Red Rocks shows and the Red Rocks lots were really hard to get into if you didn't have a ticket, we didn't have tickets.

1:46:01SpeakerBut I think I found someone with a ticket that jumped in my bus. I was like, hey, you drive my bus. When we get to the entrance, show them your tickets so we can drive the bus into the lot and then we'll try to get tickets or whatever. Long story short, my bus was in the lot and someone ended up leaving a Zach Bong in my bus.

1:46:19SpeakerAnd I was like, what is this bong? And it was this whole connection. It was like, oh, this dude, Zach, he's from Ithaca and this is in Bellingham or whatever. And like Zach's glass started to like come into my orbit basically or whatever on this tour. So like Zach, I almost knew Zach. I like seen his glass. I smoked out of it. All my friends were friends with him and knew him and learned from him, but I hadn't met.

1:46:40SpeakerSo, you know, you get to this point where you almost feel like you've met them, but you hadn't actually met them. But yeah, once Zach and I connected, we were like peas in a pod. Like I love the hell out of that, dude.

1:46:50BubblemanHell yeah. No, I feel the same way, dude. It's so crazy that we all kind of met.

1:46:54SpeakerWhen's the last time you talked to him?

1:46:57BubblemanNot too, too long ago. I think probably within the last year to two years.

1:47:03SpeakerIt's been a few years for me. I saw him literally right when he got out of prison. And then I haven't seen him really since. So I don't really know what he's up to exactly, but.

1:47:11BubblemanI think he's in Hawaii as well now.

1:47:14SpeakerGood for him. That's not like the place he should be.

1:47:17BubblemanYeah, totally, man. I'd love to see him again anyway, man. I also felt the exact same way. Total brother from another mother. Very happy with the time we got to spend together. We had fucking crazy, crazy fun experiences. Totally. It was just it's all connected through fish, dude. Like the fact that I met him in 95 in Spokane at a fish show and then met you at a fish show in 98.

1:47:40BubblemanAnd then you got the bus in 96. You got the pipe in your van. And that is so insane. Wow.

1:47:49SpeakerIt was very transforming. I mean, you know, and the thing is, you know, old heads will get it. But like, you know, any young people who are tuning in, it's like, you know, we didn't have the Internet, didn't really have cell phones, didn't have social media, you know, didn't have smartphones especially. So the way people cross paths was a whole different, organic, beautiful thing. It was interesting.

1:48:13SpeakerYou know what I mean? Like, yeah. It made you hard to not believe in the whole it's meant to be thing because these things would happen. You're like, it's meant to be, to like, you know, be with someone or meet someone or have some connection or whatever. And the world is a big place, but it's also kind of a small place. You know what I mean? There's like, you know, we really are all influencing each other.

1:48:35SpeakerAnd it's just all so connected. It's crazy. It's crazy.

1:48:38BubblemanNo, it's incredible, dude. I want to welcome Jody to the room. She just popped in. We just did a couple of hours with Marble Slinger. It's probably been a while since you saw Slinger. You're muted. What's up, Jody?

1:48:53JodyHello, everybody.

1:48:54SpeakerHey, how you doing?

1:48:55JodyHappy Sunday.

1:48:56SpeakerHappy Sunday.

1:48:57JodyYeah, it's been all right. Yeah, don't let me interrupt. Please continue.

1:49:03BubblemanYeah, we'll finish up with Slinger here. You know, I kind of, when I was talking to him earlier, I was like, should we just do four hours? He's like, oh, let's maybe do two hours and... We'll do another one soon kind of thing. So I've just been absolutely loving these stories, dude. This has been one of my favorite hash churches ever. There were a couple of questions that people had that I figured I'd let ask you, Sling.

1:49:25BubblemanOne was someone asking if you ever lived in Eugene in the late 90s with Abraham and Izzy.

1:49:31SpeakerNo, I've actually like, no, I actually never lived in Eugene. How did you think you did? No, in 2006, during my film, I just about lived in Eugene. I probably spent six months of that year in Eugene. I kind of made my home base at Marcel's. But no, in the late 90s, I lived in Seattle, Bellingham, Vancouver. Definitely spent some time in Oregon, but never lived there.

1:49:54BubblemanOkay. Boro Josh wanted to know when you started the houndstooth tech, when you started using it.

1:50:03SpeakerProbably about... Gee, when did I start doing that? Maybe 2014? Sounds about right.

1:50:13BubblemanOkay. What inspired the use of that pattern? Did you just kind of come across it and think, fuck, that's super cool?

1:50:19SpeakerWell, what inspired the use of that pattern is, is that in terms of glassblowing, there's two main parts to it. There's the shaping and there's the pattern on the piece. So there's like the shaping and the function and then like with the decoration. I've always loved the decoration. That's kind of like where the marble slinger comes from is I love making... Pendants and marbles and doing my little meditations in different pattern styles.

1:50:40SpeakerSo glass blowing for me has a lot been a study of pattern. And so, you know, that starts with like honeycombs, wigwags, and all sorts of like, and like latichinos and different like kind of traditional glass patterns. Once I discovered sandblasting, I wanted to like continue my like pattern study and like houndstooth, for instance, argyle are like traditional patterns in like textiles and fabrics. And so I thought it's like, Cool to try to explore how to execute all these different patterns on glass.

1:51:13SpeakerSo that's like, you know, it kind of became a like focal point and like a jump off point for exploration in my glass. Like, you know, kind of like almost giving myself an assignment of like, all right, I'm studying, I'm studying patterns. So I want to like, you know, these are traditional patterns that also at the same time, I hadn't really seen anyone really execute at all in glass.

1:51:32SpeakerSo I thought it'd be cool to try it out.

1:51:37BubblemanAwesome. I accidentally just posted the zoom link in the old YouTube video. So I just removed that real quick. I'm like, oops, don't want to be posted. Suddenly we have like 400 people on the panel. Oh, what's going on? Who are all these people coming from? Dude, what a joy to hear these stories, some of which I didn't really know and wasn't able to connect. It's listen, I Hope you hang out for as long as you want for the rest of the show.

1:52:03BubblemanBut I do want to move on to Jodi and her fair cannabis and all the great things she's up to. If you want to hang out, you're welcome to. And fucking thank you, dude, for coming on and sharing the last two hours with us.

1:52:16SpeakerThank you. It's literally it's an honor and it's a pleasure to catch up with you. I love you, brother. And yeah, it's cool to reflect on this. You know, I don't even know how it's. 20 years ago. You know what I mean? I moved over 20 years ago. This is what we're talking about. So it's really cool to look back on it and to like reprocess it.

1:52:34SpeakerAnd I always believe the best thing to do is leave your audience wanting more. And I think we could talk forever. So I am happy to come back and chat with you anytime you want to have me on it. I'm totally honored. You're a legend, my friend.

1:52:47Etienne FontanBlessed to know you.

1:52:48SpeakerI'm going to hang out for a little bit and then I might fade off and get some lunch or whatever. But awesome. Seriously, much love.

1:52:54BubblemanYeah, right back at you, dude. Let's puff many bowls here while we get to be inspired by Jody. Jody's always an awesome guest. And yeah, you know Jody. You were around. They sold a lot of your glass too, I'm sure. Definitely, definitely.

1:53:10JodyOh yeah, there's some glorious days back then. Before it was all social media and such. There's the human connection and the serendipity that would come up in key places. Yeah, magical times, that's for sure.

1:53:25BubblemanYeah, you're not wrong about that. There was so much serendipity and so much kind of, you know, I always thought that when I was younger and I'd like watch like documentaries on, you know, actors and I'd be like, how did all these actors just like all go to school with one another? And it's like, well, that's what it is. It's like, if you're focused on the thing that you love, you end up in the focal point of that thing.

1:53:49BubblemanAnd, you know, depending on how, you You know, close you get to the center, you really end up, I mean, I feel like super blessed in this cannabis world, you know, much like a lot of you on this panel that we've just been able to meet so many like-minded, incredible folks over the years. I even appreciate the ones that weren't like-minded, the ones that taught me things, the one that created obstacles.

1:54:14BubblemanI mean, I still to this day thank Constable John Lowe for busting me on the road. Thank you for watching.

1:54:39BubblemanYeah, you just got to be thankful for the good and the bad. So how about you, Jody? I know you're always fighting for the good. You're always fighting for maybe the unrepresented or the unvoiced or the unheard. So I appreciate what you do in a big way, particularly now where You know, it's easier to monetize without activism these days. Activism plus monetization is a little bit tricky.

1:55:09BubblemanIt's pretty difficult. And for whatever reason, sometimes even the cannabis industry like looks down upon it a bit. They're like, what are you making profit? It's like, well, yeah, it's my life. It's how I... I got to pay my mortgage. So how do you balance all of that, Jody? And obviously, tell us a little bit about your new project that you've got going on, because I saw you recently at an event in North Vancouver, and it was just a nice, refreshing vibe.

1:55:36BubblemanI felt like your table... I felt like your table was the most authentic. And that's saying a lot because I know most of the people at all of those tables, but I just felt a real authenticity at your table that maybe sometimes gets polluted or corrupted by profits.

1:55:56JodyYeah, well, there's certainly a lot there. I mean, starting with just saying the good and the bad or good or bad. But sometimes, as you noted, maybe the bad thing is the good thing. In fact, I think yin and yang, it's all one thing. I think about that a lot myself. I could look back on life and say, wow, there's a lot of horrible, tough times. But gosh, those led to the good times.

1:56:23JodyIt made me stronger. It's a tough thing to reconcile. And I often think of that old fable. I've said in many different ways about a farmer and his horse runs away and everyone says oh what a terrible thing and he says well who knows what's good or bad and the horse comes back with more horses oh what a blessing oh who knows what's good or bad and then the son is riding one of those new horses and falls and breaks his leg and who knows what's good or bad and then there's war and the son can't go get conscripted off to battle because his leg is broken so maybe falling was a good thing I mean I tend to go through life like that thinking about you know sure something terrible is happening but what can we get out of it or something good is happening but what's the trade-off you know so yeah my path has been an interesting one as many people's paths have been and when it comes to what I get most fired up about um it is about what's fair and right and just You know, I've never really been a great business person.

1:57:27JodyI've run businesses. We've certainly generated money and given a lot away. But my heart has always been in trying to communicate what so many others have expressed. And been unable to articulate or be heard somewhere saying. So it's an honor to be able to be a spokesperson. And going back to the origins of cannabis culture, obviously the notorious controversial Prince of Pot, Mark Emery, my ex-husband, he founded it in the 90s based on something you just alluded to.

1:58:02JodyYou can't really have a revolution or really make a big impact Based on just volunteering and charity and donations, you really need to be in business. And that was the revolution that he brought to the cannabis movement. A lot of the old activists were appalled about going to make money and focusing on that. That makes you greedy and a profiteer. But as Mark said, you need to sell a product or a service that people want and then use that money for change.

1:58:36JodyIt's basically a social enterprise concept, the idea that people care about issues, they care about different movements and causes, but we're all humans just trying to survive. We all need to, like you said, pay your rent or mortgage, buy your groceries, pay your bills, your taxes. Thank you so much.

1:59:10JodyHearing Ben Dronker say, we sold all these seeds all over the world. And Mark thought, well, that's a great way to fund a movement because everybody wants weed. And if we could just sell seeds and use that money for ballot initiatives, election campaigns, the global marijuana march, printing Cannabis Culture Magazine. And, you know, the movement needs money. And so turning it into a business was a smart move.

1:59:34JodyAnd that's part of the magic of the Cannabis Culture Headquarters. Previously BC Marijuana Party Bookstore, previously Hemp BC. The idea was that growers and glass blowers and artists and experts, authors, everyone could come together and earn a living selling what they were able to produce or provide, but to use that money for good. And that was the mission of Cannabis Culture all those years. And we just basically we were just speaking and representing a huge movement of As you said, many people are voiceless and nameless.

2:00:10JodyYou know, it was very risky to speak out in favor of legalization, even just to say you use cannabis for many years. You'd lose your job. You'd lose your family. You could lose your kids.

2:00:20BubblemanThe DEA might come to your country with balaclavas on and steal you away.

2:00:25JodyYeah, stuff like that might happen, right? And so you do need brave people like Mark and many others who were willing to say, you know what, I'm going to sacrifice the family, the hobbies, the security, the safety. I'm going to sacrifice that because somebody has to, because we can't ask everyone to sacrifice. We can't ask every pot smoking parent to out themselves. For many of them, it's just a medicine they need to use in secrecy.

2:00:52JodySo The point of what we always did was basically being that megaphone and helping amplify the voices of others. And that was a big part of when Mark spent those five years in U.S. prison when he got extradited for the seed sales or more precisely for giving millions of dollars to the legalization movement, as the DEA said in their press release. That was 100% specifically what it was about.

2:01:15JodyThey made no secret that it was to harm the movement. And so that opportunity, that horrible experience of Mark going to prison was actually a great chance for me to speak on behalf of all those who had been persecuted, to be able to go walk through that path, go into those prisons, get the pat down, go see all the people who are affected by these laws, like that front row seat that I got to, had to experience.

2:01:46JodyIt really just enabled me to I represent people affected by prohibition just as Mark being a prisoner represented all the people that no one would ever know or hear about. And so while he was away, lots of activism, election campaigns, a whole bunch of stuff. You know, I really marched in the streets and spoke in the news. I never took a week. I didn't have any hobbies.

2:02:09JodySo when legalization kind of rolled around, I don't know how much time you want to spend on that, but kind of corrupt. Kind of rotten the way it unfolded. I tweeted about it a lot in all caps if you want to go look at 2017 era tweets. But, you know, after a couple years and a pandemic and a lot of people, you know, taking time to reassess how things are, we're seven years into legalization in Canada now.

2:02:43JodyAnd for the first five years of that, I was still pretty bitter about medical dispensaries all being shut down. I was pretty upset about peaceful people being arrested and given criminal records, even under legalization. I'm pretty upset about more laws and more enforcement and more stigma because that didn't seem like what legalization should be. So, yeah, pretty, pretty discouraging few years there. But What I did is I just took the advice of everyone who said, let's just see how it goes.

2:03:16JodyLike, stop complaining. Let's see how it goes. And then time has passed. And, you know, about two, three years ago, you know, I wasn't going to legal stores. I was still pretty discouraged about the whole thing. But I discovered that there was some good cannabis actually being grown. It wasn't all factory farm cannabis. Thank you so much for joining us.

2:04:01JodyIf you're not in Canada and you're in the US, you get the luxury of packaging that's interesting and branded and colors and all that. Very restrictive here in Canada. So when you go in, you see a bag. Well, I can show our bag, actually. I'll get to this in a minute. But you get the big warning sign. You need a big yellow label that says how terrible, terrible cannabis is.

2:04:23JodyAnd then you have really difficult openings and such on the jars. And it was actually quite hard to decide what to buy based on A bunch of products that looked almost exactly the same. And so I tried my best to locate a few names that I had seen mentioned on social media as legacy farms or, you know, brands that were owned by the big corporate stock market pot dudes.

2:04:49JodyAnd I ended up buying a couple bags and going home. And one of them was a Tweed bag. And Tweed, if you had seen all my earlier years, we didn't really get along, let's say. I wasn't a fan of how they operated and how they lobbied government to continue raids and arrests against peaceful, nonviolent people who made it legal in the first place.

2:05:12BubblemanBut basically, I was... What a shitty thing to do, really. Like, come on. It's like, really? Okay, you got your license. You got your stuff. It's like, now you're going to try and get people that fought for you to have a license to Oh, that's that's shitty.

2:05:29JodyAnd that's how that's how much it's vindictiveness.

2:05:33Etienne FontanYeah, right. That's I mean, they can't stand that you affected change. They can't stand that you challenged them. You challenged their authority. You made the change happen against their will. So it's not uncommon for those of us who have come forward. And have put our heads up to be those moles heads that get whacked on the head unfortunately because you know we finally get seen you get heard and unfortunately you were very visible and very seen so it was impossible any action you did would not be in the shade so to say so well i think i think had they just kept all the money and partied and bought nice cars and boats and stuff they would have been like

2:06:17BubblemanIn serious trouble. But Mark just always gave it all away. Like I watched him give away tens of that. He would give $10,000 away like this. Someone would call and be like, oh, Mark, someone bought seeds and they're in trouble. Oh, we're in Texas. Oh, I'll set up 10 grand. I just be like, whoa, dude, are you really gonna send that person 10 grand? Like you didn't even, what if that person's just lying?

2:06:38BubblemanHe's like, oh, you know, I just wouldn't want someone to miss out on. I've always told everyone I would support and help them. I'm like, how the fuck are you gonna pay all the people who buy seeds off of you? You're gonna pay, not to mention, it's not like he kept a bunch of money to do that with. He spent it all, like spend, spend, spend on all of this activism.

2:06:57BubblemanNo one I have ever seen Has ever funded activism like that in the cannabis world while just not funding themselves. You can say what you want about Mark, but he certainly fucking did that. Jody was right there by his side doing it as well. So that was pretty awesome.

2:07:15JodyAbsolutely. And that was part of what I admired so much about it all. It was, you know, every medical law here in Canada, those were court cases. Those were all decisions based on going to court. Those were cases that the seed money paid for. You know, every global marijuana march around the world back when that was a really big thing, the posters, the websites, that was all marked.

2:07:36JodyI mean, ballot initiatives throughout the U.S., almost every state with legal medical cannabis was funded through MARC. Marijuana Policy Project. It was going to shut down. He gave them money. I mean, literally millions of dollars. And that's the DEA tracked it all. And he didn't hide anything. They basically said, yeah, he gave away millions and millions of dollars to successful legalization initiatives. And this has to stop.

2:07:59JodySo they did stop. And, you know, to the point of when you stand up, yeah, you have people who are opponents who want to shut you up and shut you down. But I think what was so hard about the legalization process I think what hurt the most was knowing that it was designed

2:08:32JodyI think it's really important for us to be able to do what we're doing. I think it's really important for us to be able to do what we're doing. I think it's really important for us to be able to do what we're doing.

2:08:59JodyAnd the it was what already existed. It was the industry, the culture, the people, the community, the medical user. It was a massive thriving industry that the government admitted, oh, this is eight billions of dollars at least that we aren't regulating or controlling. We need to control that. And so they didn't just decide to legalize us. They decided to make us all criminals, shut down all our businesses and do it themselves.

2:09:26JodyAnd yeah, that's probably why I was a little bitter about it, let's just say. You know, and kind of shitty considering, yeah, I don't know. So, but I don't need to complain about that anymore. My story is leading to my... Let's talk about the new pioneers and the new era, which is this legal industry. So I spent a few years away just watching what would happen and getting divorced and meeting a new guy and having a whole new life and learning how to paddleboard and skiing again, like hobbies and normal stuff, which I never did before.

2:10:02JodyAnd it's enriched my life quite a bit and put me in a better place Where I was able to go to that legal weed store and I was able to start talking to people and learning from the retail store owners, from the growers who had jumped through all the hoops. And instead of me speaking out about what others already felt and shared in the past, it was me hearing others speak.

2:10:25JodyThank you for watching.

2:10:45JodyThe government. So, you know, we're in a situation right now where, you know, I just got an email from Green Mile Cannabis. Great people. We did a fundraiser with them for Fair Cannabis and for a women's shelter. So Green Mile Cannabis has their website. It lists the products that they grow legally. And I suppose they listed a product as being potentially beneficial for sleeping. Well, Health Canada, the regulator federally here in Canada, Sent them an email to say, hey, we've noticed that your website says there's some medical or therapeutic benefits to cannabis.

2:11:18JodyThat's not allowed. You need to take it down. You're in violation of the law. This law, legalization only exists because it was accepted as a medicine. Like, that's crazy talk, right? So anyway, I'm learning a lot from other people. And I keep thinking, you know, we still have cannabis culture going. Basically, it's a news website. We stopped printing the magazines. There they are right there. We stopped printing them in 2008 after the crash, but the website's been going with news stories and articles.

2:11:48JodyWe have the Cannabis Culture Headquarters building in downtown Vancouver. It's like 30 years of history on that block, the pot block as we call it. I've got 21 years of history in that old Deer Building. And we still have the lounge going there right now. So people can come and enjoy cannabis. It's a little bit of a gray zone thing, you might say, but we seem to be grandfathered in.

2:12:13JodyBut we'd like to, of course, see legal lounges at some point. But with the cannabis culture brand and with the legal industry that we weren't involved in, We figured, why don't we use our brand and our reach and our recognition and the goodwill and trust that's in this brand to highlight the businesses that deserve it, to help people differentiate between factory farm weed and local craft cannabis.

2:12:40JodyBecause as I said, when you look at those bags, there's no way to know. How do you know which brand is which? And even when you find a brand that might have been craft at some point, it might have been bought out by a big corporate alcohol money or tobacco money company, right? So we've come up with a concept and the roots actually started in 2018. But it's been revived in the last year.

2:13:03JodySo our project is twofold. Number one, cannabis culture. What if we put out legal product? And so we've created our first legal bag of cannabis. So the idea being... We went and tested out a bunch of really great craft cannabis from these wonderful growers here in British Columbia and we found three farms that had available inventory that hadn't been sold overseas because they're all being forced to do that to make money but they had some inventory of this awesome cannabis and we thought what if we made a multi-pack featuring three different farms that Let people know, hey, these are great family run local organic or whatever it may be farms and highlight those brands so that when people go to the government weed stores or their local independent store, they can see those brands.

2:13:53JodyAnd this one has Sweetgrass Cannabis, Salt Spring Magic, and Seastone Farm. And these are beautiful farms creating exceptional flowers. And my idea is once you buy this little limited edition bag, you become familiar with those brands. And then you go to the store and buy that Sweetgrass 7 gram bag. You buy the Seastone 14 gram bag. You know that the money you're spending is worth it. Because that's a great farm run by a husband-wife team who deserve support.

2:14:22JodySo that's the vision for the bag. But as Mark said at the beginning of Cannabis Culture, we're not just selling stuff to make money. I could have sold out and been banking a lot if I really wanted to, but I don't want to just make money from selling weed. That was never the vision. The vision is To give back. So the goal of creating this project of cannabis culture packaged goods is to highlight the farms and the stores that are awesome, run by great people, and then to donate a portion of the proceeds to this new fair cannabis campaign.

2:14:57JodySo I have a handy little poster here. This was on the table at the event that you came to. So Fair Cannabis, which could stand for Fair and Inclusive Regulations, it's basically a website, faircannabis.ca to begin with. And this is all kind of in the conceptual stage. So I'm sharing it right now with the hopes that maybe I can get more input and involvement. But the idea is We all know there are issues with legalization in every country, wherever you are, whether it's tourism, advertising restrictions, taxes, to say the least, environmental concerns about packaging, medical access, lounges, hemp, getting fired from your job for a dirty piss tent.

2:15:40JodyLike, there are so many issues with respect to legalization as it stands now. Like, we didn't win the war. We just, like... Thank you so much for joining us today.

2:16:16JodyThat's what we did and it was effective but it doesn't work like that now. The world is very different. Now we have a bunch of legal consumers and legal stores and the touch point is in person when you're buying your weed. That's where we're meeting. That's where we're connecting. If you don't have lounges or rallies, where else are you going to find like-minded cannabis people? In the stores.

2:16:40JodySo my vision for Fair Cannabis is It's a non-partisan one-stop resource hub and action center. We're just in the initial phases so the idea is whether you are big corporate cannabis and you want lounges and you want reduced taxes and you want advertising freedom or you're a local craft farm or you're a medical user whatever your issue is I want fair cannabis to be a non-partisan Choose your issue, take action now, connect with others doing the same sort of site.

2:17:14JodySo when you go to faircannabis.ca you'll find six different issues to begin with. So we're addressing fair taxes, cannabis lounges, medical cannabis, business barriers, and that includes criminal records like my own that prevent me from getting a license. We have drug testing at work and cannabis substitution because the opioid crisis is a serious crisis and we know cannabis can help and it's not being utilized and that's a crime and we have people being arrested and charged under the Cannabis Act in Canada for providing cannabis as medicine in the drug war crisis.

2:17:50JodySo that's criminal. But basically these six issues to begin with, if you click on one of the issues you'll find a list of talking points. Explaining why is this a problem? Because a lot of people say, oh, it's legal. What are you complaining about? Oh, there's problems? They don't even know. So we explain what are the issues? Why is this a problem? So you have talking points.

2:18:12JodyThese are points that you can bring up in your discussions with friends, like-minded people, politicians, with the media. But if you want to take action, How do you do that? We all complain about it. We go, oh, someone needs to write to their government. Oh, someone should send an email to a senator. But nobody actually does it. They buy their weed. They bitch about it in the store.

2:18:34JodyEverybody says these taxes suck. These prices suck. Boy, I wish it would be better. And then they go their separate ways and have to live and survive and earn money and take care of their family and do life. So how do we make it easy for people to take action? And that's the vision behind our first plan is to get posters like this in every store across BC and hopefully Canada and eventually beyond.

2:18:58JodyIt has a QR code. You can help fix legalization. The idea being when you're buying your weed, You go, thank you so much. You know, gosh, I wish the taxes weren't so high and the bud tender can say, oh, while I'm ringing you up, just scan that QR code and you can send a letter to every member of parliament and every senator in one click. It's already pre-filled and you can add your own comments, but one click and email about each issue.

2:19:21JodyAnd there's also a petition for every issue as well that you can sign. plus the website has a bunch of links at the front page of different groups taking action in different areas whether it's more tax specific or medical and we're not just talking about cannabis groups the vision is to plug the legal industry in with groups like canadian taxpayers federation Or the Federation of Independent Businesses or groups in nursing or who work with seniors.

2:19:52JodyI mean, there are people who are in different elements of society and political life who can bring this issue forward. So, but the consumer, the consumer are people, the ones who smoke it, the ones who buy it and love it. How do we enable them to take action? So we have little handouts. The goal being just scan the QR code, send an email. You've already done your part.

2:20:12JodyThank you very much. But if you want to learn more, there are groups you can get involved in, et cetera, et cetera. As I noted, this is kind of just conceptual. Quite honestly, it's just me and my business partners, Tia and Jeremiah, who put this website together and the whole vision. But the goal is to do what Mark did before with money, is to bring in funds to help actually print these posters and mail them to stores and to hold educational events.

2:20:37JodyThe way I see it, I'd love to have fair ambassadors. These are people in the industry and community who are experts on a certain topic whether it's growing or business barriers or whatever it may be and those people can become the spokespersons for the media because we're already seeing a bit of that there are some wonderful people out there who are showing up in the news and they are articulate and they're wonderful reps but perhaps we could create a resource list for the media of all these experts to talk to about the various issues as they come up in the news And I would love to see events where you can go to a public library and just print out posters that say curious about cannabis.

2:21:18JodyWell, that could be whether you love it or hate it. Yeah, you're curious. So you could go and learn about various things like the medical attributes that stores are legally not allowed to talk about. So there's so much more that we could do to empower people to get involved. And the goal also is to really start to break it down into jurisdictional Topics because lounges, for example, our current emails go to the federal government, but lounges are actually provincial jurisdictions.

2:21:49JodySo we would have to create email lists that go out to every member of provincial legislatures in every province and territory. And as you can imagine, that's a bit more work. But the idea being as we build this out, Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

2:22:21JodyIn 2017-18, when we were legalizing it in Canada, there was a lot of discussion about the criminal records for simple possession, particularly. Traffickers were all still kind of, you know, bad guys. And so, but when we were talking about legalizing it, everyone said, well, how can you have people arrested or, sorry, criminalized with these possession charges, not able to get jobs and such when it's going to be legal?

2:22:46JodySo I connected with a wonderful lawyer named Anna Maria and some other advocates and we came up with a group called Cannabis Amnesty. And it was a not-for-profit, it was a great organization that was focused on speaking to the harms caused to Canadians who have these criminal records. And I was on the advisory board and they had a lot of great people joining on and they went out and started doing fundraising.

2:23:11JodySo they actually went and got funding $50,000 from Aurora Cannabis. Now, Aurora is in the class of big corporate weed, yes, but I knew a few people who were involved in that company who did care about the cause and were just working for a big company. And they said, let's give this money to this cause so we can help them. And with that money, they created a beautiful commercial of a gentleman who had a record and the commercial is he's getting ready to go for a job interview.

2:23:44JodyThank you so much for joining us.

2:23:59JodyThank you so much for watching.

2:24:18JodyAll of these people would be able to get their records erased. That's an enormous accomplishment, quite frankly. It had some flaws in it. There were some costs and such associated with the process that should have been waived. But the idea being, well, Aurora Cannabis gave $50,000. They were able to make this commercial, do lobbying, do outreach, get a bill passed in Parliament and change the law. That's amazing.

2:24:42JodyBut one of the people involved with Aurora told me, Hey, side note, you should make sure any activism you do, like this fair cannabis idea you keep talking about, because I had the idea a long time ago. He said, just make sure you don't get any specific company to fund the whole group, because then they will dictate where the Attention is given and maybe big corporate cannabis doesn't want to support, you know, medical access or something.

2:25:09JodyYou know, there might be some conflicts. So they said, make sure if you get donations, get it from all sorts of different groups for different specific tasks and topics. So that was a thing I've taken to heart because I believe we can get big corporate cannabis to help fund some change with respect to lounges or packaging or advertising and tourism. So the second story of inspiration is based out of Manitoba.

2:25:36JodyWe had a legalization law federally that said you can grow four plants at home if you're an adult. But every province was able to change the rules to suit their desires and Manitoba and Quebec Said, nope, nobody's allowed to grow their own cannabis. That's still totally illegal. So an advocate named Jesse, who had formerly worked with Canopy Growth, I believe, or Volcano, he started an activism group called Toba Grown.

2:26:03JodyAnd they've got their little lighters and all their swag and stuff. So the idea was they would sell cannabis in a bag that says Toba Grown and use the money from the bag to fund a court challenge to challenge this law. Sounds familiar to, you know, the roots of CC and what Mark always did. So Jesse and his team, they went, they raised the 50,000 for Jack Lloyd and them to go and challenge this.

2:26:28JodyAnd they lost the first court hearing. And then there was an appeal, but then there was an election. And the premier basically said, we're going to scrap that law. We're going to allow people to grow their own four plants at home. So Toba Grown was successful, I'd say, even if they lost the court case, they won the public vote. Public, oh gosh, there's a word for that.

2:26:50JodyThey've won the court of public opinion.

2:26:52Dr Mark ScialdoneYeah, exactly.

2:26:53JodyAnd so they proved that by selling this product in a bag, they could fund change and they kept making money. And so they gave money to women's shelters and food banks and community groups and kids. And they were like, man, we can do so much selling weed with a purpose. And they're still growing strong today. And in fact, they have just brought our cannabis culture bag into Manitoba.

2:27:16JodySo I haven't shared that online yet because we have strikes and issues here in BC going on. But Toba Grown, thanks to them, we are in Manitoba with the CC bag, which is very exciting. And Jesse proved that you can sell weed. Thank you so much for joining us today. I'm so happy to be here. I'm so happy to be here. I'm so happy to be here.

2:27:35JodyI'm so happy to be here.

2:28:01JodyI've got 21 years of history behind me. So I've got a lot to learn about the new legal industry and the new people who are infused with energy and inspiration. They're really wonderful because they're leading the way and they're also paying homage and they respect the old folks like us who have been there before and they want to learn from us. But again, the major dilemma most of them are having these days from what I hear is they can't really speak out too much about these issues.

2:28:33JodyThey're too busy trying to keep the lights on and keep people employed and get those joints rolled and then sent to stores and who's going to speak up for them? Well, I might be able to do some of that, but I would also like to empower more of those people to have a platform or an organization that they can be part of that would be able to give them the resources and support they need to have more of an impact and to do more of the studies or the reference reports that you might present to a city council or whatever it may be.

2:29:05JodySo This is a relatively young, new concept, this fair cannabis idea, but I would love to see it grow into something beyond Canada and all around the world so that when you're buying cannabis, you can look for a little logo that says fair on it because it's just like fair trade, but it's for the cannabis movement, honoring those who give back and actually take Thank you so much for joining me today.

2:29:31JodyI'm so excited to be here with you today. I'm so excited to be here with you today. I'm so excited to be here with you today. I'm so excited to be here with you today. I'm so excited to be here with you today.

2:29:59BubblemanWell, that's it. Doesn't it feel way better than complaining? Like, of course, we could complain, oh, legalization didn't happen the way we wanted. It's like, well, listen, prohibition didn't happen the way we wanted either. We fought that. We changed it. It's going to be easier to change this one. You know, there's no doubt about it. The people that came in hot with high hopes and over over greedy and building these multi monstrous You know, most of them have failed and it's, it's, uh, they just, they executed poorly.

2:30:28BubblemanAnd, uh, I'm not against, you know, I, I hope for a mom and pop who's suffering right now to be able to build a big facility one day where they have like multiple farms. And it's like, they've, you know, like going big doesn't mean it's going to be a lower quality. It just means that it, it's a longer road and pathway. And it's, Thank you for watching.

2:31:09JodyWell, but that's very true. I mean, in fact, you need to be bigger to have more of a big impact. One of the benefits of legalization, you know, is it good or bad? Well, one of the really good things is that more and more people are using cannabis than ever before. Thank you so much for joining us.

2:31:43JodyThank you so much for joining us.

2:32:08JodyThank you so much for joining us.

2:32:30JodyThank you so much for joining us.

2:32:54JodyOh for sure and I mean I was in my 20s then so I was young and like hardcore and I just like was just going through it but you're right I feel like I kind of I was like a bowl of hash that got burned down too fast or something you know like I got it just felt like I feel pretty tired now quite honestly and we did go through a lot so yeah by the time legalization was unfolding it was kind of also a psychological crisis because everyone was saying you did it congratulations you legalized it and I was like We're all getting arrested and raided and called criminals.

2:33:27JodyAnd they were talking about restricting and limiting access. And we went from seven federal laws to 31 federal, like in my head, I kept saying, what the heck am I supposed to be grateful for? So that was really tough to reconcile. Like, no.

2:33:41BubblemanBut you know what, for me, what it was, and I've told this story before, I was sitting with my buddy, it was late night and we were going to his friend's Chinese food restaurant on Hastings, close to the P&E. And we were parked out front and he was like, let's have a dab before we go in. And I pulled out my Puffco's and I didn't have any dabs.

2:34:01BubblemanI had forgotten my dabs at his house. And I was like, oh, man. But then I looked across the street and there was one of those, you know, there's a legal place that's called like Eggs.

2:34:11SpeakerYes, Eggs Canna.

2:34:13BubblemanEggs Canna, right. So there's this Eggs Canna place. And I'm like, OK, well, maybe we'll just go in there. We go in there and I'm like, I walk in and the dude behind the counter is like, No way, Bubble Man. And I was like, oh, this is cool. We had this cool little conversation with this kid that worked there. And I was like, what do you have?

2:34:29BubblemanAnd he's like, oh, probably the best I have would be your friend Caitlin's High Fidelity Rosin. And I'm like, perfect. And my buddy Ty, who I used to have a grow with in the black market, he's the grower at Woody Nelson. My friend Caitlin, she made the hash. I'm not buying it at that now. It was completely Thank you so much for joining us.

2:35:16BubblemanThis is like some of the nicest hash in the world. Like this is as good as it gets. Like it was rainbow belts, I believe is what it was. It was so beautiful. The fact that we were able to buy it publicly, like just go into a store and give them money and take that away and smoke it. Blue my mind. It completely fucking blew my mind.

2:35:40BubblemanAnd it didn't blow my mind for me or any of you because you guys have access. You don't depend on the legal stores for access. Thank you for joining us.

2:36:14BubblemanThank you so much for joining us.

2:36:34BubblemanI don't know. I don't understand water activity. I don't understand the pressure that's being created in that jar. I don't understand that my volatile organic compounds may consume the glue that I choose and break just the tiniest little fissure of allowing oxygen in and terpenes to escape. Well, remember what weed was like when people bought it at first? You'd touch a bud and it would go poof.

2:36:58BubblemanIt was so dry. Well, these were all learning lessons and they weren't all dry. Big evil corporations who were learning those lessons. I knew some small companies that were going through it as well. And it's just, for me, I hate what we lost. And that's why we have to continue to fight to get it back because everything we have was not given to us. We had to take it.

2:37:22BubblemanAnd we do have to be careful to a degree, but we also have to understand that the way they prosecute and legal cannabis It is not how they prosecute back in the day in illegal cannabis. And that's why you see companies getting slaps on the wrist. It's not because they're huge and they have like connections to the government. It's because it's a different, like it's a different elevated.

2:37:45BubblemanWe're up here now. We're not down here where they just be like, Throw them in the dungeon, you know, and give these outrageous, you know, when they first, okay, one of the laws they came out with, you'll, you'll know this maximum fine for anything over six kilos of illegal cannabis is like 14 years in prison. Prior to legalization, and the only reason I know this is because I got caught with more than three kilos or six kilos, and so my maximum fine when I was prosecuted with John Conroy as my lawyer, I asked him, what's the maximum that I could possibly get?

2:38:18BubblemanHe said, well, The maximum is 25 years. So I don't think a lot of people knew that the maximum fine for getting possession of over three kilos in Canada with cannabis was 25 years. Now, did anyone ever give it get it? Absolutely not. It's never happened. It probably never will. Just like the 14 years is highly unlikely, but it is on the books like that. And I'd like to see a lot more changes.

2:38:45BubblemanI would hope that that is the pathway of some of what Fair Cannabis is going to do. I would love to see you guys build. You know, I see you guys as curating your choice of what you pick as not only great cannabis, but great people who are representing great cannabis. So it's almost in your It'll be in your interest to create stories of the groups that you promote to promote through the cannabis culture, through, you know, all of that.

2:39:15BubblemanIs that part of part of the plan?

2:39:17JodyWell, absolutely. And that's part of the frustration that I found was we all shared these common concerns and wanting to take action and make a difference. And, you know, back in the day, you're right. Like it was. There were very few people and so if you wanted to get involved it was like well go to the cannabis culture building and get involved with them so there was there weren't that many places to plug in but we were able to help people get a launch pad now there are many wonderful groups and individuals out there who are trying to make an impact but they don't know how to stand out they don't know how to be seen nobody knows where to find these groups like if you wanted to go connect with somebody who's working on medical access Thank you for joining us.

2:40:28JodyThank you for joining us.

2:40:45JodyFive months ago, got a victory in court on behalf of the employees that they can't get fired for their medical use of cannabis in a legal modern era. So that's a good victory. But how about other people who are facing the same issue in their workplace? How do we allow them to access the legal arguments or the court case documents or information or Thank you.

2:41:23JodyAnd then you can find groups or court cases or parliamentary petitions or bills being presented and committees that are talking about these things and calendars with events like the province of British Columbia is doing a consultation about lounges. Right now apparently federally there is a consultation for growers to help change the law so they aren't burdened with so much paperwork and Thank you for joining us today.

2:42:09JodyWe don't know what we don't know until you encounter it and go, I don't know. So with the government, they need people who have talking points, who have resources, who have examples they can point to. But where do you go find that? And that's part of the goal with Fair Cannabis is that eventually the news section will be expanded Thank you for joining us today.

2:42:49JodyI think the issue right now is we're all connected on the internet, but there's almost too much information. How do you sort through it? How do you find who's doing what? And that's the vision for Fair Cannabis. That also means we need more people involved. We need people who will be updating it and adding the news stories and Kelly Cervantes, Thank you so much for joining us today.

2:43:10JodyWe're going to get started in just a few minutes.

2:43:29JodyThank you. Thank you.

2:43:47JodySo, yeah, these are just ideas that I have right now. This is still in its infancy and I'm still learning so much about the legal industry. I really am. It's quite overwhelming. I've spent the last two years working on these projects and, you know, we're basically with the CC products, the bags, we're just I'm really on a serious mission of learning about how this legal industry works and instead of being the resident expert on why we should legalize it and how back in the day, mostly I'm just learning a lot right now and trying to connect people together to allow them to experience The synergy that they get from finding like-minded people when it's so it's so tough to find it all in one spot so again the idea with fair cannabis it's non-partisan I don't care if you're left wing right wing I don't care what you think about whatever politicians I don't care whether you love cheap big bags of weed from factory farms because that's all that you care about like let's be real a lot of A lot of people out there really don't care about high-end, high-quality cannabis.

2:45:01JodyThey just want a couple puffs to get high, just as they've done forever. But it'd be nice to make sure that, you know, through these CC bags, they learn about what is good cannabis and why. And the multi-pack is so fun because it harkens back to the dispensary days. Back when we had the illegal dispensaries, you would open a jar and smell it. And then, oh, that's nice, open a different one.

2:45:23JodyOh, that one's different. And then you open another and you're like, that's an anxiety attack for me. And then you open another jar and you're like, oh, that's going to be perfect for what I need. And then I think the next evolution as we're seeing is the talk about terpenes and all that, which I admit I'm kind of ignorant about. But the goal being, you know, when you try these different products, you go, oh, I really like that banjo one.

2:45:44JodyWhat what is it in that banjo? Oh, it's got mercine and limonene and And then that way you are now learning how to buy cannabis based on the effects it'll give you based on terpenes, not just THC percentages. Because my partner and a lot of people, they do not like this really strong weed. It is not working out for them. They don't want that high THC. So we need to shift the conversation so people know what do they like and why.

2:46:11JodyAnd I refer to that as deli style. Those old dispensaries when you used to open a jar, you're Thank you so much for joining us today.

2:46:42BubblemanThat is definitely a cool way to do it for sure.

2:46:45JodyWell, that's the issue in Canada that we do have. The packaging is everywhere. It's a real shame that you need so much plastic and so much waste for two little joints or whatever it may be. That sucks. But I'm going to put the farmer's market deli style purchasing aside. On the back burner, I don't see that changing anytime too soon. I mean, we have other bigger issues like our monopolies.

2:47:09JodyRight here in British Columbia, right now, there's a strike. And the thing is, when the government becomes the sole provider of cannabis to stores, what happens when they stop delivering those packages? So as a little refresher for anyone who doesn't know, here in Canada, we have a constitution. And the Constitution says that there shall be no barriers to trade in this country. So if you're going to sell something in B.C.

2:47:39Jodyas a lighter, you can sell that over in Nova Scotia. You cannot stop the movement of any goods within this country except alcohol, because after alcohol prohibition, there was a decision called the Gold Seal decision, I believe. And this basically said, okay, we're going to make alcohol legal now, but we need to control it and tax it and regulate it. And so the provincial and territorial governments said, why don't we control the wholesale purchasing and selling of alcohol?

2:48:09JodyBasically, we'll buy all the booze. And then we'll sell it to the stores. And we'll sell it in our own stores that are paid for by tax dollars. So who cares if we make a profit? All the taxpayers are paying for it. So basically we've got this model set up across Canada for alcohol distribution. And then they also took on tobacco and gambling. So that's why you have like the Alcohol Gaming Commission of Ontario, et cetera.

2:48:34JodyBack when legalization was unfolding, there was an interesting dilemma. Basically, we had all these dispensaries across the country. They were all gray market. They were kind of protected by constitutional court decisions saying that medical access needs to be provided so stores can exist, but they're not legal, but they kind of need to be there. So it was this weird gray zone and we had dispensaries everywhere. And at the very same time, you had two different companies called Uber and Airbnb.

2:49:04JodyAnd they weren't legal either. And all three industries were doing their thing and self-regulating and saying to the government, hey, this is our business. This is how we regulate it, self-regulate it. We would like to be legalized and properly regulated. Please, Mr. Government, can you do that for us? And so the government said to Uber, OK, we'll work with you. We'll make it legal. Airbnb, we'll work with you and we'll make it legal.

2:49:28JodyCannabis dispensaries? Problem is, we're going to shut you all down and do it ourselves. So we're not going to legalize you. And that's how that unfolded. But during that time, all these medical dispensaries and cannabis culture opened adult use dispensaries because we were setting a model of what legalization should look like instead of Thank you for joining us.

2:50:04JodyAn old man named Como in Quebec, and he went across the border into New Brunswick and bought some beer and he brought it back home. And a few people would do this because prices were different. And he got arrested and fined. And he's like, no, I'm going to fight this. And he challenged that and it got all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. So it was a challenge to those alcohol monopolies that the provinces had in each province.

2:50:31JodyThey wanted to say, no, you should be able to go into anywhere and buy alcohol. It's Canadian made. I should be able to do it. So Supreme Court of Canada was talking about this case and it was a major constitutional case because One of the top revenue producer for every province is alcohol. They all need alcohol sales. They all need to be that middleman in order to make money.

2:50:53JodyBut this little court challenge was potentially gonna upend that. And cannabis culture came along with a bunch of constitutional lawyers and we gathered up, I think it was like 60 plus dispensaries and we all officially intervened. And our case to the Supreme Court of Canada was, You know the federal government is talking about legalizing cannabis and putting cannabis in these provincial models, but that'll prevent the free flow of BC grown bud over to Nova Scotia or Ontario weed getting to Alberta.

2:51:25JodyLike that shouldn't be legalization. The cannabis should move freely. This is a new industry that's going to create billions of dollars. Why can't we have it move freely? But the provincial monopoly bodies really wanted to control the cannabis. So we went to the Supreme Court of Canada to try and argue that these laws shouldn't be in place. And while we were in the Supreme Court, Kirk Tussaud and Jack Lloyd, they're there presenting.

2:51:51JodyAnd our cannabis culture store down the street on Bank Street was getting raided by the police at that moment. So our lawyers are like, oh, my God. Just got a couple things to juggle here, but it was to, you know, it demonstrated our point. This is crazy. How is it being legalized in this way? This is all said to explain that right now in Canada, we have provincial They won basically the alcohol cannabis monopolies.

2:52:15JodyThe provincial governments, the attorneys general said, we're going to lose all our money. We can't change this law. So we didn't win that. And that's why cannabis has these stamps on them for each province. They're syntax stamps or they're excise tax stamps. And basically, here in BC right now, and this already happened two years ago, the BC General Employees Union, and they handle all the warehouses, they move the cannabis, they accept the orders from stores, they get the weed sent to the stores, they're all on strike.

2:52:46JodyAnd last time they all went on strike two years ago, it meant no stores could get any cannabis. At all. At all. And a bunch of them went out of business. And people didn't have weed. And it was a serious disaster. And that led to the creation in British Columbia of a program called direct delivery. This idea is that the grower can grow the cannabis and the store can buy it from the grower without the government having to receive it and ship it.

2:53:15JodyThe absurd thing is there's a 15% tax on all cannabis movement from the warehouse. The government's got to get theirs. They put a 15%. But with direct delivery, even though the government isn't handling it, they're taking that tax. So that's making the whole direct delivery model kind of unsustainable. But at least it exists because right now there's a strike again and no cannabis is being moved from the government warehouses to stores.

2:53:42JodyThank you so much for joining us today.

2:54:05JodyAll of the stores and farms are in crisis mode because not everybody is registered with direct delivery the stores are many of them don't know how to even do direct delivery so we have a situation right now in BC where there's a bit of a crisis with respect to all that but again what's good or bad last time this happened we got the direct delivery program maybe this time we can actually say Hey, the government didn't even touch any of this product that we're moving.

2:54:31JodyWhy are they getting 15%? Maybe we can get rid of that tax and make it a more viable industry for everybody. Get hope and dream.

2:54:41BubblemanNo doubt. You got to hope and dream for that matter. It's going to be a slow battle, I suspect, but it is one that they will not survive because a lot of these things are just the opposite of common sense. And they're more costly and they're more everything. They're vectors for more problems.

2:55:02JodyYeah, and we're seeing this with Canada Post right now, our national mail delivery program. They're on strike, and the only reason is because the government is saying, you're losing $10 million a day. This can't go on. We can't have $10 million lost every day to this mail delivery. Thank you for watching.

2:55:35JodyThat's, yeah, just take what you can get and always ask for more. And the genie is not going back in the bottle. Like, they can't re-legalize cannabis, not when they have so much financial benefit from it, but we need to convince the government that They can make more money and we could all do a lot better if you stop demonizing and stigmatizing cannabis, if you allow for advertising and tourism, if you allow us to have like wineries, but weederies and let people experience more of that, like we should be embracing it and celebrating it.

2:56:06JodyNow that it is legal, that does give us the opportunity to plug into farming networks and tax networks and independent business networks, people in groups that would never have touched cannabis before, but now it's a real... It's a real legal thing. Like they can actually speak for our industry. And I got to give credit to like Able BC. This is the alcohol beverage lobbying group in British Columbia.

2:56:31JodyBut half of all their work is devoted to cannabis as well. So even though there's that terrible provincial monopoly model, now we get the benefit of this provincial alcohol lobby group. Carrying us along and being like, no, we need more cannabis access. We need more stores. We need lounges. We need cannabis drinks in restaurants. We need menus to have alcohol, non-alcoholic and cannabis all available. And credit to your last show that I was on, I learned all about nano emulsification.

2:57:01JodyI feel really smart just saying that word. But seeing the modernization of cannabis beverages is fascinating. I still remember thinking it was an absurd concept and cannabis drinks would never fly. But there are some barriers to that. I guess the way they're packaged, the THC limits, et cetera, it makes it less... Thank you so much for joining us.

2:57:39JodyWhen I'm looking at the cannabis industry, I do love smoking weed. I don't as much. I used to, I always say I used to hit the four foot bong all day long. And now it's like, oh, I have a toke before bed is all I can really manage now. But I mean, I love cannabis, but I really get fired up about fairness. And I know life isn't fair.

2:57:58JodyYeah. But if you can make it more fair, why wouldn't you? So that's the goal of this vision.

2:58:06BubblemanI think it's an awesome vision, Jodi, and I'm glad you came and shared it with us and our audience on Hash Church. I was stoked to get you on today to come and talk about this and get people. I love the idea of taking action. You know, if you can get a lot of a lot of consumption of media now is just this. Yeah.

2:58:26JodyExactly. And what if while you're doing that, you just scan a QR code and click the, here's a little handy button, take action.

2:58:35BubblemanTake action, yeah. And it's literally right on the front bar of the page, right on the right. It's like boom, big, you can't miss it.

2:58:42JodyWell, make it easy. Make it easy. And that's how Amazon gets everybody. It's like, oh, buy with one click. Dang, too easy to not do it, right? So the idea, again, being if you have a, if our community is connecting online and in stores, because you can buy it in a store, Having these posters up, I mean, that's my dream. If we can raise donations, I want to ship these posters to every retail store in BC, get them up on the wall, because when I've been visiting stores and talking to them about this, they're like, yes, absolutely, please, let's do that.

2:59:13JodyBut of course, it takes resources. But it takes a team also. That's why I'd love to put an ask out there. You need to

2:59:22JodyWe need to be told about the different groups and advocacy efforts that are going on. And if we can build a team and we can start with some volunteers, I know I started this whole thing saying you can't rely on volunteers only, but the goal is to start with that and add on real team members full time to Thank you so much for joining me today. I'm so happy to be here with you today.

2:59:44JodyI'm so happy to be here with you today. I'm so happy to be here with you today. I'm so happy to be here with you today. I'm so happy to be here with you today. I'm so happy to be here with you today.

3:00:10JodyThank you so much for joining us today.

3:00:27JodySo I would love to have anyone with ideas or suggestions or donations or whatever it may be, go to faircannabis.ca first of all and just take a look at the whole concept laid out there. And if you want to reach out to me personally, please do. I'm Jodi, J-O-D-I-E, at cannabisculture.com. If you have ideas or groups or companies or whatever it may be, I am more fired up than I've ever been before about the advocacy.

3:00:56JodyAnd like, again, I like weed and everything, but selling weed isn't really my thing. Running stores isn't really my thing. What I care about is effectively communicating and articulating what the problems are, how we can fix them, why we should fix them, and giving the steps to get that accomplished. That's what I'm here for next round.

3:01:20BubblemanWell, you are appreciated. Go ahead.

3:01:24Archive SeedsCan I say one thing? Just the biggest issue is overproduction. All that other stuff is great if you want to try to make it fair, but you can't force fairness economically. You have to make it economically fair, and then the customers will make their decision at the store. And really, the biggest issue that we're seeing is overproduction in legal facilities is the number one issue, period. That's not even a question.

3:01:53Archive SeedsI would estimate in the United States, it's probably about 40% of people buy legal weed. And then about 45% of people buy legally grown but sold illegally weed. And then about 5% of the market is actual black market growers like they were back in the day, home growers. And you can see it by one evident thing. Grow stores are almost non-existent in most legal states, right? So, you know, the home grower has basically completely dried up in that sense, right?

3:02:32Archive SeedsAnd I think Vermont might be one of the only states that has like Um, has a production cap that actually, there's still overproduction because there's so many people that want to grow and it's still too much, but it actually has a somewhat reasonable production cap that actually makes sense.

3:02:51Dr Mark ScialdoneVermont's regulated market fletches a shit show, man. Don't let anybody snow you.

3:02:57Archive SeedsYeah, I'm not saying it's good.

3:02:58Dr Mark ScialdoneRace to the bottom. Yeah. And the weed at the dispensaries here in Vermont sucks. That doesn't say that there's not good weed grown in Vermont. There's great weed grown in Vermont, but it's not at the stores.

3:03:12Archive SeedsRight. And they had one of the most aggressive production caps trying to prevent overproduction. And so... This is, you know, California is a perfect example of it. Washington, Oregon, we've seen it in every state. Canada is a great example of it. There's too many monster grows and they're oversupplying not only the legal market, but also the illegal market. The vast majority of these big grows literally can't survive without all the illegal weed they're selling.

3:03:46Archive SeedsSo most of the Canadian companies that are that big can't survive without exporting their product. So it's, you know, if you want to have a farmer's market type of industry, you have to cap production. That's the only way it works.

3:04:04JodyAnd is this because when there's so much, it's like supply and the price drops?

3:04:08Archive SeedsYeah, it's just supply and demand. It's just basic supply and demand.

3:04:11JodyYeah, people can't make any money off of it because the price is just too low. And would you say that the price, part of that issue that I would hear from people is that with all the taxes on top, with the cost of doing business with respect to regulations, the regulation cost is what's pushing them to...

3:04:32Collin PalmerIt's the economy of scale. Yeah, well, and think about this. Go ahead, Colin. Sorry, I was just going to say like the economy of scale really is like all baked into the P&L, like what you're alluding to, Jody, is like it still costs you the same amount to grow in 12.5 as it does to add, let's say, you know, another couple thousand square feet. It's because of those things and having that X amount of canopy that that producer versus it is just called the still to A and B.

3:05:03Collin PalmerThey can actually suppress at retail a $30 ounce where like another guy that has less canopy just can't do that. He just he can't he just he's not able to like walk in and offer that $30 ounce. It's just not in his economics.

3:05:19Dr Mark ScialdoneYou see this in any commodity market where, again, you get people who get in who could basically go below production costs. Guess what? Because they have a couple billion in the bank. So for them, they don't need to make some profitability target. Jody, it's really interesting when you look Thank you for joining us.

3:06:02Dr Mark ScialdoneUnprofitable to produce weed, produce a commodity. I mean, it's just, you're up against forces. And here down in the U.S. too, you got to throw in the hemp game, right?

3:06:16SpeakerOh, yeah.

3:06:17Dr Mark ScialdoneIt's the perfect shit storm, I guess you'd call it.

3:06:21Archive SeedsIt's just more overproduction, right? More, right, exactly. Well, it's just like, yeah. All products, all products.

3:06:28BubblemanYeah, just more overproduction that you can just ship over every state line.

3:06:33Archive SeedsLet's just not forget that part.

3:06:35BubblemanAnd you don't know where it's coming from.

3:06:36Archive SeedsEvery state is getting their own local market now. Because they're all building grows when they legalize too. Like New Jersey doesn't need weed from California anymore. They got fucking thousand light grows of their own to supply. And all those grows that just spent $25 million building that thing are happy to backdoor those packs to the people that they know already and put the cash in their pocket.

3:07:00Archive SeedsI mean, that's the reality of the situation. And like I was saying, I would estimate that there's more legally grown, illegally sold weed Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

3:07:34JodyAnd that was like prairie plant systems and the origins of tweed and canopy. So what some of the news stories back in the day were that canopy growth was busted by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, our RCMP, They were busted taking hockey bags of weed from their legal facility. They got busted and they were going to get charged. But then, and this only came out a couple years after legalization happened, it came out that the RCMP was told that charges could not be laid or followed up on because It would be bad news for the stock value of canopy growth because during that time when legalization was happening all these big legal medical facilities they were doing their thing and all the other growers were doing their thing and the big medical companies managed to lobby the federal government well the chief financial officer of the Liberal Party of Canada which was the governing party under He was the owner of Tweed and Canopy Growth.

3:08:41JodySo it kind of conveniently worked out for him.

3:08:44Archive SeedsThey don't need to lobby when they all own shares of all those companies. And that's why that's why all of their all the the policies are geared towards stock prices is because we allow the politicians to own shares in all the companies that they're quote unquote regulating or basically in most cases allowing to operate illegally and are basically collapsing the business on top of itself. I mean, You know, 15 years ago, people that own hydroponic stores would have told you they're printing money, right?

3:09:16Archive SeedsAnd they were. It's not like that anymore at all because we've turned from an inefficient farmer's market type of thing. And here's a point I was going to make before Collins made a point was, In every single state, you can see the gross revenues decrease every single year, right? So like Washington State was probably about a $2 billion market when it was dispensaries and people retailing their product and everything combined, right?

3:09:47Archive SeedsLike the medical scene, pre-legalization. Today, it's like $850 million or something like that. And the reason is very simple. People used to pay $300 an ounce average, and now they're paying $100 an ounce average. So take a $2 billion market, cut it down two thirds, and you're down to $600, $700, $800 million. But here's the thing. People are still consuming the same amount of cannabis. So you have a massive increase in production costs because of today's inflation, the demand for indoor weed, and And the low price that's basically pushed down by hemp and large outdoor farms and all the distillate and all the shit coming in and from even Canada, from all the legal places shipping in barrels of distillate.

3:10:43Archive SeedsI mean, it's like, it's rampant every direction. And you won't, we won't ever see a market where people care about weed like they used to until we get rid of that excess in the marketplace.

3:10:59Dr Mark ScialdoneHey, Fletch, Fletch, you remember the term, the turkey bag economy, right? Well, Jody tells us now in Canada that the hockey bag.

3:11:11Collin PalmerThey're not fucking with turkey bags. They got hockey bags.

3:11:14Dr Mark ScialdoneWell, we put the turkey bags inside the hockey bags.

3:11:17Archive SeedsIt's pallets getting shipped on boats to foreign countries. That's what most of Canada is doing these days.

3:11:23BubblemanIt's beep, beep, beep.

3:11:26Archive SeedsForklifts.

3:11:27JodyWell, one of the biggest...

3:11:28Archive SeedsIt's back to 70s. You know, like markets... Let's give Jodi a chance.

3:11:32JodyShe's trying to talk. Chad, I'm just going to say back to the stock market thing and when those companies were first legalized in Canada, bear in mind that before it was legal legal, like October 2018, It was like the date of the switchover. But before that, the federal government of Canada, the Liberal government, Bill Blair, the former police chief of Toronto who became the weed czar, not a fan of weed, but I guess he's the right guy to regulate it.

3:12:01JodyBut basically, for a couple of years there, it was a great swindle. I kept calling it the great Canadian pot stock scam. The federal government basically said to Canadians, hey, we're going to legalize it. And everyone's, yay. And they said, and the only legal producers will be the current medical facilities that currently exist. Everyone else is no, but guess what, Canada? These companies, owned by a bunch of cops and politicians, but these companies are on the stock market.

3:12:31JodyGuess what, Canada? If you invest your dollars into these companies, it's a guaranteed paid off. An $8 billion industry, yours for the taking. Give us all your money. And it was such a scam. People put their life savings into it, and those who were wise to the game put their money in and cashed out. They knew how that game worked. I'm not savvy like that, so I didn't...

3:12:55JodyThey basically saw it as an opportunity that before any legal weed was even grown or sold for the recreational adult market, before that was even possible, these companies were raising hundreds of millions of dollars. Now they've used it to Build out their $10 million safe and their $25 million brick wall with the barbed wire and the cameras. Basically, they had to build prisons to grow weed in.

3:13:21JodyAnd it's very expensive to build a prison. So they had to raise all this money from the stock market. And all these Canadians put their money in. And they knew it wasn't going to be sustainable. They knew they were growing a whole bunch of swaggy garbage weed. There were endless reports of all the different diseases and pests and bugs and mold and rubber gloves and... All sorts of stuff in the legal weed that was being produced by those few companies.

3:13:47JodySo it was pretty much a giant swindle. And like you said, Mark, they're still making tons of money. How do you lose billions of dollars and still get paid a couple hundred million a year to run that gong show? I mean, I don't know.

3:14:05BubblemanMy guess is this, because it makes economic sense. They are destroying the ability for anyone else to invest in cannabis. The perception is that they've lost all this money. But in reality, when they start profiting, they're just going to write those losses off against their taxes. So it's really like they're prepaying their taxes in a way that crushes investment for everyone else in the country. And so if you have $3 billion and you lose one, It just doesn't matter.

3:14:38BubblemanYou just bought like 80% of the Canadian market for a billion dollars and you'll own it for 10 to 15 to 20, if not longer. So that's why I think they did it.

3:14:48Archive SeedsIt'll work out for those companies. I really don't. Because it doesn't work. If that worked in commodity markets, especially perishable agricultural goods markets.

3:15:00BubblemanI don't think it would, but this is a new market.

3:15:03Archive SeedsThen we wouldn't have USDA subsidies. We wouldn't have farm subsidies. Those big mega farms actually don't work on paper. They don't pencil out to the tune of billions of dollars a year.

3:15:15JodyThey were subsidized here as well, actually. There were lots of reports of that, for sure.

3:15:20Archive SeedsCannabis is not in the, and that's food that a hundred percent of the people need every single day. Now we're talking about cannabis, which is 10%. Here's the thing.

3:15:30BubblemanSo I went and visited, I went and visited some greenhouse growers in like Delta area. And they're a family. They have about $150 million in greenhouses and all this is like massive greenhouse infrastructure and they grow peppers and they grow cucumbers. For a couple of different markets and they make their money doing that and they and I asked them like what do you sell like a cucumber for it so he's like I don't know it's like 15 cents a pound or something I'm like how the fuck are you making how the fuck is nobody in cannabis able to make money because they can't sell it for three thousand dollars a pound anymore but you're making money off of this he's like oh my god we make millions and millions of dollars that's what yeah we got all these big greenhouses only ship them He had a cold room.

3:16:21BubblemanHe had a cold room, dude, that was like, I want to say 150,000 square feet that he just drove pallets of vegetables into and just sat in this room that was like, you know, like, like zero degrees. I just couldn't understand. I get it. We have many different varieties and this, that, and the other thing, but it's like, it almost seems like we've shot ourselves in the foot.

3:16:42BubblemanYou know, I hear people all the time. Well, it's not even worth growing it anymore. I can't even get like $1,500 a pound. And I'm just like, $1,500 a pound is a lot of fucking money.

3:16:53Archive SeedsWell, I mean, that's why you can't find good weed in most stores, you know, is because it's not economically incentivized for someone to put in the time and the energy to do it for whatever that price is after the taxes, production, employees, everything else. It's like, fuck that. I can grow eight lights in my house and make more money. Fuck growing 100 for the man.

3:17:15BubblemanI feel like food is the same way.

3:17:17Archive SeedsThat's why the less than 5% market in the U.S. that still elicit producers, that's the dank weed market. And everything is just the everything out of the factory farms, whether it's legal or illegal.

3:17:30JodyRight. No, that's right.

3:17:33Collin PalmerIt's really hard because you know what you're highlighting Fletch is like IPM strategies cost more based on the genetics you choose or less based on what you choose based on how you feed and all this stuff adds up to you know and it does become a point where like it just costs more to grow Great herb. You know, it's just fact of the matter. So, you know, it's a little harder to justify that, I think, you know, as I've seen at scale.

3:18:02Collin PalmerBut there are some really great producers at scale that are doing it well. It's just they're overshadowed, to our point earlier, by these overproduction, you know, race to, you know, $2 on the eighth or whatever. If you walk in, this is on sale versus this living soil that's not, you know, it's tough, you know, like there's a lot of deciding factors that, you know, consumers have to swim through before they make a choice.

3:18:26Collin PalmerSo it's You know, it's clouded too, you know, on the retail side because everything's the best. Everything is, you know, everyone's growing Cushmints, right? Everyone's growing a version of Sour Diesel. And it's really, it's confusing to, you know, to your point, you know, to walk in there and actually know who you're buying it from. But it's back to your point, Jody, what you're doing is really great is, you know, you're trying to Thank you so much for joining us.

3:19:10BubblemanYou know, one of the aspects I really like about what she's doing, and it reminds me, I don't know if you ever, if you guys ever watch this guy, there's a guy by the name of Ian Carroll, and he does these sort of like, just, he just does deep dives on people and, and, you know, kind of conspiracy, kind of whatever, but he's, I don't really watch that stuff, but he's got this app right now called Buyer, which is B-U-Y apostrophe R. I think it's only in beta right now, but it basically at the grocery store you can hit.

3:19:38BubblemanHe did quite a few stories before this where he would go to the store and be like, oh, I wanted to look. I looked at women's deodorant and I was like, I'm going to research all the companies. And he showed a picture of like 140 different women's deodorant. He was like. Oh, interesting. Like 98% of these are owned by a single company that owns like 47 companies.

3:19:57BubblemanAnd he showed just one little like five pack of deodorant that was a different company. So it'd be like, you know, there's certain people that would find that very valuable. So he created an app called Buyer that you use the camera and you can hit the barcode on the unit and it'll tell you Thank you so much for joining us.

3:20:45BubblemanAnd kind of, you know, like write the stories for the companies you believed in. So when people did hit that barcode, maybe, maybe all that information comes up. But right at the top, what comes up is fair cannabis and take action.

3:20:57JodyWell, that's part of the vision too. We have a QR code on the bag. And for now, this first release is just taking them to the website to learn about the idea. But the vision was that, again, we want to highlight these farms and let people go buy the weed from them. Like, we'll introduce you, but go support them at the government store, wherever you have to go.

3:21:15JodyAnd the vision being if we had a larger team and doing videos and interviews and showing the farm, showing the process so that every farm and every bud You could scan the QR code and get the story of it. And we see that all the time with products these days. You buy a coffee mug and you can scan it to see where you're donating or 10 tree clothing and that sort of thing.

3:21:35JodySo, yeah, the vision is definitely a lot bigger. That's for sure. But yeah, I'd love to. I mean, I guess part of this conversation is also we need to admit that we are the heady types. We are the ones who are the connoisseurs, the aficionados. I mean, When you think of wine, for example, I'm one of the people, I'll just drink whatever. I don't know what it is.

3:21:56JodyI can't tell the difference. Wine is fun, but there are people who really know and they understand the points and the year and the grape and the this and that, the region, the terroir. That's a smaller part of the market and they'll drop that $100 on a bottle or whatever it may be, but most people won't because they're just buying a little... wine in a box or a screw top just to have at the end of a week and that's probably the cannabis market now too aside from all of us who loved it and we bought it and grew it and shared it because we cared and the law be damned we loved it so much we were in there that's not really the same market anymore i imagine there are a lot of consumers out there who are just ready to buy whatever they wouldn't even know they're smoking swag and They don't care either.

3:22:40JodyAnd that's a bit unfortunate. And that's why our job is to educate them about what good cannabis is, clean cannabis, growing practices, et cetera.

3:22:48BubblemanSo yeah, my daughter, my daughter works at a at Happy Isle in Horseshoe Bay. And she she tells me she's like, you wouldn't believe, Dad, like everyone uses cannabis now. Like it's like everyone in our I see everyone from our neighborhood. She's just like, it's a lot of people. And I'm thinking that is a pretty cool aspect that What we knew as the cannabis culture, the cannabis scene is definitely very, it almost like fractured off with legalization, kind of left a lot of us behind where we were just like, no, we're still this group.

3:23:20BubblemanI was lucky because I had Dave as a mentor. And one of the funny things about Skunk Man Sam, one of the things he was really particular about Thank you for joining us.

3:23:54BubblemanYeah, who cares? You know what? I think I'd rather... What's that? Go ahead.

3:23:58JodyWell, maybe they'll change. Maybe it'll actually be a catalyst of change for them. Maybe they'll smoke that joint and they were a former cop and suddenly they're questioning their life.

3:24:07BubblemanWell, it's like the song Adam Bowen wrote about your ex. You know, the American government has consumed cannabis in the form of Mark and Marie. Mark went to prison and then the guy who prosecuted him literally brought like legalization to Washington State.

3:24:25JodyYeah, sat beside me and called for legalization, you know, and that's so true. And I think there's so much opportunity here still down the road in the future. And when you said like, Everybody's using cannabis. Yeah, you go to a store, there's granny with her walker, there's some youngster who's a hip hop head or whatever. Everybody. And the one thing that the government did not anticipate is, you know, they still want to tax this with a sin tax, just like alcohol and tobacco that kill people, but it is not alcohol and tobacco and they are trying to control it.

3:24:59JodyAnd they won't be able to, like right now I mentioned in stores in Canada, you are not allowed to ask about medical use and be told about it by a bud tender. It is illegal for a cannabis retail store to say, this is medicine, this might help you sleep, that one might help take away your pain, et cetera, et cetera. Not allowed. So you have some clever workarounds.

3:25:19JodyLike my friend Jeff, when he was working at Avenue, he said, here's what I do. I say, I'm not allowed to tell you that. But here's a court case that says it's medicine, and that's why there's a medical program in Canada. Or here's the Vancouver Coastal Health handout about medical use. So he's like, I'm not saying it, but a government body was saying it. And even though the government government is saying you're not allowed to say it, and that conflict This is going to work to our advantage because people are definitely using it for medical purposes.

3:25:51JodyThey're definitely experiencing benefits. They're giving up alcohol and they're giving up painkillers because cannabis is now an option that they don't have to be afraid to use. and that will revolutionize everything we're just only in year seven we still got a lot of time to go but this is a wonderful sign that as more and more people use it eventually just like we overgrew the government before with actual weed now we're going to overgrow the government with the truth and they can't hide and I don't know, victory is down that road.

3:26:21JodyAnd even if we're not here to see it ourselves, as many of our friends are gone, as you mentioned, you know, we all have a chance to lay down some stones on that path to a better future. And whether you get to some destination or not, it doesn't matter. People are walking on that path you laid.

3:26:39BubblemanAbsolutely. Absolutely.

3:26:41JodyThat's what keeps me going.

3:26:43BubblemanYeah, you know what keeps me going? Looking at the bud, Fletch grows and smokes on Twitter. Can you show that bud again there, Fletch, if you don't mind?

3:26:54BubblemanSo nice. I can't remember what it is, but I'm sure he'll know the name of it. Probably fucking breaded. You're muted. He absolutely fucking breaded. Of course he breaded in the time of it. You're muted. Unmute yourself. Show your butt. And make sure you show it in front of your face because you got the, oh, fuck, yeah. Dude, look at that.

3:27:14Etienne FontanOh, look at that.

3:27:16BubblemanJesus Christ, dude, I'm telling you. Is that the one you put up on Twitter like yesterday or today? Yeah. What is that?

3:27:23Archive SeedsIt's Moombo 99 cross with Moombo 24 F2 number 31.

3:27:29Archive SeedsJesus Christ. It even sounds threatening. It's just like an inbred thing. I called it New Diesel, though, because everybody that I've shown it to, they think it has diesel in it.

3:27:38BubblemanYeah, you were saying that on Twitter. You had this Dizzle-y, Moonbow-esque flavor profile.

3:27:45Archive SeedsYeah, well, like the 99, when I selected that from the first population, I always said it had like a diesel, sour D kind of tone to it. It has like some of that old school chemi, gassy kind of back end. And it breeds that trait into the progeny as well.

3:28:05Dr Mark ScialdoneI got a couple.

3:28:06Collin PalmerVery original Dizzle. You got some too, Brody?

3:28:09JodyWell, I just, I realized I've been talking about, you guys all know about weed. But like, in this bag, I thought, why don't I just show off some of these buds too and tell you what they are. I didn't even mention that. But you all might know the background and lineage. But our first one from Sweetgrass is 91 Octane. And so this is our kind of a more of a chunky, I think that's Foxtail-ish, you might say.

3:28:33JodyYeah.

3:28:33BubblemanYeah, yeah, that's definitely Chunky and Foxtail. It looks pretty coded. Sweetgrass grows phenomenal cannabis. They're from the Kootenays. They are like the, in fact, he also, the gentleman, one of the owners at Sweetgrass also has a restaurant in Nelson and it is banging. It is so fucking good. You can, like, if you went to his restaurant, you'd be like, this guy probably grows good weed. And if you smoked his weed, you'd be like, this guy probably makes good food.

3:29:02JodyWell, you can tell, right? Like that's the love you can tell when people are growing it with passion. That is what differentiates the factory farm weed from local craft cannabis. And this one's my personal favorite. It's Banjo. I wish I could get some better lighting for you, but A beautiful, I guess it's called a hybrid, and this is grown by a husband-wife team on, it's called Seastone Farms on Denman Island.

3:29:26JodyWe have so many little islands out here, and I guess there's a lot of legacy growers who jumped through the hoops to get in there. And the final one, this is for those Super Sativa type fans, is Love Haze from Salt Spring Magi or Salt Spring Magic.

3:29:40BubblemanHold your hand up behind it so there's no background. Now let me stop talking and pin you so we can see if it went straight. And then also stop turning it for a second. It should grab.

3:29:52JodyOh, I wish I could get it better for you. We do have some photos and such on our social media and everything, but I think the fun part about this, again, is the idea of introducing people to, it's like a little fun dip pack. You're like, all these different flavors, how do they compare and contrast, which is such a different experience from just opening one bag, enjoying it.

3:30:14JodyBut when you get to like notice the differences and then educate yourself about, wait, what is it that makes that love haze? Thank you so much for joining us.

3:30:39JodyThank you for watching.

3:30:57JodyThat's not what matters to me. So it's a shame that we don't have the ability for more in-person experience with the flower because the nose knows, as many people say. But anyway, that's what we've got on the market right now and hopefully some more releases from other great farms in the future.

3:31:14BubblemanSo it was sweetgrass?

3:31:16JodyYep, Seastone Farm. Seastone. Salt Spring Magic. Salt Spring Magic. Yeah.

3:31:22BubblemanYes.

3:31:23JodyI swear that guy was legacy because all that Moby Dick and Love Haze and the things he's bringing forward, I'm like, oh yeah, I know this from the old days.

3:31:32BubblemanThat's hilarious. Yeah, Salt Spring is amazing.

3:31:36JodyTake care, Carl.

3:31:38Collin PalmerBye, everyone. Taking off, Colin? I got to go. Unfortunately, much love, everybody. It was a pleasure. Jodi, amazing work. Love to talk to you about your organization. I think we need more of it across the whole North America, to be honest.

3:31:52Jody100%. The US has so much to offer, by the way. The fact that you have such advanced packaging abilities and so much more knowledge, so many test cases of what works and what doesn't, that's valuable.

3:32:04Collin PalmerYeah, no doubt. Yeah. Much love, everybody. Fletch, Dr. Mark, ATN, Marcus. Beautiful show today, everyone. Peace, y'all. Thanks for coming out. Anytime.

3:32:14BubblemanYeah, it went pretty flawlessly right from two hours of Slinger right into an hour and 35 minutes so far of Jody, which we really appreciate. It's been great. We're hammering out in almost four hours. We've been working here today. And I got up really early. I was in Whistler yesterday. Last night, and I woke up this morning and it was like we were checking out. I wasn't sure if I could get the late checkout.

3:32:39BubblemanI don't have the best laptop right now, so it wasn't going to make like a, it just wouldn't have been as good as being here. And I was like, you know what, both Slinger and Jody, I want to make sure that it's a good show. So I drove home from Whistler this morning at like 630 a.m. To get here at 730 a.m. and just make sure that I had this shit to hold down.

3:33:01BubblemanSo very, very happy about that. I feel like I don't want to like, you know, volunteer at 10. But Etienne is someone you should absolutely speak with in regard, at least a private conversation about fair cannabis. And he's just like the king of kings down there when it comes to all things cannabis activism and not just down there, really, like at the U.N. and like everywhere. He's doing it up.

3:33:25BubblemanVeterans.

3:33:28Etienne FontanYeah, my dispenser returns 26 years old next month.

3:33:33JodyCongratulations. That's over a quarter century. That's nothing to scoff at.

3:33:40Etienne Fontan26 isn't as sexy as 25. It's not as round as 30, you know, so you're just plotting. It'll be quiet and chill. But no, I mean, we've gone through all those regulations. And it's really fascinating because the Bay Area is it's kind of a megalopolis of cities. And in the South Bay is San Jose State University. And the fascinating thing about them is they have, they're one of the four colleges in the United States that teach packaging.

3:34:11SpeakerOh, cool.

3:34:13Etienne FontanAnd packaging is its whole thing. And they have every type of environmental and as well as, yeah, they're great reference because all of his students are in the real world doing all of the things. So, you know, there's mushroom packaging and stuff like that. The problem is, of course, it's the cost. The big problem we have here in California is, you know, they want childproof packaging, but By having childproof packaging, we have hit the trash limit at the level of pharmaceutical packaging, which isn't good.

3:34:46Etienne FontanI mean, just the sheer amount of what's used in a cartridge. Cartridges are the darling of everybody. You know, I saw a t-shirt that says something like, oh, you know, Gen X had to, you know, use seeds so that... You know, roll seeds so that, you know, the millennials could smoke their bongs so that, you know, today, you know, they're using vape pens, right, in the stores, which is, of course, true in the reality of how the secession has come along.

3:35:21Etienne FontanHowever, That's all made in two factories, right? And on top of that, it's not regulated. It has all kinds of environmental issues that are huge. So it's rather fascinating how we allowed the modern roach of the day to be an absolute environmental hazard and that at least my governments and state governments here in the United States have willingly decided given that authority over to the distributors manufacturers as opposed to holding them accountable because they can't be recycled in any way shape or form so if anything i can plead to you all to do is stay the fuck away from cartridges and from that type of um Convenience.

3:36:13Etienne FontanIt's an environmental nightmare, biohazards, and due to the inability and due to its complexity, there's no way to recycle them. If anything, go against it. Don't allow 480 to ever get a foothold. It's a real problem. Even though there is better technology available nowadays, it's just been really sad to see. I get customers who come back to me with buckets. Hi, what do I do with these?

3:36:46Etienne FontanI don't know. You bought them, you know, and that's best I can do. There's no companies that currently will receive them or take them back. And there's no recycling company in the United States that will touch anything having to do with cannabis right now. So it's rather fascinating. So I just wanted to make y'all aware. I know you're kind of aware of it, maybe aware of it, but, you know, just fascinating.

3:37:09Etienne FontanThink of the environment. Canadians have always been forward thinking. We will trash everything and then ask what happened, right? So, you know, learn from our mistake here. And that's just a major caution that I would say.

3:37:24JodyVery helpful insights. And when you mentioned the packaging, you know, I knew this guy, Jeff. He had been involved in the packaging industry and there were some companies putting out bags that said compostable. And he said to me, now listen, these companies are paying extra money to have their do good, feel good compostable bags. And he said, but they're not compostable actually. You put them in a compost, they don't really break down properly.

3:37:53JodyYou end up just with all these other particles in compost that shouldn't be there. I mean, he knew a lot more scientifically about it and how it worked, but he was saying the packaging industry is just a whole different ball of wax. And, you know, we've got some changes recently here in Canada with respect to some clear packaging. A lot of the complaints where you can't see the product, so you just buy a bag and hope it looks good when you open it.

3:38:17JodySo they've introduced after some lobbying that you can have a peel away window and look inside or you can have a wholly clear bag. Of course, people say, well, doesn't that cause UV degradation of the plant matter? Like if you have clear packaging. So yeah, it's there's dilemmas all around. I mean, I often wonder to myself if Ziploc baggies have, as a corporation, noticed their money going down because we all just used to use those sandwich bags forever.

3:38:46BubblemanMassive decline in sales.

3:38:49Etienne FontanSeriously, I wondered. That would be a fascinating study to see the decline in Ziploc as, you know, from Prop 215 into Canada's legalization, right, to see what has happened as well as how How much I think would be surprised was sustained because we know the market and the traditional market didn't go away, but at the same time, it had to be a significant decline, right?

3:39:12Dr Mark ScialdoneWell, the same people who make plastic baggies also make parchment paper, so. Yeah, no doubt. And turkey bags too.

3:39:21BubblemanI would also say that the cannabis packaging is terrible. The fact that you can't recycle a lot of this stuff is beyond terrible, but just try to keep this in mind and this is not going to make anyone feel better. Only about, I bet you it's less than 15% of recyclables get recycled. And this has been proven time and time and time and time and time again.

3:39:43BubblemanSo all the stuff you do think is recyclable, it's very much like that compost bag, Jodi. It's just going to the Philippines and being burned in massive incinerators or it's ending up falling off of a boat in the ocean. And there was a Canadian guy who literally put trackers on his like, you know, 2000 pound. He had he had like a truckload of waste that he had plastic garbage recyclables.

3:40:08BubblemanSorry. And he He sent it to a company to recycle and they drove it into their yard and took it off of his truck and then they put it on another truck and he watched it get driven out of his yard, put on a boat and shipped to the Philippines where he found it at a giant massive incineration company where he went down, flew down, had his cameraman and like ripped open the garbage and showed all the Canadian branded recyclables, sorry, not garbage.

3:40:36BubblemanSo this is another sort of problem that we have in the sense that how much stuff that we make is being reused and recycled because I think it's probably a much smaller number. I think sometimes it's dangerous to think you have something. It's like, oh, we have recycling programs. It's like, yeah, but like, are they accountable or is anyone like, because obviously, you know, If it becomes completely non-economically viable, then it ends up on a boat to the Philippines to be burned.

3:41:08Archive SeedsThink how much diesel you got to spend to ship that trash over here, right? It's like it doesn't even make sense. The only reason it makes sense is because they're taking taxpayer money and spending it on your recycling to do it, right? It's just... Money laundering scheme, basically.

3:41:25BubblemanWell, then they can't burn plastic in Canada.

3:41:27Archive SeedsSay that we're going to recycle this shit for $10,000 a ton. And then when they can't recycle it economically in Canada, it's still the amount of money they're getting from the government is still greater than the diesel bill, the shipping bill. And then they go burn it in Indonesia.

3:41:44JodyIt's a cultural revolution we need. And, you know, I see people returning to canning their tomatoes and stuff. And yeah, maybe one day we'll all show up with our hemp bags with our little glass jars inside and we fill up with the weed and no waste at all. But obviously these are much larger challenges. But

3:42:03Archive SeedsIf you have no overproduction, right, then the weed won't sit ever. And then literally you just drop it off at the store and it sells immediately, just like the shop used to crack, right, ATN?

3:42:16JodyRight. Fresh moving on that rotation. Absolutely. And again, I'll go back to my dreaming and hoping phase of, you know what? Again, cannabis, it breaks down barriers. It helps people think outside the box. And so I think one of the positive things we might see is people coming up with more ideas and solving these problems and doing it from a whole new angle that's never been thought of.

3:42:39JodyI mean, maybe that potential exists because Some guy who works in packaging might smoke weed and after a couple years he'll come up with some genius idea that none of us can comprehend right now. Maybe that's possible.

3:42:51Etienne FontanYou need cannabis delis, you know what I'm saying? So you need the harvest coming right out from the back, right out for everybody to see. It's got to turn out fresh. We fuck it up when we package it. And why? Because then it sits somewhere, right? And why does that matter? Oh, because of the oxygen and anaerobic decomposition, right? Because even as you said, Jodi, just even the adding of the film or having a way to look through a clear container.

3:43:19Etienne FontanOh, yep. Three points of, you know, of sin of cannabis is light heat and oxygen, right? So, you know, it's fine while it's fresh. And I think that's one of the things we had the success early on and until it became legal here in California is because we had small batch, fresh, high terpene, rich cannabis that didn't sit on a shelf. It didn't, it didn't wait around because Farmers made small batches because that's what they could afford to do.

3:43:53Etienne FontanAnd they wouldn't last more than two weeks once they hit the floor tops. Some wouldn't last a weekend because you know it when somebody knows a certain strain, right? And then they're like, not fucking around and missing that one. Thank you for joining us.

3:44:29Etienne FontanPeople know good weed and people who smoke, friends who have good weed, they all want to smoke good weed together. So they would literally all come and buy it together. And that culture is gone, right? That culture has been vultured successfully. And I think packaging and storing and all that has a significant play in fucking up the whole program.

3:44:51JodyBoveda packs, humidity packs, that's got to have an impact on the product. I mean, no, no.

3:44:58Etienne FontanTerpenes and dieterpenes and all that out of, I see it more with Boveda packs than some of the others, you know, but they do have a play. Go ahead, Fletch.

3:45:09Archive SeedsYeah, no, it's they ruin your weed. Yeah. I mean, it's like with it's like weeds like milk. It has to be like you can't not be refrigerated. It's like you can't you can't have all these processes where it's all done improperly. And then I mean, like, here's how you convince the government to want that type of market back. Right. Is you remember how I was saying how the market went from two billion to eight hundred million and then that reduces all of it?

3:45:37Archive SeedsWell, so did the tax revenue get demolished by that same thing, right? So the consumer consumes about the same amount, right? But the price is way lower. So at the end of the day, big farms employ less people per pound grown. Right. Lots of small farms. You got way more people employed. You got an accountant, a person doing packaging, a grower and everybody, a trimmer at every little grow like it used to be.

3:46:06Archive SeedsSo now you have more tax revenue from employees, from wages. So by allowing these monster farms that their only goal is to reduce the amount of people per acre grown, essentially, And by doing that, they're reducing the price that the consumer pays to a point that it's not profitable for any craft farmers to stay in business. And the tax revenues are basically demolished. And that's why all these states keep trying to increase their taxes.

3:46:39Archive SeedsLike I just saw Michigan is trying to Increase the taxes like 14% on retail or on wholesale, some transaction. And it's like, yeah, because even though... Like Michigan is like one of the best markets in the country. It's still less revenue than they were hoping for, right? They look at how many pounds are being sold and they look at the price per pound and then think about the social impact of cheap weed, right?

3:47:10Archive SeedsLike even if they're like, let's just not, let's not be naive here and say there's no social impact to excess cannabis use to young people and diversion to 12 year olds and whatever else, right? when you can get black market pounds that are backdoored from mega grows for 200 bucks 300 bucks that ends up everywhere you know so it's like the social impact of cheap weed and overproduction and that product getting outside the system is worse too so it's like the the government allowing The big corporations to demolish the diversity in the cultivation marketplace and the profit is the worst thing for the government because now they have more expenses with dealing with the social impact and less tax revenue to deal with it.

3:48:01Archive SeedsSo it's just like it's completely pointless to like allow these mega farms to stay in business essentially.

3:48:11JodyYeah, and we had a lot of issues here with the large farms were bringing in temporary foreign workers and taking advantage of people who wouldn't complain about issues if they came up and kind of exploiting it. And you'd think, you know, this here in Canada, I think this is a Canadian grown product for Canadians by Canadians and yet having to ship overseas or having to hire temporary foreign workers.

3:48:32JodyAnd as you mentioned, if the government is so interested in tax money, why not allow more people to work? And, and pay income tax and earn a living and contribute and to be able to have money to go to a restaurant and spend it at the theater and take their kids out to, you know, that's also a small businesses that are profitable that that's what you'll end up with.

3:48:53JodyRight. Exactly. And that was the beauty of the original industry. As you noted, it was all smaller scale. And there was a fantastic documentary, very tragic, about California. And I can't remember for the life of me, but it was focused on the legalization and the way that the Green Triangle, all the families and people affected by legalization, the way whole communities were wiped out because Thank you so much for joining us.

3:49:24JodyI think it was a long, I think it was older perhaps, even older.

3:49:28Dr Mark ScialdoneOkay.

3:49:29JodyFocused, but it did honestly highlight the criminal exploitation element too. It was showing that there were bad people taking advantage of prohibition to make money, but it was also showing the families and people with kids and they're like, this is how we pay for their clothing and everybody here works in this industry and now We're all being eliminated and it's just so tragic because we saw that here in Canada too.

3:49:53JodyThe number of wonderful growers and people who simply could not keep doing it and can't meet the costs of the licensing and taxes. And that's a trickle down negative benefit. It's not a benefit. It's a negative that they can't make the money that we all used to make. And another thing is our cannabis industry gave so much money to charity. When there was a lot of money, there was a lot of giving back.

3:50:18JodyThank you. Thank you. Thank you.

3:50:46JodyThank you so much for joining us.

3:51:10JodyThank you so much for joining us.

3:51:32JodyIt has so much to offer and yet they don't want to admit the benefits of it. So as long as the government continues to ignore how much this plant has to offer, we don't get to enjoy the full benefits. But we're like a weed. We grow through concrete. Prohibition didn't stop us. Legalization won't stop us either. And again, the only sure way to fail is to quit.

3:51:54JodyAnd I'm not a quitter. So I'm not gonna. Yeah.

3:52:01BubblemanNever quit. I could never picture you quitting. I don't think you would allow yourself to quit.

3:52:09JodyYeah, I couldn't for a while there. A couple of years ago, I'm like, yeah, it is legal. We did achieve that. Yeah, I guess that's done. What now? And I play with all sorts of other ideas. Maybe I could run a campground or do cooking classes. I don't know what. But then At the end of the day, again, seeing all these legal businesses meeting the new pioneers, hearing about their challenges and seeing how much passion they have and energy that they want to make things better and they just don't know how because they're just trying to stay in business.

3:52:41JodyAnd it's like, okay, this is an opportunity. I can be your megaphone and I can shine a light on you. And let's hopefully, you know, let everybody know Thank you so much for joining us today.

3:53:17JodyThat's right.

3:53:18BubblemanJ-O-D-I-E. And then faircannabis.com as well or .ca? .ca.

3:53:24JodyYeah, .ca for now. And then when we have our U.S. partners as we branch out, .com and all that, absolutely. That's part of the vision.

3:53:32BubblemanOkay, awesome.

3:53:34JodyWe don't want to just export bad laws. We need to export good ideas too.

3:53:40BubblemanI like that. That's well said. I want to thank Marbleslinger for coming on earlier. That was a total trip. Like, really, I quite enjoyed that, those two hours of story time with him. Haven't spoken with him a ton in the last, you know, I bumped into him in Barcelona and maybe a few other times, but we don't phone each other and text on the daily. I think I'm going to...

3:54:04BubblemanChange that and start hitting them up a lot more often because it was just really good to see him. He was exactly who I remembered, hadn't changed a bit, but yet had changed completely in his maturity and in his growth and in his art, artistic, you know, visions that he puts out to the world. He's always doing something cool. So that was really cool. I want to thank Jody as well for coming on.

3:54:29BubblemanAlways a pleasure to listen to you speak. And I've always aligned myself with many of the things that you have aligned yourself with. So I'm always happy to show you support in anything and all things that you do, as is the panel here on Hash Church. I want to thank... Thank the panel for showing up today. Archive and ATN, Dr. Mark, Colin. They knew it was going to be a quiet day because I told them I wanted to really let the, you know, Slinger and Jody speak.

3:55:00BubblemanBut I appreciate you guys showing up and being a part of the conversation always. And of course, the audience, you know, the 300 plus people that watched for the last four hours really appreciate you guys. And yeah. Yeah, the Press Club for sponsoring, Puffco for sponsoring, Bubble Bags for sponsoring. Really appreciate everything that you guys have done in regards to inspiring the culture. And that's really what it's about, just sharing a little spark, a little flame of inspiration.

3:55:32BubblemanYou can do it. I can do it. We can do it. We will see you next week, next Sunday. It'll be our 40th Hash Church in a row for the year. We've got about 12 or 13 more. Thank you so much for joining us today.