100th Episode – Can Legal Weed Win? Joined by Economists Robin Goldstein and Daniel Sumner.

Ry Russell with Economists Daniel Sumner and Robin Goldstein, Authors of Can Legal Weed Win?

Find Can Legal Weed Win?

Welcome to our 100th episode of WeedBudz Radio!  I am your host, Ry Russell and I invite you to join this compelling discussion today of the economics of owning a business in the cannabis industry.  There are many factors that can hinder growth and success in this competitive market so we ask the question – can legal weed win?  

To answer that very question, we have the authors of the book “Can Legal Weed Win?  The Blunt Reality of Cannabis Economics”, Robin Goldstein and Daniel Sumner.  

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Robin Goldstein is an economist and author of The Wine Trials, the controversial exposé of wine snobbery that became the world’s best-selling guide to cheap wine. He is Director of the Cannabis Economics Group in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of California, Davis. He has an AB from Harvard University, a JD from Yale Law School, and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Bordeaux.

Daniel Sumner is Frank H. Buck, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of California, Davis. He grew up on a California fruit farm, served on the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, and was Assistant Secretary of Economics at the US Department of Agriculture before joining the UC Davis faculty. He has a BS from Cal Poly and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago.

 


Host: Ry Russell
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Transcript from this Episode:

Hello, buds.

Welcome back to another episode of WeedBudz Radio.

I’m your host, Ry, and as most of you

know, I opened a cannabis dispensary in northern Maine.

And as exciting and amazing and fun and

challenging as that is, you really need to

look at the economics of getting into the

cannabis industry and the economies of your business.

And that’s something that we’re going back

and forth with all of the time.

And as most of you have heard throughout my

grumblings that taxes are one of the things that

really hinder us as a business from being able

to scale, being able to employ more people.

And it’s a constant challenge of, is this worth it?

Are we crazy?

Some might say maybe a little bit of both.

But it’s always time to go to the experts.

Why hypothesize and sit here and fester

on things that I know nothing about?

It makes more sense for me to talk to individuals that

wrote the book on whether or not legal weed can win.

And so joining us today, we have

the incredible authors of Can Legal Weed Win? The

Blunt Realities of Cannabis Economics.

And so I’m really excited to have

both Robin and Daniel join us.

Thank you so much for joining us today.

Thank you very much.

So you two gentlemen obviously have an extensive

knowledge not just about cannabis economics and cannabis

business, but about economics in general.

I know that’s a topic that you both have

studied and teach upon and share your knowledge upon.

So I guess my very first question

to you gentlemen is, am I crazy?

Am I bonkers for getting into the

cannabis industry the way that I have?

Well, let me say something to begin with, and

that is, you know your local market, you know

your local competition, and Robin and I may give

you some background, but the most important thing is

what’s going on right where you are.

And we could say, boy, it’s really

tough, and here’s some examples where it

seems to be working more than others.

But you’ll know your local situation, if you’ve

got 13 other guys that are undercutting you

on price, we could say, gee, the market’ s

booming, and you could say, I’m getting screwed.

You see what I’m saying?

So we can have some insights about the

bigger picture, but, you know your local stuff.

Speaking of the bigger picture, would you consider

legal weed to be winning right now?

Would you say that it’s failing?

What is your perspective on how weed

is measuring up from an economic standpoint?

Well, we don’t think it’s winning

right now, that’s for sure.

It’s, of course, a different situation in every state, and

some states are doing a lot better than others.

So one of the things we do in the book

is we compare states that have been doing comparatively well

with ones that haven’t and look for some of the

reasons why, and we say, well, we mean the state.

It’s a viable legal market.

Legal weed is able to beat illegal weed.

That’s sort of a success for legal weed.

And it’s been really hard in states

like California, where we come from, for

legal weed to compete with illegal weed.

And the biggest reason is price.

Illegal weed is much cheaper to produce and sell

because they don’t have to pay all the taxes

and go through the regulations and follow all the

rules, including a lot of rules that you have

to follow in any legal business.

Not just weed, but a lot of specialized cannabis rules

that only cannabis companies have to follow has made it

more costly and more difficult for them to compete with

the illegal guys that have been around for a while.

So the states that have done best are the

ones where they’ve been able to bring prices down

and be more competitive, where legal weeds able to

be more competitive with the illegal stuff.

And there are neighborhoods where, for

one reason other, your customers don’t

really care about price that much.

Not very many, but some.

And you’re in some town where everybody really

wants to be legal in every way.

Even though they could have weed, it’s

legal for them to have it.

They want to deal with

local legal businesses, that’s great.

But not everywhere is like that.

So if I was thinking about the distribution,

it goes from really struggling to hanging on.

And the, boy, I’m just printing money here, at least as

far as there are people that have made those claims.

There may be a consultant that’s doing very well and

a lawyer who’s doing very well, but it’s tougher to

find somebody who’s actually in the cultivation business.

And it’s also easy for people in business.

And I do a lot of food economics.

And you talk to a farmer and he says,

oh yeah, that guy who’s just one step up

the chain from me, he’s making all the money.

And then you talk to the guy in the

marketing, the distribution business, the middleman, and he says,

yeah, the retailers make money, the farmers make money.

God, I can’t make a go of it.

And then you get to the retailer and he says, the

prices are so high, those guys are charging me so much.

Plus I have my rent and the labor, and who

knows where you can get a worker these days?

You see what I’m saying?

And I really do think it

goes from struggling to hang on.

But the big thing about weed is

that the illegal market is there everywhere.

The competition from the illegal guy is always there.

And that’s the point Robin was making.

That’s the challenge about price.

We’re talking about legal markets and illegal

markets and legal pricing and illegal pricing.

And I think something that is confusing

and misleading is the term legalization.

And when I think of my operations here in

the beautiful state of Maine, it’s a legal operation.

And I struggle to see where

federal legalization will make things better.

Everybody, I think touts that federal legalization

is going to make everything exponentially better.

But the feds are making a lot of money off of

me right now, and they do control some of the kind

of merchant services, if you will, systems of all of this.

And so it’s hard for me to see,

well, what’s the federal incentive to legalization?

So can you help demystify what legalization is?

But why ultimately, does the term

legalization become so misleading to people?

This is music to our ears, because that’s one

of our themes, and I’ll let Robin elaborate.

One of the first things we do in

the book is say this word legalization.

We’re using it, but it can be really misleading.

Yeah, and it can just mean a lot of different things.

For example, when a state passes a ballot question or

a bill that says weed is legalized, it can take

years between getting from that point to getting to the

point where you actually have stores open, because states take

years sometimes to drop regulations and so forth.

Vermont, 4 and a half years after they

passed a law legalizing recreational weed, they still

don’t have a single recreational store open.

Oklahoma, on the other hand, managed to do that in a day

with what Vermont took 4 and a half years to do.

But that was medical legalization.

So you have medical and then that’s basically a

market that’s limited to state residents with doctors permissions

and that’s sort of a lot more states are

set up that way than the recreational.

But when we talk about recreational legalization, Dan and

I, from an economic point of view, of course

you care whether the stores are open and they’re

doing business and there’s a market.

So we consider full recreational legalization to only start at

the moment when stores are actually open and you can

walk into a store and buy weed legally.

And there’s about 14 states that are

now at that stage with recreational.

I’m curious, in Maine, we’ve been looking at a

lot of data on prices and also on

the number of dispensaries in each or retailers

in each state and the density of retail.

One thing we noticed about Maine is that you guys

have a lot of stores for your population, and you

also have the prices on the lower side of

the spectrum of what we’ve been looking at.

So I’m curious, why do you think that is?

What’s the market like in Maine?

I take responsibility for the lower prices.

No, but our store does take a lot of pride in that.

For example, Budz Emporium, specifically, we have a

guarantee that we are the cheapest recreational store

in the state of Maine, and sometimes that

means selling our vendored wholesale products for less

than that vendor’s own retail establishments.

And we’ve kind of made that guarantee

because we know that price is the

primary driver of consumer behavior right now.

And within that, there’s different parameters around

selection, but it really is price.

We were the first store to offer

a $99 ounce in the rec market.

That was lower than many ounces in the medical market.

And frankly, it can be cheaper than

what you get from Bob next door.

And that really boomed our business.

And that was something that took a lot

of work, a lot of creativity, a lot

of partnerships from many different sides.

But that single handedly took the average cost of an ounce

in our store from about $200 down to about $125.

That’s a significant jump in 30 days.

And you are seeing a jump like that in the

state of Maine where, for example, when we open the

store, I think the average price per gram to the

consumer was right around $15, $14 and some odd cents.

And if I’m not mistaken, the latest reports are showing

about, $10.50, $10.75 I think, per gram right now to the consumer.

And we’re below that here at my store in particular.

But we built our business off value.

I used to operate a drive in movie theater, and

the only way that I saved that was creating the

value of kind of reducing that barrier of the ticket

price and increasing the value on food.

Everybody brought in sandwiches.

Nobody was buying food at the drive in.

And we kind of changed that model around where

you wanted the food at the drive in.

It was good and it was good value.

And so I try to take those principles

and bring them over here to my operation.

But it is in the state of Maine, you

have 3,500 to 4,000 medical shops which are untested,

and then you have about 100 or so retailers

in the adult use market right now.

And that’s definitely going to grow.

But there’s a lot more hurdles

in the adult use recreational market.

The med market is a piece of paper front and back,

and you can open a store within probably 72 hours.

The adult use side is a grind and a grueling

process that I think will get easier over time.

But the barrier to that’s very low

as well at $2,500 per license.

So I think if not the lowest in the country, one

of and so the barriers to entry are very low.

And that’s where I think branding comes into play

and value and all of that here in Maine.

But the economies here are very different.

And when we see tourists from Pennsylvania, New

York, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, they cannot even believe

what the price per pre-roll or per 8th

is here in the state of Maine.

And they want it.

The thing that in my opinion, and you two are

economists, but I think even having a market like Maine

is going to drive the prices lower in Massachusetts and

Vermont and kind of trickle down because those tourists are

going to start demanding it from their retailers, which, to

your point, Daniel, that works backwards.

The retailers will then put that pressure on

the middle man, the middle man backwards.

So it is a very unique segment of the industry.

We are in Maine.

Are you allowed to deliver Ry or is

it strictly storefront because that limits your scale.

Of course.

It does very much, though.

And currently the adult use market

is not allowed to offer delivery.

That should be coming online hopefully

August, September, October of 2022.

And when that does, I think

that’ll help retailers out a lot.

However, that doesn’t come without its own challenges

and own infrastructure and all of that.

And I’m lucky.

I’m in the north Maine woods.

I’m the only adult use store really for an hour

south and probably an hour and a half north.

And so I’ve got a nice piece of territory where

you go to Portland, you’ve got 70 stores stacked on

each other, loyalty is zero, and it’s very price conscious.

Yeah.

Connecting back to the point you asked, the question

you asked earlier about federal legalization, I think you’re

really smart to care a lot about price.

And Maine is going to do comparatively well compared to

some other states around Maine when federal legalization comes in,

because you’re going to all of a sudden be competing

with stuff from all over the place.

Now, you’re also going to face competition from Wyoming

or Montana or Oklahoma, places that might be able

to make it even cheaper because they have lower

costs of land and labor and things like that.

But the thing that I think people we say a

lot in the book, the thing that people miss about

legalization, they think it’s just going to help everyone.

And actually competition will help

some people and hurt others.

You’re ahead of the game by caring about price,

by thinking about price, by figuring out how you

can price not just competitively, but at the bottom

of the price spectrum in your area.

And that’s the skill set and the advantages that

will be needed in the future with competition.

As a retailer, what we say about

federal legalization is first, do no harm.

In fact, my motto has been let cannabis be kale.

We don’t need a bunch of regulations from the Feds.

The states have been handling that pretty

well, and local governments and everybody else.

And in fact, this idea of federalism,

this idea that different states do things

differently, okay, that’s the way it goes.

But the last thing we need is to layer on a

set of federal taxes and federal regulations on top of that.

And what Robin is talking about is the

beauty you go back to the U.S. Constitution.

The beauty of the U.S. Constitution is

it made a free trade agreement.

So let’s just accept that.

So imagine the federal government did

one thing and one thing only.

It just took cannabis off this schedule

of prohibited substances or illegal substances.

The list of severe drugs, all you

did was cross that one line out.

Taxes would change, banking rules would change.

All of those things are just tied to

the fact that the raw material that you

buy is on this list of illegal stuff.

Therefore, you don’t get to deduct it

from your taxes as a retailer.

And the federally registered banks don’t want to deal

with you or they find it awkward because you’re

dealing with a substance that’s on that list.

Now, there may be some other places where somebody

has to cross something out, but what we’ve seen

about the federal regulations, no matter who they’re sponsored

by, even the one that was released yesterday or

today, it goes on for pages.

And Robin and I say, how about a postcard?

You don’t really have to do a lot here, and

maybe later you want to say, okay, we’re going to

add cannabis cultivation to some USDA program or something.

But as long as you don’t prohibit

it, it’s there for lots of things.

And so that’s what we’d say for you, and

particularly you, Ry, and I would say your customers

and the customers in Maine that want to take

advantage of access to Washington state or maybe eastern

Massachusetts, where they have some particular cultivars of ours

that are tasty or somebody likes, fine.

But it doesn’t tie you when you go buy a banana, you’re

not stuck to buying a banana that was grown in Maine.

And when you grow an avocado, yeah, same thing.

You buy that avocado, it can be grown in Mexico.

It could be grown down the

street from here in California.

Same with strawberries, et cetera, et cetera.

You go buy strawberries in January, you don’t

say, God, it’s coming from some guy with

a hot house under glass doing all kinds

of electricity to grow a damn strawberry.

Whereas in cannabis, it has to be.

And so this free trade, particularly in the raw material, I

think is a boon for your kind of business, and it

may not be a boon for the cultivators of Maine that

you could see some growers saying, wait a second, I don’t

want to have to compete with Colorado.

That makes a lot of sense.

That sounds so hopeful.

So I want to go back there for a second.

But first you said something about legalization, and then

the feds will put taxes on top of that.

But my argument is, where are they

going to put taxes on top of? What?

What could they possibly put taxes on top of?

Because we’ve got our sales tax, and then we pay our

income tax monthly or quarterly, and they’re getting a nice chunk

of change on that, upwards of past 30% of our revenue,

and there’s nothing we can do about it.

Now, there’s a lot of if you’ve got big money,

you can put a holdings company in between it and

a property management company in between it and stack and

layer and all kinds of other things, but just straight

up, pound for pound, what would it look like if

there was true federal legalization?

Well, here’s the problem.

Over the years, I lived in North Carolina for

a while, and I studied tobacco economics, and I

moved to California and started studying wine economics.

And so I can tell you there’s

a federal excise tax on wine.

So if you go to your local grocery store and buy

a box or buy a bottle, it’s got a bunch of

federal taxes later right into it, right off the bat.

Excise tax.

Same with a pack of cigarettes.

Lots of federal taxes, then state taxes, then if you’re

in a city that puts local taxes on top.

So just because there’s state and local taxes

and regulations doesn’t mean the feds can’t put

some more taxes on the product itself.

We know they tax your business, your income

taxes, and other things on your business.

But this is product taxes.

Our argument is it’s not needed.

We got plenty of taxes already.

And particularly, and this is really crucial

for everybody to understand the health of

the industry because we’ve got this illegal

business that is running parallel now.

Maybe not in Maine, maybe nobody

grows illegal cannabis in Maine, right?

Yeah, I wish.

The feds aren’t going to tax illegal cannabis anymore

than they do now, and they’re not going to

stop it any more than they do now.

And at least in most jurisdictions when you legalize

it, the agency that’s in charge of monitoring legal

cannabis in Colorado, the Colorado agency that does that,

they don’t go after illegal cannabis.

They don’t even know how because they have a long

list of growers and retailers and wholesalers and testing firms,

and they say, here’s a bunch of regulations you have

to follow, and it’s their job to make sure that

the legal industry follows the law, okay?

That’s their job.

There’s this whole illegal industry that’s doing its

thing undercutting your prices and everybody else’s.

And that’s the big challenge

that Robin was emphasizing.

Robin, I just told him that he was giving me a glimpse

of hope and then right there all the way, oh no, you

signed up to be on their radar and on their list.

So I guess I have a question for

both of you gentlemen before we end today.

Where’s the hope?

I think there’s plenty of hope because people over time

see what works and doesn’t and learn from successes and

failures of others. I think we think that the most

hope is when people are willing to look at other

states and see what’s worked and what hasn’t.

Be brutally honest about what’s failed.

One of the mistakes regulators have made, as you see

more and more states opening up, and it’s like the

default is they just go copy the regulations.

They’re writing off the regulations, they just copy the

system from California or from Colorado, and you’re like,

well, why would you copy some regulations?

Why would you copy a system of a state that

where legal weed is not doing comparatively well against illegal?

But if they looked at what’s going on in Oklahoma

with the medical system there, they’re not at recreational yet,

and they see how much that industry is thriving and

they’ll be probably competitive in an interstate market, then you

want to set up more like that.

So we’re hopeful in the sense that over time, maybe

it will take a century or maybe 10 years, but

I think over time, people learn from their mistakes.

He’s the optimist, the real wild card, the real

question mark is what you’ve been getting out, which

is what form federal legalization will take.

Legal weed could, as Dan said, if

it’s just descheduled, that could really help

legally win in a lot of places.

If they add another layer of

taxation, then it’s anyone’s guess.

It could be a step backward

before we’re able to step forward.

Where your case is interesting a lot

of places, California is one of them.

Washington State is another.

There are several where when adult

use was introduced, medical died because

they had essentially the same rules.

Most people in California got both licenses

when they were both available same.

It wasn’t easy.

Neither license was easy.

They got both licenses, and then the customer

said, well, unless they were under the age

of 21 or had some, there was no

particular reason to get a medical card anymore.

Whereas what I found fascinating about what you said

was that if I declare and you always said

medical in quotes, you always said that.

And it’s interesting that I look at you as a retailer

and said, well, why don’t you go to the medical route?

You could access a lot of customers.

You could have stores side by

side, one medical, one adult use.

But in most places, there was just no reason for

medical once you had adult use up and running.

And it’s fascinating.

So there’s a case where Maine did something

quite different than the rest of the country.

We like to strive to say that we’ve seen

the future and we’re trying to reverse engineer it.

And it’s looking at state by state that has

come before us and trying to learn from their

mistakes, trying to innovate on where they left off.

And I think as long as we stay creative

and innovative and ultimately focused on the customer’s value

first, I’ve yet to see a business model truly

fail where the customer was ultimately the happiest.

And that’s something that we just

kind of strive for here.

And I think that’s ultimately how the industry wins.

Being an industry, that’s not just cool, but

it really, truly is part of the community.

And that’s easy for me to say in my tri

town area of 10,000 individuals, but also because of that,

it’s much easier for that community to know how hard

we work to live up to that.

It’s much harder at scale to show

the customer that same level of love.

And that’s really what we’re trying to

dial in before we replicate, is how

do we replicate true community value?

Because that’s what we did at

the drive in, and it succeeded.

And I think that is ultimately not only

the way cannabis will succeed, but in my

mind, that’s the way it should.

I think the people of the cannabis industry, hopefully

most of them, feel the same way that we’re

sharing love with the world when we put this

in a safe, legal fashion and bringing it.

And I think often that’s why the accidental air

quotes come out when I refer to medical.

It’s because they should be the ones

putting in the level of care.

The level of continuing education.

And the level of seriousness that we

emphasize with our teams because they’re medical.

They should hold themselves accountable.

And they should ultimately be testing their own product

if there’s no legal reason to do so.

We very much we were licensed to answer your

question, Daniel, why didn’t we were licensed as medical?

And when I learned that medical was not required

to test, we bowed out and decided that that

was not the values we stood for, ultimately not

where we wanted to be in the marketplace.

We felt that, yes, we’re entrepreneurs and

not necessarily looking for a boss, but

we are looking to be held accountable.

And testing doesn’t just hold us accountable, it

holds the cultivators and the processors accountable.

And ultimately, I think that just

makes a safer product for everybody.

So that’s ultimately why we decided

to do the recreational side.

That’s interesting.

Testing is an important one.

It’s one of the things that differentiates if you

ask what differentiates the legal from the illegal product

and experience, and you talk about both and the

testing is like the main substantive difference.

No one can necessarily from smoking weed, from

smoking in particular, where you can’t necessarily know

whether the person who grew it or packaged

it had a state license or not.

But the certification of testing

means something to some people.

Some people aren’t willing to pay more for it, but

some are, and it matters to a lot of people.

And so that’s one differentiator.

But I think you bring up a really important point

about the customer experience and the service element of it.

Most illegal weed is delivery.

And there’s something special about

this in-person’s storefront experience.

And I think some of the early storefronts that

would open, having to follow so many rules kind

of came off as kind of cold.

It was like an Apple Store pharmacy kind of thing.

And you didn’t really have it wasn’t like

such a nice experience that you’d pay a

little extra to have that experience.

But certainly that’s low hanging fruit for people that’s

a big part of the experience is buying it

and getting guidance on what to choose.

And this is a new industry where a lot of

people, especially people who are just starting to explore it

and haven’t been like long time consumers of weed in

the past, they just don’t know anything about what to

buy or what’s the differences between products.

And I think you’re delivering a

lot of value by doing that.

And I think that’s important for people around the country

to keep in mind as they figure out how to

navigate the legalization and compete successfully with illegal.

Thank you.

I really appreciate that.

We definitely strive to do our best.

It’s a humble family shop up here in the north

Maine woods and we’re loving every minute of it.

And honestly, I just want to thank you both so much for

taking the time to riff with me today on all of this.

It’s just overwhelming sometimes when you’re up here and you’re

in your own head and you’re looking at the future

and you’re looking at the past to predict.

And it’s nice to have minds that do that on

a daily basis, help kind of deweed that for us.

So thank you so much.

And gentlemen, how does our buds

at home find your book?

Amazon. Can Legal Weed Win? The

Blunt Realities of Cannabis Economics. Amazing.

Well, thank you both.

Tell your local library too.

Tell your local bookshop, et cetera.

We’re going to have to get a couple of copies

for our library here in Millinocket, so it’ll be fun.

And I think the community is always looking

for more ways to educate themselves on cannabis.

And I think one of the things I love most

about this is the community is part of this rally.

They are a part of the success of

the store and they feel that way.

They’re always looking for products.

So awesome.

And obviously, we are always grateful for all

of you that are tuned in and continue

to tune into WeedBudz year after year.

It has been incredible to

produce these shows for you.

So be sure to head over to

Weedbudzradio.com and check out those show notes.

We’ll have a link for you so

you can go purchase the book directly.

Take you easily right there.

And of course, we’ll see you in the next show.

Ask Us Anything!

From Brews to Budz with Chirag and Kevin of St. Johns Brewers and Cool Out Delta8

Chirag Vyas and Kevin Chipman partnered to create the brewery, St. Johns Brewers. These beverage industry experts have decided to take their talents into the world of Cannabis. They are introducing a line of Delta 8 or D8 seltzers. D8 is a compound derived from the hemp plant and therefore falls under hemp regulations versus cannabis or marijuana depending on the state that you’re in. The creative minds behind DrinkCoolOut.com join us today to educate us on what exactly Delta 8 is and to share the origin story behind their brand.


Chirag Vyas and Kevin Chipman
https://drinkcoolout.com/

Ry Russell
BUDZ EMPORIUM
WeedBudz RadioSupport the show

Transcript from the Episode:

Hey friends.

Welcome back to another episode of Weed Budz Radio and

I’m your host Ry

And today joining me is some

new buds that I’m excited to share with all of

you that are working on some incredible projects and have

already worked on some amazing projects, so you’re going to

love the conversation that we have today.

And today joining us we have Chirag and Kevin from St.

John Brewers and gentlemen, thank

you so much for joining.

Hi, good afternoon. Good to meet you.

Good to be with you.

Yes, thanks for having us. Absolutely.

So first I want to hear where you’re

located and how you two got connected. Chirag

do you want to take this one first this time? Sure.

Yeah.

Jim and I have been friends since college.

We went to school up in the

University of Vermont back in the 90s.

So we were friends from freshman year.

We became roommates with a bunch of other guys in

the dorm and then we just drank good beer from

Vermont at that time and kept in touch after college.

So we both graduated from University of

Vermont and then went out separate ways.

I worked as a scientist for NASA and the space

program out in California for a couple of years and

Kevin was a physical therapist major and he went down

to Boston and worked in the hospital there as well.

So we were both kind of on our career

paths in the early 2000s and kind

of decided that we want to change in life.

Kevin went down to the state to visit a friend

of ours that we knew from college down in the

Virgin Islands and checked it out and he came back

and I said I was interested in moving the Caribbean

and we just thought we’d take a year off and

go down to the Caribbean for a year and then

we’ll get back into career jobs in the future.

We kind of took a leap on life at early

20s and went down to the Caribbean with no

plans, no plan to brew or anything, just to check

it out, bartender, have a good time and then maybe

come back or travel a little more.

So it’s kind of how we got started

and it’s a beautiful place down here.

We fell in love sight on scene and yeah, it was great.

We got some jobs originally just bussing and then

hosting at some restaurants, moved up to bartending.

Everything was great.

But we did realize that we missed beer that we

were drinking up in the States down here it was

just all the light lagers, Caribbean lagers, mainstream domestic beers

that were here and we really wanted some different colored

flavored beers and so just ingenuity kind of struck us

and we bought homebrew kits online and it was a

bit more of a challenge back then.

We’re talking 2001, 2002 so the

internet isn’t what it is right now.

So having to go to the local library with some dial

up for 30 minutes each and do this online research.

But we got them and that was our start and our

lead into craft beer as far as the brewing aspect.

And that was how we got into beverage the very early

stages and really caught the bug as far as brewing.

The first batches I think were pretty typical of

what you experienced, that decent, not teetering on good.

But then we just wanted to really make some good beers

and so we really got into it reading everything that we

could and just really caught that craft beer buzz.

And then finally it kind of got to

the point where we were going to stay

here and start a business within beer.

We had a couple of good recipes that we had

or go back to the States and pursue our careers.

And in particular we were brewing

with mangoes that grew on St.

John and we were talking how people enjoyed

it and we’re like, yeah, let’s give this

a go with this tropical mango beer.

And that was our foray into St. John brewers and

the beer that started us off in this direction.

That sounds delicious because my favorite beers and

my favorite flower and smoke is anything a

little bit citrusy, a little bit tangy.

So that sounds absolutely incredible to me

and I can’t wait to try that.

So I’m curious, two brewmasters, if you

will, where do you go from there?

You establish this great business, what’s next?

What’s on the horizon?

Yeah, so we’ve been brewing beer, like Kevin said, since

the early 2000s, and we started a brewing

company and we brewed different styles of beer.

We also introduced the soda lines, we’ve

done root beers and ginger beer flavors.

This is all packaged products as well as

draft and sold throughout the markets and the

bars and restaurants and throughout the islands.

And so we’ve just expanded our line over the years

and recently got into a hard seltzer that we make

we think better than the ones that are out there.

It’s called Love City.

And it’s available only in the Virgin Islands.

So Celtic was sort of our foray into a

different style of beverage versus the traditional beers like

the IPAs and the brown ales and all the

unique pale ales that we could do.

So we wanted to transition to a little bit

more of the cannabis space where we could bring

cannabis to beverages and the idea of a good

craft beer and a good craft cannabis beverage.

And so the last two years we really been

working on finding great water soluble ingredients to

use in a flavored seltzer that our flavors that

we come up with and put the two together

to make a really quality product that’s entry into

the hemp space and into the cannabis space.

That is so fascinating. Kevin.

Yeah, I was just going to add that it has been great.

All the research that we did

with creating Love City our hard seltzer.

It just really did blend in

well into infusing in Delta-8.

And we have just different flavor profiles that

we have that we’re super excited about.

Our brand’s, Cool Out is our Delta-8 infused seltzer

and we’re leading with a citrus flavor same thing.

I guess we can let you know how we

do our research is that it’s one thing if

we like it, but do other people like it?

So we spend a lot of time bench topping

out our different flavors and then giving it out

to our staff at first and then going more

into our larger audience and customers.

And citrus has got a lot of great reviews and it drinks just like a fresh, clean seltzer.

Our Delta-8 ingredient is wonderful.

We really did a lot of vetting for

suppliers for our Delta-8, and it is

just one of the cleanest ones out there.

Tastes great over ice, straight out of the can.

And we went in a little

bit lighter with the Delta-8.

As far as 10 milligrams, I feel everyone either

has had that experience or knows that someone had

experience of having edibles and having too much because

of that hour wait that takes place and having

it be just too much.

So we went with 10 milligrams.

That still gets you a nice little heavy buzz.

But we also want this to be something

that you can drink more than one of.

We’re beer guys.

We want you to be able to be social with these beverages and

be able to hang out, be in the mix at a party.

Maybe alcohol is not for you and this is just

one of those really good alternatives that can help you

relax and you’re fitting in with the party.

Or if you want to replace out that glass

of wine at the end of a work day

or that beer, this is another great option.

Zero calories.

We’re not sugar guys.

We don’t like sweeteners either.

And so we’ve just developed a flavor profile that is

clean, has a lot of robust flavor to it, but

doesn’t have a lot of added features to it.

So our tagline is Cool out. Feel good.

And there’s just a lot of different aspects about

this beverage that can help you feel good.

And a lot of that is what it doesn’t have

in it, which are the sugar, carbs, all that stuff.

So as an individual, that’s often in those social environments that

you were mentioning, I do not drink alcohol, but I love

beer, and so I’ll have a craft beer maybe three or

four times a year, but really only one, because I don’t

really like the way that I feel.

And so I’ve been waiting for that beautiful

kind of craft beer that has more of

the THC components to it than alcohol.

Obviously, I know that with fermentation

you’re going to get some alcohol.

But is there a way to make a good beer with

THC in it versus what we have right now, which seems

to be a lot of juices and sodas and seltzers?

It can be done.

It’s a little more technical.

You have to de alkalize your product

because you can’t have the two together

and sort of a consumer safety perspective.

But you could brew beer, try to get a

no out or low out down there and then

add in your ingredients and then that’s been done.

Particularly in west, we’ve seen a couple of

brands do that and I think that’s part

of where we’re at with flavor.

And we’ve been at this almost 20 years where

complexity of flavor versus simplicity of flavor and not

everyone is an IPA craft beer drinker, even though

it is the most popular style of craft beer.

We sell a lot of our IPAs but that leaves

out a big part of the segment of the population.

We like seltzers and you can see the craziness out there

just because it appeals to a lot more of an audience

that just does not overwhelmed with flavor and taste.

However, we do encourage that we want

to have taste in our beverages.

So that’s our benefit.

Our positive experience is having good flavoring

and good formulation of your product.

We think seltzer is just a great way, but yeah,

it’s been done for sure the beer side of things

and this is a good intro for us.

We feel the tip of the iceberg sort of

thing with Delta-8 and getting into beverage.

So this is our starting point.

As Chirag mentioned, Delta was just fresh with us

as far as one of the latest projects that

we are working on and so it did just

fit nicely into what we are going to do

next, which was experimenting with cannabis water soluble technology.

That leads me you had mentioned something about Chirag,

the kind of craze around seltzer right now.

And I’m curious is that a fad?

Is that a trend that’s here to stay?

If it is here to stay, what’s after that?

There’s a lot of opinions on that at the moment.

I mean, we’ve seen a pretty big skyrocketing

with the big national brands from a small

brewery perspective on an island in the Caribbean.

We’ve done great with our sales

to date and it’s growing.

So I personally don’t think seltzers

are going away by any stretch.

Craft breweries, particularly breweries in general, got into

the business because it was a way to

make a light kind of alcoholic seltzer beverage

versus the traditional beer under the regulations of

breweries versus liquor distilleries.

So there was a bit of that movement going on.

But in terms of a fad, it’s possible just

because they typically the big macro bands tend to

overdo it and it kind of turns people off.

Seltzers have been around forever I think

it’s been over 100 years of seltzer.

It’s clean, it’s refreshing, it’s not for everyone.

Some people want sweeteners and things like that.

But if you have a good

clean shelter, it’s very drinkable.

So I think you’ll be around for a while.

And I’m curious because I realized that

we haven’t really necessarily explained it to

those that have tuned in.

But if you don’t mind kind of breaking down what

the difference is between Delta-8 and Delta-9.

I think that’s something that we really

haven’t talked about on the show.

So Delta-9 would be the THC drive from marijuana.

And it’s just kind of that technical chemical structure

that is where a carbon is double bonded.

So it’s on the 9th carbon in the

molecule, Delta-8 derived from hemp, which the

federal government deemed legal in 2018 Farm Bill.

And that is, again, just where that double bond is.

So it’s a chemical difference.

And then it’s where they’re derived from within the

cannabis family, one being from marijuana, Delta-9, the

other being from hemp based Delta-8. Interesting.

And so I guess the question that I’ve been

asked a lot, I don’t have an answer to.

Is Delta-8 naturally derived or is

that something that’s synthetically formed. Delta is

present in cannabis and in hemp.

In smaller dose or percentages, it can

be derived from the hemp and then

basically converted up into Delta-9.

It’s not synthesized per se from basic chemistry.

It’s derived from the CBD and the cannabinoids

of the hemp and the hemp extract.

When I kind of think of CBD extraction or

THC extraction, if you’re looking at extracting something like

Delta-8, are you able to get the same

kind of return per plant, per hemp stock that

you would THC from a marijuana stock?

Is it a smaller number?

Do you have to kind of use more quantity to get there?

It’s not something that we’ve ever really explored.

That’s a pretty technical question, I feel.

And I’m sure it’s different based on farms

and strains and the style of what’s grown.

We rely on the expertise of the

companies that we’re getting our product from.

We feel that our expertise comes in the

beverage side, using that water soluble technology and

just getting the best beverage that we can

for the hemp that we’re using.

But I’m not sure about that kind of pound for pound.

What is the yield or how that part actually works out.

Now, if I say for myself, more of an experienced Delta-9

consumer, and let’s say beside me I have an inexperienced

Delta-9 consumer, could you kind of explain to us the

effects of Delta-8 on the mind and body?

Yeah.

As cannabis users, we’ve experienced Delta-8

Delta-9 and other cannabinoid CBD. Of course.

And so Delta-8 is referred to as sort of

a milder buzz that doesn’t say that you don’t feel

anything or it’s light, but it tends to be milder

than a cannabis THC Delta-9 high.

However, it is a cumulative

effect, a compounding effect.

If you have a couple more Delta-8s, you

will start to feel a very strong buzz.

So it’s not as if it stays mellow the whole time.

It’s just sort of the onset

and the feeling isn’t as high.

And also the less, if any, anxiety and some of

that kind of panicky that comes with it increased.

You don’t get some of that, or

at least we haven’t heard of that.

Very calming effects in many ways, but not

overwhelming and stretch and everybody’s a little bit

different too with how they get affected.

So I think that’s just where there is some plates

where you start to know your dose and then get

comfortable with it as well, which is very important.

And that’s why we like the beverage space

compared to edibles and smokeables is that you

can kind of pace yourself as you’re drinking

it, and especially the 12 ounce can versus

a shot, because the shots a bit intimidating.

But with a 12 ounce can, you’re drinking

it like you would drink any other alcoholic

beverage where you’re pacing yourself and if you

want to slow down, you can slow down.

And because the onsets within 15 to 20 minutes

due to ingestion liquid form, you feel it sooner.

So you can kind of really do it yourself out and

not feel like you’re going to have to wait an hour

and all of a sudden you’re glued to the couch.

So you kind of get that baseline much sooner

and then you can effectively make a decision on

how much more you would like to consume or

at what pace you would like to consume. Correct.

I would say that the onset is faster

than edible if we’re comparing the two.

And then also the on ramp.

I feel that sometimes when I’ve had edibles, it

hits you all of a sudden everything at once,

where with this as you’re drinking it over 15, 20

minutes and enjoying the flavor and then getting the

experience, there’s more of a gentle kind of ease

into the high compared to just that thump that

you sometimes get with other deliverables.

So gentlemen, I got to ask, being in this space,

in the beverage space for so long, what are some

similarities that you’re finding between what you’ve been doing with

the brewery versus now introducing Delta-8 from, I guess

kind of a 360 view, right?

Like how are you engaging consumers?

What is regulatory look like?

Just what parts are extremely different, but what

parts are like, yeah, we got this.

This is our prior expertise coming in.

I mean, I would start with our expertise

being in the beer and alcohol business.

And we follow all the federal regulations,

everything from labeling rules and such.

So we understand regulations state

to state sales are limited.

You have to register in all 50 states.

So we’ve always been limited in our state

access that we have sold in multiple states.

And so we’ve learned all the regulations behind that.

And of course, the rules have

been changing with hemp and cannabis.

So knowing that we want to merge those two worlds together,

because in the craft beer business, we do have cannabis users

and THC users that would want to also be having in

the same social dynamic as a craft beer party.

So we wanted to merge those two worlds together.

And I think we’re able to do that a

little bit more now based on the current regulations

of how hemp is currently federally approved.

Yeah, and being cannabis users and wanting to bring cannabis

more into the American beverage culture, this has been a

really cool project for us to be working on and

then also bringing in the quality that is craft beer.

It’s something that we always pride ourselves on and that

we’re going to continue on with this new project and

everything else that we do within the hemp space.

We feel it’s very important.

We’re trying to do things the right way, the

best way that we can, best ingredients, all those

things that make a quality brand and a quality

experience for the customer as well. Amazing.

And gentlemen, before we wrap up today, I’m really

curious, what is the cannabis culture and I guess

regulatory viewpoint right now in the US.

Virgin Islands?

How is that kind of functioning right now?

What’s that ecosystem looks like?

Surprisingly not legal yet for cannabis recreation or medicinal,

but as the Caribbean island, as you know, cannabis

has been present for generations and as part of

the culture, and it is not recently not been

legally loosened on the laws there.

So it’s been okay, but there’s definitely not the

regulations in place to have open dispensary sales yet.

Enforcement is friendlier, but fines

are still in place. Correct. Awesome.

Gentlemen, I’m so grateful that you took

the time to meet with me today.

And I’m curious for all those that are tuned in, what’s

the best way to stay connected and to follow you all?

Best way is through our website or social media.

The website is drinkcoolout.com and then our

handles are DrinkCool out as well.

So those are the best channels to follow up. Amazing.

Well, thank you both so much. Thank you.

Thanks for having us.

And of course, we’re so grateful to all of you

that have tuned in to another episode of Weebudz Radio.

Be sure to head over to our website weebudzradio.com.

We’ll have links to connect with all

these fine gentlemen and their website so

you can check out their beverages.

And can you ship, gentlemen, can you ship

to all 50 states or most states?

Most states, yeah.

We’ve got a website you can go to check

it out at drinkcoolout.com and we can ship to you. Awesome.

Well, definitely go check, drinkcoolout.com.

Those links will be in the show notes

and we’ll see you in the next episode.

Thank you so much.

Ask Us Anything!

“Secrets to Maximizing Success in the Cannabis Industry” with Ryan Douglas 

Welcome to another episode of WeedBudz Radio!  Today we have the pleasure of  speaking to returning guest; Ryan Douglas, Author of “Seed to Success”.  Ryan is here today to introduce his new book “Secrets to Maximizing Success in the Cannabis Industry”.  Join me in learning about propagation and other factors that affect cultivation and production in the cannabis industry.  

Ryan Douglas – Author & Cannabis Cultivation Expert
CLICK HERE and Get Your Copy NOW!

Host: Ry Russell
BUDZ EMPORIUM
WeedBudz RadioSupport the show

Transcription

Transcription from the episode below: This is a new Feature for us, please forgive any mistakes as we dial in our subtitles and transcriptions.

Welcome to another episode of Weed Buzz Radio.

I’m your host, Ry

And today, I’m really

excited because you might see a familiar face,

a guest we’ve had on before.

Ryan Douglas was on to talk

about his book From Seed to success.

And I’m guessing it was a success because we’re

here to talk about his next book, Secrets to

Maximizing Profits in the Cannabis Industry: Contemporary and

Pragmatic Tips for Improving Your Cultivation Business.

And that is something that, as a retailer, I

know I’m very curious about, because if the cultivators

can become m ore efficient and more pragmatic then our

prices go down and if our prices go down,

then you, the consumer, will hopefully be able to

pay a better price at the dispensary.

So we’re going to hit Ryan with some hard questions today,

but before we do that, I want to just ask you,

Ryan, for those that haven’t checked out, From Seed to success yet,

can you hit us with a quick kind of summary, if

you will, of what you got into in that book before

we talk about kind of the next step, if you will?

Yeah, of course.

And thanks for having me on again, Ry.

It’s a pleasure to be here. Awesome.

We appreciate it. Yeah.

So, about a year and a half

ago, I published From Seed to Success.

And essentially it’s a manual

for launching licensed cultivation startups.

And so that’s geared towards anybody from

any industry that’s interested in participating in

the cannabis industry through cultivation.

And so it’s essentially a manual, kind of a

step by step guide on how you go through

the most important parts of launching a cultivation business.

And so, having kind of covered the

basis of startups, what I wanted to

do was publish something on guaranteeing profitability.

How can companies really thrive and survive

now that they’ve launched their business?

And we’re kind of in an industry where there’s

plenty of challenges, you’ve got supply chain challenges, you’ve

got, in some places, increasing competition, increasing supply, and

the future is pretty much unknown.

So the question is, now that I have

a cultivation business, how can I guarantee that

it’s profitable for the near future?

And so what I wanted to do was

kind of create a more direct, more succinct

way of getting some information to readers.

Instead of writing a 285 page book,

this ebook is more like 30 pages.

And so I’ve just chosen a handful of topics that

seem to come up repeatedly when I speak to groups,

when I speak to cultivation business owners about the challenges

and concerns they have on a day to day basis.

So that’s why I chose to publish this new ebook.

I wouldn’t call it Spark Notes because there’s

so much value in there, but the way

that you describe it, it’s very succinct.

And for somebody like me who gets overwhelmed with big words

and lots of pages, it made a lot of sense.

And there was a lot of principles in

there that somebody who is not skilled in

cultivation like myself was able to see.

If there’s enough detail in there, you can

kind of see how one thing impacts another.

So I wanted to mention it is just

a perfect way to kind of get into

the weeds of things without being overwhelmed.

Yeah, and that’s the idea really.

Like I mentioned, there’s three or four points

that I cover in the book and they

come up repeatedly when I speak with clients.

So no point in trying to fluff

up a book to make it bigger.

Let’s just get right to the point.

And that was the goal.

I appreciate that.

And we talked a little bit prior to

the show and earlier that you kind of

helped push me when you launched From Seed to Success.

I was working on a book about my experience with the

Saco Drive in movie theater and it was something that was

kind of, I guess perking in my mind for a while.

But I was like, man, there’s all these amazing

authors in the cannabis space and I’m not going

to be a good cannabis author unless I practice.

And I really don’t have a lot of

expertise other than podcasting and studying the experts.

So I need to practice.

Got to get that muscle going.

And so I wrote a book called Relic

to Icon about saving the drive in.

But I’ll tell you it was a workout as we discussed,

like every 5, 000 words was like okay, well this is it.

And sometimes I felt like I was writing for

the sake of writing and I didn’t like that.

I like business books that are to the point.

And so it was kind of a hard balance between

what I’m being told it should be in length versus

what I think is value to the consumer.

And so this is just a great kind of add

on to From Seed to Success of kind of taking those

fundamentals of great, you’re here or you need to get

here and this is how you do it.

And now that you’re here, let’s talk about

how you dial some of that stuff in.

And that kind of leads me to my next question

because I love innovation and I love innovation specifically in

this space I’ve seen just where soil to, hydroponics to

some of the kind of I don’t know what they’re

called the aeroponics that I’ve seen. Yeah.

So there’s so many different things.

And so I’m curious just in the last year

or two, what some of the technology and innovation

that you’re finding interesting in the cultivation space?

Yeah, so what we want to look at is I

mean, I’m a big proponent for technological innovation and automation,

but when we’re talking about maintaining profitability, we don’t want

to automate just to say that we did.

The reason we do it is

to really increase our bottom line.

So we’re either producing more or we’re

increasing the quality of what we produce,

or we’re producing it for less.

And so when we look at new technology or new

automation, we want to make sure that it hits one

of those three items, because otherwise it might not be

an appropriate expenditure for some of these cultivation businesses.

And so that’s why in my new book, there’s

one chapter that covers new technology, and the goal

is really to present this technology that can help

growers reduce their cost of production.

And so, just briefly, I can mention a couple.

The first, even though it’s not new

technology, it’s becoming more and more popular

with cannabis growers, and for good reason.

And that’s tissue culture propagation.

So I can’t tell you how many times

I’ve walked through a cultivation facility that was

state of the art, but right away, they

had insect or disease problems on their crops.

And if you’re starting fresh, you’re starting new.

Really, in any industry, you shouldn’t

have problems for a while.

But there’s nothing worse than dropping ten or

$12 Million on a cultivation facility, staffing the

thing, and you start running it.

But you acquire essentially dirty genetics.

And even if the person has the best intentions

of providing you with really high quality genetics, unless

these are propagated inside of a lab and the

process of propagation is sterile, they can’t guarantee you

that what you’re receiving are completely clean starter plants.

And so what happens is essentially every

insect and disease infestation any grower has

ever encountered, nine times out of ten

comes from infected cuttings or infected plants.

And so

cannabis growers have always had to deal with insects.

But since more and more states and

countries are legalizing cannabis, you have more

greenhouse production, you have more outdoor production.

Not only do you have the traditional insects

and disease we need to battle with, you

have new diseases and insects that are jumping

from traditional crops to cannabis and hemp.

And so,

especially for greenhouse growers and indoor growers, outdoor growers,

a lot of that is up to mother nature.

We really don’t have much control at

all, but indoors and greenhouse we do.

And so what you have is more and

more growers turning to these tissue culture companies,

and what they’re doing is outsourcing propagation.

So for anyone listening, propagation is

essentially cloning or taking cuttings.

So traditionally, companies keep stock

plants from other plants.

Every so often, they take cuttings, they

root them, and now they have a

genetically identical plant to the mother plant.

So you can imagine if you took 100 cuttings,

now you can fill a grow room with a

hundred similar plants to that mother plant.

And that’s how we that’s how we

establish kind of a constant harvest schedule.

The risk is multiple.

One is that the longer a plant stays in production,

the more likely it is that it gets something.

And if we’re propagating plants that are

infected, inevitably this pathogen will show up

in production in the flowering space.

So you risk contaminating the crop, but

you also risk contaminating the entire facility.

But also, not every grow team

is excellent at rooting cuttings.

So whether you’re taking ten cuttings or

10,000 cuttings, generally we try to shoot

for 80% or more should root right.

So some just won’t root.

Some are going to die off, some will dry out.

So you determine what you need and

you take more cuttings than you need.

So if you have 20% die

back, you still hit your numbers.

But not every grower, not every cultivation

team is good at taking cuttings.

And the problem is in these production facilities

where you have a very tight production schedule,

if you are short, you basically have to

go into production with half empty rooms.

Or if we wait and take more cuttings

and wait until they root, now you’re looking

at production bottlenecks, which is just as bad.

So the reason people are going more and more

towards tissue culture and the reason more tissue culture

companies are starting to cater towards cannabis is one

these growers can outsource propagation entirely.

They don’t need to hold onto stock plants.

They don’t have to worry about propagating and taking

cuttings, and they can dedicate that space to flower

production, which is really where the money is that

when we talk about cannabis growing.

But probably the biggest reason is that these companies

will deliver hundreds or thousands of plantlets guaranteed disease

free to your doorstep on a set schedule.

So it takes some planning at the beginning of

the year, but, you know, every Monday at 10:00

in the morning, you can expect a FedEx delivery

or a truck to pull up to your facility.

And now you have rooted plantlets

that you immediately put into production.

And stuff happens during the course of a crop cycle,

but at least, you know, you’re starting 100% clean.

And that’s going to become more and more critical

as growers face newer diseases and newer insect infestations

that we don’t even have to worry about today.

So tissue culture, I think, is one of

the not necessarily a new advancement, but it’s

new for cannabis growers, at least.

And I’m sure the systems to which you preserve that is

only going to get better and improve over time as well.

You mean how these companies preserve their

genetics, how they hold on to them? Yes.

And in terms of, like you were saying, 80% in

terms of rooting on your own and such like that.

So I’m sure they must have systems in play, right, where you

can kind of get closer to maybe a 90 or 93%.

Exactly.

So even inside of a lab, everything isn’t perfect.

So naturally they’re going to duplicate more plants than

you need, so they can guarantee that they’re going

to deliver the numbers that you need.

But it’s also a long process if there’s one.

Well, it’s not really disadvantaged, but, I mean, taking

a cutting and rooting, it at home would take

about two weeks in a tissue culture lab.

The process can take 90 days, but that’s not a

big deal as long as you’re scheduling production accordingly.

But sorry, you had mentioned something about preservation,

which is what I thought you were getting

at, but I think I was wrong.

But this is really interesting regardless, please,

is that growers typically want to hold

on to a lot of different genetics.

Even if they’re only growing a few and selling

a few, they’ve got stuff that’s special to them,

stuff they want to breed within the future,

stuff that might be special to other people.

And so they end up holding onto

these plants that aren’t in production.

And inevitably what happens is they get

attacked by something, a disease or insect.

And so another benefit of tissue culture companies is they actually

can store genetics for you and they do it in a

form where it takes up hardly any space at all. Right?

They’re essentially freezing needs or getting them

as close to freezing as possible, and

they just halt the life cycle.

And it’s almost like a genetic library.

But in six months, if you decide that in nine

months you want to bring the bubble kush back into

production, you tell this tissue culture company they’ll take it

out of storage, they’ll start producing it and growing it.

And again, it’s guaranteed disease free.

You don’t have the hassle of it and all

you’re doing is giving these folks a date.

I need 1,000 bubble kush cuttings on September 1.

And if you’ve done that far enough

ahead of time and you’re working with

a competent propagator, it’s a done deal.

Can you transport that right now legally?

Is that different than like,

transporting clones across state lines?

So that’s an excellent point.

Some companies will not ship out of state.

So there are some large, very competent propagators that I

would love to refer to clients I work with.

But these folks will not ship outside of state.

Others will.

And they do that under the guise of hemp.

So they have a hemp license.

And if you think about it, it’s completely legal.

When you think about what is the definition of hemp,

it’s that less than 0.3% THC of dried weight.

And so a plantlet, even if this is like a 35%

THC flower, once it’s harvested, a plantlet, once it’s dried is

going to have almost a negligible amount of THC, if any.

So in theory it’s hemp.

If it’s tested in a lab, it’s hemp.

So these companies that do ship out of

state are doing it under a hemp license.

But like everything else

in cannabis, everything fluctuates.

It’s kind of a gray market.

So fortunately in more market yeah, if you

think Michigan, Colorado, California, within those states, there’s

propagators in Maine, they’re slowly coming online.

So we’ve got a few options

in Maine and Massachusetts as well.

And that’s going to happen over the

next few years across the US.

As states more and more states legalize, as those

markets mature, you’re going to see more tissue culture

companies pop up that service cannabis only because these

other companies that have been propagating agricultural crops for

decades, a lot of them won’t touch cannabis.

And you can understand why. Absolutely.

So one question I had was in terms of

the standard cloning process, is there a concern for

dilution of that kind of starter plant or that

mother plant, whatever that is referred to as?

Can that be kind of trimmed off of for eternity?

Is there an expiration to that?

I guess, again, as a retailer, I’m just so kind

of fascinated and ignorant, I suppose, to how that works.

So there’s opinions on both sides of the aisle.

And honestly, I’m not even sure where I

land on that because you have growers that

say you’ve got growers that have held onto

the same genetic material for years, sometimes decades.

And some people will say that there’s

something that’s called genetic drift, that the

more you propagate the plant, the more

drifts away from the original characteristics.

And you’ve got other folks that are taking

cuttings from the same plant for years, and

they say it’s the same, if not better.

So in my experience, I think the biggest risk

is that what you can have occasionally are mutations.

It’s not genetic drift, it’s just a sport

or a mutation, and that could create something

that’s genetically different from the mother plant.

But in my experience, and granted, I haven’t been growing

for 40 years, but I’ve been in cannabis for approaching

ten years, and so I haven’t seen it myself.

But the second I say that, there’ll be

ten other growers that will contest what I

say and say that absolutely, there’s a difference.

So, hot topic, but I can’t give

you a solid answer either way.

And before we wrap up, I probably

have another hot question for you.

But I’m curious because on the retail

side, I know systems like Metric, all

of our sales transactions goes into Metric.

We finalize those transfers from our

vendors, the cultivators, the processors that

comes to us, we receive them.

For us, Metrics a minimal hassle.

So can you help myself and some of

the other retailers maybe have a little empathy

on the cultivation side on what really goes

into the kind of track and trace program?

Because I hear it a lot, but when it’s

four buttons for us, it’s hard to empathize. Yeah.

So it can get tricky because as growers, we

need to track plant material from the get go,

even from the initial cutting of the stock plant.

And if there’s any problems or if any plants,

for whatever reason don’t make it, we need to

be very clear about removing those from inventory and

being specific about why those were removed from inventory.

So on the growing side, the better technology you

have, the easier your life is, which I guess

we could say about a lot of things.

But I’ve worked in facilities where we were using barcodes

and traditional barcode scanners, and those labels would get wet

after a couple of weeks with soil and irrigation, and

then it would be hard to read.

And sometimes standing inside these big

facilities, there’s so much equipment, the

WiFi signal isn’t that great.

So then the scanner isn’t reading, and you’re running

around the grow room trying to get a signal,

trying to read a barcode that isn’t clear in

the first place, and it’s a real headache.

But with RFID tags, life can be a lot easier.

Now, the infrastructure is a little bit more expensive,

but what it allows you to do essentially, is

instead of a barcode, it’s like a mini computer

chip inside of a tag on each plant.

And so you could literally walk into a grow

room with this handheld RFID scanner, do a scan

of the room, and within seconds, you’ve inventored literally

hundreds of plants if you’re within range.

Now, a step up from that

would actually be mounted stationary readers

throughout the greenhouse or production facility.

So you’re no longer scanning.

What happens is automatically, once these

plants move into or out of

a grow room, they’re automatically recorded.

Their movement is recorded.

Some facilities take it a step higher than that

and connect the RFID tag readers to their cameras.

So you could call up a certain idea of

a plant, and you could either visually or on

the computer, literally see it’s moving throughout the production

facility for the entire crop cycle.

And the goal here is one, to minimize labor.

So you’re not running around trying to get signal to

read bar codes, but you’re also complying with the state.

And that you know, where everything is at any moment.

And should you have an unannounced

audit, you can answer these folks’ questions.

You can tell what you have, where it

was, who moved it, all of that.

Do I want to know how much a system like that costs?

I don’t even know how much it cost.

No, I don’t have that number off the top of my head.

But I mean, this is technology in other

industries, so it’s not necessarily prohibitively expensive.

Perhaps given the size of the production

facility, it might be more of an

appropriate recommendation for others than maybe craft

growers that might not be so critical.

That makes sense.

So, Ryan, my last hot button question for

you, and this was a debate all morning,

so there’s a lot riding on this question.

So the question was, in regards to trimming, I

don’t want to work this with any bias.

So I’m trying to think of how the fight went down

and think of the most unbiased way to ask this.

In regards to trimming, is there a preference?

I guess it’s two parts.

Is there a preference to trimming when the

flower is cured or when the flower is fresh?

And if there is a preference, is there a

preference that is cost preferred to the cultivator versus

is there a preference on the consumer side?

So is there one way to do

it where the consumer is happier?

Is one way better because

the cultivator thinks it’s cheaper?

Or is there just a flat?

This is the best way to do it.

All the pressure is on you.

So in terms of quality, I think the best cannabis

flower is produced when you cut the plant and you

hang it dry and then you trim it by hand.

Or you mentioned curing, some people cut the

plant, they dry it, they cure it, and

then they do the final term by hand.

But regardless of which combination, in my experience and in

my opinion, because I’ve done it several ways, we dry

the plant first and then we trim it by hand.

Best quality is that way.

Now, not every cannabis production facility can afford that

because here’s the number we want to work with

one employee trims about a pound of dried cannabis

flower in an eight hour shift.

If you have a small outfit, that means you

and your buddies and maybe your mom for a

couple of days and you take care of it.

If you’re running a big facility, you need to either hire

the entire town or we need to automate the process.

So that doesn’t mean that if we can’t afford to

do it by hand, we’re just going to grow crap.

My recommendation is that we still dry the plant

first, and then we use an automated trim machine

that is built for handling dried cannabis flour.

Is there a difference between dry and cured?

Yeah, of course.

It’s essentially cured is a

more elongated period of drying.

What do we consider dry?

Oftentimes that’s determined by a lab.

It’s determined by the moisture

content inside of a flower.

And so that range is roughly nine to 13% moisture.

And so once your plant dries down to the point where it’s

9% to 13% moisture, you can package it and sell it.

If you smoke the flower, it

will burn easily in that stage.

Now, curing we could do that for a

few more weeks or a few more months.

And so it’s essentially you’re drawing it out a little

bit more, but it has more to do with the

change of the chemistry of the plant that happens.

Are you running for governor?

No, I don’t think I’d want that job.

That seems like a very diplomatic answer.

And if I was set it’s dried, it’s not

necessarily fresh, but it’s not necessarily cured.

Kind of in the middle. Right.

Think about curing almost as degradation,

but in a good way.

The flower degrades into slightly different chemical

structure, but it’s to our benefit.

It improves the flavor, the aroma.

Sometimes the color changes as well.

But you really reach a point where the

process should stop because it’s like anything.

If you hold on to it too long, it’s going to go bad.

So you really wouldn’t want to

cure anything longer than six months.

And as a grower, I don’t know if you had

some amazing flower, how you could just sit there and

look at it for six months without consuming it.

Yeah, that’s very true.

That would be a challenge.

Well, I will see if that answer suffices the debate

here with the team, but I greatly appreciate it, Ryan.

It is an incredible pleasure.

And now that your home base is not too far from

me, we’re going to have to grab lunch soon.

I can’t believe that the last time we talked was,

I think, right when the pandemic was really a thing.

That sounds right. Yeah.

So that’s just amazing to

kind of follow everybody’s journey.

So thank you so much for joining us today.

Oh, it’s my pleasure. Anytime. Awesome.

And thank you all for tuning in

with another episode of Weed Buzz radio.

We’ll catch you in the next show.

Budz Emporium Announces 710 Sales

For the weekend starting July 8th and ending July 10th Budz Emporium Recreational Dispensary in Medway, Maine has announced their weekend specials. The first offer is the 710 oils and concentrates. When you buy 1 cartridge or concentrate product you will receive 5% off your entire order. This includes all product within an order that also has a cartridge or concentrate product. That savings increases when you buy 2 or 3 concentrates. If you purchase 3 concentrates you will receive 15% off your entire order. If you only buy 3 carts you will receive 15% off however if you buy 3 carts and an ounce of flower the entire order will be 15% off. This is an incredible savings. On top of the 710 oil special being offered Budz Emporium just announced that they will have a super exclusive deal on quarter ounces of flower. From today though Sunday, July 10th, 2022 Quarter ounces of flower will range from $40 – $70. Always the best prices and the best value at Budz Emporium.

Intentional Living with Cannabis Research Scientist, Riley Kirk

Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Weed Budz Radio!  I am your host, Ry Russell and today we have a special guest, Riley Kirk, Ph.D. Cannabis Research Scientist and Educator. 

Join our discussion of the importance of using intention to heal, nourish, and make lifestyle changes to promote healthy living.  Learn about Riley’s journey of educating individuals across the country about equipping themselves to make good choices about how and when to use traditional Pharma vs natural remedies such as cannabis and her desire to create supplements that are ethically harvested and safer for consumers.

We have lots to discuss, join us!



Riley Kirk
 personal pages: @cannabichem on tiktok and instagram!
www.profoundnaturals.com
instagram @profoundnaturals & @smokenol
Host: Ry Russell
BUDZ EMPORIUM
WeedBudz RadioSupport the show

TRANSCRIPT:

Hey, budz.

Welcome back to another episode of WeedBudz radio.

And, of course, I’m your host Ry Russell, and I want

to talk to you all today about healthy cannabis living.

We often do not put a lot of intention

necessarily into the things that we consume or how

we consume them, and I know that I definitely

don’t, at least not as much as I should.

And so that’s why I’m really excited to

introduce our next guest to you, Riley Kirk. And Riley,

welcome to Weedbudz Radio.

Hey, thanks. I’m stoked to be here, and both of our

names are kind of Ry, which is fun. Yeah.

But yeah, I’m excited to talk about intention

because I live my whole life around intention. Amazing.

And Riley is joining us from New Hampshire and received

her doctorate from the University of Rhode Island and also

happens to be a Maine native like myself and grew

up not too far away from each other.

And Riley is a cannabis research scientist, and

she educates hundreds of thousands of individuals every

day across all of her platforms.

And so we’ll definitely have links to all

of her channels in our show notes.

So you’ll definitely want to continue to follow Riley.

Well, I want to jump in because we get into

the cannabis side of things in a little bit.

But, Riley, I saw on your Instagram, I saw you

making your own supplements, first of all, and that got

me completely intrigued, and why are you doing this?

And then I got to learn a little bit

more about your lifestyle, so I’d love for you

to kind of share that with everyone.

Yeah, I think it’s really cool that you’re interested

in learning about this, because usually when people are

talking to me, they’re just trying to get me

to feed them cannabis knowledge, and that’s great, but

it’s so much more than that.

It’s not just cannabis is going to

solve all of your problems in life.

It often includes some lifestyle changes and just

being aware of what’s going into your body.

So I kind of take this to an extreme.

I am fortunate that I have enough property that I

can grow most of my medicinal plants and supplements.

My husband and I are super passionate about harvesting

most of our meat through trapping, hunting, fishing.

We grow most of our vegetables,

and we also grow our medicine.

So part of the reason I started making my

own medicine, I’ll get into the other part, too.

But in graduate school, I was working with

the FDA on a project where they were

looking into supplements that have been adulterated, meaning

that there was something else other than what

was supposed to be in that product.

So sometimes this gets intense when there’s a toxic

plant that’s included into a, quote, medicinal plant.

So then they’d have to understand

how that happened, et cetera.

But a lot of these supplement companies, if you

were to just go to Walmart and buy a

ginkgo or ashwaganda supplement, they’re not harvested ethically.

They’re often like very young children harvesting all these

plants, and they’re kind of just shipping them over

for us to mass extract and then throw them

on the shelves in a capsule.

So I think one thing that I’m very passionate about

is knowing exactly what I’m putting into my body.

If I’m growing those supplements, I know what they

look like, I know what active compounds are in

them, and I know how to extract them.

And that is why I choose to do that.

And I think the other problem here is, if you’re

taking supplements that are in capsules or something like that,

that is taking away this component of intention.

Because as Americans, we’re living such busy, busy

lives that we want things to be

as quick and accessible as possible.

So if I read on the Internet that ashwagandha

is going to help me with my stress in

my extremely stressful life, I’m just going to run

downstairs and take a pill every morning that has

ashwagandha in it and then race off to work.

That’s not how traditional medicine works.

Traditional medicine is taking the

time to produce that medicine.

And as you’re making that medicine, whether you’re making

a tea out of leaves or roots or a

tincture, by extracting things in alcohol, you’re intentionally paying

attention to what you’re trying to heal.

And this sounds super, supper hippie, and I am definitely classified

as a hippie, but there has been evidence that this

helps by actually putting your brain towards the actual issue

and saying, I’m trying to be less stressed.

So for this next 20 minutes,

I’m going to prepare a medicine.

And as I’m preparing that medicine, I’m

going to think about why I’m stressed.

I’m going to think about how I can

help with that stress and all of that’s

kind of incorporated into this traditional medicinal approach

at relieving these different issues in their lives.

The same thing can be said for cannabis, too.

Cannabis is absolutely a medicinal plant,

and there are hundreds of different

reasons that people are using cannabis.

And you can use that in multiple ways.

You can just be absolutely stoned for

your entire life and absolutely obliterated.

You’d use tons and tons of THC, and for

some people, that is the medicinal component of it.

If you suffer from chronic pain, you probably do

need a lot of THC to get through your

days, and it’s going to be different for everyone.

But if you’re using it for mental health issues or

some other issues, using it in a lower dose and

really having to pay attention to why you’re using it.

Are there other lifestyle changes that you can

make that can also assist in that medicine?

Maybe cannabis brings your brain to a better spot,

but then when you’re in that better spot mentally,

you need to shift your thoughts and energy into

thinking about how you can improve your life.

Cannabis isn’t just like an instant switch to

change everything in your life to be better.

You still need to put through the effort to get there.

But I think cannabis can help you get there

for sure, but it is a multi step process.

You still do need to pay attention to

what is causing these problems in your life.

Is it just cannabis that you need to

help that are there other natural products?

Are their lifestyle changes?

Are there people in your life you need to get rid of?

I mean.

It’s incredibly complicated and of course it’s

going to be different for absolutely everyone.

But I think the more that we can be

vulnerable and take the time to pay attention to

our medicine and how it’s helping us.

I think the benefits of cannabis and other

natural products can be so, so much greater than

just taking it in a capsule form or

just like medicating without actually thinking about why

you’re medicating and what you’re trying to solve.

And that’s why I thought it was so critical

to talk to you about this because I feel

like a lot of individuals will bring one approach.

This is a medicinal product for this

reason, or someone else say, well, this

is a recreational product for this reason.

And really it’s part of a lifestyle

and it’s part of a regimen.

And I like that you really kind of hit home

that it’s not a cure all for these things.

And your body is this big machine

and it requires work and effort.

And I think when I was watching your video, like, what

hit me the most was like, man, that’s really cool.

I would love to make my own

supplements and probably learn more about the

supplements that I am taking in whole.

But the way that you just described the process being

so much more than just, oh, well, I want to

make my own supplements, there’s the intention and your mind

is processing all sorts of things during that time.

So it really is more than just

getting high or using cannabis for something.

It’s about the lifestyle.

And so I’m really glad, and I’m glad that our

followers are going to be able to follow you because

you have a lot of tips and tricks about that.

Yeah, I am a scientist, but I am also someone who

has used cannabis every day since I’ve been 14 years old.

Cannabis is a part of my life, a

part of the culture of my friends.

It’s part of what just shaped my life.

But a lot of that was using intentionally and if I

ever felt like it wasn’t intentional or if it was causing

any damage, that I would adjust my lifestyle from there.

And I think that’s the hardest part about educating

on cannabis is we’re not all the same.

We’re not all consuming the same way,

we’re not all consuming the same products.

We all have different tolerance, we all

have different past traumas, mental health issues.

I mean, there’s so many factors.

So often I’ll get these comments like, hey Riley,

how many hours before bed should I smoke?

And it’s like, I have no idea.

I have no idea what would be best for you.

You really do have to experiment and this is kind

of where intention comes again, if your intention is to

for writing things down, especially when you’re learning about cannabis

and what products work for you.

Writing things down, saying, okay, I took this dose

on this day, I was suffering from this.

And then kind of going from there and saying, well,

this worked really well, this didn’t work at all because

I cannot tell you what’s going to work with your

body and I don’t think anybody can.

We can help guide you to maybe

here’s the best extraction method for this.

That’s a way I can tell you what to do.

But telling you a dose and the time of day, etc.

It’s not really going to help everyone in the same way.

And that leads me to ask you, you have

this, I don’t want to say traditional academic background,

but there is a traditional aspect to your studies,

but there’s also the untraditional aspect of clearly you

do a lot of research that’s outside of what

you studied at university.

And I’m interested, how does modern medicine

and plant medicine and just kind of

that whole living, how do they coexist?

Yeah. And I will start by saying yes, I

absolutely have a traditional academic route for education,

but I don’t believe that that’s the way

that all of us need to be educated.

I think there’s many other routes just

from life experiences that we can learn

just as much valuable information.

But I think I kind of speak anti-pharma

often and I know for a lot of people

that might make them feel bad because they’re on

pharmaceutical medications, but I do think there is a

time and a place for pharmaceutical medications and I

think they have brought people a lot of benefits.

But that being said, if you want to take your medicine into

your own hands, it is going to be a lot of work.

It’s not going to be as simple as a

pharmaceutical medication where you just take a pill every

day and it will change essentially your brain chemistry.

I have a lot of friends now

that are trying different things, whether it’s

cannabis, whether it’s psilocybin containing mushrooms, whether

it’s other psychedelic compounds to help essentially

reset their brain architecture.

And this is really hard because not everybody in

your audience, not everybody in the world, really understands

the way that our neural networks work.

I mean, I don’t understand how they work because

they are so complex and they’re overlapping and we

don’t really understand why certain conditions happen.

So I think it is very safe if you’re

in a really bad spot to get on pharmaceutical

medications, to get yourself into a better spot.

And then when you’re in that better spot, really

think about what you’re putting into your body. Study.

I mean, if you just Google Lexapro and molecular

mechanism, it sounds really fancy, but there are articles

out there that are meant for patients, that are

meant for people who don’t know anything about drugs

or pharmacology to learn more.

And I know it’s going to be hard and

you’re going to have to look up some definitions

of certain things, but this is your brain.

It’s really, really important.

Like you are altering the chemistry of your

brain every time you take these pharmaceutical medications

and every time you take cannabis.

So, although it is a little bit more work,

I think that’s the best thing you can do

to become more aware of whether it’s pharmaceuticals or

cannabis, what it’s doing to your brain.

And then you can kind of learn over time,

even like a good cannabis strain to use.

If you say cannabis strains and ADHD, you

can find these different forums online that say,

hey, this strain worked for me for this.

And then this is where it

gets a little more complicated.

We know that different cannabis strains

are producing different active compounds.

So if you see that 40 people say that this

strain worked for ADHD, go look at that strain up

on Leafly and look at what’s in that strain.

Is it low THC?

Is it high THC?

Does it have CBD?

Does it not have CBD?

What’s the dominant terpene in that strain?

You can start to learn these different things.

So even if that product is not available to you,

try a similar product, see if it works for you.

Try it in a low dose first.

If that doesn’t work, try in a medium dose.

Try it in a high dose.

It’s such a game of just trial and error.

But if you find your perfect

product, it will change your life.

And then hopefully, you can slowly wane off

of the pharmaceuticals and you can be in

charge of your medicine, your brain.

But that’s not for everyone.

I mean, if you have really severe paranoid

schizophrenia, I would not be trying cannabis strains

just willy nilly and these different doses.

I would stay on my medication because that is the

safest way to live your life at that point.

Obviously talk to your doctor, get these opinions.

If your doctor wants to put you on a

bunch of different pharmaceuticals, maybe let them know that

you’re not really comfortable with that and can you

try some other stuff and then report back to

them with what works, depending on your doctor,

Sometimes they’re going to be really cool

with that, sometimes they’ll be uncomfortable with

that, but it’s definitely worth the conversation,

at least in my opinion.

It absolutely is.

I know it’s something that I’m

very engaged with my doctors on.

I have a book here from one of the doctors of

a clinic that I went to to kind of study my

brain because I was fascinated about it and I really do.

It’s so intimidating trying to kind of

figure out where to get information.

And it’s one of the questions our audience had

for you is what are some resources that people

can go to to kind of learn for themselves?

Because I’m always telling people to

document their journeys, document everything.

Obviously we also work in a dispensary and so we’re

always encouraging our guests to write down what time you

started your session and how much you had and we’ll

dial it in with you over time, but I can’t

make any promises on any of it today and so

it’s really going to have to be tailored to you.

And so I love the way that you speak on

that and obviously the way that we got connected was

a board member sent me one of your videos on

the Emerald Cup classification and dominant terpenes, and that has

at least so far, made the largest impact in my

cannabis selections and in kind of how I’ve dialed in

what’s best for this body, anyway.

Did you find that one of those

categories that you’ve previously kind of been drawn

towards in the past, like your favorite strains

all fit in one of those categories?

Yeah. So I’m a Sativa individual.

Yeah. Me too.

So anything with those citrus based terpenes is going

to just absolutely be the best thing for me.

And then after dinner, I can have a very

low dose of an Indica and that’s it.

I don’t need a 27, 28, 30% Indica to go to sleep.

That’s just my body.

However, maybe 4 years ago, it would have taken a

quarter at 30% THC because I lacked intention and I

lacked responsibility of how I was treating my body.

And so just really monitoring that kind of dialed

things back and dialed things in for what I

think is now a much healthier lifestyle.

Well, right. There’s always this debate about

is cannabis healthy to consume?

People ask me that all the time

and I’m like, what do you mean?

Is it healthy?

It helps a ton of people.

It helps millions of people live

their day to day lives.

So in that sense, yes, it is healthy, but there

are many people who use it to escape reality, too.

They can’t do anything unless

they’re feeling extremely high.

And I think that’s where you need to look back on your

intentions and say, is this really helping me, or is this kind

of a cloak to be able to interact with society?

And as you said, for a period of

time, you can use that much cannabis.

If it can get you through a bad

time, that is totally fine, I think.

But over time, you do need to revisit that and

say, okay, is there a more sustainable way that I

can use cannabis that benefits my life in more ways?

And I’m still very functional during the day.

I can still wake up on time, I can still

go to my job, I can still interact with society.

Those are the times you kind of have to revisit it.

But it’s super situational, and if you’re going

through a bad time, then embrace it and

it can help you through that bad time.

Absolutely. I know we’re running out of time for today, so I

want to get to some of the questions that some of

our team and some of our listeners had burning.

We’ll probably have to do a part

2 someday because there’s so many.

But first and foremost, one of the ones that

was asked that I thought really made a lot

of sense was, is it possible to create concentrates

that could be utilized at a lower temperature?

And what does high temperature concentrates

actually do to the body?

So thank you, Julia, for that question.

Yeah, so this is kind of what our team studies.

Not specifically concentrates, but we study how heat

affects the cannabinoid profile of your product.

So our whole thing is harvesting cannabinoids from

smoke and making that into a product.

So what we do know, at really high temperatures, some

of the active compounds in cannabis can kind of break

apart and they can form some harmful compounds.

I think probably the best known one

is Benzene, which is a carcinogen.

It can be bad for you for sure,

but at low temperature, low temperature dabbing is

absolutely possible, especially with the modern ways that

people are consuming, even something like the Puffco

Peak Pro, I think it’s called.

That I think is a great, great rig because you

can control the temperature so easily that you can

prevent some of those harmful compounds from being produced.

It will require slightly different production ways

of producing those compounds just to make

sure your products are going to essentially

vaporize at that temperature.

But that is possible, I always say.

Well, with dabbing, I like to prevent really

high temperatures because it is a concentrate.

So if there are harmful things being produced, it’s

going to be produced in a higher concentration.

We all know that when you take a

joint, you’re lighting that on fire too, right?

And that’s a really high temperature as well.

But the average concentration of these cannabinoids and flower

is a lot less than it is with concentrates

because the name suggests it’s a concentrate.

So I think a lot of people

again will ask, well, is smoking bad for you?

Is smoking good for you?

People have been smoking for thousands of

years, and we don’t have any rigorous

adverse effects from smoking either.

So again, if you like the effects of low or

high dabs of smoking or not smoking using in moderation,

I think is the best thing you can possibly do.

Smoking anything is going to cause

some harmful compounds being produced.

Dabbing anything is going to produce some compounds that

we probably don’t want to be inhaling either.

But I get so many questions like, smoking really hurts

my throat, but I want to keep doing it.

And I’m like, dude, if smoking really hurts

your throat, you need to stop doing it.

That’s your body telling you to stop doing that.

So with anything cannabis related, if

it hurts, don’t do it.

If you’re feeling like you’re coughing a lot or you’re

coughing up phlegm all the time or something like that,

that’s your body trying to get rid of things.

So listen to your body.

If your body is telling you not to do

something in one way or another, you should listen

to it and try to consume a different way

that’s more compatible with your body.

Because our bodies are sensitive, and if we’re going

to do the same thing every single day for

multiple times a day, we need to make sure

we’re not causing more damage than we are good.

And Riley, I don’t want you to

just do the soft plug there.

I know you’re studying a lot of this, and so

do you mind, can you kind of sneak us behind

the curtain, if you will, about kind of what your

work and what your companies are working on?

Yeah, so we have a patent pending

technology that we invented to capture the

active compounds from cannabis from the smoke.

So normally it’s extracted from the actual bud,

the flower, but we realized that people prefer

smoking, and there’s a reason people prefer smoking.

And we’ve been studying it and we

realized that the chemistry is different in

smoked cannabis versus not smoked cannabis.

So I think the best example of

this, just to help conceptualize it, is

THC, when exposed to high temperatures, partially

turns into CBN cannabinol, a different cannabinoid.

So this isn’t just happening with THC, though.

This is happening with pretty

much every compound in cannabis.

When it’s lit on fire or when it’s exposed

to high heat, it’s producing other, like we call

them, daughter compounds of the parent compounds

THC, it’s producing daughter compounds from

that compound because the high heat

has transformed it into different compounds.

And they’re not harmful for you, they’re

still cannabinoids, but they’re interacting with your

body in a slightly different way.

So that’s what we’re studying.

But we also now make products using this process.

So the process is the smoke and all process.

And we make hemp based products that we literally

take cannabis flower, put it in an oven, burn

it, collect those cannabinoids from our patent pending filter,

which makes an extract, and then we incorporate that

extract into topicals and tinctures right now.

So our tagline is we smoked it for you.

And it’s really cool though.

So it is like a CBD based product, but it

contains other minor and rare cannabinoids that are produced from

the smoking process that no other products contain.

So one of the most abundant ones is

CBT, but we have CBC, CBG, CBL.

There’s so many of these different compounds that no

other products have, and that’s why we think that

they’re working better for people compared to just CBD

isolate thrown in a cream and mixed together because

there’s only so much that one compound can do.

You kind of need that molecular diversity

because chronic conditions are really complex.

You need complex products to combat complex conditions.

That’s amazing.

And how can we find these products?

Are these products ready?

Can any of us go online and buy some?

Oh, they’re ready and they’ve been selling great.

You can find them at profoundnaturals.com.

And we also have an Instagram,

but also we do wholesale.

If any dispensaries, CBD shops, whoever is looking

to sell our products in your stores, we

would love to work with you.

I am the person who answers the wholesale

email, so if you want to talk to

me, then just email me through our wholesale.

wholesale@profoundnaturals.com.

Amazing. Well, you’ll probably have an email there soon.

If you want some of these products at Budz Emporium,

just let us know.

Well, Riley, we will be sure to add all of the

links in our show notes so everyone can connect with you.

What is the best channel for people to follow you on?

Yeah, definitely.

I post more on TikTok than any other channel and that’s

just because one, it’s really easy to make videos, which is

why I do it, because I’m kind of lazy, and then

it has the most viewership, you can reach, the most people.

And I kind of target people who are newer

to cannabis and natural products as my audience, but

I get deleted off of platforms all the time.

So my Instagram is also @cannabichem, that’s

the same name on my TikTok.

And then our company pages are Smoking all

and Profound Naturals and we’re on Instagram there.

Perfect. Well, we will have those.

Thank you so much for joining us and I

really do look forward to having you again.

Yeah, I’d love to be on again.

We can talk more about

the endocannabinoid system and everything

science and cannabis.

I love it.

And of course, we are so grateful to all of you

for tuning in to another episode of WeedBudz Radio.

We look forward to seeing you in the next episode.

Budz Emporium Establishes Maine’s First Recreational Best Price Guarantee.

Yesterday, Ry Russell, Owner / Operator of Budz Emporium took to social media to share the following:

“We made a commitment to our community to provide the very best Budz for the very best value and we continue to honor that! We are now introducing our Best Budz/Best Value plan. Effective Immediately; should you find the EXACT same product carried at Budz Emporium Recreational Dispensary Medway, Maine at another Maine Adult-Use / Recreational retailer we will match it, period.

Our menu has been completely updated and much research was conducted to ensure that we offer the absolute best value there is.

We love serving this incredible community and we are all growing together!

Have an incredible 4th of July and we will see you soon! We are open our normal hours, everyday 10-7.

Sincerely, Ry”

Budz Emporium was the first Adult-Use store North of Bangor, Maine. A small family operated business in the Katahdin region. Now, they look to set the tone again. Ry stated that he felt this move although a bit bold also added a layer of accountability for the industry, in whole.

Ultimately this move could be seen as slightly risky with already razor thin margins and taxes that can exceed almost 40%, especially considering there are no deductions or protections for cannabis businesses. However, I see it as an important step for ensuring the best value for the community. Not just here in Katahdin, but across the State. If someone can afford to offer a product we carry for less than myself, then I best honor it. It is not the customers fault that I am not big enough to order large quantities or maybe there was something I missed when I was selecting product. Either way, I feel like it is important to guarantee to my customers that they will always receive the best value. For those that have followed me since my days at the Saco Drive-in I think its pretty clear that value and community are two of my most fundamental values.

Ry Russell

We asked Ry, if there was any fine print on the offer and he said, “No”, and recognizes it could be abused. He says that if he operates with integrity then he believes most of the public will as well. It is pretty easy to verify things like competing offers with todays technology. As long as it is a publicly offered price, Ry is committed to being that one stop shop for complete cannabis value.

Budz Emporium is now open 7 days a week from 10a-7pm. Offering 40+ strains and a great collection of vape products, concentrates, beverages, edibles and more! Budz Emporium was also the first store to offer the $99 ounce in partnership with Nova Farms, limited quantities available so visit soon or put yours on reserve by the calling 2077231634.

Contact us today!

Beware of Tourists with CJ Britton

Welcome to this episode of Weed Budz Radio!  I am Ry Russell and joining me today is Founder of  Juicebox Collective and my friend, CJ Britton. 

CJ recently wrote a compelling article, “Beware of Tourists” that inspired my thoughts about who they are and where they show up in everyone’s lives. Join us as we discuss how tourists are not just the ones we interact with in the traditional sense, but those that are part of our professional and personal lives.

Beware of Tourists Article by CJ: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/beware-tourists-christopher-cj-britton

Guest: CJ Britton
https://www.juiceboxcollective.com/


Host: Ry Russell
BUDZ EMPORIUM
WeedBudz Radio

Support the show

Hey budz, welcome back to another

episode of WeedBudz Radio.

I’m your host Ry, and I’m here in

the studio in the North Maine woods.

And for those of you watching, you can

see the beautiful northern lights behind me and

here at the studio of Budz Emporium.

As you learned the last time we talked, we opened

an adult use store here in the North Maine woods

and we’re just having an incredible time here.

And I feel very blessed to be a part of this community.

And one of the things that makes

not just Budz Emporium special, but the

whole region special, really is the community.

The North Maine woods, Baxter State Park,

Katahdin woods and water.

There’s so much beauty up here.

And rafting, skydiving camping, hiking, mountain climbing,

you can do all of that here.

So I definitely encourage all of you, if you have

not taken a trip to Maine, specifically here in the

Katahdin region, I definitely encourage you to do so.

And of course, come see us at Budz Emporium.

But one of the things that I noticed in the last

couple of weeks, especially as we gear up to having more

tourists enter the business and enter the region, I’m looking for

ways to increase tourism to really share what we have here

in the Katahdin region with the world.

There’s just so much beauty up here and

so much that you can escape from. It really is.

There’s very little cell service in many of the areas

here, which just makes it amazing. When I think of

how do we increase tourism, and then I hear things

like Baxter State Park, having a cap on the number

of visitors that can go to the park every year,

I’m conflicted because I absolutely want to preserve the beauty.

I also want to see a region that

has been hit with extreme economic hardships to

build back and to build forward.

And we have to do that with a balance

of embracing tourism and welcoming tourism and educating.

We have to educate these campers and hikers as they come

into the state about how to treat this space right.

We need to be educated when we go to

other cultures and other community spaces as well.

So this all got me thinking, and I was on

LinkedIn, and I’m very rarely on social media these days.

And while I’m having this debate in my mind

about tourism and locals and what does this all

mean and how do we increase one?

Do we need both?

I came across this article and

it was titled “Beware of Tourists”.

And it hit me because as a lot of you know,

I made my start in my career with a drive

in movie theater built on tourism, so “Beware of Tourists”.

And I started reading it, and then I realized

the article I’m reading is a good friend of

mine and a friend that you all might remember

that we went to Alabama to visit, and we

ended up working on a Delta-8 project together.

And some of you might remember the Rise and

Grind, which was my favorite product that we created.

A lot of that was in collaboration with my friend CJ,

who is joining us today, who I want to really share

this article with all of you and help, maybe you think

about what is a tourist in your life.

So, CJ, thank you so much for

joining me on WeedBudz Radio. Man, thanks for having me.

It’s good to be here.

I can’t believe that this is your first

appearance on WeedBudz Radio because we met so

many years ago through your brother.

That’s another podcast.

That’s another podcast.

And then just everything kind of continued to grow

between us and working on different projects and brainstorming,

number of different things late at night.

So it’s just been a pleasure to, one, get to

know you and an honor to be your friend.

And I’m really proud of you because

this piece in particular, it’s inspired and

it’s inspired conversations outside of this dynamic.

I’ve shared this article with other people, and then they’ll

tell me that they shared it with someone else.

So, I mean, this article is definitely kind

of grown into something, and it’s been relevant

for a lot of people’s lives.

So would you kind of tell us, what should

we be aware of and what is a tourist?

Yeah, absolutely, man.

So I’m pumped to be here.

We’ve known each other for I just did

the math in my head almost 3 years.

It was a pre-COVID friendship, which means

it’s a real friendship, my friend.

We need to get that as a tag

on LinkedIn, pre-COVID LinkedIn connection or something.

This article is inspiring because, similar to

you, I live in a destination.

So I live in the panhandle of Florida between

Panama City and Destin, which immediately most people think

of spring break on MTV and things like that.

The region I live in is called 30A.

And if you’re from the south, you know where it is.

It’s this little strip of 17-mile beach that’s curated.

It’s all been heavily designed in a certain way.

If you’ve seen The Truman Show, for all of you, that

was filmed in my area, and so it’s kind of like

a little Maybury on the beach, which is awesome.

But one of the interesting things about where

I live is two and a half million

people come down here every year.

14,000 people live here full time.

So similar to you.

It’s a huge amount of people coming

in to visit, and it’s wonderful. Right?

The entire area really revolves around

the tourist industry that comes from

Dallas, Nashville, and Atlanta primarily.

And what’s great about it is the energy is amazing.

I can go out tonight and it feels

like somebody’s birthday every time you go out.

Everywhere is packed.

People are happy.

They’ve been saving up all year to come here.

It’s not cheap.

And they’re spending a couple of

$100 on a meal and wine.

And so it’s just easy to get caught up in the energy.

But afterwards, all the excitement kind of fades away

and you wake up the next day and there’s

plastic everywhere and there’s a car in a ditch

and a golf cart crashed into another golf cart

because some dad couldn’t handle his alcohol.

And so it got me thinking a lot about

people who come here and enjoy the beauty, right?

We have to have tourists. We just do.

It’s part of who we are. And it’s awesome, right?

We all live in America.

We have beautiful landscape.

But there’s another thing to be said about locals,

and it got me thinking a lot about the

people that live here and really make it remarkable.

I’ve made this mistake in my businesses multiple times.

It’s a lesson I’m still learning.

You get caught up in the excitement of

people who see you for a very small

sliver of who you really are, right?

Coming to see the beach, go into a restaurant to

eat or drink, seeing you for who you are as

a hustler or a marketer or maybe one thing you

did, but they don’t really know you.

They don’t take the time.

They also don’t really respect kind of what it is

to be here locally and take consideration into that.

And I’ve made a lot of partnerships with

people that I would say are more tourists.

And as I was thinking through this article,

which has been really funny, to watch it

take its life on its own and how

much it’s resonated with people has been incredible.

But it’s a good practice to evaluate

the people you’re doing business with on.

Is this person just seeing me for

maybe one, two aspects of my life?

Are they just tourists kind of coming

through my life, enjoying this really specific

moment and then moving out?

Or is this someone who’s going to stay

and dig in with me and Ry?

First of all, you, my friend,

are local status in my life.

So glad to have you on board for that.

And it’s hard, right?

Like you live in Maine.

You have down months and it’s

quiet and places are closed. I live at the beach.

Do you know what happens here in February? Nothing.

It’s cold. We’re in the northern panhandle, so we do get

cold weather and you have to kind of hunker

down and weather the good and the bad.

It’s the same in business.

Like who are the people that are going to be

with you, that are going to weather the ups and

downs, not just peaks, not just the tourist season,

not just the time when it’s fun to go out.

There’s always something going on.

Who are the people that are going to sit here

in February when it’s 50 degrees and the wind is blowing

25 miles an hour off the beach and you can’t

do anything but sit inside and dig in with you?

And so the article really was inspired by

that and it’s been fun to share.

I don’t think it’s that original of a thought.

It’s been kind of encapsulated in different ways, but

I’m glad to hear it resonated with you and

hopefully it does with other people as well.

And I think it resonates in a lot of different facets.

It resonates in kind of that literal facet,

that which you and I came from, of

the natural beauty that surrounds us.

And I think we both quickly equated it to some

of the business dealings that we both have been a

part of and both have seen and witnessed and sometimes

I was giving the example a lot of times like

there’s shooting stars and there’s superstars.

And superstars are often the more kind of longevity in the

industry and they’re a little quieter where the shooting stars come

in very loud, maybe raise a fair amount of money and

then they’re gone in a year or two.

And there’s examples of that in personal lives where maybe

things are going really well in your life and you

have everything that you could ever imagine around you, friends

and relationships, and then maybe things are not so great

and that pool is much smaller.

Well, you learn really quickly like

who that inner circle is.

And I think that’s the most

important thing of all of it.

And so it really does relate whether it’s

business or friendships or just saving the beaches,

it’s something that we can all think about.

And so, CJ, I know with your business specifically, you

help companies in a number of different facets and so

define a little bit like what a tourist is, what

is an ideal customer look like for you and for

your team to work with, along with the types of

projects that you have been kind of crushing that.

Absolutely. And it’s great that you’re in the

cannabis space because you get this more

than anyone else, especially emerging industries, right?

A tourist very similar to a shooting star is

someone just trying to find a quick buck, right?

I saw it when I did some consulting in COVID.

I saw it when I’ve

worked with different cannabis businesses.

You can tell who’s really passionate about the

actual business and industry and who’s just there

to make a quick buck. And so, with me, with Juicebox,

I do consulting for a host of different businesses.

We really are a marketing agency.

We do a bunch of different things to help

small but growing businesses really become their best.

And you find out really quickly on a

first call if someone’s passionate, like a founder

is really passionate about something, right?

Because the startup space is full of people who

have a little extra cash and are like, I

found this niche thing, I’m going to do it.

And then you have people who

are almost borderline psychotic about it.

And I love those people because they

know it and they breathe it.

I think you and I have

had this exact conversation before.

I don’t work with a founder who doesn’t

try, believe or use their own product.

From if you’re developing a construction hardware and you’ve

never picked up a hammer in your life to

running a cannabis brand and you don’t enjoy cannabis,

it’s just, authenticity is so few and far between

nowadays and startups don’t understand that is the one

advantage they have over big businesses.

Big businesses are not authentic. They never will be.

And it’s okay, right?

Like, it’s like the tourists and the locals.

There’s a place for everyone.

Big businesses are going to do stuff and write

checks and we love our people, but at the

end of the day, they’re here to make money.

Small businesses are here to make a difference

because it’s you and me and maybe two

or three other people at most.

And so the idea is if you’re really in this

to make a difference, that’s beautiful and I hope you

achieve all your dreams if that’s one of those that

you want to grow into a big business and you

just get way larger than you can handle. Awesome.

We need both.

But I think the problem is there’s a lot of people

who lie to themselves and when you engage with them, you’re

the one that’s going to get burnt in it.

I want to be a small business.

I want to make a difference.

When really it’s just dollars in the back of your mind.

And what happens is in startup

world, you get beaten down.

You have to do things that

may not be in your wheelhouse.

You have to be a Swiss Army knife when really you

just want to be the knife or the fork or something.

You have to do all the things and you

get burned out and it just doesn’t last.

And so the only thing that keeps you going is

that ultimate belief and purpose and your ability to go,

I know what I’m doing, I know my why.

I’m going to make a difference

and I’m sticking with it.

And you should really ask yourself, would you do

it if you were doing it for free?

I think at this stage and you and

I both do work in other industries as

well, outside of our primary things, especially on

the media production side, is the money worth

the dynamic? Is always the question and something

that we’re always trying to figure out.

And luckily we now are in a position where

kind of what you’re saying, like, if I wouldn’t

necessarily be buds with you, it doesn’t mean that

you’re the wrong fit for maybe your own show

or your own site or what have you.

I will fail you because it’s not the right fit

and I won’t be able to see the whole vision.

And I think you and I kind of

got into that phase, right, where a lot

of people will just say, yes, there’s $1,000. Yes.

And then it comes with a laundry list of

things that comes with that at this point. Like, yes.

Obviously everybody should earn a keep

in whatever their keep is.

But it is fun to just watch some of

those dynamics over the last couple of years begin

to shift in that mindset, begin to shift because

if you wouldn’t do it for free,

the money is not necessarily going to make it fun.

It might make it easier to do, to accomplish, but

I think it’s a lot better, especially being up here

in the cultivation centers, I see people trimming that enjoy

trimming and enjoy being around the plant, right?

Like, I don’t I personally do not like trimming

and it wouldn’t be a fun activity for me.

You have to pay me to do it.

But there’s people where, like, it’s a

hobby, it’s very artistic, it’s very therapeutic.

So it’s awesome to be a part

and to continue to witness this develop.

So CJ, what’s next for you, man? What do you have

shakin’ and bakin’?

What are you looking for, man?

So I’ve been consulting with a couple of businesses.

I’m from Birmingham, Alabama originally, now living in

Florida, so thankfully I have some connections there.

And then obviously the world is small because of the

internet, so I have a few different clients I’m working

for in healthcare, cannabis actually as well, and CPG.

So beverages, snacks, things like that.

I really enjoy that space a lot.

And so doing some different consulting.

I have a couple of companies who are looking

to me to be like a fractional marketing director.

My big pitch is I’m always looking

for the why, not the how.

So spoiler alert to everybody listening if you need

a how, I just need social media management.

I just need design Fiverr.

Is your best friend. Never going to beat that rate.

But if you need someone to take your hows and really

build it into a why that’s going to make someone pause,

which is the hardest thing to do in the world nowadays,

is to make a potential customer go, hmm.. they might be onto

something, that might be something I want to try, then I’m

your guy and that’s what I really enjoy doing.

And so you have to kind of think exceptionally.

You can’t just think nuts and bolts, but that’s really

what I enjoy doing and there’s nothing that gets me

more amped and talking to a founder who gets high

on their own supply, to use a cannabis analogy.

I love working with people like that.

I love the energy of startup founders who are

just believing what they do are small business owners.

And I think that’s where I really can help people grow.

So that’s what I’ve been focusing on, enjoying

it and obviously getting out in the sun

with my family because it’s hot.

So if I’m one of those small business owners, and

I know that I madly need some proper assistance in

these categories, what’s the best way to contact you?

My LinkedIn. You can find me on there or juiceboxcollective.com.

There’s an easy contact form, it will come straight

to my phone and I’ll respond very quickly.

Perfect. And of course we will have all of those

links in the show notes over at weedbudzradio.com and we’ll

be sure to add a direct link to CJ’s article

so you can check that out over again

at weedbudzradio.com, we’re so excited and so grateful to

have you tuning in with us today.

We’ll see you in the next episode.

WeedBudz Is Turning 4 and DJ Matt Perry Goes To Kenya

We are incredibly grateful to all of you that have been with us from the beginning and we welcome those of you whom are just joining our journey now. Weedbudz started back in 2018 and has gone through some re-branding and development to become the show it is today. Now, members of this team have gone on to open the recreational cannabis store in northern Maine, known as BUDZ EMPORIUM, paying homage to WeedBudz and the Budz Brands eco-system.  Be sure to check out the new store in the Katahdin Region, located at 1995 Medway Rd, Medway, Maine.
Now, our humble studio has grown and we have a team of 5 incredible people, that also help others produce their very own podcasts on various topics and themes. One constant in all of our production is our Genius Audio Engineer and  artist, DJ MATT PERRY. 

Matt and his family recently took a trip to Kenya and shares that experience with us here today. I have never peen to any part of Africa and I loved watching Matt’s videos and posts while he was away. A remarkable experience that he shares with us and to do all of that traveling with a toddler can only make for some awesome stories, be sure to tune in and join us!

DJ MATT PERRY

Host: Ry Russell
BUDZ EMPORIUM
WeedBudz Radio

Matt and Ry getting ready to record!

Transcript:

Welcome to WeedBudz Radio.

They’re going into year 4 of WeedBudz.

It’s crazy to think about.

November 2019 is when we rebranded to

WeedBudz Radio and Matt joined the team,

and it’s been craziness ever since.

Yeah.

The WeedBudz family is incredible.

It’s such an honor.

Thank you, Ry for bringing me on board.

And I’ve had a blast working, doing creative work for the

podcast and helping to write some of the music that you

hear on the show and create some of the vision.

So it’s a fun experiment.

And WeedBudz Radio is obviously owned by the RyzAbove

Media Group, which Matt does all of the

sound engineering for our clients as well.

And we’ve got a few new ones coming onboard.

And Matt is brilliant when working with clients.

He hears exactly what they’re thinking

and puts the best sound together.

So it’s been a lot of fun to obviously produce

WeedBudz Radio, and it’s great to be back, and we’ll

talk about our hiatus and everything else that’s happened in

the last year or so, but it’s been a lot

of fun and exciting to bring on new partners and

new shows into the RyzAbove network.

What is it like when a client reaches out

to you from RyzAbove and just explains to

you kind of a vision for a show?

How does that process work for you?

Because for the rest of us, it’s just magic.

Well, creating a podcast and all the cool things that

we’ve done at RyzAbove, really, it reminds me of,

like, a blank canvas, and you have to start with

the right color paper because you might want to paint

on a normal square or rectangular piece of white paper,

or maybe you want to have, like, a multicolored paper

you’re going to start the painting with.

So I try to allow whoever the client is

ultimately to create the vision, and then I’m just

translating it rather than creating it myself.

I feel more like I’m translating the vision and

helping navigate the difference between words and sounds.

I remember when Christina joined us, and

if you haven’t checked out the Christina DiArcangelo

podcast, you definitely should.

She called and said that she spoke colors to

you, and all of a sudden, you put together

this amazing sound, and I wasn’t surprised at all.

But it was just exciting to see when her

excitement as getting ready to launch a show is.

But it really is magical.

She’s like, I like blue and pink and green.

I love people, and I have a

nonprofit, and this is just my world.

And she was like, he only needed me for,

like, ten minutes, and then you send me this

sound back, and it’s like, that was it. That was it.

I just didn’t know it.

It so super cool, man.

And I appreciate what you’ve done for WeedBudz Radio

and helping us get to where we

are today, because I would have thought we

made it like 15 episodes when we started.

I never would have thought we’re coming up on 100.

So thank you.

And then, of course, thank you for the work that

we’re doing to help other people envision their own shows.

This guy.

Ry before we get into too much, tell us a

little bit about the new shop you’ve opened up,

because I am so hype on that.

And I believe we have some

excellent products downstairs as well. Oh, yes.

So it’s been a crazy year, as many of you might know.

I think last July was our last episode of last season.

We had to cut it short because

we were working on some crazy projects.

And ultimately it was time to utilize the

knowledge that we’ve learned with all of you

and talking to the incredible people that we’ve

spoken to over the last few years.

I really felt like maybe it was foolish,

but I felt like I could do it.

I felt like I could open a dispensary.

I obviously had experience in retail in that kind of community

setting with the Saco Drive-in, and I don’t know, it’s in

my bones, I felt like I needed to do it.

And we had an incredible team that if it

wasn’t for them, it never would have gotten done.

Licensing as hard as everybody tells

you it is, it’s harder.

And so I’m just super grateful for

everyone that was involved with this.

But we opened Budz Emporium in Medway, Maine.

It’s in Northern Maine.

I mean, there’s definitely more North you can

go before you hit the Canadian border.

I think we’re like 52 minutes or so from the border.

It’s pretty far up there, Bob.

It is far up there, and you can’t get there

from here, but it’s a great little humble shop.

It was definitely a labor of love, and we did it.

And it’s part of that Budz

brands ecosystem that we’ve cultivated here.

We’ve released the Budz Reserve Delta-8 products in a

couple of markets last year, and now we have Budz

Emporium and WeedBudz and potentially some other exciting Budz

brands type of things coming down the pipe.

But those will be for a later date.

So if you are ever finding yourself in

Northern Maine, specifically in the Katahdin region, which

is the largest mountain in Maine and the

peak of the Appalachian Trail, so beautiful.

Camping, hiking, rafting, skydiving, all of the recreational

activities that there is to do, you can

do it in the Katahdin region.

And we were, I think, the first recreational cannabis

store North of Bangor and the only one in

the Katahdin region, and just so excited about it.

So I definitely encourage you, if

you’re in Maine, make the trip.

We are in Portland at the Nest Matt’s and

his team’s studio space, which is different than Breakwater,

where we started back in November of ’19.

But drive on up.

And if you aren’t in Maine.

Come visit. Summer is here.

It is the most beautiful state in the summertime.

I think that’s what every Northern state says.

If you enjoy some space and peace,

there is a lot of that here.

So I think the Mainers are very cool and relaxed and

it’s just a great place to come, like spread your wings.

And we’re a service industry

state, we’re a tourist state.

And so you’re right, I think we

are well positioned to be nice.

Some of it might be commercial, especially during

the summer when it gets super busy.

But it’s lovely.

The people are great.

It’s a beautiful place to come visit.

And I know some of my friends out

in California that have come to visit.

They’ll tell you now, but Maine has some of

the best cannabis in the country by far.

Oh, yeah, Maine is a great place, man.

Come check it out.

We would love you to visit. Absolutely.

So Budz Emporium

budzemporium.com

Check it out.

But that’s really what I’ve been working on for

the last year and I’m excited to get WeedBudz

into its next season and its next evolution.

I feel like every year we learn some new

stuff, we entrepreneurially, play in some new stuff and

really explore this industry as deep as anyone can.

Really. Enough about the Emporium.

But what I really want to talk about today we

did the recap, but I want to recap what the

DJ has been doing for the last year and share

a little bit about not just the journey he’s been

on, but the journey he just came back from.

And so Matt, you’ve had a wild

year since we last took a break.

So would you share with all of our buds

what you’ve been starting up in your life?

Well, I have a beautiful family, which is amazing.

Blessing.

And we got to visit Kenya and

had the experience of a lifetime.

We got to explore the Ngong Hills

over outside Ongata Rongai

So wait, how old is your son

when he gets to go to Kenya?

Yeah, he’s a year and a half and he’s

running around just living life, making friends already.

And such a lucky guy.

Oh, yeah.

So why did you go to Kenya?

What was the purpose of the trip?

I think a lot of it has to

do with exploring and expanding your perspective as

well as exploring and expanding your business.

Because those things both together can grow

harmoniously and it doesn’t have to be

like personal growth or business growth.

They can both happen together.

And that’s how that trip felt.

And I really liked that experience.

I mean, Kenya is really beautiful.

There’s a lot of fun things to do and

beautiful wildlife and the people are so humble.

Did you have any, I suppose, preconceived notions

of what the experience would be like?

I guess take me two days.

I think I saw you was it the day before

your flight or two days before your flight either way.

Before I left?

Yeah, right before you left.

What were you expecting at that point in time?

And then we’ll talk about, like, after you landed.

I definitely expected it to be a lot

more hot and it was very comfortable weather.

I also expected maybe just a different energy, I guess.

I can’t explain it in words as much

as, like, I really miss listening to Afrobeat.

And the music is just so incredible.

And we had a bunch of dance parties with our family.

Nice, super fun, and just got to

work hard for your water, really?

For sure, man.

It’s hard to find clean water, especially

there’s a lot of hardship over there.

I think there’s a lot of beautiful things happening,

but there’s also definitely a lot of people struggling.

It’s just like any place else in the world.

There’s beautiful places and

there’s really hard places.

You know what I’m saying?

Was that a surprise to you?

Were you expecting some of those challenges for the communities,

or was it I’m just trying because when I picture

it anyway, when you mention that you’ve kind of seen

documentaries, it is hard to get water.

It’s hard to find clean water.

You just walk down the street and pay a

couple of bucks and fill up your tank.

But you can’t drink the tap

water like you can in Maine. Really?

And the well water, you probably can’t drink either.

You have to at least do more

filtering and boiling on your own end. Okay.

And the water in Mumbasa was so bad.

But Mumbasa was amazing.

We took a train from Nairobi to Mumbasa, which

is an island off the coast of Kenya.

And yeah, that place, the water

the ocean is so healing.

That’s a great place for some healing.

And it’s so warm.

And you can drink coconut water on the beach.

It’s so good.

Is it like fresh coconut water? Oh, yeah.

You see the coconut trees right there?

It’s so much fun.

And got to swim in the ocean.

So, like, warm ocean.

Was it like, green or, like, blue?

What was the water like?

It was like a darker blue, for sure.

Where I was, at least there was a lot of waves. Okay.

Like nice waves and a lot of healthy seaweed.

You know what I mean?

It was like, very healthy ocean. Yeah.

So I know you did, you went out

and I know you enjoyed the music.

So tell us about what the nightlife was like, what

the music was like, what the food was like.

So the nightlife was for me, it was spent,

like, hanging out at home with the family.

And we did a lot of our traveling during the daytime.

We went to a couple different animal sanctuaries.

We went to an animal orphanage called the Nairobi

Animal Orphanage.

And they’re, like, taking care of, like,

orphaned animals or animals with challenges that

would leave them dead in the wild.

And it’s just freaking awesome place.

Like, so cool.

And that was the beautiful lion that

you posted on your Instagram story.

Oh, yeah, the lion, man.

It’s a really fun place.

I got the pet a leopard there.

I don’t know if you’re like,

technically, but it was very enjoyable.

And our family in Kenya is like, so kind, and

they took us around anywhere we wanted to go.

Just like the traffic is rough for sure. Really?

I never would have expected that traffic, bro.

It’s super rough traffic.

And the buses or the matatus are savage over there.

They do not mess with the matatus, man.

Telling you right now.

So what’s the population?

Nairobi’s is huge.

We didn’t even really explore Nairobi that much.

We kind of explored Rongai,

which is outside of Nairobi.

And I mean, I don’t know the population.

There’s a lot of people that live there.

It’s probably maybe similar to the

size of Westbrook or something. Okay.

I don’t know. To be honest.

I could be totally wrong, but it’s pretty big.

Yeah, it’s a pretty big suburb outside of Nairobi.

And there’s only one road to get there, but it’s

like one of the main suburbs outside of the city.

And there’s a lot of Maasai.

The Maasai people live up there and they

have, like, beautiful land that they raise their

cows on and live life very, like, organically.

Yeah, it was cool, man.

There’s a big, big market there of fresh

fruits and vegetables like a mile long every

day from sun up to sun down.

But you are in heaven. Oh, yeah, man.

You can eat your watermelon, your pineapple, apples, oranges,

lemons, whatever you need, they got over there.

I promise you that it’ll be fresh.

And how does it compare? Sugar cane?

Our produce? Better. Way better. Yeah.

Like, how funny is that?

You think you live in America, you got good produce.

I don’t think so, man.

Our soil is fucked over here.

We’ve been poisoning our soil for years.

Look at the research with the DDT and everything.

They’ve been spraying for years.

And over there in Kenya, I don’t think they

have like, mass pesticide stuff sprayed like that.

So it tastes really good.

And there’s just a lot of fresh vegetables over there.

I know people can get good veggies over here too.

But seriously, guys, we fucked up our soil, okay?

We need to fix our soil in America.

Guys, we’re fucking up our soil.

You guys want to live in an arid country?

That’s where we’re going towards. Yeah.

And then we create. America is going to be the

biggest desert on the planet. Just watch.

Then we create new chemicals to fix the soil, and then

we create new chemicals to fix that after the next one.

What were some of the other meals?

What are some traditional meals that

you would find in Kenya?

In the morning, I have Kenyan tea, which is

very similar to, like, chai tea with milk and

water mixed with a bunch of black tea, spice

tea, and best sweetened with some sugar. Sugar? Yeah.

Oh, really good sugar.

Or you just have it with you,

make like, a fresh tea in the morning and have

some Mandazi and the Mandazi is kind of like fried dough.

Okay.

It’s like little fried doughs. They’re very good.

Who doesn’t want fried dough? Yeah, yeah.

Oh, and we would cut up, like, a big

watermelon and a pineapple, eat that all morning.

Awesome.

And maybe have some, like, porridge.

Oatmeal, okay. That’s so good.

All right, how about lunch?

Lunch would probably have some Nyama Choma. What’s that?

Which is just grilled meat, really.

And have it with maybe some Chabadi, which

is like a flat bread, kind of.

And it’s very delicious and savory.

Is it, like, Naan?

It’s more like a wrap. Okay.

Yeah, it’s like we call wrap.

And then maybe have some Kachumbari in there, which

is, like, chopped up tomatoes and onions and cucumbers.

That would be really good.

Like, you kind of, like, roll it up like a little wrap

or eat it with scoop it up, like chips or something.

Or, like, Angelica probably my wife probably

had just more fruit, like apples.

And I made, like, a homemade pasta sauce

one day for everybody, like, Italian style.

Shout out to all the Italians out there.

Christina is definitely happy. Yeah.

Fresh tomatoes, fresh onion, fresh zucchini.

Made a really good sauce.

How about dinner? Now I’m starving. Oh, yeah, right.

Dinner you got to have Ugali.

Everybody’s having Ugali, which is, like, corn flour, like

a big, soft bread, basically, kind of like thing.

And then you dip that in with, like, a good

stew or some more Nyama Choma, grilled meat, and add tomatoes.

Maybe make some Samosas, which I think

everybody knows what Samosa is over here.

It’s like a deep fried meat dumpling, but

it’s not like an Asian meat dumpling.

I think it’s actually from India.

I don’t think that’s a Kenyan food.

I think so too, but there’s a lot

of mixing of the Middle Eastern food with

the African food, and it’s so good.

I maybe saw one Italian shop, so maybe

I’ll go open up a pasta shop.

Just kidding. I’m not going to do that.

But it was really good, and Angelica’s family cooked us

amazing food all the time and just really made sure

there were, like, fresh food, fresh vegetables every day.

Like, avocados are in season right now, so they’re

super tasty and, like, just delicious avocados, man.

Just the delicious you’ve ever had.

I was thinking about when you were talking about that.

Just when I went to Hungary, and the family that

I stayed with there, and obviously the family you stayed

with was your family, but the family I stayed with

there, it was similar in terms of, like, every morning,

the mother or father went to the market and it

was fresh bread and fruits and yogurt and lunch.

They would almost get the items to prepare

the meal before the meal, rather than going

to the grocery store on Sunday and getting

food that’s preserved for a long time.

As you’re talking about fresh, fresh food.

Yeah, it doesn’t get much better than that.

Obviously, you are a music guy, so tell us

about what the music is like in Kenya.

Well, it’s definitely the type of vibe.

It’s the Afrobeat vibe, where it’s

just all about the one, right. In America.

And the hip hop is more about the

one, two, you know what I’m saying?

How you swing your hips. Yeah.

A little bit of dancing, but super hard.

And I love that song.

There’s just a lot of really

good music going on over there.

We listen to, like, a lot of Afrobi.

We also listen to Rumba and church

music, really, which I love church music.

Personally, I think church music is, like, so

good when it’s like you got all the

choir singing and man, I love church music.

I love choir music.

And my dad’s dad and mother, my grandfather and my

grandmother were both Episcopal ministers, and I loved growing up

in the church and listening to the choir.

There’s definitely some choirs that I won’t

name which ones that I’d prefer over

others, but a really good choir.

There’s just something so beautiful about it.

And my grandfather, his voice, his speaking voice

was powerful enough that his singing voice, it

elevates the entire church and just echoed.

So it’s beautiful.

And I can only imagine what it was like there. Oh, man.

Yeah.

Big, huge churches.

Crazy churches, man, people are getting

demons exercised out of them.

Shoo demons you run.

Is it like a theatrical type of experience, or

is it kind of traditional in terms of, like,

a sermon and a prayer and a song?

I think you’re going to get all

those variations, but there’s probably more dancing.

Okay.

And more just like kind

of like excitement and movement.

Whereas I grew up in a Catholic church, right.

And so you sit there with your legs

crossed, basically, and don’t say a word.

So that was a different experience, for sure.

But religion is the same everywhere, all over the world,

and I think we’re all praying to the same thing.

So it doesn’t matter ultimately what your religion is.

I love that.

So what would you say was your biggest takeaway?

Be grateful for the job that I have and

be grateful for the fresh water that I have. Right.

And those things are, like, a lot

of life, you know what I’m saying?

And also just be a little more happy

because of those things, of being grateful.

I heard Bradley the other day talk to some

individuals and said, if I gave you a million

dollars right now, what would you say?

And the individual said, I would be super grateful, and

if I gave you $10 million right now, but you

don’t wake up tomorrow, what would you do?

Share with my family.

I said the same damn thing.

Isn’t everybody going to do that?

That’s interesting.

So they all said, no, I wouldn’t take the money.

I want to wake up tomorrow.

I wouldn’t take the 10 Million.

I said the same damn thing.

I got people that like, $10 Million.

Take one for the team, I guess. I don’t know.

Maybe if the offer was real, I might rethink it.

But I thought the same thing you did, but I

guess most people would say, well, no, I’d like to

wake up tomorrow, so I don’t want the 10 Million.

At the end of the day, we

need to relearn gratitude every damn day. I do.

Maybe it’s a me thing, but I have to relearn it.

Every day.

I feel like I wake up with it, and I know

it, and by freaking lunchtime, I need to relearn it.

So I think that gratitude is something that we can take

away from big moments like this, and we also need to

figure out how to keep it in our brains.

So that’s definitely something I’m

working on this year.

Yeah.

The gratefulness will expand your mind, for sure, and

I’m very grateful for having a space as well,

like, being able to create content in a studio

and work with artists that you’re passionate about.

A lot of us are living in our

dreams, and we just don’t even realize it.

So it’s very easy to just be ungrateful.

So I’m working on it, you know what I’m saying?

We’re all working on it.

It’s all good.

Absolutely.

We’re living in our dreams.

How much time do we spend wanting

something different than where we are?

And we get there, and I’d go back, I could think of

plenty of times or plenty of places I’d go back to, but

I also really do appreciate where the hell I am today.

That’s why I’m saying we got to fix our soil, guys.

Okay.

I’m just saying we got to fix our soil.

It makes a big deal for the cannabis

crops, makes a big deal for spinach.

Grow indoors, tomatoes.

If you grow indoors, it still makes a big deal.

It’s going to be harder and harder

to find good soil from organic farms

or places where the products aren’t flooded. Hydroponics.

You got to get the resources from somewhere.

Are you going to fly over

to Africa and get the resources?

What are you going to do? You know what I’m saying?

Come on.

We can fix our own resources here

and then stop stealing from Africa.

We can do better.

Yeah, we can do better, guys.

Fix our soil.

Launch a campaign right now. WeedBudz.

Let’s fix the soil, man.

Well, before we wrap, I don’t know if you remember,

I think it was 2 or 3 years ago, right,

when we started investing in some of the sustainability projects.

And there was some sort of political meeting where

there was like 4 officials from the US, like

4 officials from Europe, 7 from Asia, 1 country

specifically, and one representative from Africa.

Guess where the trash was going

at the end of that meeting?

There’s no power, there was no negotiation, there was

a bully moves and basically put the representative in

a position where resources would be withheld if they

didn’t agree to build a landfill.

They had one rep and all of these other people.

Can you imagine?

And I’m sure he was a professional individual,

but can you imagine that’s intimidating for anybody,

especially when you have a community of individuals

that needs every Dollar coming in?

Yeah, I mean, man, some deep problems, but I

think we can all do something to help.

And I appreciate WeedBudz for opening my mind and

I think that’s going to just help with everybody.

If we can listen a little more

than we speak, we’ll all be good. Yeah.

And speaking of gratitude, I just want to express my

most sincere gratitude to all of you because truly, when

the WeedBudz started in 2018 or 2017 and we grew and we got

to the place, we needed to rebrand and that was

risky and scary and intimidating, and we did that together.

And I really appreciate I’ll never forget you, me and

Angelica at Sobago talking about it and having the realization

that we had worked with each other in a past

life, literally not a metaphorical past life, which we very

well may have, but in a previous career life for

both of us had worked together.

And when it was time to find the best audio

engineer in the state of Maine, the best filmmaker in

the state of Maine told me it was Matt.

And we started working out of

Breakwater Studios in South Portland, Maine.

And for me, that was such a massive step

up from my Yeti microphone in home studio and

to see where we are 4 years later of

work and cultivating a community that has been loving

and supportive and inspiring, to continue producing shows, to

continue growing the ecosystem that which we’ve cultivated here.

And I remember being like 15 episodes in and saying

to Matt, I don’t know where we go from here.

We’ve had brilliant minds already.

We started at BizCon and had Leafly and Weed

Maps and just some other really great pioneers of

different spaces and Chris Crane, just people who pioneered

different sectors of this industry to now being in

a position to pioneer some things ourselves.

So thank you all so much for joining us on

WeedBudz Radio and we are excited to launch into our

next season and we have some amazing guests coming up,

so stay tuned and be sure to follow us at

weedbudzradio.com and on Facebook, Instagram, everywhere else.

And Matt, thank you so much.

I appreciate it.

Man, this guy. Ry.

What an amazing human.

I love you, bro.

Love you too.

Signing off.

WeedBudz Radio. Peace.

Host of WeedBudz Radio to open Budz Emporium Adult-Use Cannabis Store in Medway, Maine.

Recreational Cannabis Store opening in Medway, Maine.

Host of WeedBudz Radio, Ry Russell and members of his team and family have worked incredibly hard to open the very first Adult-Use Cannabis store in the Katahdin Region of Northern Maine. This is a recreational marijuana store meaning that any individual over the age of 21 is permitted with valid form of identification. There is no medical card required to shop at an adult-use store. The team states that they are eager to expand their offerings and work with a large number of Maine Craft Cultivators and Processors in order to deliver the very best products available. Stores like this take a lot of pride in the testing that is required of each and every product that takes up shelf space, ensuring only the best quality products are served to their community. The store is located at 1995 Medway Rd, Medway, Maine; immediately off of I95 for quick and easy access to and from the highway. This store is NOW open 7 Days a Week from 10am to 7pm. Visit their website https://budzemporium.com/ for specials and menus and information. You can reach the BUDZ by calling or texting 207-723-1634 with any questions or at BudzEmporium@gmail.com.