Hemp processing and its many complexities is the main topic of discussion in this episode with Clean Leaf’s Kyle Egbert. Egbert is a trained scientist, a small business owner, and the founder of both Clean Leaf and Mountain Valley Botanicals. His specialty is processing hemp to extract components that can be used to manufacture cannabis products.
Tim and Chris opened the episode with a quick discussion on Wholesome and their new door-to-door delivery service. [00:44] Wholesome recently began deliveries in a limited number of Utah counties. They have plans to expand statewide in the very near future.
Getting back to Egbert, he led a fascinating discussion about the complexities of processing raw hemp. [03:44] There are numerous ways to do it; Egbert prefers CO2 processing because it is a more exact science. It allows him to extract specific chemicals to create an almost unlimited number of CBD and THC profiles.
The discussion covered a lot of bases ranging from the science of processing [05:44] to the cost of licensing [35:38]. Tim, Chris, and Kyle discussed how growers get their hemp processed and how the processed products eventually make it to consumers. [22:05] Bear in mind, all of this was related to hemp rather than marijuana.
If nothing else, the discussion clearly demonstrates how complex the science of hemp and marijuana processing is. The science is necessary in order to ensure that growers, processors, and retailers all remain within the confines of Utah law [25:49]. The more business owners like Egbert learn about this science, the better retail products become.
Egbert brought samples for Tim and Chris with him to the interview. Tim and Chris briefly talked about them during their opening monologue. You can expect to hear more about them in the future.
Tim Pickett: So welcome everybody to Utah in the Weeds. Chris Holifield and I, my name is Tim Pickett, I am a medical cannabis expert with UtahMarijuana.org. You can find our podcast on utahmarijuana.org/podcast. Chris, we’re doing the intro a little different this week to episode 43, right?
Chris Holifield: Absolutely. I think this way will be a lot easier because a lot of times we chat with people a few weeks back, right? But there’s a lot more topical stuff that we want to bring up at the beginning. Like right now, I realized delivery is available everywhere, it’s not just Utah County and Salt Lake County. Did you see this, Tim?
Tim Pickett: No. Well, absolutely. We sent out an email to all of our patients and all of our email list a few days ago about Wholesome delivery.
Chris Holifield: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: And there’s a coupon code if you sign up for the email list on utahmarijuana.org. There’s a coupon code that you can get your first delivery free.
Chris Holifield: No kidding.
Tim Pickett: When you register using that coupon code. Yeah, this is exactly why I think having a timely intro is a good idea.
Chris Holifield: Yeah. So where can they get this coupon code? How can they find this? Is this on utahmarijuana.org?
Tim Pickett: Yeah, utahmarijuana.org. Sign up for the email list. If you just sign up for our newsletter at the bottom of the website or anywhere, and if you’re already a patient, of course, you’re going to get this email coupon code. But yeah, if you sign up with us then we’ll be able to send you that unique coupon code for your first delivery free. It’s pretty awesome –
Chris Holifield: Take advantage of that.
Tim Pickett: … because I mean, they have delivery in I think Summit County, in Utah County, they’re really branching out.
Chris Holifield: It was like Tooele, Wasatch. I mean, it sounds like pretty much the whole state now is open.
Tim Pickett: They’re going to open to the whole state, and Chris Jeffery is the CEO of Wholesome, who we interviewed in one of our first episodes with Richard, their retail manager, the retail director. Their background is in home delivery, so they’re going to be really good at it.
Chris Holifield: Who doesn’t want their cannabis delivered to their doorstep, right? Who’s on the podcast today, Tim?
Tim Pickett: The guest we have today is Kyle Egbert. I’m really excited about this interview. I did https://mjplatform.com/mjnot know a lot about the types of processing that you could do with hemp or cannabis, and we talked a lot about that with him. He gave us some samples, remember? The CBD cartridge.
Chris Holifield: Oh yeah.
Tim Pickett: Have you been using that a little bit?
Chris Holifield: Actually I have. The liquid, that syringe one he gave us to put on the … And we talk about this in the episode, where he said, “Put it on your dry flower when you vape it.” I’ve only been using that, so.
Tim Pickett: Yeah, and I’ve only been using the cartridge.
Chris Holifield: Okay.
Tim Pickett: And for the first time I’ve had a cartridge that really is buffering. That’s how I describe it. So, I’m excited about people listening to this episode, learning about that process, and he makes some really good stuff. He’s got a cool story.
Chris Holifield: Absolutely. We’re going to get into that. He’s the founder of Mountain Valley Botanicals and My Clean Leaf. Great story. I mean, this guy’s got a … He’s a knowledge basket. I mean, he’s a book of knowledge with CBD and cannabis and all that. We’re going to get into that. Make sure you’re subscribed in whatever podcast outlet you’re listening to this in. If you can’t find this in a certain podcast outlet, let Tim or myself know so we can make sure this podcast becomes available. I don’t know, I don’t have anything more to say about this episode, Tim. I think we should get into that conversation with Kyle, unless you got anything more to say.
Tim Pickett: No. Good luck, have fun.
Chris Holifield: All right. Thanks guys for listening. Here we go.
…
Chris Holifield: You’re involved a lot with hemp, correct?
Kyle Egbert: Yeah.
Chris Holifield: I mean, you got My Clean Leaf and Mountain Valley Botanical.
Kyle Egbert: Yeah.
Chris Holifield: Do those work together or are those separate? It looks like they kind of work together.
Kyle Egbert: Yeah. So, Mountain Valley Botanical started in 2019. That’s when I first received the processing license. It was probably about November, December, and then we processed all last year doing supercritical CO2 extraction. Then with, I don’t know how familiar you guys are with the hemp market and that side of things.
Chris Holifield: Not as much as I should be.
Kyle Egbert: Well, as far as the materials, the prices on the materials, a liter of crude when I first started was probably, oh gosh, of crude probably 3,200 to five grand is what you could sell it for.
Tim Pickett: This is crude CBD oil.
Kyle Egbert: That is crude, yeah. I mean, it’s got the fats and the waxes, and pretty much got everything in it.
Tim Pickett: Oh, this is basically just squished hemp.
Kyle Egbert: You pull it right out of the machine. Yeah, essentially.
Tim Pickett: Okay.
Kyle Egbert: And then the market really tanked bad. I mean, it was 90% loss on the market. So now a liter of crude — I can pick that up easy 135 bucks.
Tim Pickett: Holy cow.
Kyle Egbert: So, because of that we had to adapt our business. We were always interested in doing products, retail products and consumer stuff, which is what I brought here. We were always interested in doing that, but then really when the market shifted in that direction it was a no-brainer for us to start producing retail products and get that out to the consumer.
Tim Pickett: Because you were originally just going to process.
Kyle Egbert: Yeah, process and sell that, get it out to someone else that was going to make a product out of it.
Tim Pickett: So we’ve had a few hemp growers on the podcast, but we really haven’t talked a lot about the processing and CO2 extraction. Can you educate us a little bit about the different methods of extraction and why you chose CO2?
Kyle Egbert: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: Because I think it’s important for people to understand.
Kyle Egbert: So, before I talk about CO2 extraction, most of the consumer base, they have this affinity for CO2 extraction. They think it’s the best, right? I’ll say it flat-out right here, right now, no matter which method you employ to do extraction, you can arrive to the same high quality end product that can be consumed. So, I mean, you can do CO2 extraction, you can do ethanol extraction, you can do hydrocarbon extraction, which is illegal in Utah. You can also press it and do more of a physical extraction that way. You can also throw it in a pot with MCT oil, turn up the heat and just let it steep in there, and they refer to that as a solventless extraction. So really what it came down to was we could either press it, use ethanol or CO2.
Kyle Egbert: Really the reason why we chose CO2 is because of that consumer perception that CO2 is the best really. So we chose that method. Another kind of smaller reason is because as far as the economics goes, it’s pricier upfront for the equipment for CO2 extraction, but CO2 is much cheaper than ethanol. So in the long run CO2 can be cheaper than doing an ethanol extraction. Also too with CO2, I have the ability to manipulate the CO2 to target certain compounds in the plant itself. So if I just want to pull out terpenes I can fudge my numbers a little bit and all of a sudden I’m pulling pure terpenes. If I want to target more of the cannabinoids, again, I change my parameters and I can get those cannabinoids out.
Kyle Egbert: So, I do have an ability to almost fraction terpenes and cannabinoids, separate them, or I can extract them all together, it really doesn’t matter. So I have more options extracting with CO2 than I would with ethanol. Ethanol is a really strong solvent, and so when you’re running hemp through, you’re just pulling anything and everything you’re pulling it out, whereas with CO2 you have more of that flexibility to target certain compounds.
Tim Pickett: This is cool, and this is the same process that they extract THC?
Kyle Egbert: Exact same.
Tim Pickett: Exact same.
Kyle Egbert: Yeah, yeah. If you’re doing CO2 extraction on marijuana it’s the same process. Everything that I’m doing in my laboratory, if I had a marijuana processing license, the only difference would be I’d be processing marijuana instead of hemp.
Chris Holifield: Why did you get into all this stuff? I mean, what got you into this? This is your business, right?
Kyle Egbert: Yeah.
Chris Holifield: So, you started all this.
Kyle Egbert: Yeah. I founded this.
Chris Holifield: I mean, I looked at your education, you went to BYU the whole nine yards, right?
Kyle Egbert: Yeah.
Chris Holifield: I mean, you got great education.
Kyle Egbert: Yes.
Chris Holifield: What got you into this, man?
Kyle Egbert: So, I started a degree at BYU Idaho up at Rexburg, and that was in agronomy. Are you guys familiar with what agronomy is?
Chris Holifield: I’m not, no.
Kyle Egbert: So, agronomy is essentially large scale farming crop production, being able to manage that, knowing plants, plant science, soil science, chemistry, water physics, different things like this. A lot of people don’t really understand how intensive and how involved agriculture is. There is a lot of science behind it. So, I started my degree up there, graduated in 2019, no, 2018, it was the end of 2018. My wife and I moved down here to Logan, started my master’s degree in plant science at Utah State University, and what I was looking at in my master’s program is I was actually doing irrigation research on alfalfa.
Tim Pickett: Oh wow.
Kyle Egbert: And most of my research took place down in Central Utah, kind of that Richfield, Centerfield, Monroe area. I had many fields down there. So, because of that I would travel a lot. Through my travels I started my program, and then Utah amended their laws, said, “All right, we’re going to do this. Marijuana, hemp, all things cannabis we’re going to do it.” And it was really new. I was traveling the state talking with hemp farmers, because this started popping up. A lot of the growers that I was working with doing alfalfa research they were interested in hemp, growing a small plot, like an acre or half an acre, or a couple 100 plants.
Tim Pickett: Just to test it out or just-
Kyle Egbert: Just test it out. Well, they were interested in it because at that time, and this was another thing that kind of … This is a whole other mess. A lot of the growers thought you could grow an acre of hemp and turn that into $60,000. That was the idea.
Tim Pickett: Because at the time the crude was-
Kyle Egbert: Was so expensive.
Tim Pickett: … so expensive.
Kyle Egbert: That ended up not being true, and a lot of farmers got burned. That’s a whole other thing, but anyway. So, I was traveling, farmers were interested in it, and then these meetings started popping up around the state with legislators, with farmers, with the university, and this was such a new thing. We’re going from black market to now white market, and there was a lot of gaps, there was a lot of doors of opportunity. So in my travels I was like, “You know what? This might be something I could do.”
Kyle Egbert: So originally I was actually going to grow. I was going to get some land up in Logan, I was going to grow. I was going to put in 10 acres.
Chris Holifield: Of hemp?
Kyle Egbert: Yeah, hemp.
Chris Holifield: Of hemp, okay.
Kyle Egbert: And I was going to grow hemp. Well, looking at the market, seeing how everything was going I decided that farming was not going to be the best option for me. I went through and I looked at how many licenses there were of growing hemp, individuals growing hemp, and I was like, “You know what? This is pretty saturated right now. Why not look at starting a laboratory?” So I started looking at what would be involved. What are successful laboratories in Colorado and California and all these other states, what are they doing? How are they doing it? Going into this I had no idea how involved a laboratory was. I had to learn a lot.
Chris Holifield: So you were halfway into probably putting a thing together and you were like, “What did I get myself into?”
Kyle Egbert: I mean, because of my master’s program, learning to be a scientist I got really good at doing research. Pulling up an article, a technical article, reading the article, doing all that, that might be a little overwhelming for a lot of people and boring. For me, that’s what I was doing in my master’s program, so I was already used to doing that. So every day I’m reading, every day I’m studying, every day I’m looking to solve a problem. One day I would have a certain problem, the next day I’d have a totally different problem, and I just would have to solve those problems. Like okay, I have this ability to target different compounds through CO2 extraction. How the heck do I do that?
Tim Pickett: Right.
Kyle Egbert: Especially having no prior experience at another company, I had to figure that out. So again, going back to the books, chemistry books, physics books, articles, YouTube, whatever, trying to figure out how to do this. Eventually, I got pretty good at it.
Chris Holifield: Were you meeting with anybody that was doing it? Did you have any real-life mentors?
Kyle Egbert: I went to Colorado. I went to Colorado a few times.
Chris Holifield: Okay. So you had some people out there to –
Kyle Egbert: But what I was doing out there was actually hydrocarbon extraction, I wasn’t doing any CO2 extraction.
Chris Holifield: Okay.
Kyle Egbert: And hydrocarbon extraction is fun, but that’s not what I was doing, but a lot of the principles of the post extraction are the exact same. So I was able to do the post-extraction and get more experience that way, but as far as doing extraction with CO2, I mean, I really had to teach myself how to do that.
Tim Pickett: So how did you get out of the lab? I mean, were you thinking about doing a testing lab or a production lab the whole time?
Kyle Egbert: Production. Do you know what an HPLC is?
Tim Pickett: No.
Kyle Egbert: High-performance liquid chromatography or high-pressure liquid chromatography.
Tim Pickett: Teach us.
Kyle Egbert: It’s analytics.
Tim Pickett: Teach us, Kyle.
Kyle Egbert: So when you send a sample off to be analyzed, cannabinoid potency, they run it through an HPLC typically. So, I wanted the ability to extract and then take that extract and look at it, look at the chemical analysis of it, see what was in there, see what I was dealing with.
Tim Pickett: Sure.
Kyle Egbert: So originally it was production, but I wanted to put out the best product that I could absolutely put out, so that involved chemical analysis. I mean, our lab, we have the full capability to go from raw hemp biomass, all the way to something that is water clear and tastes amazing, and that includes extraction, winterization, distillation, further refinement using chromatographic methods, different things like that. So really, I mean, I would have a problem and I would spend the next week or two, or month, or longer, trying to figure out how to solve that problem. Eventually, I got to something like this, which is absolutely phenomenal. I love this product.
Chris Holifield: Which you’re showing us some cartridges.
Kyle Egbert: Yeah, this is … Well, and I’ll just throw this to you, here.
Chris Holifield: Since we don’t have video setup for the podcast yet. So what am I looking at here? I got a container with some white –
Kyle Egbert: Yeah, so those are crystallized cannabinoids. I did the analysis on that actually last night, and it’s primarily CBD crystallized out. A lot of times you’ll see it in a fine powder, but I wanted to just let these suckers grow and have something pretty cool to visualize.
Tim Pickett: Yeah, it looks like white rock candy.
Kyle Egbert: Yeah.
Chris Holifield: Now, what would happen if you would suck on some of this?
Kyle Egbert: You would just be getting a dose of CBD really.
Chris Holifield: Okay.
Kyle Egbert: It’s primarily CBD.
Chris Holifield: Okay.
Tim Pickett: That’s in here.
Kyle Egbert: Yeah. I mean, there are trace amounts of CBDV, THCV, CBN and CBC in that, but there’s non detectable levels of delta-8 and delta-9 THC.
Tim Pickett: So okay, you bring up delta-8, right?
Chris Holifield: Delta-8.
Tim Pickett: Delta-8 is like the big-
Kyle Egbert: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: Is the big discussion topic right now, right?
Kyle Egbert: Oh, delta-8.
Tim Pickett: Oh, delta-8.
Kyle Egbert: Oh, how I have a love-hate relationship with you.
Tim Pickett: I’m sure, but you can extract it out.
Kyle Egbert: Oh yeah, I can.
Tim Pickett: You’re not the hemp farmer that just got their crop designated as too hot and now has to destroy it. You could just take all that biomass and extract what you need.
Kyle Egbert: Oh boy. So, when I get biomass typically it tests within .3%, maybe .31%, .29%, whatever, but as long as it’s within that tolerance, near .3%, the dry biomass. As soon as I take that and process it, and this is a huge problem in extraction, as soon as I take that biomass and run it through my equipment, I turn that from a hemp product right into a marijuana product.
Tim Pickett: Well yeah, because you took out all the THC and now you have it in a five-gallon bucket over here.
Kyle Egbert: Yeah, exactly. So, if I’m taking it, if I’ve got biomass at .3% THC, when I extract that into crude, all of a sudden it turns into 3% THC, designated by law, that’s marijuana.
Tim Pickett: What the heck do you do with it?
Kyle Egbert: Yeah.
Chris Holifield: Don’t look at me!
Tim Pickett: What’s your address up there?
Kyle Egbert: Yeah, seriously. So this is the thing.
Tim Pickett: Everybody wants your address all of a sudden.
Kyle Egbert: Like I said, as soon as I extract that I’m essentially turning it, taking it from hemp biomass turning it into marijuana concentrate essentially.
Tim Pickett: Low-
Kyle Egbert: Low THC.
Tim Pickett: Yeah, of course.
Kyle Egbert: I mean, it’s two, 3%, but if I take that and I started to refine it down even further, if I distill it and I’m doing all these different processes, I’ve seen as high as 10% THC on the extract itself. I can’t put that into a product legally, it’s marijuana.
Tim Pickett: This is fascinating.
Kyle Egbert: I mean, even for example, and I brought these, I can toss these over to you guys. So this is our green cream.
Tim Pickett: Okay, this is like half an ounce, a tablespoon.
Chris Holifield: What is it, like a lotion or something?
Kyle Egbert: It’s seven mLs, it’s .25 ounces. This is just our sample topical. We call it green cream.
Chris Holifield: So you rub it on your body or something?
Kyle Egbert: Yeah. Yeah, you can rub it on.
Tim Pickett: What’s the scent I smell? Other than … I mean, I-
Kyle Egbert: It’s a proprietary blend of oils, is what I can tell you.
Tim Pickett: But it’s like a little bit of menthol-y.
Kyle Egbert: Lavender.
Tim Pickett: Eucalyptus almost.
Kyle Egbert: Yeah, lavender, eucalyptus, tea tree, that’s kind of what builds that aroma.
Tim Pickett: To kind of overcome the skunky.
Kyle Egbert: So I actually don’t mask any scent. A lot of times in hemp products, and we can talk about this down the road, a lot of times, especially in tinctures, they’re always trying to mask just kind of-
Tim Pickett: Yeah, the skunk.
Kyle Egbert: … that skunky, dirty taste. With our products and our tinctures, I’m not masking, and the reason why is because the way that I refine it. Our tinctures when you take it and it’s a cinnamon tincture, you taste cinnamon and you don’t have those undertones of kind of that dirty extract. So, it’s a little bit different, but anyway.
Tim Pickett: Okay, we’re back to the THC.
Kyle Egbert: Yeah, we’re back to the THC thing. So, even in this, which our green cream is what the cannabinoid is the greatest dilution. So when we put our cannabinoids into this green cream, it’s that’s how we dilute it the most in this product. Even at 10%, it gets pretty difficult to dilute that. So, by law, I have to be really careful. So, if I extract a product and I have this oil, and if the farmer legally owns that liter of oil, unless they have a processor’s license, they cannot possess their crude extract.
Tim Pickett: What?
Kyle Egbert: So there’s all these problems with a farmer, as a service, as a laboratory, if they’re bringing it to me and they say, “Hey, I want you to extract this and I want my oil.” The first thing I say to them is, “Do you have a processor’s license?” And most of the time they’ll say no, it’s two grand for a hemp processing license, and I say, “Okay, if that’s the case, if I extract this for you and you want to possess this, legally you cannot possess your extract because it’s hot.” It’s a marijuana product essentially.
Tim Pickett: Because it’s gone through … It was legal before, you process it-
Kyle Egbert: And now it’s extracted and concentrated.
Tim Pickett: … and now it’s illegal for them to possess it.
Kyle Egbert: Exactly.
Tim Pickett: So what do they do?
Kyle Egbert: Well, most of them don’t buy a processor’s license, and so they have to find someone who-
Chris Holifield: To process it for them.
Kyle Egbert: … will either process it for them or where they can store it.
Tim Pickett: Oh, so you could process it and store it because you have a processor-
Kyle Egbert: Oh yeah. I can, I have the license.
Tim Pickett: So they could say, “Okay, you can store it until I have a contract to sell it to somebody else.” And then it can go from your lab to whoever-
Kyle Egbert: Someone else.
Tim Pickett: … to bottle it and put it into products and they can sell it.
Kyle Egbert: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: How often are you doing that?
Kyle Egbert: I haven’t.
Tim Pickett: Okay.
Kyle Egbert: Not one time.
Tim Pickett: Why?
Kyle Egbert: I have accepted jars from other processors because the processors want to get it out of their place, and farmers come to me in a frantic, trying to find a place for this. So, a lot of times I have accepted it to store it for them, but I have never had one of those individuals come to me and say, “Hey, I need this to go to this other processor because they’re going to put it in a product for me.”
Tim Pickett: So this is one of-
Kyle Egbert: This is one…
Tim Pickett: It seems like one of the big issues with-
Kyle Egbert: Oh yeah.
Tim Pickett: … hemp growing, hemp processing and the pathway to market.
Kyle Egbert: Yeah, especially too because if you take a liter or a kilo of crude extract, in order to get it ready to be in a product itself, you’re looking at 1,500 to two grand in order to refine it that much to be product ready, because it’s got to go through all those different steps of distillation, winterization, distillation. Does it have pesticides in it? Well, if it does, that’s another grand because you got to get the pesticides out. If it doesn’t, well, we still have to get the THC out. You’re still looking at 1,200, 15 grand, or 1,500.
Tim Pickett: Yeah, 12 to 1,500.
Kyle Egbert: To get that THC out.
Tim Pickett: Can you do that? Can you get the THC out and give it back to them?
Kyle Egbert: Yes, I can do that, but farmers, a lot of them, don’t want to pay the price in order to get the THC removed.
Tim Pickett: Because at that point their crude is not as valuable. I mean, you may have paid more –
Kyle Egbert: Right. So for example, a broad spectrum product, a kilo of broad-spectrum once, two years ago, 20 grand, okay? Today, three.
Tim Pickett: Oh wow.
Kyle Egbert: And it costs them $2,500 to get to that point, so their profit margin is terrible at that point, less [crosstalk 00:23:24].
Tim Pickett: That’s besides the growing.
Kyle Egbert: Right.
Tim Pickett: That’s besides all, and the … I mean, cutting that stuff down is a lot of work.
Kyle Egbert: Most of the time, once you go through the economics to get it to that point, taking into consideration the growing, the extraction, the processing, most of the time they’re upside down.
Tim Pickett: What’s the answer? What’s the solution? Let them possess a 10%, a 4% THC product?
Kyle Egbert: I mean, I’m really excited about … Who was it, Rand Paul? He proposed new legislation to go from .3% to 1% as a hemp product. I mean, that’s awesome, but still.
Tim Pickett: Oh, that would be huge. I guess eventually we’ve got to have the markets mixed, right? We’ve got to have the .3% mixed with the high THC content, and we’ve got to be able to go to the, even if it is the dispensary, we’ve got to be able to go there and buy everything in between.
Kyle Egbert: That’s already happening.
Tim Pickett: At the dispensaries.
Chris Holifield: High percentage CBD, right?
Kyle Egbert: Yeah. Well, what’s happening is the processors, hemp processors, are taking extracts or they’re taking isolate and they’re chemically converting it to delta-9 or delta-8, and then that’s getting into the medical market.
Tim Pickett: Oh, whoa, okay. You can take a crude hemp product and you can convert it into a higher THC product?
Kyle Egbert: Yes.
Tim Pickett: I mean, do you have a YouTube video on how to do this?
Kyle Egbert: No. Those are proprietary methods.
Tim Pickett: Right, but I’ve heard of this before.
Kyle Egbert: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: This is something I’ve heard of, and if I’m right is it the CBG is the golden ticket to get it over there?
Kyle Egbert: No.
Tim Pickett: Or you can take CBD and make it into THC.
Kyle Egbert: CBD is typically what people are using-
Tim Pickett: To convert into a high-
Kyle Egbert: … to convert into delta-9 and delta-8 and that is happening right now in Utah, and there are products out there that were sourced from CBD, that are high THC products that were originally sourced from CBD.
Tim Pickett: And now they’re tested in the dispensaries.
Chris Holifield: Wild.
Tim Pickett: This is kind of wild, Chris.
Kyle Egbert: Yeah.
Chris Holifield: Everybody we bring on here, we find out something new.
Tim Pickett: I know.
Chris Holifield: You know what I mean? I’m so grateful that we have this podcast to be able to learn really.
Tim Pickett: Yeah.
Chris Holifield: Because I’m learning along with you guys, you know.
Kyle Egbert: Yeah. Oh yeah.
Tim Pickett: This is pretty cool. We’re getting the pieces, that’s what’s so cool. We’ve gotten a couple of other pieces and this is just another piece of the puzzle.
Kyle Egbert: Really what needs to happen is that professionals from the industry need to come together with legislators to educate the legislators of really what the heck is going on and what needs to change.
Tim Pickett: Right, like what reality looks like. We feel like this in the medical market too.
Kyle Egbert: Who was it last episode? Who was it last episode that you had on? Katie?
Chris Holifield: Katie, yeah.
Tim Pickett: Oh, Katie Barber, yeah.
Kyle Egbert: Really there just needs to be this large committee of industry professionals, regulators and legislators, and we need to sit down and we need to hash all this out in order to clear up what the heck is going on.
Chris Holifield: Well, then plus once they open it up to more testing and more research studies, because there’s not enough of that going on right now, it’s just people like yourself that are doing the little bits of stuff you’re doing.
Tim Pickett: Right, like you’re taking-
Chris Holifield: Imagine once that opens up.
Tim Pickett: Right, and you’re taking things from … You’ve had to learn this from scratch.
Kyle Egbert: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: Which like Utah State, great example of an amazing agriculture school, lot of farming going on up there and teaching. One of the best schools in the nation, right? For agriculture and animal farming and that type of thing, right?
Kyle Egbert: Right, right.
Tim Pickett: Do they have a cannabis program up there?
Kyle Egbert: They do. So actually, are you familiar with Dr. Bruce Bugbee?
Tim Pickett: Uh-uh (negative).
Kyle Egbert: So, he typically is looking in a lot of stuff with NASA. He does a lot of research with agriculture in NASA in space and whatnot, but he took on … So it was about mid-year last year in 2000 … Well, no, it would’ve been in 2019 when the program started, but what they started doing is they started growing hemp. They were doing a lot of trump variety, anyway, but what they were looking at was how does light affect growth, how does light affect the cannabinoid concentration in the plant itself. What happens when we stress it? Nutrients, water, whatever. So, they were doing a lot of that, but medically they’re not looking at how are cannabinoids interacting in the body, what’s going on there.
Kyle Egbert: I do know that the University of Utah is doing studies. They’re looking at how to … There was one study, I was trying to get on board with it to be a subject, and they were looking at … I think they were doing 10 milligram doses of CBD with zero THC, so basically a one to one, and then the reverse, where it was 10 milligrams of THC and zero milligrams of CBD, and they were doing brain scans to try to look to see how those compounds were affecting signals in the brain. I do know that they’re doing periodic studies like that, and you can actually sign up to be a subject and go through that, whether or not you’re actually going to be getting THC, CBD. They’ll choose. You might be getting a placebo, but whatever, but they’re doing studies like that because they want to understand how is this affecting the brain, what kind of brain signals can we read through an MRI. I don’t know if they’re doing an MRI scan or a CAT scan, but they’re doing something.
Tim Pickett: So what products do you have other than the green cream?
Kyle Egbert: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: What products do you sell?
Kyle Egbert: I really just started our retail in December. I said, “You know what? Heck, we’re going to do this, we’re going to go for it.” So our very first product that we are putting out on the market, which we are still getting certified, is actually these vape carts. I’ll pass these to you guys.
Chris Holifield: So, I’m looking at some indica Purple Punch it says, Clean Leaf, ultra-pure broad-spectrum.
Kyle Egbert: Yep. One thing you’ll notice about that is the content or the concentration of cannabinoids is outlined right there on the front.
Tim Pickett: I know, this is pretty cool. This is something that I always love. I love it about Zion Medicinal, I like it about this. When you’re labeling out your cannabinoids it means something of a sophistication in your ability to produce a product, in my opinion.
Kyle Egbert: Right.
Tim Pickett: If you just put CBD and THC on there, that’s fine, but this is cool, CBD.
Kyle Egbert: So, one of the things that we’re really striving for is standardization. That’s a big thing for me, is that with each different batch that I produce it’s standardized and you’re not going to get batch variation, because that’s one of the things that bugs the consumer the most. They’ll take an edible one time, they’ll feel great, the next time they take it they didn’t feel anything.
Chris Holifield: It’s like, what happened?
Kyle Egbert: Yeah, exactly.
Tim Pickett: It’s so true. This one has 500 milligrams of CBD, CBG 100 milligrams, CBC 25, CBN, CBDV, THCV 25. This is a pretty good broad-spectrum product.
Kyle Egbert: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: I mean, the fact that you’ve got 100 milligrams of CBG in here is pretty impressive.
Kyle Egbert: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: Is this all hemp grown in Utah?
Kyle Egbert: So, that is we take it in our laboratory and we refine it down to the point where we have individual compounds that then we can make the product.
Tim Pickett: Okay, so this a-
Kyle Egbert: That’s how I’m making that.
Tim Pickett: But that’s all vape cartridges, right?
Kyle Egbert: No.
Tim Pickett: Like almost all. No? A recipe.
Kyle Egbert: No.
Tim Pickett: What I’m saying is it’s a recipe. You get these compounds, you put them in. That’s what-
Kyle Egbert: That’s what I’m doing.
Tim Pickett: … you’re doing because you want consistency.
Kyle Egbert: Yes.
Tim Pickett: I think that’s important.
Kyle Egbert: A lot of times you’ll go to a dispensary, you’ll go to a vape shop and you’ll see a product and it’ll say something like 500 milligrams total cannabinoids, and it’s very ambiguous and you don’t really know what you’re getting.
Chris Holifield: You’re like, “What does this even mean?” Right?
Kyle Egbert: Yeah, exactly. A lot of times what companies, individuals, whomever is making that product, they’re just taking it to a certain point in the refinement process, saying, “That’s good enough, let’s put it in a cart and let’s go.” So, each cart that you’re going to get from that company, you’re probably going to have a different experience with, maybe it tastes like crap, maybe it doesn’t, who knows.
Tim Pickett: Well, you can just add a little terpenes.
Kyle Egbert: Well, yeah.
Tim Pickett: And then it’ll taste fine.
Kyle Egbert: Right, but what we’ve really tried to do is one, this is a pure product. When you look at a chromatogram, a chemical analysis, what you’re going to see is you’re going to see those cannabinoids, that’s it.
Tim Pickett: Cool.
Kyle Egbert: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: How about terpenes? You don’t have terpenes listed.
Kyle Egbert: Yeah, I do, in Purple Punch.
Chris Holifield: But what the name is, the names of the terpenes, is that what you mean or the kinds of terpenes?
Kyle Egbert: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: Okay, explain that. Teach me a little bit about-
Kyle Egbert: So this is Purple Punch genetic variety of terpenes. So this is when you’ve got, I don’t know, frosted sky or you’ve got Skywalker or something, those are genetic varieties of cannabis, they’re going to have a certain ratio of different terpenes.
Tim Pickett: Got it. So you have the terpene profile of Purple Punch.
Kyle Egbert: Yes.
Tim Pickett: Okay, that makes sense.
Kyle Egbert: Then if you want to see hey, what are the individual terpenes themselves, that’s when you go and you look at a CoA and you can see that chemical analysis.
Tim Pickett: Can you add and subtract terpenes as well?
Kyle Egbert: Sure.
Tim Pickett: Because you could essentially look up the profile of Purple Punch and make sure that you’re dialed in.
Kyle Egbert: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: Right.
Kyle Egbert: Oh yeah. You can really manipulate it however you want. If I really wanted to, I could make a Clean Leaf kush and have it be a certain flavor essentially, if I wanted to. I don’t really have any interest in doing that, but yeah. Oh yeah, you can manipulate that product any way.
Chris Holifield: Man.
Tim Pickett: I don’t think people understand the complexity of cannabis at this point in history.
Chris Holifield: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: Right? We really have moved beyond drying it up, rolling it up and lighting a match.
Chris Holifield: Now, are you doing this all by yourself or do you got like employees or people? I mean, you’re not the one packaging, you got like an outside source [crosstalk 00:33:44].
Kyle Egbert: A lot of it’s me.
Chris Holifield: Okay. Oh, a lot of it is … Most of it is you.
Kyle Egbert: Yeah, yep.
Chris Holifield: Wow.
Tim Pickett: What’s the plan?
Kyle Egbert: Well, I’m small.
Chris Holifield: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: Well, if you’re doing most of this yourself.
Kyle Egbert: Yeah, I’m a small time. My own lab is small, my production line is small.
Chris Holifield: In your basement or what?
Kyle Egbert: Oh no. No, I have a location where I have to do everything, which our facility is actually … So, we’re licensed with Utah to process. We’re also CGMP compliant, we’re not certified but we’re compliant, meaning we follow all those standards. We’re also food grade certified in Utah. So our facility where we manufacture these products are done in a food facility, a food-
Tim Pickett: Food grade.
Kyle Egbert: … food grade facility, yeah.
Chris Holifield: That’s cool.
Tim Pickett: That is cool.
Kyle Egbert: That was a pain getting it to that point.
Tim Pickett: I’ll bet.
Kyle Egbert: Just putting up, I mean, even to the flipping ceiling tiles and what those had to be. Oh man, but yeah. Pretty much all the research and development I do. Product design, getting it to that point, what it’s going to look like, what are the cannabinoids, the flavor profile, everything like that.
Chris Holifield: Where do you see this in five years? I mean, would you like to get into more THC? Would you like to get into growing?
Kyle Egbert: Oh, I would love to go to medical.
Chris Holifield: Okay.
Kyle Egbert: Oh yeah.
Chris Holifield: So you would like to eventually get into-
Kyle Egbert: So, I would love to see this build up here in Utah and be a household name. People know what Clean Leaf is, they trust it, they know that they’re going to get the same experience every single time, going back to that standardization of the product, but what I’d really like to do is I’d really like to become a marijuana processors and start to put these quality of products onto the market.
Tim Pickett: Onto the medical market.
Kyle Egbert: Onto the medical market.
Tim Pickett: What’s the next step for you to get there?
Kyle Egbert: Build Clean Leaf up.
Tim Pickett: So that the growers come to you and say …
Kyle Egbert: I mean, I know a lot of the medical growers and also the processors. Really, I mean, my biggest hurdle is $100,000 in licensing.
Tim Pickett: For the processing license.
Kyle Egbert: Just the license alone is 100 grand every year.
Tim Pickett: Are they restricted for processing or could you, if you had 100 grand, you could go out and you could get a license?
Kyle Egbert: So, the only license that they restrict is the cultivator’s license. What is it, eight?
Tim Pickett: Yeah, the cultivators and then the retail, right? So there’s 14 authorized retail licenses and there are eight authorized growers.
Kyle Egbert: Yeah. From my understanding, they do not restrict the amount of processors.
Tim Pickett: That’s my understanding too.
Kyle Egbert: Which I don’t know how to feel about that.
Chris Holifield: So who would be considered? Is like Boojum a processor, right? They’re like a processor.
Tim Pickett: Right.
Kyle Egbert: They have a processing license, yeah.
Chris Holifield: I’m trying to think of the people that have.
Kyle Egbert: Boojum, I believe Wasatch Extraction.
Chris Holifield: Okay.
Kyle Egbert: Zion.
Tim Pickett: And then Zion has their own processing.
Kyle Egbert: Yeah, a lot of the cultivators they actually also, in addition to their cultivation license, they’ve also gone through and gotten a processor’s license.
Tim Pickett: Which kind of it makes it an interesting risk for somebody like you, where you have Zion and Wholesome and they’re going to have their own processing.
Kyle Egbert: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: Are they going to be able to keep up with their own processing? Are they going to want to white label other people’s hemp or convert some hemp over into some THC crude? All these calculations.
Kyle Egbert: A big hurdle for me, one, is the $100,000 to get the license, but then the availability of biomass. Am I going to have access to marijuana biomass in order to process, turn it into a product? Those are the big hurdles.
Tim Pickett: Because it’s too much money to take CBD and convert it over?
Kyle Egbert: Oh no, it’s pretty dang cheap.
Tim Pickett: So, I mean, you could essentially take any biomass.
Kyle Egbert: However, yes, I could, but the problem is, and a big reason of why you don’t see hemp products in the pharmacies is because in order for me to get this into a pharmacy, let’s just say this was a high THC cartridge, I made it in my facility, this would have to go through a cultivation license because of the MJ Freeway Platform. So, on the medical side of things everything is tracked from seed to sell. So, it goes in the ground, there’s a serial number that’s associated with it. It’s tracked in MJ Freeway. It comes time for harvest, again, it’s all being traced from seed through processing, through manufacturing, to consumer.
Tim Pickett: Okay. So let me see if I’ve got this straight. So if I have a farm and I have an acre of hemp that wasn’t specifically put in the ground in MJ Freeway, in the software, then I can’t inject that into your lab and put it in the dispensary because it could’ve came from anywhere.
Kyle Egbert: Exactly, and the only way that you can get around that is if you’re working with a cultivator that they want to work with you and-
Tim Pickett: And so they put the-
Kyle Egbert: … say, “Yeah. I’ll buy your biomass.” And then they can put it in through their system as … Well, we’ll go back to the THC from CBD. If I take CBD, chemically convert it into THC, I have to sell that as hemp waste. That is sold to a cultivator who can then put it in the system as we bought this from this company as hemp waste. There’s the chemical analysis that’s associated with it, whatever. Then they can take that, they can manufacture and do whatever they want with it, but they don’t have to tell the consumer that hey, this is how it got to you.
Tim Pickett: I see.
Kyle Egbert: See what I’m saying?
Tim Pickett: That’s kind of what we talked to Mike Rodriguez about with the smokable flower.
Chris Holifield: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: That’s how a smokable hemp flower gets into the dispensaries and the pharmacies, is sold as..
Kyle Egbert: But are we seeing smokable flower, hemp?
Tim Pickett: I mean, I think there are some-
Chris Holifield: I haven’t seen any at any of the local dispensaries, no.
Tim Pickett: I’ve heard of some at Dragonfly.
Kyle Egbert: Okay.
Chris Holifield: I saw CBG but not CBD.
Tim Pickett: Yes, the Matterhorn. I think you can buy some Matterhorn.
Chris Holifield: Can you?
Tim Pickett: Yeah.
Chris Holifield: Oh, can you?
Kyle Egbert: So it’s been really difficult to take hemp flower and go through all these hoops and get it onto the medical market.
Tim Pickett: Yeah, I’m not sure there’s any money in it, but I know it’s being done.
Kyle Egbert: Hemp flower for an eighth is 20 bucks, something like that.
Chris Holifield: Sounds good to me.
Tim Pickett: I mean, if you can buy an eighth.
Chris Holifield: That’s what they should be selling it all for.
Tim Pickett: Yeah, right? Is what we were paying in high school.
Kyle Egbert: If I was doing that myself, I probably wouldn’t buy it because a lot of it isn’t being handled correctly. So you’re getting a lot of that terpene profile, you’re losing a lot of that along the way because it’s not being cured properly, it’s not being stored properly. The growers have a long way to go of learning how to do all of this.
Tim Pickett: This has been a fun conversation.
Chris Holifield: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: I mean, do you have a family? Do you ever see them?
Kyle Egbert: No.
Tim Pickett: It seems like this can take a lot of your time.
Kyle Egbert: It does.
Chris Holifield: But you love it.
Kyle Egbert: Yeah, I do love it. Had you asked me five years ago that I’d be in the cannabis industry, I probably would’ve laughed in your face, like yeah, whatever.
Tim Pickett: Were you in Rexburg at the time or down on BYU?
Kyle Egbert: Oh yeah, I was in Rexburg at the time.
Tim Pickett: Yeah. Before that you were at BYU, and no way you would say that.
Kyle Egbert: Right, yeah.
Tim Pickett: Oh, six years from now.
Chris Holifield: You don’t have to give names, but I bet you there’s a lot of pot smokers at Rexburg, I don’t care.
Kyle Egbert: Oh yeah. There’s drug busts up there quite frequently.
Chris Holifield: Same thing with BYU. I’m sure there’s some people down there that …
Kyle Egbert: But really when I moved down here to Utah and all of this, I mean, this all happened as I was transitioning from BYU Idaho to Utah State University, all this happened. I looked at it as a door of opportunity.
Tim Pickett: Oh, of course.
Kyle Egbert: To get into something that’s brand-new. I could really take it wherever I wanted to go. I mean, sky is the limit. So for me, I could’ve been stuck, working as an agronomist trying to sell fertilizer to a farmer or I could’ve been hired onto a big scale farm privately and been consulting that way, or I could determine my own fate by starting a small business and trying to build it up.
Chris Holifield: See, and the first one sounds kind of boring.
Kyle Egbert: Yeah, I mean, at least it’s secure.
Chris Holifield: Well yeah, but I mean, what you’re doing is exciting, man.
Kyle Egbert: It is.
Tim Pickett: It is exciting.
Chris Holifield: And it’s groundbreaking.
Tim Pickett: And the opportunity is huge.
Chris Holifield: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: The knowledge that you’re getting and the experience of the process, and learning it all, whether or not your company gets bought, or you join somebody else, or you do this yourself, like you say, the sky is really the limit.
Kyle Egbert: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: There is no question about it.
Kyle Egbert: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: So, do you modify the terpene profile at all?
Kyle Egbert: In that one, no, but if I wanted to, yes.
Tim Pickett: So from time to time you will.
Kyle Egbert: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: Depending on if it lines up exactly with what you want.
Kyle Egbert: With what I want to do. Yeah.
Tim Pickett: Oh yeah, this is nice. This is very purple punchy to me.
Kyle Egbert: Oh yeah.
Tim Pickett: Yeah, I like.
Chris Holifield: I don’t know if it’s just in my head or whatever, but I feel like it’s calmed me down a little bit.
Kyle Egbert: You should feel this.
Chris Holifield: Yeah, just kind of a little bit of like okay.
Kyle Egbert: I’ve spent 18 months in research and development to get to that.
Tim Pickett: Yeah, this is product testing. I think we should put this in, Chris-
Chris Holifield: Well okay, so we’re testing.
Tim Pickett: … because really we are testing a CBD product, we’re testing a hemp product. This isn’t something you would need a medical card for at all.
Kyle Egbert: Nope.
Chris Holifield: Yeah. So you have the indica Purple Punch as well.
Tim Pickett: Yeah, I have the indica Purple Punch, and I’m familiar enough with Purple Punch that this does, it has that flavor.
Kyle Egbert: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: Definitely have that flavor.
Kyle Egbert: Purple Punch is Granddaddy Purple and Grape Ape, it’s the genetic cross between those two.
Tim Pickett: Yeah, and I mean, it’s a strong indica type strain. It’s going to be very calming, can be a little heavy. Anything with gorilla in the name is going to be heavy, in my opinion.
Kyle Egbert: Right.
Tim Pickett: And the purples.
Kyle Egbert: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: So we tell patients purples, gorillas, hazes, they tend to be better for pain, they tend to be a little heavier. So when you’re looking for names … Now, and it was totally anecdotal because people will name something haze that’s really not, but in general.
Kyle Egbert: So, as you can see on our little card, it clearly says indica on it. So, we’re either going to label it sativa, hybrid, or indica. So, for the consumer, I mean, it should be understood that hey, an indica is more of a downer and I do an educational blog, just started it.
Chris Holifield: Where is that at?
Kyle Egbert: On our website.
Chris Holifield: Mycleanleaf.com.
Kyle Egbert: Not published yet, yeah.
Chris Holifield: Okay, yeah.
Kyle Egbert: We had it published.
Tim Pickett: So why don’t you send it to us and we’ll-
Chris Holifield: Actually, now that you say that.
Tim Pickett: … publish it on utahmarijuana.org.
Chris Holifield: I did try to go to mycleanleaf.com, there was nothing there yet.
Kyle Egbert: Yeah. So our domain was actually hosted by GoDaddy, and my wife’s cousin, he convinced me to change it over to another platform.
Chris Holifield: HostGator.
Kyle Egbert: Yeah. So since we’re switching platforms right now, we essentially had to rebuild the website.
Tim Pickett: Right.
Kyle Egbert: And I wasn’t quite ready to release. I was trying so hard this week so that I could release it from this conversation.
Chris Holifield: This will go up next week.
Kyle Egbert: Next week, so by next week it should be up. Yeah, yeah.
Tim Pickett: And we can put a link on the podcast, at utahmarijuana.org.
Kyle Egbert: So, my first blog post actually is titled What Do I Do If My Cart Crystallizes? That’s my very first blog post. These are very prone to crystallization due to the nature of their purity, because they’re so pure, so concentrated it’ll crystallize. So anyway, I put up a blog post. What do you do if your cart crystallizes? It’s not an indication of a defective product. It’s actually an indication of purity, and there is three different methods you can do at home to get it back into a liquified state.
Tim Pickett: Like the blow dryer?
Kyle Egbert: Yeah, a blow dryer is not very good because it doesn’t get hot enough. So actually, I tell people hey, if you’ve got 15 bucks go to Harbor Freight and get a heat gun.
Tim Pickett: That’s a good idea.
Kyle Egbert: Yeah, they can go up there, it’s 1,000 watts, 15 bucks, two settings. I think the first setting goes to 700 degrees Fahrenheit, the other one goes to a 1,000 degrees. Just blow torch it essentially. The other method, which I prefer and I prefer that people use, is actually taking a mug, filling it halfway up with water, throw it in the microwave, heat it up until it’s practically boiling. Take your cart, put it in a ziplock baggie, make sure all the air is out, and then dunk it into that water for a minute and it’ll –
Tim Pickett: Sous vide.
Kyle Egbert: Yeah, it’s a sous vide.
Tim Pickett: Sous vide your cart.
Kyle Egbert: Yeah, exactly.
Tim Pickett: That’s a great idea actually.
Kyle Egbert: Yeah, and it’s actually a lot of people have seen that and they said, “Hey, I have this other cart, not from you, someone else.”
Tim Pickett: Oh, sure.
Kyle Egbert: “I thought it was junk, I was ready to throw it away. I saw your post and I went and did it, and my cart is totally great. I can use it, I can get the last of it out.”
Tim Pickett: And you can learn a thing or two on Utah in the Weeds.
Chris Holifield: And then eventually when your website is up. I mean, are you on Facebook? Can our people can at least connect with you through Facebook too, Instagram too?
Kyle Egbert: Yeah, we’re on Facebook, we’re on Instagram. I mean, again, it’s pretty much me that’s managing it.
Chris Holifield: Yeah, be patient.
Kyle Egbert: Yeah, be patient. I’ve got a lot. I’m torn in a million different directions all the time, but I finally got to a point where we have these. One thing you’ll notice on those, so again, going back to it, clearly states what the concentration is of the cannabinoids, what you’re getting in this product. The other thing is on the back you see all those red circles. So, it doesn’t contain vitamin E, or alpha-tocopheryl acetate, MCT oil, PG, PG or VG, or lecithin, and those are common ingredients that are cut into cartridges to help them stabilize essentially. Are you guys familiar with EVALI?
Chris Holifield: I’m not, no.
Kyle Egbert: Or Exogenous lipoidal pneumonia?
Tim Pickett: No.
Kyle Egbert: Oh, come on, guys.
Chris Holifield: I would expect Tim would be.
Kyle Egbert: Before COVID.
Chris Holifield: He’s the medical guy.
Tim Pickett: I mean, are you kidding me?
Kyle Egbert: Before COVID.
Tim Pickett: We are all three of us too busy for this stuff.
Kyle Egbert: So before COVID, what was there?
Tim Pickett: Well there was the, before-
Kyle Egbert: There was the vaping.
Tim Pickett: Yeah, there was the vape lung, there was vape lung.
Kyle Egbert: Yes, and that is because-
Tim Pickett: Yeah, and I do have an associate up at the University of Utah who wrote some articles about it.
Kyle Egbert: Yes. So, I have spent many hours digging through the research, trying to find what they know about EVALI or exogenous lipoid pneumonia.
Tim Pickett: Oh yes, okay, got it. Now I’m following you.
Kyle Egbert: These ingredients that I’ve listed here, crossed out, they have found a connection between these ingredients, these cutting agents and vaping and the lipoidal pneumonia. So, that’s one thing as a consumer you really need to have that awareness of your product, of what is actually in your cartridge because you don’t want to end up in the hospital.
Tim Pickett: No, absolutely no.
Kyle Egbert: It is never a good thing to vape a cart that has MCT oil in it because what you’re doing is you’re vaporizing those fat globules, those are going down into your lungs and could potentially lead to EVALI.
Chris Holifield: They’ve sold me carts at dispensaries here with MCT oil.
Kyle Egbert: Yes, they have.
Tim Pickett: MCT oil, this is a controversial topic that Kyle has brought up.
Chris Holifield: He said that and I was like, “Wait a minute here.”
Kyle Egbert: Yeah, yeah.
Tim Pickett: And I’m going to say-
Chris Holifield: So is that unhealthy for you then?
Tim Pickett: … while I appreciate the opinion, and I think that this is a discussion that we could have, we could really dig into, I would want to have the discussion with the alternative, right?
Kyle Egbert: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: Because there are some really bad cutting agents compared to MCT as well.
Kyle Egbert: Yes, right, there are.
Tim Pickett: Right?
Kyle Egbert: Especially vitamin E. That’s a huge one.
Tim Pickett: We eliminated vitamin E in order to kind of go to MCT oil.
Chris Holifield: So what’s the best then?
Tim Pickett: There’s always this debate on is the risk associated with the product equal to eliminating it or justify eliminating it, or using it instead of, what’s your alternative? So now, if you want to go all the way, okay, let’s eliminate MCT.
Kyle Egbert: Yeah, and that’s what I did. I just said look, from what I have found, these are products that are associated with EVALI or with exogenous lipoid pneumonia.
Tim Pickett: So let’s stay away from them altogether.
Kyle Egbert: I said, “Let’s stay away from them. I don’t want that liability.”
Tim Pickett: Well, I commend you.
Kyle Egbert: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: I mean, this has been super cool. I mean, you’ve brought the crystals. We’ve got the cream, we’ve got these vape carts. We’ve learned a ton about extraction.
Chris Holifield: We haven’t even got into he’s a patient too.
Tim Pickett: Oh yeah, we haven’t even gotten into that he’s a patient.
Kyle Egbert: My card actually expired, I have to renew it.
Tim Pickett: Oh well, you are in the right place.
Kyle Egbert: But what I was saying is, so when I was living up in Idaho, when I was in Rexburg I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, which is essentially a diagnosis of exclusion. UCLA, and I think it’s the University of Michigan I want to say, they partnered and they came up with a blood test in order to provide a diagnosis of fibromyalgia. Well, I ended up doing it and the way that they mark it is from a zero to 100. If your score is higher than I think it was 60, 50 or 60, then essentially you have fibromyalgia. I think mine was like 80 something. So they were like, “Yeah, you’ve got fibromyalgia.” So, that chronic pain is a big reason of what guided me into getting into the cannabis industry. I wanted to be able to find relief for myself but I wanted to be able to provide products to people that were affordable, that were clean, that were standardized, and that they could find relief in. That’s really what motivated me to get into this industry.
Chris Holifield: That’s awesome.
Tim Pickett: That’s really cool.
Chris Holifield: Well, anything else? I mean, anything else you want to ask him or anything else you want to talk to him about? Anything else you want?
Tim Pickett: We should bring you back.
Chris Holifield: We could be here all day.
Tim Pickett: Yeah, I know, and I think that we ought to bring you back because I’m interested to see how this goes after the legislative session in the cannabinoid. They’re meeting, things will change, they’ll tweak, and so it’ll be a good thing to bring you back and see what changes have been made over time.
Kyle Egbert: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: And frankly how you’re doing. How the education is going, how the master’s program is going.
Kyle Egbert: So I actually took a long-term leave of absence on the master’s side in order to focus on this and get it up and running.
Tim Pickett: Cool.
Kyle Egbert: So I did a full year, did my field work, my research, and then put it on pause. So I still have my dissertation and I have to still write my thesis and everything, but for now this is where I’m at, this is my focus.
Tim Pickett: That’s very cool.
Chris Holifield: That’s awesome. So mycleanleaf.com is your website.
Kyle Egbert: Yeah.
Chris Holifield: My Clean Leaf on Facebook, Instagram.
Kyle Egbert: Yeah.
Chris Holifield: People go connect with him there.
Kyle Egbert: Yeah.
Chris Holifield: Awesome.
Tim Pickett: Absolutely. Awesome. Well, you can get ahold of me at utahmarijuana.org and we’ll have this podcast up, utahmarijuana.org/podcast, and we’ll have a link hopefully to your blog article.
Chris Holifield: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: That’s the best place to get ahold of me. How about you, Chris?
Chris Holifield: And then you can listen to my other podcast, I am Salt Lake Podcast, iamsaltlake.com. Go listen to it. I did want to mention though, let me give our voicemail number here just one more time because I want people to call it up. If you ever have questions for Tim or myself or about the podcast or anything, we want to hear from you. You can even shoot it a text if you want. Nobody will ever pick this number up. (385) 215-9557, so give that a call, leave a voicemail.
Tim Pickett: All right everybody, be safe out there.
Chris Holifield: Maybe we’ll play it on the podcast.
Tim Pickett: Yeah, be safe out there.
Chris Holifield: All right.
