Join us live on the utahmarijuana.org and Utah in the Weeds Facebook pages on Friday 2/26 at 11:00 am. Tim and Chris will be recapping the first year of the podcast and give away a few prizes. We’ll also catch up with a bunch of past guests. The audio version will be posted to the podcast feed shortly after, and people will also be able to find the video recording on our Discover Marijuana YouTube channel. Don’t miss it!
Prop 2 protester and Medical Cannabis student Blake Silva is the special guest for episode 47 of Utah in the Weeds. In this episode, Tim and Chris have a fascinating conversation with a patient, activist, and student looking to get heavily involved in the Medical Cannabis space in the future.
Silva is a patient due to debilitating migraines. [04:16] He was introduced to Medical Cannabis by his mother, a patient herself because of fibromyalgia and trigeminal neuralgia. Silva is a certified cannabis sommelier and is now studying to become an extraction tech.
The first part of the show deals with the state of Utah’s cart space. [13:32] Silva is not all that impressed with the quality of either the cannabis liquids or carts through which they are dispensed. All three agreed that there was plenty of room for improvement with all things cart related.
Following the cart discussion, the three moved on to a discussion of cannabis-induced headaches. [17:50] Silva experiences them. From his understanding, they are caused by various terpenes. This is one of the things he is currently studying. He hopes to better understand which products are more likely to cause headaches by the time he finishes his education.
The discussion wrapped up with comments about the current state of cannabis growing and Medical Cannabis delivery in Utah. [30:08] Silva reiterated the fact that Utah’s Medical Cannabis program is still very young. He agreed with Tim and Chris’s assessment that things should drastically improve within a year or two.
Tim and Chris also talked briefly about their one-year anniversary podcast scheduled to be recorded live the following week. [01:54] They plan to have quite a few well-known guests for that podcast. If you can’t listen live, be sure to catch it as soon as you can.
Chris Holifield: Let’s welcome everybody out to episode 47 of Utah in the Weeds. My name is Chris Holifield.
Tim Pickett: And I’m Tim Pickett, medical cannabis — I guess expert medical provider, PA, and-
Chris Holifield: You’re the expert, Tim. You are the expert.
Tim Pickett: Might as well just lean into that pot doc. Is that what they call me on the news?
Chris Holifield: I love that pot doc.
Tim Pickett: You can find us at UtahMarijuana.org/podcast. All of our episodes are up there.
Chris Holifield: They can listen right there online. It’s great. I mean, a lot of people don’t even know how to listen to podcasts. Well, it’s like, just go to UtahMarijuana.org/podcasts. Listen right there.
Tim Pickett: Sweet. And today we have Blake Silva. He’s a Pharmacy Agent from Beehive Farmacy has a really cool story, got into cannabis and a famous has been on the news.
Chris Holifield: Yeah. He was talking about some protests that he’s helped lead and upset about the home grow here in Utah, as it seems like a lot of people, I know Bob Waters was the same way, and like, what was that, last week or the week before we had him running. And so it’s interesting to see these people’s drive and what motivates them, and then their involvement currently in the cannabis industry.
Tim Pickett: It’s interesting with Blake too, to watch his progression through the industry as an activist, then getting involved with companies here and moving along this path where he really does have a drive to learn. And I liked that part of our discussion. As far as housekeeping goes, just want to let everybody know that Wholesome has included a home delivery now to many more counties. And so if you’re a patient out there in one of the rural counties you could, if you don’t want to drive all the way up here, especially with the snow we’ve seen recently, Wholesome is offering that. So I think patients need to know that update. And-
Chris Holifield: We got to mention our show next week. We didn’t even mention our live show.
Tim Pickett: Oh, that’s right.
Chris Holifield: We got to mention. Okay. So our one-year anniversary for this podcast is basically going on right now. I mean, we started the end of February last year. Anyways, we’re going to do a live podcast recording. You can go to a UtahMarijuana.org Facebook page, or Utah on the Weeds Facebook page. I’m sure we’re going to stream in other outlets as well, but we’re going to try to do a little Facebook live, hopefully. I’m going to try to get it on like even Twitter and Instagram and possible but no guarantees there, but who… Yeah-
Tim Pickett: Next week, Friday, the 26th, 11 o’clock.
Chris Holifield: 26th, 11:00 AM Mountain Standard Time. So depending on where you’re at in the world, you can tune in and check it out. We should have it available that you can call in, leave a message. Now, if you’re listening, let’s say you’re listening right now and you aren’t available to watch it but you want to leave us a voice message, you can do that on our voicemail number. Nobody will ever pick this number up or this phone up if it rings, just call the voicemail number, leave a message. Let us know what you think of the podcast. Maybe your favorite episode over the last year, maybe you had a favorite person we had on and you just want to let us know. Our voicemail number is 385-215-9557. Give that a call. We’d love to hear from you. And we’ll play that on that episode, right Tim? With the one year anniversary, so.
Tim Pickett: Yeah. Absolutely. We played on the episode, I’m excited about this because we have some multiple guests coming on the show.
Chris Holifield: Let’s share things on. Tell the people who’s going to be there. Should we share who’s gonna be on?
Tim Pickett: We’ve got JD. Lauritzen, the leafy lawyer, who’s been featured in Salt Baked City’s upcoming release of their episode. David Sutherland. He was patient number one-
Chris Holifield: He was on episode two. And he was patient one, episode two of Utah in the Weeds.
Tim Pickett: Of ours, great guy, and Cole Fullmer, right?
Chris Holifield: Yeah. Cole Fullmer from Salt Baked City.
Tim Pickett:From Salt Baked City. I’m excited to talk to him too, because he’s got some updates on what’s happened over the whole year. He’s been really involved. So, it should be a good episode, Chris.
Chris Holifield: Let’s jump into that conversation with Blake Silva. Thank you so much for tuning in. You guys, have a great day.
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Chris Holifield: I wouldn’t mind even going back with Blake, like how he got introduced to cannabis. How cannabis came into his life.
Blake Silva: Oh, I love that.
Tim Pickett: Yeah. I’m interested in that. Blake, you look young. So, what’s up with cannabis in your house?
Blake Silva: So, actually I hate to be that guy and say that my mom was an influence to me, but I’m definitely a momma’s boy in a way of, she led me into the cannabis world, like super hard. A little backstory on that. My mom, she had a brain tumor when I was about like three or four years old. She was diagnosed with trigeminal neuralgia and fibromyalgia.
Tim Pickett: Yeah. Fibromyalgia.
Blake Silva: Yeah. There you go. And yeah, she was basically bedridden for like 16 years of my life and I didn’t really actually get to know her. And then she tried cannabis for the first time and she was able to function and it was mind blowing for me. It was like eye opening to me like that this plant, the simple plant that the government has been telling me since I was in elementary school….
Tim Pickett: Oh, yeah.
Blake Silva: …did that for my mom and gave her that power to fight at the Capitol and do all these crazy insane things in the cannabis industry to give patients access and stuff. And that kind of drive, I was like, you know what, this plant is something in the industry, I need to provide great medicine for patients or give them great advice because I know it was scary for my first time when I tried cannabis, but I had a great teacher and stuff, so.
Tim Pickett: Wow. That’s really cool. And talk about how you got involved because you’re pretty involved in the cannabis space now, Right?
Blake Silva: I guess I started getting involved with Prop 2. It helped my mother, Christine Stenquist, with the bill. I know she was like a baby bill at the time. And she was so excited for it and I was super hyped for it but I had no idea what actually was going on. And then after the compromise happened with the Prop 2, then I was like, wait, people can just do that. People can just disregard everything you worked for and throw stuff in. And then I got angry and decided to leave a Prop 2 protest up at the Capitol with a bunch of Facebook members. I think this was like 2018. And it was super cold too. It was like November or December. And it was snowing and everyone was still showed up and everything. We had our little Prop 2 signs and then we stuck them in the Capitol on their lawn and stuff.
Blake Silva: And we were so proud of ourselves and Fox News showed up and recorded all of us in there, impressed by it. But I think ever since that point, I met great people like Nate Kizerian and like a whole bunch of other people like Spencer McCann and stuff in the community that have spread my name around or just show appreciation towards my involvement with Prop 2 and stuff. And with my mom, especially, so.
Chris Holifield: Now to back up a little bit, you were mentioning, you didn’t really know what was going on with Prop 2 when your mom was heading that up, talk about that a little bit more. You just didn’t realize like what your mom was fighting for or?
Blake Silva: I didn’t realize how much access patients had. How much we were given the opportunity, for example, like four plants, you were able to grow at home-
Chris Holifield: With the original Prop 2.
Blake Silva: Yeah. With the original.
Tim Pickett: Passed by the population, right?
Blake Silva: Mm-hmm (affirmative). I think if a lot more patients realized all the access that we had in the original, there would have been a lot more backlash from the public on this compromised bill. But that’s just my personal opinion.
Chris Holifield: I would have to agree probably with you. I think a lot of the problem is people just, it was hard to keep up with the whole thing of really what was even going on.
Tim Pickett: Yeah. I tend to agree, Chris and Blake, and I was thinking about how much we may have lost in Prop 2 and into the compromise, for example, the four plants. This comes up a lot in our discussions. And at the same time, we know now so much more about cannabis than even we did a couple of years ago. And so it’s hard to know what we could have done then to make that better.
Chris Holifield: So Blake, you led a protest angry that Prop 2 didn’t pass as originally was planned to, right?
Blake Silva: Mm-hmm (affirmative). I was more like angry that the church stepped in and just played a role into it in a way, even though they say they didn’t, they definitely played a role with the legislators and stuff. I just heard a lot from all fronts and it just upset me how we’re like the only state that doesn’t have a separation church and state. And there are some patients here that really need this medicine and they just want to baby us. It’s like that funny meme that goes around and instead of a Utah life elevated it’s Utah life regulated. So they just love to baby you in a way that I think we’re adults enough to allow patients to have access to this great medicine. And we have such knowledgeable people here that we can provide great education but they just want to shut us down in ways and not even hear our end. I think that’s where my frustration branches from.
Chris Holifield: It happened at this protest that you led against Prop 2? Did anything happen from it, did you get the results?
Blake Silva: Nothing really happened. We weren’t really violent. We just started at the actual Mormon capitol conference — at the temple basically. And we marched all the way up to the Capitol with our Prop 2 signs and pretty much just staked it in the capital’s lawn. And we took a bunch of photos and I guess we just left our signs there and we just wanted them to hear us. We did a little of chanting and whatnot upfront just for the Prop 2 bill and stuff. And then that’s when Fox News showed up and started interviewing us and whatnot.
Tim Pickett: That’s cool. So how are you involved now? I mean, because now you’ve gotten right involved with Beehive Farmacy, yeah?
Blake Silva: Oh, yeah. So I think ever since that protest, my drive just kept on increasing. I started doing schooling out of state at the Trichome Institute in Colorado. Max Montrose is the owner of that Institute and he is so knowledgeable.
Chris Holifield: What is this Institute? Is it something to do with cannabis?
Blake Silva: Definitely. Has everything to do with the trichome heads off of cannabis. Basically I got certification as a certified cannabis sommelier, which means I could smell a flower or look at a flower and tell you what effects it would give you or tell you what kind of terpenes are on that flowerhead just by smelling it, which I think is great. That is so nifty.
Chris Holifield: It’s like a party trick!
Blake Silva: It is. People get excited over that, but I’m still learning. It’s tricky out there because there’s a lot of terpenes that are similar to each other. So I’m always learning more and that’s getting me excited. So I didn’t really stop once I got my certification at the Trichome Institute. I actually just barely started schooling at Green Flower, which is an extraction school. Because I think I want to be an extraction tech. I want to start making good carts for Utah. Because I feel like our cart game in Utah really needs some work.
Tim Pickett: Really?
Blake Silva: Yes. I’ve seen it. It’s-
Tim Pickett: And you’ve been involved since the beginning. You haven’t always worked at Beehive, right?
Blake Silva: No. Yeah. I worked up at Perfect Earth over in Ogden for a little bit there. I think that was the beginning of the summer of last year and they were great. True North, Perfect Earth, man, they were fantastic and whatnot. They’ve run out of flower. That’s all I can say. But other than that, they are a great company. They really put forth for their employees, but the second I heard that Bijan was opening up Beehive and his goals and aspirations. I knew that I had to jump ship and go to Beehive. It was just… he really cared for the patients and it sounded like he had intentions to provide a great cheap medicine for the patients or just great variety, which is I want to work for a company that does that for their patients, so.
Chris Holifield: What’s been the hardest thing for you working in a Farmacy, or has there been any obstacles that… Because I’m sure you deal with a lot of patients, right?
Blake Silva: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Chris Holifield: They come in, they are expressing things they’re dealing with. Maybe even the laws. I know this is a very vague question, but I’m just curious what obstacles you’ve seen or run into day-to-day working so much with the patients they’re like that?
Blake Silva: I think has a lot to do with quality. That’s the number one thing patients tell me is when is things gonna get cheaper and or better quality here? And all I can tell them is that, this is a baby program. We just barely started and we’ve been active for like, not even two years. Give it like a few more years. And I’m sure we’ll be like out of state programs and whatnot, but some of these companies are trying way hard to supply medicine for us like Tryke and whatnot. They have been single-handedly supplying flour to most of these dispensers when no one else has. And then people will just light them up saying that their flowers just not as good, but we were still getting there.
Blake Silva: And another thing is the carts here. I don’t know what it is, but every carts at almost every dispensary there’s issues. For this is me coming from Perfect Earth to Beehive, to actually look going down to Curaleaf and seeing what’s going on with Curaleaf carts or Dragonfly’s carts, because I know portable medicine for patients is also very important. My mom, because she’ll get a tax on the go and stuff and she’ll need to hit a cart. But some of the carts in Utah it’s like the strength is getting taken out and stuff. And I don’t know what’s behind it all. And that’s why I want to get my hand in the door and see if I can change anything or become the better cart distributor in Utah. If that’s an opportunity for me.
Chris Holifield: That’s interesting. Have you heard much about any of that Tim, any complaints from patients or anything?
Tim Pickett: Well, it does seem like there’s a little bit of drama around the carts. There was some discussion around MCT oil being added to the carts and how much of that. We talked to Kyle Egbert about this and, Dragonfly has removed their MCT oil or maybe never even put it in and Zion has taken it out of their karts as well. And then there’s… So MCT is no longer a part the carts. So that’s a good thing. The second thing, there’s more and more information about cannabinoids that are in those vape cartridges and cannabis derived derivatives of cannabinoids. So this delta-8 versus delta-9. How much delta-8 is in the cart when cannabis doesn’t produce a lot of delta-8 on its own. So it does seem like there’s some information there that we need to get into it a little bit more. So, I tend to agree. You feel like I’m on the right path there Blake?
Blake Silva: It’s super frustrating. Yeah. Especially when you have older folk come in and they spent so much on a cartridge and sometimes it’s not even down to what’s inside the cartridge, its actual functionality of the cartridges itself. The companies will go skimpy on these carts and they will end up leaking all over the place or just not working for the patients. And man, I just share their frustration on it. And I just wish I can… This is the only way I can get the word out is just by letting you guys know that, then there’s just issues that these Pacers are expressing about the carts that… They almost feel like they have to go back to black market because these, like certain products here are just not there yet. So, and I want to be able to make patients trust the pharmacies that they go to 100% because I want this to succeed here.
Tim Pickett: Yeah. I mean you bring up a good point. It’s not only the medicine, if it just doesn’t work. You can’t screw on that thread drop it into a battery and have it work till the material’s gone. And what’s the point?
Blake Silva: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Depressing at that point.
Tim Pickett: Yeah. That’s stuff that I wasn’t really aware of that they’re having so much that was a bigger issue maybe than we had talked about.
Chris Holifield: Can pharmacy take returns back? I mean, I guess is that something that-
Blake Silva: Yes. So some pharmacies won’t actually, but as far as I know, Beehive will take returns back and they’ll actually swap you out for a brand new cart or credit you towards something else, which is so nice. I’m so glad that they do that because that’s great customer service.
Chris Holifield: That’s tough on patients. I mean, you go drop, 50, 80 bucks on a cart and then it doesn’t work. I mean, that could be the rest of your money until the next pay day, you know what I mean?
Blake Silva: Yeah. And you’re just holding onto it and it’s just that feeling. I’m sure everyone’s held that feeling of, “I can’t use my medicine it’s right here,” and you just feel terrible. And I don’t want people to go through that. It’s awful.
Tim Pickett: Yeah. And we had talked to Bijan when we talked to him on the other episode about some products that they’re developing where they have metered dose.
Blake Silva: Oh, yeah.
Tim Pickett: And changing the inhalation method. But again, I think those things are probably a year away from being available, right?
Blake Silva: Yeah. Excited for that. Yeah. You’re right.
Tim Pickett: Can I switch gears and talk, because carts are going to be a part of this question in this migraine thing… Can we talk a little bit about, you had mentioned that you have migraines and there’s a lot of… We’ve been discussing this a ton in our clinics, not only migraine headaches and how cannabis can help for migraine pain, but also cannabis causing headaches. So Blake, talk to me about your migraines and cannabis.
Blake Silva: I actually was curious on this because I’ve had migraines since I was 10 or 11 for some reason. And they would get so bad that I would just be nauseated in the bathroom, lights would set me off. I’d be out for like a day or two. And my mom would try to tell me that it might be chronic from some of the stuff she got from the trigeminal neuralgia and whatnot. I was like, no, I don’t think there’s got to be something else. So I actually went and did some blood work and an EKG and stuff. And my EKG came back positive and I actually have a hole in my heart that directs too much blood flow to my head. So, when pressure fronts come in, I just get destroyed by these migraines and cannabis actually it’s like the only thing that can take these migraines away in like seconds, like 15 seconds, 10 seconds.
Blake Silva: I take some Tylenol or like Ibuprofen and stuff and I just can’t handle it. My stomach gets nauseated. I just started throwing up. But cannabis it’s just like the pain has gone instantly. And if you suffer from migraines, you cannot express how amazing it is because the grief from migraines is just unreal.
Tim Pickett: So you using an inhaled are using cartridges or flower?
Blake Silva: Honestly, flower is the best. I actually own a Volcano. I like filling up a bag and keeping my medicine in the bag next to me if I’m like next to the toilet or something. So I’m not in like a rush to smoke something, but cartridges are the next best thing. Because you’re not have a limited time, with some of these vape devices which frustrates me. Because some of these patients they’ll be in an attack and they can’t take their medicine instantly. And so the old burn and an oven, like one of these DaVinci’s or something else and their product will be wasted or something. This is just little things that I’ve noticed with my mom. I’m comparing other patients to this pain that my mom has experienced and stuff. So Volcano, I can not praise it enough. The fact that you can hold your medicine, the bag and just take sips of it a little bit at a time and get your medicine through that. Oh, it’s a brilliant product.
Chris Holifield: Yeah. No. I love my Volcano. I know Tim hears that almost every week too, when I talk about that thing.
Tim Pickett: Yeah. So have you ever had cannabis induce a headache?
Blake Silva: I have had that before and I was totally confused until I actually did schooling at my Trichome Institute and thought it probably could be one of two things. Thing number one could be a delta-8. I feel like it is a phytocannabinoid and it’s just less psychotropic affecting. When I smoked some of the delta-8 carts and I know it’s a delta-8 cart, I get like a back of the head high, but I don’t actually get high. And I sit there trying to chase a high and then I noticed a slight stabbing headache starting here. So that could be one of the things. But I also notice that, I’m going to break this down for you. So there’s actually no such thing as a strain sativa or a strain indica, everything is indica-indica because through generations we’ve just colonized and breed at the plant so intensely that there’s no straight sativa but there is a narrow leaf or a broad leaf plant.
Blake Silva: The broad leaf plants are the indica based plants. And then narrow leaf are the sativa, but narrow leaf is actually more close to hemp. So I feel like the sativa or hemp based plants could be also giving you a headache as well, because we don’t know a lot of information based off of it, but those are my two.
Tim Pickett: So, no, I didn’t prep this question before, but you’ve said exactly what we talk about with patients and that is, that… And then we could talk about this delta-8 thing too, but I think in our experience is the sativa type terpenes and derivatives tend to stimulate headaches, like cannabis induced headaches more. And you pointed in your, like we’re watching you on the video here and you pointed to the side of your head and people get this side of the head headache-
Chris Holifield: Those are the worst.
Blake Silva: Mm-hmm (affirmative). It’s so bad. It feels like a knife stabbing your head or something and it’s splitting almost. Yeah.
Tim Pickett: Now, the delta-8, I don’t know if you could talk about this too, but in your experience is do you think the delta-8 products in the market now tend to be sativa like the carts, right?
Blake Silva: Yeah. Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tim Pickett: They tend to have those sativa terpenes and so we’ve been adjusting the recommendations to increase indica type delivery. Like indica type products when people get headaches from the plants, right?
Blake Silva: For sure. Definitely. Yes. More of those broadleaf plants, more indica dominant plants because I feel like the narrow leaf, the sativa, the high energy terpenes and stuff. They’re just too hempy of plants. It causes headaches to get like that full spectrum into the cart and stuff. I wish I knew more past it, but that’s why I’m doing this school. So I could know like 100% through trial and error.
Tim Pickett: No. I mean, I think it’s important to just talk to people because there’s not a ton of studies on this. And so really we’re just getting our information from patients-
Blake Silva: Word of mouth is the best.
Tim Pickett: Right. I mean, there’s a legit in medicine. If it works for you, it’s actually more likely to work for me just because I heard it, that way?
Chris Holifield: Yeah. It’s weird how it works that way.
Tim Pickett: Yeah. It’s weird how the human physiology works that way.
Blake Silva: Yeah. It does. And everyone’s different. You’re your own doctor at this point. So a lot of trial and error has to happen with some patients. That’s what I tell them every time too, “If this gives you a headache, okay, let’s switch gears and try to do something more like this, because I guarantee you this one won’t give that other person a headache,” because they love that stuff. So it’s really difficult to figure out why this head person gets a headache from this and why this other person won’t. So I want to know the science behind that.
Tim Pickett: Does Utah law and Beehive and all of these other pharmacies — Is it pretty restrictive as far as how much advice you can give the patient? Because like you’re not the pharmacist, you’re not the QMP. So how does that affect your job when you kind of, I mean, you’re really an expert.
Blake Silva: Yeah. It affects it hard. I want to give people such great advice because of my schooling. I want to ask them what their issue is and like go into high detail of their background stuff. But I know that, that’s reserved for the pharmacist and I probably don’t know as much as I could know. And I think the state is just worried that I could guide someone in the wrong direction and cannabis and potentially mess them up. But I can guarantee that, to this day, I have not seen someone completely “messed up from cannabis.” And it’s like a lot of trial and error. Like I go back to saying.
Chris Holifield: So if you can’t give patients advice, my question is, how many of these patients are getting the help they need from their QMPs? I mean, and I guess the three of us, we won’t really truly know that because I know Tim helps his patients but I know a lot of people out there don’t help their patients and not because they don’t want to. It’s just because they’re probably not as educated as they should be.
Blake Silva: Yeah. And I think that’s where it’s hard is because the QMPs provide great information, such good information, but that they only get to see them like once or twice, and then they don’t ever see them. They just go to the dispensary. And then they talk to the pharmacist at dispensary, which the pharmacist, no offense to dispensary’s and whatnot. But the pharmacist sees patients every hour, all day. It’s becomes more of a monotonous droney thing. And so they don’t give 100% every time in a way. I assure you that we do try to give it 100% of your time but sometimes they need a little more questions, answer because we do get a line of patients at the door that we have to help. So that’s where I like to come in handy, or I like to be the extra backup pharmacist or pharmacy agent. I feel like I need to have knowledge on what I’m selling to patients. That’s super important. So then I start asking a few key questions without overriding the pharmacist’s suggestion. I just give my two bits on educational things that they ask me.
Tim Pickett: It really does require a whole team approach. I mean, you say, a lot of these, the QMP’s are giving good information but I don’t know. And I’m biased of course, with our system but-
Blake Silva: I get great stuff from you. But I agree there are some QMPs that just want to make those sales and stuff. And it’s hard because there’s a lot of snake oil salesman in Utah, whether it be-
Tim Pickett: Right. I mean, come on in, I’ll just give you the state max and you’re good, you qualify, you can go buy four ounces of flower, do whatever you want.
Blake Silva: Exactly. They just have like a stack of cards —
Tim Pickett: Then we have this whole new thing. Do you have an opinion about letting non-educated providers write for 15 carts? Have you heard about this?
Blake Silva: Yeah. And I feel like I strongly disagree to for that, because there has been people like you and me that have fought so hard to get where we are and, or to get patients access and stuff. And we don’t want the street, people were like street life to come into the medical life like instantly we want to keep things clean. We want the state to see that we can have a respectable program and whatnot. So yes, I agree. I want to push those people out and they need to be brought to light, for sure.
Tim Pickett: Yeah. And I just think also people need to be educated before they are recommending this as a treatment because cannabis is strong.
Blake Silva: It is strong.
Tim Pickett: And I think we all three agree. We love it. Right?
Chris Holifield: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: But it’s not weak medicine.
Blake Silva: To us. It’s like a cup of coffee to someone else, it could be completely different, so.
Tim Pickett: Everybody reacts differently with it. That’s the best part in my opinion but also the scariest part for some people because they don’t know how they’re going to react.
Blake Silva: And I think that builds up the anxiety for cannabis, honestly, is they keep on overthinking it and the mind is a powerful thing and you overthinking can build that anxiety and make the cannabis a worse experience for you. So if you go in with a calm and cool personality or just mindset, you should be able to be fine in any situation.
Chris Holifield: So Blake, are you doing anything currently to push like growing in Utah? I know you did the back to the beginning when we were talking, you were doing some protests. Are you doing anything currently or even… I mean, maybe this is even a question for Tim even, and I know again, we’ve probably talked about this but when can we bring that back up to Capitol Hill and say, “Hey, we want growing here in Utah. Let’s make this happen.” Is that only a once a year thing that we can present? Because I know they only meet for about 45 days up on the Hill. Blah-blah-blah is that… I mean, can we get growing in Utah?
Tim Pickett: What do you think Blake, because I know what I think.
Blake Silva: Yeah. I did hear rumors and stuff going around that they were going to try to push another bill up to allow growing again for patients who can’t make it to dispensary’s that are like in capacitated and stuff for any number of reasons, whether it be health or just like physical or mental reasons and there was another good point of this delivery system. So if someone gets super stoned, like let’s say that they hypothetically joined the system, jumped all the hoops they needed and they just wanted to get, weed, and they were just too stoned to leave. And third, so like delivery is perfect as opposed to the patient that is in so much pain and can’t make it to the dispensary and needs that delivery. Some of these dispensaries don’t care who is who, that they’re just wanting to deliver it. So that person, they just too stoned to go to the dispensary will be the first pick over the person that’s in too much pain. That’s getting that small amount of cannabis over.
Blake Silva: Basically, what I’m saying is people with money are being a lot more targeted and valued in the industry as opposed to people that are actually needing this medicine and stuff. It’s very cutthroat from the start it’s feeling like, and that’s not what we wanted, for sure. And that’s not what a medical cannabis program should be. So.
Chris Holifield: Yeah. Well, we’ve talked about that. I think that was even with Bob Waters, if I’m not mistaken, Tim. I mean, was talking about how only the people with money and then it goes back to the lower income people tend to get the shaft.
Blake Silva: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: Yeah. And that’s what I was going to say to this question really that Chris asked. You Blake, until the growers and the license holders have basically are going to allow home grow, then you’re probably not going to get it. Because how do you get legislation passed in this day and age? Well, you hire a lobbyist. You go up to Capitol Hill, you negotiate with the legislator. And that costs a lot of money.
Blake Silva: It does.
Tim Pickett: And the patients don’t have a lot of money. The patients who need home grow, they don’t have a lot of money. The medical providers, we don’t have a really great organization. The Utah medical association is really not pro-cannabis. So they don’t really support us in this expansion of the program-
Blake Silva: Yeah. All of those things.
Tim Pickett: So I really do think the little guy is going to get left out for a while until those growers and those, let it go.
Blake Silva: By probably reaching max capacity, unfortunately. Because I know that one of the state’s —
Tim Pickett: I think so. Bob water said though, in our interview before revenue is fuel and we’ve got up, unfortunately until there’s enough of that in the system that there’s excess.
Blake Silva: That’s what I tell people. It will get better in like a year or two. Things will get so much better because some of these grows they’re increasing their grow by like 400% and stuff like that. That’s huge. And there’s going to be just so much access to flower for all these patients and the prices will drop down tremendously. So, it’s coming. I just feel like we need to refine it a little, like these cart things. And our edibles here need work because if you take the same kind of edible, like these Hygge edibles every day for a while, you’re going to build a tolerance to it. I don’t care who you are. It’s just your body will get used to you taking that. So you need variety. I just feel like gummies aren’t going to work always in Utah and stuff like that. So, we do need out of state influence, like shatter-infused things and drinks and suckers and stuff. But that’s just my opinion. I hope that that gets pushed at the Capitol as well, because I would be so excited to see that here.
Tim Pickett: Yeah. I totally agree. We need more variety and I can see, be by the end of the year, there’s going to be quite a bit of flower in the market with all these guys other than basically Tryke’s supporting the whole market right now.
Blake Silva: And I don’t know if you guys heard about the out of state companies coming into Beehive or not, but Sherbinskis and Cookies coming in from California into Beehive, probably around March or April. They’re going to bring a lot of product with them and or genetics to grow here. So that is super excited. We’re exciting. I don’t know how they are able to pull that off but that’s something that the state of Utah needs is out of state influence, not just from certain growers, trying to make money off things like actually trying to get quality medicine inside.
Tim Pickett: Yeah. I know with cookies, that’s a super popular strain for pain. It is the most popular that I know of. Strain for pain: Girl Scout Cookies. So having that here would be a big deal.
Chris Holifield: Oh, yeah.
Blake Silva: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Chris Holifield: Now Beehive offering delivery yet? Have they started —
Blake Silva: Oh, yeah. That’s coming soon. I think they’re waiting on their Brigham store to open before they have delivery available. So, and they had to push the Brigham store a couple of times just because of the state, which is frustrating thing because I think Park City was trying to open as well.
Tim Pickett: Yeah. I’m not 100% but I think Park City is now open.
Blake Silva: Is it?
Tim Pickett: Yes.
Blake Silva: Oh nice.
Tim Pickett: It’s in Kimball Junction Desert Wellness, they opened on last week. No, Chris, they opened this week.
Chris Holifield: Yeah. We’re supposed to open last week and I think they had to push it out — but if they’re open now that’s great.
Tim Pickett: But takes a long time to get these things done. And there are not very many cart holders in Summit County and I’m sure there are not very many cart holders up in Brigham City.
Blake Silva: Mm-hmm (affirmative). It’s true.
Chris Holifield: I wonder why there’s not very many up in Summit. You would think there’d be a turn up there.
Tim Pickett: Yeah. You would think, but the last report from the department of health only showed 200 card holders in Summit County. I mean, that is not very many at all. It’s not enough to support a pharmacy or a dispensary for sure.
Blake Silva: I wonder. Yeah, that’s wild.
Chris Holifield: Yeah, because I was curious, I haven’t tried the delivery yet. I was just wondering how difficult that delivery is to get product or… Let’s say somebody lives in a far out there, let’s say Delta, Utah. I know that’s kind of far out there.
Tim Pickett: Oh, yes. So-
Chris Holifield: I mean, what does somebody do, can they call up one of these delivery places? Will they be able to call it Beehive and then you’ll drive it down to him Blake, or do they… I mean, how does that work?
Blake Silva: Should be able to. I’m curious on that too, I don’t know how we going to roll it. I don’t know that.
Chris Holifield: Yeah. You probably don’t know all the answers either. I know a couple places that are doing delivery, but I was just curious how it works.
Tim Pickett: Yeah. Wholesome delivers in Carbon County, Duchesne County, Uintah County, Iron, Washington. They opened up delivery just as of this week for all of those rural counties which is pretty impressive.
Blake Silva: That is nice.
Tim Pickett: To get people their medicine, they do have some coupon codes that people can use for those deliveries. I know Wholesome was offering free delivery for their first delivery free to let people try it, see how it worked. We have an article on UtahMarijuana.org where you can get that coupon code. And we sent it out to our patients, but that is a long way away to deliver from here.
Chris Holifield: I mean, that’s like an all-day trip. That’s what I’m wondering. One delivery driver might only be able to take one delivery to a patient that day, depending on where they need to go. That’s why I’m wondering how it all works.
Blake Silva: Yeah. And that’s why I’m worried it might fail too, is if you’re missing a driver and you’re out doing a run at a long distance, how many drivers are you going to have for no orders coming in? Because I work with a system called Dutchie where people can order online and we can hold it for 48 hours and whatnot. And I feel like even such a brilliant system is that it has its flaws. I just don’t know where these extra drivers are going to come from. You’re going to need a lot of drivers because some of these people are going to really want cannabis out in the middle of nowhere. First, before people here.
Chris Holifield: Maybe I need to start the same job. Yeah.
Tim Pickett: Right. The furthest South dispensary in Northern Utah is going to be in Payson. And then you’re not going to have one again until Cedar City. And those two pharmacies are going to have to service the entire central and Eastern part of the state. There’s nobody in Vernal. Vernal, Moab, Blanding, none of that. They’re going have to drive to Payson or something like that.
Blake Silva: I definitely want to ask, Wholesome from the other delivery is doing so far because they only have the-
Chris Holifield: I’m sure not very well for now.
Tim Pickett: I think there’s one order in Duchesne, that’s a long way. You got to drive super long where to get there.
Blake Silva: Is super long. Yeah. It And I know dragonfly’s trying to get their delivery started too.
Chris Holifield: They probably have a minimum. And it’s probably like 72 hours that they probably can’t guarantee same day and all that and then depending on where you are.
Tim Pickett: Dragonfly’s doing a really good job of trying to get involved in the community too-
Blake Silva: Have noticed that. Yeah.
Tim Pickett: Where they’re downtown and we’ve got a little partnership with them to raise a little bit of money for a private school downtown and just trying to get involved even in the local communities to let people know they’re here, we still see patients and I’ll bet you do too Blake. Don’t you see patients that are like, well, yesterday I didn’t even know this was illegal.
Blake Silva: Yeah. All the time.
Tim Pickett: Like a year later.
Blake Silva: Yeah. And it’s so funny to me, or people that have no experience at all with cannabis and we still get that all the time. And that’s just surprising to me, honestly, in this day and age, because I feel like cannabis has such a limelight right now. And it has the spotlight for sure from this country but yet it’s still being treated like a federal one substance.
Tim Pickett: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Chris Holifield: Well, cool. I don’t know. I mean, do you have any other questions from Tim or should we get this episode wrapped up or anything else you want to bring up Blake, before we wrap this episode up? I mean, I’ve had a great time getting to know your story a little bit and finding out what you got going on. I think we covered most of the things of what you’re involved in and-
Blake Silva: For sure. Hopefully-
Tim Pickett: It’s been a fun conversation about what we all think of the system and what we’re looking forward to for the next few months.
Blake Silva: Yeah. Awesome. Hopefully the next time you guys see me, I’ll work at life elevated. So that’s my goal right now to go work for Jilu.
Tim Pickett: Really? Really cool.
Blake Silva: Yeah. Because I know Justin and stuff, so he’s amazing.
Chris Holifield: What is that? That sounds like heal you. What-
Blake Silva: What is Jilu? Yes, it is the carts.
Tim Pickett: Okay. Yeah. Okay. I was like I know they sound familiar.
Tim Pickett: Shout out to those because they have an indica cart that is very, very good. Relaxing…
Blake Silva: Oh yeah, Gorilla Glue? Number four. Yeah.
Tim Pickett: It’s Gorilla Glue. That product is top notch in my opinion. And although it does… I mean, I think the smell, if… I don’t know, we need a rating system, Chris, on how we measure products.
Chris Holifield: Let’s do it. Like let’s come up with something.
Blake Silva: Yeah. We need stuff like that.
Tim Pickett: I’m going to put this stuff on the lower end because like for me, it smells fine. But for, for people who don’t like the cannabis smell, it’s not that great because it smells like cannabis. That Gorilla Glue.
Blake Silva: It does. Tastes like cannabis too.
Tim Pickett: Right. Like it has a strong — It tastes like cannabis and smells like cannabis. And a lot of people with carts don’t like that, but
Blake Silva: That’s true.
Tim Pickett: I think they do a great job in their cart manufacturing and that product does not cause headaches as far as I can tell.
Blake Silva: Yeah. You’re right.
Tim Pickett: Very relaxing. Yeah. Good quality product. I would definitely endorse that product for sure.
Chris Holifield: Well, cool. Do you have like an Instagram or anything Blake that people can check? I mean, I don’t know if you do any cannabis Instagram or do anything that people can connect with you there?
Blake Silva: Yes. It’s @glowingploxy funny story behind that name. Ploxy was a strain I wanted to grow at some point just because I know quite a bit into non glandular and glandular trichomes which are basically, there’s no bold at the end of the trichomes, they’re just like a straight spike and I just feel like there’s potential in those trichomes. I feel like you could probably make something new out of them.
Tim Pickett: @glowingploxy.
Blake Silva: @glowingploxy.
Chris Holifield: Awesome. So connect with Blake there. Let them know you heard them on Utah in the Weeds Podcast and go-
Tim Pickett: Go by and see him at Beehive Farmacy.
Chris Holifield: What’s the address of Beehive Farmacy? I mean, I know it’s right across the street from one of your clinics there Tim, if you only know that I just put Blake probably knows Beehive’s address.
Blake Silva: Yeah. I do know. It’s a 1991 South 3600 West South Salt Lake. Right down from the Del Taco and Maverick. So you’ll see a big green sign. You can’t miss it though.
Chris Holifield: Give them a plug since you’re on the podcast. I figured. And then your website is like Beehive Farmacy with F so.
Tim Pickett: Beehive Farmacy with the F.
Chris Holifield: Yeah. And then they can go and put an ordering get their medicine right there from the website, pick it up. You guys take Hypur and all that. That’s great. You guys take a drive through.
Blake Silva: Right. You guys take Hypur, we are super quick. We’re so fast and drive through too. I don’t like to boast or anything, but like, Oh, I’ve seen how quick we are. We’re just amazing. So yeah.
Tim Pickett: Yeah. So these guys are good they’re you get good advice down there.
Blake Silva: Yes. For sure.
Tim Pickett: Thanks Blake.
Blake Silva: You’re welcome.
Chris Holifield: Thank you so much, Blake. It’s been a pleasure. Let’s catch up down the road, buddy.
Blake Silva: Thanks for having me for sure. Chris. Thanks Tim.
Tim Pickett: Yes. All right, everybody stay safe out there.
