Patient Maddie Morrison is originally from South Dakota. [03:17] She first began using cannabis as a teenager. It was still illegal in South Dakota at the time, but a lot of people Morrison knew used it anyway. Most of her family used cannabis.
Morrison told Chris and Tim how she stopped using after graduating from high school and moving to Utah. [09:19] Several years later, she began using cannabis again as a way to self-medicate. Morrison suffers from PTSD and back pain.
Tim mentioned the fact that cannabis is helpful to PTSD patients from the sleep aspect. [12:41] It puts patients to sleep, keeps them asleep, and suppresses dreams. He said that insomnia is probably the number one reason PTSD patients use cannabis.
After talking about why she uses, the discussion turned to taking breaks. [14:16] Tim asked if Morrison had recently gone 48 hours “totally cannabis free.” Morrison said it had been a while. Tim brought up the point in order to discuss the possibility of withdrawal symptoms among heavy users.
Tim went on to explain that he and his staff recommend patients take 48 hours off every quarter. [16:06] They recommend gradually ramping back up thereafter. This type of thing helps control tolerance and simultaneously saves patients money.
The remainder of the conversation focused on how Morrison is personalizing her own journey through experience and research. [18:59] She spoke about being able to help other people by sharing what she has learned. Morrison is a voracious researcher, spending hours watching videos and reading studies.
The trio briefly talked about Morrison’s employment with Deseret Wellness up in Park City. [22:33] Tim and Chris speak very highly of the Deseret Wellness pharmacies in Park City and Provo. Bringing them up was a nice way to round out the conversation.
More Info Coming Soon…
Chris Holifield: All right. Let’s welcome everybody out today to episode 57 of Utah in the Weeds. My name’s Chris Holifield.
Tim Pickett: And I’m Tim Pickett, medical cannabis expert of sorts in Utah, and we’re talking today to Maddie Morrison.
Chris Holifield: Yes, a patient as well as she works at Deseret Wellness in Park City.
Tim Pickett: Yeah, the Deseret Wellness in Park City is on Kearns, and it’s hard to find, and we talk about that in the podcast, but she’s really fun to talk to. This was a good episode and I liked the discussion that we had around her growing up and her experience with her family. I remember that. That was good.
Chris Holifield: Yeah, we don’t want to give too many spoilers.
Tim Pickett: Right.
Chris Holifield: We’ll get into that podcast or we’ll get into the interview here in just a second with Maddie.
Tim Pickett: Got a little housekeeping. There’s a new pharmacy in Brigham City, Beehive Farmacy, that we already know and love in West Salt Lake, right across the street from where we’re recording here today, but I’m also in Brigham City. Do you have the address of that?
Chris Holifield: I do. It’s 870 West 1150 South, Suite C Brigham City, Utah 84302. Their number 435-919-0966. Give them a call to make sure they’re open or they’re out.
Tim Pickett: Yeah, they had, I know Mindy Madeo is working as a pharmacist up there. She’s the pharmacist in charge.
Chris Holifield: Very cool.
Tim Pickett: Very cool place. Excited to see that pharmacy, the Northern most pharmacy in Utah, open up and give access to people who are way up there.
Chris Holifield: And then Utah Therapeutic, utahmarijuana.org, you guys are opening up here in Provo?
Tim Pickett: Oh, yes.
Chris Holifield: You guys have a grand opening on the 11th, I think?
Tim Pickett: Grand opening on the 11th. This Tuesday, coming up taco Tuesday from 12:00 to 6:00. We’ve got a taco truck coming to celebrate a re-grand opening. So we’re in the same building as Deseret Wellness in Provo. We are not in their space. We have our own entrance, our own space there. Look for us there on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays right now, 12:00 to 6:00. Just I’m really excited about Utah County because we have a lot of patients that drive up from the South. And this gives them really an hour less drive than driving up here to the Salt Lake Valley. So yeah, super excited. Come down and see us, take a selfie with the marijuana gnome.
Chris Holifield: The marijuana, that should be our mascot of the podcast —
Tim Pickett: … if you know you know. Out there are the marijuana gnomes, I gave them away for the birthday, right?
Chris Holifield: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: They’ve just become something of a thing that we think is fun.
Chris Holifield: Utahmarijuana.org/podcast, go listen to all the podcasts there. They all should be up there for the most part. Share some of your favorite episodes on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and that way we can help grow our audience because that’s the way we’re going to grow is word of mouth. And I don’t know, anything else you want to mention before we get into this episode here and talk about-
Tim Pickett: Yeah, talk with Maddie. I don’t think so, Chris. Let’s get into it.
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Chris Holifield: All right. Here’s that conversation with Maddie Morrison. Thanks so much for listening to you guys. Let’s talk about your relationship with cannabis. When did that start for you?
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, so I was probably between the ages of 14 and 16, very young, too young.
Chris Holifield: Were you by yourself, with friends?
Maddie Morrison: With friends. Well, we weren’t really with friends, it was not a very good crowd.
Chris Holifield: Pseudo friends at the time, right?
Maddie Morrison: Totally, yeah. I stepped outside of my crowd and I was just like, I don’t know, my mom gave me the go ahead. She asked me if I had ever tried cannabis before, and I said no, and she said-
Chris Holifield: Now, did she say it like that? “Have you tried cannabis?”
Maddie Morrison: Yeah.
Chris Holifield: Really? Didn’t call it marijuana, anything?
Tim Pickett: Yeah, did she?
Maddie Morrison: No.
Tim Pickett: Oh, nice.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: Okay.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah. It’s very well known in my family. Everybody pretty much uses cannabis, so it’s been a great culture in my family.
Tim Pickett: Very cool.
Maddie Morrison: So when I get those roadblocks of people who aren’t so open to the subject, it’s a little bit strange for me, because I-
Tim Pickett: Because you didn’t grow up in the same environment that I would say most would be here, in Utah?
Maddie Morrison: Totally, yeah.
Tim Pickett: Right. You grew up in an environment that maybe you live in our future, where we’re going to raise our kids is with more openness and talk about it more. So when you were using cannabis when you were younger, did you feel that fear of getting caught as much?
Maddie Morrison: Totally.
Tim Pickett: You still did?
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, I Totally did. It wasn’t so much getting caught by my parents, well by my mom, my family background is something we can talk about later, but my mom just always was very open about it and my grandma is very open about it. My grandma is, I hate to put the stigma on it, but she’s the biggest pothead I know. She’s, my grandma’s great.
Chris Holifield: And your family’s out in South Dakota, right?
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, most of them.
Chris Holifield: So for the people listening, that’s where you were born and raised, that’s where you first started using cannabis. Now, what South Dakota’s laws current? Are they a medical state or are they recreational or are they just not this?
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, it was fully illegal, very harsh laws, very conservative. It’s a very conservative state. Very much was not okay even though everybody was aware that everybody was using cannabis. The harder drugs are also an issue in South Dakota as well, so it was a big, drugs were a big topic. I hate to say drugs, but drugs was a big topic in South Dakota. I was more so afraid of being caught by cops, so it wasn’t really family that I was scared of or anything, it was just cops. Because it’s a small town, there’s not really anything that they can do aside from like follow cars around town that are perfectly doing nothing wrong.
Chris Holifield: It was a small town there that you grew?
Maddie Morrison: Oh, so small. Only one stoplight.
Chris Holifield: Okay, because I’m familiar with South Dakota and I know how it is. It’s like weather, what is it only like? There’s only a couple of big cities in South Dakota, and they’re not even that big, I guess.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah. The biggest ones are Rapid City, that one’s about a 35, 45 minute drive away from where I grew up, which is in Lead Deadwood area. So yeah, little old western town and just very small school. I grew up with the same kids from kindergarten to graduation pretty much.
Tim Pickett: All the way though.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah.
Chris Holifield: So it was like you had to accept the people that were there, not a lot of choices of who your friends were, not a lot of choices of who you spent time with?
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, and cliques weren’t a thing. It was just everybody was the same friend group, so it was very small town. Everybody knew everybody’s business, and even though I used cannabis as a very young kid, everybody did, so I wasn’t scared about my peers knowing or anything.
Tim Pickett: Yeah, it’s a little different than here where you have little groups of kids that would use or not.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, it’s more cliquey in bigger places.
Tim Pickett: It’s like everybody knows who the groups are, but in your case, it’s all just one group.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, exactly.
Tim Pickett: Yeah, that is small town.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, very small town.
Tim Pickett: I’ve visited places like that, Chris, but never lived in one.
Chris Holifield: Yeah, no I’ve visited-
Tim Pickett: Yeah, I visited-
Chris Holifield: But at 14 you probably weren’t even familiar with the term medical marijuana, medical cannabis.
Maddie Morrison: No, not really.
Chris Holifield: It was all just recreational, so to speak.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah.
Chris Holifield: Even though there probably was things that it was helping out, even at 14.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, as a young kid, I definitely used it recreationally, but I knew that there were times where I was like, “Okay, I know that when I use this before a test, I focus a little bit better. I feel more confident. I feel like I have a better outcome with my test.” That sort of thing. So I definitely was aware that it was helping me in some ways, but it didn’t really register the medical aspect of it until-
Tim Pickett: Right, you’re not considering it. And let’s go back to that. That term medical, we use it now because it’s almost like a legal term. But if you’re using the plant for some type of benefit or some type of change, that’s essentially what we’re doing with the medical side anyway.
Maddie Morrison: Exactly.
Tim Pickett: And you don’t even need to call it medical, it just is what it is.
Maddie Morrison: Exactly.
Tim Pickett: But focus, you found, did you find that some strains … Were you able to choose what strain you got there?
Maddie Morrison: I feel like when I was young, now I have a super high tolerance. When I was that young, I was like, anything really helped me, anything was very mind altering. Even if it was being in the same room as somebody, I would still feel a change in my body or my mind. I didn’t really pay attention to strangers because it was like what you could get back then. And now it’s more so I’m learning as I’m going through my journey, because then it was just my experience with cannabis, now I feel like I’m on my journey with cannabis. So it feels like mind change. Now, I’m learning about terpenes, I’m learning about cannabinoids, I’m learning about what my body needs. I have a little notebook that I write when I try new things. I write what the brand is, what it was, my dosage, the changes, so I’m keeping track and making it more catered to Maddie, if that exists.
Tim Pickett: Yeah, you’re personalizing your own experience.
Chris Holifield: When did you start doing all that? How long ago did that one start for you?
Maddie Morrison: Probably mostly when I started in the industry, when I started at Deseret Wellness. I took about two years off from cannabis, because I started at a credit union when I first moved here, and I worked there for almost three years, and it was very much a different culture. I was so scared. I was scared I was going to get in trouble. I didn’t want to get in trouble. I didn’t want to get fired. I wanted to be a good adult. I just graduated high school. I just wanted to be very clean, and I don’t know.
Tim Pickett: Did you think that, “Okay, now I’m going to grow up, I’m going to be adult, and adults don’t smoke weed?”
Maddie Morrison: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: Is that really what you-
Maddie Morrison: That’s really what I felt.
Tim Pickett: Interesting.
Maddie Morrison: Because when I worked, I don’t know if I should say it, but I had a really bad experience at this credit union, and that’s, as I worked there longer, I started just, I don’t know if I was starting to resent my job or I don’t know, retaliate, I don’t know, but I started using cannabis again.
Chris Holifield: As a way to probably escape at that time?
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, because I was just like, I would just feel so unhappy and I just feel like I’m trapped here. And it was a way for me to heal some of that depression and heal some of those things that some of those traumas that happened during the three years that I worked there. And that was game-changing for me, because then it started helping me with those traumas and with those issues, so-
Tim Pickett: Are you talking about-
Maddie Morrison: … I don’t want to get emotional, but-
Tim Pickett: Right, because you’re diagnosed with PTSD, and that’s your qualifying condition in Utah, and that’s primarily what you use cannabis for from a medical standpoint?
Maddie Morrison: And pain as well.
Tim Pickett: And pain.
Maddie Morrison: I have really bad lower back pain.
Tim Pickett: Okay. And do you find, now that you’re through this journey, how has cannabis helped the PTSD?
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, so I have really bad insomnia associated with it. I’ll get nightmares, I’ll get flashbacks, I can’t, either I, there are some, some days, well, before I got back into my cannabis journey or when I first started again after two years, there would be days where I wouldn’t sleep for a couple of days. And it just was thinking-
Tim Pickett: Because you have trouble falling asleep and staying asleep because of the nightmares?
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, because sometimes I’ll close my eyes, I’ll stop to relax, and then I’ll get a flashback of something, and it’ll just make me uncomfortable and I’ll cringe, and I just get really anxious. And depending on the flashback and the severity of that situation, there are some nights where I just can’t sleep, period. With cannabis, it’s like if I have a higher dose edible, that’s the biggest part. That’s the biggest help for me, is being able to fall asleep, stay asleep, not have any nightmares. Usually I have really great dreams or no dreams at all, and I’m just out.
Chris Holifield: Does it help you wake up refreshed in the next morning?
Maddie Morrison: Yeah.
Chris Holifield: Because that’s the worst, is when you don’t wake up and you just feel like you didn’t sleep at all.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: Right.
Maddie Morrison: Well, there are some days I feel a little foggy, but it’s normally for, because I go back and forth between wanting to drink coffee and stuff and not. So I feel like coffee helps me get rid of that fogginess, but if I don’t, I definitely have a little bit of fogginess for a couple of hours during the day.
Tim Pickett: Like in the morning?
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, like in the morning, usually for like two hours.
Tim Pickett: Yeah, it’s really has been a fascinating topic for me lately too. We’ve done a lot of different content on Discover Marijuana, on the YouTube channel with Blake Smith and I talking about PTSD, and the sleep specifically with cannabis, the research that it’s great to help people fall asleep, but at lower doses, unless you have a higher tolerance, maybe like you. But one of the things it does really well is suppress dreams. And it’s one of the best reasons to use it or that people use it for PTSD. But dosing wise, how much do you usually take? What’s the sweet spot for you?
Maddie Morrison: I use cannabis throughout the day, from the time that I wake up to the time that I go to bed. Sometimes if I wake up in the middle of the night, I’ll take a drug off of my vape, a couple drags off of it and then I can fall back asleep. So I’m really consuming most of the day. Not while I’m at work, but if I take a lunch break, I’ll have my vape throughout the day. Or if I get anxious, if I go to the store, I hate shopping in stores or going to restaurants or things like that, I take my vape with me and I feel I can be present.
Maddie Morrison: As for edibles, it changes, because my tolerance is so high, I’m trying to step away from edibles for a couple of days and just have lower dosing. So that way I can decrease my tolerance a little bit because-
Tim Pickett: And spend less money.
Maddie Morrison: … it’s so expensive to have a high tolerance.
Tim Pickett: Yeah.
Chris Holifield: Do you give yourself breaks at all?
Maddie Morrison: I try to, but it’s so hard because I know that it does help me sleep that I’m like, “If I don’t take it, my tolerance will build back up,” but if I don’t take or if I do take it-
Chris Holifield: You won’t get any sleep, yeah.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, I won’t get sleep.
Tim Pickett: Can we talk about this a little bit more too, because have you ever, or when was the last time you had 48 hours totally cannabis free?
Maddie Morrison: Probably, well, a few months.
Tim Pickett: It has been a few months.
Maddie Morrison: I’m trying to think. Yeah, it’s probably been a couple of months.
Tim Pickett: Can you remember? Can you remember how you felt?
Maddie Morrison: I definitely felt crankier, a little bit crankier.
Tim Pickett: You don’t sleep as well, you’re a little crankier, which-
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, and I’m cranky because I can’t sleep.
Tim Pickett: The reason why I ask is that it really is, people who use a lot, not people who use a lot, but people who use very consistently, you’re going to get some withdrawal type symptoms. Right?
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, totally.
Tim Pickett: You get a little cranky.
Maddie Morrison: It’s like if you don’t have coffee for a couple of days, you get a little bit-
Tim Pickett: It’s kind of the same thing, right?
Maddie Morrison: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: You get the caffeine headache if you don’t have your morning coffee. Right?
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, exactly.
Tim Pickett: Of course, if you’re using something every day, you’re going to have some withdrawal symptoms. They’re not dangerous, but it happens.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah. And it’s not I’m angry, it’s just like, I just feel a little sensitive, I don’t know. Yeah.
Chris Holifield: There’s not much that you can do to get over that except just not consume any, right?
Tim Pickett: Right, yeah.
Chris Holifield: There’s not any other tips or tricks or things you could do?
Maddie Morrison: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: Some people take 48 hours off of THC only. And so they’ll ramp up the CBD, CBN-
Chris Holifield: Who was it that we chatted with. We chatted with somebody, I forgot how he was.
Tim Pickett: Yeah, and he does that. The coder.
Chris Holifield: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: He’ll do that. And other people just force themselves to do 48 hours or however many days, 24 hours, right?
Maddie Morrison: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: And to patients, we recommend that once every quarter you take two days off, then your day three, you go 50% of what you took before, day four still 50%. And then as day five and on you can reset your tolerance and you spend less money. And you really rebuild the receptors that are down-regulating. There’s not as many when you’re chronically using, but it’s not that you’re still not getting the effects, you’re still getting the effects, it just takes a little more to get to that point.
Maddie Morrison: Totally.
Tim Pickett: And mostly we’re talking about THC in that case, not really the other cannabinoids. We don’t know enough about the other cannabinoids to know whether there you’re building up a tolerance to them.
Maddie Morrison: Right, yeah. And there are some days, I don’t know, the last time I took several days off, but every now and then I take a day off if the day before I had too much THC. Because there are some times where I’m like, “Okay, how far?” Because right now 35 is pushing that line a little bit for me right now, 30 is probably better.
Tim Pickett: Milligrams?
Maddie Morrison: Milligrams.
Tim Pickett: A milligram edible?
Maddie Morrison: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: You can take a 30 milligram edible.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, and it’s good for bedtime or-
Tim Pickett: You’re in the zone?
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, so if I test it a little bit more, because the highest that I found so far, I don’t know if it’s just because I’m just getting it from where I work, but is the Oakbridge orange cream ones, they’re 30 milligrams. If I need to add more, I just add a tincture to the edible and increase the dosage on the edible.
Tim Pickett: This is called layering, folks.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, so-
Tim Pickett: For those of you out there who are interested in this-
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, it’s nice.
Tim Pickett: … it’s just layering one thing over the other.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, because then you can always, I just feel like it’s extending the life of that product, because you’re using the full, it’s full ability, if that makes sense. Because if you have a higher milligram and instead of having one and a half or one and a quarter, if you have even higher tolerance than that, or if you have a super high tolerance, you don’t have to take multiple edibles. You can take one and you can add two drops from a tincture and that’s perfect. So I just feel like it maximizes the product and the money.
Tim Pickett: Yeah, there’s a good way to do it.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: I like that.
Chris Holifield: I think that’s what everybody should be doing, is trial and error, trying different things out, seeing what works and seeing what works for you. And how you said with the journal, making notes of that. Do you refer back to it a lot saying, “Oh, okay. I see what I was doing there?”
Maddie Morrison: Yeah. At work, because there’s a lot of downtime because we’re new, we’re not super busy, I’ve been doing so much research.
Tim Pickett: Yeah, we’ll talk about this because I’m really excited about Park City and the whole setup up there.
Maddie Morrison: Oh my gosh. It’s awesome.
Tim Pickett: It’s really cool.
Maddie Morrison: I love my job. I haven’t been able to say that yet, but I love my job.
Tim Pickett: But I imagine, that’s good. I’m sure we’ll shout out to Jeremy.
Maddie Morrison: Totally.
Tim Pickett: He’ll be like, “Oh, yes.”
Maddie Morrison: I know.
Tim Pickett: But it’s not that busy and you’ve got a little downtime?
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, so I’ve been doing a ton of research. I’ve already gone through two notebooks since we’ve been open for like a month. I do ridiculous amount of research about terpenes, about cannabinoids, about dosing, about different studies that have been done, that sort of thing. I’ve watched so many Ted Talks, so many YouTube videos. I just really want to absorb it all, and yeah.
Chris Holifield: What do you do at Deseret Wellness? Just like-
Maddie Morrison: I’m an operations associate, so I work in the vault mostly. Occasionally I’ll work up in reception or on the med floor, helping patients.
Chris Holifield: In the vault, what is the vault?
Maddie Morrison: The vault is where all the product is.
Chris Holifield: Okay.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, so I’m just fulfilling orders. So when the patient is with the pharmacy agent at the register, they ask for the product they want, they print out the labels, the labels have everything that they need, like the patient’s name, date of birth, or location, the pharmacist, that sort of thing. And then they bring that to the vault, I grab all the product, and then I put the label on and then send it out. And then also update menus, the website, that sort of thing. I’m on the back end of it, yeah.
Chris Holifield: Didn’t I read somewhere that in Utah you can finally use out-of-state patient IDs on this?
Maddie Morrison: That just started.
Tim Pickett: In fact, Deseret Wellness was the first to post that out-of-state card holders can register with the EVS system and the department of health will verify that card. That the card is legit.
Chris Holifield: In whatever state they’re from?
Tim Pickett: In whatever state they’re from. So, if you are from California and you have a med card, then you can come here and you can use for 21 days, three 21-day-periods per year.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: And you go through this process, I think it’s 25 bucks to get the card.
Chris Holifield: How much product can you buy? That’s up to the-
Tim Pickett: Now, see this is where-
Chris Holifield: That’s where, because you’re a pharmacist. You don’t have a pharmacist here.
Maddie Morrison: We had a situation a couple of days ago where one patient came in and then it was like, okay, the pharmacist was like, “Oh yes, our first one.” And we were also excited. We were like, “Okay, let’s see how this is going to work.” And then I left for the day, so I have no idea-
Tim Pickett: Right, on how much they can buy.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah. I’ll have to ask.
Tim Pickett: I guess it’s up to the pharmacist.
Maddie Morrison: Possibly. I’m sure they have to have a consultation because they’re out of state, they’ve never purchased in Utah before. I don’t really know what that was.
Tim Pickett: Right. I think those details yeah, we don’t really know. It’d be interesting, we need an out-of-stater to be on the podcast after having the experience. Right?
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, seriously.
Tim Pickett: And in Park City, you would think you’re going to see a lot more.
Maddie Morrison: Right, many tourists.
Tim Pickett: Yeah. You’re going to see a lot more of the out-of-staters.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah.
Chris Holifield: My wonder is how long will that take out-of-staters to get approved. Is it going to take them —
Tim Pickett: That’s what I was just talking about too.
Chris Holifield: What if they’re only in for a weekend? Does that-
Tim Pickett: Right. And I put my card application in on Friday, and I arrive at four, and then I don’t get approved till next Wednesday.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: I would think you’ve got to have some foresight too. You got to plan ahead.
Chris Holifield: Let us know. Drop us an email if you can. I don’t know. That might be hard to explain in an email, but I’m curious what-
Maddie Morrison: Well, I think you left your phone number and the email too. I can always call you.
Chris Holifield: Yeah, I’m just curious, how it works.
Tim Pickett: Yeah, and we’ll put it in the intro on how it works.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, I’ll find out.
Chris Holifield: Yeah, and even as time goes on, weeks go on and months go on.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, because we’ve definitely had a couple of people since we’ve been open that have been like, “Are you guys recreational? Can we buy?” It’s like, “No, I’m sorry. Come with your snow pants on.”
Tim Pickett: Which is so surprising for us, right?
Maddie Morrison: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: We know the system so well because we live it and breathe it all the time. But there are so many people who we see even every day who were like, “Wow, I didn’t even know medical cannabis was illegal in Utah until last week.”
Maddie Morrison: Yeah. I know. I told my stepdad. I just checked in with him, and he was like, “What are you doing? Are you still at the bank?” And I was like, “No, here’s the thing.” And I had to gently explain it. He uses cannabis for sure, but I don’t know that he’s necessarily okay with me working in the industry. I know a lot of people that I know have been worried about that, but he was like, “It’s legal there?”
Chris Holifield: In Utah? What?
Maddie Morrison: And he talked about the church. He was like, “The church let them do that?” And I was like, “Oh God, yes.”
Tim Pickett: Yes, as a matter of fact, they did. They were a part of that negotiation.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah.
Chris Holifield: Big part there.
Tim Pickett: Yeah, big time.
Maddie Morrison: Just crazy.
Chris Holifield: Where would you like to see yourself go in the industry? Do you have any long-term goals or plans or thoughts?
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, so I didn’t think I did. I thought I’m starting school, so I was just like, “This is a part-time job. I’m just going to work part-time job. I’m really interested in cannabis. It helps me. I like using cannabis.”
Chris Holifield: Yeah.
Maddie Morrison: It’s cool. I’m like, “Sure. Yeah, I think it would be really interesting.” And when I had my interview with Jeremy, he asked me why I wanted to be in the industry. And I said, “I’ve been on the receiving end of cannabis, the receiving end of the industry and I would like to be on the giving end. I think it would an interesting perspective of helping patients, but also healing myself in a lot of ways.” So that’s, I love the industry. And now that I’ve been a part of the industry, I’m like, “Oh my God, this is it for me. I like this.” So doing my research, I really would like to get into sustainable packaging for the cannabis industry, because we are a green industry, but our packaging is not green.
Tim Pickett: No.
Maddie Morrison: Not at all.
Chris Holifield: What would you do just the packaging that the product comes in, I guess?
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, so if it can be recycled plastic or hemp packaging, hemp, come on, that’s a missed opportunity in my opinion.
Chris Holifield: True.
Maddie Morrison: Hemp is used for-
Tim Pickett: Right. We should already be way ahead in this deal, right?
Maddie Morrison: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: We produce all the biomass to make the product. Can we not just grow a little hemp and do that too?
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, grow hemp for packaging and just make packaging. It just seems like if you have a hemp license, it seems like a missed opportunity.
Tim Pickett: Sure.
Maddie Morrison: I’m sure that there’s more that goes into it. But if I can do something to push that forward or if I can work along with somebody and have them train me in that sort of way, I would love to be a part of the sustainability aspect of it. That’s what I would like to go to, but yeah.
Tim Pickett: That is really cool.
Chris Holifield: Yeah, you said you’re still in school?
Maddie Morrison: I’m starting school in May, so I haven’t gone to school.
Chris Holifield: What are you going to school for?
Maddie Morrison: I want to do humanities, and also environmental science and sustainability. I would like to do something with environmental policy or cannabis policy. I think that would be interesting.
Tim Pickett: You could get in now.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, totally.
Tim Pickett: It’s not a bad time.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, and I’m in the industry. I have my foot in the door, so.
Tim Pickett: Well, you’ll understand the policies and the rules and the culture around it.
Maddie Morrison: Totally.
Tim Pickett: And I think that’d be pretty cool to be starting school right now, wanting go into something like this, which … And we think once we hit adult use, “Okay, well the fight is over,” but that’s we’re just at the beginning of knowledge about what the plant does and how it can help and how to manipulate it. Your journal is a small part of that process for everybody.
Maddie Morrison: Totally.
Tim Pickett: What do you think the best, can you point to a couple of things or one thing that you’ve gone back and looked at your journal and said, “Oh wow. I remember doing that and that makes sense now,” or something?
Maddie Morrison: Yeah. Are you asking about the products that have tried or just my notes, just my research?
Tim Pickett: Just your notes?
Maddie Morrison: Just my notes in general. So with that one, I’m definitely always going back to cannabinoids and terpenes, always, daily referencing that. Especially when patients, if I am helping a patient, or sometimes because some of our employees don’t have a medical card, so they can’t purchase product. So, some of them have, I have a medical card, so I have that step ahead where I can test the products and then explain those to patients.
Tim Pickett: Yeah, you can talk about your, it’s important people know too, there’s rules about what you can and can’t say, right?
Maddie Morrison: Exactly. So you can’t say, I recommend, you can’t say, this is good for this, this heals this, you can’t say, you can’t guarantee something. So, you can let patients know that based on what other patients have told me, this is what they happened. But again, keep in mind, everybody’s different, cannabis affects everybody differently. So I always explain to people it’s like, and I can’t pinpoint it.
Tim Pickett: It’s like in my experience, right?
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, and you can say that, but you can’t even really say, “This helped me.” You can’t really say that. So, it’s hard.
Tim Pickett: That’s really interesting, restrictive.
Maddie Morrison: Oh, it’s very restrictive.
Tim Pickett: I get the point that you have to be careful in which way you’re acting to a patient, to a medical patient. It’s not like you go into the pharmacy and the person behind the pharmacy desk says, “Oh yeah, this Benadryl is good for this.” Although don’t they?
Maddie Morrison: Yeah. Right.
Tim Pickett: I think it’s a little bit weird how that works.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah.
Chris Holifield: They want to treat our pharmacies like Walgreens, but they don’t want us to let us act like Walgreens.
Tim Pickett: Right.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, that’s so true.
Tim Pickett: You would go up to the pharmacy tech at Walgreens and you’d say, “Hey, I’ve got a really stuffy nose. Can you recommend a product that would help?”
Chris Holifield: Yeah, and they will.
Maddie Morrison: Oh, my God, and then they will.
Tim Pickett: Of course, they will.
Maddie Morrison: They totally will.
Tim Pickett: And that’s legal, but they can’t-
Maddie Morrison: And they recommend dosing you then.
Chris Holifield: But you can’t do that at a cannabis pharmacy.
Tim Pickett: Right, but you can’t do that.
Maddie Morrison: But you can’t do that at the pharmacy.
Tim Pickett: Unless you’re the pharmacist or the QMP on the back end.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: Do you find that people in Park City, have you seen patients who’ve come in and been really intimidated with the process?
Maddie Morrison: I don’t think so.
Tim Pickett: No.
Maddie Morrison: I think everybody has been pretty much on the same page. People of all ages, of all, anything, wherever you came from, anybody has come in. And it’s been really cool to see how patients are taking their health into their own hands. I love seeing that. I love that they’re talking about their experiences. We as pharmacy agents. We want to hear that we want to hear experiences, because then we know what to tell other patients, you know what I’m saying? If a pharmacy agent hasn’t been able to try a product because they’re not a medical patient, they can get explanations from other patients. It’s just really interesting that we’re all learning together, we’re all just, it’s I love how much we’re all learning. I don’t know. I just love being a sponge to all of it, and it’s just really fun to be a part of.
Tim Pickett: It’s pretty cool. And it’s like the Wikipedia.
Chris Holifield: Yeah.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, totally.
Tim Pickett: There’s not a black, there’s not a label that says, “Okay, this does this, this does that.”
Chris Holifield: Do you have any favorite websites or anything, that off the top of your head that you know of or anything? I guess that’s a tough question to ask off the top of your head, but-
Maddie Morrison: We use a lot of different websites, especially when we’re looking at different strains and trying to figure out-
Chris Holifield: Like you personally even.
Maddie Morrison: Me personally, I use Leafly, that’s my go-to.
Chris Holifield: Okay, for a lot of your research and stuff?
Maddie Morrison: I have the app on my phone. I use it at work.
Chris Holifield: And so you’re always on there?
Maddie Morrison: Always on it. Sometimes it doesn’t have the strains, so if you just Google the name of the strain and then strain after it, it’ll find you a website that has the information on that strain. So if Leafly doesn’t have it, usually it does, but occasionally, you’ll find one that isn’t on there.
Chris Holifield: Do you use flower at all? Anything like flowers or —
Maddie Morrison: Oh, yeah. I use everything.
Chris Holifield: Okay. Favorite strain or anything?
Maddie Morrison: Right now, Sugar Cane by Tryke.
Chris Holifield: I haven’t tried that one yet.
Maddie Morrison: I think it’s a hybrid.
Chris Holifield: Okay.
Maddie Morrison: It’s smells sweet. It tastes sweet. I feel like it’s very smooth. It’s not harsh at all. It never makes me cough or anything like that. It’s just so mellow, it feels immediate relief in my body. It’s just great strain, so I highly recommend.
Tim Pickett: Tryke has been putting out some pretty decent flower.
Chris Holifield: One of the only ones. Well, we’ve talked to her, she’s on the podcast.
Tim Pickett: Yeah, they’re just-
Maddie Morrison: We have so much flower right now.
Tim Pickett: … down at the pharmacy the other day, and you look at the list and Tryke is just hammering out some products.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah. Well, recently we got a shipment of regular bud and also popcorn.
Chris Holifield: The little buds, yeah those are-
Maddie Morrison: We have a lot of flower right now.
Chris Holifield: At the Park City though?
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, at Park City.
Tim Pickett: At the Park City.
Chris Holifield: Yeah, probably just because it’s not as busy-
Maddie Morrison: Exactly.
Chris Holifield: … as say Beehive or Des —
Maddie Morrison: Oh, my gosh.
Chris Holifield: … or Dragonfly.
Maddie Morrison: Even the one in Provo.
Tim Pickett: Yeah, the one in Provo, right?
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, they’re so busy.
Tim Pickett: Because you guys are seeing maybe 50 people a day up there in Park City, if that, right now. And that’s partly just because of its location too, right?
Maddie Morrison: Totally.
Tim Pickett: It’s on Kearns and-
Maddie Morrison: And Park City has such high regulations about signage. We can’t have a green plus.
Tim Pickett: Signs, so not only already do you have this restriction that you can only have the green cross or you can only have certain signs, but then you have Park City to deal with, which is really tough, and you’re in the basement.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, and we’re in the basement and everybody’s like, sometimes we get calls and we’re like, “I’ve been driving around three times, I don’t know where it is.” It’s hard.
Tim Pickett: Yes. It is pretty restrictive.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: Once you get in, it’s a beautiful store.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, it’s so bright. It’s so clean.
Tim Pickett: It really just reminds me of the Provo one though.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, it’s like a basement.
Chris Holifield: Have you got to work out of the Provo one at all?
Maddie Morrison: Just one day.
Chris Holifield: Just one day?
Maddie Morrison: Yeah. So when I was hired on, I was still working at my last job. I had put in my two weeks and then the day or two after I put in my two weeks I did my training day. Then I just had a couple of weeks to finish out my last job and then we started right away in Park City. So I didn’t really have a lot of training ahead of time, I was thrown in, but some of the other pharmacy agents did train for a while before. Carly for example, shout at Carly, she’s awesome. She has got promoted to assistant manager.
Chris Holifield: Very cool.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, but she’s been working there since the Provo store started, so she’s been there awhile.
Tim Pickett: But this is the thing about the cannabis industry, is there is a lot of room for growth-
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, totally.
Tim Pickett: … in your career?
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, and Jeremy, when we all started, we all had met each other pretty much the same day for the most part. Some of us met each other off on random days, but Jeremy got us all together and he said, “Wherever you want to go in this industry, we will get you there, just learn.”
Chris Holifield: That’s awesome.
Maddie Morrison: “Learn as much as you can and teach each other and grow as much as you can and we’ll get you to where you need to be.”
Tim Pickett: Yeah, it’s a good company to work with.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah. It’s been my favorite job that I’ve ever had. The coworkers, amazing, the industry, amazing, everybody I’ve met, every patient I’ve met have just been amazing.
Tim Pickett: Can you imagine working in a regular pharmacy and how much different it would be?
Maddie Morrison: No, I don’t think I can do it. I don’t know. I love my job. I don’t want to leave.
Tim Pickett: As far as your health, do you feel like your health has really benefited from cannabis?
Maddie Morrison: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: What’s the biggest thing that it’s been able to do for you?
Maddie Morrison: Mood boosting, 1000% percent, and sleep obviously. But a lot of it was just depression and it really relieved a lot of that. I can easily say that before I got into my cannabis journey, I definitely was more depressed and more just … My mom used to say, “Do you have a to-me ache?” When I was saying, it’s like, everything is happening to you. You think every … It’s to-me ache. When I was younger, I definitely felt like that. And as I got more into cannabis, it was more just like, I feel more accepting. I feel happier. I feel like I’m more energized. I can sleep more. I feel like I can be fully present at my job. It’s just, I don’t feel like I’m daydreaming, and yeah.
Chris Holifield: It’s weird how we hear all these stories here like this Tim from most people that come on the show, but then yet cannabis has such a bad stigma in some people. “Oh, you’re lazy. You don’t get anything accomplished.”
Tim Pickett: You’re right.
Chris Holifield: “You just sit on the couch and eat.” When did that happen? How did that happen?
Tim Pickett: Yeah, how did that happen?
Maddie Morrison: And it’s like, “Okay, I totally do that sometimes.”
Chris Holifield: Yeah, but I do that without cannabis.
Maddie Morrison: Exactly, yeah.
Tim Pickett: Right.
Chris Holifield: If you want to do that, you’re going to do it. You’re going to sleep in. You’re going to-
Tim Pickett: Yeah, Americans watch something six hours of TV every single day, whether you’re … And there’s only a small percentage that are using cannabis at all.
Chris Holifield: Yeah.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: I totally agree. But I think, that’s why we’re here, right? It’s one person at a time. And then that one person has a good experience and get some relief, feels a little better, tells two people that, “Hey, you know what? I quit taking my Ambien because I take this five-milligram edible every night and man, I sleep better, I don’t walk around in my underwear out in the neighborhood and eat a block of cheese at two in the morning and I’m good.”
Maddie Morrison: Yeah.
Chris Holifield: Yeah.
Maddie Morrison: It just heals so many people. And I think that’s totally fine. Get high, use it recreationally, whatever you want to do, but when you can use it medicinally and you do recognize it’s helping me, it’s healing me, it’s helping me be a better person, a better human, like I’m sold, it just, it’s such a great industry to be in. And I think having these conversations, I think we just need to keep having them. Because if we keep having these conversations, we are going to remove those stigmas of, “Oh, you’re just a lazy stoner.”
Chris Holifield: And I think a lot of those stigmas are disappearing.
Maddie Morrison: Right, totally.
Chris Holifield: I think a lot of them, quickly too. If you look at how quickly things have progressed over the last few years in all 50 states, it’s been fun to watch.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: Yeah, it has been really fun to watch. And I think the mental health aspect of cannabis, although I think it’s a little more complicated than the physical side, like back pain, I think is easier to treat with cannabis than the mental health side, because the dosing and the cannabinoids, they just play a little bigger role than just the THC in mental health.
Maddie Morrison: And I have crippling anxiety. I will hide in the bathroom or leave.
Chris Holifield: I know that one.
Maddie Morrison: I have crippling anxiety, so it helps me feel like I can have conversations. And like today I had an edible before I came here and I feel great. I feel like I can have these conversations. I feel like I can be myself and feel comfortable. And I think that’s important because if we all can feel that way, if we all can feel normal, normalizing it is a huge step forward.
Chris Holifield: Everybody deserves that.
Tim Pickett: Yeah, for sure.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: I really like the idea of being able to de-stigmatize it and just introduce people to the option that, “Hey, this is okay. It’s okay to experiment a little bit with something that’s relatively safe.” And if here, we’ve decided as a society that you’re going to do that under the care of a provider, which is great. That makes it even, I would say, even more legitimate and “more safe,” I guess. I’m sure some people would disagree with me and just want to go do what they want. On the other hand, the great thing about cannabis is you can do both, treat your condition and get the creativity that you want, because you can manipulate it when you learn how to use it, right?
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, totally. And I love the idea of having patients taking their health into their own hands. I know I said that earlier, but I love that aspect, because I’m all in for holistic medicine, and I don’t know, it’s cliche to be like, “Oh, big pharma,” but I don’t know. I just love the idea of taking your own health into your own hands and having those conversations with people who may not agree with how you’re medicating. And that’s fine, not everybody is going to be on the same page, but I think that just having these conversations is a step forward.
Chris Holifield: Absolutely.
Maddie Morrison: Recently I had a conversation with one of my partner’s family members and her family is very much not okay with cannabis, and they don’t know that I have this job. At least some of them don’t know that I have this job. They live in California, so they probably won’t listen to this podcast, and if they do, that’s fine. But he visited here for a couple of days and I had the conversation of, “What are your thoughts on cannabis?” And he had a really, really, really bad experience with cannabis when he was younger. And so that’s why his family is very much not okay with it. He went into a paranoia, and had some psyche issues, and he feels he’s better now. He’s definitely better, but he’s still recovering from that. And it is very rare for that experience to happen, and that’s why they say people with schizophrenia or paranoia or those kinds of things shouldn’t probably use high levels of THC because it can enhance those effects.
Chris Holifield: And it’s important to talk about those too-
Maddie Morrison: Absolutely, yeah.
Chris Holifield: … because so often we talk about like, “Oh- ”
Maddie Morrison: “Oh, it’s good for you.”
Chris Holifield: “… smoke some weed, it’s good for you.”
Tim Pickett: “Oh, it’s great, it’s safe.”
Chris Holifield: “Yeah, it’s safe.” But there are people that it affects negatively,
Maddie Morrison: Exactly.
Tim Pickett: And I was going to ask you, can you remember times when you’ve taken something and you’ve really gotten the wrong direction-
Maddie Morrison: Totally.
Tim Pickett: … and your anxiety has gotten worse?
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, especially when I’m using the tinctures on top of an edible, because they both give you different effects. And so when you’re adding two different, because they affect your body differently, tinctures versus just regular processed edibles. So when you’re adding those together, plus increasing your dosage, it definitely can give you a lot of psychoactive effects. Just a couple of days ago, I pushed my limit a little bit too far and I was really anxious and I was cold and I don’t know, it happens. But now I know not to have that much THC.
Tim Pickett: Okay, not to do that again.
Maddie Morrison: Exactly. And that’s the whole point, you write it down.
Tim Pickett: You write that down in your journal.
Maddie Morrison: Do not have that much.
Tim Pickett: You’re like, “Okay, five drops of this tincture plus one edible, X.”
Maddie Morrison: Too much. Yeah, exactly.
Chris Holifield: Not next time.
Maddie Morrison: And that’s the coolest part about it.
Tim Pickett: But that’s okay. That’s good to know for people because you can get that anxiety, too much THC is typically the cause. You can do things to help. You can take a hot shower. You can add more CBD.
Maddie Morrison: Even having CBD tincture.
Tim Pickett: Yeah.
Maddie Morrison: I always do that. That’s my go-to.
Tim Pickett: Immediately take a CBD tincture.
Maddie Morrison: Stay on the floor in the shower for a couple minutes. Yeah, that’s what I usually do.
Tim Pickett: Yeah, remember that you were okay before this and give it some time. You’re really over-emphasizing the present is how I’ve heard it described, and because you’re not able to access your memories as well, and you’re not able to tell time as well, that accentuates that anxiety when you overload the brain with THC, so you got to give that time to pass.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, a lot of that is just putting yourself back into a safe space in your mindset and just being like, “Okay, I’m scared right now, I’ve had too much THC, I’m cold,” whatever you’re feeling, but just be like, “Okay, it’s just going to bounce off of me. I’m going to put my head into a safe space.” My safe space is cuddling with my girlfriends. That’s just-
Tim Pickett: When you started to use this more medically, did you have a plan? Did you figure out the dosing first?
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, I think so.
Tim Pickett: Or was it like on the journey?
Maddie Morrison: I just wanted to try a bunch of things, figure out the dosing right away, write it all down and figure out what works for me, so that way I have a solid set routine next year or something. So I want to have this first year, I want to keep experimenting with it because my body can change.
Tim Pickett: Sure.
Maddie Morrison: The same things that helped me now could not help me in a year from now. So I think the biggest part of it is just keeping an open mind, trying anything that I can and just making sure that I keep track of it and keeping an open mind. And then, if I do get anxious and I’m like, “Okay, that’s not for me, that’s fine. I’ll move on or I’ll decrease the dosage,” or whatever the case. Or if I’m like, “Okay, so that tincture helped me feel good for about an hour, but then after that, it made me feel really anxious.” So then I know, “Okay, maybe I’ll decrease it by five milligrams or something.”
Maddie Morrison: So just, I’m very hyper, probably because I’m a very anxious person, I’m very hyper-aware of my body, of things around me, of what I’m hearing, of what I’m tasting, I’m very hyper-aware of everything. So whether I’m using cannabis or not, I’m always hyper-aware of how my body is feeling. So I think that definitely helps with my journey because I feel like I’m way more in tune than I used to be or than some people that I know who use cannabis.
Chris Holifield: What would you tell somebody listening that just started using and they don’t know where to go, what to look at, they just got their medical card, they maybe have been to a pharmacy once or twice, but they’re still really, really new.
Maddie Morrison: I would say don’t start with edibles.
Chris Holifield: Okay.
Maddie Morrison: Because they, even five milligrams, if you’re starting start with five or less, or two and a half or something. Just start out with a good one-to-one of CBD, THC, start low, go slow. That’s the best thing with cannabis. But for me, I’m glad I didn’t start with edibles. I didn’t have an edible until I was 20. So I just smoked flower up until that point. And I feel like that was good, by the time I had tried edibles, I had a pretty good tolerance with flower that going into edibles was a really easy transition for me.
Chris Holifield: Yeah, you had a good idea on how it worked, and how it worked with your body and so on.
Maddie Morrison: How it might feel. Exactly, so I had quite a few more years to my cannabis history at that point by the time I tried edibles. So I feel like don’t start with edibles, maybe start with like a one-to-one tincture or 1:10 tincture, more CBD even, and just start with that. Start with a low amount of THC and just increase from there.
Chris Holifield: Good advice.
Tim Pickett: It is great advice.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah. And even if you want to just get high, you want to feel that edible high, I would say don’t go there because that’s not a good mindset. Don’t consume cannabis with the sole purpose to get high, because once you’re there, you could be anxious, you’ll be like, ‘Oh, my gosh, this is too much.” You’ll be very hyper aware of how high you really are.
Tim Pickett: Especially, yes, you’re hyper aware, again, you’re overemphasizing the present, and that it just makes you really aware of how things are going. And edibles you’re in for a long ride., right?
Maddie Morrison: Oh, my gosh, they last so long.
Tim Pickett: It lasts a long time. Whereas if somebody was ill, I guess, headed for that, maybe a vape cartridge would be a little bit better choice.
Maddie Morrison: Totally, vapes are great for micro-dosing and-
Tim Pickett: Yeah, and if you get a little too much, it’s only going to be an hour or two.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, totally. I like vapes for that aspect because it’s quick onset, it’s discreet, it’s micro-dosing throughout the day. You could take one drug off of it and you’re like, “Okay, all right, I’m good to go again.” It’s just like a little sip of coffee or something, I don’t know.
Chris Holifield: For get up and go.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, exactly.
Tim Pickett: I like that we’ve been comparing cannabis to coffee today.
Chris Holifield: A little stimulant.
Maddie Morrison: That’s on me, I love coffee.
Chris Holifield: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: Two of my favorite things right now.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, same.
Tim Pickett: They go together.
Chris Holifield: Coffee and cannabis.
Maddie Morrison: Coffee and cannabis, yeah.
Chris Holifield: I’m so glad we got you on the podcast. I’m glad you reached out to come on. And was there anything else you wanted to talk about? Was there anything else you wanted to make sure to discuss or say on the microphones before we wrap this up?
Maddie Morrison: Totally, yeah. So I think my biggest advice, and I don’t want to put a heavy weight to advice, just I recommend going slow, experiment, but don’t push yourself too hard. Don’t be too competitive with yourself to the point where you’re like, “Oh, five milligrams, that’s not enough.” And just lower your ego a little bit and have a lower dosage and you’ll be okay.
Chris Holifield: Be a cheap date. It’s not a bad thing to have a low tolerance.
Tim Pickett: Yeah, don’t be competitive with yourself, don’t get that ego.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, don’t try to compete with yourself.
Tim Pickett: Good things to tell. It’s good things to tell people, especially here, there’s a lot of people who are trying this for the first time. And it’s really opening up. We talked about not everybody loves it, but there are certainly more people who want to try it than ever.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, absolutely. And also, just have conversations with people. It’s a heavy topic. I totally get that, but just, I think it’s good to have these conversations with people and just be like, “Hey, what is your stance on cannabis?” Or, I don’t know, just start a conversation with somebody and pick their brain.
Tim Pickett: You’ll be surprised at how many people you never thought knew anything about it use a little tincture every night to sleep.
Maddie Morrison: Oh, my God, yeah. And it’s crazy because my partner’s family member, the one that I talked to about cannabis, I was like, “What’s your stance on cannabis?” And he was just like, “Well, I don’t have the best history with it. My brain doesn’t react well with the THC, but if you use it, so what?” And I was like, “What?’ I did not expect that because my partner was so like, “Do not tell him, do not tell him, do not tell my family.” She’s very scared of them being disappointed in her or them not liking me or whatever the case. But he was so open about the topic, and was interested, and wanted to see what products I use, and wanted me to explain them to him. And he knew a lot already. He knew a lot about cannabinoids already, and I was so surprised having that conversation with him. It was crazy. And I’m just like, “Why do I not have more conversations like this with people?” Because, I think it’s important to have those hard conversations.
Chris Holifield: I think for a while, and I know I’ve said this on the podcast, if you would talk about it, you would automatically get labeled, and nobody wanted to get labeled.
Maddie Morrison: Right, yeah.
Chris Holifield: And now it’s okay to be labeled that. Now it’s okay to say, “Hey, you know what, it’s legal for me to consume it.”
Maddie Morrison: Yeah.
Chris Holifield: “It’s awesome for me to talk about this.” Because I’ve had jobs I didn’t talk about it because I didn’t want to get tested.
Tim Pickett: No, then you’re labeled, then you get tested, and then of course you have to deal with that.
Chris Holifield: Yeah, so you just don’t talk about it.
Tim Pickett: But you’re right, it’s not as taboo now to be labeled as a cannabis user because it’s, especially here, because you can only be a medical patient and be a cannabis user here, so it almost gives you a little bit of a cover to now use that medical as the cover to try something new.
Maddie Morrison: And then they are like, “Oh, that’s good that it’s helping you.” There are changes there.
Tim Pickett: Yeah, tell me about it.
Maddie Morrison: You’re like, “Oh, I use cannabis for PTSD.” They’re like, “Oh, okay.” And then they want to hear about it more. It’s really cool. Yeah, it’s really interesting. And being from a small conservative town coming here and also a pretty conservative state and then it being legalized, I was like, “Wow, this is awesome. This is great. I’m staying in Utah forever.” And then recently South Dakota fully legalized it for adults use and medical use.
Chris Holifield: Did they? Now, that you’ve said that, yeah.
Maddie Morrison: Which was crazy. I did not think that was going to-
Chris Holifield: And you’re like, “I want to go home now.”
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, I was like, I did not think that was going to ever happen.
Chris Holifield: Well, so they can grow it too.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, they can grow.
Tim Pickett: Well, see now you have all the opportunity in the world, right? Because all of these, the states are opening up. There’s just, we need you to go get that education and get back out here.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, seriously, I know. I just love all of the policy changes that are happening. And I do like how Utah is doing it. I think there are a lot of people who are like, “Oh, this is too strict,” or whatever the case. I think Utah’s doing it pretty well for a state that just started.
Chris Holifield: Amen, yeah.
Maddie Morrison: I think they’re doing pretty great. There are some things that are like, “Okay, that’s- ”
Chris Holifield: It could be worse though.
Maddie Morrison: Totally, it could be worse.
Tim Pickett: Certainly, it could be worse.
Maddie Morrison: It totally could be worse.
Tim Pickett: You could have incredibly restrictive, maximum purchasing like Georgia, you could have low THC rules where everything has to be under 2%.
Maddie Morrison: I think South Dakota, I think it’s two ounces now, but Utah’s four. So I’m like, Utah is, I’m fine. We’re doing great. We’re okay. And it will just totally get better.
Chris Holifield: And the fact that you can get flower here, the fact that you can go and get it the way it is not how they even first, originally is going to be in those blister packs.
Tim Pickett: Yeah, the blister packs, I remember those conversations.
Chris Holifield: Yeah, and that would have been goofy.
Tim Pickett: Totally. You would have to cut up the buds, right?
Chris Holifield: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: You would have had to destroy them just to get them in the package, in the blister pack.
Chris Holifield: I can’t even imagine.
Tim Pickett: Yeah, I can’t imagine.
Maddie Morrison: No.
Tim Pickett: It wasn’t good.
Maddie Morrison: It wasn’t a good system.
Tim Pickett: No.
Chris Holifield: How can listeners get ahold of you at all? Do have Instagram? I know some of the people that come on here even have Instagrams where they share their cannabis journey. I don’t know if you do any of that?
Maddie Morrison: I don’t. I have an Instagram. I don’t really go on it. It’s just-
Chris Holifield: Or email, I don’t know. Is there a way for people, other patients to get ahold of you maybe?
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, we can do my Instagram. So @_hippie_sue_ or just Maddie Morrison, you can search me up on there.
Chris Holifield: Okay.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, I’m always happy to answer questions.
Tim Pickett: Yeah, and I’m going to hit you up at Deseret in Park City.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, seriously, we’re so slow right now, come on.
Tim Pickett: I can see guys. Okay, so this is good. When this airs, it’s not going to be outrageously busy in Park City, Deseret Wellness Park City it’s on Kearns Boulevard. It’s in the basement, just under the lighting store. I can’t remember exactly the address there, but-
Maddie Morrison: 1351 (Kearns Blvd) Unit B.
Tim Pickett: Unit B.
Chris Holifield: Deseretwellness.com, is probably the website or .org?
Maddie Morrison: Yeah, you can just look up Deseret Wellness Park City too.
Chris Holifield: Okay.
Tim Pickett: You can look up their menu and you can go in. They have plenty of flower up there. Take a drive.
Maddie Morrison: Oh, my gosh, yeah.
Tim Pickett: It’s beautiful, the clean air.
Maddie Morrison: And if the menu is a little bit hard to find, sometimes if you just search up Deseret Wellness, it’ll immediately go to the Provo menu. So you actually have to click up on the menu box and then physically click on Park City, also it will automatically go to Provo. And then we have a ton of flower right now. I think we probably have the most flower out of any of the pharmacies right now.
Chris Holifield: Are you guys open on Sunday?
Maddie Morrison: We are open on Sunday.
Chris Holifield: You guys could Sunday drive up to Park City.
Maddie Morrison: We’re closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. We’re open the other days of the week.
Tim Pickett: Yeah, go up there and have some breakfast.
Chris Holifield: Very cool.
Tim Pickett: Get your medicine.
Maddie Morrison: Yeah.
Tim Pickett: Perfect.
Chris Holifield: Well, thank you so much Maddie for recording with us.
Maddie Morrison: Thanks for having me.
Chris Holifield: Absolutely. And go to utahmarijuana.org/podcasts, listen to all the other podcasts. We should be in all the podcast apps to subscribe. We’re here every week with a brand-new episode. And if you want to come on the show, if you’re a patient or a pharmacist, whatever, if you’re involved in the cannabis industry, reach out to Tim or myself and-
Tim Pickett: Well, we would love to have you on.
Chris Holifield: … we’d love to have you on, probably, why not?
Tim Pickett: Why not? We need all comers.
Chris Holifield: Yeah.
Maddie Morrison: Yes.
Tim Pickett: We need all kinds of stories.
Maddie Morrison: Yes.
Chris Holifield: Anyway, that’s it. Anything else that either one of you want to add before we end this episode up?
Maddie Morrison: No.
Tim Pickett: No.
Maddie Morrison: Thanks so much for your time.
Tim Pickett: Thanks everybody. All right, everybody, stay safe out there.
