In this week’s podcast, Tim and Chris speak with Utah Patients Coalition executive director Desiree Hennessy about a number of important topics relating to Utah’s Medical Cannabis law. This highly informative podcast brings viewers up to date on four specific areas.
Desiree explains [5:28] proposed legislation that would allow qualified medical providers (QMPs), like doctors and PAs, to work more closely with pharmacists to prescribe Medical Cannabis. The proposal should make things easier for patients and QMPs. For example, it allows doctors to write letters of recommendation that are then forwarded to pharmacists. It would be up to the pharmacists to write prescriptions, determine dosage, and enter patient information into the EVS.
The proposed legislation is partially motivated by the fact that there are some 800 qualified medical professionals that have already successfully completed the Medical Cannabis course. But only a small number of them are actually helping patients get cannabis cards – or even talking prescriptions with them. Passing the bill addresses some of the QMP’s reservations about getting involved.
The other two topics discussed in the podcast are the government’s controlled substance database (CSD) [31:57] and additional legislation that, if passed, would add to the list of conditions that can be legally treated with Medical Cannabis in Utah.
Desiree and Tim speak of their concerns that the CSD could be used to discriminate against patients with Medical Cannabis Cards. For example, ER doctors may be afraid to prescribe painkillers to patients the CSD says are already using cannabis. Discrimination may not be a problem now, but it could be later.
Ms. Hennessy is a repeat guest on the podcast. Whenever she appears, she brings with her a ton of helpful information that proves beneficial to both providers and users alike. This week’s podcast is no exception.
Chris: Episode 37 of Utah in the Weeds. Tim, how you doing, buddy?
Tim: I’m doing great. I’m glad to be here. We’re glad to have our first return guest. No, I’m sorry, it’s our second return guest.
Chris: Oh, that’s right.
Tim: Just as important. Desiree Hennessy with Utah Patients Coalition.
Chris: Yeah, she was originally on episode six. Episode six of the podcast, if you want to go back and listen to that one too.
Tim: We’re glad to have you. We’re still doing virtual. Here we are in the beginning of COVID winter, and we’re still doing virtual podcasts.
Desiree: Eventually they’ll just start dating life like that. COVID winter number one. First COVID winter.
Tim: I go back, and I talk about the day the world ended. I still remember the weekend my calendar fell apart and everything was erased.
Desiree: Right.
Tim: Now we just push on.
Desiree: Right.
Chris: Where should we start with this, Tim?
Tim: Yeah, I mean I kind of want to jump back in with the Utah Patients Coalition. And when we met with Desiree before, we talked a lot about the history of the bill, the Medical Cannabis bill. What had been proposed, how all of that worked out, the compromise. I remember talking a lot about that, right?
Desiree: Yep.
Tim: And the reason why we asked you to come on again was, we have a new proposal that potentially could expand or not, the cannabis program. There’s some privacy things we can talk about too, but tell us a little bit about where the cannabis program is at, from your perspective, I guess? Let’s just start there.
Desiree: So where we’re at right now, we still have all of the pharmacies open. We still don’t have all of the cultivation, the grows open. We have product on the shelf. We have patients purchasing. We have still a wide range of conditions that are getting utilized. We have a compassionate use board for the patients that are falling outside of that, and they’re reporting back a 90% approval rating for patients that come through. We have issues with product shortages, which isn’t strange from a new program. We have issues with not a lot of different product options. We have a lot of problems with patients still trying to find a QMP or a physician that will get them on the state program.
Desiree: We have good and bad, but the thing that makes me not complain, is I always am seeing progress. So far, I haven’t hated anything too much quite yet.
Tim: That’s good. Now when we talked before, we were in hopes of 100, 150 QMPs. I remember talking to Rich Oborn about this as well. Do you know the current number of QMPs?
Desiree: I should have looked before I got on. No, but it’s above 600 now, right?
Tim: Yeah, I mean, it’s certainly above 500. I don’t know either.
Desiree: Yeah, I think we’ve reached 600. I want to say we were hoping to be around 800 by now, because we were seeing a steady increase all the time. I remember thinking, “Let’s hope for 800 by Christmas,” and I want to say that we’re there or really close.
Tim: That’s good compared to what was originally hoped for on the one hand, right? That we have providers willing to get into the system on the one hand. I know we’re going to get into talking about the potential issues with access, but I think that was a pretty good milestone.
Desiree: It’s very encouraging, to say the least. Now we’ve just got to get all the patients to the doctors.
Tim: Okay, so let’s back up a little bit. Talk about how many there are. Over 20 thousand legal cannabis users in Utah. Is that about around a round number?
Desiree: And again, it’s going up all the time pretty steady. But yeah, just about 20 thousand. The problems that we’re seeing though, is a lot of the QMPs, some are still not recommending, they just wanted to take the course. And some are not accepting new patients. There’s different reasons. Some were just doing a handful of patients. There’s a lot of different reasons why they’ve taken the QMP course, but then those physicians aren’t necessarily… like you know, Tim, they’re not necessarily the ones that are carrying the bulk of the patients that need cards. They’re seeing their few, and then we still have the specialist doctors that are recommending just for Medical Cannabis that seem to be still very needed, right? That’s where we are. That’s actually what kind of birthed this plan that we have come up with this year for this session if you want to talk about that. If not, we can keep asking questions.
Tim: No, everybody is very interested in this.
Chris: Yeah, please share.
Tim: This new plan, right? Anything that will change or promote the plan, or talk about the plan. Everybody’s talking about this bill.
Desiree: So depending on who you talk to and depending on the moment, these changes are either referred to as huge or small. Right? It’s either a huge change, and at the same time it’s not that big of a change. It was something that I came up with when we were calling QMPs who had written letters but not cards… weren’t putting patients on the card system. Or just calling them to see if they had any questions. Just trying to get a feel for this QMPs or possible QMPs, and if we were going to get this program up off the ground.
Desiree: Knowing that, the climate for raising patient caps is not there at the legislative level. I could cry, scream, beg, whatever, and it’s not going to happen. Really, there’s only a couple doctors or QMPs that have reached that cap. So I don’t really even have a big reason to ask. It’s not like they’re overburdened and they need them raised, except for in a couple situations. So in talking with doctors I found, like I said, there was a couple reasons. You know, either they were afraid that it would risk their license. They had a policy against it from their own work. They didn’t understand, so they just didn’t feel comfortable. They’re like, “Maybe I took my QMP. Maybe I have patients that want to use it, but I just don’t feel comfortable.” Actually interesting enough, a lot of those physicians… and Tim, I know you got some of these as well, where you would have a doctor or a primary care physician from some place like Intermountain Hospital write a diagnosis letter and send it to a QMP.
Desiree: Say, “Hey, I have this patient. I think that they could be using this medication, but I don’t want to do it. Will you?” And it was on letterhead from another doctor’s office, and so that was what kind of started birthing this idea for me. What I’d proposed isn’t what’s shaken out, so I’ll tell you a little bit about what I proposed and then the changes made there. Is the proposal was is that we would allow a patient to get a diagnosis letter from their primary care physician or whoever they were seeing for that condition. They would take the letter to the pharmacist, or it could be faxed over and then verified. Then the pharmacist, who there’s no doubt the pharmacists in Utah have become specialists in Medical Cannabis. They know the products that are out there. They know what conditions they’re working for, and they understand routes and dosing. A lot of medical providers are asking the pharmacist to already handle the dosing and handle the route.
Desiree: That’s something that we already gave them the power to do. There was no change there. We were just saying, “And while you’re doing that, will you put them on the EVS?” That removes the liability that some doctors were feeling about losing their license. They were like, “If I start putting patients on the card system, I’m going to lose my license.” Even though that’s not true, it was a big concern. Also if they had a policy about it saying that they couldn’t recommend, they can diagnose. There’s nothing saying that they couldn’t diagnose a patient and pass that on to a cannabis medical pharmacist, right? So we thought that kind of soled those. In turn, the pharmacies loved this idea, because it gave them better communication with the doctors. Better communication with the patients, and they were willing to manage the EVS.
Desiree: Another thing is that a lot of medical providers had just said that they felt like managing the EVS system was almost a full time job. That in order to be proficient the it, you need to be doing it every day. If they were going to do that, then they needed to hire somebody just for the EVS, and they weren’t interested. So we did have QMPs that got their QMP, then decided not to just because of the EVS. Well the pharmacists aren’t going to have that problem. This is their job, they’re there. Part of the law that we did not like in the beginning required the pharmacist to be there from lights on to lights off. We fought that tooth and nail, didn’t get anywhere. In the end, I’m not mad, because now we have these specialists that are there and can now enter in what’s called a collaborative practice agreement with the medical professional. Get the patient on the EVS. Get them the right dose. Report back to the medical professional or QMP. I mean, sorry, PCP, or whatever we’re going to call them there. It could be an APRN or a PA or whatever.
Desiree: Then any time that this primary care physician says, “No, like I don’t want this patient on here anymore.” They just take them off and then report back that they did. They have that as well. Any renewals like that will just be handled like, “Hey, do you want to renew this patient?” The doctor says yes. The pharmacist does the renewal. If the doctor wants to see the patient at six months, or at three months or whatever, they just report to the pharmacist. “Hey, before you renew this, I would like to see my patient.” They can handle that with the patient, but then they can also leave a note for the pharmacist that says, “Don’t renew this. They haven’t come in.” Right? There’s a ton of communication that can happen there.
Desiree: When I proposed this to the legislative body, or the people working on this law specifically, the interest was definitely there. The concerns were that they felt like if a doctor or a medical professional was going to do this, they felt like they enter in these kind of agreements all the time. If they were going to do it more than say, 15 times, then they wanted them to get their QMP license at that point. Just so they said, at that point they’ve showed that there’s enough interest that we at least want them to take the class. But even if they take the class now, I believe we’re still going to allow them to pass the book and have the pharmacist get the patient on the EVS.
Desiree: If it’s an EVS issue, if it’s just a time issue, if it’s just keeping up on it or understanding it… Let’s let doctors be doctors. Let’s let them diagnose. Let’s let the pharmacists handle the rest of that stuff. That’s what it’s looking like right now. I don’t personally love the 15 cap, take a class. I hope we don’t see doctors drop off after the 15. But at least it gives us time to see if this is going to work, and again, it’s a compromise. Whenever you’re entering into big changes like this, you’re never going to get anything you want. I feel like at least in this case, I got 70-80%, right? This will be a good first step.
Desiree: Another thing is that I know that if this works really well this year, then it’s a great opportunity to go back and revisit this next year. They seem way more open to raising this number than just patient caps. Because it does keep patients with the original provider, then it leaves these specialist doctors for the patients that their doctor’s unmovable. Right? A lot of patients that absolutely could not find a doctor, the QMPs that are writing letters or getting them on the card system, are reaching the ends of their caps. Then those patients are kind of going to be left in the dark. We would like to leave those specialist doctors for these, especially like veterans, stuff like that. That’s their only option, so not flooding that market with patients that have the possibility of staying with their regular doctor.
Tim: Are doctors then, do you feel like or the legislature feel like, they’re taking the liability away? Because it seems to me, if I write letter, or if I make a recommendation for cannabis, that that is my medical decision. I still have to be the one making the decision. That decision still falls on the medical provider to make that recommendation. That to me doesn’t seem to solve the liability issue. I still feel like I need approval from my employer to do that. I still need medical malpractice to do that. How is that being handled?
Desiree: The truth is if there’s a malpractice suit or something like that, that’s still going to come back. A lot of the doctors just don’t feel comfortable. Or they feel like if they deal with the medical, if they’re recommending… because remember, the big concern was that if they cross that line and they start talking about dosing and routes, then they have entered into almost like a prescription. So we have doctors that are concerned to kind of cross that line. This just is another step removed, of them not having to feel like they’ve crossed that line into something federally illegal. When we vetted doctors, they liked the idea. But you’re right, if somebody wants to sue… like if you write a letter for me, and I fall in the –
Tim: Right. Yeah, I mean the fact is, I’m the one making the recommendation.
Desiree: Right.
Tim: I think if you did it one or two times… and I discuss this with Ray Ward as well. If you’re doing it one or two times, or three or four times, and you don’t carry malpractice for cannabis, then maybe you feel kind of comfortable with that. Whereas if you do it 275 times, you want to potentially get a malpractice policy that covers cannabis. I worked for Steward Medical Group for six years, and they forbid all of us from writing any recommendations. That’s not going to change. They’re not going to add to their… this bill would not help them. Even if you remove them to the pharmacists, I’m sure their employer… because they would have to write it in the chart, right? You would have to say, “Well, this patient comes in for chronic pain. I am going to allow my MA to tell the pharmacist that it’s okay.” I think that that won’t work, but I’m sure there’s a few pharmacists… When I talked to Dr. Ward, Ray Ward, about this, he said a very similar thing as you’re saying.
Tim: The introduction of cannabis into a practice is what the goal is, and this feels like it is a legislation that is trying to introduce cannabis into practices that wouldn’t normally have cannabis as an option. Try and stick your toe in the water.
Desiree: Dangle the carrot.
Tim: So to speak, right? A patient comes in, says, “Hey, doc. I really want to try cannabis.” You’re like, “I don’t really want to, but okay, I’ll write you this letter.” Patient comes back, says, “Hey, I had a great experience. This is really working. The pharmacists helped me get some products, and it’s working.” Then the provider says, “I’ll try that again.” Tries it three or four times, and then decides, “Okay, I want to get involved. I think I should take this a little more seriously.” Is that kind of how you see this working for providers?
Desiree: I think that’s the hope. Also, because they have a pharmacist that they can talk with. They have somebody that’s handling the dose. They’re handling the things that the primary care physician maybe doesn’t understand right in the beginning. 15 times with 15 different patient, we’re hoping that it kind of dips their toe in the water, right? They feel like they’ve done it, they’ve seen it work well. Maybe out of those 15 patients, we can assume that the least 10, it worked well, and they decided to continue use. That medical provider hopefully would then feel like they had enough experience to do it themselves, or like to take the QMP course and try.
Desiree: But we’re not removing the safety net of the pharmacist. The pharmacist is still there as a collaborative partner at that time.
Tim: Is there some safeguards to the pharmacist being involved? The pharmacist is employed by the drug manufacturer. This has always been a very big concern of mine, that you have in no other industry… except we did know that in the opioid industry, when people were involved in the manufacturing and sale of opioids-
Desiree: Right.
Tim: They tended to give people bad advice. And we ended up with a big controversy, and one of our state senators was involved in that controversy.
Desiree: Right.
Tim: We still have pharmacists now that are employed by the manufacturer of the drug they sell. Is it concerning to you, or should it be concerning to patients that we have this unique, I would say, relationship?
Desiree: If cannabis was more of a risky product, then I would say yes. If there was more risk for addiction, if there was more risk for overdose. But right now what we’re dealing with, we’re most of the time not dealing with patients that are new, and they’re trying this out for the first time. So we’re sticking them in a predatory market, where people are just trying to get them as much drugs as possible. We are just trying to stop as many patients as we can from being illegal and using the black market or going out of state. In the name of just trying to keep them safe. If you’ve been using cannabis for a year and a half, and now your letter expires, and it’s been working for you… I can’t think of very many patients that are just going to say, “All right, fine. I’m going back to opiates.”
Desiree: So this is just the avenue that we could come up with, and I do see the similarities in all of those. Like I said, if it was a riskier product, then yeah, there would be a problem. And if in the next couple years, we see that this isn’t working, this is always something that we can change. We can change it in a year from now if we want. We could have a special session and say this didn’t work out. But right now, for the sake of keeping… because the number is coming down, but in the beginning, we had potentially 10 thousand patient that had a letter, that were not going to get a card. We needed to get them on the EVS somehow, because not believing any of them, or at least believing that a majority of them were now just going to become illegal users. This was an avenue that we came up with.
Desiree: Like I said, there’s always room for change, and that has been talked about. We all know that that is how a big portion of this opiate epidemic started is when you’re picking your own funding. That can lead to a lot of problems. We’re hoping that this market doesn’t end up like that, because it’s not as addictive, and these patients are truly just looking for medical help.
Tim: Right. I believe you, and I want to ask that question, because I do have this issue with the pharmacists selling whatever vape card’s on sale. I think that the other thing that I worry about is in the cannabis space, we talk about how cannabis is so safe, it’s so safe. We also created, when we were talking about the QMP program, we use the opposite argument. Cannabis is so dangerous that we need a four hour course, and we need to have these people registered. It’s still federally illegal. It’s still a schedule one. I think we use a double standard. I do too. I catch myself using a double standard too. What I want is more patient caps. I totally see, I’m at my limit and four or five of my providers are at their limit.
Tim: The problem with what I have, is I have 15 providers. I don’t need 15.
Desiree: Right.
Tim: I could use five experts and not 15 people who aren’t as good. I think that’s a bigger problem for patients than having somebody who doesn’t know anything about cannabis write a letter. Do I mind that program? I don’t know. I guess we’ll yet to see on my side, how many patients get it. The one thing that I do think about this bill that I like is for a small percentage of patients who can not afford a specialty consultation… who can go to their primary care provider. Who can convince that person to bill the insurance on the visit for however you want to justify that. There are going to be some patients who really need the help and who can access cannabis in that way.
Tim: I think on that side, I’m a supporter. Do I like the whole thing? So far, I don’t know, Desiree.
Desiree: Right. And we have talked about still creating… we talked about it again yesterday. Creating cannabis specialists, so pockets of doctors that had taken the QMP course, maybe a little bit more education, and they didn’t have a cap. That’s not off the table. That’s something that we talk about all the time. A couple of the lobbyists and I talked about it yesterday. There’s still a lot of interest there. It’s just getting the details nailed out, or hammered out, and that we can get the legislative body on board. That’s where we’re at with that. Because the one thing that they really want is if the doctors are doing that, these specialist doctors, they want them to take insurance. They want it to be the cost of a co-pay. So if we can get there, I think we can make specialists happen.
Desiree: I think that you’re right. If I could send patients to a specialist that was doing what the pharmacist is doing, where they’re reporting back to the original doctors and saying, “This is what I put them on, and I understand the other meds and everything. But it was only costing them $35.” Yeah, that would be amazing, but we haven’t been able to get a consensus on that language. It doesn’t mean that we’re not trying. We tried really hard last year, and more pushback from the UMA this year. But it’s not off the table for this year at all.
Tim: Two questions with that is, what’s the UMA say about this bill?
Desiree: They are the ones that took it from just letting their… if you didn’t have your QMP, then you could just write the letters and send it to the pharmacist. They’re the ones that really advocated to take it down to 15.
Tim: The other question that I get a lot is why don’t you take insurance? I called Aetna and Medicare, and I asked, “Can I put this evaluation under the insurance?” Their response to me was, “Absolutely no. The claim will be denied, and you potentially could get kicked off our panel.” Have you thought about going to the insurance companies and forcing them to accept these visits and cover these visits?
Desiree: I talked with some earlier this year. I actually tried to get them to come and meet with some of the QMPs, but then Coronavirus happened, and we could no longer have meetings. The idea there was they’re not interested, but we have even the doctors of the Department of Health are doing this. They just say, “I saw a patient for pain. I saw a patient for PTSD. I recommended treatment,” and they are convinced… even Dr. Mark Babitz, who works at the Department of Health. When he writes a recommendation, he just charges copay, and he just says, “I saw the patient for pain. I saw the patient for PTSD, whatever.” He says, “I don’t report to the insurance companies when I recommend or prescribe all medications, so I don’t feel like I have to do it here.”
Desiree: The doctors that feel comfortable doing that are, and the ones that are worried… I mean I had a doctor that was doing it for months and then was like, “I feel like I just am wading into dangerous waters here,” and so he stopped then started not taking insurance. So I get it, but we did reach out to insurance companies, and they’re hesitant, for sure. They were interested to hear that some doctors were doing it, and I didn’t tell them who obviously. They do see the loophole.
Tim: This is just such a touchy subject. I mean I could dig into this all day, because there’s so many nuances, and there’s nuances that benefit one argument one way and another argument another. What do you think about all this, Chris?
Chris: Hard to keep up on all of it, really. Like you said, I was following what you were saying earlier, and I can’t agree more. It seems like you want to get more of an expert to stay as kind of the main expert when it comes to recommending cannabis, instead of just bringing all these new people on. That part just doesn’t make sense to me.
Tim: Yeah, I think so. Talking to patients, it’s one thing to have… in the beginning of the program, when we were seeing patients in March and in April, we were only getting about one in 10, maybe one in seven that had never experienced or never tried cannabis before. For a primary care provider to recommend that patient Medical Cannabis and have the pharmacist take over, most of the patients, I think that would be fine. Sorry, I guess that was a little bit unclear. But now we are seeing at least one in five of the patients that we see have no experience in cannabis at all. The average age has increased as well. Our average age female patient, for example, is 45 years old. It wasn’t that way earlier in the system.
Tim: I worry, because I want those patients to get a lot of hand holding through the process. I think cannabis is a little different than… like in med school, we learn about all of these drugs. But then a point was made to me. New drugs come on the market all the time, and we don’t get education on those new drugs. We just start writing them, and then we just kind of see how it goes. They’re deemed safe by the FDA or by whoever, and a drug rep comes in and gives us a little bit of education. Then we start to write those recommendations. This bill treats cannabis like that, right? You learn a little bit about it, you write the recommendation, and then you kind of learn as you go.
Tim: Cannabis, I don’t see it like that. You know, I see it as it’s very experiential. I like the specialist idea, but again, there are literally only a handful of specialists in the state legislating around those 10, 20, 50 QMPs. That’s not reasonable either.
Desiree: And I’m not trying to skirt around the specialist issue here. In fact, what I look at, is I guess I’m just looking at the patient and the specialist of the patient. The patient specialist is the doctor that they’ve had since birth, or the doctor that they’ve been seeing for this condition. I’m trying to keep the patient with that specialist. Instead of trying to have another doctor acknowledge all of this other stuff that they’ve gone through, and all of these other conversations and add cannabis over here. Let’s just take the bulk of the patient information with the specialist for that patient and add cannabis over here. And add a collaborative practice agreement with somebody who understands cannabis. Marry those two, and I feel like that’s where the patients are going to get the best care.
Desiree: I love cannabis specialists for other reasons, but majority of the time, I just feel like… I have a son with extreme special needs. If I had to leave his specialists to go find a cannabis specialist, I don’t know if I would do it. I don’t have to go to a new doctor every time they change his heart meds, so I would just feel more comfortable keeping him with the doctors that have truly watched him die and saved him, and done it all, right? For me, I’m trying to preserve this specialist that belongs to each patient more than a specialist that belongs to a drug.
Tim: Yeah, I like the way that you’re putting that. I like that idea. What I hear you saying is that there’s got to be more acceptance of cannabis as a medication in the healthcare community, and there needs to be more education frankly, from the specialists to those other medical providers. So that we can all become better at cannabis.
Chris: Better at cannabis. That’s something I can get behind.
Desiree: Right, can that be our new logo?
Tim: Yeah, better at cannabis. We are better at cannabis.
Desiree: Better at cannabis.
Tim: Talk to us a little bit, Desiree, about the controlled substance database and this other government list they’re threatening to put us on.
Desiree: I’m not going to talk too much on it, because I don’t like it, and I’ve been arguing it. I still don’t like it. I also don’t know that there’s anything that I can do to stop it. But what I am being allowed, and what everybody is working towards, is making sure that there are protections that don’t just… Like now I’m on a list that says I’m breaking federal law. Who would like to look at it? To be clear, you would have to have a warrant to see this list. We have looked to see if anybody has been targeted in other states on a CSD list. Those haven’t happened. I lost a lot of ground when it just hasn’t happened. I can’t say this is dangerous for patients if it’s never been dangerous for patients.
Desiree: Connor Boyack with Libertas and I are hashing out some details. I’m going to do a little bit more research to make sure that we cover the bases for patients. If we can’t get them to not be on this list, my next priority is just making sure that I offer every protection possible. The reason why they want them on is because they truly are, and for our benefit… maybe not with the CSD, but for our benefit in the long run, they want this treated like medication. If it’s going to be a federally scheduled medication, they want it on the controlled substance database. I can see that, and I think the more we can line up with regular medications, the better we are in the long run. I just don’t like this controlled substance database, because it is still federally illegal. If it wasn’t, we wouldn’t be as nervous, right?
Desiree: Connor and I are going to talk about this. We’re going to make sure that patients are protected. Brad Daw even is still involved in these discussions a little bit. He really wanted this CSD patient added to that, but he still also agrees that, let’s make sure that there’s protections. As soon as we’ve got consensus and I can talk explicitly about the protections that we’ve added, then we’ll do that. Right now, for the record, I don’t love it, I don’t want it, but I don’t think we’re-
Tim: I’ll tell you, I would say a couple of things about the CSD. One, if the federal government classifies this as a scheduled medication and reschedules it as a controlled substance then put it on the controlled substance database, they may reschedule it into a lower schedule. Then you don’t have to go on the controlled substance database. I have seen the controlled substance database used to discriminate care amongst patients, and I have talked to emergency room physicians who have told me point blank, “Patient comes in, I’m going to look them up. If they look shady at all, I’m going to look them up on the controlled substance database. If they have a weed card, I’m not giving them any narcotics.” They’re going to treat the patient differently in the emergency department. They’re going to discriminate care. That doesn’t get written down. That doesn’t get charted. That, I think, will be a tragedy for patients beyond the privacy issues. I fear for the patients in that regard, and I hope they decide not to list this on the controlled substance database.
Tim: I certainly have other concerns about the bill in general, but I would think that would be something… I would hope there would be a lot of people who support the bill, but the CSD, then we don’t support it.
Desiree: I love that with ER doctors though. I have not talked to them. My husband is a fireman. I’m going to talk to him about that too, and see if we can reach out to that demographic of care providers. I already knew that there was a hurdle with pain patients. I’ve had many of them tell me… and these are the ones that rely on a cannabis specialist, right? “If my pain doctor finds out that I am using cannabis, even PRN, then I will lose all my other opiates.” They have felt like they’ve reached this balance, where they are using this amount of Gabapentin and this amount of cannabis, and they finally have pain relief.
Desiree: They are terrified. Their care will stop on the day that they’re added to the database. I don’t have numbers to prove that it’s going to be catastrophic, and I won’t have those until after it happens. Like I said, I can throw a fit. I can say I don’t like it. I can yell it from the rooftops. But right now, until I have damage caused by this, I can’t find a way to stop it. But I if can reach out to ER doctors and I can reach out to paramedics or something that says, “Yeah, we’re going to be checking that, and yeah, we do discriminate.” If I could get them to testify, even that that is a possibility, I think maybe that gives us enough reason to say, “Can we just wait?”
Desiree: Even if it gets rescheduled federally, I don’t know if that will be enough to stop discrimination. If they ever are on the CSD, or if it gets rescheduled… if they don’t have to go on the CSD, then it stops that. If they ever have to be on there, then I think we will always have discrimination there. Still a lot of pain doctors, crazy enough, that do not believe that you can take both.
Tim: I know. I talked to one in the summer. Yeah. I get the referrals from the doc, or the patient comes in and then I call the pain specialist. I say, “Hey, they don’t want to get kicked off the pain contract.” They’re like, “Oh, yeah. They’re going to get kicked off.”
Desiree: Yeah. And then they’re-
Tim: And they can’t. That’s not fair.
Desiree: They’re taking away their… yeah. It’s a mess.
Tim: Man, I have really dominated the questions today, Chris. But this is-
Chris: No. No, no, no. It’s fine. I’ve learned a lot just sitting here listening. I mean, there’s so much to learn and so many ways to get active.
Desiree: Tim, this is your arena, right?
Chris: I just kind of want to absorb it all, you know?
Tim: Right. I mean, you’re right in my wheelhouse now. Now we’re getting to the point where I can see the things that potentially could use a change. Of course, I always have my opinion. Everybody has their own opinion and their own paradigm from which they see things. And I can really appreciate, although I think… You know, we’ve had a good discussion today about things that I don’t agree with. But I agree with some of the things that you’re talking about and some of the things that are needed with the program. It’s nice to know that in America, we can still have a useful dialogue and learn a thing or two from each other.
Desiree: Right.
Tim: We’ve proven it again, Chris.
Chris: Is that possible?
Tim: With cannabis, anything is possible.
Desiree: Right.
Chris: We’ve proven it again. We’re the myth busters. So what else? Is there any other bills that we need to talk about? Anything else that we need to talk about with changes?
Desiree: I think we need to remember that there’s a lot going on with hemp right now. I don’t have the details of that, but just know that no consensus has been found with those. So just know that those are being worked on, and… there’s something flashing. The hemp issues are being worked on, and the sponsor is not… they don’t want to put anybody out of business. They, I don’t think understood the ramifications of what the draft was. But also remember a draft is only just a draft. That is the time when it’s like, “Hey guys, this is what I’m thinking. Let me know what you’re thinking.” That’s the call to become involved.
Desiree: I always tell people, it’s really notes on a napkin. Take it for what it is. I think that we’re going to see big changes in what they proposed to do with hemp. We’ve been trying to stick a little bit closer to what is federally going on in other states, what the federal government has proposed and what’s happening in other states. That’s going to be discussed. I won’t be as involved in that. Mostly I’m just helping make sure that it’s happening, and then I’ll go back to dealing with a couple other things that we’ve got going on with patients. I did do some law enforcement education this last month. It was really good. We were going to do in person meetings, but then it was right when the governor said, “Let’s shut down again,” right before Thanksgiving.
Desiree: So we canceled all the in person meetings and did some Zoom meetings with, even sergeants, supervisors, on down to just beat cops that were watching on their phones in their cars. They had excellent questions, and the feel of all of the meetings were that they were really just wanting to do this right. Department of Health did it with me, they actually invited me. They did a presentation about what was legal, because we were finding that so many times, when I have a run-in with a patient, the police officer truly didn’t understand the law. So they wrote a ticket, funny enough, the code is usually like 58-37, whatever, which is the exact code that says you’re legal, but they just didn’t understand. So they thought, “Well, I’ll give the ticket, and then it will be worked out in court.” Then the court was turning around and saying, “Well, the cop wouldn’t have written the ticket if this wasn’t illegal, so we’re going to prosecute.” It’s been a mess.
Desiree: Having these education classes has been amazing, because they truly needed the education. But since that day… then we made a handout that we gave to them for them to give to all of their officers. It doesn’t tell them how to handle a traffic stop or an encounter with a Medical Cannabis patient, but it gives them the law. Like, this means this… and I can send it over to you. We’re actually creating one, a patient toolbox letter as well, just for patients to carry.
Tim: Oh.
Desiree: It’s almost done. It’s basically done, we just need to make sure that lawyers look over it and it’s good. The patients can carry this as well and say, “Okay, but look up these law codes really quick.” We not only say look them up. We cite them. So it’s boring, because it’s just, this is the problem, this is the law code. You say that I can’t have it out of a blister pack, here it is, you know? You say I can’t have raw flower? Yes, I can. So because I have a Medical Cannabis Card, you can’t charge me with paraphernalia because I have a vape pen. Which they’re like, “Well, we’re not going to give you possession, but we can still give you paraphernalia,” has happened a couple times. We have those written out.
Desiree: We gave one to the law enforcement officers. I’m hopeful, and I’m crossing my fingers here… but since we did that, I have not had any cannabis patients come to me saying that they were targeted by law enforcement even though they were legal. That’s been the longest span since this plan started, that I haven’t had patients come to me. I’m hopeful that we actually did see some change there. That the trickle down and the education got passed around. They really were trying to understand. Some of them had said they had a traffic stop, and they were unable to get on their… I forget the name of it. It’s a weird name. But they have a system, where they can look and check if you have anything, a controlled substance, I believe, and cannabis. We put it on the same one. They could just look. It doesn’t say anything else except, “Desiree Hennessy, yes or no.” It’s like, “Desiree Hennessy. Does she have a Medical Cannabis Card? Yes.” No other information.
Desiree: Some officers were simply just, “I can’t get on that. When I’ve tried, I haven’t been able to, so I gave a ticket.” So the Department of Health was able to talk them through that and help get them in touch with people that would help them be able to access that and understand it. Hopefully that made some big changes, and we’ll quit seeing patients targeted.
Tim: Yeah, that’s important.
Chris: What was it yesterday, you were talking about some PTSD qualification on a video I was watching on Facebook?
Desiree: Yeah, so the product review board meets every month. They are led by our friend, Perry Fine. They meet, and they discuss products. They recently started discussing conditions that we’ve approved. The product review board, their job is not to take conditions or add conditions. That was done by the legislature. But they do make recommendations, and it’s up to the state to follow them or not. They have taken a couple of different conditions. One was MS a couple months ago. They were like, “That has little to no value. Medical Cannabis, we feel like has little to no value.” Then they vote on it. Well yesterday in the morning, what they did was, there was some confusion and a lot of concern, that they had voted that with Medical Cannabis, they felt like it had no value, zero value with PTSD.
Desiree: They voted as a board that that is their position now. Which is unnerving if you’re a PTSD patient. That does not mean that they have the power to take it off the list, but they will mention that as a recommendation to the state of Utah. I do not see them taking it off the conditions list this year. It is something that we all need to be aware of, and especially me, and doctors that have put patients on for PTSD. We need to be ready to push back if that arises. Like I said, we have no reason that they’re going to make any movement on that this year. I do believe it’s the first condition that they’ve said they’ve found had zero value, with Medical Cannabis had zero value with PTSD. I don’t think any of the other ones that they voted on had zero benefit.
Desiree: Now they’re just looking at studies from outside of Utah. They’re not looking at patients. They’re not talking to them. They’re just looking at studies. That’s what they voted on.
Tim: Gosh.
Desiree: I hate it.
Tim: That’s so frustrating. The MS one is frustrating as well.
Desiree: It hurts my heart.
Tim: I mean, I can hear my MS patients telling me, “If I don’t have cannabis in the morning, the middle of the day…” they’re low dose people. “I can tell when I adjust my dose, and I feel better, and I can do more.” All these things. The PTSD. There’s not going to be good studies. These are psychological illnesses that take people discussing this with people who use the product. I have some data. I have anecdotal data that I could share with the board, you know? Self-reported data.
Desiree: Right. And that’s what I told them. I said, “You know, it’s kind of sad…” when I was talking to the Department of Health. I said, “It’s sad, because maybe you don’t have good data from other states or out of country.” Although I’ve seen some, but the product review board is so very critical. But I said, “The funny thing with PTSD is I don’t get a call from the patient themselves saying, ‘Oh my gosh, that was wonderful. That helps me so much.’ I get a call from the spouse, and they say, ‘Wow, I’ve got my husband back… or my wife is finally happy again.'” And it’s hard, because I’ve heard those testimonials. The thought that somebody easily just looked through a book and said, “We see no value.” It hurts after months of getting to know these patients, loving them, and seeing their progress. Seeing them be suicidal and then not.
Desiree: It’s hard to hear. It definitely is just hard to hear. Now one thing that we need to remember is that the product review board is probably our next biggest hurdle to stop us from adding any conditions to the conditions list that we have. Although they don’t get to add them or take them off themselves, the legislative body is relying heavily on them to do the research on what conditions we can add. That’s why everybody hates the compromise, but we have to remember… we fought tooth and nail to get anything on paper. Everything we have had on paper has not been taken away. Once the compromise happened, they have not backtracked at all. We knew it was still gonna be hard to expand it, especially the conditions list. We’ve tried every year. But like it or hate it, the compromise is that safety net that has stopped them from taking anything else.
Desiree: If we had passed Prop 2, which again, I will say it til I’m blue in the face, we never never thought that we would keep Prop 2. From the day we started writing it. Did we want to? Yes. Did we think that they were going to let us keep it? No, we live in Utah. But we knew that after we walked out with the compromise, not loving all of it, but realizing that they wouldn’t take any of that away. They haven’t. Adding is hard, but the product review board is probably our biggest obstacle in adding new cases. I personally would like to see sleep disturbances added. I felt like we had some interest in adding some anxiety and depression, but then at the end, it was decided that maybe we’d let the product review board decide if they recommend it.
Tim: You’re going to have a tough time with anxiety with the product review board. Tough, tough time.
Desiree: Well, because they do believe that anxiety, bipolar… they still believe that mental issues can have a potential of making it worse. Almost like a 50/50 chance. Like, it could make it worse. It could make it better. They don’t want to put patients at risk, but my thought is, are there other medications you’re trying not putting the patient at risk for other things? I mean, my husband’s a fireman, and he’ll tell anybody, “I’ve never been on a suicide patient that wasn’t on an anti depressant.” He’s like, whatever reason that is, it’s either not working, or whatever else. He said, “It’s not stopping all of them, so why not allow them to try something else before they take an exit?”
Tim: Yeah. Well, Desiree, this has been great. I’m always excited to talk to you, because I believe that you have the patient’s interest in mind. You definitely want what’s best for the patients, and you go for it. So bravo. I think you do good work when it comes to that, and I appreciate you being willing to come on and talk about the process. And be honest about the process, about how it’s going, and what you think the pros and cons are of what’s being proposed. So Utah Patient’s Coalition, I think it’s a good-
Chris: Yeah, thank you.
Tim: It’s a good place for Utahans to know they’re getting good support.
Desiree: Thank you, thank you. We have a Facebook page, which is probably the best way, especially if they’re watching this. Utah Patients on Facebook. We have Twitter. We have Instagram, that I don’t use a lot, but I have somebody that’s just offered to do media. So hopefully you’ll see stuff there. I just can’t do Twitter. I’m too old. We also have a website, so UtahPatients.org. If you get on our website, you can go up to a tab like compassionate use board. Say you have a good or bad experience, you can leave a review. That just helps us know when we talk to them, what concerns to bring up or stuff like that. It’s a little interactive there, so…
Chris: Anything else that you guys want to talk about before we wrap this episode up or anything?
Tim: I don’t think so.
Chris: Okay, we’ll go over more things in future episodes, Tim. To let listeners know as the end of the year kind of wraps up with getting cards and what not.
Tim: Yeah.
Chris: How can people get ahold of you, Tim? What’s the best way for that, if they want to get their card or anything?
Tim: Best way is utahmarijuana.org. We’ve got educational video series that we have that have been posted there. We always host the podcast there and do a transcription or a summary of those, if you want to look through and you want to pick up on the cannabis culture in Utah. Kind of learn about all the history and the stakeholders. We have a lot of people on here now, Chris. So utahmarijuana.org is a great place to go. How about you?
Chris: Very cool. You can listen to my other podcast, IAmSaltLake.com. I got a really fun episode actually coming out this weekend, so a couple days after this episode releases on all the dog friendly places in Salt Lake City that you can go to. If you’re a cannabis patient, and you have a dog, you might want to check that episode out.
Tim: That’ll be a great Sunday morning.
Chris: Yeah, otherwise, just reach out to Tim or myself, if you want to come on the show and leave us a review or reach out and say hello. Yeah, we’ll wrap this episode up then, you guys. Thanks for coming on, Desiree.
Desiree: Thank you, guys.
Tim: Thanks, Desiree. Stay safe out there, everyone.
Loni and Paul from Buddy Jane join us from Southern California on this episode of the podcast to talk about their brand new social media app for cannabis users.
Loni and Paul join the podcast from Southern California, where recreational cannabis use is legal in some counties, to tell us all about their brand new social media app for cannabis users, BuddyJane.com.
It’s a social app that was developed by a couple of ‘grown stoners’ who looked at the landscape of tech and cannabis and saw there was nothing that allowed like-minded people to interact. So BuddyJane can be described as “an IG that got pregnant by Weedmaps and had a party with a bunch of people!”
When people access the app, they are asked if they are 21 (or 18 with a Medical Cannabis Card), but the app is for everybody, not just Medical Cannabis patients. It is global and already has users in Europe, the UK, Australia, Asia, and South America.
They’re starting to see a global connection of the cannabis community. This is particularly relevant since Facebook and IG flag and delete cannabis content, and delete/kick users off the sites— as they did to comedy duo Cheech & Chong. This censorship in mainstream social media was one of the reasons they started BuddyJane – to give the cannabis community a voice that won’t get muted.
Tim confirms that this constitutes a significant difficulty in running a cannabis-related business, or allowing business owners to educate or promote using the words cannabis or marijuana. This pertains across the board, on Instagram, Facebook, Google, YouTube, and Twitter.
The app is monitored to a degree, though they do want to represent the counterculture that cannabis represents. They’re not allowing any pornography, overtly sexual content or any illegal activity on the app.
Their users have to operate with verified business accounts before they are allowed any sort of sales activity. They want to create a safe environment and support the people that put in all the work, money, time and energy that it takes to run a legit cannabis business.
They’re a small startup, though it’s grown a lot faster than anticipated. They have a couple thousand users already and have begun to build a community. Some people who have joined Buddy Jane have become brand ambassadors and are helping them monitor the community (a way to self-police the app). They have already needed to turn away users trying to sell cocaine and guns.
The cannabis community has many patients who use cannabis for medical reasons; and it has a culture of enlightened business with an honest and positive vibe that they want to protect and foster. To keep it that way, they will kick off any ‘cockroaches’ that threaten the ethos.
Every decision that has been made on this app has been a decision by Paul and Loni. They have a team that does the technical support and coding, but every click, every module, every wireframe, every piece of the app requires their direction and approval.
Before Buddy Jane, Paul and Loni had been in the software world working on complex projects. Having worked successfully on projects before, they started looking at the cannabis landscape and detected a void (and opportunity), leading them to jump in and start development of their app.
The core of Buddy Jane is a social media connection piece, so users will find it similar to other social platforms. Loni and Paul wanted to create an all-in-one spot for all things cannabis.
The main goal is to make a single social space to connect all things cannabis. They’ve also just come out with Bud Cast, where you can live stream cannabis-related events, podcasts, and more.
Their future roadmap is pretty aggressive, and they’re currently negotiating a deal with a crypto currency company to establish reward points that users can use for discounts at participating dispensaries. In essence, they’re creating a self-sustaining ecosystem within the cannabis community that will benefit the community as a whole.
They’re looking at creating a filter for those who would prefer to use the app anonymously. People are not required to reveal their identity, and the app is not selling any CBD, THC, or flower products, making it safe to use for all.
Buddy Jane is essentially just a social media advertising app that people can access for free. Users of the app have freedom to be themselves, contact like-minded people and have access to an abundance of information.
There is no problem with trolls, or people being judged. The online shop mentioned will just be for small, ancillary products (a bit like Craigslist) with no plant-based products being sold. This aspect is still under development.
Loni has a background in design and 3D animation. Their app has changed greatly over the year-and-a-half of its development. However, one of the biggest surprises for him was how the community immediately embraced Buddy Jane.
They developed the app with a political aim— they want the community to be aware of some of the less-than-admirable motives that lie behind the move towards legalizing cannabis (namely money and greed). The cannabis community needs to pay close attention to the laws that are being passed. Their leaders must be given a platform to be heard so that they can fight for real change and have a voice to change perceptions, ideally leading to changes in law.
That’s been one of the biggest surprises for them— how this political motivation behind the app has been so fully embraced. This creates a powerful platform to democratize the cannabis movement. Hopefully Buddy Jane will contribute to meaningful change by uniting the cannabis community in large numbers to make their collective voice heard, despite media restrictions.
They have an active social media presence on Instagram and Twitter. They also have some partnerships in place that will allow for larger user numbers once they officially launch (e.g. with Cheech Marin and his brand Cheech’s Private Stash that will help them in their rollout). They will also feature Cheech’s animated series exclusively on Buddy Jane.
There’s also the cryptocurrency component and strategic partnerships in place for launch. Many people who’ve joined Buddy Jane are now also promoting the app by tagging friends on IG and other platforms.
They believe Buddy Jane will release on Android early in 2021, with an established community to help it succeed.
They are projecting between a quarter million to half million in the first year, of people downloading the app. Because it’s a global app, they’re starting to see users already picking up in Europe.
The app could also be a great conduit for information about new dispensaries opening, or simply for getting in contact with like-minded people. They believe the usership of the app will just grow organically, with the enormous commercial potential of the app appealing to the canna-business community.
No, first of all, the app doesn’t keep any personal information. Texts and chat messages are all encrypted at transit and encrypted at rest, so the privacy of users is secure. People also aren’t required to share any personal information or their location.
They do want people to use common sense and are not encouraging any illegal activity, so they’re not anticipating the Feds would have any reason to mess with app users. Buddy Jane is not a tool for illegal activity.
Loni and Paul are ploughing money back into the app for further development. They are self-funded so far, though they’ve had venture firms given a closer look lately. They are not opposed to funding at a later stage, but want to retain creative control, allowing them to take a cue from the community in terms of app direction in the future.
They want everybody to ‘hop on’ and join their cannabis community. There’s an overview and a brochure for businesses that list their services. They want to bring the education, science, and business communities into one place. The app is emphatically not simply for recreational use. There are mothers on there who use CBD for their child and professionals who use it in their daily lives for medicinal purposes.
Utah is a Medical Cannabis state with just over 20,000 legal medical users. The culture in Utah is that people are looking for others who also use cannabis, and are seeking education, which is severely lacking on social media. Tim’s Medical Cannabis patients are continually looking for more science from legitimate sources.
Connect with Loni and Paul on BuddyJane.com or follow Buddy Jane on Instagram and Twitter.
Tim is at UtahMarijuana.org if people need help getting their medical cannabis cards.
Chris is at the IAmSaltLake.com podcast.
Kenyon Snow, a cannabis patient of Tim’s, shares his struggle with severe ulcerative colitis, and how he benefited from Medical Marijuana while traditional drugs were not effective.
Kenyon was diagnosed with severe ulcerative colitis in 2014. He was put on immunosuppressants, like Humira, and was okay for a couple of years. However, in 2016, he had a bad flare-up on his wedding day. He was put on steroids to control it. After returning from his honeymoon, he had another colonoscopy before being put on Remicade, another strong immunosuppressant.
In February of 2017, another colonoscopy and biopsy were done, returning a precancerous result. This led to Kenyon’s colon being removed in March 2017. In July of 2017, his rectum was also removed. He then had an ileostomy, requiring him to wear a bag from the small intestine. His stoma is not on his right side, as is usual, because when he had a revision done in 2018 which caused him to develop necrotizing fasciitis, a flesh-eating bacteria. Two weeks after that surgery, they went in to cut away a large part of his abdomen and move his stoma to the left side of his body.
This year he had a hernia, right next to his stoma. It looked to have become strangulated, so Kenyon was put on Oxycodone for a month (which he hates and describes as a nightmare). However, because of Kenyon’s past history, along with COVID hitting, they decided to hold off on additional surgery until absolutely necessary.
There are different levels of ulcerative colitis. The steroid prescribed is usually Prednisone, 60mg a day, which has unfortunate side-effects like water-retention. People can also have bad psychoactive responses to these steroids. Kenyon confirms that he nearly broke up with his wife, his then fiancée, because the Prednisone gave him bad paranoia.
Humira is also used often, which is a drug you inject weekly. You have to keep it refrigerated and it’s very expensive, along with being painful to inject. Remicade, which must be specially approved, is a once-a-month IV infusion that patients must undergo.
The more serious surgery that Kenyon had is called a total abdominal colectomy and proctectomy. Any further surgery would have been problematic, as they would have been dealing with a so-called ‘hostile abdomen’ (ie. enormous amounts of scar tissue).
Kenyon’s brother-in-law in Arizona, where Medical Cannabis was already legal, got diagnosed with ulcerative colitis and also had to have his colon removed. He found that cannabis was very effective for pain relief. On a visit to Arizona in March, just as everything was shutting down for COVID, Kenyon decided to try it as well. He got a vape pen, and for the first time since his diagnosis in 2014, was pain-free without opioids.
It was the first time he had ever used cannabis, and his wife was initially apprehensive about its usage. At the time, Tim was one of the only QMPs in Utah. Kenyon accessed Tim’s website from Arizona and set up an appointment.
Tim was just setting up his office, and with the COVID restrictions patients were being assisted carside. Most of the consultation would be done by phone, followed by payment being taken by credit card, in-person, by those wearing masks and gloves. People needed that face-to-face contact. Tim remembers clearly that Kenyon had no previous experience with cannabis at the time.
He first started using vape cartridges but now prefers flower, as he finds it most effective and the easiest way to gauge appropriate doses. He also can’t help but remember when people died of ‘popcorn lung’ as a result of counterfeit vape cartridges. He buys his flower from the pharmacies and only uses vape cartridges when flower is not readily available.
Once Zion Pharmaceuticals started releasing products, Kenyon started purchasing from them. He mostly uses a vaporizer and considers Zion the best flower he’s tried (particularly their Pink Starburst Petrol strain, which has a wonderful aroma).
Kenyon admits that talking to his wife about his medical cannabis usage wasn’t easy, as cannabis (even now) is still somewhat of a taboo subject. It was a difficult subject to raise, particularly because they both belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She had the misconception, as many do, that the church was completely against cannabis use. Kenyon showed her in church doctrine where they’ve come out and said that as long as you have a Medical Card, there’s no problem with it. At this point she became more comfortable with the idea.
That’s when Kenyon started his Instagram account to try and educate people who had similar health issues that they could benefit from cannabis. He is trying to show them that it is a safe alternative to traditional medical drugs, especially when it comes to pain relief. Apart from a single daily antidepressant, Kenyon is now off of other strong traditional medications that he had been prescribed for years.
For the most part, close friends and family who knew his medical history and what he had been through, were understanding of his usage— particularly given that Kenyon had been so addicted to opioid painkillers that he was considering checking himself into rehab. Tim points out that opioids cause a lot of problems with constipation because they slow down the bowel function ‘to a crawl’ and can cause people to lose their appetite.
At work some people are still ambiguous about Kenyon’s Medical Cannabis use, and wonder if Medical Cannabis users are always ‘legit’. He thinks the biggest thing is to get rid of that stigma that is still attached to cannabis use so that people will just accept it as normal.
Obviously, inhaling takes effect a lot more quickly than ingesting, but then ingesting lasts a lot longer, so his use depends on what he needs. He’s got flower, vape cartridges, gummies, and tinctures. When he’s in a lot of pain, especially at nighttime, then he’ll take a gummy because he knows it’ll last all day and he’ll wake up feeling good.
Yes, he does so because every now and then to help with the nausea caused by his GI tract being messed up. He just got a new vape cartridge from Deseret Wellness (who recently opened in Provo) called Maui Wowie, made by Dragonfly. Hee highly recommends this cartridge for relieving nausea and leaving your mind clear.
Kenyon says that he started with low doses because he wanted to make sure that his body could tolerate it, and needed to determine how different dosages would affect him. His usage then increased from there. However, he now only uses medical cannabis when needed, which is a few times a week.
Whenever Kenyon tells people that he has a Medical Card for cannabis, one of the first questions they usually ask is, “what about recreational use”? Kenyon doesn’t see an issue with people who use cannabis recreationally. He thinks of it along the same lines as alcohol. When used responsibly, there is no harm, especially in Utah, where there is a narrow window of qualifying conditions (with some, like sleep disorders and irritable bowel syndrome, being removed from the list of qualifying conditions).
Tim points out that he understands no conditions will be added to this qualifying list in the immediate future. He believes it would take a big groundswell of public opinion to get any movement on that front.
He didn’t try anything that was “pharmaceutical” grade. He had tried some CBD oil just for trying to help with pain and sleep, but he didn’t notice a huge difference. It was also so expensive that it wasn’t really worth it. It was just better to stay on the sleeping medication he was on at the time.
Now that he has his Medical Card however, he’s able to buy CBD flower at the pharmacy. This CBD actually works really well for him. He likes to vaporize one part CBD to one part THC, and finds that effective for pain and anxiety without it affecting his clarity of mind.
His mom was apprehensive at first, having grown up in an era that viewed marijuana in a very negative light. Kenyon sent her articles that convinced her of Medical Cannabis’ legitimacy. But overall, his family has been super supportive – particularly having seen the huge change it’s made to his well-being. He can now fully participate in family events and enjoy life again.
Get in touch with Kenyon on his Instagram, @beehive.cannabis.culture
Tim is at UtahMarijuana.org if people need help getting their medical cannabis cards.
Chris is at the IAmSaltLake.com podcast.
Recorded live at Zion Cultivars’ cultivation facility in Payson, UT. We sat down with Shawn Hammond to find out about the flower they grow and what we can expect in the near future from Zion Cultivars.
One of their investors had an empty building in Payson that suited their requirements as it had been designed as a mint, so without windows. It is also located in an agricultural area, away from schools, churches, and public places. They got the building on January 31, 2020 as an empty shell with cement floors and open ceiling.
It is now a high-tech building (hence the spaceship) with lights and an HVAC system with environmental controls. It houses 288 plants per room. Their first harvest will be on December 23, which should produce about 50 pounds of flower. The plants grow amazingly fast, sometimes as much as two or three inches a day.
Visitors have to sign in as required by state regulations, and wear a Tyvek suit and sterile booties, as the facility is run like a clean room for pest and contaminant management. Visitors to the facility are limited and the small staff must wear scrubs, hairnets, and gloves. For this reason, they will not open to the public for tours, either. Their business is purely for growing quality medicine.
They grow two brands— Zion Cultivars, which is a genetic library they’re building from scratch which takes a long time, and a brand named Sugar House Selects which have really special genetics. Their current crop of Sugar House Selects, which is available at Beehive Farmacy, was still grown in their previous facility, Tent City, in Murray.
After harvesting, the flower goes to their dry room for a slow dry over two weeks, then is binned up and allowed to cure. They have to wait for state testing at this point, which happens when the crop has about a 12% moisture content. After the test results have been received, the crop can be moved to their processing facility to get hand-trimmed and packaged because it is a craft product.
After being tested again to ensure that the final product is satisfactory, it can be shipped out to the dispensaries. As there are only two testing facilities in Utah, this process is often slowed down considerably.
Shawn’s director of cultivation and his facility director have been growing and selecting cultivars out in California for years. In choosing brands for cultivation, they look for phenotypes that are ultra-special, that check all the boxes regarding flavor, potency, and the ability to translate smell to taste.
Sugar House Selects are their own genetic cultivars of special strains that are selected by their Director of Cultivation (except for Fatso, which was a gifted strain). The five flavors they recently delivered to Beehive are Ice Cream Cake, SinMints, Push Pop Cake, Cherry AK and Fatso.
Zion Cultivars will soon be following suit, putting out four flavors for the first time— and are in the process of testing now. They will soon be putting four different flavors into production for the first time, which include Candy Margy, Gelatti Biscotti, and Wedding Cake, and more.
They also have 23 additional flavors of seeds from Umami Seed Co, who are excellent breeders. Zion Cultivars will germinate and do pheno hunts during a testing phase for the exclusive Zion/Umami collab that they hope to begin production on in 2021. They have already developed a unique Sherbinski collab with Umami in the past.
There are different aspects to cultivation. One of the most important aspects is breeding, and the breeding of new flavors specifically. Fatso, for instance, is a cross of two popular cannabis strains, Legend OG and GMO, done by the breeder Cannarado, which created the new strain.
A pheno hunt will involve germinating seeds and then looking for the plants with the best terpene characteristics for potency, smell and flavor. The terpenes levels also influence both the physical and mental effects of the cannabis strain, rather like essential oils, while also increasing its medicinal effect. Their Sugar House Selects are loaded with aroma and flavor. They do not necessarily want high THC numbers, but they do want terpene-rich strains.
Once they find a good genetic line with high terpenes, they preserve it. They create a mother plant and clone it to keep that genetic line alive. This selection process is crucial to ensure that a strain has flavor, potency, morphology, yield and also ‘jar appeal’ – it has to look right.
This touches on adult use, which is okay, because shouldn’t patients have the best medicine available, and the best cannabis strains and delivery methods for whatever their purpose is? For this reason, dosing is so important for new patients, as it helps to educate them about finding the most effective utilization of their cannabis medication. They should be encouraged to experiment until they find the perfect strain for them.
Utah does not currently test for terpenes. However, Shawn thinks that this is very important, so they have third-party terpene tests done to put the information on their website. Knowing the terpene levels and other components in the different strains is often critical to patients, as it will enable them to choose strains and products that best fit their medicinal needs.
Now that their facility is open, they want to create more interesting extract products, including live rosin, live resins, live resin cartridges, and real terpene cannabis sauce cartridges.
High-end concentrates, like a live rosin, are made without solvents and are mechanically processed. So as soon as a plant is harvested, it is flash-frozen, and then washed in an ice-water bath to mechanically remove all the trichomes.
These are caught in very fine mesh bags that go through a refining process. In effect, they are ‘squished’ under high pressure and a low heat, leaving you with purely terpenes and cannabinoids, with no solvents at all. They have good flavor, work quickly, and are convenient to use in vaporizers, like a Puffco, for instance.
Distillates are made by taking the plant through an extraction and distillation process where you’re actually removing and separating pretty much everything except the THC. Most cartridges on the market are distillate cartridges with a high-end distillate that has had terpenes re-introduced for flavoring. These are often not actual cannabis plant terpenes, but botanical terpenes that have been formulated to synthesize a particular flavor. So it’s not the same as keeping the plant intact.
Zion Cultivars is also setting up a hash lab in Murray to regularly produce the high-end concentrates that the market is looking for. Harvesting is an ongoing, two-weekly thing, so starting in January, they’ll have either Zion flower or Sugar House Selects flower released every week.
They also have a 90,000 square feet greenhouse facility north of Payson where they have just finalized a harvest that was mostly designed to create distillate, due to the huge shortage in the market right now. This facility is where they will replant.
In their two locations, combined, they have just under 90,000 plants. They also have approval for the expansion of their current ‘spaceship’ facility to about four to five times its current size.
They’re most excited about their Umami collection, building their genetic library, and getting a lot of different flavors to various dispensaries. They want to make their excellent quality product available to patients. They would like to reduce costs, but will not be able to recoup the millions of dollars they spent establishing their facilities anytime soon.
Testing is very expensive, as is the cost of being compliant. So cost-wise they are going to set both a craft line and a mid-base line that is more affordable. They will also not only sell in eighths, but quarters and half-ounces, to provide a better customer value.
They really intend to put a dent in the production gap next year. Shawn points out that cannabis is a challenging plant to grow. So while he would not object to home-growing, people will not be yielding the same quality.
It has been reported in the media that it is being proposed to allow all doctors across the state, whether they’re a QNP or not, to write 15 recommendations for medical cannabis for patients. It is also proposed that all names on the Electronic Verification System (EVS) be put into the controlled substances database, which more people have access to. This is worrying, as they fear it could lead to discrimination and infringe on people’s privacy.
The bill is being sponsored by Congressman Ray Ward from Bountiful. All three of these guys feel strongly that residents should contact the Congressman to express their concern about the proposed changes. This is the time of year that the bills get written, so it’s a good time to make your voice heard. It is also suggested that Congressman Ward be invited to participate in the podcast, to provide a platform for talking about the issue as a whole.
There are many patients who desperately need the life-changing benefits of Medical Cannabis, so this issue should be urgently addressed at the highest levels by lawmakers, as these laws affect the quality of life of an abundance of patients. Patients’ caps should be raised and diagnoses expanded, such as including sleep issues, for example.
Shawn points out that in many instances, patients on Medical Cannabis reach a point where they completely dispense with traditional drugs, including mental health medication, which is a glaring issue for many these days. Improving the mental health of Utah residents is one of the most significant benefits of Medical Cannabis. A level of fear and stigma still stand in the way of utilizing this fantastic medicine properly, so open conversations are needed to help address these concerns.
Shawn has an Instagram account, @ZionPharmer. He documents transparency and wants his patients to see everything that’s going on, including how their medicine is made. His products are currently available at local dispensaries. They hope to be more widely available next year, when they can start releasing products on a weekly basis, and are even having conversations about creating a Cannabis Cup for growers and cultivation teams to compete for the best strain in Utah.
Tim is available at UtahMarijuana.org. Look for his billboards that will be going up soon!
Chris is at IamSaltLake.com, where he just won best podcast in Utah for the fourth time.
Dawn is an attorney and cannabis advocate. She worked as a prosecutor for 12 years, first at the City Prosecutor’s Office and then for six years in the DA’s office. During this time, her mindset started changing about marijuana as she became aware of its positive aspects and the complexities surrounding it.
After she left the DA’s office, she found a certificate program about cannabis legislation at McGeorge School of Law in San Francisco, California. California has been a trailblazer as regards cannabis case law. She started taking these online classes that covered several different areas, including its history and how it progressed from being an herb that was accepted by society to one that was prohibited. The course also included banking, business, constitutional issues, property issues, and marketing in relation to cannabis.
The more Dawn dove into the ethics surrounding the cannabis industry, the more she realized that people need help with it, particularly legal help (although there are some states that prohibit lawyers from doing so).
Although Utah has not stated a specific legal opinion on representation for the cannabis industry, Dawn feels that the Utah Bar Association would take a pro opinion on the matter, as the Utah Bar actually does have a cannabis law section with 10 or 11 attorneys on a regular basis. In fact, Dawn believes that cannabis law is becoming more mainstream in the legal world, with greater general acceptance that people in the cannabis industry should be entitled to legal counsel, just like those in other industries or fields of business.
Dawn’s legal cannabis certification entailed about six months and more than 200 hours of instruction. It involved watching videos, reading, and studying case law [mostly from California, but also other states] to see how the law is enacted in different states, which can differ greatly across the country.
Her law school is really good about updating people on impending changes in legislation. There are research services that allow attorneys to set an alert to be notified whenever legal changes affecting the marijuana industry are enacted. There are also several websites now dedicated to mapping out the relevant laws in the different states.
One book about marijuana law, written by one of the professors at McGeorge School of Law, may be particularly helpful.
She started Utah Cannabis Advocates, which is particularly geared towards helping cannabis businesses and growers to negotiate the daunting complexities of cannabis law, as regards regulations, contracts, commercial contracts, and leases.
She doesn’t do a lot of criminal law, but will take on those cases as well if she feels they present some unique challenges that can have an impact. She points out that there are several excellent defense lawyers in Utah to help legal cannabis patients who are still, bizarrely, experiencing legal harassment.
Dawn admits that when she was a prosecutor, she did lump cannabis in with all the other drugs. However, as she was more exposed to it, she started realizing that it does have a purpose and true value. Taking legal classes reinforced this thinking, and helped her realize that medical cannabis, in the form of Marinol, has actually been on the market a long time.
Dawn realized that more research was needed to deschedule cannabis, which can happen in two ways. The Department of Human Health and Services have to be convinced that cannabis has value and a medicinal purpose, and the legislature has to vote to change its legal status. It is upsetting, however, that the government does not allow sufficient research to be done to provide empirical proof that can achieve these objectives.
Can this situation be overcome?
Dawn thinks it’s very promising that five states, including South Dakota, New Jersey, Montana, and Arizona, legalized cannabis seemingly overnight. This may contribute greatly towards changing the mindset of other states, as there are now Senators and Representatives who view cannabis as something that has value, medicinally. This should create a positive effect on legislation, particularly with an ever-increasing amount of data being collected over time.
She feels that interstate commerce will inevitably start having an impact as well. Banking issues and issues of security (current banking regulations are in effect that force cannabis-related businesses to work on a cash basis) are also going to force legislators to pass more sensible legislation. Smaller banks and credit unions, those that are not federally insured, are already starting to provide banking services to these cannabis-related businesses.
One thing that could help overcome this banking problem is if cannabis businesses got together and started their own bank. Dawn feels that as the cannabis industry matures and practical issues are sorted out, this will become a much more realistic option. Dawn does not think that decriminalization of cannabis would help the banking situation at this stage, as banks’ federal insurance is the real issue currently.
Dawn thinks that it will, because the checks and balances and quality control that regulation brings to controlled substances make people feel safer. This would definitely apply to cannabis which can have negative effects, like any drug, if not used properly.
Dawn believes that sticking to our current track will do wonders for medical providers who want to be viewed as properly licensed providers of cannabis products. Using current seed-to-sale procedures, monitoring, following regulations, and showing people that the medical cannabis industry is safe and being conducted responsibly, will contribute to this goal.
Education and providing people the facts to make their own informed decisions are crucial to breaking down entrenched and outdated mindsets that assume marijuana is ‘bad’. Fortunately, younger people are growing up with a different mindset that accepts that Medical Cannabis has a legitimate purpose, much like prescription drugs.
Unfortunately, just as it happens with prescription drugs like opioids, there will be people who abuse Medical Marijuana. Again, education is the key, and with people generally being more informed about healthy choices these days, the outlook is more positive.
Dawn has a personal mantra – educate, elevate, and advocate. Educating her clients is important for building protection into their commercial contracts. By elevate, Dawn means not only convincing someone that they are capable of running a successful cannabis business, but also being there if those owners run into legal issues in the future. She also hopes to advocate by lobbying Congressmen and Senators about upcoming issues, allowing them to address Medical Cannabis issues for their constituencies.
The fact that cannabis businesses do not have access to proper banking services is a huge issue that should be addressed immediately. Dawn is also strongly against cannabis businesses not being allowed to file for bankruptcy. Likewise, the taxation that they are subject to is unfair as they are heavily taxed and yet do not qualify for any tax deductions (eg. running costs) like other businesses do.
Dawn thinks that part of the solution might lie in descheduling and allowing individual states to make their own, better regulations that are applicable to their specific regions and jurisdictions.
But there is still a massive amount of pioneering work to be done around educating more attorneys, police officers, prosecutors and judges about the benefits of Medical Marijuana. In fact, it almost amounts to deprogramming them from their previous mindsets. Research and ensuring everyone follows the rules is crucial, as decriminalization and legalization (which are not the same thing and major topics on their own), can play huge roles.
People don’t realize that the cannabis industry has a lot to offer in terms of jobs and opportunities. The labor-intensive nature of the multi-million dollar cannabis industry means that many businesses will need to continue hiring new workers, which in turn gives work to a greater number of citizens. Groundbreaking research work is happening as well, with new strains being discovered and new patents being registered all the time (including developments in the growing, transportation, manufacturing and extraction processes).
Dawn has an office in South Jordan, but drives all over. You can contact her through her Facebook page, Utah Cannabis Advocates, or her instagram page @utgreenadvocates. She can also be reached by phone at (801) 750-8320. Her kids suggested that she has a marijuana hotline, so hopefully that will be coming soon!
Dawn stresses to business owners the need to be proactive. You need to have a good business plan, find out where the pitfalls are, and seek legal counsel early to abide by all the regulations. Seek out ways to market your business and establish marketing relationships by attending events, approaching people, and asking lots of questions!
Tim is at utahmarijauna.org. A new video about the science of cannabis and how it helps people medically is out now on the Discover Marijuana Youtube channel, with Tim and Blake. Chris can be found on IAmSaltLake.com.
In this podcast, Mike Rodriguez at Premium Hemp Growers talks about his techniques to grow hemp in his greenhouses. He discusses the legal aspects of growing hemp and the state laws governing it. He also speaks about the various smoking habits of people and how people prefer smoking hemp flowers over cannabis. Mike even touches upon CBD’s medicinal aspects and how growing hemp can prove to be very profitable.
Mike shares that you must get a permit to grow any type of cannabis plant. You should also keep in mind that it’s not easy to grow on a large scale. The temperature and humidity need to be accurate. Mike says his greenhouse has around 30 windows that house almost 8,000-8,400 plants. These windows help in the optimal growth of the plants, mainly during the harvesting period.
Mike discusses how ingesting cannabis involves processing the cannabinoids through your liver, this usually takes about 30 minutes or even longer for the effects of the medicine to kick in. But when smoked, the lungs usually help absorb the cannabinoids instantaneously into the bloodstream, giving immediate results. This is the main reason why most people prefer smoking rather than consuming it. The same thing goes for CBD and CBG. Smoking the flower even has some benefits without many issues. However, currently selling the smokable flower is not allowed despite having a THC level well under state regulations.
The reason for this massive gap in the market is that the state does not allow for a broad spectrum plant to be vaporized. In addition, the state has already established that there is no reason to use a flame to smoke the flower because there are no medical benefits associated with flames. The state feels that a good alternative is CBG, which is good for pain, it’s an anti-inflammatory, and has been known to help with depression.
Mike says he sees the medicinal value of CBD & CBG and the potential of how the flower product can be grown and harvested at scale for its immense medical benefit. He says the process of growing hemp or cannabis in greenhouses, the way he does, is a cumbersome process. Each plant must be looked after and cared for meticulously, but in the end it’s worth it.
Mike knows some people prefer rolling one or two joints of cannabis after struggling through a tough day. However, others (such as people who are going to work or running errands) want the medicinal benefits without the psychoactive effects. This latter group often questions the reason for smoking hemp flowers when they receive no recreational value from it.
Mike continues by saying THC levels in CBD must remain consistently lower than that of flower, so as to not ruin the crop. On the flip side, the flower market is always wanting the highest concentration of THC as possible, which allows Utah growers free reign to push the limits of how much their plants can contain.
Mike shares that a “Cannabis University” of sorts does exist. Oaksterdam University has in-person and online learning where people can learn the art of growing hemp. There are also various grow schools in the country where people can quickly learn to grow hemp.
Mike says, before the USDA hemp bills were passed a year and a half ago or so, it was not a field that one could easily get involved with. The hemp bills opened the door for people who didn’t know how to grow cannabis, but were passionate about hemp, CBD, or CBG to more easily obtain a license to grow and take advantage of a wide range of equipment being sold for an easy setup.
Mike says there are obvious downsides of growing cannabis on large scales; for instance, if you do not pay enough attention, your entire crop could get infected by spider mites, caterpillars, aphids; eating up to as much as two-thirds of your crop. Spider mites or caterpillars are particularly common problems. Also, if the irrigation wasn’t done just right, the yield stands to be ruined completely. One needs to keep at mind that problems which may be more than manageable at a smaller scale, are greatly multiplied as your scale increases.
According to Mike, it is quite challenging to trace caterpillars on vast lands. You will not even notice them as you walk through the same field daily, and before you know it they would have finished off more than half of your produce. The best way to mitigate them is to check your leaves regularly. If you find bite marks, it means that caterpillars are likely feeding on your harvest.
Mike says there is a great opportunity to profit from growing hemp in a legal way (depending on what the state allows you to grow and sell). He also adds that in his experience anyone who may choose to go the other way by growing illegally, thinking that may be able to make more profits down the path, are being terribly short-sighted and the costs of doing so will always be lower than the benefits received. He absolutely recommends growing legally and sees huge potential in doing so. Mike recognizes the clear monetary value of growing and selling legally.
“Discover Marijuana” is an educational series in collaboration with Zion Medicinal. The series will be released on November 21st, 2020 on YouTube (out now!). The videos from the series will be focused on the “science meets the medicine” aspect of the marijuana plant and will be educational in nature, with Tim Pickett and Blake Smith (Chief Science Officer, Zion Medicinal). The series will look to cover some of the more frequently asked questions around the plant and its medicinal aspects.
Mike can be reached through his website, Premium Hemp Growers, or through the company’s Instagram page.
Tim can be reached here at utahmarijuana.org where we just launched a new chat feature and they have people standing by during the day to answer any questions.
Chris can be found on his I am Salt Lake podcast website where you can hear about local foodie people and the impact of COVID on local eateries.
In this episode of Utah in the Weeds, we are joined by Bijan Sakaki from Beehive Farmacy. Bijan shares his story and all about what introduced him to cannabis, as well as what we can expect at Beehive Farmacy.
Beehive Farmacy is the newest Utah Medical Marijuana dispensary, which opened October 2020. The address is 1991 South 3600 West, Salt Lake City, 84104, bordering the edge of West Valley on the North side of the I-201. Directions can be found on their Google page.
There will be a 3-lane drive-thru for recurring customers and online ordering. There is plenty of parking because it is a converted old bank building. A 40-foot podium sign with green crosses will soon be a very visible beacon of their location.
Their whole motto is plants over pills, so ‘Farmacy’ indicates that everything’s coming from one of the 8 farms here in Utah. As they’re not allowed to advertise, people mostly find out about Beehive Farmacy through their QMP offices like Utah Therapeutic Health Center, social media, word-of-mouth, and referrals from other pharmacies.
Beehive Farmacy does not cultivate, so they rely on the mutually beneficial relationships they have with cultivators to provide the wide range of products Beehive sells. This benefits their patients by giving them options. At the time of this podcast recording, they’d only been open five days, but the feedback’s been good about the varieties they sell.
On weekdays, they’re open 11:00 AM to 8:00 PM. Saturday and Sunday, their hours are 12:00 PM to 6:00 PM. Patients have found their online ordering feature very convenient. People can find them on Instagram and Google. Remember that it is Beehive Farmacy, with an F.
First-time patients that need a consultation can schedule one directly either from Instagram, or from their website at https://beehivefarmacy.co with their patient registration link. They will also be opening a second location in December, right across the street from Walmart in Brigham City to cater to the more rural demographic there.
Bijan was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis when he was 12, but he didn’t find cannabis until he was 19 or 20. He comes from a very conservative immigrant family from Iran, so cannabis was taboo and had very negative connotations.
The cannabis tolerance in Utah at that time was also not nearly as positive as it is currently. Bijan remembers this as a very stressful time as he was very ill – it was even thought that he might have had T-cell leukemia. It was his brother who eventually introduced him to Medical Cannabis, which was extremely effective and relieved all his symptoms.
It was very difficult at that time to advocate for Medical Cannabis and source it, as it was still federally illegal. There was very little guidance on what to take, proper doses, and the effects of each; as Bijan discovered when he tried the very potent Rick Simpson oil. Bijan thinks we are extremely fortunate to now have access to products that have been properly tested and researched.
He points out that medical cannabis goes beyond just pharmacies; supply chain is just as important (with cultivators and processors coming into the picture, as not many pharmacies grow their own product).
Bijan believes that in the next 6 months or a year, the process will become much more streamlined. Well-known products like these are currently only being produced in neighboring states, and will soon be produced in Utah as well.
Bijan believes that patients ultimately want products that they know and trust, which he will strive to make available at Beehive Farmacy.
Around 2010, after Denver, Colorado and Portland, Oregon went recreational, Bijan had a vape pen, called a Wellness pen, that he began selling for profit at music festivals.
This made him aware of the marketing possibilities in the cannabis industry, though he was still very inexperienced regarding manufacturing, quality control, and quality assurance. It also taught him a lot about what not to do in the future, which helped him to navigate the cannabis market better as he learned from past mistakes.
After that, Bijan had a dispensary in Stockton, California, during the Prop 215 phase where it was going from the medical market to the adult use market, with many shifts in testing and regulations. You had to be nimble because as the law changed, your whole business model was impacted.
In California, recreational use meant added taxes, which made operating more difficult. Bijan points out that people have to be aware of that in Utah for the future. Moving from medicinal use only to recreational use will mean that patients have to pay more for their Medical Cannabis.
Over the last several years, Bijan exited from California to focus on Utah. He also joined up with two partners, one of whom is Paul Henderson, the current president of High Times. His other partner, Steve Brewster, is a local entrepreneur and tax expert who owns Millcreek Coffee. They all three bring complementary skills to Beehive Farmacy.
280E is the IRS tax code where you can’t write anything off except the cost of goods sold for a ‘federally illegal’ business. It was designed to capture drug traffickers. Lawmakers did not anticipate having some trades legitimized, like Medical Cannabis. In short, 280E prevents cannabis-related businesses from qualifying for tax deductions, and can also affect their access to banking services.
If cannabis were to be decriminalized and 280E goes away, it would have many positive effects for the cannabis industry, but could also complicate matters. One of the unknown factors is: How would cannabis then be treated? Could it then, for instance, be sold at regular pharmacies?
Bijan believes that because many of the issues around Medical Cannabis are complicated, they will not be resolved for several years. It needs to be done right so that the medical use of cannabis is not delegitimized, making the very real benefits of medical marijuana, discredited.
After Bijan got sick at the age 12, with a gastrointestinal auto-immune disease, he discovered paintball after no longer being able to play soccer. He soon started getting better at this new sport, as he learned to overcome his fears. This gave him good life experience as well.
It also introduced him to travel, as he was going to California every weekend. Once he did well regionally, he was fortunate enough to get picked up by teams from Australia and Holland. About five times a year, he went to Amsterdam to play professional paintball matches. Ironically, he was going to the only legal place for using cannabis, but he still didn’t partake himself.
However, in Holland he saw cannabis legitimized, giving him a different perspective not just on cannabis, but also on life. Paintball has a special place in his heart, for ultimately it led him to cannabis and changed his life.
At one point, Bijan was paying $11,000 a month for the medication he was prescribed, and Remicade was not covered by insurance.
One of Bijan’s favorite products is the Omura, a portable handheld device that vapes pre-filled flower sticks. They will work with the Sugar House Selects team in this regard and will have some of their own house brands as well.
He also wants to bring another device to market called the Indose which is a controlled dose distillate cartridge pen that actually measures the amount of THC being inhaled through the vapor so the dosage can be precisely calculated.
Tim agrees this is a big step forward for patients to be able to understand and maintain precise, consistent and safe dosing, especially for new patients.
Bijan is also thrilled to bring in Sugar House Selects’ strains of flower not previously available in Utah. They will also have Cookies corners in all of their stores, with all these products being cultivated, processed, and sold here in Utah. They will be implementing home delivery in the next couple of weeks.
Bijan will also be selling Puffcos, though they have no concentrates yet, as well as Volcanoes.They will also have high-quality DaVinci vaporizers, as well as Studenglass gravity pipes with electric vaporizers attached. They will stock grinders, and batteries for regular cartridges.
Bijan points out how important it is in the Medical Cannabis industry for people to help each other get in contact with the right people, to help and motivate them, and then paying that forward. This has helped establish the legal cannabis industry in Utah, good people helping good people. In fact, there are now about 20,000 legal cannabis users in Utah.
It is really important for any of these patients who are still letter holders to make sure that they get the legally required card, as the letters will expire on January 1st, 2021. To avoid delays in getting their cannabis medication, they need to get onto the electronic verification system [EVS], which streamlines the whole process.
Whereas a letter restricts a patient to one pharmacy, getting a card gives patients access to the many other pharmacies like Deseret in Provo, Curaleaf in Lehi, Dragonfly in Salt Lake, Wholesome in Bountiful, Perfect Earth in Ogden and Logan, and Bijan’s own dispensary Beehive Farmacy in Salt Lake. This also gives patients access to a much greater range of products and services.
Connect with Beehive Farmacy on their website or Instagram. Or reach out to Bijan on LinkedIn.
Tim can be reached here at utahmarijuana.org if anybody needs help converting from a letter to a card or needs help registering on the system. Chris can also be found on the official website for his I Am Salt Lake Podcast.
On this episode of the podcast, we get to chat with Stormy Simon, former President of Overstock.com and former CEO of High Times Magazine. Stormy is also running for election to the Utah House of Representatives to represent District 21.
Stormy Simon is the former president of Overstock.com and the former CEO of High Times. She is currently back in Utah, which has always been her home, to run for the Utah House of Representatives to represent District 21. She checked out different states but wanted to be part of the new emerging cannabis industry in Utah.
She believes in cannabis as a medicine and finds it iniquitous that people do not have access to it when they need it. She wants to be involved in the democratization and development of the massive beneficial potential of the Medical Cannabis industry, starting with its de-stigmatization.
Stormy comes from a marketing and management background. She started at Overstock in late 2001 as a temp, and was closely involved in building up the company from 100 workers to an amazing and very diverse workforce of 2000 employees.
Over the course of 12 years she became the president of Overstock, a position she held for three and a half years. During that time, she explored e-commerce long before it was even really a factor in the marketplace. By the time she left, Overstock’s business had grown from $18 million to almost $2 billion.
She left Overstock to become involved in the Medical Cannabis industry. She went to Denver, CO, which at the time was one of only two adult usage states for Medical Cannabis (the other being Washington). In Denver, she joined two medical dispensaries and a 90,000 square foot cannabis cultivation center. Here she learned a great deal about cannabis and the laws surrounding it.
In Denver, Stormy talked with many people and found out how effective cannabis was in treating a huge variety of diseases including irritable bowel syndrome and Crohn’s disease. It was a truly eye-opening experience for her, and she became convinced about the imperative need for Medical Cannabis to be made freely available as it can be life-changing for patients. Cannabis had, in fact, been used as traditional medicine for thousands of years.
She was amazed at the prejudice, ignorance, and blinkered views and attitudes that still surround cannabis. To a large extent, this can be ascribed to a deliberate campaign years ago by people like Harry Anslinger, Rockefeller, and Hearst to suppress information about cannabis as a medicine. Stormy is enthusiastic about the exciting possibilities of further in-depth and scientific research being done into cannabis and hemp, as well as its correlation to the human endocannabinoid system.
During her time in Denver, Stormy became aware of how unfairly taxation and banking worked in regards to the cannabis industry. Business owners were being forced into cumbersome and unsafe banking practices. She joined a group in San Diego that had a license with blockchain technology. They were successful in having a more equitable banking and payment system established at about 10 dispensaries across a few different states. She also joined the board of CannaKids, a groundbreaking company providing Medical Cannabis in California.
She had been on the board of High Times for several years before joining them as CEO when they really needed her managerial skills. By this time, Stormy had become an extreme advocate for cannabis as medicine, so she viewed joining High Times as an opportunity “to blow the horn and spread a word” about Medical Cannabis.
When she joined them as CEO, she made it clear that it would have to be a short-term appointment as she would most likely be running for office in Utah. She was with them for only about six months, as COVID lengthened the time she spent there.
Stormy has always regarded Utah as her home. As a US citizen, she feels she has the right to make her voice heard. She is not a fan of the Utah state legislature overriding anybody’s vote. They do tend to go back on legislation and change and adjust, as happened with Medicaid expansion, cannabis, and the food tax.
She also feels that there is a great need for more women in the Utah legislature – out of more than 100 representatives, only 26 are women. She feels that greater diversity in the legislature will contribute very much to the collective good.
Stormy is happy that Utah has cannabis as a medicine. She understands that this is a significant step in the right direction towards making Medical Cannabis available to everybody who needs it.
Regarding the huge effort and expense that went into drafting the legislation and having Utah vote on it, simply to have that vote disregarded and a compromise bill enacted, she sees this as deeply reprehensible. Having people vote on and accept one bill, and then enacting a compromise bill, was not only untruthful, but it was also insulting to the people of Utah. Utahns are smart enough to make decisions and smart enough to understand what it means when they vote, “Yes”. Their vote should be respected.
Stormy points out that the vote has not been decided yet, and that she is running as a Democrat in a strongly Republican state. She has been outspoken about her views that she feels strongly about. Mostly she believes in connecting people, and that everyone’s vote is important and meaningful. Everybody should work towards and cooperate for the good of their state.
All her experience tells her that this cooperation towards the collective good is crucial. Setting off on her current journey is the hardest thing she’s ever done. She’s been attacked and criticized and called names because she put a D next to her name. This has surprised her and makes her sad, not only for Utah, but for America as well because she feels so strongly that people need to get along.
Stormy confirms that VoteStormySimon.com is the website for her campaign. It outlines some of her issues like allowing more nuclear waste to be dumped in Utah, water issues, and inland port issues. She stresses that it’s important that citizens get involved. She also has another website, StormySimon.com that includes her podcast, Lunch with Stormy, where she speaks with many diverse people from various fields.
Cannabis is medicine and it’s important that people talk about it because it breaks down the stigma. Studies in Israel have highlighted its many benefits. The more people talk about Medical Cannabis, the less people will be scared of it, and be open to its many life-changing medical benefits.
The people who will be featured or have already been featured on her podcasts include Tommy Chong, Sarah Riggs Amico, Lennox Samuels, Dee Dee Sorvino, and Emily White, amongst others.
She just wants to urge people to be kind. She feels there’s room for all of us here. She believes we need to show more love and understanding and not so much hate just because of who we vote for. Stormy wants people to have more peace, love, and happiness in their lives.
Tim can be reached here at utahmarijuana.org where they just launched a new chat feature and they have people standing by during the day to answers questions.
Chris can be found on his I Am Salt Lake Podcast website where you can hear about local foodie people and the impact of COVID on local eateries.
We’re excited to announce that we’ve partnered with Zion Medicinal to bring you a brand-new educational video series, Discover Marijuana with Tim & Blake. We’ve worked hard to bring facts and information to the people who need it most: Medical Cannabis patients. Consider your hosts, Tim Pickett, a QMP in Utah and founder of Utahmarijuana.org, and Blake Smith, Chief Scientific Officer of Zion Medicinal, your science guides. They’ll bring you the facts, you just sit back, relax, and learn all you’ve ever wanted to know about cannabis. Our first episode drops very soon, but to hold you over until then, here’s a little taste of what’s to come.
In Utah, Medical Marijuana was only just legalized in March 2020, leaving a lot of Utahns confused and wondering what that really means for them as patients. Well, now you can rest easy, Utah. Meet Tim and Blake. In this preview, Tim will help you break down the benefits of marijuana as medical treatment, providing special insight as a medical provider.
Looking for a more in-depth, behind the scenes explanation of WHY this all works? We’ve got you covered there, too. Blake Smith, Chief Scientific Officer of Zion Medicinal, will get into the science of it all. He’ll discuss marijuana chemistry and get into the nitty-gritty of how marijuana works with a patient’s endocannabinoid system to treat and manage a variety of medical conditions.
When it comes to marijuana, for beginners especially, you’ve got to throw out almost everything you’ve ever known about medication. Medical 
Marijuana is a whole new ballgame. With the recent legalization of Medical Marijuana in Utah, many lifelong users were left wondering how to adjust their usage to adhere to the law, and many newbies were just wondering where in the world to start. In this preview, Blake gives you an idea of what cannabis compounds to look for when purchasing your CBD or THC products, and which to completely avoid.
Here’s a cannabis pro tip: Tim will almost always recommend CBD for beginners of Medical Marijuana treatment, to combat the possible “too high” feeling that you may experience as your body adjusts to the THC. You’ll want to store this away for later.
In Utah, marijuana is used by patients medicinally to treat chronic pain ailments more than any other condition — over 65% more Utah patients use marijuana for pain than the next most common qualifying condition in Utah, PTSD.
Tim treats hundreds of chronic pain patients in his clinic, Utah Therapeutic Health Center. You can catch him in this preview covering things from a patient/provider point of view to help you understand the many factors that influence a Medical Cannabis provider’s decision to recommend some patients at one dose, and some at another. From a science standpoint, catch Blake touching specifically on cannabis strains available in Utah, as well as the types of Medical Marijuana to most successfully treat your chronic pain, or whatever your medical condition may be.
Our first full-length episode launches next week — we can barely herb our enthusiasm. Be sure to subscribe to the Discover Marijuana YouTube channel to catch the entire series. You can also find Discover Marijuana with Tim & Blake here, with episodes being posted weekly, or on Zion Medicinal’s website. We hope you enjoy what we’ve created for you. Thanks for watching!
