Utah Therapeutic Health Center founder Tim Pickett, PA-C provides two important Medical Cannabis updates in this bonus episode of Utah in the Weeds.
Tim talks about Uplift, UT THC’s new patient subsidy program, which aims to expand access to Medical Cannabis for patients facing financial challenges. The goal with Uplift is to raise enough money to subsidize the clinic costs for Medical Cannabis evaluations for at least 10 patients each month.
UT THC and its partners—Deseret Wellness, Beehive Farmacy, WholesomeCo, and Zion Medicinal—will match each donation to Uplift, multiplying those donations by six. Donation matching is capped at $1,000/month for each partner.
The second update Tim talks about is a new regulation from the Utah Department of Health, which makes a Medical Cannabis patient’s 90-day follow-up appointment optional. Although our complimentary 90-day visit is no longer mandatory, UT THC still recommends one for new patients as it helps them dial in their cannabis therapy.
Tim Pickett:
Welcome everybody out to Utah in the Weeds. I am your host, Tim Pickett, and this is a podcast about cannabis, medical cannabis, and cannabis culture here in Utah and beyond. Thank you for subscribing to the podcast on any podcast player that you get your podcasts delivered on. Be sure to stay tuned on, Discover Marijuana on YouTube as well. The channel name is, Discover Marijuana, it’s a great place to get educational video content about cannabis, cannabis strains, different conditions, delivery forms, all of that stuff. We post our podcast not only to the podcast players, but also on YouTube. There’s a couple of podcasts that have some video and you can watch those, or you can listen there on YouTube on Discover Marijuana. Also, we post these podcasts in transcript form as well as a summary on Utahmarijuana.org/podcast. Again, Utahmarijuana.org/podcast.
Tim Pickett:
Today’s episode is a short one. It’s a couple of serious, I think, updates that you should be aware of, especially if you’re are involved or want to get involved in this medical cannabis program here in Utah. A thank you and an announcement, to get right to it, that we’re going to be taking a little bit of a break for a couple of weeks through the holiday season with Utah in the Weeds, so it’ll give you a chance to catch up on previous episodes and check out the Discover Marijuana YouTube, and make some comments and questions and get ready for the new year.
Tim Pickett:
The first announcement that I’d like to talk about is Uplift. Uplift is our subsidy program for the Utah medical cannabis program, so to speak. It’s a really special program and it was designed and implemented by one of our own at Utah Therapeutic Health Center. Lissa Reed has really championed this program, put it together, and we are just a part of it. Let me explain the Uplift subsidy program.
Tim Pickett:
One of the big complaints that patients and people throughout the state have been really targeting this program with is that it’s too costly for patients to access medical cannabis. One of those complaints has been around provider fees and evaluation fees. For example, at Utah Therapeutic Health Center, it’s a $250 office visit fee to have an evaluation and create that scenario where you can be evaluated for a medical cannabis patient. There have been a lot of reports that people are charging between 300 and even up to $600 for those evaluations. Now, I worked in a specialty medical service where our office visit fee was $320 for a new patient visit. That’s where this comes from, all offices, all medical clinics charge a fee. Most of them that you are familiar with is the copay. The office will bill the insurance the full price, and the patient will then be responsible for the copay. That makes a very nice system. It does not make the evaluation any less cost, somebody has to pay. You, really, the consumer or the patient really end up paying through that insurance premium that you pay. Regardless of all of that, it’s expensive. A lot of people don’t have an HSA or a health savings account to make those payments.
Tim Pickett:
In order to get access to medical cannabis here, there are some really strict guidelines for medicine and medical review, things like that, so there’s this fee. Like I say, a lot of people can’t afford that, so Uplift comes into play. It is a patient donation matching program. We have established a landing page and a information page at utahmarijuana.org/uplift. You can go there and you can learn about this Uplift program and even make an online donation. When patients come into our clinic or online, they can make an additional small donation, say it’s a dollar, say it’s $4.20 cents, that’s a popular donation amount, a fun amount there. When you donate $4.20 cents, then Utah Therapeutic Health Center matches that $4.20 cents. Deseret Wellness matches it. Zion Medicinal matches it. Beehive Zone Pharmacy matches it. WholesomeCo out of Bountiful matches it. Now you have a six X donation and you started out with $4.20 cents. Now you ended up with six times that amount.
Tim Pickett:
All of that money gets put towards clinic evaluations for patients, patients who are eligible, terminally ill patients, and patients with low income. For now, right now, those patients, we needed a very objective way to establish income levels and so Medicaid in Utah, because that’s a program that services low income individuals here in Utah, Medicaid eligibility is a good place to start. That application, again, goes up on December 20th for patients to apply to get their medical cannabis screening and evaluation education, all of that clinical side covered through the Uplift program. Shout out to these partners, again, I’m going to mention them. WholesomeCo out of Bountiful, Beehive Zone Pharmacy out of West Salt Lake West Valley, Deseret Wellness, Provo and in Park City, and Zion Medicinal, where you can find those products in any of those pharmacies. Again, those partners are key, really, because it’s a pool of those funds in order to help these patients in need. Nobody else is really doing this in a transparent way. All of this is very transparent on our website, on that page where you can see how much patient donations we’ve had and how much matching money we’ve had. We are going to make sure that all of that money goes into seeing patients who absolutely need access to medical cannabis.
Tim Pickett:
I do think it’s a little ironic that you have a program that was designed for terminally ill and low income individuals in a lot of ways, and they have had trouble accessing the product and accessing the clinical services. Hopefully this puts a real dent in that discrepancy in the program, where we need to get access for people for, for everybody. That’s Uplift. Stay tuned, we’ll have more information on that as we go. We’ll announce every month how much money we’ve donated, how many people we’ve helped. Every month that’ll be up to date.
Tim Pickett:
The second thing that I want to talk about is this 90 day renewal. There was a legislative change last legislative session in 2020, go back and listen to the hour episode with Rich Oborn, on the legislative updates. Part of those updates was that the 90 day evaluation was going away. What I mean by that is every patient who needs a medical cannabis card in Utah is going to get their initial evaluation and recommendation, their initial card was good for 90 days. 90 days after their initial card was issued, it would expire and they needed to chat with a medical provider and have a renewal of that medical card. This was an opportunity for providers to check in with the patient, make sure they were doing okay. Check in and making sure the dosing and delivery options that were available to the patient were fine. Really, a good, I thought in my opinion, this was a good idea, but what happened originally was this was… To go even back further in time, this was actually a 30 day requirement, but 30 days didn’t seem to work very logistically. It just was too fast to get a patient a card and then 30 days later have to follow up with them. Too much. Just really, it was really hard for patients and providers and it didn’t really work out, so they moved it to 90 days.
Tim Pickett:
Here’s what happened. A lot of providers in these medical card clinics were charging upfront for their fee and then charging for the 90 day, and then six months later charging for the six month visit. Then of course, again, charging and charging. That 90 day just didn’t seem fair to have patients pay. There was some advocating done on behalf of Utah patients and whether it’s good or bad or ugly, they removed the requirement for the 90 day in the statute. Problem with that one was the EVS system had to be upgraded and changed in order to make the software work, and that took a little while longer than the Department of Health had anticipated. That’s ready to go now and going to be launched.
Tim Pickett:
If you got your card yesterday, the day before this was implemented, then you would get a 90 day expiration. You would then check in with your QMP and you would have a renewal. You would pay $5 for that renewal at the state. If your QMP charged for that visit, then you’d have to pay that. If your QMP… like, we don’t for that 90 day, you would not have to pay. At that point in time, you would get an additional six month card. From your original card to the time you actually needed to see a QMP on telemedicine or in person would be a total of nine months.
Tim Pickett:
Now let’s say you get your card tomorrow, and there is no 90 day. You get your card today. It’s issued by the Department of Health and the expiration date is now six months away. There’s no 90 day. There’s no three month interval for the original, the first card. They’ve just eliminated that entire thing, and they’ve just made your first card last six months. After that six months, your card is going to be renewed and issued for an additional six months. At that 12 month mark, you can then be evaluated and the QMP can make a determination at that point. Once you have had a card for 12 months, you can have a renewal for up to one year based on that QMP’s recommendation.
Tim Pickett:
Now, a lot of states have an annual renewal period for their medical cannabis programs. I support that as a QMP and a medical cannabis specialist. I think a year is reasonable for people who are stable on their dosing and delivery. They understand it. They’re not intimidated anymore. They’re not changing their medications all of the time, or through this time, and a one year renewal period is reasonable, especially because you’re having to pay for these visits. I just don’t know that it’s fair to have a patient come in… In fact, I’ll tell you straight up, it’s not fair to have a patient come in more frequently just so you as a provider can make more money. That’s unethical. You really, as a provider, we have to do these things based on what is best for the patient, not what is best for our car payment and our income. That’s me on my soapbox a little bit, but that’s just ethical medical behavior. I think providers would agree. Again, you get a card yesterday in Utah, you’re going to be issued a three month card. At that renewal you’re going to be issued another six months there. Tomorrow, you get issued a card, there is no 90 day window. You’re going to be issued a card and that initial card is going to be good for six months.
Tim Pickett:
What about these people who are right in this window? Let’s say I go to a place and they charge for the 90 day, and I saw them on Wednesday when the 90 day was still in place. Well, there you go. You’re going to have to pay that 90 day renewal fee in order to get that card renewed. They’re just turning it off on the day. Whatever day they implement this, the cards will just be issued for six months, just like that. There’s no going back. There’s no changing in anything. It’s a very straightforward way to do this. There is some advantages, I guess, to being involved in the non-90 day window, just getting into a six month card. That is, you’re going to be quicker, you’re three months ahead to go to that annual visit, you’re three months ahead. You can get it at 12 months instead of waiting a total of 15 months to get that annual renewal. That’s good news.
Tim Pickett:
For patients of ours, at Utah Therapeutic Health Center, you’re not going to really have much… You won’t see much change in our services. We’re still going to check in with patients at 90 days. You know why? Because it’s the right thing to do, in my opinion. I’m the medical director, I’m the one who’s making those decisions, and we’re going to check in with all of our patients at that 90 day. We want to make sure that that medication is working. We want to make sure that you are having access to the products that help you feel better, that you’re reducing your other medication use. Like I say, I think if your provider offers a 90 day check-in for free, then absolutely take it. Treat this like medicine and be involved with providers who are helping you just like they’d help any other of their patients.
Tim Pickett:
That is the second update for the podcast today, is that 90 day going away here in Utah.
Tim Pickett:
Next is holiday updates. We had a tremendous success in November about our YouTube giveaway program. We gave away a PAX complete kit, we gave away tons of product, tons of medicine with our partners. We doubled our subscribers on the YouTube channel. It was phenomenal. I didn’t know that you could be so active as a community, so thank you. Thank you for that. I’m glad we’re reaching more people.
Tim Pickett:
Stay tuned to Utah in the Weeds. In the future we’ll have more guests. I love this podcast. It’s become very near and dear to my heart as far as the project goes. I learn a lot. If you have somebody who you feel like would be a good guest, or if you want to come on the podcast, reach out to us. No question we would love to have you. We’d love to hear your stories. Specifically, I think next year, you can look for more podcast guests around the DEA and opioid prescribing, and digging into how to mix medicine. Why are there not a lot of providers who are doing medication management and cannabis? What is it about the DEA that restricts cannabis, or how about this opioid epidemic? Is it getting better as cannabis expands in the US? What does it look like from a federal legislation standpoint? Where are we at with that?
Tim Pickett:
Of course, there’ll be legislative updates in the spring when the legislative session gets going. We also are going to have a special report about secondary conditions on the podcast. That is going to share some data that we’re collecting on you, anonymously. Your anonymous responses to how you are using medical cannabis, not only for your qualifying condition, but for other conditions that you may have. Because we know patients are using it for some mental health issues, anxiety and depression specifically are just very common secondary uses for people to use medical cannabis. There’ll be a lot more discussion on that in the new year. Hopefully we can expand the listenership and, expand and expand people who are helped and informed by the podcast.
Tim Pickett:
Lots of words there. I’m Tim Pickett. Thanks for subscribing. Again, Discover Marijuana on YouTube, reach out, comment on any of those videos. Be sure you’re subscribed to the podcast on any podcast player that you have access to.
Tim Pickett:
Shout out to Chris Holifield. Thanks, Chris. Merry Christmas to you. No question, you started us off and could not have done this without you. Chris is involved in real estate and as I like to call him, he’s the Reefer Realtor. If you have any real estate needs, then absolutely Chris Holifield should be your first call.
Tim Pickett:
Thanks everybody. Stay safe out there.
Episode 82 of Utah in the Weeds features Cody James, Industrial Hemp and Medical Cannabis Program Manager for the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food.
UDAF is one of the two testing facilities helping to ensure the quality and safety of Medical Cannabis products sold in the Beehive State. We started this episode with a quick overview of UDAF’s role in overseeing the agricultural aspects of Industrial Hemp and Medical Cannabis in Utah. [02:41]
Cody has been working for UDAF for about 16 years. He told us about his job as Program Manager and how he ended up in that role. [03:33]
Part of UDAF’s job with the Medical Cannabis program is conducting compliance checks. This means making sure each of Utah’s cannabis grow facilities employ certified agents and maintains a clean environment. [08:06]
Cody told us about Utah’s Medical Cannabis safety standards, the testing and approval process, and some of the challenges that have arisen since the program launched. [09:34]
Host Tim Pickett asked Cody about the amount of cannabis flower reserved for testing. Some people have raised concerns that the amount of flower reserved for testing in Utah is too high, and it makes less cannabis available for end consumers. Cody says this may have been an issue in the early days of the Medical Cannabis program, but it isn’t a problem now. [13:25]
The COVID-19 pandemic led to a global shortage of pipettes, which are needed for Medical Cannabis testing. Cody talked about the workarounds testing facilities in Utah have used during the shortage. [16:05]
Many people have wondered about the lack of terpene profile information on Medical Cannabis products. Cody says the state laboratory has the equipment necessary for measuring terpenes, but, due to the sheer number of terpenes, it isn’t practical to test for each one. [20:08]
If another testing facility were to open, UDAF’s role in Medical Cannabis would change. At that point, UDAF would take more of a regulatory role, and conduct spot-testing and further analysis for products that don’t meet Utah’s standards. [21:37]
The conversation shifted to the controversy surrounding delta-8-tetrahydrocannabinol, a synthetically-produced analog of delta-9 THC. Utah allows local producers to make Delta-8 products as long as they have a purity of at least 95%. [23:27]
Cody says UDAF doesn’t anticipate requesting any major changes to the Medical Cannabis program next year, but there are some minor issues to address. These include the debate on whether or not sugar can be used in making “gelatinous cubes,” Utah’s version of cannabis gummies. [33:33]
Tim asked about UDAF’s position on allowing Medical Cannabis patients to grow their own medicine, which currently isn’t allowed by law. Cody says UDAF hasn’t really discussed the issue, and their focus has been on keeping up with the current demands of the program. [35:44]
Next, Tim and Cody talked about the future of the industrial hemp industry in Utah. Cody says hemp has a number of promising uses in the construction industry. These include hemp-based concrete and lumber substitutes. [37:52]
Cody wanted to emphasize that anyone is welcome to reach out to his team with any questions or concerns about cannabis in Utah. He says his team is always a busy one, but they’re very good about responding to emails and phone calls. [42:39]
Tim Pickett:
Welcome everybody out to episode 82 of Utah in the Weeds, a podcast about Medical Cannabis, cannabis culture in Utah. Today’s episode is with Cody James, the manager at the Utah Department of Agriculture. He’s over the hemp side and well, as the Medical Cannabis side. The Utah Department of Agriculture is one of two laboratories in Utah that are doing the testing for your medical cannabis products, tinctures flower, concentrates, the Delta eight controversy that’s in the market right now and they have been dealing with, we talk about that in this podcast. So stay tuned, enjoy this episode with Cody James.
Tim Pickett:
From a housekeeping perspective, I want everybody to know about our patient subsidy program called Uplift. This is a donation matching program where we’re taking patients or anyone’s donations. You can donate online at utahmarijuana.org/uplift, utahmarijuana.org/uplift. When you donate, your donation is matched by our partners, Beehive, Wholesome, Deseret Wellness and Utah Therapeutic Health Center. So you are maximizing your donation and all of that money, all of that money is going towards patient, evaluations and getting patients that are terminally ill or low income access to Medical Cannabis in the program. We have a great start. We launched it this week. We’ve had an enormous amount of support already from patients in our clinics, and we think this is going to help a lot of people. We’ll keep you updated on how that program is going throughout the next few weeks and months, but we’re very excited about Uplift.
Tim Pickett:
Utah and the Weeds. I’m Tim Pickett, I’m your host. You can reach out to us on Discover Marijuana on YouTube. Comment on any of those videos with questions and that’s a great way to get ahold of me. Subscribe to Utah in the Weeds on any podcast player that you have access to. Just go ahead and stay up to date. Subscribe on the YouTube channel. Come see us at Utah Therapeutic Health Center, one of our six locations from Cedar City to Ogden. And enjoy this conversation with Cody James from the Utah Department of Agriculture. This is Utah in the Weeds. Somebody from the Department of Ag and you’re the guy and I mean, you get a little crap.
Cody James:
We’re the underbelly, so [inaudible 00:02:52] that guy’s, the ones who don’t get seen a lot. And I mean, when I say that we’re not really the public view of the medical cannabis industry in Utah, we’re on the ground with the producers. And there’s a lot of things that do fall onto our lap, but from our standpoint, being that down there in the dirt, we’re the ones that are making sure that that product is safe and is going out according to the regulations. So we’re probably not the prettiest group to deal with on asset, but we think we’re pretty important based that way. So we understand that we may not always get the best or have the best view for things, but it seems to go well anyway.
Tim Pickett:
So Cody James, what’s your role in the Department of Ag. I mean, how did you get here?
Cody James:
It’s a great question. So I’m currently, I’m the manager of the Industrial Hemp and Medical Cannabis Program. So overseeing both the Department of Ag portions of industrial hemp, which includes growers and processors as well as product and retailers. And then obvious similar to the medical cannabis side where we’re overseeing the growers and processors and the products that’s being made there, and we also regulate the labs on that side.
Cody James:
Really I’ve been with the department for about 16 years. Made my name, I guess, within the department 10, 12 years ago as an inspector/investigator for another division where I took on some things that no one else wanted to take on and was able to do a pretty good job out of, I guess. And so it caught the eye of the bosses and they wanted to move me up to some other positions where I was running programs or fixing programs, things like that. And just kept going, and this came up and there’s the opportunity that they needed someone with that type of experience to come in with at the time. Drew was here with us and he had a lot of industry knowledge and was getting things running, but they also needed someone to make sure that I guess, knew what the red tape was, the government red tape that needed to happen to make sure was writing rules, policies, things that way. And so I get the put in there to do that. And it’s still ongoing work, but that’s where we’re at.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah, from the medical cannabis side, when did that start for the Department of Ag?
Cody James:
I think that there was actually conversations going on as early as 2017 as things started popping up out in the public and the Prop 2 things, even before that. And this was before my time in this program, but I know there’s a lot of discussions that way. I’m obviously after Prop 2 and then going to the special session in December 201`8-
Tim Pickett:
2018.
Cody James:
Yeah. That’s when that got put onto the Department of Ag producers side and they started down that road and I came over in about May 2019.
Tim Pickett:
The Department of Agriculture is responsible, essentially, this is what I view it as, and tell me if I’m wrong. I view the Department of Agriculture as the people who. You’ve got a license grower, you’ve got to monitor them seed to sale, essentially. That’s essentially your job is the product from the time it goes in the ground to the time it gets sold on the shelf. And then all of this testing stuff. I mean, you were the only game in town up until, was it even this year? You were the only lab.
Cody James:
Yeah. We actually, the other lab, we do have two, one is obviously ours and the other is a third party, independent lab. They have been in just a little bit longer in the year, because we did in the last couple months, do a renewal for their license there. But, overall you’re right. I mean, it’s our job. And the way we look at it here is that our job is to make sure that the product that is being shipped, the pharmacies is safe. There’s the criteria that was spelled out in statute that talks about that and really trying to make sure that the medical cannabis product in Utah is as close to following the medical guidelines for any other kind of pharmaceutical product out there. And so that’s where the testing and that aspect comes in.
Cody James:
And so, like I said, we think that our job is, that’s the number on priority, is that that product that is safe and it’s being grown and harvested safely and correctly, as best as they can, but mostly safely at the growers. And then as it transfers over and as you mentioned, we do the seed to sale, but then the processes and the facility and everything at the processors is safe and how they’re manufacturing the product is safe as well. So hopefully there’s not a lot of concern to have those tests, but then we do make sure that we regulate, I guess from our side, we don’t do the testing in my office, but when a test does fail, we’re the ones who have to step in and make sure that it doesn’t go to the market until it’s been remediated or we can prove that it’s safe. And so, as I mentioned it, we think for sure that our number one job is to make sure that it’s safe product going forward. And that also includes making sure that it’s certified agents that are in there doing the job, that the facilities are safe, don’t have mice running around and they’re cleaning their equipment when they’re supposed to. So kind of all-encompassing to make sure that we do get to that point of safe product.
Tim Pickett:
Is the Department of Ag involved in any other medicine testing or is cannabis really the only consume or medical product that you guys are involved in testing?
Cody James:
So the Department of Ag does test a lot of different aspects from meat, dairy products. They do some other type of chemical testing. Exactly what else they do and what all that encompasses. So I know they do some antibiotic testing and things like that, but mostly in animals and things. But for the most part, what we do this type of testing at the Department of Agriculture is just set for cannabis. And then also hemp testing. We do the same type of full panel testing on some of the hemp products that we need to bring in and do some, either research or an investigation on. But really the rules were written right close to what other pharmaceutical products are, and that’s how they follow up. But as you mentioned, it’s all that… I’m aware of for sure, is medical cannabis on a day-to-day basis.
Tim Pickett:
So talk to me a little bit about safety, because it’s been… I mean, we could spend all day on it and we can get into all these little nuances of stuff that’s come up and all these additives and chemical byproducts and that sort of thing. But does the standards, talking about the standards, do the standards get set by your group or do the standards get set by the statute or the standards get set by industry? Who decides how much? How much contamination is allowed or who decides that stuff?
Cody James:
Yeah. And so some of the standards did give the Department of Agricultural rulemaking authority and the statute to come up with those, what we did is really look at pharmaceutical aspects of it. Have also our state chemist, Brandon Forsyth was actually brought in initially just for cannabis to help us get that aspect of it. So between him and people like Blake, as you mentioned, they talked about where that needs to be. People have a lot better background in that, in the chemistry aspect of things than I do. But there was a lot of back and forth on exactly, but a lot of it also was based on what pharmacies or what pharmaceutical products need to have as well. And so was at least a standpoint or at least a starting point with it.
Cody James:
And there’s been a few changes and also there’s been some force changes based from COVID for instance. I mean, trying to get supplies a lot of time. And so we try really hard to make sure our labs have all the equipment that they need, but during COVID, sometimes there’s pipettes that couldn’t come, because everybody’s using them for testing. There’s also the aspect that as we took a look at it initially, the law was set up, so you had to test medical cannabis at the cultivator. And then again at the processor, his final product. And so we was doubling up on tests. And so after talking to industry and looking at it and talking internally, we were able to get the law change to allow the department really to have a little bit more wiggle room, to move test forward and mostly based on the cost. I mean, those tests aren’t cheap, they’re pretty expensive. And so now we allow tests to happen depending on if it’s going to be a flower product or if it’s going to be extracted product, maybe just once before it gets to the processor and then only for a couple of tests as final products. So it’s not going to have to get the full sweet twice in hopes to kind of lower the cost.
Tim Pickett:
Reduce cost, and get that throughput a little bit better and get products to market.
Cody James:
And we felt like after the research that we could still do a good job of, of making sure that the quality assurance is being met in that way. And so far, I think we have. I think that the testing aspect of it is a success because we have found some issues where we’ve had to put holds on, on products, whether it’s flower, extracted material and get with the producer and say, “No. You can’t move this anymore. How are you going to remediate?” Things like that. And then and after that, all of them are good. Nobody wants something that’s going to make somebody sick and aftermarket. It’s in everybody’s best interest, obviously first and foremost, health-wise for the public, but from the business standpoint on their mind.
Cody James:
And so, like I said, I think we’ve ran close to over 4,000 samples in 2021. Something only like 65 tests have failed. And so those are 65 times that we’ve had to contact a producer, but all the time we have a system worked out now where they let us know, “Okay. It’s on hold. We want to remediate it this way. We approve it.” And then very rarely do we ever see something fail a second time.
Tim Pickett:
Talking about like flower, everybody is fascinated with, and there’s been some discussion that you take… Man, the department of act takes so much of our flower for testing. We have 50 pounds and they got to take a whole pound or something like that. It’s just such a high amount. Has that changed or is that true? Is that even true? I mean, do you have to take so much that it decreases the amount in the market?
Cody James:
I don’t think it decreases the amount in the market. I think maybe early on it did. That first year when everything was just starting, I think that there wasn’t a real lot that was being produced anyway. And so anything you took out the top or took out of any harvest was going to hurt, be felt when people were only using 800 square feet to grow and just getting started. And especially when the product first or the industry just first got off the ground, and there wasn’t really a lot of processors that were doing extracted products, either it was almost all flower and there was very few of it while the [inaudible 00:14:30] growers got up and running. But now we’re seeing with the amount of grows and both indoor and outdoor that we’re not hearing those same concerns on that.
Cody James:
The other thing to keep in mind, and again, this goes back to, we’ve got chemists and people who are involved that deal with that stuff a lot. And I know have a lot more knowledge than I do about it, but there’s seven different tests. We’re testing not only for cannabinoid profiles, but heavy metals, pesticides, microbials, all kinds of different things that takes a little bit more time. And you have to break some of it down to test for some of them and some of the other ones you have to test break down a different way. So I can see that anytime someone comes in and takes 10 grams or something, it probably seems a lot, especially if you have a lower production side. But on the other side with some of our growers having two and a half acres outdoor, or a 100,000 square feet they’re growing that they’re harvesting, it’s probably not as much. It’s probably relative, I guess, would be the better way to say it.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah. In the beginning, it seemed like that was a complaint that I heard once in a while even from the growers. They’re like, “Oh, well, the Department of Ag is going to take however much of this.” And you’re right, at the time they didn’t have as much overall. And now don’t ever hear that. I don’t ever hear that complaint because heavens are 50,000 pounds of dry flower hanging somewhere and they’re going to extract it a little bit of testing material is not that big of a deal.
Tim Pickett:
Another question [inaudible 00:16:11] was there ever a time during COVID now with the supply chain problems that you had to reduce the number of tests for flower products? Specifically, you mentioned the pipettes, because I know on some of the COAs, it was said, well, because of a global shortage of pipettes, we’ve not done certain testing. Where is that at? That particular piece was surprising to me, and I don’t know what products were affected or not affected. What do you think about this?
Cody James:
Yeah. And I could talk a little bit about it because again, it’s something that’s a lot of times over my head, but they’re right. So because we never really stopped doing all the testing, what we did is make it, because we had such a small supply of what we did need, that we would do visual tests for microbials and things like that and probably a little bit more than just visual tests to run the tests they could. And if there was a need to run the full scale based on what they found in those initial tests, they would. But if everything checked out and in the national test and they wouldn’t necessarily go down any further, just because, like I said, we was running out of ability to run those tests. So we tried to do it on more basis.
Cody James:
So what the department had to do, and it took going to, now it wasn’t just something that was just decided here in my shop or with the Dr. Forsyth. It was more, hey, well, we have to have a meeting with the commissioner. Have to get approval from the governor’s office and put it in an emergency rule to say that you don’t have to have to do this testing all the time for this reason.
Cody James:
And that’s the reason because I mean, one of the number one things is I mentioned, we think the most important thing that we do is make sure that safe product is getting out there. But right close to that, and even more so at the beginning was making sure that product gets to the patients. In order for this program, for this industry to be successful, we’ve got to make sure they’re doing that, that the product’s getting to the patients. And so we try to, especially early on was like, hey, we got to do everything we have to, we got to work as fast as we can. We got to still make sure it’s safe, but we also don’t want to stand in the way of getting it to the patients.
Cody James:
And that still is the same thing here. We want to make sure it gets there. And we didn’t want to shut down the entire program because we couldn’t get something like pipettes. And as we talked about it, we still had ways that we thought was able to catch any quality assurance concerns if there was any there. And as I’m not aware of anybody being sick because of quality assurance, standard problems
Tim Pickett:
Yeah, that was going to be my next question really, is that are you aware of anybody who’s had a negative outcome? And I don’t know. In my experience with patients, I don’t know of anybody with a negative, like they were admitted to the hospital for some type of infection that potentially would’ve been caught with that test. There isn’t any cases of that out there. Certainly a little bit of public awareness and transparency.
Tim Pickett:
And I think what’s important, to me, it’s nice to hear that it’s not just, well, we didn’t have these pipettes, so we got approval to not do the tests. It’s actually, it’s nice for me to hear, well, we didn’t have the pipettes so what we did was we went to the chemists and we went to our group and we said, hey, how can we keep this safe but keep this moving forward right now.
Tim Pickett:
And that part of it, I think, is a problem for the Department of Agriculture and frankly, the Department of Health in that you’re doing things on the background that people don’t see. And it’s not like you have this ability to this marketing team or something to push out all this info. Oh yeah, by the way, everybody, we did this instead, while we’re working through the process.
Tim Pickett:
The other question that comes up with the Department of Agriculture all the time is the testing of what you do test for and what you don’t test for. So many people want you to test for more. They want you to test for the entire cannabinoid profile plus the entire terpene profile. And we don’t do that in Utah.
Cody James:
So there was an addition to the statue and for some terpene testing. And I’m not sure that we can test for all, but what we can test for is the majority of them that they let us know is in there. So we can give some profiles on that type of situation. There’s such a number of terpenes and stuff and trying to find the standards still at the chemistry. And again, these are probably better questions for Dr. Forsyth than myself, but I was talking to him about that, because we get those questions as well as hey, we want to put this on the label and the requirement is if you’re going to put it on the label, then you have to have had to talking about terpenes and any cannabinoids. Well, it has to be tested for and have that profile or that percentage on there and that’s what we’ve been asked for. And we’ve been able to get to that point at our lab and make sure that we’re testing for those things that they’re telling us about to test for. But trying to catch it at all on the terpene side, I don’t think we have that ability to just do a broad test and catch every terpene that might possibly be in there.
Tim Pickett:
Right. Yeah, I mean there’s hundreds and hundreds and terpenes and I don’t know. Will the Department of Ag get out of the testing of cannabis, Medical Cannabis eventually when there’s more labs? You guys get removed.
Cody James:
You’re right. Yeah, if we could ever get to two labs, then our lab will actually step back and just more take that regulatory aspect where we’ll be double-checking the other labs on occasion, make sure that it looks like those results are correctly. And then if we have any complaints or investigations where we might need to go and do some testing that, that our lab will do that aspect of it. But until we can get that second lab, our lab’s stuck doing a good amount of the sample testing for cannabis right now.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah. I’ve talked to a couple of other people who run labs and they’ve said, well, the market’s just pretty small and the cost of the investment to create a lab to do this is pretty high. And without the one thing is if you’re the second lab to come in or you’re the first lab to come in, it’s one thing. But let’s say there’s two more to come in and now there’s three, is the market big enough to support that? and so far it seems like it’s just not that.
Cody James:
Right. And we talked to industry about that, especially groups that have a lot of knowledge about the industry during this the last couple years. And so one of the things that was brought to us was maybe if you capped a number of labs as well, that might help to say that you may not have to worry that there’s going to be such a small part of the market that if we only… So I think we capped it at four labs and hoping that maybe one or two would still want to jump in there. But yeah, so far I think that the market is still too small for them to want to invest that millions and millions of dollars in the equipment and the building and just do that, just do Medical Cannabis.
Tim Pickett:
Sure. Okay, so we’ve got a few questions for… And I want to get into this, honestly. We’ve got to get into this Delta-8 and this thing a little bit because everybody’s going to want to know what Cody James says about the Delta-8 thing. But what do you think we can expect in 2022? And do you think that we’re going to get another grow license? I mean with nine or something like that, what do you see happening?
Cody James:
Yeah. So first on the Delta-9 there, I mean, and most everybody probably saw the articles a couple months ago about Delta-8 and the concern for safety and things and then we had to several meetings about that. On the Medical Cannabis side, we put in place or the legislature put in place that there’s a need for, if you’re going to have Delta-8 or any other THC analogs other than Delta-9 and any products that it has to meet a purity level of 95%. Which again, this is more chemistry stuff, but in my understanding is that most pharmaceutical side of things, it’s a purity of 90%. But we actually increase it up to 95% and talking to people like Blake, they’re happy about that. That’s what he tells me all the time we’re glad. We know we can meet it.
Cody James:
And what that 95% purity means is that as you’re taking CBD or whatever, and converting to Delta-8, sometimes if there’s some different things that could be made, some different type of chemical byproducts there-
Tim Pickett:
Yeah, chemical byproducts, right?
Cody James:
So that 95% purity test shows that if 95% of the cannabinoids are pure in there, that the stuff that we recognize that those are not just some outlier that we don’t know what it is, or maybe even scary, sometimes we do what it is and it’s not good, then that passes quality assurance testing on that. And so we feel that the Delta-8 aspect from everything, and there’s going to be tons of research going on for a long time, but we feel like it has a place here. I think that Delta-8 is helping a lot of patients as I talked to some of the industry members such as Blake, such as folks from standard and a lot of different pharmacies. Delta-8 is popular. And I think as long as we are making sure that it’s safe that way, through that 95% purity level, that it has a place in the market and probably should be, along with anything else that starts to come down the line that we’ll have to figure out how we deal with as it comes.
Tim Pickett:
Is the Department of Ag… Then there’s this secondary issue with Delta-8 and Delta-9 products where there’s this 0.3% cap limit. And there’s these products that are tested in the medical market and then there’s products that are being sold over the counter that have Delta-8 and Delta-9. Is the Department of Ag supposed to be testing these or they’re coming in from out of state and not getting tested by you, so the purity’s different. I guess that’s one question. And then another question is how did we get these 10 milligrams of Delta nine products on the shelf and then and have them allowed?
Cody James:
Yeah. So I guess the first part of your question was how did they get into Utah? Some were out of state, some were and said, there’s a couple of manufacturers from in-state that are making those types of products. It was something that we wanted clarification on during the session last year. Didn’t necessarily happen. And again, talking, we tried to figure out what we could. Because there is that concern about safety, which as I mentioned, those couple of articles are couple of weeks ago that really-
Tim Pickett:
Yeah. A few weeks ago. Yep. And then even the CDC came out and they came out and they’re like, we don’t deal with anything to deal with cannabis, except we’re going to tell you that Delta-8 is dangerous or getting it from a garage chemist is dangerous. That type of fume, right?
Cody James:
And I think that’s where the department is feeling. We want to make sure that things are safe. On the medical side, we have that control on the QA testing that we do, like I said, the 95%. We’re not quite sure what we’re getting on, on that side on the industrial hemp side of it from out of state, from others. We have an ability to go in and test for it, but it’s tough for us to get to all those products and test every single one to do that.
Cody James:
But so the reason why it says that you could have 10 milligrams there and overall, like just put in a large gummy or something like that is the way that the statute and the rule is written right now. It is all about 0.3% THC by dry weight. That’s even talk about products, which initially, and still is mostly talking about USDA’s industrial hemp plant there. And so trying to figure out where the milligrams should be, it sounds like what we’re hearing from other states is that other states are starting to make some changes to do milligrams per packaging or preserving size, things like that to do that. So there’s a, I think a federal, I don’t want to say federal, but a national effort from different states are doing things like that, that we get to be at least participate in and go that way and because we’re always looking to learn something from all these different aspects. And like I said, there’s tons of research and trying to find exactly what is the good research versus maybe something that is not honest and that, and then try and put the best information out there to the decision-makers, the lawmakers and see what they want to do with it.
Tim Pickett:
Because is the Department of Ag stuck in this statute spot where look, if you meet the requirements, then the Department of Agriculture is by basically you can’t deny their ability to put that on the shelf. Is that where you’re at or do you have to work with the Department of Health to adjust what’s allowed? Because it seems to me like, and as the bystander, on the one hand, I’m involved in a medical cannabis advisory group with the pharmacists and a few Q and PS and some industry people. And on our side we are saying, look, we don’t want patients being able to buy a 10 milligram Delta-9 gummy over the counter in a state where we have really restricted that. As a state, we’ve decided that these are dangerous products. They should be allowed only in certain circumstances by certain people. So we believe that. And as a safety thing, we say, shouldn’t be allowed to buy it at Walgreens. But I also am pragmatic and I understand that, well, if the Department of Agriculture is not, you’re tied to the statute and the rule.
Cody James:
Yeah. And we are in a lot of aspects, and this is one of them as well, that if you do meet that criteria, then if the government tells you no, and the rules say that all you have to do is meet this criteria and you will get licensed or you will get a product registered, obviously that would put us in a bad situation, it’d be illegal for us to deny that. So in a good sense, that is where we are, is that it says 0.3%. There’s the argument that USJ industrial hemp law, the 2018 Farm Bill allows for you to take CBD and convert it into Delta-8 and that, so because it’s coming from CBD, it does that. That’s still up in the air. You still have Utah’s drug enforcement code that calls all THC analogs, other than Delta-9 under the Utah medical [inaudible 00:31:04] that it is illegal type of thing.
Cody James:
So it’s like stuff we’re all dealing with there. And again, it was just something that we were trying to get clarification on, and it turned into a lot bigger deal during the session and then we thought it was. We knew it was going to be a big deal, but we didn’t think it was going to lead to what it led to and so we’re still trying to hopefully, not necessarily pushing that, waiting, like I said, to get other states input as well. But you mentioned, the department, we have reached out to [Ritch 00:31:32] and his side and have him start talking to Department of Health, get input from them so we can all be honest. Things like this, we want the state and try and be everybody to be as close to on the same page as you can, because there are two sides to this and it’s a heavy side, but we definitely want to make sure that whatever’s out there safe as I mentioned before. On both sides, industrial hemp, and medical cannabis, we feel that our number one job is to make sure what consumers are buying, whether it’s the patients or just anybody going to a Walgreens yet that it’s safe.
Cody James:
And then that public safety in mind too. I mean, like you mentioned, if you get a gummy with a lot of a pretty high amount of milligrams and then they eat the whole package or something, there could be some effects that are concerning. And all that goes into places. We’re talking both the public safety to our bosses here, to the governor’s office and legislators. It’s stuff that we all want to make sure that we bring as much information to the table to everything really too and let them try and make that decision there after having it.
Tim Pickett:
So do you feel like that’s going to get worked out? I mean, gosh, I think that has to get worked out. There has to be some more clarity on this. It just seems like it doesn’t make sense otherwise.
Cody James:
I think we’re to the point where we’re hoping it does as well. I mean, everything you said, as far as the advisory portion of what you’re doing, those are conversations that I know are happening even at the legislative level. And so I think it’ll still be talked about no matter what. And like you said, the hope is that it gets there because it does put people in at least the department and really, I think the state and a weird predicament on how you handle a couple things. And it would just always be nice to be all the way or all the way out on some things. And what does either side of that mean? Is 0.3 of that or is it a combination of a cumulative total? Just some clarification would be nice on our side.
Tim Pickett:
Other than that clarity. Does the department of agriculture, or you personally want to see some type of changes in the medical cannabis program?
Cody James:
No. Not really. This year, we feel from our side that things are going fairly well. I mean, and it’s things that are getting better. We’re not asking for anybody to do too much on there. There’s some clarification, some word changes that we’re just where they should have used processor versus grower. We’re asking for that. There’s been some arguments back and forth about sugar on products on the medical side.
Tim Pickett:
Oh yeah. That’s right. Yeah, keeping products, because you got to keep the gelatinous cube separated and sugar is a very good way to do that. And otherwise you got to wrap up them all and individually wrap things or you put them in your car and they all melt together.
Cody James:
Yeah. So things like that on clarification, on what the-
Tim Pickett:
Oh, what about the drinks? Are you involved in that? Liquid suspension?
Cody James:
Yeah. That’s been an interesting one too, because one of the main goals of the legislature and the governor’s office is to make sure that this program maintains its medical standing. That’s the goal in Utah right now. And so there’s those type of discussions too, that we’re looking for clarification on. Because you can take a look at definitions on one side and maybe a beverage fits into to that. And then on the other side, you look at it and it’s like man, they make great arguments when they’re coming to us about this. And so it’s like, hey, would you at least clarify for us so we can make sure that we’re doing it the way that lawmakers intended this to be type of thing. Because some of this, I mean, some of it seems as I first start thinking about a few things, it’s kind of a small item. It’s like, ah, it’s not such a big deal, but as you get going on and the conversations get going and back and forth, it’s like, man this might be something that ends up at the legislative. And we hear that all the time too. It’s like, well, if you don’t do what we think you should, I’m just going to go to my lawmaker. And it’s like, you know what? I’m happy to go with you. Let’s just clear this up with that.
Tim Pickett:
Right yeah. Let’s clarify this once-
Cody James:
That’d be fantastic.
Tim Pickett:
… and once and for all right?
Cody James:
Right.
Tim Pickett:
What about home grow? If that ever happens, I mean, I don’t think there’s any appetite for that this year, but I think in the long run, trying to project myself in this program down five or more years down the road, it does seem like home grow is always going to come back around. It’s always going to come back up for people who want to save money, want to grow. I mean, I grow my own tomatoes. It’s very important to me to grow a certain type of tomato every year so I can have sandwiches in July. It is very important to me. And I imagine cannabis would be like that for other people. Does the Department of Agriculture have, I mean, it seems like a lot of work for you if they allow home grow.
Cody James:
Yeah. And to be honest, I don’t think we’ve actually thought that far ahead. It’s like right now, we’re dealing with what we have and trying to make sure we have as good a handle on it as [inaudible 00:36:38]. And as always anytime that there’s a law change or they allow something or take something away, it obviously affects the work that we do. And the legislature usually lets us give some input as like, Hey, this seems like maybe what the type of works that’s going to cause us no matter what it is and we may need more people or maybe we can not, maybe if it’s they’re taking something where we don’t need as many people. And so we can lower our budgets or something like that but that aspect specifically, we haven’t really talked about. Like I said, we’re trying real hard to just try to make sure we keep up with what’s there now.
Cody James:
And it seems for the first couple years with law changes, like you mentioned, it took us six months to get out the rules written for each new law change and policies and procedures put in place and doing that and at the same time building the team. So that’s one of the reasons we feel pretty happy that we’re not asking for these any wholesale changes on anything. We’re just like, hey, a few clean up things, some clarification, and then let us keep on the way we’re going. We’ll see what happens if there’s more changes. But anything like being able to grow your yourselves or in your home is we haven’t thought that far down the road yet. I don’t think so.
Tim Pickett:
Right. Is the hemp, kind of switch gears before we wrap this up really, I mean, is the hemp side really going to take off in Utah? Seems like hemp is… The more you look at this from 30,000 feet, I mean, it seems like Medical Cannabis is a small part of this much larger thing that’s happening with hemp and industrial hemp. What do you see with industrial hemp?
Cody James:
So we were seeing an increase in processors on industrial hemp. I mean that side of things seems to be going and products keeps increasing, type of thing. What I’m hearing is the most exciting aspect of the hemp side, is the fiber type of thing. There’s some people out there doing some really cool stuff such as making concrete, building houses-
Tim Pickett:
Installation.
Cody James:
Yeah.
Tim Pickett:
Lumber. Mandi Kerr, that Global Hemp Association, she does a great job of exposing us to all of this new stuff.
Cody James:
Yeah. I think that that’s probably, at least from my standpoint, from what I’m seeing out there currently, that’s probably the most exciting thing for our growers to have our growers to transition maybe over to more of that type of hemp to grow for fiber and things like that. And from everything that I’ve researched and what you hear from Mandi and others that we’re talking about a whole new rule with that type of stuff. And so I think that that’s the portion that’s going to take off. I think that the market got saturated after the 2018 Farm Bill. I think everybody was like, “Hey, I’m going to hemp. A lot of money.” And I think that that just collapsed the market type of thing a little there. And we saw that in Utah over the first couple of years, but like I said, talking to Mandi and others, that the more the manufacturing side of it seems to be like something that everybody should get really interested in.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah. And for those, for people who don’t know, I mean, when you’re growing hemp for fiber, you don’t even let it flower. So it doesn’t seem like it fits in this, although the Department of Agriculture would be involved in making sure the compliance was there because it’s the same gene or genus of plant. It’s really a totally different. Is really a totally different process and whole plant thing in there. But I see that piece just growing huge over the next little while and being a big part of, I don’t know, this whole idea that cannabis is as a plant that we can use. We can incorporate it back into a lot of other things, not just medicine, but there’s a lot of other processes we can, that cannabis is pretty beneficial for. Seems like you guys at the Department of Agriculture are on the tip of the sword, because you’re going to have to deal with everything that plant is involved in.
Cody James:
Yeah. And sometimes that’s puts us in a little bit of a difficult situation because we’re trying, again, as I mentioned before, we’re trying to just keep up sometimes with what has already come down the road, and so trying to move ahead or think down the road is difficult. But we’re also really small team. I mean, I’ve got six, almost about to have six total people on the medical side and I’ll have six total people on the industrial hemp side and then myself who splits my time between the two there. And so it’s like trying to keep up with all of the stuff that’s going on. We’re just busy nonstop and it seems like we spend a lot of time doing that aspect, just the work, rather than being able to sit back and be like, all right, let’s really think ahead and end some things. Hopefully we can get to that as we build our team and get everybody trained and get a handle on everything that we need to do.
Cody James:
And really overall on the medical side, we’ve seen actually a huge increase in stuff. I mean, because our team was so small, we weren’t being able to get out too often other than maybe going and take samples or we’d go and do inspections once or every two or three months. Now we’re out there more often and we’re seeing that we’re not fine problems anymore. We’re not finding that things are dirty or that there’s maybe some product that’s not labeled. We’re not finding that anymore, which is a good thing. Compliance is there, so it’s now it’s more that we can maybe, as I mentioned, start thinking down the road. All right, we’ve got a little bit of a handle on this, let’s start talking about the stuff there and having those type of meetings with industry as well.
Tim Pickett:
Right. Is there anything that we haven’t talked about so far that you want to bring up, you want to talk about?
Cody James:
I guess I want to probably just say that don’t hesitate for anybody to reach out to us. I mean our licensees are pretty good about that. People are this trying to get into either side of the industry. Maybe they look at the website, or reach out to us really. Happy to talk people through it, happy to be honest with them and try and walk them down that path versus… Because they’ve taken a lot of risk just putting any money into it on either side. And so talking to us about it, we can answer a lot of questions. Hemp more on the fiber side, that’s something that a lot of people want do. And as we go and go to some meetings and stuff, there’s people like, “Yeah, I don’t think I can do this.” And it’s like, “Well, we haven’t talked to you yet. Have we talked before?” And they know and they’re like, “Well, hey, call us. Let’s talk to it.” Because I don’t think that there’s as big as roadblock as you think there is for you doing what you want to do type of thing.
Cody James:
And so I think just making sure that people understand that we’re approachable, we’re busy, but emails or phone calls we’re going to return them. We do really good job at get back as soon can and usually within the next day, but that’s probably the only thing is that-
Tim Pickett:
Is that info’s found on the Department of Agriculture website?
Cody James:
Yeah. Yep. Yep. You can find at least the industrial hemp site at the ag.utah.gov website and then that would still get us to the medical account side, but you can go to utahmedicalcannabis.gov, I think is the other one that and go to the production side of things and that’ll get you to us as well.
Tim Pickett:
Oh, cool. That’s great. It’s good to know. I mean, I think that’s important. I think Utah does a pretty good job of that. I know the Department of Health has done a pretty good job of being available for people and it’s nice to know that that’s the attitude at the Department of Agriculture for people who want more information specifically. It’s important for people to have access to the regulatory bodies, frankly.
Cody James:
Well, and like I mentioned, we’re so busy just dealing on a data that we don’t always thinking about, hey, we should put something out. We should try and reach out. So really, I guess what I’m saying is that we may not know what the questions are until they’re asked. And so we’re happy to do any research or talk to people and get the answers as best we can for them. We just need to know what the questions are.
Tim Pickett:
Cool. Two last questions. One, do you have a favorite strain? I asked that to everybody who’s on the podcast.
Cody James:
I’m going to say no. I mean, I’m not going to say I have a favorite strain at all. I don’t want to be seen as that I’m picking favorites for anybody.
Tim Pickett:
Oh, there you go. Right. Okay. Totally fine. And what’s Cody James do for fun?
Cody James:
Oh, I’ve got a couple of hobbies that I try and just get better and better at, live the by the idea that you should have a couple of different hobbies. Ones that keep you healthy, ones that you have fun with and some that you make money on. And I haven’t figured out that third one yet, but I try and stay healthy and have some fun. But other than that, I just, with my family a lot. Pretty much if I’m not at work, I’m doing something with somebody in my family.
Tim Pickett:
Cool. Well, thanks Cody for taking time. I mean, it’s been fun, been informative and I’m sure you’ll be hearing from some people maybe from this podcast or me.
Cody James:
Sounds good.
Tim Pickett:
Absolutely. Thanks everybody for listening. This is Utah in the Weeds. You can subscribe to the podcast on any podcast player that you like to listen to podcasts on. If you want to reach out to me or you have questions about this podcast, find it on Discover Marijuana on the YouTube channel and make a comment on the video or make a comment on any of those videos on that channel. We look could all those comments and that’s really the best way to reach out with questions or comments if you have anything to say. Thanks again, everybody. Stay safe out there.
Episode 81 of Utah in the Weeds is for anyone with questions about the laws surrounding Utah’s Medical Cannabis program. Utah Therapeutic Health Center’s Tim Pickett and WholesomeCo Inc.’s J.D. Lauritzen hosted an online session to answer frequently asked questions about the program.
Introductions [01:25]
Utah’s Medical Cannabis Act — A Brief Timeline [05:42]
Current Legal Medical Cannabis Requirements in Utah [08:41]
Forms That Aren’t Allowed [10:45]
Purchase and Possession Quantity Limits [12:56]
Where Can I Legally Vape or Ingest Cannabis? [16:58]
What to Do If You Are Stopped By Law Enforcement [20:45]
GUNS
Can I Buy A Gun If I’m a Medical Cannabis Cardholder? [22:50]
Cannabis is Illegal in Federal Buildings and on Federal Lands [23:48]
Your Gun Rights As a Utah Medical Cannabis Cardholder [24:24]
Concealed Firearm Permits [24:46]
Private Firearms Sales to a Restricted Person [26:02]
You May Have To Choose Between Being a Gun Owner and a Medical Cannabis Cardholder [26:33]
PARENTING
Treating Cannabis as Another Strong Medication [27:52]
Secondhand Smoke [28:30]
Cannabis, Breastfeeding, and Pregnancy [28:37]
Don’t Mix Cannabis With Alcohol or Other Drugs [29:11]
Your Treatment as a Medical Cannabis Patient in the Justice System [30:09]
Talking To Your Kids About Medical Cannabis [31:32]
FAQs and AUDIENCE QUESTIONS
Can I Grow My Own Cannabis at Home? [32:05]
THC Testing Info [34:31]
Will a Medical Card Protect My Job If My Employer Tests Me for THC? [37:13]
Isn’t It Good Enough That My State and Many Others Have Legalized Cannabis? [39:10]
Am I Better Off Having a Medical Card Than Not Having One? [40:46]
Info for a Medical Cannabis Patient on Probation [44:04]
Can I Become a Nurse If I’m a Medical Cannabis Patient? [46:26]
What If My Vaporizer Device Gets Too Hot and Accidentally Burns My Cannabis? [49:45]
What Do I Need to Legally Carry My Cannabis? [51:08]
Will Utah Address Medical Cannabis Price Fixing in Future Legislation? [52:51]
More Info for Gun Owners [56:11]
Is It Legal for Me to Make My Own Edibles/Butter? [58:31]
DISCLAIMER: This presentation is intended for informational purposes and does not constitute official legal advice. Contact your attorney for further clarification on legal matters in your jurisdiction.
Tim Pickett:
OK, well, let’s get started. Welcome everybody out to ah… it’s not a “lunch and learn.” It’s not like a “dinner and learn.” It’s some, you know, webinar. I don’t love that term, really, but I mean, I guess that’s what it is. You’re online and you’re watching. You’re watching a couple of dudes, you know, talk about cannabis. Know Your Rights. I’m excited
about this because I love to talk to you, J.D. and we get so many questions about the law.
J.D. Lauritzen:
So I’ve been getting them for a long time, too, so…
Tim Pickett:
I’m sure, I’m sure. So topics we’re going to go through, we’ll go through a little bit about the Utah Medical Cannabis Act because I think a refresher is in order, current legal requirements to have and possess cannabis in Utah and a card. And then we really get into questions, right? Questions that we get all the time. We’ll answer first and then we’ll give a chance to everybody who is participating or here in the audience to ask any question that you want. And hopefully we can, you know, we have an answer for it. So I’ll introduce myself first, I’m Tim Pickett. I’m the founder of Utah Therapeutic Health Center. We have six clinics across the state and we specialize in Medical Cannabis evaluations and the management of the patients. We
take care of people who need to use Medical Cannabis for their health. J.D., I’ll let you introduce yourself.
J.D. Lauritzen:
Yeah, thanks, Tim. So my name is J.D. Lauritzen. I’m the head of legal compliance and government affairs at WholesomeCo Inc. We are one of, I think, now five vertically-integrated
cannabis companies in Utah. We cultivate and we also have a pharmacy in West Bountiful. I’ve been in the cannabis space now for, man, I think, coming up on, it’ll be three years in December. I was in private practice at a law firm called Christensen & Jensen when I first became involved in the cannabis industry as an attorney for businesses.
But I also advised some patients on some issues and some other things. So I made the jump to WholesomeCo earlier this year towards the end of April and have really, really enjoyed it. And so I’m just excited to be here tonight because we get to talk about all the things that I talk about every single day, and I hope to get some, maybe some new questions that I haven’t heard before, but definitely happy to answer all of the kind of “old hits,” if you were.
Tim Pickett:
Right. And, you know, you never… I think you’re starting to say this less and less: “The Leafy Lawyer.”
J.D. Lauritzen:
Yeah, that’s I mean, yes, that is still who I am. I am “The Leafy Lawyer” that was my… that’s my self-branding moniker, but also, you know, it’s just now that I’m with WholesomeCo, you know, it just it gets said less. But yes, if you’ve heard of “The Leafy Lawyer” before, that is me. It’s just kind of weird to call myself by, you know, my moniker. Yeah, I’ve never really become comfortable with it. I like, you know, other people to other people to say it.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah. So I’ll put a plug in for Discover Marijuana, the YouTube channel, because J.D.’s on this season. We release a new episode every single week. It really is just education about cannabis
and Utah cannabis. We have a lot of videos there that will… that really just help people understand the plant and how to use it or, you know, our opinions about it. It’s a great resource for patients. I also host Utah in the Weeds podcast, and you were a guest J.D., I think, on episode number four, oone of the first episodes.
J.D. Lauritzen:
Yeah, I think actually, maybe it was episode, I want to say 16.
Tim Pickett:
Oh, OK. 16.
J.D. Lauritzen:
And then you guys, then you had me on for the one-year anniversary,
Tim Pickett:
Yes.
J.D. Lauritzen:
And then I did a little bit of audio with you at Dragonfly’s event on 4/20 this year. So yeah. And then I remember you wanted to have me on at WB’s Eatery. But we… I nixed that because I had a face full of food, so…
Tim Pickett:
Yes, that’s right.
So let’s talk. Let’s jump right in. Let’s talk about the Utah Medical Cannabis Act. So take us through this whole thing, will you?
J.D. Lauritzen:
For sure, yeah. So I mean, I think a lot of people know, I mean, we just passed the third anniversary of the passage of Prop 2, which passed. The voters passed that in 2018, which legalized medicinal use in Utah. However, as a lot of the people probably know as well, before the law could take effect, the Utah Legislature took up the Prop 2 in a special session and passed HB 3001, which did make some significant changes to Prop 2. And since that time, there’s been at least what one special session. And then each year the Legislature has made changes to the law. There will be more changes coming this legislative session, and, we’ll talk about later at least one issue that was removed from Prop two that was really important to patients here, and we hope to see it return at some point. But that’s where the Medical Cannabis stands in Utah, from a legal standpoint.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah. And you were describing this as basically every chance the Legislature gets, they change it. But I think they’ve made it better every time. Would you would you agree with that? Better for patients?
J.D. Lauritzen:
You know, I think yes and no. I think there are some things you would disagree with, but I do think they’ve shown a willingness to move the legislation forward and not just remain stagnant and stuck in their ways. I know people will say, “Hey, there’s not enough cultivation. There’s not enough this or that, prices or this or that.” Not all of that is always tied to legislation. And so what they have shown a willingness. It has changed every single, every single session.
And you’ve kind of gotten to a place now where they focus on not only industry but, last session, you saw a consumer, a consumer protection bill that was ran and passed by Senator Luz Escamilla. So there is at least one lawmaker that has been pushing reform for patients, which has been good. A lot of the other reform has been industry-focused. And I think we’re getting there. Do I think it’s a perfect, you know, a perfect law? No. But do I think it’s inherently flawed and set to fail? No, I don’t believe that either.
I think we’re kind of somewhere in between. And as part of my job with government affairs, you know, we interact with lawmakers and stuff like that to try to push things and at WholesomeCo, you know, we truly are a “patient first” company. So everything we think about, even when it comes to legislation, is ways to make cannabis more accessible for Utahns. And our goal is at some point to have a WholesomeCo product in every single patient’s home and for any patient or person that wants to be a Medical Cannabis user for them to be able to do so. So that’s the mission that we wake up and strive towards each day.
Tim Pickett:
Sure. So let’s talk a little bit about the cannabis requirements. I’ll talk a little bit about this. So, to be a cannabis patient in Utah, you have to have a cannabis card in order to purchase medical cannabis at one of the 14, now, Medical Cannabis pharmacies they call it, or dispensaries, as everybody else calls it. You can only get medical cards through a registered QMP, a Qualified Medical Provider, like myself or one of the PAs or nurse practitioners or physicians that are registered with the state. So that takes four hours of additional education. It takes a registration fee. We have to register with the state, and we’re the only ones licensed, currently, to authorize people to use cannabis in Utah.
You also have to have, patients have to have a qualifying medical condition of which there are 15. You can find those both on our site. UtahMarijuana.org. I’m sure Wholesome has some information about that on their website, and the state has information on their cannabis site as well. The card can be used at any of the pharmacies. You can, in fact, go down to Beehive in West Valley. You could buy product there. If you found it there, you could go to Wholesome that same day to get another product if you happen to do that. So the card is… it’s universally accepted.
And then the other thing that I will say is all of the purchases on that system are tracked. So there are limits, and I believe the limits of the… we might have a slide about this in in a minute. But the limits that patients can purchase are set up by their Qualified Medical Provider like me or by the state. The maximum amount people can purchase is four ounces of flower, which, to be honest, is more than… just the vast majority of patients are using a lot less than that.
Forms that aren’t allowed, we can focus a little bit about. You cannot use a flame legally in Utah. And from my standpoint, I liked this, J.D., even though, you know, we could, we can go back and forth on this. But from a strictly medical standpoint, there’s no real reason to use a flame because the combusted plant material goes in your lungs and that is harmful. Period. Right?
J.D. Lauritzen:
For sure, and I would also just point out for people that this is one thing that was, you know, mirrored from Prop 2. There was no flame allowed. So this is not something that was changed. I have a lot of personal feelings about this. But I would, Tim, I would wholeheartedly agree with you. From a purely medical standpoint, vaporization is a much better way to ingest your cannabis and much more efficient, right? You don’t lose nearly the number, all the cannabinoids and things that you do from combustion. Exactly. So yes, it’s overall a much better experience for people. Although most people, if they’ve been using cannabis for at least a few years, are much more comfortable with combustion. But just understand that is not allowed here in Utah, and you can face consequences for combusting your cannabis, unfortunately.
Tim Pickett:
Right and vaporizing doesn’t mean you’re just having to use, like, a cartridge. We’re talking about… you can take raw cannabis bud, raw cannabis flower, you grind it up, you put it in a device like this Firefly that’s shown here, and that essentially heats up the flower to a temperature above 320 degrees Fahrenheit, below 450 degrees Fahrenheit. And, in that window, the cannabis becomes… the vapor is released, right? And those cannabinoids are activated and then you inhale them, so you’re not inhaling the combusted plant material, but you are still able to use flower, which I want to make sure that people understand. Because when we talk about vaping, everybody kind of goes to the vape cartridges, right?
So purchase and possession quantity limits. I touched on this a little bit before, but we as QMPs or providers, we can set those purchasing limits based on what the patient needs to purchase. And this again, I feel like this is debated a little bit in the industry and amongst medical providers.
Here’s the bottom line for me: I think purchasing limits are appropriate for patients for a couple of reasons. One, if you’re using an ounce of flower and then all of a sudden a patient needs to use four ounces of flower, then I should be involved in that discussion for their health, right? Because something has changed in the patient’s health. So just like any other medication, if the use goes up, then we want to be involved in trying to take care of the patient. What’s going on? Is the pain worse? Is the condition worse?
Secondarily, from a legal standpoint, diversion is a real issue. And the more people are buying, I feel like the more chances people are selling it to their aunt or their cousin. J.D., do you think that’s part of the limit, the restriction, that they put on patients?
J.D. Lauritzen:
Yeah, I do think so. But I also I think it’s important for people to understand.. people in Utah really like to compare markets from other states, for a variety of reasons. And I think it’s important to understand that the purchase limits here in Utah are actually quite expansive compared to even some adult-use states. So… but I mean, I think that’s one of the big worries always is theft, diversion, and loss, right? And we face that all the time, right? That’s part of my compliance job to make sure that that doesn’t happen, but certainly they had to put some type of limit on it.
But like I said, it’s important to know that Utah does have pretty expansive possession limits. Yeah. And this is in one 28-day period. But, as is pointed out on this slide, you also need to be careful how much you have, in total, on you because if you somehow were to have twice the legal, you know, more than twice the allowable limit, you’re facing a controlled substances charge. So just understand that kind of… if you are purchasing quite a bit of cannabis, you want to be careful about how much you have at any one time because you may run yourself into, sadly, a felony without even the intention.
True.
J.D. Lauritzen:
And there’s, now, I think there’s enough supply that people can purchase that if they want to. But we don’t get very many patients that reach their limits each month at our pharmacy.
Tim Pickett:
No, and the state, the other thing about purchasing limits is the state system tracks every purchase. So every patient’s purchases are tracked in the system and then tallied against the QMP’s recommendation, total purchasing limits and/or the state maximum limits. And they don’t go over that. And as like you’re talking about the consumer protection. one of the legislative changes in the spring was to add that pharmacy check at the purchase, right? So that we make sure that nobody’s getting too much and we have much more compliance.
J.D. Lauritzen:
Yep, and we do it on the front end in the back end. So when it when a patient comes to our pharmacy, we check their limits before they’re even allowed to come in and shop. If they getting close to their limits, we let them know how much they have left and then we do do that pharmacist check, or in the process of doing that pharmacist check at the end to make sure they get all the right product and everything like that. So it’s being done in multiple areas, at the pharmacy and all pharmacies do it a little bit differently. But, yep, that is one thing they put into the law to make sure that people were abiding by the limits.
Tim Pickett:
Oh, this is… OK, I’m excited to get into these because I remember going through them with you. Where can I legally vape or ingest cannabis? Yeah, the park? The mountains?
J.D. Lauritzen:
Yeah, the law tries to make it as clear as possible that, absent an emergency medical condition, which is in the law, which is in the Utah Code, there is a place where they define what an “emergency medical condition” is. Absent that, you are not supposed to use your cannabis in public view. Now what is public view and what is not? We could definitely drill down on that, but what I tell people is: you are certainly safe consuming it inside your own home. And, outside of that, I think it’s a matter of interpretation. So as a good lawyer would always say, well, it depends, and people don’t like that answer, but that’s the long and short of it. So in your house? Absolutely. Outside of your house? You know, I think you run a risk. But anywhere that you are outside of the public’s view, consuming your cannabis, you know, you are safe. But if you are truly a person that is having an emergency medical condition, do not hesitate to consume your cannabis, right? Stand on your rights, understand what the law says. But you should review the Code section that defines what an emergency medical condition is.
Tim Pickett:
Sure. And then we’ve left this little blurb in the bottom. You may not consume cannabis in the presence of a person younger than 18. That’s not in the Medical Cannabis Act. That’s in the Controlled Substances Act, and we had talked a little bit about that. Whether or not this is technically in the rules or not. I would say from my standpoint, this is just good. This is just good “best practice” consumption.
J.D. Lauritzen:
Yeah, I think both of those bullet points are exactly that. But there it is important to understand when you look at the Utah Controlled Substances Act, they specifically exclude the use of medical cannabis to treat a qualifying condition. I will have to read a little bit deeper after we came across this earlier today to see what the applicability is.
But I think some of these things are just kind of best practices to stay to stay out of trouble because, sadly, even though I myself am a cardholder, and I feel like I should be able to consume my cannabis when I see fit and, in some ways, where I see fit. We need to just be careful because, as much as we feel comfortable with it, it is still a federally-illegal substance that has only been legal here in Utah for three years, and there are still law enforcement officers, as I’m sure we’ll probably talk a little bit later, that still don’t see it that same way. And I’ve heard patients say they’ve been pulled over, they’ve been cited, they’ve had their cannabis confiscated.
And the answer that the officer has given them is, “I don’t really know what the laws are surrounding cannabis in Utah, so I’ll just let… I’ll just let you figure it out with the prosecutor and the judge.” And even sometimes the judges and the prosecutors don’t necessarily know. I think things have gotten better, overall, as we’ve had more time to kind of digest the laws here in Utah. But to me, that is the wrong way to police cannabis.
So I say all of that, for all of you in attendance to say, be careful, be extremely careful with your cannabis. You have certain rights, but understand that even if you have those rights, not everyone might understand them and might not see them the same way as you. For law enforcement, cannabis has been low-hanging fruit for a long, long time, and they don’t want to give it up. But there are other officers that don’t want to be bothered with cannabis and are totally in line. It just kind of depends on the luck of the draw, right? Right. And I think people living in more rural areas sometimes need to be a little bit more careful in this regard.
But if you are stopped by law enforcement, there’s kind of a good little script you can follow. You can ask them why they pulled you over. And once they tell you that that’s that gives you the reason for the stop. If they try to continue asking you questions, you can politely say “I’m not discussing my day or my evening.” They continue to ask questions, you can say “Am I being detained or am I free to leave?” And if you’re being detained, you then invoke your right to remain silent under the Fifth Amendment. And then you don’t say anything until you’re in the presence of your lawyer.
And I’d also point out that you should be careful if you are arrested and you’re taken into custody. Any phone call that you make from the jail is going to be recorded, so be very careful what you say there, too. If you do talk to your family, I would recommend you’re saying, “Hey, I’ve been arrested. I need you to find a way to bond me out.”
Or if you’re going to go in front of the judge, just be very vanilla and not say anything. Because truly, once you’ve been Mirandized, anything you say can be used against you. Now, if you aren’t read your Miranda rights, that doesn’t mean the arrest was bad or anything like that. So for any of this stuff, I’m always happy to chat in greater detail because we could go on and on and on for an hour or so, but I think that’s just kind of a basic thing to do when law enforcement pulls you over.
And another thing: always decline a field sobriety test. In Utah, they are optional. You have to take the chemical test unless you want to run the risk of losing your license for a certain period of time. But you can always decline a field sobriety test in Utah. They are optional. And I will say this too: I understand people get very nervous when they’re pulled over, and they just want to help.
But if cops are asking a lot of questions, it’s because they’re hoping you will help them to build a case against you. And never consent to a search of your vehicle or your home. Absolutely not. Make them produce a warrant for your home and for your vehicle. They’re going to search it anyways, but never consent to the search, because it’ll make it really tough for your lawyer on the back end to be able to help you sufficiently.
Tim Pickett:
This is good info. OK, let’s talk about guns. The bad news, right? This is really just the bad news.
J.D. Lauritzen:
Yeah, it’s…
Tim Pickett:
And, really, we tried, we tried, and we tried to find ways to let people legally, technically, buy a gun. And it just seems like this isn’t… it just isn’t the case, because we knew you couldn’t buy a gun. Like if you go to Cabela’s and you have a card, then you have to fill out the ATF form, right? That form that you have, the federal form where you have to check that box that says, I don’t do… I don’t do illegal drugs, but it’s a federal form, so you either have to lie or you have to not buy the gun. But you’ve even gone in further to this with private sellers.
J.D. Lauritzen:
Yeah, for sure. And I think just sadly, because cannabis remains a Schedule I controlled substance, cannabis and guns are an absolute no-no under federal law. So be careful if you’re traveling and even without a gun. If you travel to a national park or you travel onto federal land or you go to a federal building and you have cannabis with you, you are in violation of federal law. So that’s something important to understand, especially people that like to go camping and explore the wonderful places we have here in Utah. You know, in the National Parks, be very, very careful. That’s something I will I will tell you, gun or not. That’s just, you know, with the way the federal law is. But yes, when it comes to guns, it’s just it’s just a no-no. Sadly, that’s the way it is under federal law.
But here in Utah, we, the lawmakers have passed some laws to make it difficult or actually to outright prohibit local law enforcement to restrict your ability to acquire or possess a firearm based solely on your possession or use of cannabis in accordance with state medical laws. So they essentially can’t put forth any time or resources into enforcing federal cannabis laws. The question we probably get, the more I get asked the most about is concealed carry.
And it’s not an easy, I guess actually, it is a pretty easy answer. It’s just not one people want to necessarily hear. So, if you are already a Medical Cannabis patient and you go to get your concealed carry permit and BCI, who is who administers that program, learns that you are a Medical Cannabis patient during that process, they will deny you your card, your concealed carry permit, excuse me. Kind of conversely, if you are not a Medical Cannabis patient, but you have a concealed carry permit and you get your card after you get your concealed carry permit and BCI learns of it, then your card will be revoked. And so really, you either have to… and my understanding is there may or may not be questions about that when you go to get your concealed carry. So you’ll either have to not tell the truth, lie by omission or what have you.
So as an attorney, I can’t ever say to people, “Oh, well, hey, get your concealed carry permit and then get your card and hope you don’t get caught,” right? Like that’s.. I can’t ever say that to anyone. Right. And then, you know, the other way that I used to talk a lot about, “Hey, here’s how you can possess, you know, purchase a weapon,” was through a private seller, not go to Cabela’s. You don’t have to go through that. You don’t have to fill out the ATF form.
However, even for private sellers, if they know you’re a restricted person and there’s a variety of reasons for which you could be a restricted person, and they know that and they sell the gun to you anyways, you’ve both committed a federal crime and face up to, I believe it’s ten years of imprisonment. So I say all of that to say this, and this is hard to say. I myself am not a huge Second Amendment person, but I absolutely have no issue with gun ownership and all of that stuff. But you may have to choose between being a gun owner and a Medical Cannabis patient, without the fear of federal kind of reprisal. Now, do I think the feds are going to come to Utah after a single gun owner? Absolutely not. But you would run the risk of federal prosecution.
And even Utah’s constitutional carry law here that we recently passed doesn’t really change things. So it may be your gun or your cannabis card, sadly.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah, I think that this is one particular area where guns and cannabis, that’s where prosecutors kind of go after people in my, the people that I know, right? The guys who work for the prosecutor’s office, they don’t care… at the higher levels, they don’t care about the cannabis, but the guns they really care about. And so when you put the two together, it just tends to get people in trouble.
OK, so I’m a cannabis patient and a parent. How can I protect my kids from legal issues? So this, to me, comes down to best practices as a parent with relationship to any strong medication. And cannabis is essentially no different to me than Percocet from a parenting standpoint. I think you should definitely lock up your Percocet, your strong medications, any controlled substance, and cannabis would be no different. We, in fact, sell these little bags that people can use, a little Skunk bag that has a luggage lock on it, because I think it’s appropriate. Keep your medicine on the shelf. You keep it kind of locked away from the kids.
You don’t allow… You don’t want your kids around secondhand tobacco smoke, so you wouldn’t want them around secondhand cannabis smoke. The law says, and good medical practice says, that pregnant women and breastfeeding women should not use cannabis. We just don’t know enough about the endocannabinoid system development in the fetus in these little kids and infants to feel like it’s safe, even though, on the outskirts, there’s going to always be the exception to the rule.
But in Utah, you can’t be pregnant or breastfeeding and use or have a cannabis card. And then certainly it’s the most danger is mixing medications and alcohol and other drugs are always a bad idea. This is more of a generational thing though, J.D. It’s actually more 30… I think it was 32 and up tend to mix cannabis and alcohol much more than the younger generation. Gen Z and the younger millennials tend not to mix. And I mean, I feel like it must be because I was raised with more alcohol than they were.
J.D. Lauritzen:
And the other thing is… Well, also, just seeing the benefits of cannabis, right? Just in general. Right? Yeah. I think it’s taking a lot of people away from alcohol. I’m actually a person that’s exactly that, right? You know, I haven’t had a drop of alcohol since 2017, and I credit cannabis with helping me to stay away from it. So I think you definitely do see that. The one thing I would say, Tim, and before you can maybe get to the last kind of bullet point is: it’s important for patients to know that there are certain protections in the law for you as a cannabis patient, right? Your use of cannabis is not to be treated any differently by a judge or jury, any sort of decision-maker when it comes to child custody.
All of these things any different than your use of any other prescribed, controlled substance. So understand that you have those rights to have it be considered the same, but that also doesn’t make it a silver bullet. If your cannabis use is impacting your ability to parent or your ability to basically act in the best interests of your child, they’re going to consider that the same as if your alcohol use was not in the best interest of your child or your use of another prescribed, controlled substance. But understand, it is to be considered the exact same way.
Tim Pickett:
Yep, and to the last point: talking to your kids, making cannabis medicine is one of the biggest, the biggest pushes that I would have, biggest arguments that I make. The faster that society can make cannabis a medicine and less recreational, less about adult-use recreational. I think the faster we get over a lot of the stigma around it… So, I’m a big believer in talking to your kids about cannabis, talking to your kids, about the use, being somewhat honest about that because you’d be honest about the other medications you ltake, if you needed to, and it’s important for your kids to understand. I mean, I have a 16-year-old, I have a 13-year-old. We have these conversations. They get asked about what I do for a living and they need that education or they have nothing to say, right? And then we’re just still feeding the stigma if I’m hiding it from them, right? Can I grow my own cannabis at home? No? Did we give that away?
J. D. Lauritzen:
[Laughter] Yeah, so I think a lot of people here probably know that under Prop 2 patients that were living more than 100 miles from the nearest medical cannabis pharmacy would have been eligible to grow up to six plants. Sadly, in HB 3001 that did not… that provision was removed. It was fairly unpopular amongst members of the Legislature. It was also unpopular amongst some voters, so it was probably the most controversial thing that was in Prop 2. But I, from a personal standpoint, absolutely support a patient’s ability to cultivate their own cannabis at home.
And I’m hopeful that’s something that will change in the future. I think every patient should have the right to choose whether or not they want to cultivate their own cannabis. And I’m hopeful that, like I said, at some point, the tides will shift on that. It’s just, still at this point, it seems to be quite unpopular, but I would recommend that everyone on this webinar and anybody continue to push for those you know, those rights, as well as caregiver rights and the ability of patients to give medicine amongst each other.
Cannabis is very much based upon community and giving. And I think not having patients have the ability to cultivate their own cannabis and not allow people to have co-ops and to give amongst one another to those that are in need is, in my view, criminal. So, hopefully, that will change. \
Tim Pickett:
Yeah, I agree. I think there are some real good reasons why I don’t want everybody to grow. And then there are some really great reasons why I want everybody to be allowed to. I think the education is important. You know, if you are going to grow, if we allow that, we have to educate our population about organic, you know, and pesticides and then inhaling that sort of stuff. So this is one of these things where I’d say you’ve got to have good education about growing your own. You certainly can’t do it legally here in Utah, but I think we end up getting it. I think it takes five, I think it definitely takes more than the next three years, but I think we end up getting grow. But you can’t grow now. Got to buy it. Will a medical card protect my job if my employer tests me for THC? So, we actually have a question about this online, and I’ll go through this a little bit, some testing information.
So, let’s just back up and talk about THC testing in general. So, this graph shows the different methods of testing: breath, oral, blood, urine, hair. So we all are familiar with urine testing. That’s kind of the gold standard. It’s the cheapest testing method. It is, definitely. Breath is the only… breath testing is the only test, that I know of, that can test for recent use in the window of, like, being high, being stoned. Breath test is the only one because it’s going to take 30 hours on average, 30 hours, a day to three days for a urine test to even come up positive in a cannabis-naive patient. But urine might last in your system months.
OK, so everybody knows. Urine test is kind of the gold standard. We test for 11-nor-tetrahydrocannabinol. It’s the metabolite that ends up in the blood that is excreted in the urine. A positive test, that depends on the lab and it depends on your employer, which… what level a positive test will check the box. So it’s going to be positive within about one or two days of taking cannabis or inhaling or whatever consuming you do.
And. 35% of consumers will be THC-negative in about a week, and about 75% of people within two weeks will have a negative test but know that hydration, the amount of fat you carry on your body and the amount you’re consuming regularly plays a very significant role because in the studies.. You might have a patient, they have patients that would be… they would go a week and then test and they would be negative and they would go an additional week and not take cannabis and be positive because they’re not hydrated on the day they tested. So kidney function, which is really just a measure of hydration and stuff , plays a big role, so for people that are concerned about testing, usually within two weeks, you’ll be, you know, there’s a 75% chance, essentially, that you can be clean. But that’s just info for you.
Now let’s talk about the law associated, like, with “Is this protection?” and J.D., I mean, the answer really is that it depends, right?
J.D. Lauritzen:
Yep, it’s another “it depends” question. So, for those people working for state and local government entities and the like, there are protections. You cannot be terminated or have an adverse employment action taken against you solely for a failed drug test. But if you are intoxicated on the job or your cannabis consumption is impacting your job performance, then they can take adverse action against you. A drug test, just in and of itself, will not risk your job. But if a state or local government has some type of federal funding or would impact federal licensure or anything like that, they don’t have to abide by that.
So it’s not… it’s a protection, but it’s a slight protection. Now, when it comes to private employers. And I think this kind of goes to the question that we’ve been asked about. If your area, your employment agreement has a “no illegal substances” usage, when it says medications of various kinds are OK. Am I protected as a cardholder? Well, that depends, right? Because if they when they mean illegal substances, are they applying federal law, which private employers are certainly still allowed to do? Or are they just applying Utah law? So you’d want to get some clarification there.
But just to be as clear as possible, private employers do not have to accommodate Medical Cannabis usage, which means they can still do pre-employment drug screenings. They can do drug screenings while you work for them. They can terminate you for any reason when it comes to cannabis. So I would love to see that change, but that’s likely one of those things. It’s going to take a change in federal law as so many of these things we talk about.
You know, sometimes people wonder, “Well, isn’t it good enough that my state, and many other states have legalized cannabis?” Absolutely not. Federal law still needs to change. And if anyone ever tries to convince you of rescheduling, please respond to them accordingly and say, no, we need de-scheduling and understanding why is really, really important. De-scheduling cannabis completely from the Federal Controlled Substances Act will take care of so many issues like this. Issues like housing, issues like gun ownership, so many different things. So, when you see in the news that they’re introducing legislation on the federal level to decriminalize cannabis, you should absolutely get behind it.
Now, which bill is the right bill to pass? I think here soon we’re going to have three competing bills, if not four, and it just tells you that we’re headed in the right direction. I don’t think it’s going to happen even next year. I think it’s probably a 2023 or even, maybe, a 2024 thing, but I think we’re going to get there. But this is another one of those reasons that federal law needs to change because courts across the country… one of the most well-known cases was out of Colorado.
I think it was a Dish Network or a DirecTV employee was caught using and he tried to use the law to defend himself. And they said, I’m sorry your employer can still follow federal law on this, and it remains federally illegal. So, that kind of tells you right there. And I think that’s what Utah’s lawmakers understood. And they actually specifically have written into the law that private employers are not required to accept your Medical Cannabis use. They can challenge it and they don’t have to hire you or they can terminate you because of it.
Tim Pickett:
Sure. Now, when I see patients with this type of question that we have and the patient doesn’t necessarily want to go to their employer and say, “Oh, well, what about medical cannabis?” Right? You don’t want to raise the flag and bring attention to yourself. My comment is usually, “Well, you know, they can make their own rules,” because of what you just said, with federal law.
However, if you are going to use cannabis, you are certainly better off having a card than you are not having a card. Agreed. Because, not having a medical cannabis card, you’re basically setting yourself up to fail.
J.D. Lauritzen:
For sure, because then you really do have no right to say, “I’m consuming this in a legal form,” right? It would be better for your employer to understand that you have a Medical Cannabis Card than just “I bought it from Joe down the street.” I mean, that’s not going to get you.. I think a medical card, your employer may be more willing. But, too, more and more employers across the country, private employers, are becoming accommodating of cannabis, and the laws are changing all the time in different states and different cities. And even some really big cities have done away with the ability to drug test. So, you hope that the trend continues in that direction. But a change in federal law will go the longest way to making sure that happens.
Tim Pickett:
I will mention, we didn’t mention in this slide, that if you’re a veteran, they cannot take away. The government is not going to take away your benefits by participating in a medical cannabis program. That’s in the… I think it’s like the Farm Bill 2018, something like that states that they cannot take away veterans’ benefits by participating in a state-run medical cannabis program. Yeah, and that’s just kind of the general flavor that the feds have taken, really, since the Obama Administration, even though there were still raids in California and other places during the Obama Administration.
The Cole Memo, which has since been rescinded. But the Cole Memo really kind of said, Hey, and there’s been and they put they put different things in budget bills and different things to where the DOJ can’t spend money prosecuting individuals and/or businesses that are involved in state-legal cannabis. So you’re safe to know that the feds are probably not going to come after you. I think that’s a thing of the past. “Never say never,” but I think it’s more and more becoming a thing of the past. The feds don’t want to be involved in state-legal cannabis operations. They’re more interested in those operating in the illicit market.
Tim Pickett:
So testing, essentially, can determine… Urine testing, the testing that everybody probably here in this in this presentation is going to encounter, essentially, is going to determine whether somebody has consumed THC in the past one to two weeks. It’s not going to determine the amount of consumption, doesn’t determine any level of impairment at any given time, and it cannot determine recreational versus medicinal use. Just some information for you there. So we’ve kind of reached the end of the… the standard questions that we get, and I think we’ve answered one of these questions that was posed to us.
The other question that we have from Preston is: “I’m currently on…” Let’s see. Let’s see. Possession of marijuana a year ago. Yeah. Oh, boy, this is difficult, So, I think with this question…You’re just going to need as much documentation… From my side, what I do in cases like this is I provide a letter for the patient. I provide, even if they need a detailed description of their medical condition, right? I’ll provide that. Treatment history of different things that they’ve tried. You basically just want to gather all of the evidence, right? All of the objective evidence that you can to present in order to to attempt to protect yourself. J.D. Do you have any additional? Gosh, I feel like these probation questions and things like this are always just so nuanced.
J.D. Lauritzen:
Yeah, they definitely are. And I think, for Preston, I think make sure you have a good criminal defense attorney. I know they don’t necessarily come cheap, but I think having a good attorney because I think that one of the best ways… not only what Tim said is very well, well-heeded advice, but I also think if your attorney or you can make sure the terms of your probation specifically allow for your Medical Cannabis use, they should accommodate that. Like I said, they shouldn’t treat it different than any other prescribed controlled substance. So making sure the terms of your probation match with that and you may have to go back to the court and the judge to get that change. But what Tim said is absolutely accurate. And just helping these POs that have seen cannabis as not a good thing for so long that you can be a good, productive member of society.
So keeping yourself, your nose clean otherwise. But I would recommend counseling with a criminal defense attorney, either the one that helped you with your case or someone else, and really trying to make sure the terms of your probation are consistent with your ability to use Medical Cannabis, because then that’s what the probation officer is supposed to go off of. I don’t know all of the facts of your case, but a good place to start is what Tim said. And then also what I’ve said, which is trying to go back and maybe make sure the terms of your probation reflect that. And that’s those can that can always be modified.
Tim Pickett:
Megan asks: “Hello, I’m a patient recently accepted into a nursing program. I’ve heard drug testing [is] involved. Asked to take a test and I wanted to ask if I am protected as a cannabis patient in Utah or do I risk losing the opportunity to participate without a legal leg to stand on?” So, like I said before, I think you’re certainly better off with a card than not if you’re going to test positive. That I think is just… that should be set in stone, right?
The other piece of this is it depends on who you work for. So if you’re a University of Utah student or employee, then maybe, J.D., we qualify under some state guidance, right? Because we’re state employees, if we work for the University of Utah. And in that hospital, you’re considered a state employee. From a liability standpoint, I know that from a provider standpoint, IHC also has a Medical Cannabis program and allows their providers to issue cards and recommendations. So you would think that would help, even though they’re a private employer and may have their policies.
I know Steward Medical Group or now HCA, as they’re known now because St Mark’s in Lakeview bought Steward Medical Group in Utah. They have a no-tolerance policy because they’re they’re a national company, they’re multistate, and so they feel like they needed to do that. I used to work for them.
J.D. Lauritzen:
Yeah, I think for Megan, I think I would tell you, you’re going to want to look at the paperwork that you sign for the nursing program and read that. You may need to contact a lawyer to help you understand some of the legalese in there. But I think that may that may necessarily tell you, but this is one of those things, kind of, where it depends on what the program is willing to do and not willing to work with. So I would read any type of paperwork you’re given, any type of paperwork you’re asked to sign. I think you’re going to want to go through that with a fine tooth comb and really see what it says about drug testing, if there is any sort of consideration for you being a medical cannabis patient.
It’s just, this is another one of those instances where it’s sad because people are being asked to choose between, necessarily, their livelihood and their cannabis consumption. And this is why, over time, I think this will change. But we’re still in the era where “Reefer Madness” lives in certain places in society still. So I would say: read the paperwork you have, contact a lawyer to help you understand it better. And sadly, if if they if they have kind of a no-tolerance policy, even for you being a Medical Cannabis patient, short of it being a political subdivision or a state program or the government, you’re not going to have any protections. That’s just the reality of what we’re facing.
Tim Pickett:
And I’ll tell you right now, if you’re a nurse, you, you want those jobs because those nurses are making money, right? These travel nurses are making 140 bucks an hour, some of them in that, because there is such a demand for nurses because of COVID and this shortage. It’s crazy in the hospitals. OK, Lucas. He’s got a Magic Flight Box flower vape. Have you ever seen one of these, J.D.?
J.D. Lauritzen:
No, when he put that one up there, I was like, “I’ve not heard of that one.” I’ve got to look this up. It combusts the flower? I must say, the name of it sounds intriguing. Yeah, and I’m guessing it probably just heats it up too much, to the point where it probably gets a little bit of a burn on it. But I’m not sure… Obviously, we didn’t say this at the outset. We can say it now. Nothing I’m saying here is legal advice. Nothing forms an attorney-client relationship between me and any of the viewers here, even those that have dropped off.
But I think it would be a hard argument to say, “Hey, I have a vaporizer and somehow it heated my cannabis to a point where it burned it a little bit.” that somehow the prosecutor would make a successful argument to a judge or a jury that you had burned the cannabis. But if it’s something you’re nervous about and, Lucas, if you’ve got the financial wherewithal to get you a different vaporizer device that won’t cause that type of problem, you should look into doing so.
But, based upon your question, I still think you’re within the legal means of consumption. It just so happened your device might just have heated up too much.
Tim Pickett:
You’re going out of your way to not use a flame. That’s what I’m saying. I think you’re going to be OK. Okay, one more question. “What all do I need to have with me to legally carry my cannabis?” Oh, good question. We have a slide about this, but we didn’t include it. I’ve been told I also need to keep the original packaging, as well as the adhesive slip that’s attached. Oh, Lucas, sorry, but you’re right.
J.D. Lauritzen:
Yeah. Lucas, you’re absolutely accurate. I even tell people sometimes keep the receipt because I’ve heard of at least one story where a patient was cited and had their cannabis confiscated or they didn’t have the receipt. Now, when traveling with it, always have your card. Keep it in the bag that you got from the pharmacy. Or, if you’re traveling with it some other way, keep it in an opaque, in an opaque bag. I would get one of those smell-proof bags. I actually, myself, have a smell-proof backpack that I travel with. Made by Dimebags. Dimebags has great, great products that you can lock, and they’re completely smell-proof. So always keep it in your trunk, not in the area of the vehicle where you can reach for it. Keep it in the original packaging to the best you can.
With flower, you have to keep it in the original jar with all of the labels on it. But I also recommend that for other products, whether or not it’s required, you run the risk of law enforcement, not liking the way you have your cannabis and you give yourself the best shot possible if you can show them the original packaging, original labeling and as dumb as it sounds, the maybe even the receipt. So it’s, you know, it’s just it’s almost going over the top to make sure that you’re compliant, because law enforcement still is just not always hip to all the laws.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah, absolutely. Do you anticipate any legislation protecting patients from price-fixing? The monopoly has prices in Utah, 400% that of its neighbor. I don’t know. I think Oregon, Washington, we definitely have higher prices than that, but I was in Vegas. The prices are pretty comparable. But that being said, aside from whether or not the price fluctuations are there, do we think there’s going to be any legislation to reduce prices? I would say no. I think that the amount of the quantity of product that’s coming out now is going to drive the prices down.
Plus, I think, second… that’s the if you watch like, for example, if you’re on our newsletter, then you’ll see all of the different pharmacies’ coupons and you could purchase products at that, right? I don’t know. I don’t think there’s going to be any legislation for it.
J.D. Lauritzen:
No, not that I’ve heard of. But I… we’re definitely cognizant of this fact. You want to know the easiest way to make prices come down is to get rid of federal illegality. Go learn about Section 280E of the Tax Code and you’ll understand why prices are what they are. And I think sometimes it’s unfair to compare Utah, a newer medical market, to, say, Colorado, that’s our neighbor, right? That has a fully stood-up adult-use market, right? Prices are going to be very, very different.
But I’m also very sensitive to the idea of what prices are here in Utah, and they will come down for the reasons that Tim talked about. But you get rid of federal illegality that will help prices come down even more. And, I think, as production continues to ramp, I think that will… you’ll see more competitive prices. But I do know that the Legislature is at least mulling the idea of using some of that $3 state fee that patients pay per transaction, that fund that it goes into to maybe create some type of subsidy or something like that. Whether that’ll happen this session or not, I have at least heard it as an idea. But you know,, it’s too bad the prices are what they are. But when you compare us to other similar medical markets, we are on par, if not below.
But, where we’re surrounded by mostly adult-use states, of course you’re going to see prices that are very, very different.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah, that’s just a hard one too, because the clinic visits are expensive, too. And we we talk about this all the time, too, because there’s patient caps, right? We can only see so many patients. And so there is that limited supply of the ability for providers to see people. There’s all kinds of little things that we could do to lower the prices. Is it better than it was when it began? Sure. Does it need to get a lot better? Yes. Would home grow make it a lot better? Absolutely. So again, like you say, we just need to continue to push and continue to reach out to the Legislature and try to modify things as we go. OK, so this question is about the guns and somewhat vague. The part that we talked about the guns was somewhat vague. I’m a cardholder. As a cardholder, I can still have guns in my household and not have any legal issues. Is that correct?
J.D. Lauritzen:
I mean, like I said, the point remains true. Under federal law, absolutely not. Cannabis possession and guns together are a federal crime. Now, is the DOJ going to come to your house and bust your door down? No. W hat we were talking about is much more with concealed carry. That’s where it gets a lot stickier. But under Utah law, Utah law enforcement is not going to. They’re prohibited from expending any resources or their own time to enforce federal cannabis laws in Utah.
So, you are correct in the sense that because law enforcement is prevented from doing that, expending those resources or time that they’re likely not going to come to your home. What I was more talking about is concealed carry. Your ability to open carry your gun in Utah and have cannabis should be protected. It’s just new gun ownership. Prior gun ownership, it depends. Were you a Medical Cannabis person/user at the time you got the gun before? What did you say on the ATF form? It all kind of depends on all of that. But, generally, yes, as a cannabis user, you can still have your guns. Not under federal law, but here in Utah, you should be protected. But a lot of it just depends on how you acquired the gun, whether we’re talking about concealed carry or not.
So you’re completely correct. It is vague. It’s as clear as mud in a lot of ways, and it’s one of those things, I just keep hearkening back to it, but if federal law were to change, we would have a much clearer answer for you.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah.
J.D. Lauritzen:
I would always consult with an attorney, a private attorney, about some of these issues, especially those that understand gun rights. There’s good resources on the internet, on some of these issues as well. I wish we could be less… I wish we could be more clear for you. But at this point, it’s it’s one of those issues that’s really clouded by the continued federal illegality.
Tim Pickett:
Sure, I get this question all the time in my clinic. Is it legal for me to make my own edibles, right? For me to make my own butter? And there really isn’t anything in the statute that would prohibit somebody from making their own food products from cannabis oil, flower, that they bought legally.
J.D. Lauritzen:
Yeah, you’re 100% correct. What you do in your own home with the flower that you purchase, short of smoking it. There is no prohibition against you making your own cannabutter or anything with your AVB. I, myself, am the owner of a Levo. And it’s just, I make it like I make coffee and I really enjoy being able to make my own stuff. So yes, you are safe to do that. There’s just nothing in the law that says anything one way or another and, because there isn’t at this point, you are safe, you’re safe to do that. So what you do in your own home with your flower outside of smoking it, like I said, should be just fine.
Tim Pickett:
I’d add that because you’ve transformed it into something different. Traveling with it is probably not recommended.
J.D. Lauritzen:
Yeah, I’d definitely keep it in your home, if you’ve changed it into some other type of product. I would hate to try to have an argument with law enforcement on the side of the highway about where my cannabutter came from.
Tim Pickett:
Right? Yeah, absolutely. This went pretty good. So I mean, here you go. You can follow us here. You follow us at WholesomeCo Cannabis online. UtahMarijuana.org, there’s our website. So one of the best ways to ask a question for J.D. or for me is to go to this Discover Marijuana YouTube channel. Pick any video. Make a comment. Because I look through all of the comments and I essentially want to answer all of them. Plus, it gives us ideas for videos we want to produce and make. And if you have this question, somebody else, ten other people probably have it. So if you want to reach out to us, that’s probably the best way to do it. J.D., thanks for coming. This has been really exciting to talk about.
J.D. Lauritzen:
Yeah, Tim. Thanks for having me on and thank you for everybody that attended. And hey, if you ever see me out in the wild, feel free to come and talk to me. If you ever come to the WholesomeCo pharmacy and you have a question or you want to talk to me, I’m usually there most days. So, I’m always happy to chat.
Tim Pickett:
Great. Thanks, everybody. Stay safe out there.
Episode 80 of Utah in the Weeds features George Breiwa, the founder of DynaVap, a company specializing in unique thermal technology for vaporizing cannabis.
We started this episode with a brief history of DynaVap and the reasons for vaporizing, rather than smoking, cannabis. [02:19]
Host Tim Pickett unboxed a number of DynaVap products and received tutorials from Breiwa on how to operate them, starting with the “M” line of DynaVap vaporizers. [08:07]
Tim and George talked about the company’s induction heater, which can be used to heat a VapCap vaporizer like the “M” without a flame. [16:25]
Next, we looked at DynaVap’s Duality 1+1 torch for heating VapCaps. [25;12]
Finally, we unboxed DynaVap’s flagship device—The Omni—and a Vong (or vaporizer on glass). [29:39]
We wrapped up this episode with a discussion of the user-serviceable parts in a DynaVap device, the pricing for their devices, and the online community that has formed around DynaVap. [43:55]
Click here to watch the unboxing and product demonstrations on YouTube.
Tim Pickett:
Boom.
George Breiwa:
Just like that.
Tim Pickett:
Oh my God. This is by far… I mean, I don’t know. I mean, I hate to say it, but it’s like this is one of the funnest podcasts I’ve done. Welcome everybody out to episode 80 of Utah in the Weeds. My name is Tim Pickett. I’m a medical cannabis specialist here in Utah. Utah in the Weeds is a podcast about Utah cannabis and cannabis culture in general.
Tim Pickett:
Today’s guest is George Breiwa. We have an opportunity to speak with him and do a lot of videos. This episode, if you aren’t on video or aren’t on YouTube, then you might want to be sure to log on to Discover Marijuana on YouTube and watch this episode because I unbox the DynaVap products. We talk through them and there’s a lot of visual stuff. I do my best to describe what I’m doing on for audio.
Tim Pickett:
But the DynaVap product is pretty interesting because it’s essentially a vaporizer, a flower vaporizer that doesn’t require any battery. You use either some type of heating element and they have a battery, or you can use a torch to heat up the element in order to vaporize the flower, but all medical. Really, really cool Wisconsin company that is producing these right here in the US. They’re phenomenal quality, and is just fun to… Cannabis is fun.
Tim Pickett:
It’s fun to learn new things, learn about new ways to consume and try to avoid putting flame to flower. This week, Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. Just very, very grateful to all of you, all of the subscribers, listeners. Thanks for subscribing to Utah in the Weeds. You can listen to it on any podcast player that you have access to.
Tim Pickett:
Thanks for subscribing and watching on Discover Marijuana. Again, my name is Tim Pickett. This is a great interview with George Breiwa from DynaVap in Wisconsin. Enjoy this episode. Tell me about your company.
George Breiwa:
Our company was formed primarily for the purpose of sharing an idea, and that idea is really, is there any longer a need in our world for people to be lighting things on fire and intentionally inhaling the smoke? We don’t believe that there is. We have the technology. And it’s not just the devices that we make, Tim. There’s many other options on the market. It just we like the devices that we make.
George Breiwa:
We put a whole lot of care and effort into designing them to be simple, very durable, and also very user-friendly, and also put a lot of care into trying to do our best to emulate the ritual and the experience of consuming cannabis.
Tim Pickett:
Because it is, to that point, there is a culture around cannabis. There is that experience around cannabis, and Utah, by going away from, by becoming one of these non-flamed states, you’re like a dry state or something. There’s a lot of people that they’re always just pissed off because they don’t get that experience. There’s something about grinding, rolling, packing, the preparation of this whole thing, very ritualistic. And that alone can be very medicinal for people.
George Breiwa:
I think it has way more value than most people even would ever contemplate. That’s whether it’s someone that’s in the cannabis industry, someone that consumes cannabis or not. Some people just don’t really think about it, but the reality is the thoughts that we have, and the actions that we take, and the anticipation that leads up to what the experience has to offer contribute in very significant ways in terms of what the end result of that experience is going to be.
Tim Pickett:
I like the way you say that. How did you get into that? Is this something you’ve always been involved in personally, or is this something you fell into?
George Breiwa:
It’s just a little bit of both. I didn’t really participate in any sort of cannabis consumption, or the culture at all, until I was into my twenties. Part of it was the legality issue. Part of it was occupation related where it just didn’t make sense and it would’ve been a good choice. But from my first introduction, I knew one thing for sure. And that is, I did not like the smoke.
George Breiwa:
I’ve been very anti-smoking for a very long time. Smoke bothers me. I think I’m even at this stage in my life partially allergic to it. I don’t think I’ve got asthma or anything like that, but it affects me in a very negative way. I don’t like the other ingredients in smoke besides the things that I’m looking for, all the incomplete combustion byproducts and all the other yucky things. So looking for another way.
George Breiwa:
The process started probably back in the early 2000s when the idea of using a vaporizer was just there if you were really looking for it. Some people that maybe have heard of it, but most people hadn’t. There wasn’t a whole lot of a love for the technology that was out there at the time. So I looked into it a little bit, played around, tried to make some stuff. Then it just sat by the wayside for a few years.
George Breiwa:
But all the while, anytime I would come near burning cannabis, it was like, “Ugh, why does it have to be this way? Why does it have to taste so terrible?” I mean, it smells great, but then when you taste it after you’ve burned it, come on. Who puts cookies in their oven and burns them on purpose?
Tim Pickett:
Right. I mean, it’s so true. There’s something about it. It’s you want that joint to taste good, but it just doesn’t, right?
George Breiwa:
No.
Tim Pickett:
It’s like it almost is there, but then-
George Breiwa:
Almost.
Tim Pickett:
… there’s that… Yeah, you just can never get there because there is that combustion. There’s that high heat and you’re inhaling the plant material. From a medical standpoint, as a medical provider, we know, and the Utah Medical Association got right on board with the no flame thing, because there is no medical benefit of combustion.
George Breiwa:
No. No. It’s contradictory [crosstalk 00:07:17]-
Tim Pickett:
Plain and simple. Yeah. It is contradictory. There are discussions, I guess, you could have on risk versus benefit. If somebody has terminal cancer, are you going to kill them with the smoke before they die of the cancer? Maybe not. But why not just teach people to use a method that gives them the experience, gives them the medicinal quality of whatever you’re consuming, offers more benefit because you get that entourage effect. Way better than burning off all those cannabinoids, and we’ve talked about this in the podcast before.
Tim Pickett:
But in addition to talking about you, we’ve got these things that are in front of me here, now that I have taken out of the package.
George Breiwa:
All right.
Tim Pickett:
You’re going to have to walk me through this a little bit. I have-
George Breiwa:
I would love to walk you through it. I wanted to send you an overview, a sample, to give you a good general idea of what our company and what our product line is all about. The quick overview is we manufacturer smoking alternative devices, or thermal extraction devices, what we really like to call them because-
Tim Pickett:
Thermal extraction devices, DynaVap, Thermal extraction device company, like when it gets right down to it, right?
George Breiwa:
It gets right down to it, because why would you light your medicine on fire when all you need is heat to get what you desire, right?
Tim Pickett:
Uh-huh.
George Breiwa:
I mean, and this is how it works, Tim. It’s so much fun that… But if you take any one of the devices out, so if you just grab any part of the stuff that’s in that box… Hold it up so I can see you see it.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah. I’ve got this little…
George Breiwa:
That’s one of our colored Ms. That is our completely plastic-free packaging.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah. It’s a little cardboard and I had to peel it apart.
George Breiwa:
Yep.
Tim Pickett:
Inside is a cylindrical device. Looks like a vape pen.
George Breiwa:
It does.
Tim Pickett:
A vape pen battery.
George Breiwa:
Yep, but it’s small.
Tim Pickett:
A little cap on it.
George Breiwa:
Yes.
Tim Pickett:
Ooh. It’s like a single hitter.
George Breiwa:
Kind of. What I’m going to do is I’ve got another variation of that here in my hands.
Tim Pickett:
Okay.
George Breiwa:
I’ll visually walk you through this while I describe it. When you take that little cap off, what you see is the extraction chamber.
Tim Pickett:
Yep.
George Breiwa:
Okay. That’s where you put your cannabis or your other botanicals, because these devices work with a wide range of botanicals. Okay?
Tim Pickett:
Sure.
George Breiwa:
After we’d done that, you can put the cap back on. Okay. The cap is the key to the [inaudible 00:09:58]. The cap is the key to the functionality that allows you to consume your cannabis without lighting it on fire, okay?
Tim Pickett:
Okay.
George Breiwa:
Inside this cap, and all our devices come with one, is a tiny little calibrated thermostat that will click when your extraction chamber gets to extraction temperature. Okay?
Tim Pickett:
Okay. Okay.
George Breiwa:
There’s a couple of ways that we can make it click. There’s some torch lighters in the box. There’s also a really fun little package that looks like this.
Tim Pickett:
Yes, I’ve got that-
George Breiwa:
We can get into that now, or we can get into that later, depending on how you want to go.
Tim Pickett:
Let’s get into it now. Okay. So-
George Breiwa:
Okay. So then-
Tim Pickett:
… that comes in a zippered pouch.
George Breiwa:
Yes.
Tim Pickett:
Really nice zippered pouch. I’m opening up the zippered pouch. Inside there, there’s a couple of little things, one bigger square device.
George Breiwa:
Yes. About the size of an old flip phone, right?
Tim Pickett:
Yep.
George Breiwa:
Before they started making them small.
Tim Pickett:
Works [crosstalk 00:11:01] too.
George Breiwa:
This device, if you look on the side, there’s a little button. If you press the button quickly three times, it’ll turn it on.
Tim Pickett:
Okay. I’ve got the green light.
George Breiwa:
You see the green light.
Tim Pickett:
Yep. Got a green light on my-
George Breiwa:
Really fun, Tim. If you simply take your device, your VapCap-
Tim Pickett:
Okay.
George Breiwa:
And you drop it in like this, okay, the light should turn from green to red. And when you hear it click, take it out.
Tim Pickett:
Oh.
George Breiwa:
Just like that, [crosstalk 00:11:35].
Tim Pickett:
Just like that. Okay. I slid that in there.
George Breiwa:
Yes.
Tim Pickett:
And it didn’t take, but-
George Breiwa:
Now be careful. The cap is now very hot.
Tim Pickett:
Oh yeah. Okay. Yeah. That thing is hot.
George Breiwa:
Okay. It’s hot enough to effectively extract all of the active compounds from whatever’s in the extraction chamber.
Tim Pickett:
Oh yeah. You do taste a little bit of the heat, right on a dry hit of the little… What are we calling this?
George Breiwa:
This is a VapCap.
Tim Pickett:
A VapCap. Okay. VapCap. And then what do we call the battery?
George Breiwa:
That’s an induction heater.
Tim Pickett:
An induction heater. We’re going to drop this in.
George Breiwa:
Yep.
Tim Pickett:
Boom. It flashes.
George Breiwa:
Yep.
Tim Pickett:
Flashes again. I’m doing it again. It clicks.
George Breiwa:
There you go. Let me take it out.
Tim Pickett:
How the hell did you get it to click?
George Breiwa:
It took a little bit of doing, a little bit of engineering. But the true goal here, Tim, was to utilize the available technology today in our world to give people a much better option for consuming their products, their botanicals, their cannabis, whatever it might be, without having to light it on fire. Key thing is also the cap will only click once on the heat up. So we need to let it cool down and reset before we heat it again.
Tim Pickett:
Okay.
George Breiwa:
On that induction heater, you notice this little magnet. Okay.
Tim Pickett:
Yes.
George Breiwa:
You can sit your device right on that magnet and that’ll help pull some of the heat out, until you hear that reset click.
Tim Pickett:
I did hear the reset click. It doesn’t take long.
George Breiwa:
No, it doesn’t stay hot all that long. But here, again, we’re trying to emulate as much as we reasonably can. It’s a little bit of a shift, we’re using some technology, but our goal is to emulate the smoking or the combustion experience without the need for creating the incomplete combustion byproducts and all the other nasty things. So you can really enjoy everything that your botanicals, that your plant, that your cannabis has to offer without all the other unpleasant things.
Tim Pickett:
No, this is slick. This is probably a good two or three inhalations at least in this-
George Breiwa:
A typical load in that size extraction chamber is about 0.1 grams.
Tim Pickett:
Got it.
George Breiwa:
Okay? What people typically find is that that’s going to give a nice experience over the course of somewhere between three and five, maybe six heat cycles. So you’ve just gone through two heat cycles. Okay.
Tim Pickett:
Okay.
George Breiwa:
Where this gets really fun is, all of our devices, the ones we manufacturer now, some of the older ones didn’t have this capability, have the capability to reduce the size of the extraction chamber by 50%, which means it makes for, oh, at least in my opinion, a very, very nice microdosing tool, so you can consume a very tiny amount, which is really nice for people that are trying to just carefully medicate, just the right amount, for the effect that you seek.
Tim Pickett:
Well, this is exactly what I was thinking when I put this… I’m looking at the chamber and thinking to myself, “Oh, not a lot goes in there. That’s just the right amount for….” Fill in the blank there. That’s just the right amount for. When it comes to flower, the big problem for newcomers to cannabis as medicine, and consuming cannabis in general as somebody who’s new to it, it’s always dosing. It’s always dosing. How can you keep the dose low while you figure it out?
George Breiwa:
Well, you now [crosstalk 00:15:24]-
Tim Pickett:
And then, how can you get flower… Second, how can you get flower dosing to be consistent? That is so difficult to do. But with a chamber like yours, I mean, it literally just the right amount. When I’m looking at it, I swear I could just put a pencil eraser in there.
George Breiwa:
It is about the size of a pencil eraser.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah. And it’s-
George Breiwa:
It’s about eight millimeters in diameter and just a little bit less than 10 millimeters deep at full size. When we go to the half size position, it’s the same diameter and half that depth, so about five millimeters. So it’s very small chamber.
Tim Pickett:
So half size would be a different device, a different-
George Breiwa:
Oh, actually, no. I don’t want to get too complex right now because-
Tim Pickett:
Okay.
George Breiwa:
… again, it’s first introduction. But the screen that’s in the bottom of that chamber is positionable. I can show you how to position it into the half chamber size. We can do it now or we can do it later. Whatever you’re most comfortable with.
Tim Pickett:
Well, let’s leave it for now right there, and let’s go back to this battery, this induction heater.
George Breiwa:
Induction heater, yes.
Tim Pickett:
Because this, essentially, we’re going to drop that in there, wait for the click. And this turns on and off and is chargeable here. Anything else-
George Breiwa:
[crosstalk 00:16:47]-
Tim Pickett:
… with this? If I leave it in there for two clicks, is it going to get hotter?
George Breiwa:
If you leave it in there, it’s going to continue to heat until the device times out. It’ll time out in about 10 seconds. Okay.
Tim Pickett:
Okay.
George Breiwa:
Many people refer to our devices as analog devices because they effectively have no electronic components, right?
Tim Pickett:
Okay.
George Breiwa:
They don’t turn themselves on, they don’t turn themselves off. You as the operator are the person that is driving the device. So you can heat it longer if you like, you can take it out before it clicks if you like. You can dial in exactly what you’re looking for because it’s your foot that’s on the gas. Unlike the electronic devices where you’re pushing a button and you’re letting some microcontroller take control in terms of determining how it’s going to operate, the person holding the device in their hand is the control.
George Breiwa:
The induction heater is your source of energy. By separating the extraction chamber from the energy source and the control, what we’ve been able to do is make a device that’s extraordinarily durable because it’s the controls or the energy source, whether it’s battery or even a torch or something along those lines. Those are the parts that fail.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah.
George Breiwa:
This is your dosing mechanism.
Tim Pickett:
Right. What approximate temperature are you getting with one click?
George Breiwa:
Okay. It varies a little bit, depending on your technique. Here’s where it gets a little bit more fun. Slightly more challenging. But for most of us back in the day, when we were first getting on a bike, it was a little bit challenging. Once we got over that initial learning curve, it became more or less second nature and we could choose if we wanted to go fast or go slow, right?
Tim Pickett:
Yeah.
George Breiwa:
These devices work very similarly once you understand the principle of operation. What I’m going to get at is just a couple of things. With an induction heater, especially this one, you drop it in. If you just leave it there until it clicks, it’s going to click on the first heat cycle, somewhere in the neighborhood of around high 300s to low 400 degrees Fahrenheit in the extraction tube. Okay.
George Breiwa:
After the reset, like you drop it in again, that temperature, when it clicks again is going to be slightly higher because there’s some residual heat left in there when the cap resets. Okay. Now that’s with the induction heater. If you’re going to use a different source of heat, say, a flame or a lighter-
Tim Pickett:
I happen to have one of these in my box.
George Breiwa:
Yes. So let me see which one you’ve got. Let’s-
Tim Pickett:
I’ve got this one and I’ve got some torch.
George Breiwa:
Yes. Okay. Depending on where you heat the cap, okay, if you heat towards the tip here, okay, we like to have some sayings here. So you heat the tip for a tasty rip, you heat the base, go to space. The reason behind that is, the temperature indicator, the thermostat is towards the front end here where the groove is. Okay?
Tim Pickett:
Okay.
George Breiwa:
When you heat closer to the groove, especially with the torch, it’s going to click and give you that temperature indication early, okay, before we put as much heat into the extraction chamber. When we heat a little bit further away, we’re driving more heat into that chamber before our cap clicks, which is going to give us a little bit higher temperature.
Tim Pickett:
I see, little higher temperature.
George Breiwa:
Little higher temperature. We can do the same thing with the induction heater by placing it in the induction heater for a few seconds, pulling it out, giving it a few seconds for the heat to conduct through, to get more to thermal equilibrium, drop it back in, and more slowly bring up your extraction chamber to optimum temperature.
Tim Pickett:
Okay. Now that I’m understanding this a little bit better and it really only took me a minute with you describing it, I’m the master of how hot this gets.
George Breiwa:
Yes.
Tim Pickett:
This little induction chamber is going to get as hot as I want it to get. For the first few times, I’m going to drop this in, wait till it clicks. I’m going to take that hit.
George Breiwa:
Yep.
Tim Pickett:
I’m going to see how that goes. Certainly, I’m going to try that for a little while. Then I’m going to say, “Ah, you know what? I want to get it a little hotter. It’s nighttime. I need that to just be a little bit…” I don’t know, for me personally, the lower temperatures tend to be a little bit uplifting, more uplifting, and the higher temperatures tend to be a little bit more sedating.
Tim Pickett:
So, for me, it’s evening time. I want that to be a little bit hotter. I’m going to play with that. I’m going to not let it click. I’ll wait. I’ll let it flash a few times. I’ll pull it out. I’ll put it back in there, wait for it to click a second time. Boom. Now I’m in the 420 range Fahrenheit and I’m golden. Ooh, that’s easy. I just did it. I’m an expert already.
George Breiwa:
Isn’t it nice and intuitive?
Tim Pickett:
It’s totally intuitive. This makes sense to me because I can… I’m assuming that this other little canister that’s in the DynaVap product is a little bit of a… Like an Arab container.
George Breiwa:
Yes. Inside the induction of your case.
Tim Pickett:
Inside the case for the induction heater, there’s a nice little plastic, perfectly fit.
George Breiwa:
Plastic [crosstalk 00:22:33].
Tim Pickett:
Plastic stash jar. I can put that in there. I can put basically my pen in there as well and I’m good to go. That’s that’s super cool because the dosing is the right way. One thing about COVID is there’s no sharing of anything anymore. So everybody wants to have their own single serving size.
George Breiwa:
Which is nice.
Tim Pickett:
It is nice.
George Breiwa:
You’re going to have a few extra devices, Tim. So when you have friends over for dinner, no different than when you’re serving food. You don’t take a couple bites and pass your fork to the right. You can give everyone at the table their own VapCap.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah.
George Breiwa:
Okay. And that way they can control the experience very precisely once they understand what they’re looking for. Maybe they want that hotter hit, even though it’s so early in the evening, and you don’t. Maybe they want a different strain than you’re looking for. Not that I’m against sharing. I’m certainly not. In fact, sharing is a huge part of, I think, the cannabis culture, and it’s also a-
Tim Pickett:
I agree.
George Breiwa:
… huge part of our culture as a company. But I would much rather share my torch or my induction heater than my VapCap.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah. Your VapCap, the induction heater case happens to be just the right size for four or five VapCaps in the top. Probably this little mesh compartment on the top would be perfect for a couple of alcohol wipes, if I’m thinking… I’m thinking I can wipe these off. You’ve got a few people who are involved. You’ve got one induction heater, and you’re off to the races.
Tim Pickett:
Wow. You have really just opened my eyes to an entire new way of consumption in a group where you’re all participating in the same event, essentially, like the old… You’re all smoking joints together, but you don’t have to smoke joints. You’ve got your own dosing device. Everybody shares an induction heater. Way to go. Way to go. I’m excited for this. How do you turn this thing off? Three buttons, three clicks?
George Breiwa:
It’ll go off automatically, or push it three times again, it’ll shut off.
Tim Pickett:
How long does the charge last?
George Breiwa:
With that device, probably somewhere in the neighborhood of about 35 to 40 clicks.
Tim Pickett:
35 to 40 clicks. That’s great. Okay. When I’m heating this up with a torch, teach me how to use this lighter you have.
George Breiwa:
Okay. That lighter there is the new lighter, yes. The gas is already on when the lid is open.
Tim Pickett:
Okay. Looks like a high-tech Zippo.
George Breiwa:
We tried to make it like a Zippo. If you open the lid and put your thumb, right on the top of the flame would be, and then slide across the flint, it should light right up.
Tim Pickett:
Oh yeah, we got heat. I had to manipulate the bottom.
George Breiwa:
There you go. What’s fun with this lighter is we designed it so that it could be either a single flame porch or a dual flame torch. there’s a slider on the side that allows you to select between single flame or dual flame.
Tim Pickett:
Okay. The slider on the side, I put the slider down and then I ripped the flint, and only one flame fires. And when the slider’s on the top, it gives me both flames.
George Breiwa:
Yes.
Tim Pickett:
Okay. That makes total sense. And the gas is on when the lid is up.
George Breiwa:
Just like a Zippo.
Tim Pickett:
Then there’s a window on the side where I can see how much fuel is in the-
George Breiwa:
Exactly.
Tim Pickett:
… is in lighter itself. The bottom, of course, has a flame adjustment knob, little twist knob.
George Breiwa:
Yep.
Tim Pickett:
Where I can make it a torch.
George Breiwa:
Dial it in. Yep. I like to have my lighters adjusted. So turn the flame down as far as I can to maintain a steady flame.
Tim Pickett:
Yep. That’s what I was just trying to do and I turned it just a little too far.
George Breiwa:
That lighter lights the best if you hold it up and put your thumb right on the top middle and slide it across.
Tim Pickett:
Yes. Super easy when you do it the right way.
George Breiwa:
Yeah. If you try and just hit the side of it, they’re more difficult to light.
Tim Pickett:
Got it. Makes sense. Really nice. What type of fuel is in this lighter?
George Breiwa:
Your typical refillable lighter butane.
Tim Pickett:
Now, we could use this for the VapCap.
George Breiwa:
Yes.
Tim Pickett:
Just like you were saying, and we can still get the click?
George Breiwa:
Absolutely. The technique is a little bit more challenging than with the induction heater.
Tim Pickett:
Okay.
George Breiwa:
What we want to do with the flame is you want to hold your cap above the flame. You want to aim the flame for somewhere in the middle of the cap and rotate either back and forth or continuously around to heat the cap until it clicks, just like that.
Tim Pickett:
Oh yeah. It clicked away.
George Breiwa:
And you’re done.
Tim Pickett:
I still can’t figure out, everybody you know that we’re all going to be sitting around, and we’re going to be thinking, “Man, the click, the click is the key. Right?
George Breiwa:
Yes.
Tim Pickett:
How’d they get it to click? It’s awesome. Okay. That makes a lot of sense. Then your cap is essentially heating the herb and then your drawing. That’s the idea behind not having to put flame to the herb.
George Breiwa:
Exactly. I can give you a quick analogy. It’s no different than when we’re baking cookies. I mean, who doesn’t like the smell of fresh baked cookies. Fresh baked cookies tend to smell a whole lot like cookie dough smells, because we’re just simply heating it up when we’re baking. The extraction chamber in a VapCap is basically a tiny little oven, and the cap has a thermostat in it.
George Breiwa:
When you set your oven, you’re basically setting a thermostat so that it stops heating at a particular temperature. Okay. When the cap clicks, we know that we’ve hit the temperature. We are then smelling or tasting our fresh baked cookies, versus taking our really nice cookies and lighting them on fire, so then they taste like burnt cookies.
Tim Pickett:
Right. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. This is really cool. Okay. We can’t leave it at that because I have two more cylindrical containers here.
George Breiwa:
Oh, these are fun.
Tim Pickett:
I think I’ve got a zero… These might be the same-
George Breiwa:
No, they’re very different, what’s inside.
Tim Pickett:
Oh really?
George Breiwa:
Yes.
Tim Pickett:
This really is Christmas. Okay. They come in basically like tubes, like I’m going to unroll them and cook some rolls. It looks like a large organic version of your VapCap.
George Breiwa:
And you’ve just opened it.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah. Okay. I just pulled it.
George Breiwa:
Yeah. That’s packaging for what we call our Omni. That’s this guy right here.
Tim Pickett:
Okay. The Omni.
George Breiwa:
Yes. This is our-
Tim Pickett:
I’ve got the Omni out, and then it comes with its own… Does it come with its own lighter?
George Breiwa:
I like to put a lighter in there as well, yes. So you’ve got another option, because I wanted to make sure that all the devices that I sent you have portable heat source, so that they’re useful, so you can mess around with them and share them. You can give them away to someone that you care about.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah. This is fantastic. This looks a lot like a chillum design where you have a device inside another device.
George Breiwa:
Yeah. It’s fun. We wanted the packaging to look like the device inside. The packaging is actually made by us in our shop.
Tim Pickett:
Oh, it’s great. It looks like it’s got wood on both ends, and then the metal, machined metal through the middle that’s cylindrical. Then you pull another version of the VapCap out. Same style, VapCap. Is this your lighter too? Do you make these?
George Breiwa:
No. No. We participated in designing the lighter that you just used with the flint. The other lighters are more or less commodity torch lighters.
Tim Pickett:
Now what’s the difference? Is there difference between the VapCaps that I had in the cardboard and this Omni?
George Breiwa:
Yes. We’re looking at either end of the spectrum here. The first ones that we looked at were what we’ve heard to as our M, and these are the colored Ms. They come in three different colors. They also come in a base stainless steel as well with no color. The one that’s in your hand right now, we call our Omni, and this is our black one, or we call it Obsidium. It’s the high end of the spectrum.
George Breiwa:
This device is completely machined from titanium. The only part that’s not titanium is the little black cap on the end. So every other part of this device is grade two titanium, which means it’s just commercially pure titanium. It’s not alloyed with alumina or vanadium like grade five titanium is. It allows for a little bit more of a customizable experience because, on this device, when you grasp the mouthpiece and give it a little twist, it will adjust some internal parts, that if you pull it out, you can see what’s inside. The mouthpiece will pull right out. Okay.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah. It looks like a little drill bit almost.
George Breiwa:
Right. When this is put together, you will notice that the two parts thread into one another. Okay. When we twist the mouthpiece when it’s inside the tube, that other part of the tube, which you see the twisty parts, which we call the condenser, it will either extend or retract. Okay. As is extending or retracting, it changes the clearance between that tube and the backside of our tip or extraction chamber.
George Breiwa:
What that allows you to do is it allows you to dial in how much dilution air is coming in our air ports here, versus how much vapor is coming from your extraction chamber. So you can really precisely adjust and modulate, what we refer to as your air and vapor ratio.
Tim Pickett:
Now, why does this matter, George?
George Breiwa:
Why does it matter? Well, for anyone that has ever coughed when consuming cannabis, that’s why it matters.
Tim Pickett:
Because the amount of air versus the amount of essentially vapor that you’re getting is going to adjust the harshness of the product?
George Breiwa:
You got it, Tim. It’s that simple.
Tim Pickett:
I guess I’ve really never considered it. But having the availability to adjust how much air and how much… Now you’ve got my attention. I mean, I guess we probably do this by habit. When you’re taking a hit, you’re going to take a little bit, a little bit, a little bit, I call it-
George Breiwa:
A little bit of air and mix it in.
Tim Pickett:
Right? You’re sipping on the vaporizer. Here you’d be able to basically dial that in by the length of those internal parts.
George Breiwa:
Yes.
Tim Pickett:
And how far they are away from the chamber.
George Breiwa:
A quick way to do that, if you pop it out again, and you basically thread the two together and then back it off just a touch so they’re not [inaudible 00:35:08], right?
Tim Pickett:
Right.
George Breiwa:
Then you place it back in to the stem. If you look closely at the mouthpiece, what you’re going to notice is there’s nine lines that are carved into the mouthpiece. They vary in length from short to long.
Tim Pickett:
Wow.
George Breiwa:
Okay. If you rotate this mouthpiece to the shortest length, line clockwise looking at most of these, right?
Tim Pickett:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
George Breiwa:
And then start rotating it counter-clockwise, just like a combination lock. Each little micro rotation is going to extend that condenser a little bit further into the tip, further reducing how much the dilution air is going to be admitted into the device. Those little lines, since they go up incrementally, allow a visual cue. If you know that, yeah. I like to run my device somewhere between five and seven, right?
Tim Pickett:
Right.
George Breiwa:
I rotate it all the way around to effectively the beginning and then back it up four notches, five notches. I’m going to get consistent results each time.
Tim Pickett:
Okay. I know exactly the person that this needs to go to. No question about it. I’m thinking of a person who’s preferred method of consumption is joints. It’s their civil disobedience in Utah. I know that this has got to be something they need to experiment with and experience because, I don’t know, it’s all of the things. You still get that experience, but you don’t have the medical problem.
George Breiwa:
No.
Tim Pickett:
For listeners who are interested in this, or don’t know, when you consume… There is no connection between smoking cannabis and lung cancer, and everybody will tell you that. That’s the thing everybody latches on to. But cannabis smokers get emphysema and they get chronic bronchitis. That is because we’re inhaling the combusted plant material. The longer you smoke, the more chances that is.
Tim Pickett:
Now that we have a growing population of cannabis consumers in this country, and the younger crowd, there’s a lot of young people, a lot more young people smoking cannabis than there was 20 years ago, just by numbers. That’s a lot of people who are going to develop chronic bronchitis and the emphysema symptoms from that inflammatory response from all that plant material.
Tim Pickett:
So the more we can tweak this use and reduce the smoking, the better, from a medical standpoint, patients all over. I think what you’ve mentioned here, George, is that by trying to help people get that experience of smoking and yet not smoking.
George Breiwa:
Isn’t it beautiful?
Tim Pickett:
It really is a great idea and a great company. Okay. I’m opening up this last box. It’s another tube.
George Breiwa:
Yep.
Tim Pickett:
We have a similar lighter. And yet, in this one, we have a nice wooden… Looks to me like walnut-
George Breiwa:
It is.
Tim Pickett:
… wood. There you go. There’s my cabinetry making days. I’ve got a magnet on top, which I’m going to assume is, now that I’m getting familiar, that my cooling magnet.
George Breiwa:
Yes.
Tim Pickett:
And then, how do I open this? Oh, it twists. What?
George Breiwa:
Just like your old school stash box.
Tim Pickett:
This is an old school stash box right here. You’ve got to twist it all the way around to take it out both sides.
George Breiwa:
Yep.
Tim Pickett:
Okay. Now I’m holding a wooden metal VapCap that is… I’ve got the same cap, so I’m familiar with that now. But I’ve got a really nice looking… Looks like it’s machined metal. What metal are we looking at?
George Breiwa:
This device we call the VonG. VonG is more or less an acronym that means VapCap on glass. This is a combination of wood and titanium. Either end of this device is got two type… Got a titanium crown, we’ve got a titanium tip, and then, of course, our temperature in the [inaudible 00:39:57] cap on the one end. What’s really fun is, on the mouthpiece end of it, you have a 10 millimeter taper and a 14 millimeter taper where the logo is.
George Breiwa:
This piece will natively connect with both your 10 millimeter and your 14 millimeter female glass connectors on your water pieces.
Tim Pickett:
What the… What? Okay. Stand by, George.
George Breiwa:
Oh, we’re getting the glass, huh?
George Breiwa:
Okay.
Tim Pickett:
Boom.
George Breiwa:
Just like that.
Tim Pickett:
Oh my God. This is by far… I mean, I don’t know. I mean, I hate to say it, but it’s like this is one of the funnest podcasts I’ve done, and we’re virtual. I mean, I can’t imagine. I’ve got to fly to you next time.
George Breiwa:
Well, you’re certainly welcome to visit anytime you like.
Tim Pickett:
Okay.
George Breiwa:
I will show you around.
Tim Pickett:
The diameter of this fits right into a glass piece perfectly. Wow. You just made that glass piece legal in Utah.
George Breiwa:
Isn’t that nice?
Tim Pickett:
That is nice. I mean, okay. And then, the container it comes in, that’s classic. I really like that a lot, because you could put herb in there in the one side. This slides down in nicely, and you’ve got a completely conspicuous container. Man, there’s hours and hours of fun to be had with these things.
George Breiwa:
Hopefully a lifetime of quality time that you can spend with yourself and with your friends, enjoying the things that you love to do.
Tim Pickett:
No question about it. Well said. Every time that little cap clicks just makes you smile, doesn’t it?
George Breiwa:
It sure does.
Tim Pickett:
Utah is a non flame to flower. We cannot put flame to flower, and yet a lot of your devices, other than the induction heater, are going to require… And certainly it’s easy to carry a flame with you to heat them up with a flame. So there is that element to it. I think that I would tell people, if you were going to buy a DynaVap, to me, the induction heater makes the most sense, from a medicinal standpoint, because it is the, look, if you’re concerned with breaking out a flame at all, then the induction heater is certainly the least-
George Breiwa:
Attention grabbing.
Tim Pickett:
Yes. The least attention grabbing.
George Breiwa:
But what’s nice with these devices, Tim, is if your battery gives out, all you need is something that’s hot. If you’re a person that likes to be outside, it’s particularly satisfying when you’re sitting around the campfire, and no joke, you can just grab that poking stick that you’ve been poking the fire and the end is smoldering, got a cherry on it, you can roll your cap right on the hot end of that burning stick. And when your cap clicks, you have a nice high quality experience without the harshness of the smoke.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah. In Utah, that makes a lot of sense because, boy, we have a lot of people who like the outdoors. Batteries tend to not do so well in the heat. They don’t do well in the cold. They wear out. Whereas these devices really will never wear out. It seems to me, looking at these, that the cap is the thing that would potentially wear out the first?
George Breiwa:
There’s three parts of the device that tend to wear out. The cap is one of them, the little screen inside is another, and occasionally the o-rings fail. But all of these things are easy to replace, are user serviceable. The fun thing is we see many, many reports of customers that have purchased products from us years ago and use them multiple times a day, every single day, and haven’t had a single part fail. So they can be extremely durable. But even if one of those three consumable parts does fail, they’re relatively low cost and very easy to replace.
Tim Pickett:
Would you recommend that… I mean, how do you recommend which one somebody starts with? I mean, here it is, Christmas, Black Friday, literally Black Friday, this podcast is going to go up on Friday morning at 4:20 AM.
George Breiwa:
Nice.
Tim Pickett:
I did not do this intentionally, folks. I’ll certainly put a link in the video. When it gets posted on YouTube, we’ll put a link in the video to DynaVap’s website, so that we can make sure that you’re getting there, because, gosh, I think this would be a great… These are great Christmas presents, the Omni, especially, the VonG. And I don’t even know what these costs, but really doesn’t matter. You need to buy a legal way to consume your cannabis.
George Breiwa:
Let’s talk about the cost for a second, if you don’t mind.
Tim Pickett:
Love to.
George Breiwa:
We manufacture these devices in our shop here in Wisconsin. Okay. These are not made in China. They’re not made overseas. Okay. We manufacture them using the highest quality materials we can get our hands on. We design our devices to the best of our ability to be as durable as we possibly can with the intent to make them generational. This is something that you could give to your grandkids when they are of the appropriate age, and it should still work just fine, potentially, maybe needing a small replacement part or something along those lines.
George Breiwa:
When using these devices, especially for the consumption of botanicals such as cannabis, it’s very common for people to find that after having one of our devices for just a few weeks and getting more familiar with the nuance of how to use it, how to ride that bike, and to get to where I’m going at the pace I want to get there, then all of a sudden, the quantity of material that you’re consuming has been reduced substantially.
George Breiwa:
It’s pretty common for people to find that they are still getting to where they want to go, just as fast as they want to get there, but they’re only using half as much as they typically used to, especially if they were lighting it on fire. So the reality is, even though the devices are not in and of themselves cheap, they tend to pay for themselves in relatively short order, just on conservation alone.
Tim Pickett:
It does seem like they’re going to last me forever. My thought process is on, okay, which one do I want? Well, I’m going to have this… I mean, they look like, oh, I’m going to have this for a long, long time. So I better choose wisely. Right now, in current prices, certainly if this lasts forever, the prices will likely change over time as materials and everything change. But what are they? What are the costs right now, roughly?
George Breiwa:
The price on the M, which is our entry-level stainless steel model is $75. The colored ones are a bit more at 87. The VonG, the last one we opened up, is our middle of the road one, that’s around 125. The Omni, which comes in two colors right now, just the plain titanium or the black or the Obsidium like you have, the plain one is 220 and the black one is 250. So, again, they’re not cheap devices. But at the same time-
Tim Pickett:
You know what though, this is definitely on par with what I would consider high-end vaporization of flower. I’m actually surprised that a couple of them aren’t $300, to be honest.
George Breiwa:
There’s a fun part about that as well. We have a little bit of a community on various social media platforms, Reddit being one of them. On Reddit, there is a couple of communities that focus on vaporization. They also have a subsection where people buy, sell, and trade their vaporizing devices. What we’ve seen is that our devices, historically, have held their value very well.
George Breiwa:
It’s not unusual for a device that’s two or three years old to still sell for 70 to 80% of its original price. In some cases, which is almost mind boggling to me, Tim, some of our older devices actually sell for more than they were brand new.
Tim Pickett:
Wow, I could see, like you say, passing these things down, or giving these as a gift. This is a really nice gift to give somebody. Very, very classy. It’s smart. It’s a health conscious, frankly, decision. It’s American made. It checks all my boxes on purchasing things like this. Where can people get ahold of you and find out more?
George Breiwa:
Our website is dynavap.com. That’s D-Y-N-A-V as in Victor, A-P as in Paul, dot com. You can find us on most of the other social media channels as well, whether it’s Facebook or Instagram. We have a pretty extensive list of videos on YouTube as well, showing our products, showing how to use them, how to care for them, how to do maintenance, et cetera. I would say that pretty good summary.
George Breiwa:
There’s other things out there. I encourage people to simply type our brand into any search engine and you should find us right there. We sell our product in a wide range of other retail stores and shops. If you go to our website, we have a “Where to buy” that will direct you to a store or a shop, hopefully close to where you’re at, where you might be able to simply go and see it in person or buy one right there. We like it when you support the local shops, because when the local shops aren’t there, it’s really annoying.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah. It is really annoying.
George Breiwa:
It’s really nice when they are there. I’m one of those people, I like to try and do my best to appreciate things while I have them, versus wishing I had them when they’re gone.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah. Well, this has been great. Is there anything else that we’ve missed or passed over, that you wanted to bring up?
George Breiwa:
Well, there’s a couple of things. I don’t need to spend a lot of time on them, but the first one is really, why do we exist? As we touched on at the beginning of the episode, it was in the pursuit of finding a better alternative, that wasn’t some giant battery powered vaporizer, we’ll just see if we can do our part to bring some nice, simple, durable technology to the world, to accelerate the transition away from smoking.
George Breiwa:
At the same time, we’ve also found that, as people come on board and learn a little bit more about what it’s all about, and they join what we refer to as the Dyna-verse, this community of like-minded people that very much enjoy not just using our products, but generally using some other methods of consuming their cannabis, their flower, their botanicals, whatever it might be, in a more responsible for themselves and responsible for the people around them fashion, get rid of the smoke, that they really like interacting with one another.
George Breiwa:
It’s created a very positive place online for people to interact with one another, talk about stories, talk about tips and tricks. It’s also created another thing that was totally unanticipated back in the day, and that was a whole secondary market of makers that make a wide range of accessories and even aftermarket components for these devices. So you can really dial in and build or modify your device to really represent who you are or what mood you just happen to be in at the time.
Tim Pickett:
That’s pretty cool. Just something that brings this community back together too, because if you’re not taking care of the core cannabis community, I don’t know, they’re the ones who kept this plant around during prohibition. We owe it to that culture to support that. This has been a really fun conversation, George. I’m glad that you came on and shared this stuff with us.
Tim Pickett:
If people want to find out more about DynaVap and the brand, we’ll put some stuff online about it. You can certainly call us if you can’t find these products and we’ll figure out ways to work with you, George, and get patients in Utah access to this stuff. I think it’s been really great.
George Breiwa:
We hope we can do that. We hope we can participate. Quick note regarding the patients, our devices just earlier this year were approved in Ohio, which is also a generally non-smoking medical state. So we’re on the official list for Ohio as a smoke-free consumption device.
Tim Pickett:
Oh, good.
George Breiwa:
So if you have any points of contact that you might be able to assist us with for Utah, we’d like to do the same thing.
Tim Pickett:
Absolutely. And absolutely, we do. No question about it. We can connect you with the right individuals, I think, and really help a lot of people get to know what’s out there, get to know safer consumption methods. That’s what’s important. So yeah, we’ll work together for sure.
George Breiwa:
Beautiful.
Tim Pickett:
Just to wrap this up, everybody, thanks for subscribing. I hope you had a good Thanksgiving. If you subscribe to the podcast on any podcast player that you want to listen to podcasts on, and utahmarijuana.org/podcast is where you can find this podcast and the transcript of it. Discover Marijuana on YouTube will also be a place where this is posted.
Tim Pickett:
If you want to get ahold of me, or you have questions for George or myself regarding this stuff, if you can’t get ahold of him on his YouTube channel or on their website, feel free to go to ours and just comment on this video and we’ll look at all those comments and answer all of those questions. Thanks everybody. Stay safe out there.
Episode 79 of Utah in the Weeds features Erica Ballif, who received approval via Utah’s Compassionate Use Board to use Medical Cannabis to treat her anxiety.
Erica grew up in Washington and moved to Utah in 2011. She told us about her earliest use of cannabis, to cope with depression in her late teens. [01:55]
Erica said members of her family also use cannabis for treating tremors, nausea, and sciatica (nerve pain in the leg). [14:57]
When Utah began its Medical Cannabis program, Erica was disappointed to learn anxiety and depression were not among the qualifying conditions. So, with the help of a local Qualified Medical Provider, Erica successfully petitioned Utah’s Compassionate Use Board for access to Medical Marijuana. [18:40]
Host Tim Pickett and Erica talked about the costs of cannabis medicine in Utah compared with other states. [34:07]
Erica told us about her favorite Medical Cannabis products, including the 1:1 THC:CBD Watermelon Zkittlez vape cartridge and Blue Dream flower. [36:13]
Erica says having access to Medical Cannabis makes her a better parent because it helps her be more patient and spontaneous. [43:16]
We wrapped up this episode with a helpful hint from Erica. She recommends microdosing as a good way for people with anxiety to approach Medical Cannabis use. [52:25]
Tim Pickett:
Welcome, everyone, now to episode 79 of Utah in the Weeds, and this is a great episode with a patient that got approved through the Utah Compassionate Use Board for anxiety. Yes, it can happen, people. Anxiety is not a qualifying condition in Utah, but Erica Ballif, my guest today, did in fact get approved. We talked to her about her upbringing, her exposure to cannabis, what she uses it for, the anxiety, depression, how she went through the Compassionate Use Board, all of that. And, if you listen clear up until the end, you’ll get a picture into what she thinks about parenting and cannabis.
Tim Pickett:
Subscribe to the podcast on any podcast player that you get your hands on or your little thumbs on. Make sure to also subscribe to my YouTube channel, Discover Marijuana. You can slam that subscribe button and join. If you comment on one of those videos in the month of November, you will be entered into our YouTube drawing for subscribers, very excited about that. Happy holidays to everybody, happy Thanksgiving next week, everybody enjoy this episode and be preparing for all of that family anxiety. Be preparing, people. It’s coming at us. Some of the best times of the year are coming and some of the most stressful times of the year are certainly coming. Enjoy this episode with Erica Ballif.
Tim Pickett:
Tell me about you. Did you grow up in Washington?
Erica Ballif:
I moved to Utah in 2011. Up until 2011, I lived in Washington, besides going to a semester of college in Idaho and then coming home, but other than that, yeah, I grew up in Washington, which I think everybody quite knows that is a very pot-friendly state.
Tim Pickett:
Cheap, good product up there, right? I’m like, “We’re going to talk about that all day.”
Erica Ballif:
Yeah. I have a lot of family members that use marijuana too, and they’re up in Washington and they’re like, “Oh, it’s so expensive,” and I’m like, “Tell me what’s expensive to you because I can definitely [inaudible 00:02:41] it.”
Tim Pickett:
Okay, so you were the Seattle area and then you said something about Gig Harbor.
Erica Ballif:
So Gig Harbor is where I grew up. It’s about an hour southwest of Seattle, but most people don’t know about Gig Harbor. It’s next to Tacoma over the Tacoma Bridge and Seattle’s probably the closest place that people would recognize when I say Gig Harbor. Sometimes, when I say I’m from Washington, they’re like, “Oh, D.C.?” I’m like, “No, from the state.” I have to correct a lot of people with that.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah, I’m sure.
Erica Ballif:
But, yeah, so I grew up LDS, so I came from a strict family, but I didn’t have a lot of LDS friends or anything. I had a lot of friends that smoked marijuana or cannabis. I don’t know how you want me to refer it to, but I’m going to refer it to as pot, marijuana, and cannabis, but …
Tim Pickett:
Okay. Here’s what I’ve gotten from being in this world, right, and I’m using air quotes right now, so everybody can imagine my air quotes, when you live in this cannabis world, everybody in this world uses the word cannabis and, okay, this is just my experience, I get a lot of flack for this, but, honestly, I think 99% of people just still use the word pot, marijuana, weed, right? They’re not enlightened individuals. And I don’t mean to, okay, I do kind of mean to give shit to the people in the industry who are uppity about it because, for me, you can call it whatever you want on, right? It helps people feel better, right, we want to talk about it, we want to normalize it, and so, shoot, I don’t care what you call it. Okay, so LDS, Seattle … I’m looking at pictures of Gig Harbor right now.
Erica Ballif:
It’s a gorgeous area. It’s a very gorgeous area right in the Puget Sound and I had a lot of good times growing up there. In high school is where I first had my experiences with knowing about pot and marijuana and stuff. I was the youngest in my family and my parents very much sheltered me in a way, but all my friends pretty much smoked cannabis, and I even had a friend who dealt it too, and so I was very much around it, but I never tried it until I was out of high school. And it was just really funny because everybody saw me hanging out with these people that smoked weed and everybody knew that they did and I was this little Molly Mormon girl hanging out with them, and everybody was so confused why I would hang out with them, but they were my friends and I enjoyed being around them.
Tim Pickett:
Were they people that graduated and were fairly normal other than they were the potheads?
Erica Ballif:
I think all of them, except maybe two, of them actually graduated from high school. One of my good friends is a geologist and he’s getting a PhD in geology in Central Washington and he’s doing great.
Tim Pickett:
Oh, it’s scary, they all became normal people. But-
Erica Ballif:
I know. Can you imagine that?
Tim Pickett:
I have a 16-year-old and I don’t want my daughter, I don’t want her smoking weed at all, but, at the same time … Do you think it was easier to get alcohol or pot in high school?
Erica Ballif:
It was easier to get pot than alcohol.
Tim Pickett:
I feel like that same thing was at my high school. I knew two people I could get an eighth from, today, but I didn’t know anybody I could get alcohol from, right, in high school.
Erica Ballif:
Yeah. The only people I would’ve known is my older sisters or something, but I didn’t drink or smoke or do any of that stuff in high school. The worst thing I did was lie about dating somebody in high school and, yeah, I didn’t do it until it was almost a year after I graduated high school, and the only reason why I did it was my boyfriend had broken up with me and I was very depressed and just wanted to do anything to get over it, which isn’t the best thing to do and I don’t recommend it. But I remember my first experience at my friend’s place, who sold it, and I brought a water bottle with me because I was like, “Oh, no, I probably am going to die coughing trying this,” and, we used a bong and that I took a huge hit apparently and I just sat there, coughing, drinking water, and then all of a sudden they were like, “Oh, she’s spacing out.”
Erica Ballif:
And I look up and that’s when I really felt the effects of it all, and I was like, “Whoa, this is different than anything I’ve experienced before.” And I started laughing and I just had a really good time and it took my mind off of the things that were really stressing me out right then, which my boyfriend had broken up with me and then I was due to start school the week after, and so all of this stuff piled on me. I was pretty stressed out. And, at that time too, I was not diagnosed with depression or anxiety yet. I’m somebody that takes responsibility. If I do something wrong, I take the responsibility to take care of it. I don’t like putting that kind of stuff on my parents or anything like that. Even when it came to like my depression and anxiety, I wanted to take care of it.
Erica Ballif:
I didn’t vocalize it to my parents at all that I was very depressed until one day, maybe a couple years after high school, somebody broke up with me and my parents, they asked me, “Erica, are you depressed? Do you feel like this often?” And I was like, “Yeah, I do,” and they’re like, “Because we noticed it takes you a really long time to move forward with something that’s really difficult.” And I was like, “Well, isn’t that normal?” And they’re like, “It’s not normal to be this sad about it for six months,” and I was like, “Oh, okay. I didn’t know that.” And so they got me into a doctor and I finally got put on some medication. And, during the time that I was trying and experimenting, it ties in with my religious background and everything, and so I was trying to figure out what I believed. I was wishy-washy and, by the time I got on my depression medication, I didn’t really rely on marijuana as much until I got to school. And my medication was actually making my depression worse at that point and so-
Tim Pickett:
Oh, really? How long had you been on it?
Erica Ballif:
I had been on it for almost a year, yeah, about a year. And there were a lot of things that factored into that as well. I went to BYU Idaho for one semester and, right at the beginning of the semester, a few weeks in, my grandfather passed away, and he lived in St. Anthony, which is really close to Rexburg, and so that was really tough. And, at the time, my sister, she was having a very big struggle with opioids and hard drugs, and that was a big stress on my parents. And part of the things that I did was I put her on my phone plan because she kept stealing money to pay for minutes on a phone and I was like, “I’m going to put you on my plan so you’re not doing that.” And then her friend racked up … and this is when minutes were counted, [crosstalk 00:11:05] not go over the minutes.
Tim Pickett:
Totally. Yes. This was a big deal at the time. All the companies were competing, they were going to give us more minutes, and, if you had a family plan and shared minutes … and then they started doing rollover, remember that? Yeah, so I totally understand, right, somebody’s racking up minutes.
Erica Ballif:
Yeah. And so I had a very finite budget when going to school, and I was planning on working because I had my loans and grants that I was going to use to get me through the semester. And my sister’s friend, she used my sister’s phone in the middle of the night without her knowing and she racked up $400 worth of charges on my phone plan. And so I was dealing with having to now find a job while in school, and I could go on and on about that, so I was very depressed and I got suspended from the school because my grades were too low.
Erica Ballif:
And so I was sent home and I started hanging out with my friends again and, soon enough, I started smoking pot again and that helped me, and I noticed that marijuana helped my depression and anxiety when I needed it. And eventually, though, I stopped because me and a friend actually got arrested in a parking lot for it and so I had to make some choices right then whether or not I was going to continue doing that or not, and so I didn’t want to jeopardize anything at that moment and so I stopped and-
Tim Pickett:
This is in Washington-
Erica Ballif:
This is before it was legal.
Tim Pickett:
… but this is before it was legal, so this is before 2012, right, because, in 2012, Washington became the first state to legalize cannabis, right? Maybe you would’ve still gotten in trouble for public use, but definitely not arrested.
Erica Ballif:
Luckily, they didn’t put me and my friend in handcuffs or anything. They wrote up a ticket, show up on this date at the court, and so we were able to go home that night, which was really nice because I didn’t want to be taken to jail and then have to call my parents and tell them about that. Luckily, I was able to get through all the court stuff without my parents finding out about it. When I was trying to figure out what I’m going to do with my life … I was 21. I know I was 21 because, a few days later, my car burnt down. I was suspended, arrested, and my car burnt down within a month period, and so things were really stressful at that time.
Tim Pickett:
Oh, my gosh.
Erica Ballif:
All I can do is just laugh about it and just like, “Okay.”
Tim Pickett:
Yeah. And then, besides the fact that the medical system isn’t really supporting you because, on the one hand, you’re using medications that really aren’t working, right? You were using an antidepressant that, for you, wasn’t being helpful. Statistically speaking, if you look at individuals, you can find really good benefit with antidepressants, but if you look at big population data, there’s not that much benefit to antidepressants, statistically speaking. It’s not uncommon at all for people to go on antidepressants and not have really any benefit or sometimes even feel worse, just depending on what’s happening in the system.
Tim Pickett:
You were using cannabis at the time and you talk about using it and feeling better, but now you have the benefit of hindsight. You can look back and you can be like, “Wow, I did feel better. I always just felt a little bit better when I was consuming cannabis or when it was in my life.” Where did it click for you that, “Oh, wow, this is actually part of my life. I don’t want to give this up?”
Erica Ballif:
Yeah. I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do, and with religion and everything, I decided, “Oh, that’s what I wanted to do,” and I decided to make the move to Utah. And so it was 10 years, I hadn’t smoked anything, and, during that time, it was legal in Washington, and my sister, who became clean, thankfully, she’s sober, she’s been sober for a while now, for eight years or something like that, but she uses marijuana and she has IBS and her IBS causes her so much pain, it held her back a year in school, and now she is able to use that daily and be able to function and work and do the things she needs to do to provide for her son that she has and all the other responsibilities that she has.
Erica Ballif:
And so, at the time back then, in the mindset I had, I still thought marijuana wasn’t good for you or anything like that. And I thought, “Oh, I probably shouldn’t be doing this because it’s not going to be great for my health or anything like that and I want to be a faithful LDS member. I’m not going to do that.” I got on a different medication that helped me, but I’ve had to increase it and lower it throughout the years to whether … if it’s going to help me or not, depending on my daily life. I had a job once that just caused me a lot of depression and anxiety that they raised it so that I could even function. And so, when I saw that my sister was benefiting from it, and then my parents, who were very strict, they started partaking in it every once in a while, so that my dad-
Tim Pickett:
What?
Erica Ballif:
Yeah. I was shocked knowing that my mom tried anything. My dad, he had a wild side when he was a teenager, so he tried it before, but my dad, he has dementia and a very bad tremor and it helps his tremor, and it helps his nausea too. He has acid reflux and it will help his nausea. But, my mom, she was having really, really bad sciatic pain that was just shooting down her leg and she couldn’t sleep at all. They were giving her shots and just things weren’t working. And finally somebody gave her … I think it was my brother-in-law that gave her a salve and she put it on and she was able to sleep, and then she started just becoming more comfortable with it.
Erica Ballif:
And now my sister will make brownies with the coconut oil she has, the infused coconut oil, and my mom will eat a brownie, and it just is shocking to me. And so, as soon as they started accepting it more, I was like, “Okay, well, that kind of gives me the okay that I can support this and be okay with it.” And so in 2017, 2018, when Utah was trying to get the initiative on the ballot-
Tim Pickett:
Yeah, Proposition 2, yeah.
Erica Ballif:
… I was all gung-ho. As soon as they came to the door, I was like, “Yes, I’m signing this,” and-
Tim Pickett:
You’re like, “Oh, I know who you are.”
Erica Ballif:
Yes, and-
Tim Pickett:
“Yes, I read all the lessons. You can baptize me by pot right now.” Sorry. For those Utah listeners, we know exactly what that inside joke is. I love those guys and gals. I [crosstalk 00:19:12]-
Erica Ballif:
Oh, they’re great people, yeah. I followed that very, very strongly. I put one of the signs in my front yard and was very vocal about it and I was very happy that it passed. And then I was not very happy to find out that anxiety and depression were not a qualifying condition in the state of Utah, so I was like, “Okay, well, I guess I’ll just have to keep on my prescription medications and hope for the best.” I’m a mom of two little girls, a five-year-old and a now three-year-old, and any mom who says that that’s an easy job is lying to themselves. It is one of the toughest jobs ever, being a parent, and my anxiety has increased being a parent and, with anxiety and depression, I’m very short with people. Just, with my kids, I’m not very patient with them sometimes because I’m just so overwhelmed and I’m trying so hard to be patient with them. And it makes me feel terrible that I snap at my children.
Erica Ballif:
And it’s just I have a hard time even just getting on the floor and playing with them. I have ADHD as well, and so my attention to try and do imagination play with them cannot sustain longer than five minutes with them. And so I was just feeling like a terrible parent, as most people do when they don’t know what the heck they’re doing raising people. And I started getting into the CBD. I was finding that helpful. I specifically found these vape pens that were aromatherapy. They’re called MONQ, M-O-N-Q, and they did these essential oil blends that were like a vaporizer, but you would breathe it in and just hold it in your mouth and exhale through your nose so that you would get the essential oils benefits and calm down. And so that helped me, and then they came out with a CBD version and I really enjoyed that. That one, I could see some noticeable effects of that.
Erica Ballif:
And so, with that and also going to Good Earth and getting some CBD there, it would be helpful, but it wasn’t enough for me. I needed something more to really get me into a more relaxed mindset so that I wasn’t so, for a lack of a better word, anal about everything going on around me, because also, with my anxiety, I’m a perfectionist and I like things done a certain way. My husband will do the laundry one way and it drives me nuts. Even though the clothes are clean, he didn’t do it the way I wanted it done, and it can cause me a lot of anxiety and, with marijuana, I can just like, “Oh, it doesn’t matter. We’re okay.”
Tim Pickett:
Right. It’s okay.
Erica Ballif:
Earlier this year, I started looking into if there were any changes in the bill, whether or not anxiety and depression were covered under that, and it hadn’t. And so I’m a part of a group on Facebook, I think it’s just Utah Patient, Cannabis People, I don’t know, but I wrote in there asking a question, I’m like, “Is there anybody that has gotten approved for anxiety and depression because I really need this and I just can’t keep going like this.” And people reached out to me, and then one person, her name is April and she works for Terra Health and Wellness, she was like, “Give me a call and I’ll talk to you about it.” And so I called her the next day and we chatted and she was telling me how she has successfully gotten through the CUB’s process, which is-
Tim Pickett:
Yeah, the Compassionate Use Board-
Erica Ballif:
… the Compassionate Use Board and she said that she’s gotten people approved for the anxiety and depression and she’s like, “It can be really tough to do that, but it’s always worth a shot to give it a try.” She and the physician that I saw to get the paperwork going, they told me to write a personal letter to the board about my history with medication and marijuana use and just explain why I needed it.
Erica Ballif:
And so I wrote out a letter and explained my story about it all and I even copied a link to put in my letter, which was a link from the Utah Health Department. They did a study one year ago in November and, in the study, they asked people about how their anxiety improved. Most people were very low before cannabis and then they saw that 80% of the people said that their anxiety got better, and it was about like 75%, that their depression got better too. And so I specifically used that in my letter because that was proof showing that it does help and this would benefit me. And I also had said, “I hate living with anxiety. If this makes it worse, I will not use it because I don’t want to keep feeling that way.” And-
Tim Pickett:
Right, right, like, “Hey, I actually have anxiety and, trust me, if anything is going to make it worse, I’ll just stop using that substance, plain and simple. This is not rocket science people. If it doesn’t make my anxiety better, not using it,” right?
Erica Ballif:
Yeah. That’s a [crosstalk 00:25:24]-
Tim Pickett:
That’s a really good point to make for providers too, right, just hit the nail on the head. If it’s helping, you’ll probably continue to use it and, if it’s not addictive and it’s safer, or as safe, as the other medication that you’re taking and it’s working, then what’s the problem? Certainly, if it’s going to make your anxiety worse, paranoia worse, your depression worse, then I promise you, tomorrow, you’re going to think twice about using it, right, because you don’t have the physical addiction or the withdrawal symptoms of not using it. It’s not a risk. You’re at pretty low risk of using it again, right?
Tim Pickett:
Keep going with your story because this compassionate use thing, we have patients that go through the Compassionate Use Board once in a while. There’s a couple of hundred people that have been through the compassionate use board so far in Utah and I have never, literally never, talked to anybody with anxiety-
Erica Ballif:
Oh, really?
Tim Pickett:
… who got through the compassionate use board. That’s why this is so fascinating to me because you did the application, your provider did an application, I know that part of it, and then you wrote this letter. Great idea, by the way.
Erica Ballif:
Yeah. I watch HGTV shows and they’re like, “Oh, write a letter to the homeowner. Sometimes that [inaudible 00:26:51] them in a way,” And it does. And I just really wanted to make sure that they knew my story and why I wanted to try it, and also I’m just a very factual person, I like facts, and just being able to provide that evidence that the health department did, I think that also helped my case, showing that there was a proven benefit for anxiety and depression. And so there’s a deadline each month that you have to get those applications in. And, also, something that is helpful for those applications is getting your medical records and showing how you’ve been on pharmaceuticals and how consistently you’re still having depression, you’re still having anxiety, it hasn’t completely helped you.
Erica Ballif:
And just, even the day before we submitted the paperwork, my doctor raised my depression medication because I was still experiencing a lot of anxiety. I was put on Adderall for my ADHD, and so I’m on this concoction of drugs that one’s supposed to help me stay focused and it raises my heart rate, and that can cause my anxiety to go out of control too, and I’m trying to balance it with like Celexa and Wellbutrin, and it’s very hard sometimes. And so I was able to show in there, “Look, my medication was even just raised for this because I’m still struggling.”
Erica Ballif:
They also like to see people who are applying for anxiety and depression, that they’re in therapy, or they will require you to go to therapy if they approve you. I was already in therapy and so my therapist was able to write a letter showing, “We’re making progress, we’re consistent, and we’re working on the anxiety and depression.” And so with a combination of the cannabis and therapy, it’s been really, really helpful for me. They put in the paperwork. Sorry, I feel like I jump all over the place.
Tim Pickett:
No, you’re doing great. I’m riveted.
Erica Ballif:
Thank you.
Tim Pickett:
I’m riveted right now, right? You put in this paperwork because … but, like you say, you’ve got medical documentation … the key things, right, people who want to go through the Compassionate Use Board, medical documentation, it’s a big deal, having a paper trail that you’ve tried these things or that you’re using these other pharmaceuticals, it’s almost a requirement for the Compassionate Use Board to see. They want to see failure of something else before they move to this because, and to be fair, cannabis is not first line in school. We learn first-line medications for all kinds of disorders and disease processes, and anxiety and depression, cannabis is a long ways from first line in school, although, to your other point, 85% of patients who use, or people who use, who smoke weed at all, say that, at some point in time, they’ve used it for anxiety and it does help. Right? And, again, there’s even studies in the Utah Department of Health that show that as well.
Erica Ballif:
Exactly. And another key point with the medical history is that the Compassionate Use Board is made up of doctors, so they can actually evaluate this and really be like, “Okay, we see this history, we see this, let’s give her a shot,” basically. And I was approved, which was awesome. I had to wait two months because I didn’t get all the necessary documents in time, and I was having a difficult time with the portal online and so that caused me to go over the deadline for the month of April. For the month of May, we got the paperwork in. And so it took that a week for their decision, which really, really surprised me because I was told that it can take up to 90 days for them to make a decision, and so I was like, “I’m going to have to wait three months to know anything,” and it only took them a week, and that was amazing that I got approved in a week. And I shared it with April from Terra Health and she was pleasantly surprised because she’s like, “That is a hard one to get approved.”
Tim Pickett:
Oh, for sure. The Department of Health, the state, the legislature, they do not like anxiety. I know them.
Erica Ballif:
Neither do I.
Tim Pickett:
Fair, totally fair.
Erica Ballif:
Yeah, I got approved, I got my letter, and I got the card and I was ecstatic. That week, I had actually been in Washington for a family emergency and so I was able to try some 1:1 CBD gummies with just five milligrams and it was so helpful. I was so stressed out. My family, I love my family more than anything, but my family is very loud. I’m the youngest of six kids and we’re just very loud. And I now live in Utah with my husband and his family is not so loud. And so now, when I go visit my family, it gets extremely overwhelming for me and being able to have that gummy, I was able to face my family without having this terrible panic attack of loud and all this information they’re trying to give me for now visiting. And so I was just able to be there and it was the right amount that I didn’t feel like I couldn’t control how I was acting. I still felt normal.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah. You weren’t high. You weren’t really stoned, right? The lack of anxiety is the treatment, right? Blake Smith talks about this in our YouTube series on Discover Marijuana, where it’s not necessarily the feeling of the THC or the feeling of the CBD, it’s the lack of symptom. It’s the lack of negative symptom that you feel that’s so key to the correct dosing, it seems like. For you, right, five milligrams and 1:1, you get that CBD that helps with that anxiety, it takes the edge off, but they work together, and, boom, you found the sweet spot.
Erica Ballif:
Yeah. Yeah, I was so excited to get my card, and so I immediately went to a dispensary. I went Curaleaf in Lehi, that’s the closest one to me, and overwhelmed with the price of things. It was just crazy for me. In Washington, I was like, “I can’t believe a vape cartridge is almost a $100, one gram,” and I asked my sister, I was like, “How much are your vape cartridges in Washington?” And she’s like, “Oh, they’re expensive.” I’m like, “Well, what’s expensive to you?” She’s like, “Well, I think maybe 30 or $40, if it’s top, top shelf 50.” I was like, “We’re paying almost [crosstalk 00:34:49].
Tim Pickett:
Yep, a top shelf, one gram cartridge in Spokane or something like that, it’s 50, 55 bucks, maybe 45, and here, certainly, they’re going to be 90, $95, right, 80. Yeah, that’s true.
Erica Ballif:
Yeah, I’ve seen some that are 105, but I feel like the sweet spot for the one grams is between 85 and 90 for here is what I’ve experienced.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah, for here, yep, yep. And I’m not saying that’s bad or good, I’m just saying that that’s just the way it is. I think if you go to Mesquite, the prices are pretty similar, or if you go to Wendover, the prices are pretty similar to here in Utah. There are certainly places in downtown Denver, I think the prices are about the same, maybe just a little less than here, Vegas, same thing. But if you travel to Oregon or to Washington, where they’ve had legal programs for a long time and there’s a lot of product, there’s a lot of people who know how to make this stuff, yeah, that’s where the prices are really dramatically different than here, right?
Erica Ballif:
I feel like, as time goes on, that prices will come down, but, at the same time, I feel like Utah state really loves money and they might not do that either. Most of the time, when I get something from the dispensary, I try to find any deals that they have going on that week and if there’s anything within those deals that is going to help me. Most of the time, I try to get something that is a 1:1 and the one that I really like is Watermelon Zkittlez from I want to say it’s Pure.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah. It’s a 1:1 CBD to THC vape cart, right, and Watermelon Zkittlez. This is something we haven’t done a ton on the podcast yet, but I’ve been asked a lot about this, is when you’re talking to people, like, “What do you use?” Here you go, there’s a good 1:1 CBD to THC vape cart from a person … and here’s what’s great is you’re a person that’s been approved for anxiety, so you’re definitely more open to talk about it, about using it for anxiety. A lot of folks that we talk to, and not just on the podcast, but in real life, their qualification is pain. They’re having to tiptoe around like, “Well, I’m using it for a lot of different things.” But do you find that you have … is it the ratio that’s important or is it this product that you’ve come to like?
Erica Ballif:
It’s the ratio. The CBD definitely helps with the anxiety a lot. If there’s too much THC, it can definitely make me more paranoid and cause my anxiety to be a little bit more and that’s uncomfortable, and I think that’s pretty common with people with anxiety. If they do something that has too much THC, it can just cause more anxiety. And so there has been some trial and error for me. I have been trying different ones. Most of the time, I’ve tried something that’s more indica dominant or just indica and then, recently, I discovered Blue Dream and heard wonderful benefits about that, and so I got some flower and I tried that in just one hit, I was like, “Oh, wow, I just need one hit,” and, all of a sudden, I felt good. And so I really recommend Blue Dream for people. That’s a really popular one. I think it’s the most popular in the United States and it’s really helped me.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah, it’s one of the most popular genetics for sure. Do you feel like the flower versus vape cartridge, how does that go in the family too, right? That’s a whole different ballgame because it’s definitely not as discreet.
Erica Ballif:
Yeah. We have to use a vaporizer here in Utah. They say you can’t use flame to flower. And one of my difficulties is that, to get a quality vaporizer, you do have to spend a little bit of money to get that. A quality vaporizer is going to be around 200 to $300 and I got a really cheap one and it just has this coil that heats it up and basically just chars the weed and I’m just like [crosstalk 00:39:37]-
Tim Pickett:
Yeah, yep. Okay, okay.
Erica Ballif:
I think-
Tim Pickett:
We need to get you a Pax or a Firefly. We have got to get you a Pax or a Firefly. They’re awesome.
Erica Ballif:
Yeah. I’ve heard amazing things about them and, yeah, I basically should just smoke it because the coil basically just burns at the thing. That is a little difficult for me. I shouldn’t necessarily say that I do smoke it, but I don’t really have any other way to consume it right now and I’m saving up for my vaporizer and I even asked for one for Christmas, so we’ll see what happens.
Tim Pickett:
Ooh, nice. We have these gift baskets. If you follow us on social, Utahmarijuana.org, and our Discover Marijuana, and I’m entering you in our giveaway because, this week, we’re giving away, I think, a Pax 3, or a Firefly and, next week, we’re giving away a Pax 3 on YouTube. You got to-
Erica Ballif:
I’ve been trying to figure out how I enter into that because I’ve watched something [crosstalk 00:40:47]-
Tim Pickett:
All you got to do is comment. You’re entered. You got to comment on one of our videos, I think if you comment on one of the videos, you’re in.
Erica Ballif:
Okay, perfect. [crosstalk 00:40:58] do that.
Tim Pickett:
Oh, you have to be subscribed.
Erica Ballif:
I think I am.
Tim Pickett:
I think you’ve got to subscribe to the channel, you’ve got to comment on one of the videos, and you’re entered in.
Erica Ballif:
Okay. [crosstalk 00:41:04] do that.
Tim Pickett:
And we gave away a Pax 2. Then we gave away a Firefly this week and then, next week, we’re giving away a Pax 3.
Erica Ballif:
Ooh. [crosstalk 00:41:13] good.
Tim Pickett:
Oh, yeah, some good consumption devices.
Erica Ballif:
In terms of being discreet and stuff, I am a pretty vocal, open person about my anxiety and depression, which is weird for some people because there’s a mental health stigma on stuff and I’m very [crosstalk 00:41:35].
Tim Pickett:
Yeah, but it’s refreshing.
Erica Ballif:
Yeah, it is refreshing. And so, for me, I’m very vocal about my anxiety and depression. It runs deep in my family and so they’ve always been vocal about it. And so I’ve never felt a stigma against myself in terms of people judging me about my anxiety and depression. I just go out on my back porch and use my vaporizer. If I do use flower, I’ll do it at nighttime or in my garage if I need to. But I was about to go over to a neighbor just to be like, “Hey, by the way, I’m prescribed medical marijuana. I just want you to be aware that this is what’s happening in my backyard.” And my neighbor, I saw that she had a cartridge on her counter and I was like, “Oh, I don’t need to explain this to you. You know exactly what I’m going through.”
Tim Pickett:
Right, right, right. Now that’s not a COVID cough over at the neighbors’.
Erica Ballif:
Yeah. I don’t have any houses behind me. I have a big green field. There’s houses up above on this cliff that may be watching me, but, honestly, if anybody had a problem with it, if somebody called the police on me or something, it’s like, “I’m doing it in my yard. I can do that, it’s my personal property, and I have a card for it.” And so the only time I get worried about it is if I had to smoke the flower, then I would be concerned about somebody seeing me there because, that, I could get in trouble for.
Tim Pickett:
Do you feel like you are a better parent?
Erica Ballif:
Yes. I am 100% a much better parent. I might get emotional, so forgive me if I cry, but, when I was growing up, I always wanted to be a mom. That was the thing that I always wanted to be, and I got to be a mom and it wasn’t as great as I thought it was going to be. And that was really hard for me to grasp because I was like, “I’m going to be a stay-at-home mom. I’m going to be the best mom ever. I’m going to do this, this and this,” and it’s overwhelming. And I love my kids more than anything in this world, but it’s hard to be a mom. And I have a very hard time being patient with them and, like I said, I have a hard time playing with them and cannabis allows me to be patient with them, it allows my imagination to be theirs a little bit.
Erica Ballif:
I’m more open to like, “Hey, yeah, let’s go for a walk. Let’s do this,” because, with my anxiety, I like to have things planned because I think the worst case scenario. I’m like, “Oh, if I don’t bring this, then this could happen.” And so, if people randomly are like, “Hey, let’s go to the park,” I’m like, “Oh, I’m not ready for that because I have to do this, this and this.” With cannabis, it allows me to just ignore that, I’m like, “Yeah, let’s go do that,” and I’m able to just give my kids a fulfilling experience by going to the park or going for a walk, and even when they’re [crosstalk 00:44:47]-
Tim Pickett:
Not in a dangerous way either, right?
Erica Ballif:
Yeah, no.
Tim Pickett:
This isn’t saying that you are ignoring the important stuff. This is saying your brain is allowing itself, right, or, somehow, inside those neural pathways, it’s okay. You don’t have that inappropriate anxiety for that event. That’s the key to THC and CBD combined as a treatment. It decreases that anxiety, that, in a lot of ways, is somewhat inappropriate and somewhat put on ourselves by society because, like you say, you’ve got to have this, that, and the other thing all ready to go, you’ve got to make sure you’re prepared. We almost have created that.
Tim Pickett:
I like when you talk about how, and it’s very true, how sometimes that THC can allow us to think and be creative with our kids, right, right, play with them, not play to them. Yeah. I really think that’s so true and it’s such a cool thing to hear real people who are having these experiences. For anybody out there who is concerned, right, who is wondering whether this is right for me or should I try this, what I’m doing now just doesn’t seem to be working, what would you say?
Erica Ballif:
I would say give cannabis a try, maybe start out with CBD or something just very low. For me, it helps, and so I’m not going to say it will work for everybody, but I think, if there’s an ailment that you’re trying to help yourself with, I do think that marijuana does cover a wide variety of things that it can help you with, and I like marijuana a lot more than I like my pharmaceutical drugs. I really hate the side effects that I get from my pharmaceutical drugs, but, with that said, my pharmaceutical drugs have saved my life from my depression and my anxiety. I don’t want to say that they do not help because they definitely do help people. I’m very grateful for that. But, with marijuana, it makes things so much better for me, and I love the mom that I am with my kids.
Erica Ballif:
They see a happy mom, they see one that’s not yelling at them or snapping at them, and they see a mom that’s very forgiving too. They spill something, like, “Oh no, no.” I’m like, “Oh, it’s okay, it’s okay.” And other times, when I’m very on edge and I’m having anxiety and I haven’t gotten my medicine and I could be very reactive and be like, “Oh, my gosh, why did you do that?,” whereas, when I am in a good zen place with my cannabis, I feel like I am the best mom with my kids. And I do it very responsibly. I don’t do it where they’re going to come in and get some kind of secondhand high or anything. That will never happen with them. I’m just very grateful for it.
Tim Pickett:
That’s awesome. This has been really great. I really appreciate you coming on and telling your story. I think, like I said before, it’s just important for people to hear real people talk about it. There’s no way we can destigmatize cannabis without talking about it openly and talking about parenting and how we’re interacting with the world and what we’re doing, what we’re trying, what we’re using, all of the things, right? And so this is a perfect time of year for this discussion, too, because there’s a lot of family to be seen coming up next weekend and over the holidays and that is a lot of anxiety for a lot of people, right? There’s some PTSD coming for a lot of people. I really appreciate this from you, Erica. This has been great.
Erica Ballif:
Yeah. It’s my pleasure. I was a little nervous at first. I was talking to my husband. I was like, “Yeah, I got an email saying that they wanted to do a podcast with me. I don’t know if I should do that,” because I have been pretty conservative on social media about my use of it. I have a lot of active LDS friends and family and, even though some are very progressive in views, there are some that are not. It’s been common that people in the state of Utah have called CPS on people for using marijuana. And, even though I have the card and everything, I don’t want to go through that process possibly if somebody thought I was doing something wrong and CPS comes and do an investigation, and I’m not doing anything wrong. My husband can attest to that and I think my kids, with their smiles and their laughter, can attest that I’m doing a pretty good job.
Tim Pickett:
That’s great.
Erica Ballif:
I’m happy to be here and talk about it. I didn’t realize how uncommon it was. I knew it was difficult to get a card with anxiety and depression, but I didn’t realize how difficult and that I’m the first person that you’re talking to about it.
Tim Pickett:
Oh, yeah, for sure. It’s just not a thing. It’s just not a thing in Utah. There are other states where, of course, it’s allowed, there are other states where anxiety’s not on the list, but it’s easy to get approved through their compassionate use system and Utah’s is just somewhat unique and difficult. Kudos to April, who was able to help you, and it just sounds like the experience went pretty well, took a while, but it ended the way it’s supposed to be, right? This is the way it’s supposed to be.
Erica Ballif:
Yeah. I’m much happier now than I was six months ago and that is a really great thing. But one other thing I wanted to mention was I went to my doctor, my primary physician, and I was a little nervous to tell him like, “Hey, I’m going to be doing this. I’m trying to get approved. What are your thoughts on it?” And he was like, “Oh, that’s great that you’re doing that,” and he’s like, “but why do you have to get approved for it?” And I was like, “Oh, because Utah doesn’t recognize anxiety and depression as a qualifying condition.” He was like, “Well, that’s really strange because I thought a lot of people used it for their anxiety and depression,” and I was like, “Well, yeah.” And he was like, “Well, good for you. Then, if you get approved, let me know how it goes.”
Erica Ballif:
And he doesn’t want to pay the money and do all the classes. He has a very good business of what he does already that he doesn’t need to add that on to his service to approve people for it, but he was really supportive of it. And, the next time I saw him, he asked me questions about it and I showed him my vape pen and he’s like, “How do you use this?” And so I was educating my doctor about it.
Tim Pickett:
Wow, that’s great.
Erica Ballif:
Yeah. He’s now able to tell people, “Hey, if you want to try this, go there.” And so he wasn’t able to write me that recommendation letter or anything like that, but it was really nice to have his approval and just another firm verification that, yeah, this is helpful for people with anxiety and depression. Does it help everyone? No, but, for me, it does. And I think, if people microdosed it more, I think that it will help. T`hose who get too anxious on it, I think that would help be helpful for them too.
Tim Pickett:
Yep. Well, this has been great. Erica Ballif, thanks for coming on.
Erica Ballif:
Yeah. And, if anybody has questions and wants to reach out to me, I welcome that. They can find me Instagram at Erica.Ballif. You can send me your questions and stuff, I’m happy to talk about it, just trying to be more open and honest about it to help other people. Yeah.
Tim Pickett:
That’s great. Thanks. Remember, this is Utah in the Weeds podcast. Subscribe on any podcast player that you have access to or you want to. You can also listen to these and enter our video giveaway on YouTube. The channel is Discover Marijuana. Subscribe to that channel. And if you want to reach out and get ahold of us, you want to come on the podcast, you have a great story or something that you want to share, comment on one of those Discover Marijuana videos. We look at all of those comments and that’s really the best way to get ahold of us. Thanks, Erica. All right, everybody, stay safe out there.
Episode 78 of “Utah in the Weeds” features Riley Meyer, who is an experienced cannabis grower and one of two cultivation managers at Standard Wellness.
We began this episode with a discussion on Riley’s background in gardening and his first job in the cannabis industry. [02:27]
Riley talked about the 2020 cultivation season, the security concerns surrounding outdoor cannabis grow operations, and his favorite cannabis strains from that year. [06:57]
We then discussed the differences between growing indica and sativa plants, the differences between growing cannabis for “biomass” versus flower, and some of the soil nutrients Meyer likes to use when growing cannabis. [12:02]
Riley and host Tim Pickett talked about cannabis and spirituality, and the shifting attitudes toward cannabis in Utah. [20:13]
Then, they talked about the current state of Utah’s Medical Cannabis program and the changes they’d like to see in the future. [27:29]
We wrapped up the episode with a quick discussion about winter sports and Riley’s all-time favorite cannabis cultivar. [39:23]
Riley Meyer:
There’s a reason why in a 100 years through prohibition, there’s a reason why that culture has stayed intact the whole time. The people love this plant and they’ve pushed it through all that BS and they’ve made their voices heard and that’s the reason why it’s here today.
Tim Pickett:
Welcome everyone out to Utah in the Weeds. My name is Tim Pickett. I am the host of this great podcast at great state of Utah. Today our interview is with Riley Meyer who’s cultivation for Standard Wellness. He is in charge of the outdoor cultivation, and a great story, especially if you have interest in getting involved in the cannabis industry or getting involved here in Utah, listen to this and his struggles and the hurdles that he encountered to get involved in cannabis and learn really a fine art for growing medicine here in Utah. One day maybe, we can all get together, we can all do the gardening class and grow cannabis here in Utah for our own purposes, for medical purposes, and maybe for those who we love and care about who can’t afford the medicine currently. Housekeeping, we’re celebrating this month the one-year anniversary of the Discover Marijuana YouTube channel that I do with Blake Smith and Kylie and JD and Josh.
Tim Pickett:
We’ve had a lot of great partners in this and we are giving away something every single week. So we’ve already given away some gifts, we’re giving away more. There is instructions on how to enter it through our newsletter at utahmarijuana.org. Sign up for the newsletter, subscribe to the podcast, subscribe to the YouTube channel, win stuff, win schwag, win medicine, exciting times. Right. Coming up on my favorite holiday Thanksgiving, always look forward to this time of year and getting together with family. Family’s the best. Right. Okay everybody, thanks for listening. Thanks for subscribing to Utah in the Weeds Podcast. I am your host, Tim Pickett. Enjoy this conversation with Riley Meyer and have a great weekend.
Okay. Riley, take us all the way back to the beginning of like when you first were introduced to cannabis, what made you do it? What made you get into it?
Riley Meyer:
It’s kind of been knowingly and unknowingly. I’ve been around cannabis kind of my whole life. I have family members that are very fond of the plant, without saying names because it’s my new program in Utah, but yeah, it’s been a kind of a lifelong thing. My parents are very holistic people. We’ve always had a home garden. We’ve always been very connected to the earth. We always try to have some sort of garden going in the backyard. And then, from a culture standpoint, my friends, ever since I was probably about 16, that was my first real encounter with cannabis. And we kind of grew up in that scene, that skateboard, snowboard scene. And my-
Tim Pickett:
Right. Because how old are you?
Riley Meyer:
I’m 27. So ’94.
Tim Pickett:
Okay so young, young guy, right?
Riley Meyer:
Yep.
Tim Pickett:
Man, all these people are just so young now. So you grew up here in Utah?
Riley Meyer:
Yes. Yeah. Local, born and raised Salt Lake City. Definitely. Yeah. But been all over the place. I went to school down in Dixie. I know all about St. George. I love it down there, but yeah I’m local for sure.
Tim Pickett:
Local. So you get introduced to cannabis, right, in your teenage years, kind of all of us a little bit, seems like. And then, how did you learn? Because now, I mean, from smoking a little weed in high school to what you do now, that’s a long way. It’s a lot different. Right. So what do you do now?
Riley Meyer:
So what I do now, I am one half of the cultivation management for Standard Wellness. And the other half is my good buddy, Riley Ellis. So it’s the two Riley’s up at Standard. He’s known as indoor Riley and I’m known as outdoor Riley at the moment, but we kind of help manage the whole cultivation scene up there. But yeah, as far as starting in my teenagers and getting to this point, it definitely did not start out with me wanting to cultivate this plant. It’s kind of evolved as I’ve become more aware of the scene and really just falling in love with the culture. And it’s not about just smoking dope and getting high, man, it’s more of a consciousness thing. And I really just connected with the crowd of people that I would meet. People like yourself and a lot of people in the industry, they’re just open-minded, aware, conscious. They think about things and their impact. And that’s just something that I really fell in love and I wanted to be a part of.
Tim Pickett:
What was your first job in the cannabis industry?
Riley Meyer:
My first job was a hemp job back when the program first started, it was a part of the pilot program. I worked for a company. I helped them propagate something like 5,000 hemp plants. It was all indoor. So it was controlled. It wasn’t a field where we were just throwing seeds out there. So that really kind of showed me the side of really manicuring these plants and taking care of them and trying to get a really high-quality vapable flower, if you will, out of the product, instead of just going down a once you’d seasons done just chopping it all up, turn it into biomass.
Tim Pickett:
Okay. Yeah. This gets into outdoor, indoor. What’s the difference really, other than the plants grow outdoor? Do you grow different strains? Is the process different?
Riley Meyer:
Yeah. 100%. You’re kind of at the mercy of mother nature obviously when you’re outdoors. So whatever she presents to you is kind of the quality that you’re going to get out of that plant, but you can still get really high-quality flower out of outdoor just as you can indoor. It just depends on your location. Utah, I truly believe is an amazing place for outdoor cannabis. We obviously have a very short grow season here. So it comes down to the strains, cultivars that you picked, because they have to be early finishers, right. If you want to beat that frost then they have to be done before fall comes rolling in and freezes your whole crop. But yes.
Tim Pickett:
So in outdoor, is it like growing tomatoes? You got to wait until the frost risk is gone or do you start these plants indoor and then move them? What’s-
Riley Meyer:
So yeah, it all depends on how you want to go about it, but at Standard for our first year last year, we germinated early. So what we did, we kind of got a late start because it kind of ended up being a little bit of a Hail Mary for us this last season, future seasons are going to be a lot more dialed, but this last season we propagated or germinated, I should say, in early April, somewhere in that first week of April. And they had all that time inside before we threw them outside and leveled them up pot size to pot size. And we started in a red Solo once they were pots, a red Solo cup that is. So one gallon, so five gallon, and they ended up in big 45 gallon pots. And that first day that you can put them out is usually around May 20th. That they’re good. The temperature is consistent enough to let them hang out overnight.
Tim Pickett:
Right. It’s always like when you plant your home garden, you got to wait until Mother’s Day and you can plant. And in Utah, that seems like that’s about right. Mid May and then you’re away from that frost risk. So you just throw a bunch of weed out in the field, all these plants, they’re all out there and what’s the fence, what’s the security situation like where you guys grow?
Riley Meyer:
Yeah. So we’re enclosed. We’re dialed, our security is awesome. So, that would be kind of comfort.
Tim Pickett:
So the only other one I’ve seen and I haven’t been to your facility, but there’s fences up, there’s barbed wire at the top of the fence. It seems like it’s pretty secure, but still I mean, I guess somebody could break through the fence or something, but are you in a pretty remote area? We won’t discuss where exactly these places are really because even though I don’t think a lot of people would go there, might as well not tell the people. I mean, almost out of respect for the neighbors. People driving by, trying to figure out what’s going on.
Riley Meyer:
We’re definitely out in the boonies, man. Yeah. I will say we’re northern Utah. But we’re out there. Good luck trying to find us, man. But yeah. As far as a concern for people breaking in, I mean, there’s always that concern, but those people, I feel like wouldn’t know if they’re trying to come in and clip a bud off or something, there’s a whole process that goes into getting that final product off of the plant. You got to dry it, you got to cure it. That takes a while, that’s in itself two weeks drying and usually two weeks curing before it’s a final product. So it’s not a huge concern, but yeah, definitely we’re aware that that could potentially.
Tim Pickett:
What strains did you grow up there? What cultivars? You guys call them cultivars. Right.
Riley Meyer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. That’s-
Tim Pickett:
And not strains. Is there a real difference? I read online about this shit. It’s like some people really get antsy about their naming. Okay. Right. Like my YouTube channel is Discover Marijuana, so I get that, but strains versus cultivars is there a difference?
Riley Meyer:
Man, there’s probably a lot of people that are going to cringe when I say this, but to me no, man. And I wish I could tell you all the scientific jargon of why there is a difference, but that’s not a huge concern to me. To me that the names are the same, cultivar or strain, it’s all the same.
Tim Pickett:
What do you grow?
Riley Meyer:
But yeah, we run I think it was 12 different strains. God help me on remembering these. We did a bunch of stuff-
Tim Pickett:
Which one was favorite?
Riley Meyer:
Let’s say my favorite was Purple Punch. It’s a tough tie up between Purple Punch and Kush Mints. Those plants just killed it. They’re great early finishers, huge buds. The aroma was crazy. I mean, you could smell us half a mile down the road, talk about security concerns, man. You got people driving down the freeway smelling it. All you got to do is follow your nose if you’re in the vicinity. Right. But it was between those two for sure. Kush Mints and Purple Punch. But yeah, we have 12 of them. Yeah. It was an interesting run to say the least.
Tim Pickett:
Was all of it smokable or do you feel like oh some of it half and half? What’s the breakdown?
Riley Meyer:
So with us kind of getting a late jump on this, there were some strains that aren’t necessarily the earliest finishers. So we’re not going to get a lot of smokable flower out of those strains, but most of them we did get a lot of smokable flower out of it. I think we ended up with something like 300 pounds of just smokable flower. The rest went to biomass, but yeah, there’s definitely going to be a lot of flower hitting the pharmacy shelves for sure.
Tim Pickett:
It seems like everybody’s outdoor, even a lot of indoor grows kind of finished at the same time. Do you follow what everybody else is kind of doing at the time? Does that make any difference for you guys? And we’re talking about Oak Bridge and Wholesome Harvest, Zion, Tryke. Right. If they have an outdoor grow it’s coming on at the same time, because you’re only getting one harvest a year, right, in Utah.
Riley Meyer:
Right. So there’s a term, it’s called photo period plants. There’s a difference between, there’s auto flower and there’s photo period plants. And there’s a reason why everybody finishes up and that they call it Croptober. And that’s usually the time of year that that light cycle is changing and photo period gets its name is because these plants are triggered by the amount of darkness that they are exposed to. So once the daylight schedule flips to 12 hours of light and 12 hours of dark, that’s when the plant triggers and flips in a flower. So depending on which strain you have will determine how quick that finishes up. Now, it could be a 45 day or it could be a 55 day or it could be a 63 day, could go all the way up into 90, 100 days, depending on super indica leaning or super sativa that’s kind of… But usually if you’re growing outside and you know you have a quick grow season, like in Utah, you’re looking for those more indica dominant, quicker finishing strains.
Tim Pickett:
Wow. I didn’t know that it was more like your sativas, but I guess it makes sense. You’ve got sativas come from certain spots of the world and indicas kind of come from certain others parts of the world. Is that how this all started?
Riley Meyer:
Exactly. Yeah. Yes. Sativa has kind of come from more of a equatorial range where there’s super long summers, that light cycle doesn’t flip until late, if at all. If you’re talking about somewhere like Ecuador, that never flips. So yeah, that’s where a sativa kind of comes from, is that closer to the equator and then your indicas are your Afghanistan or places with a higher latitude or even lower below the equator. So-
Tim Pickett:
Next year, what do you think ? You’re going to double your production. You’re going to add another 50%. Is it more about quality next year or more about both quality and amount quantity?
Riley Meyer:
It’s always about quality, man. Always. So with this year, like I said, it was kind of a Hail Mary. We kind of slapped it together, but it worked out really well, but yes, future plans, we plan to double if not a little bit more, but in Utah we are limited to our canopy space. So we do have our indoor facility coming up. The future of Standard Wellness cultivation is very bright, man. We have a 48,000 square foot indoor facility that’s going up, totally tailored to indoor cannabis that we’re just really going to be trying to churn out the most quality stuff that we can. But as far as outdoor goes, you can only set it up in the best way to combat mother nature. And where we’re at it gets really windy. We actually saw a fair amount of rain this season for Utah. Usually we’re really dry, but we did get some weather this this year. But yeah, we do plan on doubling that canopy space and really going for a high-quality product as always.
Tim Pickett:
Do you feel like a farmer or do you feel like a craftsman or what do you feel like when you’re growing cannabis? Because it doesn’t seem like it’s normal farming.
Riley Meyer:
Oh yeah.
Tim Pickett:
Right. I mean, you’re doing a lot more work to these plants, especially if you want to make them smokable or vapable. First is biomass.
Riley Meyer:
100%. Yeah. No, that’s a great question because you are a farmer in the sense that you’re doing serious labor. You feel like a man’s man out there just throwing dirt around, sweating all day, but yeah, there’s the whole kind of sewer side that goes into it as well. There’s selective defoliation, you’re topping these plants that keep them at a certain height and get so many heads off, so many colas rather off of these plants. So you’re really trying to tailor it and to get that very specific product by the end of the season. Yes.
Tim Pickett:
That’s the difference between growing biomass and growing flower.
Riley Meyer:
Yeah. Biomass is you’re cruising around with that… What are those fertilizer things for the lawn that just spit out all the fertilizer? Yeah. You’re just cruising with those, fill it with seeds, and then at the end of the season when it’s done, just go chop it down like you’re mowing the lawn kind of vibe. Whereas this is yeah, it’s under a microscope the whole time, really trying to make sure that you get the most smokable flower out of it as possible. Because if you are geared towards the smokable flower, you can really work backwards from that product. All the other products kind of come from that. Whereas if you’re going for biomass, you’re kind of pigeonholed into what you can do with it. Right. You can only make this to later or gummies or all that good stuff. I’m not knocking it. That’s awesome stuff. But if you go for flower, it just adds the amount of products that you can work with.
Tim Pickett:
Hmm. Going backwards from that, because you’ve got the highest quality plant, the flower. I mean, to be honest, I don’t know a lot about the difference between vaping… Well, that’s not true. I know the difference between ditch weed and craft grade flower, I guess. [crosstalk 00:18:09].
Riley Meyer:
That’s good. That’s good.
Tim Pickett:
And I think patients expect, especially nowadays, I feel like patients expect a high-quality product when they’re vaping it, and when you vape it, you can taste it.
Riley Meyer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). 100%. Yeah.
Tim Pickett:
Right. 100%. So the lower the quality, the worst it’s going to taste too and the effects kind of be different. So are you growing everything up there organic? Do you support? How does this organic thing work?
Riley Meyer:
Yeah. Organic and salt base, that’s kind of the big, people have their opinions on what is preferred, what makes the better product. But if you were to ask me, if you go for organic, usually you’re going to get a more full experience from the plant. You’re going to get more terpenes, usually your trichome coverage is better, but you’re kind of lacking on your yield and just vigor in the plant I want to say. When you’re growing with salt-based nutrients you just get beasts, you just get huge plants. And with that said, we are salt-based mostly at the moment.
Riley Meyer:
I did do about half of our crop outside amended soil. We went with the peat moss base and I added a bunch of stuff like crustacean meal, blood meal, bone meal, azamine, oyster meal, all these good amendments to really just get this nice base. And then, all you need to give that is just pH water. Right. Keep it at that six O, make sure the plants are happy. That’s what they love. But then the other half we went with a salt-based nutrient and pumped them up. And we really saw a big difference in size of plants as well as quality. So that’s something that we kind of did as a little R&D, which is working better, which is worth our while, which direction do we want to go in. But, yeah, we did a little bit of both for sure. Each strain, a little bit of both.
Tim Pickett:
You consider yourself a flower snob or you’re only a flower consumer. I don’t know. How much of this do you want to talk about? You being a cannabis patient.
Riley Meyer:
All of it, man. Yeah. I am a patient and I do consider myself a candidate, a flower snob for sure. I do love my flower, man. I really don’t go for anything else. When I’m looking to get my medicine, I’m always looking at the flower. Just because I feel it’s kind of more of a all-encompassing experience. It’s not like you’re picking and choosing which cannabinoids or which terpenes do you want in your product, you’re more so getting the full experience. And I also feel personally that I can kind of control my dosing a little bit better when I’m using flower. Whereas if you’re dealing with something like a crumble or a shatter or some solventless, it’s really geared towards being a more potent medicine.
Tim Pickett:
So you can use flower, you can use a little, you can use a lot, you really like that entourage effect-
Riley Meyer:
For sure.
Tim Pickett:
… of that experience. Lately I’ve been reading books about spirituality and cannabis, and I feel like that kind of fits your vibe, frankly.
Riley Meyer:
100%. Yeah. For sure, man. It’s what it’s all about.
Tim Pickett:
This whole idea of, and culturally this ganja culture of using it religiously and using it spiritually, so kind of shifting from this medical idea to a more experience-based, I don’t know, consumption.
Riley Meyer:
Yeah.
Tim Pickett:
And you’re almost using it less. These guys are almost using it less because they want to have that fast. They want to have that few days before they use it, they consume it. And then when you have that experience it’s a little more full.
Riley Meyer:
Yeah. 100%.
Tim Pickett:
And I feel like you can only get that with the flower.
Riley Meyer:
I agree. That’s a personal choice for sure. I think a lot of other people can get there with other products, for sure. But with me definitely I tune into that side with flower a lot more. And speaking of the whole ganja side of things and smoking out of a chalice and really being connected to it, one of my biggest as many cultivators or just people in the industry out there, one of my biggest idols in life was Bob Marley, Bunny Wailer, Peter Tosh, all those guys. So it’s a vibe. It carries a vibe. And speaking of just consciousness and being holistic and aware, it kind of just is all one big lump sum. And that’s how I view that experience for sure.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah. There’s this whole chapter on in Cannabis and Spirituality, I just finished the book and this whole chapter about growing it and about how people will get really, really high. And they go out and dig in the dirt and just have this really tactile perception of the plant and that experience and that connection. And then the idea behind this, and I’m getting way off topic here, but I think it’s fascinating, is the connection that people then have with the plant when they consume plants that are cared for like that. That does this whole chapter about, well, if you’re really caring for the plants then the plants going to care for the people who consume them even better. Right. You’re connected to that in a spiritual way. I think in Utah that would be a solid Utah thing.
Riley Meyer:
Yeah, for sure.
Tim Pickett:
There’s a lot of spiritual people here. Did you grow up Mormon?
Riley Meyer:
When I was really young, yes. My dad went on a mission and everything and, but he came back and we went to church there for a few years, but we kind of just faded away from the church, man. Not to knock anybody. I think it’s an awesome religion for a lot of people, but it just didn’t really fit our lifestyle. And we just had a lot of different views, so we just kind of faded away. My younger brothers didn’t really ever go to church. I have two younger brothers that are three years younger and six years younger than me. So they never really got that experience. It kind of faded away as I was younger.
Riley Meyer:
But yeah, I definitely grew up in that environment. My grandparents are still to this day, very involved in the church and yeah, I know all about that culture, man and actually deciding to be in this industry and telling my family that I wanted to cultivate cannabis was a big deal, man. You go and tell your grandparents who were very LDS that you want to grow this plant. And they look at you a little sideways and you got to kind of give them the facts and talk them through it. But I’m very proud to say that they’re very proud of what I’m doing and they’re all on board. They’re actually patients themselves. So it’s been a full 180 for them and they’re all on board for it. It’s beautiful.
Tim Pickett:
That’s cool. I think it’s hard, even today and you and I talk about cannabis all the time. It’s like our whole life, but not everybody is like that. We really still are a small percentage of people who deal with it a lot. And it’s hard for people to understand, it is. It’s kind of awkward to tell people, almost. And people always ask me what I do for work and you almost have to gauge them. I don’t know. It’s like I’m gauging how much I can say or how to say it. Do you feel like that now? I’m in the medical field. I can kind of lean on the, well, I take care of patients. What do you say? I’m a farmer?
Riley Meyer:
Honestly, no. I’ll tell that I keep- [crosstalk 00:26:24].
Tim Pickett:
You just tell everybody.
Riley Meyer:
I just tell them straight up, man. If you don’t agree with it then you’re not somebody that I need to be around anyway. It’s kind of one of those things, it’s-
Tim Pickett:
It’s like its own filter.
Riley Meyer:
Right. Exactly.
Tim Pickett:
No. It’s like tattoos. I got a tattoo on my forearm. Part of the reason I got out there was because, well, if I’m wearing short sleeves and you’re somebody who doesn’t like it, then I got that out of the way right away.
Riley Meyer:
Right. 100%. But it’s one of those things too. It’s I am open about it because I’d kind of like to represent the culture in a way and show people that it’s not all about just getting stoned and being lazy and whatever the stigma might be in their mind. I like to show them that I’m a clear-headed person. I work hard. I’m a functioning member of society. This is just another way to go through life. And if you can’t accept it, that’s totally fine, man. We live in America, we’re free. We get to do what we want to do. Right. So if you don’t agree with it, that’s cool. No worries.
Tim Pickett:
When you think about the future of the program here in Utah and beyond, what do you want? Do you feel like we need to expand the program? Do you feel like it’s going pretty well?
Riley Meyer:
Yeah. It’s really tough because this is one of those things where I’m an employee of a company and there’s a reason why I settled with Standard Wellness because I do agree wholeheartedly with what we’re doing out there, but there are a lot of things that I would love to see changed, but that definitely comes down to legislation and working through that that’s a long process. But my personal views, this has nothing to do with Standard Wellness, but my personal views on the plant are that this is the people’s plant. Everybody should be able to do whatever they want with this plant. They should be able to cultivate it, use it in any way they want, because looking at this medical program, there’s a lot of avenues that it’s missing. People like leaf tea.
Riley Meyer:
That’s a product that we don’t bring to the table. There’s so many things missing from the board that a recreational outlook would kind of encompass where a medical wouldn’t. I mean I love the medical program. It definitely has a place. I think that the whole calculated outlook and approach to this plant is awesome. I want to see the research done and people need very specific medicine. And I love seeing companies really try to tailor that and take care of very specific conditions and diseases. So I love the fact that there’s a medical program, but I am 100% on board for this plant being available to everybody. I think that’s the way that it should be, if you ask me.
Tim Pickett:
Sure. I mean, it’s going to take all of us, right, to figure [crosstalk 00:29:30] out how to move forward because 100 years ago we basically just screwed this whole thing up.
Riley Meyer:
Yep. Yeah. It takes people, a lot of people and it takes a lot of loud voices, but with especially being in a state like Utah, I think there’s a lot of people who are more worried about how they will be perceived from the outside. If you ask me, man, I know a lot of people that use this plant that would rather people not know that they use this plant. [crosstalk 00:30:02]. Kind of secret users. So there’s a lot of supporters. I really feel like these numbers are vast, but what shows up on paper does not translate to our patient counts and how big this program is in Utah. It just doesn’t show the actual support that is behind this plant.
Tim Pickett:
Right. You’re saying that you think there’s a lot of people with or without cards who are buying product on the legal market still using the black market or buying it out of state, which is essentially the black market here. Right. The secondary, I don’t know what you would call it. There’s the guy down the street you can buy it from. Go to Nevada, you can buy, go to Colorado. I don’t know what you consider, I guess that’s all black market in a way, but it’s all maybe the secondary market. I don’t know what they call it. But-
Riley Meyer:
I mean, yeah. That’s exactly it. It’s so puzzling. [crosstalk 00:30:56].
Tim Pickett:
There’s people who are not buying it in state in the legal means. I agree. I wish that we knew how many people there were like that.
Riley Meyer:
Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Yeah, that patient count is low. Very, very low. What is it? Something like 30,000 or-
Tim Pickett:
Yes. 35, 37,000 right now. And the state is losing about 23%. So a little more than one in five people are not renewing their card.
Riley Meyer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tim Pickett:
Yeah. That’s a lot. That’s a lot of people that either can’t afford it, can’t navigate it. Various reasons why they’re dropping out of the program. Maybe they’re like, “Yeah, no, this isn’t worth it. I want to buy stuff on the other market.” But that seems to be, I don’t know, we’re never going to get it changed all the way unless we participate. It’s a participatory democracy. You’ve got to be involved or else things don’t change in this country.
Riley Meyer:
100%. Yeah. If you don’t make your voice heard, then the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Right. It’s the whole saying. So yeah, we got to march. We got to do it, man. We got to make it happen for ourselves. They’re not just going to give it to us.
Tim Pickett:
Now I’m circling back to how you grow this stuff. You put all this weird shells and this organic material into the soil, and then you water it with special water.
Riley Meyer:
So yeah, when you get your big mix and then what I like to do is I’ll add a fungus, a mycorrhiza, and you’ll let that sit for a period of time to let it inoculate so that that fungus goes to work and it starts eating its food. It’s what they call developing a rhizosphere in your medium. And then you’ll put your plant in there and its root system actually works symbiotically with this mycorrhiza and the mycorrhiza will eat the raw material in the soil that surrounds the roots and the plant will trade what’s called exudates with the mycorrhiza for nutrients. And it’s a little symbiotic relationship. The mycorrhiza definitely doesn’t have to be there. All that stuff will just happen naturally, but it happens a lot smoother, a lot faster with the fungus. So it’s kind of like a little mini ecosystem that you’re building.
Tim Pickett:
Right. It eats something, it poops out fertilizer essentially, right, with the exudates and then the plant eats that.
Riley Meyer:
Yep. Exactly.
Tim Pickett:
And thrives.
Riley Meyer:
Yeah.
Tim Pickett:
How’d you figure this all out? Did somebody teach you or did you read the book or-
Riley Meyer:
Both. Both. I’ve had really cool mentors in my life. Not just cannabis-specific, but just kind of all encompassing gardening and horticulture in general. But yeah, there’s a lot of books that I’ve delved deep into, the Cannabis Bible being one of them. Many, many books that I just nerd out on, highlights, just gotten tabs all through it. So it’s a lot of self-taught, mostly self-taught as far as cannabis goes, but yeah, it’s something that you grow with and that’s why I love this industry so much is because you’re never fully capped out. You’re always learning something. There’s always something new.
Tim Pickett:
I mean, where does Riley Meyer go from here? Right. Are you going to keep growing? This looks like a longer-term project for you or, what do you want to do?
Riley Meyer:
That’s another tough question. I have my views with these plants that aren’t shared by everybody and I’m always going to be pushing to deliver the highest possible quality plants or flower, so to speak to the patient. And that doesn’t always mean that it’s some 30% THC or just something that gets you super stoned. I would really like to get a one-to-one flower on the market or a really awesome CBG strain or start finding some CBN strains and really dialing in that flower for more medicinally, specific purposes. But I’m all for that super high THC stuff. It all has its place for sure. But what I would really like to be involved in is a more specific approach to the patient. And what I really love is how… I’m not sure if they do it anymore. I’m not really up-to-date with California’s laws and legislation, but last I heard they had caregivers out there and I think it’s really cool how connected the grower is to his buyers. And if there’s something that they really [crosstalk 00:35:59] connect with.
Tim Pickett:
Farmers Market.
Riley Meyer:
Yeah. That whole approach.
Tim Pickett:
That whole approach. Yeah. That kind of local approach versus the eight growers who can grow everything and then everything gets processed. And even though you’re not limited to cultivars or strains as we call them and because they’re going to grow a nice variety, you’re still are limited to eight producers. Not the guy down the road who is your friend or you really care about, you like his product, you know he cares about the plant. Going back to that spirituality thing. Right. That connection to the earth with our community, [crosstalk 00:36:37] you still don’t get that with Utah’s program.
Riley Meyer:
Yes sir. Right. That’s definitely the big one for me, is that it’s just not opened up. I feel like I’m with Standard for a reason. I feel like they do have that approach, but then again it’s a business, man. And-
Tim Pickett:
Yeah. I mean, they got to recoup their investment and it’s a big cost.
Riley Meyer:
Right. And the overhead that comes with that is real. Whereas you have a local farmer that has his plot of land, that’s working his soil. He’s been working it for years. He’s got his process. That’s going to attract a certain group of people to want to be involved with him specifically because in this industry, quality is always going to rise to the top. It’s always going to make a name for itself. And that’s something that I think needs to be made available here. It needs to be opened up. There needs to be more options. I think that the companies here are doing a good job staying afloat. We could always do better for sure. But I really do, I wish there was more options, more availability.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah. I’m not torn about that, but it makes you think how do you get from here to there? And it really is in Utah, that’s a long road.
Riley Meyer:
Yeah.
Tim Pickett:
There’s definitely no talk about opening anything up like that. Not in this session, probably not for a few sessions. Got to have some movement at the federal level before stuff like that happens
Riley Meyer:
Yes. Yep.
Tim Pickett:
Some states probably doing better than others, but like you say, I mean, here we live in Utah and we do have a good medical program from the medical side compared to a lot of other states.
Riley Meyer:
For sure. Yeah.
Tim Pickett:
Come on, you go to Texas and you can’t hardly get access at all. North Carolina if they pass that medical bill, boy, that’s going to be a very, very limited access. You’ve got to be basically on your deathbed in order to get access. And at least here that’s not the case.
Riley Meyer:
That’s another thing that’s really cool about Utah, is at least they’re giving us the chance, man. At least they’re making it available. They’re taking that leap of faith and handing it over, and I really respect that. But yeah, I do think that to really use this plant to its full potential, you got to turn it over to the people. I mean, there’s a reason why it went 100 years through prohibition. There’s a reason why that culture has stayed intact the whole time. The people love this plant and they pushed it through all that BS and they’ve made their voices heard, and that’s the reason why it’s here today. So yeah.
Tim Pickett:
What do you do for fun, Riley?
Riley Meyer:
Oh man. A lot of stuff. I got too many hobbies.
Tim Pickett:
Because in the winter you ain’t got shit to do now.
Riley Meyer:
Oh yeah. Of course.
Tim Pickett:
I mean, I’m sure you got to get ready for next year and you got a lot of whatever’s going on in the indoor.
Riley Meyer:
Right. Yeah. I know, I-
Tim Pickett:
I mean, you got plans for winter? Anything fun planned? [crosstalk 00:39:46].
Riley Meyer:
100%. Yeah. I got me a little pass to PC. Going to be using that epic pass this year. Been snowboarding since I was eight years old so that’s a big winter hobby for me. And that’s kind of always been another thing that coincided with being a cultivator, especially outdoor, is that you work all summer, you get your check at the end of the season and then you go play. And that’s my whole thing, man. I love the snow. And what a place for it. Utah. It’s awesome.
Tim Pickett:
It’s going to tie you here for a long time.
Riley Meyer:
Yeah. Oh yeah.
Tim Pickett:
Right?
Riley Meyer:
I hope so. I love this state.
Tim Pickett:
And It’s like there’s nowhere to go. I ski too. And I grew up here and I’ve skied all my life, just like you. And people always ask me, “Oh, where have you been? Where have you been?” And I’m always like, “Where should I go?”
Riley Meyer:
Yeah. Where do I have to go? It’s 30 minutes. [crosstalk 00:40:37].
Tim Pickett:
Where do I have to go? I don’t know. I go 45 minutes up the road and I’m there. I’m where everybody wants to go.
Riley Meyer:
Greatest snow on earth, man.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah. Have you ever skied out of town?
Riley Meyer:
I don’t think I have. Like you said-
Tim Pickett:
I was in my mid-30s before I even went to Sun Valley.
Riley Meyer:
Yeah.
Tim Pickett:
Oh no, I went on my honeymoon to Sun Valley and we skied a couple of days. That was 21 years ago. But I’ve never been to Tahoe. And I mean, I’ve skied my whole life and never been to Tahoe, but I never feel like it’s worth the money to leave here.
Riley Meyer:
Right. Right. No, I’ve heard a lot about a lot of really cool resorts. I mean, on my pass is Whistler and I’m just looking at that every day like, “Oh, I got to make the trip up there.” And I got to go to PC. [crosstalk 00:41:30].
Tim Pickett:
Yeah. You got to make the trip.
Riley Meyer:
But yeah, one of these days. I haven’t yet though. It’s definitely on the list.
Tim Pickett:
Targhee is another place to go. Because that place is fire.
Riley Meyer:
Yes sir. That’s what I hear. [crosstalk 00:41:41].
Tim Pickett:
It was so awesome last year. So awesome. [crosstalk 00:41:44].
Riley Meyer:
Yeah. That’s awesome.
Tim Pickett:
And it’s not that far.
Riley Meyer:
Yeah. It’s not too bad. Right. And even Tahoe is not that bad. I mean, California or Nevada is okay. Yeah. Not too bad. [crosstalk 00:41:51].
Tim Pickett:
Yeah. You got the time.
Riley Meyer:
I got the time, man. I got a couple of months here.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah. Good. Well, if you could grow any strain you wanted, what would you grow?
Riley Meyer:
I would do my own breeding, man. I’d take a couple of strains and I would try to make some crazy concoction. But right now with what’s out there, I really like the stuff that’s coming from Soul Rebel, shout out to Soul Rebel. He’s got a lot of really cool sativas coming down. But yeah, my number one strain I’d say is the good old Jack Herer. I’m a big sativa guy. And in the flower world I think people kind of look at you as a weirdo if you like sativa. But yeah, I’m a big sativa guy. I just like the terpene profile off that Jack Herer. It’s so distinct. It catches my nose anywhere. If somebody shows me a bag of Jack Herer I’ll be able to tell you if it’s the real deal or not just by that smell.
Tim Pickett:
Oh, that is sweet. Okay. So I have goals now to be as good as you at recognizing one strain. Okay. Just I’m going to get one strain. I’m going to learn how to recognize it whether it’s good or bad.
Riley Meyer:
You got to find that one. You got to find that special one and stick with it.
Tim Pickett:
So when Standard comes out, when does all this stuff come? Is it available now?
Riley Meyer:
No. So we just got done clipping it into our totes. It’s in the curing process right now, we’re doing the finishing touches on our trim up. But we should be seeing that outdoor flower hit stores within the next few weeks. But that’s another thing, the state, has to go through the state.
Tim Pickett:
They take their portion. They take their cut. No, they take their testing cut.
Riley Meyer:
Yeah. Exactly. They take their time, is what they do. No dig, but they take their time. But yeah, it’s really dependent on the state. We got a awesome team killing it right now. We should be done within the next few weeks, packaged up and ready to send off. So-
Tim Pickett:
Okay. This episode will probably come out the week all that stuff comes out and so hopefully that’s the case.
Riley Meyer:
Okay.
Tim Pickett:
It’ll come out within a couple of weeks, front or back of this episode for sure.
Riley Meyer:
Sweet.
Tim Pickett:
Is there anything else you want to talk about? You want to mention? Anything burning on your chest, you just got to get off your chest.
Riley Meyer:
I would like to say for anybody out there that their passion is growing cannabis, just stay down, man. Just do anything that you can to get your foot in the door, reach out because that was me, a handful of years ago that was me. I was just itching to get into this industry. And it was so daunting because there’s people with huge reputations that get pulled from out of state and you got to be this master grower to just even get a look, but really a pebble at a time, just take a step at a time, stay down. Don’t get discouraged because I know there’s a lot of you all out there who really want to be involved with this plant and, yeah, just don’t quit. Don’t give up. That’s it.
Tim Pickett:
Well, that’s good. You’ve heard it from Riley Meyer. Who is the local kid who became a cultivator here in Utah for medical marijuana.
Riley Meyer:
Yes, sir.
Tim Pickett:
It’s a, yeah, pretty cool story, man.
Riley Meyer:
Thanks, Tim. I appreciate it, man. [crosstalk 00:45:29].
Tim Pickett:
Yeah. I’m happy you’re growing this stuff for us and I look forward to giving some a try, frankly.
Riley Meyer:
Yes, sir. Yeah. Go look for it, Standard Wellness.
Tim Pickett:
All right, everybody. Stay safe out there.
Episode 77 of Utah in the Weeds features Chris Voss, a patient who uses Medical Cannabis to treat his multiple sclerosis.
Voss, 37, was first diagnosed with MS last year. His diagnosis came during a particularly difficult time, because of the added pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic, graduate school, and an earthquake in northern Utah. [3:09]
Fortunately for Voss, a friend gave him a cannabis oil pen to experiment with treating his MS-related leg pain. [04:58]
Voss talked about the initial symptoms of pain and numbness that led to his MS diagnosis, and the clinical stem cell trial he is now pursuing for treatment. [09:28]
Voss has researched and experimented with various cannabis delivery methods for treating MS. He has found topical creams can help with muscle tightness, and he also likes the Zion Medicinals 1:1:1 THC:CBD:CBG tincture. [15:55]
Voss has also changed his diet to help fight MS, and he talked about his use of The Wim Hof Method, and other techniques he uses to reduce inflammation. [17:51]
Voss and host Tim Pickett talked about the stigma that cannabis still carries for some people, and the shifting attitudes toward accepting cannabis as a medicine. [23:53]
Voss and Tim talked about some of the strains they’ve used for contemplation, then the conversation shifted to Voss’ passion for making “8-bit” music in the style of classic video games. [29:16]
We wrapped up this episode with some encouraging words for anyone who might benefit from Medical Cannabis. [38:54]
Chris Voss:
And the only time I felt relief emotionally, psychologically was when I had cannabis. Life was like a living nightmare and that helped to kind of tone that down and to calm me down and get me in a good mental headspace. And I truly think about it, I don’t know what I would have done, I don’t know how I would’ve been able to handle that.
Tim Pickett:
Welcome everyone out to episode 77, lucky 77 of Utah in the Weeds, my name is Tim Pickett, I am your host. And here we talk about cannabis culture and medical cannabis in Utah. I’m excited to introduce you to Chris Voss, the music you heard on the intro today was his rendition of the Pixies. And we talk a little bit about that in the interview. We talk a lot about his experience with cannabis as really a life-saving plant for him, he was diagnosed with MS right at the beginning of the COVID pandemic when the world ended and remember that earthquake in Utah and how it was just crushing, to that sense of almost despair. So we talk a lot about that, enjoy this conversation.
Tim Pickett:
From a housekeeping perspective, for the entire month of November, we’re celebrating the one-year anniversary of the YouTube channel, Discover Marijuana. And we’re giving away something every single week from that in celebration and the prizes ramp up every week to the grand prize, which will be announced I think in a couple of weeks. So go to that YouTube channel, slam that subscribe button, we’re working on trying to increase that reach and make a comment on how you feel like those videos help or don’t help, or you want to see a video on some particular topic, that’s where to do it. Thanks for listening, thanks for subscribing to Utah in the Weeds. I’m super excited to just keep working hard on good content and education and I think it’s getting better and better and I think it will continue to get better.
Tim Pickett:
Anyway, my name is Tim Pickett, if you want to reach out to me the best way to do that is on that Discover Marijuana YouTube channel, subscribe to this podcast, Utah in the Weeds on any podcast player that you have or you like, and enjoy this conversation with Chris Voss.
Tim Pickett:
I guess we should just really get into this MS Thing and this, because you were diagnosed with MS at 36 years old, right?
Chris Voss:
Yep.
Tim Pickett:
And you’re living here in Utah, and this is exactly the time you’ve got the earthquake and COVID and MS, it sounds like this whole thing happened at the same time?
Chris Voss:
Yeah, it all happened at the same time. I was also going to school full-time working on my thesis for my master’s degree. While doing an internship and being a TA for the teachers up there. So I got slammed pretty hard psychologically, it crushed me. Pretty overwhelming, but the Godsend was the same month that I got diagnosed was the same month that Dragonfly opened up. And that’s just a couple blocks away from my house, so I was looking into that because I was in so much pain, so what happened with me was, when I was officially diagnosed, they said, okay, we’re going to get you in with the neurologist as soon as possible and then everything shut down from COVID.
Chris Voss:
So I didn’t hear from any doctors, I was calling in every day, I couldn’t meet with the neurologist for the first two months, so I had no kind of medication to help me out in any way, shape or form, and no direction either, it was just kind of radio silence. So I had this diagnosis, I was in terrible pain all day, every day, just neuropathy, it felt like my legs were on fire. So it feels like you have a third-degree sunburn just constantly.
Tim Pickett:
Down both legs?
Chris Voss:
Down both legs. Yeah. And my legs had also both become numb, so it was a weird feeling, it was like a novocaine feeling, but also this burning feeling as well. So it was very hard to deal with, very hard to walk, very hard to get around and man, I was waiting on a doctor’s note, I was waiting on trying to get in and a friend of mine, I know this isn’t legal, but I am incredibly grateful for him, he gave me an oil pen to try out just to help with the pain and, tell you what, it took things down from a seven or an eight down to a three or a four as far as pain goes.
Chris Voss:
The psychological pressure and burden of all those things, a master’s degree, TA, internship, earthquake, COVID, psychologically that was crushing. And the only time I felt relief, emotionally, psychologically was when I had cannabis. Life was like a living nightmare and that helped to kind of tone that down and to calm me down and get me in a good mental headspace. And I truly think without it, I don’t know what I would’ve done, I don’t know how I would’ve been able to handle that.
Tim Pickett:
You hate to vocalize this next part, right?
Chris Voss:
Yeah, I mean, the-
Tim Pickett:
I can hear it in your voice, right?
Chris Voss:
Yeah.
Tim Pickett:
That you’re like, okay, I know what I’m thinking about, this is severe depression, this is a place that nobody wants to go to. But I mean, I don’t have any idea what it was like for you at that time, but I remember what it was like for me at that time. And I remember thinking how overwhelming it was, especially right after the earthquake that you have … Basically the world has just come to a screeching halt and then we’re here and then the earthquake happens. and I can’t imagine adding severe pain in both legs. And you are starting a whole new chapter in your life too, being a … With this master’s degree and all of that stuff going on in school, all of the culmination of that, I totally can … I feel like I can understand, I guess, even though I don’t know what it was like for you personally, that sense, right?
Tim Pickett:
That’s what I think is so interesting about COVID and that time is here in Utah for people who were living here at the time and the earthquake happens, there was this shared sense of despair almost, right?
Chris Voss:
Yeah, I kind of got freaked out because we live in downtown Salt Lake and I know there are dams up the canyons. And I’m like, well, what if this earthquake somehow damaged one of those dams, there could be a kind of flood out in downtown Salt Lake. And at that time my mind was racing, I had all these other things going on and I was just like, let’s get some fresh water and let’s get somewhere safe, so, yeah, that was intense.
Chris Voss:
But again, without Medical Cannabis, I mean, I don’t know if I’d still be alive, I’m being completely honest. Just the amount of pressure, it was my final semester, I wanted to graduate with my friends, I was having severe fatigue and brain fog as well, so it was just like walking through mud and I emailed my professor and the Dean and they’re like, you know what? This is serious and I didn’t understand and recognize how serious MS was at the time, I was like, I’m going to bounce back, I’m going to hit the road running again.
Chris Voss:
And really, I’ve had to learn how to say no, I’ve had to learn time management and energy management, not taking on more than I can handle in a day. And so I feel like my energy and my productivity, it’s around maybe 60 or 75% of what it used to be, but-
Tim Pickett:
What’s MS like, how did it happen especially for a young man in their mid-thirties? How did this progression with your legs? Did it start in December? Explain that process.
Chris Voss:
Sure. So, the year before I was diagnosed, in winter, the University of Utah does a design-build program and we had designed a house for some Tibetan refugees and we were in the process of physically building that house, digging the foundations, doing all the work ourselves. And I was just, I kept on getting more and more tired, I had a previous back injury from a car accident and my back kept on hurting more and more. And so I finally got into a chiropractor and started getting adjustments. And one of my feet started going numb, my right foot started going numb and over the course of the week, it crept up through my calf, through my thigh and then my left foot started going numb, crept up through my calf and thigh and I was freaking out and chiropractor sent me in to get an MRI and showed that I had three bulging discs in my spine.
Chris Voss:
So we were all under the impression that it was sciatica, that it was something to do with the bulging disc that was causing my legs to get numb. And so I continued with chiropractic treatment. Didn’t get any better, it got worse until I could finally find the time to get into a doctor, which was during spring break, because like I said, it was school, it was finishing building that house, it was being a TA for the professors up there, I just didn’t have free time. So I just kind of pushed through the pain and the frustration until it was just finally too much. And then as soon as I got into a doctor, they sent me over to the ER.
Chris Voss:
So for about three months, I didn’t know what the heck was going on, I was just in tremendous amounts of pain and then my mind started to go, it was very hard to focus and concentrate and my energy levels were just gone, I was just dragging myself everywhere I went. So this isn’t all to say, poor me, but I’m just describing what I’ve been through until I got my diagnosis.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah, I mean, that’s the whole idea, right? And I’ve interviewed quite a few people with some pretty severe illnesses and injuries and yeah, I don’t think anybody feels like that, but the explanation, MS is a demyelination disease, right? It’s a disease of the central nervous system and you have a coating around all of your nerve, your nerve fibers and that coating is like a power insulator and it keeps those signals running through the correct channel, running through the correct pipeline. And MS destroys that coating around the nerve so to speak, so that the signals are crossing, jumping all over and you’re getting pain signals when you shouldn’t be and you’re getting … But in there’s this added fatigue to it. And I’m certainly not an expert in the neurology of MS, I just understand it from, because I’m medically trained and treated a bunch of people with it. But you get, it’s my understanding that there’s kind of either a spinal MS, or a brain MS, is that kind of how it was described to you?
Chris Voss:
So I’ve got lesions present in my brain and in my spinal cord. And it’s the weirdest thing because there’s absolutely nothing wrong with my hands or legs, but the signals that I get right now is just numbness in my hands and my fingertips, it feels really raw like I’ve run them over sandpaper. I’ve had some improvement in my symptoms, but I still can’t fill my feet and it still feels like my knees are kind of ratcheted up. So, I’m on some high efficacy medication right now, but my last MRI still have some progression, so my wife and I, we’ve been looking into clinical trial for stem cell therapy for the treatment of it and they’re doing clinical trials on the East and West Coast, we’re working with somebody in Portland right now, still waiting to hear back on things they’re going over records, but I’m a good candidate for it.
Chris Voss:
But essentially I don’t want to say it, because I’m not a medical doctor, but it appears to cure MS. They’ve been doing stem cell treatments for MS in Russia for the last 20 years. They’ve treated over 2,000 patients over there with just tremendous results. So that’s kind of my next leg on my journey with MS, very excited to hear back on that.
Tim Pickett:
When it comes to cannabis and you starting cannabis, had you ever used, have you ever smoked weed before the event, right? Your friend giving you the pen?
Chris Voss:
Sure. So, I was young and dumb like a lot of people, when I was 17 I had plenty of opportunities to partake. And I had a very difficult home life and I had some kind of traumatic things happen to me growing up. And I feel like just the use of it back then just lifted a lot of psychological burdens as well, it just helped me to function as a normal person instead of always been on edge. I feel that there’s a lot of stigmas around it and what the world sees as a pothead in the United States, just all the media and culture. And I really don’t see it that way, it’s been nothing but helpful, it’s not like I’m sitting in my parents’ basement going through bags of Funyuns and playing video games all day, I’m a productive member of society, I don’t drive when I’m under the influence and I typically only use at night to help both the pain and help get me to sleep.
Tim Pickett:
Typically you started out with a vape pen.
Chris Voss:
Yeah.
Tim Pickett:
Once you got access to Dragonfly that’s right by you, did you start to experiment with different forms?
Chris Voss:
Oh yeah, yeah, I picked up some edibles, I was on some online forums and just asking a lot of questions, finding out more and more. Yeah, so I also got some of the balms, some of the topicals to see if that would help out. And it does help out with tight muscles like this fascisity, but it doesn’t help out with the sensation, the numbness or the burning or anything else like that, because that’s actually going on in my central nervous system, it’s not taking place in the localized area. The muscle tightness is. And so when I use the cream, it actually kind of relaxes it and helps me. I also use one of those percussion massagers, they’re a little expensive, but it was worth every penny to get one of those to help out with the muscle stiffness.
Tim Pickett:
Because you get localized muscle pain from the, it’s basically the nerves overstimulating the muscles and causing spasms?
Chris Voss:
Yeah, I get that too.
Tim Pickett:
Is that what’s causing a lot of the fatigue?
Chris Voss:
I don’t think so.
Tim Pickett:
I think we’re getting into the medical side of it, to really probably stuff that somebody will call me and say, Tim, remember that is not at all what causes the fatigue. But so topicals and then do you use … At night, you’re probably using something that’s long-acting, edibles or oil or something like that.
Chris Voss:
Yeah, I use Zions Tincture. I had a 1:1:10 tincture, which was awesome. I know am doing a 1:1:1 one and that’s been incredibly helpful that just-
Tim Pickett:
The CBG, CBD.
Chris Voss:
Yeah, exactly. The CBG-
Tim Pickett:
Do you feel like the CBG makes … You feel like that makes a difference?
Chris Voss:
I feel like it does, I got some CBG flower in one of the packs, vapes as well and that really helps out, because it doesn’t affect you, it doesn’t give you the head effects, but it does reduce inflammation all throughout your body. I’ve also been using, in conjunction with Medical Cannabis and you know what I’m on medically for MS, I also have changed my diet to an anti-inflammatory diet. If you have MS, you’re supposed to avoid dairy, because some of the proteins in dairy can mimic the Myelin sheath and that can trigger a relapse or a flare-up. So I’ve eliminated all dairy, all gluten, and all refined sugar. I eat really healthy and it’s one of the other things to deal with inflammation that I practice every day is the Wim Hof Method.
Tim Pickett:
What’s that?
Chris Voss:
It’s a breathing technique. It’s this crazy guy over in Poland, great guy, many world records. He’s known as the Iceman for all of his world records like going up Mount Everest in basically a pair of shorts, that’s it? So I do cold exposure therapy as part of the Wim Hof Method, which is cold showers and the breathing technique, which has been clinically shown to reduce inflammation in the body. They injected, can’t remember the name of the virus, but they injected some dead virus as a control into other people, it makes them sick within hours, they get over it fairly quickly, but they injected him, they had him hooked up to all this equipment and he did his breathing technique, he did not get sick, the inflammation levels did not go up. I think it’s something like Interleukin 10 or Interleukin 7, something like that, it’s an anti-inflammatory that gets released in mass quantities when you do this breathing technique.
Chris Voss:
So they thought he was a freak of nature and he said, give me 10 people, give me four days, I’ll train them to do the same thing and he was able to repeat it. So, yeah, I practice that daily to help with inflammation, I have an anti-inflammatory diet, I’m on the medication and Medical Cannabis too just reduces inflammation, especially the CBG. So I’m doing everything I can.
Tim Pickett:
You are taking the shotgun approach, right? But why wouldn’t you?
Chris Voss:
Well, I mean, just the amount of pain that I was in 24/7, it was an absolute nightmare, so I was open to anything and everything out there, I didn’t care what it was or what the source was, I would try it out. One other thing that I do is soft chamber hyperbaric oxygen therapy. You get into this spinal chambers, zip yourself in, they feed oxygen in through a cannula, it’s concentrated oxygen and then they pressurize the chamber to 1.3 atmospheres pressure. And that also medically has been shown to reduce inflammation in the body, so I do that as often as I can, as well.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah, I’ve seen those even commercially, right? These hyperbaric centers that’ll even charge you to go and get in one of those pressurized, we did a lot of … We recommended a lot of hyperbarics when I was involved in GI surgery for wound care for healing. And it seemed to work really well, I wasn’t really involved in that piece of it, but the people who did it and seemed like, it’s just that one more thing. But like you say, you’ve got a long road ahead of you, it’s not like you’re 75 diagnosed with this. I mean, at 36, you’ve got a lot of years, so I can see why it’s even you feel like it’s more important to do everything you can, because you’re not only trying to cure and trying to make this disease go backwards, but you’re also preparing for the future, in 20 years you want to keep all the myelination you can that exist now.
Tim Pickett:
So when it comes to, back to our discussion about cannabis, because I think this discussion brings up a lot to me that cannabis is simply just another tool, right? It’s not the cure, you’re not curing yourself of MS with cannabis, it’s not the only thing you’re doing, right? You’re trying to manipulate the cannabis intake with as much information in science as we have of the cannabis plant now, right? Including the CBG, because while there’s 120 cannabinoids in the plant, we don’t know, maybe CBC is the right one for you, but we just don’t know yet, right?
Tim Pickett:
But as a tool, you’re using cannabis to … And really that psychoactivity was disassociating you with your pain, right? Taking that pain doesn’t make it go away, but it’s just putting it over there on the couch.
Chris Voss:
Yeah, the perception of your pain shifts with cannabis, you understand and recognize that it’s still there, but it does not dig into you, it just floats away, you recognize it’s still there, but it just doesn’t matter as much, it’s not the forefront of your mind. And again, psychologically more than anything else I’ve done or gotten treated with, cannabis has helped me so much with the quality of life, I realized that what I’m doing and what I’m using isn’t going to cure what I have, but cannabis more than any of the other things that I’ve done has improved the quality of my life, like, tenfold.
Tim Pickett:
Is that something you’re talking about more and more you find, that you’re a consumer of cannabis? When you grew up, when I grew up, everybody was anti-, especially around here, right? Did you grow up in Utah?
Chris Voss:
Yes.
Tim Pickett:
So all the things, right? All the Mormon stuff, all the culture we grew up with, all of that bias that we grew up with, not only from the religion, but from just the US, everybody in the world really looking at weed as the bad thing. So, yeah, do you find yourself talking about it more?
Chris Voss:
Yeah, I really struggled with it for a while, I kept it kind of secret for a while, I didn’t want to talk to people about it for a while, because of all those stigmas, it was embedded in me. But every time, every single time I’ve talked to somebody about it or opened up about it, they’re supporting me a hundred percent, I think socially and culturally Utah has changed. And I think it might have to do with semantics saying cannabis versus marijuana, marijuana, everybody’s eyes just go crazy. Medical cannabis, it’s like nobody bats an eye, it’s like, yeah, that’s great.
Chris Voss:
So I think it’s great that some slight changes in the words that we use may have helped mitigate some of that stigma, I don’t know if that’s entirely the case, but I think it’s part of it.
Tim Pickett:
How have your doctors been with your cannabis use?
Chris Voss:
Nobody cares. They say, do you use it? And I want to tell them what I use and how much I use and they’re like, we don’t care, so. They’re not interested.
Tim Pickett:
They’re like yeah, we’ll just make a note.
Chris Voss:
They make a note, they’re kind of dismissive, so it is what it is. I’ve got to tell you a little side story, when I first started smoking when I was 17, I never actually paid for anything, I was always just kind of in the place at the time, I was like, okay, yeah. Because I recognized and understood how it affected me positively, I had heard all these bad things about it and growing up with the [dare 00:26:00] program, it’s like, everything is demonic, right?
Chris Voss:
And I was thinking to myself, even back then I’m like, well, if it’s so bad, why do people do it? There’s got to be some kind of benefit and I think the drawbacks of cannabis, the benefits far outweigh any kind of drawback that you experience with it, including lots of different medications that I’ve been on in the past, some of the side effects are terrible, but the side effects with cannabis have been minimal, the negative stuff, I’m just like, why isn’t this more mainstream? Why isn’t this more available?
Tim Pickett:
Yeah. Yeah. I find the same thing now, I was more paranoid when I would use it in my teens and twenties more, I almost was more paranoid, because it was illegal, we talk a lot about, once you give yourself permission and you talked about this too, right? When you started using it again even medically, you’re hiding it from people, not really talking about it, not knowing what to say I guess, but once people allow themselves, give themselves permission to use it and to be okay with it, it seems like it opens the door to the mental benefits of cannabis, I find that a lot of the anxiety people have from using cannabis is related to that stigma still in their mind, less so the actual THC causes the anxiety?
Chris Voss:
No, I mean, the first time I went in to Dragonfly I was scared shitless man, I was like, I still felt like what I was doing was illegal and I was nervous at the counter and the bartenders were all relaxed and they’re like, you know what, chill out, it’s all right, we’ll walk you through this, I met with the physician, they kind of put my mind more at ease, but I think I just hadn’t processed from in my teens when my parents found out that I was using and their reaction to that, this little anecdote here, some friends, he gave me some seeds and I was actually growing a little plant in my room and I named it sprout and I came downstairs one day and my dad was staring into my room and he was looking at it pretty intently and I’m like, oh, okay, maybe this wasn’t so smart.
Tim Pickett:
Here we go.
Chris Voss:
Yeah. Gave it to a friend to take care of, it ended up dying, it is what it is, but having those uncomfortable conversations with your parents and them thinking it’s the devil’s weed, my son’s gone off the deep end and he’s going to start doing this and that and robbing banks and everything else, so nothing could be farther from the truth. But I hadn’t fully processed that and I realized that was part of my anxiety too. And so as an adult, when I talked to my parents about the use again, they were like, no, that’s awesome, good for you. There were no kind of holdups, there were no kind of judgments. I was like, why was I so scared for so long?
Tim Pickett:
We do truthfully live in a very conservative community. You know what I mean?
Chris Voss:
Yeah.
Tim Pickett:
You can associate with some pretty liberal people and some pretty leftist folks here in Utah, but the majority is still pretty conservative. So has it affected your work? Because you work in design-build and architecture, has it affected your creativity and things like that? Have you found that there’s benefits outside of the medical? It’s kind of an off question really, but do you find that there’s benefits outside of just pain control or just helping you sleep? Or does … You know what I’m saying?
Chris Voss:
Yeah, it’s really personality-wise, I was pretty high strung and I find a lot more joy and pleasure working on what I’m working on instead of being so anxious and paranoid and this, that or the other deadlines, I’m like, I know how to do what I know how to do and I’m going to get it done on time. And I feel like my interactions with my coworkers have improved greatly as well, I feel like no, I’m an introvert And I feel like it’s kind of helped me to open up and become more of a social butterfly and not care as much about what other people think of me and not be trying to please other people, I feel like I’m becoming more of my true, authentic self and I’m becoming comfortable with myself and people are responding very positively to that.
Chris Voss:
It hasn’t affected my work quality or my production level or anything else like that, if anything it’s helped. So the one thing that I was paranoid about too was some of the projects I work on are LDS temples, and I was worried how my coworkers would react and I opened up to project managers and senior architects and I’m like, listen, here’s the deal, I have MS, I’m in terrible pain all the time, I use medical cannabis and so it’s kind of a fun thing to say now that I’m a pothead and I work on temples, so.
Tim Pickett:
I wasn’t going to say it, but I really was hoping you would.
Chris Voss:
Yeah. I mean, in my own personal understanding of things the plant is here for a reason, it’s meant to be used as medicine and it works as medicine and it’s effective and it’s uplifting, relieving, soothing, all the things you could hope for. I also have struggles with PTSD and it’s related to sleep issues and that’s some fantastic strengths to help me with PTSD, Tahoe OG, Gorilla glue, number four, this has been great.
Tim Pickett:
I’m going to ask you which strain you’d grow if you could choose one to grow.
Chris Voss:
Oh, man. so recently Dragonfly has dropped in their Nova pods God’s gift. And that, man it’s awesome, it really is. And I can get into these very deep meditative states where I just go through my subconscious and go through an inventory and say, Hey, what are some of the limiting beliefs that I hold that I’ve held since my childhood that have been dragging me down and keeping me from progressing in life? And I’m able to address issues, it’s like therapy with myself going into my own mind and becoming aware of things I wasn’t aware of before. I really feel like cannabis has helped me to get into those deeper states and do some shadow work, meaning, what were the good intentions behind some of my bad actions in life and helping me to exempt myself fully and love myself fully, instead of saying, well, I’ve got these bad things about me and therefore I’m a bad person. So it’s really helped me to … It’s been like therapy, honestly.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah, I’ve had similar experiences with a couple of strains, Fatso being one of them where it’s like you’re behind the waterfall watching the thoughts go. And then you actually go back up the river, it seems like in your mind. And it can explore these things that are much, much deeper, but it’s like you can’t access that in the fully conscious state, I don’t know, for me, I get that same type of high-strong, little high energy, always what they would call forward-thinking and not able to access those quieter thoughts, which I think cannabis can be really helpful for. That helps healing too, right? Understanding yourself and understanding where all that comes from and helps people move forward.
Chris Voss:
It really does.
Tim Pickett:
Okay. I’m going to switch gears here, because I’m interested to know whether or not you still make music, like the game boy music, this whole, I was listening to some of these things on YouTube. And why this hasn’t taken off, what’s the deal? So explain what I’m talking about there, will you?
Chris Voss:
Okay. So-
Tim Pickett:
Chris Voss, the … I don’t know what it’s called, what do you call it? It’s a-
Chris Voss:
It’s called chiptune or 8-bit music.
Tim Pickett:
8-bit music. The 8-bit musician.
Chris Voss:
Yeah, I guess. My monitor-
Tim Pickett:
Describe what you do.
Chris Voss:
Yeah, so my moniker is old 44, but a while back, I’ve always been interested in computers and electronics and programming and all this other stuff, as well as just art in general. And I grew up, I had to learn two-ish instruments growing up, I learned piano and trumpet and I dropped out of both of those things. But one of my loves and passions in my earlier life was video games like Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo, Regular Nintendo and some of these games I would just turn on, so I could listen to the music, there was something magical about it. And I found this program that some German dude wrote called LSDJ that he flashed onto a cartridge for the Nintendo Game Boy and it’s a four-channel sequencer, so you can sequence and arrange music and play it live.
Chris Voss:
I got into modifying Game boys, I put in a back-lit screen for it, so I could see it in dark rooms, when playing concerts and stuff like that. And really, my goal was never to become successful, I’ve just been doing it for the love of it, because I would get these tunes stuck in my head, this music stuck in my head and I would have no way to get it out and get it down. So I learned how to use a bunch of different programs, most of them are free, another one is called Schism Tracker. And I just, I write music for the love of it, I was performing for a while, I would just perform in small local venues here. There were a couple of times I got flown out to Ohio to perform, but it’s never been about money, it’s just been about having fun.
Tim Pickett:
It’s a pretty interesting style because it mixes techno and that, but you can hear the gaming behind some of those sounds that are classic, I’m 43 and there are classic Nintendo Sega game sounds, right? Just really bring you back. I know if I played one, it doesn’t even have to be the memory, but my wife would walk in and I know she’d be like, oh, where’d you get the Tetris? Or where did you get that other, whatever game we used to play. And it’s so classic and so you still make some of that now?
Chris Voss:
I haven’t written anything in a while and I kind of unofficially retired the project and played my last show, but it’s not like I’ll never write anything more, but it’d be cool, I know this isn’t live, it’d be cool if you could, like on the intro to In the weeds, if you could have a short little segment of that music playing or something, I don’t know.
Tim Pickett:
Oh, that’s for sure what we’ll do, no question about it. And maybe even you, because you’re a, one of the comments was so interesting, the guys on Instagram, and he messages you on YouTube, he’s like, Hey, Chris, do you have Insta? I’ve never met a Daoist chiptune guy and just the way he strung the who he thought you were together, was classic, it was funny. And then listening to your monologues, right? Because this is a long time ago, oh, you’re mid-twenties at the time, right? 2011 or so.
Tim Pickett:
And I find that sort of stuff fascinating now with modern technology that we’re able to go back and watch ourselves, dialogue with ourselves, it’s so much more, I don’t know, it’s so much more personal than even reading your journal.
Chris Voss:
Yeah, it is, because you see the facial expressions, you see your mannerisms, you see how you’ve grown over the years too, it’s nice to have kind of a time capsule.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah. Right, it’s a built-in time capsule, you’re living forever there. So what else is important to you right now that you want to share?
Chris Voss:
Cannabis has helped reorients me to some of my earlier mindsets of life, just understanding, it doesn’t matter left or right, all seats are all bullshit. And just realizing the different things I’ve needed to do for mental health like delete Facebook, what’s important to life in me right now, it’s not money, it’s not things, not objects, not anything like that, it’s experiences and it’s people, connections with people. Money comes and goes, things come and go and people come and go as well, but your connections with other human beings more than anything else I think is the most valuable thing that you can focus on and try to improve because there are so many people that are just grinding, they’re so focused on their careers, focused on money, focused on cars, social status is a huge thing. People want to be perceived as higher than other people and they’ll do whatever they can. They become fake, they’re no longer their authentic selves.
Chris Voss:
And so what’s important to me right now is just being true to who I am and showing love to other people, showing love to myself, having self care when I know I need it and showing love to others and having connections with others. Aside from that, all the other stuff, it’s just so ephemeral, it’s just so meaningless, it can provide creature comforts, but as long as I have a roof over my head and I can get the food that I need, it doesn’t matter where I live or what my status is.
Tim Pickett:
It’s important to remember, especially now with the craziness that is the world, the politics, the social media, I think it’s harder in a lot of ways to do that, but I’m glad that cannabis found you and you found it, again, it sounds like it’s a pretty good relationship.
Chris Voss:
It is.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah, I’m glad that we have the program here in Utah and that we get to share it with other people, yeah, I think that that’s super important. Well, other than your YouTube channel, is there any way … If somebody wanted to reach out to you, is that something you are interested in? Somebody has questions or things like that. How would they do that?
Chris Voss:
Yeah, if anybody wants to reach, so they could reach out to me through email or they could reach out to me through Instagram which I do keep. And I just keep Instagram around to upload something every now and again, I don’t really spend time on it to scroll through all the feeds and get stuck in this endless loop of this micro hits of dopamine.
Tim Pickett:
Tell us what your Instagram handle is, that’s probably better than email.
Chris Voss:
Oh, it’s C-H-V-O-8-4.
Tim Pickett:
Say that one more time.
Chris Voss:
C-H-V-O-8-4.
Tim Pickett:
Well, Chris, this has been really great. I’m glad that, well, I got to talk to you. Your story is important.
Chris Voss:
I’m glad I got to talk to you too.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah. This has been pretty cool. And I think this whole thing about your MS and how you got back into using cannabis, consuming cannabis, fascinating. If we could go back and I could take away the MS and take away the cannabis, I’m guessing you’d give up both.
Chris Voss:
Yeah, but I mean my quality of life has improved so much. And again, now I go to these MS support groups and I’ve brought up cannabis before and everybody’s like, they respond very negatively, they’re like, no, I’ll use that as a last resort, I’ll use that as the last resort. I’m like, use it as a first resort, holy cow man, they have it in their heads that it’s this awful thing and that it’s going to ruin their lives and that they can only use it when they’re like in a wheelchair or something. And I’m like, no, no, get it now, use it now. See how your life improves.
Tim Pickett:
No, learn how to use it now, because when it’s bad, when it gets bad, you’re going to really want to know how to use it already, right? I talk a lot of people about that, no, use it now, learn how to use it, learn all the products, learn what being high feels like, what being stoned feels like, what sleeping good, sleeping bad, all that, you need to learn all of that now because later you’re going to really like the fact that you know what you’re getting, what you’re using and it’s the symptom management, it’s not the curing of the disease that … Anyway. I’m surprised because we see a lot of patients with MS.
Chris Voss:
Yeah, and it must just be my local support group, but it’s just the … It’s mind-boggling to, well, it’s not mind-boggling, I understand on some level, but it’s harmless.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah, it pretty much is, when it is used right, the risk profile is very, very low, very, very low. Well, take care of yourself and, yeah, glad to talk to you. Just for our listeners, Chris Voss, this has been a great episode, you can download this podcast on any podcast player that you listen to podcasts on Apple, Spotify, all of them. utahmarijuana.org/podcast. You can find our podcast and if you want to reach out to me, Tim Pickett, then the best thing to do is go to Discover Marijuana on YouTube and comment on one of the videos or on this podcast, because it will be uploaded there. All right everybody, stay safe out there.
Episode 76 of Utah in the Weeds features Melissa Catmull, a Medical Cannabis patient.
Catmull says she has been able to cut her prescription medication use significantly since she began using Medical Cannabis for pain, depression, and anxiety. [02:42]
Catmull is a long-distance “ultrarunner” whose orthopedic specialist recently told her she needs to give up the sport, or risk severe fractures due to her osteoporosis. [04:25]
Host Tim Pickett asked Catmull if she views cannabis as a drug that could help runners. Catmull says cannabis doesn’t inhibit her running, but she isn’t sure the drug would help her run farther. Catmull then talked about her initial experiences in Utah’s Medical Cannabis program. [08:11]
Catmull talked about the processes she went through to find the cannabis doses and delivery methods that work for her needs, both during the daytime and at nighttime. [12:19]
Tim and Catmull discussed the remaining stigma surrounding cannabis in Utah. Fortunately, Catmull’s primary care physician has been supportive of Catmull’s decision to use Medical Cannabis. [16:15]
The pair discussed their shared view that cannabis is a versatile medicine that can be tailored to an individual’s needs and preferences like no other. [23:34]
Catmull shared a story about a traumatic opioid detoxification episode she went through. Although she didn’t use cannabis to transition away from opioids, she believes it could have been helpful. [30:35]
We’re grateful to Melissa for sharing her experiences with Medical Cannabis in Utah, and for the paradigm shift that is helping more people to Feel Better.
Melissa Catmull:
For me, it was like, if I’m going to pursue this, I’m going to pursue it the legal way so that I am still following the tenants of my belief. And as you said, it’s just another tool in my toolbox of medications.
Tim Pickett:
Welcome everybody out to episode 76 of Utah in the Weeds. My name is Tim Pickett and I am a PA. Medical cannabis is my specialty and this is episode 76 with Melissa Catmull. This is a runner story folks. Melissa, man, she runs and runs and runs, and her story is worth listening to. What I love about these stories in Utah is conservativism meets cannabis and how that plays into people’s lives and the acceptance and all the things.
Tim Pickett:
From a housekeeping perspective this weekend, tomorrow if you’re listening to this on the day we release, tomorrow is the Utah Cannabis Expo, Health and Wellness Expo at the Salt Palace, you can buy tickets at the door. I believe it’s 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM and head on down there to Salt Lake if you can. This is the first big expo that’s really focused on cannabis medicine, utahmarijuana.org will have a booth there. There’ll be a lot of the medical cannabis pharmacies. There’ll be some expert panels to listen to and discuss all the things about medical cannabis in Utah. Happy to have you guys out there for that.
Tim Pickett:
Otherwise, please subscribe to the podcast on any podcast player that you listen to podcasts on. We’re so happy for your support. Also, YouTube Discover Marijuana, you can find us on there and you can reach out to me by commenting or asking a question on any one of those videos. It’s really a channel about medical cannabis and educating people about and de-stigmatizing the plant. So one last thing, enter to win on our YouTube channel at Discover Marijuana. Every week of November, we’re giving away a prize on that channel, there’s descriptions and instructions on how to enter, big prizes every week celebrating the one-year anniversary of that Discover Marijuana YouTube channel so stay tuned there. Let’s get into this episode with Melissa Catmull, everybody enjoy and have a great one.
Tim Pickett:
Okay. So take me back to, how did you get involved with cannabis at all?
Melissa Catmull:
Okay. So I’ve been watching kind of the legislation to see where Utah is going to go with that. I’ve kind of been thinking about it for a while, would that be an option for me? I’ve dealt with depression and anxiety for all of my adult life. I’ve had several health issues that I’ve been dealing with chronic pain for probably the last 10 years of my life and tried various things, treatments, injections, medications, all kinds of different things to treat all of those. And I’d had some family members kind of exploring the idea of medical marijuana as well.
Melissa Catmull:
So I researched a little bit and kind of just went onto the state website, thought I’ll give it a shot. I’ll meet with somebody, if they think it’s worthwhile for me, then that’s great. So I followed the directions, I scheduled an appointment with a provider who I felt like was pretty thorough with me, addressing all of my specific concerns and then went through that process where it’s taken some tweaking to kind of find the right dosage and how I want that delivered, but I’ve been able to cut my antidepressants in half and I no longer am taking any kind of benzodiazepines for my anxiety. So I’m pretty happy about that. I feel like I am using it successfully.
Tim Pickett:
You mentioned a couple of things in there, so do you mind explaining your chronic pain a little bit?
Melissa Catmull:
Sure, sure. I’m an ultra runner and I’ve had various stress fractures. I had a couple of neck surgeries about six years ago, I broke my elbow about five years ago and they had to remove the radial head for my elbow so my elbow always is hurting. I have arthritis in most of my joints and I have now severe osteoporosis. And kind of all of those things lend to chronic joint pain, chronic elbow pain that I’d gone down the opioid route and that obviously doesn’t work so that’s not a long-term solution. So this was kind of my last resort.
Tim Pickett:
Do you still run?
Melissa Catmull:
I just got told by my orthopedic specialist I need to stop. So I’m still coming to terms with that phase of my life, but-
Tim Pickett:
You don’t think you’re going to run? At least right now, you’re in this transition period where you’re like-
Melissa Catmull:
I am in this transition period. My osteoporosis is so severe right now and I’m having some issues with my feet that the fear is that I’ll just have stress fractures and will end up crippling myself. So it’s either stop running or be 60 and in a wheelchair so I choose to keep my health as best I can.
Tim Pickett:
So did you ever bike? Have you ever thought about biking?
Melissa Catmull:
Yes. I did a ton of triathlons.
Tim Pickett:
Oh, did you?
Melissa Catmull:
Yeah, I was training for an Ironman when I had to have the neck surgeries and where my neck surgeries are, it precludes me from being on a road bike, being down in that position. So I gave that up. And so I have my treadmill that I can walk on and I have my road bike on a trainer that I can jump onto and bust out some miles for some workout.
Tim Pickett:
What happened? Did you just beat your body up?
Melissa Catmull:
I just think, well…
Tim Pickett:
So how many miles were you running, like the peak? Right? Ultra running is… Tell me what that means.
Melissa Catmull:
So my longest distance was a 50 miler. I had entertained thoughts of a hundred miler, but I don’t do well with no sleep. So 50 miles was kind of, I really tried to keep myself 50k ready so if something popped up and we want to just go run a 50k, we could do that.
Tim Pickett:
Wait, just hold off right there. I have run one 50k, I’ve run one marathon, I’ve run one marathon and I’ve run one 50k. The marathon I ran was in 2009 after the end of the Ironman at [inaudible 00:07:15] right?
Melissa Catmull:
See? See you’re an Ironman you know this.
Tim Pickett:
I had never run a marathon before and so help me, it was misery, right? I mean, I just, I like limped in-
Melissa Catmull:
Well at the end of it-
Tim Pickett:
Come on. Yeah. You know what I’m talking about? But then I decided, okay, let’s do 50k, that’s 33/35 miles, right?
Melissa Catmull:
Yep.
Tim Pickett:
So you’re saying, “Well, I just want to be ready,” right? The reason I bring this up is because you’re like, “Oh, just I want to be ready in case anybody wants to get, say, Hey, let’s go do a 50k”?
Melissa Catmull:
Yeah.
Tim Pickett:
Okay. That’s a lot of miles to stay ready for. This is not something that the average runner… You’re putting in 30, what are you doing a week? I mean, 30 a week, 30, 40 a week?
Melissa Catmull:
At least, between 30 and 40.
Tim Pickett:
And you kind of get addicted to it, right?
Melissa Catmull:
Oh, a hundred percent. Oh yeah. It’s my life.
Tim Pickett:
Right? So now that you, I’m going to totally ask because I think, I feel like cannabis, there’s all this talk about cannabis not being a drug that would enhance your sport, right? But ultra running, I feel like now that you’ve experienced it a little bit, don’t you feel like it’s like the perfect drug?
Melissa Catmull:
Yes, I agree. It did not inhibit any of my training, it doesn’t inhibit any of my racing, any of my running. Totally fine.
Tim Pickett:
Have you ever cannabis and went on a run?
Melissa Catmull:
Yes.
Tim Pickett:
And do you feel like it… See, it makes you a little thirsty, it distorts time, do you feel like it would enhance your running, like it would help you run further or not?
Melissa Catmull:
I don’t know that I can honestly say that. I just know that it didn’t inhibit anything for me, to be honest with you. When I dose myself, I don’t notice anything. As a teenager, experimenting around, I noticed a high. With the medical stuff that I’m taking and how I figured out my dosing, I don’t at all. I don’t feel the same as if I were to be as when I was a teenager and we did that.
Tim Pickett:
For listeners, can you just tell the listeners that I didn’t prompt you to say that?
Melissa Catmull:
Oh, no. I’m just being a hundred percent honest.
Tim Pickett:
Because seriously, people really think that this in this business and this medical marijuana and cannabis is essentially all about people getting high and it really is not at all, right?
Melissa Catmull:
I’ve never experienced that, even if I’ve like over… I shouldn’t say overdose.
Tim Pickett:
Overused? Dosed a little higher.
Melissa Catmull:
If I dosed a little too much, I still don’t notice it. I have a blend that I use during the day that doesn’t make me sleepy, it doesn’t do anything. I just notice my pain is less, my anxiety is significantly decreased and I can function. I can do my job, I can do whatever I need to do for the day totally fine. And then my blend at nighttime is at nighttime and reduces my anxiety, calms my mind and helps me sleep. And neither one, I don’t get any kind of a high feeling. Yeah, I think that’s a huge misunderstanding for people who don’t understand it. Yeah, that’s a misunderstanding, that is not the case for me at all.
Tim Pickett:
What was the process like after you got your card here in Utah to purchase the product and figure out that dosing?
Melissa Catmull:
I have to say the dispensary I’ve found nearest my home was so great. I walked in, I showed my card, my ID. And then for a first-time user, they had a pharmacist come and sit down with me and say, “Okay, what are the things that we’re trying to address?” “All right. Here’s what I’m trying to address.” “Okay. Here are the different blends and these are the things that we’d recommend that you try.”
Melissa Catmull:
And so I started trying some different things, I played around with the dosage myself to kind of figure out exactly what was right for me. And then when I need to pick up more, I go in, I know exactly what I’m purchasing. If I have a question at all the people are so willing to help. I probably get more FaceTime and consultation from the pharmacist at the dispensary than I would my regular pharmacist for other medication. And that’s in all fairness honest.
Tim Pickett:
And how long did it take for you to figure out the dosing too? So when you went there, did you buy three or four products or did you just buy one?
Melissa Catmull:
Nope. I bought three or four products. One product wasn’t helpful at all so I know I’m not purchasing that one again. It wasn’t helpful. And then the dosing just kind of took a couple, maybe up to a week to kind of tweak and play with things, knowing, “Okay, this is the right amount,” “This is not enough,” or, “Wow, this is too much. I can get away with just this right amount.”
Tim Pickett:
Did you always think you were going to be able to use it during the day too or did you think, “Uh, I don’t know.”
Melissa Catmull:
I thought I wasn’t going to be able to. So I started on a weekend just to make sure I understood how it was going to affect me and yeah, I’m like, well, there’s no high from this. I can function in my everyday life just fine.
Tim Pickett:
Do you feel like a lot of your pain is from anxiety too? Or do you feel like… What’s the relationship there?
Melissa Catmull:
I mean, I think there’s great ties into our mental side and our physical side. And pain signals from the brain can come from a variety of different sources, does it make my pain go away? I don’t know about that. I don’t know that it does, but I don’t notice the pain quite as much. Does that make sense?
Tim Pickett:
Oh yeah. I mean, to me it makes sense because I’m a medical provider who does this evaluation and this education. So to me, that’s the disassociation part, right? You’re putting your pain over there on the couch, so to speak, and you’re able to go about your day. And then trying to figure out the right dosing is really trying to figure out, how far do I need to put my pain over there essentially?
Melissa Catmull:
It’s like the threshold of, “I’m feeling great, so I don’t need any more,” or, “I’m not feeling so good, let’s try just a little bit more.: And just kind of find it. And I think that balance is different for every single person. I mean, I’m an older woman, 5’4″, 100 pounds versus maybe a 24 year old dude who’s 6’2” and 240. I mean, the dosing is going to be completely different. So I think as an individual starting this process, I think relying heavily on a medical provider such as yourself to consult and make recommendations on products and then just trying a few until you find the things that work best.
Tim Pickett:
Are you using all oral stuff all, like tinctures, gummies, or did you try inhaled things?
Melissa Catmull:
I have a vape pen that I use during the day. And that’s a blend that does have any indica, am I saying that right? In the couch stuff?
Tim Pickett:
Yeah, in the couch, uh-huh (affirmative).
Melissa Catmull:
Yeah. It doesn’t have that blend to it. So I’m not sleepy, function, do everything, do my job, whatever I need to do. And then at nighttime, it’s the reverse, the opposite kind of a blend. And that’s a tincture that I use, just an oil that I place on my tongue at night time. And then I have had gummies that I would use interchangeably with the tincture, but during the day it’s just the vape pen.
Tim Pickett:
Because the vape pen doesn’t last quite as long, it’s a little bit easier to dose, right? If you get a little too much, it’s only a couple of hours.
Melissa Catmull:
Right.
Tim Pickett:
And then things are okay again.
Melissa Catmull:
Yeah.
Tim Pickett:
Right? I mean, I’m always fascinated with people, like 35, 40% of our patients that we see have your type of experience with cannabis. So somebody who may have experienced it before or and has not used it, doesn’t want to get high, just wants to really treat it like another medicine, right?
Melissa Catmull:
Exactly
Tim Pickett:
But the stigma, was the stigma a big deal for you?
Melissa Catmull:
Yes. I am an active practicing member of the predominant religion here in Utah. And that was a little bit at odds with our code of health. And so for me, it was like, if I’m going to pursue this, I’m going to pursue it the legal way so that I am still following the tenants of my belief. And as you said, it’s just another tool in my toolbox of medications. I take medicine for thyroid, I take supplements with glucosamine and vitamins B and calcium and all those things. This is just one more of those things in my toolbox that help me manage my health.
Tim Pickett:
How do you feel other people or like your family has been with this?
Melissa Catmull:
My family has been extremely supportive, very, very supportive in that, “Hey, whatever you need to do to feel healthy, whatever you need to do to feel well that you can get yourself out of bed and function without§ crippling pain, more power to you.” I have a very supportive family.
Tim Pickett:
I mean, that’s really important. And I think we’ve heard so many stories about people whose families have been really supportive. It seems like, especially in Utah, I was born and raised here too, I get that culture and it seems a little daunting, I think, to enter this, the cannabis space for people. But once you make that decision, I don’t know, was that your experience? Because you talked about how the pharmacists have been really helpful and your family has been really supportive, but at first, just stepping into it is…
Melissa Catmull:
I was a little nervous. I kind of was a little bit nervous because I really didn’t know what to expect. I knew that it was worth pursuing. What did I have to lose? It was worth pursuing. And I was a little nervous and I was a little hesitant, but as I waited my turn at the dispensary and I saw all walks of life going in there, realizing other people are in the same situation as me. They’re just trying to find something to help them, whether it’s pain, whether it’s anxiety, whatever spectrums that they need help with, we’re all dealing with something and we’re all trying to find something. And if it works for them as it works for me, who’s to judge? I mean, in my opinion, I’d much rather be using medical marijuana as opposed to being addicted to opioids or benzodiazepines. I’ve honestly been down that route, I don’t want to go there again. So to me, this was the best option to manage my health.
Tim Pickett:
Are you somebody who now kind of advocates to your primary care provider? Because it sounds like you went to somebody different.
Melissa Catmull:
So I have my primary care provider and my last well-check, your physical check with her, I let her know that this is what I was doing and that I’d been able to get off of clonazepam, Klonopin, that I’d been able to cut down some other medication I was taking at night time and she was extremely supportive. She was like, “Hey, whatever works, let’s take it, let’s run with it. If it works for you then great.”
Tim Pickett:
I think that’s one of the big ways providers will get introduced to this because we deal with a lot of providers who are referring patients to us who don’t have malpractice for it, or they don’t quite know what to do about it yet, right? But there’s patients like you who come back and say, “Hey, you know what? It’s relatively safe, okay? It’s not addictive. I’m not using it to get high, right? I’m using a moderate amount.” You’re not using-
Melissa Catmull:
I don’t know what it would take for me to do that because I don’t.
Tim Pickett:
You don’t do it. And I’ve reduced other prescription medications and I just cannot imagine a provider not saying like, “Wow, okay. Maybe I should take this a little bit more seriously.”
Melissa Catmull:
I would hope so. And as I left her office, I mean, she may… She was extremely supportive of me and I found that extremely valuable. It would be great if there were more providers that could prescribe it. I will be honest about this, it’s a whole lot cheaper to go buy a generic clonazepam than it is to buy the medical marijuana. It’s expensive.
Tim Pickett:
Plus the cost of the visit too, right? You’ve got to have a cash pay visit.
Melissa Catmull:
Yeah. And it’s cash to buy your product. And that’s fine, you hit an ATM, you go, it’s fine. But I would like to see the costs come down because that will be prohibited for people to actually get off of chemical medication and onto something that’s more natural when it can be cost prohibitive. And that’s one thing that I have found it’s much more expensive for me to use medical marijuana than it is the other medications but I feel better about it as to what’s coming into my body versus the addiction that has been shown to be in some of those other medications
Tim Pickett:
You’re spending 150, 200 bucks a month?
Melissa Catmull:
At least
Tim Pickett:
Kind of that’s-
Melissa Catmull:
Well, another thing I really liked is the prescriber that you meet with prescribes how much you can have per month. So based on your symptoms and what you’re dealing with, it’s not this free for all, “Okay now you can go buy all the stuff you want.” No, no. I like that it’s mandated and it’s controlled a little bit to where you’re just getting what has been prescribed for you. Does that make sense?
Tim Pickett:
Yeah. A hundred percent. There are very few of us doing that unfortunately, actually. But putting up the fence around the pasture is how I describe it, right? I’m going to put up the fence around the pasture and then inside that space, you can use what you need to use, you can experiment with your own. Like delivery, you’re using an inhaled method during the day, a tincture or an edible at night. And that makes a lot of sense for people to change the way they use a medication like this, because I mean, that just makes sense. Wouldn’t it have been nice to have that with a traditional medicine where you’re like, “Oh, well, I only need this for a couple hours,” or, “I need something that’s a little bit uplifting instead of a downer,” right? I love cannabis as a medicine because it’s so complex and it’s so personal, right? It’s like tomatoes, right? You can get the garden fresh tomatoes-
Melissa Catmull:
Oh yeah, it’s not a one size fits all.
Tim Pickett:
And you can have somebody like yourself who’s small and doesn’t use a lot and is a runner. And just, it’s almost like you’re taking control of your own health.
Melissa Catmull:
Thank you. That is exactly how I feel about it. Instead of relying on someone to listen to me and help me in a way that… It gives me more onus for my own health and I like that. I like that.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah. As medical providers, we’ve been dictating how to treat things for generations. But on the other hand, we have been asking patients, “Take control of your own health, walk, more, eat healthier. Why don’t you do these things? Why don’t you take control of your own health?” And now patients have kind of turned the tables, I feel like, on providers in a certain way and said, “Okay, this is how I want to take control of my own health. I want to use medical cannabis in order to start that process.” Some providers are really getting on board and saying, “Well, okay, I’m totally supportive of this, right? It’s safe. If it’s effective for you, you choose.” And then other providers are like, “Wait, we didn’t mean take control of it in that way.”
Melissa Catmull:
Yeah. And I find that unfortunate. And I’ve worked in the health care industry, not patient care direct, but I’ve worked in the health industry for my big girl career job. And I would think as a medical provider, you would want any and all resources to help your patients, any and all resources. If that is something non-traditional, then that’s something non-traditional. If it works and works, who are you to argue?
Tim Pickett:
If it works and it is safe. And remember, we’re only talking about safe as compared to what, right? Safe as compared to benzodiazepine? Safe as compared to opioids? That to me is an easy argument. Safe as compared to things when you’re young and you’re going to have to use a lot of THC? Okay, now we’re going to get into a difficult conversation, a little more complex conversation, but that’s not really what we’re talking about in general, right? Those conversations, I feel like, yes, have those conversations with us. To me, I like the cannabis specialist idea, right, with those complicated situations.
Melissa Catmull:
Yeah. I agree, I agree
Tim Pickett:
What do you do work wise now?
Melissa Catmull:
I am a buyer for a local run specialty store.
Tim Pickett:
Run specialist?
Melissa Catmull:
Yeah.
Tim Pickett:
Oh, you’re knee deep in this running.
Melissa Catmull:
Yeah, yeah. So I buy and manage their inventory.
Tim Pickett:
You by Hokas and Ultras and all the good, all the stuff you’ve tried.
Melissa Catmull:
Yep. So in that environment, it’s shoes, it’s apparel, it’s nutrition, it’s accessories. It’s, yeah, all of that.
Tim Pickett:
What are you going to do with this new thing about this running and you can’t get on a tribike? I’m worried about you.
Melissa Catmull:
I don’t know. Right now it’s kind of day to day. Once we can get my foot pain under control and get some answers there, then I don’t know. That’s a good question. I don’t know yet. I don’t have the answer to that. I’m just taking it day by day.
Tim Pickett:
I’m kind of excited to watch what happens. Because I would think, it sounds like you’re the type of person that’s extremely motivated to stay mobile.
Melissa Catmull:
You kind of have to be, who wants to just lay in their bed and die? We want to stay active. We want to be doing stuff. I mean, I can’t run right now, but I’m, I’m volunteering at Ultras and still being a part of the community and that’s rewarding in and of itself too.
Tim Pickett:
Are you going to go off and do this D50, the one up here in Davis County, this 50 miler?
Melissa Catmull:
No, no, no. I just got back from Moab. There’s a racing group down in Moab that I have raced with for a long time. And I just went back and volunteered to the races, I’ll go back down in November and volunteer and my friends run all their races. So I’ll just go and cheer them on and stay a part of that community the best way I can, volunteering. It’s awesome.
Tim Pickett:
You’ll be one of those people in the sit-down bikes, the recumbents with the flag?
Melissa Catmull:
I’ll take my four wheeler and sweep the course, whatever. Yeah. Wherever they want me, whatever they want me to do I’ll do it. Yeah. It’s great. It’s great. The running community, they’re awesome people, especially trail runners. I mean, it’s all trail that I do and it’s a different community and they’re great people and you can’t help but feel good about yourself when you’re around them. So that’s what I do.
Tim Pickett:
It’s a super fun sport. I love trail running. I definitely don’t do it now. I think I got up to maybe I think one week I ran 50 miles in a week, which was pretty good for me.
Melissa Catmull:
I think that’s great.
Tim Pickett:
But it does take a little bit of time.
Melissa Catmull:
It takes a lot of time.
Tim Pickett:
And you got to be careful with cannabis dosing when you’re trail running because you can lose your dog.
Melissa Catmull:
My dog’s too little to come running with me. So yeah, I’ve had to carry her on my shoulders.
Tim Pickett:
What else is important to you with this whole thing?
Melissa Catmull:
I think especially here in Utah, I would love to see the stigma taken away from it. For so long, I felt like leadership in Utah really fought legalizing it from a lack of their own understanding of how it could benefit. I’d like to see that change in Utah. I’d like to see our leaders and the community kind of open up their minds a little bit more, to be a little more receptive to the options that it can offer. As an alternative, I mean, Utah’s famous for like, “Well, I’ve got an oil for that,” you know?
Tim Pickett:
Yep. Utah is very famous for that, right?
Melissa Catmull:
I don’t know that there are published or peer reviewed articles about oils, but I feel like there are about medical cannabis. And so let’s maybe reset… We need a paradigm shift here in the state in my opinion.
Tim Pickett:
We’re also famous for opioid addiction and prescription medication use.
Melissa Catmull:
100%. Because from my perspective, I believe it does have a lot to do with the predominant religion and our code of health. And so I think a lot of people look at that as it’s a prescription, therefore it’s legal therefore I can take what I need to, not knowing that those things can be highly addictive and can destroy lives, destroy lives. After my two neck surgeries, we couldn’t get rid of the pain, we just could not get rid of the pain. And my surgeon finally said, “I’m at odds, let’s go to a pain clinic.” I went to the pain clinic, I should have sued the guy, but over the course of probably three, six months, I was on copious amounts of opioids, muscle relaxants and benzodiazepines to the point where a friend intervened one night and said, “You got to do something. You’re going to end up dead. You’re going to fall asleep one night and you’re not going to wake up.”
Melissa Catmull:
And so I actually went to Uni and went through detox and I’m not going to do that again. And I think if people understood how these can affect your brain, I wasn’t getting high from the opioids or the other medications, I was just trying to stop the pain where they diagnosed me with something called hyperalgesia where there’s no real physical cause for the pain, but your brain is sending signals because it wants the opioids. Once we could get rid of all of that out of me, the pain was gone for the most part. I mean, I still am dealing with some residual stuff obviously.
Tim Pickett:
But what you’re saying is that it was the cycle that was essentially causing the brain to consider this as pain, it wasn’t necessarily physical pain?
Melissa Catmull:
Correct.
Tim Pickett:
That’s a key thing about chronic pain. It’s like the switch goes from, “This is physical pain, and you have the pain reaction,” to, “I’m going to send the signals regardless of what the body is doing.” It just sends the signals and then you’re in this, and then all of a sudden, it’s almost like it’s all of a sudden patients are in this cycle.
Melissa Catmull:
So I have to question how many of these patients who deal with chronic pain and are on opioids are in that cycle that if we could just get them out, detox them, rid their system of those things, and then evaluate where they’re at, and then try maybe medical cannabis, it’s worth a shot. Give it a try and see if this is helpful for you. If not, then we try something else.
Melissa Catmull:
But I think too many people are just relying upon that prescription and I know doctors are really trying to crack down on it, I know that they’re trying to make changes, but I still think there’s far too many people addicted out there that really don’t need to be if they could just get detoxed and then evaluate really where the pain level and threshold is at, and then go from there, start fresh.
Tim Pickett:
Did you use cannabis to get off of opioids or did you do that before?
Melissa Catmull:
No, no.
Tim Pickett:
So one thing, do you wish you would have had something to help you move on from opioids? Do you feel like that could have been helpful?
Melissa Catmull:
It probably could have at the time. At Uni it was kind of like, “Well, we can give you this other medication, but then you’d kind of be addicted to that and so then we’ll have to wean you off of that.” And I was like, “No, no, no, no, we’re not going to go from one to another. I’ll just cold turkey it and then let’s start fresh.” Now had that been an option to me, that probably would have been very helpful because going cold turkey is not good, it’s a hard thing. And had that been an option, I think I probably would have taken that, but I couldn’t see myself going from one addiction to another and then weaning off of that, that made no sense to me, that made no sense.
Tim Pickett:
What you did was really hard. You did a hard thing taking yourself and making that decision. I mean, congratulations.
Melissa Catmull:
Well, thank you. I credit that friend for saving my life, literally.
Tim Pickett:
Good. I really appreciate you being willing to tell that story, because especially here, it’s underneath the surface and a lot of people deal with this, more people deal with this than I think everybody knows.
Melissa Catmull:
I feel like that’s true too. In fact, my first week I went back to church and I looked around at my fellow parishioners and thought, “I know you are, and I know you are, and I know you are. And if we could get you some help, I think we could get this taken care of.” I wrote a big long blog post about it back in the days when blogging was big and I wrote a big old post about it and what my experience was. And I was surprised at how many people reached out privately to say, “I think my mom’s in a situation. I think my sister’s in a situation.”
Melissa Catmull:
And it is not talked about. And I don’t know why that is, how can we help each other if we don’t share our stories? And sometimes just sharing what you’ve gone through, you don’t know who is dealing with the same thing and could be helped. So when I was approached about doing this podcast, I’m like, dude, if I can help somebody great.
Tim Pickett:
Absolutely.
Melissa Catmull:
Maybe my story doesn’t resonate with anybody and that’s fine too but if it does help one person great.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah, it’s totally worth a try.
Melissa Catmull:
That’s why we’re here, trying to help each other.
Tim Pickett:
Yep. And that’s exactly the point of the podcast. And I do a series on YouTube called Discover Marijuana and yeah, I mean,, we just talk about it because it needs to be talked about. In order to be a tool, it just needs to be okay to talk about it, talk about it as an option, talk about people’s problems with prescription medications and alternatives. Maybe it’s cannabis, maybe it’s not, that helps you get off of it, but there’s options for people to not use that type of thing, to get off of it, to move on.
Melissa Catmull:
If someone can look at me and go, “Well, there’s a 55 year old lady who is actively religious and uses this as a tool. Well, maybe it’s okay for me to use this as a tool.” You don’t have to be 20 something year old who just wants to smoke. And I don’t know, whatever stereotype they have in their head, they need to get out of that and look and say, “There is a lot of us that don’t fit that stereotype that is finding this helpful. So maybe you can explore this too.”
Tim Pickett:
This has been a really good conversation. I really appreciate you.
Melissa Catmull:
I’m happy to do it. I hope I’ve covered the things that you were wanting to cover. I just think that anybody who’s dealing with chronic things like that, whether it’s pain, whether it’s anxiety, depression, and gosh, after 2020 and into 2021, aren’t we all kind of feeling pretty… I mean, you look at the headlines and it’s a little scary and there’s a lot going on in our world that’s causing a lot of anxiety and worry, we don’t have to go to chemicals to do this. We can find ways that don’t involve chemical or dependency on medications to be able to manage our mental health, to manage our physical health. And again, I think if we would set aside those stereotypes, kind of create a paradigm shift for ourselves to realize that this, like I said before, is just a tool of many in a toolbox to help us manage our health.
Tim Pickett:
Perfectly said. Well, if anybody wants to reach out to Melissa, utahmarijuana.org/podcast, go there, we’ll have a transcript and a summary of this episode and a link there to her Instagram. And you can subscribe to the podcast on any place that you want to subscribe to. Again, thanks again, Melissa, for coming out.
Melissa Catmull:
My pleasure. Anytime.
Tim Pickett:
Stay safe out there, everybody.
Episode 75 of Utah in the Weeds features Tana King and Chris Bradford, the minds behind the upcoming Cannabis Utah Health & Wellness Expo. The expo will be held Saturday, October 30 at the Salt Palace Convention Center.
King and Bradford started with a quick discussion of the origin of their names. “Tana” is the name of an important lake in Ethiopia. Bradford goes by the nickname “Showcall,” which he got during his time as a stagehand. Then, they told host Tim Pickett about how they became involved in Utah’s cannabis industry. [02:43]
The pair are now working on producing the Cannabis Utah Health & Wellness Expo, a convention to be held in Salt Lake City later this month. King told us about the inception of the expo and what to expect at the event. King and Bradford believe it’s important to educate the public on using cannabis to reduce opioid addictions and for other medical purposes. [06:50]
They talked briefly about Weldon Angelos, a previous Utah in the Weeds guest who’s scheduled to speak at the expo. [12:27]
The discussion shifted to the current state of Utah’s Medical Cannabis program and the changes King and Pickett would like to see. Both agree that it would be a great benefit for patients to have the option to grow their own cannabis plants. (We also talked about this subject in detail with Bob Waters on Episode 45.) [14:43]
King, Pickett, and Bradford talked about the advertising regulations placed on cannabis companies in Utah, and the challenges of organizing and marketing an event like the October 30 expo. [23:54]
We wrapped up this episode with a little bit more about what to expect at the expo, including information on a “Medicate and Meditate” session at the event. [39:46]
Tim Pickett:
Welcome everybody out to Utah in the Weeds Podcast. My name is Tim Pickett. I am your host. I am a medical cannabis expert and provider here in Utah. I’m the founder of UtahMarijuana.org. You may have seen the billboards around, and Utah Therapeutic Health Center, a series of six clinics here in Utah, and growing. We treat and evaluate people who need medical cannabis. Today’s discussion, and this podcast is really a podcast about medical cannabis and cannabis culture here in Utah and really all things cannabis throughout the nation really, as this podcast grows.
Tim Pickett:
Today’s discussion is with Tana King and Chris Bradford. Chris Bradford goes also by Show Call and New Motion Productions. They’re putting on the Cannabis Utah Health and Wellness Expo that’s next weekend, Saturday, October 30th, from 10:00 AM to 8:00 PM. It’s a great expo, educational event, all the local pharmacies, legislators, lawyers, experts, there’ll be expert panels. I’m involved in those as well. People from the Department of Health. Great place to come out, see what’s going on in the cannabis space. There’s more than just the medical cannabis space there. There will be other health and wellness booths and information. It will be a great way to spend a Saturday.
Tim Pickett:
From a housekeeping perspective, really I just enjoy the cannabis program here. It’s clipping along at a good pace. The patient registrations are continuing to increase. We’re getting people involved in the program, and really just taking care of people who need to use medical marijuana or medical cannabis here in Utah. So enjoy this conversation with Tana and Chris. If you want to get ahold of me or want to come on the podcast, be sure to go to YouTube. The channel is Discover Marijuana. You can comment on any of those videos and reach out to us. That’s the best way to get ahold of us. Listen to this podcast, subscribe, stay tuned. I’ve been going around to different production facilities and growers, and seeing all of the product that’s coming to market. We’re going to talk to these people. Every week, we release a new episode. Hopefully, we’ll have some bonus material coming out soon. Stayed tuned. Enjoy this conversation. Thanks. Who decided it was Tana? Is this your mother?
Tana King:
My mom, actually. I asked my mom one day as a grown adult. I asked her where my name came from and she said she didn’t know. She said, “I don’t know. I think it was one of your dad’s ex-girlfriend’s names.” I know, this should tell you how my life went. But then I asked my real dad, when I did have contact with him. I asked him where my name came from, and he said he named me after Dan Tana, which was Robert Urich playing a super sluth on TV in the ’70s. It’s the last name and it’s Tana. It doesn’t make any sense.
Tana King:
So what I adopted was, when I used to manage the cellphone kiosk at Costco, I had some Africans come in to get cell phones and they said, “Oh my gosh, I love your name. There is a lake in Ethiopia with your name.” I said, “I know, it’s Lake Tana. I totally know.” I said, “I think that was what I was named after, as long its the giver of all life of Africa.” They said, “Well, it actually is.” I was like, “Hell, yeah.” So I just tell people that I was named after a lake in Africa that’s the giver of all life because neither one of my parents can give me a straight answer actually.
Tim Pickett:
Okay. This is one of the best names stories I’ve heard. It’s definitely one of the main. I mean, Chris, how did you get Show Call.
Chris Bradford:
Well, I’ve been in the entertainment game for about 25 years. I used to be a-
Tim Pickett:
You look a lot younger than that.
Chris Bradford:
No, I’m 37. But I was a stage talent, I was a roadie. I was always getting placed on mostly what would they call a show call. A lot of guys, they were experts in IATSE and stuff like that. They were major players in the game. We’re always getting kicked off the show and not being able to go on a show call. I was the main guy that was always on a show. So that’s how. They’d just be like, “Yeah. That’s Show Call right there.” So it just stuck within the stage talent realm.
Tim Pickett:
What do you do now? How are you involved now in cannabis in Utah?
Chris Bradford:
I just just support all the advocates here. When I was hearing about the laws and stuff and what things needed to change, there are some things I didn’t agree with. When I met Tana, she kind of was breaking things down to me. I was like, “Well, maybe we should do a show.” Here we are, doing the Cannabis Expo. So my expertise in doing live entertainment, live concerts, stuff like that was placed into that realm. So I wanted to really take the cannabis industry and really blow it up so people can really understand the rules and regulations and what really needs to go down here in Utah, especially it being new. A lot of people don’t know the laws and they just think, “Okay, well, Utah has weed too.” They got dispensaries. But it’s not like on that level where Nevada or California is. We just want to educate people on that.
Tim Pickett:
Tana, you’ve been involved in the cannabis space since the beginning of the cannabis space here, right?
Tana King:
Yeah.
Tim Pickett:
I mean, we met at True Med.
Tana King:
Yeah.
Tim Pickett:
Remember that?
Tana King:
Yes. We met at True Med. I think Ramon was talking about maybe wanting to work together as QMPs and open up like a super mega clinic. You bounced out very quickly, probably caught the vibe a lot faster than I did.
Tim Pickett:
I definitely caught a vibe. Yep. Left there. Yep. That’s it. I mean, that’s it. Right? That’s it. I don’t want to talk bad about anybody. But I didn’t love the vibe. That’s honestly how that went down. Remember before the world ended in March, when we were talking at max. There was the CBD collective like things?
Tana King:
Yeah. Yeah.
Tim Pickett:
We were going to those same kind of social things.
Tana King:
Yes.
Tim Pickett:
Right? I would see you around. Then you kind of disappeared and you were doing some social stuff. But now this Expo is big.
Tana King:
It’s huge.
Tim Pickett:
Right? Yeah, this is big.
Tana King:
It’s huge. I trolled my own Instagram yesterday, actually. I was like, man, I’ve been doing work.
Tim Pickett:
Right? Yeah, you really have.
Chris Bradford:
She’s been doing a lot of work. She’s been putting a lot of work in. I’m happy to have her on our team, especially with so much knowledge that she has. Our team is phenomenal.
Tim Pickett:
So describe this Expo in general. What is the expo? How did it come to be?
Tana King:
Collectively, we really wanted to do this expo. I’ve been approached by other people to do CBD type expos. But it was just such a big job. I never thought that that was ever a good idea. So when I came across new motion through Shotty, who’s now got his show on ABC 4 every other week, A Shot With Shotty. We all met and kind of decided that it would be something that we want to do together because it does take a team to do something like this. So the idea for the expo itself is to educate newcomers on the cannabis laws in Utah because people just hear that weed is legal. They kind of go ham and bring in stuff from other states.
Tana King:
We just want to make sure people are safe, and that they know what to expect when coming into Utah because we are a completely different planet from the rest of the planet. We operate a little bit different. So we want newcomers to come in. But we also want to bridge the gap because we have been told our entire lives that cannabis is a gateway to basically death and destruction. It’s not. It’s not. It can be, right? So you have your addicts, and you have addiction and all the things. Right? It has been a gateway for some people.
Tana King:
But for the majority, it’s been a gateway to higher self awareness, recognizing things going on in your body, making better decisions, maybe eat a salad every once in a while at that point, add in some CBD stuff to it. So we want to bridge that gap for where they’re telling us it’s death and destruction. But we happen to know that it’s actually a gateway to better living. So we’ve meshed it together with health and wellness practices.
Tana King:
So we want to have meditation. We have yoga. We have cacao guy coming. He’s going to be selling $5 shots of straight cacao, which is just natural chocolate, dark chocolate in its natural form. Then he blesses it with Reiki and all kinds of cool stuff. But just giving people options to the destructive health practices that are generally shoved down our throat, we just want to let people know that there’s other things that can help them, that they can definitely try before getting on that pill regimen. I’m not a doctor. I never would tell anyone not to. I just want to show them options.
Chris Bradford:
Yeah, and especially now with a lot of doctors prescribing opioids and different pills, we want to let people know there is an option. There is a medical, another alternative. We want to try to push that even more because there are a lot of people who are addicted to opioids. We want to better health factor as far as wanting to try to get our patients going into medical cannabis instead of trying to, I guess you could say, get them a addicted to pills.
Tim Pickett:
There is that level of skepticism, a growing skepticism with the practice of medicine. Right? As a PA, I’ve been in general surgery and trauma and ER medicine for seven years. I mean, I’ll be honest, I contributed to the opioid epidemic. Right? I was taught to prescribe 65 percocets to every person we did a gallbladder surgery on. That’s a ridiculous amount of medicine. That’s just what we were taught to do. We were literally taught … There were people that I heard that would say you have to give them enough. You have to give your patients enough so they don’t call you for a refill. It’s not a very good way to prescribe medicine, right?
Tana King:
No. Because don’t they end up refill anyway, even if you double them up?
Tim Pickett:
Well, I mean, some would, Right? Because they would essentially get addicted. Then over time, we’d lower those, lower the amount of medication you’d be given. But it’s just to your point, there was no other option. Right? There’s no other discussion. I feel like people are really starting to get even more and more skeptical of and questioning their providers and saying, “Well, what are my other options for pain control? What are my other options for anxiety? What are my other options for to help me feel better?” If my Crohn’s is never going to go away, right, and I can feel better, then why wouldn’t I do something that’s not addictive? That would still helped me feel better?
Chris Bradford:
Exactly.
Tim Pickett:
Right? I mean, the Expo is a big way to do that, right? Because we only talk to one patient at a time.
Chris Bradford:
Correct.
Tana King:
Right.
Tim Pickett:
So when is the expo?
Chris Bradford:
October 30.
Tim Pickett:
Can I dress up?
Chris Bradford:
If you want to. I mean come as little marijuana leaf.
Tana King:
You can dress up for Halloween. In fact, we encourage it.
Chris Bradford:
Yes, definitely.
Tana King:
We’re not going to be doing any Halloween decorations. The Salt Palace is pretty strict on what type of outside food we can have and that includes candy. But we do encourage people to come in their costume. We have it closing off and enough time for them to go to their October 30th shenanigans at night because that’s probably when Halloween is going to be celebrating.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah. What time is the expo? So it’s at the salt palace. It’s on October 30th. What time of day? It’s going to be pretty much all day?
Chris Bradford:
Yeah. It’s going to be an all-day thing. It’s going to be from 10:00 to 8:00. We have a lot of things going on, a lot of education. We have a free educational seminar with a lot of speakers coming in. We actually have a vote. Angelo’s going to be coming in as well to be speaking, so it’s going to be exciting.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah. Well then Angelo, so if anybody doesn’t know this guy, I interviewed him on this podcast, me and Chris did. He’s got a fascinating story.
Tana King:
Right.
Chris Bradford:
Yeah.
Tim Pickett:
Right? The guy went to federal prison for like $900 worth of weed. He was caught in Utah. I mean, if you haven’t heard the guy speak, then you should go listen to him. Besides, he’s involved with some really, really big names.
Chris Bradford:
Oh yes.
Tim Pickett:
Is it Project Green?
Chris Bradford:
Yes, Project Green.
Tana King:
It’s Project Mission Green.
Chris Bradford:
Yes.
Tana King:
Then he’s affiliated with the last Prisoner Project as well. Then he also has his own CBD product that he sells, that the proceeds actually go to indigent cannabis offenders for their commissary.
Chris Bradford:
Yes.
Tana King:
So I encourage everybody to look up a Weldon’s Branded by his CBD because it’s made well, and the profits go towards a great cause.
Chris Bradford:
Yeah. I believe Weldon just recently just sent a letter to President Biden to pardon a Utah prisoner right now for actually cannabis.
Tana King:
It’s a part in everybody.
Chris Bradford:
I mean, it’s a big movement. He had a lot of celebrity sign on it. Drake, 2 Chainz and other celebrities. So we’re hoping that when that Weldon could actually get one of them celebrities to also come out and support his movement while he speaks about it. So we’re probably looking into doing a celebrity panel about the project.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah, I think that that’s … I mean, any publicity, anything big like that, it’s just gets more people talking about it, right?
Chris Bradford:
Yeah, definitely.
Tana King:
Right.
Tim Pickett:
That really sounds like what the whole goal is.
Chris Bradford:
Yes.
Tim Pickett:
Is talking about it in the right way. Talking about it as an alternative medication, talking about the laws. Tana, how do you feel like the program is going? Being involved the whole time.
Tana King:
Keep the loaded the question in bat, Tim. I’m just kidding.
Tim Pickett:
No. I could tell you how I think it’s going.
Tana King:
All wise ass-ness aside, I’m just happy that we have something to work with. I try not to focus on the past and the negative things that have happened in our state because we are so different. We kind of tend to operate above and around federal law sometimes, I just think it’s really important to remember that we have a program to work with. As long as we all try to think of more solutions than the rants that come out of our mouths, I think our program’s actually going very well when it’s coming from the industry humans who are trying to make a difference.
Tana King:
If you look at the negative side of things and you watch the patient and the advocate ranting, I mean, if I were an outsider, I would think the program’s actually gone to shit. But it really hasn’t. It’s an amazing thing to have it here in Utah. I mean, the fact that we even have it and we were, what, 33rd to get it is amazing to me. So I just feel like we need to take what we have and work with it. If it takes baby steps to make it better, then it takes baby steps to make it better. But I think it’s going well.
Tim Pickett:
What changes would you want to see next?
Tana King:
Well, what I want to see and what I know can happen are two different things. But if we’re talking about what I would like to see, I would really like the opportunity to grow my own medicine. It’s really hard, it’s really stressful to either come across a strain on the street and lose out on being able to get it over and over again. If it really goes well for you, then you kind of have to like start all over again. Right? Then even with pharmacies, if they’re providing a strain but then maybe it’s not the best quality sometimes or it sells out really fast or say they pull it, then you kind of start from scratch again. So I think that people should have the opportunity to grow at home.
Tana King:
I think programs can be put into place to educate people so that they’re not farming their own hemp or marijuana in a Agent Orange infested soil because people need to learn that it’s a remediation plan. I can’t remember what the scientific term is, you probably know it because you talked with Blake a lot. But it literally pulls all the toxins out of the ground. People really need to know stuff like that so that they’re not consuming Agent Orange and things like that. But I think that people are smart enough to figure it out. I think that they should have the ability to be able to do that. Honestly, I just think it should be legalized across the board so that we stop arguing about different cannabinoids and which ones are good and which ones are bad. It just seems to cause a lot of infighting. Maybe we could just legalize it across the board.
Tim Pickett:
Right? I mean, oh my god. This talk about growing your own. I grow my own tomatoes. I’m like, “Yeah, I’m good at it. I grow my own tomatoes I like them.” I still buy tomatoes at the store. I still buy ketchup at the store. But once in a while, I like a home grown garden fresh tomato that I grow myself, that I cut, that I put salt and pepper on. I toast the bread and I eat the same.
Tana King:
Yes.
Chris Bradford:
Right.
Tim Pickett:
I feel like that’s the same, I totally get that with cannabis. Right? I don’t want to grow a farm. Right? I just want to try it.
Tana King:
Right. I just want a couple.
Tim Pickett:
I feel like I should be able to. Right. I just want a couple. I want to try. I want to consume my own. Can you imagine consuming a medication or look, consuming weed you grew would be awesome.
Tana King:
And perfecting it, and making it better, and doing all the gene splicing and stuff.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah.
Tana King:
Just super awesome for yourself. Making not live resin, but live rosin out of it, take it from the ground and hurry up and press it, and make yourself some concentrate oil or just be able to give it to that cancer patient that you know can’t afford any of this stuff Just be able to gift it to them as long as it’s safe. I know there’s a lot of regulation that needs to go in the middle of that to keep people safe.
Tana King:
But I think it should be an option on the table, and not in like massive quantities or anything, maybe like just give us two plants each. We can harvest four pounds of flour for 50 bucks. You just let us do it because everyone’s not going to do it. So the pharmacies will still be sustained with everyone who doesn’t want to grow their own. Then it just gives the option to those of us that want to be able to grow our own and edify the program in other ways, not just with money.
Tim Pickett:
Yep. If anybody wants to go back and listen to the episode we did with Bob Waters, Robert Waters, he makes the best argument for growing your own, I think. It’s not because you don’t want to support the economy of cannabis in Utah because we need fuel for the fire. Right? All programs need to have an economy, the growers need to make money so that they can grow medicinal products. They need to be able to process for the vape carts and the gummies. All of those people need to make money or else this does not work.
Tana King:
Right.
Tim Pickett:
Providers need to. Okay, yes, providers probably need to make money to take care of patients and pay the staff and that sort of thing, and educate. Yet that’s not the whole story. In fact, there was a thing that came out recently about the market in Utah. Really the majority of patients who are in Utah make over $75,000 a year. That’s a lot. That leaves a lot of people out. That’s not social responsibility. Right? We got to figure that out. Okay. Okay, back to real world, real world like what we can do. Now, that’s what we want. So what do you think can happen?
Tana King:
That’s such a loaded question.
Chris Bradford:
Change, I think.
Tana King:
I think that we can improve what is offered in the pharmacies. I think that we can stop griping as a community a little bit and give them a chance to build their foundations. I think a lot of people don’t realize what it takes to start an operation like what they have. The fact that Utah has created like an interstate commerce only, so it has to be grown, made, produced and sold in Utah. So that’s why we have limited products. That’s why we have limited types of products. But one thing that I think can happen is we can get the griping to stuff a little bit. I guess that’s just big with me because I much more appreciate when I help people see the positive aspects of what’s going on rather than having to always hear all the negative things because there are a ton of negative things about our program. Right? There’s a lot that needs to be worked on.
Tana King:
But if that’s all we’re griping about, then we’re perpetuating it and not really moving forward. So I think Utah as a community can rise to the occasion and try to at least understand what it takes to run a program in a state that never really wanted the program in the first place. Their hand was forced with the farm bill and was brought to. I mean, we kind of hit them from all angles at the same time. I just don’t really understand what people expected from Utah law and Utah people creating those laws because they just really had no interest in learning about hemp or cannabis, and then kind of had it forced on them.
Tana King:
So we just need to all work together and understand that where everybody’s coming from, some people might be very well versed in cannabis because of the black market. But realize that the people that aren’t and the ones that are creating our laws are just trying to keep up with it, you know what I mean? The more positive we are, the more effective conversations we have, and we’re not ranting and just name calling and all the things, we’re just going to have a much better outcome. We might be able to get what we want faster.
Tana King:
So I guess the answer to that question is I think we can get what we want whatever it may be, whatever anyone’s thinking. There’s lots of things that people want, but the effective way to get it is to educate yourself, calm the frick down. Stop pointing fingers and start doing something about it. That’s called don’t talk about it, be about it. That’s all.
Tim Pickett:
Nice.
Tana King:
The same.
Tim Pickett:
I love it. I love it.
Tana King:
I think this is a beautiful day to be to be on it because I had some fires ignited in me this week. I was like, maybe I’ll reschedule because I don’t know if I’m going to just say something stupid. But I will also keep myself in check and understand what I’m trying to say to myself. I like to take my own medicine.
Tim Pickett:
No. Okay, so back to our discussion about this expo. Are the pharmacies going to be represented there? Can the pharmacies be represented at the expo?
Chris Bradford:
Yes.
Tana King:
Yeah, almost all of them are signed up a few that are integrated, vertically integrated are coming as the processing lab instead of the pharmacy. So we’ll have Dragon Fly, but it’ll be Dragon Fly as processor. We’ll have True North, instead of perfect Earth, but it’s a total awesome trade. Then most of the pharmacies will be there, we just actually had only one. I don’t want to name them out loud. But we had just one that opted out.
Tana King:
They are able to be there. We’ve had meetings with Rich. We just want to make sure that even though we’re not regulated as a 33rd party event coordinator, that we act like we’re regulated so that we keep the pharmacies safe.
Chris Bradford:
Safe.
Tana King:
And in line and that we keep the processors safe and in line. We definitely don’t want to be regulated as a third party event holder ourselves in the next legislation. So we’re just acting like we’re regulated. I think we’ve satisfied the requirements of the Department of Health to just make them aware that this is a massive educational event.
Chris Bradford:
Educational event.
Tana King:
So the pharmacies do get to participate in whatever capacity they want.
Tim Pickett:
So describe that for the listeners because it comes up, but this is somewhat unique to … There’s more than one state that is like this. But Utah is very specific in advertising. So describe why the pharmacies … Why is this a big issue?
Tana King:
They do not want to appeal to the recreational-
Chris Bradford:
Recreational field.
Tana King:
Market. So if there is one here in Utah, which I think there is a huge one here, so what they’ve done is they’ve just kind of created advertising guidelines. For QMPs such as yourself, that’s why you have feel better on your billboards because you’re not making a claim. You can’t actually say that you offer medical cards or you got your medical card doctor.
Tim Pickett:
Nope.
Tana King:
But you have found a way to communicate to the public that if they want to feel better, they can come to you. Then they can have a cannabis conversation, I’m sure. Then with the pharmacy, they cannot advertise, their products, their prices, they can’t have like, “Woohoo, people.” People do it on their own way with their own platforms, but they themselves cannot do that. So say for instance like Wholesome, if they wanted to do a billboard, they couldn’t say, “Come get your Khalifa Kush from Wholesome.” Right? But they can say statewide delivery available now. It’s just a real-
Tim Pickett:
Yes. They can’t because that’s their third party, right?
Tana King:
Yes.
Chris Bradford:
Yes.
Tim Pickett:
That’s their third party, Wholesome Direct.
Chris Bradford:
Yes.
Tana King:
Yes, it’s not counting the fact they’re a pharmacy/dispensary. So there are pretty strange advertising laws for all of us involved in cannabis, ourselves included. So marketing the expo is we’ve gotten very, very creative. But you can’t basically directly tell people that you exist, I guess is the boxing.
Tim Pickett:
I know. What have you run into from the expo standpoint that you’re like, “Well, you can’t do pay per click ads on different SEO stuff.” What’s been the …
Chris Bradford:
I mean, it runs very differently because I’m a third party promoter. So that’s what we do, we promote, we advertise and stuff like that. But running the name with cannabis is very hard within the state. So we had to look at different avenues and different ways to really market and reach our clientele as far as not mentioning much of the pharmacies and stuff like that. So let them know that it’s an educational event, not a recreational event. This isn’t like, “Oh let’s go smoke out and have like a Hangover 2 type thing.” I mean, you just got to do your due diligence pretty much as far as that goes.
Tana King:
We’ve gotten billboard approval which is nice because we couldn’t at first. You’re probably aware too that it’s hard to get billboard approval, but people pioneering like even Wholesome, probably helped with our effort as well. The radio stations are really apprehensive because they have a federal FCC license. But they are going to help us the last month and will actually have a booth. U92 will be-
Chris Bradford:
U92.
Tana King:
Will be joining us and they will be live streaming the expo all day long. Then they are allowing us to run ads as well. So it’s more or less like networking and just getting people comfortable with that word. But then when it comes to like Facebook Advertising and Google, we can’t.
Chris Bradford:
Instagram.
Tana King:
We can’t do it at all. We have to rely simply on organic reach which thankfully, some of us have been working on that for a few years. So it’s easier for some than others. I wouldn’t want to be starting a cannabis business right now because wow, it takes so much to build your organic-ness.
Tim Pickett:
It does, plus the the bigger your reach is on Facebook, the more likely you are to get flagged and then suppressed.
Chris Bradford:
Yes.
Tim Pickett:
Have you ever noticed it’s like …
Tana King:
Yep.
Chris Bradford:
Yeah.
Tim Pickett:
Every freaking thing you do that gets better, it just gets …
Chris Bradford:
It’s a roller coaster.
Tana King:
You really just have to go block the fact checkers about every other day. If you’re not doing that, make sure you’re doing that, Tim, because that’s really saved my booty a few times in the last few months. I don’t want to say things out loud because the universe likes to show me lessons. But after blocking fact checkers, I’ve had a much easier time. But yeah, it scares me because the Facebook group is growing bigger and my following on my personal profile is getting bigger. My Instagram is getting bigger. It can only get so big before people start noticing on the other side. Right? So I’m just trying to slow go it. I mean it’s like Facebook, if you want me to pay for my reach, I will but you won’t let me. I can’t run ads. I can’t do anything. So it’s like-
Tim Pickett:
Did you guys see though Marijuana Policy Project has a paid ad in Facebook?
Chris Bradford:
Yes.
Tim Pickett:
MPP has a paid deal.
Tana King:
Out there, it’s just being weird. They can also advertise the sale of a dispensary. So I don’t know where they’re coming on what’s okay and what’s not. I know that they have pending lawsuit that they’re waiting for. There’s a lawsuit against Facebook, and they’re not I guess releasing that or they’re not allowing cannabis until that lawsuit is over too. But yeah, it makes you wonder how some of these things are squeezing through the cracks, man.
Tim Pickett:
I know.
Tana King:
Let us squeeze through the cracks.
Tim Pickett:
As a promoter-
Tana King:
Stuff.
Tim Pickett:
As a promoter, Show Call, you just come in and you’re like, “Yeah, this is old hat, man. I mean, I’ve been doing this for a while.”
Chris Bradford:
Tim, to tell you the truth. I mean, I’ve done many shows. I’ve been in it for a long time. Cannabis is really I can say the hardest show to try to promote. It’s something that I’ve wanted to do, now I’m getting to do, and realizing how to try to maneuver these advertisements and try to get the reach that we need for the shows and just putting things together, but I got to tell you, it’s been a challenge, it’s been a challenge.
Tana King:
He’s learning with the speed to fire. That’s the nature.
Chris Bradford:
Yeah. That is true.
Tim Pickett:
Hey, let’s put on the show October 30th, ready, go. Then you’re like, “Oh shit. Got shut down there. Shoot, can’t pay that. Can’t pay that guy to advertise. Oh. Ready to go with that. No.”
Tana King:
I might just finish it.
Chris Bradford:
No. I mean, I heard a lot about … I’ve done a little bit of my homework. I’ve talked to people, and I reached out to people. There’s people who have been trying to do shows like this before, but not to this extent. I’m just happy to be the one to be able to pull the trigger. you know what I mean? To start those show. But it’s like I said, it’s not easy. It’s not like we can just, “Oh, let’s go.” If I throw a concert or something, I can’t just book an artist and get a venue and then there you go. Set a date. But this, you have to go through laws, jump through hoops, go through red tape. I mean, you have to.
Tana King:
Relationships. People have to trust you.
Chris Bradford:
Everything. Like I said, it’s a challenge, it’s a challenge. If anybody who plans on doing this after us or tried to do it after us, I mean-
Tana King:
Have fun.
Chris Bradford:
Have fun. Good luck. Because it really is a challenge. You got to really know the people and get to know the industry and know what you can and cannot do, get your pros and cons out of the way. So definitely.
Tim Pickett:
Have you found that the vendors are nervous about it too?
Chris Bradford:
Oh yes. Definitely. Definitely. Especially the fitness, the wellness and fitness people, especially mentioning the word “cannabis” is like oh well, that doesn’t really come with health and wellness really, but really it does. A lot of these health and wellness places are selling CBD oils and hemp oils and stuff like that, but they’re not really understanding what they’re selling.
Tim Pickett:
I totally agree with this.
Tana King:
It’s a good way to multiply them and to get them some education as while they’re at the expo because they’re offering these products. They might not be able to tell people how to use them effectively. They just might know that they’re awesome, and they work, and they’re a healthier alternative. So it’ll be nice to have more health and wellness people sign up. I think the word “cannabis” is scaring them a bit. Our cannabis vendors are good to go, man. They’re so freaking excited, it’s not even funny.
Tana King:
I love hearing people are planning on doing and who’s … I try to figure out who’s going to steal the show based off of what they’re telling us that they’re doing. We have like glassblowing coming. It’s just going to be insane. You know Hemp Lucid is going to come through with a gazillion samples of everything. They’re just so much fun to be around. We’ve really tried to not click it up and separate people, but put people in little chunks of where everything’s going to be the most effective. So we’re going to have Moonlight Garden Supply next to the Biofertilizer lady and next to the looking glass. Oh, and the farmers we’re going to have New Carter right across from him and then we’re going to have … I forgot his name, but it’s fine.
Tana King:
That makes me feel bad though because he did some … Anyway, I’m just having a brain aneurysm. So like having a little farmer and grower section. Then we’ll have Dragon Fly. Since they have the Last Prisoner Project inside of Dragon fire and they’ve been doing work with them, we’re going to try to have the legal section right there where we’ll have Weldon and Amy Fowler and Katie, I think was her name? Katie the lawyer?
Chris Bradford:
It’s Sarah, Sarah.
Tana King:
We’ll have JD.
Chris Bradford:
Sarah Rogers.
Tana King:
He’ll be at the Wholesome booth. But JD is also going to be on our legal panel. He’s going to be speaking at the same time at the panel with Weldon. So just trying to place everybody in spots where it’s chunked up and it’s grouped up so that people are laughing and having fun and just collaborating with each other. The end the people that are visiting our Expo will see that we get along, that we are community. That there’s not a whole lot of infighting like you see on Facebook and all the things. We want to show them a different perspective than what social media shows them.
Tana King:
Sometimes I even dive into it but that’s okay because I’m a human, and I will lash out too because I am a normal human being. Sometimes I get to talk as well. You can’t talk crap about the hemp industry and not have me fire back, you know what I mean, stuff like that. But generally I remain positive. I remain love and light. I remain forward moving. How can we fix this? How can we make it better? I don’t allow people to post in my group, like a gripe without a solution. I don’t know how many gripes I define because we just don’t need ranting, you know what I mean? So we want to show that face to the people coming in so they’re not scared of cannabis anymore or the people around it.
Chris Bradford:
Yeah, and just pretty much just networking, having a B2C or a B2B, just let the Utan know, the community know, that the cannabis industry is a community. They are networking together to educate everybody else on their industry that a lot of people don’t know. I came here about a year ago from Vegas. So I’m coming in from a recreational.
Tim Pickett:
Planet 30, man, Planet 30.
Chris Bradford:
Planet 30. Yes. Yeah. And Reef and all that. You can smoke recreationally. I come to Utah and notice that it’s when Vegas started, it was just an all medical. We were kind of thing, “Is this going to be recreation on one day? Who knows?” Utah might be recreational one day, but it’s going to have to take little baby steps in order to get that there and have people educated on the industry, so that’s pretty much what we’re trying to do.
Tim Pickett:
Yep. To your to your guys’s point with the cannabis industry, what it sounds like you really want to do is expand the definition of the cannabis industry because if you’ve got health and wellness stores that are selling CBD products, then they should know that they’re really part of that movement.
Tana King:
Correct.
Tim Pickett:
Right? They’re part of the cannabis movement and bringing them into that discussion of hey THC, Delta-8, Delta-9, plus the CBD and all those cannabinoids, like this is all one plant. Right? You can’t sell CBD and a full spectrum cannabinoid product and say that you’re not part of this movement.
Chris Bradford:
Correct.
Tim Pickett:
You should know the rules. You should know the laws. You should know how to advertise that. You should know what patients are taking it for, what people are recreating, how people are recreating with it. You should know that stuff.
Tana King:
Right.
Tim Pickett:
So I think bringing it all together is I do, I can totally see how tough it would be in Utah. Shit. I mean there are some major shows, Southern California. I’m looking at conferences and stuff that I want to go to to learn more. These things have got to be much easier to put together in Vegas.
Chris Bradford:
Definitely, definitely.
Tim Pickett:
Huge, huge shows.
Chris Bradford:
Especially Vegas is one of those entertainment capital of the world. When you’re doing a show in Vegas, it’s the big show. It’s not any small little tiny shows you’re doing. They’re doing it big. They’re getting people from all over the world to come one to one export, a convention center. I mean just to try to focus this on Utah and Salt Lake, it’s like I said, t’s a challenge. But we’re making it happen, Tim. We’re making it happen.
Tana King:
We’re building the infrastructure and all of the processes. We’ll just have it down pat even more next year so that it can be twice as big and twice as good. Yeah. We’re a totally different planet. It’s a totally different Expo here in Utah. I think people are going to be surprised when they get there if they think that it’s going to be cheerleading all the recreational products, like they’re probably used to in Vegas and California. So I think we’re going to blow a lot of people’s minds and a lot of different ways because it is so different here.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah. I’m pretty excited. While it might smell like weed at the expo, it’s really just because there’s a lot of … I mean, it’s the plant, right? Everywhere you go where there’s a lot of cannabis people, processors, I mean there’s just that smell to it.
Tana King:
Yeah, right.
Tim Pickett:
But that does not mean that anybody can legally get high at the expo.
Tana King:
Right.
Tim Pickett:
Listen to JD, unless it’s a life threatening … What’s the statute say? It’s got to be some life threatening thing. You cannot consume THC in public legally.
Tana King:
I think even that’s a gray area too. Then we worry about the venue itself on top of it. They don’t want any smoke or vaping inside.
Chris Bradford:
No smoking and vaping.
Tana King:
Nope. So we do need to make that clear that this is not an open market for consuming at the expo. Gummies, sure, fine. Okay. Cool. If you smell cannabis, it’s because Trevor Ung, whose name I forgot earlier, sorry about that, buddy.
Tim Pickett:
Yes, we interviewed him too, Ung Family Farms.
Tana King:
And Knute. I thought his name was Newt, but I guess it’s Knute. McCarter kids will be there, Trevor will be there. They’re bringing live plants with them for decoration. So that will be the reason for the smell. But we think it’s really important for people to see it, touch it, smell it, show what it …
Chris Bradford:
Sorry.
Tana King:
Just shows what it looks like to desensitize and just normalize that much more, like the plant’s right there in your face.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah, I mean, it’s fine. You can smell it. It’s not going to get you high, people. Okay? Anybody who’s listening, who think they’re going to show up to the expo and get high just from the smell, that doesn’t happen.
Tana King:
That does not happen.
Tim Pickett:
Okay? It’s not that.
Tana King:
However, we are going to have a segment at the end of the day. It will be called Medicate and Meditate. We will be medicating with gummies, either CBD or THC heavy, depending on if you’re a patient or if you get one of the legal products that are over-the-counter. We may offer them. I haven’t really decided if we want to take on the liability of offering it ourselves. But we will have a really cool group of people, it’s Kuhn Amina collective and then Brunel and Trevor from Our Monday Meditations. They’ll be leading us through a meditation after we medicate and just show what it’s like to use cannabis in a medicinal form, to go with it and check some things out about yourself that maybe you didn’t know were there. I’m really looking forward to that. That’s going to be from like seven to eight, maybe the last hour, maybe even the last two hours.
Tana King:
So you will have a chance to medicate but we’re going to guide you through a meditation that you got to stick around for, which if I have to twist anybody’s arm for that, oh darn. You know what I mean? Stick around and have some fun. Darn it. That should be cool. That’s basically the medicating. We understand that patients are going to have to medicate during the show, so they’ll have wristbands. We’ll allow re entry so that they can go to their car or go out front if they need to vape. Anyway, yeah. We want to make that clear that there’s none of that there. Even though we have crazy bone and all that, we’re not going to be passing the blunt around or anything like that. We want this to impress people. We don’t want to scare people away. We want to be able to help everybody. So we just want to give that vibe that we’re there to educate, communicate, congregate.
Chris Bradford:
Yep.
Tim Pickett:
Totally inclusion. That’s what you need. Bring all walks of life together, bring all these businesses together, just bring everybody together. I don’t think there’s ever been a … I can’t think of another event that would have that possibility, right? To bring in all these walks of life together. The black market, the legal market, the health and wellness, the patients. It really could be this conglomerate. Okay. You got me so excited about this.
Tana King:
Well, good. You’re going to be there.
Tim Pickett:
Okay. Yeah yeah. Yeah, okay. So we will be there. Yes. Utah Marijuana will be there. We’re everywhere. It’s fine. We love to be everywhere.
Tana King:
I’m pretty sure you guys are doing a book release that day.
Tim Pickett:
I want to be involved.
Tana King:
You should give yourself a plug because I think you’re the only one. I know 420 Card Clinic be there as well. But I think you’re the only one that plans on doing actual clinic at the location itself. So make sure to give yourself on that.
Tim Pickett:
Yes, yes. If you want information about … Here’s the plug, if you want information about what it takes to be a card holder in Utah for medical cannabis, then come by our booth, UtahMarijuana.org. You can talk to our team who will be there the whole time. I will have a QMP onsite the whole time. We will have a private area where there will be consultations. We’re going to make sure that that’s okay. We’re going to abide by all the privacy things and do some evaluations there. There won’t be tons, I’m sure. But if somebody is like, “Absolutely.”
Tana King:
Well, that was the only thing I was looking about, plus the HIPAA and privacy. Who’s going to come get their med card in an expo? But at the same time, if they decide to come get their med card at an expo, I’m pretty sure they know they’re going to out themselves. They’re probably not going to have a privacy issue anyway. So come help out.
Tim Pickett:
No. Yeah. I’m looking at it right now. I’m looking at our privacy booth right now which will sound, which will cover the area. It’ll be nice and private. We’ll turn up the music. Don’t worry.
Tana King:
Yeah.
Tim Pickett:
So nobody else can hear our conversation.
Tana King:
What a day for somebody to get their med card and then walk out of there and be like, “Woo!” Right in the middle of a huge crowd.
Tim Pickett:
Woohoo!
Tana King:
I’m free.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah. You can go down to to a pharmacist. You could talk to them about all the products that are available.
Tana King:
Exactly.
Tim Pickett:
It’s full service. Come on, it’s full service.
Tana King:
I think most of the pharmacies are planning on bringing a pharmacist as part of their their booth thing.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah, absolutely.
Tana King:
I think they’re bringing one so that people can talk to them, and get to know them. Because it’s good that we have pharmacists. You have somebody, your first line of defense that you can literally if you have no idea what to get, how to get it, where to use it, what whole … I’m just kidding. We have pharmacists in our pharmacies, unlike any other state where you just normally go into a dispensary. You just kind of look at all the product, all the shiny stuff on the wall, and you kind of choose something. But here, we have dedicated people that will literally sit down with you for however long you want to talk and tell you all of the previous people that have talked to them, all of their experiences, obviously without disclosing names and whatnot. But just can really help guide you in a super good direction faster than what you could get if you were to just go to Vegas and buy something because you heard weed is good for stuff.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah. Well, I’m super excited about you guys’ expo. Like I said, I think this is going to be awesome. We’re happy to help and promote the crap out of it and help you guys out.
Tana King:
Thank you.
Tim Pickett:
I think if anybody is interested in cannabis and doesn’t know, just wants to know anything about CBD, about THC, this will really be the best place to go, October 30th. There’ll be plenty of people there. So you’re kind of anonymous, you can walk around. You can ask your questions. You can search it out, talk to real people in the real industry and learn about it, and learn about what’s happening in Utah.
Tana King:
Yes, yes.
Tim Pickett:
Right?
Chris Bradford:
Yeah. Definitely.
Tana King:
We just want to give a huge shout out to everybody that has supported us, especially in the beginning, because you really don’t have a brand new event without some type of support behind you in the beginning that makes you feel like moving forward is a good idea. Right? So like Dragon Fly, always involved in the community. We cannot thank them enough for their support and just all of the suggestions, Wholesome Co., same thing, Julian over there. It’s so amazing. They’re so lucky to have him and Char. Factory 6 was on board pretty quick, Hemp Lucid, as always.
Chris Bradford:
Yeah. Hemp Lucid.
Tana King:
I don’t know if it’s my back, they always have or if it’s Utah’s back they always have. It’s probably Utah’s back they always have. But they’re always willing to be involved in community stuff, even though they’re a nationwide company. They don’t honestly need to even be there because they make enough money nationwide. But that’s not what they’re about. They’re about community, and they’re really about helping people and making really good medicine, like their Delta-8 products that anybody can battle me on.
Tana King:
Anyway, we just really, really appreciate like Robert over at Empire, Elite Smoke and Vape. These guys just hopped on board really, really fast. You guys hopped on pretty fast. It really helps us in our mentality because moving forward is really hard when no one is supporting you. That’s not what we’ve experienced. We’ve experienced the opposite. Just a lot of people are excited and willing to move forward with us. So we just want to thank them and tell them that they’re awesome.
Tim Pickett:
Absolutely. Okay. So Utah Cannabis Expo, October 30th, 10:00 AM to 8:00 PM, Salt Palace. Do you guys have a website? How do people connect with you?
Chris Bradford:
They can go to the NuMotionProductions.com. That’s N-U-M-O-T-I-O-N, not N-E. Okay? Because a lot of people say, “New Motion” and they start using N-E. But it’s N-U-M-O-T-I-O-N Productions.com.
Tana King:
Yep. Or they can search it on Facebook. Don’t use the word “cannabis”, obviously. If you haven’t learned that yet, it’ll block your search if you try to search that word. So just look up Utah Health and Wellness Expo. If we’ve done a good enough job, the Cannabis Utah Health and Wellness Expo will pop up. You’re more than welcome to join the group, Utah Cannabis United. Follow us both on Instagram. We’re super easy to find. We got billboards out. But yeah, those are the easiest ways to do it. Or search on Eventbrite.
Chris Bradford:
Yeah. Eventbrite or Google. You can Google us too.
Tana King:
Google will pop us up too. So if we’re doing a good enough job, it’ll be there.
Tim Pickett:
Well, and if you you want to subscribe to this podcast UtahMarijuana.org/Podcast. All of our podcasts, including this one, is transcribed there. You can listen on any podcast app that you want to listen on and subscribe. All of our episodes are released at 4:20 in the morning every Friday morning, which is kind of fun. Tana King, Chris Bradford, Show Call, I really appreciate you guys taking the time.
Chris Bradford:
Sweet. Thank you.
Tim Pickett:
To talk to me today.
Tana King:
Thanks for having us.
Chris Bradford:
Thank you.
Tana King:
Appreciate you.
Tim Pickett:
All right, everybody. Stay safe out there.
