The Benefits of Celebrity Endorsement in the Cannabis Industry Market

Goal: Analyze the influx of celebrity associations in the cannabis industry; consider why celebrities are entering the industry and the benefits of their presence.

As recreational cannabis becomes increasingly accepted among the general public, high-profile celebrities are choosing to invest their considerable wealth into the growing cannabis community. Snoop Dogg, Jay-Z, Seth Rogen, actor Jaleel White, and famed rocker Melissa Etheridge represent just a handful of famous names who have developed their own cannabis brands. The ability of famous names to normalize cannabis and establish trust with a newer, less experienced, and more diverse customer base is projected to strengthen and unify the cannabis industry in the next decade.

One of the first and most recognizable celebrity cannabis brands is Tommy Chong’s Cannabis, available in just about every state with legal weed. Chong’s brand offers joints, vape pens, topicals, elixirs, and 10mg THCinfused breath strips in blueberry, chocolate mint and strawberry banana flavors. Taking the lead from Chong, an influx of other celebrities have unveiled their own cannabis brands since the advent of COVID-19: in March 2021, actor Seth Rogen premiered Houseplant, offering three strains of strong, top-shelf flower named after weather phenomena: Diablo Wind, Pancake Ice, and Pink Moon. Last fall, Jay-Z introduced a luxury weed line of flower, pre-rolls and a 1.5 “OG Handroll” under the brand Monogram, with price points that earn the title of luxury. For a less expensive and more controlled experience, cannabis beverage lines such as Cann have received more attention, with celebrity endorsements from Gwyneth Paltrow, Rebel Wilson, Ruby Rose, Darren Criss, Baron Davis, Tove Lo, Casey Neistat. and Bre-Z. Justin Bieber even announced his entry into the industry last month with a line of pre-rolled joints, branded “Peaches” after the song from his most recent album. The success of celebrity-endorsed marijuana brands depends largely on whether they feel “authentic and true to the celebrity ,” says Verena von Pfetten, the co-founder of Gossamer, a cannabis publication that also makes its own CBD products. Von Pfetten maintains that the best celebrity cannabis brands “offer something beyond a name or endorsement, and are built and branded in a way that allows them to grow beyond the celebrity themselves.” Considering the saturation of famous names in the cannabis market, a sense of authenticity and novelty is markedly difficult to achieve for a new cannabis brand. Yet among celebrity-endorsed products that are successful, their ability to connect to long-time cannabis users and attract new customers is a key benefit of famous names in the cannabis industry.

Because cannabis is inherently political, Von Pfetten also acknowledges the need for celebrity-endorsed brands – as much as any other brand – to consider the role of equity, social justice, and space for women and people of color to access, produce, and sell cannabis. Rapper and fashion icon Lil’ Kim is among a growing number of entrepreneurs who are positively shifting the demographic of cannabis brand owners. Lil’ Kim’s brand Aphrodisiac, which will be released in 2022 in partnership with Superbad Inc., supports efforts to destigmatize cannabis and increase the inclusivity of its community, while offering thoughtfully-designed products to her fanbase and consumers at large.

Some industry watchers warn that celebrity endorsement may reach a saturation point, at which it will be nearly impossible for consumers to decide which brand is best, better, or worst. Today, however, celebrity endorsement is vital to improving the economic health, inclusivity, and credibility of the industry. As celebrity endorsement grows, public acceptance is likely to follow as more consumers enjoy safe and high-quality experiences with cannabis products – whether they’re backed by the Biebs, Lil’ Kim, or your favorite Netflix actor.

Take-Aways:

  • The rise in celebrity endorsements in the cannabis industry is projected to help normalize and de-stigmatize cannabis use, as well as increase the inclusivity and range of its community.
  • Today’s celebrities have endorsed and crafted a variety of products, including THC-infused breath strips, cannabis beverages, and pre-rolled joints.
  • Successful celebrity brands continue to enter today’s market, attracting their existing fanbase while appealing to new customers with innovative products and thoughtful aesthetics.

Editors’ Note: This is an excerpt from our Monthly Playbook. If you would like to read the full monthly playbook and join the thousands of others you can sign up below.

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Ben Euhus , Cannabis Scientist MSc BioChemist traveled to Israel to see first hand what the world’s leader in cannabis research is discovering.

In this episode we explore the scientific world of cannabis and how it can be a dramatic change for personalized medicine for all. Hear what the world is doing in the field of Cannabis.

Featured in Today’s Episode:

  • Is Israel leading the way for cannabis-based research?
  • Endocannabinoid system
  • Treating cancer with cannabis
  • Clinical cannabis studies
  • Dronabinol, man-made THC
  • Cannabis based scientific research

Ben Euhus is a Biochemist interested in the drug development pipeline, as well as innovative solutions in the field of biotech. He is a seasoned cannabis scientist with first hand experience in researching the therapeutic potential of cannabis compounds in a pre-clinical setting.


[00:00:00]Bryan Fields: This is the dime, dive into the cannabis and hemp industry through trends, insights, predictions, and tangents.

[00:00:10] What’s up guys. Welcome back for the episode of the dime I’m Brian Fields and always I’ve got my right hand, man. Tell him Finney you’re with me. And this week we’ve got a very special guest Ben Euhus.

[00:00:20] Who’s cannabis scientists, Ben, thanks for taking the time. How are you doing today?

[00:00:25]Ben Euhus: How’s it going guys? Great to be here.

[00:00:28]Bryan Fields: How you doing Kellan?

[00:00:29] Doing good,

[00:00:30]Kellan Finney: really excited to talk to Ben and learn as much as we can about the endocannabinoid system today

[00:00:34]Bryan Fields: and looking forward. It’s so bad. And for our listeners who are unfamiliar with you, can you kind of share a little bit about your background?

[00:00:39]Ben Euhus: Yeah. So I’m a biochemist from Texas trained in Texas state university. And most recently I finished my graduate program in Israel at the Technion under Dr. Danny MIRI. And we were pretty unique. We had unfettered access to a whole strain cannabis, extra. And biological models. We’re able to research by [00:01:00] occupy panels and mechanisms of action with cannabis acting on the endocannabinoid system, using healthy and disease model.

[00:01:07] We were mainly like a preclinical lab that focused on cancer studies. I focused focused on brain cells that were present in neurodegenerative diseases like multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer’s disease, but that is, you know, a cannabis scientists, endocrinologist trained in Israel. So

[00:01:24] now take us through what your role is currently in this.

[00:01:27] Yeah. So right now I’m working with a group named the Nuvia. They’re a really unique group here in Texas and railroad Texas. One of the only groups with a DEA FDA approval to produce cannabinoid based drugs and formulations. I’m also a ambassador for Dutch medical cannabis society, and doing consultancy work with a global group called Veridian.

[00:01:51]Bryan Fields: Awesome. So let’s kind of dive into. I know not every day is the same day. So take us through kind of what goes through your [00:02:00] normal day to day process.

[00:02:01]Ben Euhus: So with the Nuvia they’re currently working on the formulation of a international formula. They also engage in a bit of psychedelic research. But it’s essentially, they’re one of the only groups that has a a pipeline for the production of FDA, DEA approved and adenoid based drugs for the purpose of patients with HIV.

[00:02:22] And also people that are coming off of chemotherapy suffering from nausea. And a host of other, you know, related kind of conditions, hosts cancer treatment. So I’m an analytical chemist with them and we worked on the API formulation and method development and validation to create one of the best possible standards for Texas.

[00:02:41] And hopefully the rest of the globe. A quick question, then

[00:02:45]Kellan Finney: you mentioned, could you kind of walk through what the API international is for, for listening to, we

[00:02:51]Ben Euhus: haven’t heard that term yet. So is a synthetic THC. It’s commonly used for HIV patients. As [00:03:00] well as for cancer patients that are experiencing conditions like nausea that are just coming off of chemotherapy.

[00:03:07] But given that it is a synthetic THC given that it is a THC based medication it does have a prospective slew of beneficial therapeutic potential. For conditions outside of HIV and even cancer patients

[00:03:22]Bryan Fields: from like a research standpoint, obviously there’s such a misunderstanding across the board of like where we are there.

[00:03:28] We need to be to, to get there. So, Ben, in your opinion, where do you want to see the research going? Can you talk about some of the recent research you’ve seen, that’s really excited you

[00:03:37]Ben Euhus: the most? Yeah. So, you know, when I went to Israel, I it was originally looking for a position in. Inside of the states that was doing more cannabis-based science and then kind of became clear that, you know, given the regulation that we have the restriction, it wasn’t really possible to find that.

[00:03:52] And it was so lucky that I was able to meet that MIRI at the cannabis science west conference. That’s held by Josh. And the whole [00:04:00] cannabis science conference team, but it became very clear, you know, that this was one of the only places to do cannabis based research and originally started with, you know, the love of the potential of these compounds.

[00:04:11] But I honestly fell in love with the endocannabinoid system and I’m hoping that as time goes on and we learn more and more about it, that we are beginning to understand what. Stances and biology and medicine, you know, to me, cannabis is like this key to the endocannabinoid system. It has all these potential activators, agonists and antagonists that work on the CB one receptors, CB two receptors, other G-protein receptors that are considered orphan G pro orphan receptors right now.

[00:04:42] But as well as receptors like the trap channels, you know, TRP, which has a whole slew of different constituent. So, what we’re seeing right now is an expanded definition of the endocannabinoid system. The endocannabinoid system is this ubiquitous homeostatic regulatory system that’s [00:05:00] found in every single living creature.

[00:05:02] People argue that it’s not found in insects, that you can find the trap channels there. So I would argue that it’s found in every living creature, this is predates cannabis by hundreds of millions of years. It’s been really interesting studies that show that aquatic species back, you know, 500 million years ago, carry the CB one, CB two receptors, carry the enzymes and the endocannabinoid systems constituents.

[00:05:25] So we’re really kind of seeing how ubiquitous and how prolific the system is. It’s found in, you know, your circadian rhythm, your pain and pleasure reward systems. It’s a responsible for the differentiation of what your cells to fight, you know, decide to turn into. Even programmed to when they die and really interesting Lee as well, is that on the end of serotonergic, dopaminergic neurons in every single brain that up here, and you know, as early as the fetal embryo, you can see the endocannabinoid system CB one, CB, two receptors, CB one [00:06:00] receptors acting as neuromodulators.

[00:06:02] So it’s absolutely essential to most everything in our lives. And is highly deserving of a place in medicine and biology for its potential and therapeutics for our

[00:06:12]Bryan Fields: listeners out there who are still kind of gathering the initial footing on the endocannabinoid system in its simplest form. If the three of us were sharing a joint, would this be why one of us would feel, let’s say sleepy and compare from the other thing more.

[00:06:27]Ben Euhus: Yeah. You know, I think so. We’re, you know, still not even sure as to why, you know, that high or what’s driving that, you know, that feeling of the high, the most interesting hypothesis that I’ve seen and heard is that it’s the endocannabinoids that are kind of modulating this. I can give you a really quick example with a compound called.

[00:06:46] And this is the noted as an endocannabinoid like compound. That’s not officially in the same realm as like a name to mine. And to AIG, it would be played, you know, plays a role in that entourage effect where it’s a steric [00:07:00] modulator. Dr. Meshullam posits that believes that Dr. Michelle was the guy that, you know, identified THC for the very first time in 1964, which dribbled into us discovering the endocannabinoid system.

[00:07:12] So very credible guy, but this compound named polyimide is responsible for. Sleepy feeling that we have a hypnotic feeling. This is also backed up by DeMarzo. So, and, you know, for sharing a joint and you know, one of us feels that it’s a sativa and another one feels that it’s an IndyCar. It’s more than likely that just given our basal levels and what our endocannabinoid levels look like pre joint and how those are modulating is what’s determining how we have an effect.

[00:07:41] So it’s not really in my mind simple as saying that this strain has these turpines, so it’s a sativa or this strain has these Turpin sorts of Endeca. It’s more than likely it’s a good guesstimate, but everybody is a little bit different. The many,

[00:07:55]Bryan Fields: too many problems, like our friend Dr. Abrams usually says, especially with.[00:08:00]

[00:08:00] We talk about, right? Like if someone’s bringing like a sativa, which we obviously hate discussing that as the frame of reference, but it just, for this case point, it’s, it’s the easiest way for the generalization of this. If you were passing that out and say, Hey, Kellen, like here, like you don’t need to worry about it.

[00:08:16] You kind of putting him in the. Here’s a sativa and then Kaelin, you know, has to take a quick nap on that. And he’s like, Hey, what’s, what’s the deal here? And it kind of just puts into to mind of how far we still have to come with the understanding from a science standpoint. So tell him kind of take it one step further.

[00:08:32] The ECS, right? Like it’s discussed more and more. We’re seeing it, but from a doctor state.

[00:08:38]Kellan Finney: Yeah. I mean, I think we’ve talked about this previously, the endocannabinoid system isn’t even taught in medical school yet. You know what I mean? And so like, we do have a long ways to go, but I just wanna piggyback on one other thing that Ben was saying in terms of.

[00:08:51] I mean, that’s why the need for personalized medicine is such a big deal. You know what I mean? Because like sativa hybrid, Endeca we having different [00:09:00] base levels of molecules in our bloodstream. It’s going to change how we, how we interact with that that product. You know what I mean? And so I just want to drive that point home a little more, but yeah, I mean, at the end of an ambulance system I mean, I’ve, I’ve seen a lot of different claims associated with what it, how it like affects our homeostasis, right?

[00:09:18] You’re just like base level of being alive for those who don’t know what homeostasis what we’re referring to, but I’ve heard it affect everything from mood to hunger, to your sleep cycle, everything that Ben was saying. So I think at the basic level, We need more research associated with the endocannabinoid system.

[00:09:37] And I think that’s probably the most fundamental thing that needs to occur in the industry because like categorization of all these products and dosing of THC and all these things could just be in vain. If we don’t understand exactly the mechanism associated. What is hot, getting hot, you know what I mean?

[00:09:54] And we can see that with CBD and THC, you know what I mean? I mean, very,

[00:09:58]Ben Euhus: very

[00:09:59]Kellan Finney: similar [00:10:00] cannabinoids from a structural standpoint, they they’re the exact molecular way. One has lacto one. Doesn’t right. And because of that one small feature, you get a completely

[00:10:11]Ben Euhus: different

[00:10:12]Kellan Finney: experience than like ingesting CBD versus THC.

[00:10:15] Right? I mean, and so how those molecules interact. The receptor and one, I mean, I haven’t read enough primary literature on the crystallography structure of the active site and CB one and all those things. So like truly. To be able to disseminate. I haven’t seen at least an argument placed before me that can really explicitly define why THC binds so much better than, than CBD and actually causes that quote unquote high.

[00:10:43] Have, have you

[00:10:43]Ben Euhus: seen anything like that? Nothing as yeah. And I’m not an organic chemist or a structural chemist, unfortunately, a little bit over my head, but just on biochemistry about right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, one thing that was really interesting that I never reported and it might’ve even been in the [00:11:00] last decade was the, just the crazy comparison between THCs tertiary struggle.

[00:11:05] And then Nana mine’s tertiary structure and then a tertiary structure is you know, the structure that a compound exhibits, when it’s buying tourists after, you know, this lock and key kind of, you know, a method for biology, you to to activate different sectors. But when you look at a picture between a and THC, the similarity is just ridiculously, they’re almost identical.

[00:11:29] So I’m not really sure what’s going on. Cause you know if you were to, you know, take them apart and put them in their primary structure. Like, you know, if you’re just to draw them on a piece of paper, they look like very different compounds. So I’m not really sure what’s going on. In that respect, you know, there is you know, some things going on inside those receptors.

[00:11:44] That would be very interesting to see what is it. Nanda mind. Sorry. So an animal mind is an endocannabinoid. That is the acronym is ADA. And anonymize was the first con endocannabinoid discovered. And it’s a discovered by Meshullam a believer, another host of [00:12:00] scientists and was given the name of Nanda mine, which is sanscript for bliss molecule.

[00:12:05] And so this was the first ligand that they found to bind to CB one. And, you know, Back in a time when THC or I’m sorry, weed, wasn’t 30% THC and a was more likely to make you very blissful. I guess they felt that it was a very suitable name. Thanks for

[00:12:18]Bryan Fields: breaking that down. So let’s like, I can spend the entire episode, like asking why we didn’t learn about it in college.

[00:12:24] Why the doctors aren’t top, right? That’s that’s the past. Let’s talk about the future personalized medicine. What sort of roadmap? Would you have liked to see in order to take necessary steps to get there?

[00:12:38]Ben Euhus: Yeah. So even outside of the field of cannabis, to look at the, see, you know, in ketosis for, you know, for example a lot of people are doing these ketosis diets and that’s, you know, essentially when you starve yourself of carbide, But you’re producing these ketone constituents inside your brain.

[00:12:53] Inside of that realm of even just dieticians, it’s extremely, extremely difficult to get a [00:13:00] proper analysis of what’s actually going through your body right now outside of a spinal tap, even it’s very, you know, it might be even impossible, but it’s very difficult to determine what’s, what’s responding in your brain.

[00:13:12] What’s being produced in your central nervous system and your. So a roadmap would have a higher level of identification for these endocannabinoids that are circulating through your body. We could have a a better way of understanding. What’s actually being activated and upregulated. And right now we’re using my.

[00:13:32] And, you know, these mice are being sacrificed and, and we’re able to see a differential ability for the production of endocannabinoids. You know, one of our studies are a few of our studies from Israel, from the MIRI lab, really works on looking at the difference in endocannabinoid levels when given, you know, strains with.

[00:13:51] Identical TFC CBD levels. And we’re seeing that it’s a, there’s a tremendous difference in the endocannabinoids that are [00:14:00] being produced strain to strain, even if they have the same THC CBD. So something that would be really important for us is to one, to see where a patient’s basal levels are. And even in the recreational, you know, recreational consideration where a person’s basal levels of endocannabinoids.

[00:14:16] And how they’re modulating after you know, inducing some kind of cannabis product or, you know, cannabinoid like product. And another thing that is extremely important is refining our analytical techniques. You know, we’re, we’re so lucky that we are where we’re at because, you know, 40 years ago we didn’t have things like HPLC or LCMS.

[00:14:36] And this is, you know, one of the reasons that they weren’t really definitively able to show. How important, you know, cannabis or what inside of cannabis was actually producing a therapeutic effect. But right now we’re able to see that there’s, you know, 96 plus a hundred plus cannabinoids in any given type of strain, you know, in 2018, or even as far as, you know, most recently as 2012 when I [00:15:00] left my graduate program, there were still like 17 cannabinoids that were unidentified, you know, and they had names like 3, 1, 3 17 B and things like that.

[00:15:11] And they seem to have a role in the bioactive effect. So what we need right now is you know, a way to determine endocannabinoid, modulation and a more refined way of determining what’s actually inside the strains.

[00:15:24]Bryan Fields: Do you think we’ll get there in our lifetime to personalize?

[00:15:27]Ben Euhus: I think so. I think the field of personalized medicine is just exploding right now.

[00:15:31] The, one of the things that’s really kept or put cannabis science into semi warp speed is, is the amount of information that comes from outside disciplines. You know? So we’re using. And, you know, even recruiting people from outside disciplines, inner disciplinary fields at our, you know, just constantly pushing you know, the boundary of what’s possible.

[00:15:51] So, so yeah, the field of personalized medicine I feel like is just, you know, refining and there is so much interest and you know, [00:16:00] financial incentive to actually pursue R and D. I think that would be a matter of time for something potential inside of animal. To help us answer these questions inside of cannabis.

[00:16:12] So I’m, I’m pretty optimistic. In

[00:16:15]Kellan Finney: terms of the personalized medicine. I think that one of the biggest obstacles is like you were saying, being able to measure exactly what’s going on inside the brain. Right. Because we can talk about those cannabinoids and years voting them to go into your bloodstream.

[00:16:27] But like what truly goes through the blood brain barrier? You know what I mean, blue little shout out again. I’m going to try it another hail Mary here, but Elon Musk. Right? And Neurolink by actually implanting

[00:16:37]Ben Euhus: a chip though. Some light small sensors in there. And like being able to run some Cuban

[00:16:42]Kellan Finney: metrics and like be able to measure it can happen a way it’s like this could be a huge opportunity for, for

[00:16:48]Ben Euhus: most to make some money.

[00:16:49] Yeah. So this is like the outs, you know, across disciplinary, you know, outside disciplinary field, but that’s how you could do it. You know what I mean? Yeah, I think there could be something there. I don’t know how far along they are with the neural [00:17:00] link, but, you know, I guess they’re putting it in chimpanzees at this point.

[00:17:03] So I guess they’re playing video games with it already.

[00:17:05]Bryan Fields: I just want to go back to what Kevin said. And he said, there’s a chance for Ilan to make some money. It doesn’t solve problems to make money. He solves problems that eatings are necessary for like human survival, right? Like that’s where he’s at now.

[00:17:16] Not trying to make. But to continue on that path, maybe Ben can come back at a later point, update us on the comparison on the neural link and the endocannabinoid system. Let’s dive into your research in your graduate program. I want to learn more about that. We heard your talk. I mean, roughly two years ago, it was incredible.

[00:17:33] And I want you to expand on some of the areas from medical standpoint that you kind of came across or the research that fascinated

[00:17:40]Ben Euhus: you. Awesome. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, I wrote a small publication for Cayman. Which is a pretty succinct missing some details and major points, but it was a succinct kind of an explanation of the patterns that we found.

[00:17:55] And, and the whole thesis we sent you was cannabis is a great key to the endocannabinoid [00:18:00] system. But, but inside the land that I was with for about, for two years we were a preclinical largely anti-cancer or cancer therapeutics, chronic disease based. So a lot of my colleagues were working on cancer pro projects.

[00:18:14] And I was working on a project with microglia and microglia is the primary cell inside the central nervous system and brain. It’s kind of like the primary Sentinel. That’s looking around repairing things, eating up stuff and alerting other types of immune based cells to drive an effect.

[00:18:34] Some of the biggest things that we found were that cannabis has such a differential ability, strain and strain. One of the things that really drives this was a colleagues. You know, it is paid it’s in the published paper. You know, there’s a few studies that I’ll bring up right now. And one of them was a.

[00:18:49] Study that did a 12 they had 12 different cancer cell types. And one thing that they found is that one, not every strain [00:19:00] has the same ability. Even if they are in, you know, very comfortable levels of THC and CBD. It’s not given that they’re going to have a tremendous ability. One thing that was also found in that, you know, or two more things that were also found in that.

[00:19:15] Is that not every single cancer cell type is susceptible to cannabis treatment. So, you know, there were, in most cases, there were two different types of cell of the same cell. So, you know, you can you know, when you’re doing cell biology you can get a few different cell lines that are indicative of a type of disease.

[00:19:33] So, you know, we had two different breast cancer lines, two different colon cancer lines, you know, et cetera, et cetera. And in some cases not, you know, both breast cancer, cell lines were not affected or not, you know, both H colon cancer cells were not effective. And sometimes you saw like a tremendous differential ability where the breast cancer was extremely susceptible.

[00:19:54] But cells like HD 29, which is a colon cancer cell had almost no susceptibility [00:20:00] to being treated by cancer by cannabis. And when I say susceptible, like literally what we were doing was admitting a tiny, tiny, tiny amount of cannabis extract and tracking to see over the course of 24 hours, how many cells died.

[00:20:15] So literally it was walking into a lab that was killing cancer. And that’s just, you know, it’s pretty cool in itself. But another thing that we found and, you know, another thing that was found in that study and you know, this there’s such a difference in, you know, from a higher levels of complexity and organisms.

[00:20:32] So it would be interesting to see if this is something that also carries through in in people, but the carboxylated forms of you know, THC and CBD. THCA, CBDA had a terrible ability at inducing cell death in cancer cells. So, you know, your formulation also plays a big role in you know, the way that a cannabis strain or an extract is, is going to effect a certain scenario.

[00:20:59] So [00:21:00] one more thing that I wanted to share in that same realm. Was a study done using mice. And what we did was induced in epileptic response using a compound called PTZ. And this is a really common thing to do when you’re looking at epilepsy and, and a therapy for seizures, but we use five different strains and looking at the response with the mice, what we looked at was the time in between seasons.

[00:21:24] The overall survivability and you know, how they fared basically one as we use five different strains. And one thing that was seen is that survivability went up for all the mice regardless of the strain that you use. So that, I mean, that’s very positive information. I feel like. But one thing that we saw was such a difference in the latency, which is the time it takes for them to have a seizure.

[00:21:46] And so there’s a tremendous difference ability in therapeutic potential. Just between these five different strains. And the kicker was that each strain had exactly the same amount of THC and CBD. So THC CBD is a [00:22:00] terrible indicator or determining a potential therapeutic response. You know, it might be better to, you know, as a guide versus looking at like a, you know, a strain that’s time, CBG or high in CBD.

[00:22:12] What have you, or THCV things like that, but we’re shooting ourselves in the foot by just using those two compounds as an indicator for a therapeutic. Yeah.

[00:22:21]Kellan Finney: And that’s exactly what happened to GW pharmaceutical too, is they had to literally grow the exact same strain and doors in order to be able to produce the same, like the exact same chemical profile up a dialect is literally that exact issues.

[00:22:34] They discovered that it wasn’t the ratio of CBD and THC. It’s everything else. Right.

[00:22:41]Ben Euhus: So one of the, you know, the things I kind of harped on when I was there, it’s, you know, it’s not really the levels that we should be concerned with. Maybe it’s an indicator that, you know, strains that are high in CBD are carrying other kinds of beneficial types of compounds, but, you know, Maybe they’re acting as the vehicle, but it’s [00:23:00] a, it’s more of an indication.

[00:23:01] I think that’s something is inside of it that is acting or drive or helping drive the effect. And I just want to touch base as far as the carboxylated compounds while they were not very helpful in the cancer study that we did and my research dealing with microglia. And one of the things that we looked at was how well these these cells were able to respond to a wounded.

[00:23:22] So essentially if you had some kind of neural damage which is what’s happening with a disease like multiple sclerosis, we wanted to see how fast and how much better these microglia were able to respond. And you know, make some kind of a repair in this scenario. The cardbox latest strings were tremendous and they were the ones that we follow to suit.

[00:23:43] So it just entirely depends on the situation entirely depends on the condition that you’re looking for in the outcome, but it does seem to have you know, both parts, both a both forms of the plant, you know, seemed to have, you know, tremendous effects in their own respect, ton to

[00:23:58]Bryan Fields: unpack. So I [00:24:00] take a couple of steps back and I apologize if I kind of misspeak.

[00:24:03] So when you were doing the cancer studies, You had identified specific strains work better for specific types of cancer? Is that how I,

[00:24:12]Ben Euhus: yeah, so certain cancer cells, cancer cell types were more likely to be effected by just cannabis in general. And then certain strains were more likely to induce a positive response.

[00:24:25] And one of the things

[00:24:26]Bryan Fields: CBD and THC.

[00:24:29]Ben Euhus: Exactly. You know, it’s something that we that’s found in this same publication. And I think it’s if anybody wants to look it up, it’s Brom 2018 or 19, we’ll include a link in the

[00:24:45] papers is titled. But one thing that they did is you know, they saw using about 16 different cancer cell types. They saw that some strains had a more consistent ability to induce cell death. And [00:25:00] what they did is take one of these strains, which was high in THC. And they performed, you know, took a gradient of different strains at different levels of THC.

[00:25:08] So we had you know, let’s just say like 12, it might be something like this. So don’t, you know don’t quote me, but it might be like 12 different strains or so ranging from one milligram to four milligrams of THC. You know, per percentage of, you know, the entire plant and they also used purified version of THC and what they did using these different strains at variable levels of THC was you know, determine how well they were at inducing cell death.

[00:25:35] And very surprisingly the purified THC didn’t seem to have any effect on inducing cell death at that level. And then. Absolutely no way to determine a strains ability to induce cell death based on its percentage of THC. So the highest performer was. 3.6, 3.2, something around there, but the strains, the left and the [00:26:00] right of it did not indicate that this was a, you know, a gradient or anything that they had shared in common outside of their THC

[00:26:08] levels.

[00:26:08]Bryan Fields: Let’s take another step forward in this direction, right? It’s a promising step. What’s the followup after a trial like this, is it additional trials in this direction? Like take us through kind of how.

[00:26:19]Ben Euhus: So one of the things that you know, really is essential to transform this into a clinical trial is determining the bioactive compounds.

[00:26:28] So one of the things that we did was a process called fractionation and fractionation is a pretty old technique. It’s pretty used in the field of just in biomedics in general. You know, it’s, it’s used outside of cannabis. It’s used in other Israeli labs that are able to access this research, but essentially what they do is use a bit of column chromatography.

[00:26:50] And kind of partition out based on time and size of compounds and partition out the compounds and a cannabis extract [00:27:00] into different little components. And you do this so much that the idea is that you’re getting the most isolated versions of compounds present as possible. And so what you do is, you know, you make about like like five to seven different kinds.

[00:27:14] The first one’s got THC, the second one’s got CBD, the third one’s got know THCV or a whole slew of minor cannabinoids, and you go through and just, you know, determine at what combinations or you know, if there’s any combinations that are working and you just kind of repeat this process until you’re left with the most isolated versions of these compounds and can kind of determine what’s going on.

[00:27:36] And just in the whole aspect of our refining of analytics, this is a process that is very difficult to get a good source of these components because these compounds are coming in at such a small amount of the end of the extract. And it’s very, very difficult to elute them out at large enough. Cause after you and looped the mountain to different components, [00:28:00] you have to go through a process of refining and purifying them.

[00:28:03] And through any step along the way, you’re going to lose some products. But essentially in research looking at the bioactive compounds in cannabis, kind of follows this suit where you’re kind of alluding them out and that could use like a lot of revision, but you know, as far as Epidiolex and even, you know, Bedrocan the Dutch medical cannabis program.

[00:28:22] They have a very strong backing on their genetics that are using. They want to have the absolute, most consistent plant time after time after time. Because one of the biggest pushbacks that we’ve seen in the field of pharmaceuticals or clinical science using cannabis is that it’s extremely difficult to have a consistency in botanical formulations.

[00:28:44] So even if we were to see an extract, that was very, very helpful. In the lab if they’re not able to replicate it, you know, time, generation after generation and this happens to this happens in Israel. You can have a very therapeutic response to it, one generation, and then the next generation, [00:29:00] it doesn’t work or even worse.

[00:29:02] It brings about a serious adverse effect. So those are things that they do. They, you know, are still trying to just make a consistency in the genetics and. And find strains that are helpful to patients and, you know, just pray that they can replicate those you know, that plant composition. And they’re also working to determine bioactive compounds through processes of illusion.

[00:29:23] Well, that’s kind

[00:29:24]Kellan Finney: of not even bringing it full circle back to synthetic chemistry as potentially the answer. This is what they did for Taxol, right? The chemical from free that’s a cancer

[00:29:33]Ben Euhus: drug. Right? My favorite example is this comes on the Pacific Northwest. Three, the mountain, you, and, you know, it was, it’s a chemotherapy drug that’s extremely, extremely was, you know, determined to be extremely effective.

[00:29:47] And it got to a point where they were like, there wasn’t enough trees, you know, to even produce the level of demand for this, you know, this medicine. So, you know very smart people started synthetically producing Taxol and it’s at least in the [00:30:00] very beginning of the two thousands, it was. The highest selling chemotherapy drug.

[00:30:05] It’s not one of the highest selling drugs on the market. So there’s a high demand for it. It’s very efficacious. And it’s the synthetic chemistry that is, you know, really making this a possibility for the modern

[00:30:16]Bryan Fields: world. Ben, your opinion, do you think pharmaceutical companies will be. Help the cause for cannabis as a therapeutic, or do you think that they’re look to,

[00:30:26]Ben Euhus: honestly, I’m pretty optimistic.

[00:30:27] I believe in the cooperation between pharmaceuticals and cannabis. I don’t have the stands that pharmaceutical giants are out to destroy us. You know, that argument can definitely be made. And I don’t know if we have enough time for that entire. But just speaking to doctors and physicians that are trying to get access to up a dialect or research studies or even through patient access.

[00:30:49] One of the, you know, the biggest things that they’ve said time and time again is that the FDA DEA are very co-op. But they’ve boxed themselves in, you know, there is this [00:31:00] extreme regulatory framework that the FDA DEA, as, you know, set up against themselves that has boxed them in. So they don’t have the ability to, you know, want to just drop it for, you know, but they don’t have the regulatory ability to engage in this activity just yet.

[00:31:14] But it does seem like they do like to cooperate, you know, within reason for drugs that have passed the clinical pipeline that have been proven to be effective. So I, you know, I’m very pro pharma and I think that, you know, there are very positive things that will come out down the line with it.

[00:31:30] But do you want

[00:31:31]Bryan Fields: to take your natural stance of anti pharma

[00:31:34]Kellan Finney: now? I think that from an optimistic perspective, I mean the biggest challenge is going to be like, we’ve, we’ve literally been discussing how specific strains, a different effect. And I

[00:31:45]Ben Euhus: think to kind of distill.

[00:31:47]Kellan Finney: That down to its essence is different strains are gonna have different chemical profiles.

[00:31:52] Right. And at the end of the day, we’re seeing the very complex extracts that could have upwards of four, 400 [00:32:00] chemicals president at one time. Right. Just you’re manipulating a few of these different chemicals in very, very small concentrations. Right. Because if I don’t know exactly what the. Potency of cannabinoids in terms of mainly CBD and THC were in your extracts, but I’m imagining they’re above 50 to 60% in, in, in the extract.

[00:32:20] So we’re talking the manipulation of the other 40% and with 400 chemicals over that 40%, we’re talking potentially a couple milligram difference in an active chemical. And I mean, it’s just like, it sounds. A very steep hill to climb, to go through and identify exactly which chemical,

[00:32:43]Ben Euhus: which concentration is the one

[00:32:45]Kellan Finney: that’s responsible for what we’re seeing from a result standpoint in how effective these drugs are at that

[00:32:52]Ben Euhus: point right now, using this research, you know, are, you know, because of the pharmaceutical industry, you know, I, you know, [00:33:00] understand that the da kind of got us into this situation at the beginning of the century or beginning of the 19th, 20th century.

[00:33:06] Sorry. And if we have the analytical capacity that we do now, back then, you know, there was a cannabis appeared in the American Pharmacopia as late as 1952, I believe. And there were physicians and pharmacists that were really advocating that the therapeutic potential of this plant has not yet been fully.

[00:33:26] I think if we had that capacity back then there’s no way that it would be the same situation that we’re in now. So, you know, I do realize that, you know, DEA has put us into this and there’s just been a crazy amount of repercussions extending, you know, not even just in medicine, but you know, in in civil rights You know, R because of the you know, the regulatory framework or even how they’re planning or how they deal with it.

[00:33:52] But I think the times are changing. And I think that, you know, people that are inside those, you know, regulatory groups right now would be hard pressed to [00:34:00] say that it does not have you know, therapeutic potential. And, you know, just in terms of the scheduling of CBD and the de scheduling of THC, these are baby steps in the right direction.

[00:34:11] But they’re, I, I feel like indicative that there is a cooperation on Verizon. And I think that

[00:34:17]Kellan Finney: as daunting as that task could be to figure that out, if you put the fundamental research on the shoulders of universities across the globe, I think that they’ll be able to kind of push through with that kind of a, I can’t

[00:34:30]Ben Euhus: wait.

[00:34:31] Honestly, I feel

[00:34:33]Bryan Fields: like we’re about to go through like a period of time where there’s going to be just massive breakthroughs and it’s just going to be so exciting to see like all the progress from me.

[00:34:41]Ben Euhus: Yeah. And, you know, even outside of cause there’s like little blips of this and one of the most fascinating endocrinologist scientists me is this, I think her last name is Mueller and she’s a German scientist who’s treating Tourette’s.

[00:34:53] She’s got this conjugated system using a like an antibody-based delivery tied to PA, which is a [00:35:00] endocannabinoid. So I think that will, you know, in the realm of medicine and. Begin to see compounds like that. You know, we’ll start merging cannabis compounds with you know, monoclonal antibodies bi-specific antibodies, things like that, you know, inducing it at an adjuvant therapy with chemotherapy.

[00:35:15] And I think that we’ll just see a tremendous benefit that otherwise wouldn’t be possible using these compounds by themselves. So I’m very optimistic about it. They need to teach this in school for sure. But, you know, I, I do think it’s on the road. One problem at a

[00:35:29]Bryan Fields: time. So question for you, Ben, what is one area that the everyday consumer of cannabis might not be aware of?

[00:35:37] Just from your understanding or research, something that you’ve come across that you say that most people would be surprised or be shocked

[00:35:44]Ben Euhus: by. I mean the field of the endocannabinoid system in general, you know, I or what we know about the endocannabinoid system in general you know, I tell people all the time that cannabis co-evolved with the, you know, the ECS cannabis led us to the endocannabinoid system in the lab, [00:36:00] but in nature, The endocannabinoid system led to cannabis.

[00:36:04] You know, this is a series of receptors and enzymes and Liggins found in all species that predates cannabis, that predates trees, that predates flowering plants by hundreds of millions of years. So when I’m talking to you know, most cannabis users that are familiar with CB one CB to the extent of how prolific and ancient this system doesn’t seem to be, you know, understood or common knowledge just yet, which is extremely frustrating.

[00:36:34] So, and I, you know, I just feel like on a common level, you know, what we know about the endocannabinoid system really needs to be identified and just grounded in to our cultural lens. Since

[00:36:44]Bryan Fields: you’ve been in the cannabinoid industry, what has been your biggest misconstrue?

[00:36:48]Ben Euhus: The biggest misconception, I guess that you know, that THC and CBD are the only company.

[00:36:54] But that’s not the same problem that you find with cannabis users. You know, at this point they kind of know about, you know, CBG and [00:37:00] CBN and things like that. But I guess that, you know, the anticancer properties lay, you know, exclusively in THC or THC and CBD, but even using CBG, you know, we’ve seen at least in cell research that it produces a tremendous amount.

[00:37:16]Bryan Fields: What what’s your favorite minor cannabinoid? That’s not really getting the most publicity out there.

[00:37:21]Ben Euhus: You think a is CBN, is that considered minor? Canaveroid

[00:37:27] okay. I don’t know. 3, 1, 3 16 B. Yeah. I would say that honestly, they’re one of pounds that is unidentified. There are glimpses in, you know, cell and in vivo research. That shows that this might play a role in the bioactive effects. That’s admitted from these extracts. So I’d have to say one of the ones that isn’t fully identified yet, because when we’re doing these fractionation methods, it seems that those compounds are actually playing a [00:38:00] significant role, which just blows my mind.

[00:38:02] I find

[00:38:03]Bryan Fields: that

[00:38:03]Ben Euhus: on the internet, I will have to take a look, but I, don’t not sure. Google, just Google that exact. Yeah. I shouldn’t even be talking about it, but you can look, they’re going to show

[00:38:18]Bryan Fields: to Ben’s house now.

[00:38:20]Ben Euhus: My old PI is going to show up in my house and take me away. So the idea of that is going to show up.

[00:38:26] But if you look at publications from the miry lab you know, one of the things that you can see between the difference in the PTZ study that I mentioned with the mice that were induced with an epileptic response and even the paper that they just released in February of this year, that was actually using patient samples and surveys.

[00:38:44] Is this tremendous difference in those unidentified. So it remains to be seen, which one of those could carry a bioactive compound. But it does we just don’t know as much as we think we do at this point. That’s how dope,

[00:38:58]Bryan Fields: if you could sum up your experience in the [00:39:00] cannabinoid space into a main takeaway or lesson learned to pass onto the next generation.

[00:39:05]Ben Euhus: What would it be? One thing that I, yeah, it seems that what really is essential right now is an understanding of analytical chemistry, bioinformatics in silico, which is like computational, like ligand binding and stuff like that. So I really think that like, what is going to be most helpful to this field is this interdisciplinary cross discipline expertise that.

[00:39:27] So helpful in the field of medicine right now. And that seems to be like, were even, you know, the recreational and the medicinal space are most lacking is with analytical chemists, bioinformatics, computational scientists, things of that nature. And it’s, you know, it’s more than likely that that is going to be what really helps us elucidate what the heck’s going on with this plant.

[00:39:51]Bryan Fields: Five years from now. It’s 20, 26. Have we achieved a breakthrough in cannabinoid research that has changed this, the [00:40:00] space medically

[00:40:00]Ben Euhus: forever. And I don’t know, where were we? Five years ago? Like let’s think in 2016. And I guess Epidiolex had been released had been rescheduled though, and it wasn’t even, you know, out in a couple of countries and, you know, even a few states hadn’t even, you know, began the process of the Medicity.

[00:40:19] Market. So, so I don’t know. It’s hard to say there has been tremendous change in the last five years. It has been tremendous change the last 10 years, but seriously, like what we know about the endocannabinoid system and everything that I’ve kind of said in regards to that was discovered before 2012.

[00:40:34] So it’s out there. It just needs to be brought to light in my opinion. So, yeah, I don’t know it, baby steps, to be honest. And I guess it depends if you’re asking me, but you know, sister asking me, I, I would say that these would be tremendous steps. Like I’m so gung ho about you know, just the, the minor incremental steps that we’re taking.

[00:40:53] And, you know, even if, because I’m in Texas right now. So even if Texas was just to offer an expanded list of conditions [00:41:00] offered, you know, to the medical marijuana program, I think that would be a, just a tremendously large. So the other Texans, we talked

[00:41:07]Kellan Finney: to

[00:41:10]Bryan Fields: say that we need you on the record though. Ben, have we achieved a big breakthrough by 2026?

[00:41:17]Ben Euhus: I’m gonna S a shit I’m going to say maybe, maybe it depends on the access. You know, Israel is doing an incredible job and it’s, you know, they’re one of the only countries right now that’s using the access. They have. You know, I’m not really sure what’s going on Canada. I never worked there before, but they do not engage in the same biological experiments.

[00:41:39] The Marzo is like B man in my book, and he’s just done so much for this field. It’s, you know, most people came and hold a candle to him, but unless countries are able to increase their access. More than likely we’re going to be somewhat in the same space VR now, but I do want to harp that even though we don’t have like biological access in the states, [00:42:00] the recreational industry has really driven a lot of innovation, you know, without the recreational industry, we would not see this, you know and see allodynic effect of CVG.

[00:42:09] You know, these anti-anxiety effects of CBG, the, you know, use of CBN for sleep and things like that. So I do believe that the recreational industry. Innovation, but in my mind, there is not another country like Israel, that’s producing the same level of output necessary to really get us so point where we have a fine holding on, you know, everything that’s plant has to offer.

[00:42:33]Bryan Fields: So I’ll have you down as a maybe leaning.

[00:42:36]Ben Euhus: Yeah, there you go. I like that. I say yes.

[00:42:39]Kellan Finney: And I think the breakthrough is that we rescheduled THC and CBD and you get access globally. Universities get access to it, which I think then will be kind of like the catalyst for just a waterfall of innovation and deeper understanding associated with the.

[00:42:54] Indogenous chemicals in the planet, across the board. What about you, Brian? What’s your prediction? Let’s hear

[00:42:58]Ben Euhus: it. So usually

[00:42:59]Bryan Fields: I like to take the [00:43:00] opposite of the consensus, but for this one, I agree. I think it’s just going to be like a stepping stone of advanced innovation and it’s going to be fast. I think there’s going to be breakthrough left and right, because we’re finally just going to open up the gates and say, all right guys, like have at it, like, let’s see what we can find out.

[00:43:16] And even from the early studies, it seems like it’s super, super promising. Having advanced opportunities to kind of expand on this would really be promising.

[00:43:24]Ben Euhus: Yeah. And I’ll just say one more thing. You can see what type of clinical studies are being undergone right now. You just go on like clinical.gov. I believe it is.

[00:43:34] But if you Google that, you know, you’ll be able to find it about two years ago and don’t call me this. But like a few years ago there was a, just a tiny, tiny amount of clinical trials undergone using cannabis compounds that were being. Is that the word, but right now I believe that there is, you know, upwards of over 70 or so just in the states alone.

[00:43:54] And they, you know, they vary between you know, can you drive on this to the effects of you know, [00:44:00] people with multiple sclerosis, but there’s a tremendous amount of clinical trials that we’re not being, you know, the, the list has just grown every single year. So that to me makes me feel very often.

[00:44:11] Yeah. Just the

[00:44:11]Bryan Fields: idea that cannabis can help people medically, I think is like, kind of sometimes like the silent story in the room with all of the noise that’s going on. And I think it’s so promising that at the end of the day, if this product can show people, we should allow others to kind of benefit from it.

[00:44:27] And if it helps people, if that’s all that

[00:44:28]Ben Euhus: matters. So

[00:44:31]Bryan Fields: Ben for our followers who want to get in touch, they want to learn more and they want to pick your brain about this new cannabinoid. Where can

[00:44:37]Ben Euhus: they reach out? So you can find me through Veridian and we spell that B E R I D I a N. So you can find [email protected].

[00:44:47] Verdeans the color green VR is the Latin roots of truth. So we are a green truth, basically. You can also just feel free to reach out to me at Benoy who’s 91 at genome.com. Welcome any [00:45:00] kind of collaboration questions. Or anything of the sort, thanks so much your time. Ben, are you shaded guys? [00:45:05] Pleasure to be here.

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Editors’ Note: This is the transcript version of the podcast. Please note that due to time and audio constraints, transcription may not be perfect. We encourage you to listen to the podcast, embedded below if you need any clarification. We hope you enjoy!

Arizona is one of the most recent additions to the list of states that has legalized marijuana for adult use. The Smart Safe Initiative passed in 2020 and today we talk with one of the masterminds of legalizing Cannabis, Sam Richard. Hear everything you need to know about legalizing marijuana in today’s episode.

Featured in Today’s Episode

  • The Key ingredients to a Successful Initiative
  • Arizona’s Cannabis Market
  • Best Practices to Legalize Cannabis
  • Protecting the Cannabis Ecosystem
  • Collaborating in Cannabis
  • Best soils for Cannabis growth in Arizona

Sam is a strategic thinker and is well versed in the development of complex government affairs, communications, and media plans. Sam has a degree in nonprofit leadership and management from Arizona (Go Sun Devils) State University’s College of Public Service and Community Solutions, is a Fellow of the Flinn-Brown Civic Leadership Academy, and holds certificates from both Valley Leadership and the Center for Progressive Leadership.

Sam was recently recognized by the Arizona Capitol Times in its inaugural Breakouts Award highlighting “the sharpest political minds in the state,” and has previously been recognized in the Phoenix New Times’ Best of Phoenix as Best Lobbyist and by the Phoenix Business Journal as a member of the 2013 class of Forty under 40.


[00:00:00]Bryan Fields: This is the dime, dive into the cannabis and hemp industry through trends, insights, predictions, and tangents.

[00:00:10] What’s up guys. Welcome back to another episode of the dime. I’m your host Brian Fields. And with me as always is my right hand, man.Kellan Finney. And this week, we’ve got a very special guest, Sam, Richard executive director of Arizona dispensary association, Sam, thanks for taking the time.

[00:00:26] How are you doing today?

[00:00:27]Sam Richard: Very, very well. And so grateful for the time to speak with you guys and all your listeners. Thanks for the,

[00:00:33]Bryan Fields: yeah. We’re excited to dive in and hear about Arizona Kellan. How you doing?

[00:00:38]Kellan Finney: I’m doing well. I’m super excited to chat about Arizona, where my Alma mater NAU is. And I just want to do a quick shout out to NAU, thinking down your base football team a couple of weeks ago, first time in almost a hundred years.

[00:00:51] So let’s go Jackson.

[00:00:53]Sam Richard: That’s right. Good. Jack has a sun devil. I’m right with you there.

[00:00:59] Same [00:01:00]

[00:01:01]Bryan Fields: by this time comes out. Hopefully there’s not a monumental loss that everyone’s like, what are these guys talking about? But we can always slip that in for you boys. All right. So Sam, before we kind of dive into Arizona as a whole, I would love for you to tell us a little bit about your background.

[00:01:14]Sam Richard: Yeah, absolutely. So I was born in Minnesota, so I have some of that, you know, Midwestern roots in my system. But my parents moved when I was pretty young because you don’t have to shovel the sun. So Arizona is all that I know. And I get cold when it’s 50 degrees outside now. So it’s, it’s, that’s the background, but my, my route to cannabis was through a legislative action and policy.

[00:01:36] So I’m a former contract lobbyist and did quite a bit of work. In state-level politics and policy here in Arizona. And as the group behind prop 2 0 7 came together, I joined the team as the executive director. Of the trade association in the state with all the licensed owners and kind of represents the broad based regulated cannabis ecosystem here in Arizona, and have been a part [00:02:00] of that ride for about two years now.

[00:02:01] And I absolutely love every minute of it, you know, for those of you who work in the cannabis industry, you know that there are as many downs as there are up, but Arizona is just a really great place to be in the cannabis industry. And I’m grateful for the opportunity to work with this board of directors, with the association and our, our fantastic group of.

[00:02:19] Yeah, I’m

[00:02:19]Bryan Fields: excited to kind of learn more about those areas. So like, let’s take us back to the beginning where we got into cannabis. Was there a single moment when you were in your day-to-day life where you realized I want to dive head first into the cannabis center?

[00:02:32]Sam Richard: Yeah. So some of the work that I did previously was around social policy on left of center issues.

[00:02:37] So a lot around environmental justice, criminal justice reform, immigration justice, which is a huge issue here in Arizona. And through that. I was really introduced to the intersectionality of cannabis policy that, you know, I think that a lot of our conversations in the industry kind of treat cannabis as its own thing.

[00:02:57] That’s separate and apart from the [00:03:00] rest of society. And I think that one thing that will help the long-term success of the regulated cannabis in America. It is an understanding that, that, you know, cannabis has been inextricably linked to society for tens of thousands of years. And it shouldn’t be extricated from any section of policy.

[00:03:19] And I think that was something that really kind of fueled a lot of my initial interest, you know, a big part of our legalization initiatives. Was focused on restorative justice issues. 20% of our existing market was the number that we used to include in social equity licenses. There’s a large swaths of money that will continue to go to try and chip away at the incredible harm done by.

[00:03:44] The the decades long failed drug war that was really, you know, felt w w with some incredible pain here in Arizona with the likes of people like former Maricopa county, sheriff, Joe Arpaio, and former Maricopa county attorney bill Montgomery that really [00:04:00] just kind of had a laser focus on going after cannabis consumption.

[00:04:04] And we’re, we’re, we’re grateful that we were able to communicate. The, the idea of cannabis and normalized cannabis in such a way that 2 million people voted yes. On prop 2 0 7 with nearly a 20% margin, a 60, 40 margin on election night in, in 2020. So pretty, pretty exciting times to be in cannabis in Arizona.

[00:04:23] And so happy to chat about.

[00:04:25]Bryan Fields: So let’s kind of take a step farther down there, Arizona dispensary’s association. Can you kind of share a little bit how

[00:04:31]Sam Richard: it works? Yeah, absolutely. So we are a fairly typical trade association that you might find in any other industry where we gather around you know, the proverbial table, sometimes zoom, just because of, you know, a pandemic and we’re a statewide association.

[00:04:45] But we come together a couple of times a month to talk about legislative issues. Compliance and regulatory issues as well as make important business connections and kind of network amongst peers. So there are quite a few different [00:05:00] associations along the spectrum in the cannabis community. Our focus is on the ownership of the licenses and the independently operating sublicensees.

[00:05:09] And we can talk kind of more about the machinations of our market, but we are vertically licensed. But not necessarily vertically integrated like a market like Florida. So we actually have the ability to have a very robust wholesale market while at the same time having vertical ownership of that license and all of the expressions of that license underneath.

[00:05:30] So we, we are, we are kind of the gathering place for the owners and operators of the dispensary’s, the cultivations, the processors and manufacturers across.

[00:05:42]Bryan Fields: So to pick it one step further on that, is it like an expo type of event where it’s just Arizona focus where people come to network or is it more discussion-based can you kind of take us behind the curtain on how it works?

[00:05:54]Sam Richard: Got it. Yeah. Sorry. I now understand better what you’re trying to get at. So we are an extremely [00:06:00] boring association for people who are generally interested in the cannabis community. Our focus is. On making the, the business climate as operable as possible from the perspective of current owners. So as new testing regulations come out, we are in a position to offer feedback and suggestions to the regulator as what would.

[00:06:24] Or industry, and of course we don’t get everything we want, but it’s that, that ongoing and collaborative relationship with our regulator. So a really good example, just, just a small little vignette in the, some of the work that we do. We are a regulated just as every other market across the country, by the division of weights and measures.

[00:06:43] Packaging is an incredibly important part in the cannabis world. Well, according to the NIST handbook, the national Institute for standards on something or other, you have. Both metric weight. And you customary unit weight on all packages that are [00:07:00] sold, but cannabis has largely been under the radar of divisions of weights and measures because we’re not federally regulated yet.

[00:07:08] So our division was concerned that we were only listing things in metric units, right? So this is a 3.5 gram eighth, or this is, you know, a one gram container of butter or wax. Right? Well, hypothetically, those packages also need the list that it’s 0.15. Ounces or 0.03, five ounces for four, the 3.5 and the one gram in particular.

[00:07:32] Right? So we’re actively working with the national board of weights and measures as well as our local regulators here on kind of a glide path to help make sure that all of our operators are fully in compliance with those particular facets of our work. So that when we get to that federally regulated world, Arizona operators don’t have to Battle with, with the struggles that go to the minute level of regulation and [00:08:00] compliance.

[00:08:00]Bryan Fields: Yeah. That’s such a key detail, right? And it’s sometimes I think it’s overlooked the, the complexity of such a minute detail, but it’s so necessary for being ready for the next step. So is Arizona. One of the only ones that has a dispensary association, are there other states you’re familiar that have similar association?

[00:08:17]Sam Richard: Yeah, absolutely. So I’m not unique. W which I’m very grateful for. And I lean on my colleagues across the country quite often. So w one of the facets of my work is with a group called attack. Which is the American trade association for cannabis and hemp. And there are regular gatherings of the, the MES in other states.

[00:08:39] So the Nevada dispensary association, my friend and colleague lake Martin is working in fantastic ways over there. You also have the, the Hawaii. Dispensary association, there’s the New Mexico chamber of commerce and there’s groups in other places that are doing similar work. I obviously listed kind of my regional partners, but this is something that, you know, [00:09:00] happens in Massachusetts and Maryland and, and pretty much any market where there is cannabis.

[00:09:05] There will be an association. The question is kind of how that association matches up. So I think that a lot of. Listeners will appreciate some level of detail. So if you’ll forgive me, I’m going to go into the trenches here in a little bit, in my experience, many of the associations match the licensing model of the market that they’re in.

[00:09:26] So in, in Ohio, as an example, there are three different associations because there are three different licenses. You’d need a different license for retail, different license for cultivation, a different license for processing in Arizona because of our vertical license. We really only need one association because of you’re in the market.

[00:09:44] This is how that, that happens. So that’s really kind of how that works. So if you’re in a place like Nevada, there are a couple of different options to go to. But the retail license holder has worked with lake and her team at the Nevada dispensary association and there’s nuances [00:10:00] across the country. But at the end of the day, we are not the only significantly sized or significantly successful trade association for the cannabis ECOS.

[00:10:08]Bryan Fields: I appreciate you breaking that down. And it seems like you provide such an important value for the operators in Arizona. And as you kind of were sharing those details, immediate just kind of takes me back on how challenging cannabis is from a state to state standpoint and all of these different variables that others have, especially for these large scale M episodes that are operating in multiple.

[00:10:27] How complex understanding the balances of all these associations, that and the challenges it is. So to continue on, you know, what percentage of the operators in Arizona are involved in the ADA?

[00:10:39]Sam Richard: So R a 125 licenses that are currently open as a part of the market, and we represent 105 of those licenses. In addition to that, there are a variety of groups that have made the decision to join and contribute meaningfully to the association that aren’t licensed owners.

[00:10:57] So an example, and actually I’m [00:11:00] wearing their shirt today wanna a great California brand and regional brand. And all of that is in the Arizona market. They are a member of the association. Even though they do not own a license to operate in Arizona. They lease that ability to be here. So even though Nancy and her team, you know, are on the ground day to day, they, they absolutely care about the market.

[00:11:21] And we see that in many regional companies coming in. Right. So connected and alien labs is now operating in Arizona. You have groups like that have kind of put their toe in the water here. And a variety of other options that we can go down that path. But, but our primary role is to protect and advance the regulated cannabis ecosystem from the perspective of those license owners,

[00:11:44]Bryan Fields: take it one step down that path.

[00:11:46] So when you’re having those conversations in a group, large group setting, do these conversations sometimes get heated because obviously what’s going on. There are pretty intense from an understanding. The complexity of what needs to occur, but also the importance of, of ensuring that [00:12:00] the decisions that are made are valuable for the collective.

[00:12:02] So how does that kind of work when you’re all kind of discussing that is an open forum? Can you kind of shed some more light on

[00:12:08]Sam Richard: that? I’d be happy to. And before we went live on the recording, we were talking a little about football and I often think through metaphor because it really helps me kind of encapsulate things.

[00:12:19] So I really feel. When we get together as an association it is like a meeting of the NFL, right? Where we are there to make the league better. We are there to make the game of football. But as soon as that meeting’s over and we see each other on the field, it’s back to being competitors. Right. And you know I forget right now, if the Cardinals see the jets this season, but, you know, I’m sorry if that has to happen this year.

[00:12:45] But, but the reality is, is that I think both the jets and the Cardinals care about maintaining the integrity. Of the game of football and moving that game forward. And I think when we have those conversations, as difficult as they may be, they always come from a place of, of a [00:13:00] singular vision and shared values to maintain the integrity of the regulated cannabis ecosystem.

[00:13:05] Because here in Arizona, it remains the case as in almost every other market where there is regulated cannabis that we have a shared competitor in the illicit mark. And when we’re sitting around that table as an association, what we want to do is we want to continue to take back our market share from the illicit market and other regulated markets where our residents feel they have to travel to, to get regulated cannabis.

[00:13:31] So that’s really the, and I guess maybe in a subtle way, I’m calling myself Roger Goodell in, in that. But you know, maybe if I get a shot at running the NFL, maybe I’d do a better job than him.

[00:13:42]Bryan Fields: Well-played to integrate the, the shot taking in there. I’m just going to lightly skip over that and I’ll just edit it out.

[00:13:47] If I don’t feel like it played Sam, won’t play it, Sam.

[00:13:53]Sam Richard: And I’m sorry, I just, I just want to mention this. I actually am a fan of the jets because Todd Bowles, you know, it was former defensive [00:14:00] key guy here with the Cardinals. So big, big, big, big.

[00:14:03]Bryan Fields: I appreciate the sympathy, compassion, but it’s just not necessary over here.

[00:14:07] We’ll figure it out by the time this thing airs, hopefully. All right. So kind of continuing down the route because like on the politics side, I think so many times. We as people who operate in this base or interested parties in this space, sometimes don’t understand the complexity of what goes on with, with passing some of these politics through.

[00:14:26] Can you kind of take us behind the curtain a little bit about, you know, prop 2 0 7 and, and kind of what influenced the speed, which allowed Arizona to pass it. So.

[00:14:35]Sam Richard: Yes. Yeah. So and I think by bypassing you mean kind of getting up to speed or opening the market. So I just want to make sure is that what you’re looking at?

[00:14:43] Okay, great. So, you know, I think in general, one of the guiding kind of maxims in politics and policy for me has been that well worn. That politics is the art of the possible and to go all the way back in history, Arizona [00:15:00] actually had a medical marijuana citizens initiative on the ballot in 1996. The same year that California did, what we also shared with California is that voters of Arizona approved that measure in 1990.

[00:15:14] What was different in Arizona than in California, is that our legislature invalidated that citizens initiative with their first act in the following legislative session. So Arizona could have had just as mature of a market as California, but our legislature at the time was not in full approval of the idea.

[00:15:34] So we have had this long battle. Around cannabis policy in Arizona, that, that stretches 25 years. And through that, we have learned what Arizona voters and the general public in the 48th state kind of has an appetite. In terms of the cannabis community. So we are what some investors and some observers of the market might call a limited [00:16:00] license state.

[00:16:00] But one thing that I like to remind people is that we actually heard loud and clear from voters both in 2010 when our medical cannabis initiative was passed. And in 2020, when our adult use initiative passed that we did not, our voters did not want us to become Oklahoma. With when there is literally a cannabis retail shop on every corner.

[00:16:23] So our voters wanted a limited license state, and we responded to that in kind at the same time, there needed to be a direct. Focused effort to restore the harms of the drug war. So that was why our, our initiative in 2020 was so balanced between industry and restorative justice. And I think you saw that in the overwhelming response at the ballot box, in terms of kind of what, what you may think is kind of a, a, a general partisan split.

[00:16:53] We completely blew any of those assumptions out of water.

[00:16:58]Bryan Fields: No, what? No, it would sandwich. You [00:17:00] sad about it being on the ballot back then, and then how close things really came to moving forward? I did not know

[00:17:05]Kellan Finney: that it was on the ballot in 1996, but going to school in Arizona, it was pretty obvious that there, the significant portion of every, anyone I met from Arizona that attended college, at least with me, was pro cannabis from our generation at least which I think is probably the case in most college campuses across the country would be an assumption.

[00:17:25] I think.

[00:17:26]Sam Richard: I also wasn’t aware that Arizona did not want to be an unlimited license state. Can you Sam,

[00:17:34]Kellan Finney: could you walk us through exactly how that was explicitly?

[00:17:36]Sam Richard: Communicated on the ballot in terms of the options. Yeah. So, so it wasn’t necessarily an option on the ballot, but through focus, grouping, and polling, and kind of the due diligence that you do prior to launching the language of an initiative, it became clear to us that if it was kind of that, you know, for lack of a better phrase, I’m sure I’ll get it.

[00:17:56] From someone in Oklahoma after this airs, but you know, the free for all that, a [00:18:00] market like Oklahoma represents, wasn’t something that we found that would provide a winning path in Arizona. So that was kind of where I was going with that politics being the art of the possible is that, you know, we’re in a position, right?

[00:18:13] We as an industry who would largely be funding the initiative wanted to make sure that the investment into running a political campaign had the highest likelihood of success. So responding to the voters pushback in that way was something that, that we responded to in kind and made sure. There was going to be a cap.

[00:18:33] So the actual like policy hook is that in Arizona for every 10 licensed medical pharmacies, we are allowed one medical marijuana license that is now a dual license in, in an adult use marketplace as well. So we will never eclipse. A 10 to one ratio of the number of pharmacies in the state. And that was, that was something that the voters responded well to, [00:19:00] and obviously continued to respond well to in, in 2020.

[00:19:03] And the thing that I would say, and I’m sorry to continue rambling here, but Brian asked the question kind of how, how it happened so fast. You know, one thing that I think people often forget about. Is that we have been in medical market since our voters voted on it in 2012, the first transaction happened on December 8th, 2012.

[00:19:22] And so almost a decade. We have been operating and establishing a relationship with our regulator and the initial awardees for the adult use marketplace were those same operators that have been operating as a medical market. So the idea that this was going to be a completely separate program was kind of really off the table in terms of what other markets have had to experience with that.

[00:19:46] We also had a very robust. Medical program, we have somewhere in the neighborhood about 315,000 qualified patients currently. And we have just around 7 million people that are residents of Arizona. So in terms of a per capita [00:20:00] basis, we’re actually a stronger market than a state like Pennsylvania and essentially neck and neck with a state like Florida in, in terms of that medical market.

[00:20:07] So we have an incredible level of market mature. From a medical standpoint, going into that adult use standpoint, we also I’m very proud to say because of the work of the association of a very strong and collaborative working relationship with our regulator. So those 75 days between election. And the first transaction on January 22nd, 2021 were some very, very long days and long nights, but we worked collaboratively to make sure that this was going to be a program that worked the other thing, which you know, is crazy to even talk about this nine months after the fact ish, eight months, nine months after the fact is we launched in the middle of the pan.

[00:20:49] And what’s different than Illinois launching in the middle of the pandemic is we knew it was the pandemic when we voted on it. And we knew there was still going to be the pandemic there. So someone who [00:21:00] I Revere and admire in this. Chris crane, he often talks about kind of the two choices that regulators have in going into an adult use market.

[00:21:07] You kind of have that date certain, or you have the flip, the switch model. So you saw that date, certain idea come through in a state like Illinois. Where there were lines around the block between the week of Christmas and new years, as people were anticipating that January one launch date, where we did something called flip the switch, where just one day, without any announcement or kind of preparation, the department of health issued the licenses.

[00:21:33] And we had that first transaction with that reality. What you had is you had more of a trickled in. So you didn’t have the lines wrapped around the block, but you had like kind of a building momentum and a building excitement, which was a very huge benefit for us in Arizona, in the midst of the pandemic where we didn’t have 125 super spreader events on the launch day of adult use, because we were able to kind of maintain social distance.

[00:21:59] So to the [00:22:00] extent that we did have lines around them, It was largely because people were standing six feet apart and make sense.

[00:22:05]Kellan Finney: I want to go back to one other thing that you said and not in terms of how you guys drafted the bill. So how much input did you guys take from other states? Right. Cause I know like correct me if I misspeak here, but the model that Arizona followed, it sounds very similar to the model of Colorado followed in terms of limiting the license and like the slow rollout versus.

[00:22:25] State like Washington, where anyone who had enough money, you could come and buy a license. So the success of those two markets, is that something that influenced

[00:22:35]Sam Richard: how the language was written when you guys

[00:22:38]Kellan Finney: first

[00:22:38]Sam Richard: drafted up prop 2 0 7? Yeah. Like a good improv artist, I’ll say yes. And so Colorado and Washington were absolutely models, but so, so it was every market that, that wasn’t existence.

[00:22:50] You know, this is kind of like business school, 1 0 1, right? Like first to market, isn’t always best to market. We were in a position in Arizona to learn from our friends and [00:23:00] colleagues who had done this in other markets, whether that be Illinois, Washington, Colorado, California, Massachusetts, other places that kind of went first.

[00:23:09] And, you know, we also have the benefit of living in the shadows of the two most mature adult youth markets. So we saw what we liked out of the California model. We saw what we liked out of the Colorado model. And we kind of went through the buffet line of what we thought was good policy and kind of crafted that art of the possible, right.

[00:23:29] What we thought would have a high degree of success at the ballot box plus something that would be good for industry. Good for community and really good for, for the overall reintegration of cannabis as a daily part of, of society as it was a long time ago. And we’ll be again. I think

[00:23:49]Bryan Fields: that’s so important that you shared that.

[00:23:50] And like that’s how I like optimistically dream that politics are. And it’s so great to hear that that’s how your team kind of went through the process because we’ve heard [00:24:00] from so many other sides that other states kind of take a different approach. And it seems like they take a longer route intentionally for negotiations or politics, whatever it is.

[00:24:07] And it seems like your team had a really strong understanding of exactly where it needed to go and was willing to cover. Be fair to meet in the middle ground because you wanted to get it done. And I think that’s really commendable and I, and I definitely tip my hat to that. So let’s go back to that story.

[00:24:21] You shared about having that January date for the flip, the switch. Was that the original target date? When you sat down with all the parties to try to work through all the issues, was that the original target date or did you have a different one in mind? And it was more of a moving.

[00:24:35]Sam Richard: Yeah. Th th that’s a somewhat complex question, I think, depending on who you ask around the table election day was November 3rd.

[00:24:41] I think there was a big contingent of folks who wanted to open up the adult use market on November 4th. But I think that there was also some folks who, who understood that there was, you know, Kind of a level of preparation that was necessary. Right. I think that we’re seeing that with the CAO bill that’s happening right now.

[00:24:58] I think that there are, are [00:25:00] conversations that people are having, that we’ve never had before. And not just in terms of like, you know, we are actually a topic of conversation in Washington, more. So people like are realizing that full legalization, full integration into kind of how America. Capitalism and American business works is going to be extremely difficult because all sorts of different federal agencies are going to want a piece of our pie, whether that’s the FDA, the small business administration the division of weights and measures that we talked about.

[00:25:31] Right. But you know, any cultivator that grows under glass or under tent or anything like that. It’s going to get a visit from the EPA on the appropriate handling and disposal of pesticides. And like, that’s just one small example of the dozens and dozens and dozens of federal agencies that will be breathing down cannabis operators next.

[00:25:51] So for anyone who thinks that their state regulator is difficult to work with, I think that they might not be. Excited or, or they shouldn’t be as excited about [00:26:00] legalization happening as soon as it may because there’s going to be a lot of those moving pieces. So I kind of went in a different direction of what your question was there.

[00:26:06] So I hope you can remind me what it was, but I just wanted to highlight that, that, you know, I think that we often position. Legalization as kind of like the Zenith of what we’re after. And I believe that that is kind of the, the overarching goal that we should be aiming toward, but we have to do so with a level of understanding that it’s not as easy as we might think.

[00:26:29] So I was not in that November 4th camp is what I’m trying to say. I thought that a few extra months, a few extra weeks to kind of work out the kinks would be helpful because it wasn’t just new for our operation. It was new for our regulators, right? We were not just a medical market, but we were a medical market with significant personal privacy protections that did not transfer over to the adult use marketplace.

[00:26:53] So there’s a lot more transparency and increased line of sight from the department of revenue, into the department of health [00:27:00] services. Licensed through. So there’s a lot of those kinds of little things that you might not have foreseen that really, what was the significant bulk of that work in that 75, 80 day period where we were kind of putting the pieces together?

[00:27:14]Bryan Fields: Five 80 days is still extremely fast. And I definitely support the guy who was like November 3rd. Let’s get it done too. Just well, the meeting, we’ll just flip the switch and we’ll start moving product. Can’t blame him for the optimism. So take us through that conversation. Cause like it’s so fascinating to hear that obviously 70 days is still very short period of time, but was there one issue that kind of dragged on that was harder to kind of get past as a collective?

[00:27:40] Can you kind of share some information behind the scenes?

[00:27:43]Sam Richard: Yeah, that’s another really great question. You, you, you guys are full of them. I love it. So the idea here, it was more of a shift in mindset and change is difficult. Change is hard, whether we’re talking about personal issues or professional issues.

[00:27:56] Right. But you know, the idea. The [00:28:00] cannabis communities and cannabis culture really wrapped itself around the idea of a medical product in some ways hampered some of the conversation or some of the ease in that transition conversation to an adult use marketplace, because some regulators and some kind of pieces of the ecosystem approach.

[00:28:21] Adult use cannabis separately from medical cannabis in terms of the product. One thing that we benefited from was a shared understanding across all parts of the ecosystem that cannabis has demonstrated therapeutic benefits, regardless of a medical or an adult use designation in a very similar way to something like IBM.

[00:28:45] Right there. There was a time where if you wanted add bill, you needed a prescription from your medical professional. And now there is a shared understanding in society that we have enough information about the benefits and use of relatively simple pain relief therapy that [00:29:00] you can participate in its consumption without the oversight of a medical professional.

[00:29:05] So helping regulators understand that that’s essentially what we are doing here, right. Help them. I realize that, you know, there were very few pieces in the supply chain where we needed to segregate product between adult use and medical in the Arizona program. There’s only one point in the program where that is separated and for only one type of product, which is something that really, I think makes the Arizona program unique.

[00:29:33] Cannabis is cannabis up until transaction and at transaction. The only thing that is separated is the amount of adult use edibles. So every adult use edible can only have a maximum of 100 milligrams per package and needs to have a suggested dose of 10 milligrams per serving. And that is something that’s unique, right?

[00:29:55] So. Colorado. There are RFID tags that are [00:30:00] separate. Even if you have the same, you know, room of blue dream, you have to have tags for medical blue, dream and tags for adult use blue dream in Arizona. That product is not segregated until point of sale. And that shift, I think, is something that really.

[00:30:16] Streamline the move to a wide open marketplace.

[00:30:20]Kellan Finney: That’s really smart. The lack of doing that is probably what causes these states on the east coast, New Jersey, New York to take so long to come online. It’s easy.

[00:30:34]Bryan Fields: Brian, come on. I mean you’re right. I there’s, I wish I would

[00:30:38]Kellan Finney: separate it and have the same product.

[00:30:40] It makes so much sense the way that, that Sam just

[00:30:42]Bryan Fields: described that, you know what I mean? Right. But Sam has been very straightforward and unfortunately on the east coast, we don’t do things straightforward. We over-complicate things. And I think it’s because of the financial value of what these companies have from the market standpoint.

[00:30:56] I’m not, you know, minimizing Arizona’s market size, obviously [00:31:00] they’re crushing it, but I think some people see New York and they see this massive opportunity and everyone’s very protective and I’m sure there’s a bunch of politics stories. We can talk about offline Sam that you can share that are just nausea, fear, but it’s also the truth.

[00:31:13] Right. And at the end of the day, like that’s how, unfortunately these things work and there’s just really nothing we can do about it.

[00:31:17]Sam Richard: So I just want to add one other thing because I, I want to make sure that. Papering over the complexity. I think that one of the things that’s important note is that identifying the medicinal benefits of cannabis was important, strategic decision by the cannabis movement.

[00:31:35] And it really helped communicate to an entire population that was reticent to embracing. That that was the path forward. But I think one of the unintended consequences of our kind of laser focus on that medicinal language, calling, calling people, patients, and calling this medicine and that type of thing, it’s actually turned out to be a little bit of a barrier in making the [00:32:00] conversations around transitioning to an adult use marketplace, largely because people are stuck in that kind of pharmaceutical or medicinal model.

[00:32:08] And I think. Work to remind people that cannabis was a normal part of society prior to the 20th century and, and reminding them that we can get back. There is a big kind of shift in thinking once people see that it can be a normal part of your life, that you can take a, a, you know, a heavy CBD tincture in the morning, and you can microdose with edibles throughout the day and maybe end your night with a nice bowl or, you know, And, and, and have a a highly increased quality of life through that regimen, I think is something that will, will shift the thinking of the broader society.

[00:32:46] But that’s going to take time normalization. Isn’t something that happens overnight,

[00:32:51]Bryan Fields: perfectly sat in, right? Like society’s got this stigma for so long and it’s going to take a real long time to kind of remove it and remind people that like, if you can [00:33:00] have an alcoholic beverage at a party and it’s completely accepted, like there’s no reason.

[00:33:03] You can’t consume cannabis in the same form or different form, and still enjoy yourself in a normal accepted whatever way society deems reasonable in, in certain regards. So let’s kind of switch gears. So what’s one area about the Arizona cannabis market that most, would it

[00:33:21]Sam Richard: be. That’s a great question. Oh man.

[00:33:23] Because there’s, so there’s so many and some of it is, you know, this kind of belief that, that it runs through like Arizona, just like the, the mindset. I mean, like we had somewhere in the neighborhood of 115 days. Over 100 degrees this, this summer. And when you experienced that kind of harsh environment of the desert, you kind of develop this you know, thick, outer layer skin, right?

[00:33:52] I mean we, we were joking about football earlier and, and. Make it seem like the current reality excuses, the pain of our long and [00:34:00] storied troubled history as a franchise because San Antonio Holmes was out of bounds and we should have won that super bowl, but that’s neither here nor there.

[00:34:06] The reality, the reality is that we have this red headed stepchild mentality that we always are in a position where we’re proving ourselves. I mentioned earlier that we live in the shadow of the two most mature adult use markets in California in color. But it’s not just that we have the grand canyon right here, but when people think about, you know, going to the, the, the, the Southwest to enjoy the outdoors, they’re going to the mountains of Colorado, or they’re going to the national parks in Utah.

[00:34:39] They’re not thinking about, you know, the, the incredible landscape that we have here in the great state of Arizona and that transitions into. Where I’ll put up some of our craft cannabis up against some of the best stuff coming out of the Emerald triangle, or even some of the best indoor, you know, whether it’s jungle boys or cookies [00:35:00] out of Southern California.

[00:35:01] Right. But I think what is different about Arizona is our overall market. Isn’t yet matured to, to having a significant level of quality as the baseline. So we have operators that are hitting, you know, that they have dialed in genetics and they have. Amazing SOP is when it comes to cure and all sorts of great stuff.

[00:35:21] But our, our general market, like whenever we have a great extractor, like come up to the ranks, a California operator, a Colorado operator, poaches them and they move. So we’re, we’re always kind of. Place where we have to earn the right to be heard and earn the seat at the table. And I think, you know, now the pandemic restrictions are, are lifting.

[00:35:42] Hopefully people will come out to Arizona for whether it’s the Phoenix open or just a great hike in Scottsdale. And I would love to any of your listeners, if they want a personal tour of some of the best cannabis in the country, give me a ring and, and I’ll, I’ll take you around to my favorite.

[00:35:58]Bryan Fields: I hope you don’t broadcast your [00:36:00] number. That might be a really dangerous thing. Cause you bad people hitting you up on the regular, but Hey Sam, I’m in Arizona. Let’s go for it.

[00:36:07]Sam Richard: I’ll have one other

[00:36:07]Kellan Finney: thing I want to throw in there to Arizona is every high-end skilled grower that I’d ever come across. And when we talk about the best environment to cultivate candidates, whether that’s indoors, outdoors, every single one of them has always deferred to the best place.

[00:36:26] If I could pick anywhere in the world would be out in the desert with enough water, because you’re not going to deal with, with pasts, the plants thrive in that kind of a high heat environment. As long as you have enough water forum. And so I think that as the pandemic laughs, you’re going to see more high end outdoor growers look to states like Arizona, just because of the environment is not conducive to, to pass.

[00:36:50] So it decreases your costs from pesticides and pest mitigation programs. And, and the plant does love to grow in high heat. Right? And so as long as you enough [00:37:00] water, the plants going to crush it in those kinds of environments. So I just want to throw that caveat out

[00:37:04]Sam Richard: as a little love terrorist. I love that.

[00:37:06] I love that. Thank you. And you know where you went to to school is a great area to do some of that outdoor cultivation. I mean, some of the best living soil cannabis in Arizona comes from Flagstaff and, and the surrounding area. So, you know, because of the climate in kind of central and Southern areas, Quite a bit.

[00:37:23] It’s either grown under tent or grown under glass or grown fully indoor. But we absolutely have climates within the state where some great full sun living soil cannabis can be grown. And I know you cautioned me against it. I won’t like, you know, give out my cell phone number, but if you can find me, I would be happy to share any cannabis with any of your listeners that come through.

[00:37:44] That’s

[00:37:45]Kellan Finney: also a Flagstaff has mountains too. People never remember that Arizona is very diverse. It’s got mountains and there’s a ski area there. So.

[00:37:54]Bryan Fields: So Sam touch on some of your continuing education in the cannabis

[00:37:57]Sam Richard: space. I think on another [00:38:00] podcast that I listened to in the space from Chris Walsh and the team over at MJ biz daily, that he mentioned recently that every six months in cannabis is like two years of experience in any other industry.

[00:38:12] And I think that people have different versions of that calculation. Well, somebody acquainted to time in Vegas where every day is like a month. But yeah, so, but the idea here is that, I mean, just even a couple of months in the space is professional development enough, but I’m really proud and really honored to be a part of the inaugural class of a certification called.

[00:38:37] And it’s a great group of people that were brought around the table to be the instructors of that. So Colorado’s own Nick Tanem Nick nicotine is one of the instructors there recently passed luminary in the hash space. French. W is one of the instructors, a guy named Patrick King, who goes by the soil king.

[00:38:54] One of the leading voices in a natural and regenerative farming is part of that. [00:39:00] And it, it’s really just an idea to elevate premium cannabis and create kind of a singular system of talking about quality. So it’s modeled after the Somali aid program for while. And, you know, every time I roll a J at this point, you know, I’m doing, you know, like 20 different questions around us the assessment of aroma and flavor and appearance and effect and creating a library of that.

[00:39:27] And I think that’s something you know, that you see in, in chocolate, you see that in coffee, you obviously see that in, in wine and other spirits. So I think that cannabis is one of those kind of consumables that has hasn’t yet had. Shared system of assessing it other than, oh man, this is fire. Oh, that’s straight gas.

[00:39:46] Right. I think, you know, kind of improving our lexicon and improving our understanding of how to describe cannabis is something that I’m really excited to be a part of. So I’m not yet fully certified. I’m actually going back up to Humboldt county next month [00:40:00] to finalize my certification. I hope.

[00:40:02] But it it’s something that I would have. Those of you who are connoisseurs sewers and otherwise kind of care about that elevated quality of cannabis to take a look into great, great

[00:40:12]Bryan Fields: program. That sounds awesome. And I think that’s like when people come to us and they say, Hey, you guys, I want to be in cannabis, but like, I don’t have enough money for a dispensary.

[00:40:20] What do I do? I think these concepts that you’re bringing a table are such are such media in an industry that needs advancements on so many levels. You know, it takes a creative thinkers like yourself who understand the importance of kind of positioning cannabis differently than it’s currently being discussed.

[00:40:37] And that involves kind of furthering education. And I’m excited to kind of hear how it goes. And I’m excited to kind of have you teach us a little bit more about that. So I’ll have to have you back on and kind of take us through the process and and maybe, maybe we do that one on

[00:40:48]Sam Richard: video. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:40:50] And the other thing that I would say too, is any of those. I’m sure it would be more than happy to talk to you about the program. I’m just a participant, but you have guys like Kevin , who is [00:41:00] just an incredible leading voice in building a genetics library. And he is just like, if I could just listen to him 24 hours a day, I would be okay with it.

[00:41:10] He is an amazing luminary in the space. And that’s, that’s the other piece of just in general. Observing and appreciating and celebrating cannabis at every point in the supply chain, from, from seed to experience. You know, I think we often talk about from seed to sale, right. But the sale is just the start of the experience when somebody brings that home.

[00:41:31] So it’s a really exciting time to be in cannabis. And I’m just count myself lucky to be a part of that program.

[00:41:36]Bryan Fields: So since you’ve been in the cannabis industry, what has been the biggest misconception

[00:41:42]Sam Richard: that cannabis has. I think that’s, that’s a theme in my work with the association and something that I’m eager to invite people to consider obviously things that make cannabis different and make cannabis unique.

[00:41:57] But in terms of industry, in [00:42:00] terms of kind of how we operate as business entities, Frankly, the only thing that separates us is the kind of gray space that we live in that federal illegality at, at the current moment. Every other industry that is licensed to operate has consistent headaches with their regulators has an ongoing working relationship to adjust laws and adjust regulations.

[00:42:22] So, so that their operators within that ecosystem can be compliant and successful in the marketplace. Every other industry deals with employee issues, disgruntled or happy, or et cetera, et cetera. I think what the overarching thing that is different about cannabis is that everything is harder because of the place that we live in, in federal regulation.

[00:42:45] But once we approach the kind of second stage of cannabis adoption in the regulatory ecosystem, I think that folks with. See that, you know, cannabis business can be [00:43:00] just as boring working in finance or working in, you know, the hospitality industry or, or, you know, being a classroom teacher and in a weird kind of, you know, counterintuitive way.

[00:43:14] A goal of mine is to work, to make working in the cannabis industry. Boring. It shouldn’t be exciting to find health insurance either for yourself or your, for your employees. We have bud tenders that are making decent money, who can’t sign for a car. Because the bank doesn’t like where their paycheck’s coming from and that kind of injustice for the 25,000 employees that work in the Arizona cannabis industry is something that I want to move beyond.

[00:43:43] So you’re asking very simple questions and each one I take on like a half an hour journey. So I don’t envy your editing time, but I’m, I’m really grateful for the opportunity to. No, I

[00:43:56]Bryan Fields: think it’s important. And we like when you’re diving into the details. Cause I think that’s where [00:44:00] the true understanding comes.

[00:44:01] And I think sometimes people forget that, you know, someone who has a normal job at a dispensary working as a bud tender, like shouldn’t have those types of issues you, you shared. I mean, they should be able to be treated like a normal citizen in society. And you’re right. This is just another layer of challenges.

[00:44:16] And unfortunately it’s certainly where we are. So before we do predictions, we ask all of our guests. If you could stomp your experience in a main takeaway or lesson learned to pass onto the next generation, what would.

[00:44:30]Sam Richard: Smoke weed, but I also think just generally too, I think it shouldn’t be special. It shouldn’t be a spike in the ratio kind of, as we were talking about it.

[00:44:41] You know, my goal is to have sharing a joint at the end of the Workday, just as normalized as you know, sharing a glass of wine or getting happy hour with a couple of buddies. I think that that is my. Is to make cannabis as integrated to daily life as any other activity. Whether you’re [00:45:00] driving to the store, driving to the bar, driving into the dispensary, it shouldn’t raise eyebrows.

[00:45:04] It shouldn’t be something that that’s special or controversial. The only thing that’s controversial is like how many girl scout cookie strains we have that needs to be changed. Those need to go away, but that’s a personal feeling.

[00:45:20]Bryan Fields: We’ve talked about it a bunch today, Arizona voters approve the sale of adult use cannabis in November and roughly 72 days.

[00:45:28] I think you said by January providers were able to begin sales. Damn. What state do you think will follow? Arizona’s quick model of flip the switch next.

[00:45:41]Sam Richard: Okay. I want to say. The rest of them. That’s my answer. And the reason why I say that is I think that as regulators in the, kind of the, the dark caves of federal government, see what happened in Arizona, they are seeing what is happening [00:46:00] in the Northeast.

[00:46:01] I think that. Made a choice that Arizona is the model for the country. So I think that the next state that will be open to all regulated cannabis will be the balance of states that do not yet currently have a program. Those states will flip the switch because they’re going to skip the line of that medical market.

[00:46:24] And just go straight to an adult use marketplace. So whether that’s a state like Texas, or, you know, another big kind of central state that has yet to kind of enter into any regulated cannabis system, that’s my prediction. So let’s see that come to fruition in the next 12 months, we’ll all have me back and we’ll see how wrong I was.

[00:46:45] Thanks as a good guest,

[00:46:46]Bryan Fields: Texas off the

[00:46:47]Sam Richard: board. You know, I was thinking

[00:46:49]Kellan Finney: about this and I was trying to think of a state that kind of fits the same. Environment or ecosystem that Arizona was operating in. And

[00:46:57]Sam Richard: my

[00:46:58]Kellan Finney: thought is as [00:47:00] this, I think that within the tri-state area, we’re talking New Jersey, New York and Connecticut.

[00:47:07] I think that based on the proximity of those states and how highly competitive. Those state governments are going to have to be, to capture their tax revenue from

[00:47:20]Sam Richard: having an adult use cannabis market. I think that that’s going to force one of the three

[00:47:25]Kellan Finney: into following the Arizona model as a way to try to undercut the other two states.

[00:47:31] And

[00:47:31]Bryan Fields: my guess

[00:47:32]Kellan Finney: is you haven’t heard a lot of news out of this state or at least I have it is. I think it could be. And I think that New Jersey and New York are, have this ego thing going on where they think they’re better than the other one. And they’re going to try to turn it on before and steal some money.

[00:47:47] And it’s all about like, well, you

[00:47:48] can

[00:47:48]Sam Richard: just cross the bridge and do this, but I think like quietly over there, Connecticut’s like taking

[00:47:53]Kellan Finney: notes and they’re going to be like, you know, we’re going to follow Arizona and we’re just going to beat all these people to market. And now we’re going to take New Jersey [00:48:00] and New York revenue while they all argue in a fancy room with, with women.

[00:48:04] What do you think, Brian, did I

[00:48:05]Bryan Fields: take your state? No, I was, I was a little nervous though. Saw your breakdown was really close to where I was thinking I am in the east coast and it’s funny, right? Like, I don’t think of exactly which place I’m thinking until after we enter the conversation. And my first thought was Texas.

[00:48:22] And then I was shocked that went off the board first. My second one is Pennsylvania. I think everyone is flooding into that state and we see all the biggest operators are there. And I think, you know, money moves. All it takes. And I think when they see the same thought process, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, they’ve all legalized that I think Pennsylvania goes fast and I think they end up being the next, flip, the switch because the governor and I’m going to butcher his name, John with the beard and Dean and something that I won’t be able to pronounce correctly.

[00:48:52] He’s a big proponent of legal cannabis. And I think he’ll communicate what’s going on. He’ll get the support based on the [00:49:00] backings of the lobbyists. And I think they’ll be the next to flip

[00:49:02] this.

[00:49:03]Kellan Finney: That’s a good guess. They have like the fifth largest student key in the country and from a state perspective too.

[00:49:07] So there’s a lot of money in that state too. So I imagine that they can utilize that capital to influence decisions

[00:49:14]Sam Richard: and make things

[00:49:15] happen

[00:49:15]Bryan Fields: a little quicker potentially. And all the big operators are already there.

[00:49:18]Kellan Finney: Like, yeah, no. I mean, truly they’re all moving as quickly as they can and buying up real estate in that,

[00:49:23]Sam Richard: in that sector from a

[00:49:24]Kellan Finney: medicinal perspective.

[00:49:27] Yeah, totally

[00:49:28]Bryan Fields: wonderful Sam. So for our listeners that want to get in touch and want those personalized tours, where can they reach you?

[00:49:35]Sam Richard: I love that. So we’re on the, the series of tubes known as the internet on a Z dispensary’s dot org. And my email is just Sam at that URL. So happy to receive any emails from anybody out there and check.

[00:49:48] Easy dispensary’s dot org, where on Instagram and all that. But as we discuss a lot of our work is kind of internally focused on our members. So we aren’t super active on the social medias, but always happy [00:50:00] to interact with folks who want to know a little bit more about Arizona, the grand cannabis date.

[00:50:03] You’re not going to give out your day.

[00:50:09] What was that rapper? I’m Mike Wall.

[00:50:15]Bryan Fields: Mike Jones,

[00:50:16]Sam Richard: by the way. Oh, sorry. Sorry. It’s Jake, Mike Jones.

[00:50:20]Bryan Fields: Mike Jones. I think that’s how.

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Cannabis is a state-led story. Each U.S. state has different rules dictating how Cannabis must operate within its borders. One of the biggest variables in this state-led story is Vertical Integration. Vertical integration, in its truest form, means owning every aspect of the supply chain. Given cannabis’ complexity and the sheer cost for operating, owning every level of the supply chain in key states is necessary but extremely expensive for operators.

In comparison to outside industries,
manufacturing can be done out-of-state
and supplies can be transported across
state lines to help keep costs down and take
advantage of economies of scale. Cannabis,
as always, operates differently–more
costly and, of course, more challenging.
The details of the industry become even more
challenging when you evaluate states on an
economic level.

For this article, we will just look at the
economics lens on vertical integration as
operationally it is a completely different, yet
challenging battle. In some states, vertical
integration is allowed but not required.
Owning every part of the supply chain has its
advantages but is nearly impossible for some
of the smaller operators to have the funds to
build out these massive operations. Each new
market requires a unique approach tailored

around the operator’s core competencies. The risk analogy of large Cannabis operators battling for positioning in attractive markets continues to be the cleanest reference point to understanding how complex of a strategic approach is necessary when growing business. Florida is a key battleground state; and no I’m not connecting politics. According to Forbes “The Sunshine State, which legalized medical marijuana in 2014, is the third-largest cannabis market in the country by annual sales, behind only California and Colorado, which generated nearly $4 billion and $2 billion in annual sales last year, respectively.”

Florida’s unique rules require vertical integration, along with a limited number of licenses that can be dispersed to operators. All of this shapes up for a battle of the biggest titans for positioning within the market. As industry leaders jockey over market share to attract medical consumers to build brand loyalty, they use a common technique to attract newer customers– price. This is where owning every aspect of the supply chain makes this battle even more unique. In the outside industry, when you purchase products from outside vendors, you typically purchase at wholesale cost. Working with outside vendors is necessary for purchasing raw ingredients to turn into a finished product to sell to the end customer.

Editors’ Note: This is an excerpt from our Monthly Playbook. If you would like to read the full monthly playbook and join the thousands of others you can sign up below.

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Harvest Season is Coming…

Kellen Finney, Eighth Revolution

Harvest season has started for several hemp farmers, as well as outdoor cannabis farmers. The next four weeks will be a busy time for the industry with harvests, and the industry’s biggest show all taking place. The lack of federal ruling on CBD as a nutraceutical, paired with the glut from 2019 harvest, have taken its toll on the wholesale market for biomass and derivative products. Given these variables it is still important to remember the massive potential cannabinoids have as a medicine, which is what started the industry down this path. Once the science catches up to the anecdotal claims and supply and have stabilized, the industry will be one of the most beneficial industries for humanity. Because of these reasons, our firm will continue to provide the most up to date information surrounding the entire cannabinoid industry.


Maturity and Market Share Battles

Bryan Fields, Eighth Revolution

Cannabis Is an incredibly capital-intensive industry. As the industry begins to mature, battles in certain markets will continue with operators big and small looking to use resources to acquire market share. Market share battles, at this current moment, are currently contained to individual skirmishes within states lines. Single State Operators (SSO’s) and Multi State Operators (MSO’s) are confined within these boundaries due to the inability of interstate competition. As consumers continue to educate themselves and consume more cannabis products, how do these operators separate themselves amongst their peers? These battles likely will use one key approach to challenge their peers and that’s price. With margins currently very healthy, look for “a race to the bottom” to be come a common theme in headlines moving forward.

Editors’ Note: This is an excerpt from our Monthly Playbook. If you would like to read the full monthly playbook and join the thousands of others you can sign up below.

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France

The medical marijuana is being supplied by participating companies at their own cost, and neither the government nor patients will have to pay for it. “The first prescriptions of dried medical cannabis as part of the French pilot program are a significant step toward providing access to patients and will support the destigmatization of medical cannabis in France.”

Germany

“We have licensed 57 investors for medicinal cannabis production from Germany, Switzerland, Canada and as well some local players,” the agency told the news outlet. “Companies have been licensed for cultivation and processing of medicinal cannabis and they own 100% of their investment.”

Panama

“Panama has become the first Central American country to legalize medical cannabis. The bill, which Assembly President Crispiano Adames lauded as “innovative,” would allow registered patients with certain medical conditions to access cannabis for treatment, the news outlet reported. It also paves the ways for additional cannabis research in the country.

Editors’ Note: This is an excerpt from our Monthly Playbook. If you would like to read the full monthly playbook and join the thousands of others you can sign up below.

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