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!
Shayda Torabi runs the #1 rated CBD dispensary in Austin, Texas along with her sisters. Since 2015, her Texas grown family has used CBD. Inspired by their mother, the Torabi sisters founded Restart CBD which seeks to provide high quality cannabinoid solutions.
Hear in today’s episode:
- The origin of Restart CBD
- How CBD has been a family affair for the Torabis
- Educating individuals on Cannabis
- Breaking the Cannabis stigma in Texas
- Women Entrepreneurs in a male dominated field
Find out how Shayda, along with her sisters founded one of the nations most recognized brands in CBD. After listening to The Dime, check out Shayda’s personal podcast, To be Blunt.
Don’t forget to subscribe to The Dime Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Anchor or your favorite streaming platform.
[00:00:00] Bryan Fields: This is the dime, dive into the cannabis and hemp industry through trends, insights, predictions, and tangents. What’s up guys. Welcome back to the episode of the dime as always. I’ve got my right hand, man, Kellen Cindy here with me. And this week we’ve got a very special guest Shayda Turabi co-founder and CEO of restart CBD, and host.
[00:00:23] Very popular to be blunt podcast. Shayda thanks for taking the time. How are you doing today?
[00:00:29] Shayda Torabi: Thank you so much for having me. I’m doing great. I’m in a great mood. The sun is shining. Can’t complain, and I get to talk to fellow cannabis enthusiasts about my favorite topics. So let’s dive in.
[00:00:42] Kellan Finney: I’m doing well, it’s on is shining out here in Colorado.
[00:00:45] It’s beautiful. Fall day. So no complaints. Love it. How are you Bryan?
[00:00:49] Bryan Fields: I’m doing great. Thank you so much for started Shana. I think you’d be great for our listeners to get a little bit of a background
[00:00:56] Shayda Torabi: about, yeah, so I am based in Austin, Texas, [00:01:00] which for anybody who’s tracking in cannabis at a federal level, we are one of the slower states to market, but it’s my home state.
[00:01:06] I was born and raised here. And so I’m very diehard a Texan in the sense that I am really excited to be positioned where I am. I’m the co-founder of restart CBD. I’m also the CEO of restart CBD. We are a women owned sister owned, CBD brand, and dispensary headquartered here in Austin. And I have one brick and mortar location, and I also ship nationwide, but yeah, as a born and raised Texan, never thought I’d be able to work and say the words I work in the cannabis industry in Texas, but that is exactly what I am doing.
[00:01:36] And as a result of that have had a lot of really great opportunities to public speak in the industry. So I’m a frequent, you know, conference speaker, different types of hemp and marijuana types of events as well as really involved in the advocacy. And the further of legalization, both from a Texas and a federal perspective.
[00:01:54] So I sit on the board of the Texas hemp coalition, which is the leading nonprofit, helping to [00:02:00] just educate both the industry, as well as the politics side of how cannabis gets to see more acceptance in the state of Texas. And like you highlighted, I am the host of, to be blunt, which is a podcast that I started in the middle of the pandemic, because I wanted to talk about my favorite things, which were cannabis and marketing.
[00:02:18] And so, yeah, just celebrated three years of business with restart CBD. And we were just voted the number one CBD dispensary in central Texas, and just really grateful for all the opportunities and the conversations that getting to be in this industry has unfolded and excited to hear from you guys to just kind of, you know, creating some dialogue of what’s been going on in the world of.
[00:02:40] Yeah.
[00:02:40] Bryan Fields: And I’m excited to kind of pick your brain on those topics. And the first one I want to know from Texas, like when you tell people you’re in cannabis, what are the type of responses people traditionally, or what are the, what are they, what do they say to you? How does that
[00:02:53] Shayda Torabi: interact with. I think it kind of depends who you talk to, for sure.
[00:02:56] If you’re talking to people on the coast, they’re like, oh, I’m so [00:03:00] sorry. But if you talk to people who are like in Oklahoma or some of the surrounding states, they’re very eager to see Texas legalized because obviously with federal legalization comes interstate commerce and ripe for, you know, kind of crossing those state borders.
[00:03:13] So it’s you know, I think Texas is perspective and is shifting people are, you know, not so much scoffing at us as an industry. I personally like to believe that Texas as a state is one going to be one of the biggest markets when legalization opens up, just because of our size, but also just because of, you know, the top cities you have Houston, Dallas, Stan where I’m based San Antonio.
[00:03:37] So huge markets that are just right for cannabis legalization, but also just in terms of, I think where Texas was really positioned from my perspective that I thought was a really unique opportunity for us. And I caveat this with, I grew up smoking weed. Okay. Like I spent a lot of time going to Colorado.
[00:03:54] I have family in Pagosa Springs. In fact, I’m going to Denver on Friday going to go stay in Estes park. [00:04:00] Colorado is my second home. So aside from being in the industry from a Texas perspective, I’m also very aware of kind of what’s happening at a federal national perspective when it comes to these different cannabinoids.
[00:04:10] And so over the years of legalization, I’ve traveled to Colorado. And I have friends who work in the legal industry and I have bud tender friends and brand friends who work in the marketing side or lab texts and things like that. And kind of their observation with. What’s going on in Texas with hemp legalization.
[00:04:25] And I’m like, well, CBD, like we have hand legalize and now we have CBD and that’s kind of cracking the door and you started, you know, kind of observing what was originally very slow, but started turning into a faster pace. Like I remember going to Colorado and asking one of my friends who worked in a dispensary, what is like CBDs, like, you know, pressure here, like what’s going on.
[00:04:44] There are people like in totally not into it. Cause you didn’t really see it in dispensary’s. And so he was at the time kind of laughing at me like nobody’s going to buy your CBD product shade. Like that’s so laughable. And now you see them in every, you know, dispensary, every major marijuana city has incorporated not only [00:05:00] CBD, but minor cannabinoids.
[00:05:01] And so I reflect on Texas in a market where you don’t have like Colorado and California, you had legalized marijuana. And then you had the introduction of legalized hemp in Texas because we don’t have legalized marijuana and we just have legalized hemp. You’re almost playing a little bit different of a game.
[00:05:16] And so I think for us, we really saw this opportunity to talk about minor cannabinoids, to talk about turpines, to really understand the science of the plant. I mean, again, big fan of cannabis at large, but when I go to Colorado, it was like, it’s legal. You want to buy it? This is an intercut, this is a sativa as a marketer.
[00:05:35] I know you can go in a whole, you know, chain of thought of is sativa. Endeca the accurate terms to be reflecting on, probably not, but the market uses those terms. And so that’s really what the market was saying. You know, I’ve sativa and indica hybrid and there was no, well, here’s the CBD, you know, Delta nine blend.
[00:05:50] And this is a 20 to one ratio and this is, you know, line a little over versus carry on filing. Like nobody was having those conversations prior to hemp legalization. And again, being [00:06:00] in Texas where that’s all we had to talk about, I think. Push the market at a federal level, at a national level, really into adopting all of these conversations around cannabinoids and the endocannabinoid system and why these different, you know, aspects of the plant really function in our body aside from just getting high.
[00:06:18] So I know Texas is not everybody’s favorite state, but it’s definitely, you know, mine. And I think that we’re, you know, helping champion and cannabis and really unique ways from Texas. So I’m excited for when, you know, the doors do begin to open up, but also happy to play in the minor canal, annoyed space that we’ve been existing in for the past couple of years.
[00:06:36] Bryan Fields: I think that’s so important. And I never really thought about that approach either. Cause I’m in New York and we took a path very similar. And I also wonder because Tony and I always kind of go back and forth on the educational part of it. But like from east coast standpoint, we are so, so far behind and we never kind of took that, that stance and understanding how that works.
[00:06:53] So I mean, what can we do, right? I mean, I’m sure you face it all the time with, with your CBD business. Do people come up to you and [00:07:00] say, Hey, Shayda like, it’s going to get any hot. Yeah. So how do you, like, how do you navigate those challenging conversations? Yeah,
[00:07:07] Shayda Torabi: I mean, I think I’ll share a little bit of our kind of inception story.
[00:07:10] I mentioned that I’m obviously like a very big cannabis fan. My sister and co-founder Sydney is kind of like the opposite. I always reflect where the, into the yang, I grew up consuming marijuana and my sister grew up as a university of Texas collegiate athlete. She would get drug tested and now she’s an under Armour sponsored athlete.
[00:07:28] So not that under Armour in this day and age is like, Hey, you can’t smoke weed. But her perception as a competitive athlete was always, you know, what do I do for my body? And so. Kind of fast forward in 2015, I was in a car accident. This is kind of like our inception story. I was hit by vehicles, a pedestrian in downtown Austin broke my pelvis in two places and was confronted with chronic pain at like age 25 and smoked all the weed in the world.
[00:07:52] But again, I think the science behind cannabis in general was really. Cited half-hearted in the sense [00:08:00] that I’m not saying marijuana isn’t medical, but I do think that there are other cannabinoids and other conversations that can be had to frame how many milligrams of a particular cannabinoid, what is the consumption method that just like, I was a traditional, I come from the culture of cannabis.
[00:08:15] I’m like, okay, we’re buying weed from the guy in the alley and it’s going to get me high. And I don’t have any say if this is into Casa TIVA hybrid, whatever. I don’t even know if the strain is what he says it is. It’s weed. I’m going to smoke it. I maybe I’m sleepy. Maybe I’m uplifted. I don’t know. And so I kind of had that experience from my personal background, but my sister was like, Wow.
[00:08:34] Watching me recover from this accident. And I was doing opioids. I was prescribed opioids, but I was prescribed opioids, steroid injections going in and out of physical therapy offices. And it got to the point where I went back to my doctor and my doctor’s like, well, you could have surgery cause you still have a tear.
[00:08:50] And so like, do you want to do that? And my mom was like, hell no, she’s like super mama bear from Austin. So she got a little bit of hippy, organic kind of, you know, wellness sense in her. And she was like, [00:09:00] You S you smoke weed, you know, have you heard of CBD? And this was 2015. So hemp wasn’t federally legalized.
[00:09:06] There was no market for it. I always like to highlight it wasn’t illegal either. It wasn’t like, it was like black marketed, like marijuana was just, there was no market. There was no way to like, procure, like have a brand or have someone to talk to and say, Hey, Shayda, what’s the difference between CBD and THC.
[00:09:22] And so we as a family I always kind of reflected my story. I’m the first born. So anything my mom says, I’m like, yes, ma’am I will do it. And so she’s like, you should try CBD. And I’m like, mom, I smoke weed a lot. And she’s like, I think you should try CBD. And I’m like, you’re crazy. And she’s like, I think you should try it.
[00:09:37] And I’m like, I’ll do it. Okay. Started taking CBD that she was making me homemade concoctions. Again, this is like 20 15, 20 16. And just like. I had so much excruciating pain in the left side of my body from the impact that like one day I woke up on that side of my body and I wasn’t in as much pain as I was, you know, the weeks prior.
[00:09:54] And the only thing that I had changed was my intake of CBD. And so for me, that was a really big wake-up call of like, [00:10:00] wow, there’s these other aspects of the plant that nobody’s talked to me about. Nobody’s educated me about like, where do I even go to get educated? And so as a family unit, we really started turning it internally to, wow, how is this helping?
[00:10:11] Shayda like, what are these different cannabinoids? Why does this work? What’s an endocannabinoid system. What’s a CB one and CB two receptor. We then absorbed that. Continued using these CBD products, but didn’t launch our brand until 2018. So that was right before federal legalization, again, gray area. Not that it was illegal, just that there wasn’t really legalization.
[00:10:31] And then Texas would legalize in June of the following year in 2019. So you definitely had stigma. I mean, Texas was like, this is going to make me high. Like, how does this even work? Like what do I do with it? Like sublingual edible smokable is there wasn’t even smokable hemp on the market when we launched.
[00:10:46] So it was this very nebulous. I was trying to educate myself in an ever-changing fastest paced, emerging market while also educating consumers. But I think the thing that we really capitalize on the time when we launched our brand was [00:11:00] education. And then the sense of we started doing pop-ups at like our local gym.
[00:11:03] Like I’m a very health minded person. And reflecting back on my sister’s story, I knew that we were not creating my brand and our brand for me. I knew what cannabis was to some extent, and to the, to the extent of like, I would kind of buy it from anywhere. I was that person versus my sister. Who’s like, what’s the ingredients?
[00:11:22] What is the cannabinoid ratio? Like, what is the dosage? Like, how much do I take? What’s the best consumption method. So she was really integral in our growth because she was helping kind of be the consumer who was like asking me the cannabis person, like, well, what is this going to do to me? And I’m like, oh, well, nobody has ever talked to me like this in a dispensary.
[00:11:40] So I guess let’s kind of, it’s almost like you look around and you’re like, who else is doing this? And you’re like, oh, not a lot of people. And then you’re like, you look around and you’re like, oh really nobody in my city or my state is doing this, I guess it’s me. I guess I’m learning as I’m going. And we just found a lot of success by speaking really transparently and anecdotally about our stories and our journey [00:12:00] with the plan.
[00:12:00] So me from an accident perspective, Sydney, from an athletic recovery perspective, that people really just resonated with that. And so we were able to. Incorporate the science to the extent that the science was available, as well as just being really friendly faces to this really mysterious cannabis plant that everybody was so cautious about, especially again, in a state like Texas, that I think that really helped us kind of crack the door open to have these honest conversations with consumers and.
[00:12:29] For, you know, edification, I’m not a doctor, I’m not a lawyer. Nothing I say is like, you know, it was supposed to be explicit truth. And we tell customers that we’re like do your own research, but also here’s a couple of blog posts you can read. And here’s some anecdotal stories of stuff that I’ve experienced personally.
[00:12:46] And I think that really resonated with our market as well as the hyper excitement of CBD. I mean, you started seeing it pop up in juice shops and coffee shops and obviously incorporated into soap and food, and someone’s doing a CBD pizza [00:13:00] drizzle. I saw, you know, the other day on Instagram. And so obviously it’s gone into this weird nebulous gray area still, but I think by being able to be a brand that really was just like rolling their sleeves up and was like, okay, we’re going to give a face to this conversation.
[00:13:16] And. I think it’s fair to highlight too. I mean, no offense to guys, but like cannabis is a very male dominated industry, right? And so there was this huge stigma, not only with the plant, but also like, wow, here were these women and their local girls, and they’re talking about cannabis, very educated. Wow.
[00:13:33] Like I can really relate and trust them. And so just sort of building our credibility up. And I think that really has helped us just kind of further impress upon the Texas market. That cannabis isn’t a fad. And if you want to get high, there’s certainly products for that. And if you want to just feel better and have better rests, like there’s obviously products for that.
[00:13:50] And that’s your right as a consumer is to be educated and to be told these are your options and not just a transaction, which I feel like is happening in so many markets, unfortunately. [00:14:00]
[00:14:00] Bryan Fields: I think that’s so important that you highlight that, especially in a market that is kind of newer to the space like Texas.
[00:14:05] And so for Kellen, like, let me ask you, obviously in Colorado, things are always a little different when we always bring that up. So like, do you see that resonating in, in Colorado or do you see that being more of kind of like an east coast west coast? How do you kind of see that working? What do you mean by resonating from like a conversational standpoint, but we shaded was describing like the approach from the conversation with these newer customers.
[00:14:24] Do you see, as the markets mature things evolving or is this more of like a first time conversational approach? The way you described that
[00:14:32] Kellan Finney: Colorado, because Colorado kind of took the reverse approach from legalizing cannabis for, I think that it’s a much different conversation but you don’t ever deal with the CBD, get me high, at least I don’t on a regular basis.
[00:14:45] Dispensary budtenders might answer that question a lot more. But I think everyone in Colorado has kind of come to the conclusion that THC is the one that gets you high and CBD is more of like a pain medication, almost like a [00:15:00] field wellness situation. Right. It’s pretty, pretty obvious when you go into a dispensary and you’re discussing with a budtender about CBD and they’re like, this will not get you high.
[00:15:09] This is something to treat kind of inflammation is more, more or less the, the conversation that typically happens in the dispensary. And realistically, a lot of people kind of at least the older generations, if you will, that struggle more because they’ve been alive longer and life’s hard, right? Is that they got to go into a dispensary, is looking for something to kind of help with, with pain management.
[00:15:28] And as CBD has kind of been the tried and true cannabinoid, if you will, that sticks out in those conversations. So like the sides and the lotions that the older generations that are still, that grew up in that cultural stigma. Are more willing to consume those kinds of forms of CBD. And they go in looking for kind of pain relief, if you will.
[00:15:49] And so that’s, that’s the majority of the conversations that, that I see and the majority of the car stations I have, it’s like, I’ll be playing golf with like some of my dad’s buddies. And they’re like, Hey, my back really hurts. Like, should I [00:16:00] try this CBD lotion? Or what do you think on the, you know what I mean?
[00:16:03] And, and do you do have to get into conversations about how they interact with different cannabinoid receptors in the body? And I think the biggest point that a lot of people like truly it’s, it’s hard to put a blanket statement on CBD. If you take CBD, this is how you will feel, right? Because everyone’s endocannabinoid system is different, right?
[00:16:21] Everyone’s diet is different. Everyone’s, body’s different. And so for some people, a specific strain of cannabis, cause at the end of day, THC has been shown to, to help with chronic pain or acute pain. Right. And those are very, very different forms of pain within the body, but everybody’s, body’s different.
[00:16:39] Something that works for one individual may not work for another individual. And I think another huge aspect of the industry that that may be overlooked is that there is this synergistic relationship between the cannabinoid. And the other chemical constituents, like turpines like flavonoids, right? And it’s hard [00:17:00] to create that consistently right now.
[00:17:02] I think that if you go to a dispensary and your flour user and you purchase say like an O G or a sour diesel flour to treat your pain, and then you come back six weeks later to purchase the same product, it might be different because it might be the grower grew it a little differently. They might’ve had XYZ from an environmental effect that caused a different chemical profile.
[00:17:22] And I remember talking to Dr. Tolerant about this and like when they were developing the dialects, there was all of a sudden, completely worked. And there was no seizures from the, the, the girl that’s famous by Charlotte’s web. And then all of a sudden they came in with a new batch and the seizures came back and they’re like, what is going on?
[00:17:40] And so it’s such a. A new industry that there’s all these massive amount of scientific knowledge that needs to be gained to be able to like plant your flag and plant your flag on the hill and be, and say like, this is exactly how it, how, how it works forever. You know what I mean?
[00:17:57] Bryan Fields: I think that’s so well said.
[00:17:58] And like, even with the minor [00:18:00] cannabinoids too, right. We’re talking about like CBD, but like the miners could just rise in importance. The more we understand the value that they bring and then even to take it a step further beyond Josh effects, right? Like that’s something that we could talk about over and over and over again.
[00:18:13] And until we really understand these, these true nuances of the plant, these type of details, it’s going to be kind of speculative and us wondering like, is this it, or is this combination? And I don’t even know how we get to that point. There seems to be so much information that needs to go. So I mean, the conversations you’re having with what type of products do you have at restart CBD?
[00:18:31] And do you have them from marketing sense? Obviously that’s a huge challenge, right? You can’t kind of assess. This will put you to sleep, but you want to kind of encourage people to recommend them and to guide them towards them and say, Hey, like, this is what you’d want to take if they’re, so how do you approach that conversation?
[00:18:46] Shayda Torabi: Yeah, I mean, just to kind of piggyback off of what Kevin was saying too. I think that that’s a really real conversation and faculty were just talking about that in our story yesterday, you know, different cultivars, different, you know, even the same, see the genetics, depending on where you’re growing, [00:19:00] it, indoor, outdoor, who’s growing.
[00:19:01] It. What’s the, you know, if they accidentally added a little more of a nutrients one day or one batch can create some variation to the end product. And I think that it’s really hard when you have people who don’t quite understand that. It’s a plant, right? Like they know it’s a plan and we talk about it being plant medicine, but there’s still like, well, you know, I don’t feel the same way I felt today that I felt last month when I took the product and you have to kind of coach them through not only the variation of the, the product itself, but also how your body, I mean, we all go through tolerance breaks and having to take a moment away from the plant or different consumption methods.
[00:19:36] Like sometimes I’ll eat an edible and then the edible, you know, feel it really fast. Did I have a fatty diet? Did I have an empty stomach? Like these are different conversations. We have to have with consumers. We often try to come at it from a, the analogy I use in my store is like, I’m a CBD Sherpa. I I’ve gone to the mountain a million times and I know what you can look out for, but like, ultimately you have to [00:20:00] go on the mountain and I want you to have parameters.
[00:20:02] And so another aspect that gets brought up is journaling, which sounds super rudimentary, but being able to, you know, what did I eat today? Well, when I felt it really intensely, what was my diet or what was my, you know, lifestyle that day comparative to a day that I maybe didn’t feel it as much. And like really putting that ownership back on the consumer to not just buy again, a transactional, I bought gummies or I bought oil or I bought flour, but like, wow, like this is maybe why it worked for me this time.
[00:20:29] And maybe why it didn’t work for me that time. Kind of circling back to your question. You know, I think again, from our perspective, both in the hemp side of the market, as well as in Texas, really getting into minor cannabinoids. So obviously part of that is really driven by the research. So what is actually available in the market that is like substantial and tangible and like I can point to, but also part of that is what is the consumer market driving of the market.
[00:20:56] So the best kind of cannabinoid to highlight is a very [00:21:00] controversial one, depending on where you live, which is Delta 8-THC ATA, you know, our story without a little bit. Yeah. I’m in the industry. It’s very apparent, you know, you’ve searched my name and like, you can see this, that, and the other about me and all the things I’m involved with.
[00:21:12] And as a brand, we have relationships with our vendors, with our partners, with our growers, like all these different aspects. Right. And so I like to think that I have a pretty good understanding of like, Hey, you know, CBGs coming to market or CBC’s coming to market are Delta eight. THC is coming to market.
[00:21:27] But Delta eight was one that I really think kicked off that minor cannabinoid excitement in the sense that. Nobody in the market was talking about it from an industry perspective. Actually nobody in the industry was really talking about it. I had it really being driven from the consumers. The consumers were coming in.
[00:21:44] And it’s funny before we were recording, we were talking about Reddit. I had a couple customers actually, who came into the retail and they were asking, do we have Delta eight THC? And I’m thinking like, well, yeah, I know what Delta eight is, but like, nobody’s making it like, like w where, where are you being told about [00:22:00] Delta eight?
[00:22:00] And they’re like Reddit and I’m like, oh shit. Okay. So now you have the market of these consumers really pushing to productize these cannabinoids and we’re missing that gap of research. And so it’s this very weird, like. How is this really going to make me feel and like, well, I think anecdotally, or here’s some research that exists, like what CBG is the mother of all cannabinoids, CBN is like, what Delta nine degrades into.
[00:22:25] If you read some reports, it’s very helpful for sleep and insomnia and some reports it’s not. And so it’s like a little bit, you know, take it with a grain of salt. And so I think. We as a brand really rely on those minor cannabinoids. I think part of it again is just what the market is asking for.
[00:22:41] Especially in Texas, it’s like people want CBD and again, I believe in the efficacy of CBD, but I also believe in the efficacy of the full plant. Not that full spectrum is the end all be all, but there really is merit in understanding these minor cannabinoids as well as turpines. And so as a brand we really lean into, okay, [00:23:00] this is CBC.
[00:23:01] We have CBC specific products. Okay. This is at CBG. We have CBG specific products. We have them dedicated whether it’s capsules or an oil or an edible. And then like, not only do I have those products listed, like I also have education that comes with it, whether it’s. Resources that encourage them to go have a jumping off point or it’s like a partnership.
[00:23:22] So for example, we recently, and I love highlighting this partnership we partnered with leaf 4 1 1, which is like a leading nurse, nonprofit they’re free to any consumer to use it. It’s literally a nurse staffed cannabis hotline. So they kind of help close the gap from where I feel like we drop off.
[00:23:39] And it’s not that it’s a perfect bridge, but it starting to build that bridge for that consumer to really be able to say, Hey, this is my disposition. This is my ailment. This is my disease. Can cannabis help. Maybe they come in the store, they talk to me or my team and we recommend a particular cannabinoid or cannabinoid combination.
[00:23:55] And then they can go follow up that conversation with a medical professional who understands [00:24:00] cannabis and how that will work in their bodies versus like it’s a free for all. You got to figure it out, but. Compared to the lead is a free for all. You kind of have to figure it out. I had a customer just walk in the other day with her son.
[00:24:10] Her son came in first a couple of weeks ago, and then the mother actually came in and he originally came in because she was diagnosed with breast cancer and he was hoping that CBD could help. And I had to kind of sit him down and say, anecdotally, like, this is what I know about CBG. It’s known to be anti-cancer versus just taking a CBD isolate.
[00:24:29] But if your mom is concerned about popping a drug test, Anybody selling full spectrum, I hope is telling people that there’s a possibility of failing a drug test. That was definitely a challenging conversation. When we first launched people were like, oh, you’ll be fine. Full spectrum. You’ll be fine.
[00:24:43] And it’s like, no, there’s trace amounts of THC. People are definitely depending on their biochemistry and their absorption it’s in their system. And so. We have all this knowledge. How do you communicate that to the customer? It’s just having these conversations and having resources ready that you can supplement.
[00:24:58] Our bud bar is not just, you know, [00:25:00] Endeca sativa hybrid, which it is because again, the consumers are going to come in asking for, I want the daytime effect, is that the sativa? Okay. But next to my sativa, it says, oh, well it has, you know, lime mini-me in it. It has no Cario filing and it has these other turpines in that strain.
[00:25:17] So it’s really getting the consumer attributes to wow. When I smoked this particular strain, I really enjoyed it. And maybe it wasn’t just because it was, you know, gorilla glue it’s because it actually had these other cannabinoids and this combination of turpines and that made me feel that way. So. It’s a really delicate conversation because you are combating the lack of substantial research.
[00:25:42] But at the same time, I think that there is so much merit in speaking transparently. And so we try to supplement that with really open dialogues on social media. We always are asking questions to our followers. We have a Facebook group that we’ve almost made as like a community group for our customers to join.
[00:25:58] And they can then share [00:26:00] their own experiences with their products that they’re purchasing from us. And they can say, Hey, I took this for this reason. And so you’re starting to see the peer sharing of information in a more validated way. So yeah, we’re definitely learning as we go, but I think the resources are continuing to be put out in the market and as a brand.
[00:26:19] We really lean into those resources because again, I really want to emphasize, and there’s nothing wrong if you’re just, you know, wanting to buy some cannabis and it’s the cheapest price, and someone’s selling it to you at the flea market or wherever the case may be and you buy it. But you know, people always ask, well, what makes your brand different?
[00:26:35] It’s like, why really care about educating the consumer? I want them to feel empowered if they shop with me or they shop with somebody else, man, well had taught me how to read a label, had taught me, you know, what the difference between CBD and THC was. And they can take that information with them because at the end of the day, we’re all selling a commodity.
[00:26:54] Like yes, some people might grow better. Some people might extract it better. Some people might package it better, but if you [00:27:00] understand how cannabis works at a fundamental level, in theory, I should be able to go into a dispensary, read a product label and understand, Hey, well, relatively, this is my dose range.
[00:27:08] And I’m looking for these cannabinoids or these turpines and get somewhere closer to the outcome that I’m particularly looking at.
[00:27:14] Bryan Fields: That’s an incredible story. And I think focusing on educational is so much value for these customers because I’m sure the first time that there’s a lot of information, but that second time they come back, they’re probably feeling so much more comfortable in understanding where to navigate and that decision tree, because it is kind of an overwhelming experience.
[00:27:29] And you’re right, when you go to another state and you walk in and there’s a hundred products and you’re like, oh shit. But then you’re, I think about it, like, Shayda helped me. This is where I start. This is what I don’t like. This is where I need to focus. It’s so it’s so positive in that back because at least from what I hear, the stories in my state are sometimes they’re negative sentiments, right?
[00:27:46] Someone got some pot from someone who’s a whatever. Doug dealer, whatever they want to call themselves, like a doctor, various names here, and they had bad experience. Right. And it’s like, it’s the same stuff. And it’s like, how do you know? It’s literally in a bag that has no [00:28:00] labels. There’s nothing on it.
[00:28:00] Like, you’ve no idea. He could not be telling the truth. You don’t even know this person. And I’m really trying to push my parents’ age to get a wheat from that to stop thinking about it like that. Because like, we can’t be labeling pot, like scary spots, sleeping pot, and like happy pot. Like, that’s just not how it works.
[00:28:15] When you have three bags in front.
[00:28:17] Shayda Torabi: It definitely is a delicate conversation, right? Because it’s a little bit, again, the market is shaping that conversation. So, I mean, it’s really hard when you have brands that are taking advantage of these consumers. And like, for me, that’s ultimately who I’m in business for.
[00:28:34] And I always reflect I’m a consumer before I’m a business owner. And so I think that having that guiding light is really where we found a lot of success. Because if I don’t understand this product or I don’t resonate with this product, I’m not going to put that product on my shelf. But again, no disrespect to anybody who wants to play the game the way they want to play the game.
[00:28:54] I’m a big believer. The game is always being played. And if you think of the game is being played, then shame on you. You’re already losing so [00:29:00] fine. You want to go sell a bunch of ducks to eight cards to college kids and swipe one over on them and tell them that it’s Delta nine and then maybe they get sick and then they don’t know who you are.
[00:29:08] And you just inject yourself out of the conversation. Like. It’s fine, but that’s honestly really fucked up and really scary. And so I think by having these conversations more out in the open, hopefully build some more self-regulation and some sort of, you know, ownership to the industry of, I genuinely want to see cannabis legalized in Texas.
[00:29:28] And so it doesn’t benefit me. If I sell a customer, something in a transactional approach, like, Hey, buy this, buy this hundred milligram Delta eight gummy, it’s going to really blow your mind. Like I see brands who do that and it comes in little bags, look like Skittles or nerds rope or whatever the flavor of the brand is.
[00:29:45] And then I’m thinking who’s actually buying this stuff. But then I see it on social media people I know who are like, oh, I’ve just picked up this, you know, Skittles vape cart. And I’m like, that’s not even a real brand. I don’t even know why you would buy that or who was [00:30:00] convincing you to buy that, but consumers are.
[00:30:03] And so it’s like we’re caught in this kind of weird black, gray, whatever area where. You really don’t have any sort of authority to prevent this bad business happening. And so all you can really try to do is keep shining the light and kind of educating both the industry, which is where I think my podcast has been really effective for me is just like calling out the bullshit.
[00:30:26] Like I do call up businesses and brands when I see things that are not being done in the favor of the industry, but also trying to protect that consumer because as a Texas business against. I have to operate like a consumer, if that consumer going back to them, right? Like they’re the influencer to me, the consumer is the influencer.
[00:30:45] When they have a positive experience with a product that in some information or education that they learned from me, and then they’re having a conversation at their dinner table with their children or their friends at happy hour, or with their doctor, like this woman who came with her son. She came in and she was [00:31:00] like telling me how it was working for her.
[00:31:02] And she wasn’t obviously like, it saved me and like, I don’t have cancer anymore, but she was saying, wow, I noticed my anxiety was, you know, going down, especially, I guess they call it white coat syndrome where you go and see so many doctors, your body just gets so anxious because you’re dealing with all this medical crap.
[00:31:17] She was acknowledging how much more calm she was going through this process of dealing with these different, you know, stages of going through having cancer. But she said that she brought it up to her oncologist and she was like, I wanted to tell you my oncologist, I brought up that I was using CBD and my oncologist was like, I guess.
[00:31:33] Say or recommend for you to use cannabis, but if you bring the information to them, they can at least kind of, you know, oh, like that’s okay. Like I’m okay with that. And so she was like, yeah, my oncologist was okay with me using CBD. She’s like my PA was okay with me using CBD. And like that to me is what it’s about.
[00:31:50] It was empowering this woman in this like horrible time of her life, like navigating, like what’s happening in her body with some information around [00:32:00] how cannabis could potentially help her during this time and giving her that confidence to then go stand up and have those conversations with her doctors, her children, her friends.
[00:32:09] And so now she’s becoming that influencer in her community of, Hey, this is like the dose that worked for me. These are the products that I felt really resonated. And so. I’m hopeful that that is where the industry is going to continue to trend. As we bring cannabis more into the light, more people are going to, you know, feel more comfortable sharing their stories because we see the flip side too.
[00:32:31] I mean, like you said, that people who buy crappy products and then they have the attitude of cannabis doesn’t work, or this is great. This is shitty. And, you know, I hate that. I hate that people have bad experiences and then they get turned off from the plan, because at the end of the day, I, I need, I want them to be positive, whether you like cannabis or not, those are the voters.
[00:32:48] Those are the people who are helping influence it to be adopted into our society and community. So it’s a very you know, circular kind of approach and thought process. But I really believe in the power of having these [00:33:00] one-to-one conversations, empowering the consumer with proper information and education, supplementing it with really great, you know, quality products.
[00:33:07] And then just kind of having that dialogue to make them feel empowered, to try doses, try products, and then obviously influence their community around.
[00:33:16] Bryan Fields: So important in a state like Texas, especially getting the word out and trusted relationships is going to what’s help make a big difference because obviously the flip side is a negative experience.
[00:33:25] They share with one person and then four people, and then 10 people on a CNO, there’s a hundred people who were against tinctures because of one off-putting experience. And that person might’ve purchased the bad product was expecting different results, so on and so forth. So I really think you’re spot on with the way to go about that.
[00:33:40] And, you know, it seems like you’re, you’re absolutely killing it. So I’m glad you brought up the podcast. I really wanted to pick your brain on this. I love the name to be blunt, which guests that you’ve had on and shocked.
[00:33:51] Shayda Torabi: Ooh, shocked me. You know, it’s really interesting. I learned so much from the podcast.
[00:33:58] I think that’s something that like, I [00:34:00] I’m really proud of the person that like I’ve become and grown into the industry in terms of the amount of information that I’ve absorbed and like how to digest it and navigate it. I can’t say that there’s like one episode in particular that’s shocked me, but kind of what comes to mind is.
[00:34:15] You know, I get asked all the time, oh, are you going to open a legal dispensary when Texas legalizes or, oh, you know, federal legalization, it’s coming down the pipeline. You know, we got the Democrats in office or, you know, whatever their topic of conversation does, your is of like how the industry is going to unfold.
[00:34:31] And I think for me, the most shocking is just when I have these guests share these stories. Like I’m about to release an episode with a gentleman named Mike out of Chicago. And he was in the process of getting his license cause Colorado legalize recreation, and was just going through some of the nuances of how these, you know, quote unquote lottery systems are done, how licenses get released how the state operates, the relationship to [00:35:00] how.
[00:35:00] The licenses are awarded and how the op like the opportunities are like dealt with. And so kind of like the summation of that. Right. And like, reflecting on the flip side, I had a guest, a previous episode that is public with Liz Odell she’s out of California. She works for Cantor craft. Currently, previously was with med men.
[00:35:17] She was sharing how you have this industry in California, where this is like prior to recreation, but like your medical dispensary and then like legalization for rec is coming. And so you’re like, oh, assumptive, like, oh, I’m probably going to get a rec license. And the just like shift of not having that guarantee.
[00:35:35] Right. Like I just think people assume that cannabis is going to be like another industry and you see it all the time. The big execs come from Netflix or Amazon and they want to be in the industry. Or I interviewed, you know, someone wants and they came from the toy industry and trying to apply it into cannabis.
[00:35:50] And I think that there’s nothing wrong with that per se. But I do think that cannabis is its own beast. And so for me just being really vigilant to [00:36:00] understand and be perceptive to how the states have transitioned and what’s gone down in these different, you know, avenues towards legalization, like Oklahoma flipped really quick people like, oh, Texas could do the same thing.
[00:36:13] No Texas won’t do the same thing. Oklahoma has no other economy. Texas has massive economies. Our economy doesn’t need cannabis. So our governor doesn’t care about that boosts necessarily. So you just, you start to piece apart all these different stories, which again has given me a really great purview of like what to kind of expect.
[00:36:31] Florida being an example, they’re vertically integrated require their limited licensure. There’s 13 licenses that are operated by seven entities and some of them have multiple licenses. So it’s very locked in system. So people like, again, what are you going to do with Texas? I’m like, well, But I don’t really know what Texas is going to do because we’re a two year state and we haven’t progressed medical far enough for me to see where recreation is going.
[00:36:52] And so I think all of that to sum up is probably the most shocking is just getting to hear the true stories of like literal [00:37:00] people who were operating in these diff dates of actually what’s happening versus the hearsay. Speculation of like assuming, oh, this party’s an office. Of course we’re going to have federal legalization.
[00:37:11] Well, I’m sorry. Newsflash. Anybody who wants federal legalization should be very, very concerned because interstate commerce is very scary, California. Can’t get their shit together, Colorado. Can’t get their shit together. We have no standardizations on what is the dose, what to put on a label? What, there’s no standardization for fucking testing.
[00:37:29] I hear so much discrepancies when it comes to testing. So you think to me, that federal legalization is around the corner and we’re all just going to smack her hands and I’m going to have a dispensary at the end of it. Like, that’s fucking stupid. Sorry. I’m cussing a lot, but that’s the, that’s the, the blunt part of me coming out.
[00:37:44] But I think that is really the the fun that I get to have doing my podcast is just having these conversations and having people share their stories and really peeling back the curtain to get a really good pulse on. Huh. So you say you want to work in Canada. Okay. What does that [00:38:00] actually look like today?
[00:38:01] Five years from now, 10 years from now. So it’s
[00:38:03] Bryan Fields: so hard to write. It’s not just as easy as flipping on a light switch. Don’t have banking, right? Like, like, oh my God, we’re just talking about like basic necessities, insurance banking. Like we’re not asking for so much here. We just want the basics to actually have the infrastructure to stand up and then we can talk about all those other fun stuff.
[00:38:18] So Kaylin kind of dive in there from an approach, right? The licenses with Texas Florida approach. I mean, all of these strategic approaches, but the vertical integration kind of all get miss mangled, right? When the interstate commerce comes down, the whole game gets changed again. It’s one of those where it’s like, everyone’s got these cards, they dealt, they built these four to five modes.
[00:38:36] And then we’re all going to have to like throw some cards back in from a poker standpoint and replay the game. So how is that all going to work first
[00:38:42] Kellan Finney: off, as far as how states approach licensing that has to do with the people in power period, right? Like Florida, as much as anyone wants to deny it. That a lot of people’s pockets were probably greased.
[00:38:55] And I mean, the fact that 13 licenses were only released and like, [00:39:00] oh, when we get another a hundred thousand patients we’ll release the license. Oh, but there’s some red tape and all that will be another year. And like at the end of the day, we’re at a precipice in the industry with those kinds of situations.
[00:39:11] And I mean, it’ll be very interesting to see how New York, New Jersey and the tri-state are handled as well, because these limited license states, the argument that the people sitting on top of the mountain are making is that, oh, less states are easier to regulate. Right. And Illinois perfect example, they were going to release a bunch of licenses.
[00:39:30] And then five of the big companies got licenses and then COVID hit and they’re like, oh, we can’t approve any licenses at all anymore. Nope. And so like two years go by and then all of a sudden they have to Sue and there’s a bunch of lawsuits that go on. And so like, it’s just dirty. At the end of the day.
[00:39:44] Right. And like, that’s where I think we’re at a precipice is because like, as the industry continues to grow, it’s a really slippery slope from product safety to the corruptness of how licensing is being handled. Like is the cannabis [00:40:00] industry, just the next big tobacco industry. Right. And that’s going to be tough, right.
[00:40:03] Because if a, we can’t get our testing together, like California test for 60 plus past sides, Colorado, I think tests for 13, 14, right? Like it’s so polar opposites in terms of testing requirements that it’s nauseated. Right? So like who’s going to make the safer product and how are you going to transport those products across the state?
[00:40:23] Those are massive, massive questions. And at the end of the day, if all it takes is like another massive like vape gate prices where it is actually something that was just overseeing because people were trying to get rich quick then. I mean, you’re just going to see. 20 30, 40 years down the line where people have been consuming these pesticides and cannabis and it gets tied back to it.
[00:40:42] And oh, next thing, you know, like there’s going to be a massive war on cannabis again. And so like, that’s where I think we’re in a really unique, unique place in the industry personally. And, and it doesn’t help when like you hear people call truly monopoly, right? Like that doesn’t help the industry at all because like monopolies are [00:41:00] not supposed to be allowed.
[00:41:00] And like, technically if you own more inventory than the rest of the industry combined, and you own more locations to sell set inventory and you’re playing completely different games, like that’s a straight monopoly. And so like, it’s a really interesting time right now prior to February legalization.
[00:41:20] And I agree with Shayda it’s, there’s no way we could go federal right now. No way it would just literally it would open a can of worms and it would just put a bad taste in everyone’s mouth that. Had been convinced that maybe Canada’s wasn’t the devil’s lettuce, you know what I mean? What are your thoughts on that Brian?
[00:41:37] For so
[00:41:37] Bryan Fields: long, I was like hopeful that we could get it to work and it could happen federally. And like the more we build into this podcast, the more it feels like the laundry list of stuff we need to accomplish before we’re ready to do that is just getting longer. Like we still have people in prison and like, I don’t understand why it’s so complicated.
[00:41:56] I mean, I understand why it’s so complicated, but it’s been a long time now. Like we can [00:42:00] figure this out. Like, let’s get it together. We have the internet, we can put a group of people on it. And just one by one, let’s just, let’s get them out. Like this is stupid already. So, I mean, with the hurdles, like you said, The monopoly stuff I’m going to push back on.
[00:42:13] I don’t agree. And that’s a conversation we should probably have offline. Cause I don’t think they have enough equity. I think the other episodes are coming in aggressive. They’re all coming for it because they don’t believe that truly has as dominant of a strategic position. Right. And then my, my opinion, but I guess we’ll see what happens.
[00:42:28] And you
[00:42:28] Kellan Finney: spend a lot of time on the website and look at inventory and
[00:42:32] Bryan Fields: dispensary is right there. Crushing it right now. But I think it’s because they started so, so much out in front of everyone. Right. We
[00:42:39] Kellan Finney: should have this conversation because I mean, Florida releases requirements for new hydrocarbons. And now the only other company that has a hydrocarbon product line three days later is truly
[00:42:50] Bryan Fields: the kind of suspicious timing of that.
[00:42:52] It does seem a little suspicious and we can have that conversation other times[00:43:00]
[00:43:00] Kellan Finney: I’m a little passionate about,
[00:43:03] Shayda Torabi: but that’s it it’s like I have nothing against MSOE. In fact, I just did an episode with a smaller MSO Mary med, and they’re out of Maryland and trying to get I don’t, I, while I’m blonde and controversial, I never want to kind of, you know, be explicit in the sense that, because I believe there’s multiple ways to the top.
[00:43:21] And I really want to believe that, you know, we’ll all have our chance to be in the industry if we can learn from some of these things and kind of supersede what’s happening. But unfortunately, It’s kind of a shit show. And so you have these, I’m going to call it a monopoly also of these big brands that it’s the relationships, it’s the padding of pockets.
[00:43:39] It’s the, you know, scratching my back, I’ll scratch your back. And so you see people who have gotten an upper hand to be successful in an industry that is kind of preaching accessibility and like everybody having an opportunity. But then it’s like, well, we’ll legalize. The only if these people can have access to actually operating the industry, it’s a very unfortunate reality as someone who grew up [00:44:00] like smoking, you know, dope.
[00:44:01] And hotboxing her Toyota matrix in high school watching weeds, like all I wanted was just to be like in a day where I could sell cannabis or be in the NBA. Yeah, I’m getting a taste of it now, but I’m a very realistic person tracking what is happening in all these different markets. That’s giving me this, you know, equally sentimental, you know, experience of just like, I don’t know, dogs, like this is not looking good for, you know, the quote unquote craft side of the industry, unless you have this infrastructure or the finances or the relationships to actually.
[00:44:36] Stay in the industry. And so I think that’s where MSOE do have a bad reputation because it’s like for better or worse, you’re coming in. You’re monopolizing an industry that should have more variation in it. Like I think Florida has which like to bring it back to Texas, we have medical marijuana. It’s a very baby program.
[00:44:54] People hate that. I don’t actually call it a tree medical program, but it’s not. If I have to have really specific conditions and I [00:45:00] can only buy it from like two places like that, to me is not a medical program. It’s not accessible. And so until we have a proper medical program, like Texas, we’re still waiting, but we had one, there were three licenses for medical.
[00:45:11] One person is not active. One person was not doing anything for the past couple of years. And one was, and they were called Texas compassionate cultivation. So they’ve been operating their Texas. Blah, blah blah. Then the second license came out of dormancy. It’s actually from Florida. It’s sir, Tara who changed their name to parallel, who then changed their name to good blends.
[00:45:33] And like, why change your name? Why you gotta kind of be shady shifty kind of like moving the puck around different places. Very sneaky in my opinion. I want to give them the benefit of the doubt coming into Texas. My, you know, unofficial 2 cents is everybody should be really concerned for recreation in Texas, because I believe this MSO is going to come in.
[00:45:50] They’re going to push for better medical and then they’re going to kind of do it for, oh, we got it. And then that’s all. And we have the licenses and we’re vertically integrated in y’all can’t [00:46:00] have anything and we’re not going to go wreck at anytime since I have so much fun MSO. So, you know, again, I hate being that person who’s like MSS are bad.
[00:46:07] I don’t think they’re explicitly bad. I do believe some are operating out of goodness and innovation in the industry, but when it becomes to their operating in such a. Multi-state market it. It gives me a lot of caution when we do start to ease into talking about, you know, opening up state lines, who’s going to have the upper hand in that conversation.
[00:46:26] Bryan Fields: I think it all comes back to the fact that the game a hundred percent agrees is extremely expensive, but the way the rules have been currently made makes the game even more expensive. So these monopolies unfortunately, are being created, you know, but to play the game the right or the wrong way, unfortunately that’s just the way it works.
[00:46:40] I’ve got a question. Appreciate why is the license not operating? Why is that third company that you mentioned? Why, why is it. Why have they not opened up shop? I
[00:46:48] Shayda Torabi: don’t know necessarily the specifics. I can’t even really place the name of the company. I honestly don’t know how Satara parallel good blends got their license.
[00:46:58] Cause I don’t think they were the original [00:47:00] license holder. I think they purchased it from another dormant license holder. I think when Texas originally opened up licenses, it was a cash land grab, essentially. It was like, oh, I’ve just got to get licensed. And then they got the license and then they realized it was really, really stringent.
[00:47:12] So the, the peak into our medical program is we have only max 0.5% Delta nine THC, which was just up to 1% as of September 1st and our last legislative session. So with who? By weight 1% by weight we went from epilepsy. Two incurable diseases to this last legislative session, they upped it to include PTSD and cancer.
[00:47:37] We were hoping it would give chronic pain and go up to 5%. Again, I went to 1% and we got PTSD and cancer still good. But then you have these now two license holders, the way that it works in Texas, you either have to pay for those products to be delivered to you. So I live in Austin. I have the luxury, the two license holders are in south Austin and San Marcus.
[00:47:55] Not close to me, but within an hour, I can make the drive if I had my medical [00:48:00] card. But if I’m in Corpus Christi, I’m in the panhandle, how do I get my medicine? I have to either go to the facility and pick up myself or pay for it to be delivered. I’m limited to gummies. Sublinguals think maybe topicals, but definitely no smokable walls.
[00:48:14] It’s a very restricted program. Why was so it’s vertically integrated required? So it’s like the operation to set up to then dose out. And then like the amount of, I keep seeing these stats, the on of people who qualify for medical marijuana, given the current, you know, stipulations aren’t even actually getting their licenses because it’s such a crazy program to actually be a part of.
[00:48:34] So I have a few friends who just qualify, they just got their license or their medical card. I should say, they’re going to kind of test it out and see what the program is. Like. I’m even someone who with my car accident, I’m trying to get qualified for PTSD so I can give the good old state’s medical program, you know, an opportunity.
[00:48:51] But I think that’s why people are realizing, again, it’s not a, we’re going to get into cannabis and we’re going to make all this money and we’re going to have lines out the doors and we’re going to be able to solve these [00:49:00] products. Now you have the state then placing all these restrictions on how people get their products, who even qualifies to get their products were products.
[00:49:06] You can create how those products get distributed. And so it was become a like, We’re thinking a lot of money into this. I don’t know if we’re getting the return. So kind of the sentiment as Texas brands in general, even from a head perspective, we get a lot of people who, with the last legislative session, especially the scare with Delta eight, there was a lot of people who I literally was watching their mouths drop when they’re realizing, like we thought legalization was coming sooner.
[00:49:29] And it’s like, I don’t know who you’ve been talking to, but that’s farce. Like, that’s not true, but their assumption was I’m going to be in hemp and I’m going to hang on and I’m going to wait until we becomes legal. And it’s like, what? You’re going to wait for three years, seven years, 10 years. I project Texas won’t legalize for eight years.
[00:49:45] So. You want to be in the industry, sinking money and maybe your brand succeeds, maybe it doesn’t, I don’t know. It’s it’s a gamble for a lot of people in the state right now, but that’s my observation. Yeah.
[00:49:55] Bryan Fields: That that’s perfect. I didn’t even think about that. Right? Like they make it so, so expensive to set up [00:50:00] shop and then once you set up shop, it is such a tiny customer base that you have an opportunity to go to.
[00:50:05] I mean, you’re just without, without right. Without fading too. Right. You kind of gotta be super
[00:50:10] Kellan Finney: rich to even play the game.
[00:50:12] Shayda Torabi: We’re not even on top of it. There’s only so many doctors who will prescribe it because they’re afraid of losing their license. And so like, let’s say I have PTSD. The way that it goes is I have to go to my primary care.
[00:50:25] They have to diagnose me with PTSD. I have to try every other medication. What medications do not work. Then I have the option of then going to a cannabis doctor and then having them qualify me. So you have people who are epileptic. They’re literally dealing with seizures. They got to go on every seizure medication and having.
[00:50:42] Well, they’re having seizures and then have the opportunity to then go see a cannabis doctor to then have them be given 10 milligrams of Delta nine THC in a gummy. I mean,
[00:50:56] I have friends who have endometriosis. She literally is like, I can’t [00:51:00] get strong enough stuff in Texas. I have to move for my sake of the health of my body has four kids picked up and moved to Colorado. I’ve noticed
[00:51:06] Kellan Finney: a lot of texts in Colorado recently. Honestly,
[00:51:12] a lot of Texas. We welcome
[00:51:15] Shayda Torabi: them. Yeah. Well, we got a lot of California plates, so I’d rather have, yeah,
[00:51:20] Kellan Finney: sure. There was a, there was a big
[00:51:22] Bryan Fields: leaving of California to Texas, Texas that spot before Miami was the spot. Right. So let’s, let’s switch gears. Since you’ve been in the cannabinoid industry, what is the biggest misconception?
[00:51:33] Shayda Torabi: I think from a consumer perspective, just what is gonna affect my body and how’s it going to affect my body? I think there’s still a lot of unknowns when it comes to these minor cannabinoids. Even though I do sell Delta eight, I’m very perceptive and aware of the repercussions. Long-term I mean, Kellen, you even brought it up from a federal legal div, you know, with the lack of regulations, we really truly don’t know what the impact is going to be.
[00:51:57] Long-term for some of these cannabinoids and even these consumption [00:52:00] methods, it’s like people come in, they ask me, you know, oh, is smoking health is like smoking weed or smoking hemp healthy. And I’m like, Well, no, you’re still smoking, but like, is it better than tobacco? Probably. So like myself as the example, I was a huge tobacco smoker for 10 years.
[00:52:15] I know shocker, but I did that. And then I transitioned to smoking way more weed. Like, is it better for me? I think so. Cause I feel better, but I’m still smoking. And so I think you have consumers who just, they don’t realize how these products are going to affect them. And the market doesn’t really understand how it’s going to affect them.
[00:52:32] And like, not even to mention edibles and the discrepancies with edibles and then like dosing and how much someone should take. And what’s the effect of that going to be. So I think maybe not a misconception, but an opportunity rather is like, I love microdosing. I think micro-dosing is super topical right now.
[00:52:47] I think a lot of brands are getting into it in the California market, especially. And I think it’s really smart because you have. New consumers who were hitting the market. Again, I always try to put the hat on, like me I’ll eat the [00:53:00] brownie at the party and not ask questions. Like, was it 10 milligrams at a hundred milligrams?
[00:53:04] Like, I definitely overdosed myself because I didn’t ask questions or I didn’t read the label properly. I’ve also, unfortunately, you know, overdosed friends because I, me, and I’m like, you’ll be fine. And they’re like, I’m not you. And that made me feel really crazy. So you have these new consumers who were trying to like, you know, get with it, be hit with the cannabis and they don’t really understand how cannabis actually works in their body.
[00:53:25] And so I think again, conversely, you have brands who are selling, here’s a hundred milligram Delta, eight edible that’s this size and it’s like less seems harmless. And then you’re tripping and, you know, it’s a new consumer and then that’s a bad experience. And is that a lawsuit? Is that you know, just a hospital visit is that then turning them off of cannabis.
[00:53:44] So it has obviously a lot of repercussions to it, but yeah,
[00:53:48] Bryan Fields: you could sum up your experience in a main takeaway or lesson learned to pass onto the next generation.
[00:53:55] Shayda Torabi: What would it be? Well, I don’t think this is cannabis specific, but this is what has gotten me [00:54:00] through life. And it’s a thing that my mom taught me and it’s just to show up, you know, I think cannabis is one of those industries that people often are like, well, how do I, like I had a guy he’s like, how do you, how do you market?
[00:54:12] How do you do it? I’m like show up, ask questions, like good for you for asking me the question. But like, I also can’t do the work for you. So I think people are looking for the easy route to take advantage of the industry or the opportunity cannabis or anything. And so the best thing I can say is show up, go to the trade show, like reach out to that person on Instagram, like ask the brand the question, like, let them tell you in their words, what’s going on with their product or that thing that they’re, you know, talking about.
[00:54:40] And so just be really present because the industry is moving really fast. And so if you’re not there, you might miss it. So
[00:54:47] Bryan Fields: show up. I love that prediction. You already kind of hit at it, but I’m going to have to ask formally two part question. What month and year will Texas vote to legalize adult rec.
[00:54:59] And then [00:55:00] when will you Shayda be able to purchase a product? How
[00:55:04] Shayda Torabi: long after? So Texas is a two year legislative state. So for sure the month that it would legalize, well, it’s kind of a two-part right? So it legalizes in June and then it would be in effect in September. So that’s going to be my month prediction.
[00:55:22] And what’s eight years from now. 20 29, 20 29. Yeah. I say 20, 29 for Texas, just because we’re a two year state. And so give me some grace, because I think that this three or four legislative session, I think we should have been 2020 for some reason with COVID. But I think we’re about seven to eight years out because I don’t think that you’ll see, even if they federally legalized, Texas is Texas, we’re strong.
[00:55:47] We’re not going to just turn over. And I do believe so far, anybody who’s been in office has said that they will leave it up to the states to make decisions. And you have not seen anybody go full on wreck without going medical. So until I see Texas have [00:56:00] proper medical access, which I’m hoping in two years, maybe we get chronic pain and then maybe in two years we get more dispensary’s and more licenses.
[00:56:10] And then maybe in two years we get, you know, it starts to kind of appeal back. So 20, 29, September 1st going into effect. So. On the record with hemp though, we, they, they legalized pretty fast in terms of licenses. So I don’t know if Texas at that point will take that long for it to actually take into effect.
[00:56:29] I think once legalization you’ll probably see it within a year. So probably by 2030, I would say I’ll be able to buy a product legally in the state of Texas.
[00:56:39] Kellan Finney: And I think that Texas will move quick. They get stuffed on when they put their foot down. I mean the camp, the federal government farm bill passed 10th in 2018 and he saw within two years, Texas, how to have program, you know what I mean?
[00:56:52] And they’re a big ag state. They can see the capital they can generate. So I think that. If it [00:57:00] goes federal like decriminalized, then I could potentially see Texas moving really quickly just to capture their market share. And so a large ag state and yeah, I mean, Texas has a huge GDP, right? Like globally. I think they’re like the third largest GDP, if you consider that.
[00:57:17] Yeah. They’re their own country, which is just insane. Right. And so, but even with that said like there’s money to be made, right. It could be a hundred billion dollar industry by 2030 and, you know, Those be everyone from Texas I’ve met likes money. That’s weird.
[00:57:37] So I could see it going that way. I could also see Texas, not even participant in the industry and just being like, you can ship it there. And we’ll just focus on our, our cash crops that we have right now from like a fiber perspective. But all of those other things. That’s the other thing I’ve noticed about Texas as they are within that their hemp program.
[00:57:52] Yeah.
[00:57:53] Shayda Torabi: We’re very much,
[00:57:54] Kellan Finney: they’re much more focused on industrial building materials with our head
[00:57:57] Shayda Torabi: program. Yeah. So I don’t know if y’all knew this, but [00:58:00] Texas just went through a hemp smokable ban. So in 2019, it was legalized in 2020, the department of state health services, which regulates co-ed health and the state.
[00:58:13] Cannabis hemp. They were like, whoa, we didn’t know you guys were going to smoke this. So now we got to deal with the smoking and they literally put a ban in place, prohibiting us from retail, selling, manufacturing, and processing. Then we could, when you like talk to lawyers, it’s like, okay, well you can sell it as non smokeable as wink, wink.
[00:58:32] Right? So like, oh, it was just loose, bud, whatever. Then the judge presiding over the case, put a pause on the band. So for the last, like, you know, eight months, we were like, Ooh, we’re selling it. But like, what’s the outcome going to be? Well, three weeks ago, I think four weeks ago, maybe at this point the judge decided it was unconstitutional, so they opened it up.
[00:58:47] But there was a little moment in between where the judge gave her final ruling where she said it was legal for us to retail sale, but you still could not manufacture or process. So basically Texas was like, [00:59:00] Sell, but just don’t sell from our state. So totally taking the economic opportunity out of the hands of Texas.
[00:59:06] So for a week and a half, we were kind of like, wait, what the fuck? Like that sucks. So it’s kind of stuff like that, that like you hear and you witness and you’re like, I don’t know what Texas is going to do. They’re literally that crazy. Ex-girlfriend who’s like, I’m like today, I’m going to do this. And tomorrow I’m really sweet.
[00:59:22] So I don’t know. Then you have, like you said, the industrial side is really popular. I think that Texas is really keen on that.
[00:59:30] Bryan Fields: I’m sorry to interrupt him to Bailey stop that. Like, if you think big tobacco, they’re like, whoa, like we’re not losing market share for people
[00:59:36] Kellan Finney: smoking this. They should be smoking tobacco.
[00:59:40] Bryan Fields: But like why, like who’s putting the kibosh on it is my question. I think
[00:59:44] Shayda Torabi: it was just the politicians in Texas who didn’t realize that we were interesting towards marijuana because obviously hemp looks like marijuana. So they’re like, whoa, this is crazy. You’re smoking dope. Yeah. Our cops don’t know how
[00:59:59] Kellan Finney: to tell [01:00:00] the difference.
[01:00:00] Shayda Torabi: And so it was a regulatory thing of like, well, we don’t know how to deal with this. So we’re just going to make sure you can’t sell it right now until we can figure it out. Oh, by the way, we haven’t figured it out. So like, we’re just going to kind of like. Fuck with you guys. There’s nothing
[01:00:14] Bryan Fields: better when you have a problem, they just punting it down the road to deal with it.
[01:00:17] At a later point, there’s nothing better with an ongoing Brian, be like, I’m not handling this for at least six months. So we’ll just
[01:00:23] Kellan Finney: stick that in the closet.
[01:00:25] Shayda Torabi: Well, it’s not like it’s even like resolved, right? So we have this break now, but like I’m also waiting. So kind of two things, one next legislative session, they could potentially deal with something if they still have this strong sentiment.
[01:00:36] Like you really, when you look at Texas, they’re like, yeah, agriculture animal feed, like hen, CRE, but they really are just tasteful towards the smokable hemp and the Delta eight and things like that. So you have this division where it’s like, we don’t know how to legalize. Cause if we legalize, you’re going to do bad stuff and we just want you to do the animal stuff.
[01:00:53] And so they’re kind of conflicted in what happens with the Delta ACE stuff. Especially I just saw on the FDA kind of came [01:01:00] out with some updates on Delta eight, which will be really crazy to see how that actually impacts Texas market, because I’m a really big believer. Yes, we sold all to AA, but we are a brand first and foremost.
[01:01:11] And so I think that people who didn’t build brands and they were just building businesses to sell, I’m sure you see it all the sign time CBD sell here on the side of the fucking road. Like, who are you? I dunno. What are you selling to me? Farmer’s market look like what’s in your product. I don’t know. So I think those people who are really kind of like escaping by right now, cause Delta aids legal.
[01:01:31] If Delta eight goes away, you’re going to see a lot of consolidation in the Texas market because who really is going out and buying CBD oil to suffice a bit.
[01:01:40] Bryan Fields: Yeah, that’s that’s really well said. So Shayda for our listeners that want to hear more, we’ll link up all in the show notes, but tell them where they can
[01:01:47] Shayda Torabi: get into yes.
[01:01:48] Find me on Instagram, the shaded Turabi for just type in Shayda Trabi on Google. You’ll find all about me all about my brand restart CBD we’re on Instagram. We have a bunch of great YouTube videos, very education [01:02:00] forward as we’ve emphasized a billion times in this episode. And if you want to listen to more of my unfiltered thoughts on all things cannabis on my podcast, a to be blunt is where you can find it on any podcast channel.
[01:02:11] So I really appreciated the conversation today. This was really fun. And I said a lot of things that I’m sure people will have a lot of thoughts and opinions about. So please reach out to me. I love having dialogue. [01:02:22] Bryan Fields: That’s the perfect. Thanks so much for your time. Thanks for.
