Category: Blog Post

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!

Bryan Fields (Twitter: @bryanfields24) and Kellan Finney (Twitter: @Kellan_Finney) broke down the Medical Cannabis Industry with Dr. Jean Talleryand of MediCann.

Dr Talleryand’s 20 years in the medical field make him an expert when it comes to Cannabis as a form of medicine. Listen now to hear Bryan, Kellan and Dr. Talleryand discuss the following:

• What is The Dosing Project™?
• Why is the medical industry slow to adapt to new changes?
• How does one decide if medical marijuana is a good fit?
• How are providers being educated on what products to pick?
• What are the most common uses for Medical Cannabis?

Subscribe to The Dime Podcast on your favorite streaming service or by visiting: https://www.eighthrevolution.com/the-dime-podcast

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[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 Finney here with me. And this week we’ve got a very special guest back the T in the building back to tea.

[00:00:21] Thanks for taking the time. How are you doing today?

[00:00:23] Dr. Jean: Doing well. Thanks for asking me to be alive.

[00:00:29] Knowing how you doing,

[00:00:30] Kellan: doing well, just a Scott down and joined the 4th of July out here in Colorado. So it’s another sunny day. Just looking forward to the rest of the week

[00:00:39] Bryan Fields: for sure.

[00:00:40] Dr. T it’d be great to kind of get into your background and how you got into the

[00:00:44] Dr. Jean: space.

[00:00:44] So I first heard about cannabis in California during my residency, so that’s more than 20 years ago. I finished residency. I started in 1995 and finished in 92. Toward the end of my residency, I had a patient come to me and asked me to sign this form. And I guess I had known cannabis in college and pretty much dropped it from there.

[00:01:07] You know, medical school training is pretty rigorous and it’s tough to keep yourself together and be using regularly. So the patient really struck me because. Was not asking for opiates for his chronic pain. In fact, he was handing them over to me and asking me to sign this paper and said, that’s just fascinating as well.

[00:01:29] I, you know, I I’m trained in family medicine and was specifically looking at complimentary and alternative. Medicines. So things like traditional Chinese medicine puncture, so Canada’s fit right into the herbalism paradigm. And so really worked with what I was interested in. And here I was in Northern California watching the community using cannabis.

[00:01:53] It was perfect to learn more about it. So I signed a paper and the patient was pretty happy. Pain under control. And I said, wow, this big, you know people handing out, usually they come into your office and they’re asking for pain medicines or for hope prescriptions. And so this was before the whole crackdown on opiates.

[00:02:12] But to see this was really looking into the future and going, wow, this is going to change the medical industry as it’s still doing that.

[00:02:21] What year was that?

[00:02:22] That was 98. So my last year of residency, and then back then, there were some clubs in, that’s what they call them in San Francisco, Dennis Perone clubs.

[00:02:35] There’s a club called champs. And, you know, once they heard that, that I was a doctor willing to entertain their use of cannabis, that they. Budding to me. So I began to learn more from my patients and more about the plan and how it works. See that it had many benefits, including treating chronic pain,

[00:02:55] Now,

[00:02:56] Bryan Fields: let’s kind of dive into that.

[00:02:57] Obviously 98 was a very different time than we are now. Were you hesitant at the time to kind of sign off on that because you took a very different route than many of your peers would have taken. And some might’ve been very hesitant to kind of sign off on that. That would be the road less traveled. So can you kind of hear how you thought about that decision?

[00:03:18] That’s a tough one.

[00:03:18] Dr. Jean: Absolutely.

[00:03:19] Well, you know, complimentary and alternative medicine is also a bit less travel than surgeries, traditional pharmaceutical. Medicine. So I was already putting myself from their friend. Yeah. At first I kind of laughed at it cause I didn’t know the science behind cannabis.

[00:03:35] And I just saw you ask them folks just trying to get hot. But as I learned the science side, you know, and learn the impact. Wow. It really changed my spine. It was good to get introduced to, you know, some physicians that had been doing this for awhile, you know, since the seventies trying to advocate for patients like that.

[00:03:56] Yeah, I’ve heard and rattler Todd Mikuriya, who were really pioneers in California in being advocates for patients. But yeah, I definitely put me in the fringe of the medical world. It’s something I was probably born to be anyway. I’m third generation physician. So I came in. Medical school was a little bit of a chip on my shoulder and having grown up with dinnertime conversations on the medical industry anyway.

[00:04:24] So it fit me pretty well

[00:04:27] Bryan Fields: after that first patient did a second patient come with a similar request, because like you were saying, others kind of flooded towards you. You know, if you’re interested in kind of taking a different route than the opioids, and you’re looking for a doctor to prescribe medical marijuana, that likely could have been one where either it took a little while, or it could have been quickly after.

[00:04:46] So how long roughly.

[00:04:48] Dr. Jean: Well, you know what one friend tells two friends and then so on, and then pretty soon the dispatch history or the club gets to know your name and what wasn’t long. I took a, a break, you know, after residency, wasn’t long, probably around 2000, 2001. I was seeing more patients than I could handle.

[00:05:08] And I took a little break and eventually realized that, Hey, this could be a business, you know, of course. Training as a physician doesn’t necessarily make you a good businessman. So it took a little while for it to distract me. Oh yeah. I guess this could be a business. So we started medic Canon in 2004 and Medi-Cal essentially was the Referral service that said patients interested in medical cannabis to two physicians to evaluate

[00:05:38] them.

[00:05:40] Bryan Fields: Some of those other physicians that kind of joined the network were, were there some that were hesitant to kind of be a part of it, obviously from a research standpoint, there might’ve been not as abundant of information back then. So like how did you communicate to them? All these opportunities and upsides, because one of the area to we’re looking to expand on is kind of the educational gap and communicating all the possible values.

[00:06:02] But where did you go there?

[00:06:04] Dr. Jean: It’s still a work in progress 20 years later, just to, you know, heads up the medical industries, just getting around to this idea of computers are a good thing. We’re really slow and conservative in regards to adopting new ideas. And cannabis is definitely one. At first, it wasn’t great.

[00:06:23] You know, I definitely would run into the fringe physicians, you know, who were just doing it to make money or, or do something out of different rebellious and sort of trying to train them to apply the science was a little hard, but over time I developed. A method. And now it’s interesting because what my goal is is to train physicians, to be, you know, a little bit researcher, a little bit prescriber, you know, using the idea of an equals one, you know, a case to look at the patient that way, rather than me telling them how to use the cannabis and what mostly it’s about education, rather than talking to the patient rather than.

[00:07:07] Dictating what they’re going to do. And that’s a little hard for physicians. We’re so used to knowing all the answers, you know, so teaching them to sort of regain their scientific explorative training and really be, you know, a research scientist rather than. Prescribers in the field, that’s really the goal.

[00:07:25] So it’s still hard to burden physicians because relinquishing that powerful position is part of the, how you become a medical cannabis physician. But it’s a very interesting, and you learn from the patients and you end up. Sharing that educational approach, educating, educating patients in your interaction.

[00:07:47] So, yeah, I don’t know if your experiences, when you seen physicians, is that was what the approach they had or just kind of find the paper and see you later. But really that’s what I’m trying to get docs to do is document what the use patterns are, understand the dosage and get specific about what you’re treating.

[00:08:07] And really worked with an experiment patients with new products, burying products, too. I have, for an example, I did. And you can stop talking, but I will talk forever. That’s for an example, I have one of my early patients was a four year old girl, a little girl. Who had that Mannix Gusto syndrome that was made popular or famous with Dr.

[00:08:33] Gupta’s using Charlotte’s web, but I had that patient also, or, and and we did also notice how CBD was really stop her seizures. But the problem of course, with the industry is that the plant is married. And so we would get great results for several months. And then when the batch change and here comes the seizures again, and we didn’t know what the, what was wrong.

[00:08:59] Well, it is different where we, you know, what had changed in the batch and I’d ask the growers. Did you change? Are the turpines changing? Well, of course they’re changing. Yeah. Probably causing her to have her seizures come back. So that really highlights the biggest issue with the industry now is how to take a variable plan, multiple chemicals, energy, and getting it to something predictable where we dose it and where we can understand exactly what combination of active ingredients are affecting the outcome.

[00:09:34] Right now, she is 13 and Using Epidiolex. So she’s come full circle on it. And it’s working by the way, trying to convince her neurologist to use Epidiolex years ago. It was a no go. We’ve actually, they’ve come around and now she’s successfully being treated with.

[00:09:58] Bryan Fields: It’s an amazing story. And Kellen, I want to go to you because I got a question about the variability of the, and then the PR person response is hear you’re building up the product and the variability of the individual.

[00:10:08] Are those going to be counterintuitive when approaching the success of a product?

[00:10:13] Kellan: Yeah, I

[00:10:13] mean, at the end of the day, I think this is why a lot of people nowadays, especially myself, Kind of criticized big pharma for only using like a one chemical approach for treating illnesses. But at the end of the day, it’s the most sound scientific approach in terms of trying to get results.

[00:10:35] Right. Just change one variable at a time. With cannabis there’s instances where you will create a product. And just like Dr. T was saying in terms of the variability from a terpene perspective, but there’s a bunch of other final chemicals that are present in an extract from cannabis. And when you start changing 8, 10, 12, 20 different chemicals in a quote-unquote medicine.

[00:10:59] It really, really makes it challenging to have reproducible results from a treatment

[00:11:04] Dr. Jean: perspective. Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s going to be a challenging for pharmacology and pharmacology is not developed with that in mind. So it really is sort of breaking new ground in pharmacology, but very exciting because it could really produce a whole group of new medicines.

[00:11:26] With multiple active ingredients that are acting synergistically. So yeah, very exciting to, you know, grab a cannabis, maybe an old plant, but it’s really pushing our, our methods to newer methods. So excellent. Direction thickness. I think

[00:11:42] Bryan Fields: sometimes those newer methods are challenging for people and for older generations, particular to kind of adjust to the possibilities.

[00:11:51] Maybe I haven’t prescribed cannabis before medically for these patients, but who am I to kind of pull this option off the table for some of these individuals and these poor children that are suffering from some of these upper, from some of these diseases, because there is that challenge, like you were saying, Dr.

[00:12:06] T of like, understanding that true nuances of the plan and then prescribing it sometimes is looked at as like a last resort when unfortunately. It’s too far down the line. It should be considered as an option upfront in order to help these people, because we’ve seen early signs that are positive. Sure.

[00:12:23] There’s not been an overwhelming amount of evidence early on to kind of give a strong sample size, but the early indications are strong. How do we communicate? It’s small sample sizes as a powerful starting ground to a larger material.

[00:12:38] Dr. Jean: Well, that’s a great question. Yeah. We just have a handful of folks who are well, you know, to bring back my, my example of the little girl who was on multiple medications and the seizures were not going away.

[00:12:52] And as you know, had surgical procedures to try to stop the seizures and they weren’t working completely either. So in, in the end, when you’re out. Options and you sort of brought up you know up against the wall, you know, and there is this one option it’s working, it forces you to go into it.

[00:13:11] So that’s kind of what I think it’s going to do in some ways unfair, you know, it’s pretty safe. I think pretty, because I think often many people say it’s completely safe and, and, you know, there are incidents, instances of folks getting hurt by using cannabis. Now, something as simple as having a fainting episode, as, as you take a to-be for, while you’re driving, you know, things like that.

[00:13:39] That we don’t talk about very much. So there are negatives to it, but overall it’s pretty safe, especially compared to some of the pharmaceuticals

[00:13:48] Bryan Fields: that are out there to push back on Callan’s biggest enemy. And if you’ve listened to a podcast for Kellen versus pharma is a reoccurring theme here. So, I mean, big pharma obviously is not going to want to give up their market share because it is a really in dollar and it might be even understanding the financial impact.

[00:14:05] What role is big form of going to play in the advancements of medical marijuana? Can they be an ally or are they going to be kind of this back and forth enemy? So partner in this, I want

[00:14:17] Kellan: to just take one quick, second. I think they can be an ally, but I think that the benefit of having cannabis not institutionalized within big pharma provides one benefit at this juncture.

[00:14:29] Say there is something really negative that happens. And it happens to an individual who has a very strong legal team from an experience standpoint. They could come after and shut the whole thing down because say it’s a couple big companies doing. The liability aspect and the legal lawsuits and all of that will come in and just crush a lot, a big company because they have the bank account to pay those punitive damages.

[00:14:58] And so if something negative happens, having a fragmented space right now, while we still work out the kinks from a medicinal standpoint, Could potentially help the industry stay afloat and continue to move forward. Because at the end of the day, the reason big pharma focuses on one chemical medicines is because of liability and lawsuits.

[00:15:19] You know what I mean? And, and at the end of the day, they’re trying to develop a medicine to treat a specific illness that is variable within every human, because humans are all different, right? Like personalized medicine is a thing, but it’s gonna take time. And while we work out the kinks of understanding how you put the five keys in the lock, instead of just one key in one lock it’s best to kind of have that on the fringe where some angry person can’t go after all of the capital required to continue that company to continue to work out those kinks.

[00:15:51] So that’s, I’m just going to I’ll end it right there, but that was my one little pro pro thought about the big pharma being involved.

[00:15:59] Dr. Jean: Yeah, I agree with you that Rick farmer can be an ally, but it really is frame shifting. Well, you know, first we all have this sort of enamored vision of the magic bullet, right?

[00:16:12] The magic bullet that can do all, you know, in one. And it’s just not realistic, but it’s great for industry because if you happen to own and produce the magic bullet, then, then it’s very simple. And every time. Add an extra active ingredient. The complexity is exponential, right? And so it’s not just the linear it’s, it’s an exponent.

[00:16:36] So going down that road is, you know, as, as my partner Dr. Abrams say, it’s like going down the rabbit hole, you know, you can get lost very quickly trying to figure out what magic bullets or what active multiple activities. I will do. And then people are very different and that’s something new in the pharma.

[00:16:58] I mean, the whole idea of precision medicine, where we actually will do a genetic swab, figure out what type you are right now. If you’ve got high blood pressure, you know, there are a handful of medicines we might prescribe to you for high blood pressure, but we wouldn’t really swab your cheek and figure out what your genetic makeup is before we prescribe the medicine.

[00:17:20] And that may be the future. So that may be where pharma is going, where we’re, we’re getting more and more precise. We’re dialing in through multivariate analysis and understandings, which group of chemicals may work for your individual position.

[00:17:39] Bryan Fields: Well, I want to agree with both of you. I just don’t think that’s how real life works.

[00:17:44] Big pharma is interested in owning their moat. They’ve got a stranglehold on how it works. They want less variables because they want to control how it works and they want to control the prices because at the end of the day, Kaelin, while I’d love for that to be accurate about fragments in a protected meaning.

[00:18:00] You don’t care about these personal gratitudes for people and actually helping people. In my opinion, they care about dollar signs, right? Like, because the opioid manufacturers didn’t really care that people were having all these issues. They cared about dollar signs. And at the end of the day, my opinion, what motivates big pharma.

[00:18:20] Kellan: I know, but one thing to just remember when you kind of stand that is big pharma cannot own the moat because these are chemicals that nature makes right. They cannot patent chemicals from nature. So that is where the it’s the most challenging aspect. And so with Epidiolex, They own a formulation that includes all of these products from cannabis plant, and then they also own the genetics.

[00:18:44] They keep it under lock and key. There’s a ton more trade secrets involved in how GW does business than most pharma companies. Most pharma companies are like, here’s our patents. Here’s our acts. Here’s our, why it’s out in the open. And there’s more trade secrets in terms of, they only source there, the biomass from one cultivator, right.

[00:19:05] They had to do it this way because they have to control the genetics and it’s under super, super lock and key the exact environment that they are cultivating it because those are dictating the chemical profiles and they can’t own that. And so like, that’s the biggest obstacle. And I know there’s a lot of really smart lawyers involved in big pharma, but at the end of the day, they’re not gonna be able to patent th.

[00:19:28] They’re not going to be able to patent CBD. Right. And so it’s going to have to be this special formulation and they’re going to have to get creative and start adding in synthetic chemicals that are not ubiquitous to nature.

[00:19:38] Dr. Jean: I believe the Epidiolex is just CBD oil,

[00:19:45] Kellan: but it’s a formulation, right? CBD is not schedule one, but it’s what they did.

[00:19:51] And this is just smart lobbyists, right. Is what they did is they formulated a various mixture of CBD and other oils to create Epidiolex. And then the formulation of Epidiolex is what was rescheduled to, to schedule three or whatever. Right.

[00:20:09] Bryan Fields: Is it just CBD? Isolate? I thought there was turpines and some THC in there.

[00:20:14] Dr. Jean: No,

[00:20:14] because every time they thought of leaving those in the complexity, Yeah, so they just ended up now, there is a formulation, how to, how they got to it, how many milligrams per kilogram. And then of course, you know, making it stable, which is what the rest of the non-pharmaceutical companies, manufacturers haven’t quite gotten onto it.

[00:20:40] Make the same thing every time doing that when you’ve got multiple ingredients gets tricky, but yeah, at 10 milligrams to 25 milligrams per kilogram, which is a whopping dose by the way. And not really what’s available out there in the industry in terms of, you know, can you get that by going to start at dispense?

[00:21:00] Very hard to get that dose. It requires you getting, you know, a couple of hundred milligrams per tablet for an adult size. So

[00:21:11] Bryan Fields: did your endocannabinoid system evolve over time? For example, if you’re five years old and then you’re 25 years old, do you need a different sort of formulation in order to kind of still attack that same issue?

[00:21:24] I’m

[00:21:24] Dr. Jean: not sure if the endocannabinoid system changes over time, but your body weight changes and we prescribed medicines based on body weight. It becomes less of an issue as you grow older part, especially for children. You know, as they’re rapidly changing body weight, better adjust the medicines. To that, that’s why I said that, you know, milligrams per kilogram body weight, then that’s what we were using to try to dose the Lennox, Gusto kids who were having those seizures.

[00:21:55] Bryan Fields: Grandmom’s perfectly says that a many to many problems as we just continue down this rabbit holes. Let’s talk about consumers from a medical standpoint, what type of common issues are you seeing directed towards medical marijuana and kind of take us through just everyday conversations that our consumers are having.

[00:22:14] So for example, if someone is dealing with an issue internally, and they’re just not sure if medical marijuana could be a good fit, what sort of everyday things are you hearing that you, you can share with?

[00:22:24] Dr. Jean: So in terms of, you know, what are patients presenting to me with? Yeah. They’re, you know, the, I’d say the top four in the four corners of the yard are, you know, trying to improve pain, this sort of pain, you know trying to get sleep.

[00:22:43] A lot of insomnia up there improve anxiety. Or mood is really, you know, improve mood because, you know, anxiety or depression, improve mood and then appetite, everything to do with your guts. So those are the four corners of the world. You know, I was thinking about the other day, and I don’t know how geeked out you want to get with this, but it’s the autonomic nervous system, you know, if you think about the sympathetic.

[00:23:11] Fight or flight and the parasympathetic really controlling your your Your basic functioning involuntary functioning. There’s, there’s a link between them autonomic nervous system and the endocannabinoid system, which is where cannabis active ingredients are affecting. So it’s going to be interesting to sort of tease those two out, see how they would.

[00:23:34] Bryan Fields: Yeah, and I appreciate you breaking those up into the quadrants. So then I guess my follow-up question would be for someone like myself, who likely has all four of those issues, but would I be picking individual products to kind of suit that? So for example, in the, during the day, if my anxiety is running wild, I would lean towards this recommended product.

[00:23:52] And if I’ve got pain from my anxiety, then you would take this one. So is there kind of like the individual based approach you would take or how would you recommend. I usually

[00:24:01] Dr. Jean: start with the dominant, active ingredients in the products and really sort of trying to you know, present this THC. Or TMCA, you know, versus CBD or CBDA.

[00:24:14] So which one are you going to take one? Are you going to take the other, or you’re going to take a mix of the two and that sort of really helps the simplify because it isn’t experimentation. Right? So by understanding what THC does, what its effects are an advert. Affects it helps the patients, you know, choose one or the other.

[00:24:36] And I like to explain it to the patient this way. I’d like to, I say so the endocannabinoid system, imagine it as, as a car engine and engine is running and you’re going to be adding either fuel THC or oil CBD. So they work differently, but they both helped the engine work a little bit better or help a little bit better.

[00:25:00] So, you know, obviously, you know, a little gap and a little oil in the engine is better than just one or the other alone, you know, is sort of the assumption and probably pretty close to true. And so let’s start with those ingredients and w what you’re feeling and. What what it’s affecting. So it doesn’t have to be just, you know, this product is going to, you’re going to get better with anxiety by taking 10 milligrams of THC.

[00:25:27] That’s what I have to convince other doctors that we can’t be prescriptive prescriptive at this point. It’s going to take us years to really get prescriptive. We’ve got to be experimental and introduced. The players in the game and let them have the patient, understand the players and, and then start experimenting with dosing.

[00:25:47] And of course, starting low and creeping up discussing which modes of administration work for you. It could be that your headache gets better by rubbing a topic. Application on your forehead, or it could be that your headache gets better by taking a tincture or are smoking the flower. So it is not really one way, one path to getting the headache better.

[00:26:11] There are many paths and many active ingredients. So it’s, you know, what’s, what’s going to be your direction. Let’s explore. And that’s really, I think the best approach at this point, and maybe always the best approach with all the complexities of it. Eventually we’re going to get specific formulas, helping a large crowd of people where they’re going to be.

[00:26:33] We’re going to be able to say, okay, you know, five milligrams of THC and 20 milligrams of CBD. Alleviate the 90% of the headaches in this cohort of this core population. But at this point we are not there yet. We’re still trying to figure out I was telling those. We’re still trying to figure out how to categorize the different products out there, where to put one product versus the other.

[00:26:59] Bryan Fields: How did we get there?

[00:27:00] Dr. Jean: Wow. How do you tease apart a tag or math? You know, I think the, I love the crowdsourcing approach. I really love it. I think it’s a stroke of genius too, because we have the ability. To get information from the crowd. And let me explain it a little bit more. So traditional clinical studies follows a very specific route where there are four phases to studies from studying the safety of a particular active ingredient, all the way to producing the active ingredients, figuring out what dose works best for groups of people.

[00:27:36] And then. It works, you know, phase 1, 2, 3, once it goes through the different phases of clinical trial, the last phase is phase four, where it’s now the product is now out in the market and we’re gathering information on the safety. And the efficacy of the product from when it’s out there in the market.

[00:27:58] Well, cannabis really needs skips phase 1, 2, 3, and jumps into phase four. So it almost allows us to get information that feeds back to improving a product and then running it through phase one, two and three. Does that make any sense or am I talking to much. Yeah. So I love this phase four approach.

[00:28:19] People are trying it now. Let’s sort of sample the crowd, see what’s working for who and then sort of zero in on the magic formula up there. And then take that and then go through the traditional approach. Making sure it’s. In, in a group of people, typically phase one studies are just a handful of people.

[00:28:43] Phase two, three. If you’ve got, you know, a couple of hundred people in your study, that’s the large study phase four is sampling the masses and sampling everyone. So you get things like rare adverse events from phase four. That’s why you see certain products get released into the market pharmaceutical products.

[00:29:03] After going through phase one, two and three. They get released into the market. And then you find out years later that it’s being recalled because now that everybody’s got a chance to try it, we’re really seeing what the, what the problems are with it. Rather than that small study studies are models for the environment, but now we don’t need the bottle everyone’s using.

[00:29:24] We’re going to get the data from that and really get a good understanding of how

[00:29:29] Bryan Fields: it’s this, the dosing project. Can you kind of shed some light on how you think yeah. Is this, is this the dosing project? I was hoping you’d say the name, but now I just want to confirm, like, this is, this is the intention.

[00:29:45] Can you shed some light on that?

[00:29:47] Dr. Jean: Right. Right. So the promoting our research started the dosing project. We figured, you know, we, we started a research group thinking, okay, we want to get a lot of different companies collaborating on cannabis research to improve the industry and improve the medicine folks out there.

[00:30:07] The thought, okay. Maybe we’ll go through the traditional route, but it’s a very long and lengthy process and choosing which magic formula to bring through the traditional path is it was starting. I mean, how many different possibilities could be out there? I think people are trying that and they’re running into dead end because it’s like searching for a needle in the haystack with all this.

[00:30:35] So we just decided let’s sift the haystack through our fingers and see have the needle fall out, you know? And so let’s sample the crowds and see what they’re using and see what’s working that really what the dosing project is. So what we’re doing is basically crowdsourcing. We’re getting folks to try different products.

[00:30:54] We’re getting information on the product that they’re trying and how it works. And using that to come up with a good understanding of how many milligrams per kilogram of a magic formula that requires to improve pain and improve sleep. I was just going

[00:31:13] to

[00:31:13] Kellan: say, I think it’s a really cool time to be alive right now because of the infrastructure from a illegal and medicinal market standpoint at this, at this juncture, because this wouldn’t have been possible 10 years ago without the amount of testing and compliance.

[00:31:28] That’s been forced on the industry. Because now individuals can see exactly what the active ingredients are in the product, because they’re required to get a tested before they can sell it to the consumer. So that’s a, I think I just wanted to point that out to the general listeners, because I think that that’s a unique aspect that the dosing project is working with right now that wouldn’t have been possible 10 years ago or

[00:31:49] Dr. Jean: yeah, even 50 years ago, you know, because we can use the.

[00:31:54] And we can crowdsource a lot easier now than we could. 30, 50 years ago. It’s going to really revolutionize, I believe pharmaceutical development to a different paradigm of where, where we can use phase four information, much more rapidly to improve formulations.

[00:32:17] Bryan Fields: Can I be a part of the study. Do I have to buy certain types of products like medical versus black market versus recreational?

[00:32:23] Like if I’m interested in being a part of this study, is there a certain path you are looking to take purchase certain types of products and where I purchased them from?

[00:32:32] Dr. Jean: Well, you know, at first we just decided to just as a proof of concept, we decided to. Study, what most people are using out there, which is the flower smoking, the cannabis flower we’re able to to rapidly, you know, fairly rapidly just after 700 responses, but really after a hundred responses, we were able to see statistical significance and we’re able to see that there’s a group of people that had significant pain relief after.

[00:33:05] Smoking the flower, a high THC flower at an estimated dose of 0.9, four milligrams per kilogram. What does that mean to the it’s about three quarters of one grand joint. So if I talk to patients there, if I said, wow, you know, we’re, most of our patients are getting complete relief with that. A lot of my patients.

[00:33:27] I would have difficulty with that because that’s a lot to consume for some folks who are used to just taking a puffer to, and, and that’s all they can tolerate maybe because it makes them anxious to take more, the smoke bothers them. All sorts of reasons why they can’t take more. So it gets difficult for them, but those who are able to take it or have been reporting significant pain relief at that, at that dose.

[00:33:53] So it starts to put a stake in the sand and lets us know, okay, maybe this is something we can work with and develop, you know, products that are based on that dosage. Hence the name of the project, that dosing project, you know, it was crowdsourcing. Seeing what they’re using and then creating a dose effect relationship that we can communicate to the world so that they can predict what the product is going to do to

[00:34:21] Bryan Fields: them, for people who want to be involved.

[00:34:23] So people, listeners that are hearing this for the first time and being aware, is there, can they contribute? Do you want additional participants share some more information on that? So instead of Kellan and I fielding a hundred questions of people wanting to be connected, We can just send them directly to where it’d be most valuable for you.

[00:34:41] Dr. Jean: Yeah. We’re well, you know, we’re in the second phase of the docent project where now we’re getting, you know, we were sampling for proof of concept. We’re just staring. Cannabis because that’s, what’s available and that’s what most people are doing. But we are transitioning to specific products that are available out there.

[00:35:01] And yeah, we’re looking for sponsors who want to put their product into the dosing project to see. What comes out of it, what dose is really effective. This is a great opportunity for a sponsor to start to make label claims and begin to, you know, help the consumer, understand what the majority of people are experiencing with their product pretty rapidly.

[00:35:28] I mean, we were able to get significances in just six months of work where your traditional study takes years. So it’s a quick, fast way to get to an answer

[00:35:39] somewhere,

[00:35:41] Bryan Fields: but it’s the number one question you get asked when people find out your role in the industry?

[00:35:48] Dr. Jean: The number one question I get asked by my patient?

[00:35:51] Bryan Fields: Just if you’re walking the street, introduce yourself and say, this is who I am. This is what I do. What, what would be kind of like a generalized, common question you get approached with.

[00:36:03] Dr. Jean: Can I have your number and I make an appointment, honestly, that’s probably the, you know, it, it seems, and maybe I’m a little skewed being in California, but it seems that everyone has tried cannabis and understand that.

[00:36:23] Not everyone has looked at it from a, the medicinal viewpoint. And, and so, you know, folks who were struggling with, you know, the four corners, the anxiety, the pain, or they want to find something that’s working for them. And often pharmaceuticals have issues. And so it’s, you know, they’re interested. They want to interest in, and it doesn’t work for everyone for us.

[00:36:49] I mean, that’s, that’s normal, but to explore. And to go through it and see how it might work for you is, is pretty interesting too. And you know, we’re also uncovering old methods of, of using, you know, for example, in Jamaica, the medicinal way to use cannabis. Might be the, take a, the flower and boil it in water and then strain the flower out and drink the water.

[00:37:17] And this is what might be given to kids or elderly, whereas smoking, it may be more considered back. And so taking that medicinal and looking at the active ingredients, and if we saw that. Most of the ingredients were, are acidic cannabinoids, which are not active, but have potential anti-inflammatory anti-anxiety effects.

[00:37:45] So it’s interesting to sort of, you know, take the crowd and help them change the way they’re using cannabis or offer them different options so that you can dress through.

[00:37:57] Bryan Fields: If you could sum up your experience into a main takeaway or lesson learned to pass on to the next generation,

[00:38:04] what would that be?

[00:38:06] Dr. Jean: I really love this crowd sourcing approach.

[00:38:07] I think it’s going to, you know, using technology. Using computation to really dial into precision medicine. It seems very confusing to have all these ingredients, you know, many to many problem, all these ingredients and many different people with different chemistries, but we have. Technology now to sort of match people and create this better effect than the one size fits all approach.

[00:38:37] That has been the dominant way of the pharmaceutical industry. So I think that’s going to really exciting medicine down the road. It’s going to be the future. You know, where you are, personal your medicine is personalized and cannabis is going to be a great candidate for that. That’s what I’m looking for.

[00:38:56] Bryan Fields: Prediction of time, 10 years from now, medical marijuana, will it be accepted as widely as some of the other pharmaceutical ads forward? And if so, which area will be the biggest youth face?

[00:39:15] Dr. Jean: Well, sorry to say. I mean, I thought we would. I, you know, in fact, I, I would talk with the other doctors and we’d put that song on whether it’s going to be 10 or 20 years before things were going to really progressed to, you know, cannabinoids and other active ingredients in the plant being part of medicine.

[00:39:39] And I was on the 10 year side. But it’s been 20 years and we’re not even close. So I say, I don’t know, it’s moving slowly. So in 10 years, I think we’re still going to be trying to figure out the right pattern of, hopefully it moves. But it hasn’t so far, we’re still stuck in, in, you know, the fear of THC, the fear of the psychoactive or the and, and the unknown, you know, as doctors are, you know, conservative generally slow to progress to new things.

[00:40:11] So it’s going to be slow. W we’ll be maybe a little further on as we are now. Turns out science is hard.

[00:40:22] Kellan: I do think that it’ll be more accepted than it is today. And I think that’s just going to be a product of having legal cannabis available. And I think most states at that point. And so I think when. When you legalize it and recreational use becomes standard. I think people then, or who are skeptical about it in general, are going to have at least a curbed opinion related to the medicinal benefits of it.

[00:40:49] Right. And so I think, I think it will be more accepted, but at the end of the day, the complexity of the plant, I mean just the amount of chemicals and natural products within a typical cannabis plant over 400 from an active chemical ingredient standpoint. It’s going to take a lot of not only kind of phase four dosing project kind of trials, but we’re also, we, we forget to mention that there is an entire foundation of the endocannabinoid system that is still currently being built out from an understanding perspective.

[00:41:20] And a lot of this work needs to be done by institutions and universities, and that requires federal support and federal funding. And we’re only starting to barely see. This kind of research being conducted and yeah, there was a record amount of primary literature publications last year associated with an endocannabinoid system in cannabis, but it’s only the tip of the iceberg.

[00:41:41] And I mean, we’re talking like traditional pharmaceuticals had hundreds of years and especially in the last, I would say 75 years from the 1930s on. There has been, there’s been an exponential amount of primary literature associated with the, the human body and our understanding of it. And that’s how we’ve been kind of, we’ve been using all that information to treat individuals and develop new pharmaceuticals in terms of.

[00:42:06] The chemical structure of specific proteins that different chemicals fit into and cause these different reactions within the human body. So, I mean, it’s just, it’s a massive undertaking and it’s a mountain that needs to be climbed and it needs to be climbed in so many different fashions. And there’s just so, so many people that need to get involved to be able to kind of push this forward.

[00:42:29] It’s going to be an army of scientists. Yeah.

[00:42:31] Dr. Jean: That’s a great point, Kelly. And I really think that the collaboration. Is gotta be a big focus if we’re going to move this quickly. And yeah, if we’re going to do this in silos, it’s going to take a lot longer. So a good

[00:42:45] Bryan Fields: point. Yeah. We’re fighting so many battles on, on so many fronts.

[00:42:49] Right. And in addition to all the science and the research, it’s the stigma though, right? Like you can still have the conversation. With your physician about, Hey, like I’m in pain, I need help. And he’s like, here here’s opioids. And I’m like sick, thanks. Or he’s like, Hey, you interested medical marijuana. And even, even me, who’s in the space.

[00:43:07] It kind of feels different where like, it doesn’t feel the same type of conversation I’m having. And I think that starts with it being more widely accepted and more conversations happening in plain sight, more research coming out and more breakthroughs and understanding all these benefits. And over time that stigma will follow.

[00:43:25] We go away in 10 years. Yeah, you’re right. We’ve got a ton we need to accomplish in 10 years for it to be as widely accepted. And in addition, big, pharmacist’s not going to give up their wrong financial decision. Not in a way, man. They’ve got that. They’ve got the pockets of the lobbyists and money talks, right?

[00:43:42] So for them to be open to this, I think it involves them taking a different strategic opinion because obviously we discuss some of their challenges. I think that there’s so many variables, 10 years with all the challenges we have. I don’t think we’ll get there, but I’m also optimistic and hopeful that we can get there.

[00:44:01] They could be the

[00:44:01] Kellan: next Kodak though. Visual camera came. They never saw it. They’re like, no, come on. Hey, this is an optimistic

[00:44:09] Bryan Fields: opinion. We’re going to get a cease and desist letter from big format.

[00:44:19] Dr. Jean: But, you know, from a doctor’s point of view, if you look at the clinical studies that they’re producing on clinical studies.gov clinical trials.gov, you’ll see that most of the studies right now are about cannabis use disorder. You know, they’re not really looking therapeutic, they’re looking into, so it’ll show you that the perspective is still skewed, you know, from, from traditional medical perspective.

[00:44:46] You know, this use disorder, but not, you know, treatment oriented or, or beneficial.

[00:44:53] Bryan Fields: I traveled internationally with my, my medicine.

[00:44:58] Dr. Jean: I don’t think so. You know federally, I don’t, I guess there are some countries that have. Except it cannabis, but typically it requires a doctor’s approval and, and that doctor needs to be from the jurisdiction of where you’re going.

[00:45:19] And so. Try to go to a place and then get a an evaluation there. Even from state to state, you know, technically you can’t travel. There are some states that for example, Maine has a program where if you have your medical cannabis now from New York, you can go to Maine and apply and get that transferred to me.

[00:45:41] And then you can have access to the name that you’re going up there for the summer vacations.

[00:45:46] Bryan Fields: Sure. And I just kind of wondering out loud because my pain and my anxiety, when I get in the car and cross the state line, it doesn’t just go, oh no, this pain anxiety is just stuck in New York. You’re fine, Bri.

[00:45:57] Like you don’t go worry about it here in Maryland and Jersey life is good, but I mean, just traveling, right. If you’re going to go from New York to, let’s say Maryland, you’ve crossed over four states, like I’m just going to leave my medicine at home. I mean, that seems pretty rigid.

[00:46:09] Dr. Jean: It’s a very common problem.

[00:46:12] Yeah. I’m constantly having to coach patients on how they’re going to handle that. They traveled from state to state.

[00:46:19] Bryan Fields: Good thing. Anxiety has boundaries, right?

[00:46:23] Dr. Jean: Not state boundaries.

[00:46:27] Bryan Fields: See, thanks for your time for our listeners that want to get in touch and learn more. Where can they get in touch?

[00:46:31] Dr. Jean: Our research is at www dot the T H E C E S C, Charlie, Edward, Sam, charlie.org.

[00:46:42] So yeah, go to our website and see what fun things we’re doing. If she needed a recommendation go to www dot Metuchen, EDI, C a N n.com. W we’ll see what we can do to help you. Thank

[00:46:55] Bryan Fields: you very much. We’ll link that up all in the show notes. Take care, right.

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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!

Bryan Fields (Twitter: @bryanfields24) and Kellan Finney (Twitter: @Kellan_Finney) were fortunate enough to sit down with Mona Zhang (Twitter: @ZhangMona) , Cannabis Policy Reporter from Politico.

We were able to pick her brain on cannabis legislation as more states legalize cannabis.

In today’s episode you will find:

• What will future legislation and policies look like?
• States that are pushing forth THC Caps
• How can we get pro and anti-legalization advocates on the same page.
• Do limit licenses in certain states benefit the business or the consumer?
• Big Companies vs Small Business in Cannabis industry
• Corruption and political favoritism issues within the Cannabis Industry

Be sure to subscribe to The Dime Podcast to hear new episodes the moment they are released!

https://www.eighthrevolution.com/the-dime-podcast

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

[00:00:11] What’s up guys. Welcome back to another episode of the dime as always. I’ve got my right-hand man Kellen Finney here with me. And this week we’ve got a very special guest Mona John states cannabis policy reporter from.

[00:00:23] Mona. Thanks for taking the time. How are you doing today?

[00:00:25] Mona Zhang: Thanks so much for having me. I’m doing well then crazy few months on the canvas

[00:00:31] Bryan Fields: there. Imagine we’re excited to dive in and tell him, how are you doing today?

[00:00:34] Kellan Finney: Doing good, just enjoying another sunny day out here in Colorado. Excited to talk to Mona Ramona

[00:00:38] Bryan Fields: before we dive in.

[00:00:39] I think it’d be great for our listeners to kind of get a little bit about your backstory and how you got into the cannabis.

[00:00:45] Mona Zhang: Yeah. I mean, I used to cover media. I went to school for journalism and I, you know, I worked at some media publications like media bistro and ad week. And I just saw a lack of good cannabis journalism, especially after the first states, Colorado and Washington legalized.

[00:01:01] And so, you know, I had this idea of starting a cannabis magazine that never panned out. And I thought, well, you know, I could start a newsletter. That’s like low barrier to entry. So I started my own cannabis newsletter and eventually started freelancing and doing like freelance journalism on the Cannabis That was in 2015. And that was really cool to see a place like Politico and national outlet hire a team of cannabis reporters, which they did in 2019. And so it’s been, it’s been really great to work at, you know, an organization like Politico and really delve into all of the nitty gritty of policy issues.

[00:01:37] Cause it’s just such a fascinating topic.

[00:01:40] Bryan Fields: Yeah, I think that’s really exciting and I’m excited to kind of dive in there. So what’s it like covering cannabis versus other industries? Do you think, as a whole politicos team of reporters kind of looks at canvas a little differently, like in some other industries, you know, can you kind of shed some light?

[00:01:55] What it’s like covering cannabis specific.

[00:01:57] Mona Zhang: Yeah, it’s really interesting because you know, political has a lot of policy verticals. I think cannabis is a special hole because it intersects with so many other policy issues. You know, like we’ll collaborate with our colleagues on the finance fee or the agriculture B, and these are reporters who have expertise in those areas and we’re kind of able to combine our expertise.

[00:02:20] But it’s interesting because of the federal state conflict, it just creates so many policy issues like banking, like taxes, you know, you have this state patchwork of regulations. I’ve been learning a lot about FDA, like food and dietary supplement regulations lately. And it’s just like, it’s really interesting as a policy reporter because you learn about all these other areas.

[00:02:43] Bryan Fields: Awesome. And what are those areas that I heard recently on your weak ass podcast? About anti legalization advocates. So on this podcast, we always talk about positives, but I don’t think we shed enough light on exactly why some people have hesitancy with cannabis. So what is the main driver? What do you think is the main reason these anti legalization efforts and what is their main stance?

[00:03:05] Mona Zhang: I think it really depends on the advocate. You know, I talked to a lot of anti legalization advocates and they range from just, I think like some people have still this like kind of reefer madness mentality. I think people have very valid public health concerns, you know, especially with regards to impaired driving or you use.

[00:03:25] And so it’s, it’s an interesting kind of spectrum of advocates. You know, a lot of times it’s like public health advocates or people. You know, fields like psychiatry and that type of thing, but it is. It’s interesting to see how that world has kind of evolved because I feel like a lot of anti legalization advocates are now sort of pushing things like the bill in Colorado to limit THC potency and canvas concentrates.

[00:03:51] The approach is shifting from being like anti legalization to like THC potency caps. And like, what else can we get in legalization bills from like a public health perspective?

[00:04:02] Bryan Fields: Dive in there, obviously from Colorado, that’s a big standpoint. Do you think Wayne maleness is describing that is the direction that most are taking or are there other areas that you see in Colorado that you think are kind of

[00:04:13] Kellan Finney: pausing it?

[00:04:14] I mean, I think Colorado is probably unique example because it has been legal for five years now, plus, right. And so it’s forced a lot of the people on the opposite side of the argument to mold new approaches and new angles to try to combat cannabis as it is. And I think that potentially. This is just my personal opinion.

[00:04:36] I think a lot of the advocacy and like the individuals that have a strong opinion, opposing cannabis, I think are slowly beginning to change as society. And as our culture changes and adapt. To cannabis being legal. And so with that, I think that it’s slowly starting to move that opinion from super, super far against cannabis to, okay.

[00:05:02] There could be some potential positives to cannabis. Now we need to regulate it. And, and I mean, with, with capping potency, I think that that’s important anyways. I mean, from a scientific perspective and a toxicology perspective, the dose is what makes the poison right. I don’t know anyone that really truly needs to consume 99.9, 9% THC on a regular basis.

[00:05:25] Right? I mean, you even look at like aspirin or other kind of medicines and they’re all dosed out properly, according to the person’s weight and their metabolic and all of these other. Variables so that you don’t poison them, right? Like you can drink too much water and die from drinking too much water.

[00:05:40] So I think with, with cannabis potency caps, I think that’s needed just to, to regulate it. I mean, you can’t go by 99% alcohol either. Right? You can get moonshine. And I think they cap it. Every state might be different than Colorado. 90% ethanol moonshine, right? And so there’s a need for those kinds of regulations.

[00:05:58] And I think that it’s in part, a safety feature that needs to be built into the regulations as well as it’s being driven by individuals that have started to accept cannabis as an illegal substance. With certain stipulations. What are your thoughts on that? Brian? I kind of go back and

[00:06:16] Bryan Fields: forth because at the end of the day, it sounds to me and please correct me if I’m wrong.

[00:06:21] It doesn’t sound like they’re like, Hey, we need more research in order to understand limits and putting people in safety places where like no cannabis is bad. The devil’s lettuce and all those outrageous stigmas like, oh then, and to me, maybe that’s just a more optimistic, welcoming stance of saying like, Hey, sometimes new facts are hard to quote Ben Culver and maybe some people in the older knees are a little more.

[00:06:44] Stuck in their ways. So I wonder how we kind of progress forward without the research, because even after we have the research, there’s going to be pushback, right? There’s going to be scientific saying, Hey, we need to do more extensive studies or, Hey, we didn’t study on this person. So, I mean, with all these, these areas, obviously the federal government is trying to balance this act.

[00:07:03] They’re deferring to the states to kind of go forward. Mona, what do you think is kind of the best way to kind of communicate through these anti legislation with people that there are positives in these? Yeah.

[00:07:15] Mona Zhang: Actually to the research point and the Colorado potency cap bill, there are a lot of research provisions and it is very much like we have to set up a way to research this stuff.

[00:07:25] And then this committee will do the research and then recommend like policies to us. So that’s like a really. Great thing about the Colorado bill. I think in some other states you do see a move to like, you know, Vermont was the first state to have any sort of PhD potency cap. And that was 30% for flour, which, I mean, flour usually doesn’t go above 30% anyway, and cannabis concentrates at 60%.

[00:07:50] But I think it is hard to have a policy discussion between. Pro legalization, anti legalization advocates, because the research is so recent and because the research is so mixed, you know, when I listened to these debates on state legislatures, it’s, you know, cannabis supporters citing all of this research to support their point.

[00:08:12] And then People who are against legalization, citing all this research. They, and the truth is there are studies that show youth use going up in states that have legalized marijuana. There is research showing youth use going down in states that have legalized marijuana. So the research is mixed and it’s really hard to like, you know, it’s just people taking whatever numbers, support, their

[00:08:32] opinions, last example.

[00:08:33] Bryan Fields: So what do you think would be beneficial in order to kind of help? Let’s say, get people on the same page. Do you think that’s just people on both sides of the debate, just kind of laying it down to the numbers. Like what efforts do you think would be beneficial in order to help kind of progress the conversation?

[00:08:48] Mona Zhang: I think

[00:08:49] that, you know, engaging with opposing points of view are a good thing, and I think it’s, it’s a lot easier done, I think on the state level than the federal level, especially in state legislatures where they’re debating marijuana, legalization, bill. And they’re really getting into the policy details and committee.

[00:09:07] There are anti legalization advocates saying, Hey, we don’t want marijuana legalization, but if you’re going to do it, please consider this amendment. You know, please consider, you know, doing some sort of public education campaign on impaired driving or, you know, and, and they are engaging with the issue in a more substantive way, rather than saying, we just oppose it.

[00:09:28] They’re saying we oppose it, but like here. I think this would make the legislation better. So I feel like that shift is just naturally been happening in state legislatures as the issue moves forward in the U S

[00:09:39] so then let’s kind of continue on that path. Why are states looking to overturn these initiatives that are majority approved by their local Reynolds?

[00:09:48] In

[00:09:49] theory, they are procedural legal challenges, you know, and Mississippi and South Dakota and Nebraska too. These are all legal challenges saying, Hey, these initiatives weren’t qualified for the ballot and a way that conforms to the state constitution, it violates a single subject rule that violates whatever.

[00:10:07] Provision of the constitution. However, I did talk to an illegal expert in state constitutional law, and he told me that all procedural challenges are really screened for, you know, policy issues. They don’t agree on the policy and they figure out a way to challenge it procedurally. And so I think you know, the fact that.

[00:10:29] Governor Kate Reeves of Mississippi. He’s very, very conservative. But he recently said he would be open to having a special session for medical marijuana because the court, the state Supreme court overturned the medical marijuana legalization law. And I think for politicians. You know, 74% of people voted for that.

[00:10:46] A kind of just like it causes a big issue in 74% of voters vote for something that the Supreme court overturns. It’s not great politically for him. So I think just like the sheer support for these issues are going to help move things along on that front. Even if the courts do strike it down.

[00:11:06] Bryan Fields: I think that’s really well said, and I want to go to you Kellen.

[00:11:08] Cause it seems like the cannabis wave is coming and some politicians are trying to slow the wave and others just kind of get gobbled up of it. We’ve talked about governor Rick, it’s talking about, if you legalize marijuana, it will kill your kids, which I will put on the top five best quotes of all time, because I still need to figure out how he came up with that statement.

[00:11:26] And if he just went off the Casper, if someone was like, Hey, like this is the word choices you’re going to use because we’re supporting this. So like, As a politician. Do you think that there’s a balancing act that they’re doing, trying to figure out how to keep their constituents happy, but also from a conservative nature of trying to slow down?

[00:11:44] Kellan Finney: So my disclaimer is I’m not a politician and I, my view on how a lot of these issues kind of play out is that I tend to favor. Yeah, they are playing by the rules of the law, but the motive behind how they’re playing the game. As underlying objectives that they’re trying to fit into the rules of the law.

[00:12:09] Right? So I think at the end of the day for Mississippi to overturn it, I think that there’s other people within the state that have alternative motives and they wield power and they are able to, to overturn those kinds of things based on non-legal motivations, right. Versus their own personal opinion.

[00:12:30] And I think that there’s a lot of like hidden agendas that drive these kinds of situations. But at the end of the day, I think the most important thing for people that are pro legalization of cannabis either medically or adult use that clearly this has been a very, very long. Battle. That’s been fought over the last 70 years or 80 years from a prohibition standpoint.

[00:12:53] Right. And so, or I guess 90, right, 1933 or something when it was. And so for the last 90 years or so they’ve been fighting this prohibition and we’ve made a ton of progress as a society in terms of adult use medical use across the United States. And I think that spending time to try to. Address, these underlining agendas they’re pushing, I don’t think is productive to the overall stance of marijuana legalization.

[00:13:23] Right. And so I think that just continuing to. Stand on the scientific literature that shows the positive attributes of cannabis consumption and the positive attributes of all these minor cannabinoids, as well as, I mean, hemp for instance, right. Hemp is part of the cannabis plant. Right. And there’s a ton of building benefits that it can provide society.

[00:13:46] I mean, hemp rope and create, right. So I think that if we just continue to fortify the positive sides of the. I think that eventually these kind of underlying hidden agenda topics from my perspective will kind of just fall to the wayside. I don’t think they’ll ever just completely go away, but I do think that as support continues to be generated for it, if we just continue to look at it from a positive stance and continue to have the conversations, right.

[00:14:14] I think it’s important that scientists talk to politicians and politicians talk to scientists and, and there’s this ether that all of the information is communicated. As fast as it can. I think that’s the only way to really, really approach it. I don’t think that you’re going to make any progress standing in the mud and playing the same game that the other side is playing in my opinion.

[00:14:33] I mean, I could be wrong and that’s my nonpolitical opinion, I guess. Right. What are your thoughts though? I think that’s all

[00:14:38] Bryan Fields: really well set in, and it’s such a challenge from understanding how like the policies go with politicians, but I want to kind of switch gears because there’s an area that you lightly touched on.

[00:14:47] When we’re talking about the limit licenses in certain states, obviously some states have gone ahead and limited the amount of licenses they’ve given out. And there’s obviously a bunch of different ways that that can be evaluated. So Mona is that intended to benefit the state, the businesses or the consumer when they limit the number of licenses that are given out?

[00:15:05] Oh,

[00:15:07] Mona Zhang: is it intended to benefit the state or the consumer? I mean, I think it depends on the state. You know, when Virginia was having its legalization debate, I was really surprised the lawmakers put a statutory cap on licenses and the reasoning behind it was to prevent any big marijuana companies from harming smaller businesses.

[00:15:31] I question whether that is the best way to achieve that goal from a policy perspective, because we haven’t really seen that happen in other states with limited licensing. Generally speaking, when they’re limited licenses, it is the better capitalized, bigger companies that are, you know, favored in such a market, but that was their reasoning behind it, which I found pretty surprising.

[00:15:54] So, I don’t know, you know, it really just depends on the state and in Connecticut, for example, you know, I was talking to one of the policy. People at Lamont’s office. And he was saying like, we don’t have a statutory cap on licenses and it’s going to be awarded by a lottery instead of some sort of like merit-based process, precisely to avoid some of the pitfalls that you’ve seen in other states.

[00:16:17] And so, yeah, I mean, and I think there’s also a sort of fear when it comes to legalization that you’re going to see pot shops on every corner. And I think that kind of fear also drives some of this you know, license, cap policy.

[00:16:30] Bryan Fields: What are some of those pitfalls? Some of the other states I’ve seen just in case our listeners aren’t familiar.

[00:16:35] Mona Zhang: Yeah. I mean, there’s, there’s corruption issues, especially when there’s limited licensing. There’s definitely, I mean, there’s outright corruption issues. And then there’s sort of like political favoritism issues where people who want licenses, you know, make these huge donations to certain politicians, campaigns or whatever.

[00:16:52] And then there are a lot of. Entrepreneurs who lose out on licenses. And it ends up being like in Missouri, for example, there’s this like huge legal issue with all hundreds of entrepreneurs appealing their licensed denials and the state is spending millions of dollars on like fighting these appeals on outside attorneys.

[00:17:10] And. it Can delay the launch of the market. It can delay the growth of the market. And, you know, it’s interesting because it’s a sort of area of common ground between more, you know, lefty cannabis advocates and like the right leaning, more libertarian free market types who are like, everybody should get a shot at this.

[00:17:32] And, you know, we should let the market decide the winners and losers rather than the state deciding the winners or losers. Through what is often a dubious merit based scoring process. Once you have that, it opens up a whole other can of worms.

[00:17:47] Bryan Fields: That’s perfectly said. And I think, you know, we’ve had conversations with operators who are looking to kind of expand their licensed opportunities and ask for recommendations on which personnel to put on this.

[00:17:56] And they say, Hey, we’re just looking for someone for the license. And we kind of like you were saying muddies the conversation because these people aren’t really attached and they are there just for the merit base. I can see the corruption aspect, right? If people are doing favors or even differently said making donations for political campaigns, obviously that’s a huge issue and it does favor some of the bigger players, but at the end of the day, cannabis is very expensive.

[00:18:21] And I kind of look at it like a golden ticket opportunity. In these limited licensed states, you kind of agree with that. Like in the Willy Wonka style, like you open up, if you, if you get that lottery ticket and you open it up, you’ve gotten herself out opportunity to touch some market share in an untapped market, especially here on these.

[00:18:36] Mona Zhang: Yeah, absolutely. It is a golden ticket. And because of the cap, these licenses are worth more. And it is an interesting debate because there are states that, you know, really wanted to send our social equity and their legalization bills. And they’re like, well, we need to cap the licenses because of this.

[00:18:53] And there are other states that are like, we really care about social equity and that’s why we shouldn’t capital licenses, you know? So it’s interesting. And I think, you know, I recently. Wrapped up a story on main and social equity was never really that big of a discussion in Maine, but they’re low barriers to entry.

[00:19:11] Make it really easy for anybody. You can pay a few hundred dollars and start your canvas business with a growth hat and a few hundred dollars licensing fee. Like the barriers to entry are very low. And the medical program, at least right now. And it raises some interesting issues with these other states that have approached social equity with these, like, you know, convoluted programs that they’re having trouble implementing.

[00:19:36] And it’s like, You know, some states are achieving some of those goals by not even having one of those programs and just having low barriers to

[00:19:43] Bryan Fields: entry, you know, find balance. So Kellen, what do you think they should do? Obviously, the software equity is a huge deal and letting people out of prison is a huge deal and kind of adjusting for some of the wrongs of the past.

[00:19:55] But how do you stay at school? Balancing those.

[00:19:58] Kellan Finney: I would like to say I’ve seen a successful social equity program played out in a state. I just haven’t yet, as far as what the vision has been and the execution associated with that, I think Mona makes the best point when she said that it seems that states that have completely ignored that have actually provided the best opportunity for minorities to get involved in the industry.

[00:20:22] Right. And, and better themselves from that perspective. As far as releasing individuals from prison, I think that that’s a no brainer and that should completely be the forefront of all of these discussions. I think it should actually take precedence over the social equity aspect of it. Right. I think we should fix what we did wrong before we kind of keep moving forward.

[00:20:43] Right. And so that’s my, my stance on it. As far as limited license states versus not limited licensed states. I mean, I worked in, in Washington where you could just go buy a license if you had enough money and they just kept giving them out. And it created a really Rocky start to the industry versus Colorado, because you would walk into a dispensary and there would be.

[00:21:04] 2,500 different brands on the shelf because it’s a free market. The best will survive. They want to encourage competition. And if you show up, like, let’s see what you got kind of the situation, right? It makes it a lot harder to regulate. You saw from a business perspective, I experienced a lot more shady interactions and a lot more bad actors because.

[00:21:25] Anyone could come and show up and just play the game. But it turns out the game was really challenging to play from a traceability standpoint and, and following all the rules properly. And it led to a lot of sour, a sour taste in my mouth when dealing with a lot of different companies, trying to outsource certain aspects of, of the supply chain.

[00:21:45] And so that was a huge challenge. But then the ops side of that would be Colorado where they didn’t give out a ton of licenses and yeah. I think the logic behind it was, it’s easier to regulate a couple really large players than it is to regulate everyone in their mother kind of getting involved. And so I understand the logic associated with that.

[00:22:08] What that created from a negative standpoint is it created these quote unquote almost like monopolies. Like you can look at Florida too, right? Like queen camp might have a monopoly depending on how you look at it. Right. And I’m not downplaying that or applying it. I’m just kind of stating the facts that when you own over 60% of the retail stores available for consumers to go purchase their product.

[00:22:31] Might be close to monopoly, you know what I mean? And, and you can make arguments that that could be good. It could be bad. And we’re not here to really do that. But I think that no matter limited license versus not limited license you from a conversational standpoint, it can be framed. As either positive or negative, depending on who is kind of framing it up.

[00:22:54] And so on the east coast, at this juncture with like New York being in the limited license state, there is no question that it will favor the big MSLs that are highly capitalized that have teams, lawyers that can go through these two, 300 page doc it’s to follow the rules. The barrier to entry. Is much, much greater than any other state from, from that perspective.

[00:23:18] And so it’s challenging if you’re a small mom and pop. In New York that was looking to get in the Canada space. Unfortunately you should probably consider relocating somewhere like Maine or, or even New Mexico. Right. New Mexico had these, these caps on the big licenses. Right. Which I think they have a good hybrid system right now, but they also have a small micro license.

[00:23:39] Where you can go grow 200 plants. The barrier to entry from a financial standpoint is much smaller. You can be completely vertically integrated. And so I think that that is an attractive way to approach this. I think that there’s also potentially some scientific experiments going on. I guess you could say from a social perspective.

[00:24:00] So if the federal government wants to see what works best, it makes sense to let some states have limited licenses, but some states, everyone in, I have a couple of hybrid models and then they’re like, all right, let this play out for five years and we’ll see what works the best. So when we go to, to implement this on a federal level, that it’s actually something that works and we don’t have to.

[00:24:21] Sit there and revise it year after year and cause all of these struggles, I mean, you got something to say to that.

[00:24:26] Bryan Fields: Brian, let’s hear doesn’t that make it harder for people like poor Mona. Who’s got to cover all these different states with all these different policies and all these different obstacles. I mean, what you described to me is pretty much saying that in New York, If your mom and pop moved with smaller, safe, cause you don’t have a chance.

[00:24:42] And I think that’s kind of unfair because at the end of the day, this is America, right? The land of the opportunity. And if you’re telling people that here’s their opportunity to dive into cannabis and to fulfill their entrepreneurial spirit, but they can’t do it because they don’t. Billions of dollars in teams of lawyer.

[00:24:57] I don’t think that’s really so fair. And for, for Mona, I mean how she she’s covering all these states and then she’s got to communicate to her readers. Oh yeah. That was this state. And then with this state, it’s different. I mean, we’re talking about an educational difference between all in all the information and then being able to comprehend where like over complicating the policy, if that’s the way that’s going, what do you think about that?

[00:25:18] Mona Zhang: Yeah, I think cannabis policy can be really convoluted. And you see with these legalization bills, they’re hundreds of pages long because to legalize marijuana, you have to, you have to change all these other laws that intersect with the criminal justice system or with the education system or whatever.

[00:25:36] That’s why these bills are so long. I think with the licensing issue, it’s like, it doesn’t necessarily have to be this binary of like limited licensing or not, you know, States where the law gives the power to the regulators to sort of roll out licenses as they see fit. I think that strikes a good balance between just like a free for all which leads to, you know, an Oregon situation where you have this boom and bust and like people go out of business.

[00:26:01] Cause it was just so oversaturated. But if you give regulators the flexibility to be able to like, Give out licenses as they see fit. And as the market will take, you know, that seems to be an approach that has yielded less problematic outcomes.

[00:26:20] Bryan Fields: I want to dive into a recent conversation. Your colleague now the FERC had with Bernie Sanders, and if you haven’t heard it, it’s definitely worth Googling the short story as it is.

[00:26:30] She approached Bernie to ask him a question. She introduced herself as a cannabis policy reporter for Politico and his immediate response was, are you stoned? Mon is that like a traditional, do you think, like most politicians are going to have some sort of normalized response like that? Like, I don’t think that’s a fair response, but I mean, obviously he answered honestly, but what do you feel about.

[00:26:50] Kellan Finney: I actually

[00:26:51] Mona Zhang: was surprised by that exchange. I don’t think that is a question that Natalie gets regularly when she’s reporting on the hill. So coming from, you know, a Senator that has been like a long time champion of legalization is a little bit surprising, but also just funny. I mean, the exchange is funny and if you haven’t listened to it, it’s it’s online.

[00:27:12] And we released the audio on dispatch as like a short episode. But yeah, it does. It does show how far this issue still has to go. If you’re like, you know, reporting on cannabis policy and people are asking if you’re stoned, it is like, you know, we, we were talking earlier about like, if you are, I don’t know, an alcohol industry, reporter people, aren’t asking you when you’re doing your job, are you drunk?

[00:27:36] You

[00:27:36] Bryan Fields: know, I think that’s perfectly wasn’t, especially for someone like Bernie, who, you know, they always talk about how he so far released policies for him to say that it’s kind of opening and I’m sure. There’s some Midwest states out there that are using that as like a championing ground and be like, Hey, see, like, if Bernie feels this way, you know, it’s normalized where the stigma still exists.

[00:27:55] So countless, I mean, your thoughts on it.

[00:27:57] Kellan Finney: I think it just, honestly, I think it just highlights how far we still have to go from a cultural stigma perspective, right? Like, Even individuals that live out on the west coast and in California or Oregon or Washington, or even Colorado, we cannabis has been legal for some time.

[00:28:15] Now, especially in California, that’s kind of been legal since the nineties. You could potentially make an argument, right. And the, that amount of time has allowed the society as a whole. To kind of assimilate to cannabis, being another recreational outlet for humans to consume for whatever reason.

[00:28:39] And that’s, that’s led to the change in overall opinion and perception associated with the plant and the use of the plant versus over on the east coast where it hasn’t been so prevalent and it still is treated. As it was 30, 40 years ago, you can just see that, that it takes time for these kinds of and cultural changes to actually precipitate.

[00:29:06] Right. And I think that that right there, it just perfectly sums up. Yeah, we’ve come a long way from prohibition, but we still have a long way to go to change the minds of the general population across the entire country and across multiple demographics.

[00:29:24] Bryan Fields: I think I brought that and overall, like I think it hurts the industry.

[00:29:26] I think that continues to solidify a stigma. That is a negative one. And at the end of the day, people use cannabis solely for medicine. And when you ask that question with the connotation and the perspective behind that, usually at least for me, feels like a negative one. So I’m hopeful that in the future, politicians and people will understand that that’s not likely the best initial response when being approached by people.

[00:29:49] Sort of quickly switch gears, Delta eight, very popular subject. We’ve talked about this a bunch of times. Mona, do you think Delta aid is a fad or do you think it’s here to kind of.

[00:30:00] Mona Zhang: I think it’s here to stay. I think there are people who are, you know, I’ve heard a lot of anecdotal stories from people who are legitimately helped by Delta eight, from a medical perspective who have tried CBD, who have tried Delta nine, THC and medical marijuana products.

[00:30:17] And they say Delta eight has helped me the most for like, you know, neuropathic pain and those sorts of issues. Again, all anecdotal, no science on this at this point, but I think. You know, it is a different compound that Delta nine THC. And I can see it staying, but I there’s obviously like a fad aspect of it.

[00:30:37] And it’s recent. I don’t know, recent growth in the market. Because of various factors because of, you know, states that don’t have legal cannabis because of, you know, the sheer amount of CBD isolate that’s been sitting around in the hemp market and people need an outlet for that. And there, there are all sorts of things contributing to this.

[00:30:58] It is a trend in some respects.

[00:31:01] Bryan Fields: Yeah, I think growth might be understanding it’s like an explosion, right? Especially here in, in some of the like New York, for example, where it’s not, you know, adult use is not possible. So people kind of lean towards products that they can purchase over the internet and are a little more trusting of it.

[00:31:16] So Kevin and I have kind of dove into this from understanding whether it’s a fat are here to stay. And we wonder if, whether or not this is just kind of a short term. Temporary and public, government’s kind of like, Hey, you know what? Like this is illegal, but then my opinion, and then I want to go to you telling is that maybe the CBD market will look for like another sort of compound to kind of find another offshoot for a revenue stream Kaelin.

[00:31:37] Kellan Finney: What’s your thoughts? I think that there’s no denying that when humans ingest Delta aid, it does cause Affects right. More so than CBD, but less so than Delta nine THC. There’s no denying that as far as the manufacturing practices that are being implemented to produce Delta eight, I think that’s where the majority of the questioning is now being centered.

[00:32:00] And I think that’s where Colorado has. The department of health, that’s where they took their stance on. It is just from the lack of regulations and the lack of understanding and the lack of testing associated with the manufacturing of Delta eight. And I think that’ll get sorted out in time, right?

[00:32:15] It’s just a matter of kind of trial and error and figuring out. The best way to do it, what’s the safest way. And how do we regulate it? Right? Because the last thing we need from an industry standpoint is some kid in New York to consume a Delta eight product. And it just so happened to have some sort of chemical that was really toxic in it, that wasn’t removed from the manufacturing process, and then they get really sick.

[00:32:38] And now there’s this front, this headline story. Kid dies of consuming, dealt ADHD in New York. You know what I mean? I think that’s the last thing the industry needs, but we’ll work through all of those as a society. And then as far as outlets for CBD, I do think that this is just the very beginning of the iceberg, right?

[00:32:57] Delta 10 is probably next. I know that when they start moving around that, that double bond, in terms of Delta eight, Delta nine Delta 10, it does have different binding affinities to your CB one receptor. And it interacts with the endocannabinoid system slightly differently, which is why you see these anecdotal claims associated with a better consumer experience with Delta eight versus Delta nine.

[00:33:22] I know that it doesn’t have as high of binding efficiencies. A lot of people say they can actually function. More so on Delta eight than Delta nine. But I mean, at the end of the day, there is. The, our understanding of cannabinoids and the endocannabinoid system is in its infancy. And as we continue to move forward, there’s just going to be more and more breakthroughs from a scientific standpoint on these minor cannabinoids and how they interact with the human body.

[00:33:49] And I think this is just the beginning. And so Delta 10, if I had to. If I was a Batman, I would say Delta tens, the next big one to kind of take off and we’ll see how that differs from Delta nine and Delta eight, a and then, I mean, there’s just a JC acetate, right? There’s another one that makes the water soluble.

[00:34:08] And so there is a whole plethora of different molecules that can be achieved by using CBD as a starting material.

[00:34:16] Bryan Fields: We got a lot of science and research studies. So more

[00:34:20] Kellan Finney: content,

[00:34:20] Bryan Fields: right? Delta 10, for sure. For us, we’ve already heard the rumblings there and we’re going to do another episode coming up on that because people start asking questions and, you know, the only way for us to understand is to kind of just dive in and figure out, you know, what about it?

[00:34:33] So Mona, the biggest misconception since you started working in the cannabis.

[00:34:40] Kellan Finney: I mean,

[00:34:40] Mona Zhang: I guess just to go back to the Bernie thing is like this idea that it is some sort of like silly topic, which I think the fact that, I mean, hopefully more major news organizations will hire cannabis, beat reporters, but it’s.

[00:34:58] You know, consequential subject and it intersects with so many other areas, whether it’s criminal justice or public health or financial services, or what have you. That’s a really complex and important issue that affects a lot of people. And I think one big misconception now that I think about it is that there’s this idea that like, oh, people don’t really go to jail for cannabis anymore.

[00:35:24] And. You know, there are still tens of thousands of people incarcerated for cannabis. There are people thousands of people who are serving de facto life sentences for marijuana offenses. So it, it is a really, still an important social justice or criminal justice issue. Even though a lot of states have decriminalized cannabis, it’s there’s still a lot of issues on that

[00:35:43] front.

[00:35:44] Kellan Finney: Absolutely.

[00:35:44] Bryan Fields: Well, today you could sum up your experience into a main takeaway or lesson learned to pass on to the next generation. What would it be? I think

[00:35:53] Mona Zhang: it’s important to be clear headed when looking at the impacts of policy with these social equity programs. Like I covered Oakland social equity program when it first came out and it was, sounded so good on paper.

[00:36:09] And I was like, wow, this is so innovative. It’s so cool that Oakland is doing it. And when other jurisdictions started doing it, I was like, wow. Like, it’s amazing how much this has shifted the conversation around cannabis policy and how the sort of debates in the legislature are about this issue. But I also think there is a sort of like desire to seem like you’re addressing the problem from a political standpoint.

[00:36:35] You know, we’ve have not seen one of these programs be really effective in terms of their stated goals and achieving their stated goals. So I think it’s important to just look at the data from, from all of these various different policy proposals. Really think hard about like what, what is actually effective at achieving these outcomes.

[00:37:00] And I think a lot of states are starting to do that. You know, a lot of states are looking at Illinois as a cautionary tale. Now, instead of like, in the beginning, Illinois was hailed as like, it’s going to be this leader in social equity,

[00:37:10] Kellan Finney: you know, the Illinois thing. I it’s just incredible. Right. Like, absolutely.

[00:37:15] They still haven’t given out one. Have they? Yeah.

[00:37:18] Bryan Fields: What do we think is the issue there? It’s an

[00:37:20] Mona Zhang: implementation issue. This is actually. What’s been sort of like possibly delaying the launch of new York’s market is because there is this sort of disagreement between the governor and the Senate about who should be in charge of implementing the cannabis legalization law.

[00:37:36] And you might pass a law that looks good on paper, but if you stumble on implementation, then you know, you’re not achieving those goals

[00:37:45] Bryan Fields: plays a big factor.

[00:37:47] Mona Zhang: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, with all of these licensing things, lawsuits are just one of the big reasons why things get held up. People don’t get a license and they Sue, you know, they, a judge just overturned Detroit’s licensing regime, which is supposed to favor legacy applicants and, you know, ruled it to be probably unconstitutional.

[00:38:06] And it just, it just creates all sorts of delays and

[00:38:09] Bryan Fields: problems. Yeah. Lawyers just continue to win. All right. Let’s do prediction time. Do you think. In president Biden’s first term, he will find federal legislation. No, I don’t think so.

[00:38:23] Kellan Finney: I don’t think so. Either

[00:38:25] Mona Zhang: things can change crazier. Things have happened on the cannabis beat.

[00:38:28] You might not think something’s going to happen and it happens, but as it stands now, I am skeptical that it will happen.

[00:38:34] Kellan Finney: I wrote a, I read a headline though. That might be interesting. And we talked, talked about this on a podcast last week as well. I read a headline. Amazon taking the stance that they did.

[00:38:44] It was actually in the cannabis scientists, the day that we talked to on the column and MC and it actually said that Amazon taking their stance on no longer drug testing, their employees. And I didn’t read the article, unfortunately, but then the headline also integrated the aspect of Amazon showing support for the Moore act as potentially a catalyst to facilitate federal legalization within the next couple of years.

[00:39:13] Is that where you’re gonna go, Brian steal your thunder.

[00:39:16] Bryan Fields: So I always tend to believe that like, sure. Like from a news standpoint, they haven’t made much noise. Sometimes the smaller moves and the smaller announcements kind of compound these bigger ones, right? Like Amazon making these public stance, the NFL saying they’re going to invest all this money.

[00:39:32] It just seems like people are starting to slowly adjust their thought process. And to me, these big became, this are making public stances differently than they normally had. Makes me believe. There’s some aggressive momentum that they’re like, Hey, we need to kind of change our PR tune. I’ve got a different stance on why Amazon said that.

[00:39:51] I think there was a variety of reasons that I’m not going to kind of spoil it and how you have to read it in the monthly playbook, because I just finished that pizza. Definitely. It’s definitely not just one time. Amazon is pretty strategic with how they take their stances and there’s a variety of different reasons why I believe that they said that.

[00:40:08] At the end of the day, I’m going to take the opposite of both of you and say, yes, he does. Obviously I don’t think it’ll happen, but I’ll just say it for counter stance. I think he does it. And I think it’s a, it’s a quick one. As we’ve seen on each post, I mean, a year ago, we didn’t have any of these states and now like they’re just falling like dominoes and who knows.

[00:40:25] We could meet up in six months and be like, wow, that was crazy. We all said, no, look it’s for sure. Yes. And I think in the cannabis industry, it moves super, super fast. And sometimes by not thinking something’s gonna happen. It means maybe things will happen faster than we believe.

[00:40:38] Kellan Finney: Yeah, that’s

[00:40:39] Mona Zhang: a good point.

[00:40:39] And the Amazon point is an interesting one too, because I mean, at the end of the day, it’s like, are there 60 votes in the Senate? And does Amazon change that? And with. Legislation. It’s so hard. Like people can agree on legalizing cannabis, but then agreeing on actual legislation is a different matter.

[00:40:58] That’s why New Jersey took so long. That’s why New York took so long. And so getting everyone who might support legalization as a concept, In the Senate to agree on an actual legalization bill as another matter. And to get 60 votes on that, it’s looking tough at this point, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility.

[00:41:17] Kellan Finney: And what you’ve just

[00:41:17] Bryan Fields: said is just so perfect, but also so frustrating and the same thought, right? Everyone agrees that this is supposed to happen, but to vote on it a whole nother Stanton. And at the end of the day, not saying money moves, votes. Money moves boats.

[00:41:31] Kellan Finney: Amazon has a little

[00:41:32] Bryan Fields: bit of money to John’s.

[00:41:35] So Mona, before we wrap, where can our listeners get in touch? What areas on social media are you available? And we’ll link it all in the show.

[00:41:42] Mona Zhang: Yeah, I’m on Twitter. It’s my last name. First name Z H a N G M O N a M. You can follow all of our coverage at politico.com/cannabis. And. Yeah,

[00:41:56] Bryan Fields: thanks so much for your time, Mona.

[00:41:57] Thanks for having

[00:41:58] Mona Zhang: me. This was fun. Thank you.

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