Maggie Wilson of Metaphysical AF shares her Fave Pot/Not Pot, JR and Diana discuss the discourse around rescheduling, and Elbe of Elbe's Edibles takes us through the history of the Oregon market.
Every so often, we feature other podcasters in the cannabis space to take over our recurring segment, Fave Pot/Not Pot. In this episode, Maggie Wilson of Metaphysical AF shares her selections.
Then we discuss the discourse around rescheduling and share our ever-changing opinions.
Lastly, Elbe of Elbe's Edibles takes listeners on a journey back in time to when Oregon was a stark contrast to the grim reality of today.
0:15- Welcome to Your Highness Podcast
0.54 - Fave pot
2:14 - Fave not pot
4:11 - Main Segment
28:50 - Closer Look
This episode is sponsored by Mitragaia.
Speaker 1 0:15
Welcome to Your Highness podcast. I'm your host, Dianna crash and today I am joined by my co host James crash but before we get into the episode, we have a recurring segment that we do every episode called fav pot v if not pot where each of us discuss our favorite cannabis related item and our favorite non cannabis related item, but we are doing something a little different today. We are going to have Maggie Wilson of metaphysical A F deep friend of the pod give us her faith pot faith not pot.
Speaker 2 0:53
Hey it's Maggie I'm here to tell you my favorite hot and not pot. So what my favorite hot recently is a new concentrate vaporizer device called the Oxo oxide was the brand but the concentrate vaporizer that I like that they make is called the Sano Tae now this is unlike a Pepco or focus V Carta. This is more of a all around really easy, really portable and compact vaporizer it's it's very much handheld. And it basically has three preset temperatures. You can adjust it to how you want but it pretty much is like the ultimate concentrate vaporizer that I have found recently. It has become my absolute favorite. It's made by a company called Oxo which is a you Expo. And I highly recommend if you are at an event and you see them or if you are at a shop and you see this product they also have a dry herb vaporizer and they just have really great sleek and then if products I would say that these are like the Apple products of concentrate vaporizers. Now that you know, PCOS is great, but the Oxo really, really is changing the game. That's my favorite pot. Now my favorite not pot is actually something that is another podcast. And that podcast is specifically a couple episodes that I listened to recently were about leaderboards and how they are not all leaderboards not all talking boards are leaderboards and not all leaderboards are talking words. All that to say ghosted by Roz Hernandez where she talks to a weed y'all let it lead? Joe ologists. Yeah, yeah, is my favorite not pot this week, I learned that the monopoly company, the Parker Brothers, who released monopoly also released and marketed the Ouija board. And the first year that they did that it actually outsold monopoly and monopoly was their number one game. So I thought that was fascinating. So I'm diving into that and I'm gonna read and learn more about that. But it all started with my new favorite podcast called ghosted by Roz Hernandez. So those are my favorite pots and non pots, and I hope that you enjoy them
Speaker 1 3:26
ever feel like life stress gets to be too much. Welcome to meet your Gaia, your natural wellness partner. We are the number one rated provider of kratom a 100% natural plant based solution used in Asia for centuries to help increase focus, energy and relaxation. Want to know more? Use the code y h pod to get 10% off your first order today. That's meet your gaia.com and code y h pod for 10% off. Welcome back. It's me your host Diana again. And this time I am truly joined by my wonderful co host, James crash. How are you doing today Jr? I called you James.
Speaker 3 4:26
You did call me Jay. We're bouncing back and forth. James. I'm JR.
Speaker 1 4:30
Hi. Nice to meet you. I'm your wife, James. Hi.
Unknown Speaker 4:34
It's me. I'm the co host. It's me.
Speaker 1 4:36
Yeah. I mean, we both have complicated discussions around our discussions. We have different names in different areas for different reasons. And it gets complicated when we try to explain it. So I'm not even going to try to explain why I just called you two different names.
Speaker 3 4:57
I mean, it's pretty easy. I have a nickname but people call me by my nickname. Some people call me by my legal first name, which is James.
Speaker 1 5:07
I hate when I say something as complicated or like, you know, another story and then people are just like, No, it's not that serious. I'm gonna move on from discuss.
Speaker 3 5:19
This is today's podcast episode. Discussion of. Yeah.
Speaker 1 5:23
No, but Welcome to season nine. If you've made it this far
Speaker 3 5:35
it's like a, like an episode of Soul. Like, they have to make it through all like these trolls. And all the trolls are just seasons of Your Highness podcast.
Speaker 1 5:45
Well, I've never seen it. So I'm going to take your word for it. It is spooky season. A spooky, spooky season?
Speaker 3 5:54
Well, now we're the beginning of spooky season was two weeks ago. So we're like, fully in spooky season now.
Speaker 1 6:00
Okay, well, that's accurate. But that's not what we're talking about today. So season nine, we're going to be doing things a little differently. We talked about it a little bit before. But if you're new to the podcast, what we'll be doing from now on is discussing hot topics, something that is being very widely discussed in cannabis. And we'll give our takes if we have them. So after we're done talking about the hot topic, you will hear what we're calling a closer look for lack of better a better title. Right now we have not come up with a better title. But what we're doing going forward is taking a peek into the local scene. And so far, we've had Connecticut, Canada, Maryland,
Unknown Speaker 6:56
all three of those Yes.
Speaker 1 6:59
But season nine, we'll be having that every episode or almost every episode at least. So stay tuned for that after this discussion. But today, what we're talking about is a very hot topic.
Speaker 3 7:13
It's very hot, very, very hot. We're actually talking about I'm sure you all have heard is the rescheduling of cannabis. Granted, it hasn't been rescheduled yet. It's just basically the first step of many, many steps of reclassification, going from schedule one to schedule three, which has caused a little bit of a polarity, it's been a polarizing situation where I believe a lot of people were originally excited. Just because it would be nice not to be at a scheduled one. But there have been some things that people are still very concerned about. I personally fall on, on one side of those those beliefs. But you know, just to know something about me, I'm a Gemini, so I don't really hold any opinion like like to the grave like I'm very if I get other pieces of information, I am apt to be an adult and change my opinion on things. But currently, I do land on one side of the of the fence on that, and we'll get to that in a minute.
Speaker 1 8:27
But let's talk about what what exactly this classification is because right now, it's just a suggestion. Right? Correct. From the health, human health services, yeah,
Speaker 3 8:38
but it's still it hasn't yet to be actually reclassified yet by the DEA, the DEA needs to basically take that suggestion, and if they decide to move forward with it, then they have to propose their own not really legislation, but their own guidelines of reclassification, which has to be given up to a time period of people being able to ask questions and stuff like that. And then it needs to actually be fully approved and rolled out. So by no means is this happening overnight in any way.
Speaker 1 9:14
Right And okay, so let's just start off with like, one of the the strongest takes that I see is the D schedule or bust. I see that all the time. And to me that feels a bit extreme.
Speaker 3 9:26
I'm i Whenever it's going to such polar extremes it's not that I don't necessarily agree with it. It's just that you I'm I I perceive reality in a way that I know that that's not going to happen right anytime soon. You know just is what does that mean? You don't have any accessing at all like either leave it alone or take it all the way is the same thing that we saw with with health care reform, when a lot of people you know, on the very far faction of things They were insisting that we put up Medicare for all, for a vote, it was full on Medicare bust, knowing full well that it would get denied. And in doing so you actually can cause it to step back a little bit, because then it doesn't really get talked about anymore because it's already gotten voted down a situation like this. Cannabis, if you're looking at it on a medical aspect of it, it does need to be reclassified, it can't just be declassified. Because there's still a whole lot of research that was never allowed to be done. Because it was scheduled one, yeah, because
Speaker 1 10:33
schedule one not to cut you off. But let's just make this clarification means that it has no medical benefit at all,
Speaker 3 10:40
at all, and can even be tested. What it does with bringing it down to schedule three is it allows them to test it, which needs to be done. And of course, whenever you have situations like this, there are fears of things like pharmaceutical companies coming in. But generally speaking, even if you're declassified, there's still the potential of that. But if you're looking at it on a medical aspect, you need to be able to test things, pharmaceutical companies have a lot of money, most likely they will get into the testing of situations. But if we really want to be taken seriously as medicine, not what we have now. But legitimate medicine, you know, even if it is just the raw plant, but still having a good as medicine and not just a something that you can really recreationally consume, and call it medicine. You know, if you're actually talking about medicine, that it needs to be tested, it needs to be sent through trials, we actually need to get hard data on things that actually helps and doesn't help because right now we do have a situation where it's, it's become this miracle thing, this miracle plant that cures. Yeah, and it doesn't there's a lot of things that it actually makes worse. And we need to know these things before we just started giving it out to people. But we haven't been able to test these things because we've scheduled one. So to be able to get this proper testing that it's not like that's just completely declassify it, which is fine on a recreational or adult use aspect of it. But if you want to talk about medicine, which has been the conversation all along, then this is the next step of that the US government's not just going to be like, Oh, we're taken from schedule one to complete free for all the US government has never they don't have a history of ever doing that. Why would they do it now. So while some people were upset that they didn't get fully declassified, and set a schedule three, the US government was never going to declassify it just right off the bat without stepping down a few schedules. And really, in my opinion, on a medical aspect of things that needs to be tested, we need to put a lot of research into this plant, which I think is gonna be beneficial in the long run. But it needs to happen so that we can get a full understanding of what it is actually capable of doing.
Speaker 1 12:51
Oh, absolutely. I mean, I would add to that, that recreational I mean, even if you are, I mean, I know there are a lot of opinions out there about the word recreational. And I kind of do think it needs to be removed in a way just because like you were saying, people who are using it for quote, unquote, fun, may not care so much about the stringent testing and research. However, and I know we're not supposed to say should, but we need to pay attention to what we're putting in our bodies, regardless of what the intention is. And so therefore, we need to have the research available, we need to have the testing available. So that a it legitimizes the business and makes it so that we have nothing, nothing that we can't fight up against when it comes to this plant. Like we need to be indestructible as cannabis enthusiast when it comes to fighting against all of this unwarranted stigma. And we can't do that if we don't have the research to back it up. We can't say like, look at all these studies. We don't have that right now.
Speaker 3 14:02
Right now we just go off of what other people say. And you know, just like any kind of game of telephone, one person may say one thing and by the time it reaches an actual source is completely convoluted and contradicting what they originally stated. And you also have people that really just want the plant to be legal. So they'll say just about anything to push that forward. Unfortunately, you get that a lot with these kind of, you know, supplements, I guess, for lack of a better word of housing and health, that are still up and coming is people afraid of saying anything negative about the plan, only pushing positives to the extreme where they start making things up, because they're afraid of any kind of negative aspect of it will keep it from actually moving forward in the process of becoming legal, but it ultimately ends up going against them because it makes it look like it's all a sham
Speaker 1 14:58
right like a snake oil. All salesmen situation, which we don't want to get anywhere near as an industry, right, like, we want to stay away from that. But to get political for a minute. So, you know, you mentioned, when we're talking about the classifier busts, like it is unreasonable to think that we would go from such extremes, especially when you have Biden in office. I mean, he made big promises in the beginning, but I mean, did you really believe him? I mean, talk about the king of incremental change is what I'm trying to say. But also, I'm saying this, because one of the other things that came up during this big discussion is that a group of Republican legislators are actually fighting against this discount or rescheduling. They think rescheduling it from schedule one is not based on science, they think it's irresponsible pro pot agenda. So when you're fighting up against something like that, to be fair to Biden, in this regard, you do need to have incremental change, we do need to take it slow,
Speaker 3 16:10
and not for nothing. For one, I would just like to state that I think it's hilarious that the GOP side of things is saying that they're we're not working off a science when literally scheduled in a way that we can't scientifically prove anything. But regardless of that incremental change, while can be frustrating, it's generally how things get done in this country, just looking at things that have passed this year, on the side of the GOP, the GOP have been talking about tax cuts, which is beforehand, and also the elimination of Roe v Wade, for years going back into the 90s. And they didn't just come out in the 90s and say, Hey, let's vote on this stuff, squash it because it would have died. And then no one would have heard of it. And then whoever the left, who was empowered at that point, could have easily put that into law. But what they did was they took their time with this, they spoke about it, they slowly put in judges that they knew would fall for it. They constantly just put people in play for years, this went on their agenda to take away Roe v Wade has been going on since the 90s. So but it took that incremental change if they came out in 1996. And were like, Let's get rid of Roe v Wade, people would have got to shut down and never talked about again, they would have lost, just like we just did with Medicare for all look like we could do again, if we go D schedule or bust with this, you need to have the incremental change, you need to put your pieces in order you need to think strategically, with and not just passionately,
Speaker 1 17:45
right. And that's hard to do. It's it really is I mean, I especially for people
Speaker 3 17:49
on the left, we're passionate people, we get very angry about things and we make everyone know that we're very angry about them. Yeah, but that's it, we need to pull back a little bit
Speaker 1 17:59
well, because especially the one thing that I've heard time and again, and I've written about it, and I've you know, I've just really researched this topic exhaustively. So I don't have personal experience with it. But I know that a lot of business owners are having such a financial burden because of the IRS Code 280 E, which keeps them from writing off, you know, marketing, promotional expenses,
Speaker 3 18:30
not just that the amount of taxes they pay, just to give you an idea of the business aspect of it, you can skip forward, if you could zero cares about this, but it'll be quick. Generally speaking in a traditional retail market, your labor percentage, which is basically how much money you're spending in labor, by how much money you're bringing in per day, your general labor percentage and standardized retail hits around 15 16%, which means at the end of the day, 15 to 16% of the money that you have brought in is allocated to paying your workforce with cannabis. Because of all the taxes that are wrapped up into that you find yourself having companies have to work with a lot less. So you're finding a labor percentage, generally around six to 8%, which means all the money they're bringing in now instead of 15% being allocated to payroll. Now it's about five or 6%, which means a lot less people having jobs, because companies in their viewpoint have to remain sustainable, they don't have the means to be able to pay, because then they won't be able to pay their taxes in which we're running into now, where we're finding a lot of companies, even these big MSOs they're bringing in a lot of money, but they're still very much in the red, because they don't have the money to pay their people to pay for the product and to pay these taxes. So they're getting crippled, and it's better for the MSOs is even worse for the mom and pop companies. So if you're really looking at building up communities and allowing people Especially these Mom and Pop companies to thrive, you really need to eliminate the tax code. And it's not going to happen. Unless it hits schedule three. I know I think it was like the Washington Post, they were saying, oh, yeah, this, this is good that it's not schedule one, but maybe schedule two, when no, because schedule two is still puts you into that tax code, that tax code doesn't break away until you hit schedule three. And companies are able to actually have fluid cash flow, to be able to pay their, their employees, on top of that, be able to get merchant accounts and actually be able to work as legitimate businesses, all these things are pushed aside, it's why you can't use a credit card, when you're buying a cannabis, that's not a debit card. You know, it's because you can't get a merchant account, because no bank is going to allow you to merchant with them, knowing that their assets could be frozen at any time. So to be able to eliminate this and allow businesses to actually operate and work it needs to be scheduled down to three, not two.
Speaker 1 20:57
I couldn't agree more. So I guess I do have an opinion about it. I didn't know if I had a firm opinion. I mean, I'm definitely on the side of that. I think it would be well, no, and I understand I know you understand. So I'm going to cut you off and read some quotes that are pushed back. All right. So here's one that you can speak to Jr. First, we should clarify the discussion. There are states with med pot programs in states with AAU programs that would be adult use the adult use programs should benefit from the schedule change from a tax standpoint, but the med pop businesses face an expiration date the FDA won't approve today's products.
Speaker 3 21:43
Okay. And this is all right. There are certain aspects of the pushback that I agree on. And there's certain ones that I don't necessarily agree on. And this is kind of one that I don't necessarily agree on. Just because, alright, let's just be completely honest, this what this shows about is being honest, the med program has never been a med program. It's always been basically a pay for play adult use, where no one is treating it like medicine, we need to stop pretending like we are, it's just not happening. Working in the industry. Thinking that I'm getting into medicine. There are, I'll say, I'll be generous, I'll say 30% of the people that have medical cards are actually legitimately looking for medicine, something that will help them the rest just found a way to pay for an ability to buy cannabis, which is fine. These are the people that are just coming in just looking for the things that are highest in THC, they don't want to hear about terpenes they don't want to hear about lineage. They just want to know what is the highest THC and they're gonna go home and they're gonna consume it. So with that in mind, if you actually want to start talking about states with medical programs being expired out, then yeah, most likely those states if they don't want to do full medical, actual medical programs should look into going adult use because what we're looking at with the MediCal program, possibly is now we're eliminating what they call the recommendations instead of prescriptions. So right now, you're just recommended certain things. So it's basically as a doctor saying, you know, whatever, when you go into a schedule three, you do run into a situation where it could go strictly medical, where now you are getting a prescription. The plus side of that is now this puts a lot more accountability on companies to actually provide medical styled cannabis in Maryland, it is almost impossible to find something that is ratioed with CBD, that you can actually vaporize or smoke they have edibles or something by that ratio like like what like one to ones or to like equal parts CBD to THC or a two to one which is two times the amount of CBD to THC things that are medically incredibly beneficial.
Speaker 1 24:00
But and also let me just cut you off really quick to say some people do need high high THC medically,
Speaker 3 24:06
no, some people do need di THC medically, I'm not saying and that's where things like RSO and stuff like that comes into play. But there are a lot of people that need things that are rich in CBD. And when you have these medical programs, which are essentially just pay to play adult use programs, where you're just basically paying the state, you know, X amount of money every year to be able to buy cannabis, then you're not getting what is actual medicine. And these companies don't have to provide what is medicine, and they have time like I said it's incredibly hard to find any CBD flower at all. You know, we have son Med, who has done a really great job at producing continuously producing things that are rich in CBD. But outside of that it's almost impossible. So with that, you know, you're basically forcing because it's going to be a prescription. You're forcing these companies to actually align to a medical stance producing things that are more medically driven, and being consistent with their products, I mean, just how many times I'm speaking to people that are strictly in medical states, how many times have you found something that worked amazing. And then three months later, you went back to get more, and it was gone. And you're told, I don't know when it's going to come back in stock. Those are the things that happen when it's not strictly medical, because they're not working off a prescription. So the state doesn't have to regulate that practice. Now, when you go into a strict medical, and it is prescription based, if you have a prescription that says that you need this amount of this strain, then if the company wants to play ball in that state, they're going to have to make sure that they are producing enough of that dosage of that strain, to be able to fulfill prescriptions. If I have a prescription for my Albuterol inhaler, and I take it to the pharmacy, they don't say Oh, I don't know when we're going to get that maybe in a couple months, but I have, here's this nasal nasal spray, this kind of works kind of well, too. And send me on my way with that, you know, that's not how medicine works. We've never actually had cannabis as medicine. You know, we've just been paying the state the allow us to use it. So if you really want to talk about medicine and medical states, then you deserve to have an actual medical state where things are regulated, and people are actually getting the medicine they need. And not just paying the state some money to get a card so that they can consume, which I'm fine with. If you're adult use more power to rock and roll. But let's just be honest about what we're doing here.
Speaker 1 26:36
Yeah, I mean, even if you are adult use, I'm going to go back to it. I feel like you are using it for if you don't want to use the word medicinal, fine, but I feel like if it's making you feel better, in some kind of a way, then it's medicinal. That's just my opinion.
Unknown Speaker 26:57
It's, it's therapeutic.
Speaker 1 26:59
Okay, therapeutic. Maybe that's a better word. Yeah. Yeah. All right, therapeutic? Well, I think he gave me a lot to think about, Jr.
Speaker 3 27:10
and I said, I'm not I'm not standing and dying on this hill. If someone shows me things that make me think twice here, yeah. Now,
Unknown Speaker 27:20
let's just say that this is not the perfect solution. I'm
Speaker 3 27:22
not living in a perfect society, there's a lot of things that I'm worried about, even if we do scheduled it, you know, that runs into a situation where we then gain the ability to, to travel state to state with it, which is great, but that also allows giant MSOs to come into play and start transferring their cannabis from state to state and wiping out the small companies that are just single steak, you know, single steak rose, you know, my biggest complaint with the fact that it's not decriminalized what she was originally saying that I agree with, was that because it is d scheduled and or rescheduled, and that D scheduled, is we're still running into the issue of a lot of people making money off the backs of others that can't come and join the party, you know, people that have been arrested, that haven't had expungements. You know, they still with it being scheduled three still want to be able to get into the industry. And that is something that is very serious and still needs to be continued to be discussed. But yet again, these are things that we need to work at incrementally, instead of just thinking that we can describe it all. Not that I'm saying that we don't deserve to have it, but coming to the understanding that was never going to be offered to us anyway.
Speaker 1 28:39
True. I think that's a good note to end on. So stay tuned to hear about the local scene in Oregon. And now we're here for a closer look at Oregon and to help me look at Oregon a little close a little closer. I'm just repeating words. Anyway. To help me take a closer look at Oregon. I am joined today by lb from LVDS. How are you doing today?
Speaker 4 29:15
I'm doing great. Diane, so nice to meet. Thanks for having me on your show today.
Speaker 1 29:19
Thank you for joining me. So lb. Let's start by talking a little bit about the Oregon cannabis scene. It's probably one of the oldest ones right? If and so yeah. So what is the current attitude among consumers and business owners?
Speaker 4 29:38
Those are two very different conversations. If if you are a consumer in Oregon, it is the cheapest weed you can find in the world. That's for real it is so bottom dollar right now and that is definitely because we're over licensed. We have an over a supply and that is not Great for the camp the consumer because they're not getting craft cannabis. So when you talk to the business owners because of those complications and problems, it is not great for the business owners, right? So in the world we live in right now prices are going up on everything, right? Our, our groceries, our rent our utilities, but in Oregon, we cannot raise the price on cannabis, our consumers will just reject it. And so because of that we're losing businesses left and right, because you just can't stay open. That's terrible. And so it's, yeah, it's terrible. Because I want the consumer to be able to buy, of course, affordable cannabis. But wouldn't it be great if it was the best cannabis that we actually have here? Because Oregon has an embarrassment of riches that are not being able to be used because craft makers just can't stay in business. And so what you're getting is just the most easiest, I guess, lead to grow at this point. I don't know if it's easy, but it certainly the prices reflected do not reflect the hard work that farmers have to do in any way at all. That's terrible. Terrible, because, yeah, you know, it's just, it's terrible, because Oregon is procrastinate and generally have craft wine. We really are amazing producers. I grew up in a farming family. I've lived in Oregon since 1968. I was born here in Portland. So I am very proud to be an Oregonian, because I have just had the best childhood and adulthood having the best produce available to me, the most amazing place to live. It's so beautiful here, and it's so great. And also, because I started smoking weed when I was a teenager, I've also only had really good weed. I've never had to have, you know, sticks and seeds. It's always been available to me until we finished it. And now we don't have that same ability to get that really, really really good cannabis on the shelves because of the over licensing so great for consumers in some aspects. Not great for business in any aspect.
Speaker 1 32:04
Well, you just kind of hit the nail on the head. But do you want to go a little bit more into how the scene has changed over the last several years, like I know a lot has gone on and it's probably way too much to unpack in this short segment. But if you could give us kind of like a Reader's Digest version of what's been going on,
Speaker 4 32:23
I really tried to stay positive. But this is one of those parts of the story that's really hard to even talk about. I am the oldest edible maker in Oregon. I just celebrated 13 years in the industry. That is a very lonely number because no one I started in this industry is still available. So how was it before in the medical days and the gray market days, there was so much networking, so much education, everyone was out looking out for each other. If dispensary was robbed immediately, farmers would just hand over pounds to keep them open. It was the most exciting and educational time of my life. When I got involved in medical cannabis. We had parties we networked in my bakery before the rules, I had these things called breeders ballers brunches, where I brought in the best farmers and we would feed them brunch and they wouldn't be able to talk to each other, have each other seeds, talk about how to grow better, how to do better, how to be better. And because of the over licensing and the regulations. What happened was outside money came in. We are they just allowed way too many people to come in from other states and greed took over. And then what also happened with the rules was we couldn't even socialize together. So we can't get together and smoke weed and talk about our business like wine or alcohol, they can go to any bar and have networking events and talk about their industry and consume their own products and share their products with each other. We're not allowed that in Oregon. It's not even easy for me to get my products to farmers to just give them to them as presents, right? They made that completely hard and almost impossible. We can't have networking events where we can consume our own product. We're forced to have networking events or association meetings in places that serve alcohol. We don't want that. We want to be able to sit and talk just like any industry just like restaurants do hotels do. Farmers do like we are isolated from our own product. And that has caused a huge problem in our industry. It's caused greed. It's caused paranoia, secrecy, the education stopped the marketing change to not baby being so honest. And because it was about moving units not about taking care of the plant or the patients anymore. It was about how many gummies can we sell How many pre rolls can we sell? And so yeah, I really, I'm still in this industry, and I'm still trying to stay really positive every day. But I missed those days of education. I missed those days where everybody knew the farmers and their families and their kids and all of the things that were involved in it. I miss having harvest parties, I had a Harvest Dinner every fall for my farmers who grew the cannabis that we put in our food, and other people who worked in the medical industry as a thank you. If I had that now, at my facility, I would get 5000 10,000 $15,000 in fines, I could lose my license. All the people that attend the event could lose their licenses. That doesn't seem supportive in any way as a business owner. That was a big answer. Sorry.
Speaker 1 35:51
No, that's it. That was an amazing answer. And it was heartbreaking. You really took me on a journey. It's like I got I got like, you know, chills, I felt like heartbreak. I got a little bit excited when you were talking about the magic of back then. So I appreciate that. Yeah, and I think people don't understand that about Oregon, really outside of Oregon that like you know, I think that maybe there's a misconception about people being like, maybe snobby about, about their cannabis who come out. But But what how you're describing it? It's like, Well, how could you not be discerning if you were just surrounded by this bountiful? Beautiful, you know, it's like, how do you go from that to because because I don't know that life. I'm like the opposite end of that, like listening to you talk about that, like, Wow, I can't even imagine. So, yeah. That is big.
Speaker 4 36:49
I also miss my friends in the industry, this industry with our rules and our separation and our greed has made everybody tried to take care of their own houses as they should I get that. But the rules and the regulations and the stress we live under leaves no time for us to actually enjoy this amazing plant that we grow. So very naturally in the Pacific Northwest. I mean, our soil and our ecosystem here is made to grow cannabis, it's really a fantastic place to grow up. It is I honestly, I probably many places and smoked weed and other countries and other states. And I always cannot wait to get home to Oregon.
Speaker 1 37:30
It sounds amazing. And I've wanted to move there for a long time for those reasons. But so, so I just asked you a little bit basically this question, but I'm going to go ask you a little more. Do you? Is there anything that you wish people understood about Oregon? Like what are some of the misconceptions about the Oregon cannabis scene from like outside, that you that frustrate you a little bit,
Speaker 4 37:55
one of the things that frustrates me is we really again, have the best growers in the world here in Oregon. Like these are generational farmers. These are generational generational farmers. And I grown up with my cousins and my brothers and all of their friends learning from their grandfathers or from their uncles like this is embedded in our souls here. And so because we do the best weed it's very confusing why we don't have the tourism here for it. But I think that the answer again, is we're not able to have any social life with our wheat. You can't smoke it at hotels, you can't go to a park and smoke it. There's no smoking clubs, there's no social lounges or any social anyway. So I wish people knew how great the Oregon cannabis growers really were. But the only way to solve that problem is for our rules to lighten up. We need to have places like wineries do we need to have tasting rooms, we need to have social lounges. We need to be able to cafes, I am still stuck in for legal for like seven years. I've been doing this for 13 years. And I am watching on tick tock cannabis pizzerias in New York. Yeah, they're serving beer and pizza. You're not doing that? I
Speaker 1 39:20
know frustrating it is I can't It's so wild to me to hear you talk like that because I'm in northeast and we just became adult use legal here in Maryland and people are already on the streets like just openly consuming. That's not allowed, but they're doing it anyway. And I and I just wonder if it's like that's the East Coast West Coast difference like,
Speaker 4 39:43
Yes, I'll tell you what that difference is and you're living before regulation. That's the difference. So we were doing that as well. The minute we legalized and the state residents knew that legalization was on the horizon. People started smoking in public People started smoking in the streets all of that too. But then when the rules came down, and they made it so harsh, that the business has had to really enforce the rules like you're not, you can't go to a party and handout edibles, you can't. My one of my, my farmer actually went to a private birthday party a few years ago, smoked weed with his own t shirt on, they said doghouse farms, and got busted by our regulation. Because you're not allowed to do that. Well, you're not allowed to wear your so he could wear my shirt and consume wheat and I could wear his shirt. And we could both consume wheat. But we're not allowed to have our own brands on our bodies while we do it. Wow. I understand you're very excited. But I want to tell you something. If you are involved in this, see, if you are if anybody who's listening to you is involved in the regulations and the rules that are about to come up for you. You need to get on those rules advisory committee, you need to sit in those rooms and help them make their decisions. I was on those committees. And it was a exercise in frustration, because they wouldn't listen to us. But we're talking six and seven years ago, the people who are on the East Coast and the people that are in in the states that are just legalizing now, you have an opportunity to learn from all of the mistakes that Oregon made. And we made more mistakes than we did victories. And I'm saying that we're still making more mistakes and victories in cannabis here. So heed my advice, sit on those committees. Don't let money make your rules make the rules that you want for your own state.
Speaker 1 41:36
Absolutely. Let's put that on a shirt. So what do you what are your hopes for that? Do you have any hope for the future of cannabis? In Oregon specifically?
Speaker 4 41:49
Yeah, no listen up because of all of these things that I just mentioned, because of the great weed. And because I grew up on a farm here in Oregon. I believe that we can be a destination for people to come and see how great Oregon is as a state. But we need to have hotels that open up and social lounges. We need to be able to smoke at the parks, we need to be able to figure out a way to make cannabis as friendly as alcohol is in this state for tourism, adult use across the board, right. And so I believe Oregon, we'll get there. I think that once we make a decision in this state, we usually do really well following through, we just have a very hard time moving forward progressively. And so once we do it so my hope for Oregon is is that we'll have all of those things. But you can go to a hotel, and you can order from your hotel you can order from a local dispensary and have some pre rolls and some edibles show up maybe a nice cannabis beverage. And then you can get on your little by and you can run through the city eating your edibles smoking your joints at the park. I hope that report went I hope that for the state of Oregon so much and I believe we can get there. Otherwise, I really should just stop because it's 13 years of nonsense. Actually six years of nonsense. The first seven years were fantastic. Yeah, the last six years. Really nonsense. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 43:13
that balance right? I'm just joking.
Speaker 4 43:17
Right are supposed to be the other way. But it gets harder every year, which makes me more determined to stick in because when oldsters like me quit when people in this industry who put everything into it quit. The only thing that people are going to know is the new guard. And that's not what we want here. We do not want. We don't want bottom prices. We don't want Walmart we that's not what anybody in this state really wants.
Speaker 1 43:42
No, I agree. So before we end, can you tell us a bit more about your business and how people can support you?
Speaker 4 43:49
Oh, thank you. I would love to do that. We are a niche in a niche here in Oregon. And so we are a cannabis production facility and in Oregon, the only way you can get our items is at a dispensary. So we have seed to sale farmers, processors and retail stores. So whatever your local retail store is we're probably in it and if we're not please ask for us because we can get there and this is why you should ask for us. We are Canna butter based. We are one of maybe two companies in Oregon that still use Canna butter. I don't use any isolates or distillate. I don't use any of anything that's chemical based. We source all of our weed from doghouse farms. They have been my loyal farmer all of these years. And I'm proud to do that. And then we bring their wheat to our bakery, we make the cannabutter in house. We make cake balls, cake bombs, cake bites, we make hard candies in three different flavors root beer, cold brew and salty caramel. We have five flavors of cookies and we do that all in house and then we deliver to our dispensaries throughout the state and we're in all parts of Oregon except the state They're in Oregon coast, but we're gonna get there too.
Unknown Speaker 45:02
Yeah, you will. Thank you so much again, LV, I appreciate it,
Speaker 4 45:07
Diana, I really appreciate this and I really hope you'll come to Oregon. And when you do, please come to the bakery. We do tours. And that's for anybody else listening if you want to come and tour a cannabis bakery in Portland, reach out to LPS edibles, and we'll give you a tour.
Speaker 1 45:20
Awesome. Thank you for listening. Until next time, stay high and beautiful. This episode was produced by Your Highness media, audio editing by Jr. Crash. intro music by your mom likes my music. Subscribe to our sub stack Your Highness newsletter for the latest announcements and event updates
Transcribed by https://otter.ai