674 - Cannabis Science & Business

Program Notes §

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Guest speaker: Robb Flannery 

 

While going through cancer treatment, Dr. Flannery’s mom sought recommendations for safely medicating with Cannabis. Dr. Flannery’s unmatched expertise in the field and his absolute vigilance for his mom’s health created the most stringent standards – no applied chemicals, no pesticides, and no additional risks of being harmful to his mother.

No products matched his high standards for his mom, so Dr. Flannery decided to make his own clean product. And in doing so, Dr. Robb Farms was born with a mission to make products with care, for the people we care about. (https://www.drrobbfarms.com/)

Topics include cutting edge cannabis science; legalization and its impact on the cannabis business; corporate influence on cannabis; and the future role of cannabis in society.

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Transcript §

00:00:00 ► §

Three-dimensional, transforming, musical, linguistic objects.

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Alpha and Omega.

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Greetings from cyberdelic space.

00:00:20 ► §

This is Lorenzo, and I’m your host here in the Psychedelic Salon.

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And today I’m going to play a recording of a live salon that we had two weeks ago.

00:00:29 ► §

Our guest that night was Dr. Rob Flannery, who spoke about the medical marijuana business.

00:00:35 ► §

And as you listen with me right now, my guess is that you’ll think of, well, some other questions that we probably should have asked Dr. Rob.

00:00:42 ► §

I know that I’ve come up with a few myself,

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so sometime next year we’ll have him back for another round of questions, and if you think of one, well, just leave it as a comment in the program notes for this podcast, which you can

00:00:54 ► §

find at psychedelicsalon.com. And now, here is Charles introducing our guest. Today we’re

00:01:01 ► §

talking to Dr. Robert Flannery. He’s the first PhD in the U.S. with certified technical experience in growing commercial cannabis.

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He’s the CEO of Dr. Rob Farms and the co-author of the Cannabis Grower’s Handbook, The Complete Guide to Marijuana and Hemp Cultivation with the legendary Ed Rosenthal and activist Angela Baca.

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and activist Angela Baca.

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And we also happen to go to high school together.

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So it’s a little bit of a reunion here,

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you know, in the salon this evening.

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But I guess- Excuse me, just one second.

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I’ve got to ask this

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because we won’t get a chance later on.

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And the two of you guys in high school together,

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please tell me you snuck out behind the gym

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and shared a joint.

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I was a goody two-shoes, honestly, all through college, too.

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Because, you know, I mean, we’ve been fed propaganda for how many decades?

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Robbie, for what it’s worth, I was 42 years old before I had my first toke.

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So don’t feel bad.

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I’m sorry to interrupt you, Charles.

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No, no.

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I mean, we both.

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I had to ask it.

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No, it’s a reasonable question.

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And we were both – neither one of us really kind of partook in the illicit substances until we were into our adulthoods or at least into college.

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And I guess that raises the question, Robbie.

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How did cannabis enter your field of existence?

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How did it enter your life?

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Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I have a PhD in plant biology, right? enter your your field of existence how did it enter your life yeah absolutely i mean you know

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i have a phd in plant biology right so like the full the full spiel i like to say is i have a phd

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in plant biology with an emphasis in environmental horticulture and a specific expertise in hydroponic

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crop optimization for cut flower production controlled environment agriculture from uc davis

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um you know there’s a very i have said a time time or two, so I’m kind of used to it.

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But I’m very proud to say UC Davis was recently voted the number one plant science school on the

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planet by U.S. News and World Report. So I was technically trained to grow cut flowers, which

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cannabis is nothing more than cut flower production, by the number one plant science school on the

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planet. And when I was doing my PhD research, UC Davis being a public university, we always had cannabis growers coming in and, and asking questions. We’re doing

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cutting edge hydroponic research. A lot of cannabis cultivation is done hydroponically as well.

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And so people kind of interested in what we’re doing. Interestingly enough, when I was doing

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my PhD research, we would ask what, what, what type of plant are you growing? What type of crop

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are you growing that you need help with when the campus growers would come on campus?

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And for some reason, they always say French basil, which, by the way, is not a thing.

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Unless you’re growing basil in France, apparently.

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But yeah, we all knew what was going on.

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But we’d say, hey, we do cooperative extension outreach, and we can come and help you out with your grows.

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If you let us onto your farm, they’re like, oh, no, no, no, please do not come to my farm.

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This is well before any type of legality was going on even in California.

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I always knew in the back of my mind, hey, I am doing my PhD research on chrysanthemums and roses, and cannabis grows very similar to chrysanthemum.

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However, cannabis is just another plant, and it’s a rather benign plant, in all honesty.

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And so I always kind of knew in the back of my mind that cannabis might be an option for me.

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And I knew that there was a lot of money to be had.

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And when it comes to money and revenue for agricultural products in the state of California, which I believe the majority of us are sitting in right now, you know, that’s the number one agricultural product.

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You know, there’s more money in cannabis than there is in dairy, which is outside of cannabis

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is the number one agricultural product in California.

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So it’s one of those things where it’s kind of in the back of my mind.

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Yeah, this might be my avenue one day.

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And so lo and behold, I had a friend who sent me a job application and said, hey, this might

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be a perfect job for you.

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And it was for a production manager position in Spark in San Francisco.

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Spark, at least at the time I was there, was the largest vertically integrated dispensary in the state of California.

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You know, I go in there and I, you know, go through the interview and it was like horticulture 101 questions.

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And, you know, I kind of aced that interview.

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And the next day I received a phone call from the executive director at the time.

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And he said, listen, we think you’re overqualified for production manager position.

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So we’re creating a production director position for you.

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Wow.

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I oversaw every single aspect of production for the company.

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That’s kind of how I got my foot in the door.

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And that was in 2013, which in cannabis cannabis years i always like to say it’s like

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dog years so um yeah but that’s kind of how i got my foot in the door and the the origin story that

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you tell on your dr rob farms website yes is um is that your your mom was experiencing a medical issue and you were inspired to develop cannabis to respond to that.

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So can you speak a little bit to that?

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Yeah, of course.

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When I got into the cannabis industry in 2013, this is well before the state regulations

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we saw in 2018 in the state of California.

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From 1996, we always had some level of medical legality in the state, but it was still a pretty gray area.

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A lot of illicit growers still at that time, still today as well, but especially at that time.

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Word got out that, hey, there’s a nerd with three letters behind his name in the cannabis space.

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And so I started receiving phone calls to do consulting.

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You know, I would travel to these farms.

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I would talk to the farmers.

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And oftentimes they would say, I don’t want to tell you what we’re using the crops because we’re kind of embarrassed because they knew what they were using was poisonous.

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And I oftentimes would be, well, I can tell you already what you’re using just by the look of the plants, you know, things like that.

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And so it’s one of those things where oftentimes would come across growers who are using a compound called microbutanol.

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oftentimes would come across growers who are using a compound called Michael Butanol.

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Michael Butanol is derived, let’s just say, derived from the same technology that the Nazis used to use at the concentration camps to gas Jewish people back in the 40s.

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Right. So Michael Butanol is a compound that releases hydrogen cyanide.

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It’s a systemic pesticide. It’s a fungicide. It’s very,

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very effective. But, you know, when you heat it up, it releases hydrogen cyanide. Well,

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what do you do when you consume cannabis? You have to heat it up. And so this was a compound that I kept on telling people, like, listen, you cannot be using this. You’re turning this medicine

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into poison. And I heard one of two responses. It was either, well, what can I use instead? You

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know, because cannabis is unfortunately very susceptible to fungal infection. It was either, well, what can I use instead? Because cannabis is unfortunately

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very susceptible to fungal infection. It was either, what can I use instead? Or it was,

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I don’t care, which kind of blew my mind. Here we have farmers who are supposed to be growing

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a medicine for people and they’re poisoning people. Fast forward a little bit now, I was in

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the dry cure space at Spark in San Francisco when I received a phone call from my mom and my mom

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was letting me know that she was diagnosed triple negative breast cancer and just to let you know

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she’s uh still still around and kicking today they caught it very early luckily and she’s currently

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cancer free uh but she went through a couple rounds of um tumor removal and surgery she had

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chemo and radiation therapy and you know my mom went to college in the 60s not even joking when

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i’m telling the story she actually had this. She was invited to a pot party and

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she thought she was going to a Tupperware showing party. So my mom, extremely naive when it comes

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to cannabis, I told my, I told my mom, I said, listen, mom, I can get you access cannabis. I can,

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you know, get you some clean cannabis for you to consume. And she said, okay, that’d be great.

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However, I don’t want to smoke.

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I don’t want to vape.

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I only want edibles.

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And here I am in the dry cure space,

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literally surrounded by a literal ton of cannabis that I can’t give to my mom

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because it’s all meant for smokable and vapeable.

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And I’m thinking if I’m going to get access to cannabis

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that’s clean and do this quickly for my mom,

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I’m going to have to source this from someone else.

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And I’m starting to think back to those farmers

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using mycoabutanyl.

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And I’m thinking to myself,

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am I about to poison my mom?

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And so it was one of those things where

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that was like that light bulb moment.

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You know, I have this technical training.

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I have a very marketable,

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leverageable position that I have being,

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you know, this nerd in the cannabis space.

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And I said, you know, this is that kind of idea for DocRob Farms and providing… Our motto is good science, clean cannabis.

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Using science to address a lot of the issues that cannabis growers and farmers have.

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What are some of the considerations that go into developing medical use cannabis and

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communicating for on the patient level,

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what cannabis is right for what needs? Yeah, that’s a great question. You know,

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when it comes to, you know, a lot of people say, you know, recreational or adult use cannabis

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versus medical use, what do I, what do I do as a cultivator different to provide that medicine?

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I do nothing different. It is adult use and recreational use versus

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medicinal use, I think are just two sides of the same coin type of thing, where, you know,

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if you were to ask someone, why do you use cannabis for adult use purposes or recreational

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purposes? And oftentimes you hear the answer, after a long day at work, it’s nice to smoke a

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joint or, you know, smoke a bowl or take an edible and just take the edge off. Well, that’s a medicinal use.

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That is anxiety reduction.

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That’s stress reduction.

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It helps me sleep at night.

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And so I always like to say that adult use is basically undiagnosed medical use, in my

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opinion.

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And I think more and more people are getting to that point.

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But as a cultivator, I don’t really do any different.

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Now, having said that, there are some patients that require a significantly larger dose of THC and CBD and some of the other cannabinoids. And right now, the regulations don’t allow for adult know, a thousand milligrams of THC for an edible and things along those lines. You know, a lot of cancer patients require a significant dose. You know, if you’re

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just going to use like a recreational dose, sometimes it’s like five to 10 milligrams,

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maybe 15 milligrams. A lot of cancer patients are looking at the hundreds of thousands.

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Right. My friend who was visiting this weekend was diagnosed with a rare eye cancer last year

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and used Rick Simpson oil, which is this, well, perhaps you

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can explain it better than I can and articulate how high dose cannabis has a significant medicinal

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benefit. Yeah, absolutely. Now I will, you know, full disclosure, I am a doctor, but that’s a PhD

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in plant biology. So I’m not a medical doctor or my mother-in-law’s in the other room, but not a real doctor, according to my mother-in-law,

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but I do have a PhD. So, you know, full disclosure, but however, that means I also

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quite scientifically literate. I do enjoy reading the medical side of things as well. So I can speak

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to it. Rick Simpson oil, or sometimes people refer to it as RSO is one of the first real

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complete extractions. And so when you do an

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extraction on cannabis, there are 113 known cannabinoids. The University of British Columbia

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just discovered another 21 cannabinoids about two or three years ago. They’re still figuring out

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exactly what they are. We just discovered CBDP and THCP. So there’s, there are over, well over 140, 150 cannabinoids that we know of.

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And the terpenes actually have significant health benefits as well.

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And the terpenes are what give it the flavors and the aromas.

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And, you know, cannabis has so many different types of smells.

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You know, there’s, you know, 200 plus of those.

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And they have medicinal value. What’s interesting about

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Rick Simpson oil is it’s not just a straight up distillate or an isolate where I’m isolating the

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THC for you. We tried that back in the late 80s, early 90s with Marinol, which is a THC pill,

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just an isolate of THC, and it didn’t really provide much benefit. What we came to find out is it’s really this entourage or ensemble effect of all the cannabinoids

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and terpenes working together to provide this medical benefit.

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And so Rick Simpson oil was, you know, that became famous as really the first oil that

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really focused on this complete extraction that has all of these cannabinoids in them.

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We really do see the best benefit for medicinal value when you are doing this in concert,

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when all these cannabinoids are working together.

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A lot of the edibles, you’ll get an edible that just has THC in it.

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There’s nothing wrong with that.

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Honestly, THC by itself is still a quite strong antioxidant and anti-inflammatory,

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especially in its raw form.

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Its acid form is called THCA.

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However, we really find this the biggest benefit when they’re all kind of combined together, working together.

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And what kinds of benefits are you seeing?

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What are people going to high-dose cannabis for in terms of what symptoms are they specifically getting relieved in this use?

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Are they specifically getting relieved in this use or what kind of preventative or or palliative measures are going?

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Are they getting from these from these medicines?

00:14:09 ► §

So that’s a great question. And I think one of the answers I’ll give is it’s it really depends on the physiology of the patient. And it also, the CB1 and CB2 receptors, which the cannabinoids bind to in the endocannabinoid system in our bodies, are found throughout the body, right? And so that’s

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why there are so many ailments that cannabis can’t actually treat or affect to some extent,

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is because, you know, it’s not just, you know, the CB1 receptor, which is primarily found in

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the nervous system, but, you know, the CB1 receptor, which is primarily found in the nervous system,

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but the CB2 receptor is found throughout the digestive system and the immune system and things like that.

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Upregulating and downregulating those receptors really has a wide variety of effects.

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And I just have to say real quick, I always thought it was funny that the federal government,

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which says that cannabis is a Schedule I drug, which means it’s both

00:14:45 ► §

illegal and has no medical benefit.

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The federal government also holds a patent for using cannabis use to treat the symptoms

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of multiple sclerosis.

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So it’s kind of funny that they would be somewhat schizophrenic in that.

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But I think we all kind of here understand what’s going on in the federal government

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to some extent.

00:15:06 ► §

But but, yeah, it’s a really wide variety. And what’s interesting about cannabis, too, is we don’t really know it’s acute toxicity.

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So there’s a term called LD 50 or lethal dose for 50 percent of a sample population to die from that lethal dose.

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And, you know, we know what the LD 50 is for things that are very toxic, arsenic, cyanide.

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They’re very low.

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You don’t need much for it to have an acute fatal effect.

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We know what the LD50 is for sugar, for salt, for water.

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You can overdose on water.

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We don’t really know what the LD50 is for cannabis.

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Some people have said that they believe

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it’s around 150,000 grams, which is more

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than my body weight. So congratulations, you can consume more than my body weight in cannabis. But

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it’s a very benign medicine. So one thing that’s nice about this medicine is that you can kind of

00:15:57 ► §

explore, very similar to my opinion in LSD to some extent, very benign. And you can kind of just go out exploring and see what it does for you.

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Some people it doesn’t work well with,

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and some people they just need to find the right cultivar,

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cultivated variety, which is the science of nerd term for,

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some people often will call it the strain of cannabis.

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You know, we use the strains for, for fungi, for bacteria and viruses,

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the proper term for plants is cultivar.

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So you have to find the right cultivar, which has the right chemotype, you know, the right chemical combination of all those terpenes and cannabinoids that, you know, treat you specifically.

00:16:39 ► §

So it’s one of those things where it has a wide variety of symptoms that it can treat.

00:16:44 ► §

It’s not all sunshine and roses.

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Sometimes it can have its own effects.

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If you have too much THC, for example, it can cause anxiety.

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A little bit of CBD is a great anti-anxiety medicine.

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CBD by itself is an antagonist to the THC consumption.

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So it’s a very strong anti-anxiety medicine as well.

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And so you have to find the right combination that works for you.

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But luckily, because the plant is very benign and non-toxic, you can kind of go out exploring.

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But having said that, you can become uncomfortably high.

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I will fully admit that.

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But you’re not going to die.

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When people overdose on opiates, it’s because they,

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they’re, you know, they, they stop breathing essentially. So, you know, the part of the brain

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that, that controls our heart rate, our blood pressure, our breathing and things along those

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lines become affected and you stop breathing. That’s, you know, essentially how you die from

00:17:40 ► §

opioid overdose. You can’t overdose that way with cannabis because the CB1 receptors,

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which are found in the nervous system, are not found in that part of the brainstem.

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So you can have your heart rate go up, but that’s typically because cannabis is a vasodilator.

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And so your blood pressure will go down and in response, your body to maintain homeostasis will increase your heart rate. So sometimes people will feel like they’re heart tracing,

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things like that, but it’s not because they’re about to have a heart attack or anything like that. It’s actually

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because their blood pressure’s dropping. So it’s an interesting, it’s a really interesting medicine.

00:18:10 ► §

It really is. It blows my mind sometimes when I learn more and more about it.

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And so if you began Dr. Rob Farms in response to this particular issue that your mother faced and

00:18:23 ► §

have this sensibility about the plant as medicine.

00:18:27 ► §

How does that inform your business values and the way that you’ve developed your business

00:18:32 ► §

in the years since you’ve established it?

00:18:35 ► §

Yeah, that’s another great question.

00:18:37 ► §

I mean, for me, it’s really about providing clean medicine for patients.

00:18:43 ► §

The whole concept of adult use versus medicinal use being really the same thing informs me on like, hey, just because someone is using it to go to a live music venue and have a great time or if it’s something that someone needs for anti-anxiety medicine.

00:19:01 ► §

Perfect example.

00:19:01 ► §

We had a patient at Spark in San Francisco. He was a very high-functioning autistic individual,

00:19:07 ► §

but his symptoms kind of manifested as the inability to verbally speak.

00:19:11 ► §

He did contract work at NASA Goddard, at Apple, at Google,

00:19:16 ► §

just a very high-functioning individual.

00:19:17 ► §

And he would come in every morning because he needed a little bit of high CBD cannabis,

00:19:22 ► §

a particular cultivar called Canatonic.

00:19:24 ► §

Great names, by the way.

00:19:25 ► §

Some of these cultivar names, like Alaskan Thunderfuck, excuse my French.

00:19:29 ► §

It doesn’t sound like medicine to me.

00:19:31 ► §

Chernobyl, although it’s a great medicine, does not sound like medicine to me.

00:19:34 ► §

But yeah, Canatonic, another one of those.

00:19:37 ► §

But he would come in, consume every morning.

00:19:39 ► §

And at Spark, you can consume on site there.

00:19:42 ► §

And I would set up his little rig for him.

00:19:44 ► §

And he would come in, try out his medicine. About 90 seconds later, he just starts

00:19:49 ► §

talking. No speech impediment, no slurs, nothing. And so, you know, you see that type of, that

00:19:55 ► §

effect that this medicine has. And it’s just mind blowing. With what my mom is going through

00:19:59 ► §

and how it’s affected how we do things at DocRab Farms is really like, you know, this is a plant that helps people.

00:20:07 ► §

Yeah, people, you know, like to get stoned and high, but there’s nothing wrong with that.

00:20:12 ► §

There’s like, honestly, what’s wrong with bringing joy to someone’s life?

00:20:15 ► §

I don’t find that to be offensive in the least.

00:20:18 ► §

And so we always don’t try to talk about this plant as this is truly medicine.

00:20:25 ► §

We don’t treat the plant like this is our baby girl that we have to raise.

00:20:29 ► §

No, no, no.

00:20:29 ► §

We do understand the plant is essentially little factories, but at the same time, producing cannabinoids and terpenes for us.

00:20:36 ► §

But at the same time, we respect that who’s going to be using this medicine in the long run.

00:20:41 ► §

And that, I think, has really affected how we grow the plant, find ourselves in the business and in the long run. And that I think has really affected how we grow the plant, find ourselves

00:20:47 ► §

in the business and industry. Not a lot of people do it. And are you producing primarily for the,

00:20:54 ► §

are you producing for medical and rec both or primarily for medical? And can you break down

00:20:59 ► §

to those of us that don’t understand the intense complications of what the cannabis business is,

00:21:04 ► §

what you have to deal with on a daily basis.

00:21:06 ► §

Absolutely.

00:21:07 ► §

The biggest difference between medical and recreational cannabis is how it’s

00:21:11 ► §

taxed. Literally that’s, that’s about it. I can grow,

00:21:15 ► §

we’re growing this one cultivar right now, which I’m a really big fan of.

00:21:21 ► §

It’s, you know, GMO cookies. Some, some of these names, once again, GMO,

00:21:24 ► §

a lot of people have their feelings about that as well, of it’s you know GMO cookies some some of these names once again GMO a lot of people

00:21:25 ► §

have uh their feelings about that as well but it’s it’s a great medicine it’s just a great great

00:21:31 ► §

medicine and it’s testing at like 32 percent THC great nose on it and um you know when it comes to

00:21:38 ► §

uh you know what we do for our uh wholesale that are in the recreational market versus the medicinal market

00:21:46 ► §

is pretty much nothing. It’s essentially how it’s taxed on the back end. I love that medicine

00:21:53 ► §

though, because both the recreational market and the adult use marketers like all over it,

00:21:57 ► §

they love it. So it’s one of those things where, you know, I want to try to provide for both.

00:22:02 ► §

Right now, the adult use market is significantly larger

00:22:05 ► §

than the medical use market in California. And I’m assuming it’s going to probably stay that

00:22:11 ► §

way for a long time because, you know, most people, even though they might be using cannabis

00:22:14 ► §

for medicinal uses, it’s for undiagnosed medicinal uses. Just essentially, we try to gear towards

00:22:19 ► §

both. But of course, medicinal use has a special place in my heart because of my mom.

00:22:23 ► §

Are you able to have a bank account?

00:22:22 ► §

But of course, medicinal use has a special place in my heart because of my mom.

00:22:24 ► §

Are you are you able to have a bank account?

00:22:26 ► §

Yes, we actually do.

00:22:33 ► §

It’s one of those things where we we actually do foresee decriminalization at the federal level coming up relatively soon. People say it’s literally anywhere from 12 months to it’s kind of like fusion energy.

00:22:38 ► §

Right. It’s always 30 years away, no matter how far along you are.

00:22:42 ► §

But people now it, it really does seem

00:22:45 ► §

like it’s a different thing.

00:22:46 ► §

When I first started

00:22:47 ► §

in the industry in 2013,

00:22:48 ► §

they were like,

00:22:48 ► §

we don’t know when decriminalization

00:22:50 ► §

is going to open.

00:22:50 ► §

Now it’s really like,

00:22:51 ► §

okay, it’s probably 12 to 36 months out

00:22:55 ► §

that we’ll see some level

00:22:56 ► §

of federal decriminalization.

00:22:57 ► §

There’s a banking act

00:22:59 ► §

that’s coming through the Senate

00:23:00 ► §

that will allow for banking,

00:23:01 ► §

even though they won’t

00:23:02 ► §

deschedule the medicine.

00:23:04 ► §

And by the

00:23:05 ► §

way, cocaine is a schedule two drug, right? So that means although it’s legal, it does have a

00:23:11 ► §

medical benefit. Cannabis is considered worse than cocaine. So it’s just one of those things where

00:23:17 ► §

they won’t even, they won’t de-schedule it. However, we are going to see some banking

00:23:23 ► §

support, but we do have banking, uh, available to us.

00:23:27 ► §

There are some banks out there that specialize in cannabis banking and we’re

00:23:31 ► §

very appreciative of them. And, and, but yeah, we do, we do have that ability.

00:23:34 ► §

So it’s not all an all cash thing anymore for a lot of groups. Uh, you know,

00:23:38 ► §

we’ve always heard those horror stories. Uh, one of my favorites was, uh,

00:23:42 ► §

it was this actually occurred in San Francisco where a dispensary was coming in to pay their

00:23:47 ► §

quarterly taxes and a gentleman walks into

00:23:50 ► §

the local office where he can pay the local taxes in San Francisco.

00:23:56 ► §

He has two duffel bags. He drops both bags and basically

00:23:59 ► §

puts his hands up and says, I just want to publicly announce that I have a concealed

00:24:03 ► §

weapon permit and I’m currently carrying a concealed weapon.

00:24:06 ► §

And it’s part of safety for my job, but I’m here to pay taxes on behalf of blah, blah, blah.

00:24:11 ► §

And he comes in with $950,000 in cash.

00:24:17 ► §

And the office, it took them 18 hours to process all that money.

00:24:22 ► §

And they’re like, listen, don’t be wrong. We appreciate this, the tax income, but it’s,

00:24:28 ► §

it’s unsustainable to have to deal with that amount of money all in cash.

00:24:33 ► §

And so there really is a push. This is a safety issue too.

00:24:37 ► §

You always hear about dispensaries being stood up and things like that for,

00:24:41 ► §

you know, under gunfire and yada, yada,

00:24:43 ► §

because they’re known to have a lot of cash on hand.

00:24:45 ► §

We really need to move away from that.

00:24:47 ► §

You know, this, I do foresee cannabis kind of moving towards a wine model slash pharmacy

00:24:52 ► §

model where, you know, it’s just considered, I got to go down to the pharmacy and pick

00:24:56 ► §

up some medicine, right?

00:24:57 ► §

I’m going to go down to the wine store and pick up my favorite varietal of wine or my

00:25:01 ► §

favorite grower and winemaker, things like that.

00:25:04 ► §

I really do see it happening like that.

00:25:05 ► §

And it’s eventually just becoming passe, I think, fancy about it.

00:25:09 ► §

Along those lines, here’s an article that was in the paper this morning,

00:25:12 ► §

why big tobacco could take over legal cannabis sooner than you think.

00:25:17 ► §

Whether or not that’s the sooner is an issue.

00:25:20 ► §

The fact that big tobacco wants to come in,

00:25:23 ► §

that’s also going to get the legalization

00:25:25 ► §

moving along pretty quick.

00:25:27 ► §

How do you, do you see any inroads that they’re making?

00:25:30 ► §

Because I’m hearing a lot of rumors about that here in California.

00:25:33 ► §

Yeah.

00:25:33 ► §

Philip Morris has been buying property in Northern California for a long time for, you

00:25:37 ► §

know, thinking that, hey, this is going to be our next farm.

00:25:41 ► §

We’re not going to be growing tobacco on it.

00:25:42 ► §

We’re going to be growing cannabis.

00:25:43 ► §

But the way we see it is it’s going to be like budweiser bud light cores or or you know if you’re into you know

00:25:50 ► §

your local beers and especially here in northern california if you’re going clining the elder or

00:25:54 ► §

clining the elder um if you want to you know pronounce it properly um by russian river uh you

00:26:01 ► §

know it really depends on what you’re going for you You know, if you’re a wine drinker,

00:26:06 ► §

yeah, you can drink Mad Dog 2020, or you can drink Chateau Montelena. And we think the same

00:26:11 ► §

thing is going to happen to cannabis industry where, you know, Philip Morse is going to come

00:26:15 ► §

to town, the big tobacco is going to come to town. They’re going to grow these on these massive

00:26:19 ► §

farms, but there is a significant difference in growing cannabis on a huge farm versus in a controlled environment, agriculture versus greenhouse versus even an indoor grow.

00:26:29 ► §

There’s many good things and bad things about all those different styles of production.

00:26:33 ► §

However, I will say that the quality of cannabis that comes out of a controlled environment grow where I can inject CO2, you know, plants use CO2 to create sugars to do the work that they need to create the THC and the yield.

00:26:50 ► §

You know, THC is a 21 carbon molecule.

00:26:52 ► §

That carbon comes from CO2.

00:26:54 ► §

You can’t really inject CO2 in an outdoor grow.

00:26:57 ► §

There is some new technology that kind of is answering that.

00:27:07 ► §

answering that but uh you know if you really want the high uh thc content medicine uh you kind of have to use controlled environment agriculture and philip morris is going to likely be going

00:27:12 ► §

towards the more bud light cores light mickey ultra uh style of production and you know they’ll

00:27:18 ► §

have very small uh grows that are indoor and so a lot of the specialty farmers that are going to be

00:27:23 ► §

growing the high quality medicine is going to be growing the high quality

00:27:26 ► §

medicine is going to be closer to the, you know, microbrewery or micro winery style of production.

00:27:32 ► §

And at that point, it’s going to be about brand recognition and understanding that you do it a

00:27:37 ► §

little bit differently and selling your story. So it is what it is. And I welcome it. I think it’s

00:27:43 ► §

great. Honestly, I know it sounds crazy. A lot of cannabis consumers and I welcome it. I think it’s great, honestly. I know it sounds crazy.

00:27:45 ► §

A lot of cannabis consumers are upset by it.

00:27:48 ► §

I personally have a lot of friends who are legacy farmers up in the Emerald Triangle,

00:27:53 ► §

and I don’t want to see them go out of business.

00:27:54 ► §

I think they’re fantastic cultivators.

00:27:56 ► §

I want them to set themselves apart from the bud lights of cannabis, and I think they can.

00:28:02 ► §

They just basically need to survive this first bout of inundation of,

00:28:06 ► §

of, of, of cheap flower, essentially.

00:28:08 ► §

How do we go about getting the word out about the,

00:28:11 ► §

the brands and the cultivators that I know a lot of California cannabis is

00:28:16 ► §

going out of the state too.

00:28:17 ► §

And I just don’t know how to find out about a lot of these things.

00:28:19 ► §

I’d like to let our audience know about that too.

00:28:22 ► §

You know, at this point,

00:28:23 ► §

we have a really hard time advertising

00:28:25 ► §

cannabis in general. Like you can’t, I believe the city of Los Angeles is now making it illegal to,

00:28:32 ► §

or they’re not no longer permitting, you know, big billboards for cannabis advertising. And so

00:28:37 ► §

marketing has to be a little bit more organic. Instagram pages is one of the best and easiest

00:29:05 ► §

Instagram pages is one of the best and easiest way to do it. However, Facebook and all their know-how and glory will oftentimes take down Instagram pages and Facebook pages for cannabis branding. So it’s difficult to kind of do it. A lot of it is word of mouth. A lot of it is, you know, you going into the dispensary and the bud tenders are talking about,

00:29:06 ► §

hey, this particular brand is great.

00:29:07 ► §

Here’s their story.

00:29:11 ► §

What we also have done is we’ve brought people,

00:29:14 ► §

brand representatives into the dispensaries to kind of just talk about the branding and things like that.

00:29:16 ► §

We are kind of shifting more and more towards a service model

00:29:20 ► §

to provide a service for other cultivators and other brands.

00:29:24 ► §

And that’s been really successful for us so far.

00:29:27 ► §

So we’re pretty excited by that.

00:29:29 ► §

So we’re doing the less that marketing and relying on other people to kind of

00:29:32 ► §

do that.

00:29:33 ► §

Just like the old days, word of mouth.

00:29:35 ► §

Yeah, honestly, it really is.

00:29:36 ► §

What are the chances when decarboxylating THC,

00:29:43 ► §

A, of the acetyl migrating to the adjacent oxygen?

00:29:47 ► §

So I have not seen that.

00:29:50 ► §

I’ve not really seen that occurring.

00:29:52 ► §

It’s just one of those things where, you know,

00:29:53 ► §

the activation energy required to decarboxylate THC-A has that,

00:29:57 ► §

like that threshold where the COOH pops off and H gets, you know,

00:30:03 ► §

popped back on to that carbon.

00:30:06 ► §

And I’ve never really seen it move to that oxygen.

00:30:09 ► §

However, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.

00:30:10 ► §

I would suggest that it probably does happen, but on a very low or small amount for the THCA decarboxylation.

00:30:20 ► §

But it’s one of those things where I’ve never seen any science to suggest any papers that recommend that this does occur on a high common basis.

00:30:27 ► §

But I wouldn’t be surprised if it did.

00:30:29 ► §

If the de-isolation is done in a closed container under pressure, would that enhance the chances of that happening?

00:30:37 ► §

It would, because the activation energy required it.

00:30:41 ► §

We’ve had reports of that.

00:30:44 ► §

You’ve had reports of that.

00:30:45 ► §

Yeah.

00:30:51 ► §

I mean, what I would say is, like, I have not seen any science, any papers or anything like that that talk about that.

00:30:58 ► §

I work with a professor at UC Davis by the name of Dr. Don Land, and he works with C-Pill Laboratories.

00:31:01 ► §

And I usually talk to him about these types of things.

00:31:03 ► §

On my side, you know, I’m the plant nerd.

00:31:09 ► §

I definitely understand the chemistry behind it, but I’ve not seen any research to support that. However,

00:31:12 ► §

that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. And it does definitely make sense that it could.

00:31:17 ► §

Chemical reactions, oftentimes, it’s literally just randomness. And so in any type of random situation, entropy happens, right? You can’t stop the second law of thermodynamics. And if you give

00:31:22 ► §

enough energy into a system chances are something

00:31:26 ► §

like that can’t happen and i would assume that that is going to be happening just i don’t really

00:31:29 ► §

think it happens on a large scale let’s make some space for mike go ahead mike well new mexico just

00:31:36 ► §

recently uh legalized uh use of of cannabis and it’s it’s a very dry state, not much water, not a lot of places to grow stuff.

00:31:49 ► §

I don’t see the ability to meet demand. I think there’s going to be huge demand here. And so

00:31:55 ► §

as things move forward, as more states legalize cannabis, how do you see them meeting the demand

00:32:02 ► §

if they can’t do the supply from their own state?

00:32:08 ► §

That’s a great question. I think that when we see federal decriminalization occurring,

00:32:12 ► §

we’re going to have interstate commerce occurring as well. Well, I don’t think I know that will

00:32:16 ► §

occur. California is likely going to be supplying the vast majority of the United States, if not the

00:32:21 ► §

world. California in and of itself is a brand. Wine grapes are grown in all 50 states.

00:32:27 ► §

Yes, there are wine grapes grown in Alaska as well.

00:32:30 ► §

But if you’re a wine consumer in Omaha, Nebraska,

00:32:33 ► §

and you go into a wine shop and you see a wine grape

00:32:37 ► §

that was produced out of South Dakota

00:32:39 ► §

versus one that’s in California,

00:32:41 ► §

chances are you’re going to gravitate

00:32:41 ► §

towards the California wine.

00:32:44 ► §

I’m fairly positive the

00:32:45 ► §

same thing is going to happen to cannabis. Now, having said that, for local production, I’m a big

00:32:51 ► §

fan of urban horticulture. I think that is the future of agriculture is going to be local.

00:32:57 ► §

California really is one of the biggest agricultural powerhouses in the world. And it’s

00:33:04 ► §

going to continue to be like that for quite some time.

00:33:06 ► §

However, where are the population densities?

00:33:08 ► §

You know, in Chicago and New York and places like that,

00:33:11 ► §

where cannabis is going to be easy to grow there,

00:33:13 ► §

but you can grow it in controlled environment agriculture.

00:33:16 ► §

And the same thing can be done in New Mexico.

00:33:17 ► §

Although it’s fairly dry there,

00:33:20 ► §

you know, cannabis does use a decent amount of water.

00:33:22 ► §

However, hydroponic production really does,

00:33:28 ► §

you know, the water use efficiency skyrockets in hydroponic production.

00:33:33 ► §

You can get like 95 percent water use efficiency in a hydroponic system.

00:33:37 ► §

And so you’re literally just losing 5 percent every time you fertigate.

00:33:41 ► §

And it is kind of mind blowing how efficient it can be.

00:33:45 ► §

Of course, that comes at the cost of, you know, higher electricity bills and things like that.

00:33:49 ► §

But at the same time, we’re seeing a lot of renewable energy being poured into cannabis production too.

00:33:51 ► §

I really do think to answer your question,

00:33:52 ► §

I think controlled environment agriculture

00:33:54 ► §

is going to provide a tremendous amount of the local horticulture for cannabis,

00:33:58 ► §

but also places like California are really going to be supplying

00:34:02 ► §

a tremendous amount of cannabis to the world.

00:34:04 ► §

Great. Well, don’t forget,

00:34:05 ► §

there’s a lot of opportunity here if you’re running a little business.

00:34:09 ► §

You know, we’re,

00:34:11 ► §

we’re always interested in talking about doing consulting and whatnot and

00:34:15 ► §

management for farms. So, you know, Hey, if you’ve got a farm,

00:34:18 ► §

you want to help with production. I know someone who knows how to grow.

00:34:23 ► §

I know a guy.

00:34:27 ► §

Let’s let’s make space for Manassas go ahead manassas oh hey there i’m sure you know about all these different

00:34:32 ► §

cannabinoids what can you say just to like to have some clarity on uh thco and hhc sure so

00:34:42 ► §

there are a lot of cannabinoids that the plant produces, and they all have

00:34:47 ► §

different effects on us, you know, our physiology. So THCO is, you know, along the same lines of

00:34:54 ► §

THCP that we discovered. And a lot of the THC, like, you know, these are large compounds. Like I said, THC is a 21-carbon molecule.

00:35:06 ► §

These are diterpenes.

00:35:15 ► §

You know, typically, the CB1 receptor, which THC binds to, has a very strong affinity for it. And the THC-O, the THC-P is different.

00:35:19 ► §

THC-P actually has a higher affinity.

00:35:21 ► §

So it takes less of it to have the same effect as THC.

00:35:24 ► §

CPS actually has a higher affinity, so it takes less of it to have the same effect as THC.

00:35:31 ► §

However, most of the other compounds, the cannabinoids, have lower affinities to bind to the CB1 receptor.

00:35:39 ► §

You know, CBD actually is interesting, and a lot of the other cannabinoids mimic either THC or CBD.

00:35:44 ► §

Those are kind of the primary cannabinoids that we first learned about, and they kind of mimic them as well because they’re instead of being a 21 carbon molecule, it’s like a 19 carbon molecule.

00:35:48 ► §

It’s a 17 carbon molecule. It’s a 15 carbon molecule.

00:35:51 ► §

So the fatty acid chain on the end kind of gets shorter and shorter.

00:35:55 ► §

But that changes its ability to bind to these CB1 receptors.

00:35:59 ► §

The CBD in itself. So it’s actually what’s called an allosteric TB1 inhibitor.

00:36:05 ► §

And so what that means is it makes it a little bit more difficult for TB to bind to the C1.

00:36:11 ► §

The HHC, I’m actually not too familiar with, so I can’t really speak to that too much.

00:36:16 ► §

But it’s one of those things where we have these cannabinoids that are constantly being discovered.

00:36:21 ► §

And, for example, THC- know, most people think of cannabis making

00:36:25 ► §

you hungry. THCV is actually an appetite suppressant, you know, so it’s like there

00:36:30 ► §

are all these different things that they can do and have all these different effects.

00:36:35 ► §

What, like I was talking about earlier, what’s great about cannabis is it’s being so benign.

00:36:39 ► §

It’s not really something that is good. You’re going to have an overdose from,

00:36:43 ► §

so you can go out and explore and see what works for you. One of the things I’m most interested in working on in future

00:36:50 ► §

edible production is having that backbone of that complete entourage effect with all the

00:36:55 ► §

different types of cannabinoids, but focusing on a THCV or a CBG, CBN, THC, but also THCV is, I think, personally, the fascinating cannabinoid.

00:37:08 ► §

And I think we’re just starting to scratch the surface on what these different cannabinoids really can do for us.

00:37:14 ► §

We’ve focused on THC for such a long period of time.

00:37:17 ► §

I think it’s actually been to the detriment, though, of the other cannabinoids.

00:37:25 ► §

the other cannabinoids. For those of us who are old enough to remember, I’m not even including myself on this, but those of us who consumed cannabis in the 60s and 70s had a very different

00:37:30 ► §

experience smoking cannabis or consuming cannabis than what we have going on now.

00:37:34 ► §

The breeders really focused on THC and it really is the genetics of the plant that really derive

00:37:40 ► §

the cannabinoid profiles. And so we focused on THC for such a long time because that was the first one

00:37:47 ► §

we discovered that the breeders started, you know, saying, hey, right now, this cannabis

00:37:52 ► §

cultivar that I have produces a flowered THC content around 2% to 4%.

00:37:57 ► §

Well, we’re producing some at 32%, 33%, 34% now.

00:38:02 ► §

And it’s a very different high, a very different feeling. I personally think that

00:38:06 ► §

there’s going to be a backlash against that. And there’s going to be kind of, you know, going back

00:38:11 ► §

towards the lower THC content because that’s, that medicine is just as valuable in my opinion

00:38:16 ► §

as anything else. Having that entourage effect is, is very important. So if I am increasing

00:38:21 ► §

the production of THC, that means I’m, I’m doing it at the sacrifice of other cannabinoids.

00:38:26 ► §

You know, THC, like I said, THC is a 21 carbon molecule.

00:38:29 ► §

CBD also a 21 carbon molecule.

00:38:31 ► §

There’s only so much carbon to go around.

00:38:32 ► §

And in plant physiology, we actually call it a carbon budget.

00:38:35 ► §

So like if you have your monthly budget, I have so many dollars I can use on rent or food, medical benefit, yada, yada.

00:38:43 ► §

At the end of the month, I have X amount of money

00:38:46 ► §

for recreation. Well, the plant’s the same way. If the plant is genetically predisposed to just

00:38:52 ► §

focus on THC, that carbon budget, you have less carbon available for other things to do.

00:38:59 ► §

That usually, when we focus on THC in the plant breeding, we basically are doing this at the

00:39:05 ► §

expense of all the other cannabinoids. So the cannabinoid research that’s coming out, that’s

00:39:11 ► §

starting to come out, is really fascinating in my opinion, but it is absolutely in its infancy.

00:39:17 ► §

It’s a very exciting time to be working cannabis because there is just so much to learn. And as a nerd, as a scientist, as a researcher,

00:39:27 ► §

I’m just fascinated by all the things that we have yet to learn.

00:39:31 ► §

And it’s starting to come out and it’s very exciting.

00:39:34 ► §

Go ahead and ask this. I’m sorry.

00:39:35 ► §

You said THCP as in like peanut?

00:39:39 ► §

Yes, as in peanut.

00:39:40 ► §

And it has like a 20X affinity to the cb1 receptor that thc does

00:39:45 ► §

where someone would need a five milligrams of thc to get a benefit we’re looking at 20x less

00:39:54 ► §

on that to get the same effect it’s it’s pretty significant in some article i read that uh

00:40:01 ► §

thco acetate right is supposed to for some people, like 10 to 20 times

00:40:07 ► §

stronger than THC, you know, Delta-8 and Delta-9. It didn’t really by which, and Delta-8 and Delta-10

00:40:15 ► §

are becoming a rave now, too. Yeah, I mean, you talk about something else that’s quite interesting,

00:40:20 ► §

too, you know, Delta-8 versus Delta-9. So the THC that we all know and love is that Delta-9, right?

00:40:23 ► §

interesting too, you know, Delta eight versus Delta nine. So the THC that we all know and love is that Delta nine, right? But Delta eight also has a very similar effect to Delta nine. And all

00:40:29 ► §

that, all that Delta eight versus Delta nine really means is THC being a diterpene, all that,

00:40:35 ► §

you know, these are terpenoids. These are just fancy chemistry names, right? There’s a carbon

00:40:39 ► §

ring. There’s two carbon rings actually in THC. And it’s where the double bonds in the carbon

00:40:44 ► §

actually occur in that ring. Does it happen where the double bonds in the carbon actually occur in

00:40:45 ► §

that ring. Does it happen on the ninth carbon or the eighth carbon? And so Delta-9 is what we

00:40:50 ► §

typically consume. Delta-8 can actually be produced from CBD. Well, CBD, a lot of people,

00:40:57 ► §

you can produce that from hemp. And right now under the current farm bill, you can produce hemp

00:41:01 ► §

legally in any state now. And people’s like okay well i’ll

00:41:05 ► §

just produce cbd and then convert that over to delta eight delta nine is what’s illegal delta

00:41:09 ► §

eight well yeah i live in texas now and now they’re trying to govern it to be illegal you know

00:41:16 ► §

they are very much so because they discovered hey there’s this loophole where i can grow hemp

00:41:21 ► §

produce cbd and then convert it Delta-8 and have a similar effect

00:41:26 ► §

to THC. Not the same, but similar. And it’s kind of those things where there’s a loophole that

00:41:32 ► §

they’re trying to plug up now. And one thing I will say, a lot of people will say like, well,

00:41:36 ► §

I don’t want CBD that’s derived from hemp, or I don’t want cannabinoids derived from hemp. I want

00:41:42 ► §

them derived from cannabis. Well, there’s two things I want to say about this. First of all, a molecule does not know its mother.

00:41:48 ► §

So CBD that comes from hemp versus cannabis versus yeast. There’s a lab at UC Berkeley right now

00:41:55 ► §

that’s starting to produce cannabinoids with yeast. A molecule does not know its mother. So

00:42:00 ► §

if you’re consuming CBD isolate that comes from hemp versus cannabis versus yeast, your body knows no different.

00:42:08 ► §

And secondly, I would say the biggest difference between hemp and cannabis is the name.

00:42:14 ► §

It’s like cannabis is the scientific name.

00:42:18 ► §

That’s the Latin term for it.

00:42:20 ► §

Hemp is actually an old English term.

00:42:21 ► §

So the etymology literally is the biggest difference in the plant.

00:42:25 ► §

But it’s like saying, are you growing a red rose or a white rose?

00:42:28 ► §

Well, they’re both roses, right? You know, are you growing cannabis or hemp?

00:42:32 ► §

They’re both cannabis. Hemp is cannabis that has a THC content less than 0.3 percent.

00:42:38 ► §

That is how it’s defined by the federal government here, right?

00:42:41 ► §

And like, for example, in Thailand, hemp is defined as cannabis that has THC less than 1%. So, you know, the governments haven’t really decided what really how to define

00:42:51 ► §

it. But they are the same plants, essentially, there really is only one gene that differentiates

00:42:56 ► §

cannabis and hemp in all honesty, and that’s the THCA synthase enzyme that is downregulated in hemp.

00:43:03 ► §

So it’s really not that big of a difference.

00:43:06 ► §

You know, Robbie, Sasha Shulgin would have loved you because I’ve sat in a couple of discussions

00:43:12 ► §

where he and Terrence argued the benefits of the molecule versus the plant. And a molecule

00:43:17 ► §

doesn’t know its mother. I’m sure he would have said he wished he’d come up with that one. That’s beautiful. Yep.

00:43:26 ► §

I mean, it’s true.

00:43:33 ► §

Like it’s, you know, the molecule confirmation of that molecule is the same regardless of which factory it rolled out of. It’s kind of like if you’re producing Coca-Cola, that Coca-Cola in China better tastes the same as Coca-Cola out of Atlanta because they go to great efforts to make it taste the same.

00:43:45 ► §

And that factory is just doing the same thing over and over and over again.

00:43:48 ► §

Well, the biosignal pathways that are what control the production of these molecules

00:43:53 ► §

are all the same.

00:43:55 ► §

It just, are they housed in a factory in Atlanta or are they housed in a factory out in, you

00:43:59 ► §

know, wherever?

00:44:01 ► §

It really is.

00:44:02 ► §

It doesn’t really matter where it’s housed.

00:44:04 ► §

It’s just the same machine

00:44:05 ► §

is going on on the inside. So I see how it is that you arrived at collaborating with the legendary

00:44:12 ► §

Ed Rosenthal and his book. Can you talk a little bit about the new edition of the

00:44:16 ► §

Cannabis Cultivators Guide and what folks are finding it and what your contributions were to it?

00:44:22 ► §

Absolutely. For those of you who don’t know who Ed Rosenthal is, I definitely recommend you go to Wikipedia,

00:44:29 ► §

look up his name.

00:44:30 ► §

You’ll see one of my favorite photos of him.

00:44:33 ► §

He has a joint in his mouth and Snoop Dogg is lighting it for him.

00:44:35 ► §

So he’s a legend.

00:44:37 ► §

I just did a clubhouse event with him not too long ago.

00:44:41 ► §

And he told a story which I hadn’t, or actually someone else told the story.

00:44:44 ► §

And Ed never told me this. But he smoked Willie Nelson under the table. Did not know that. So,

00:44:49 ► §

you know, this is how legendary this gentleman is. He’s been writing cannabis cultivation books

00:44:55 ► §

since the 1970s. Ed and I met because we were seeing each other at the same conferences. He’s

00:44:59 ► §

always been a huge fan of science. And, you know, there’s a lot of mythology around cannabis

00:45:03 ► §

cultivation, cannabis in general. However, science is the best way to answer questions that we all have right i gave a talk at

00:45:10 ► §

the cannabis science conference in portland oregon oh gosh probably about four years ago now and uh

00:45:16 ► §

he saw my talk and he says hey i want to talk to you and we just kind of formed a friendship and

00:45:22 ► §

he’s like you know i want to do the do the next edition of my seminal book,

00:45:28 ► §

which was at the time they called it Marijuana Grower’s Handbook. I had him change it to

00:45:31 ► §

Cannabis Grower’s Handbook because in the cannabis industry, marijuana is actually kind of a four

00:45:35 ► §

letter word. It’s a racist term, really, that the Harry Anslingers of the world used to make

00:45:40 ► §

white people afraid of this, you know, the devil’s lettuce, right? So cannabis is a scientific term.

00:45:45 ► §

That’s what we changed it to.

00:45:46 ► §

And he was totally open to that.

00:45:47 ► §

One thing that’s different about this book is that, you know, I brought 11 different

00:45:51 ► §

PhDs to provide content for it.

00:45:54 ► §

And so it’s a strong, strong, strong science basis of what we’re doing in this book.

00:46:00 ► §

Most grower handbooks, you know, or like cannabis Bibles and things like that.

00:46:04 ► §

For example, there’s a book out there called the Cannabis Bible.

00:46:08 ► §

And Ed Rosenthal and I both feel like Bible is talking about stories.

00:46:12 ► §

And oftentimes for a lot of people understand, you know, a lot of those stories aren’t really true.

00:46:16 ► §

This is about science.

00:46:18 ► §

You know, this is not about mythology or anything like that.

00:46:21 ► §

We talk about a lot of the history of cannabis and whatnot.

00:46:24 ► §

You know, and we have some fun stuff. I mean, Tommy Chabong wrote our foreword and things like

00:46:27 ► §

that. So, you know, we have a lot of fun stuff in there as well. But, you know, we talk about

00:46:30 ► §

the history of cannabis cultivation, but we also really dive in deep on how to optimize your

00:46:36 ► §

production. If you’re growing at home, one, a single plant in a closet, or if you’re growing

00:46:42 ► §

on a large scale, like some of our facilities that facilities that you know we’re working with 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 plants at a time so it really is about

00:46:50 ► §

providing science to the industry. That’s really cool. Congratulations on that credit.

00:46:55 ► §

Really appreciate it. Honestly I’m extremely humbled. I never thought I would write a book

00:47:00 ► §

like this but now that I’ve done it I’m like it’s like it’s addictive i’m like okay what’s the next book what are we doing next there’s a picture i took of ed at the 2006 uh

00:47:10 ► §

burning man planque norte with uh there’s rick dobblin in the background and uh uh i can’t

00:47:17 ► §

remember who the other people are but uh anyhow he he uh he’s he is a a deep and long-loving member of this community, I’ll tell you what.

00:47:26 ► §

He is one of the kindest, just most intelligent individuals in the century.

00:47:33 ► §

I like to say that in this industry, we are standing on the shoulders of giants.

00:47:38 ► §

He is one of those giants, in my opinion.

00:47:40 ► §

For sure.

00:47:40 ► §

There are a lot of people that I have to give thanks to, to just say like, yeah, I work in the cannabis industry.

00:47:46 ► §

And and, you know, what I’m doing is I wouldn’t be able to do without them.

00:47:50 ► §

He’s definitely one of those giants. Rob, a few questions.

00:47:55 ► §

One, what is your PhD thesis advisors now think about you?

00:48:09 ► §

you. And two, I find myself walking through cannabis stores looking at gummies and they say 5% THC plus or minus CBD. But these things, Rick Simpson oil, complete extracts of the plant,

00:48:18 ► §

are those readily available now in gummies? And can you expect quite different results from them? For sure. As for my PhD advisors,

00:48:27 ► §

I studied underneath the amazing Dr. Heiner Leith. He still is a professor at UC Davis.

00:48:33 ► §

You know, most academics see cannabis as another plant. I could be, you know, for them,

00:48:40 ► §

most academics, it’s more about I’m interested in the discovering the process right if the model

00:48:46 ► §

plant is a rose it’s a chrysanthemum it’s a gerber daisy it’s a cannabis nah i don’t care i’m

00:48:54 ► §

interested in you know the fundamental science behind it you know so he you know he’s been to

00:48:58 ► §

my facilities i still have a great relationship with him uh heiner is a dear friend. I owe a lot to him. Now, speaking

00:49:06 ► §

about the edibles, you’ve got certain percentages of, I would say it’s probably not percentages

00:49:11 ► §

you’re looking at. It’s probably milligrams that you’re looking at. So it’s not a relative number.

00:49:16 ► §

It’s an absolute number. With a little bit of CBD, oftentimes people will take isolates. They

00:49:22 ► §

will isolate THC or CBD or some type of combination from the plant.

00:49:27 ► §

They’ll extract that out, isolate it out, and just kind of give you a sense of what that really means in an analogous term.

00:49:33 ► §

I always like to use the alcohol industry for kind of analogies.

00:49:37 ► §

Cannabis flower is kind of like, okay, I made some beer and I’m drinking some beer.

00:49:40 ► §

It’s a low percentage of ABV.

00:49:43 ► §

I could distill that beer down or I can drink wine and distill that down into brandy.

00:49:47 ► §

I can distill it down and make a distillate.

00:49:50 ► §

So you increase the concentration of ABV or your ABV.

00:49:54 ► §

And it’s the same thing for cannabis to some extent.

00:49:57 ► §

Now, if I were making moonshine, that’s more like making an isolate.

00:50:01 ► §

Well, there’s only one inebriating molecule in in alcohol right that’s

00:50:06 ► §

ethanol cannabis has hundreds of molecules that we’re really interested in in extracting out

00:50:12 ► §

and so you know when you do an isolate it’s not just isolating tt could be any number one thing

00:50:17 ► §

or things but there really really really is something to be said about this entourage or

00:50:22 ► §

ensemble effect of all the cannabinoids and

00:50:25 ► §

terpenes working in concert together to provide the medicinal relief or symptom relief. They work

00:50:32 ► §

great together. They oftentimes will increase the, a perfect example is mercine, which is one of the

00:50:40 ► §

biggest terpenes found in cannabis. It has been found that Mersene increases the permeability of THC and the other major cannabinoids across the blood-brain barrier.

00:50:51 ► §

And so consuming Mersene before consuming cannabis tends to get you medicated sooner and

00:50:58 ► §

faster and at a greater intensity. And so, you know, it’s all working together

00:51:05 ► §

against our chemistry and physiologies

00:51:07 ► §

for our benefit for the most part.

00:51:10 ► §

But yeah, the isolates, they still have their benefits.

00:51:12 ► §

You know, CBD by itself is a partial agonist

00:51:15 ► §

to the serotonin receptor.

00:51:17 ► §

You know, we have seen medical studies showing

00:51:20 ► §

that it is now, has been recently discovered

00:51:22 ► §

that roughly 33% of women who are suffering

00:51:26 ► §

through postpartum depression, the reason why they’re suffering through that is due

00:51:30 ► §

to a serotonin deficiency.

00:51:32 ► §

And so they’re just not getting enough serotonin, essentially.

00:51:35 ► §

Well, CBD can bind to the serotonin receptor.

00:51:39 ► §

And so some relief can be had by just CBD isolate by itself.

00:51:43 ► §

So there is something to be said about that,

00:51:45 ► §

but we really do find a greater benefit with all, all, you know, that entourage effect.

00:51:49 ► §

Hey, so I’m from Canada where it’s legal and I order from these websites where it’s quite cheap.

00:51:57 ► §

Like sometimes, I mean, it’s like $65 an ounce. Is there a possibility or should I be worried

00:52:03 ► §

about poisoning myself per se like

00:52:05 ► §

no that’s a great question honestly uh i think before the regulatory environment came you know

00:52:12 ► §

to what it is today especially in canada uh canada’s regulatory market is a little bit more

00:52:16 ► §

mature than what we have here in california but everything has to be tested if you do not have a

00:52:21 ► §

compromised immune system you are even in an even better space as well. One of the biggest issues we’ll find in even regulated cannabis is if you have a large number of fungal spores coming along with your cannabis. For the most part, an average individual who’s healthy doesn’t have a compromised immune system. You don’t have to worry about that. But sometimes that is an issue. That’s the only thing that really gets by the regulations at this point. Everything has to

00:52:47 ► §

be tested for that mycobutanyl that has to be tested for like paclut, which is a suspected

00:52:52 ► §

mutagen, which is a plant growth regulator that’s used for ornamental crops and things like that.

00:52:57 ► §

But for the most part, you’re pretty safe. The only real fungal problem that we see that can affect someone with a non-compromised immune system

00:53:07 ► §

is a black mold or aspergillus niger but the aspergillus niger is tested for as well uh now

00:53:14 ► §

having said that we we’re surrounded by these spores all the time um there’s not no way you can

00:53:20 ► §

get around it so even if you’re not if you’re a non-smoker and you’re tapping you walking out in

00:53:23 ► §

nature you’re breathing them in it’s just that you would focus that in

00:53:26 ► §

there. But I would not be too concerned even for an expensive product. In Canada, what’s going on

00:53:31 ► §

is you’ve got a really large supply going on now. I think it was back in 2015 or 2016,

00:53:37 ► §

there were 35,000 patients on all of Canada. Whereas in California, we had like 3.6 million.

00:53:47 ► §

on all of Canada, whereas in California, we had like 3.6 million. And so the demand in Canada,

00:53:54 ► §

although large, is way outweighed by the supply. And so that’s why the pricing is depressed,

00:54:11 ► §

but by no means is it bad quality, in my opinion. Robbie, I wanted to ask you something about the effect of preparation on these various compounds. For instance, in one case, the flowers are dried, and then perhaps they’re used for edibles by sautéing in butter or oil or something like that. And I experimented this year. I took green

00:54:27 ► §

flour and put it right in the pan with some coconut oil because I didn’t want to go through

00:54:34 ► §

the whole drying process. And it made some pretty wonderful stuff. And I just wonder if some of these compounds are debilitated in the drying process or this, that, or the other.

00:54:51 ► §

And then one other factor is the heat.

00:54:54 ► §

Cooking with oil, I wish I had really done a better experiment to know what temperature it was at, but it was well above.

00:55:08 ► §

to know what temperature it was at, but it was well above. What’s the decarboxylation temperature,

00:55:14 ► §

like 180 or something? I don’t recall the decarboxylation temperature. However, so I will answer your question about drying and does that affect the compounds. The cannabinoids

00:55:23 ► §

and the terpenes are all terpenoids, right? So there’s a class of compounds called terpenoids.

00:55:27 ► §

And these are all, you know, waxy, oily compounds.

00:55:30 ► §

They’re nonpolar molecules.

00:55:32 ► §

And so that’s why you have to use an oil or a butter to cook it in because it dissolves

00:55:37 ► §

into that oil.

00:55:37 ► §

Now, having said that, some of the terpenes are volatile organic compounds.

00:55:42 ► §

So they’re VOCs.

00:55:43 ► §

THC and CBD doesn’t really volatilize, but you can have some of the monoterpenes are volatile organic compounds. So they’re VOCs. THC and CBD doesn’t really volatilize,

00:55:45 ► §

but you can have some of the monoterpenes, which are the smallest terpenes, volatilize in a

00:55:49 ► §

temperature as low as 70 degrees. So what you did by skipping the drying process was making sure

00:55:57 ► §

that you had more terpenes in your product when you dry cannabis. So for those of you who don’t

00:56:03 ► §

know, when I harvest a cannabis plant, it’s not smokable immediately.

00:56:07 ► §

You have to dry it and cure it, much like you do tobacco.

00:56:11 ► §

Garlic is actually very similarly dried and cured as cannabis is, for those of you who know how to dry and cure garlic.

00:56:17 ► §

But it’s very similar.

00:56:18 ► §

It’s a cold, dry and cure process where tobacco is a hot or warm dry cure process. And the reason why it’s a cold dry cure process for

00:56:25 ► §

cannabis is because we want to decrease the chance of volatilization of those terpenes. Now, over

00:56:30 ► §

time, those terpenes will volatilize. Every time you smell cannabis, what you’re sensing are those

00:56:36 ► §

terpenes that have volatilized off past your nasal passage and we sense them in our nasal passage.

00:56:41 ► §

Well, once I breathe it in, it’s not going back into the flower and they just happen to have a high concentration of it

00:56:47 ► §

in there so it does smell for a good long period of time.

00:56:49 ► §

But if you were to harvest a plant

00:56:51 ► §

and immediately put it into a product

00:56:54 ► §

to preserve those terpenes,

00:56:56 ► §

and what we do in the cannabis industry now more and more

00:56:59 ► §

is that we produce a product called a fresh frozen product.

00:57:02 ► §

Literally, we will cut it down and freeze it immediately

00:57:04 ► §

and then we’ll do an extraction off of that. It’s a much more robust aroma and flavor

00:57:10 ► §

on that because you have less of that volatilized terpene coming off it. Now, having said that,

00:57:15 ► §

the aging and oxidation process also does bring out a more complex aroma and flavor in cannabis

00:57:21 ► §

as well. So it’s a different thing. It’s not one is better or worse.

00:57:26 ► §

It’s just what you personally prefer.

00:57:28 ► §

I always like to say, as soon as you harvest that plant, you’re instantly switching from

00:57:33 ► §

terpene production mode to terpene retention mode.

00:57:35 ► §

So the more terpenes you retain in the flower, the better.

00:57:39 ► §

So by you skipping the dried cure process, you are actually retaining more of those terpenes.

00:57:44 ► §

It doesn’t affect the cannanoids at all. The canninoids are not really going to be moving at that point.

00:57:49 ► §

They’re not going to be volatizing off because they’re large molecules and it requires for it

00:57:54 ► §

to volatize. And that’s why you have to smoke it or vaporize it. You have to really get it hot.

00:57:58 ► §

But also, like you mentioned, the plant itself does not produce THC. It produces THCA. So that is the acid form.

00:58:06 ► §

It has a carboxyl group on the end of it.

00:58:10 ► §

And THCA does not bind to the CB1 receptor.

00:58:11 ► §

So you don’t feel that euphoria.

00:58:16 ► §

It’s a very strong anti-inflammatory agent and antioxidant as well, though, which is great.

00:58:17 ► §

However, to feel that euphoria that is associated with THC consumption, you have to decarboxylate

00:58:22 ► §

it.

00:58:22 ► §

And so by cooking it, heating it up, or when

00:58:25 ► §

you smoke or vaporize it, it does that for you. I forget what the temperature is. I think, I thought

00:58:29 ► §

it was in close to the 300 degree Fahrenheit range. That could well be right, because I’m sure,

00:58:36 ► §

you know, with boiling anything with water, you can’t get over 212. Exactly right. Yep. But with oil, good God, you know, I had a very low flame. So,

00:58:48 ► §

but it must’ve been at least 300, maybe 350. And what’s interesting too, is some of the

00:58:53 ► §

cannabinoids, they will decarboxylate and volatilize at different temperatures too. So

00:58:58 ► §

there are vaporizers that will say, okay, I want to focus on the specific cannabinoid. And so you

00:59:03 ► §

get to right at that temperature and it’s kind of interesting and unique. I mean, there, I want to focus on the specific cannabinoid. And so you get to right at that

00:59:05 ► §

temperature and it’s kind of interesting and unique. I mean, there’s so much to be learned

00:59:09 ► §

about around this plant and this flower. We’re just, you know, it’s virgin territory for research.

00:59:14 ► §

It really is. You’re seeing that this is in its infancy, our understanding of cannabis and

00:59:20 ► §

how to cultivate and be in partnership with it on a mass level.

00:59:25 ► §

And so what are some of the more exciting aspects of the research into cannabis?

00:59:30 ► §

And where do you envision us being by, say, 2030 as a culture in relationship with this medicine?

00:59:37 ► §

When I say it’s in its infancy, I say what I really am talking about is the infancy of really introducing the science.

00:59:43 ► §

There’s a lot of anecdotal evidence for generations of what this plant can and cannot do. And I believe it was at the Chinese pharmacopoeia

00:59:50 ► §

from like 3500 BC, which talked about cannabis being the most important of all medicine.

00:59:55 ► §

Cannabis evolved in the Tibetan plateau hundreds of thousands of years ago, I think it was. But

00:59:59 ► §

essentially, we pretty much as humans have evolved with this plant. Wherever humans have gone, the plant has kind of followed.

01:00:07 ► §

So we have like an ancestral knowledge of what this plant can do and can’t do.

01:00:12 ► §

However, what I’m talking about on the infancy side of it is really applying rigorous scientific research and doing statistical analysis.

01:00:20 ► §

Did it have this effect? Did it have that effect?

01:00:22 ► §

And the specific research I’m interested in is on the cultivation side, making it more efficient to grow this plant, making it so that

01:00:29 ► §

more people can grow the plant. I truly, truly do believe that the more people that consume this

01:00:35 ► §

plant, the better this world will be. I really do believe that. Call me naive or whatever,

01:00:39 ► §

but I do believe that. I do believe also that science or knowledge is power. You know,

01:00:44 ► §

scientia potentia est, right? That bastardized Latin version of science or knowledge is power.

01:00:49 ► §

Where does that come from? It comes from science. We’re at the infancy of really learning about it.

01:00:54 ► §

And when it comes to the type of research I’m primarily interested in, for me, it’s the whole plant physiology questions.

01:01:00 ► §

There are photoreceptors in the plant that when you activate them, you can see roughly a 33% increase in the potency.

01:01:06 ► §

And a lot of cultivators don’t know how to affect those photoreceptors.

01:01:11 ► §

And I actually just earlier today was writing proposals around doing some research around that.

01:01:15 ► §

Those are the things that really get me excited is just kind of learning more how to manipulate the plant.

01:01:20 ► §

I like to say that we give these plants tough love.

01:01:22 ► §

They’re little factories.

01:01:23 ► §

They’re not, they’re not little babies. And, you know, and the reason why I say that is because the terpene

01:01:27 ► §

and cannabinoid profile, I’m sorry, phosphoryl pathways are very close related to stress

01:01:31 ► §

responses in the plant. And so I like to figure out how do we stress this plant out without

01:01:36 ► §

killing it? So that’s the type of research I’m mostly interested in, you know, 2030, which I

01:01:40 ► §

just realized that we’re basically eight years away from that almost. I personally feel that cannabis is going to continue to be more of this mainstream and

01:01:50 ► §

something that is kind of passe.

01:01:52 ► §

Charles, you live in San Francisco.

01:01:53 ► §

How many times you walk on the street and you smell cannabis smoke somewhere, right?

01:01:56 ► §

It’s pretty apparent now.

01:01:58 ► §

And I think that’s going to come more and more.

01:01:59 ► §

San Francisco is an anomaly, probably all of it will be.

01:02:02 ► §

I believe it’s going to become more and more like that as we move forward.

01:02:05 ► §

I think a lot of the old guard who would never touch cannabis with a 10-foot pole are unfortunately going away because of that propaganda that they’ve been fed their entire lives.

01:02:15 ► §

And I think a lot of the younger people coming in and discovering cannabis for the first time are really realizing that this is a benign medicine and very, very helpful.

01:02:25 ► §

Interestingly enough, the largest growing market for cannabis consumption in the United States

01:02:30 ► §

are female baby boomers. That is the fastest growing market currently. And I do believe that

01:02:36 ► §

we are going to be seeing more and more people just saying like, yeah, you know, it’s just the

01:02:40 ► §

medicine. Perfect example is my mom, who, you know, once again, went to college in the 60s, thought it was a pop party or a Tupperware party she was going to.

01:02:47 ► §

When she was invited to that pop party, she consumes cannabis almost on a daily basis now.

01:02:51 ► §

And it’s just a small elbow at night.

01:02:53 ► §

And she’s not doing it because she’s thinking, like, I’m going to get stoned and I’m going to watch a Cheech and Chong movie.

01:02:59 ► §

I think a lot of people realize that that is, yeah, it is funny and those are great movies.

01:03:04 ► §

Don’t get me wrong. I love me some Cheech and Chong.

01:03:06 ► §

But that is not the majority of people consume cannabis.

01:03:09 ► §

There are probably more people who consume cannabis than you actually realize in your

01:03:13 ► §

day-to-day life.

01:03:13 ► §

But it’s usually just microdosing, small doses.

01:03:17 ► §

So you’re functional.

01:03:18 ► §

And I think it’s going to become more and more like you come home after a long day of

01:03:22 ► §

work, you have a glass of wine to unwind with

01:03:25 ► §

your dinner. I think you’re going to have come home from work, you’re going to take a couple

01:03:29 ► §

puffs off a joint or a pipe or a bong and relax while you’re having dinner. And I think the

01:03:35 ► §

propaganda that have convinced people that cannabis makes you stupid or makes you lazy,

01:03:40 ► §

I think that’s going away too. We’re seeing more and more science research that suggests that people who consume cannabis have lower BMIs on average.

01:03:47 ► §

The lazy pothead propaganda that we’ve been fed, I think, is dying.

01:03:51 ► §

And I very much look forward to that death.

01:03:55 ► §

And wouldn’t it be great if that stereotype of the lazy pothead went away?

01:04:00 ► §

I’ve been smoking cannabis almost every day for over 30 years.

01:04:04 ► §

I’ve been smoking cannabis almost every day for over 30 years and during that time I was still able to get a few things done

01:04:08 ► §

like these podcasts and well I wrote 8 books also

01:04:11 ► §

now I did get a bit overweight a few years back

01:04:14 ► §

but without going on any kind of a diet and only counting calories

01:04:18 ► §

I managed to shed about 40 pounds

01:04:21 ► §

and I’ve kept that off for a long time now

01:04:24 ► §

so I’m doing my part to get rid

01:04:26 ► §

of some of those ideas that people have about marijuana smokers. For now, however, I want to

01:04:32 ► §

get this podcast out so that I can get ready for next Monday’s Live Salon to get that out to you

01:04:37 ► §

as well. You see, on this coming Monday night, which will be November 15th, by the way, if you’re

01:04:42 ► §

hearing this later on, there will be a

01:04:45 ► §

panel of lawyers joining us to answer your questions, and our topic is going to be psychedelic

01:04:51 ► §

law for the people, and I hope to see you there. But for now, this is Lorenzo signing off from

01:04:57 ► §

cyberdelic space. Namaste, my friends.