Cannabis Regulations

Pe259 Preparing for the New York Cannabis Market

(1-on-1 Consulting Call) After working clinically in long-term care as a Registered Dietitian, Christine is ready to utilize her knowledge and expand into the cannabis space. However getting a dispensary license, in the soon to be New York Adult-Use cannabis market, won’t be easy. We discuss what she can do to improve her chances and longer term strategy for newly emerging cannabis markets.

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Pe258 Cannabis & Ancient Chinese Medicine

Pe258 Cannabis & Ancient Chinese Medicine

Guest Prof. Kylie O’Brien Ph.D., CSO of the Releaf Group Ltd

Thousands of years and insights lost to cannabis prohibition. What did ancient Chinese medicine know about cannabis? How did they prepare? Did they have unique strain genetics? 

Prof. Kylie O’Brien, Ph.D., CSO of the Releaf Group Ltd, joins us to discuss how cannabis might have been used in Chinese medicine and the “State of the Union” for cannabis in Australia.

Kylie’s recently published book: Medicinal Cannabis & CBD in Mental Healthcare

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Pe257 The Brain on Cannabis

Patient curiosity (and desperation) has been the driving force behind physicians opening up to the idea of cannabis as a medicine. Dr. Rebecca Siegel, Clinical Psychiatrist & Author of “The Brain on Cannabis: What you should know about Recreational & Medical Marijuana”, joins us to discuss her perspective on cannabis and how her team is using Functional MRI scans to study the effects of cannabis.

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Pe256 Hemp Companies are mostly Ketchup Tomatoes

The cannabis industry started with a strong focus on craft, while the hemp industry launched with a strong commodity focus. Low quality (commodity) tomatoes are grown to process and use for ketchup. The next phase of growth in the hemp consumables industry will likely require growers and product makers to focus more on craft, and less on growing hemp to make ketchup.

Our guest is Justin Chaddick, CEO & Co-Founder of Treepost, an online marketplace that curates craft hemp products. We discuss what’s working (and not working) in the current hemp CBD market.

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Pe255 Predicting a Cannabis Market that doesn’t exist yet

(1-on-1 Consulting Call) Paul has been a pharmacist in South Carolina for over a decade. As South Carolina finalizes their medical cannabis regulations, what can be done now to prepare for a market that doesn’t exist yet? We discuss Paul’s pharmacy experience and predict what the South Carolina cannabis market will look like in 3-5 years.

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Pe217 Cannabis Politics, Tax Fights & Sprayed Hemp

Cannabis companies (and consumers) are now facing ever increasing tax threats from State governments wanting to increase their tax revenues. Are their tax campaigns justified? And what’s going on with hemp farms on the west coast supplying cannabis markets? We discuss those items and more with our guest Casey Houlihan, Executive Director of Oregon Retailers Cannabis Association, join and become a member today!

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Pe209 The Paradox Destroying Small Cannabis Companies

CTA: Follow this quick guide to submit a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) Request to IRS

Cannabis companies face many unique challenges, but small businesses are overly impacted by one specific law. The 280E tax law results in 70-100% of a company's net profit being taxed. Our guest, John Schroyer, published a series of articles revealing new information the IRS has kept hidden. We discuss why all the secrecy and what can be done.

As discussed in the intro, we built this step by step Guide to submit a FOIA Request to the IRS specific to your State.

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Pe201 CEO of United States Cannabis Council

Steven Hawkins is the Interim President & CEO of the newly formed United States Cannabis Council (USCC). As federal legalization now looks inevitable, the question is how it’ll happen and what laws will set the future framework for the cannabis industry.

Outside of the business, where do consumers and medical patients fit into this conversation? We discuss these topics with Steven Hawkins and the work USCC is doing to shape the future of cannabis legalization.

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Pe198 Federal Cannabis Policy for Who?

The United States Cannabis Council (USCC) was recently announced, and it raised many questions from people in the industry. Who’s behind this lobbying group and what are their interests?

This could be great news for the industry and consumers across the country, or it could corrupt the waters and severely limit the future potential of cannabis. With a new group that could strongly influence federal cannabis policy reform, there are many questions to ask.

Follow our guest, Brett Puffenbarger on Linkedin, for policy and industry updates.

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Pe182 Pharmacists Anxious about Rec Cannabis Rollouts

From a 1-on-1 call with Wayne. Joe is a pharmacist that became interested in cannabis. After joining a Multi-State Operator as their Pharmacy Director, he’s concerned about the roll out of rec markets and what the future of pharmacists will be around cannabis for medical use.

We discuss Joe’s current path and day to day in the business. What his biggest challenges are and how rec markets may (or may not) destroy the medical side of cannabis for patients.

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Pe167 How to Legalize Cannabis in 2020

Do you live in Arizona, Idaho, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey or South Dakota? Or curious how 2020 Federal Elections will shape the landscape of cannabis legalization? Look into the hazy crystal ball with David Bienenstock as we discuss the future of legalizing cannabis.

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Pe162 Can the War on Drugs be Reconciled?

Our guest is Jeannette Ward Horton, Executive Director & Co-Founder of Nuleaf Project. We discuss the “War on Drugs”, its impacts in underserved communities, where cannabis tax money is actually going and how you can use the blueprint Jeannette & Nuleaf built to achieve similar efforts in your City or State.

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Pe161 Fixing Political Issues & Equity in Cannabis

Our guest is Kim Lundin, Executive Director of Oregon Cannabis Association. We discuss allocation of cannabis tax dollars, expungement of past “cannabis crimes”, lobbying in cannabis, talking to politicians and the current impact of regulations in the cannabis industry.

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Pe138 Why is there no “Craft” Cannabis License?

There’s a clear Craft Business framework for beer, wine and spirits, but why not cannabis? Can we create an industry where the local/ small business can also win in the David vs Goliath battle? Our guest is Micah Sherman, co-owner of Raven Grass. We discuss the small business landscape in cannabis and how the regulations currently lean towards big money.

Resources from episodes Washington Craft Cannabis & The Cannabis Observer.

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Episode Transcription:

Wayne Schwind, Host: Joining us today is Micah Sherman, Co-owner and Director of Ops for Raven Grass in Washington. Excited to have you on today, Micah, talk a little bit about Raven Grass, your background and some of the bigger initiatives, projects and bills you're working on - some exciting stuff I haven't really seen yet in the cannabis industry. So something unique, I think will be really good for the listeners to learn about. So thank you for taking the time to come on today.

Micah Sherman, Guest: Yeah, thanks. Thanks for the opportunity to have a conversation with you, looking forward to it.

Wayne: Let's start with just context for listeners kind of a simple introduction to yourself, Raven Grass, you know what year you started, and maybe how and why you started the business and got involved with it.

Micah: Yeah, so Raven is a - what's called a tier two farm here in Washington. So we're on the smaller end and we produce our own organic cannabis in an indoor facility here in Olympia. And then we also make a variety of products with that in our processing facility. We started here in Washington's i502 system in 2014, kind of right at the beginning of, of that legal recreational system, we did a little bit of medical production out of the same facility while we were getting all of that set up and going through the very long permitting process with state and our local county. So there's three of us that own Raven Grass, myself, Nichole Graf, who's our creative director, and then David Stein, who is our farmer/grower. Nichole and I moved out here in 2013 from New York. We both came out of design professions, she worked in fashion and I worked in the architecture and building industry. So we moved out here specifically with the intention of starting this business with David who was located here in Olympia. You know, it was right around the time when Washington and Colorado passed their legalization initiatives. Nichole and I were living in New York and were ready for a change in our lives. We had both gotten to places in our careers that, you know, caused us to have - to come up against some broader considerations of kind of what we wanted to do with our lives and how we wanted to spend what limited time we had on this world, and decided it wasn't going to be progressing the profit interests of the already extremely wealthy and saw the cannabis industry as a space to, to come into something that was, you know, in this moment of dramatic transition from an illicit market to a regulated market. We knew that there was going to be a lot of opportunity in there to, you know, have a role in shaping something that was going to be important and new and were there was going to be a lot of conversations that we thought probably hadn't happened in a really long time in, you know, such a economically significant industry.

Wayne: Yeah, and socially impactful. I mean, it's like, I don't think we've ever really seen an industry like this come to light. You know, Tech, those things were new, but this thing - I mean cannabis has been around forever. Now to rebuild it in a legal landscape is very interesting.

Micah: Yeah, it was, you know, it's kind of just a fascinating once in a lifetime moment, and we decided that it was something that we wanted to be a part of. I don't necessarily think we knew exactly how that was going to go and where it was going to lead us. And, you know, like, I certainly didn't have this exact plan of what we're working on now as far as our legislation, but it was certainly - you know, we knew it was going to be there and we were willing to kind of dive in and try to make sure that the conversation and the direction of things stayed on some of the stuff that we thought was, was really important, which is reminding folks that, you know, a lot of times, especially in the, in the sort of investment and business world of the cannabis industry, where you hear terms like, you know, "new industry", and it's an emerging market, and it's, you know, massive growth for this new market. And really what it is, is it's transition from the illicit market to the legal market. And so anything that comes into the legal market, probably comes out of what was once the illicit market and has a profound, you know, economic and social impact on on those people who maybe didn't, didn't have the capacity to make the transition or didn't want to or, you know, had - had had a lifetime of bad experiences with the state and didn't trust that the process was going to go in a way that was going to be considerate to their needs. And you know, most of those people were, were right, it turns out.

Wayne: Right. How - I'm always interested in this stories, and you have three people as co-owners and partnerships, how to make those work long term. Was David a friend that - you said he was already in Washington, was he, you know, familiar with cultivation, wanted to do the business side, and you and Nichole were those other puzzle pieces that kind of rounded that out? Did you know him previously, like, how did you decide to move to Washington and not have a different state?

Micah: Yeah, well, so. David is of my father's generation and has been growing since he was in high school. So he's, he's in his late 60s now, and has you know, been grown for close to 50 years in a variety of different ways and forms and places and - so yeah, we got connected with him through a friend of my father. He was interested in getting into the legal system he had been growing, you know, in the illicit market and in the medical market and wanted to get into the recreational market but didn't want to deal with any of the business side of things, didn't want to deal with, you know, the permitting and all that.

Wayne: And Admin and logistics and - yeah, that's a whole other landscape.

Micah: Oh, yeah, that's where - that's where our setup came from. So we all have different and complimentary roles in the business. You know, which I think just fundamentally, I think that's an important part of a partnership is understanding what everybody's supposed to be doing and what the expectations are and making sure that you know, you're coming together with a group of people that can also work well together. So there's, you know, there's also just - especially in the, in the early days of this industry, so much of its based on on trust. You know, we didn't have a ton of money when we started all this. And, you know, we at first we took all of the very traditional business advice of, you know, get a lawyer and write up really detailed partnership agreements and, and get everything down on paper. And, you know, then about $10,000 of lawyers later, we, you know, just didn't have - like, that process wasn't really becoming satisfying for us. And it wasn't like allowing us to really get that sort of stuff dealt with. I think so we, you know, we decided at some point in that process to pause that and to just kind of sit down with the three of us and make sure that we all knew what was expected of the others and that we, you know, agreed in principle on kind of where we were going and how we were going to get there and just wrote out some really simple agreements ourselves. And definitely that, for us was, was a better process. But again, you know, the scale of our operations was very small, we didn't have a lot of, you know, complicated investment stuff to deal with. You know, we got a couple of like loans from friends and family and we don't have any equity investors. So it was really just the three of us making sure that, that the expectations and, and roles were clear. And that we had a good way to continue to communicate and, you know, that has been easier at different points than others. But we're all still doing it together. And that part of it is moving along well.

Wayne: That's good.

Micah: Yeah. So we've been doing this for about five years and in that process, and you know, part of why, why you're interested in talking to me was about our, our kind of next steps for, for the industry, and how, you know, our experience thus far has informed that.

Wayne: Yeah. And before we jump into that, I kind of want to lay out the landscape of - I'm not as familiar with the Washington market, even though we're right next door. Sometimes you're so focused in your own market, you hear things here and there. But there's so much to focus on in your own state. For listeners, and leading up to why this legislation, why this approach? It's very fascinating to me, and seems almost something like - almost impossible to do from a small business perspective. What led up to this approach to like trying to get this legislation, this bill passed? You know, what's the landscape of the Washington market, the pricing landscape, you know, small business versus corporate businesses? What was the motivation? And then we'll get into the details of what this legislation is. But what's the landscape of Washington over the past couple few years?

Micah: Yeah, so Washington State started with what their - what they call the three tiered system similar to distribution for alcohol. Where they had a production license, which was the farm, a processing license, which was the ability to make any sort of products from those, and then the retail license. They prohibited anyone from having a wholesale license, which is the producer or the processor license, and a retail license. You have farmers. And then you have farmers that are also processors. And then you have people that are just processors, and then you have all the retailers.

Wayne: And did they cap those licenses as well?

Micah: Everything's capped here. Yeah. And everything's pretty much closed at this point, there was an initial round of licensing. Occasionally a license will, will go for sale or get forfeited or something like that and get reissued. But -

Wayne: And it was a small window, right? It was like a couple months? (Very small) Yeah, you had to be like, on the dot the timing of that, to come in later's almost really hard in Washington. It sounds like.

Micah: Yeah, I mean, you can - at this point, you can, you can buy a license from somebody that already has one. And there is a secondary market for licenses. But it's, you know, it's pretty expensive. So that's the basic structure of the industry where you have wholesalers and retailers, and there's no ability for any sort of vertical integration in those relationships. So what we've seen, you know, we started out with about 2,500 production licenses. And these days, we're, we're right at about 600 active licenses. (Wow, wow) And so what what's happened in that time is there's been a lot of consolidation. So a lot of people have now acquired multiple licenses for on the production side. And then there's a lot of licenses that are inactive or dormant. Maybe they're licenses that are that are moving around, but the real story is a story of consolidation. A story of more and more of the sales in the market going to bigger and bigger companies. One of the things that Washington did, as well is they limited ownership in a license entity to Washington residents, so that meant no money could come from out of state directly into a licensed cannabis business. And the way that folks that wanted to get bigger than than they could get and wanted to bring in some money is they was set up, you know, like a secondary company that might own a facility and then lease that out to a licensed entity. So there's, you know, there's lots of ways for bigger companies to bring in, to bring in money. So, you know, licensing agreements, and -

Wayne: So that rule didn't have its intended - it was, they worked around it, essentially.

Micah: Yeah. And if anything, it made it more difficult for small businesses because we didn't have the complicated legal capacities to set up those sort of arrangements. So it almost limited the out of state money to being used only by the big guy.

Wayne: Yeah, that's crazy.

Micah: Yeah. And now, you know, a big part of what I talk about as as we're moving forward with this legislative process is to remind people to like, turn around and look at some of the unintended consequences of choices we made along the way. Because I think sometimes that gets that gets overlooked. So that's really been the story of the Washington cannabis industry over the last five years has been small farmers just struggling to make ends meet, going out of business, selling their license for you know, pennies on the dollar. And a lot of you know, so many people that I know, that have just given up. (Yeah) But now we're at this place where there's a lot less farmers in the market and We're, we're trying to have a conversation about how do we keep those farmers that are left (right) still here and able to make profit. And actually, you know, have this be a business that we could continue to run into the future. (Yeah.) You know, it's still a very tight situation for small farmers.

Wayne: Yeah. On the regulations and the licensing. You know, I thinking of Oregon, we didn't cap any licenses. They did last year decided to stop taking applications for new grow licenses. But I think we're at like, at almost 1,000 - somewhere between 1,000 grow licenses or 1,200. There's another 12,000 applications in the hopper. Washington's at 600 and your population is almost double of Oregon. So when you look at the saturation in Oregon, we should have done something. Why were the growers - Why was it such a struggle? Was their price cutting extremes, was the cap not set low enough, and there was still too much capacity for the state?

Micah: Yeah, it was kind of multifaceted. So one fact is that when 502, the initiative first passed, there was a study, and they determined that we needed about 2 million square feet of production overall for the state. And there's about 20 million square feet licensed. So we do have an excess production capacity here. And I think that 2 million number was probably a bit low. But even if you double it, it's still five times more canopy that we might need.

Wayne: And did they not listen to the report? They decided to go with 20 or?

Micah: Um, it was - more of a, they just basically gave licenses to everybody that applied in the first window. Yeah. And they were originally - So originally everybody was going to be able to have up to three licenses. So there was a lot of people that planned their businesses around that. Then when they realized they had so many more licenses that got applied for than they needed, they said, okay, you can only have one license. And then at some point, once enough people had, you know, the writing was on the wall, people were closing down, they wanted to be able to sell their licenses, then they changed the rules again, that allowed everybody to have three licenses, but you can only only get them by acquiring a license from somebody else. So that was a moment where there was the ability for some of these bigger companies to triple their production capacity by adding two more licenses and - and you know, just keep getting bigger.

Wayne: Yeah, were they driving price down? Because if they're going to triple but it was already over capacity and saturated. Did that allow them just to drive lower prices? Was that where the farmers were really struggling, the local, craft and small?

Micah: Absolutely, and yeah, absolutely. That was exactly what happened. It was just a you know, there was a real race to the bottom for years. I mean, there was, there was seasons where you could buy pretty decent like useable flower for 40 cents a gram, 30 cents a gram in that range. And you know…

Wayne: Yeah, we saw that in Oregon.

Micah: Yeah, yeah, it was - it was similar. I think we hit some similar prices to you guys. But yeah, definitely there was this moment where it was pretty much impossible to make a living growing weed in Washington and so there was a very large overproduction. You know, there was a lot of it that probably ended up getting in diverted into the black market.

Wayne: Yeah, how'd you guys survive that?

Micah: So we're - we're a pretty small farm, we have a couple of different differentiations to what we're doing here from most folks. We were, very early on in our business we, we made a decision to start working on breeding, type two and type three genetics. So mixed ratios, CBD and THC strains, and high CBD low THC strains. And while in the first couple of years, that was something that you know, the market really struggled to find a place for. One of the - one of the situations that really defines our marketplace here is that there's a set number of stores and they're assigned by geographic area. And so that relationship of a limited number of outlets to be able to sell your product combined with this very large over productive capacity, you know, created a situation where the people that did the best were the people that made the jobs and the profit margins of the retailers, the easiest. And so we're - we've been able to do that with, just because of the fact that we're so small we can seek out stores across the state that have similar values. And so one of the things that allowed us to do that was our work with these with these CBD genetics allows us to provide something different to the market. We've always gone above and beyond on following organic standards since since early on in the market. So there was, there was a moment early on where we were, you know, one of three or four companies that were putting out products that could have been certified organic if there was a program for that. So those differentiations helped us to, you know, keep our price a little higher, as well as just the fact that we were such a small scale, we really could, you know, pick our battles as far as which stores to work with and we didn't have to go this route of trying to be for everybody. So we were a bit of a niche.

Wayne: Be more adaptable, didn't have to drop the price, not competing on that. How many stores do you normally work with?

Micah: We work with about 35 stores right now.

Wayne: Okay, that's kind of what I've heard from most, I mean, craft growers - 30-40 stores seems like the norm.

Micah: You know, it's that number where you can still have meaningful relationships with the people that run the stores. It's not, it's not so big that you can't have those conversations on a regular basis. And, you know, and that's, that's really the idea of, of defining craft production. It's about the scale of a business relative to the overall market. And that's, that's the the type of relationship and the type of business model that we're trying to preserve with this legislation by defining what a craft producer is, we can start to have a conversation, you know, really cogently about what is the proper scale to be able to maintain that type of production? And yeah, so that that number seems to be, you know, sort of a natural size for a lot of people, that seems to work really well.

Wayne: Build that brand stronger inside of those. Yeah.

Micah: Yeah. So that was how we were able to basically stay afloat during this time of, you know, really depressed prices and then people closing, and you know, we were we were definitely on on the edge a lot of times. You know, there was a lot of weeks where payroll was late, you know.

Wayne: I've heard that story a lot, yeah. In Oregon, our partners - we look, we try to work with the same type of growers. It was the same thing. Like we've had partners that were close to that edge when we had that same drop, and now that 2019 was one of their better years, and it's great to see that it turned around but a lot of people didn't make it through. Was processors and retailers in a similar situation, or was it really the growers that had bad market crunch and price pinch?

Micah: The growers definitely had the hardest time. You know, a lot of processors, depending on their business model, struggled as well. But there was definitely a lot of processers that did really well in that time because, you know, their input prices were so low that they can you know, if time - especially, you know, folks that were looking for good inputs for edibles and stuff like that, that those prices came down so that I feel like they really got to compete on you know, who had the product that people like to consume the most and it was less about just the price, although, of course, there's still huge price component and all that but yeah. So and then - so retailers are, are essentially the most important people in our industry right now in Washington, because of their very you know, special place in the supply chain.

Wayne: Yeah, there's one gateway to the consumer.

Micah: Exactly. So they're, you know, they're the ones that have really over the years, gotten to have the most impact on how value is defined in the industry. You know, they really got to have all of these conversations with, with the customers, they got to decide what to emphasized in their stores, as far as you know, are we going to talk, you know, how are we going to physically set up our store? How are we going to label the sections, you know, all these you know, what may seem kind of incidental decisions, you know, they really frame how people think about cannabis, right? It's a brand new thing for them. They're coming into a store for the first time. They see you know, the whole store divided up between indicas hybrids and sativas, and that reinforces those conceptions for them. And they see, you know, the THC percentage prominently displayed on every single product -

Wayne: The most important thing! (Laughter)

Micah: Yeah, because it was legally required, so it becomes this really important thing. It's the only thing that's the same on every single product. And so of course, it's important, right? Like that, you know, that's just common sense if you're, if you're somebody who doesn't know that much about cannabis, and so they -you know whether intentionally or not, they got to set the stage for what people thought mattered. And I think a lot of stores, you know, did a really good job in that role. And a lot of stores took that role and decided to use it in a way that allowed them to make the most money the most easily. And those tended to be the stores that found the most success in the market, because they were willing and able to play the game of price. And so, you know, more and more our industry as its consolidated and as different retailers have, you know, figured out there, they're place in the thing, in the situation relative to each other, we've seen these stores that have tended towards high volume, low price. You know, a lot of a lot of foot traffic, you know, quick transactions. These have been the people that have that have found the most profit and the most success. And then I think we've seen more and more of our production capacity, sort of pivot towards supplying that part of the market. Because that's what we tend to do when there's a you know, opportunity to make a profit. Somebody's gonna kind of fill in that space. I think we've seen as a whole, our productive capacity has really shifted towards meeting the needs of a particular kind of retailer. And I think that we're seeing, you know, a pretty substantial shift in the way that the industry is, is oriented towards that.

Wayne: Right. Right.

Micah: And, and that's a big problem in my mind, for a couple of different reasons. One, it, it puts folks, the, you know, the retailers who are, you know, a really important component of any industry, but it puts them in this position to have conversations about what's valuable without understanding the production process. And they, you know, just as a result of that, are not always going to make the decision that makes the most sense for the things that we're making because they don't know about the things that we're making. And so part of, part of our bill is, is really about thinking about the ramifications of those sorts of moments. And how can we, you know, without completely disrupting our whole supply chain, like how can we start to make important, targeted changes to re-evaluate how those power structures are distributed? Yeah, who gets to make the choices about what matters and what's valuable, and have those conversations with consumers and the public to start to come up with a collective idea about, you know, what matters the most for the cannabis industry? Because that's the conversation I think that we're not really having in a transparent way right now.

Wayne: Yeah, well, especially in the Northwest, I mean craft industries. I mean, the Northwest cares about that so much, and we're seeing other areas keeping the money in the state. And to have a craft industry, you know, small businesses, if you look at how much just in general that makes up employment and revenue, I mean, it's a huge number. But it's not one unify - it's hard to unify that. But to have that craft industry, small scale aren't going to - they're producing on quality and differentiation. It's not going to be volume in price. And if you have retailers that come in early, you know, the first few years, that's the model, that's how you're attracting customers, because if the flower isn't getting differentiated, other than the THC percentage, consumers aren't educated, you know, they're not going to start figuring that stuff out. So this is leading you up to this legislation approach, the bill. I want to first talk about what it is, then I think we can circle back to the process of it how you did it. Cuz that seems very elusive to me. Okay, so let's set up the bill. What is the bill? When did you start working on it? And I guess we just kind of give listeners a definition and then where we're at in the progress of it.

Micah: Yeah, so our bill is a bill to do three things. It establishes a new license on the production side. That is called a craft cannabis production license. And that is limited in, in size in a similar way to our existing licenses. Except for it does something slightly different where it looks to talk about productive capacity rather than just square footage. So right now, all of the licenses whether it's indoor or outdoor, are the same square footage. So the craft production license would limit people to 10,000 feet of indoor canopy or 30,000 square feet of outdoor canopy. And then you can also have a blend. So if you had 5000 feet indoor, you could have 15,000 square foot outdoor. So it adds up to the, you know, kind of the total number. So that's new, in and of itself. And we're saying that, you know, it's just acknowledging the difference between the productive capacity of an indoor operation and an outdoor operation to get to a business size that is approximately the same size as a craft brewery or craft distillery here in Washington. We looked at, you know, how big those businesses are and worked our way back from there. The second thing it does is it allows for those craft producers to set up on-site direct sales for the products that are grown exclusively within their operation. And so we're talking about something similar to a you know, craft brewery where you can go in and, and, you know, fill a growler, all those. And then the third thing it does is it, it creates an advisory board of craft producers, craft farmers to work with the liquor and cannabis board on future rulemaking projects. All future rule making projects, but specifically rulemaking projects around the implementation of this new craft license, and then the expansion of the craft economy into the rest of the license types in our industry. So it's, you know, creates this ongoing working relationship between regulators and craft farmers. And - because that's really the idea of this build, it's to establish - what is craft? It's to create a differentiation in the rules for that business model that allows them to succeed in the face of you know, all of the issues that we just talked about. And then it sets up a framework to continue that differentiation in really meaningful ways and move our industry forward.

Wayne: Yeah. Is home delivery allowed at all in Washington?

Micah: Not right now.

Wayne: Okay. Okay. Yeah we see - I actually see a similar approached by some edible companies and other companies in Oregon. They're actually starting hemp CBD lines and then setting up a little retail store - you know, they can't sell their THC products but at least they're making that consumer connection, which we struggle with, you know, we don't see that end consumer because we don't have that direct relationship. And you get so much value and feedback and market research from actually talking to the consumer and the budtenders are great, the dispensaries are great, but there's still that telephone game you know of information being passed down. What, what -

Micah: I don't know about in Oregon but in - one of the things we run up against in Washington is there's an incredibly high turnover for budtenders and for buyers. Apparently it's not a job that people enjoy very much.

Wayne: Yeah, absolutely. But those top ones are succeeding. The ones that are differentiating, it seems like they have really low turnover. But that volume-price player, I see more turnover in those dispensaries.

Micah: Yeah, it's - it's a mix here, I think, you know, small stores in Washington, I think sometimes still struggle to, you know, financially some of the small stores and more rural areas. And, and I think some of that might just be, you know, people get people get burnout on working a low wage job in a stressful situation where there's not money getting made. So.

Wayne: Yeah. What did you learn from - I think in our pre-call, we talked a little bit about the craft beer industry, micro distilleries. What approach to those is there in Washington to help them succeed where Budweiser is don't just run the entire industry? Is there parts of those that should, we should see in cannabis and craft cannabis?

Micah: Yeah, absolutely. So our legislation is really modeled off of those, those two things is craft brewing and craft spirits. So I think a lot of people know the story of craft brewing on the west coast, you know, in the 80s and 90s. The reason why that industry came into existence was because the rules were changed that allowed small brewers to sell their beer directly. And they didn't have to go through the distribution system, which wasn't going to work with small brewers because it just didn't make any financial sense.

Wayne: Yeah. Too much of a leap.

Micah: Yeah, yeah. So and then in 2005, Washington State passed a similar law for micro distillery. And so they define this micro distillery license. And they said, If you make less than a certain number of gallons of alcohol per year, that you could sell a portion of that directly to the consumer and that created a really thriving craft spirits industry here in Washington. And they've had their, you know, their their ups and downs and it's not a perfect industry and you know, model by any means, but it, it created a business type that didn't exist previously in the state of Washington. There were no small distilleries in Washington State. Prior to this, it just wasn't. It wasn't a viable business. So yeah, we're definitely looking at those two industries and seeing - and you know, the real big difference for both of those craft brewers and craft and micro distilleries is the direct sales component. That's the fundamental difference between them and the bigger producers. And, you know, it both allows them to sell a certain amount of their products at a retail margin, you know, which gives them comfortable profit for that. And it allows them to have a greater role in helping to educate the consumer and create, you know, good reality-focused expectations of value. And that is, you know, those that's like kind of the twofold component is going to allow us to sell a small amount of what we produce. Maybe the average brewery from my understanding sells about 25% of what they produce directly. And they make about 45% of their profits from that. So anybody can do the math on that and and realize that that's a good thing for small producers. And one of the things that does for us at that point is it really gives us the stable base of, of income to do more interesting things for our retail partners, and that is something that I've been working on and over the years with, with my retailers that I work with, is helping them understand what are some of the things that we're going to be able to do with this new privilege of selling direct, that's going to make us more valuable as a partner for them. Yeah, and there's a lot of opportunities for us to do things with this direct sales that we wouldn't really be able to do with retail partners effectively, that is going to help us A, make more money so we can continue to exist and other things. But and then Two, like start to broaden some of the stuff that's available for consumers, so they can really start to understand what are some of the different things that could be available that aren't now? Because, you know, we all know that the, the, you know, capitalist mode of production is inherently limiting to the only things that are produced are the things that are profitable, right? We don't see things made that aren't profitable to be made.

Wayne: Or scalable, or a commodity more like, you know.

Micah: Yeah. And there, you know, there tends to be an effect in that and that the things that are less profitable also don't get made, because why would you, you know, if you just own a business and you're kind of disconnected from it from what it's doing on a daily basis, why would you choose to do something that only made you half as much money as doing something else that made you more? You know, there may not be a reason to do that, in that in that system, especially in a system where the ability to get information from the people that are making it to the people that are using it isn't, isn't clear.

Wayne: Where - this seems inevitable. People love small businesses, they know their money staying local, they can actually meet or know who the owner is behind it. It seems inevitable, question is I think, when is this going to happen? Where - I think you said you've been working on this for about three years. Where are you at as far as progress, and is this something you think could happen, maybe 2021? As soon as 2020 as a timeline?

Micah: Yeah, that's - that's a good question because it you know, gives us a chance to talk a little bit about the legislative process. So I'm sure a lot of folks don't know about that. So the average time for a bill to make its way through a state house is like a three to five year process. So we're, you know, technically this is the third year that I've been working on it, but really, it's the second year that it's been on the radar of the legislature. The first year was me just trying to get the attention of my legislators that represent me, getting them up to speed on, on what's going on, help them to understand the cannabis industry, which, you know, hardly any of our state representatives really know, in any sort of detail what's going on. It's, you know, three years ago, I feel like the most common reaction to walking into legislators office was like a little bit of a giggle and a joke about something about cannabis because oftentimes that kind of made them uncomfortable. So they would try to, you know, laugh a little and that was, that was a frustrating dynamic because oftentimes you only get about 10 or 15 minutes to meet with a legislator during the legislative session and to spend, you know, a couple minutes trying to work through their uncomfortableness of talking to a "drug dealer." (Laughter)

So, year one was that, it was - it was education. It was, you know, establishing a relationship with these folks. So they knew that when they were talking to you, they were getting, you know, good information, that they could trust what was being told to them. You know, all those things are important in that process. So last year, we had a we had a bill that was, you know, officially proposed and, you know, we had a lot of meetings about it, but we didn't get a legislative hearing in the committee, so I wasn't able to move through that process. This year, we - we revised the bill. We clarified the language around that a little bit because that was something that, some of the feedback we got last year was that it wasn't clear exactly what we were trying to do, again, especially to people that don't understand the real details of the cannabis industry. And to be frank don't have the time to dive deep into any particular issue. In Washington and Oregon, we both have part time legislators and it creates this environment where, there's just not a lot of time for them to, to do their jobs, and to really understand a lot of nuance. So, learning how to how to interact with that without you know, it can be it can come across as dismissive sometimes. And I think a lot of people get upset about that. But I think if you really think about it, you know, these people have thousands of bills that are getting introduced every year and they have to figure out a way to know enough about all of them to represent their constituents. It's you know, it's a challenge for sure. So, you know, this some relationship building and making sure that people understood what we were trying to do, and that we were clear about its intent. And so this year, we got, we had a hearing for our bill. And it went really well. We had a lot of farmers show up and, and speak really eloquently about their experience and what this opportunity would mean for their businesses. It was, you know, there's some pretty powerful testimonies in that hearing about the idea. And I think that we made a lot of progress and we have a really good chance of the bill passing next year.

Wayne: Next year. It seems like you might be able to get support of the craft brewers or micro distillers because they're small. I mean, they're successful because of their system and what was set up for it. Are they engaged at all or interested on the cannabis craft side trying to create that same part of the industry? Or are they kind of separated from that?

Micah: That's definitely something that I'm working on now. I started reaching out to those that community, you know, over the last couple of months as well as it looked more and more likely that we were going to be able to get a hearing. And yeah, we're making some inroads and I think next year, we're really going to be able to have, you know, a coalition of craft producers from different industries come out and speak to, you know, both their, their struggles, things that have worked, and things that haven't worked. You know, there's a, there's decades of lived experience in those industries about the sorts of things that were helpful and the sorts of things that weren't and I and I definitely, you know, we're working really hard to try to get some of those folks engaged in this. You know, it's hard they're, you know, often busy business owners themselves and, and are, you know. But yeah, there's definitely opportunities to work together there. The other group that we've been talking to and I hope to have as a part of the conversation next year, are organic vegetable farmers that are that are working in CSA's or at the farmers market, because that's really the same sort of idea where it's about, how do we create different market access for different types of production that work, you know, better or worse for that type of production? And you know, CSA's and farmers markets are a big part of a lot of small, organic farmers business models and being able to explain how just the different form of access to the consumer is a really important component in and of itself.

Wayne: Is there any correlation on the hemp CBD side that might also you know get involved in this or because that's so unregulated, they're selling online maybe already directly to consumers or opening up stores, are they not as engaged in this on the CBD side?

Micah: Yeah I'm not, I don't have any hemp farmers that are federally interested in - you know that I find that the hemp farms tend to be, you know it's a larger scale of farming just because of the, you know, the nature of it.

Wayne: We're seeing craft hemp become a category here in Oregon and these craft growers around hemp and products. Yeah, it's really interesting

Micah: Yeah, you guys are definitely a few years ahead of us on on the hemp farming we, we only really last year was the first year that it was easy to get a hemp farming license and I think we're still seeing folks figure out what to do, kind of how to how to do that and the different ways to do it. There was this year was pretty, pretty ugly for Washington hemp farmers, a ton of stuff got planted and you know, we had an early frost and bad weather. And then, I think there was also not the processing facilities in place. So a lot of, a lot of usable material rotted in the field this year.

Wayne: Yeah. And I see a lot of that being industrial hemp right now, which is a whole you know, high volume extraction and processing these, this craft hemp we're seeing in Oregon now is - I mean, it's indistinguishable from craft flower that you would see. It's really interesting. It's as a category.

Micah: Yeah, we grow strains in our facility that would legally meet the definition of hemp. So yeah, we're, that's something we're looking at as you know, maybe doing a small crop locally here and just doing it for to get those type three flowers. So yeah, I wasn't. That's nice to hear about craft hemp flower in Oregon.

Wayne: Yeah people are smoking, I mean buying just the flower and actually smoking it like normal flower or it's you know going into edibles, vapes, different things like that. But the industrial hemp one is scary because I think that's more aligned for fiber, you know, different - paper, textiles. When you take that industrial hemp you've gotta process it so far down. It just doesn't seem like the right fit for an actual consumable product market. But it seems like a filler that's in place right now because it's just brand new. And that's what how hemp was grown before, those strains and cultivars. I mean, that's just been done now. It's so new.

Micah: Yeah, I know we're definitely going to see a whole lot of different stuff happening in that space. And yeah, just not - not something that I've spent a ton of time delving into. I think it's a much smaller activity here in Washington thus far because the state was, you know, pretty far behind Oregon on doing the licensing.

Wayne: Right? Back to the bill, two questions and they might kind of tie together. One, how do you write a bill? Do you have to hire a lawyer? Like what's that process? And then two, I saw your bill is sponsored by Rep. Lori Dolan. How do you get - does a bill have to be sponsored by someone to have to get a hearing to even be seen? How did you get her to sponsor, and is she involved in writing the actual bill on the language?

Micah: Okay. It can go a couple of different ways. I would say probably the most common way that a bill gets written is - Yeah, lawyer that the, the interest that is pushing the bill forward, you know, would hire a lawyer to write the bill in exactly the way that they want it done. Washington has an interesting option available to citizens and to legislators. So if a legislator has a constituent that has a bill that they support, that that legislators supports, what, and this is what happened for us, is so Lori Dolan represents me. She's, you know, I'm her constituent here in Olympia. She represents the 22nd Legislative District, which I live in and have the business in. So once we got to a point where she understood the bill that I was asking for, what, what we have here is each committee in the House or the Senate, has nonpartisan staff members that, their job is to is to write and understand bills. So sometimes they'll get a bill that's already written. But other times they'll just get a proposal for a bill and they actually draft it. So I was actually able to kind of be the contact with the person who wrote the bill that works for the house commerce and gaming committee, who's you know, he's a lawyer and a legal writer. And so over the course of a couple meetings and conversations, he was able to take the proposal that I had put together and put it into legal language that could be, you know, enacted into law. Yeah. So - not every state has that nonpartisan staff available. But it's -

Wayne: It's probably costly, to have a lawyer, if you had to have a lawyer and pay for that writing that up.

Micah: Yeah, I mean, that eliminates a lot of people from participating and in the process right there. So it's definitely a great system and something that I was really, I didn't know about and I was really happy to find out existed because the first year that we had the bill we actually did, we found some some, you know, kind of activist pot lawyers that were willing to help us draft the bill for free. And one of the downsides of doing that is oftentimes, you know, if something gets written in a way that the staff of the committee doesn't think is really executable, a bill can get kind of inherently slowed down just because, you know, the legislators, like I said, they're really busy. They have thousands of bills, only about 10% of the bills, that that get introduced progress, and only a small percentage of those actually get passed. So they have to, they have to really spend their time focusing on bills that they think have a chance of moving forward. So there's - if there's a technical or a structural problem in the bill, that can derail it, regardless of how good of an idea it is. So having something that the kind of bureaucracy that that assists the legislators in their jobs, making sure that they are supportive of it and it's implementable is a really important component. And so that involved for me, over the last couple of years, a lot of conversations with our regulatory authorities about, you know, if this idea were to go into place, what are some of the concerns and considerations that you would have as the people that would be writing these rules and enforcing it? You know, what are the things that you would want to see in it? What are the things you wouldn't want to see in it? And, well, they're not gonna, you know, come out and say, Oh, you know, we love this bill so much, and we, you know, we want it to pass. But having them on board and understanding what we're proposing and being willing to work with us on it is also, I think, a really important component of this process. Because if you don't have the support of the people that are going to put your ideas in and implement them, you know, it's going to be a struggle for the rest of the time. So I do, I would encourage anybody that's that's considering, you know, trying to interact with, with the legislature with a bill, to really spend some time talking to the folks that work for the state that that bill is going to affect and make sure that that you're not doing something that you don't understand the unintended consequences of also.

Wayne: Yeah, it's your own - managing your own time, energy and effort to go so far down a road just to hit up a definite roadblock that you could have caught a year or two earlier, by just asking questions is really important.

Micah: Yeah, and one of the ways that that uh, that a agency like that can derail a bill is by assigning a - So one of the things that has to happen for most bills is they have to get evaluated for their fiscal impacts. So one way that an agency can kill a bill without really very much work is to just put a real high fiscal impact on it, and to say, Oh, this is going to cost, you know, $20 million to implement because we're gonna have to hire 30 people and buy all this technology. And a lot of times, you know, that's a deal breaker.

Wayne: You almost have to address that. I imagine most of the infrastructure's in place for this type of craft license bill, shouldn't be too much of a cost. Yeah.

Micah: Yeah, yep. They but they can, you know, they can get creative and how they interpret things if they feel like it.

Wayne: There's one other part to this. So this is House Bill 2279. And I think you said there may - there's sometimes a way to do this where this license could be added to a, an amendment of a different bill or like an add-on and then if that bill got passed, it could go through? Is that, is there another strategy piece that this could happen?

Micah: Yeah, so that's definitely one of the things that we're now working on. It's it's - in all likelihood the bill, while it did get a hearing, it didn't progress past that point. So it's, it's pretty much impossible for the bill to go through as-is this year, because it's not, it hasn't progress out of committee by the time that it, what they call the cut off. So one of the things that we can do is we can look at some other bills that are in the cannabis space. And we can approach the people that are, that are advocating for those bills. So the, you know, the legislators or the people that those legislators are, you know, advancing that bill on behalf of, and we can try to see if there's areas of compromise where a component or all potentially of our bill could get added to theirs as an amendment. So one of the things that we're looking at are opportunities to introduce the definition of the craft producer, without the other components necessarily. Because you know our strategy there might be to, to establish this license type, give everybody the opportunities to switch over to it. And then that gives us a better place to organize all those small farmers for a push for direct sales, and for our advisory board and, you know, whatever other differentiations might be, might be amenable to folks. You know, there's definitely there's a longer term strategy for for some of the sorts of things that we want to see come out of the craft economy that this would produce, you know, or some of the ideas that people are really excited about are farmers markets. You know, we used to have farmers markets here in the medical days of Washington cannabis and those are really great places to acquire really fantastic cannabis, but also to, you know, just be in community and meet people that are, that are also doing the same thing you are in learn about plants and learn about different, you know, varietals that are available and smell and experience all of the, all the different things in one place. So bringing back that opportunity, I think is really appealing for a lot of folks. Another component of it is the ability to do like a special event license similar to what is allowed for alcohol. So if you're having a special event, you can get a permit from the Liquor Authority that allows you to serve alcohol at your event. I don't think there's any reason why we can't do something similar in the cannabis space and have had these sorts of events that are, that are about normalizing cannabis and allowing for community to build up out of it. Because you know, that's another big component of why we're working on this bill is to take a look at - what are the, what are the social relationships that come out of, you know, these economic interactions in the cannabis industry? And how can we change the structure of things to produce, you know, social and economic relationships that are, that are scaled more to community than they are now. And since certainly having a small farm that people work at and people can come into and tour and really see what's going on and understand the people that are growing for them, can have that direct economic transaction. It also facilitates the social relationship that isn't currently available. And it is opportunity for community to build out of that.

Wayne: Yeah, absolutely. That's, that's so interesting. I really hope this gets some progress and keeps going. Before we kind of end up you know, I want to ask listener - say what listeners can do to help support but I do have one last topic on kind of growing craft cannabis, strain names, how it's merchandised. And I'm so interested in this state by state, as the Sativa/Indica myth we'll call it, is really carried over from the legacy of the black market, Sativa thought to be uplifting, Indica relaxing, and we know now that it's really the cannabinoids and the terpene profiles that're responsible for effects. We're seeing that really get traction in Oregon. Most of the budtenders know, a lot of the consumers - some are coming in saying, what do you have dominant in Limonene, a certain terpene they like. Is that happening in Washington yet? Or does it feel like a lot of stores aren't merchandising based on actual effects? They're still that sativa-indica-hybrid, kind of binary setup?

Micah: I would say there's, there's opportunities for folks that are interested in moving beyond that, that sort of shorthand of sativas and indicas to describe experience. But I would say, predominantly, the stores are still using that vocabulary. We made an intentional decision pretty much from the, from the get-go of our brand to not use those shorthands, because that's ultimately what it is. Right? It's just, it's a sort of an easy way to say, relaxing or energizing. (Yeah, yeah.) And so I mean, I kind of understand why, why people do it.

Wayne: It's just simple, as a system. If it was true, it'd be great, it'd be nice to have these simple categories. Right?

Micah: Right. But we what we've done is, so we talked about cannabis as first, you know, in categories of type, so type one are high THC strains, type twos are mixed ratio, and type three is our high CBD low THC strains. And then within each of those categories, we've created what we've called the hues of experience. So our, all of our different strains are, are categorized by experience. And then there's, you know, three or four different categories under each of the typology, and we use a color to communicate effect. So, you know, our, some of our, what people would would traditionally call a sativa experience are, you know, yellow, or red, kind of depending on where in that spectrum they fall. And then we we have, you know, just descriptive words that talk about experience to describe each category. And so that's allowed us to create a more nuanced conversation tied into experience, rather than, you know, this, you know, plant grows...

Wayne: Yeah, tall, skinny, bushy.

Micah: Yeah. And so we've always tested all of our individual lots for terpenes. And we put that information on the, on the labels. And so we have a lot, you know, a lot of history and data from a lot of different years and strains about what the terpene breakdowns of each of those strains are and, and we've spent a lot of time trying to correlate experience with that data. It's, it is, you know, fully a part of our brand and I think it's really appreciated by a lot of people that consume our products. And it is a work in progress to, you know, to bring that to as many people as we can, and there's definitely lots of other people in the industry here that are that are having some of the same conversations. I think you guys are probably a little bit more, you know, you all down there a little ahead of us on on having those really important nuanced conversations about it, but it's definitely happening here.

Wayne: Yeah. I always wonder and you know, we do it on the edible side, we do strain specific, we look for dominant terpenes. And I've always kind of felt like, Are we too far ahead of the ball? I mean, we want to be accurate. And I mean, sativa and indicas, to me is kind of - that's what the consumer's looking for. So do you want to tell them that, although it's kind of - it's not a lie, but it's misinformation based on effects. But I wonder how far ahead we are, if we're too far ahead, or when the consumer - or will it only be connoisseurs that end up really being, having an interest in that? I would be curious to how it'll evolve.

Micah: Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of that is going to be dependent on who's making those choices. And what is their position in the supply chain? And what is their motivation? I think, you know, you just described as somebody who really understands that, the sativa/indica isn't an accurate way to describe experience, you know, as it's tempting to use that shorthand, because that's what's easy to communicate. But you know, for somebody that like doesn't even really understand the nuance of the sativa/indica inaccuracy; they're obviously just going to use that shorthand. So if you start to, if you start to allocate more of the decision making power about value to people that are more and more disconnected from production and disconnected from the plants and disconnected from the products that come out of them, I think we're going to see more generalizations and more kind of whitewashing of this nuance, because it's gonna, it's going to make it easier to commodify cannabis. So I think that's a, you know, that's an integral part of this conversation about craft cannabis. Because, because it again, it talks about scale. And it talks about ownership. And it talks about who has control over what gets produced, why it gets produced and how it gets talked about. And I don't think we, I don't think we have a very good chance of, of bringing all of the complicated, you know, nuance that we know exists in cannabis, to a broader audience if, you know, we go in a conglomerate direction for who owns the industry. I just don't think that we'll end up in a place where we get a satisfying end result in that arrangement. I think we're going to have mass produced. We're going to start to see strains that are, that are bred and produced for profit, rather than for the qualities that they express, so we're going to let you know, we're going to start seeing strains that are grown entirely based on structure, and how easily they can get, you know, processed by machines. You know, these are the sorts of things that factor into decision making. And it narrows the choices that we all are left with. (Yeah) And that's the, you know, that's the key of how does, how did the economics of a thing affect the way that it that it allows us to live our lives? And yeah, that's the, that's the core of it for me.

Wayne: Yeah, I think ultimately, both parts - all the parts should exist. If you're looking for the cheapest price, mass produced volume, you know, big scale up, Big Ag comes in that market. I think is going to exist without a doubt. The question is, will the other part of the market be able to exist? The craft, maybe that medium volume value producer. And if those things aren't set up, it's kind of skewed towards that mass volume approach. And we see in beer and distilleries, like each market exists, it's not that craft is going to be 100%. But we don't want to see mass volume become 100% or 95% of the market. (Right.) And if it doesn't happen soon, you're gonna see all of these craft businesses go out of business, and then five or 10 years, if they enact it, it kind of like, Well, you know, tons of people lost their life savings, there's so much chaos and turmoil because of it. But, you know, how does that market exist and thrive? Yeah, it's so fascinating right now.

Micah: Yeah, absolutely. And there's, you know, I mean, I, the thing I'll say about that is there, I believe that there are ways to produce efficiently at scale that don't force us to turn all the power and decision making over to, you know, large, disconnected ownership groups. I think there's ways to look at, how do we scale in, in worker cooperative forms of ownership? You know, there's examples, especially in the agricultural world and in the history of agriculture, that that producer co-ops and worker co-ops have allowed industries to scale to really very large entities that do things at a larger scale, but that are that are created through a more democratic and a more bottom-up organization then we see in our in our kind of top -down modes of ownership here, and so that's definitely something that we're talking about with, you know, in the - I think we're getting into a whole different podcast episode. But yeah, you know, we're starting this important thing, that we're having a conversation in Washington right now about social justice and equity for black Americans in the legal cannabis industry, who have largely been left out of our regulated marketplace. And one of the ways to start to fix that inequity, in my opinion, is to set up the ability for, for people to come together and work around cooperatives, which is not functionally possible in the regulated industry here in Washington right now, because it's a real direct way to have equity for the largest amount of people in real ownership equity. And I think having conversations again about scale and about ownership is really important and in looking at how did those relationships effect what comes out of an industry? And I do think we need as an industry to look towards cooperative forms of ownership to help us come out of this process with the best results for the most people.

Wayne: Yeah, absolutely. Micah, I really appreciate the time, and I really like - I really like this and what you're doing, this craft license legislation and bill. You know, I haven't heard any talk of something like this in Oregon. There was you know, this focus on the craft producer and how can we save that part of our industry? And it's kind of all been focused on export, trying to get export allowed as soon as possible. And to me this seems like a much more immediate solution, export just feels too far away. Also, as it seems like export big volume producers are going to do better when they can export. But yeah, I hope we see something like this in Oregon.

Micah: Yeah. I was surprised by that strategic choice in Oregon as well. And I, if - if you have folks that are, that are interested in pursuing an idea like this in Oregon, I'd be more than happy to, to be put in touch with them to be a helpful component of, of that.

Wayne: Yeah. I appreciate it.

Micah: Another thing I want to put in a plug for, which has been a terrific benefit for us, is there's an organization here in Washington called the Cannabis Observer. And so they're a group of people that that go to every single legislative meeting related to cannabis, every single regulators meeting at the Liquor Control Board, and they observe the meeting, they take notes, and then they put up a summary on their website. It's cannabis.observer, and, and that allows us in the industry to have a really regular, detailed, comprehensive look at what's going on from our regulators and from our lawmakers that are going to affect our industry, and has been a really valuable tool for me and for a lot of other people that are trying to stay on top of what's going on. And they're a, you know, the nonprofit, volunteer-funded and you know, people in the industry give them 10 bucks a month on Patreon to, to keep doing that work. And that has been something that has been really tremendously helpful for us. And I imagine would something like that would be a real benefit in Oregon too, because staying up to date on the on the changes can be a ton of work.

Wayne: It's difficult. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we'll link to them in the show notes. That's a great resource. Great, and appreciate that work they're doing. So as we wrap up, you know, where can people find you? And what do you want to tell listeners - How can they help support? What are your kind of next steps? Anything listeners can do right now to help this bill and this craft license in Washington?

Micah: Yeah, absolutely. So we set up a website for this campaign called washingtoncraftcannabis.org. And you can sign up for our email us there, which is you know, we're putting out action information about what's happening with the bill as it happens. We send out instructions for how people can get in touch with legislators. Certainly, you know, people in Washington that are constituents of these legislators are the are the main people that they like to hear from, but it's certainly never hurts to you know, send some emails from elsewhere as well. And then you can find out more about Raven Grass at ravengrass.com. That's our website. And then as far as the bill this year, you know, the thing that could be the most help for folks would be to, you know, reach out to people that you know, that that live in Washington and that this would affect and let them know about the website and signing up for that. And, and as we move forward in our process, through this year and next year, we're definitely going to have moments where there's calls to action for folks to show up in Olympia and testify, or sign in on behalf of the bill, or, you know, send, send emails to legislators when we need action at particular moments. And I would say that, you know, the biggest thing that folks can do is to stay engaged, keep kind of abreast of what's going on, and, and be talking to your friends and neighbors about some of these ideas and some of these, you know, things that could potentially be available to all of us that would improve just the way we get to go through our lives and how we how we buy our cannabis and the quality of that experience and, and the downstream effects of, of how we choose to buy and sell things because it's a you know, it's a huge component of what we're doing here on this earth. And we don't always think about how the structure of it affects the results. And that I think is, you know, the big - the big message of our bill is start thinking about that and moving forward in a more intentional way.

Wayne: Yeah, absolutely. You know, I think even if you're outside of Washington, we're going to follow this. I really hope this you know, goes through and you guys are able to set this blueprint, which ultimately I think needs to be in it feels like every other state as well. And you know, the details, logistics need to be figured out, but the overall goal of it. I hundred percent, you know, believe in and stand by. So I really hope this gain some more traction, and we're able to see something like this happen. I think this is awesome work. I appreciate it.

Micah: Yeah. Thanks so much for the opportunity to come and chat with you about it. I really appreciate it.

Pe128 Understanding Federal Cannabis Policies

As State markets mature, there is a lot of uncertainty on how cannabis will progress at the federal level. Will the federal government step in with control and influence over regulations? Or will they allow States to have autonomy over their markets? Our guest is Don Murphy, Director of Federal Policies at the Marijuana Policy Project. We discuss the STATES Act, MORE Act, SAFE Banking Act and what hurdles we still have to overcome.

Link to Email List sign up “Join our Community” and get insights we don’t share anywhere else.

Episode Transcription:

Wayne Schwind, Host: Joining us today is Don Murphy, Director of federal policies for the Marijuana Policy Project. excited to have you on today Don and learn a little bit more about what's happening at the federal level. I know multiple acts are being floated around one passed the House Committee, and a lot of uncertainty and unknown from the you know, business side or people operating in the industry. So thank you for taking the time to come on and share some insights with us.

Don Murphy, Guest: Thank you for the invitation.

Wayne: Let's start with just context for listeners introduction. I'm assuming most have heard of the Marijuana Policy Project, but if they haven't, a quick introduction to what you do as an organization, and then your role there and how long you've been working with them and you know where you're at right now and what you're focusing on?

Don: Well, let me start with my history, because my history and MPP sort of intertwine. 20 years ago, I was a Maryland state legislator. Member of the House of Delegates, I was introduced to a gentleman who was using marijuana for medical purposes. I am a, or was a, law and order Republican. I got elected in part on the platform of law and order after my wife was held up in an armed robbery. I won an election, I got put on the Judiciary Committee and honestly, I was gonna lock up everybody. And I met this gentleman named Daryl Putman. He was a Green Beret Special Forces Vietnam veteran. He said to me, he was using marijuana with his doctor's approval. And, uh, you know, he said, Do you think I'm a criminal? And I hesitated, but I was pretty firm. I said, No, I don't. My dad he'd just passed away from from cancer, but I didn't know anything about marijuana as an alternative to cancer treatment or as a part of cancer treatment. That was - wasn't something that was ever suggested. And this was back in 2000, actually 1999. So he said, "Do you think I'm a criminal?" I said, "No". He said, "Well, the law does. And you're a lawmaker. So unless you do something to change the law. You know, you really do think I'm a criminal". And he had a point. So from that point on, I became the unlikely advocate for marijuana policy reform for medical patients. 20 years ago, I was introduced to the Marijuana Policy Project they were doing ballot initiatives and working in the States, they were just a brand new organization just a few years old at the time, but since then MPP is the leading advocacy group for ballot initiatives for both medical and adult use. In those states that have adult use, we're responsible for, I think, eight of them, maybe nine and a half depending - we've run all those ballot initiatives and most recently, we worked to pass through the legislature in Illinois, their adult use program.

Wayne: How many years with MPP did you say?

Don: MPP is been around almost 25 years and while I was in the legislature, I work with them and then I didn't run for reelection in 2002. And I received a grant from them to go in and mostly talk to republicans around the country about why marijuana policy reform was consistent with conservative values. And we did that off and on for a dozen years or so. And then, recently I came on board full time to work just on Capitol Hill.

Wayne: Got it. Right. And now you're mostly focused just on the federal policies, and less on individual states? I mean, that all ties together, obviously, but?

Don: Right, that's correct.

Wayne: Okay. So yeah, I thought for today's conversation, and we talked a little bit beforehand, from you know, who listens to this podcast, our background here - you know, we're small, medium sized craft businesses, and all these things, how they move around in the government, or, you know, they're confusing and a lot of uncertainty. So I wanted to get some clarity at the federal level where we're at now, you know, what the future might look like? And it seems from what I read and articles and what's going on, there's kind of a few acts that are competing, potentially to get pushed through or legalized and so you have the STATES Act, which you know, seems like initially that had some traction, more recently the MORE act and then another one, the SAFE Banking Act - between those three, and maybe none of them go through in the future, and there's a different act potentially that could come about - where do those stand? I mean, how do you compare those? Is there one that's better than the other? And I think we just start with a general overview. And then we could go deeper into each one and the details and you know, what the interests are, why it'll pass, why it won't pass. But could we do a summary of each of those and kind of clarify for listeners what each one just is exactly.

Don: Sure. So the SAFE Banking Act - You asked the question is, is one better than the other, the better - the best one is the one that passes and becomes a law. Everything else is just noise. But when you're an advocate in a space that is so new as this one, everything is historic. So we use that word too much, because everything we do is historic, right? We have, we have a bill hearing - oh, it's a historic bill hearing. We have a vote, that's historic. It passes, even if it doesn't pass - it's still historic. So we joke about that a little bit. But the point is that everything we do is kind of new here. So the SAFE Banking Act would fix the banking system, for the most part and allow folks to use financial institutions to bank their proceeds, for people to use credit cards, that sort of thing when buying cannabis in a retail shop. That has the most traction. It is a bill that was originally drafted about six years ago by Ed Perlmutter from Colorado. He's been working on it forever. When democrats took over the house, they - they finally had a hearing. They passed it out of committee. It took about four months to get it to the floor. Because the truth is, advocates - criminal justice advocates - were unhappy that, that this bill was moving and it was really just perceived to be a sop to industry and the banks. Great. What does this have to do with criminal justice and equity and all that stuff? So I will say, Marijuana Policy Project took the position that incrementalism is better than no -ism at all. Right? So we were, we were somewhat happy with this thing moving because I actually think that in order for federal policy to change the industry, the issue has to be viewed as legitimate. And an industry is not legitimate when it's cash only, right? That's a nefarious industry just on its face - it has to be right? It's under the table. It's cash. It's, it's everything you don't want in a legitimate industry. So we think fixing that is important. We also think that when you deal with the issue of equity, and social justice, there are a lot of folks in this, in this space - who aren't in the space because they don't have access to funds, right? We hear it's mostly a white industry, rich white industry. Well, the truth is there, it's not so much about race - it's class, right? You cannot just walk into this, get a license, and then go to the bank and borrow money to open up a dispensary or facility of any kind. So the SAFE Banking Act would assist with that, would help move that ball forward. So when you ask which one's better - they all are different, but the one that is most likely to pass in the near future could be viewed as the SAFE banking Act. Now, that wasn't always the case. Well, recently, we had the STATES act...

Wayne: Could I hit on that, so a couple of questions there? (Yeah) I really liked that point of, you know, the industry equity and social justice. And I think, you know, you've heard things thrown around, trying to support people that were impacted by the war on drugs, and I look at states and I always thought, well, how easy do they make it for businesses to launch in a state? I mean, if a license is really expensive, there's a cap that just I mean, you're talking about class, right? You have a lot of money to be able to do this. But with the SAFE Banking Act, if that passed, that means it wouldn't de-schedule cannabis, no federal legalization, but it could set up where another act could still come along and be passed after that to fix all those other things that are not addressed by the safe Banking Act. Is that accurate?

Don: That's correct. (Okay.) It's somewhat counterintuitive, because you're like, "Wait a second, you're going to allow banking of the ill-gotten gains from this federally illegal sale of the substance? Right? So I actually once had a member who had voted for the banking amendment when it was in appropriations back in 2014. Yet he voted against the the Rohrabacher Amendment - so he was opposed to the underlying nature of this, right? So I said, "Well, I appreciate your vote for the banking amendment, but where exactly are you expecting folks to bank these proceeds - in the federal 50 ATM machine in the federal prison you think they should be in?" It was just, it was illogical that you would be for one yet not the other. And that's kind of what's happening here. But, you know, said Congress was consistent? So I - I'm happy to take what I can get on Capitol Hill.

Wayne: Okay - yeah. Yeah. So you mentioned the STATES Act next?

Don: The STATES Act basically says, if your state is - if you have a legal program in your state, whether it's a medical or adult use, you are free from federal interference. It's still - it's still federally illegal. Still in schedule one, but but you know, it's a pure state rights play. Now, some of us have problems with this notion that in Colorado, it's not federally illegal, but right next door over the line in Kansas it is, that is. That's, that doesn't make sense to a lot of us. But again, we've got to play the hand we're dealt. So most Republicans seem to be pretty okay with a state's rights view of this right, they kind of have to be, because that's what they talk about, right? They are for - in theory, are for smaller, less intrusive government. So it becomes difficult for them to justify why they think marijuana should be illegal in Colorado when Colorado voters have adopted it. Right? It just - it's inconsistent with pretty much everything they talk about. So that's, that's how we get them. They they are quick to say, "Hey, we're not pro marijuana. We're just pro 10th amendment." Like, I'm okay with that. I don't care how you - I don't care how you get the Yes. Just - let's get there.

Wayne: Yeah, and the 10th amendment is really saying giving any rights that the state establishes or the federal gun is setting - it puts more control and oversight into the states power, is kind of the idea behind the 10th amendment?

Don: Correct. Correct. Yep. (Okay.) So now, I will say that the STATES act had momentum about a year ago, when, when what happened was - and God bless Jeff Sessions. Now I know you never thought you'd hear a federal policy guy say that. But the truth is, what Jeff Sessions did in repealing the Cole Memo is unleashed both Democrats and Republicans on the Hill to, to act - because up to that point, it was fairly they were all fairly comfortable with the status quo. Nobody was really getting arrested. No - you know, in their states, legitimate operators were not getting raided. The only guys getting raided where the guys who were getting fingered by legitimate operators, right? You know, if you are a legitimate operator, you wanted a federal government - you wanted the state to come in and bust the cartel folks, right? If you aren't operating legitimately, you wanted those folks out. So. So, up to that point, everything was fine until - until Jeff Sessions repealed the Cole memo. And look, he did it because, A. that's what he believes and B. It's an Obama era directive. Right? If you're Trump and you're Sessions, you're repealing all that Obama stuff, right? It wasn't even so much it was about pot. It was about Obama, I think was - was the issue for them. So, you know, I've had a number of people say, Trump is bad because he picked Jeff Sessions. He picked Jeff Sessions, because Jeff Sessions picked him. Right? Like Jeff Sessions was an early endorser, like probably the first I think, in the Senate to endorse Trump, which was a really big deal when you think about it, because Jeff session sat on the Judiciary Committee, along with other candidates who were wanting like, like Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham, right? They were They will seatmates of his, yet he was endorsing Trump. So Trump picked him to be the Attorney General. And the rest is kind of history. So, but the STATES Act gained momentum because the President acknowledged to the press that he - he supported a states’ rights position like the STATES act. (Yeah. Yeah.) So, so think about it this way. So we've got republican president endorsed the STATES Act, a Republican Senator, in the republican controlled Senate, and then Republicans controlled the house and they had people on that side, so so why wouldn't you take the STATES Act and run with it? Is it perfect? Nope. But whoever thought we could pass any bill with Republican president? Like, you know what, you know, they just thought everything was going to go to hell, in November of 2016 when Trump won, yeah, and that just that just hasn't been the case at all.

Wayne: So the STATES act was really to - it was almost like what the Cole Memo was, but it was formalizing it into an actual act. It wouldn't have de-scheduled it, it still would have been schedule one if the STATES Act passed, but it would've gave the control and autonomy to the states to run their state programs?

Don: That's right. I mean, but the Cole Memo did outline eight ways to stay above the law, so to speak - or, you know, not get, run afoul of the law. And most of those things are incorporated into the STATES Act, okay. Or into those state bills, and the state laws. So anyway, but the STATES act is is sort of falling out of favor, because it doesn't go far enough. Right? So, enter the MORE Act, which comes along in July of this year. Sponsored by the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, Jerry Nadler. Suddenly everybody's like, "Whoa, this is way better." And people started like distancing themselves from the STATES Act. Like, honestly, Elizabeth Warren, who was the lead sponsor, didn't even show up to a press conference for the STATES Act. So, you know, it's like - well, that's that doesn't go far enough. So the MORE Act is a much more comprehensive bill. And so, the other part of that was, is there were advocates who didn't want the banking bill, the SAFE banking bill to move. They've tried to hold that up until the MORE act moved, because they wanted social equity. They wanted restorative justice, they wanted those folks who had been most harmed by the drug war, to benefit before bankers and rich guys. That was - that was the notion there. So there was some infighting between the advocacy community about all this and it really wasn't until it became apparent that the MORE Act was going to move. I think there were probably some negotiations in the back room like, okay, the banking bills going to move because we're going to move it and it's been four months. And you had your chance. And the Financial Services Committee was not going to be held hostage by the Judiciary Committee. And finally, one said, we're going to move this MORE Act too, so that freed up SAFE banking to go to the floor and get 321 votes of victory.

Wayne: In the House, the MORE Act did recently - that was a few weeks ago, was it? November?

Don: That's right. Right. The MORE Act passed just out of committee. Yeah, but it has not gone to the floor yet. And it may be a while for it to do so. It was also sent to a number of other committees, whether they claim jurisdiction or not remains to be seen. I think they're - they may want to slow walk this one a little bit. And, you know, we'll see.

Wayne: Yeah, so it sounds like to me, the - you mentioned, you know, incremental progress is better than no progress. And the way we went through those, those each sounded like a stepping stone, like the SAFE Banking Act is kind of on the finance side, the STATES Act gets protection, and then the MORE Act goes the furthest with what we all ultimately want to see. And, but then it seems a little confusing, because is there an issue with walking through those one at a time or, you know, first starting with the SAFE Banking Act, then the STATES act? When you said, the MORE Act comes along, and people are like, "well, we don't want those other ones now, those aren't good enough." But if you're not going to get nothing, I mean, is there a way to try pushing them all through together? Or does just really one have to be chosen, and then the other ones can't as well?

Don: Yeah, I think part of the problem is, is that some of the folks on the progressive wing of the Democrat Party want more than - more than will pass the Senate, right? Like see to me, it's not a victory if the bill doesn't become law. Right? It's incrementalism if you sort of creep along and okay, now we got it this far and got this far. But that doesn't mean much to the people who are going to get arrested tomorrow. Right? Like I would - I would like to do something that keeps those folks from, from suffering, whether you're a patient or your consumer, or a processor you know, anyone in the industry, who is subject to federal arrest, prosecution and incarceration, you want to fix something sooner rather than later. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good, right. And so the MORE Act, in some respects, is the perfect, but we can't get it over the finish line. So what can we get over the finish line that helps fix this problem sooner rather than later? (Yeah.) And that's where that - we watch all these candidates debate on the stage and we've had some of them say, look Bank - In fact, many of the incumbents senators who are running for president have actually said no bill should go forward that doesn't include these restorative justice provisions. That means the SAFE Banking Act isn't good enough for them and they wouldn't support it. I think that's unfortunate. I think that's short sighted. For what it's worth, we did hear some of that same concern on the health side, yet all, virtually all the democrats, all but one voted for the SAFE Banking Act in the House. So that may be just something that people just say out on the campaign trail, but when push comes to shove, they take what they can get.

Wayne: Yeah. Yeah. And it's, you know, it's confusing for us, you know, operators, you know, we're busy as hell already. I mean, these things hugely impact us, but it's very confusing. We don't fully understand it. So I was under the impression. Well, maybe if the SAFE Banking Act passes or the STATES Act, then the MORE Act can't pass and you're just never going to get those things.

Don: No, no, no, no, no, I will - I will say there are folks who believe you only get one bite at the apple. Meaning, okay, once we take up the SAFE Banking Act or STATES act or you know, something that is not the full complement of legislation that they want, it'll be another generation before they get to fix it. I'm not sure I believe - I'm not sure I believe that. But I understand their concern.

Wayne: Well if the SAFE Banking Act or the STATES Act, if neither one of those moves cannabis from schedule one, I mean, there's clearly a lot of more progress that still needs to be made if either of those passed that I don't think would take a generation. There's such momentum behind this now and it feels like it's still picking up, it doesn't - I don't think it's going to slow down. It just seems like a time thing.

Don: Yeah, well and with every passing election, we get more folks coming into Washington who agree with us. Not because the politics so much, but this is generational. Right? The old guys who have been there and been part of that drug war for as long as they've been in office, they don't just wake up one day because they met me in the hall. You know, I make some comments and they go, "Oh, you're right, maybe I was wrong all those years." They are invested in this, right? They would rather - they would rather retire or lose than change their mind on this. So when they do retire, they're replaced by new folks, those new folks are not, they are not - their fingerprints aren't on the drug war, right? They are not responsible. And that's what I've said about President Trump. He could pretty much on his own, decide this is - we're going to end this now. This is not my drug war. This is not my war. However, if you stay in office for four years or another four years and you do nothing to fix it, then it does become yours.

Wayne: Hm, I see. Yeah. The people that are still in power making those decisions. I mean, they're at all - it's not one person. It's all that momentum, you know, that's in his cabinet or whatever it might be. And then it becomes yours. Yeah.

Don: Right. Now speaking of elections and Trump and all that. The dirty little secret here is, there are reasons to not pass this that are not policy driven. It's all politics. Right? The number one target for Democrats right now is a combination of Cory Gardner from Colorado and Martha McSally from Arizona. She's on the banking committee. He's leading the effort on the SAFE Banking Act - even if it weren’t to pass, does that help him in the election? Does that help her in the election if she votes for it? Probably. You know how much it remains to be seen, but it doesn't hurt. It helps them right? We you're a Democrat, you want to pick up those seats. You're like, why don't we wait on this one? You know, if, if you think this is a win for Trump if he ends the drug war, or fixes - marijuana is descheduled, or whatever. So ends the war on marijuana. Is that good for him politically? I think so. So do democrats want to give him an advantage? No. Now, the same thing works in reverse, by the way, so it's not - this is just not Democrats doing this. But there is a reason not to act just yet for some folks, and that's unfortunate to hear. Yeah, but but you know, let's be honest. I don't think I'm telling you anything you haven't probably either heard or thought but I just wanted to be honest about it.

Wayne: Yeah. With the MORE Act then, so it would remove it from schedule one, would it deschedule cannabis completely? (Yep, yep.) Okay, so it's federally legal, and then would it leave the autonomy to the states to run their programs, or is there a situation where the federal government says, we're going to decide on the regulations or have some control over this?

Don: Well, they - they do a little bit. That's what the, you know what the MORE Act stands for. He talks about, its "marijuana opportunity reinvestment and expungement". Now, just to be clear two things that people don't seem to, they seem to misunderstand - you cannot, this does not expunge all criminal records in the States, where most of these are. This is just federal, right? This - this Act does not do that. Now, it does create some provisions for people to get their records sealed and expunged at the state level, helps him with that, but it doesn't mean that the way it does at the federal level. The other thing is this, this does not legalize marijuana. Right? If your state is a no, it's still a no, but it ends federal prohibition. Right? So it's no longer illegal at the federal level, but it could still be illegal at the state level.

Wayne: Got it - even now, we have like dry counties, for example, it could long term play out that way?

Don: Exactly. And just for what it's worth, I mean, I've seen plenty of people who actually know better to use The L Word instead of the - you know, it's not legalization. You know, it's descheduling. And that does not necessarily mean that the states are going to change, although many of the states remain illegal, because, you know, it becomes very problematic to to have a law books that violates federal law. Sure. Right? You know, how do you, how do you do that? And I know your listeners know that way more than I did. Really, they understand it firsthand.

Wayne: Yeah. Yeah, seems like I mean, you know, talking about these incremental movements. Even if the MORE Act was passed, there's still so much to do on the back end of that, for another law or bill or act to account for like, you know, you said it doesn't expunge at the state level. So now there's another one. And it feels like we want to take as many steps, figure out what steps we can actually take. And if it's only the Banking Act, like let's make that first one. Because even if it's the MORE Act, there's still a lot of work to do.

Don: Yes, and let me give a little shout out to Chris Lindsey on our staff at Marijuana Policy Project, who ran the effort in Illinois. They just passed for the first time - speaking of historic, this is historic because it's the first time a state ever created a legal marijuana framework through the legislative process, not through a ballot initiative. So that bill was something like 600 pages and includes all of this, like from my perspective, I look at what Chris did in Illinois, and say the federal government does not need to get into details here, does not need to get into the weeds about how this is done. Look at what Illinois did. I don't believe that states going forward will allow for people to be still in prison for drug crimes that were committed that are very similar to the legal market that the state puts in place. Right? (Yeah.) It would be hypocritical for a state to do that.

Wayne: I think so.

Don: You know, let's not - let's not spend a whole lot of time at the federal level that we don't need to. Let - leave it to the states to do it. If a state does not want to do this, that's - that's their prerogative. I mean, I can't, you know, after 20 years of arguing for states’ rights, I can't turn around and go "oh, you've got to make them do it." No, no, that's, you know - you want to be a dry county, be a dry county, you want to be a dry state or whatever you would call it in this instance, that's fine. It's like, it's like casino gambling, right? There was a time when only Nevada had it. And then they lifted that prohibition. And now everybody can have it if they want. They don't want it, fine. But anyway...

Wayne: Yeah, yeah. I'd like to talk a little bit about how one of these acts actually moves through the process. Because to me, and I think our listeners, that is kind of a black box that we don't understand. So looking at the MORE Act, it passes the House Committee, what stages are left for it to go through? And what are the roadblocks? Because I've heard a lot of people say, you know, this was historic, like we've been saying, that it passed, but it has no chance. What's the rest of the process look like and where the major hurdles?

Don: Okay, well, whether it's the MORE Act, the STATES Act or the SAFE Banking Act, they would all basically go through the same process. But let's just - we'll talk about more because that's the one that you asked about, but, but the SAFE Banking Act is in a similar position, right? They were in separate committees, they came out of their committees - they were voted on by their, their respective committees. The SAFE Banking Act passed on the floor, went to - goes to the Rules Committee, and they set the rules for how this has to be done and the amount of time each side gets to debate. And then it goes to the floor, whether it is open to amendment or not. And then it's voted on the floor. And then it goes to the Senate. The MORE Act has yet to go to the floor. Now, some of these bills have to go through other committees, because there are committees of jurisdiction, which have issues that may or may not be written into the bill. You know, a banking bill might have a criminal justice aspect to it, so then it has to go to judiciary. SAFE Banking Act didn't have to do that, the MORE Act may have to do that, because it's got, it's got a tax in there - there's a 5% tax right? So that has to go the Ways and Means Committee then right. In less the Ways and Means Committee signs off on it and waves jurisdiction. Okay, and that would speed the process up. I'm somewhat ambivalent about this, but I'll tell you why I might like it to go to other committees, because the more often we have hearings, the more the public debate gets to be held, we get to have this debate about whether this is the right thing to do. And I believe it is. Right? So it gets more press, it gets more talked up. It's you know, it gets a lot of things. And it ultimately has a better chance of passing, it certainly the MORE Act would have a better chance of passing I think, if it went through more hurdles, most people wouldn't think of it that way. But I think in the long run, we'd be better off. Now, could they just pass this thing on the floor and send it over the senate where it would probably die? Yeah, they could do that. And then would we have made incremental change? I guess in some respects, we have had some incrementalism but as long as - if a bill doesn't get sign does it, does it still have an effect? Maybe, maybe not, and that, you know, other people would look at it differently. But in any event, so the bill has to go over to the Senate, it has to have a hearing, generally, has to have a vote in committee, has to have a vote on the floor, and those bills have to be exactly the same. If they're not, then they have a conference committee to work them out. But more often than not, these things just never happen. Like there are thousands and thousands of bills - I think there were like 9000 bills filed last year, and only like 400 of them passed. And that's, that's a pretty low percentage. Right? So when democrats say oh, there are all these bills sitting over in the Senate. Well, there are bills sitting around the House too. But for the most part, they don't get hearings and they don't get votes, which is why even though it's historic when we have a new piece of legislation that's got marijuana in it, we don't get too excited because the chances of that passing are pretty slim.

Wayne: Right? So on the MORE Act, the name I've heard if it went to the Senate was Mitch McConnell, the senate majority leader, would just kill it. Like you mentioned, it wouldn't even have any chance at all. Is it because of this priority in the - you know, where are we at on the priority list? Is it simply that in the, to them, you know, in their mind, it's not as much a priority, or at least on this MORE Act, is there a different special interest or something going on? Because it seems like the public the majority, I mean, you look at the acceptance and people that want to legalize, and you talk to the people I mean, it's, it's alarmingly high and still growing. But so something else is going on behind the scenes of why this isn't enacting and it seems like it should be a pretty big priority, and we're talking about major social impact here.

Don: Well, you would think but, you know, when we all talk about polling, like the polling on this is 60, 7o, 80%, whatever, depending on how you quantify it, right? If it's medical it's close to 90%, if its recreational it's in the 60s or 70s some places - but that support tends to be a mile long and an inch deep. It's not like there are, you know, people on Capitol Hill on a regular basis, other than me, trying to be on these guys to do something, right? The halls aren't clogged with - they're clogged with social justice warriors and climate change, you know, folks and and, you know, pro choice people and pro life people and cancer, all these other folks, but there are very few on this issue. And it's it's somewhat evident when you think about the fact that we've had hours and hours of debate on on the presidential debate stage from the Democrats, and we almost never hear this issue come up. Now, when you poll Democrats, it's off the charts, right? It's probably closer to 100% but they don't bring it up. Why? I guess it's just not priority for them. And that's unfortunate. So in a place like the Capitol, like DC, where time is short priorities are like, you know, everybody's got their own thing. Very few people care that much about this issue. And that's where - that's where your listeners come in, they have to make sure that their elected officials make it a priority. Right? So if you're not talking to your member of Congress about it, who is? You know, you can't blame your member of Congress for not making this a priority, if you haven't made them make it a priority.

Wayne: Yeah, yeah, definitely. We'll hit on that at the end, how listeners can help and support. That's so interesting. So thinking about that, why, you know, Democrats, maybe 100% would be for this, but it doesn't seem to be on the priority list. Is it, you mentioned some of the other lobbying and the interests that are there and it's not a lot around cannabis right now. Is it simply that, that the exposure and for them they're not as aware it might seem like a smaller priority? Is there something from the other side with, you know, other interests? We think of pharma, alcohol, private prisons, like is there lobbying on the other side? Where I can imagine they're looking at this and going, "cannabis is going to be legalized eventually, but the more we can delay it, the more we'll be able to continue to make our money on our systems." Is that a part of this too?

Don: Well, it's not - it's not overtly visible to me. But I do believe it happens, right? Like, I can tell you that when we did a ballot initiative in Arizona, one of the big pharmaceuticals wrote a big check to stop us, and we lost by like a point. So I know they've weighed in. I know, some of the, you know, law and order folks, they don't want - the status quo works for them. Right? They're on the receiving end of all that money, if all that money doesn't have a need to be appropriated because you're not, no longer arresting, prosecuting, incarcerating people for the simple possession of cannabis, then, you know, where are they going to get those funds? What are they going to do? How they get - like it just, it just, that's just the way it is. Now, the sad part here is, is that we're getting fragged by some of our friends in theory, right? If you're a medical marijuana provider, and along comes a ballot initiative to make it legal for adult use in your state, you may not think that's a good thing for you financially. And we saw that play out when we ran a ballot initiative in Maine. Some of the big opponents to our effort were the small mom and pop dispensaries that were providing cannabis to medical patients. So that's all part of this as well. So I didn't want to take a swipe at Big Pharma without being honest about (Yeah) you know how we're getting hit from the inside as well.

Wayne: Yeah, no, it makes sense. There's not the unified front on our end. And that's what a lot of you know, honestly, we are afraid of if it was federal legalization is, you know, who might be behind legalizing? What did these acts mean? And we're all looking like well, big business is going to want a piece of this. And we look at some states like Florida, where you have to have millions of dollars to even operate and the cap on the number of licenses is low, versus Oregon, which is very pro small business and an oversaturation. We're struggling now because there's just so many companies, but yeah, that that fragments that even further and can delay it and make it difficult. But I like how you kind of talked about the MORE Act being, you know, descheduling at the federal level, but leaving the autonomy with the states. So Oregon can be a pro small business state, maybe Florida just doesn't want to be and things could remain that way, but it wouldn't be like a sweeping regulations from the Federal Government and change everything upside down, right?

Don: Right, right, and as I like to point out, the federal government screwed this up, they should just get out of the way. They don't have any jurisdiction with fixing this in my opinion, right? So just like, just let the states do what they want to do. It won't be perfect. This is going to be very painful for a long time and you're seeing that with some of the companies and the stock prices and all that that's, that's happening now. You know, people look at me and they go, man, you got to be making millions or something. I'm like, first of all, I don't do any of that. I don't even have a stock in any of this. Sometimes I think I'm the dumbest man on the planet because when this goes you know, full blown legal where across the states, it's not going to affect me, in fact I'll probably be out of a job. So that, there's that but you know, between now and the time it is sort of rolled out all out. There are going to be a lot of people who make a lot of money and be a lot of people who are gonna lose a lot of money too. And you probably, you all know that probably better than I do. So I'll defer to you on that one.

Wayne: Well that's why I appreciate Marijuana Policy Project advocating for consumers or patients. Because that's always our fear is, you know, who's behind the scenes? What are their motives or interests? Because depending on who pushes an act or why it's legalized, you know, there is a lot of fear of that. And it's hard to know exactly what's going on all the time. Back to the MORE Act so, again, going back to that name, Mitch McConnell, would he just knock it down? Because it's doesn't seem to be a priority. Do we know specifically why it has no chance of getting past the Senate there?

Don: Well, first of all, I think the MORE Act goes beyond where most republicans feel comfortable, okay. There's a tax added. There's, there's an opportunity fund. It's a lot of government intervention. Now, a lot of us think that that probably is necessary because this is not your typical new industry that's being developed. This is not Uber. This is not Airbnb, this is something that was totally illegal, and people suffered because of it. But how do you fix that? How do you unring that bell? Very difficult to work out. But there are a lot of folks who think the MORE Act goes way too far. Right, now, talk about Mitch McConnell - who knew two years ago that Mitch McConnell was going to be hemps best friend, right? And suddenly, like hemp is now legal. And we're working all that out. And, you know, he's putting it on his campaign literature. So you just never know how things are going to change. But he may look at that. The President might look at the MORE Act and say, let's get this done. Let's fix this. Let's do it. Let's do let's do something now. And rightm and get the credit and take it away from Elizabeth Warren. Take it away from Bernie Sanders. Don't let them use that as a campaign position to beat on Republicans. You know, Every time I go to a hearing Democrats are blaming Republicans for the drug war. Nixon, Nixon, Nixon, right? Reagan, Reagan, Reagan. Hey, when Nixon was President and Reagan was president, they had democratic controlled Congresses, right? So, you know, own - own this a little bit, guys. Like that's, to me that's part of the problem, like people won't, won't be honest about how this got done, how this got started, why we are where we are. And maybe if, if people did that - look, I'm the first one to tell you, Republicans are wrong on this issue more often than not, right? They just don't seem to get it. And maybe because, when we talk about polling, everybody says, Well it's 80/20 - 80 in favorite and 20 against - you know who those 20 are? Those 20 are people who vote in Republican primaries. That's the problem for Republicans, right? They get no real benefit for supporting this, because most people in Congress only have to win their primary. And then they're done. Right? They don't have to win a general election. So they don't have to appeal to the opposite party. They just have to not be primary and have someone come into their, you know, outflank them on the right. Democrats, the same thing. Right? AOC came and she outflanked what's his name, and now everybody's afraid of being a primary, which may be part of the reason why we've seen some of these bills move as relatively quickly as they have.

Wayne: Yeah. Was the Farm Bill really surprising for you and legalizing hemp at the federal level?

Don: Well, yes, I will say - (it happened fast!) Yeah, because we, we stayed away from that. Like, I'm, I'm happy that that happened. But we did not, we did not lobby for it. In fact, I even said to the chairman of the two respective House committees back a couple years ago when republicans controlled everything I said, if you bring the hemp bill up, we will not mess with it, we will not try to have it amended to include you know THC cannabis, higher limits, all that - we won't do that. We thought, what's good for hemp is good for us. Right? Move hemp - you know the other beauty of hemp being illegal, I always said was, it just shows how ridiculous the federal law is, right? (God, yeah.) Same thing with schedule one, like marijuana is on schedule one, heroin is on schedule one - Fentanyl? No, no, it's not. But but they're on the same schedule. It's ridiculous and no one can justify it. Right? It's just not justifiable. So, you know, the one thing we haven't talked about that is, that is out there is this talk, a constant talk now of research. Yeah, you know, a lot of folks a lot of opponents use that is a reason to slow walk. You need some research. We need more research. You know what, it's been around for thousands of years right? You had your chance to research it. If you want to research it, fine, but in the meantime, stop arresting these people for it, right? Because by your own admission, if you think you need more research, then aren't you will also saying, maybe it's not prison worthy? And look, and I've had this conversation with Jeff Sessions who says "marijuana's bad". I said, I never said it was good. I just said it wasn't worth going to prison over. It wasn't worth having your life ruined, right? I'm a conservative, fiscal conservative, I don't want to pay for able-body welfare recipients who otherwise should be able to have a job and pay for their own families. And, you know, we often talk about, or we hear about, we don't like to talk about the money, right? Oh, the billions of dollars in tax revenue we're gonna raise. No, I don't want to talk about that because I don't think we should do this for the money. But if you want to talk about tax revenue. How about the money you're not going to spend arresting, prosecuting, incarcerating people? How about the money that comes in? Because Jimmy Jones has a job, and we don't have to pay him welfare to feed his family? How about, you know, looking at it from that perspective? So, you know, it's fun to talk to Republicans about that side of the coin, especially those guys who are like, close to to this, right? You can see them, you know, like, on their face, the anguish of trying to figure out, you know, what to say to me, in support of their current position. You know, they, you know, they're like, I'm like, I love you, but I could love you more. How could I think you're so great on everything else, but you just suck when it comes to this? How could you be so wrong about this, and so right about everything else? It's inconsistent!

Wayne: Yeah, I mean, to us, it just feels like the institutional momentum of the prisons and the budgets and the things that wouldn't be needed, that taxpayers are covering and there's interest in keeping you know that status quo going. I mean, that's how we always look at it from our end, where we're really unfamiliar with what's going on. I mean, this is just our surface level view. And we're guessing, you know, referring to myself, at least operators, you know, just running a business, at the federal and the government level. I just, it's always confusing and seems like a black box of why things are happening. But things don't happen overnight, either. I mean, it's amazing. We're at, we're at now where we actually are. I mean, when I told my parents I was starting this business, they couldn't believe it. They thought it was a terrible idea. Now they're open to it. And I asked them 10-15 years ago, they couldn't imagine this happening. So I mean, we have been making progress, but - but yeah, how we get to the next stage. I have a question-

Don: Just a second to say where we are now is we have, even our opposition sort of like concedes that, oh, people shouldn't be arrested. We should decriminalize it. So my response to that is - okay so you're okay creating this legal market, okay, this legal demand, but not illegal supply, right? I mean, if you think there is a disproportionate number of arrests now between black and white, imagine what it's going to be what it's okay to consume, but not okay to produce and to sell, right? So many drug dealers are going to jail, only growers are going to jail. But, but guys like us, who maybe just want to consume in the privacy of our own home, which is nice, but we have to depend on an illicit market. And we create an illicit market by by having decriminalization only and not having a free market commercial, capitalistic enterprise with interstate.

Wayne: Yeah, I mean, you look at the vaping crisis. People using pesticides, there would be no lab testing. I mean, from a consumer safety standpoint, that is a huge issue. Medical patients are consuming this that have compromised immune systems possibly. I mean, yeah, there's a huge gap there to not legalize the business side - and regulate it, I mean, we love regulations when they're fair.

Don: Right, and when, when people say, you know, oh - this is, this is the pushback that I get from opponents. Hey, this isn't your grandfather's marijuana, right? This is like, hundreds of times more powerful. And I'm like, all the more reason you shouldn't buy it in a baggie. Yeah. Right. Like you're right, it should be labeled. You don't go to a liquor store and just buy something in a brown bottle. Right, it's got a label on it. I have a friend that makes - I have a friend that makes wine. He will give me all the wine I want - do I like it, do I do I take it from him? No, because it's crap. Right? And for the same reasons, I don't want to buy, you know, the product from a street vendor. I want to buy it from a legitimate provider, where you have some sense of the risk because you know, "Oh, this was grown here, this is seed to sale. This is the way it works. These are the pesticides, these are all these." It takes a lot of the fear out of it. And, and that's a good thing.

Wayne: Yeah. But it seems like such a weird argument to me. I mean, yes, consumer education will need to happen, things are more potent, but nobody's dying from this, you can easily go out and buy bottles of everclear that are super potent, but consumers will figure out what works for them. And regardless of the potency now being much higher or lower. I mean, I don't hear any consumers complaining about that. I always hear it used as an opposition argument. But when you look at the markets and the people, like that doesn't seem to be a problem anywhere from what I can tell. Right?

Don: Right. You just, just consume a lot less of it.

Wayne: Yeah, yeah. Or by low - Yeah, people get, their preferences, they find out what they like and then the market adapts because our products need to sell. We can't be making something -you know, if you only make everclear, you probably got a pretty small market segment you're selling into right? (Yeah) Back to what I wanted to ask about, back over to the SAFE Banking Act, I think this was just yesterday I heard Mike Crapo, he's the Senate Banking Committee Chairman, basically said the SAFE Banking Act will not pass or he'll prevent it. And so the question I had is, is that the case now with him in the way, is it not going to happen, at least on the SAFE Banking Act? And some of the things he mentioned and why this is one of his quotes, One was, it doesn't address the high potency of cannabis. There's a lack of research on effects. He's worried about marketing to children. And I was thinking - this is just about banking. Yes, it doesn't address those things, because it's not made to address those things?

Don: That is almost verbatim what I said to him. When, when I heard weeks ago, that he had this interest in in potency limits. And I said, Senator, I said - I'm hearing some rumor that you may be interested in having some potency limits in his bill? He goes, do you really think there should be 100% THC? I said, Well, whether there is or isn't, it shouldn't be in this bill. Because you are basically taking a banking bill, one that is of interest to banks and realtors and insurance companies more than it is us, by the way, right meaning us as an advocacy group, and you're turning it into something that is way more involved than your committee has the jurisdiction to cover, you know, that should be somewhere else. And oh, by the way, the states have limits. And you know, this is just about making sure that legal enterprises within those states can bank I said, and by the way, if you put a - if you put a limit on it, thanks aren't going to be able to - it's going to be untenable, because no banks going to say, when you bring in your cash or you go, you know, to do your electronic transfers, are going to say, "and what was the THC potency on on this, the sales?" They're not gonna know, we already see this with hemp, right? The 3% rule right, if it goes over three, then it's marijuana, its cannabis, it's not hemp anymore and then it's queue people subject to arrest - gonna have the same problem. I believe - and just understand where Chairman Crapo is from, right next door you guys in Washington State - he's in Idaho, right? It's like the state with the least number of legal marijuana laws on the books. There are like three or maybe just one depending on how you count it, but Idaho is the worst. And there he is in Idaho. So he's got to be very - like, to me, He's already doing more than I would have expected from somebody in a state that has nothing. (Yeah.) So I think I think this has the ability to move along. I know the people that are working on this from outside of the cannabis space - bankers, realtors, insurance folks, this is like their number one thing. They want to get the fixed because it's a problem for them. They don't want to get caught up in this. And so they need it to be fixed. I think it's going to be fixed. But you know whether the industry - like from the advocacy perspective, thinks it's much of a win, we'll cheer about it. We're working on it, but it's not what we're ultimately trying to get to (definitely) because it doesn't - it doesn't keep people, really, from prison.

Wayne: Yeah, yeah, without a doubt. When I hear arguments like that, and you kind of pause and go, let me logically think about this. And then you think like, well, that reason doesn't really make any sense. And I think one of two things, either one, he's really uninformed, he's not thinking about it fully. And maybe it's a quick quote and he's just feel like he's got to say something about it, or two there's actually another incentive or motive going on behind the scenes, but this is the only thing he could scrape together to say why to justify what he might do. Is it a lot of times it just uninformed or is, again, we're kind of going back to those, you know, big interests or other things going on - is there something else and is he the ultimate hurdle, like can it still go around without his, you know, approving it I guess or wanting to pass?

Don: Well, he could, he could vote against it and it could still pass, but he sort of has - he sort of has the gavel to let it go or not. Yeah, right. If somebody further up the food chain wants it, then it probably happens. You know, that's how you get to be chairman. Right for, for delivering for others over time. So I don't think he's, I don't want to say he's uninformed, right. He's certainly not as informed as you are. Or maybe I am on this issue. But he has staff, he knows what's going on. And he is looking at a broader picture of things here. Like what else is going on in the Senate and where can we maybe make this work or not work? You know, I think he wants to deliver this for Cory Gardner, right? I mean, I don't know that for a fact. But you don't get to keep the gavel if you lose the majority. Right? And when the majority is as slim as it is, losing the Senator from Colorado could be the difference between you having a gavel or not. So does he want to help Cory Gardner? Certainly he does. Is this going to be the bill to do it? It won't hurt.

Wayne: Right? Yeah. Well, as we get wrapping up here, Don, again, I want to hit on where, how listeners can take action and help, but the last question I wanted to ask after hitting on all you know, STATES Act, MORE Act, SAFE banking. Is it possible - I mean, it really doesn't feel like one of these is going to go through in 2020. Something could always happen. Could another act come along and be something more or different - like are more going to be introduced? Like what's the next year to two look like, or kind of your predictions on the short-midterm forecast?

Don: Well, we often say nothing happens in an election year. But I actually think the reverse could be true as well. Right? Like, this is, this is when in Maryland, we passed their medical marijuana bill in an election year. Why? Because people stood up and said, We want this, make it happen, and jammed it through. I mean, it was like an election year issue. And people didn't want to be on the wrong side of that. So if the president were to hijack the bill, or a bill, or the position, or the issue, something will happen. And there's no telling what the President's going to do, like we - you know, we've been through almost three years of that, right? There is no predicting this President. So, if you think it's not possible, that's probably when it happens. And it will happen just when you least expect it. Right? So I actually - now, understand, I'm pretty much an optimist when it comes to this stuff, if I wasn't, I would find it difficult to get out of bed, get on a train, go to Capitol Hill three days a week and lobby for an issue that was going nowhere, right, that sort of loses interest in a hurry. But I do think we're on the cusp of something very historical, and very beneficial for this issue. And for the people who are involved in it, not only as producers and from the industry side, but from the patients and the consumers as well. Everybody knows this drug war has been a disaster. Everyone knows. Now, I will say there are people who know it's a disaster and say we should double down. But, you know, at least they know we're not winning. Right? So it's time to do something different. I will say that what was disappointing to me is that yesterday, no sorry on Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee had a hearing, another hearing, on the opioid crisis and what to do. And it went on for close to three hours, and no one brought up the issue of marijuana as an alternative to opioids. (Really? Wow.) It's just rarely rarely happens. And so, you know, I continue to be, you know, upset about the fact that we can let, you know, hundreds of people die every day of opioid overdoses. But we can't bring ourselves to say, is marijuana an alternative? There seems to be a number of studies that say, in states where it's legal, the opioid overdose rate is significantly lower than states that aren't. I've handed out that study to many members of Congress, and they just don't seem to want to embrace that as an alternative.

Wayne: That is crazy that it doesn't even come up. You know, obviously, I'm biased. I'm in the industry. I get a lot of emails from people that it's helped in their life. And you know, we've interviewed a PhD neuroscientist showing opioids can be used at a third of their dose, I think it was, with cannabis and have similar effects. I mean, to me, it seems like cannabis is maybe number one, that could potentially be the first steps to help this opioid crisis. I mean, what other ideas are out there? Is there anything else that can even compete with that? I mean, what, you know, lock down more drug laws and you know, hammer things down that way, but that normally just backfires then the other side ramps up. There's more crime, bigger cartels. You know, I don't know, it's interesting. What were some of the points that were discussed or brought up in that?

Don: They said - one of the responses was equine therapy, and yoga. I'm like, seriously, seriously?? It was all I could do stay in the room. So look, I would encourage your listeners who are leading the effort here, right? They are the folks who have an understanding of this issue, of the benefits that it provides for the patients - and the consumers, but you know, really patients. Nobody, nobody on Capitol Hill believes that patients should be arrested, yet they fail to act, right? So you need to put these people in front of them - whether they be patients, whether they be the providers. You don't have to come all the way to Capitol Hill, you all have, you know live somewhere or work somewhere that as a member of Congress, that if you do not invite them to your facility, they have no idea how legitimate it is. Right? They - all many of them know is what they see on The Wire. Right? That's what this is. And unless you change their opinion by sharing what you do with them - make them your biggest advocate. That's what you can do to change things on Capitol Hill. And, you know, if you got a guy who's bad, work to get them out of there - either change his mind or get them out of there. Yeah, if you guys don't do it, then the status quo just continues.

Wayne: So what's the call to action for people - if we're talking about business operators, is there a process? Or is you know, getting to Capitol Hill is really difficult for us, obviously we're busy. Money's always an issue. Do we just email a congressman and ask, "Hey, can you - would you like to come tour our facility?" Is there a specific tone or something to be said about, "here's what my values are". Like, what do you recommend that, basically a call to action for our listeners, on how they can actually take some steps that are practical for them?

Don: There are very few people, percentage wise within a congressional district, that interact with their member. I often say, if you want to be influential on Capitol Hill, well then go to Capitol Hill, but if you want to be influential, you have to know your member of Congress, and to really be influential, they have to know you, right? It's simpler than ever with social media to interact with your member of Congress. They all have a Facebook page, they all have a Twitter account. They all have an Instagram, that you can communicate, can just like them. Even if you don't really like them, you like them, right? And then you see that, you see their information come across their newsfeed and you just start the dialogue. And you make sure that they get a chance to talk to you at a town hall. You - it doesn't even cost any money, you do not have to go to a fundraiser. It's not like that. Right? Like, like if you're guy's really bad, do you really want to go to a fundraiser for them? Do you want to give them money? No, that would probably send the opposite message right? You can, you can be terrible - I'll still give you money. So why would you be good? But you need to you need to educate that person. That person does not know what you know. They have no clue what you know. Right? So share with them the reason that you're in this - you're not in this business to make money. You could do any other business and make money. Why are you doing? Why are you doing this one? Right. Why are you doing one that has so much risk. You are subject to federal arrest, prosecution, incarceration, yet you still do this - Why? So if I'm willing to do this kind of work, as a processor or a cultivator, or dispensary, the least you can do is not put my customers and my patients in risk of federal arrest. Don't make them criminals. All those veterans you talk about, how you sneak veteran should have access to this, thank the veterans you know, thank you for your service - really? You think I should be in jail because I'm using marijuana for my PTSD. That's inconsistent. Yeah, you know, I, I believe veterans will do more to advance this cause than anyone else. So if you've got, if you've got customers in your dispensary, or your facility that are veterans that are benefiting from this, and they're not talking to their elected officials, that's a loss. That's a missed opportunity.

Wayne: Yeah, yeah. I love those points. We're gonna actually - We talked about this in the past with others, you know, what can people do. But I think we're going to make a case study out of this and at least try to, you know, we're going to reach out, maybe get someone to come here and take a tour and we'll document this process. So for people that listen to the podcast and follow, we're going to make some attempts at this. I really like what you said. And I think we need to try to lead by example, and do those things. So getting someone out here and so we'll be sharing that coming up, whether we're successful or not. Either way, so hopefully we can, you know, at least be a - be an example for others that want to do the same thing. So those are really good points. Where can people find you or follow the Marijuana Policy Project if they want to stay up to date on what you are doing?

Don: Well, we have a web page, it's mpp.org. My email address is dmurphy@mpp.org. And we're on Facebook I would, I would suggest you check us out there. If you ever want to come to DC and Get the tour - happy to do that, you know, happy to introduce you to members of Congress. And and you - give you an opportunity to share your story, because your story is more impressive than my story. Right? Like, I'm not in, you know, I'm at a 30,000 foot level here. I'm not on the ground fighting this thing. And so, yeah, I'd love to have you come out and do the tour.

Wayne: Awesome. Well, thanks again, Don, for the time. I think someone can be really helpful for listeners and some clarity around what's going around at the federal level and really appreciate the time. Thank you.

Don: Thank you.