Brave New Weed: Recent Episodes

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This episode originally released as episode 80.

Not many of us think of adding 1mg of melatonin with THC to ensure a deeper, longer night’s sleep… or blending ashwagandha with CBD to better cope with stress…or mixing St. John’s Wort with cannabinoids to better cope with pain. But Dr. Kevin Spelman is a molecular biologist, industry consultant and a clinician who has observed that a mix of plant medicines can be more healing than just one individual plant on its own.

Spelman is that rare breed of scientist whose worldview integrates the wisdom of the east and the hard science of the west. He has worked as an Ayurvedic clinician and alongside Chinese medicine practitioners as well as being a researcher at the National Institutes of Health. It was in the NIH labs where he learned just how skeptically plant science was viewed by his colleagues. “When I spoke about certain molecules, my colleagues were all in,” he told me before I recorded this podcast, “but the minute I started talking about medicinal plants they’d turn suspect. I could almost see the thought bubble appear above their heads: ‘Quack! This guy can’t possibly be for real.’”

This podcast is full of very real science about the mysterious world of plant medicines. In it, Spelman broaches three areas I want you to know about.

Herbal allies. Especially relevant in the time of COVID-19 are the benefits of using echinacea, astragalus, and ashwagandha to strengthen our immune response. But he also explains that these substances should be combined thoughtfully rather than randomly thrown together. “One of the classic mistakes naturopaths make is just putting all in there. When you combine things properly you can induce emergent properties that you wouldn’t see with just one compound.”

Low dose cannabinoids. We are big proponents of low dose cannabis medicines on this podcast. Spelman points out that there is a scientific phenomenon called “hormesis” in which a low dose of a substance, like cannabis or psilocybin, can have beneficial results while a higher dose can cause symptoms to worsen. “I had a lot of sciatica pain, maybe a 6 or 7 out of 10," he says, "and I didn’t want to use THC because my job demands I be critically observant. I found a sub-threshold dose of less than 1.5 mg of THC allowed me to work clear headed without a lot of pain.”

Diet. Spelman points out that modern society is drugging illnesses that can be traced to what he calls a “phytonutrient deficiency.” His solution is the same that Michael Pollan arrived at while writing The Omnivore’s Dilemma: “Eat more plants.”

Listen in to learn more on this emerging field, and be sure to read Kevin’s most recent blog on Powering Up Your Immune Response with Cannabinoids and Botanicals.And please read "Practical COVID Tips as We Open" (and musical accompaniment) by the always impressive Dr. Jeff Chen at UCLA. We can't rely on the administration to give reliable info so we must rely on the smartest scientists we know. Jeff is another one worth listening to.

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This episode originally released as episode 40 .

This interview with Dr. Julie Holland marks the 40th podcast in the Brave New Weed series and it’s one of our best yet. As a podcaster I can often map out the route a discussion will take, but this conversation with Julie ebbed and flowed in the most delightfully surprising ways. I never knew where it was leading. What I did know was that every turn it took was more interesting than the last.In this episode, we discuss:

• CBD and dental pain and how this remarkable cannabinoid calms nerve irritation
• What an orgasm and a delicious meal have in common (you never even thought to ask, did you?)
• Why men have nipples
• The real danger of masturbating to porn
• Screenophilia (or the reason why the next generation is falling in love with their screens)
• Curing your runny nose with psychedelicsHow cannabinoids can help cure our country’s PMS.

Tune in and share it widely. As cannabis becomes more mainstream and a broader swath of people shake off the yoke of prohibition, so many more conversations about the plant’s powers are taking place. Our mission is to stay at the forefront of these conversations and lead the way in the post-Prohibition era. If you value independent explorations such as these, free of advertising and the traditional constraints imposed by mainstream media, please support on us on Patreon.

For less than the price of a coffee in NYC your donation can help us continue this work. We do this for love, not money, and we appreciate any help you can offer to keep the love flowing.

And where else will you learn why men have nipples?

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RECUT from Episode 106:

Many people who use substances say that they create a deeper connection with “god,” “nature” or their own “spiritual” selves. Yet most organized religions are averse to plant medicines including psilocybin, ayahuasca, peyote and cannabis. Christians call these entheogens (plants that when ingested produce higher states of consciousness) false gods and warn against them for a host of reasons, primarily because they don’t want adherents straying from the flock.Buddhists use different words but similarly proscribe intoxicants that lead users into states of “mindlessness” or “carelessness.” But as an intermittent traveler in spiritual circles I can assure you substance use among Western spiritual teachers is far more widespread than openly admitted. So many of them use psychedelics and cannabis, but maintain a well-guarded “conspiracy of silence,” as this week’s guest, Stephen Batchelor, puts it.Batchelor is an esteemed teacher, writer, artist, and Buddhist scholar, who is best known for his secular approach to Buddhism and his openness to using entheogens to deepen his own contemplative practices. At 18, he went to India, where he was ordained as a Buddhist monk in 1974. He traveled, first to Germany and then South Korea, where he left the Tibetan tradition to train in Zen Buddhism. But in 1985 he disrobed, married and moved to France, where he and his wife still live in a small village near Bordeaux. His work has centered around developing a more modern, universalist approach to Buddhism, one that integrates the truths of tradition with the needs of our time.“The bulk of Buddhist teachers set out on this path through psychedelics and cannabis in the 1960s and 70s,” Batchelor, 68, told me. “But Buddhism, for many reasons, is too trapped in its own history. It appears user friendly but scratch the surface and you’ll hit a bedrock of moralism. It’s heavily committed to certain dogmas that it won’t or can’t release.”If you are interested in Batchelor's secular approach to this religion, I recommend Buddhism Without Beliefs, Confession of a Buddhist Atheist, and his most recent, The Art of Solitude, which was written before COVID but helped me mightily during the darker days of lockdown and forced isolation. It’s my honor to have Stephen as a guest and my pleasure to share the conversation with you.

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This episode is brought to you courtesy of Nirvana Dispensaries in Oklahoma. Check out my interview with Adam Lasi, CEO, who explains why Oklahoma is the country's most dynamic cannabis market.

As I explain in more detail on this podcast, this will be the last recording for a few weeks. I am taking some time off to absorb and reflect upon the many changes this year has brought. Before saying good bye I want to leave you with this wonderful podcast on The Endocannabinoid Diet and to thank the Nirvana Group for sponsoring this episode.

When Dr. Chin first described the Endocannabinoid Diet, my ears perked up. While she's still developing the thesis more thoroughly, I thought I'd bring you this peak into her observations. This from her desk:

The endocannabinoid system (ECS) is the largest neurotransmitter system in our body. It modulates responses to internal and external stimuli and it is activated by both endocannabinoids (produced in the brain and body) and phytocannabinoids (produced from plants).

Many people are not producing optimal amounts of endocannabinoids -- some experts are calling this an endocannabinoid deficiency. Studies have shown that patients with chronic pain and inflammation -- that often underlie at migraines, fibromyalgia, depression, PTSD, ADHD, weight gain, and irritable bowel syndrome -- have lower levels of anandamide, one endocannabinoid produced by our body.

The vexing question to date is: What causes low levels of endocannabinoids? There’s no simple answer. If you’re experiencing pain and inflammation, not sleeping well or having difficulty with mood, anxiety, stress, or concentration, your ECS may be out of balance. According to Dr. Bruno, nutrition professor of Huntington University of Health Sciences, recent research suggests that in some cases, “A diet low in phytocannabinoids—low in plant foods—may also play a role. The fact is, inadequate levels of endocannabinoids may be associated with their production, metabolism, or the state of cannabinoid receptors.

”To learn more about how changing your diet to include more cannabinoids can impact your health, listen in!

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Before I preview this content great episode, I must explain the naked structure of what you are about to experience. This episode will have no musical interludes between segments. We are currently searching for a new logo design, new interstitial music and maybe a few bars of a theme song. So if you are a composer or designer, or who have a composer or design friend who might like to enhance our show with their tunes, please reach out to Show@bravenewweed.com. We’ll give on air credit, an interview and as much love as we can in other ways in return. You may also notice that this blog contains no graphic branding, which we are also overhauling. If you have ideas/skills or friends with ideas/skills, hit us up.

Finally, by now you know that we are expanding the topics we cover to include brave new plants and brave new substances that are being used in brave new therapies to help create brave new minds. Your response to these topics has been overwhelmingly supportive, so we’re diving in deeper and to bring you the smartest, most engaging experts on these high minded topics. So, lay back and enjoy this stripped down episode. And in the meantime, here's a blurb on what weed can learn from wine. (Hint: a lot). -- Joe

"Biology, geography, botany, culture, linguistics. Weed is like wine -- it’s not about one single thing. You have to learn about a set of things together. That's what makes them both so beguiling."

That's Matt Montrose, parter at OMvino, a San Francisco Bay area marketing and communications agency that specializes in food, wine and wellness brands. Matt started out in the hospitality business at age 19 and moved through ranks of the Court of Master Sommeliers, and earned his CMS Advanced Certification at just 25 years old. He knows of what he speaks!

Matt is joined by his always engaging cousin, Max Montrose, founder of the Colorado-based Trichome Institute, to talk about what a very new industry, cannabis, can learn from an older industry, wine. Both industries are built on complicated plants that defy easy categorization, primarily because they grow in the ground and are influenced by soil, climate, and the skills of their farmers. Trying to sell them in simple categories such as "sativa" and "indica" is disingenuous at best and in many case, dishonest. "At a cannabis sommelier level you can see and smell how a particular variety is going to make you feel on a sedative to stimulating spectrum," he says. "That's important because lab testing doesn't test for sedation or stimulation. Nor does it test for quality. People need to be educated to stop shopping for THC levels and start shopping for aroma."

Unsurprisingly, both Montrose's have a lot of opinions about how to teach customers to get the best out of both of these amazing plants and their derivatives. Listen in!

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Mindbloom is the first treatment for depression and anxiety that "alchemizes psychedelics, software, substances, content and human care into personalized at home experience."

What if you could order a weeks-long course of psychedelic medicines that is delivered to your door and then you are guided through each journey by a therapist and an integration coach over Zoom? What if that therapy could change the neural pathways in your brain to enable new cognitive insights and healthier thinking and emotional patterns and at the same time, help you to break old ones that are causing you distress? What if that therapy were legal in one half of the United States and costs less than your 50-minute hour on the couch with your current talk therapist? 

Our guest this week is Dylan Beynon, founder + CEO of Mindbloom, the first Ketamine-therapy-in-a-box-solution [my phrase] aimed at healing depression and anxiety. This therapeutic modality was created with the contributions of pioneering psychiatrists and psychedelic researchers and, as Beynon says, “it alchemizes psychedelics, software, substances, content and human care into personalized, at home experience.” 

Beynon has been named a "Top 25 Consumer HealthTech Executive" and one of the "Top 100 Most Influential People in Psychedelics." But his route to Mindbloom started as a teenager growing up with a mother who suffered from a mental illness that rocked his family. Psychedelic experiences sparked a fundamental emotional shift that finally set him on a path towards healing and growth, which he discusses in detail on this most excellent podcast.

To learn more, check out Mindbloom.com.

And if psychedelic therapy is a topic of interest, you should definitely listen to Episode 114 with Dr. Erica Zelfand.

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“As a psychiatry resident I wondered if cannabis does to people what catnip does to cats. That turns out to be a completely incorrect assumption.”

This episode is brought to you courtesy of Trichome Institute, providers of most excellent cannabis education and certification programs. Trichome courses enable you to Weed Better!

Dr. Godfrey Pearlson, the esteemed neuroscientist, researcher, and author of Weed Science talks with me about how our favorite plant works in the brain, heart (and maybe even the soul) of human beings

On this episode the esteemed neuroscientist, Yale professor, and author Dr. Godfrey Pearlson, joins me to talk about what we know and don’t know about the way cannabis works in our brains (and hearts, and maybe our souls, too). This episode could also be called “Cannabis: The Good, The Bad and The Mysterious and if you tune in you'll learn:The Good: Why colors seem more vibrant, why time moves more slowly, why so many musicians say they find more space between notes when using cannabis.The Bad: We explore the evidence linking cannabis to psychotic illnesses as well as the paradoxical evidence showing that ultra-high doses of CBD reduces some psychotic symptoms. We also explore the evidence between lethal car crashes in states that have legalized -- and why this is not a reason to continue the prohibition.The Mysterious: Many topics of interest here, but one of great interest to me: why so many of us need less cannabis to get high as you age.And finally, for all of you who have always wondered if cannabis does to humans what catnip does to cats, the answer is revealed within!

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The jury's still out on the newest cannabinoid to take the world by storm -- Delta-8 THC. Is it safe, legal, or an interesting high? On this episode two wise men with competing points of view weigh in.Does this sound familiar?This episode is brought to you by Medical Cannabis Mentor, providing state-of-the-art education to dispensary personnel, healthcare providers and patients. A new cannabis product hits the shelves and suddenly mainstream media is reporting a surge in illnesses and hospitalizations. It happened on June 29 when University of Virginia Hospital reported dozens of people crowding the ER after ingesting…guess what…the cannabis industry’s newest rock star product, D8 THC!I don’t want to be an alarmist but I immediately wondered if the introduction of D8, which very few people really understand, is going to be this year’s version of EVALI, the scary vape-related lung diseases that killed 68 people and sickened 3,000 more in 2019 and 2020? Or is this clickbait about another cannabis product that hit the market fast, created through-the-roof consumer demand, and has yet to be federally regulated?I’m not sure yet, but it’s safe to say that Delta-8 THC (D8) presents a great opportunity and a great challenge to the cannabis industry: Big financial upside and some POTENTIALLY serious downsides. To get a clearer perspective on this “new” cannabinoid (that was in fact identified in 1941 by scientist Roger Adams) I invited two wise people with competing interests to discuss.Dr. Matt Elmes holds a Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Biology from Stony Brook University, where he focused on endocannabinoid and phytocannabinoid cellular transport mechanisms. Today Matt is Scientific Director for CannaCraft, one of the largest cannabis product manufacturers in the world. Chris Fontes is CEO and Founder of Project Hemp Flower, a website where farmers sell their smokable flower directly to consumers. Fontes and his team hunt and curate high-grade product that provides consumer confidence because of their quality control. His latest brainchild is Trojan Horse Edibles, full-spectrum, full-strength dispensary grade edibles from hemp CBD.Listen in to learn if D8 is natural or unnatural… safe or harmful…and how its high differs from that of good old Delta-9 THC. And get ready for D10, which according to my sources, will soon be hurtling down the pike!Is it possible that THC has more variants than COVID????

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Erica Zelfand, ND, a family physician and psychedelic therapist, discusses the science and spiritual connection of psychedelics... Psilocybin, MDMA, Ibogaine, LSD, Ketamine & God!If you'd like to learn more about the science of psychedelic medicine, take Dr. Z's fantastic online course. Click here and apply the code Hooray at checkout for 20% off.In this fantastic and wide-ranging interview with Dr. Erica Zelfand, we touch upon her wide experiences with psychedelics as a conscious user and as a healer and doctor. Some of the many wise things you'll hear include: "What we saw with the Timothy Leary generation, which was more of a grass roots movement was chaos and confusion and now with this revolution we’re taking off tie dye and putting on suits and ties and publishing papers. And that’s how we’re moving ahead now. I don’t think either is right or wrong.""I was at an ayahuasca circle in Portland OR and was having vivid visuals and beautiful and difficult experiences. At one point I shot up and said “I have to know how this is working in my brain.” For me psychedelics were a gateway drug to science!""There’s a saying, “neurons that fire together wire together,” meaning that if you keep doing the behaviors over again [they form a habit in the brain]. A lot of psychedelics temporarily disturb that rigid firing pattern and let parts of the brain that don’t normally communicate with each other make novel connections.""We have a theory that depression is caused by low serotonin in the brain, but we don’t actually have a lot of evidence supporting that. A newer theory of depression is that it’s a high level inflammatory state in the nervous system. Psychedelics (and SSRIs) are anti-inflammatory. This may be why even microdosing can have an anti-depressant effect.""We can explain a lot of how psychedelics work with science and then we hit this wall... There’s this receptor site... and that neurotransmitter... and then, God."Psychedelics don’t change beliefs or politics. What they seem to do, according to the data, is make people less extreme.Like any tool you’ve got to know how to wield it. If you’re new to psychedelics, get a copy of The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide by James FadimanThis episode is brought to you by The Trichome Institute offering brilliant education and certification programs. Its hands-on and extremely popular "Interpening" course is geared to helping all cannabis users to Weed Better. Highly recommended by yours truly.

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Hemp gets no respect -- until now! Trichome Institute's Max Montrose and Project Hemp Flower's Chris Fontes will change your mind about this humble and much maligned flower. This episode is sponsored by Trojan Horse Cannabis, makers of edibles and tinctures with 100mgs CBD and 10mgs of Delta-9 THC per serving. These are are legal hemp products that can be mailed to you and will get you gently high. Use coupon code BNW for 25% off your first order!Hemp is:A. Male marijuana flowersB. A species of marijuana with no medicinal valueC. The same species as marijuana with little to no THC The correct answer is ‘C’, but don’t feel uninformed if you didn't know. Hemp is confusing, not only as to what it is, but what it can do, which is why I was surprised when my friend, Max Montrose, founder of The Trichome Institute and creator of the amazing Interpening course, told me about high-potency hemp flower that gets you high. These high CBD hemp strains grown on small, boutique farms are being sold by Colorado-based Project Hemp Flower. Some clock in at 8-25% CBD (average commercial “high” strains average about 3% CBD). More confusing still, these strains, many of which have no THC, are so rich in terpenes and other phytocannabinoids that they actually get you high, or at the very least cause a “head change.” It's so good, Max told me, that Trichome Institute is now sending Project Hemp Flower CBD to people who sign up for its Interpening course but have no access to legal cannabis.These Brave New Hemp strains are just as varied as Delta-9 THC cannabis. They have names like "Alpen Gleaux," "Sour Space Candy," "Oregon Guava," and come in fat frosty nugs, small tight nugs, and many shades of green. Some are jet black – you can see a few examples below. All are tested and the results are posted on the PHF website so buyers know exactly what they’re getting.Max, ever evangelical about all advances in cannabis culture, introduced me to Chris Fontes, CEO of Project Hemp Flower, who says that if you can locate interesting hemp genetics, grow and cure it with the same precision as cannabis then you’ll get an aromatic, smokable flower that is great for people who need it medicinally or who don't want to get annihilated. Or, as Max puts it, “They’re taking hemp flower to the next level and it’s kind of crazy awesome.” To sample high potency CBD that can be legally mailed to your door, click here and use the code BNW to get a 25%. Shipping is free for orders over $40. If you’d like to get intimate with your bud via Trichomes Institute’s Interpening classes, click here and use the BraveNewHemp code to get 15% off.

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Dr. Eric Goodman, the creator of Foundation Training, has developed a system of pain relief that integrates movement and posture, heat, breath and our favorite plant. PS: Be a mensch and share this podcast with anyone you know over 40. This episode is sponsored by Zippz, personalized CBD medicines for sleep and calm created for your body and your condition. Use promo code BRAVE to get your (almost) free sample pack. Happy Zzzzz's.I’ve devoted a lot of air space to the topic of cannabis and sleep in the last months, and now I want to turn to pain, the #1 condition for which people use cannabis, and introduce you to Dr. Eric Goodman. A former athlete who is no stranger to injury, surgery and rehab, Eric trained as a chiropractor, where he learned anatomy, physiology and treatment. But over time, and as his own pain continued to plague him, he realized that much of what he was taught was insufficient. “We look to the wrong places for solutions—which keeps us from finding immediate relief. “he writes in his upcoming book, tentatively titled Foundations of Health: Harnessing The Restorative Power of Movement, Heat and the Endocannabinoid System To Actively Adapt for a Healthy Life. “Ultimately, it hampers us from living healthy lives…”These realizations set him on a road to create Foundation Training, a method that strengthens the areas around what goes wrong in our bodies so we can find relief and prevent injuries from occurring in the future.Eric and I share the same publisher, Karen Rinaldi at Harper Wave, who a few weeks ago slipped me a pre-publication manuscript of Foundations of Health. The book integrates a decade of research, clinical evidence and patient results into something that goes beyond biomechanics and standard adjustments – it’s an integrative approach to pain, especially chronic pain, that makes sense. I gobbled it up.Instead of treating the area where pain occurs, Foundations identifies four factors that contribute to pain alleviation: posture and movement, breath, heat and, you guessed it, cannabis and how it affects the body’s endocannabinoid system (ECS). It offers practical methods of optimizing each of these factors, while also parsing common myths and facts: heat vs. cold for injury, rest vs. small amounts (“microdoses”) of physical stress, and how cannabis, properly used, can increase awareness of balance and movement. This enhanced somatosensory perception neatly fits his explanation of “couchlock,” in which you feel the weight of your limbs more than you typically do.This interview also marks Eric’s coming out as a cannabis user and advocate. Like many, he harbored concerns that open advocacy could jeopardize his practice, but I predict that it will put him in the excellent company of the growing number of maverick health practitioners who use cannabis can be an excellent adjunct to pain relief with fewer side effects than NSAIDs (Advil, Aleve, Motrin) and opioids. Welcome to the fold, Dr. Goodman!Foundations of Health (tentative title) will be out January 2022. Learn more about ithere.Learn more about Foundation Training hereOr get the Foundation training app, which has all sorts of programs including: weekend workouts; FT for surfers, runners, golfers, office workers, FT and Pregnancy, and a complimentary “Independence from Pain” workout.

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Not all sleeplessness is created equally. Zippz is the first CBD sleep formula tailored to your body and to your particular condition. I think it's a game changer (and life saver)! One of the missions of our podcast is to occasionally vet great cannabis and CBD products in this crowded, confusing market where claims are tossed about with very little evidence backing them up. (This problem plagues the entire CBD market due to lack of regulation). I’m happy to report that I finally found a CBD sleep product that has given me many nights of uninterrupted Zzzzz's without the morning fog or side effects of sleeping pills.Zippz is the first “personalized” CBD product to market. Their 225 formulas blend CBD with a half dozen botanical compounds (ashwagandha, melatonin, kava, for example) and terpenes that are tailored to individual conditions. Do you have trouble falling or staying asleep? Is it related to pain, anxiety or neither? Are you male or female, young or old? Do you exercise? All of these factors are considered when matching you to your formula.Here's how it works: You fill out a brief assessment which identifies your particular form of sleep disturbance and physical condition. Zippz analyzes it and sends you a report and two different soft gel cap formulas for you to sample. You determine which works best and let them know. If you order, the money you spent on the trial pack is deducted from your first purchase. If your condition changes, the formula is easily adjusted.Zippz was created when California entrepreneur (and fellow insomniac), Scott Eagle, went to a dispensary in search of help. A 20-something person handed him a few products and told him to “start low and go slow,” advise he found it woefully inadequate and far too random. So he raised some seed money and worked with doctors and formulators to create ZippzDisclosure: This episode is unusual because Zippz approached to sponsor four episodes. When a sponsor purchases four episodes we offer them a short promotional interview. In this case, I found the product impressive that I offered Scott a full interview in hopes of helping my fellow insomniacs.If you use the promo code BRAVE you can get the samples for a 50% discount. If you take advantage of this offer, please let me know if these formulas work for you as well as they are working for me.Sweet dreams!

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Brave Enough To Ask is our new exclusive series for Patreon supporters! Visit patreon.com/bravenewweed to listen to all of these past and future bonus episodes.In this segment, we revisit the scary "vapegate" news cycle from a few months ago, and explain what to actually look for if vaping is your thing.We want your questions for upcoming episodes! Send us an email at show@bravenewweed.com and if you're Brave Enough To Ask, we'll answer those burning questions!

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A spirited discussion with the co-founder of The Conscious Fund, which invests in psychedelic research and therapies. My question: Can psychedelics and profits happily coexist?My guest this week is Henri Sant-Cassia, co-founder of The Conscious Fund, a $60 million venture capital fund that has backed 14 companies in the fledgling psychedelic research and therapy space.Every day there is more frothy media surrounding the possibilities of psychedelic therapy to successfully treat depression, PTSD, end of life despair -- problems that modern medicine and pharma companies have not yet conquered. There is early evidence that psychedelics can really change the game and optimists are hoping that legalization and increased funding can create better solutions and, at the same time, a more compassionate world.But anyone who has watched cannabis legalization knows that it is difficult, if not impossible, to protect those who risked their lives, reputations, and often freedom advocating for these euphoria-inducing substances from the euphoria-inducing rush of large sums of investment capital. To wit: Some early stage psychedelic startups are following the pharma model of changing a few molecules in the natural plant structures and attempting to patent them. They're claiming to have “invented” entirely new substances. One such company, the UK/US-based Compass Pathways, which is backed by free market evangelists Peter Thiel and Rebekah Mercer (both Trump supporters) has been trying to patent psilocybin for years. While Compass's filings are unlikely to succeed, there are many other ways they can gum up the works for companies (both for-profit and nonprofit) that have been fighting for decades to liberate these substances from Schedule 1 restrictions and make them available to those in need. Henri and I discuss this and other thorny conflicts that inevitably arise in the tricky marriage of psychedelics and profits.The more I look into this the more ethical, financial and therapeutic issues arise. For one: Can psychedelics be successfully delivered without therapy and if so, what role with pharmaceutical companies that only make medicines play. I’ll be delving into them over the next few months as the rush toward psychedelic medicines -- or what I’m blithely calling “The ShroomBoom” -- takes off. Watch this space!

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“Defund the police? We should defund the drug war first!”This episode is sponsored by Zippz, state-of-the-art personalized CBD medicines for sleep and stressMost cops have never been fans of legalization. Diane Goldstein, Executive Director of the Law Enforcement Action Project, explains why and how she's working to change hardened minds. An extensive 2020 survey of 3615 law enforcement officers revealed that a large chasm that still exists between changing our out of date drug laws and changing the minds of the people who enforce those laws. While 37 US states have some form of medical or adult use laws, the police are still being trained to associate the devil’s lettuce with criminality, a designation that was created by drug laws themselves. Here 's a sampling of the study’s findings: 75% of cops surveyed had never used cannabis or used it less than four times.Two thirds agree that “marijuana is less dangerous than other Schedule 1 drugs” but over 75% still believe it is a gateway drug and that legalization leads to use of harder drugs.Over half of the cops surveyed in illegal states still believe that enforcing misdemeanor possession charges is a worthwhile use of their time.These statistics explain why I invited Diane Goldstein on to the podcast. Diane was a cop for 20 years and today she heads LEAP, the Enforcement Action Partnership. She is a cop who saw the failures of the Drug War from a professional and personal point of view and now works to educate and change hardened minds within the law enforcement hierarchy. We’ve all heard cops say, “We don’t make the law, we only enforce it,” but the truth is that cops have a vested interest in and receive massive amounts of state and federal funding to maintain the prohibition status quo. “Cops often repress reform because it doesn’t support their agenda,” is how Diane expresses it in this interview.It’s no secret that Diane’s task is Herculean, but she is optimistic that change is afoot. “Yes,” she says, “we must change laws but we also have to show Law Enforcement that they’ll still have plenty of tools they need to do their jobs effectively.” In other words, reward them with the same funds they would have used to investigate marijuana crimes. “Before talking about defunding the police [a misleading and dreadful phrase to explain reapportioning funds in my humble opinion], we should defund the drug war first. Drug law enforcement is a bludgeon that drives racial disparities in policing across the country.”ALSO...Be sure to check out the “Trusted Brands'' tab on the Brave New Weed website. We recently launched in response to frequent questions from listeners about products. Alas, we are not able to test every product that comes our way our catches our interest, but those that we’ve been able to vet are on this small, growing list. Keep checking it as we’ll be updating it regularly.

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Troy Ivan, founder of ExactCraft, on how to make the best extractions at home, the importance of “cannaflavins,” and the newest product for pain relief that you’ve never heard of (but will want to try)!This episode is sponsored by MedicalCannabisMentor.com, now offering CME courses!Extraction is a beautiful but confusing thing, especially if you’re new to cannabis. Extracted products range from the sludgy RSO (now called FECO, full extract cannabis oil) that is used to treat certain cancers, to the golden, superterpy full melt rosin, and everything in between. This episode’s guest, Troy Ivan, is a self-made expert in home extraction and he explains how people trying this at home can get the best product and highest yield with the equipment his company, ExactCraft, has perfected over the last few years. Troy is a former finance guy who, in his words, went from “extraction of the dollar to extraction of cannabis oil.” He did it in the Steve Jobs model, by spending years in his garage, learning the ins and outs of forcing those beautiful oils from the trichomes in the cleanest way possible. While extraction as a process isn’t new, citizen scientists like Troy are developing new, and surprising applications and not just with cannabinoids. Two thirds through this interview Troy talks about a revolutionary citrus peel extract that appears to relieve arthritis pain. Knowing that citrus contains high concentrations of the anti-inflammatory terpene limonene, Troy made his own grapefruit peel concentrate and then rubbed some on the stiff ankles of his 80-something year old mother. In ten minutes her pain was gone, he recalls. She continued applying it, once every few days at first, then once a week, then once a month, and now barely needs it. It seems to have relieved the condition as well as the pain. “That was what I was hoping but not what I was expecting,” says Troy. “It’s crazy how good it is.” To learn more about the citrus peel extract, go here.To learn more about extraction in generalTroy recommends these resources.extractcrafter.com/skunkpharmresearch.com/extractcraft.com/fuckcombustion.comSPECIAL OFFER If you would like a chance to sample my favorite edibles, listen to Episode 107. Toward the end you’ll hear how a $20 contribution to the Brave New Weed Patreon contribution will enable you to receive two free edibles (50mg THC) in the mail, and an opportunity to subscribe to the maker’s very private mailing list. This is a limited time offer. At the time of this writing there were 9 slots available, so hurry.Finally, To read the pain study comparing cannabinoid medicines to pharmaceuticals, click here. Note: the THC:CBD preparation beat Tramdol, Oxycodone, Ibuprofen, and Fentanyl. And now ask yourself why it’s still illegal in most of the world and what you can do to change that situation.

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You can't buy them, but this podcast will tell you how to get your own supply and/or make them yourself--recipe below. One thing that has always impressed me about the world of “higher order plants” are the citizen scientists who defy the law, societal norms, and the limits of their own knowledge to experiment with different ways of tweaking the plant to their own ends. They’re farmers and formulators, bakers and makers, but they share an abiding curiosity and dedication to craft. I was introduced to one such citizen scientist earlier this year, and his journey into high-potency and highly delicious edibles was so impressive I invited him onto the podcast. Chris Bugbee describes himself on his Twitter bio as a “cause-driven communications pro, print hound/news junkie, husband, dad to 3 daughters.” Shortly after California legalized he decided that too many of the edibles flooding the market were overpriced and under dosed, so he began to grow his own plants and find an extraction method to minimize the bitter taste of cannabis oils, and create his own cannafections that he calls Ginja Snaps and distributes through the Nightkitchen Bakery.But here’s the kicker: Chris doesn’t sell the Ginja Snaps. He gives them away to a small group of supporters who send him a modest contribution when they're ready for a refill. He does it this way because, as he puts it, "this is a mitzvah, not a business." (Mitzvah is Hebrew for a good deed).Whether you consider cannabis a medicine, sacrament or euphoriant, it has always been something to share. To that end Chris has generously extended an invitation to 20 Brave New Weed listeners to join the private Night Kitchen Bakery mailing list. Listeners, this a truly special offer to a limited number of people for a limited time. To learn how to join his private list and if you are curious to try what I judge to be the best, most dynamic edibles, follow the instructions at the end of the episode! And read below this ad to get Chris's recipe.Meanwhile, if you’d like to learn more about infusion and/or extraction (the latter is the slightly expensive but much more efficient method) Chris recommends this comparison-based resource. And if you’re interested in trying Chris’s Ginja Snap recipe on your own, here it is. Chewy Ganja Ginger Snap (180-200 cookies)This recipe, originally from the August 18, 2014 issue of High Times, served as the starting point in the evolution of the Ginja Snap. We are currently working on the 37th iteration of the recipe since our first effort to create a cookie that is as expeditious as it is delicious. Along the way we’ve played with various combinations of different sugars (castor, demerara, dark brown sugar, date sugar, coconut sugar), different kinds of molasses, added nutmeg and allspice to the ingredient list, swapped MCT coconut oil for butter, and increased the amount of crystallized ginger to 11 oz. One of our goals from the outset was to keep the cookie size small and the potency high, around 25mg THC per cookie. We began using ½ tablespoon (25mm) scoop to keep the size uniform and the dosage per cookie consistent. We’ve also experimented with efforts to increase the bioavailability of the ingredients by adding additional egg yolks or sunflower lecithin.Because potency is a goal, the Night Kitchen Bakery uses only flower instead of trim. We began by infusing 2 cups of flower in 1 cup of oil. Over the last year, we’ve switched from infusion to extraction, in which food grade ethanol is used as a solvent to extract THC and other cannabinoids more efficiently and completely than infusion. Ingredients4.5 cups all-purpose flour2 tsp baking soda1 tbsp ground ginger1.5 tsp ground cinnamon1 tsp ground cloves1.5 tsp salt1 cup cannabutter (melted) or oil1/2 cup unsulfured molasses2 cups sugar, plus extra for rolling dough2 large eggs7 oz crystallized ginger, cut into small chunksPreparationPreheat oven to 325ºF.Combine the flour, baking soda, ground ginger, cinnamon, cloves and salt in a medium bowl. Stir together with whisk to incorporate all spices evenly.In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the cannabutter (or oil), molasses, and sugar. Cream the butter/sugar mixture until fluffy and smooth.Add the eggs one at a time and mix until fully incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula.Add the flour mixture into the wet mix slowly, until almost fully incorporated, and then add the chunks of crystallized ginger. Mix until dough is nice and shiny.Roll dough into 25 balls and roll in white sugar. Press down slightly. Bake at 325ºF for 8 to 10 minutes, until the top of the cookie starts to crack slightly.Let cool on a rack and enjoy!

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"I don’t take cannabis in social situations. I only take it by myself in a quiet, reflective space...Sometimes it leads me down blind alleys, but often it clarifies and heightens my reflections. I see it as a power plant."Many people who use substances say that they create a deeper connection with “god,” “nature” or their own “spiritual” selves. Yet most organized religions are averse to plant medicines including psilocybin, ayahuasca, peyote and cannabis. Christians call these entheogens (plants that when ingested produce higher states of consciousness) false gods and warn against them for a host of reasons, primarily because they don’t want adherents straying from the flock.Buddhists use different words but similarly proscribe intoxicants that lead users into states of “mindlessness” or “carelessness.” But as an intermittent traveler in spiritual circles I can assure you substance use among Western spiritual teachers is far more widespread than openly admitted. So many of them use psychedelics and cannabis, but maintain a well-guarded “conspiracy of silence,” as this week’s guest, Stephen Batchelor, puts it.Batchelor is an esteemed teacher, writer, artist, and Buddhist scholar, who is best known for his secular approach to Buddhism and his openness to using entheogens to deepen his own contemplative practices. At 18, he went to India, where he was ordained as a Buddhist monk in 1974. He traveled, first to Germany and then South Korea, where he left the Tibetan tradition to train in Zen Buddhism. But in 1985 he disrobed, married and moved to France, where he and his wife still live in a small village near Bordeaux. His work has centered around developing a more modern, universalist approach to Buddhism, one that integrates the truths of tradition with the needs of our time.“The bulk of Buddhist teachers set out on this path through psychedelics and cannabis in the 1960s and 70s,” Batchelor, 68, told me. “But Buddhism, for many reasons, is too trapped in its own history. It appears user friendly but scratch the surface and you’ll hit a bedrock of moralism. It’s heavily committed to certain dogmas that it won’t or can’t release.”If you are interested in Batchelor's secular approach to this religion, I recommend Buddhism Without Beliefs, Confession of a Buddhist Atheist, and his most recent, The Art of Solitude, which was written before COVID but helped me mightily during the darker days of lockdown and forced isolation. It’s my honor to have Stephen as a guest and my pleasure to share the conversation with you.This episode is sponsored by WONDERFEEL:Wonderfeel's next-generation wellness formulas are organic, tested and pure. More than just CBD, these are profoundly effective wonder formulas developed by Dr. Andrew Levinson and tested with patients at his clinic for over two years.Wonderfeel fans are thrilled, saying they fall asleep easier and stay asleep using the Evening CBD.Their Daytime CBD gets glowing reviews among migraine sufferers who finally found relief. And compared to other CBD brands their customers have tried, they report feeling way less anxiety and stress. If you want to feel the wonders of Wonderfeel formulas Log in here and use the code BRAVE, and you’ll get 15% off your purchase. If you don’t feel wonderful, your purchase is on Wonderfeel.

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Cannabis tech is beginning the journey of coming to age. Over the past 18-24 months, multiple companies have emerged and have competitive offerings in each part of the cannabis tech landscape. Better monetization of cannabis tech plays, significant market share gains, and consolidation are on the way.Related LinksJoin our investor communityRecent News for Episode Topichttps://www.ganjapreneur.com/topic/technology/ https://cannatechtoday.com/ https://mjbizdaily.com/technology/ Bar Cap 420 is a financial insight and current events report focused on the cannabis industry. Its goal is to serve as the gateway to understanding and investing in cannabis. The series aims to deliver the key highlights in the global cannabis industry in under 4 minutes and 20 seconds. Beyond the highlights, Bar Cap 420 will also do deep dives into subjects that help followers understand what lies under the hood of the cannabis industry. The series has a partnership with the Brave New Weed podcast to help both audiences gain a deeper and more nuanced understanding of cannabis from social, political and financial angles. Anand Shahi has over 20 years of experience in both public and private investments. As founder and President of Bar Capital, Anand is a thought leader, investor in and banker for the cannabis space. Anand is a Chartered Financial Analyst, holds a B.A. in Computer Science as well as Economics, and has a series 7 and 63 license.

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“As a nonviolent offender, my brother faced the ultimate consequences of what cannabis prohibition really does to families.”On June 15th, 2013 Jawara McIntosh, musician, cannabis activist, and son of reggae genius Peter Tosh, was pulled over on the New Jersey Turnpike, not because he was speeding but more likely because of his dreadlocks. The cops found sixty five pounds of marijuana in his car and locked him away in a county jail for six months. After being released on $200,000 bond, Jawara, who performed under the name Tosh 1, pled guilty to possession with intent to distribute and took a plea deal which landed him in Bergen County Jail in Hackensack, NJ, with a one-year sentence. On February 21st, 2017, just six months shy of his release date, Jawara, then 37, was attacked by another inmate. He sustained a traumatic brain injury (TBI) that left him in a coma, unable to speak, move or care for himself for three agonizing years until his death, July 17, 2020. Like his dad and the rest of his family, Jawara was a Rastafarian who used cannabis as a religious sacrament.In honor of International Peter Tosh Day, which occurs on 420, Jawara’s sister, (and Tosh’s youngest daughter), Niambe McIntosh, joins us to tell the story of her brother’s death and how it spurred her into action on his behalf.What Niambe, who today heads the Peter Tosh Foundation and is a cannabis entrepreneur, failed to tell me in this interview was that her brother’s story bears an eerie resemblance to an incident that happened to her father. Back in 1978, a gang of 8 policemen saw Peter Tosh standing outside of a recording studio in Kingston, Jamaica with a joint in his hand. They beat him with Billy clubs, then locked him in jail. According to reports, his skull was shattered in several places, his ribs were broken, and his hands had been crushed. When Bob Marley visited his former Wailers’ bandmate in the hospital and saw the battered body, he wept. We’re bringing you this podcast in celebration of 420, 2021, as a reminder that despite the progress that the march toward legalization has sustained in the last years, the fight for justice and criminal justice reform is still far from over. Please have a Happy High Holiday but take a moment to remember all of those who came before who contributed to making this High Holiday possible.

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Green thumb cultivators who entered cannabis after a more traditional crop and have 'mom-and-pop' operations are going to have a tougher time competing in the cannabis space. Multi-state and multi-national corporations are now making some big plays and will either acquire or drive out smaller operations in the coming months.Related LinksJoin our investor communityRegister for our upcoming 4/20 Cannabis Summit in partnership with 3x61 FirmRecent News for Episode Topichttps://www.newcannabisventures.com/mercer-park-brand-spac-to-buy-california-cannabis-operator-glass-house-group-for-567-million/https://mjbizdaily.com/canopy-to-buy-supreme-for-ca435-million-as-cannabis-ma-heats-up/Bar Cap 420 is a financial insight and current events report focused on the cannabis industry. Its goal is to serve as the gateway to understanding and investing in cannabis. The series aims to deliver the key highlights in the global cannabis industry in under 4 minutes and 20 seconds. Beyond the highlights, Bar Cap 420 will also do deep dives into subjects that help followers understand what lies under the hood of the cannabis industry. The series has a partnership with the Brave New Weed podcast to help both audiences gain a deeper and more nuanced understanding of cannabis from social, political and financial angles. Anand Shahi has over 20 years of experience in both public and private investments. As founder and President of Bar Capital, Anand is a thought leader, investor in and banker for the cannabis space. Anand is a Chartered Financial Analyst, holds a B.A. in Computer Science as well as Economics, and has a series 7 and 63 license.

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This week’s guest has a brilliant program on how to use cannabis to change conservative Republican minds--and no, he wasn’t high when he came up with it!This episode is sponsored by Elēment Apothēc, a new CBD body care and wellness brand inspired by the healing power of nature and backed by science. One of their best sellers, Belle Visage Face Serum, is an intense hydrating and moisturizing face serum filled with healing and beneficial oils, botanicals like Sea Buckthorn Oil, CBD and CBG, which naturally support the skin while combating environmental stressors. Get 10% off at checkout with this link: https://elementapothec.com/discount/10brave.A few weeks ago we received an email from someone who proposed we do a show on his program to change the politics of America by actively offering cannabis to Republicans. My co-host Matthew thought it was a joke, but I was intrigued--after all cannabis was likely one of the plants that warring tribes of yore used in their “peace pipes.” If it worked centuries ago, maybe it could help bridge the red blue chasm that has the Republican party strangling the Senate, restricting voting rights, and egging on the misguided thugs who stormed the capitol on January 6th.So I called the writer of “Smoke Out A Republican” and grilled him. It turns out that he himself is a recovering Republican (and Evangelical Christian), so he knew his audience. And his reasoning was based on experience and seemed... well, very reasonable. “Look.” he told me, “When I first tried cannabis it caused me to think new thoughts and examine what I believed, which I had never done because an integral part of being a Republican is that you don’t do self examination because you’re always right!. That deep conviction in your rightness is at the center of being a Republican.” His ambition was mighty: try to change the minds of 1 million Republicans by offering them a joint (once COVID is no longer a threat). Do it respectfully and repeatedly, use an excellent sativa variety, and never insult. As he correctly points out, saying ‘Hey, you should stop being a Republican and try pot!’ isn’t going to do it because attacking someone causes them to hunker down and entrench. I’m not telling you more. For the good of the country, listen to this podcast, and check out the SOAR program on Twitter at SmokeOutARepub1 or email him at Smokeoutarepublican420@gmail.com. We have a lot of minds to change, one puff at a time.

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Cinco de Mayo will never be the same - Mexico goes legal and the implications for drug cartels. Also, Boris Jordan appearing in the media to lay out the global strategy.Related Links:https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2021-03-10/eu-cannabis-market-may-double-u-s-curaleaf-chair-says-videohttps://www.cnbc.com/video/2021/03/10/curaleafs-boris-jordan-on-the-global-expansion-of-cannabis-availability.htmlhttps://seekingalpha.com/article/4406604-cannabis-legalization-mexico-list-of-companies-poised-to-benefithttps://foreignpolicy.com/2021/03/12/mexico-prepares-to-light-up-legally/Bar Cap 420 is a financial insight and current events report focused on the cannabis industry. Its goal is to serve as the gateway to understanding and investing in cannabis. The series aims to deliver the key highlights in the global cannabis industry in under 4 minutes and 20 seconds. Beyond the highlights, Bar Cap 420 will also do deep dives into subjects that help followers understand what lies under the hood of the cannabis industry. The series has a partnership with the Brave New Weed podcast to help both audiences gain a deeper and more nuanced understanding of cannabis from social, political and financial angles. Anand Shahi has over 20 years of experience in both public and private investments. As founder and President of Bar Capital, Anand is a thought leader, investor in and banker for the cannabis space. Anand is a Chartered Financial Analyst, holds a B.A. in Computer Science as well as Economics, and has a series 7 and 63 license.

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Is it safe? Is it legal? Our guest is Jason Wilson, a natural products researcher and a laboratory quality consultant, which means he knows something about this new product that is taking the cannabis world by storm.This episode is sponsored by Elēment Apothēc, the new CBD body care and wellness brand that is over a decade in the making. Elēment Apothēc products are doctor formulated and utilize CBD, CBG, CBN and other beneficial phytocannabinoids and plant-based remedies. They are vegan, sustainable, third party certified, and effective. Check them out at helementapothec.com and see why so many customers are giving them incredible reviews. Get 10% off this week with code BRAVE10.Like a winter snow in July, Delta-8-THC is taking the cannabis market by storm, but what is it? It is said to come from hemp but hemp doesn’t produce high levels of THC. It is said to be a natural sleep aid, but so is good old Delta-9-THC. In the last weeks I’ve heard that it has the same chemical structure of Delta-9-THC except for the location of one tiny double bond......that it’s extracted by spraying hemp flowers with a gas that reeks of rotten eggs... that it’s sort of legal…(sort of legal?!). While seeking answers to my questions I did what so many other cannabists do: I turned my body into a lab and tried it myself. Over a week, I took several 30mg white grapefruit Delta-8-THC gummy from the Tampa, FL based company, PUR. The label listed the ingredients (which include corn syrup, silicon dioxide and some artificial flavors, so not that pure), a batch and lot number plus a QR code that promised to direct me to a Certificate of Analysis (CoA) but instead brought me to a shopping site -- disappointing. I called the company and even though the gent who answered the phone promised to email me the CoA (once he asked his colleague what a CoA was), it never arrived. Nonetheless...the flavor “white grapefruit” was less disappointing than the lab testing info. Its sweetness was nicely cut with a mouth puckering tang. And the effects were gentle but not insubstantial. I took it at night and slept well. I woke up a bit foggy, but not unbearably so. I took a 2nd dose a few nights later with similar results but a much blurrier morning. Friends had mixed reviews. One woman’s experience echoed my own. Another male said it put him to sleep but wiped him out the next day. Conclusion: Just like all cannabinoids everybody seems to experience d8 THC differently depending on their metabolism and a host of factors that our guest this week, Jason Wilson, MS, spells out with great clarity.Jason is a natural products researcher, a board member of the Oregon Education and Resource Center, and a laboratory quality management consultant, which means he knows something about the funny business that goes on in product testing (more on that in an upcoming episode). He’s also a chemist who can explain processes in understandable english. When Delta-8-THC is synthesized from hemp CBD it is often processed with sulfuric acid (which is why it smells like rotten eggs). Depending on that quality of that chemical synthesis, a number of mysterious byproducts may also appear, which raises legitimate questions about the purity of the final product. As to its psychoactivity -- Delta-8-THC has less activation at the CB1 receptor, which is why it is less potent than d9 THC. As for its legality...let’s say citizen chemists are way ahead of the lawmakers, who are still trying to figure out the law. Of course, the simplest way to resolve the question of legality and assure product purity is to legalize and regulate all cannabis products. Hopefully, with the Dems firmly in control of their agenda, that day is around the corner.

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"Transaction Alert" focused on the recent Curaleaf and EMMAC deal announcement and its implications on the global stage.Bar Cap 420 is a financial insight and current events report focused on the cannabis industry. Its goal is to serve as the gateway to understanding and investing in cannabis. The series aims to deliver the key highlights in the global cannabis industry in under 4 minutes and 20 seconds. Beyond the highlights, Bar Cap 420 will also do deep dives into subjects that help followers understand what lies under the hood of the cannabis industry. The series has a partnership with the Brave New Weed podcast to help both audiences gain a deeper and more nuanced understanding of cannabis from social, political and financial angles. Anand Shahi has over 20 years of experience in both public and private investments. As founder and President of Bar Capital, Anand is a thought leader, investor in and banker for the cannabis space. Anand is a Chartered Financial Analyst, holds a B.A. in Computer Science as well as Economics, and has a series 7 and 63 license.

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Xenon, Iboga, MDMA, psychedelic toad venom...Hamilton Morris talks about the pleasures and challenges of unearthing the secret history of psychedelics, one substance at a time. If you’re interested in exploring the burgeoning world of psychedelics, you’ll find no better guide than Hamilton Morris. The 34-year old, 6’1, scientist, documentary filmmaker, cultural anthropologist and son of Errol (The Thin Blue Line) Morris has spent the last decade traveling to over 30 countries to shed light into darker corners of the psychedelic world. Hamilton is a scary smart, affable and big hearted companion -- so much so that many men, women and other-gender identified people I know have somewhat of a crush on him. In our conversation, Hamilton, a resident of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, speaks openly about some recent episodes of the third, and sadly, final season of Hamilton’s Pharmacopeia. He tells me that Xenon, a rare noble gas available in Russia and the Czech Republic, qualifies as “a near perfect high.” He reveals that his 5-day immersion in an iboga ceremony in West Africa allowed him “to stand outside of myself and see my behavior, my relationships, my life history... with an objective, dispassionate perspective that was unbelievably beneficial.” And he does something rarely seen in journalism, he admits he made a mistake. In an episode in Series 1, he was fooled by an imposter who claimed to be Albert Most, the author of The Psychedelic Toad of the Sonoran Desert, the 1984 pamphlet that first revealed that the venom of the Bufo alvarius toad was a powerful psychedelic (otherwise known as 5 MEO DMT) when smoked. In this podcast, Hamilton recounts how being hoodwinked actually led him to meet the real Albert Most (real name Ken Nelson) just six weeks before he died from Parkinson’s Disease. The journey of that episode is one of the highlights of Series 3. In fact, meeting Ken led Hamilton to republish a new edition of The Psychedelic Toad of the Sonoran Desert, which also includes Morris’s formula for synthesizing the 5 MEO DMT compound. If you wish to order a copy, not only will you own of a classic piece of psychedelic literature, but your money will go to fund research into Parkinson’s Disease. Learn more by tuning into the last ⅓ of this great conversation.

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A panel of cannabis experts for a discussion of legal recreational cannabis use, its impact on resort destinations, and opportunities for New Jersey hospitality and tourism business. Special focus will be given to destination marketing, and the intersection of cannabis with agritourism and food and beverage tourism.This event is presented by the Lloyd D. Levenson Institute of Gaming, Hospitality, School of Business Stockton University in partnership with the Greater Atlantic City Chamber and Stockton University Cannabis Studies program.Stockton University offers a 6 course, fully online certificate in Cannabis studies through the Continuing Studies department (link here) and an interdisciplinary, 5 course Minor in cannabis studies that can be earned as part of a bachelor’s degree (link here).Panelists Include:Brian Applegarth, Founder - Cannabis Trail and Chairperson of the CalTravel Cannabis CommitteeBrian Applegarth is a cannabis tourism subject matter expert, educator, and international speaker on the topic. He’s inspired by building bridges between the travel and cannabis industries and works to steward a model that goes beyond consumption. Brian believes that the California cannabis tourism experience must include culture, history, and storytelling of the medical cannabis movement.Brian is a board member of the 420 Archive and California Travel Association, Chairs the CalTravel Cannabis Committee and is a member of the Sonoma County Tourism Marketing Committee. Brian is also a cannabis historian. Inspired by iconic cannabis pioneers and social justice movements that fueled the robust industry of today, Brian brings a unique perspective and immense passion to his work. Brian Applegarth represents tourism and hospitality possibilities that may be available in the future. Simply, CA has accepted cannabis for several years now (almost decades and it is part of their culture) and Brian has experience with many different types of hospitality/cannabis tourism opportunities. He also has plenty of data about cannabis tourism/hospitality. Rob Mejia, Adjunct Faculty, Cannabis Studies Minor – Stockton UniversityPresident, Our Community Harvest: A Cannabis Education CompanyRob Mejia is the author of multiple books written explicitly to introduce adults to cannabis and the cannabis industry. The Essential Cannabis Book: A Field Guide for the Curious and The Essential Cannabis Journal: Personal Notes from the Field (Cedar Lane Press 2018, 2019) provide researched information about cannabis with an authentic, engaging narrative and real-world examples that demystifies the plant, explains the science, and examines the stigma and social and racial justice issues surrounding cannabis. His expertise in cannabis extends to cooking with cannabis as Rob has produced and hosted a number of edibles events and meals. He also registered two national cannabis trademarks -California Homegrowers Association® and Our Community Harvest: A Cannabis Education Company®- and represents two cannabis artists (Pat Ryan and Laurence Cherniak) via the website www.CannabisArtAndDesign. Cintia Morales, Co-Founder and Director of Education - Higher Ed. Hemp ToursCintia Morales is the Co-Founder and Director of Education for Higher Ed. Hemp Tours, an Austin based hemp advising company dedicated to bridging the gap in cannabis knowledge between consumer and retailer through unique experiences. Also, she is the ESL Program Director for ACES Language School, located in Austin, TX. She has taught English, as well as a variety of subjects, to both young and adult students from all over the world. She has been a world traveler instructor with a passion for education and developing curriculum and programs for more than 15 years. She is dedicated to assist English language learners adapting to life in the United States.Cintia Morales operates in TX where there is only a fledgling, very limited medical cannabis program and no legal adult use. Despite this, Cintia’s company has figured out ways to participate in the cannabis tourism industry and promote cannabis education. This may be a first step that Atlantic City wants to take. David Yusefzadeh, MA based Chef and Food DesignerDavid Yusefzadeh is a chef and food designer based in Boston, Massachusetts. He spent the majority of his career working in fine dining restaurants and hotels around the world. Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Mario Batali and Richard Ekkebus are just a few of the chefs that David has spent time with professionally. He is currently CEO/Founder of Cloud Creamery, a cannabis ice cream company based in Boston. David was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease in 2011 and has been using Cannabis to allow him to function in his everyday life. https://www.cloudcreamery.co/  https://www.eatsacrilicious.com/events/

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A conversation with Madison Margolin, editor of DoubleBlind, the magazine that's charting the psychedelic renaissance (and a special guest appearance by Timothy Leary's lawyer).It’s the second winter of our pandemic discontent. We’re bored, weary of isolation, itchy to travel, but confined at home. A growing number of restless adventurers are adapting by traveling inward. Their vehicle of choice? Psilocybe cubensis, AKA psilocybin, AKA magic mushrooms. Our guide on this episode's journey, Madison Margolin, is the editor and co-founder of DoubleBlind, the bi-annual print magazine that’s charting the psychedelic renaissance.Just like cannabis, psychedelics, squashed and maligned by 60 years of prohibition, are at the center of this resurgence. Psilocybin has been decriminalized in cities including Denver, CO, Oakland and Santa Cruz, CA, Washington DC, and Somerville, MA. The entire state of Oregon has decriminalized and legalized it for therapeutic use. Change is afoot and DoubleBlind is charting it.The magazine blends exuberant graphics and joyful mix of the informative, fun and at times, fantastic, journalism, which is how it should be. In it, you’ll find:profiles of some boldface names such as Hamilton Morris, the host of the great VICE TV series, Hamilton’s PharmacopeiaAn investigation into the underground psychedelic scene in New York’s ultra conservative Hassidic communitySome hilarious (and maybe true?) revisionist histories as viewed through a psychedelic lens. To wit: Moses and the Burning Bush. Some psychonauts believe that the bush, in fact, was acacia, the bark of which contains the psychedelic alkaloid 5-MeO-DMT and that it convinced Moses that he was speaking to God. And classes on the perfect pandemic pastime, growing your own mushies at home, . If you want to dive further, check out these links:Why Grow Your OwnCultivation Cheat Sheet for City DwellersThis Shoom Is Stronger Than You ThinkHow To Make The Ultimate Mushroom TeaHow to Harvest Your ShroomsHow To Dry Your ShroomsWhere to Buy SporesHow to Store Your ShroomsOther Strains You Should KnowPS: This episode’s 4:20 Financial Overview features Anand Shahi, founder and CEO of Bar Capital. Each member of Bar Capital is a Registered Representative and offers securities through Stonehaven, LLC a Member of FINRA/SIPC.This episode is brought to you with the generous support of Wonderfeel. Their next-generation, sustainable wellness formulas are created by pioneering experts -- organic, tested & pure, and they come with a rock-solid guarantee: “Love it or it's on us!”More than just CBD, these are profoundly effective wonder formulas developed by Dr. Andrew Levinson, MD. The science is real, thanks to patient research performed at his clinic for over two years.If you've wondered what all the hoopla is about, or whether it's safe to try CBD formulas go to www.wonderfeel.co where you'll find the answers you need. Avoid the trial and error of it all. Get it right the first time with Wonderfeel!

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"Heroin not only kept me alive, it kept me from killing."I first heard Dr. Carl Hart speak at a Horizons conference on psychedelics in New York City last year. This conference is highly respected and attended by researchers, scientists, students and those with a keen interest in the subject matter. Hart was the final speaker of the day. He presented a powerful argument for the legalization of all drugs. ALL drugs, not just plant medicines or the ones that people use therapeutically or to fast-track their spiritual journeys. Get his book here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/534657/drug-use-for-grown-ups-by-dr-carl-l-hart/“All drugs” includes the demonized ones -- heroin, PCP, and crack included. Bravely (brazenly?) he looked directly at the audience and talked about his own experiences with heroin, PCP, and speed. He said that he liked those drugs, used them for his own growth, and was living proof that one could use them without addiction and still have a career, a wife and family and live ethically and responsibly. I was stunned, in part because Dr. Hart is an esteemed professor of psychology at Columbia University and he was publicly admitting to something that most people I know rarely speak about openly. The same is also true for high functioning executives who run hugely successful companies but who are also heroin, speed or in most cases, alcohol users. I know plenty of these people. You do too, but they rarely acknowledge what they do behind closed doors.I wondered how Hart’s admission would go down, but I didn’t have to wonder for long. At the end of Dr. Hart’s presentation the audience leaped to its feet in a standing ovation. As you'll hear in this interview, Carl’s arguments are based on evidence he has accumulated over 30 years of researching addiction and neuroscience, so the case he makes in his new book, Drug Use For Grown-Ups: Chasing Liberty in the Land of Fear, is persuasive. Don’t for a second think that he’s skewing evidence to suit his own biases. Still, his admission forced me to look hard at myself and realize that I -- self-styled truth teller -- am full of shite. I’ve always explained my own drug experimentation in terms of plant medicines being preferable to synthetic compounds (even though cocaine and heroin, do come from the coca and opium plants). But when Carl pointed out that white affluents who use drugs are affirmed as psychonauts while black and brown people who use them are called “crackheads,” I realized that I was on shaky ethical ground. Actually, I was on no ground at all. I was a hypocrite.At first glance, legalizing all drugs sounds reckless but compared to the miserable, expensive and by now institutionalized 60-year failure that is the War on Drugs, it is eminently sane. That war has been lost. It has cost billions of dollars and has resulted in little more than filling our prisons with hundreds of thousands of mostly black and brown male citizens, not to mention ever rising rates of addiction, crime, violence and cartels. Einstein said that doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity. If we put a fraction of Drug War money into legalizing, dosing, and purity testing substances so those who wish to use them can do so more intelligently and safely than they are currently allowed under prohibition, we might be a better society.Would this lead to confusion? Will the voices of fear and darkness scream about the foolishness, or more likely, the immorality, of such a program? Will they ignore countries like Portugal, which decriminalized all drug use 20 years ago and has seen rates of addiction plummet? Might it also lead to more human treatment and deeper understanding of addiction? Would I have major doubts about its ability to succeed?The answer to all of those questions is ‘Yes.’ Can I envision how this would roll out practically? No. But that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be tried. as Dr. Hart says in this honest, heartfelt and truly awesome 100th podcast, ‘We put a man on the moon. Surely we can figure this out if we want to.’ Please be sure to tune into the interview with Bar Capital's CEO, Anand Shahi, on "New Rules for Investing in Cannabis" at the top of this episode. Bar Capital believes ancillary companies that are key to growing the cannabis industry are a great way to invest in the space and Anand is worth listening to. The company is a generous supporter of this podcast.This episode of Brave New Weed podcast is made possible with the support of Bar Capital. Bar Cap invests in, advises, and helps raise capital for companies and fund managers operating in the cannabis space. Bar Cap believes ancillary companies that are key to the growth of the cannabis industry are a great way to invest in the space. Their recent focus has been cutting edge developments in cannabis plant tissue culture and genetics. For a limited time, listeners of the Brave New Weed podcast have complimentary access to Bar Cap’s insights. Whether you’re a company looking to raise money or an accredited investor looking for insights, visit www.barcapital.com where you can fill out the contact form to take advantage of this offer. Make sure to mention the Brave New Weed podcast and a representative of Bar Cap will reach out to you. You’ll also find the full regulatory disclosures and risk disclaimers on their website.Each member of Bar Capital is a Registered Representative and offers securities through Stonehaven, LLC a Member of FINRA/SIPC.

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“Oneness...Forgiveness...Happiness...Feeling fuzzy.” We have a narrow range of words to describe complex feelings. But this group of underground scientists are using psychedelics and cannabinoids to trace the pathways in the brain that create those intricate feelings. This podcast is the cutting edge of psychedelic neuroscience, and it is mind boggling! One of the great things about traveling in cannabis and psychedelic circles is that you meet all sorts of geniuses working away in their own corners trying to understand things like the biochemical basis of consciousness and other tiny, insubstantial matters. These men and women look like normal, everyday people but when they open their mouths you realize that their brains function quite literally, at a higher level than yours. This happens to small-brained people like me frequently.Cody Gibbons is one such big-brained psychedelic neuroscientist who I met in the Bay Area over the summer. He has worked on cannabinoid research at companies including GW Pharmaceuticals, and is currently researching "psychedelics as tools to clarify the mind/body interface.”I had to know more. For example, he told me, “You can make high doses of melatonin psychoactive with THC. This produces the feeling you get at nightfall or dusk, when the sun goes down and the body begins to relax. A shift occurs, sort of the way your iPhone goes dark at night. Typically, we don't feel that shift unless the sun going down, but you can actually induce it at dawn with this THC/melatonin combination. You get the clear feeling that the day is ending in the morning.” That’s pretty provocative. To some extent it explains why psychedelics open what Aldous Huxley called “the reducing valve of consciousness” and make us feel so expansive when we use them.Rather than attempting to concentrate the many subjects this podcast covers into a few paragraphs, let me instead give you a few nuggets to chew on. I hope they will lead you to press the “Play” button and thereby expanding your own consciousness. “A lot of people understand “I feel fuzzy.” “Fuzzy” was a term coined by someone on psychedelics who felt soft on the inside. That’s an easy one. Our work is to understand the neural pathways of the more complex emotional states that most of us have.”“There are two types of forgiveness and two corresponding receptor groups. There’s forgiveness of self vs. forgiveness of others. As anyone who has ever taken MDMA knows, you can induce forgiveness of others without feeling forgiveness of self.” “Analogs to LSD are not technically scheduled. You can buy them and even potentially distribute them legally. Put them in a baggie that says 'not for human consumption' and give them away.”“I’ve realized that consciousness is something completely different than what anyone thought. There’s been a lot of focus on the anatomical structure of the brain. Of course that’s important, as it contributes to the function of our bodies. But the function of mind doesn’t stem from the anatomical structure, but more so from the receptor population patterns in the brain. We have all of these neurons, that each express different sets of receptors. These receptor populations stretch across different neurons and not others. Our consciousness is really a function of this super advanced biochemical computer — that’s not a surprise. The surprise is that it’s more biochemically based than electrically based.”If you’d like to learn more, check out these links.Thomas RayProfessor/work breakdownShulgin publishing on Tom Ray's workYoutube video presentationsAlexander ShulginRick Strassman: DMT The Spirit Molecule

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For years cannabis was slammed as a "gateway" to harder drugs. Dr. Dave Gordon begs to differ. After 20 years of treating people with medical cannabis he tells us how it can be used as a gateway to better health and habits. In the prohibitionist rhetoric of yore, cannabis was maligned as a “gateway drug,” meaning that it led users down the path to stronger and more “dangerous drugs,” cocaine or heroin or god forbid, psychedelics. As with much prohibitionist bunk there was never any evidence to this contention, but that never stopped our friends in law enforcement or politics from rehashing it for the next four decades. It hasn’t stopped them yet, even with reams of evidence showing exactly the opposite.The truth, of course, lies elsewhere: millions of people know that cannabis can be a gateway to improved health and wellness. It can help slow down our speeding world and enable people to change consciousness with far fewer deleterious effects than our legally sanctioned inebriant, alcohol. It can help us pay attention to the subtler things in life and in our own bodies. And it can certainly help us contend with the stress of everyday life. But cannabis can also be a gateway to other healthful benefits. “Knowing the history of cannabis prohibition can be a gateway to educating people about the long, terrible history of systemic racism in our country, and its profound impact on social inequality. Understanding the endocannabinoid system can be a gateway toward viewing disease in a wholistic systems approach, rather than the siloed model we’re taught where each disease is a problem with a single “system.” Once people slow down and really check in with themselves and their bodies, they might be able to do that with other things -- what they eat, how much they’ve slept, the amount of time they spend on their screens...It can be a gateway to better habits without cannabis.”The last paragraph is from a conversation I had with this week’s guest, Dr. Dave Gordon, a functional medicine physician in Denver, Colorado and a passionate advocate and educator whose 20 years of medical practice has brought him to the radical idea that “cannabis is a gateway substance in the truly modern sense.”I highly suggest you listen as we say good riddance to 2020 and welcome this new year that brings with it new and much needed hope. Footnote: Dr. Dave serves on the advisory board of Leaf 411, the fantastic free nursing hotline that educates and supports the general public about the safe use of cannabis. Click the link to learn more about this great, big hearted, service.This episode of Brave New Weed podcast is made possible with the support of Bar Capital. Bar Capital is a different class of investment firm. Their purpose is to help cannabis become as common and culturally accepted as aspirin or alcohol.Bar Cap invests in, advises, and helps raise capital for companies and fund managers operating in the cannabis space. They back entities that are innovative, audacious, and have great leadership. Bar Cap believes now is the time for Ultra High Net Worth Individuals, Family Offices, and Institutions to consider cannabis as an essential piece of an alternative investment portfolio.If you are looking to raise funding or are an accredited investor that would like to learn more about investing in the cannabis space, please visit www.barcapital.com and connect. You’ll also find the full regulatory disclosures and risk disclaimers on their website. Each member of Bar Capital is a Registered Representative and offers securities through Stonehaven, LLC a Member of FINRA/SIPC.

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“The FDA and CBD have a tripolar relationship. Hemp CBD is not scheduled. CBD from cannabis is Schedule 1--dangerous. Epidolex is Schedule 5--safe.” In 10 years CBD (cannabidiol) has gone from being a relatively unknown substance to a ubiquitous health and wellness balm sold in gas stations, corner grocers' and thousands of websites. Because it is still unregulated in the US, manufacturers make all sorts of breathless claims about what it can do. It stops epileptic seizures! Eases your dog’s arthritis! Erases your frown lines! And while some of these claims may be true it’s no surprise that a CBD backlash has started. Perhaps you’ve read reports about the “toxicity” of CBD or its potential to “damage our livers in the same ways as alcohol and other drugs” or that it is dangerous to take with Tylenol. Or maybe you've read FDA iwarnings that it can cause suicidal thoughts or increase tendency toward depression, aggression or panic attacks. To set the record straight, I called Adrian Devitt Lee, Project CBD’s chief science writer and a PhD candidate in applied math at the University College in London. Adrian is the co-author of several articles in peer-reviewed journals (check out Is CBD Toxic to the Liver and CBD and Drug Interactions) and has been involved in cannabinoid research since 2011 at California Pacific Medical Center, Medicinal Genomics, and CannaCraft. What you’ll hear in this interview might shock you but likely won’t surprise you. PS. As listeners to this podcast know, old myths about cannabis (and new myths about CBD) take on a life of their own. For context on how some myths die hard I’m including this article by the always brilliant Dr. Peter Attia on monosodium glutamate (MSG). Even though MSG has been proven safe for 60 years, it’s still falsely accused of causing “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome.” Attia traces the origin of the myth and how it continues to trump scientific evidence. Cannabis has been used for over 5,000 years with no serious harms ever reported yet the myths keep coming.

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Salvador Santana, the son of Carlos, is out with a socially-conscious cannabis lifestyle brand called VAYA. In this episode he talks about the pressures of filling his famous father's shoes and his determination to create something more than just another "celebrity-backed cannabis product." It can be difficult being the son of a legend, let alone being the son of a god. Salvador Santana, son of rock legend Carlos Santana, is well aware of that and he was gracious enough to come on the podcast knowing that I was going to explore that often difficult dynamic. His other motivation of course, was to talk about Vaya, his “socially-conscious lifestyle cannabis flower brand, which takes an all-natural, spiritual feminist tone driven from African (Yoruba) and Mexican indigenous roots.”It may sound woo-woo in this age of multinational tech-driven consumer branding that is becoming the cannabis “industry,” but it’s also refreshing to find an advocate who wants to rekindle the ways the plant has been used to heal and to expand consciousness and compassion across the globe. In this podcast Santana talks about the ritual ways of consuming that he has gleaned from his own Black and Chicano roots, as well as a relationship one can build with the plant. I’m no stranger to this way of thinking. Over my own life cannabis has served as a guide, a friend, a teacher and, at times, an antagonist and even an enemy. Like most important relationships you commit to, my relationship with cannabis isn’t one that I can completely control, but I have continually learned from every up and down. What you’ll hear running through this podcast is Salvador’s humility. He says he has no intention of being just another “celebrity backed cannabis brand” that commodifies spirituality, plant medicine and non-white heritage.” Ambitious and noble goals -- who would expect less from the son of a god?

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In The New Chardonnay author Heather Cabot followed the cannabis boom and bust. It isn't pretty.Heather Cabot is a fine journalist and a mom of a certain age. She is a part of a growing cohort of women that cannabis marketers call “Chardonnay moms.” These newly minted cannabists would use cannabis but abhor going to a dispensary to get it, prefer a discreet edible to smoking a joint, and are unlikely to tell their friends about their use. I enjoyed her recent book, The New Chardonnay, because it takes you on a rollicking ride through the boom boom days of the cannabis bubble, which has since burst. Cabot traveled the country with some colorful characters, including Snoop Dogg, who, she reveals on this podcast, refused to grant her an interview. She chronicles the illusions and delusions of people who were hoping to make a killing in cannabis and instead got killed thanks to some shady deals with some shady characters. Heather, who has never used the plant, learned a lot about it; still, at the end of this podcast she confesses that she would still be upset if her teenage sons tried it. That’s an interesting reaction, especially from someone who researched and understands the extraordinary safety profile of the plant. Old stigmas die hard -- even with this well educated chardonnay mom.On another note...Our friends at Sun + Earth are launching a crowdfunding campaign to create a certification program and educate consumers about regenerative organic cannabis growing. I support this organization and urge you to as well. While industrialized growing under energy sucking lights seems sadly inevitable, this Sun+Earth is promoting other regenerative sustainable models that can support small farmers and renew soil rather than deplete it. The crowdfunding campaign runs through December 20, 2020. To donate and learn about Sun+Earth, go here. Oh, and just a small $25 contribution will win you a bar of Dr. Bronner’s cannabis-scented soap, made with hemp derived terpenes and fair trade oils, which sounds like it will perk up any bathroom!

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The fabulous Dr. Swathi Varanasi argues that switched on pharmacists should play a major role in medical cannabis and CBD.Dr. Swathi is blazing a path into the new field of Integrative Pharmacology, one that blends the science of healing plant medicines with pharmaceuticals. It makes sense, since most of us are using some combination of the two already. It would help us all if we knew which compounds work better together and which combinations to avoid. Dr. Swathi has dedicated her practice to educating people and pharmacists about medical cannabis and CBD. She is also a consultant to Elementa Apothec, a new line of skincare, beauty and wellness CBD products hitting the market early next year. Disclosure: Swathi is the co-author of the “Cannabis Science and Therapeutics for Pharmacists” course that Medical Cannabis Mentor just launched (and is currently on sale). Her dedication so inspired me that I invited her to collaborate in creating the course. Life is short and we prefer working with people who inspire each other. Backstory on this episode: Matthew and I recorded this episode on November 4th, the day after the early voting results were tallied and just 8 hours after The Orange Loser lied again, declaring himself the winner of a second term. The fact that 70 million of my fellow citizens think this guy deserves more time in office explains the “heroin in my tea” line. Or, as my artist friend Tucker Hollingsworth put it more poetically, “Half the country is trying to leave a four year abusive relationship; the other half still doesn’t realize they were in one.” News Update: In case you somehow missed it five US states voted YES for legal cannabis. New Jersey, Arizona, Montana and South Dakota (!) went for full adult use. Mississippians voted for medical cannabis. Voters in Oregon and Washington DC approved legal psychedelic therapies (which I want to begin immediately given the aforementioned PTSD of the last four years).Georgia on Our Minds: If you're interested in finishing the election job and flipping the senate, here's a great list of organizations and ways to volunteer in Georgia or from your home. This is an epic battle. Don't sit on the sidelines, friends.Shameless Self Promotion: Grasslands, one of the finest cannabis-focused PR firms, is running a series of interviews with journalists in the cannabis space. If you feel the need to read more of my sparkling wit, click here. If not, just hit the podcast.See you soon!

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Brian Vicente is one of the leading architects of Colorado’s groundbreaking adult use laws. On this podcast he weighs in on the challenges and opportunities of helping those who’ve been unfairly targeted by the War on Drugs. 

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Authors and fitness professionals Bruce and Mindy Mylrea go deep about plants, penises, prostate cancer, and how to be married for decades and still have great sex. Use code BRAVE20 for 20% Off & Free Shipping on any order at TryMicrodose.com.By now you all know that I’ve been having a tough time sleeping. The election, the burning planet, the Supreme Court, are all disrupting my sacred dream states. Thankfully, the fine people at Lumi Labs heard my plight and sent me a bottle of their new product, Microdose. It’s a proprietary “balanced spectrum blend of CBD, THC, CBG and I love it. Even my pillow loves it as we’ve been spending much more quality time together. As listeners of this podcast you’re entitled to a 20% discount plus free shipping for as many orders as you place. Go to TryMicrodose.com and enter the Brave20 code. Pass the code along to anyone—the Lumi’s want everyone to rest assured.I’ve eaten a plant-based diet for most of my adult life but I never thought it could have a profound impact my penis or my prostate. My guests this week, Bruce and Mindy Mylrea, tell me otherwise. They are the authors of two books, The Plant Powered Approach to Prostate Cancer and The Plant Powered Penis (best title of the year) and this interview goes deep about the research backing up the claim. Bruce, a cancer survivor, also talks about the ways our favorite plant helped him grapple with the difficult side effects of chemotherapy, and how it helped him make the big life changes that keep him cancer free.The other amazing aspect of this interview? This couple have been married and monogamous for multitudes of decades and they still have sex. Great sex, they say, which they also attribute to the power of the plants. That’s reason enough to listen to this podcast and share it widely.

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Five US states are voting to legalize this November. In this exclusive interview, Graham Boyd -- lawyer, strategist, and brilliant behind-the-scenes progressive operative -- tells us how he convinced voters in 12 previous ballot initiatives to vote YES. (Hint: Not by telling them that marijuana is great!)In 1996 California voters defied conventional wisdom by legalizing cannabis for medical conditions. Few people thought this ballot initiative would succeed -- it was opposed by almost every "expert" and politician on earth. It likely wouldn’t have succeeded without the bucks of the philanthropists Peter Lewis and George Soros and the brains of Graham Boyd. By polling and interviewing thousands of people, Graham determined that the standard messages activists had been feeding voters -- that MJ wasn’t as bad as what they’d been taught -- was not going get the undecided to vote YES on legalization. Cut to 2010. Colorado and Washington are voting to legalize. In the run up to those ballot initiatives Boyd unearthed another factor that could persuade people who were on the fence. “We learned that people form their opinions about marijuana from their own life experiences rather than what some expert tells them,” he told me from his office in Santa Cruz, CA. “If you had positive experiences with marijuana when you were younger, that’s what you know to be true. But if your Uncle Bob spent his adult life on the sofa watching TV and smoking weed, it doesn’t matter how many studies you line up, the truth for you is probably that Uncle Bob smoked too much weed and that’s why he failed in life.”As it turned out, this type of thinking was especially true for a huge group, mostly politically moderate women. They just didn’t like cannabis. They didn’t hate it but if they had a magic wand they would make it go away. At the same time, they also felt that locking people in prison for carrying a few joints was a terrible idea. The campaign messages ended up something like: “It’s not that I like marijuana, but what we’re doing now isn’t working.” Activists hated that messaging but it changed the fortunes of legalization efforts in Colorado, Washington and a dozen 12 subsequent ballot initiatives, all architected by Boyd. “We learned that you can give that big group in the middle information and reassurance that moves them to be more strongly supportive,” he said. Laws don’t change spontaneously. Change requires big bucks, big data and big brains to know what do with it. This interview dives deep into how to keep the wheels of change advancing, especially since voters in conservative states like Montana, Mississippi and South Dakota are voting on legalizing in 2020.In hindsight, changing marijuana laws was a snap compared to Boyd’s new project: convincing Oregon voters to approve a program to license psychedelic assisted therapy, primarily with psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms. “Believe me,” he says, “the vast majority of Oregon voters have never heard the word “psilocybin” or that it can be useful to treat depression or PTSD or end of life depression. If we can communicate that it is safe and can help people with terminal illnesses spend the last year of their lives happy rather than depressed, that’s a compelling message.”Listen in to this exclusive interview with one of the great change agents of this movement. And follow this link to learn more about the work the Psychedelic Science Funder’s Collaborative is doing to make change happen.

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It took someone with the culinary skills of Anthony Bourdain and the persistence of a mad scientist to attack the edible dilemma. Meet Ron Silver.This episode is sponsored by Azuca. Go to AZUCA.CO and type in in BNW30. 5% of all sales go to the Last Prisoner Project. This code is good for two months.Back when we started this podcast we interviewed Ron Silver, then Chef and Owner of the NYC restaurant Bubby’s for nearly three decades. The title of “chef” isn’t really an accurate way to describe Ron. He’s an original, a painter, a writer, a thinker and, as it turned out, a home chemist, a restless, curious, creative -- the kind of person that makes New York a great place to live.Back in 2018, Ron was trying to solve the problem of edibles. He was unsatisfied having to wait hours for effects to kick in and most people he knew had no idea how to dose them. Edibles can be complicated to gauge because THC and CBD both have to pass through the digestive tract and then the liver, before they can be metabolized into the bloodstream. [Hint: If you’re new to edibles, start with 5 mg THC. If that doesn’t take you where you want to go, escalate to 10 mg. Go slow from there or you may find yourself cowering in a corner from over consuming]. As a chef, Ron was also bothered by the grassy, barnyard taste that cannabis oils tend to have once extracted.Fast forward to today and Ron has cracked the code of edible dosing and taste with his line of products called Azuca. The line has three products to date, CBD infused sugar, simple syrup and chocolate coins, and a whole lot more including some incredible THC “electrolytes” is on the way as you’ll learn in this podcast. He also struck a partnership deal with Wana Brands in Colorado, which earlier this year released Quick fast-acting gummies in Strawberry Margarita, Peach Bellini and Indici Pina Colada flavors. All produce delicious effects in 10-15 minutes using Azuca technology.Ron was one of the earliest supporters of this podcast. He is a great interview and I’m thrilled to have him back again. ##Dr. Chin has written another excellent blog on using cannabis meds to help COVID-related PTSD. Another incredible story on how these meds can work for people who have cycled through every pharma product in the book. Have a look at it on our medical cannabis education site, Medical Cannabis Mentor.Also, Sept 19 - 26 is National Expungement Week, which offers virtual and in-person legal services to some of the millions of Americans who need legal advice, expungement services and education in states including California, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Missouri, New York, New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Washington. To learn more click here.

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Be sure to listen to the main interview with photographer Ted Kinsman as you view the link from this post. And be sure to listen to the new way the DEA is trying to kill the hemp industry in its infancy. This episode pairs best with a laptop! It includes a portfolio of remarkable scanning electron microscopic (SEM) photos of the cannabis plant, which is rarely seen at this level of detail. These images will blow your mind—and you don’t need to be stoned to appreciate them. They were shot by Ted Kinsman, associate professor in the Photographic Sciences Department at Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York and an admitted plant lover. While not a cannabis aficionado, Ted loves to peer deep into places that the human eye cannot see and this set of images will show you the magic trichomes, bracts and other elements make up the inflorescence. I recommend you click this link and listen to Ted’s descriptions of each image as you listen. Note: cannabis is not this colorful, unless, of course, you are under its influence. Ted explains the logic and magic of his hand coloring. If you’d like to own a copy of Ted’s (redundantly titled) but amazing book, Cannabis: Marijuana Under the Microscope, click here.The opening segment of this episode is an interview with Andrew Rosner, a lawyer and owner of HR Botanicals, LLC, which produces CBD products under its Source Botanica brand. Andrew is also Vice President of the New York State Cannabis Growers and Processors Association.Last week the DEA released "Interim Final Rules" that Rosner and other CBD processors say are an existential threat to their emerging industry. Rosner is one of the few people who have read the rules microscopically and is concerned that the DEA could use them in all sorts of nefarious ways that he outlines in this podcast. One of them allows the DEA to go into a field to test hemp plants for THC content. If any of the plants are are found to exceed .3% THC -- which many do before they are processed -- the DEA can shut down the farm and confiscate the plants. In this interview Andrew explains just how damaging this is to farmers and processors and why the larger cannabis industry isn’t taking to the streets in protest.If you are connected with anyone in the CBD processing or hemp business be sure to share this podcast with them as these “interim” rules are already in effect. However, the DEA is accepting public comments until October, 20, 2020. Be sure to read the Interim Final Rules and comment here.And Pass This Podcast Along! The DEA is not a friend of this growing industry!

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Former governor and vice presidential candidate, William Weld, says that when he and Gary Johnson ran for president on a platform to "delist cannabis on Day One," they won 4.5 million votes. Would Biden-Harris like those 4.5 million votes in this election?There’s no question about who I’m voting for in November given the gravity of climate change, the pandemic, income inequality and the damage Republicans have heaped on the country. But I remain confused about the Biden/Harris fuzzy stance on cannabis legalization. As of this writing Biden is for decriminalization not legalization, which sounds like he’s interested in dating but not really getting serious about the marriage. Harris has been (unfairly IMO) slammed by progressives for her “tough” prosecutions of cannabis crimes while Attorney General in California, but she is also the co-sponsor of the MORE Act, The Marijuana Opportunity, Reinvestment, and Expungement Act, a vital piece of bipartisan legislation that removes marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act, federally decriminalize cannabis, and enable states to set their own policies. NORML deemed it “arguably the most revolutionary and socially conscious federal marijuana reform bill introduced to date.”That ain’t nothin’.Could cannabis legalization be the issue that turns the tide of this election? It may sound far-fetched, but it is the one issue that both Blues and Reds seem to agree on and no one is addressing it very loudly.To get some clarity on the Dem’s position, I invited William Weld, the popular former governor of Massachusetts and former Libertarian vice presidential candidate in the 2016 election alongside Gary Johnson, to appear on this podcast. I’ve known Bill for several years -- I interviewed him at a cannabis conference in 2018 and even though we are on opposite sides of the aisle, I respect his intelligence, cool headed analysis and bone dry sense of humor. This was part of his response: “….As you know, when Gary Johnson ran for President in 2016—not so long ago—on a platform whose Number One plank was to “delist cannabis on Day One,” he received 4.5 million votes. It seems fair to ask the Biden-Harris ticket if they would like to have those 4.5 million votes.”I invite you to listen to our conversation.

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“I look at this herb as part of my diet. We have an ECS and we can become deficient and we can supplement it with these phytocannabinoids.” Tom Stacey, host of the Kannaboom podcast, on how and why he became a cannabis advocate and podcaster.People aren’t waiting for researchers to validate the benefits of cannabis and CBD. Tom Stacey is one of those people. After his brother had a car accident that left him with epilepsy, Tom watched his brother’s health decline, a decline he attributed to the mountain of pharmaceuticals his doctors prescribed. After his brother died, Tom decided to reexamine and reignite his relationship with the plant. Now he does a podcast, Kannaboom, that is devoted to reinventing the narrative of “marijuana as the devil’s lettuce” and guides people to well made and safe CBD products and information.(Until recently, Tom’s podcast was called Kannaboomer, as it was aimed at listeners 50+ whose bodies (and sleep patterns) were falling apart. But he found that people of a certain age weren’t online searching for information so he renamed his show to Kannaboom.)One of the mysteries about cannabis and the Baby Boom generation is this: Boomers were born during Woodstock and the hippie revolution. As teenagers or college students so many smoked pot or were exposed to it and knew it wasn’t going to kill you. But once they hit their 30s they turned to alcohol as the socially approved substance. Somehow the propaganda and storytelling about it frying your brain, killing your sperm or destroying your memory ingrained itself in their psyches and they too became fearful of the plant.In this episode we explore that myth that and present some of the realities about this “people’s medicine” that grows in the ground and can never kill you, no matter how much you take. Tom also guides you to some of the better CBD products on the market.

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In a word: Yes, according to Dr. Tim Shu, the Pet Vet.A while ago when I was visiting my sister I got an urgent call one evening. Her very gorgeous and naughty labradoodle, Spencer, was wobbling around the house and then fell into a deep sleep. A little investigation showed that he had climbed on to my bed, sniffed around my luggage and somehow managed to open (!) and down a tin of Kiva chocolate covered cannabis coffee beans. We estimated he ate about 50mg of THC . What should we do?Her vet had no idea. If only I had known Tim Shu then. I’d have asked him the question that so many listeners of this podcast ask regularly: Are CBD and cannabis products safe for pets?To learn more how to use cannabis products for dogs, cats horses (let’s not forget ferrets, rabbits, pigs, rodents, and horses) I snagged an interview with this California-based “Pet Vet” one of the few who has taken the lead in using cannabinoids to treat animals.Among the topics we discussed:How safe is CBD for pets?Short answer: CBD has a wide margin of safetyWhat are the most common side effects?Short answer: Diarrhea or sedationDo CBD/cannabinoids work for arthritis? Short answer: Yes, especially with catsHow did you get into this?Long answer: When I first started the company many people thought it was a crazy idea. Some still do. But humans didn't get to where we are now by being content with the status quo.The way medicine is practiced today is not the same as it was 50 or even 10 years ago. The reason is because it's improving and better options and therapies are available. The way medicine is practiced tomorrow will not be the way it's practiced today, it will improve. It is up to us to push for those improvements. If cannabis has therapeutic potential, we have a moral and ethical obligation to our patients and clients to thoroughly evaluate that potential.To learn more, check out https://vetcbd.com/Also…Please check out Dr. June Chin’s great blog post on the underreported correlations between COVID, gut issues and cannabinoids. You can find here it on MedicalCannabisMentor.com.Also… I just finished reading Entangled Life by the young scientist and fantastic writer, Merlin Sheldrake and I can’t recommend it highly enough. The book is a fantastic underground tour of fungi and their pivotal role that enables so much of the natural world to thrive. Sheldrake is a superb storyteller and the narrative is as compelling as any adventure thriller I’ve read recently. It’s also a great companion to Michael Pollan’s How To Change Your Mind as well as the mind-bending film, Fantastic Fungi. Sheldrake’s work made me wish I could dig a hole and hang out in this hidden and magical world that thrives just a few inches beneath my feet.Try to buy it from an indie bookseller if you can. Amazon made enough billions last month.

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The US government owns Patent #6,630,507 on cannabinoids that protect the brain from injury but the DEA still blocks anyone except a small farm in Mississippi from growing cannabis for medical research. What are the drug enforcers so afraid of?

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This episode features Matt Zachary, the founder of OffScrip Media. Matt is 1) an amazing human on a mission and 2) a loudmouth who is unafraid of calling bullshit. Those two qualities combined are his superpower. At age 21 Matt was diagnosed with brain cancer. His medical treatment was successful but the way the system treated him left him indignant. “When you’re 8 or 80 you’re treated age appropriately. When you’re not 8 or 80, no one cares about your quality of life. Survival rates for our generation hadn’t improved in 30 years and that was bullshit. I figured it was time for us to save ourselves because no one else gave a rat’s ass about it.”After Matt got his health and life (but not his hair) back, he formed Stupid Cancer, a nonprofit patient advocacy network that grew into the world’s largest young adult cancer community. He also hosted The Stupid Cancer Radio Show. It was angry, wry, funny and full of audacious information on how to survive the humiliations of the disease and of a health care system that showed little mercy. The show amassed millions of listeners around the world and Matt, never one for politeness, was dubbed the Howard Stern of Cancer Advocacy.In 2019 Matt stepped away from Stupid Cancer to start OffScrip Media, which he describes as the first podcasting network at the intersection of patient advocacy, education, and digital health. His flagship show, “Out of Patients,” tells stories of healthcare heroes and helps patients navigate the bureaucracy, wrestle with difficult to understand information in hopes of giving them control over their illness and treatments.Cannabis obviously has a huge role to play in this mission and we are thrilled to join Matt’s new venture as a podcast on his network. Our aim is to bring the knowledge about the plant, and the most-up-to-date ways to use it to anyone anywhere in the world who wants it. That’s why our collaboration makes so much sense. Our two voices combined are so much louder together. A few highlights of our conversation:“In healthcare, progress is like the stock market…Compared to 1996 when I was diagnosed, we have come really far. Yes, we still have a fakakta healthcare sector that puts profits over patients -- it took them a long time to realize that the end user is the patient and not the doctor. But I see a light at the end of the tunnel, with telehealth, personalized medicine, and realizing that the cost of care affects the bottom line to a company, not just the wallet of the patient.” “No one considered the humanity of cancer patients 20 years ago…. But advocacy to me meant one thing…dignity. Yes, there is quality of care, but quality of life is tantamount to quality of care. To me that’s advocacy: Making sure that what you go through sucks as little as possible.” “I’ve been touting the value of cannabis in cancer, not necessarily to get stoned but to get well, to help create credibility for the people who have the research and have the knowledge. We support the notion that you have a right to achieve the level of wellness that you deserve without breaking the law…you didn’t ask to get sick you just want to feel a little better. Cannabis advocacy and cancer is at the top of my list to bring forward in this new chapter.”Finally, the great scholar and legalization advocate, Dr. Lester Grinspoon, died last week at age 92. I pay tribute to him on the cast and here is his obit in the New York Times. Lester is perhaps the only doctor to have the honor of having a strain named after him. According to the Dutch grower, "Dr. Grinspoon is an old school sativa of the highest order, which gives a strong, long-lasting, energetic and cerebral high.” RIP, Dr. G.

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An insider's view of Reagan's War on Drugs and how the Trump administration continues to keep that war going in very different ways.This may be the most painful podcast I’ve done, not because Ed Weidenfeld isn’t a compelling guest, but because he suffers from Parkinson’s Disease, which makes speaking enormously challenging. But I urge you to stick with it -- you may have to wait a few seconds for Ed’s responses, but the words and insight that come from his mouth is worth the wait. Also, his is a great story: there aren’t many 70 year olds who once worked as a lawyer in the Reagan (War on Drugs) White House, and who today are unapologetic cannabis advocates and business owners. On this podcast Ed shares his view from the inside: The spark that unleashed Reagan’s WoD: “It had nothing to do with drugs or politics. Mrs. Ford had the Equal Rights Amendment, Mrs. Johnson had beautification. When Mrs. Reagan declared “Just Say No” suddenly everyone knew you could please the president by fighting the War on Drugs.”The hypocrisy of watching a policy he knew was wrong being carried out: “It’s the same message I’ve given to people working on the inside of the Trump administration -- is that with a major policy like the WoD you can effect a change at the margins, maybe... You become immune to the hypocrisy you’re participating in.” His entry into the cannabis business: “I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s a dozen years ago but I had gone to the University of Wisconsin in Madison and been exposed enough to marijuana that I knew it wasn’t going to do me any harm and, if I bought from the the right people, maybe it would do me some good. Which it has...I became so friendly with the fellow that I bought it from that we formed a partnership and now we’re licensed cultivators in DC and Maryland.”Why the Trump administration continues to hamper the growth of America’s next boom industry: “I’m just cynical enough to think it’s getting a push from the pharmaceutical industry, the alcohol industry, the tobacco industry, the Evangelical movement, and private prisons.” And... Where’s Melania? “I don’t have any idea of where she is but I don’t think her priority is finding a project that will improve America.” PS: Dr. Chin just posted this new blog on Women's Sexual Health and cannabis. It's an emerging topic and the blog is full of great information. Please share it widely.

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Plus, some gentle ranting on the George Floyd murder/protest and how the cannabis industry can meaningfully respond.Preamble: The firestorm of the last two weeks has been smoldering for decades. I haven’t watched and cannot stomach the 9-minute George Floyd snuff film, but the shock of the it has finally awakened the country. I, like many millions, hope that the protests can amend the broken policing and justice systems and finally rid the country of the corruption and malfeasance occupying the White House and Senate.Show notes: I recorded this podcast with Alex Halperin, founder and editor-in-chief of WeedWeek a month before the country erupted. The main part of this interview centers around WeedWeek’s Guide to the California Cannabis Industry, which is available at no fee. No one thought legalizating a state of 40 million people and where the current market is estimated at $3-5 Billion was going to be easy, but no one imagined it would become a bloodbath. California taxes weed at 40% and regulates the industry “more strictly than radioactive waste,” as industry veteran Steve DeAngelo put it. Both factors have kept the illegal market thriving. But there is still much hope that The Golden State can solve some it’s problems. And remember as California goes, so goes the country, so it’s worth watching, especially as some 10 additional states prepare to vote for adult use or medical in the November election (not all ballot initiatives have yet gathered the requisite number of signatures). Gentle rant: Honing in on one topic that Halperin and I touched on briefly: the disregard that many of the more “successful” state legalization programs have for social equity or restitution programs. So many citizens and communities have been disproportionately affected by the Drug Wars and the prison industrial complex but not enough industry leaders have taken up the call for restitution. We have devoted a few (not enough) podcasts to these issues but it is clear that they should be addressed forcefully right now.This is a golden opportunity to create a more fair and just cannabis industry. I don’t think profit should be the sole definition of “success.” Every cannabis company should think about instituting training, development and education programs that help to make amends for the injustices of the past (and present) and build a more inclusive future. Yes, it’s difficult to create such programs. They take time and money and there are no guarantees, but that doesn’t mean the effort should be glossed over. As William Faulkner noted: “The past is not dead. It’s not even past.” This is especially true with the racism that continues to underlie cannabis prohibition and keep people out of the industry. Random Final Notes: It goes without saying but I’m going to say it anyway: Make sure you’re registered to vote. Even if you feel that voting is an inadequate response to the primacy of the moment, read Stacey Abrams’ essay on the importance of this seemingly inconsequential act. Hear her out and then just do it. Al Sharpton’s eulogy at the George Floyd memorial was extraordinary. It was as if he waited his entire life to deliver this searing indictment of the power structure that took Mr. Floyd’s life. His oratory ensures that the phrase “Get your knee off our necks” will become the battle cry for this moment in time. If you have some pennies laying around think about tossing a few to NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. This org has been fighting the racial justice for 50 years and has never wavered from this position.This insightful essay by Eric Altieri, NORML’s Executive Director, spells out the struggle without glossing over the difficulties ahead. For a wise inquiry on the ways we white Americans can respond to the open wound of racism, listen to Tara Brach’s talk, A Courageous Presence With Racism. It’s honest and at times tough and this white man couldn’t stop thinking about it. And remember, every protest counts, even if you’re the only one. (Thank you, Dave Pell)

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Colleges of all levels are being ravaged by COVID. Students are leaving and not coming back, some are thinking of taking a gap year, and still others are taking courses closer to home. Rob Mejia, professor of cannabis studies, says this may be the time that higher learning institutions finally embrace cannabis studies.When I first met Rob Mejia, around January BC (Before COVID), his role as a professor of pot studies at Stockton University made him a rare bird. Today, however, state and community colleges and continuing education programs across the country have a much more urgent interest in attracting and retaining students. Cannabis studies are one way to increase and steady enrollment, and Rob is seen as prescient. In the post-COVID economy, where jobs are more scarce, students will be gravitating toward industries that are expanding rather than contracting. This puts cannabis in an excellent position. To date, the cannabis industry has added 240,000 jobs, more if you include ancillary/support professions like branding, financial services, photography, insurance, lawyers and more lawyers. That number will expand as more states legalize adult use – citizens of New Jersey, Arizona and Pennsylvania, Florida and a half dozen more will vote on it in November. Unlike retail or fashion, cannabis is on a growth curve -- in 2019 it expanded 15-20% depending on the state. 2020 may not see the same steady spike but it will still be one of the country’s few boom industries, despite the regulatory, banking and legal hurdles it must contend with. A confession and (shameless self-promotion): Rob’s education company, Our Community Harvest, and mine, Medical Cannabis Mentor, have joined forces to bring effective and cost effective online cannabis education to college students. We’re creating courses on budtending, cultivation, cooking, science and medical cannabis -- and we're looking to speak to leaders in higher education. Special Bonus 1: At the end of Rob’s spring semester he asked me to critique the senior presentations of one class. I agreed and we selected 7 to share with you here: https://youtu.be/t2cZwUSwGmI. There are some surprising topics and investigations within, all of which bode well for the next generation of industry leaders.Special Bonus 2: If you’re like most people I know, you’re having trouble sleeping and it's getting worse the longer COVID goes on. For detailed info on how to wisely use cannabis to catch some zzzzs, check out this great blog, “Help! I Need a Good Night’s Sleep!”Special Bonus 3: Dr. Sunil Aggarwal, a frequent and distinguished guest on this podcast, is the subject of this article, How Cannabis Coevolved with Humanity, and Could Save It. While I’m dubious of any one thing being able to save humanity from its own destruction, cannabis remains the only crop that supplies us with three essential necessities, food, fiber, and drugs, which makes it unique and even more special than you thought.Special Bonus 4: Is Trump Worse Than Hitler? Even if you find that title hyperbolic, or think the question is without merit, I urge you to listen to this lucid interview with Noam Chomsky hosted by my friend, Linda Solomon Wood, founder and editor-in-chief of Canada's National Observer. Special Bonus 5: Have a look at this interesting and underreported view of how Africa has contained COVID and in particular, the COVID killing possibilities of African wormwood. A plant!Special Bonus 7: The Hidden History of CBD. A fine piece illustrating how stoners and stories were key to unlocking the mysteries of that other molecule. We'll be exploring this more in upcoming episodes. That's enough!

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Not many of us think of adding 1mg of melatonin with THC to ensure a deeper, longer night’s sleep… or blending ashwagandha with CBD to better cope with stress…or mixing St. John’s Wort with cannabinoids to better cope with pain. But Dr. Kevin Spelman is a molecular biologist, industry consultant and a clinician who has observed that a mix of plant medicines can be more healing than just one individual plant on its own.Spelman is that rare breed of scientist whose worldview integrates the wisdom of the east and the hard science of the west. He has worked as an Ayurvedic clinician and alongside Chinese medicine practitioners as well as being a researcher at the National Institutes of Health. It was in the NIH labs where he learned just how skeptically plant science was viewed by his colleagues. “When I spoke about certain molecules, my colleagues were all in,” he told me before I recorded this podcast, “but the minute I started talking about medicinal plants they’d turn suspect. I could almost see the thought bubble appear above their heads: ‘Quack! This guy can’t possibly be for real.’”This podcast is full of very real science about the mysterious world of plant medicines. In it, Spelman broaches three areas I want you to know about.Herbal allies. Especially relevant in the time of COVID-19 are the benefits of using echinacea, astragalus, and ashwagandha to strengthen our immune response. But he also explains that these substances should be combined thoughtfully rather than randomly thrown together. “One of the classic mistakes naturopaths make is just putting all in there. When you combine things properly you can induce emergent properties that you wouldn’t see with just one compound.”Low dose cannabinoids. We are big proponents of low dose cannabis medicines on this podcast. Spelman points out that there is a scientific phenomenon called “hormesis” in which a low dose of a substance, like cannabis or psilocybin, can have beneficial results while a higher dose can cause symptoms to worsen. “I had a lot of sciatica pain, maybe a 6 or 7 out of 10," he says, "and I didn’t want to use THC because my job demands I be critically observant. I found a sub-threshold dose of less than 1.5 mg of THC allowed me to work clear headed without a lot of pain.”Diet. Spelman points out that modern society is drugging illnesses that can be traced to what he calls a “phytonutrient deficiency.” His solution is the same that Michael Pollan arrived at while writing The Omnivore’s Dilemma: “Eat more plants.”Listen in to learn more on this emerging field, and be sure to read Kevin’s most recent blog on Powering Up Your Immune Response with Cannabinoids and Botanicals.And please read "Practical COVID Tips as We Open" (and musical accompaniment) by the always impressive Dr. Jeff Chen at UCLA. We can't rely on the administration to give reliable info so we must rely on the smartest scientists we know. Jeff is another one worth listening to.

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If you’re like me, you’re using more cannabis these days. Dr. Julie Holland, psychiatrist and author of the upcoming Good Chemistry, talks about how to use plant substances to encourage connection and heal our heads and hearts in these challenging times.There aren’t many psychiatrists who comfortably use the word “soul” in their work or who speak openly about the extraordinary states of connectedness that substances like cannabis, MDMA, and psilocybin offer -- connection with ourselves, with each other or with the cosmos. But Dr. Julie Holland is not a typical prescription-pushing psychiatrist. She understands that medications like SSRIs and sleeping pills don’t provide pleasure or peace or even truly restful sleep and that they may be actually interfering with the brain’s capacity to fix things in our lives that aren’t working.Her new book, Good Chemistry, is a deep exploration of the neurotransmitter Oxytocin that allows us to trust and bond. It provides a fresh look on how our brains are wired to reward us for being and working together and liberate us from what Julie calls the “epidemic of disconnection and loneliness. (Listeners of this podcast will be familiar with this topic that was covered in Episode 40, “How to Access Your Brain’s Stash of Pleasure Chemicals.”)It may seem like a terrible timing for a book about the biochemistry of connection, given the enforced states of isolation and Zoomification we’re learning to grow accustomed to. But in fact, the timing is perfect for this enlightening and deliciously readable book that explains our hard wired biological and biochemical need for connection. Julie is an entertaining writer and an empath who explains in human terms the biological and psychological reasons we’re all feeling buried under an avalanche of stress, distraction and lack of focus these days and offers some practical, plant based ways of coping. It’s also got some of the best, up-to-the-minute info on cannabis and CBD I’ve read anywhere, all delivered with Julie’s warm hearted sense of humor.I know I’m not alone when I say that mustering motivation is a struggle these days. Just a few weeks ago when this pandemic hit I fantasized about using some of this extra time to finally get fluent in Spanish, start that new book proposal, or read Jane Austin, maybe even Melville. But the Great Pause has turned into the Great Paucity of achievement. Finding focus has been near impossible. The background worrying about my health and that of everyone around me, the existential dread of economic ruin, the daily trauma of watching Trump and the country melt down have resulted in chronic distraction and lack of inspiration. Most days I feel like I’m swimming upstream in a river of tar just to get through my email.This is why I wanted to talk to Julie – to get her take on fortifying our mental health to help us endure the new normal of our COVID and post-COVID worlds. Of particular interest: How can we utilize plant meds to brace ourselves for what is to come? How can they help us replace that distressing “fight or flight” response with the gentler “protect and connect” response or ease our physical or emotional pain? Or even just enable us to view this crazy period with a bit of distance and levity, the power of which is not to be underestimated. As Julie observes in Good Chemistry: “What else can make you stressed? Paradoxically, both being separated from those we love and spending time with those same people. Isn’t life funny? If you smoked cannabis, you’d think so.”So consider this interview your very own free 50-minute hour with one of the smartest, switched on psychiatrists working today.It’s my gift to you, as is this link to advance ordering of “Good Chemistry.” It’s out in June from Harper Wave. It’s a great read.Here's another bonus gift: Molecular biologist Dr. Kevin Spelman tells you how to boost your your immune system with a mix of cannabis meds and herbal supplements. This is great stuff, very next level.

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And check out the all new digital version of The Emperor is out now, with dozens of links to original articles, historical documents and movies!To our dear listeners: Happy 420 in advance! This is going be a strange one for most of us who are used to celebrating and sharing joints, pipes, bongs in the company of friends. These days NOT SHARING IS CARING and though it’s necessary and crucial (despite what some Republican governors are still insisting), it can feel so damn difficult at certain moments, especially on holidays. Last year at this time I was in San Francisco, a city that treats 420 like a national holiday. There were parades and people swarming the streets making all manner of merriment. This year it is a more solitary experience. Holidays in the time of COVID can strain the human spirit because they make you aware of all that isn’t happening and everything that you’re not participating in. So, to counter that wistfulness I’m bringing you this interview with Dan Herer, the son of Jack Herer, the author of the 1985 classic: The Emperor Wears No Clothes. Dan and co-author Bruce Dietzen have created a magical brand new digital version of The Emperor with dozens of links to original articles, artifacts, historical documents and movies (yep, you can see “Hemp For Victory,” the film the US government made when it needed hemp during WW2 then denied making once the war ended). It’s a real treat, especially if you’re passing this 420 in quarantine or in solitude or if you’re in need of a green distraction to counter the blues that the entire world is feeling. Download it here for $9.99 If you don’t know The Emperor, it was the first book to tell the truth about cannabis and hemp. It came out in 1985, smack in the middle of the Reagan “Just Say No” era and it laid bare 80 years of lies and propaganda. It also documented how cannabis and hemp were among the most useful plants on planet earth and showed the ways that hemp could be used to replace fossil fuels and unsustainable building materials. It even featured Henry Ford and the car he built from hemp in 1941. Today Mercedes and Bugatti use hemp to make car doors more crash resistant (apparently when mixed with certain plastic fibers it is ten times as strong as steel.) With over 700,000 copies sold it’s fair to say that The Emperor changed the world. It set the record straight, educated and inspired generations of activists, and helped lay the intellectual groundwork for medical cannabis legalization in California a decade later. In our interview, Dan talks about what his dad was really like (I’ve always thought he was a salty character—the rat-tat-tat fury of his writing makes that clear), his fierce opposition to cannabis until a woman friend changed his mind, and how being locked in jail for 15 days inspired the book’s creation. I hope you enjoy this interview and this photo montage that Dan put together for the Brave New Weed podcast community.Bonus: Here's a special report on COVID-19 and Cannabis created by Dr. Junella Chin, my partner and the Chief Medical Officer of our online education company, MedicalCannabisMentor.com. It answers many of the questions she's getting every day from patients and adult use consumers around the country. And a special thanks to our Patreon supporters: YOU OUR ANCHORS AND YOUR SUPPORT MEANS EVERYTHING. IT KEEPS US GOING!

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Dr. Sunil Aggarwal on using cannabis in palliative care and Michael Monarch on how the pandemic is changing the way his small dispensary does business.Sometimes in a crisis small acts of individual courage or kindness can help change our culture’s narrative -- or at least I'm hoping they can. This week I’m continuing to ask cannabis professionals how they are coping professionally and personally with the ways COVID is changing their lives. Dr. Sunil Aggarwal is a medical geographer (a profession that has major significance when tracking the spread of infectious diseases) and an integrative physician in Seattle, WA, specializing in palliative care with patients near end of life. He has been an outspoken advocate of cannabis throughout his career and in this interview speaks movingly on the power of using cannabis (and other substances) in this difficult and powerful work. Michael Monarch owns Green Valley Wellness, a small dispensary in Talent, OR. He joins me to talk about how COVID is changing dispensary life now and perhaps forever. Think about it: One time-tested way of guiding patients/customers to the right variety is by educating them about terpenes and smells – “the nose knows,.” But no one's nostrils are getting anywhere near a bud these days. So what’s to follow? Michael shares his organization’s approach (including painting yellow dots on the sidewalk to guide people to proper social distancing) as they institute universal precautions. Six Escapist Strategies: If you’re like me, you’re trying (and failing) to limit your media intake these days. The following reads and videos were sent to me by listeners of this podcast and I have found each other them in turns nourishing, provocative and distracting. Use them accordingly. Charles Eisenstein is a cultural investigative journalist and writer who always causes me to question conventional and counter cultural assumptions of my thinking. In this essay, The Coronation, he looks at COVID, not so much as an opportunity, but as a requirement to rethinking the crises besieging our planet. “We can normalize heightened levels of separation and control, believe that they are necessary to keep us safe, and accept a world in which we are afraid to be near each other. Or we can take advantage of this pause, this break in normal, to turn onto a path of reunion, of holism, of the restoring of lost connections, of the repair of community and the rejoining of the web of life.” If you find the essay as stimulating, and yes, as hopeful as I did you may want to read The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible, one of his most popular books. Tara Brach is a meditation teacher and lecturer with a big heart and a great sense of humor. In this lecture, Facing Pandemic Fears with an Awake Heart, Tara guides listeners to use meditation as a way of finding refuge in a world beset by fear and uncertainly. “What is going on now feels quite different from personal suffering… Each of us having to face our vulnerability and it can feel out of control and scary…May this suffering help love go viral… to create a clearing in the dense forest of your life…” Noam Chomsky has always been a hero of mine, and at 92 and still growing strong. This interview points out how COVID could have been prevented and how once it is over, we will still be facing two other devastating threats that will change our lives in even more profound ways. Unorthodox on Netflix, is based on a true story of a young Hassidic woman who escapes the confines of her suffocating religious life in Williamsburg, Brooklyn – the only place she has ever known – to find freedom in Berlin, Germany. It’s not perfect but it features a great performance by actress Shira Haas and I found it a distracting 4-hour escape. And if you’re in need of a mask, or a mask with a fashion element ,check out these beautiful creations from the independent fashion company threeASFOUR. They are made with traditional Arab and Jewish fabrics and they are washable. If nothing else wearing one will signal defiance of Trump's churlish refusal to follow scientific advice and cover his mouth. Finally, someone who knows I enjoy cooking shared this Blonde Puttanesca recipe from the New York Times. I have limited cooking facilities here in my temporary refuge in Tucson, AZ, but was able to hunt down the ingredients and easily pull this together. A delicious balm for the soul and the stomach. As I’m sure you’ve discovered small accomplishments like cooking a meal (even laundry) can deliver big rewards these days.

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...to keep abreast of cannabis in the age of COVID. To keep this podcast relevant we'll be doing a series of shorter interviews with colleagues around the world, who speak personally and professionally about the challenges they're facing. In this episode we take you to Tel Aviv and Denver, where life has taken dramatic turns.In the last weeks COVID has had me on the run, physically and mentally. I know I’m no different than most of you. Some days I find myself glued to my screens -- going down the rabbit scroll I call it. Other days I’ll escape through movies and TV series – my latest distractions included The Valhalla Murders (if you’re a fan of Nordic noir crime thrillers this one will keep you in its grip for 6 hours. It’s set in Iceland, which looks like nowhere else on earth, so it’s a great visual, virtual vacation from HazMat gear and face masks) and Fabulous Fungi, if you’re interested in the healing powers of mushrooms, psychedelic and otherwise. I’m also meditating daily, sometimes twice daily. It helps keep my agitation at bay and occasionally offers insight into the nature of my anxiety. If you’ve been thinking about meditating or getting into a regular rhythm, I can recommend Sam Harris’s Waking Up app – the first month is free to ease your entry into the practice. We’ve all been inducted into a war of sorts and we all need to take care of ourselves and those around us. ‘Self care’ is now ‘Us care’. And, it goes without saying, if cannabis helps, by all means use it. Given COVID’s penchant for attacking the lungs, I’ve been using edibles, tinctures and vaporizing over smoking. Finding focus has been unusually difficult. I’m struggling with keeping abreast of the cannabis world, but unable to ignore COVID and I was searching for a way to keep this podcast relevant on both counts. That’s how I came up with the idea of doing short interviews with colleagues in the cannabis world. How are they coping personally and how are their businesses coping? How have their lives changed and what, is life like on the ground in Denver, Tel Aviv, Seattle, Germany, New York, Thailand, etc… That’s what we’re bringing you in this and the next few episodes -- a personal, on the ground view of how people in cannabis are coping, and how they’re helping their communities. That’s my small contribution to helping us stay sane and stay connected. In this episode you’ll be hearing from Avihu Tamir, CEO and founder of Kanabo Research. We recorded the day Israel announced total lockdown, going so far as to cancel all public transportation. You’ll also hear from Ricardo Baca, CEO and founder of Grasslands Public Relations. I got ahold of Ric the day the mayor of Denver, capital of the first state to legalize, shuttered all adult use dispensaries, on grounds that are not essential businesses -- total madness given that cannabis, no matter what type of dispensary it is sold in, is clearly medicine for millions of people. Let’s say Ric had some “feelings” about this edict. I also speak in depth about my own sudden departure from Mexico, where as recently as last week the president was urging the population to hug and kiss each other. That’s not a joke. Listen in and stay connected, listeners. It’s good to know you’re out there.PS: This just in from the ever amazing Dr. June Chin, working in the epicenter of US COVID in Westchester, NY:As New York State and the Department of Health mobilize every available resource to fight one of the greatest public health threats of our lifetimes, I am asking for your help. COVID-19 has already stretched and strained state resources and our existing healthcare system. Healthcare workers in every corner of the state have been making sacrifices to provide the best care for the rapidly increasing numbers of people who will need it. Healthcare workers rely on personal protective equipment to protect themselves and their patients from being infected and infecting others. But shortages are leaving doctors, nurses and other frontline workers dangerously ill-equipped to care for COVID-19 patients, due to limited access to supplies such as gloves, medical masks, respirators, goggles, face shields, gowns, and aprons.Shortage of personal protective equipment are endangering health workers worldwide.Nurses, Doctors, healthcare staff, are pleading for Masks on Social Media. As supplies have dwindled, doctors and nurses have improvised ways to make their stock last.An intensive-care nurse in Illinois was told to make a single-use mask last for five days.An emergency room doctor in California said her colleagues had started storing dirty masks in plastic containers to use again later with different patients.A pediatrician in Washington State, trying to make her small stock last, has been spraying each mask with alcohol after use until it breaks down.But even with the unwavering commitment of our dedicated healthcare professionals, we know they cannot stand a chance to care for our loved ones without the proper equipment. With large sectors of our operations and assets in the manufacturing, pharmaceutical, and medical industries rooted throughout Asia, Canal Five Corp. has assisted at the forefront of the global pandemic during initial disruptions. In partnership with Canal Five Corp. we are providing guidance, supporting secure supply chains, and delivering critical equipment to countries in need. To date, we have donated 15,000 N-95 masks; 10,000 isolation gowns; 25,000 medical goggles; and 10,000 gloves to NYC's COVID-19 Emergency Relief Fund.We will continue to allocate our efforts and be a resource to medical facilities and agencies in all countries effected with supplies and aid that is essential for the preservation of public health in our state. Click on this link to place an order for your hospital, medical center, urgent care clinics. We can’t stop COVID-19 without protecting health workers first. Pricing and sizing may vary. May ship from US or international locations based on availability. All shipping via UPS tracking.Prices start at: 3-ply mask $1.50, N95 $3.50, Isolation gown $18.00, Protective Goggle $3.50, Face shield $5.00With gratitude, Junella Chin-Camacho, M.D.

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Introducing "Perfect," a premium entourage blend of super terpy cannabis from Michael Backes. This is next level high end weed.If there were an award for the High End Weed I’d vote for Perfect, a “premium entourage blend” of whole flower cannabis flower made by the author and innovator Michael Backes.Backes -- author, innovator and cannabis connoisseur -- contends that when cannabis is cured and processed many of the most interesting and delicate terpenes (those powerful smell molecules that direct the high) are lost to heat and air. He has invented a process that takes a page from Bird’s Eye frozen vegetables: It extracts the terps right off the plant under refrigerated conditions, then freezes them in sticky liquid known as “sauce.” Once the buds are cured, the sauce is then added back and the result is a beautiful, rich blend comparable to the finest champagnes or Cuban cigars. “Most of us have never felt the full effect of the terpenes on the plant,” Backes says. “The cold infusion restores the entourage and delivers ten times the terps you’ll find in any other product on the shelf."Besides flavor, there’s another potentially revolutionary benefit from this “UltraFresh” processing method: It enables reliable and consistent highs that are free from side-effects like paranoia and morning-after fog. This is unheard of. No cannabis is predictable—it’s part of the plant's surprise, delight, and occasional disappointment—but this episode explains how controlled refrigeration eliminates these variables. At the moment there are three Perfect blends:Happy Camper is Perfect's version of giggle weedPick me Up delivers a quick jolt of energyNightcap helps you chill.The next two in development are SexPot (high in limonene which creates a mild psychedelic effect to “open the heart and encourage yoking”) and Brainstorm to spark association and improvisation. (Michael, I hereby volunteer to to try every single one.) None of this comes cheaply—one “Perfecto” pre-roll cost $25 (and will only be found in the refrigerated section of a dispensary). It contains 1.5 grams of flower which Backes says is the equivalent to 1/8 of an ounce. He also swears it tastes amazing when relighted--unheard of. As renown cannabis expert and author Robert Connell-Clarke, succinctly put it, “If pre-rolls tasted like this, I’d smoke em.” So listen to this podcast and check out the products here. And if you’re in California and can snag a Perfecto, definitely let us know if it is as perfect as its promise. Nota bene: We rarely feature products on this podcast without sampling them but thanks to Covid-19 my travel plans to California were scuttled. But Michael has always been a cutting edge investigator, dedicated educator and generous mentor always worth paying attention to.

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This episode is brought to you by the great folks at Summit 420, the "Best of the Best" business event in the Young President's Organization. Learn more at www.ypo.org/Summit4202020Will CBD hurt my liver? Does it interfere with other drugs? Why's it making me high? How can I trust what's on the label? In the last months the winds of backlash have been swirling around risks of using CBD and the ‘hidden’ side effects. On one hand, the attacks makes sense: Almost magically CBD appeared in the market about ten ago and almost immediately manufacturer’s began making all sorts of equally magical claims about it. It helps you sleep! Stops epileptic seizures! Eases your dog’s arthritis! Erases the frown lines! A product that treats the symptoms of so many illnesses with zero side effects sounded too good to be true and in fact, some of it wasn’t true, especially the claims about it having absolutely no side effects or risks. But the more recent reports about the “toxicity” of CBD or the way it can “damage our livers in the same ways as alcohol and other drugs” are equally and ridiculously false. Dr. Michelle Shuffett, VP of Scientific Research and Communications at Columbia Care, helps us make sense of this. Part 2 of this episode is a new format we’re experimenting with. Dr. Mary Clifton, a colleague and new friend, agreed to do an on-air patient consultation with a listener named Jules, who has suffered with debilitating insomnia for over 30 years. Dr. Clifton, is a board-certified, licensed, internal medicine physician, author, and the founder of CBDandCannabisInfo.com. She agreed to try out this format in hopes of giving the listeners of this podcast and insider view into the challenges and benefits of prescribing cannabinoid meds and the need to educate patients about how to use them to ensure positive outcomes.Have a listen and let us know your thoughts.

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This episode is brought to you by the great folks at Summit 420, the "Best of the Best" business event in the Young President's Organization. Learn more at www.ypo.org/Summit4202020Ben Chiarelli is the founder and CEO of Cellibre, a cellular agriculture company that is engineering cells to manufacture cannabinoids at industrial scale. Soon they'll be as prevalent and as inexpensive as vitamins. But at what cost?What if I were to tell you that in the next five years medicines and supplements made with cannabinoids will be 1/10th the price -- that $60 bottle of CBD will cost $6. They’ll be labeled “organic” or “natural” and they’ll deliver consistent measurable doses -- no more take a half a dropper and see what happens. And that all this will go a long way to diminishing the stigma currently associated with cannabis-based medicines—that that they’re for stoners or will lower IQ, permanently kill memory cells or drive you to harder drugs (all unfounded myths, btw). Now, what if I told you that these inexpensive cannabinoids will not be coming from a plant grown in the ground and fed by water and sun. That they are being industrially developed in a lab and will be produced in vats by biologists who are engineering the genetic structure of microbes like algae, yeast or E. Coli so that they produce and excrete cannabinoids. (That’s right, algae poop. If what the algae is fed is organic, the FDA may deem its excrement “natural” or “organic” no matter what is done to modify its genetic code). That they will being fermented in huge, 10,000 liter steel containers the size of grain silos. Oh, and if this sounds unimaginable consider that most of the vitamins you take today are made exactly in the same way. (You don’t really think there is enough cod in the ocean to produce all of that DHA Omega 3 fish oil do you?) And that this method of product could save billions of dollars in energy costs since indoor grows will soon be going the way of the coal fired steel factory). All of this is underway. There are at least 20 well-funded cellular agriculture companies currently bio-engineering cannabinoids, and this podcast features Ben Chiarelli, CEO and founder of Cellibre, based in San Diego, CA.To me, the implications of industrially produced cannabinoids are in equal parts thrilling and terrifying. The idea of Monsanto getting its claws into cannabis and creating GMO crops – Armageddon or at the very least, Soylent Green to many aficionados – is not a calming thought. And this new approach using microbes to make these medicines may be even more off putting. At the same time affordable cannabinoid meds will be a blessing to people with chronic illnesses. Remember, a month’s supply of the CBD you’re using today costs more than your leased car. And if they create predictable, clean and measurable formulations, well, that’s a future that most health care providers and patients would welcome. Please listen to this podcast and let me know what you think. Send comments to bravenewweedcast@gmail.com. I’m going to be exploring this topic for a long time – it’s a big one -- and I’m just starting to get my mind around it.

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It’s not often I ask two strangers if they’d like to come on air to reveal how they use substances to spark up their sex and intimate lives. But as soon as I asked, Charlie and Shelley Wininger said "Yes!"Meet Charley and Shelley Wininger. He’s 70 and an author and psychotherapist. She’s 68, a retired RN. They’ve been married for 20 years yet they claim their sex life has never been more charged. He’s having full body orgasms. Hers are getting more powerful the older she gets—half the time they “knock Charley out of bed.” Their secret? Cannabis (and other substances)…and a little dark chocolate. I ran into this couple last year at a MAPS conference (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies) through a friend who suggested I broach this topic with them. It’s not often I ask two strangers if they’d like to come on air to reveal how they use substances to spark up their sex and intimate lives but I did, and they jumped! Some topics we cover include:How to lose your mind to discover your sensesHow cannabis can counter the diminished libido of menopauseWhat’s better Sativa, Indica or Hybrid?Why Spotify is better for sex than Amazon MusicThe double edged sword of using MDMA to enhance sex And how you tell your kids that you’re about to come out about the way you use substances to heat up your sex on a weed podcast heard around the worldWhether you’re 70 or 27, I suggest you share this episode with your friends, parents and grandparents—I promise it’ll add a little spark your next intergenerational family gathering. Bonus: MDMA Harm Reduction Protocol (courtesy of Erowid and clinical practitioners)These substances are available in health food stores and on Amazon6 hours before you roll200 mgs Magnesium Glycinate1 glass grapefruit juice1-3 hours before100 mg Na-R-ALA200 mg Magnesium Glycinate1000 mg Vitamin C100 mg Grape Seed extract 30 mins before1 Tums/Rolaids (increases stomach alkalinity which prolongs the roll) 2 hours after dosing100 mg Na-R-ALA200 mg Magnesium Glycinate1000 mg Vitamin C100mg Grape Seed Extract 4 hours after dosing100 mg Na-R-ALA Following 3-5 nights100 mg 5HTP400 mg EGCG (Green tea extract)This episode is brought to you by the 5th annual 420 Summit, which being held in beautiful San Francisco April 24 and 25. This is the most interesting and cutting edge Cannabis Conference I’ve ever attended. For the last two years, Summit 420 has been awarded the “Best of the Best” Business event in YPO, so if you’re a YPO member or among the cannacurious I urge you to register now. You’ll get the inside track on new investment possibilities, ground breaking technologies and compelling research projects. There will be live seminars on how to taste terpenes. You can sample an incredible dinner prepared by the finest cannabis chefs in the Bay Area. You’ll attend a ganja yoga class or visit with some of the most successful businesses leaders in the world’s largest cannabis market. This year Ethan Nadelmann, founder of the Drug Policy Alliance and a key player in pushing California to legalize in 1996, will be kicking off the proceedings with a keynote on “The New War on Vaping” and how it is echoing the failed War on Drugs. Space is limited so be sure to register for this incredible event now at www.ypo.org/Summit4202020. And be sure bring your spouse/partner. This will be one you’ll want to share.

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Introducing a new movement dedicated to growing fair trade, environmentally sustainable cannabis that also provides small farmers with the one thing they need to thrive: a lucrative cash crop.Before introducing this episode I must apologize to Dr. Raphael Mechoulam, who is, apparently, a follower of this podcast. In Episode 70 (“The Strange Cannabis Illness that No One Understands”) I reported that Dr. Mechoulam thought the likely cause of this odd illness was strain or dose dependent. While that was part of what he said, I failed to offer his full explanation, which he made clear to me in an email dated Jan 10, 2020. “Hi, I do not recall stating that cannabinoid hyperemesis is strain dependent. I have published that it is probably an immune-type reaction. See attached.”https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3498425/Needless to say I’m honored to be corrected by the man known as ‘the OG of Cannabis Research’ and thrilled to know he’s listening. ☺On this new episode I’m happy to welcome back Jim Plamondon, the co-founder of the Thai Cannabis Corporation who joins us from Thailand to discuss the birth of the “Small Cannabis” movement. The premise is this: as more US states become legal, the price of North American cannabis is going to drop – this is already happening. At the same time as more countries around the globe legalize (Thailand did. Mexico plans to do so this year. India and Colombia are also heading in this direction) it’s crucial to establish a more economically sustainable future for small farmers who have been tending excellent sun-grown heritage strains such as Alcapulco Gold, Panama Red, Thai Stick, for hundreds—maybe thousands—of years. The first step to this project is organizing a global cannabis supply chain and that is precisely what the Small Cannabis Foundation is designed to do. As more markets open, big industrial scale cannabis currently grown in “greenhouses on the tundra” will flood the market with high potency but not so interesting varieties. Prices will plummet and excellent old world varieties grown in the subtropics will begin to make their way to those who want them. “Big cannabis will become worthless the minute great Thai Stick comes back into the country,” Plamondon contends. “Cocoas of Excellence” is one such program devoted to preserving the diversity of indigenous cocoa strains and at the same time providing income to farmers. Small Cannabis has similar aims.Plamondon is part dreamer, an essential quality to all visionaries, and part student of history who relies on Adam Smith’s time tested economic insights. As he points out, the cocoa, cotton and vanilla industries were established during the rush to colonize 300-400 years ago. They were wildly successful at enslaving vast numbers of people who depended on subsistence agriculture for their livelihood. Cannabis is one of the few new supply chains -- the internet makes import and fair trade transparent, traceable and enforceable. With good standards in place and a little bit of technology like QR codes and smart phones buyers will be able to know the farmer that cultivated their cannabis and be assured that he -- or in most cases, she -- got her a fair price for her labors, protected the environment and was not exploited along the way.Jim gives great interview – don’t miss his wit and the broad perspective with which he frames the issues. To learn more, visit www.smallcannabisfoundation.org.

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A two-way interview between journalist Patricia Miller and Joe Dolce about the gut-wrenching illness called hyperemesis.A few weeks ago Patricia Miller, associate editor of Cannabis & Tech Today magazine, called to talk about hyperemesis, the strange and increasingly more reported illness that hits some cannabis users hard. Hyperemesis is defined as bouts of cyclical vomiting caused from combusting flower (i.e., smoking a joint), but trust me, what happens is way more painful than simple puking. It’s as if your stomach is being turned inside out – gut wrenching -- and it can last for hours, in extreme cases, days. The few scientific papers on it contend that it is followed by a compulsive desire to take hot showers. In my case I was so wasted after each bout I could barely crawl into bed, let alone stand in a shower. As one who always wants to be first on a trend, I was hit with hyperemesis while reporting Brave New Weed and about a half dozen times in the subsequent two years. I couldn’t understand how a plant that chemotherapy patients use to quell nausea would send me into paroxysms of puking. After months of investigating I never identified the cause but I did learn a lot about the chemistry and biology of the cannabis plant, and turned that into a book. There’s no consensus about what hyperemesis is or what detonates it. Dr. Raphael Mechoulam surmised it is dose or strain related. Others blame pesticides or other chemicals used in cultivation that have not been properly cleared from harvested bud. Others say it’s caused by today’s super strong weed that can clock in at 30% THC. My own experience elides all of these theories. I was smacked down after a fat dab as well as on the very first puff of a joint. As for the quality/variety of the herb, well, I’ve been privileged to inhale some of the finest, organic, sun-grown, pesticide-free weed grown in North America, so quality and variety aren’t the only culprits. Patricia proposed interviewing me about my experiences but I suggested we interview each other in hopes of informing more people who’ve been felled. I don’t think hyperemesis is necessarily a new illness; rather, I suspect more people are reporting it now that legalization has opened up the conversation. Some sufferers I’ve met have quit using completely to avoid any future misery. Personally, I’ve navigated a cautious path and have concluded that the only surefire way of inhaling flower without retching is through vaporization. My untested theory is that there is something in the plant matter itself that triggers the convulsions. Before this interview I asked a few chemists if they had come across any home grown remedies. The only response came from James Curran, who has appeared on Episode 67 of this podcast. He forwarded this study that identifies capsaicin, the fiery ingredient in cayenne pepper, as a possible antidote because it interferes with the biochemical triggering. And here’s a link to Miller’s report. Clearly, there’s more to learn, so if any of you out there in cannabisland have insights, observations or stories to share, let us know.

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400 strains, 3 weeks, and they live to talk about it! Behind the scenes with the judges at The Emerald Cup, as they choose the best strain of the year.For those who don’t know, the Emerald Cup is most exciting Must See (and must-sample) cannabis festival in the world. It’s held every December after the harvest with the aim of crowning the finest sun-grown craft cannabis and products of the year. It’s a mash-up of a science convention, 4H Club gathering and biker convention, all taking place under a sweet cloud of cannabis. It’s where the best and the brightest in the California scene gather to celebrate everything from beautiful flowers to concentrates, to most innovative packaging, to the most delectable edibles, both sweet and savory. The list of categories goes on and on and the innovation and dedication to craft is often mind-boggling and always impressive. The inaugural Cup was held in 2003 on “Area 101,” the land owned by visionary Mendocino farmer and former event producer Tim Blake. It was, according to one early attendee, “like Woodstock without the mud,” a place where the area’s growers, musicians, and cooks gathered to celebrate the fruits of their labors. Today’s event is a long way away from those humble, homegrown beginnings. Some 30,000 celebrants gather on the sprawling Santa Rosa Fairgrounds. While the vibe is more regulated and less freewheeling -- gone are the pound bags being sold under the table --there are also a good deal of high-minded activities, such as seminars on regenerative agriculture and criminal justice. I’ve always wondered how any group of judges, no matter their dedication and experience, can sample so many strains and still live to talk about it. For the answer, I got Swami Chaitanya and Nikki Lastreto, self-described as “friends, spouses, spiritual brethren and business and land partners, to join us on this week’s podcast. Swami and Nikki grow and harvest their own Swami’s Select flowers on their Ganja Ma farm in Bell Springs, one of the premier cannabis appellations in Mendocino Country. For years they have been leaders in the sun grown, organic cannabis movement, bringing the idea of premium cannabis into the wider world. In this conversation they explain the intricacies of selecting this year’s Emerald Cup winner.

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The CEO (Cosmic Engagement Officer) of Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps, on how hemp (and psychedelics) can make America great again.I’ve used Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps for years, but never understood just how progressive/impressive the company that turns out products with thousands of tiny words crowding its labels was. I remember the company as a sort of hippie outlier, but today it’s a paragon of a movement known as Constructive Capitalism. This is largely the brainchild of the company’s Cosmic Engagement Officer (CEO), David Bronner. So I was pleased when David, 37, agreed to do this podcast from his home in Vista, California. Here are some fun facts to set the stage: David, who has a BA in Biology from Harvard, has grown the company from $4M a year to over $122M in 2018. Under his (and his family’s) stewardship, Dr. Bronner’s has donated $60M to causes related to drug policy reform, animal rights, sustainable agriculture, fair trade practices, and over $5 million to ending cannabis prohibition. In September 2019 the company donated a matching grant of $150K to Oregon’s statewide ballot initiative to legalize psilocybin assisted therapy.Another target of Bronner’s activism has been advocating for the US hemp industry. In 2001, Dr. Bronner’s funded a lawsuit against the DEA to prevent a ban of hemp food sales in the US. In 2009, he was arrested for planting hemp seeds on the lawn of the DEA. In 2012, he was arrested again for harvesting hemp and milling the oil while locked in a metal cage in front of the White House. He clearly understands the need for underscoring donations with dramatic action.Dr. Bronner’s is a leader of the “constructive capitalism” movement. Over half of the company’s 226 employees are people of color and/or women; over 40% of managers are PoCs or women. The starting salaries average $18.71 and hour, 170% higher than California’s average wage and Bronner caps his salary at 5 times that of the lowest earner. Ten percent of the company’s revenue is donated to charitable causes (all of which are listed publicly) and their stated goal is to offset all of their carbon emissions by 2023. Rather than marketing, they invest in the causes they believe in. In other words, it’s perfectly possible for companies to do well and to do good. If that intrigues you, download and share this interview. And please, if you enjoy this Podcast for the Post-Prohibition era and can afford to support us, please visit Patreon to contribute. We rely on the generosity of our listeners and like-minded companies to keep going.

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If you want to know the secrets of the plant, talk to a plant scientist (or a shaman). This interview with phytochemist James Curran will make you reevaluate everything you thought you knew about cannabis – and appreciate how much more there is to learn.I’ve found that cannabis, like many plant medicines, seems to select certain people at a very young age and cast a spell over them. That may sound woo-woo to you, but in the cannabis world, there are people who somehow, perhaps by divine intervention, make the plant their calling. They may not have a PhD from Harvard, or work in a research facility, but they are self taught experts and apply a great deal of science and erudition to their study of the plant. James Curran is one of those special people. Curran is a phytochemist who has been investigating cannabis for the last decade, both personally and professionally. I originally called him because I wanted some some help cutting through the veil of hype surrounding so many new products and technologies on the market. How much more effective really are the new “water soluble” beverages at the moment? Does “nano-emulsification” truly deliver cannabinoids into the bloodstream more quickly? Can manufacturers buy terpenes off the shelf and simply add them into products to increase their efficacy, as so many are claiming? And what on earth is the difference between Delta 8 THC and Delta 9 THC (and where can I get some)? James had the answers to these and other questions. But this interview gets really buzzy when he revealed that he has an extraction method that allows him to harvest fresh terpenes from fresh cannabis. Being a scientist who uses his own body as a laboratory, he has ingested just 1mg of these fresh terps and reports that just a small amount of Alpha-pinene produced “25 minutes of a near psychedelic experience.” Until now, I believed that terps help direct the high -- but his report, and that of others indicates that THC isn’t the full story, that terps act collaboratively to cause the high. Listen in to learn more. If you want to contact James to talk about these and other issues, including remediation for “hot hemp” find him at Jamespacurran@gmail.com.

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Seth Ginsberg, co-founder of CreakyJoints.org and the ArthritisPower app on how patients and health care providers can get more info about using medical cannabis for their pains.Medical cannabis is on the rise. Over 30 states have legal programs and CBD is more popular than God (at least in number of Google searches). But because the Feds classify the plant as a Schedule 1 drug, there are scant robust trials about efficacy. This leaves both patients and health care providers at a loss for verifiable scientific evidence. Lack of clinical data hasn’t stopped patients from using medical cannabis, especially for pain and arthritis related conditions. According to the online community CreakyJoints.org, over half of arthritis sufferers have tried MMJ or CBD but only 2/3 of them have told their health care providers about it. For those who did talk to medical providers, over half said that they were offered no advice or dosing recommendations. At the same time, over 90 percent of respondents believe that cannabis or CBD improves their symptoms. That’s too high a number to attribute to placebo effect alone.This week’s interview features Seth Ginsberg, co-founder of CreakyJoints and the Global Healthy Living Foundation. GHLF has also built an app called ArthritisPower that offers peer-to-peer support and patient-centered research on the different types of arthritis. The sites are now getting about 10,000 visitors a day -- not surprising given that over 50M people in the US suffer with pain or arthritis. (Seth is one of them. When he was 13 he was diagnosed with Spondyloarthropathy, a form of arthritis that essentially robbed him of his youth but catapulted him into the advocacy world. He is now in remission.) Although he’s pro medical cannabis, Seth is not a user. As you’ll hear in this interview, his opinions and mine occasionally bump up against each other in uncomfortable ways. He’s not afraid to disagree, and that’s a good thing: Friendly disagreement is the fertile soil from which delicious things grow. To learn more, check out:CreakyJoints.org -- an amazing online community full of valuable information for people with all forms of arthritis and pain.ArthritisPower -- a free app that allows patients with rheumatoid arthritis to track symptoms and shares that anonymized data with health care providers so that both can make better treatment decisions.

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The next likely victim of drug war hysteria and prohibition: vaping. Ethan Nadelmann, founder of the Drug Policy Alliance, comes out of retirement to discuss.Ethan Nadelmann, founder of the Drug Policy Alliance and one of the main players in the cannabis legalization struggle, has been quiet since retiring two years ago—attending conferences, pondering a book, advising those in need of his wisdom and political acuity. While DPA continues to wage the good fight, Ethan’s public presence has been sorely missed. He’s the smartest and fiercest advocate of sensible drug policy – in particular, harm reduction – and he has the unique ability to wage a fight with a smile on his face. His guiding principle has always been “socially libertarian:” adults should be allowed to put any substance into their body as long as it doesn’t harm anyone else. I ran into Ethan at the recent Horizons Psychedelic Conference in NYC, and we were both itching to talk about the vilification of vaping – by politicians, state governments, the mainstream media (including the New York Times) and even public health advocates. The partially puritanical Michael Bloomberg, long an anti-tobacco crusader (good), recently donated $160 million to an anti-vaping crusade (mad). While we don’t completely know the long term effect of vaping nicotine or cannabis oils, the evidence indicates that vaping legal products is far safer, far more sane way of inhaling nicotine (or cannabis). Evidence also shows it beats patches and any other form of therapy aimed at helping people quit smoking cigarettes. There’s another important caveat when examining the emerging Vape War -- it bears an uncomfortable resemblance to the War on Cannabis. BothWere vilified by politicians, largely to “protect the children”Had audacious claims about them with no scientific backingWere funded by millionaires, some of which were once considered liberal leaningFavor one class of people (wealthy) over another (poorer)Were denigrated and banned in lieu of enacting more sensible and far less costly harm reduction and health policies.Sound familiar? It should and Nadelmann breaks his public silence to discuss it here for you, the listeners of our podcast.

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This episode is presented by Firefly - Firefly is offering our very special audience a very special promotion of 20% off the new device. Head over to thefirefly.com and use the code BRAVE to grab your discount. Hurry—this deal expires on October 20, 2019.Mainstream media are blaming one culprit for the illnesses and deaths from tainted vapor cartridges, but journalist Foster Winans reports that there's another, more common, deadly agent that is being overlooked.The epidemic of casualties from vaporizing black market cannabis oils is scary, lethal and, according to the CDC, on the rise. The lung tissues of patients exposed to these oils resemble chemical burn injuries that you would see on the lungs of people exposed to industrial toxic chemical spills, according to Dr. Brandon T. Larsen, a surgical pathologist at the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, AZ.The possible cause of these illnesses has so far been blamed on a thickening agent, Vitamin E acetate, that unscrupulous manufacturers have been putting into knock off cartridges and dumping on the market for half the price of legal and tested products. But this interview with journalist Foster Winans points to another possible culprit, the fungicide myclobutanil. When heated above 400F in a vapor pen, myclobutanil decomposes into hydrogen cyanide – the same deadly poison the Nazi’s used in gas chambers.Interestingly and problematically, myclobutanil is legal and in wide use on a wide range of crops, fruit trees, and vines in the US and China. (It’s commonly used to prevent mold and fungus on wine grapes, which are grown in conditions similar to cannabis in California). Myclobutanil is deemed safe because it is washed off after produce is harvested. The problem with using it on cannabis is that harvested buds are not washed. So when the THC in contaminated marijuana is concentrated, so are the poisons Winans has reported that a lab in California found that some of the illegal oils have 7,300 times California’s limit for myclobutanil on marijuana. Once these toxic oils are inserted into vapor cartridges, they are packaged to imitate popular brands and sold by underground dealers at a big discount. Prime target markets are high school and college-aged men.In this illuminating podcast Winans describes how he learned about the myclobutanil poisoning and why California regulators aren’t doing much to stop its spread. (One reason: lack of federal legalization makes it almost impossible for state regulators to track tainted black market cannabis products that make their way across the country).PLEASE SHARE THIS PODCAST AND WINANS’ OTHER REPORTING WITH YOUR NETWORKS AND ANY NEWS OUTLETS YOU ARE IN TOUCH WITH. MAINSTREAM MEDIA ARE NOT FOLLOWING THIS POTENTIALLY EXPLOSIVE LEAD.

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As CEO of the venture capital fund Canopy Rivers, Narbe´ Alexandrian hears an amazing 7 new business pitches a day! In this episode he lets us in on what he's hearing...robots vs small craft farmers…the race to genetically engineer CBD from algae...and so much more.This episode is presented by Firefly - Firefly is offering our very special audience a very special promotion of 20% off the new device. Head over to thefirefly.com and use the code BRAVE to grab your discount. Hurry—this deal expires on October 20, 2019.Narbe´ Alexandrian is a very busy man. He is president and CEO of Canopy Rivers, the venture capital affiliate of Canopy Growth, the world's largest cannabis company. This puts him in the very unique and privileged position of hearing and potentially capitalizing the future of cannabis, especially as markets and wallets continue to open.In the last year Canopy Rivers has heard an extraordinary 1523 pitches (about 7 a day). Being exposed to this volume of ideas, potential products and services doesn’t make Narbe´ an oracle, but it does provide a view of what some of the smartest and technologically advanced heretics are conjuring.Narbe´, who comes from the high flying world of tech investing, visited our “studios” (ok, more like a conference room in a friend’s office) in New York, to talk about just how quickly the intersection of cannabis, data and technology are revolutionizing what is increasingly looking like a brave new world of cannabis, with consequences that can't yet be determined. It’s fascinating. scary and nothing like what anyone could have imagined just five years ago. Among the topics we dig into: The upcoming war between the robots and small craft farmersHorticultural automation. Will industrially grown cannabis be the new square tomato?The race to genetically engineer CBD from algae or yeastHow biologists are trying to “manufacture” cannabis that’s 5 times more psychoactive than the strongest strain today at a fraction of the costHow AI will create strains that are precisely targeted to your health problems or the high you desire.

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Best practices for growing top shelf cannabis at home from Jim Hole, VP Cultivation, Atlas GrowersNEWS UPDATE! Before I tell you about this great interview please know that Matthew and I recorded the intro to this episode just as reports on tainted e-liquids in vaporizers were breaking. Since our recording there have been reports about tainted cannabis oils causing respiratory illnesses and deaths.According to this excellent early report in Leafly health authorities in New York have confirmed that vitamin E oil, a cheap thickener, is the culprit in tainted vape cartridges in that state. The FDA is now looking at vitamin E oil (tocopheryl-acetate) to determine where it's being used. There are three ways to protect yourself while vaping:Only buy trusted brands that list ingredients and their lab testing results somewhere—on the package or a website. (Chronic Carts, Dank Vapes, and West Coast Carts are three brands that have be identified as producing tainted carts).If you are uncertain of a product’s provenance, don’t use it. If you bought any cartridges on the street or off label and you don’t know the maker, throw them away.Reports from Oregon allege that some tainted carts were purchased in legal dispensaries. If you’re hesitant about inhaling all oils consider vaporizing well-cultivated and well-cured flower instead.What's going on now is reminiscent of bootleggers making bathtub gin during prohibition: Bad actors producing bad products in an unregulated market. Be smart!----This week’s interview is with Jim Hole, VP of cultivation at Atlas Growers, one of Canada’s most serious medical marijuana companies. The interview leverages Jim’s many years as a grower of all plants and is well worth a listen. Rather than me telling you about, I asked Jim to share his tips for growing at home. Cannabis isn’t difficult to grow, but following these guidelines will ensure better outcomes. Things that many people often get wrong when growing cannabis:1 Choosing poor quality cannabis seeds and the wrong varietiesFind the varieties that you want to grow and ensure that seeds look full and not cracked.2 Growing too cold or too warmGrowing too cold slows growth dramatically while growing too warm stresses the crop and can damage flower buds. Start with temperatures between 20C and 26C and adjust based on the cultivar and experience with the crop3 Over and under feedingFertilizer requirements increase from seed and up to maximum vegetative growth before decreasing in flowering. Underfeeding reduces plant vigor and growth whereas overfeeding burns roots.4 Ensuring correct light cycleFor all strains that aren’t ‘autoflowering’ the vegetative phase requires long days (typically 18 hrs or more). Once flowering is required the light must drop to 12 hour days with uninterrupted darkness for 12 hours. Once a plant is in the flowering phase, long days can stop flower production and cause the plant to revert back to the vegetative phase.5 Not paying attention to pest problemsCannabis is prone to attack by spider mites, thrips, whitefly, powdery mildew and grey mold. Controlling pests early is always the best strategy.TipsSpecialized equipment like trimmers and irrigation equipment are nice to have but what I call the ‘Big Three’ – light, substrate and fertigation -- have the greatest impact on crop yield and qualityLight is plant food. Plants harvest sunlight and use the energy to make sugars. Skimping on lights reduces yield and quality. There is a saying that for every 1% increase in light, there is a 1% increase in yield. Get quality lights that are durable and can provide plenty of light energySubstrate is anything that the roots grow in. The primary job of any quality substrate is to provide an environment that supports the correct balance of air, water and nutrients. It should also be pest free.Fertigation is fertilized water. Ensure that the blend is high quality and provides all of the nutrients that cannabis plants require. Any nutrient that is missing or deficient becomes the limiting factor for successful yield and quality.

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Cannabis doesn’t behave like other medicines, which is why it doesn’t fit the current western way of healing -- an it may never. William Dolphin and Michelle Newhart, authors of The Medicalization of Marijuana, explore the future of a medicine that refuses to behave like a medicine.Cannabis is an extraordinary healing plant that treats dozens of conditions, in some cases with far better results than Western medicine, and with far fewer side effects. Even researchers from the National Institutes of Health have said that all disease states in human beings are related to endocannabinoid dysfunction.But the plant is an iconoclast and doesn’t neatly doesn’t fit into our modern idea of medicine. It’s not a single molecule that can be aimed at precise targets in the body. It responds to how the person’s body is at the moment. Because the plant grows in the ground the soil, the weather, the amount of sun it receives alters the constituents of every variety. And since everyone’s endocannabinoid system is different, everyone needs to experiment to find their optimum dose. It doesn’t cause any potentially fatal side effect. In other words, it doesn’t fit into any model that that modern pharma medicine is based on.As this interview brilliantly points out, this seems to create more problems for healthcare providers than patients. People who are ill or who hurt are reclaiming cannabis as a medicine, with or without their doctor’s consent. And because most doctors can’t neatly categorize or and have to learn how it works differently than “take two pills and call me in the morning,” it’s often like trying to fit a botanical square peg into the round hole of our system.Listeners of this podcast know that I am not religious about any one method of healing -- modern medicine and certain drugs have been life savers to me and everyone I know, just as shamanic journeys, breathwork, meditation, chiropractic, physical therapy and yoga have been. Maybe MDs will never be convinced of the value of fitting cannabinoid therapies into their healing arsenals. But most of us patients know that different forms of treatment can and should coexist and at times be combined. And yes, of course, we need more research to verify some of the endless claims about cannabinoids, but maybe we also need other words to describe what it is and how they works, something between the strict confinement of “medical” and the loosey goosey of “alternative.” Listen to this conversation and let us know if you have any suggestions.

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It’s been 7 years since Washington legalized, but Hempfest, Seattle’s largest and oldest cannabis celebration is under attack from state and local governments. Hempfest co-founder, Vivian McPeak, joins us to talk about how he’s fighting back.Twenty eight years ago a few hundred folks gathered in downtown Seattle to celebrate the publication of Jack Herer’s seminal book, The Emperor Wears No Clothes. In the same way that Burning Man morphed from a local gathering into an international phenomenon, Hempfest caught fire. Every year, 100,000 celebrants gather along the parks bordering Puget Sound to listen to music and speakers, get educated about medical cannabis, register to vote and learn how to expunge their records of cannabis so called crimes. In almost three decades this “protestival,” as Vivian McPeak, Hempfest’s co-founder calls it, has been staged with little incident, accident or emergency. It’s such an inclusive event that in 2013, the year after Washington legalized, the cops handed out bags of Doritos to festival goers stickered with labels explaining the dos and don’ts of the new laws.But today the city and the state (not to mention Expedia.com) are trying to undercut the festival's financing by passing laws and ordinances that make it increasingly impossible for cannabis enterprises to advertise. Under threat, McPeak has initiated legal action against the city and state, challenging the constitutionality of these harsh commercial restrictions. “The city and state are coming after us on multiple levels,” says McPeak. “They’re treating cannabis like it's Oxycontin.” In this interview McPeak wonders aloud if this will be Seattle’s final Hempfest, but as an experienced social justice activist he also has some wise things to say about how to speak “flower to power” without losing your cool (but still maintaining your edge), especially in these incendiary political times.

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Jordan Klepper, ex Daily Show comedian has a new documentary series, Klepper, in which he immerses himself into the issues dividing the country. His episode “The New Weed War” takes on a topic that few others can. This episode is supported by The Trichome Institute. Visit trichomeinstitute.com/bravenewweed and use promote code Brave for 10% off their online "Interpeneing" course.Like many in his generation, Jordan Klepper was indifferent to weed, both the plant and the politics. He had tried it when he was a student at Kalamazoo College but it made him paranoid so he moved on to bourbon and rye and didn’t think much about it other than it was legal in California and already felt legal in New York where he lives. But when one of his producers told him that the citizens of Compton, CA -- the city that gave the world the word “chronic” rejected two ballot initiatives allowing legal sales (and the jobs and tax revenue that come with it), he got curious and went to Compton to explore.His first subject is Virgil, Compton resident and former inmate. Virgil launched a dispensary in 2016 thinking he was reinventing himself as an entrepreneur, but the opposition, led by local pastors, was fierce. Klepper finds one particularly eloquent pastor who explains his point of view, emphasizing his doubts that legalization will ever really help communities of color. His community has been burned before and he doesn’t trust the government to get this right either. He is not unpersuasive.Klepper next stop is Oakland, CA to see that city’s social equity program in action. He follows a local delivery service called Community Gardens as its owners contend with the schizophrenic regulatory changes state authorities hand down. When California abruptly halves the accepted dose of THC allowed in an edible serving from 10 mgs to 5 mgs, Community Gardens was stuck with thousands of dollars of product they couldn’t sell and it’s painful to watch how a seemingly minor regulatory change can wipe out a small cannabis operator faster than a hurricane.Jordan does a good job of bringing the issues to light, even though he’s still struggling to integrate his formerly ironic character into his new role of more thoughtful investigative journalist. (My unsolicited advice, forget the quippy attempts at irony and let your intelligent, sound-bite-free, smart self emerge).After the podcast I asked how examining the difficulty of trying to fit the square peg of social justice into the round holes of legalization expanded his thinking about cannabis in general. “This social equity program is one way of us trying to grapple with the devastating implications of having arrested 8 million people during the Drug Wars,” he said. “It might be doing some good so we should be studying it and improving it so we can bring it to other states.” Klepper, the docuseries, can be seen on Comedy Central. This episode, “The New Weed War” streams on all of these channels.PS: And don’t miss the end of this episode where Jordan tells us what surprising/creative thought occurred to him last time he imbibed. He may have been indifferent when he began this show, but he’s clearly in the fold now.

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In the next 5 years cannabinoids stand to become the new vanilla. That's a very scary scenario. Listen in to find out exactly what that means.Have you ever wondered how vanilla, which costs about $10,000/kilo to harvest and process, can cost just $15 per bottle in the store? How a product that is only grown in a handful of regions in the world is found in so many kitchens? I didn’t either until I spoke to Jim Plamondon, who is the VP of Marketing of the Thai Cannabis Corporation, an impressive thought leader on the future of global cannabis, and an entrepreneur who mission is no less than creating cannabis products that “reduce poverty, respect the environment and raise quality at a respectable price.” But back to vanilla. Vanilla is an artisanal product that grows in only a handful of regions of the world. Processing and extracting vanilla has always enormously time consuming and expensive. In the 1970s, the McCormick spice company synthesized the vanillin molecule from petroleum, then combined it with about 30 other compounds to produce a substance that is in taste and smell (and chemical formulation) identical to the vanilla that grows on trees. Today artificial vanilla supplies 99% of global demand. The story of vanilla is the future that cannabis foretold, or so thinks Jim Plamondon (and me). Just like artisanal vanilla growing legal cannabis indoors in North America is expensive. A gram costs a whopping $7—unsustainably high if legal weed is ever going to compete with black market pricing or be as available as aspirin. So, either cannabis is going to be grown cheaply and outdoors at the equator, which is, after all where the finest strains -- Panama Red, Columbian Gold, Thai Stick, Jamaican Lamb’s Breath – come from -- or cannabinoids that go into medicines or blended into oils are going to be produced in a lab. These lab-constructed so called “cultured cannabinoids” will be grown from yeast in genetic engineering labs. They’ll be produced at scale and will cost a fraction of the price of extracting them from plants and they will be used for many applications: in pharmaceuticals, or blended with terpenes, flavonoids and other compounds to approximate the taste, smell and effects of cannabis oils. And because The FDA and EU define any product as “natural” if their flavor chemicals are extracted from yeast, these products will be legally “natural.”It’s true bio-engineered cannabinoids might not have the same entourage effect as whole plant cannabis. But if you’re paying pennies instead of dollars and still getting 70% of the effects, are you really going to complain? Does anyone complain (or even know) the source of their vanilla, or their vitamins, for that matter?This future is not light years away. There are already a dozen companies engineering yeast (and algae) into cannabinoids. And while I’m not endorsing this method of production, it is right around the corner.Mainstream media is not capable of dealing with these complicated and crucial topics but Jim is an evidence based futurist -- well worth listening to. He’s also got a slamming blog.This interview occurs in two parts. The first is a brilliant history of how and where the world’s greatest strains developed and why they are about to make a huge resurgence. The second is on the bioengineering of cannabinoids, a topic I’ll be exploring ethically and economically in future episode. And huge thanks to Jim for supplying the hilarious Joe Dolce musical interlude about 25 minutes into the interview. Just listen to see what I mean.

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Pastor Craig Gross is bucking the tide of the conservative churches by urging his flock to embrace cannabis. That's going to be a long, lonely struggle. Onward Christian Soldier!This episode of the Brave New Weed podcast is brought to you by It's Great to Suck At Something, author Karen Rinaldi's new book on "the unexpected joy of wiping out and what it can teach us about patience, resilience and the stuff that really matters."Would Jesus love porn addicts? “Absolutely!” says Pastor Craig Gross, explaining why, in 2002, he formed the XXXChurch to help the estimated 50% of Christians who struggle with porn. Would J-man have been cool with cannabis? Gross also thinks yes, and has launched Christian Cannabis, his new crusade to change the millions of god-fearing minds who are dead set against it. “Putting three Xs in front of the word ‘church’ is similar to putting the word ‘Christian’ in front of ‘cannabis,’” says Gross, 43. “It’s the dumbest thing… but I needed it to be so clear and so direct. It means Christians talking about cannabis. It doesn’t mean we have more holy spiritual weed than you do.”Radical though he may be among his tribe, I was skeptical about Gross before we spoke. I’m allergic to organized religion, especially Christians who are all sanctimony yet give people like pussy grabbing Trump a pass because he restricts reproductive freedoms. But almost from the start I knew I was talking to a Christian of a different stripe. One I could relate to, argue with, be friends with. He’s tightly wired, and not at all shy about sharing his vulnerabilities. He wears a self-consciously asymmetrical haircut that enables him fit right in at the music festivals he attends, like Coachella. He’s a thinker, a talker, and a challenger. He is also the son of a Baptist preacher, raised in a home where dancing, music, even lifting his arms to praise the lord, were blasphemous acts worthy of punishment. He learned the horrors of fundamentalism early on. No wonder he bucks against them so flamboyantly today.What shocks me and Gross is the blind eye church hierarchies turn to what is obviously a medicine as well as an intoxicant. “People sitting in their pews deserve something more than just ‘I don’t know. We don’t talk about that here,’ writes Gross in one blog. “I have a friend who is a pastor, he’s off his depression medication because of weed. So he is buying it illegally and he’d get fired from his job if his church knew.“Christians are always late the party. We’re the last ones to change, and yet we serve a creator God whose work is the epitome of innovation.”Is Gross a real change agent or more showman? Or is he a smart salesman who knows that Christians will only buy products that are marketed specifically to them? I couldn’t decide from our 45 minute interview, but I'd happily sit down with him again for more, especially, we aligned on many topics, including the ways cannabis can be used for deeper spiritual investigation. There are very few people I know -- religious or not -- who wouldn't benefit from more of that. But don’t take my word for it. For technical reasons I had to record this episode on a Zoom call. The audio is a bit tetchy but the video allows you to look the pastor in the eye as he makes his case. Judge for yourselves.PS: Speaking about clearing cobwebs out of other musty spiritual closets...I am reminded of the many great spiritual teachers I know who use cannabis but who don't or won't speak about it. If you’re in touch with any of them, please ask them to contact us if they'd like to discuss as openly as Craig.

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If you’ve ever suffered from “puffy taco,” you should probably listen to this episode on cannabis and women’s health. If you don’t know what puffy taco is, you should download it right now!This episode is presented by Firefly - Firefly is offering our very special audience a very special promotion of 20% off the new device. Head over to thefirefly.com and use the code BRAVE to grab your discount. Hurry—this deal expires on June 20, 2019.Aliza Sherman is the founder of Ellementa, a network of women focused on wellness and cannabis, and co-author of Cannabis & CBD for Health & Wellness. Cyo Nystom is co-founder of Quim, a California-based manufacturer of cannabis self-care products for women. (Fun fact: Quim is Victorian slang for the female anatomy).There are many ways cannabis and women go together, especially when it comes to sexual health. Aliza and Cyo cross the generational divide to bring to light the many unspoken ways cannabis can be used to treat all matter of women’s health.This frank and necessary conversation raises questions that your doctor won’t often know to answers to--Does vaginal application cause you to get high?How CBD can crush cramps in ways Motrin can’tHow cannabis can help menopausal women rejuvenate their sex lives and how younger women can use it to perk up theirsAnd why spray products are just so wrong when it comes to vaginal health.Add in the strong and informed opinions of these two powerhouse women and you’ve got a vag-forward conversation that should be sparking many future conversations among everyone, vaginally equipped or not. As Cyo so eloquently put it: "[These products] are like eye cream for the vagina…My face is never going to give birth to a child. I’d like to treat my vagina with the same care as I treat my face."PS: We love your feedback and I want to share this kind note from Dane Ward, a former school principal who lives in Georgia. Keep 'em coming!"Having been a Brave New World podcast subscriber for over a year, I want to take this opportunity to thank you for your incredible work. I’ve greatly enjoyed the wide variety of topics effectively addressed.Believe me when I say that my wife and I have benefited from implementing what we’ve learned. The integration of CBD is one example. She is a violin and mandolin player and suffers from arthritis in one hand. For years she relied on 10-12 ibuprofen to get though the day. Regular use of CBD has allowed her to stop that. Her hand pain is gone. We make our own tinctures using a Magic Butter Machine. CBD is helpful to us in many ways and we have other family members making the same conclusions.Interviewer skills are really first rate! The variety of helpful topics and the depth of interviewer questions make these podcasts really engaging. Many I go back to and listen for a second time. Having said that, I am happy to increase my monthly Patreon contribution to $5.00. For all that you provide, that is a great bargain."

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The Coca Cola bottling billionaire was arrested for smuggling 5,000 CBD hemp seedlings into St. Kitts on his private jet (the press called the CBD “cannabis” – silly reporters). In this exclusive interview, Alki unloads about the arrest, his plan to turn the Caribbean into a hemp growing mecca, and why he thinks Trump is a hero. And that's just for starters...“Alki” (Alkiviades) David is no stranger to controversy. He seems to crave it, in fact. He once offered $1M to anyone who would strip down and streak in front of President Barak Obama. Last year he made headlines for storming out of a Los Angeles courtroom when a jury fined him $11 million for sexually harassing two employees. (He’s refusing to pay “on principle”). On May 15, 2019, he was busted flying 5,000 seedlings of high CBD hemp, worth an estimated $500,000 into the Caribbean island of St. Kitts.He and his party (which included actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers, and fellow billionaire business partner, Chase Ergen), were detained for 8 hours and Alki was sent to jail for a night. The next day he posted $300,000 bail, Instagrammed selfies of himself heading to court, then videotaped his take off from the island. “St. Kitts is not going to get all these delicious goodies for another couple of weeks…” he said to camera. “We’ll be back in three weeks with the rolling papers, baby.”In fact, Alki flew to Puerto Rico, where he promised to start hemp farms across the island and then to buy the crops for his Swissx line of CBD products. If it works, the plan will guarantee hundreds of Puerto Rican farmers a steady stream of income -- a financial boon to an island desperately in need.Is Alki a criminal or a capitalist hero? Was the St. Kitts drama an audacious publicity stunt? And how do you fit 5,000 plants on a private jet, anyway? Alki addresses these and other questions in this rambunctious and, at times, rude interview, which left me wondering is he unbottled, unhinged, or just unusually media savvy? Or is he defiant simply because he’s worth $3.3 billion US (2.5 GBP) and can afford to be?Have a look at some of the photos he posted in this album. And let us know your opinion.

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Mark Williams, co-founder of Firefly Vaporizers, explains the folly of fat clouds, why vape pens suck, and why the new Firefly 2+ is so much more effective—and cost effective—than smoking.Well-designed technology is satisfying. Well-designed technology that also gets you deliciously high is sublime. You heard it here first: the new Firefly 2+ is a mini masterpiece. Less expensive than the original Firefly, easier on the draw (it sucks more!) and designed to maximize the flavor expression of every last terpene, the machine is a major leap forward for the 8 year old company.This interview with Mark goes in deep on the benefits and joys of vaporization and it demolishes a few myths along the way. Death to the fat cloud! Most users are still using the “fat cloud” of exhalation as a measure of a vaporizer’s power. Mark explains why the fat cloud is an artifact of the combustion era and why the Firefly 2+ produces an almost invisible vapor mist that is barely there. Vaporizing is way more efficient than smoking. Why? Simple. With a joint or pipe, about 50% of the plant material you’re burning goes up in smoke. Vaporizers, especially convection vaporizers, melt off the oils so you get every last drop of those precious, and expensive, oils.Vaporizers are cool. Yes, the new Firefly with its trendy finishes like Zebrawood, are pretty to behold, but that’s not the point. A vapor hit is hundreds of degrees cooler than combustion, which means less wear and tear on your lungs.Convection rules. Ever notice that by the time your oil cartridge is down to the final quarter it’s nothing more than a flavor-free sleep bomb? There’s a very practical reason why that’s so and you’ll learn why in the 2nd half of this podcast.I love exploring the nerdery of puffery. I also love this accompanying video that features Mark demonstrating the best way to pack and use the 2+. But what I love most is that Firefly is offering our very special audience a very special promotion of 20% off the new device. Head over to thefirefly.com and use the code BRAVE to grab your discount. Hurry—this deal expires on June 20, 2019.

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Modern medicine knows how to prolong life but rarely addresses the quality of that life. this episode explores another way of growing older -- in which our symptoms are not controlling our lives – with the help of medical cannabis.This episode is supported by Medical Cannabis Mentor: The finest evidenced-based cannabis education courses for healthcare professionals, dispensary personnel and patients. One of the turning points for my understanding the power of medical cannabis occurred in an Israeli nursing home where elders with dementia were being treated with it. Rather than being a gloomy and harrowing place like so many of these patient warehouses are, the Haradim Nursing Home was peaceful, even cheerful. It was where I encountered Moshe Roth a 90-something gentleman smoking a joint—the only form of treatment available in Israel at the time. That joint had turned his life of torment into a much happier existence, one in which he was able to enjoy music, painting and the company of his wife again.Inbal Sokorin, the head nurse of Haradim at the time, has turned her experience there into an international company. In partnership with co-founder Alon Blatt, who is interviewed on this podcast and who oversees the US operation, NiaMedic now has 3 facilities in the Los Angeles area that use medical cannabis in conjunction with conventional treatments to ensure that our elders have a better quality at the end of their lives. They’ve partnered with UCLA to research and document their findings. Some of the preliminary results are noteworthy.About 5% of the population doesn’t respond to CAN therapies. But for those who do, 93.8% report improved overall conditions.87.5% report significant pain reduction. Before cannabis treatment the median pain level of the NiaMedic population was 10 out of 10. (In other words, excruciating). After 6 months of cannabis treatment, the level dropped to 2.5 our of 10. What’s more, over half of their patients stopped using opiates.Their dementia patients have also saw their cognitive functioning improve by 10%. This indicates that cannabis is either a neuroprotector (as many pre-clinical studies show) that improves cognitive functioning or that it helps patients decrease their other, more mind-fogging, medications.One final, non-sequential thought: If you’re a New Yorker or believe that legalizing cannabis in New York (population 25 million) would be a game changing event for the entire east coast, please listen to Melissa Moore, the Drug Policy Alliance’s NY State Director, on what you can do to get our state legislators to do the right thing. We have until mid-June to push for legalization. Even if you don’t live in New York please listen and send to your friends in New York. Now is the time to act. Here’s an easy-action tool people can use to contact their reps—takes less than 2 minutes:http://bit.ly/MJjusticenow There’s also a take action page, which doesn’t require people to enter their email address, as the above tool doesAnd in case any of you want to go deeper and really dig in, here’s our activist toolkitAlso, to attend the BIG Albany lobby day on May 29 there are FREE buses available!

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We’re bringing you this episode featuring Seke Ballard and his investor-funded lending institution, Good Tree Capital. Good Tree is disrupting the banking industry by providing loans to smaller, vetted, credit worthy operators in cannabis. It raises money from individual investors like you and me, offering a healthy, low-risk return of 28.7% over three years. That’s a great deal.This episode is supported by Medical Cannabis Mentor: The finest evidenced-based cannabis education courses for healthcare professionals, dispensary personnel and patients. A number of you gave me grief when we featured investment leader Rich Batenburg on How to Invest in Cannabis (EP 49). “Rich had great advice for people with $1 million in the bank but what about smaller investors like me?”Message received loud and clear, which is why we’re bringing you this episode featuring Seke Ballard and his investor-funded lending institution, Good Tree Capital. Good Tree is disrupting the banking industry by providing loans to smaller, vetted, credit worthy operators in cannabis. It raises money from individual investors like you and me, offering a healthy, low-risk return of 28.7% over three years. That’s a great deal.Cannabis is legal in over 30 states but because of the federal prohibition, no bank will lend to a small cannabis operator. This presents an enormous obstacle to regular folks trying to get access to financial services -- 80% of single operator licensees can't even get a have bank account. No bank will touch them.I can relate. When I launched Medical Cannabis Mentor (an online education company) my first call was to JP Morgan Chase, where” the right relationship is everything” and where I have been a customer for 30 years. But just as I was set to write my first check I was informed by terse letter that Chase would be shutting that account -- no reason provided. When I wrote to Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase inquiring why, I received a phone call from an offshore functionary, who informed me that the bank was under no obligation to offer a reason. Case closed. Good bye.Seke got his MBA from Harvard and then went to work at Proctor & Gamble. In 2012 he moved to Seattle to work at Amazon, where he helped make Jeff Bezos the richest man in the world. 2012 was also the year that Washington and Colorado legalized for adult use, so he got a front row seat to the growing pains of the new industry. Good Tree was his solution to soothing some of those pains. (Not insignificantly, as Seke tells us in this podcast, consuming cannabis played a key role in devising the solution. “I’m closer to being a finance guy than an artist, but cannabis unlocks creativity within me. I have really good ideas when I consume. This was one of them.” We agree.

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In the last two years interest in CBD outpaced THC and has yet to peak. The world is awash in CBD, but because the market is unregulated, it’s difficult to know what you’re buying. Confusion abounds.This episode is supported by Medical Cannabis Mentor: The finest evidenced-based cannabis education courses for healthcare professionals, dispensary personnel and patients. Ask about special pricing for listeners of the this podcast!A few months ago I heard a rumor that CBD was getting more Google searches than God. I couldn’t find any evidence verifying that, but Google did reveal this surprising trend:CBD vs THCIn the last two years interest in CBD outpaced THC and has yet to peak. The world is awash in CBD, but because the market is unregulated, it’s difficult to know what you’re buying. Confusion abounds. And for good reasons. Recent reports show that labels on the bottle sometimes bear no relationship to the oil or tincture inside. Some CBD oils have high levels of THC (the standard amount is just .3%, which is too low to cause any sort of high); other brands contain no CBD whatsoever. Too many claim to have a certain number of mgs of CBD but when tested, are shown to be wildly inaccurate. Other issues to beware: Is your CBD free of contaminants? Much of the CBD from China or Eastern Europe was grown on soil that may be contaminated by industrial waste. If a product hasn’t been tested by an independent, 3rd party lab, you’ll never know for sure. And if it has been tested, where can you see the results? Transparent companies post results on their websites. The terms on the label are also perplexing: Here’s a quick guide to an isolate versus a full spectrum or broad spectrum oil. CBD Isolate is pure CBD extracted from hemp with no other cannabinoids. It is dried and crystalized, and many contend it is less effective than Full Spectrum CBD, which is extracted from hemp with all of the accompanying cannabinoids, including that tiny amount of THC. Broad Spectrum is CBD is Full Spectrum, but with all of the THC removed. Finally, there’s the price -- a sore spot for anyone on a low or fixed income. It’s not uncommon to find a 1000mg bottle of CBD costing $60. At 25mg twice a day that comes to over $1000 a year, which is sky high for a product produced from a plant that grows wild almost everywhere in the world. The best way I can contribute to stopping shoddy business practices is through education. That’s why this episode features Martin Lee, Director of Project CBD, the California-based nonprofit that has been disseminating research about this cannabinoid long before it was a Google trend. Martin tackles the challenges of navigating the unregulated market to find good, reliable medicine. Our second interview is with Dr. Junella Chin (featured several times in previous episodes on our podcast), who has treated over 10,000 patients with CBD in the last 15 years. She offers practical advice about using it for maximum impact. If you know of a reputable CBD brand that is transparent in its growing and extraction practices and affordable, please let us know. Email bravenewweedcast@gmail.com or snap a pic of the label and post it on Instagram. Be sure to tag us and tell us the price!. This is one area where the wisdom of crowds can be a great service.

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Advocates fume that these new cannabis companies are pulling in billions without supporting orgs that have done the hard work for the last 60 years.That’s the question this episode obliquely addresses with two insightful men: Kris Krane, activist turned co-founder of 4Front, an investment and multistate dispensary firm, and Bruce Barcott, Deputy Editor at Leafly, who asks if corporate insensitivity and greed killed NY’s failed legalization effort.This episode is supported by Atlas Growers.Corporate cannabis has been facing some strong headwinds as of late. In March, former Leader of the House John Boehner took the stage at South By Southwest to explain how he became a supporter of legal cannabis and board member of Acreage Holdings. Outside the hall small protests flared. Their concern was that he was lining his pockets without acknowledging how the Drug War policies he supported continue to keep people locked in jail for cannabis offenses. Other activists are grumbling that newly formed companies are pulling in billions without supporting orgs like NORML, Marijuana Policy Project, or Drug Policy Alliance that have done the hard work of driving change over the last 60 years. Some CEOs even brag that they have never used the plant in an attempt to woo skittish investors and distance themselves from the culture.Kris Krane thinks that is a bone-headed idea, akin to the head of a wine company distancing himself from his product because he fears being labeled a drunk. An activist turned businessman, Krane occupies a unique position in the industry. He earned his bona fides on the advocacy side, first as associate director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws and subsequently as co-founder of Students for Sensible Drug Policy, where he campaigned to scale back the law that denies federal financial aid to students with drug convictions. Today, as leader of 4front he sees his role as building bridges between advocates who fought to change the laws that businesspeople are now profiting from. Our short interview is with Leafly’s Bruce Barcott, who last week penned a piece examining how New York, a state with over 20 million people (and the country’s largest cannabis black market), bungled legalization. Was Governor Cuomo, never a natural ally of cannabis, too anemic in his support for legalization? Were legislators happy to let the issue die on the vine for fear of voter backlash? Or did certain cannabis corporations, in their urgency to grab market share, run roughshod over advocates who were trying to ensure justice and funding for communities decimated by the drug wars?Listen in to hear Bruce’s take on this historic missed opportunity.More on Atlas GrowersEdmonton-based Atlas Growers is soon to be the largest producer of medical cannabis in Canada.Atlas's pharmaceutically viable cannabis flower and cannabis products are cultivated in a state-of-the-art, 38,000 square foot controlled-environment agricultural facility. The team at Atlas is committed to improving lives by creating the worlds’ most trusted cannabis products.For Atlas, it all starts with education. They are dedicated to teaching all Canadians about the qualities, types and uses of cannabis. Their mission is to no less than rewrite the book on the historically misunderstood plant. Along the way, Atlas will aid Canadian patients to make smart and informed decisions and use cannabis in a safe and effective way. Learn more at atlasgrowers.com or follow them via:Instagram: @atlasgrowersLinkedIn: Atlas GrowersTwitter: @AtlasGrowersFacebook: AtlasGrowers

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Max Montrose, founder of The Trichome Institute, trains students to become ganja sommeliers. His “interpening” course guides you how “read” and predict a flower’s effects by smell and taste. This is Next Level Cannabis.This episode is sponsored by Mission Dispensaries.Followers of this podcast know that strain names are largely bullshit and not reliably indicative of what will happen after inhalation. The more accurate determinants of a high are the terpenes, those powerful smell molecules that combine with THC to direct the effects and the healing. [EP 14 with Dr. Ethan Russo is a great refresher on this topic.] For even more in depth terptalk that you’re not likely to get anywhere else, we urge you to tune into this interview with Max Montrose, the founder of the Trichome Institute. Max is a one of a kind cannabis obsessive that we at BNW cherish.Max began “interpening” (“interpreting terps”) in 2008. Today he hosts seminars around the country to groom the first generation of “ganjasoms,” cannabis sommeliers, who can inhale a flower and get insight into the climate, soil and rich bouquet of phytochemicals that direct the effects. It’s an ambitious and audacious pursuit. Since I’ve never taken a class, I have no idea if it can be accomplished, but if any of you get inspired to so after this podcast, I expect your reviews.And now for a quick quiz:FluorescenceTerpicityDirty dabbingMariguanaSativistIf you can define any of the terms above, congratulations! You may not need to listen to this, our 50th episode! But we suggest you do so anyway because you’re going to be blown away by the depth, passion and intelligence that Max brings to his topic.Special Bonus for Patreon supporters: Get a personal, guided tour of Max’s amazing inked body, which features a depiction of almost every entheogen grown on planet Earth. This one is worth your monthly support!About about our sponsor, Mission:We think of Mission as a different kind of dispensary, not just filling orders, but fulfilling your needs as an individual. If you’re new to the world of marijuana, or just the rules for recreational use, we know it can be intimidating: with different regulations in different states. So many options for the types of cannabis and the ways you can consume it. Maybe even a little nervousness at trying it. We get it: that’s a lot of unknowns. So they're here to help you through the process, from how to register, to what to expect when you step through our doors. We’ll explain your choices, so you can create an experience that best fits you and your life. And we’ll give you a comfortable, no-judgements space to come and connect with others like you. That’s their Mission. Visit them online.

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Richard Batenburg, CEO & Founder of Cliintel Capital Management, talks about how to see through the smoke and mirrors of cannabis investing.This episode is brought to you by GoFire.co. If you're interested in trying one out, there’s a special introductory promotion for the Brave New Weed podcast community: You can get $200 off the Gofire’s $499 retail price by going to Gofire.co and using the code BRAVE!Cliintel Capital Management Group is a venture capital firm that provides funding to companies in the heavily regulated cannabis and finance industries. In the past 3.5 years, CCMG has funded and incubated 11 cannabis startups- all of which saw profit.Founder Rich Batenburg started the fund in 2015, shortly after Colorado legalized cannabis. He has since become one of Colorado’s most successful investors and has firsthand knowledge of the pitfalls and the upsides of investing in this fast moving industry. While his fund is clearly for HNWI’s (High Net Worth Individuals) with over $1M in liquid assets, this interview has plenty of useful information for RFLUs (Regular Folks Like Us).To get you started, here are 3 quick tips:Buy cannabis like you’re buying a car. Read the public filings. Get to know the business plan beyond “We’re gonna grow a bunch of weed and sell it.”Know your own horizon. If you want to make fast money you'll have a better chance if you can find a solid grow operation in a state that has just legalized. There is inevitable a scarcity of product at that point.If you’re more risk averse consider ancillary businesses like real estate that don’t touch the plant. Think pick and axes (or in the case of cannabis, brothels and bars).

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In Peter Calfee’s case it did. And it kickstarted his very cool WeedTech business to boot!If medical cannabis is ever going to get the respect it deserves as a medicine, it’s going to have to do better than “Go home a pack a bowl.” It’s sort of hard to imagine a doctor or any healthcare provider ever saying, “Take a few hits and call me in the morning.”That’s one of the reasons I’m excited about the GoFire metered dose inhalers, which are due to hit the market in the next few months. Not only is GoFire a nifty convection vaporizer (which beats those cheap conduction vaporizers by a mile -- you’ll find the convection vs. conduction discussion midway in this episode), but it comes with an app that aims to offer patients a lot more insight and choice as to what meds to try for which conditions. As Peter Calfee, GoFire’s CEO and Founder, puts it: “GoFire is a Waze meets Yelp in the alternative health space.”One of the aims of medical cannabis is to find the lowest possible dose to find relief. High doses are not necessarily called for. To that end, we tried the GoFire and indeed, its ability to measure tiny, 2.5mg doses is impressive. Catch a video of it and the app in use here. And if you’re interested in trying one out, there’s a special introductory promotion for the Brave New Weed podcast community: You can get $200 off the GoFire’s $499 retail price by going to GoFire.co and using the code BRAVE!One last thing: Throughout this interview Peter refers to a “510.” No, it’s not the Oakland CA area code. “510” refers to the cheap pen vaporizers that are in use everywhere.

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From Colorado OG to owner of one of the largest edible manufacturers in the US and beyond.In this very sweet interview, Dan gives us the inside scoop on edibles, candy and who likes what. Here are just a few tidbits of what you’re going to hear. Adult men like gummies until they pass 50; then they like hard mints (just like grandpa used to like!)Chocolate is loved by women over 32; and by men over 40.Adults, not kids, like the texture of “chewy." Interestingly, “chewy" is liked by less than 18% of the population under 18. Kids under 18 prefer sugary drinks like Red Bull. (So next time you hear the prohibitionists tell you edible manufacturers are targeting teenagers, give them this data from the National Confectioner’s Association.)In this sprawling and fascinating interview you’ll also learn about the future of vegan edibles and the wellness future of cannabinoids, especially how they’ll be paired with nutraceuticals for gut control, sleep control and pain control. You’ll learn why crossing the US border is fraught for Canadian Cannabis entrepreneurs, and you’ll hear why veterans who need cannabis are afraid to use it: "Every time the US Congress avoids fixing cannabis they continue to deny benefits to the very group they say they want to help most."

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Welcome to the first episode of our special 4-part series "Denver: Five Years After Legalization," presented by GoFire. As a special promotion, listeners to the Brave New Weed podcast are eligible for a special $200 pre-order discount on the GoFire inhaler. Use the code: BRAVE. As the rest of the country inches toward legalization we thought it would be useful to head to Colorado, the first state to legalize, to see firsthand what the effects have been. We spent a few days in Denver, "the Mile High City," talking to experts, industry leaders and the media about their thoughts. The results were so interesting that we’ve decided to double up our production and bring you an episode every week for the next month. (There’s also tons of bonus content for our Patreon supporters, so be sure to check that out.) In this first episode, we connected with @Izzy_Blazee and @Sunnny.Daze, two micro-influencers who are making a living documenting their lives in cannabis on Instagram. Izzy calls herself the “Good Time Guru,” who specializes in content creation/consultation/motivation and inspiration. Sunnny is an "MMJ patient and CBD advocate" who specializes in marketing/branding/content creation. Their brands are unabashedly who they are and what they do. To see how these two women are showcasing the new face of cannabis to the world I suggest you follow them on The Gram. But to understand the impact of social media and influencer marketing on the new world of cannabis, and to learn the ins and outs of what they do and how they are growing their followings, I highly recommend you listen in to this enlightening interview with Blaze and Daze. And keep your eye out for mini-series Episode #2, coming at you in a week in addition to the bonus content with Ricardo Baca coming out this week exclusively to our Patreon supporters.

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The Denver Miniseries is brought to you by GoFire.Host Joe Dolce and Alan Seales travel to Denver to bring you some of the greatest content we've had to date. Stay tuned to subsequent episodes to hear what's coming. As always, we encourage you to support us for as little as $1/mo via Patreon.com/BraveNewWeed.As a special promotion, listeners to the Brave New Weed podcast are eligible for a special $200 pre-order discount on the GoFire inhaler. Use the code: BRAVE. Learn more at http://gofire.co.One of the biggest problems with inhaling cannabis medicines is getting a precise dose every time. Now with the GoFire inhaler and app, dose control is as easy as taking a breath.Gofire is a device and an app that brings you more clarity, control and choice over your cannabis medicine. Its technology enables a precise 2.5mg metered dose with every inhale. A tracking app allows you keep a record and chart results on your mobile device as you go.It also allows patients to search by ailment and find community ratings to help find products that work for different conditions.Whether you prefer edibles, topicals, extracts or have yet to give plant medicine a try, the Gofire community can help you find the best product and dose to get the relief you need. Download the Gofire App today to get started.

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Neuroscientist Dr. Greg Gerdeman makes the scientific case for legalization and regulation.Interview content begins at 20:58.Greg Gerdeman, PhD was one of the first people to make me aware that the runner’s high is not the result of endorphins, but is in fact, brought on by endocannabinoids -- the molecules produced by our own bodies that mimic the effects of THC and CBD found in the plant. Since then, Greg, a former tenured professor at Eckerd College and now Chief Science officer at 3 Boys Farm, an organic greenhouse-based cannabis provider in Florida, has become a trusted friend and colleague. He is one of those rare people who can make complex biochemistry of cannabis understandable, even sexy.That's why Greg was the first person I called when I wanted to understand the difference between the scary synthetics like K2 or Spice and real cannabis. As he explains in this fascinating interview, these fake cannabinoids were first produced in labs by renown scientists who were looking to locate and understand the way that endocannabinoid system of receptors in our brains and bodies work. But unlike THC or CBD, the synthetics were designed to attach to stick to the receptors for a very long time. That’s why they are 10,000 more potent than natural cannabinoids and so much more dangerous.Even more dodgy are the haphazard ways they are made: Bad actors in Southeast Asia get access to these synthetic cannabinoids and then spray them on herbs in random, unknown quantities. Some doses may be mild; others deadly. No oversight = no quality control. They are exported are then sold here in gas stations and convenience stores to the uninformed looking for a cheap high. As Greg points out, this illicit trade is the result of prohibition. If everyone could legally obtain cannabis, the need for synthetic substitutes evaporates.In this wide ranging interview (which is reflective of Greg’s wide ranging brain) he also explains the differences between “full spectrum CBD” and CBD products made from “isolates” and “distillates.” He warns why the product labeled "organic" featuring a cute couple hiking The Rockies, might not be what’s advertised.To read all of Dr. Gerdeman's papers click here.

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Bryon Adinoff is a board member for Doctors For Cannabis Regulation and the co-author of a letter to the editor published by the New York Times in response to the Op-Ed written by Alex Berenson. The DFCR states "Alex Berenson’s Op-Ed offers hyperbolic assertions and a biased interpretation of scientific literature."Read the original Op-Ed here: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/04/opinion/marijuana-pot-health-risks-legalization.html

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Christine De La Rosa is a serial entrepreneur whose company, The People’s Dispensary, proves that the cannabis industry can do more than just churn money for corporations. It can give back to disadvantaged communities, enable mom and pops to flourish, and still turn a healthy profit.As corporations flush with cash rush into the cannabis space it’s time we ask, ‘Is this the only way forward?’ Do these companies, that are destined to turn vast profits from an industry projected to worth $500 billion once legalization occurs, plan to help the communities they serve or will they be allowed to create another tobacco or alcohol industry, dominated by a few players that can swallow up and spit out every small operator?These are questions we need to ask right now. This week’s guest, Christine De La Rosa, is proving that large venture capital backed companies can and should formalize a way to ensure that more of the folks hurt by prohibition get an opportunity to profit in the industry. De La Rosa is no pie in the sky dreamer. She is a successful entrepreneur based in Oakland, CA, who has a nose for making money. She has founded an events company, several restaurants, and, along with three partners, The People’s Dispensary, an organization that has created a framework for ensuring that small players, people of color, the formerly incarcerated and other disadvantaged communities get a fair shot at participating in the enormous wealth the industry is destined to create.As she points out: "For small players the barrier to entry is always financing. You can have a grower who has been growing for 60 years, but if she doesn’t have a pathway to financing, to pay licensing fees, state, county, and state taxes, she’s not going to have a chance. In any other industry you can walk into a bank and get a loan against a future crop. Not in this business.”When the legalization movement began some 50 years ago “doing well by doing good” was intrinsic to the cause. It would be a shame -- scratch that -- a tragedy if those values were sacrificed at the altar of the mighty dollar. The industry is just taking off. Now's the right time to ensure that everyone who wants in has a fair shot at succeeding.Click here to view TPD’s Cannabis Equity Framework White Paper for your business or community.

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Bryon Adinoff is a board member for Doctors For Cannabis Regulation and the co-author of a letter to the editor published by the New York Times in response to the Op-Ed written by Alex Berenson. The DFCR states "Alex Berenson’s Op-Ed offers hyperbolic assertions and a biased interpretation of scientific literature."Read the original Op-Ed here: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/04/opinion/marijuana-pot-health-risks-legalization.html

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Matthew interviews me about why medical cannabis is more complex than "Take two tokes and call me in the morning," & what I'm doing about that!There are four reasons why medical cannabis is not being used to its full potential, especially for chronic conditions like pain, anxiety and insomnia. The first two reasons are easily understood, high prices and limited access. Most patients can’t afford the hundreds of dollars per month costs that cannabis meds incur and many medical states make access difficult by limiting the conditions it can be used for. Fortunately, the horse is already out of the gate: broader legalization will increase access and ease limitations. Prices will drop with more dispensaries and larger-scale grow operations. After 80 years of prohibition, the idea of using cannabis for medical purposes is still greeted with chuckles. The Cheech and Chong stoner stigma hasn’t been shaken completely. Even with medical cannabis programs in 30 states, most media representations involve close-ups of men (usually men) with a burning joint between their lips. We’re not seeing people of all ages in pain, using cannabis as a tincture or a salve. We rarely see it vaporized. This is the third reason: the B-roll problem. Media people have a hard time talking about medical cannabis without a joke or a snide aside. The still think of it as “take two tokes and call me in the morning.” The fourth reason medical cannabis is not as popular as Tylenol is, in a word, complexity. The complexity of how medical cannabis works and the experimenting necessary to finding the right dose is the primary reason people hold off from trying this incredible botanical medicine. With no one to guide them they either take too little and get no relief and give up too soon, or they take too much and get blindingly high or stoned, which makes maintaining a functioning life difficult for many patients with chronic conditions. These are some of the reasons Dr. Junella Chin and I have launched MedicalCannabisMentor.com. It is the most modern, evidence-based online learning platform we know of, with courses aimed at three populations: Healthcare providers (ranging from MDs to health coaches), dispensary personnel (a/k/a budtenders) and patients. Rather than me tell you about the virtues of “education before medication,” Matthew and I have reversed roles on this podcast. He does a great job grilling me. Please let me know how I do as the guest!

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You asked: 'How do I talk about weed to the kids?' What’s up with Bobbi Brown’s CBD makeup line?' 'How do I dial back THC if I take too much?'... & more. One of the world's leading cannabinologists, Dr. Sunil Aggarwal, provides the answers!Interview begins at 15:30.One of the privileges of hosting this podcast is the feedback we get from you, our growing and glorious community of listeners. As a group, you are engaged, thoughtful, opinionated and not at all shy about expressing those opinions. Last week, Janet told us she dislikes our music and our intro. Julie and Bob both think our news segments are too long, while Stephen thinks they aren’t long enough. Many of you bemoan the corporatization of cannabis – an assessment we’re not unsympathetic with and will be addressing in upcoming episodes. The majority of queries center around medical cannabis -- What’s the difference between Hemp CBD and CBD from whole plant? What’s the right dose? Can a topical really treat acne…or a migraine? I’ve been logging your questions in hopes of getting one of the world’s experts, Dr. Sunil Aggarwal, to answer them. Finally we found the time and I couldn’t be more pleased to share the microphone with him. Sunil’s credentials are as impressive as they are extensive. He’s a medical doctor who also holds a B.S. in chemistry, a B.A. in philosophy (with a minor in religious studies), and a Ph.D. in medical geography. He currently serves as the co-director of the Advanced Integrative Medical Sciences Institute (AIMS) in Seattle, WA. In other words, he is a great student of this complex plant. Tune in to find many surprising answers to your many surprising questions. And if you don’t get the answers you need, send us a note at bravenewweedcast@gmail.com and we’ll help you find them. Patreon supporters, of course, get first consideration!And while we have your attention -- Happy Holidays!

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Steven Kotler, the co-author of Stealing Fire and Research Director at the Flow Genome Project, goes in deep on how to hack our brain chemistry to increase performance and pleasure.If you listen to this podcast you know that I am fascinated with the notion of flow and how to use cannabis (and other substances and practices to get into the zone). The term “flow” was first coined in 1975 and is defined as a high state of functioning in which you lose sense of self, time and effort. It’s that state when you feel as though you’re being carried along by a water current or as if you’re skiing a course of moguls, every move, every turn flawlessly executed without thought. We’ve all had glimpses of losing ourselves in an activity, be it writing, playing an instrument, or merging with a partner during sex, and the older I grow the more I want to increase my flow states when and where possible.Topics we discuss include:The brain’s 6 pleasure chemicals and how to access themThe neurobiology of mystical experiencesMicro flow states and the truth behind the runner’s high (hint: it’s not endorphins, it’s anandamide)How tech execs are using flow to increase productivityAnd of course, the recipe for The Hippie Speedball[Consider this interview with Steven a bookend to our fascinating conversation with Jamie Wheal (Episode 31, “How To Survive In A World That has Lost Its Mind”). The two co-wrote the brilliant Stealing Fire, and together head the Flow Genome Project, which trains individuals and orgs in search of optimal performance to harness more flow. Skip to 23:20 for this interview.] We begin the hour with a quick interview with the chef/authors of Edibles: Small bites for the modern cannabis kitchen (skip to 9:00 for this interview). Stephanie Hua and Coreen Carroll have mastered the art of low-dose edible cooking. This collection of 30 recipes is Next Level cannabis cookery – light years beyond Alice B. Toklas’s brownies. If you’re in the Bay Area, check out Coreen’s Cannaisseur Series dinners, an evening of conversation, food, wine all paired with specially selected cannabis strains to enhance the experience.

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A surprising, revealing and stimulating conversation with psychiatrist, author and high quality person of brilliance, Dr. Julie Holland.This interview with Dr. Julie Holland marks the 40th podcast in the Brave New Weed series and it’s one of our best yet. As a podcaster I can often map out the route a discussion will take, but this conversation with Julie ebbed and flowed in the most delightfully surprising ways. I never knew where it was leading. What I did know was that every turn it took was more interesting than the last. In this episode, we discuss:CBD and dental pain and how this remarkable cannabinoid calms nerve irritationWhat an orgasm and a delicious meal have in common (you never even thought to ask, did you?)Why men have nipplesThe real danger of masturbating to pornScreenophilia (or the reason why the next generation is falling in love with their screens)Curing your runny nose with psychedelicsHow cannabinoids can help cure our country’s PMS.Tune in and share it widely. As cannabis becomes more mainstream and a broader swath of people shake off the yoke of prohibition, so many more conversations about the plant’s powers are taking place. Our mission is to stay at the forefront of these conversations and lead the way in the post-Prohibition era. If you value independent explorations such as these, free of advertising and the traditional constraints imposed by mainstream media, please support on us on Patreon.For less than the price of a coffee in NYC your donation can help us continue this work. We do this for love, not money, and we appreciate any help you can offer to keep the love flowing.And where else will you learn why men have nipples?

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That’s the question scientists and advocates have been asking for decades. Ricki Lake’s moving new documentary, Weed The People, seeks the answer.If you've been following this podcast you know that cannabis doesn’t cure cancer. Nothing does -- cancer is a broad description of over 200 different disease states that can be treated with varying rates of success. But you also know that cannabis does do amazing things like cause some cancers cells such as glioblastoma (a fast-moving brain cancer that oncologists call “The Terminator”) to commit suicide. It also works synergistically and somewhat mysteriously to up the life extending outcomes of certain chemotherapies.What isn’t known is why the US government restricts access to cannabis meds and why it wantonly bans most of the research in this country.Ricki Lake and Abby Epstein’s new documentary, Weed The People, examines this cruel reality by following the lives of 5 kids with brain cancer (and their fraught families). In other words, kids with death sentences for whom conventional chemotherapies have failed. The filmmakers followed these families for upwards of 7 years. Four of the five kids are alive today. Some of them are thriving. 'Nuf said.The film was spawned when Ricki’s husband, Christian, received a cancer diagnosis. He passed away, but in their search for alternative therapies, he came upon some remarkable cannabis healers, among them Mara Gordon, founder of Aunt Zelda’s (she is featured on Episode 5 of our podcast). Ricki made it her mission to finish Christian's search and tell the story of so many others in the same situation.She, of course, is no stranger of advocacy film making. In 2008 she and Abby made the groundbreaking and widely heralded The Business of Being Born about the institutionalization of childbirth, which caused millions of women to shift to home birth.As of this writing, the Weed the People is showing in just a few markets (100% on Rotten Tomatoes so far), but the filmmakers are making it available to people who want to hold screenings in communities around the country. Listen to our great interview for details on how to arrange a screening and be sure to watch the trailer.

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An exclusive interview with former Massachusetts governor and cannabis legalization maverick, Bill Weld.Bill Weld has been a maverick politician ever since he was elected as the (libertarian) Republican governor of deep blue Massachusetts. Not only was he among the first American office holders to preach the benefits of legalization in 1991—five years before California legalized—he was also one of the earliest proponents of LGBTQ rights. He was a fiscally conservative social liberal with a gin dry sense of humor. When once challenged about Blueblood ancestors who had come over on the Mayflower, Weld quipped: "Actually, they weren't on the Mayflower. They sent the servants over first to get the cottage ready.” Weld was an extremely popular governor -- the citizens of Massachusetts reelected him for a second term in 1994 by a 71% majority. His last run for public office was as Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson’s Vice President running mate in the 2016 presidential race.Along with the ex-Speaker of the House John Boehner and the former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, Weld joined the board of the multi-state, venture-backed cannabis company, Acreage Holdings this year. The fine men and women at Acreage invited me to interview him on stage at the Cannabis World Congress exposition in Boston on October 19, 2018.Bill told me that even while he has had a long and friendly relationship with alcohol, he has never sampled cannabis or tobacco. He became aware of the plant’s value when he saw it reduce the number of seizures and suffering in a family member with epilepsy. Unlike many politicians and self-proclaimed “experts,” he is uncomfortable predicting the future of the industry, but he doesn’t shy away from discussing the thornier aspects of normalizing the plant in the US.In this interview we discuss the Trump administration’s August 18 not-so “secret plan” to create a disinformation campaign about marijuana to spark fear in the population; whether big pharma and tobacco will swoop in to gobble up the industry once federal legalization occurs; and the administration’s hysterical threat to close the northern border to any Canadian involved in the cannabis industry. “People in Washington should try to be less hysterical,” he says. “It’s not like those Canadians are transmitting syphilis. It’s crazy.”Thanks to Christine Ianuzzi and her great team of sound engineers, Matthew Bailey and Will Senedzuk for recording and allowing us to share this audio.

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Irene Mosyak, a 16 year old student whose research is changing hearts and minds in her school and hometown of Clarkesville, Maryland.That advice comes from Irene Mosyak, a remarkable 16-year old who challenged her high school by doing a thesis project on medical cannabis. This podcast is her story.“I was searching for a relevant topic and I was curious about why getting cannabis legalized was such an issue. When I proposed the topic of medical marijuana, the teacher suggested I do something else. 'Why are you researching a gateway drug?' she asked. I was trying to be respectful so I didn’t laugh. I explained that I was examining the relationship between CBD and THC and how medical marijuana treats drug resistant epilepsy. Reluctantly, she agreed, as long as I wasn’t promoting recreational teen use. “Other students made fun of me. 'We’re researching cancer. You’re researching weed?' They said smoking cannabis was as bad as smoking cigarettes, which is wrong. They thought legalization would create an unproductive society. When I mentioned studies showing that it helps people get off hard drugs, they said, 'But then they'll be marijuana addicts.' I also ran a survey on my town’s (Clarksville, Maryland) Facebook page and got over 200 responses. They were even more uninformed than my fellow students. Two of the most common responses were, 'People pretend to have back pain in order to get high,' and 'There’s no need for medical marijuana if pharmaceuticals are more effective.'"In the end, I presented my research in a paper and two presentations and I did change minds. Legalization is making the situation better, but there’s still a long way to go.”

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Dr. Stacey Kerr, family physician and advisor to Hawaiian Ethos, weighs in.For too long advocates, myself included, brushed aside these persistent questions—most people were too busy fighting the lies and disinformation of prohibition to properly address them. But if this industry is going to go forward responsibly, they must be addressed.The typical answer is “We need more research.” And while that’s true, let’s not forget that the plant has been used (and overused!) for over 5,000 years, so in a very real way it is among the most tested medicine around. What do clinicians who have been administering it know about overuse and or the risk of using while pregnant? What have their patients told or shown them? And. at what point is using all the time a “disorder” or a balm for conditions such as anxiety, pain and social insecurity?Dr. Stacey Kerr, is a retired family physician in California and the Medical Advisor to Hawaiian Ethos, medical cannabis on Hawaii Island. She has been practicing medicine for over 40 years and in that time delivered hundreds babies, treated moms and reviewed the vast body of literature to answer these questions. Our interview is frank and honest, and one that I hope will spark an ongoing conversation among the leaders in this industry, especially as cannabis continues to be commoditized and sold like cigarettes. Remember, the ancients once considered tobacco a sacred herb that was used on special occasions before the likes of Marlboro started rolling it up, boxing it and addicting us to it. Let's not make the same dirty business out of cannabis.

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An interview with Mitcho Thompson, herbalist and wizard behind Phytomagic.It has been predicted that the “Wellness” industry is set to overtake the “Illness” industry in the coming decade. I have no idea if this is true or even verifiable, but there is little doubt that woke baby boomers are investing in preventing their bodies from breaking down rather than treating the symptoms once they’ve already wreaked havoc. As followers of this podcast know, cannabinoids are key to keeping the body’s engine humming at high performance. This interview with Mitcho Thompson is about blending cannabinoids with other herbs to increase their healing powers.Mitcho is one of California’s early cannabis pioneers, an herbalist and a founding member of Peace in Medicine one of the state’s first dispensaries. He is Chancellor Emeritus of Oaksterdam University and a VP of the Sonoma Chapter of Americans for Safe Access. Plants are his pharmacy.We met at his home in beautiful Sonoma county, California. A pet emu grazed in the front yard and the back yard was a shambolic Eden of giant cannabis plants (trees, really) and about 100 herbs all of which he knows by name and effect. Mitcho hand harvests plants like skullcap, passion flower and hops, blends them with other extracts of cacao, ginger, kaffir lime, and then turns them into tinctures (which are alcohol based) and oils (which increase the uptake of cannabinoids into the bloodstream). His two dozen remedies treat insomnia, inflammation, aching muscles, menstrual cramps and low energy, to name a few.Interestingly, some formulas are made with decarboxylated (heated) cannabis oils, which make them psychoactive, but most are made with raw cannabinoids, so you feel the effects without getting high. I’ve been sampling them over the last few weeks. The sleep formula has been working like a charm and the energy booster (called “Disco Fiesta Tonic”), which I took one evening before dinner, definitely put some pep in my step. I didn’t realize it was psychoactive until people at the table kept remarking on the increasing number of smiles spreading across my face as dinner progressed.NOTE: Peace in Medicine is now owned by the SF-based SPARC, so Californians should be able to buy Mitcho’s formulas, which will be sold under the PHYTOMAGIC brand, in any of SPARC’s four dispensaries. Keep an eye out.

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And how cannabis can help you find more of it. A high-minded conversation with Jason Silva, apostle of awe, wonder and flow!One of my favorite topics is designing our highs to help us have a more childlike view of our increasingly data-driven world. And one of my favorite explorers of this topic is Jason Silva, who one writer called a Timothy Leary for the viral video age. I think of him more as a scholar, a shaman, and a poet. He's less interested in getting high than in using cannabis as a "technology of ecstatic experience." He's part of a new breed of consciousness hackers that includes Michael Pollan, Jamie Wheal, Steven Kotler and millions of adults experimenting with psychedelics, microdosing, and meditation to reveal "a bigger, wider, more far-reaching universe that goes beyond what the eye can see.”Silva a former host on Al Gore's now defunct Current TV and current host of NatGeo's Brain Games, he makes a living traveling the globe preaching about the value of injecting more awe, rapture and surprise into our lives. He's a cultural nomad, living between NYC, SF Miami, and somewhere way out there in space. His smashcut videos look and sound as if he’s live streaming his consciousness onto the screen. He doesn't write a script -- he channels -- and it's mesmerizing. You’ll hear it in this interview: he doesn’t speak in sentences. Paragraphs of seriously coherent, large chunks of thought peppered with relevant quotes from other thinkers pour from his mouth. It’s pure freestyle flow, he says, accessed through cannabis.If you don't know Jason, let this serve as an introduction. Start with this video “Why You Need Awe”, read this blog “Hacking the Tripping Mind: A Fantastic Voyage Through Inner Space.” and listen to him by tuning into this podcast.

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While America tries to revive the corpse that is coal, Canada is heading full speed ahead into cannabis. Steve Klein, CEO of Flowr, tells us what's really going on north of the border. While angry Creamsicle-in-Chief is still trying to figure out how to revive the corpse that is the American coal industry and inciting all sort of unnecessary trade wars with our past friends and future frenemies, Canada is legalizing adult-use cannabis this October and already reaping the benefits.A recent analysis from Deloitte shows that “smokable marijuana” in the nation to our north will generate $5 billion in revenue in 2019; once edibles are legalized the following year, revenues are set to spike to between $12 and $22 billion. Other estimates show that the Canada will need 100,000-150,000 workers right now to keep the business cranking. How many coal miners are really going to be put back to work…and for how long, even if prima Donald manages to fire up a few filthy coal plants in West Virginia.Con Don appears embarrassingly clueless about the opportunity he is missing. He is handing Canada an enormous head start on export, production and the fast-breaking advances in growing and manufacturing.To understand the size of this mega-missed opportunity and to get a view into what’s happening to the north, this week’s guest is Steve Klein, the CEO and co-founder of Flowr, one of the fastest growing Canadian brands. Last March, Flowr joined forces with Hawthorne, a subsidiary of Scotts Miracle-Gro, to build a research and development facility in Kelowna, British Columbia that will focus on developing nutrient formulas, lighting, irrigation, and integrated cultivation systems. Agriculture, science and technology: those are essential the ingredients almost any industry of the future.So, place your bets: Coal or cannabis? The answer is obvious to everyone except the Great White Dopes running the country.

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Can changing our diets make us more attuned to the chemicals in cannabis, and thus healthier? Dr. Deborah Kimless says it can.We don’t know much about cannabis and diet other than that old hippie lore that eating a mango can extend the length of a high. (It’s true, by the way. Mango is rich in the terpene myrcene, also found in cannabis. The hippies got that right!) But there be a lot more to know, and Dr. Deborah Kimless is passionate about piecing together the clues. When it comes to diet, Kimless, an anesthesiologist and medical director of Forward Gro, Maryland’s first licensed medical cannabis grow, eschews the V word (vegan), in favor of the P word (pH balanced diet). The theory goes like this; Reduce acidity in the gut, and disease won’t take root as easily. An alkaline diet rich in fruits, vegetables, potatoes, and alkali-rich red and white wine, can help prevent unhealthy microbes and organisms from flourishing, lessen damage to tissues and organs and the depletion of minerals. It can also strengthen immune function.Here’s what an excellent 2012 review published in the Journal of Environmental and Public Health concluded: “It is generally accepted that humans today have a diet poor in magnesium and potassium as well as fiber, and rich in saturated fat, simple sugars, sodium, and chloride as compared to the preagricultural period. This results in a diet that may induce metabolic acidosis which is mismatched to our genetically determined nutritional requirements.Kimless has a lot to say about eating a pH balanced diet and using cannabinoids to bolster the effects. Listen to this episode and you may never eat the same again!

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A fascinating interview with Jamie Wheal, the best-selling author of Stealing Fire.Twenty first century men and women – we’re not faring so well. We are tired, wired, stressed. Our cortisol levels veer between fight or flight, our heartbeats are erratic, and this is our normal. This interview with the very brilliant Jamie Wheal explores how to cherry pick ancient and modern "technologies" -- meditation, neurobiology, breathwork, microdoses of psychedelics, marathon running – to give us a better chance, individually and as a culture, to solve the cataclysmic problems facing the world.Wheal has spent years studying the strange bedfellows of religious ecstatics, high performance athletes, meditators, yogis and others to draw a line between their practices and their altered states. Of particular interest to me are the thousands (hundreds of thousands) of people who are currently microdosing with LSD and psilocybin. Microdosing as a concept is not new. Early experiments led scientists in the 1960s to understand that sub-perceptual doses affects the serotonin system, which regulates depression, happiness and mood (notice the similarities between that and cannabinoids and the endocannabinoid system). That research got shut down in anti-drug hysteria of 1968. Instead, what we ended up with was Prozac Nation, blunt pharmacological instruments that never enabled users to make meaningful changes or really expand their cognitive functioning. The current revitalization of low dosed psychedelics is a more refined and more effective way of boosting lateral ways of thinking. Entire engineering teams at top Silicon Valley companies are trying it. “Maybe the 60s got it really wrong,” Wheal says in this interview. “Rather than super-industrial size doses LSD that blow your mind it seems that tiny doses combined with other technologies can give us access to an enhanced form of cognition that feels useful today. Being balanced -- that’s the optimal high-performance state. Brain wave studies have shown that the world’s top athletes are distinguished by how quickly they can get back to center and adapt to the next task.”If you’re interested exploring a way of “calibrating peak experiences into a practice of accelerated development” for yourself, sign up for Wheal’s Rocky Mountain Flow workshop taking place August 17-19 2018, in Boulder, Colorado. Alternatively, read Stealing Fire, check out the Flow Genome Facebook community or listen to this podcast and share it widely. Hurry. We need higher consciousness now.

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Not many can, but the new internet series “High Rollers” features a cast of colorful cannabists who show you how to identify and assess top flight flower -- useful skills for the post prohibition era!Is a bud’s frostiness the best indicator of its flavor? Does your bud have the right “bounce” when you squeeze it? Do you know what to expect from a “dry hit” before it’s lit? And once it is lit, does the flavor express the fragrance? On “High Rollers” host Derek Gilman invites some of the world’s greatest growers and experts to tackle these and other burning questions, such as “Is the joint is the superior method of inhalation,” and “Why ‘full melt’ hash isn’t as flavorful as hash that leaves a trace of residue on the bowl.”Swami Chaitanya, Frenchy Cannoly, or Kyle Kushman may not be household names, but they are as knowledgeable (and definitely more colorful) than their equivalent fine wine producers in France. Swami (who left the US for India decades ago as a cameraman called William Allen Winans and returned with a mile-long beard and red dot on his forehead) is a master grower and one of the longest standing judges of the Emerald Cup. Every year he spends six weeks sampling hundreds of varieties to crown California’s finest sun-grown organic flower. He’s no sales slouch either and is now touting his own brand of bud called “Swami Select.”High Rollers’ host Gilman is himself an amazing grower. When we first met last May, he produced two ceramic jars, each containing the very memorable fruits of his labor. One variety, In The Pines, was especially glorious. I think of it as the Tesla of high-performance cannabis--it took me from 0-60 in two seconds. On his property in Ojai, CA, Derek grows 12 plants like the one in the one above: each is 14 feet tall, 10 feet around, and yields 9 lbs. (!) of clear-headed, fog-cutting, flavorsome bud, rich in pinene and limonene.REMINDER: for those interested in medical cannabis, check out my new online learning platform, MedicalCannabisMentor.com. We’re launching three courses this year: “Cannabis Therapeutics” for healthcare professionals, “Cannabis Fundamentals” for dispensary personnel, and “Relief Without The High” for patients who want to treat pain, insomnia, or stress and still function fully. Sign up now and remember: Education Before Medicate.

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Dr. Dustin Sulak, Founder and Medical Director of Healer.com, explains some of the latest research.Multiple Choice: How can cannabinoids disrupt the opioid crisis? • They enhance opioids’ pain-relieving capacities? • They reduce opioid tolerance? • They ease the side-effects of opiate withdrawal?The answer is: all of the above and this week’s guest, the esteemed Dr. Dustin Sulak, walks us through the latest research on how this works. Here we have a solution staring us in the face – 115 Americans die every day from opiate dependence -- yet just a handful of US physicians, let alone politicians, are talking about it. Listen to this AMAZING interview and check out Healer.com’s clinical guide that walks medical professionals though a step by step protocol of using cannabis to ease suffering.In other news…yours truly gave a talk at Green Flower Media’s Cannabis 101 Summit and you can view it for free until July 2. The topic? “Relief Without the High!” for patients suffering from Pain, Insomnia and/or stress – in short, everyone we know over 40 years old. Other topics covered include Microdosing with Cannabis and a User's Guide to Making Your Own Meds If You Don’t Live in A Legal State. Pay attention, Jeff Sessions.The reviews to date have been glowing (perhaps some of those reviewers had a little Relief WITH the High.And finally, I’m getting this close to launching MedicalCannabisMentor.com, the world’s best online learning platform for people who want to learn the latest about medical cannabis. The initial courses are for three separate groups, healthcare practitioners, patients, and folks who work in dispensaries. You can sign up on the site to keep abreast of the news. I’ve been working on this project for close to a year (our medical director is the fantastic Dr. Junella Chin, a regular on this podcast) and I think it’s the best information presented in the most compelling way. The rollout will be happening through summer and autumn 2018!

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Dr. Anne Morgan recovered from a harrowing Traumatic Brain Injury with the help of cannabinoids. Her doctors found no other explanation.Pro football players (not to mention hockey players or boxers or military veterans) sustain thousands of knocks on the head each season. Each time the brain hits the skull, untold numbers of neurons are damaged, forever. Over time, Traumatic Brain Injury (also known as CTE, chronic traumatic encephalopathy) causes brain degeneration, which can lead to memory loss, Parkinson disease and early onset dementia and Alzheimer’s. The NFL has considered changing the design of helmets, but that’s about as effective as changing a pair of socks to prevent a broken leg.Dr. Anne Morgan, a family practice physician in Palm Beach Florida and CMO of MMJHealthLabs.com, discovered for herself the power of cannabinoids to curtail injury before it turned her brain to mush.Just over a half year ago Dr. Morgan was riding her horse when the saddle slipped and hurled her to the ground. Her hard fall left her with shattered bones and a blow to the head that put her in a coma for a week. Her prognosis was grim: walking or talking were not necessarily in her future. Luckily, her son Marshall, CEO of MMJHealthLabs, made it to the hospital and began administering oral CBD (cannabidiol) under her tongue while she was comatose. After a week of treatment, she awakened, and with therapy and a steady cannabinoid regimen, she has regained almost all of her functioning. Her doctors and neurosurgeon agreed that cannabinoids helped her recover; in fact, they concur that without cannabinoids she probably wouldn’t have been able to do the interview you’re about to hear.Anne’s case is not an anomaly. In the 1990s there was a smattering of promising preclinical research from Israel about cannabinoids being able to stop the toxic effects of brain trauma if administered shortly after injury occurs. But there were problems with the clinical trials and the pharmaceutical company pursuing the research pulled the plug. Now, I know it’s unlikely that the current regime running the NFL would fund a cannabis research study – what would all of those beer companies think! – but with increasing numbers of their players getting early onset dementia in their 40s and with no other treatment on the horizon – it would be the most compassionate thing the League honchos could do.Anne’s story brings the issue to light.

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Our special double episode with Mara Gordon and Roger Volodarsky on the medical and recreational benefits of dabbing.There’s no more controversial way of taking in cannabis than dabbing. Dabbing is the process by where a tiny, quinoa-size bit of cannabis oil is heated and inhaled. Instead of typical cannabis which averages about 25% THC, a dab can clock in from 70-90% THC. The effect can be mind stingingly powerful or a powerful remedy for relieving breakthrough pain.Aficionados claim dabs are the cleanest and most efficient way of consuming: No combustion of plant matter, no lung irritation. But there are, or were, downsides. One is the rig you once needed to smoke them--it required a blow torch to heat a titanium nail which you then inhaled in a long glass column. It looked like freebasing and the association with crack was unavoidable. Second, dabs are seriously powerful. As mentioned, the THC concentration is amazingly high (pun intended). Finally, the dose is difficult to control. The size difference between a quinoa and sesame seed isn’t that great, but it can make the difference between a powerful high and a knockout punch that can lay even experienced users flat.But those same powerful highs can also be used as powerful medicine, and in the first part of this episode, Mara Gordon, founder of Aunt Zelda’s, the finest oil maker in the US, explains how patients with serious conditions like chronic pain have been using them with great results. She’ll tell us how to look for great oil and recommends a portable dabber that allows for discreet dabbing on the go.Our second guest, Roger Volodarsky, founder of PuffCo, has created The Peak, a next generation instrument that looks good on any shelf. It is handsomely designed, well weighted so that it won’t tip, portable and equipped with hepatic feedback and temperature controls. Not only does it remove the visual stigma from dabbing, but it has inspired hundreds of glass artists to create their own designs to fit atop it. This makes it the first open source dab rig in existence. See some of remarkable designs here but listen to his thoughts and inspirations on the second half of this episode.

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For years Dennis Hunter ran from the DEA. Today, he runs one of the biggest cannabis companies. The only thing that's changed? The laws.When Dennis Hunter was growing up in northern Mendocino, the timber industry that had once fueled the economy of this remote California county was in steep decline. Unemployment was rampant and the locals, who were used to working with their hands, needed something to do. Long known for its inaccessibility and low population of hippies and loggers, the area, along with neighboring Humboldt and Trinity counties became the sinsemilla capital of North America (it was and still is California’s largest cash crop). It wasn’t long before Hunter joined this vast underground economy.The 1990s were scary times in NorCal. DEA helicopters routinely buzzed the skies, looking for suspicious patches of green. By age 25, Hunter had been busted twice. His second arrest in 1998 sent him to medium-security federal prison for 6.5 years, a period he now refers to as “the lost years.”Hunter’s tales of growing illegally during this time are full of drama which you’ll hear in this podcast, but there’s more. Once released, he went from growing plants to growing other cannabis businesses. At first he sold nutrients, hydroponic equipment, and other tools of the trade to cultivators. In 2014 he co-founded Cannacraft to manufacture cannabis tinctures, and other smoke free products, among them, the delicious Satori chocolates, one of my favorite edible products on the market. Today, Cannacraft is one of the largest cannabis companies in CA, with 140 employees and revenues topping $50 million. It’s important to underscore that this is not a redemption story. His “criminal behavior” hasn’t changed; rather the California laws have. And his post prison success remains the anomaly. Most Drug War “criminals” have an impossible time getting loans or mortgages let alone a job once out of prison. California is attempting to right this wrong by expunging the records of Drug War victims. As other states legalize it’s up to us to ensure that expungement provisions are built into new laws. Especially if you believe, as I do, that Drug Wars are far more criminal than the “crimes” of growing this amazing plant.

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Follow Dr. Dustin Sulak's brilliant six-day method of rensensitizing your body's cannabinoid receptors.Dustin Sulak, DO is one of the world's most experienced clinicians in medical cannabis. He has treated over 18,000 patients from his clinics in Maine and has developed a method of “receptor resensitization” that allow users of all persuasions to cut their dosages (and expenses) and feel more benefits.The 6-day protocol is easy:Days 1 & 2: Stop using all cannabis. During this abstinence begin a program of stress free, calming exercise (yoga, walking, tai chi) and alter your diet to get the body’s “inner pharmacy” to produce more cannabinoids. That includes upping your intake of Omega 3 fatty acids by eating salmon, mackerel or hemp seeds, in addition to raw cacao or dark chocolate.Days 3, 4, 5 & 6: Continue the above, but begin inhaling only a minimal amount of cannabis until you feel something. That means take one puff and wait five minutes. If you feel nothing, take another. When you detect even the slightest sensation, stop. You’ve initiated the resenitization process. At the same time, take an inner inventory: What is that tiny dose doing to your breath or heart rate? Are you comfortable or not? How does it make you feel?“My patients who do this every 90 days are amazed at how much more relief with so much less cannabis. Even though this amount is just above the threshold of awareness, it’s enough of a dose to protect the brain and cause a shift of physiology.”This method of dosing may not be as much fun if you enjoy THC, but if you’re interested in getting the most from your cannabis I suggest you download this episode, listen to it several times, and share it as widely as you can. You can also learn more about Dustin at Healer.com.

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Dr. Amanda Reiman is helping small, "sun grown, heritage strain" farmers in California create an exciting new market.Dr. Amanda Reiman has been a powerful voice of change in California’s cannabis industry and culture for over a decade. Until last year she led the California office of the Drug Policy Alliance, where she focused on nitty gritty issues such as legalization of adult use, crafting regulations that support small farmers as well as consumers, and ensuring that state’s new laws allow formerly convicted drug felons to expunge their records and work in the new industry.Today, Reiman is still focused on the issues, but from another vantage point: she is Vice President Community Relations at Flow Kana, an organization that supports small, organic farmers in the Emerald Triangle (Mendocino, Humboldt and Trinity counties) brand their “sun grown, heritage strains” and get them to market. (The company recently bought the 18-acre Fetzer wine estate in Mendocino which it is turning into a canna-tourist destination). As you can imagine, farmers have never been adept at marketing and Reiman is assisting them to educate people about the virtues of their cannasseur offerings.In California and other liberated states, there’s plenty of debate about the pros and cons of sun grown cannabis. Here’s a quick summary for all curious imbibers.Pros:Sustainable; sun grown is low carbon footprint (one report estimated that a kilo of indoor grown cannabis with the requisite lighting and ventilation releases over 10,000 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere)Terpene production higher in natural lightMore resilient to pests and mold.Cons:Seasonal, which means less yield, which means higher prices for customersChanging environment makes crops difficult to standardize, which could be an issue for MMJLess “bag appeal.” Outdoor buds are rangier. It’s harder for growers to shape and cultivate them into those forearm-length buds that customers love to ogle. All of this is a sign of a maturing industry and another interesting talking point for the post-prohibitionist conversation. I look forward to the day when other sunny and poorer states like Alabama or Texas get into the sun grown sphere and give the Emerald Triangle a run for its money.In the meantime, Flow Kana capitalized on its early-market advantage with a marketing coup at this year’s Academy Awards (UNBOXING VIDEO HERE): The company supplied this very groovy gift box of its heritage sun-grown strains to certain canna-friendly celebrities backstage (as if we need another reason to love Francis McDormand). Listen in to a fascinating conversation about cannasoisseurship.

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Many more people are cooking with cannabis, but not so many are turning out deliciousness. Jeff the 420 Chef is here to change that.The author of The 420 Gourmet: The Elevated Art of Cannabis Cuisine and host of the all new “Cannabis Cooking Channel” has been honing his craft for over 7 years. His clever recipes for "Potzo Ball Soup" or "Hazi Thai Chicken Wings" demonstrate that he knows his way around the cannabis kitchen. But the secret to Jeff's success is the oil or budder he uses as his base.In this episode, the 420 Chef walks us through the process of infusing oil so that it is free of that overwhelming bitter, grassy taste. He then explains how to calculate potency so your dinner party doesn’t finish with guests drooling at the table.His 4-step method for infusing oil includes best practices for: Cleaning your herb (Soak it in distilled water for 24-48 hours. Yep!) Decarboxylating it (Bake it on a sheet at (240F) for 40-60 minutes) Grinding it (coarse – not fine) Infusing the oil (at a low temperature, around 320-350F for 3-4 hours) And finally, dosing. (You’ll have to listen to the podcast to learn that).If you’d like to see Jeff at work, check out this 5-minute video, where he makes a delicious and vegan cannabis infused Avocado Chocolate Mousse. Special Offer: We have 3 copies of The 420 Gourmet: The Elevated Art of Cannabis Cuisine to give away. Here on Patreon.com, the first three new patrons who pledge $5/month to support this podcast will win a free cookbook and sleep better knowing they’re sustaining our good cause.

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Dr. Sebastian Marincolo is your guide to greater insight, empathy, receptivity and awe.Our guest this week, Dr. Sebastian Marincolo, is a philosopher, researcher and fellow explorer of consciousness. His book, High: Insights on Marijuana, is one of the most brilliant explorations and explanations of how to use the plant to “pull back the veil of consciousness” and lean into a high just as a skilled skier might ride moguls into deeper pleasures.There is little doubt that cannabis affects the way we see our place as human beings in life’s grand order. Used mindfully, it can increase our receptivity to the sensual world but it can also open new pathways of insight, empathy and wonder, which is no small thing for a relatively gentle and harmless plant with no addictive properties.In 1969 the great astronomer (and cannabis enthusiast) Carl Sagan wrote (under the pseudonym Mr. X) about the multi-faceted sensations of being high. “I do not consider myself a religious person in the usual sense, but there is a religious aspect to some highs. The heightened sensitivity in all areas gives me a feeling of communion with my surroundings, both animate ad inanimate. Sometimes a kind of existential perception of the absurd comes over me and I see with awful certainly the hypocrisies and posturing of myself and my fellow man. And, at other times, there is a different sense of the absurd, a playful and whimsical awareness…”Anyone who has used cannabis knows the truth of these perceptions. But today, now that we have more of a handle on dosing, the content of THC, CBD and terpenes in various strains and the many different ways of delivering the compounds into our bodies, we can design highs to bring us more of these sensations. But it also helps to know what to look for and how to consciously open ourselves into different ways of seeing and greeting the world.Listen in. It’s well worth 30 minutes of your time.

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Congressman Earl Blumenauer says there will never be another president elected who isn't in favor of legalization. Listen in to find out why.Earl Blumenauer, the Congressman from Oregon who is renowned for wearing bowties and riding his bicycle to work, has been fighting for marijuana legalization since the 1970s. Which makes him either insane or insanely optimistic, a blind eyed dreamer or a determined fighter fueled by conviction, depending on your point of view.It was a farmer, an old school Republican conservative, who helped him see the light over 40 years ago. At a meeting the farmer held up a pack of cigarettes, “This is perfectly legal, highly addictive, kills hundreds of thousands of people a year and it’s available to anyone over 16.”Then he took a bottle of Jim Beam. “For some, this is highly addictive and can lead to dangerous behavior. Drunk drivers kill people on highway. It’s perfectly legal.Then held up a joint in a Baggie. “This is a marijuana cigarette, it’s not going to kill you, it’s not addictive and it can get you put in jail.”After 40 years of fighting, after running into the buzz saws of the War on Drugs and “Just Say No,” few have a more clear-eyed perspective on the prospects for changing our antiquated laws. “Over 90% of public has access to some type of legal marijuana and 9 states have legalized adult use,” he says. “What has happened in the last ten years is stunning. What other issue except marriage equality has moved this fast?”Even the schizophrenia of the current administration and the do-nothing Congress aren’t dimming his sunny outlook. The public, Earl says, has seized control of the issue and that changes the equation for lawmakers.“Over half of Republicans and 2/3 of Democrats and almost as many Independents support legal cannabis. If individual politicians don’t get onboard they’re going to suffer consequences.”Really?“I will go to my grave believing that if Hillary Clinton had been more forthright in dealing with marijuana she’d be president today.”Let’s hope he’s right.

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Teacher, author, plant explorer, Stephen Gray's new book is all about using the plant to connect -- with others and with our own higher powers. Listen up!Botanists surmise that our favorite plant debuted on earth about 10,000 years ago in present day Kazakhstan (ancestral home of Borat). Over time, humans learned that it served a multitude of purposes and they carried it with them as they migrated East and West. The fibers made clothing and shelter. The oil from hemp seeds was a food containing all the essential fatty acids to keep infants alive. Medicine men used it in their healing arsenals, tribal leaders burned it in huts when negotiating peace between warring factions, and people who ate it said it brought them “closer to god” (whoever she may have been).The spiritual uses of cannabis aren’t really a mainstage topic these days. The rush toward legalization (and the modern worship of the almighty capitalist god, money) seem to be driving events. But it would be a shame to ignore the connection that this “ancient plant spirit ally,” as author Stephen Gray puts it, has maintained with human beings in their search for awakening.Gray -- teacher, writer and explorer of sacramental medicines -- is the editor of Cannabis and Spirituality, a fine collection of 17 essays, ranging from the practical (using proper doses and strains to as spirit guides) to the mystical (interviews with shamans working with ayahuasca and cannabis to explore consciousness). What I like about Gray’s approach is that it’s not dogmatic. He acknowledges that not all spiritual practices support using substances to reach awakening, but he gives full voice to those who contend that spiritual practice without “entheogens” proceeds at a snail’s pace. The contributors to this anthology all believe that the “kindly and wily” cannabis plant can amplify human experience and help us appreciate life, stir the imagination, open the heart and lead the way out of our noisy minds to inner stillness. In her introduction to this collection, the brilliant psychiatrist and author Dr. Julie Holland, says that the burgeoning flower of the female plant “unlocks…the yin, the receptive energy" and is a useful tool to counter the excess of “yang energy of our world today – bombs and bullets, rape, corporate greed.”Possibly. But think about this: Whether you use cannabis as a spirit guide, medicine, or mind smasher, is it an accident or a miracle that there is something that grows in the ground that can gently and rather harmlessly help us feel connected – to each other, ourselves and to nature?Learn more about using the plant to get to a higher plane by listening to this podcast, then share it with a like-minded someone.

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A special report with Dr. Junella Chin on how to dose medical cannabis for three chronic conditions: Pain, Stress/Anxiety and Insomnia. State-of-the-art information that can seriously improve your life.Medical cannabis is like the iPhone circa 1998 -- no one knew they needed it until they had it in their hands. The world hasn’t been the same since.And it’s a whole lot more than “Take 3 tokes and call me in the morning!”Scientific research from around the world is showing that the two most prevalent components in the plant, CBD and THC, can be combined in new ways that effectively treat common conditions such as pain, stress/anxiety and insomnia without the side effects of over-the-counter or prescription medications. This is great news. While modern medicine and pharma companies have done a great job learning how to treat severe conditions, they have not succeeded as well in helping people with chronic conditions such as the ones mentioned above.The other great news: with a little education, patients can use these cannabis meds with without having to be high. This is important for those of us who need to medicate daily and who also need to function fully.“Relief Without the High,” conducted in tandem with Dr. Junella Chin, who has treated over 10,000 patients with cannabis meds, shows patients the value of “educating before medicating.” It is a hands-on demonstration of the different ways of taking the meds (oral, tincture, vapor) and how to dose them for optimum relief. It also informs patients who are not living in legal states how to begin using these medications without running afoul of the law.Medical cannabis is emerging from the shadows of prohibition and the science is showing it to be a legitimate and effective mode of healing. There are millions of people who will benefit from this information. Please share this episode widely—and please support us on Patreon so we can continue our mission of bringing the science and information to the people who need it.

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A 2-part episode featuring Michael Backes, who has collected all of the evidence about what MMJ does and does not do, plus a pro-cannabis candidate for governor. The times, they are a changin' -- at last.Part I - Last week, Joel Giambra, 66, announced he was running as republican governor of New York in 2018. That’s not surprising. What was surprising was his proposal to legalize cannabis in the Empire State and use the taxes from sales to help repair the failing NYC subway system. Though the estimates haven’t yet been calculated it’s clear that taxes from legal weed won’t yield anywhere near the $9billion estimated cost of the repair but every little cent counts. It’s also smart because, as we know from Colorado and Washington, it creates jobs, while wiping out the black-market economy. This is, by all measures, intelligent thinking that more of our elected representatives should be considering. Part 1 of this episode features a chat with Joel, whose personal story with cannabis played an important role in his thinking.Part II - Our main guest this week is Michael Backes, author, entrepreneur, strain hunter, founder of the first evidence-based medical cannabis dispensary in LA, and one of the most prescient sages in the cannabis industry. I met Mike when reporting Brave New Weed. He was the first to talk to me about terpenes and how the various components of the plant could be combined to achieve different health effects and highs. He introduced me to the concept of designing highs and the importance of microdoses in medical cannabis—all fascinating and all next level cannabis inquiries based on research and science. Late in 2017, he published Volume 2 of Cannabis Pharmacy, the medical cannabis bible for anyone who wants to understand the science behind using the plant to treat their illnesses. It’s a practical reference book that every patient should have on a shelf nearby.In our podcast, we tackle subjects such as:Is medical cannabis overrated and overhyped?The biggest misconceptions about medical cannabisWhat it treats and what it doesn’tHow he learned to use tiny doses to achieve big relief from what ails him.If there is anyone you’d like to invite to listen to this podcast please share it with them and please email us with your suggested name. We’ll reach out with an invitation.

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Pamela Hadfield, co-founder of Hello MD, was on a fast track to becoming addicted to Vicodin until medical marijuana relieved her pain and broke the yoke of her addiction.Pamela Hadfield suffered from withering migraine attacks for most of her life. In her late 30s, when the severity of her migraines increased, she was prescribed Vicodin, the highly addictive resident in many of our medicine chests. Pamela used Vicodin but with trepidation. She went to work and kept her life going, but she had become a highly functional opioid addict.When she was introduced to cannabis, she was skeptical. She thought, like so many naïve patients, that MMJ was a joke. But with no other choice, she did some research and visited a dispensary in San Francisco, where she lived. After months of experimentation, she found the right cannabis dose and formula that broke the yoke of her addiction. It’s three years later, and Pamela hasn’t had a migraine since. “Cannabis is the only thing that stopped the headaches,” she told me. It also altered the course of her working life.Today, Pamela is the co-founder of Hello MD, a California-based telemedicine service that connects patients interested in medical cannabis with doctors. Along the way, Pamela has become an advocate for educating patients about using cannabis to overcome opioid dependence.Opioids (the category includes Codeine, Fentanyl, Oxycodone, OxyContin, Tramadol, Demerol, Norco, Lorcet, methadone) are killing 91 Americans per day. That is criminal. It’s even more unacceptable in light of the fact that there are dozens of recent studies indicating that cannabis can not only stop the addiction, but can also stop the pain, in most cases, more effectively than these opioids.In one recent observational study Hello MD conducted with University of California, Berkeley, 91% of patients said that cannabis helped them reduce their dependence on opioids (That’s a sky-high number -- most studies report 50-60%). Eighty one percent said that cannabis was more effective than opioids for chronic pain, which is defined as pain that continues for over 90 days. This is interesting -- opioids work best with acute pain -- they offer great relief for the first few days. But after that, they lose efficacy and can actually exacerbate the pain. After a week of opioid use, you have a 25% chance of becoming addict.Combine that with the fact that death rates from opioids are 25% lower in legal medical marijuana states and you have compelling evidence that cannabis –even as an adjunct to opioids--could be a viable solution to helping patients reduce pain and reclaim their lives without fear of addiction.Why isn’t the federal government using this information to help its people? You may think you know the answer (No, it’s not all Trump’s fault), but tune in to learn more.

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An exclusive interview with Tami Wahl and Saphira Galoob, the two top cannabis lobbyists in Washington. It’s obviously worrying, what’s going on in Washington under the Cheeto-in-Chief. Trying to predict where his administration is heading on most issues, including on cannabis policy, is a fool’s errand.While 29 states have legalized some form of marijuana Attorney General Jeff Beauregard Sessions seems intent on stamping it out or at least keeping the prohibition firmly in place. His Justice Department has sent signals that they want to reverse the Cole memo, the Obama administration directive that warned the Justice Department off from prosecuting businesses and operations in legal states. And he has threatened to enforce Federal marijuana laws -- even for medical patients -- in states where voters have made cannabis legal. (On November 11, 2017 a 12-year-old Texan, Alexis Bortell, filed a suit against Sessions over the nation’s federal ban. Her family was forced to move from Texas to Colorado to get treatment for her epileptic treatment).Meanwhile, there’s a flurry of legislative activity that provides hope that the war is not lost. New Jersey Senator Cory Booker unveiled a proposal to legalize marijuana at the federal level -- a Quixotic long shot to say the least, but one that 64% of Americans say they favor, according to recent polls. Another senator is trying to attach measures to bills that would allow Veterans Affairs doctors to counsel patients on the use of medical marijuana, which advocates have been arguing for decades. In the House, Republican Matt Gaetz of Florida proposed legislation that would remove cannabis from its Schedule I classification so that US research on its medical uses could get underway.It’s a schizophrenic but important moment for the cannabis movement. To get a reading on where things stand in Congress, I turned to Tami Wahl and Saphira Galoob, two powerhouse lawyers who run The Liaison Group, the only lobbying firm in the capitol exclusively devoted to shaping the legislative and policy landscape for this much-maligned plant. Listen to their interview for the real scoop on what’s going on inside the Beltway. One takeaway: things aren’t as dire as the headlines might lead you to think. A number of lawmakers, even some of the most conservative Republicans, can be persuaded on advancing legalization. Details within.

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It's not harmless, but how harmful is it to developing brains? Dr. Marsha Rosenbaum offers a scientific and sensible way to discuss cannabis with your kids.This episode deals with two very different issues: The effect of the Santa Rosa fires on the country’s best cannabis event— The Emerald Cup, which I encourage you to attend if you can The thorny issue of teen use and how it affects developing brains.The latter is The Big Issue that confounds parents, many of them themselves users, and it was motivated by one of our Patreon supporters, Jeremy Matz, who wrote to me several weeks ago, pleading for clarity on the topic.Teen use “is one of the primary stumbling blocks to sane cannabis policy…and extremely difficult to separate fact from propaganda," Jeremy wrote. "Is moderate responsible teenage use a real concern? Most of my adult friends starting using cannabis while teenagers and most are working professionals. At what age do concerns start to go away:16, 18, 21? Does science have anything to add? Might it be beneficial for some teenagers as stress relief, mind opening, etc...? I'm trying to prepare my children for the brave new world and there is very little advice other than 'Just Say No,' which is as effective for cannabis as it is for teenage sex.”I couldn’t agree more, so I called Marsha Rosenbaum, PhD, mother (the photo above was taken with her son, Johnny Irwin), and author of Safety First: A Reality Based Approach to Teens and Drugs, the best primer for parents who want to approach the issue honestly. As for “Just Say No” drug-prevention policies, let’s just say that these approaches cost taxpayers $1.3 billion a year and can only be deemed abject and expensive failures.Since 1999, over 350,000 copies of Safety First have been requested by and distributed to individuals and educational, health and governmental institutions and agencies in all 50 states, and 35 countries. It has been translated into Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Ukrainian, Romanian, Czech, Hebrew, Portuguese, Greek, and Papiamento. It’s time the aging officials presiding over US drug policies read it and jettison the 20th- century solutions they’ve been using to confront a 21-century problem.Rosenbaum presents a radical idea: Talk to young people honestly about the possible harms (and potential pleasures) of drug and alcohol use (and yes, there are a few harms, including loss of control, paranoia, and extreme discomfort). You can also speak honesty about your own forays into drugs. Despite your best attempts to obfuscate the facts, your kids already know that you weren’t a paragon of virtue in your own youth. It’s also OK to not to know all the answers. My own experience reporting about cannabis leads me to the conclusion that in today’s world, where information is just a keystroke away, your kids are most likely better versed on THC, CBD and terpenes than you are.On another note: If you have an issue that you’d like us to explore please become a Patreon supporter (for as little as $1 a month) and let us know what it is. This is exactly what the post-prohibition era needs to be: trurhful, open-minded conversations among open-minded people.

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Dr. Ethan Russo: A leading investigators into the effects of terpenes for health and for high. He is physician, ethnobotanist, and unimpeachable researcher. Recently, Ethan and Jahan Marcu, Chief Science Officer at Americans for Safe Access, published an extraordinary paper identifying the most prevalent of the 200 terps that make up what they call the “pharmacological treasure trove” in the plant.A long time ago, way back before the science of cannabis came of age, most people thought the forceful aroma of the herb came from THC. How silly we were! The fact is that the pungency of the plant comes from terpenes -- powerful smell molecules that occur in many plants but occur in stronger concentrations in cannabis than most plants. The most common terps are key components in lemon, pepper, lavender, and pine. We’re not talking mild aromatherapy here. Terpenes in cannabis occur in seriously powerful concentrations. When dried and heated, they combine to form a tsunami of chemical cascades that, when combined with THC, direct the trajectory of the high. One of those leading investigators into the effects of terpenes for health and for high, is Dr. Ethan Russo, physician, ethnobotanist, and unimpeachable researcher. Recently, Ethan and Jahan Marcu, Chief Science Officer at Americans for Safe Access, published an extraordinary paper identifying the most prevalent of the 200 terps that make up what they call the “pharmacological treasure trove” in the plant. Think of it. Kona Gold, Panama Red, Acapulco Gold, all these great 70s genetics that got some lucky people beautifully high had lower THC content than strains today, but they were rich in terpenes. The really amazing highs, the ones that take you in interstellar directions are the result of terpenes. Think of it like this: THC determines how wide the door to the brain opens; terpenes are the different paths that are illuminated once you walk through.Once you know a little about how these smell molecules work, and if you’re lucky enough to live in a legal state where the chemical components of each strain is posted, you can pretty much predict the effects. A strain like Bubba Kush has a higher concentration of myrcene and linalool (hops and lavender) terps that cause relaxation and chill. Lemon Haze is richer in pinene and limonene (pine and lemon), which makes it more uplifting and clear.The great thing is that you needn’t be a scientist to know the major aromas at play. Listen in!

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Seibo Shen, creator of the VapeXhale vaporizer and a jiu-jitsu champ, on the ways the plant enhances motor skills and the creative process. He's living proof of its powers.Not only has Shen invented the world’s best vaporizer for concentrates, he’s also a former stuntman, an undefeated jiu-jitsu fighter and ping pong champion, a staunch advocate for Asian Americans in the cannabis community and an advocate for cannabis as a performance enhancing plant for athletes, coders and anyone in the creative field. He’s also a fantastic story teller. He started using cannabis to help him recover after a workout but quickly saw that used mindfully, it “activated” and “focused” his performance. (It doesn’t work for everyone, he says, and has developed an assessment tool to determine if it will negatively impact motor skills). Shen is a cannabis evangelist, a self-defined expert and who is known for skateboarding around the Bay Area in a t-shirt that says, “Ask me about medical cannabis.” He’s also got some interesting ideas about why it’s has been so tough for Asian Americans to enter the cannabis business and how the stereotype of having small penises keeps them down. Not many men are willing to tackle about this topic, but Shen is a rebel with many causes and a great story teller to boot.

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The go-go green rush isn't exactly filled with do-gooders these days. But in my travels I have found a cohort of men and women who are reaching beyond the almighty dollar to create businesses that create value for owners but also create real value in the world. It’s heartening.At first glance Bloom Farms, is a company that sells great oils and vape pens. But the founder, Mike Ray, is a man with a mission. Having grown up in Calaveras County, one of the poorest regions of California, on the 200-acre Bloom Farm that his folks bought in the 1970s, he left to find his fortunes as a Wall Street trader. But after a decade of weathering the tech turn down, the 2008 recession, and the brutish assholism of the sharks in that sector, he hung up his hat and headed back home to explore the world of cannabis.He was betting that CA voters would legalize the plant and that they wanted more than just the Cheech and Chong stoner experience. He also knew that a lot of rural Californians, despite living in America’s breadbasket, go hungry. That’s why today every Bloom Farms product sold buys a meal for a person in need--to date Bloom Farms has bought over 500,000 meals to people whose bellies are not full.But there’s more to this story. The less sexy, but important, side has to do with safety. Since there are no regulations guarding manufacturing processes of cannabis oils consumers are in the dark about how their products are produced. A lot of makers use butane or hexane, known carcinogens, to extract oils, claiming that the toxins are cooked off in the process. This may be true, there is no assurance and many of us don’t want to take the risk. The way around this is to use CO2 extraction, which is proven safe and which Bloom Farms has ridden to success.The sexier part of the Bloom Farms story involves strain specific oils and beautiful products such as the rose gold vapor pen, an inhalation device so attractive that it catches the eye of even those who have no interest in the plant.Mike and I spoke at his Oakland, CA HQ about good products that are also doing some good in the world.

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Or so says Dee Dussault, the inventor of this delicious new tradition.When a book called Ganja Yoga came across my desk, I expected yet another California-sprouted excuse to get stoned. But just a few pages in I realized I got that wrong. The author, Dee Dussault, had deep knowledge cannabis and yoga and how they could be combined in inventive ways. "Just like peanut butter and chocolate," she writes, "each is fantastic on its own, but when they come together, each makes the other better.” Who can resist a yogi with a sense of humor?So when I was last in San Francisco I headed to her Thursday night restorative class. In most yoga classes you plunk down your mat and disappear into your own solipsistic bubble. In ganja yoga you spend the first 30 minutes in a circle of fellow celebrants, chatting and partaking of edibles, or joints and vaporizers, each filled with a different strain. (The $25 fee covers all consumables). And the people mix was wide. Equal numbers of men and women -- gay, straight and otherwise -- all colors of the rainbow, and all levels of cannabis experience. Two young men had never before smoked in public so this marked their cannabis coming out. Oh, to live in a legal state where such things are possible...Thankfully, the class was a restorative one, mostly involving positions on the mat. (I doubt ganja would have enhanced my balancing poses.) Dee’s approach was gentle and more meditative than acrobatic. By the end I felt relaxed on a cellular level. A final joint of CBD was on offer for those who wanted to reduce their THC high before regreeting the world.Dee, a Toronto native, developed ganja yoga 8 years ago, cutting against the grain of so many purists who insist that ganja has no place in this ancient practice. But Dee’s a maverick. She’s also an intimacy and sexuality coach, who helps couples sustain sexual connection, with or without ganja enhancement.Tune in to hear about some of the novel ways that cannabis can enhance both yoga and sex. It’s worth a listen.

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From a 10 month old baby with epilepsy to a 99 year old woman with pancreatic cancer; one of the world's most experienced medical cannabis physicians on using the "highless cannabis" for what ails you. This episode was recorded live at The Alchemist's Kitchen in New York City.I don’t believe in miracles but in many ways CBD (cannabidiol) is a miraculous molecule. It treats an estimated 105 illnesses – no other medicine on earth does that -- more effectively than allopathic meds and with NONE of the side effects. Anyone over 40 is familiar with one or all of the three illnesses it is most often prescribed for -- pain, stress and insomnia. I know just how effective it is—I use it for all of them. At the same time, there is a lot of confusion/ignorance about what CBD (and medical marijuana in general) is. That’s because it’s unlike other medications. Doctors, who have no training in botanical meds, don’t understand it; the mainstream media takes it on sporadically but it’s more of a “gee whiz, isn’t this novel” subtext. They’re totally unaware of the serious research that is proving its efficacy and of the millions of people around the world using it with success. The thing is, it may not be mainstream right now, but it’s coming. I know. This podcast, which was recorded live at The Alchemist’s Kitchen in New York City, features Dr. Junella Chin, an integrative family physician who specializes in treating children with intractable epilepsy, cancer, autism, and mental health conditions. Dr. Chin, who is also a chronic pain survivor, studied at Cornell, Columbia and Harvard universities. She received her medical cannabis training in California, where she treated an estimated 12,000 patients with cannabinoids. This qualifies her as one of the most experienced medical cannabis doctors in the world. She and her family returned to her native New York several years ago to bring awareness to a state that is just beginning its medical cannabis program.

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If you don’t enjoy inhaling hot smoke, or are in search of the cleaner, cooler high you might consider investing in a high-quality conduction vaporizer. (I mean “cooler” as in “less hot"--the oils melt at a much lower temperature than the plant matter). It’s going to set you back around $300 but the richer flavor and the clearer high might be worth splashing out for.The Firefly 2 has been called" the iPhone of vaporizers," an easy analogy since Mark Williams, one of Firefly’s co-founders and this week’s guest, was a UI designer at Apple for most of his career. In 2000, he decided to combine his dual fascinations with technology and cannabis. With his business partner, Sasha Robinson, he engineered an easy-to-use, easy-to-clean handheld convection device that vapes both flowers and concentrates with excellent results.Side note: If you’ve been confused by the difference between conduction and convection vaporizers think of a skillet vs. an oven. Conduction (skillet) heats a metal plate that “fries” the oils and some plant matter. Convection (oven) circulates hot air around the plant matter, melting the oils only. Go for convection if you can swing it. The beauty of Firefly2 (or other handheld convection device such as The Crafty or The Mighty) is that you don’t need to be a connoisseur to use them successfully. But as Williams, a self-confessed vapor nerd, explains in this podcast, there are many nuances and surprises to designing a high-fidelity vapor experience. Mark your calendar!August 15 is our live podcast from The Alchemist’s Kitchen in NYC with Dr. Junella Chin, one of the world’s leading experts on “The Healing Power of CBD.” You can also catch it on Facebook Live at 8PM EST via our page. More info here.

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CBD is the lesser-known compound in cannabis, the quiet sister molecule to noisy THC. It doesn’t get you high, but it effectively treats an enormous number of illnesses including pain, arthritis, insomnia, and anxiety (everything from PTS to stage fright). It is also a powerful anti-inflammatory—20 times as potent as aspirin and twice as strong as cortisone – with none of the side effects.The big problem with CBD is the price. In the absence of federal regulation (Yes, Republican listeners, regulation can be a good thing) companies are charging from 5 cents/mg to 60 cents/mg, simply because they can. Even worse, the eye-bleeding prices have no bearing on quality. This article, by yours truly, explores why the price of healing is so damn high and how educated patients can find lower-cost, higher-quality CBD products.This week's podcast dives into the topic with Jesse Stanley, one of the founders of CW Hemp, Colorado’s largest hemp-CBD producer. He and his family shot to fame when Dr. Sanjay Gupta featured their high-potency hemp CBD oil on his 2013 documentary, "Why I Changed My Mind on Weed," and showed it cutting the number of epileptic seizures that young Charlotte Figi suffered from 300 a day to 3 a week.If you’re interested in CBD -- and if you have pain, stress or any other age-related challenge, you should be -- and if you’re in NYC August 15, please join us at The Alchemist’s Kitchen to hear a special live podcast with Dr. Junella Chin, one of the finest and most experienced medical cannabis physicians in the country. Dr. Chin will talk about how to best use CBD and why it is key to the future of medicine. Don’t miss it. She’s a brilliant healer and a fantastic speaker.

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I must admit, the idea of a cannabis cocktail did not initially sound appealing. I imagined a couple of buds thrown into a shaker with some vodka that resulted in a grassy, leafy swill that left you zonked.Warren Bobrow has another idea, and it all begins with his passion for quality ingredients and a deep knowledge of how to use cannabis to enhance the effects. He came to our studio shaker and stirrers in hand to show his stuff, and despite our skepticism, the results were impressive. The podcast will give you lots of details, but “The Cocktail Whisperer,” as he unapologetically refers to himself, has boiled down his methodology to three key elements:1. Prep your bud. Bobrow uses decarboxylation (a chemistry term for heating) to convert the THCa and other oils from the plant into a bio-available form. Old school decarb was as simple as heating cannabis for about 40 minutes in 240 degree oven. Today, Bobrow uses a nifty device from Ardent to easily and efficiently decarb his bud.2. Balance: You’ve got to be careful mixing cannabinoids and alcohol, so go slow. Also, keep them crisp and not too sweet—the sugar in cocktails can cause a lot of trouble.3. Use high-quality craft spirits. This is as essential to a delicious cocktail as the supplementary ingredients that Bobrow renders by hand. He squeezes his own ginger juice, for example, and concocts his own bitters.This pursuit requires a demented amount of dedication, but if you’re throwing a party this is one way to make it memorable. This podcast will fill you in on all the details.

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In 2013, 8,000 retired players sued the NFL for $1 billion in damages because of the brain injuries they sustained during their careers. They accused the league of hiding the dangers of repeated concussions and the harrowing degenerative brain diseases that resulted from them. Repeated head blows leave 1 in 3 football players 8 to 14 times more vulnerable to early onset Alzheimer’s and dementia, and symptoms set in as early as age 40. One brain injured player was discovered Super-gluing his rotten teeth to his gums to hold them in place. Another was found urinating into an oven thinking it was a toilet. Another was zapping his back with a taser gun to staunch his relentless pain. The issue was thrust into the spotlight when former Chicago Bear defensive back Dave Duerson committed suicide by shooting himself in the chest so he could leave his addled brain to science to dissect. His goal was to force the NFL to recant its long-standing denial about this illness.Concerned coaches have called for more protective helmet design, but this is no more effective than wearing high socks to prevent a broken leg. The league also toyed with fining players who play too rough, but that caused a backlash among fans who enjoy watching their heroes going head to head. Cosmetic fixes won’t solve the problem. Nothing can repair a brain that has turned to mush.Marvin Washington, cannabis and player advocate, thinks some change is in the offing. “There’s going to be a less prohibitive cannabis policy,” he tells us on this podcast. “Parents are seeing guys killing themselves that’s not good for the league, that’s not good for football.”

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Nope. Nothing cures the scourge of cancer (there are over 300 different types of “cancer,” all of which behave differently and respond differently to various treatments. That’s why it’s such a bitch.)But cannabis can cause certain types of cancer cells to commit suicide – in particular brain, breast and skin cancers.Our guest this week, Mara Gordon, has been treating cancer patients with high potency cannabis oils for over 5 years. She’s the founder of Aunt Zelda’s, a patient collective in Northern California, and the story of how she became one of the pioneers of this treatment is worth listening to—especially if you know someone battling this killer disease.Her treatments, in addition to standard oncology, have kept a young boy – Chico Ryder -- and dozens like him -- alive long after doctors wrote him off.To be clear: There are many myths surrounding cannabis and cancer—more pop up every day. Cannabis oil is not the miracle as some claim, but science is beginning to understand the ways it terminates tumors.

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It may be called the green rush but 90% of the cannabis industry is another color, and that color is white. And male. And probably straight. That’s less a criticism than an observation. Our guests this week, Jacob Plowden, founder of the Cannabis Cultural Association and his Aunt Molly Adams, want to change that. They span three generations of use within one family but because of when and how they grew up, share totally different experiences.Historically, there are several reasons for this color/gender imbalance.It goes back to the 1930s when Cannabis Prohibition became the law of the land. To a large extent Prohibition had its roots in racism. Marijuana came from Mexico, the land of poor brown people, and when those people started flooding across the border to flee the economic misery unleashed by the Great Depression a tide of anti-immigrant fervor took hold. “Reefer” was also used in the American jazz scene, which was led by African Americans. The fear was that the evil weed would cause white women to have sex with black men. Those implications persisted for long time.Today, the issues are as much social as socio economic. The ACLU says that of the 8.2 million marijuana arrests from 2001 to 2010, 88% were for simple possession of marijuana; African Americans are nearly four times as likely to be busted for possession than whites. In other words, for a white guy like me, a bust was a slap on the hand. For a man of color, it was a ticket to orange.Unfortunately, even as legalization spreads across the country, many states ban applicants from obtaining cannabis business licenses if they have any criminal record, even for misdemeanors. California is changing that when it goes legal in 2018. Their laws recognize that it’s unfair is it to punish people throughout their lives for a crime that most of us listening to this podcast don’t consider criminal at all. Not every state is as forgiving. And of course, the high cost of launching a cannabis business is also keeping people of color at bay. It’s often in the high 6 figures and increasingly into the many millions.In other words, there’s a lot of work to do to changing the complexion of the cannabis industry. Tune in to hear how one group is tackling the challenge.

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Edibles are exploding but there are two very persistent problems with these little bonbons of delight. 1. Dose and 2. The hour and half (on average) they take to kick in.. The first problem can be solved with a little education. It also helps immensely if you live in a legal state where dosage is clearly labeled on the package. The 2nd concern requires experience and patience. If you’re impatient and think nothing is going to happen and continue to eat more it’s almost guaranteed that you’ll end up in some corner cowering and having a very uncomfortable experience. Everyone who listens to this podcast knows exactly what I mean.Our guest this week has come up with a product that addresses both concerns. Ron Silver is a restaurant owner and chef based in NYC. He has taken it upon himself to devise a THC-infused sugar that uptakes in 15 minutes and is fully doseable. A half teaspoon is a gentle 2.5 mg lift; a full teaspoon is 5 mg etc… This give you what’s always been missing, control. And for many of us, being able to control your out-of-controlness is exactly what we want from our edible experience. We’re also joined this week the the estimable Joseph Bondy, one of the top criminal defense attorneys in the US, who has spent his career defending people accused of drug crimes. He was good enough to walk us through the latest attempt by Attorney General Jeffrey Beauregard Sessions amp up the War on Drugs. Tune in to get the scoop on the motivation behind his nefarious moves.Tune in, and if you like these conversations about cannabis in the post-prohibitionist era, we’d appreciate your support. One dollar a month will do the trick. Please click here to pledge on our Patreon page, which not only supports the cause but gets you exclusive access to episodes days before they’re published publicly on iTunes or Google Play

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This week Matthew and I are joined by Dr. Julie Holland, psychiatrist, author, mother, and radical thinker about substances and how they contribute to human health. Julie was the first doctor I spoke to when I was debating writing about the new world of cannabis and in ten very compelling minutes she laid out the reasons I should upend my life and go for it. The plant, she said, is a fuel, a food, a fiber and a medicine that’s less addictive than any other drug we know. And then she added:“There is something to be said for having an improved mood, being more hopeful, less anxious and sad. From a psychiatric point of view, that’s therapeutic, not “‘unwanted side effects.’”“You’re a very unusual psychiatrist”, I said.“I used to struggle with therapeutic and recreational divide but the truth is recreation is therapeutic. What’s good for your head is good for your body. And that it’s illegal because it makes you laugh? I’m a psychiatrist and I’m telling you that’s insane.”Tune in, and if you like these conversations about cannabis in the post-prohibitionist era, we’d appreciate your support. One dollar a month will do the trick. Please click here to pledge on our Patreon page, which not only supports the cause but gets you exclusive access to episodes days before they’re published publicly on iTunes or Google Play.

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We're thrilled to be launching the The Brave New Weed podcast to coincide with the advent of this year's High Holidays, 4/19 Bicycle Day, 4/20 Cannabis Liberation Day, and 4/21, Earth Day. To get us started we sat down with Ethan Nadelmann, who earlier this year announced he was stepping down from his position as the head of Drug Policy Alliance. For a quarter of a century Ethan has made it his mission to end the expensive, ineffective and unwinnable War on Drugs, and in this podcast he talks about his wins, his losses and what silliness and scariness we can expect to see from the Trump/Sessions regime.Have a listen and let us know what you think and who you'd like to hear at bravenewweedcast@gmail.com. We're all ears!If you like what you hear, please consider becoming a patron for as little as $1/mo. All patrons will get early access to all of our episodes before they get pushed out to the general public.Thank you!Joe and Matthew