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Welcome to the Cannabis Data Science Meetup.

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Happy to have you here.

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As always, just trying to move the ball forward.

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I've got some new code to share with you today and then also happy to brainstorm and just

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talk about some of the things that you're interested in here in the cannabis space.

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So I've got some cool things to share with you.

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But before I do that, just let everybody have a chance to speak.

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I know, John, you may have had some ideas on your mind.

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So maybe I'll let you go first.

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So I was a little distracted at the beginning.

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So we'd love to hear you recap.

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So what sort of this topic that you're interested in?

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Oh, well, let somebody else go first.

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Let me find the article.

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Okay.

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Well, while you find the article, Rula, or please correct me if I mispronounced your

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name, but welcome to the group.

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Happy to have you here.

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We'd love to hear about what you're interested in in the cannabis space, the field so wide,

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and would love to laser focus in on some of your interests.

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So please feel free to share.

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Okay.

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Yeah.

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And my name is Rula, so you pronounce it correctly.

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Yeah, so I just graduated from health informatics and analytics, and I'm interested in the data

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science field.

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And that was the main motive for me to join today.

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I've never worked on a cannabis, like in the cannabis field, but I'm open to learn more

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about it.

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Simply phenomenal.

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I'll show you some interesting things that are going on in the cannabis space, kind of

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broaden all of our horizons, and as always, I'll show you where avid data scientists like

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yourself can fill in some of the gaps and find your piece in the puzzle.

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Awesome having you here.

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I'm super interested in the cannabis plant itself and its chemistry, so we'd love to

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get to some of the chemical side of cannabis.

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And at the moment, we're still in this, in some cases, a literal gray area of cannabis,

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where a large number of states have just openly permitted cannabis, whereas some states have

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done so in a more restricted manner for more medicinal reasons.

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And then there are still other states that just have outright bans on cannabis.

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And this has led to a bunch of interesting dynamics because the United States is a federation

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of states.

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So there are interstates connecting all the states.

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It's common to do business in different states.

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That's just the name of the game, but things get murky when you start talking about the

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cannabis industry, which is kind of just permitted on a state-by-state basis.

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So John brought up the point last week, what's even the regulations on, say, money transferring

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from state to state?

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If you have a business that operates in two states, are you even allowed to use money

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revenue from one state to fund operations in another state?

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Is that allowed?

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The taxes is a whole other landscape because you still have to pay your taxes even on illegal

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operations, but you don't get to deduct anything from those taxes.

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So the retailers, they can't deduct their cost of goods sold, which is a typical expense

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for retailers.

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So if you're doing everything by the book and paying all of your taxes and not taking

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any deductions, it's hard to imagine you could make a profit or even break even.

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But you see companies hanging in there for a long while.

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So the tax burden is difficult.

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Plus, as we've observed, cannabis is still freely flowing across the states in an illegal

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fashion.

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How are you supposed to compete in the legal market when people are kind of undercutting

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you without following the rules?

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So that's the landscape.

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John or Brian or anyone, do you have anything to add to this before I kind of expand on

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this picture?

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No, I put the Bloomberg article from May 8th, illegal cannabis is making California water

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problems worse.

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So just a little onto that.

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That's not the article I was looking at, but that's close to what we're talking about.

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Well, I'll review these more and to let you run through these.

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But these are, this is a pretty common story that we're hearing right now in that, especially

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in say California, there's pretty strict technical regulations.

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So if you're actually going to follow the rules, it's going to be difficult, right?

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They've got strict pesticide testing.

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So you have to make sure your environment's completely pesticide free.

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Well, in a legal grower, they're not going to even test for pesticides.

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So they may just use pesticides wantonly.

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And then, you know, they don't have to do testing.

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So I think the California quality control testing may cost anywhere from $500 to $1,000

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per sample.

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And we saw Raw Garden had 4,600 of those.

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So pardon my, see, this is the problem with calculators here, right?

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So let's just say they get a deal and they are running tests at $500 a pop.

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What is this?

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Like maybe $20,000 or so.

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Is it $20,000 or $200,000?

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Sorry, once again, pardon my math on the fly.

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So that's just testing costs.

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You know, they may be cutting the corner with pesticides.

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I think water use has been a problem.

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I mean, everybody knows about water in California.

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It's just a, people don't realize it, but technically, you know, Southern California

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is a desert.

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And then, you know, people have these lush lawns and it's an agricultural state.

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So California just uses a lot of water.

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Plus they rely, I believe, mostly on tundra melt.

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So, you know, the East is interesting, right?

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The East has too much water and then the West does not have enough water.

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So once again, you know, illegal growers may illegally access water.

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That's been a problem.

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So you know, a wide number of issues, I suppose.

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Okay, so what's this?

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Oh, that's two million.

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Wow.

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That sound right.

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Yes.

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So it's not impossible that Raw Garden has spent north of two million dollars on quality

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control testing in, you know, the past handful of years.

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So I don't know about you, but in my book, you know, two million is non-negligible.

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So maybe for a company of that size, it may be a drop in the bucket, but that's a considerable

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cost.

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Okay, so that's what's going on in the United States.

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But I realized we're often kind of we've got all of our biases.

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And Brian, you actually brought up the fact that you had old lab results or lab results

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from a few years prior.

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And one thing I realized is I guess this may be a recency bias, but we may be biased to

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data that occurred more recently.

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And we may discount, say, lab results that happened, you know, a couple years ago, but

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that doesn't actually necessarily negate their value.

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Just because a sample was tested two years ago, that's still a valid data point.

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You know, we may have to take into consideration that time has moved on since then, you know,

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people have maybe continued to grow their plants, but we may be overly discounting the

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value of old lab results just because of bias.

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And then I realized we may be actually missing a bit of the cannabis space because of proximity

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bias, right?

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So I'm here in Washington.

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So my proximity bias has led me to explore a lot of Washington state data, and then eventually

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United States data.

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However, I realized from looking at this person, James Y., or James E., awesome maps, that

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we're actually missing the whole port of the puzzle.

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So you know, we've been laser focused here on the United States and, you know, me specifically

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in Washington, we've kind of neglected the rest of the world.

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And I was actually speaking with someone from South Korea.

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There was a contingency of South Koreans at one of these cannabis conferences.

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I forget, maybe it was the one in Oklahoma City.

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I forget which one, but they were working on a push to allow medical cannabis in South

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Korea.

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And they were saying they're kind of facing a tough uphill battle because people have

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really harsh perceptions of cannabis in South Korea.

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And I got in a conversation with them and I said, well, unfortunately, the United States

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may be partially to blame for that.

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And you know, we kind of have maybe not borne the first-hand effects of this, but the United

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States was pretty strong in making sure that, you know, other countries around the world

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also curtailed their cannabis production.

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I don't know that much about the specifics.

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And you know, this is something I may want to read up more on.

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But I want to say that there may have been some cannabis eradication efforts in India

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that once again, don't quote me on this, but I'll need to double check my sources.

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But I feel like, not feel, I've got a vague recollection that there may have been some

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marijuana or cannabis eradication efforts in India that may have partially stemmed from,

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you know, essentially the United States DEA.

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To what extent this has played an effect.

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Thought comment question?

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No, just a call.

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Sorry about that.

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Please chime in if you have a thought.

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So once again, I may need to research a bit more about this, but you know, it just, it

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would just be kind of hypocritical, right?

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Because maybe like over the past couple decades, we were maybe influencing other countries

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to stamp out cannabis cultivation.

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And you know, they may have enacted various laws of their own, in some cases quite strict.

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And now you see things are kind of changing in the United States, not in entirety, right?

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So there's still a good portion of the country where it's not permitted, but there's, you

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know, a good portion where it is permitted.

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And then there's, you know, a lot of talk about, oh, you know, will the federal government

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ever, you know, federally, essentially, I think what that needs to have, what they would

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have to do is just, would they either remove or change its cannabis from the controlled

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substance lists.

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So that's basically what everybody's waiting on.

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And federal regulations are interesting because there's all these different bureaus at, in

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the federal government, they all sort of have their different interpretations of federal

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law and they don't agree with each other, right?

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So for example, the IRS thinks that it's 100% going to pursue tax revenues from cannabis

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companies.

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The Department of Agriculture, you know, will not issue patents for cannabis plants, even

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though, you know, there's other people who think that maybe like hemp should be grown

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or should be permitted as long as it's less than 0.3% THC.

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So basically, no one's really in agreement.

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And they're all just kind of, you know, punting on it and just saying, you know, oh, you know,

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it's not our responsibility until Congress changes its status on the controlled substance

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list.

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So that's, I think, what it all kind of comes back to.

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But it's just a, to me, it's, I wouldn't say it's laughable because it's not a funny situation,

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but basically, you know, all the different agencies just sort of interpret the policy,

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you know, in the way that, in my opinion, suits their agency the best, right?

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So the IRS, right, they're trying to bring in as much tax revenue as possible.

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So of course, they're going to want tax revenue from cannabis.

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So that's enough of me spilling.

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So long story short is, you know, maybe we could start looking at some other countries

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here.

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And so I haven't quite gotten the material together yet for Thailand, but that one is

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going to be a super interesting one.

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Let's see what other countries here that I know.

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And then there's Uruguay.

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Oh, look, they're labeled for us because I didn't know what this one was.

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So that's Georgia.

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So apparently Georgia may allow cannabis.

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However, keep in mind that these maps can be misleading.

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So for example, Mexico technically has I was I was only briefly reading about this.

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I maybe only spent 15 minutes reading.

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So I'm going to butcher the actual interpretation of this.

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So once again, please read into it more yourself.

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But from my understanding, Mexico may technically have legal cannabis, but I don't think they've

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issued any licenses.

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And then I think there is but there is maybe some kerfuffles over it.

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Like maybe there was some medical licenses being issued.

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But I think there may have been some complaints about who they were issued to.

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So anywho, so it doesn't seem like it's completely sorted out there.

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So but technically they're, you know, blue on the map.

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And then Canada is actually in a way Canada's almost at the forefront because they actually

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have a national cannabis market.

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I would just love to to visit and actually see what it's like firsthand, because who

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knows really until you see it, see it or where you are there, you know, is there a stigma

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in Canada against cannabis?

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Is it easy to find a dispensary?

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You know, if you're in, say, Toronto or maybe you're out camping somewhere, is it possible

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to find a dispensary nearby?

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Do you have to jump through any hoops to go access it?

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What type of products are even being sold?

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Is it good quality cannabis?

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What strains can you find?

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I don't know the first thing.

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So if any of you want to do some some exploration, there is some data published by Health Canada.

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And so as always, we're going to start tracking down all the licenses.

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That's the first step.

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Just find out who's growing it and where.

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And then we can maybe, you know, go from there to try to figure out the scale of everything

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that's happening.

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Well, so I've teased this long enough.

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In country that's of interest to me, because I vaguely know software developer there.

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Why don't we zoom in today on on South Africa?

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How can you even find South Africa licenses?

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Well, I'll just start basically letting you in on my coding.

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So basically, you know, I don't do anything fancy.

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00:20:02,560 --> 00:20:08,520
You know, I just say, you know, South Africa cannabis licenses.

237
00:20:08,520 --> 00:20:13,240
And you know, you may have to dig around a bit.

238
00:20:13,240 --> 00:20:18,620
You know, you'll find a lot of news articles.

239
00:20:18,620 --> 00:20:22,440
You may actually have to go to Google.

240
00:20:22,440 --> 00:20:31,280
But I was able to find this government website from South Africa.

241
00:20:31,280 --> 00:20:35,600
So this is the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority.

242
00:20:35,600 --> 00:20:44,160
You know, that's something that's always interests me is who is actually regulating the cannabis

243
00:20:44,160 --> 00:20:47,760
in various jurisdictions.

244
00:20:47,760 --> 00:20:54,840
And you know, this is this is pretty common for cannabis to be regulated by the same body

245
00:20:54,840 --> 00:20:57,040
that's regulating alcohol.

246
00:20:57,040 --> 00:20:59,040
Let's see what else they're regulating.

247
00:20:59,040 --> 00:21:04,280
So maybe imports and exports, various things.

248
00:21:04,280 --> 00:21:07,860
One thing we'll want to check out is the testing laboratories.

249
00:21:07,860 --> 00:21:14,320
So there's actually a good amount of laboratories in South Africa.

250
00:21:14,320 --> 00:21:17,920
Let's do a quick comparison check here.

251
00:21:17,920 --> 00:21:19,080
Wow.

252
00:21:19,080 --> 00:21:24,680
So there's there's more than 61 million people in South Africa.

253
00:21:24,680 --> 00:21:30,600
So that's actually maybe twice the size of Texas, I think.

254
00:21:30,600 --> 00:21:31,600
Yes.

255
00:21:31,600 --> 00:21:37,960
So to South Africa has almost twice as many people as Texas.

256
00:21:37,960 --> 00:21:41,620
So that's actually quite a bit larger than I was I was thinking.

257
00:21:41,620 --> 00:21:50,120
So a good metric to sort of ground these in is per capita or specifically per 100,000

258
00:21:50,120 --> 00:21:51,280
people.

259
00:21:51,280 --> 00:21:55,200
So that way we can kind of get a bit better of a comparison.

260
00:21:55,200 --> 00:22:06,880
So how many laboratories per 100,000 people does South Africa have versus, say, California

261
00:22:06,880 --> 00:22:08,880
or Florida?

262
00:22:08,880 --> 00:22:15,120
As I said, I may be a little interested in the testing laboratories and maybe you are

263
00:22:15,120 --> 00:22:16,520
as well.

264
00:22:16,520 --> 00:22:18,240
And so I think we should keep track of those.

265
00:22:18,240 --> 00:22:21,400
But today we're talking cannabis.

266
00:22:21,400 --> 00:22:31,280
So we actually have a list here of all the cannabis licenses in South Africa.

267
00:22:31,280 --> 00:22:40,760
So I thought, you know, wouldn't it be diligent of us to go ahead and record these?

268
00:22:40,760 --> 00:22:41,760
Right.

269
00:22:41,760 --> 00:22:48,320
We've been recording cannabis licenses from all the various states.

270
00:22:48,320 --> 00:22:56,920
Well, why not go ahead and add South Africa to the list and just keep track of the pertinent

271
00:22:56,920 --> 00:23:06,640
data points, because who knows if one of these companies is just going to vanish from this

272
00:23:06,640 --> 00:23:11,240
list one day, not picking on anybody.

273
00:23:11,240 --> 00:23:20,960
But maybe Telex grow, maybe they just vanish from the list.

274
00:23:20,960 --> 00:23:29,520
We would want to have archived that just to know that, OK, they were around in 2022 and

275
00:23:29,520 --> 00:23:32,520
2023.

276
00:23:32,520 --> 00:23:35,540
OK, so that's phenomenal.

277
00:23:35,540 --> 00:23:40,680
So long story short, let me just actually just, I guess, if you're interested, I can just

278
00:23:40,680 --> 00:23:45,980
show you how you could actually go about getting this data.

279
00:23:45,980 --> 00:23:53,480
And then I'll share with you and just kind of tie this back into the conversation at

280
00:23:53,480 --> 00:23:55,080
the end.

281
00:23:55,080 --> 00:24:03,040
But before I start collecting this, does anybody have any thoughts, comments, questions about

282
00:24:03,040 --> 00:24:08,840
international cannabis or cannabis in other countries?

283
00:24:08,840 --> 00:24:13,920
Is this something that interests you or what do you think?

284
00:24:13,920 --> 00:24:22,480
Just looking at the THC on the South African site, THC and CBD information, there's a page

285
00:24:22,480 --> 00:24:24,320
for it, it's actually on that site.

286
00:24:24,320 --> 00:24:27,360
It's on the news.

287
00:24:27,360 --> 00:24:30,760
How they're looking at it.

288
00:24:30,760 --> 00:24:34,280
So CBD sounds good.

289
00:24:34,280 --> 00:24:36,760
It's non-psychoactive.

290
00:24:36,760 --> 00:24:44,320
And I think governments like, I think people, let's put it this way, are agreeing that the

291
00:24:44,320 --> 00:24:47,400
non-psychoactive is medicinal.

292
00:24:47,400 --> 00:24:50,400
And that's essentially what they're trying to extract from it.

293
00:24:50,400 --> 00:24:54,760
I guess they make it legal.

294
00:24:54,760 --> 00:25:02,760
So the plant has, just like hand pads, it did have rope issues, clothing and stuff like

295
00:25:02,760 --> 00:25:03,760
that.

296
00:25:03,760 --> 00:25:09,040
But it's just used for, in fact, they're saying one of the pieces of currency in the United

297
00:25:09,040 --> 00:25:12,760
States has hemp growers cutting down a field of hemp.

298
00:25:12,760 --> 00:25:17,400
I can't remember exactly what bill it is, but it's on the back of one of the bills.

299
00:25:17,400 --> 00:25:22,920
And it's a big crop until Rayon came in or the plastics.

300
00:25:22,920 --> 00:25:28,960
I still think a lot of these natural plastics that people are pushing essentially are going

301
00:25:28,960 --> 00:25:31,200
to come out of this hemp world.

302
00:25:31,200 --> 00:25:39,880
You raise just an interesting point in that cannabis can be used for so many purposes.

303
00:25:39,880 --> 00:25:44,640
So hemp, it's used for rope.

304
00:25:44,640 --> 00:25:50,680
And then I was reading an interesting article and they were saying some, way back in the

305
00:25:50,680 --> 00:25:57,600
day people used to say things like, oh, I didn't use any drugs or alcohol, but I may

306
00:25:57,600 --> 00:26:02,760
have gone behind the barn and smoked a little rope now and again.

307
00:26:02,760 --> 00:26:06,680
I think that was somebody who lived in the early 1900s.

308
00:26:06,680 --> 00:26:13,400
It's just kind of funny because that was, I think, basically maybe the early history

309
00:26:13,400 --> 00:26:14,400
of cannabis.

310
00:26:14,400 --> 00:26:20,160
It's just, I don't know if I ended up sharing this, but maybe I will in the future weeks

311
00:26:20,160 --> 00:26:23,360
since John, it seems this is of interest to you.

312
00:26:23,360 --> 00:26:32,920
But in Kentucky, apparently in the early 1900s, you used to just have rolling hills of hemp.

313
00:26:32,920 --> 00:26:43,840
And what they would say is in the autumn, in the fall, basically it starts to mature.

314
00:26:43,840 --> 00:26:48,960
And then want to say maybe they either harvested or maybe the hemp that they didn't get around

315
00:26:48,960 --> 00:26:50,680
to harvesting.

316
00:26:50,680 --> 00:26:58,880
Maybe they would just let it go bad or let it go to seeds out in the field.

317
00:26:58,880 --> 00:27:05,040
So maybe if you were trying to replant for the next year, you'd maybe just let your hemp

318
00:27:05,040 --> 00:27:06,160
go.

319
00:27:06,160 --> 00:27:08,200
It turns into seeds.

320
00:27:08,200 --> 00:27:11,720
And they were saying, oh, the birds will eat the seeds and this and that.

321
00:27:11,720 --> 00:27:20,200
But at that same time, that's when the THC levels start increasing in hemp.

322
00:27:20,200 --> 00:27:24,960
And so a great database is the CBD.

323
00:27:24,960 --> 00:27:25,960
Actually what is it?

324
00:27:25,960 --> 00:27:30,760
It's the Midwestern hemp database.

325
00:27:30,760 --> 00:27:35,480
Once again, we have a recency bias.

326
00:27:35,480 --> 00:27:41,840
And I don't know if this database has been updated in a hot minute.

327
00:27:41,840 --> 00:27:44,480
Here, I think we've got some cool charts down here.

328
00:27:44,480 --> 00:27:47,440
Yeah, here we go.

329
00:27:47,440 --> 00:27:48,440
So here we go.

330
00:27:48,440 --> 00:27:53,840
Here's the THC levels in hemp.

331
00:27:53,840 --> 00:27:56,800
This is a hotly debated topic.

332
00:27:56,800 --> 00:28:03,040
So for example, I spoke with a PhD student in Maryland.

333
00:28:03,040 --> 00:28:12,320
And what they were finding was that it's almost a, the THC almost follows a distribution here

334
00:28:12,320 --> 00:28:17,020
where as the weeks of flower go on.

335
00:28:17,020 --> 00:28:20,540
So the THC levels rise.

336
00:28:20,540 --> 00:28:26,960
But they were finding was that the THC levels actually then start to fall maybe in further

337
00:28:26,960 --> 00:28:27,960
weeks.

338
00:28:27,960 --> 00:28:33,240
So what would be interesting is if they kind of followed this study out and looked at the

339
00:28:33,240 --> 00:28:40,440
hemp in week nine, 10, and 11 and see if maybe the THC level starts to come back down.

340
00:28:40,440 --> 00:28:48,800
But basically what I'm getting to is the fact that cannabis produces THC is nothing new.

341
00:28:48,800 --> 00:28:50,640
People used to grow it for hemp.

342
00:28:50,640 --> 00:28:57,080
The ones they left out in the field would maybe have a non-negligible amount of THC.

343
00:28:57,080 --> 00:29:03,840
And some people may have kind of used those buds recreationally.

344
00:29:03,840 --> 00:29:07,660
Like I said, they smoked some rope behind the barn.

345
00:29:07,660 --> 00:29:15,720
So they may have gotten some of these flower buds that had just small amounts of THC and

346
00:29:15,720 --> 00:29:17,440
they puffed on them.

347
00:29:17,440 --> 00:29:27,200
I don't think it was anything new, but I don't think it was super taboo in the early 1900s.

348
00:29:27,200 --> 00:29:30,880
At least you're not like a drunk.

349
00:29:30,880 --> 00:29:39,240
So it's like there's sort of worse, I think people at that time thought there were worse

350
00:29:39,240 --> 00:29:43,320
substances you could be on.

351
00:29:43,320 --> 00:29:45,520
Maybe opium may have been big at the time.

352
00:29:45,520 --> 00:29:51,720
So they were like, oh, well, he's not like an opium addict or he's not a drunk.

353
00:29:51,720 --> 00:29:57,040
It's not the end of the world if he smoked a little rope behind the barn.

354
00:29:57,040 --> 00:30:04,440
Just to kind of start tying this all in, well, as we were mentioning at the beginning, the

355
00:30:04,440 --> 00:30:12,480
status of cannabis in all these countries is really murky and changing.

356
00:30:12,480 --> 00:30:19,760
So for example, there is this article or this press release that this cannabis regulatory

357
00:30:19,760 --> 00:30:21,360
body put out.

358
00:30:21,360 --> 00:30:31,560
And they basically said that, oh, on some radio station, there was a licensee that said

359
00:30:31,560 --> 00:30:37,880
that it was growing cannabis for commercial purposes.

360
00:30:37,880 --> 00:30:42,680
Maybe they misspoke or whatnot, and maybe they meant they were growing for medicinal

361
00:30:42,680 --> 00:30:44,720
reasons or what have you.

362
00:30:44,720 --> 00:30:50,360
All I know is there's a list of cannabis cultivation licenses.

363
00:30:50,360 --> 00:30:55,520
I don't actually know if they're for medical purposes or not.

364
00:30:55,520 --> 00:31:02,280
But based on this press release, also don't know when this press release was issued, but

365
00:31:02,280 --> 00:31:08,980
based on this press release, it looks like maybe they only have medical cultivators.

366
00:31:08,980 --> 00:31:12,960
This is something that we should maybe keep our eye on.

367
00:31:12,960 --> 00:31:19,000
Even this agency is saying, oh, maybe there's a...

368
00:31:19,000 --> 00:31:23,240
They're saying what's going to happen with the possible future of cannabis.

369
00:31:23,240 --> 00:31:30,000
I'd love that you brought that up, John, because it does seem that there's still a pretty strong

370
00:31:30,000 --> 00:31:34,520
stigma against cannabis around the world.

371
00:31:34,520 --> 00:31:41,640
And even say places like South Africa, where they're beginning to license people, they're

372
00:31:41,640 --> 00:31:45,120
saying that this is still...

373
00:31:45,120 --> 00:31:47,920
They're approaching this with a lot of scrutiny.

374
00:31:47,920 --> 00:31:53,880
As I said, I almost feel a little bad about that because they're probably coming at this

375
00:31:53,880 --> 00:32:02,880
from the point of view where it's like, the United States DEA has been hounding us for

376
00:32:02,880 --> 00:32:03,880
decades.

377
00:32:03,880 --> 00:32:11,120
So it's like, maybe they're a little cautious about just permitting cannabis.

378
00:32:11,120 --> 00:32:17,240
They probably don't want these South African cannabis licenses illegally shipping cannabis

379
00:32:17,240 --> 00:32:21,000
all around the world because that would probably be a bad look.

380
00:32:21,000 --> 00:32:29,520
Take a look at the article I put out there on New York, basically, criminalizing illegal

381
00:32:29,520 --> 00:32:33,160
marijuana so it doesn't compete with the legal marijuana.

382
00:32:33,160 --> 00:32:35,640
Yes, in fact...

383
00:32:35,640 --> 00:32:38,880
That's pretty funny.

384
00:32:38,880 --> 00:32:47,480
I should have had this material prepared for you.

385
00:32:47,480 --> 00:32:51,280
Unfortunately I don't think I saved the links.

386
00:32:51,280 --> 00:32:57,920
I don't remember the cannabis...

387
00:32:57,920 --> 00:33:08,000
To me, basically, recreational is an experiment like alcohol.

388
00:33:08,000 --> 00:33:14,760
There's a point, like I said, that the concert, the 40th anniversary of Woodstock I was at,

389
00:33:14,760 --> 00:33:19,960
basically, trying to dig up some business and watching people, especially when I go

390
00:33:19,960 --> 00:33:26,480
through every 15 minutes rolling a joint and smoking it and realizing that he's either

391
00:33:26,480 --> 00:33:32,920
really addicted to stuff like this or this is really ragweed and he can't get hot.

392
00:33:32,920 --> 00:33:38,840
So essentially, if he's got really good marijuana, then essentially, to me, you're not sitting

393
00:33:38,840 --> 00:33:43,760
there for like an hour and smoking a joint every 15 minutes.

394
00:33:43,760 --> 00:33:48,840
So it makes me wonder what the grade is, even though the smell was...

395
00:33:48,840 --> 00:33:53,520
The smell smells similar, like I said, in Texas.

396
00:33:53,520 --> 00:33:58,600
So it smells the same, but is it really that potent?

397
00:33:58,600 --> 00:34:03,920
Because to me, something that's really good, like in the days of old, when people had,

398
00:34:03,920 --> 00:34:10,240
before all the legal stuff going on, people would actually sell their wares and you had

399
00:34:10,240 --> 00:34:15,320
the Colombian variation and you had toxic and you had things that were coming out of

400
00:34:15,320 --> 00:34:22,440
Mexico and you had these one hit wonders and the one hit wonderment, boom, you're done.

401
00:34:22,440 --> 00:34:25,640
You really didn't waste it.

402
00:34:25,640 --> 00:34:28,720
So this is my understanding, John.

403
00:34:28,720 --> 00:34:34,480
This is a pretty good depiction here where we basically looked at someone who was studying

404
00:34:34,480 --> 00:34:37,400
cannabis 35 years ago.

405
00:34:37,400 --> 00:34:45,520
And back then, they were saying the average THC of say a high THC strain was around 8%.

406
00:34:45,520 --> 00:34:50,160
And now we were saying that, oh, maybe the average in Washington state is between 16

407
00:34:50,160 --> 00:34:55,360
and 20% and maybe in other states, it's higher, but it depends on how you measure it.

408
00:34:55,360 --> 00:35:02,640
My interpretation is it doesn't really actually seem like there's a genetic cutoff here.

409
00:35:02,640 --> 00:35:08,200
So it's just this 0.3% THC that was just the legal system.

410
00:35:08,200 --> 00:35:10,440
We know how the legal system works.

411
00:35:10,440 --> 00:35:14,600
They write the law and that's what it is.

412
00:35:14,600 --> 00:35:21,360
From my understanding, these molecules are produced from asynthase, which is basically

413
00:35:21,360 --> 00:35:28,440
a controlled way that a plant makes chemicals.

414
00:35:28,440 --> 00:35:36,400
Depending on the genetics of the plant, they may either express more or less of this synthase.

415
00:35:36,400 --> 00:35:44,560
So maybe the production of THC is either more or less in some plants depending on genetics.

416
00:35:44,560 --> 00:35:46,520
And then that's heritable.

417
00:35:46,520 --> 00:35:53,280
So what we found is you could actually then do, what's the term, selective breeding.

418
00:35:53,280 --> 00:35:59,280
And so you could then select for varieties that either have produced less and less THC.

419
00:35:59,280 --> 00:36:05,060
For whatever reason, the THC synthase isn't very active in these plants.

420
00:36:05,060 --> 00:36:09,360
Or you can select genetics that have a high THC synthase.

421
00:36:09,360 --> 00:36:12,120
And so those are the high THC varieties.

422
00:36:12,120 --> 00:36:13,120
Awesome.

423
00:36:13,120 --> 00:36:16,720
Well, to me, basically, now we're measuring everything.

424
00:36:16,720 --> 00:36:22,840
But say 35 years ago, we had to come into these sources illegally.

425
00:36:22,840 --> 00:36:27,480
How much testing really went on?

426
00:36:27,480 --> 00:36:33,400
Other than rolling a joint or basically smoking a man of marijuana, go like, that's put stuff

427
00:36:33,400 --> 00:36:35,600
and then ship it.

428
00:36:35,600 --> 00:36:38,040
That's a phenomenal question.

429
00:36:38,040 --> 00:36:42,920
And that was actually the question on my mind was, where did they get these lab results?

430
00:36:42,920 --> 00:36:50,440
Because we were looking at, I don't have the book with me.

431
00:36:50,440 --> 00:36:58,400
We were looking at sensimilia tips, which is by Tom Alexander.

432
00:36:58,400 --> 00:37:01,880
And I want to say this was around 30, 35 years ago.

433
00:37:01,880 --> 00:37:05,400
So this was copyright 1988.

434
00:37:05,400 --> 00:37:07,920
And they have some lab results.

435
00:37:07,920 --> 00:37:10,240
They don't say where they got them.

436
00:37:10,240 --> 00:37:22,520
And honestly, my sneaking suspicion is they sent them off to their friend at some university.

437
00:37:22,520 --> 00:37:30,200
From my experience, university professors are really kind of loose with the rules.

438
00:37:30,200 --> 00:37:31,200
Not all of them.

439
00:37:31,200 --> 00:37:36,920
But that's kind of the stereotypical professor.

440
00:37:36,920 --> 00:37:43,960
In fact, one of the earliest cannabis researchers, I don't remember his name.

441
00:37:43,960 --> 00:37:48,600
I think it's Matrulam or something like that.

442
00:37:48,600 --> 00:37:51,440
Raphael Matrulam.

443
00:37:51,440 --> 00:37:58,320
So this was one of the people who discovered the THC molecules.

444
00:37:58,320 --> 00:38:06,840
And there is, or maybe not discovered them, but he did work isolating them from my understanding.

445
00:38:06,840 --> 00:38:15,240
But there was this funny story where maybe he would, I forget if he was arrested or maybe

446
00:38:15,240 --> 00:38:21,480
he was put in handcuffs or something, but he was on a bus maybe outside Tel Aviv with

447
00:38:21,480 --> 00:38:23,000
a large amount of hash.

448
00:38:23,000 --> 00:38:28,240
And he was saying that, oh, he just had it for research purposes.

449
00:38:28,240 --> 00:38:32,920
So he just, and he may have gotten it from the police station or something.

450
00:38:32,920 --> 00:38:38,600
So maybe he was talking to the police and he was like, oh yeah, I need some hash to

451
00:38:38,600 --> 00:38:39,600
do some research.

452
00:38:39,600 --> 00:38:41,920
Mind if I come get some from you?

453
00:38:41,920 --> 00:38:47,960
And then he's on the bus with a big block of stinky hash and they arrest him or something

454
00:38:47,960 --> 00:38:48,960
like that.

455
00:38:48,960 --> 00:38:50,920
And then I'm sure he'd let him go.

456
00:38:50,920 --> 00:38:53,140
That's another thing too.

457
00:38:53,140 --> 00:38:58,960
You're doing the marijuana discussion at THC, but in the creation of hashish, hashish has

458
00:38:58,960 --> 00:39:05,280
been created for a long period of time in a way to squeeze out the oils of the plant

459
00:39:05,280 --> 00:39:06,640
and condense them.

460
00:39:06,640 --> 00:39:13,840
So therefore, what is it, just be blonde, red, black, black laced opium.

461
00:39:13,840 --> 00:39:18,800
I mean, there's all these things you kind of understand that were out on the market

462
00:39:18,800 --> 00:39:21,800
at one point.

463
00:39:21,800 --> 00:39:22,800
Yes.

464
00:39:22,800 --> 00:39:27,280
So I'll try to tie this all together.

465
00:39:27,280 --> 00:39:32,720
So you've got kind of wild professors researching cannabis.

466
00:39:32,720 --> 00:39:38,920
I've got a feeling that in the early days, maybe they just found some wild, wacky professor

467
00:39:38,920 --> 00:39:41,840
like that at one of these universities.

468
00:39:41,840 --> 00:39:44,200
Who knows which one?

469
00:39:44,200 --> 00:39:51,760
Probably my guess is one of the ones in California, like UC Berkeley or Davis or the University

470
00:39:51,760 --> 00:39:52,920
of Southern California.

471
00:39:52,920 --> 00:39:54,820
Who knows?

472
00:39:54,820 --> 00:40:01,600
Probably there's a chemist there who has access at that time to some sort of chromatography.

473
00:40:01,600 --> 00:40:06,200
So that's how they measure cannabis, even to this day, but it just would have been rudimentary

474
00:40:06,200 --> 00:40:08,000
in those days.

475
00:40:08,000 --> 00:40:12,460
So I bet they could maybe do some rudimentary measure.

476
00:40:12,460 --> 00:40:18,760
And so they maybe could get a ballpark of, oh yeah, this has about 8% THC.

477
00:40:18,760 --> 00:40:24,120
Once again, if we measured that exact same cannabis today, it would probably be measured

478
00:40:24,120 --> 00:40:25,120
differently.

479
00:40:25,120 --> 00:40:32,240
So back then, long story short, they probably weren't differentiating between THC and THCA

480
00:40:32,240 --> 00:40:33,560
and today they would.

481
00:40:33,560 --> 00:40:35,480
So various things like that.

482
00:40:35,480 --> 00:40:41,000
But long story short, you can kind of measure the THC, but there's more to cannabis than

483
00:40:41,000 --> 00:40:42,000
that.

484
00:40:42,000 --> 00:40:46,120
We were seeing, oh, there's all these different strains and varieties.

485
00:40:46,120 --> 00:40:49,360
And then that kind of gets into the terpenes.

486
00:40:49,360 --> 00:40:52,960
So there's more to the plant than just the THC.

487
00:40:52,960 --> 00:40:58,840
And so this is, I think, where you're kind of getting into the varieties and the smell,

488
00:40:58,840 --> 00:41:09,480
where say the Columbia Gold or the Thai Sticks, those were just very distinctive strains.

489
00:41:09,480 --> 00:41:16,360
So the Thai Sticks from Thailand and then the Columbia Gold from Columbia.

490
00:41:16,360 --> 00:41:22,880
So these are just, they've got entirely different chemical profiles, but they still have THC

491
00:41:22,880 --> 00:41:30,760
and from my understanding, the Californians are the ones who really pushed this forward

492
00:41:30,760 --> 00:41:36,920
and who really developed some of the real high THC strains.

493
00:41:36,920 --> 00:41:46,320
And now those high THC strains, from my understanding, are being taken to other countries and then

494
00:41:46,320 --> 00:41:48,780
bred in with their local stock.

495
00:41:48,780 --> 00:41:55,600
And so once again, I'll point you to this article, and this may not be the specific

496
00:41:55,600 --> 00:41:56,600
one.

497
00:41:56,600 --> 00:41:57,600
It kind of makes sense.

498
00:41:57,600 --> 00:42:07,240
I mean, if you read up on the French wanting industry, the French imported American plants

499
00:42:07,240 --> 00:42:09,600
and they brought a nematode with them.

500
00:42:09,600 --> 00:42:12,680
And the nematode really just wiped out the French plants.

501
00:42:12,680 --> 00:42:15,680
Couldn't stop it in the time they brought across.

502
00:42:15,680 --> 00:42:22,360
So what they figured, and they do this, all the French plants were grafted onto the American

503
00:42:22,360 --> 00:42:23,360
root stock.

504
00:42:23,360 --> 00:42:28,060
So they couldn't stop the expansion of the nematodes in the soil.

505
00:42:28,060 --> 00:42:32,920
So they basically just grafted their plants on top and they went on from there instead

506
00:42:32,920 --> 00:42:34,480
of trying to stop it.

507
00:42:34,480 --> 00:42:40,120
So it's very interesting what you can do with plants and get away with it.

508
00:42:40,120 --> 00:42:41,120
Exactly.

509
00:42:41,120 --> 00:42:47,960
So from my quick reading, of course, the California strains and high THC, they're going to other

510
00:42:47,960 --> 00:42:48,960
countries.

511
00:42:48,960 --> 00:42:54,440
In Thailand, I don't think they were super thrilled about that because it's a give and

512
00:42:54,440 --> 00:42:55,440
a take.

513
00:42:55,440 --> 00:43:02,680
So I think they kind of want to preserve some of their traditional plant genetics without

514
00:43:02,680 --> 00:43:09,840
it just all becoming just California Kush, essentially, just some OG.

515
00:43:09,840 --> 00:43:14,440
There's a list of names on the 70s strains that were out there.

516
00:43:14,440 --> 00:43:19,760
And you can kind of figure, they came into Vietnam, a lot of this stuff in the 70s.

517
00:43:19,760 --> 00:43:22,000
That's something I was looking at.

518
00:43:22,000 --> 00:43:26,480
And they have something out there called leaf barricade, throwback strains in the 70s.

519
00:43:26,480 --> 00:43:33,240
Some of them aren't available, but it's interesting to kind of see where these might have been

520
00:43:33,240 --> 00:43:37,040
used as part of the base hybrid.

521
00:43:37,040 --> 00:43:43,280
And in fact, John, you hit on some super interesting research that we were interested in, but we

522
00:43:43,280 --> 00:43:48,120
kind of ran into a dead end and realized we have to kind of come in reverse in that we

523
00:43:48,120 --> 00:43:52,680
would love to actually understand the origins of some of these strains.

524
00:43:52,680 --> 00:43:55,840
Like what were those flavor profiles?

525
00:43:55,840 --> 00:44:00,920
So like one of the earliest strains was a strain juicy fruit, apparently, it maybe had

526
00:44:00,920 --> 00:44:02,440
sort of that bubble gum smell.

527
00:44:02,440 --> 00:44:09,080
And so now there's still sort of bubble gum strains out there.

528
00:44:09,080 --> 00:44:13,960
And so what I'm seeing is what if we're able to almost work backwards?

529
00:44:13,960 --> 00:44:19,800
It's going to be a tricky puzzle to untwine and it may be impossible.

530
00:44:19,800 --> 00:44:25,280
But that's, I think, what you're kind of after is what are the flavor profiles we're seeing

531
00:44:25,280 --> 00:44:27,920
today?

532
00:44:27,920 --> 00:44:30,440
What's that smell you're smelling in the air?

533
00:44:30,440 --> 00:44:36,400
You may be able to find out, maybe someone says, oh, I'm smoking on like a gelato.

534
00:44:36,400 --> 00:44:39,080
And so that's a pretty common strain these days.

535
00:44:39,080 --> 00:44:44,920
And that's, in my opinion, what I would call like sort of one of the heavier indicus.

536
00:44:44,920 --> 00:44:47,600
It's going to have a real high THC percentage.

537
00:44:47,600 --> 00:44:51,800
It may have a certain terpene profile.

538
00:44:51,800 --> 00:45:00,200
Well, Canada, when things seem to happen in the 70s and then into the 80s, everything

539
00:45:00,200 --> 00:45:02,200
seemed to go to Canada.

540
00:45:02,200 --> 00:45:08,880
And then Canada became kind of the mecca of the world of strain development, right?

541
00:45:08,880 --> 00:45:13,760
You thought high time to just something to read about, you know, because it was illegal

542
00:45:13,760 --> 00:45:21,040
here and it seemed like Canada had more freedom, the basis of cultivation and hybridization

543
00:45:21,040 --> 00:45:23,460
and creating strains.

544
00:45:23,460 --> 00:45:29,400
And then it kind of backfed back in the United States as those strains came back online and

545
00:45:29,400 --> 00:45:30,760
they could be measured.

546
00:45:30,760 --> 00:45:37,160
I mean, just arbitrarily looking at it being measured and then that selection or that strain

547
00:45:37,160 --> 00:45:43,720
is actually producible and then basically set up for regulation and then the legal market.

548
00:45:43,720 --> 00:45:45,720
I think you're spot on, John.

549
00:45:45,720 --> 00:45:50,680
And I actually sort of had a sneaking suspicion about this just from some of the things I've

550
00:45:50,680 --> 00:45:51,680
observed.

551
00:45:51,680 --> 00:45:57,120
And it may still be sort of that still may be the case to a certain extent today.

552
00:45:57,120 --> 00:46:02,960
But now that the markets are so open in, like, say America, I think people are doing genetic

553
00:46:02,960 --> 00:46:04,400
breeding here.

554
00:46:04,400 --> 00:46:10,060
But I think that's 100 percent right because the genetic breeding, right, it's a tricky

555
00:46:10,060 --> 00:46:12,920
process and there's a lot of trial and error.

556
00:46:12,920 --> 00:46:18,280
So you may not necessarily want to fill out like, you know, a thousand plant room or more

557
00:46:18,280 --> 00:46:20,720
with experimental stuff.

558
00:46:20,720 --> 00:46:21,720
So I think you're right.

559
00:46:21,720 --> 00:46:29,240
I think there is like a subset of basically breeders who are just solely working on genetics.

560
00:46:29,240 --> 00:46:35,080
They're just, you know, doing the selective breeding, the trial and error, crossing different

561
00:46:35,080 --> 00:46:36,080
strains.

562
00:46:36,080 --> 00:46:37,080
I think there are people doing that.

563
00:46:37,080 --> 00:46:42,160
And then I think, yeah, they stumble upon something they think is a winner, a good flavor

564
00:46:42,160 --> 00:46:43,160
profile.

565
00:46:43,160 --> 00:46:49,680
They get a bunch of seeds and then, yeah, those may wind up as a cultivation and then

566
00:46:49,680 --> 00:46:51,040
they just clone it.

567
00:46:51,040 --> 00:46:53,600
So they find a good variety.

568
00:46:53,600 --> 00:46:59,280
Maybe this variety grows at the right height, flowers at the right time.

569
00:46:59,280 --> 00:47:02,360
Maybe it's pest and disease resistant.

570
00:47:02,360 --> 00:47:05,600
You know, there's all these various factors that people look for.

571
00:47:05,600 --> 00:47:09,040
And then, yeah, they just fill out the cultivation with that.

572
00:47:09,040 --> 00:47:12,240
And then I think that's what's being sold commercially.

573
00:47:12,240 --> 00:47:17,760
So once again, I don't need to do more research to confirm this, but that's what I suspect

574
00:47:17,760 --> 00:47:18,760
is happening.

575
00:47:18,760 --> 00:47:23,800
Just to finish here, basically Thailand was even saying that they were, once again, I

576
00:47:23,800 --> 00:47:29,280
don't know how true this is because I've heard conflicting things that California cannabis

577
00:47:29,280 --> 00:47:31,680
isn't actually really flowing all over the world.

578
00:47:31,680 --> 00:47:37,360
But then, you know, here in Thailand, they were saying that they're actually concerned

579
00:47:37,360 --> 00:47:43,520
about illegal cannabis coming in from the United States and undercutting their market.

580
00:47:43,520 --> 00:47:45,760
That is kind of interesting.

581
00:47:45,760 --> 00:47:50,960
Once again, I'll have to dig up the actual articles to actually get the pricing on it.

582
00:47:50,960 --> 00:47:56,680
But I want to say they were saying the price of a gram of cannabis in Thailand was around

583
00:47:56,680 --> 00:48:03,840
$9, which is actually kind of comparable to Washington state.

584
00:48:03,840 --> 00:48:11,920
And then they were saying the illegal cannabis was coming in around $4 to $5 a gram.

585
00:48:11,920 --> 00:48:18,000
And that kind of goes back to what we were talking about at the beginning where cannabis

586
00:48:18,000 --> 00:48:24,400
is just kind of freely flowing and it's undercutting legal markets.

587
00:48:24,400 --> 00:48:32,880
And it's just kind of funny that things have kind of done a complete 180 degree turn where

588
00:48:32,880 --> 00:48:39,800
I'm sure the DEA was originally maybe not super happy with Thai sticks coming into the

589
00:48:39,800 --> 00:48:42,360
United States from Thailand.

590
00:48:42,360 --> 00:48:52,000
And now Thailand's not super happy about California cannabis coming into Thailand.

591
00:48:52,000 --> 00:48:53,000
So anywho.

592
00:48:53,000 --> 00:49:00,520
But if it's all correct, the basic Thai stick came in earlier before the DEA was created.

593
00:49:00,520 --> 00:49:07,320
So that would have been, a lot of this has been interesting.

594
00:49:07,320 --> 00:49:13,720
It's been interesting how the regulatory parties saw a problem, basically tried to address

595
00:49:13,720 --> 00:49:19,560
that problem in the sense of creating an agent and then pulling it under an umbrella of say

596
00:49:19,560 --> 00:49:24,200
what was created, DEA.

597
00:49:24,200 --> 00:49:26,240
But in the same sense, you're right.

598
00:49:26,240 --> 00:49:30,960
If I have a legitimate market in my country, I really don't want your stuff invading it

599
00:49:30,960 --> 00:49:32,760
if you want to cut me.

600
00:49:32,760 --> 00:49:39,520
And then I'll have to, but then again, if my weed's that much better, then sooner or

601
00:49:39,520 --> 00:49:45,640
later, I mean, do you want to keep the indigenous weed, improve it, or basically allow the growers

602
00:49:45,640 --> 00:49:48,200
to grow the imported weed?

603
00:49:48,200 --> 00:49:49,200
Right?

604
00:49:49,200 --> 00:49:54,200
And then does that offer an environmental issue that basically says that the indigenous

605
00:49:54,200 --> 00:50:01,280
weed is more adapted to the environment as opposed to the imported weed?

606
00:50:01,280 --> 00:50:03,520
I think there's two things going on.

607
00:50:03,520 --> 00:50:09,440
One, I think that the people undercutting them, they're just not being traced.

608
00:50:09,440 --> 00:50:12,760
There's no traceability of that.

609
00:50:12,760 --> 00:50:17,000
And then, I mean, there's just so many camps in the cannabis industry.

610
00:50:17,000 --> 00:50:22,360
I bet you there's some cultivators in Thailand that they just like how they've been doing

611
00:50:22,360 --> 00:50:23,360
things.

612
00:50:23,360 --> 00:50:25,440
They've got their seed stock.

613
00:50:25,440 --> 00:50:27,520
They just do their same thing every year.

614
00:50:27,520 --> 00:50:29,000
They're happy with it.

615
00:50:29,000 --> 00:50:31,400
And they like their plant genetics, right?

616
00:50:31,400 --> 00:50:32,960
They don't want change, right?

617
00:50:32,960 --> 00:50:37,560
So those are the people who want stable genetics.

618
00:50:37,560 --> 00:50:42,520
And then there's other cultivators who are saying, like, well, people want high, or maybe

619
00:50:42,520 --> 00:50:46,560
they do, but people want high THC cannabis.

620
00:50:46,560 --> 00:50:51,200
These seeds from California give me some remarkable high THC plants.

621
00:50:51,200 --> 00:50:52,960
I'm going to use those.

622
00:50:52,960 --> 00:50:56,720
So there's some people just doing it, just the simple economics.

623
00:50:56,720 --> 00:51:00,000
Yeah, I just want California genetics.

624
00:51:00,000 --> 00:51:02,040
So there's...

625
00:51:02,040 --> 00:51:03,520
Oh, I'm sorry.

626
00:51:03,520 --> 00:51:07,960
Oh, I was just going to say it's almost just two different issues.

627
00:51:07,960 --> 00:51:13,880
I view it as the reason they're being undercut is they're just not being traced.

628
00:51:13,880 --> 00:51:23,320
And then the strain, the genetics, that's just a whole different thing where it's like,

629
00:51:23,320 --> 00:51:25,140
do people want...

630
00:51:25,140 --> 00:51:27,160
It's more of a cultivator choice.

631
00:51:27,160 --> 00:51:35,400
Well, the thing I was going to say, in India, they were having problems with genetic modified

632
00:51:35,400 --> 00:51:37,320
seeds, right?

633
00:51:37,320 --> 00:51:43,020
And what they would do is they take their seeds from the year and they save their seeds.

634
00:51:43,020 --> 00:51:47,400
And then they basically reuse those seeds next year and the next year and the next year.

635
00:51:47,400 --> 00:51:53,480
And the argument they were having, big problems apparently, were that introducing these seeds,

636
00:51:53,480 --> 00:51:56,440
these seeds belong to me, the corporation.

637
00:51:56,440 --> 00:51:59,480
You're buying the seeds and therefore you can't keep it.

638
00:51:59,480 --> 00:52:05,560
And many people, there were actually farmers over the fact that they couldn't control the

639
00:52:05,560 --> 00:52:08,240
stocks, they were actually growing anymore.

640
00:52:08,240 --> 00:52:09,840
So I can kind of...

641
00:52:09,840 --> 00:52:16,160
Especially in an agricultural society, to us, agriculture is...

642
00:52:16,160 --> 00:52:20,880
Unless you're directly a farmer, it's owned by a corporation in a lot of ways, but other

643
00:52:20,880 --> 00:52:22,160
than independent.

644
00:52:22,160 --> 00:52:27,320
But then again, marijuana too is just a secondary kind of crop.

645
00:52:27,320 --> 00:52:31,640
You kind of hit the nail on the head because that's what's happening in Thailand is it's

646
00:52:31,640 --> 00:52:37,400
real interesting because they have sort of the reverse of what's happened in America

647
00:52:37,400 --> 00:52:43,280
where this is almost like a individual grower app.

648
00:52:43,280 --> 00:52:50,960
So I was thinking this is basically Thailand's version of metric, but it's for small time

649
00:52:50,960 --> 00:52:52,520
growers.

650
00:52:52,520 --> 00:52:58,200
So it's just like if you're just a small time farmer and you want to grow cannabis, you

651
00:52:58,200 --> 00:53:05,200
would just get this app and put some plants in the ground and just make sure you're just

652
00:53:05,200 --> 00:53:07,720
recording your activity.

653
00:53:07,720 --> 00:53:14,920
And I don't know if they have any big licensed commercial grows yet.

654
00:53:14,920 --> 00:53:21,600
I thought this was brilliant because I was thinking that... and I think maybe in Missouri,

655
00:53:21,600 --> 00:53:28,900
they kind of have a system like this, but why can't home growers essentially use the

656
00:53:28,900 --> 00:53:36,840
metric system or a system like that and just say, hey, I'm just going to grow whatever's

657
00:53:36,840 --> 00:53:39,920
permitted, maybe it's four to six plants.

658
00:53:39,920 --> 00:53:41,680
I'll follow all the rules.

659
00:53:41,680 --> 00:53:43,880
I'll put it in the traceability system.

660
00:53:43,880 --> 00:53:47,200
I'll record how much I harvest and this and that.

661
00:53:47,200 --> 00:53:49,280
That way you're still doing everything by the book.

662
00:53:49,280 --> 00:53:54,360
But why couldn't a home grower do this?

663
00:53:54,360 --> 00:53:57,720
And in Thailand, they're showing that they can.

664
00:53:57,720 --> 00:54:04,080
I just kind of wanted to highlight that because this is something that Thailand's doing really

665
00:54:04,080 --> 00:54:05,080
well.

666
00:54:05,080 --> 00:54:12,320
And if you look at their app, it's in Thai or I don't know what their language is.

667
00:54:12,320 --> 00:54:13,760
It's in their language.

668
00:54:13,760 --> 00:54:16,280
They have their own food and drug administration.

669
00:54:16,280 --> 00:54:17,280
I don't know.

670
00:54:17,280 --> 00:54:20,320
I just thought this was a really uplifting positive sign.

671
00:54:20,320 --> 00:54:23,400
Just kind of ties in nicely with everything here.

672
00:54:23,400 --> 00:54:26,200
Real quick, I know we've stayed way over time.

673
00:54:26,200 --> 00:54:31,940
If you want to see some data science for just five minutes, I'll just show you real quick

674
00:54:31,940 --> 00:54:39,820
how we could actually get these licenses because like you said, these are agricultural places.

675
00:54:39,820 --> 00:54:43,340
So let's keep track of these cultivators.

676
00:54:43,340 --> 00:54:49,080
Real quick, how would you actually get these licenses programmatically?

677
00:54:49,080 --> 00:54:54,080
Well, we talked about web automation.

678
00:54:54,080 --> 00:55:00,480
And here you'll actually have to do some automation.

679
00:55:00,480 --> 00:55:09,680
And basically what this script does is it literally just opens this website and then

680
00:55:09,680 --> 00:55:15,280
it just gets all the data from this table.

681
00:55:15,280 --> 00:55:25,960
And then it literally just clicks this next button and gets all the data from that table.

682
00:55:25,960 --> 00:55:35,500
And it just keeps clicking this next button until that button is disabled.

683
00:55:35,500 --> 00:55:36,500
And then it stops.

684
00:55:36,500 --> 00:55:37,500
Right?

685
00:55:37,500 --> 00:55:44,560
So these are the exact actions you would take as a human if you were going to read all the

686
00:55:44,560 --> 00:55:46,120
data from this table.

687
00:55:46,120 --> 00:55:54,120
But here we can just do that exact same thing but with a script.

688
00:55:54,120 --> 00:56:02,640
Click on the cannabis cultivations tab and that will just start going page by page.

689
00:56:02,640 --> 00:56:09,640
So now we just go page by page here and get all of the licenses.

690
00:56:09,640 --> 00:56:19,680
So page 6, page 7, page 8, and page 9.

691
00:56:19,680 --> 00:56:24,320
And then if we want, we can now close the browser since we're done with it.

692
00:56:24,320 --> 00:56:27,280
So bam, that browser is gone.

693
00:56:27,280 --> 00:56:32,160
And now we can look at the data.

694
00:56:32,160 --> 00:56:38,240
So how many licenses are in South Africa?

695
00:56:38,240 --> 00:56:43,260
So there's 88 cultivators in South Africa.

696
00:56:43,260 --> 00:56:49,240
We noted that they have a population of around 60 million people.

697
00:56:49,240 --> 00:56:54,840
You can find out the cultivators per 100,000 people.

698
00:56:54,840 --> 00:57:03,360
So they only have 0.14 cultivators or about 0.15 cultivators per 100,000 people.

699
00:57:03,360 --> 00:57:06,280
And from my understanding, that may be low.

700
00:57:06,280 --> 00:57:08,480
But let's double check that.

701
00:57:08,480 --> 00:57:14,480
So how many cultivators per 100,000 people are there in Oklahoma?

702
00:57:14,480 --> 00:57:16,560
Probably more than that is my hypothesis.

703
00:57:16,560 --> 00:57:22,680
Just to go ahead and visualize this data here, we were talking about states.

704
00:57:22,680 --> 00:57:28,600
And this is basically the state equivalent in South Africa.

705
00:57:28,600 --> 00:57:32,880
So it looks like they're growing mostly in Gwataing.

706
00:57:32,880 --> 00:57:38,120
So let's just see if we can find a quick map of South Africa provinces.

707
00:57:38,120 --> 00:57:44,000
But oh yeah, so Gwataing is this little province right here in the middle.

708
00:57:44,000 --> 00:57:48,680
So that's where there's the most, followed by the Western Cape.

709
00:57:48,680 --> 00:57:51,640
Pazulu-Natal is the third.

710
00:57:51,640 --> 00:57:54,240
My bias was on the United States.

711
00:57:54,240 --> 00:57:57,000
And so that's where I was doing all the data collection.

712
00:57:57,000 --> 00:58:01,560
And just because of my bias, we completely left off an entire country.

713
00:58:01,560 --> 00:58:07,580
And so that's 88 cultivators that we can start to learn more about.

714
00:58:07,580 --> 00:58:08,580
What are they doing?

715
00:58:08,580 --> 00:58:09,840
Are they growing medicinal cannabis?

716
00:58:09,840 --> 00:58:12,220
Are they growing adult use cannabis?

717
00:58:12,220 --> 00:58:14,040
So I'll pass that off to you.

718
00:58:14,040 --> 00:58:17,540
So check out the South Africa.

719
00:58:17,540 --> 00:58:19,440
Check out their regulations.

720
00:58:19,440 --> 00:58:23,920
Maybe start researching some of these companies.

721
00:58:23,920 --> 00:58:27,640
See what are they producing?

722
00:58:27,640 --> 00:58:31,240
And then also check out Thailand.

723
00:58:31,240 --> 00:58:33,680
They've got an interesting market here.

724
00:58:33,680 --> 00:58:38,560
And then also, if you're interested, get some hemp data.

725
00:58:38,560 --> 00:58:43,840
Why don't we kind of pick up this avenue of the conversation next week?

726
00:58:43,840 --> 00:58:46,960
Because I think Brian was interested in the raw garden results.

727
00:58:46,960 --> 00:58:53,120
And so why don't we actually maybe, I'm going to see if we can't find any hemp data with

728
00:58:53,120 --> 00:58:54,640
terpenes.

729
00:58:54,640 --> 00:58:57,720
Maybe I can think of something outside of the box here.

730
00:58:57,720 --> 00:59:06,120
Because I think where this conversation is kind of going is we've talked a lot about

731
00:59:06,120 --> 00:59:09,920
the importance of strains and varieties in the past.

732
00:59:09,920 --> 00:59:15,360
And now we just sort of introduced another dimension where there's also strains and

733
00:59:15,360 --> 00:59:18,160
varieties from other countries.

734
00:59:18,160 --> 00:59:24,560
And then within our country, we've got these two huge different varieties, the CBD heavy

735
00:59:24,560 --> 00:59:29,440
strains and the non-THC, or I mean the heavy THC strains.

736
00:59:29,440 --> 00:59:34,200
Maybe start to map which ones people are selecting over time.

737
00:59:34,200 --> 00:59:38,520
Maybe the chemical profiles people are selecting over time.

738
00:59:38,520 --> 00:59:42,160
Because as I was saying at the beginning, people have their prize strains, right?

739
00:59:42,160 --> 00:59:47,880
The highland, they've got their prize strains.

740
00:59:47,880 --> 00:59:51,000
Columbia, they have their prize strains.

741
00:59:51,000 --> 00:59:55,920
I've heard that Mexico has their prize strains.

742
00:59:55,920 --> 01:00:04,880
And then they're not happy that all the California strains has basically gotten mixed with all

743
01:00:04,880 --> 01:00:06,840
of their local varieties.

744
01:00:06,840 --> 01:00:16,960
The medical market, they may have used a bunch of these recreational or illegal high THC varieties.

745
01:00:16,960 --> 01:00:21,340
I think that's maybe what we can try to get on next week and try to tie it all together

746
01:00:21,340 --> 01:00:26,480
is basically we've got all these different legalities of cannabis, different places where

747
01:00:26,480 --> 01:00:28,440
it's permitted.

748
01:00:28,440 --> 01:00:34,680
Then people are selecting different varieties, whether it's in the illegal market or in legal

749
01:00:34,680 --> 01:00:41,840
markets or medicinal markets, the cultivators are selecting varieties that they can sell

750
01:00:41,840 --> 01:00:43,800
to people.

751
01:00:43,800 --> 01:00:46,200
What if we can't tie it all together?

752
01:00:46,200 --> 01:00:53,480
What if there's some effect of regulation on the chemotypes that people are growing?

753
01:00:53,480 --> 01:00:55,800
There is a reason why they're growing.

754
01:00:55,800 --> 01:01:02,320
I mean there's a reason why they like that selection.

755
01:01:02,320 --> 01:01:06,200
Because either the local neighborhood likes what they're growing.

756
01:01:06,200 --> 01:01:11,520
They like your brand of corn, your era corn, the way it looks and people will buy your

757
01:01:11,520 --> 01:01:12,520
local stuff.

758
01:01:12,520 --> 01:01:17,360
Which is why it's better to buy say local Texas corn.

759
01:01:17,360 --> 01:01:22,800
But if you've ever had silver green corn out of Maryland, it's far superior.

760
01:01:22,800 --> 01:01:25,760
But I don't know if it will have cheap grown Texas.

761
01:01:25,760 --> 01:01:27,400
But they have something similar.

762
01:01:27,400 --> 01:01:29,360
But the idea is that it's a local corn.

763
01:01:29,360 --> 01:01:34,040
You stick it in a nuker and essentially you can heat this thing up and let the butter

764
01:01:34,040 --> 01:01:35,040
or anything on it.

765
01:01:35,040 --> 01:01:38,640
You just cook the juices inside the kernel.

766
01:01:38,640 --> 01:01:45,400
But silver green is totally different corn, it's a different species corn, different terrain.

767
01:01:45,400 --> 01:01:50,240
Yes, and I think we definitely should try to tie this all together because I think this

768
01:01:50,240 --> 01:01:53,080
is what people are super interested in.

769
01:01:53,080 --> 01:01:59,320
I know I've heard talk on the town that basically, let's tie it all together.

770
01:01:59,320 --> 01:02:05,240
At the beginning, people were saying that legal cultivators were having a tough time

771
01:02:05,240 --> 01:02:07,420
in California.

772
01:02:07,420 --> 01:02:14,000
One thing they're looking at to try to give themselves a marketing advantage is, I forget

773
01:02:14,000 --> 01:02:17,600
what they call it, like terra noire or something.

774
01:02:17,600 --> 01:02:22,920
Where it's basically they're saying, what makes our cannabis special is the soil it

775
01:02:22,920 --> 01:02:24,040
was grown in.

776
01:02:24,040 --> 01:02:28,440
It's special because it was grown here in California.

777
01:02:28,440 --> 01:02:35,440
And there's been some interesting genetic research slash microbiology research where

778
01:02:35,440 --> 01:02:43,200
I would want to say that they can basically take seeds and look at the microbes in the

779
01:02:43,200 --> 01:02:50,200
seeds and tell you where, once again, I don't know how accurate this is going to be.

780
01:02:50,200 --> 01:02:56,840
I think there's been complaint suggestions that they can look at microbes in the seeds

781
01:02:56,840 --> 01:03:00,960
and tell you where in the world the seeds came from.

782
01:03:00,960 --> 01:03:07,480
Because microbiology is such an integral part of life.

783
01:03:07,480 --> 01:03:12,280
And that's what makes the soil in California special.

784
01:03:12,280 --> 01:03:21,680
Well, in Sense Emilia Tips, there's a whole article on how you make compost the California

785
01:03:21,680 --> 01:03:22,680
way.

786
01:03:22,680 --> 01:03:28,200
And I'll have to give you the recipe because it is not an easy recipe.

787
01:03:28,200 --> 01:03:32,480
So they're saying, oh, get chicken.

788
01:03:32,480 --> 01:03:37,960
I used to have a garden every year for like eight years.

789
01:03:37,960 --> 01:03:40,720
I practiced something called square inch garden.

790
01:03:40,720 --> 01:03:42,560
What I would do is I had this garden in the backyard.

791
01:03:42,560 --> 01:03:45,080
It wasn't very big, but it's nice size.

792
01:03:45,080 --> 01:03:48,680
And I just composted.

793
01:03:48,680 --> 01:03:53,800
And right before winter, basically just throw all kinds of organic stuff in.

794
01:03:53,800 --> 01:03:56,920
And next thing I know, I let it just ferment during the wintertime.

795
01:03:56,920 --> 01:04:00,960
And as soon as the ground started to break, I broke it all up again and let it sit for

796
01:04:00,960 --> 01:04:01,960
a little bit.

797
01:04:01,960 --> 01:04:04,240
And then essentially added more material.

798
01:04:04,240 --> 01:04:06,920
And then started putting certain plants in.

799
01:04:06,920 --> 01:04:09,120
Tomatoes did well up until a certain point.

800
01:04:09,120 --> 01:04:14,840
If I painted the back wall of this small yard white, the plants would have probably grown

801
01:04:14,840 --> 01:04:17,840
a lot better into the hot season.

802
01:04:17,840 --> 01:04:23,360
But with the temperature, the sun directly coming down and hitting that wall, the temperature

803
01:04:23,360 --> 01:04:25,160
variant went up.

804
01:04:25,160 --> 01:04:28,040
So therefore they produced vine, not fruit.

805
01:04:28,040 --> 01:04:30,920
So it was a bunch of different ways of planting that.

806
01:04:30,920 --> 01:04:35,760
But the idea is getting the nitrogen to be, at least what I remember about some of my

807
01:04:35,760 --> 01:04:38,880
body, the nitrogen fixing bacteria.

808
01:04:38,880 --> 01:04:44,440
It gets around the roots and helps actually help the plant work its magic.

809
01:04:44,440 --> 01:04:49,720
So that's something to go into of how that stuff grows in one California that has its

810
01:04:49,720 --> 01:04:52,320
own brand of compost.

811
01:04:52,320 --> 01:04:57,640
Because I did see somebody do a little bit of compost where he's actually using his own

812
01:04:57,640 --> 01:04:59,240
sepal material.

813
01:04:59,240 --> 01:05:04,720
Okay, well, that's not gross to me, but I understand what he's trying to get to.

814
01:05:04,720 --> 01:05:08,360
But that's something he was doing, let it ferment.

815
01:05:08,360 --> 01:05:09,360
And it broke down.

816
01:05:09,360 --> 01:05:13,640
And that way he could utilize this for something else.

817
01:05:13,640 --> 01:05:15,760
Manure is a big part of it.

818
01:05:15,760 --> 01:05:22,760
So here they're saying 50 pounds of fish meal, 20 pounds of hoof and horn meal, 20 pounds

819
01:05:22,760 --> 01:05:26,800
of blood meal, five to 10 pounds of bat guano.

820
01:05:26,800 --> 01:05:33,640
It's just funny because this is where the cannabis folklore.

821
01:05:33,640 --> 01:05:41,240
So even in North Carolina, I knew a couple of outlaw growers and they were trying to

822
01:05:41,240 --> 01:05:47,200
get bat guano for their compost because it's just cannabis was originally passed down by

823
01:05:47,200 --> 01:05:48,200
folklore.

824
01:05:48,200 --> 01:05:56,760
And so someone like Tom Alexander would say, oh yeah, we're using bat guano in our compost.

825
01:05:56,760 --> 01:06:02,800
And next thing you know, every single cannabis cultivator thinks they need to put bat guano

826
01:06:02,800 --> 01:06:04,680
in their compost.

827
01:06:04,680 --> 01:06:11,960
And I was talking to a cultivator and what they were saying is, remember we were finding

828
01:06:11,960 --> 01:06:18,560
out the other week that my hypothesis was the strains you were smelling in Texas were

829
01:06:18,560 --> 01:06:21,920
really high in sulfuric compounds.

830
01:06:21,920 --> 01:06:25,400
Well, plants are a chemical factory.

831
01:06:25,400 --> 01:06:29,760
They need sulfuric compounds in the compost.

832
01:06:29,760 --> 01:06:36,080
So that's what the cultivator was saying was he was saying make sure your soil is rich

833
01:06:36,080 --> 01:06:45,040
of sulfur, I guess, because that'll get turned that will be converted by the plants.

834
01:06:45,040 --> 01:06:49,640
Well, then that's when you have to start studying.

835
01:06:49,640 --> 01:06:53,600
Because when they did the test, the plants already grown and the idea is they're testing

836
01:06:53,600 --> 01:06:56,200
a certain type of this plant versus this plant.

837
01:06:56,200 --> 01:07:01,640
But the real beauty of all this stuff is in the actual biology of the plant, especially

838
01:07:01,640 --> 01:07:07,000
for the fact of what takes hold in the soil, what you have to do to keep that hold until

839
01:07:07,000 --> 01:07:09,240
the plant gets spread out wide enough.

840
01:07:09,240 --> 01:07:14,280
And then what happens in between the roots, because the head of the root, right, the head

841
01:07:14,280 --> 01:07:20,120
of the root is designed primarily to just drill and search for water, which is why three

842
01:07:20,120 --> 01:07:21,760
roots grow into pipes.

843
01:07:21,760 --> 01:07:24,120
They'll go into small places and expand.

844
01:07:24,120 --> 01:07:29,440
It's just designed there's so many cells on that tip that basically just penetrates anything.

845
01:07:29,440 --> 01:07:30,440
Right.

846
01:07:30,440 --> 01:07:34,080
But in the same breath, there's these fine hairs that go across there.

847
01:07:34,080 --> 01:07:36,600
They're actually part of the chemical absorption.

848
01:07:36,600 --> 01:07:41,440
And it actually if you have a house like your house plant sitting under your desk, eventually

849
01:07:41,440 --> 01:07:45,840
that'll get root bound because the plants eating the soil.

850
01:07:45,840 --> 01:07:51,040
So you'll have to take that and either break it up or replanting into something bigger

851
01:07:51,040 --> 01:07:52,640
with more soil.

852
01:07:52,640 --> 01:07:56,800
And I used to have plants, I used to drag them up in the bathroom, put them in the shower.

853
01:07:56,800 --> 01:08:01,160
And what I would do to get the best growth out of some of the house just half plants,

854
01:08:01,160 --> 01:08:05,880
you basically flush out the acids and all the poisons because of the chemical.

855
01:08:05,880 --> 01:08:06,880
It doesn't drain.

856
01:08:06,880 --> 01:08:12,360
And I flush all the stuff out, then make sure it drained properly and then put this organic

857
01:08:12,360 --> 01:08:15,360
fertilizer in.

858
01:08:15,360 --> 01:08:16,360
Right.

859
01:08:16,360 --> 01:08:18,040
Dr. Scholl's or something like that.

860
01:08:18,040 --> 01:08:21,920
It was like, we're totally organic, but you mix it in and you just pour it in and let

861
01:08:21,920 --> 01:08:23,880
it sit, let the plants rest.

862
01:08:23,880 --> 01:08:26,800
You're cleaning the leaves, letting the stoma be able to breathe.

863
01:08:26,800 --> 01:08:32,120
And there's a whole bunch of functions that the plant goes through respiration in order

864
01:08:32,120 --> 01:08:33,400
to make that uptake happen.

865
01:08:33,400 --> 01:08:34,680
I love it.

866
01:08:34,680 --> 01:08:38,120
And I think we should pick this conversation up next week.

867
01:08:38,120 --> 01:08:41,040
So I actually got to run myself.

868
01:08:41,040 --> 01:08:45,080
But I've got a bunch of cool material to share with you.

869
01:08:45,080 --> 01:08:48,000
So why don't we pick this back up next week?

870
01:08:48,000 --> 01:08:53,200
Because I think we've hit on an interesting vein where we can start tying in things like

871
01:08:53,200 --> 01:08:56,800
we can tie regulation to location.

872
01:08:56,800 --> 01:09:00,040
And what if we can't tie that to chemo type?

873
01:09:00,040 --> 01:09:04,200
Because we've got all these disparate sources of cannabis data.

874
01:09:04,200 --> 01:09:08,120
And if we can start connecting them, then we may be able to draw some really, really

875
01:09:08,120 --> 01:09:09,120
cool insights.

876
01:09:09,120 --> 01:09:10,120
Thanks, that's amazing.

877
01:09:10,120 --> 01:09:15,200
I'm going to get my voice back better and better.

878
01:09:15,200 --> 01:09:19,160
So I've got too much cool stuff to share with you today.

879
01:09:19,160 --> 01:09:22,560
So we will have to wait until next week.

880
01:09:22,560 --> 01:09:25,240
However, thank you.

881
01:09:25,240 --> 01:09:28,480
Thank you for coming to Advanced Cannabis Science.

882
01:09:28,480 --> 01:09:33,880
Until next week, keep your nose to the grindstone, stay productive, and have fun while you're

883
01:09:33,880 --> 01:09:34,880
doing it.

884
01:09:34,880 --> 01:09:45,640
Gotta go make money.