What's up guys? It's been a minute since I got to put an episode up here on all of these
podcasting platforms but if you haven't heard yet, we're over on Facebook live. Head over
to Facebook live. We're trying to do as much on there as possible and monetize on there.
And then we're going to swing back around all these podcasting platforms. Finish season
three, get some more guests on the show. Line up season four. And yeah, we're going to have
some good guests. So today we got the interview with Anna Schwabbe and she's a doctor. So
hope you guys enjoy this. Talk soon. Tell me a little about yourself. Tell me a little
about what you do. Hey, Ryan. Yeah, it was good to speak with you the other day. So I'm
Dr. Anna Schwabbe. I got nicknamed Dr. Anibis about three years ago, which I think is pretty
funny and I just kind of ran with it. But I have a PhD in cannabis genetics. It's a pretty
interesting and lengthy story, but basically I got interested. Well, I've always been interested
in cannabis ever since, you know, probably high school. But I really got into cannabis
and kind of thinking about cannabis research when I was working at the Denver Botanic Gardens
back in, let's see, this was 2012 to 2015. Thinking about various questions that were
coming up after the legalization for adult use in Colorado. And the number one thing
that stuck out to me was people saying that if they go to different dispensaries and buy
the same kind of flower, the same strain, they didn't have the same effects. And I thought
that was really strange because, you know, if it's got a name, like if it's a Granny
Smith apple, you should be the same, we're relatively the same with a little bit of variation,
you know, because it's a plant, no matter where you get it. And so that's kind of where
my interest started. And I brought it up to my to my mentor that I had for my master's
degree and the school, the University of Northern Colorado, we were able to kind of
figure out a way for me to get some research done with high THC type cannabis, which is
basically not a thing at universities here in the United States. Most of the cannabis
research is is limited to hemp research, because TAC type cannabis is still federally
illegal. And so a lot of universities don't, they don't want to touch it. So I kind of
was in this really unique position where I was able to get a PhD in cannabis genetics
with high TTC type cannabis from dispensaries answering questions that really were consumer
driven, consumer focused. So I was going into dispensaries and buying weed just like anybody
would and then conducting experiments, not partnering with a cultivator or partnering
with a lab, like it was all just kind of like super secret off the shelf testing kind of
stuff to answer some of these really crazy questions. And it was awesome. And it took
me four years, I could have done it quicker, but they wanted me to slow down, pump the
brakes. But I think I got five publications out of that, which a lot of people would be
familiar with. You know, the big one is that, you know, strains aren't always what they
say they are. And then the other one is the TAC inflation that everybody's talking about
these days. That was another one that was very popular. And then the other one was that
the cannabis used for research, the research grade marijuana from the University of Mississippi
is more closely related to hemp than it is to anything that any consumers, patients or
recreational have access to, which is really odd. But yeah, so that's that's who I am.
That's what I've done. And what I'm doing now is looking for a job.
We had spoke about that. And that's very, that's very unfortunate. And what's your
we're going to we're going to hop back to that in a second here. But the the blue dream,
I believe you're talking about and how it's you were ever you compared it to a Granny
Smith apple and how you would assume since they are all blue dream that you know, there
might be, you know, they should all have the same taste. You know, you know, a Granny
Smith apple to have like that sweet tart taste to it, right? You know, a little bit south.
Yeah, there's a there's like a level of expectation that a Granny Smith should be it should be
green. It should be round. It should be tart. Depending on where they're grown, though, I
mean, they are going to be differences, right? So a Tasmanian, if you know where Tasmania
is, it's a state in Australia, the little bottom island of Australia. So they're really
well known for their apples, actually, but a Granny Smith grown in Tasmania might be
different from a Granny Smith grown in California. But they have they have various features that
that make them a Granny Smith, like you would never you would never confuse a Granny Smith
with a golden delicious apple, right? They're they're they're different. And if the thing
with like, you know, lots of things like dogs, like I have Docsons, all three look different,
but there is a set of traits that hold them together as and make them identifiable as
Docsons, right? You would never look at a Docson to be like, that's a great thing.
Right.
So you're like, hot dog, because hot dog dog. Yeah. And I had like one short hair, red
Docson, one short haired black and dappled Docson. And then I have a long hair double
dappled Docson. And they all look really different, but they all still are very identifiable
as Docsons. And so when I'm talking about Blue Dream, for example, like, there should
be something similar about Blue Dream, no matter where you get it. And the consumers
really don't have any information other than the name on the package and potentially the
TTC content to tell you that it's Blue Dream. And it's not only consumers, right? So if
you're a cultivator and you order seeds of Blue Dream, which isn't a thing because Blue
Dream was not ever stabilized, it should be a clone only. But let's say you order some
clones, you have to go off there, the person who's supplying you with that, those clones
that they are giving you Blue Dream and that they had received Blue Dream to make cuts
from. So like there's this whole thing all the way down the chain of command where there's
no, there's literally no checks. And what do I want to say? There's no way to check that
you have the thing that you think you're getting, you just have to kind of trust it, trust
the process. And mask up in a certain sense, because they're
they're always talking about regulation and there's all these rules and like just the
future is definitely coming together. It's just having these extra things like, for example,
you were talking about the stabilization of the of Blue Dream. And I'm thinking, including
myself, I would not, I really wouldn't have known that it's, you know, Blue Dream, you
mentioned that being not being stabilized. What exactly does that mean?
So to stabilize your genetic line, what you need to do is basically breed out all the
variation. So it takes multiple generations of putting to like, and it might be easier
for people to think of two dogs. Okay, so you get you go to the pound, you pick up two
dogs, and you're hoping to make a new breed. Those two dogs are muts and they have a combination
of multiple different types of dogs in them. You breed them together. That first letter
is going to have a whole lot of variation in it. So then you're going to take a couple
of the puppies and breed them together and try to start breeding it, reading, choosing
the traits that you want, and getting rid of the traits that you don't. So you're going
to pick the perfect, the, you know, the two perfect, or you can even back cross to one
of the parents. And you're going to start breeding and eliminating individuals that
have traits that are undesirable and keeping it and in breeding for the traits that you
are looking for. And we all, you know, have been conditioned to know that inbreeding is
a bad thing, right? When you inbreed, especially people and you get, you get some things that
come along with that, you know, certain diseases and things like that. But that's, that's how
we get stable lines is we inbreed until, you know, when you breed two toxins together,
you get all baby toxins, you won't get an accidental dalmatian out of a litter of toxins
that have been bred from purebred toxins. So really what, what that stabilization is
doing is, is creating non variable traits, right? That makes sense. No, you're definitely
not going to get a dalmatian by breeding two. That's how, that's how, that's how you make
a cultivar, right? So cultivars, there's this whole ongoing debate about, we shouldn't
say the word strain, we should use cultivar, right? But a cultivar is something that has
been bred and selected for and is stable, for the most part. I mean, there's, there's
a couple of exceptions, like if it's, you know, propagated through clone only, you know,
it has to be novel, distinct in uniform, and stable, like those are just the things that
a cultivar has to be. So I kind of think about it, like a lot of things on the market, including
blue dream, they're not stable. Like if you put two different blue dream plants together,
you're still going to have a lot of variation in that offspring. And that's why they say
it's clone only is because you're not going to get those, that set of traits that you
were looking for, if you breed blue dream from seed, right? So that's what clone only
means. But there's lots, there's quite, there's a few, there's a few cannabis varieties out
there that, you know, would be considered cultivars that they've been around for years,
that you know what you're going to get when you grow them from seed. But the problem with
cannabis is that again, it's federally illegal. So there's no way to register, register new
cultivars really at this time. And so it just makes a lot more sense if you find something
that you like, you know, you, you, you put two things together, you get offspring, you
like this, it's just easier to grow up a plant and then, and then clone it instead of going
through all of that, that whole process of breeding out all of the undesirable traits,
which takes a lot of time, a lot of resources, a lot of, you know, like it's, it's a long
process. And it's just easier to cut off bits of the plant and start growing new plants.
Right? Yeah. So I think that's, and it's pretty unique to cannabis because it has been illegal
for so long that, you know, creating cultivars and breeding out undesirable traits just isn't
really worth it for most people. It's just like, oh, let's find something we like, and
then we'll just clone it. So it's kind of, and then people will, you know, breed it with
something else or, or they'll self like they'll create feminized seeds, which is fine. You
can, you can do that and create a pretty, pretty good stable seeds and they'll be female,
which is great. But it's like this mishmash patchwork of everything out there. I don't
know if that makes sense. No, it is. It's a, it's definitely a thorough, very thorough
long process. I'm not a breeder, but I've done some research. You've done a lot of research.
A lot of it. I don't think how long have you been doing this for? Because this is, this
is very, people need to know this perspective. How long have you been doing this?
Well, my interest in cannabis started in about 1993, where I tried to grow some cannabis,
but my parents caught me and I got in trouble. But I started seriously researching cannabis
in 2015. So almost, it's so nine years. And that's, that's like day in, day out. That's
my job is to sit, you know, through grad school was doing experiments on cannabis, reading
everything, reading every book, every paper, everything that I possibly get my hands on
to learn everything that I possibly could. And, and that's just in one like facet of
cannabis, you know, I don't know much about like extracts, extractions and things like
that. Like there's a whole not that there's so many arms in the cannabis industry. And
I just am in one little bubble of it. But yeah, nine years of me, you know, working
40 plus hours on just cannabis.
I'm telling you, there are, I would say four out of five people, three out of five people
ish right now would be like, wow, I really want her job. I would really have liked to
do that.
You know,
I don't have
right. We're about to jump into that next year. Because you were doing, you were doing
some, some work where we were not we were you were planting hemp in sort in like forested
areas. So give me a give me a little background on that.
Yeah. So, well straight out of grad school, I actually worked for a company called mile
high labs in Colorado, and I was doing some research stuff with them. My title was research
coordinator and we were trying to get some research set up to do like pre clinical stuff
on various minor cannabinoids, which there's not a lot of research out there. People always
ask me, what does CBG do? What does CBN do? And I'm like, well, you know, we don't know
very much. But that job, that job got that was only a short lived position because the
company kind of imploded. But then I was picked up by a company in New Jersey, a startup
company called shore organics slash 420 organics. And they moved me out to New Jersey and they
have a hemp farm where they use aquaponics methods to grow CBD type hemp that will eventually
go for extraction. But yeah, it's out in the forest in New Jersey. And we were, we had
fish that poop, and then that poop would get processed through various biological filters,
shrimp and microbes and things like that. And then when we'd use that nitrate rich water
to feed the plants. And it's all organic, we didn't add anything else like no, no other
amendments to the soil was a living soil situation as well. So yeah, so that's what we were doing.
Pretty cool stuff. I was with that company for three and a half years up until just about
three weeks ago, they had to let me go because they had run out of money, which is, you know,
one of the, one of the things that comes with working for a startup in cannabis, probably
in any industry really startups are sometimes they don't work out. So hopefully this company
will keep going. I really like what they're doing. And they're, they're planning to expand
into the THC market as well. They've got the licenses. It's just been a really slow, long
process here in New Jersey. The regulators are just dicking around and you got to deal
with townships and whatnot. But I hope that they keep going and I hope that they do well.
They haven't, they haven't totally like thrown in the towel yet. So I'm some funding, find
someone, find some investors, you know, as this sounds like something you would like
to be part of. I'm going to include Anna's information here in the website description,
I mean the website, the episode description. So there'll be a link to her website where
you'll be able to learn a little bit more about her and contact her if you have any
questions and if she can point you in the right direction. You know, this is something
that both Anna and I love to do is talk cannabis, be around cannabis. And a lot of the things
going forward matter about what people like Anna are doing, trying to do, are going to
do. So we are coming to a day where there's a lot of things changing, a lot of laws that
are changing. There's been a farm bill, which has garnered a lot of attention. So I kind
of wanted to get your opinion on that. Proposals looking like that it's going to go disapproving
or not disapproving, but kind of making like HHC, which is a naturally occurring cannabinoid
in the plant in some variations. HHC does not occur in the plant at all. It's the plant,
no, no, no. Nope. Nope. Nope. What I had read is it said that in some African strains
that HHC no pops up as a semi occurring or something of that nature. I would love to
see that. I have never heard that and I've never seen that. And I talked to a lot of
people who do a lot of testing. There are some African strains that have TACV, but HHC
is not a naturally occurring cannabinoid. And there's, it has to be done in a lab. Just
the nature of the molecule doesn't occur in nature.
Yeah. I had read in a couple of places that HHC was found in veer, like we're talking
semi microscopic amounts in African strains. It was something I had seen, but that's probably
subjective to the type of testing that's been going on or something. I don't know. I know
that it's a hydrogenated version of TACV, how that could happen in a plant. It was fascinating
to me, but like CBN, CBD, CBG, CBDC or CBC or whatnot, kind of leaves a lot of questions
in the air of what's going to happen.
So yeah, so let's talk. So the plant technically doesn't even make Delta 9 THC or CBD or CBG
or CBC. The plant makes the acidic versions of those, right? So we have CBGA, which is
cannabinorolic acid.
I'll say that. So technically, the plant makes the acidic compounds. So we have CBGA is the
first compound that's made in the cascade of molecules and that's cannabinorolic acid.
And then the synthases, the enzymes that convert that to THCA, CBDA and CBCA are in the plant.
So that's what the plant makes is those acidic molecules. The plant doesn't actually make
Delta 9 THC or CBD or CBC. Those acidic molecules have to be decarboxylated in order for those
to occur. The plant would not be in any sort of conditions where any of those molecules
would be decarboxylated in any respectable levels, right? So any plant that you grow,
if it's got, if it even the THC dominant plants, there's going to be very low levels
of Delta 9 THC because the plant doesn't make that. It takes an outside source heat or acid
or UV or something for that decarboxylation of that acidic molecule to happen. So that
being said, with the Farm Bill, what they're trying to do is address these intoxicating
hemp derived cannabinoids. So some of them are naturally occurring. They naturally can
decarboxylate or all you have to add is heat and they will naturally carboxylate or they
will degrade. Delta 8 and CBN are a natural degradance of Delta 9. So those might show
up in very small quantities. If the plant has been not stored well or in a jar on your
windowsill for a couple months, then you're going to start seeing those levels go up, but
the plant doesn't make those, but they are naturally occurring. The ones that are not,
things like THC, THCO, Delta 10, I can't even think of, there's like a whole bunch of them,
right? THCP is naturally occurring, but again, not in any kind of respectable amounts, very
micro quantities such that you wouldn't be able to grow enough hemp or to get any kind
of decent quantity of THCP to sell or to put into whatever. So that is also made in a lab
and what they do is they take CBD, like so they take the CBD, make it into CBD, extract,
do the extracts, make an isolate and they take the isolate and then they make it into other
things. So they're taking, the problem, there's a couple of different problems. CBD is an
approved drug by the FDA for Epidiolex. So what they're doing really is taking an approved
drug ingredient and making other things that are not approved, they're not regulated, they're
not anything. And when they do this, when a lot of people do this, not only are the compounds
that they're trying to make are made, but there's a lot of byproducts that are also
made. We don't even have names for them. We don't know what they are. They show up on
the mass spec chromatogram and you can see all these peaks, but we don't know what they
are. They're not even named yet. They're not described. We have no idea what they are.
We don't know if they're safe or anything like that. And then also when people do these
chemical reactions, a lot of Delta 9 THC can be made. So these products can also have more
Delta 9 THC than they're supposed to in order to be hemp. And there are some companies that
are doing it right, but there's a whole lot of people that are just making it to make
money. And the thing about the Farm Bill, so the Farm Bill in 2018 clarified some language.
There was the interim rules and then the final rules which came out and were in effect
in 2021. They clarified that hemp is anything below 0.3% total THC, not just Delta 9, but
total THC. That and the Farm Bill only regulates up until that pre-harvest compliance test.
Then depending on which state you're in, you've got 15 to 30 day window to which you have to
harvest. So 30 days is the maximum amount of time that you have from that test that is
compliant to harvest that plant. And there's no THC dominant plant in the world that is
going to go from less than 0.3% total THC to 20% plus THC in 30 days. It just won't happen.
Like you won't be able to pass that compliance test anyway. So the issue is that now there's
a bunch of stuff that's called THC-A hemp, right? Because it's got very little Delta
9 THC and a lot of THC-A. But that's any cannabis plant that has is THC dominant. They're all
going to be like that because that's what the plant is until you heat it up and do things
with it. And those products, THC-A hemp is not regulated. It's not tested for pesticides
because the only test that you have to do when you're growing hemp is that compliance test.
They don't care because hemp was never meant to be a consumable product. So you don't have
to do microbials. You don't have to do terpenes. You don't have to do heavy metals. You don't
have to do mycotoxins. You don't have to do any of those tests that you have to do if
you're in the regulated marijuana market, right? So where is all this THC-A hemp coming
from? Because it's not coming from the hemp cultivators. So it's either coming from illicit
grows or there's another theory out there that it's coming from failed marijuana cultivations.
Like they failed pesticides or mycotoxins or molds and instead of destroying it, they're
like, well, we'll just slap a label on it and call it THC-A hemp because it's still below
0.3% delta 9, which is the CSA, the controlled substances act still says 0.3% delta 9 THC.
So technically it falls under hemp for the controlled substances act, which is what the
DEA enforces. If you read the CSA further down from where it gives the definition of
hemp, it does say hemp according to the USDA definition. And then you go to the USDA final
rules which say total THC. So I don't know. There's a lot of, there's gray area. And in
terms of making all of these compounds from CBD, the definition does say any part of the
plant growing or not with a less than delta 9 concentration of 0.3 plus all of its isomer
salts, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, derivatives. And technically those are all derivatives.
So lawyers are fighting about it. And there's people making money off of this and it could
all be solved if we just legalized cannabis. Why would we have all these weirdo things
for people to enjoy if it was, I think people would choose to plant over these weirdo Frankenstein
chemically lab made things. But a lot of states still don't have access to that, right? But
nonetheless, we have this and you know back in 2018, 2019, the market was flooded. Everybody
thought, oh, we can grow hemp. Growing hemp is going to be amazing. Let's grow lots of
hemp. Lots of farmers grew hemp. The market was flooded with CBD. And the price tanked
and then a lot of people were left holding a shit ton of CBD isolate and they couldn't
sell it. So I think it's really innovative that people were able to, you know, figure
out a way to do what they needed to do with the CBD they had converted into other things
that people could use. People really like it. I don't fault anybody for doing that. But
you know, here we are. And I don't think that the farm bill, so the farm bill has to be,
it's supposed to be revisited every four to five years. And so 2018 was the last revision.
The final rules went into effect in 2021. But 2018, we're well overdue for a revisit
of the farm bill. And the farm bill is huge. It doesn't just cover hemp. It covers, you
know, everything. It's a very large piece of legislation. That being said, you know,
is it Mary Miller proposal that you ban everything, blah, blah, blah, people are freaking out.
We have to remember that the farm bill really only applies to cultivators. It's a USDA
thing. If you're manufacturing products post harvest, the farm bill doesn't really apply
to you. So putting that stuff in the farm bill doesn't, it's not going to affect cultivators
at all. They're still beholden to the less than 0.3% total THC they have since 2021.
So everybody who's freaking out about it is on the other side of the cultivation, on the
other side of harvest. So I don't know what's going to happen with that. But people seem
to forget that. Yeah, there's, there's a lot of you had, you had alluded to look like
the THCA for example. I myself buying product when I, when I first started getting, because
we do hemp extracts, we do like CBD, CBD, and I say hemp extracts, I mean, by definition
of the current word hemp, which is 0.3, because it's basically just a made up word for cannabis
in relation to our laws. But so we were doing a lot of those products when it first started
to get out. And initially we had found that some of the THCA did have some mold on it.
But we weren't, we had just thought, we had just thought of that as like a one time something
like really messed up happened, like specifically isolated incident to us. It wasn't, it was
something that had happened to multiple companies. It was something that, so you are, you are
right. That is not, that's not something to be taken lightly or, you know, to mess around
with under that would be really messed up. And that's what was going on. That's very
interesting. Yeah. And, you know, it's awesome that, you know, you can get THCA flower in
states where cannabis is not legal. You know, I have a friend who lives in Texas, for example,
and she's like, I can't get, I can't, I can't get it anyway. She's like, I can't wear my
own, and I don't want to bring it across state lines. Like, I don't know where to, I need
cannabis and I don't know where to get it. And I'm like, babe, THCA hemp is, is what
you're looking for. That's just weed. It's just weed. It's just weed. Go buy that. And
she's like, you know, she didn't, she, she doesn't know a lot about cannabis. She just
knows that she needs it all day, every day to function. She's got pretty severe ADHD,
among other things. But yeah, she was like, dude, this is totally just weed. I'm like,
I know, it's totally just weed. Totally. Just totally is just. It totally is just weed.
You know, but, but buyer beware, right? So if you're using it for medicine, or if you
are immunocompromised or whatever the case, you do need to be careful of these products
because they are unregulated. We don't know where they came from. They haven't been through
the rigorous testing requirements that the adult use and medical use industries are,
are beholden to. Maybe there are some companies that are doing full panel tests, but they
don't have to. And also, there are all kinds of COAs that are just fudged or, you know,
made up or not for that product, because these are, again, the track and trace system isn't
there anymore. Not that that track and track. If the track and trace system actually worked,
we wouldn't, you know, have all of this going on. But, and, you know, I mean, it's, we don't
need more regulations. We just need the regulations to be enforced. You know, it seems like the
regulators, they got one job and that's to regulate and nothing, it seems, is being
regulated. We've got THC inflation. We've got off the shelf testing flower that's failing
mold and yeast and pesticides and heavy like, what are the regulators doing? Why did they
come up? Why did they spend all this time coming up with all these rules if they're
not actually going to enforce them and make sure that people are putting out safe products?
I don't know. I don't get it. Maybe they need to hire me. Yes. Yes. Exactly what they need
to do. Consistency would be nice. Consistency is the key of the, you know, we just all need
to really like just know what we're working with at this point and move forward from that.
And it would be nice to just kind of bypass all that and let's just legalize it. And it
would make things a hell of a lot easier, especially for both of us. It would make things
a lot easier for both of us. But I don't want us to get cut off from our, our meeting today
or chat today. I like your earrings, by the way. I didn't notice what they were. Oh,
oh yeah, these are fantastic. Yeah, these are my little black dress of my cannabis earrings.
They're from a company called High on Plants, which is Alice Moon. She's pretty well known
in the cannabis community, but she just started this company, I don't know, like a year ago.
I have every single color they put out. And they even, they did a tie dye one for a Pride
Month. And then I suggested they do a leopard print one. And they did. And they are fricking
awesome. So if you want their leather, their leather, which is really cool, because a lot
of the metal ones are super pokey and not super comfortable, especially if you end up
eating them like taking a nap and then you end up with like your holes in your face, but
they're leather. So they're really soft. And I love them. I get a lot of compliments. Highly
recommend looking them up. Maybe not for you, but if you know any females in your life that
like cannabis jewelry, High on Plants is the name of the company.
Thank you. High on Plants. People will definitely hear that on the podcast. So check that website.
I'm going to put your website here in the description. And we're going to have to schedule
another talk soon. I enjoy talking with you. I definitely learn things when I talk with
you helps me out. And yeah, we could do a part two, we could even do a whole series.
We should. We should probably do really well, actually.
Well, I'd be happy to. I love, I love, I love talking about weed is my favorite thing to
do. And I have a lot to say in case you didn't notice. So
all right, I appreciate everybody for listening today. This is a prerecorded episode. Check
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