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Dr. Ervin!
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Welcome to the show everyone. Got a new episode with Mike Bezio.
He is the man behind the Area 420.
It's the highest concentration of cannabis growers in the country or in the world I believe.
It is down in Moffitt, Colorado.
I want to say thank you Mike and to Matt Brainstrap down there for helping me get started with the podcast.
I used your Area 420 space a little bit.
I got some of your equipment here I'm still using. I highly appreciate it.
A lot of great content down there.
I'll be down again this spring and summer for a long haul and do a lot more interviews, some tours of some of the grows down there.
I want to say thank you for coming on the show.
And you've been down in Denver recently talking with Ethan Tofoya.
He's running for mayor here at Denver really soon.
Talking about social equity and Big Cana.
We're going to get to that here real soon.
You are a social equity recipient yourself, am I correct?
I am, yeah.
Yes, so there's a lot of social equity recipients growing down in Area 420.
There's a lot of mom and pop people down there.
Small timers just trying to live their dream, you know.
Could you tell the audience a little bit how you got into cannabis and how you got into Area 420, how this whole thing evolved?
Sure, yeah, it's a long story.
So yeah, so I got, you know, I started growing weed when I was shit. I was like 15 years old.
I ended up getting caught up back in 1999. I was at a grow house in Greenwood Village and one of my partners ended up rolling on me.
Is this in Colorado?
This is Colorado. Yeah, this is like just outside of Metro Denver area.
So, you know, this before anything was legal and then ended up raiding my house and I ended up getting eight years in prison for cultivation.
So I got out and I did all eight years of this.
I got out in 2008, you know, right when the industry was starting to open up and ended up getting a job managing one of the first dispensaries in the state.
So it was called Highland Health, sadly no longer operational. They got hit on those when the feds came in for all the people that were too close to the school back in the day.
So, anyhow, so I ended up getting a job basically doing the same shit that they put me in prison for and then came, you know, this is pre-regulations.
So once the regulations started to roll out, you know, that's where they started kicking out all the felons, you know, anybody with the cultivation history.
So, you know, kind of went back down in the underground, you know, to figure my shit out.
And I decided, you know, I'll just start doing everything I can, you know, on the sidelines within the industry.
You know, I can't have a badge, but I can still make moves. So I came down to the valley here back in 2015, I think it was.
You know, just looking for an area that I had gotten, let me backtrack. In the course of this time, I'd gotten a property out in Elbert County and got raided there.
I was seven plants over my, you know, I was doing a caregiver grow and got hit with another felony. So, you know, luckily this time I was only had to do probation.
But that really got me thinking, you know, I got to get the hell out of these crazy conservative areas and let's find something where, you know, the politics are better.
So that's what led me to the valley, you know, out here is really, it's like going back in time.
You know, it's one of the few counties that have no building codes. Just a really interesting area.
It's Sagalch County, right?
Swatch County.
Swatch County. I couldn't pronounce it. I've seen it written, but never heard it.
Yeah. So, you know, came down here and, you know, back then it was the big town out here was Crestone.
And that's where a lot of guys were, you know, had little grows going.
But it's not, in my opinion, wasn't really the place to do anything commercial. It's all residential areas.
So I was able to identify the town of Moffitt, which is, you know, very centrally located in the valley.
And it's an interesting town. You know, the town has, for one, this town was once proposed to be the capital of Colorado.
It has a very interesting history. You know, they went through several booms.
There was the mining boom and then the cattle booms. But then, you know, after that, the town just has kind of been dead for a couple of generations.
But they have really good infrastructure. You know, water is a big deal when it comes to commercial cannabis.
You know, you can't use domestic or household wells.
You know, you have to find a good commercial supply or a good municipal supply.
So that was really the opportunity there. The town has seven irrigation wells.
This town has more water rights than towns, you know, hundreds of times their size. I live in Salida.
They have more water rights than there. So there's a big opportunity. But these wells were ancient.
You know, they were all drilled in the late 18, early 1900s, and they just start producing what they were decreed to produce.
So the, you know, the offer to the town was, look, if you guys will support, you know, cannabis production over here,
then, you know, I think we can raise the capital to redrill and protect these towns water rights.
And it's all coming to a head now. You have the state water division coming down on the town.
They have to make a move. You know, they're running. They've run out of runway to, you know, finalize this project.
So that was the original deal. We were able to pick up two pieces of property that just so happened to equal 420 acres.
And at the time, I'll rewind back a bit again.
Before I started the Area 420 project, I was working as a liaison with other applicants that wanted to get into the industry.
So I would help them identify property, get them on a legal source. I was able to work with one of the farmers out here to pull what they call a full consumption water right.
The complication is not only do you have to find a commercial water right, but those water rights are seasonal. So they're April to November.
So in order to utilize that water source all year long, you have to go through a very complicated water court case.
And it's kind of negotiation. You have to give up some of your water rights to get your full consumption.
So he was able to do that, luckily, and that made, you know, opened up the opportunity to bring some farms up.
Now, the problem was they had to haul water to them, which, you know, at the time, it made sense, but it was, you know, I realized early on this is not going to be sustainable.
You know what? Farm has to haul water to their property. So what I was doing is helping people identify properties as close to the water supply source as possible.
And then I acted as a liaison for the licensing process with the county. So I was their representative that would go, you know, argue the license.
And, you know, through the course of that, man, I really learned that this is why I always say that the most critical thing in this cannabis industry, I mean, this is true of all industry, but the really cannabis, just because of the stigma, is you have to choose your local wisely.
You know, the state has their rules. It is what it is. I don't like a lot of them, but it is what it is. It's the local that can really make your life a living hell.
So, you know, going through the course of beating my head against the wall with this insane county, when we had the opportunity and I met my partner, Whitney Justice, we were able to acquire this property.
And originally, we were considering putting it in the county. And actually, not a week after we had closed on the property, we brought this to the county and they put a moratorium.
And that's really, you know, was a defining moment that really made all of this possible. And that's really where I finally decided I can no longer do business with the county.
So I've been toying with the idea of annexing the property in a moffet. Through the course of this, I had been elected onto the town board and I was really playing the politics locally.
I was able to bring up a commercial farm within the town and access one of their municipal water rights. So we kind of, you know, we were able to step into it.
The town saw that the sky wasn't falling. They were generating a bit of money. And that's what led us to annexing the property into the town of Moffet to bring it under the town rule.
And that's really what made all this possible, you know, is the support of the town and the infrastructure of the water.
So, yeah, that's good to note for all these other states coming up.
There's going to be different counties that allow things, other counties that won't. Like here, Colorado Springs, they don't like home grows very much. They don't, they're very strict on the commercial side.
It's a medical only, I believe. There's no rec. But other counties, it's much more lenient. So take advantage of that.
Or get into the public text local.
Yeah, you know, it's one thing to get a store in, but to get a grow in, you know, these, these counties, these municipalities really don't want it.
So, you know, what I'm seeing in the county is they're allowing cannabis because they want the money, but they really, at the end of the day, they don't want you there.
So what becomes a problem is they start pulling bullshit regulations out of their ass. For example, if you want to grow in the county right now, you have to dig down like five, six feet or something, put rocks down and then backfill.
And I don't understand what their argument is. Well, I, they're talking about preserving the ground and building water somehow.
Yeah. But, but, but my argument is this is the cleanest crop that you could grow. We're highly restricted on what we could grow. Exactly. And exactly. It's a remediating crop.
So it's just shit like that. You know, they don't really understand the industry. A new one is if you want to have a grow, they want you to build a house first.
So they'll allow you to set up a grow. It's like, if I want to grow tomatoes, would they make me build a house? So it's just a whole lot of that bullshit that makes it extremely difficult to operate.
And then there's, you know, egregious taxes and extra fees that they want to charge. So they don't make it easy. So it's very important to find a local that will work with you that actually wants you there.
And unfortunately, I really don't know of any other place right now. I mean, they're all corrupt on a different level.
And some of that you were just down Denver speaking at a little get together with Ethan Tafoya, I mentioned a little bit ago. He's running for mayor here in Denver.
And you guys were talking about the social equity and the big can of, and some of the tactics that are used and to hold the little guys down. Would you like to repeat that a little bit for the people out here?
Definitely a shout out to Ian Tafoya. You know, he's running for mayor. He is, he has a lot of experience within the cannabis industry, comes from environmental background.
I think, you know, of all the politicians I've spoken with, he actually gets, you know, this industry and the difficulties now.
So yeah, the discussion was, you know, cannabis reform, the state of the industry right now and really regarding the social equity.
So social equity in Colorado right now is defined as anybody that was negatively impacted by the war on drugs or their family members.
Meaning if you got caught up for it, like in my case, you know, cultivating cannabis, honestly, I think even if you got a ticket for possession, I think you technically qualify.
And then the other requirement is if you grew up in an, in a impact zone area between the years of, and I can't remember. I think it's like from the eighties to the eighties.
88 to 95 or something that was like the crack epidemic. I think it started like 88. It's when three strikes you're out.
Started the crack and the cocaine differences. And it was like 88 to 95 or four. That's when I grew up and a lot of people I knew in the country, West Virginia was impacted by that too.
So it's good for them to know they can get their license to work in the industry. They can get a badge here in Colorado from abroad, then move here and already have it and work in the industry out here if they want it.
They can. Yeah, good point. You know, a lot of people don't realize this, but the way the new laws sit is it's three years from the date of your conviction.
Right. So technically you could have been convicted and sentenced three years ago, got out of prison yesterday and you now qualify. It's no longer from the time that you were off paper, which is when they put that 10 year in that, that's what was holding me back from getting in.
Yeah, I think in some states they're already starting out with some of these social equity applicants are some are first in line, supposedly first in line to get their permits. But a lot of it, like I was talking to a lady in Chicago, she said that the actual fact of getting into motion and starting the business is a whole different factor.
You know, you're not getting your licenses, but getting to that to the storefront actually opening in the first sale is something completely different. And you were wanting to talk about that here, I think, and some of the tactics that have been used by corporate entities to hold down little guys with like us.
Definitely. Yeah, there's definitely two things going on. So you know, some of the newer states are putting social equity at the forefront and I think that's wise.
They're going to be dealing with their own complications. You know, at the end of the day, the problem is a lot of the guys that are transitioning over or have these criminal histories, they often don't have the capital that it takes to get into this industry.
So inevitably, the corporate interests, you know, get their tentacles into all of these operations, and they're the ones that end up winning. So there's very few, if any, I can think of social equity, you know, success stories that are because of social equity.
You know, there's guys out there that are making their moves, but it's not because anybody handed anything to them.
Colorado, a little bit different, you know, we were in the very interesting position of being first to market and, you know, like I said on this on this panel, I don't feel that social equity.
Here's what social equity means to me. I don't believe that anybody owes me anything because I have a felony and I went to prison for weed.
When I did this, it wasn't legal rights, and I knew what I was getting myself into. And I did my time. And that's it. My issue is that when we did decide to go legal, they held us back and, you know, to clarify that I even understand their position on that.
And I and I respect it, you know, they were we were at a critical point where, you know, in order to go forward, this had to be as clean as possible. And the risk was that if they allowed felons, the government, the feds, the administration come and come down on them.
So I get that right. But they didn't. They dragged their feet when they decided to come come to the table. The social equity didn't start until 2020 right when the game was already established.
All the distributions locked up. You can't get a store in Denver anywhere now anyhow because of the setbacks and their, you know, zoning.
So now they decide to do it. And they put this on the table. Right. And I was honestly shocked when they did. And I was very optimistic.
But if they're going to put it on the table with the idea of, OK, how do we correct this wrong? And the wrong is we've held, you know, a number of the population back from from joining this industry.
Until the point where it's so established that there's really nowhere to get in. How do we level this this this field and anything meaningful? Like right now, there's a
shout out to Sarah Woodson with the color cannabis. They she's helped introduce a bill that would allow social equity producers to go direct to market and bypass the stores.
And this is causing a hell of a farmers market style type. Right. Exactly. Right. So this is the established cannabis industry in Colorado does not want this to happen. They are heavily lobbying against this.
And not only are they lobbying against this, which I which I get.
But what I find very sleazy is that they have infiltrated these social equity meetings and they are steering the conversation and steering these social equity applicants out of production, cultivation, extraction and very forcefully trying to push them into this delivery
and hospitality licenses. And my take is that they're trying to give them the shit that they don't want. Right. This this transport and hospitality. There's no money in that. None of these guys are making money. There's 36 delivery licenses.
And they're all struggling because there's really no, you know, it's kind of flawed from the beginning without mandating that there's a third party transport, which I'm not necessarily advocating for.
But in absence of that, how are these guys going to make money as an operator myself? I have the right to drive product myself or send any other of my license partners to deliver it.
So, you know, there's a whole devious play and they don't want anybody in anything that's going to have any substance. You know, like I tell people, does Jack Daniels or Coors beer notice that the liquor store down the street goes out of business?
You know, I argue they don't. So the branding and the future of this industry, I believe, is going to be in the in the product. And I think the big money is really taking a position themselves poorly on this. You know, right now they are the gatekeepers because it is all about the stores.
But once we go into an international and global market, that's not going to be the case anymore. I think this is going to much more follow the track of alcohol. And I'm looking at this more like a Napa Valley type play.
Right. And 10, 20 years from now, is anybody going to care about, you know, weed that's produced in somewhere else in Denver or L.A.? I think it's going to be much more like what region, what unique region from the from this planet are you sourcing your cannabis from?
And I think we're in a unique position to do that out here at the 420 complex. You know, that kind of leads into the whole push name change.
And get to that here in just a moment. Yeah. So, yeah, the regional, I think the same thing down there is a lot of outdoor grows.
Area 420 is lauded out for people to actually buy property and come down and start their own grows down there. Am I correct?
Correct. Yeah. So we were able to subdivide this 420 acre property into one acre tracks.
And we've, you know, we have got some guys out here, the biggest tract is six acres. You know, some guys have two. It's kind of all a cart.
So each of the properties has irrigation water to the lot.
And then power to the properties. Well, we have a couple of different options here. So what we're calling our phase one, we were able to bring in full three phase power from Excel Energy.
The transmission lines are there. It's up to the grower what size power drop they want to pull.
You know, some guys out here have a 2000 amp three phase. I mean, you can go pretty big.
On our phase two properties, that actually we're in a different power company's territory.
And we've accessed all the power that they have. So believe we have one property left that has a single phase 200 amp like a normal house drop on it.
The rest of the lots do not have power. So they're more set up for seasonal growing. Now that said, I'm working.
Outdoor, greenhouse, sun grown. Yes. Correct. Yeah. Seasonal grow.
But that said, I'm in discussions right now with a company called Regen Solar, and they are interested in coming out and providing a power grid.
So we have a buddy of ours on phase two that just set up. He's building a huge operation.
And he just designed, I think it's going to end up being a four acre grid just for his operation alone.
So that same power company is interested in providing power to other growers up in that phase two.
So there would be that option going forward as well. So, yeah, I think that the same as you regional outdoors here is going to be some rough hardy cush.
If you have something high altitude like that grew in Afghanistan, Pakistan, or that area where cannabis originated, then it will be regional.
Thailand, you're going to have some some Thai weed. They're legal there. I got a buddy over there. They're they're growing Thai weed everywhere.
It's going to be very distinctively different than what's going to be grown in area 420.
Also, you had been spending some time down in the Virgin Islands recently, and they have gone recreational legal and they're trying to set up their laws down there.
And they're actually you've been instrumental in going down speaking with them, the local government, and helping them get their paperwork right so they can write their laws.
And then they're amending it a little bit from a conversation I heard you have recently and making it even better for the local small guy.
And I want to go into that here in just a moment, too. But to get back to area 420, there are some plots of land that people can buy.
That's their dream. They can come and get in contact with you somehow over the website, area420.com. Is that it?
Yeah. And so all the properties are pre-zoned on the local. They have the local license already.
So getting back to that whole, you know, the local is the headache. We were we've been able to kind of turn this whole thing on its head.
It's, you know, usually when you go through this process, you file with the state, you file with the local, the state comes back, and only it's a formality.
It takes two months. You pay them their money. The licensing is, don't quote me on this because I know they changed it, but somewhere around $8,600 for your state rec license.
But the problem is, it's the local that takes forever. So here, the local is already pre-approved.
If you're on top of it, and you know, we're kind of coming up on last call, I always tell people really like St. Patrick's Day is pretty much the cutoff.
And even that's cutting it close. But there's still a chance to get your license in and catch the season if you don't miss a beat.
Yeah, that's for this upcoming grow season. You mean they can come in and throw some seeds in the ground immediately. I know that some people have done that.
I've interviewed a few of them. So you had recently spent some time down in the Virgin Islands, right?
And they are going recreational legal. And you had mentioned that they are going one step further even and helping the local economy and helping the local farmers.
Could you explain that a little bit? Yeah, it's really inspiring what they're doing.
They're really putting social equity at the forefront. And their version of social equity is the guys on the island that have been persecuted for cannabis, making sure that they have a position in this new industry.
It's a religious thing, right? There's a big Rastafari community and religious down there. And I know they have been oppressed. And there's a – do you know more about it? So I won't interrupt anymore. Sorry.
No, you're good. No, yeah, they have a whole sacrament separate like licensed provision. It's very interesting what they're doing. So it's a limited licensing model. They're only allowing – so it's three islands. You've got St. John, St. Croix, and St. Thomas.
So St. Croix and St. Thomas are the bigger islands. St. John has a much smaller population. So they're doing seven stores on both St. John and St. – sorry, on St. Thomas and St. Croix and three on St. John.
And then they're allowing 15 commercial grows for both St. Thomas and St. Croix and then five on St. John. However, they are putting no limit on what they're calling microlicenses. And that's how they're – that's how the social equity guys come in.
Now, they're pretty limited. It's only 50 plants, flour, 200 veg. But even the commercial license is limited to 1,000. So I think this is often how these governments do it. I really don't – I think they're really underestimating the amount of cannabis that it's going to take for this island once they turn this thing on.
I mean, this is pretty much a purely tourism market. And I think it's going to be a huge hit. You know, they're going –
Yeah. So many people I know go to Jamaica, and it's not 100% legal for that if they have it set up. And people like me would rather go there and know that I'm supporting the locals instead of some big company that just bought property, put a big hotel up, and is not helping out the locals, you know?
Exactly. So what they've decided to do – and this is pretty bold – they are mandating that 70% of the product is sourced through the microlicense social equity.
So they will have 70% of the production, which is inspiring. And it's actually – this is leading me to a proposal that I'm putting up to Colorado, which would be to mandate that 10% of the product come from social equity licenses.
And I'm also asking that there be an elimination or at least a reduction of the excise taxes fees for that. So I think that's the way to kind of square this out.
But yeah, but by going at 70%, that is a bold move. I wouldn't dare to attempt the same here. I think we're just too established, so I think 10% is more reasonable.
But you know, if they can come out with that out the gate, that is going to be the best thing that they could do to protect the market.
Yeah, I like the idea of that, too. Another thing I know that's holding a lot of people who've gotten their licenses recently is the capital, like you said, but when the investors want to invest, their interest rates are out of this world.
That's one thing. It's holding people back, too. So if there's anybody out there with a lot of money and wants to help invest, look up Area 420. There's a lot of people down there. They could use some investing money without getting ripped off.
It's a big thing holding a lot of people back in a lot of states, like you said, with the capital. Another thing, too, is if they don't have the capital to start up the business, once you have the business, how are you going to promote it? How are you going to advertise?
So if they got all of these social medias, it's like the only way I can see anybody ever has a chance to advertise, but then their social media accounts are blocked or shut down.
There's no way for people to get their information out there. Like I would have came down and saw you the other day in Denver with Tefoya and been a part of it, but I didn't get them.
Actually, I got the message today. I looked at my Facebook and went there.
Because they delay these things. Yeah. Right after the event. And then everybody, oh, dang, I wish I was there. Right.
So, yeah, that's one thing. There's got to be some better platform for people to get their information out there and share their information without being banned and have these big corporate entities holding them back.
That is that's a big thing. And I think it's going to kill the can of not kill it, but just destroy a good thing. Turn cannabis into a bad thing that that's undesirable, like alcohol and tobacco.
Right. Yeah. You know, we're, you know, we're running out of time here. You know, my position is we're still in the before times.
Right. Like history will still look back at this is until it goes to an interstate and global market, we're operating within the confines of our states.
And that's that's why these gatekeepers and these dispensary owners, you know, can run the entire game.
And the sad thing is, even if we could market, even if we could advertise all day, it doesn't matter because they hold the keys to the sales. Right. They are the distribution point.
So there's two ways to play this, you know, like what the Virgin Islands is doing, getting in front of it in a new market and positioning, you know, for the little guys for the underdogs.
That's the strategy in more established markets like Colorado, Oregon, you know, Cali. It's going to take a different approach.
And we're going to have to go back and seize, you know, a portion of the distribution and. You know, the entrenched interests do not want that. Right.
So that's that's going to be the battle is how do we take back something that they've that they've been, you know, sitting on this theirs?
Yeah, man, it's going to be a hell of a fight.
So, but we got to get it done before before this interstate global shit happens, because if we don't, we still have a fucking chance right now. Right.
We got to get our position before this opens up.
Yeah, my suggestion is people get in, get into local politics like you get on the council, get to know your local government and they're not happy with that.
Vote them out, get somebody else in that is cannabis friendly. That's the way I've always told people is to start local, vote the people out, vote the people in who are pro cannabis and start from there.
Because you can set local laws and local laws will be precedent and the sheriff will protect you on that if the sheriff's behind you.
I think that's where a lot of passion in this industry comes from. It's not just, you know, we're producing a product and it's a whole social fucking movement. Right.
And you if you're in the cannabis industry and you're not involved in politics, then you're you know, you're not helping shape these conversations.
And it's it's you know, I don't think you're going to get far.
You have to be involved with this because all of these people are in these rooms making decisions that could destroy your business and your life.
So, you know, it's important to follow it. And with the regulations being redrafted and there's constantly new provisions and testing requirements, I mean, it's it's a lot to stay on top of this industry is not easy.
And that's what I tell, you know, you know, we really specialize in transitioning guys from the gray market into, you know, this whole legal game.
But I'm very upfront. You know, you are trading one set of headaches for another. No doubt.
Like it is far easier to grow in the underground in many ways.
However, you get caught up like me and you lose your your life and your freedom. So that's really the my position and why I push so hard to get these guys into this game, because I always put it like this.
You know, when's the last time you bought alcohol from a bit later? Everybody goes to the store now.
So the underground are the days are numbered right now. And I realize that that's why I'm doing everything I can to position not only myself, but my people in this and this whole collective strategy that we pulled together here for 20, I think, is is really the way to do it.
You know, we have formed like Voltron to compete against these corporate growers.
You know, we have over 10 percent of the Colorado production licenses just right here on this complex. We've been able to consolidate more than any of these corporate guys have been able to do.
But we've done this at a collective. At the end of the day, each one of these guys owns their land. They own their business. That's why we can come together like this.
You know, it's just an entirely different model that I don't see anybody doing.
So I think we're in a good position. But I think we need to fight for our for our shelf space. And that's you know, that's going to be the battle.
So, um, I got to take a little breath here. Hold on one second here and see where we're at. And to do so.
The thing is, I'll repeat it. I don't know if some people understood it, but if you buy a property down in area 420, the one acre lots, you do get a growing license included with the price of the property. Am I correct?
Well, not only grow. So you can have any license you want. If you want to open up an extraction medical rec. In fact, you could do both. You could do a medical rec. You can do a medical rec, grow and mip on the same property if you wish.
So it's the way the ordinance is written is that each one of these properties is already pre-approved through the town for any cannabis operations whatsoever.
So also there, I've seen it there. You got to have it gated in, right? But then you also have a little clause in there where you can gate off a little area where you can put some kind of housing, right? You can live right there next to it. If you want it to be the grower yourself, where you could hire a grower and have them live on the spot and do it, right?
That's another really big benefit of this no zoning and the support of the town. So these are all dual zones. So exactly right. And a lot of guys have done this. They build either a tiny home or they bring a fifth wheel camper out and you're able to partition off that property.
And then that becomes your residence. So you can consume cannabis there. You can, you know, that is your residence. And then to the back would be a commercial license. Yeah, because you're so strict here. You got to have a badge to actually walk into the commercial license where you got to be signed in and signed out. Everything's videotaped.
You got to have like 40 days of surveillance. So you cannot consume on the property that you're growing. Now, some people don't understand that. So if you come out here and think you're going to be smoking weed in the dispensary selling weed and smoking weed while you're working, it doesn't work that way.
You got to have your work and then your play is separate. You got to make sure you know that because then you can get everybody in a lot of trouble if you're if you're fucking around.
You can't that that said though, you're right. It cannot be once you go into your facility and sign in, you cannot bring any cannabis in your pocket for consumption. I mean, they're strict about that.
You can't really consume your own product unless you allotted out and then you pay for it and it's all done within the system that is all tracked.
It is a very complicated, you know, and that's our whole thing. You know, we follow these rules to the T.
And if you don't know them, there's somebody down there that can help you understand them, right? There's a lot of this is called compliance. That's one thing that gets a lot of people with all the compliance.
And it's very difficult to follow all this. And I know you got a special person just set aside just for that, right? Just for your your flower factory. That is your personal grow, right?
No. So actually, so this is one of the this is another benefit of this whole, you know, community cluster theory structure here. So when they what the social equity came on the table, I was able to go down to Denver to one of their meetings.
And I met Colin Mudd with Canope and compliance. So Colin used to work with the city of Denver in their city regulations department. And he had gone off on his own, started his own appliance company.
And he was the only compliance company to put his name in the hat for these social equity guys. So I was able to reach out to him.
He's a fucking great guy, you know, and he we're able to strike a deal. And this is this is cool. This is unique. We're able to strike a deal with the town of Moffitt, where he has come on as like an intermediary between the state, the town and the licensed operator.
So he is our in-house compliance officer for the town of Moffitt. And his fees are paid through our licensing fees. See, and this is the way it's supposed to work. And most municipalities do not do this.
We have filing fees. So when you when you pay that eighty six hundred dollars to the state or whatever it is, again, don't quote me, look that up. Twenty five hundred of it is remitted back to the town of Moffitt.
And this is true of every municipality. So that goes into a fund that helps that helps pay Collins fees. So, you know, we're paying for it. But in a way, we're not because of the fees. These are the fees that we'd be paying anyhow.
And what other towns and counties are doing is they take that money and it goes into their general fund. It's supposed to go into the management and support of regulating the industry. That's the point of the licensing fee. They're not supposed to be profiting off of that.
So that's the position the town has taken. Now, you also have a renewal fee with the town. So the combination of those two covers Collins fees. And we have an in-house compliance. And this has been the most powerful thing I think we've been able to do.
You know, when we first started out in this industry, the first license that I got in town now at the time, I was still blocked by my felony. So I wasn't able to hold the badge, but I own the land. So my partner owned and operated the facility.
And I remember when we came on, you know, you would think that being how regulated this shit is that somebody would like come before you go start go live and like make sure that you did your shit right. They don't. They don't at all. So in our case, the med, the marijuana enforcement division didn't come out to see it. It took like a year.
And the whole time my poor boy Jared is just stress the fuck out because you're trying to interpret these rules. You want to take this shit seriously. You don't want to get jammed up. But are you doing it right? Like the way it's written really needs a lot of clarification.
And if you contact the med, they're basically like, fuck you call your attorney or your compliance officer is like, all right, we'll have, you know, these big corporate guys, they may have two or three compliance officers on the payroll. We ain't got it like that. So this has been the greatest benefit. Now, if we need clarification, I'm able to reach out to call him.
He's able to reach out to the regulators and he gets an email position from the state, send that to us. And there we go. We put that in our records and we move forward. But interpreting this shit has been very difficult. And this is the best. So he does this. He does a 600 point checklist before we go live.
He came to Flower Factory and did us last year. Huge benefit. And then he does a spot audit every year just to make sure everybody out here is playing by the rules. You know, the point of this is let's catch this shit before the state does.
You know, and that's that's his mission is to make sure that everybody out here is operating and following the rules so that we don't get jammed up when the state comes. And we've got a good record going. You know, we've ever had a violation in our facility. We're legitimately passing all of our testing.
We're playing this straight. And I feel like, especially with what we're doing out here, I feel like the eyes are on us. So we have we're held to a different standard and we really got to shine.
So I really like what you're doing out there. There's a upcoming events that you're going to be throwing events down there. I was down there for a harvest festival. Are you going to have a spring reap what you sow? Are you going to have a sowing festival?
When people are throwing seeds in the ground? I know they're having a SLV seed exchange April 1st, which is right down the road at the Joyful Journeys Hot Spring, I believe the San Fernando San Luis Valley SLV.
Correct.
Yeah, they do that every year at the Hot Springs. It's a really cool event. We've been sponsoring it. You know, since we've been out here, it's definitely we have a party up for 420. So that's the town's birthday.
Yeah, also, you know, town was founded April 20th, 1911. Can't make that shit up. And your plot is 420 acres. Can't make that shit. It's like a metabee. All the town wells are 420 feet deep.
And then, you know, this is more Matt Brainstraps. He really spearheads all of this.
Yeah, I know we got we're trying to get events lined up back to back. I know he's putting them together a car show with a couple other people are going to have some old cars down there and should be a good time. I think they said sometime in July, maybe July 5th, if I had it written down and my memory serves me correct.
But also, there is an interest in changing the name of Moffitt to the name Kush. It's been a hot topic. And I know that you've gone down and you've mentioned some about applying for the name change for the city. Do you have any more information on that?
I do. Yeah, actually, the other day I finally got what I was waiting for. So, see, so the idea behind the Kush name changes. I've been calling this the Kush region of the United States since I came out here. You know, if you watch some of the old strain hunter videos where they're, you know, like the Afghan Kush region.
I remember watching it. I'm just like, man, it looks like they're walking around out here, you know, similar vegetation, similar soil, you got the mountains in the backdrop. So I started looking into it. And sure enough, man, it's, you know, they're an alpine desert. We're the world's largest alpine desert.
The day night temperatures are the same. The composition of the soil, sandy loam, elevation, same. So, you know, that's the idea. At least for the outdoor production, I think that's our strongest play.
You know, the next thing I'm working on is going after that whole Appalachian terroir designation. So for those that don't know, this is why champagne can only come from the Champagne region of France, right? Everything else is sparkling wine.
It's an international protection on an agricultural product.
California just did this. The guys at the Gangee spearheaded this. The Humboldt region just secured this protection. The way it works, it goes all the way to the governor. They actually had to introduce a bill and they now have this designation.
So that's something I want to do here. Now the trick to this is, is it has to be grown outdoors, right? So the Appalachian is the unique environment that you're growing in. And then the terroir is the unique attributes that it brings to that agricultural product.
So you can't, it can't be in a hoop house. It can't be in a building. It has to be in the elements, right, to qualify. So that's something, a strong suit that I think we're really going to be pushing into in the future is full sun grown, you know, natural crop.
And it also has to be a unique region. Not every where will qualify to get this designation. And then the work begins, you know, it can take 10, 20 plus years to develop the varietals that that will end up being, you know, part of this program that are from this area.
But I think it's something definitely worth doing. I can't think of anything more interesting in cannabis than that. But that said,
you mean they would become like heirlooms of that area, right? Like if somebody else is not knowledgeable about cannabis, but they know gardening tomatoes, heirlooms are grown in a specific area and cultivated and harvesting the seeds over and over and over to make it uniform and kind of regional.
A lot of those will only grow in certain regions.
Exactly. And this is what the Napa Valley is doing.
Now, that region they change, they change the everything changes with cannabis because of what you're talking about the silty loam, all the UV rays at a certain altitude, the dryness of the air, everything plays a factor into that.
All of that. All of that. Exactly. And, you know, I think we got a lot. We're in a very, very interesting area, you know, especially the town of Moffett. As far as I can tell, this, this really only happens within a mile radius.
So if you dig five feet deep, you hit water. The water table is right there. So I've been experimenting over the last couple of years with dry farming.
And they do this in Napa Valley. There's a region I was researching where same thing, the water table comes up very shallow and they have an entirely separate designation for their appellation terroir filing, which is tied to that dry farming.
They're very restricted. It's not that they can't irrigate, but they're very restricted on when how they irrigate to maintain that that dry farm designation.
And what they find is that the terpene profile, the flavonoids of the wine are much more expressed through that dry farming method. And, you know, everything's showing that's the same with cannabis.
So you're not going to get the same kind of yields, but that product is sold at a premium, right, because of that designation. Well, this entire town is on that is we're in that dry farm territory.
Water's five feet deep everywhere. So, you know, interesting, you know, area for that. We have no, here's another interesting. This ground is pristine.
There is no, you know, cannabis is a remediating crop, and this is becoming a really big issue for the commercial farmers. I believe last July, they just upped the requirements on the heavy metal testing.
And I'm getting word back, man, guys like in Pueblo and in the front, they are just failing left and right. A lot of times it's not even like per se in the soil, but they're in, you know, areas that were heavily industrialized back then.
It's just fucking in the air. Yeah, and it's coming. They're failing. So we got that going for us. You know, this is a virgin ground. It's never been outside of like native grasses. It's never been heavily farmed. No inputs.
There's no factories near it. It's very, very secluded down there. I love it. It's beautiful. This, the scenery is awesome. I want to come down and my buddy's got the aerial.
Drone footage. And we're going to take some more footage down there and put some videos together for YouTube and interview a couple people go through the grows and kind of highlight different growth styles and what's happening down there.
You're saying the water table is really low. It is the largest aquifer in North America is right below you, right?
Largest one of the largest one of the largest freshwater, I would say, you know, like, like the auto wallow, a lot of these other California, they were, they're all, they've all saline water.
Well, yeah, they're, well, they're having issues with the supply in there and it's just tainted water. It's getting, you know, salty.
Right there. It does not really rain right in, in Moffitt that much, but it's surrounded by mountains, which get rain all the time. And then all that rain runoff and all that snow cap melts goes right underneath of you.
So it's beautiful down there. The sun shines. How many days a year?
Over 300. Yeah. So back to the water is it's so our water supply comes from the confined aquifer. So you have the unconfined, which is the upper layer, which, you know, when you're dry farming, that's what your roots are digging into the confined aquifer.
However, I mean, this is ancient water. It takes over 10,000 years for the water to permeate into that, into that second basin. So this is really pristine ancient water.
And yeah, I mean, we're sitting on a big lake. I mean, there's a three mile deep lake underneath our feet. Sun grown ancient water fed cannabis sounds tasty.
But yeah.
So you're talking about seasons, people come down there seasonally grow outdoors and the winter time is pretty hard. So a lot of people leave, but in the summertime, I've heard I talked to Whitney justice you mentioned mentioned her as your partner, she was on the show.
Very early on when I think it was the 420 festival down there last April, maybe, or a harvest festival, one of the two. And then she mentioned that there will be need for seasonal workers.
Maybe even food trucks, there's not a lot of restaurants down there. I know you mentioned Crestone that's about a 1520 minute drive away. When I came down to stay I drove all the way up here just to get a coffee in the morning.
Crestone is a beautiful place. It's a, it's an observatory night sky blackout community I think. So all the lights there have a lumen cap.
So, it doesn't actually honor your sky view, and you can see the solar system you the stars are beautiful down there.
We actually honor that saying we haven't the town has it formally adopted it, but we do honor the dark sky, you know there's nothing that pisses off the neighbors more than these greenhouses building light out so we do have a requirement that for the year
we want growers that they have light deprivation curtains, so they're not, you know, destroying the night sky. Not a lot of street signs a lot of dirt roads down there. Not even a street light in this county.
Yeah, you know that's that's the opportunity man is not only are we building a whole cannabis community but really we're building a town from the ground up. You know there's good basic infrastructure here, water power but now we just need to bring in, you know, the other
than cannabis businesses, right, you know, restaurants and other good people from around around the country around the world there's not just people from America there there's international people from different countries.
From different countries that have gone down come down there bought plots, hired some growers and they're growing down there from what I've heard people move from Florida. Beautiful heavenly from from Miami, Cuban descent.
Most, most people from out of state.
Most people are from Colorado this really is like it's like almost like every nation every nationality is represented out here from all all walks of life. It's a very interesting community and we're really defining a whole new culture here in this town, you know,
based on, you know, commercial commercial cannabis industry like minded, you know, people.
The town's gone to pot.
And you don't want a bunch of other crazy stupid shit down there either you don't want a bunch of hard drugs down there you guys are good on the legal stuff. Keep this other shit away so if anybody has ideas of coming down there and bring in bullshit, bring in violence.
Just don't fucking do it.
But if you want to come down and meet some really cool people. It's a tight knit community so once you meet somebody and they realize you're a fuck up. I've heard it happen some people are down there, taking advantage of other people were got around real quick, they left town really fast there.
We don't hesitate man and that's the nice thing you know we've been able to sift through, you know, even down like the different contractors to work with you know we have a whole list of like good guys that have proven themselves as people to work out like a little locals
Angie's list and it's like, we do recommend it recommend it okay and you got a good name good reputation, you guys are going to fit in really well down there, even electricians people carpentry people on stop work.
Trimming. If you like I said you can get your Colorado badge to work in the industry from afar you don't have to have a Colorado driver's license this is what I've heard, go online, get it. It's under $200 I think.
And then you can search for a job or you could come out here I know there's a lot of seasonal people who used to go all the way to California. They call them trim against trim against I think that was the name.
But they would just go out there for a month work and leave.
Yeah, I want to clarify you know as much as I think like the seasonal outdoor model leaning into that whole appellation thing is an opportunity.
You know there's also a lot of year round operations going as you're here as well. We have a lot of warehouses.
We have a lot of year round greenhouses you know my facility flower factory is designed to go all year long. And then we have several extraction facilities I think we have.
Or we have the fourth one coming online a really big Rosin facility one of the.
One of the biggest most state of the art in the state I believe.
So yeah there's a lot of other things going on you know people aren't pigeonholed into going into the outdoor model if they want to build a you know we have we have some facilities out here people invested over 3 million dollars into their you know we have one of the.
I believe it's one of two sealed deep water culture facilities shout out to Astronomic.
Yeah I want to get him I'm going to tour his little facility I've already had a show and had a few other people with different styles like Rashaan from Grozilla 5280 he's got his little outdoor grows pretty sweet.
Yeah yeah go check out in Astronomic's Instagram and they really are on the cutting edge of of cannabis production right now you know it's all tissue culture genetics they're working with.
You know there's really super advanced stuff man so I think sometime there if we're trying to kind of got the image of being you know nothing but you know like a rag tag outdoor growers but there really is some sophisticated shit going on here.
And also a huge opportunity to just hit the season and produce and really that's really more what I'm leaning into honestly man I think this outdoor seasonal model is our strength you know if you look at the market right now people it's a recession man not many everybody doesn't have money to go buy top shelf like that so growing really good sun grown.
You know cannabis that's passing all of its testing legitimately and you know getting on the market for you know well under $100 an ounce. I think that's a strong clay, you know there's so much ego in this game everybody wants to grow, you know, top top shit but it can't all be that, you know, so
there's a difference in the sun growing the terpene profiles the synergistic effects of the cannabinoids are they're elevated especially if it's in the natural environment, it'll become regional like we've been talking about.
Outdoors got the bad name, and I think it's time to, you know, change that. Another thing.
The opportunities for tourism down there too I know there's a couple hot springs around the area there's a white, there's a sand dunes or something that's really close.
Couple other places to visit down there.
Do you think Kush or the upcoming Kush Colorado if the bill passes, what it basically you put in a request to change the town of Moffitt to Kush and then there's a boat right by the town council.
So, the requirements are that, and this has been my delay.
The rule states that it's.
You have to get a signed petition, totaling 50% of the amount of people that voted in the last mayoral election.
The issue we're having is such a small town. There hasn't been a, it's been a game of tag you're it, I mean no other each of these mayors is ran without opposition.
Right so it never came to a vote. So we had to go dig up the records which actually just the other day.
Our mayor and board, one of our board members Jason was able to dig it up and I got what I need now.
So, it's a signed petition that is then presented to the town board. The board votes on that. If approved, it then goes to the Secretary of State.
Really his only job is determined whether or not there's another town in Colorado named Kush, which is not.
And then it kicks it back to the town and it's officiated.
So that's the whole, you know, in Canada's man like you mentioned with Instagram, we really can't market much right and in terms of tourism.
Unfortunately, the state of Colorado has chosen not to support us, you know, with really any dollars or opportunities.
So we got to fucking create our own stunts right so you know Kush, Colorado, I think is going to draw a lot of attention, you know, the town is in desperate need of a rebrand.
You know Forbes magazine came out with an article, like six months ago that they're valuing like 70 billion dollars, the canvas towards.
So it's like being captured 1% of 1% of that, you know, the kind of revenue that we can bring to this town I mean ship the sales of Kush Colorado t shirts alone, you know, is going to generate more money than most of these businesses in town so I think it's a huge opportunity
that finally there's a there's a municipality that is that is going all in right this shows the town has put both feet in there supporting this industry.
And yeah man I think this is going to be huge for us I think you know when I kind of dropped it was a year ago.
The idea was to kind of put it out there, see what kind of opposition we got. And then, you know, position ourselves to bring this home. And you know since then I think we've made a lot of progress.
You know I think a lot of our opponents have kind of seen where we're coming from and they've now, you know, come over reporters.
So it's really not going to, you know, get everybody but I think the benefits greatly outweigh any of the opposition's voice and I think it's going to go through.
I can't wait to find out what happens, I definitely want to be there when the celebration goes down if it happens.
The tourism thing I think could be great.
Is there any to redo the math.
I think everybody's gonna have to fucking redraw everything it's hilarious. Landowners down there could turn some of their property into campground areas for people to bring their RVs down.
Is there any RV camping areas right down there I didn't see any but maybe in one of these stuff, which is probably what 40 minutes away.
It's funny you say that this is one of the ideas I've been kicking around lately is there's not many RV places in the valley. So I was thinking like what if we started like a cannabis KOA type situation.
So we have the land for it.
You know, if any of those little discounts to the local hot springs like yeah you get 20% off at the local hot springs and get them included to get them some money and business and build up the whole community right.
I don't know another thing I'm working on right now.
You know that there's an opportunity for us to have our own hot springs in town.
I'm working with a company called Mount Princeton geothermal. They're actually just launched a whole program or a project sorry.
Up in one of this over by their hot springs Mount Princeton and this would be so they've done a lot of the preliminary geological studies and we are you know the whole valley is sitting on this whole rift.
That's why you see those hot springs running along 17.
So there's a lot of data showing that this could be feasible. So we're looking at doing some exploratory wells.
And if we can hit that pocket, they're looking at doing two five megawatt power stations. These would be the first geothermal power stations in the state.
But the byproduct of this would be hot water so we would have, you know, all of the radiant heat options for our infrastructure, along with the hot spring.
So to me there's that really is the project that would take this town to the next level.
You know we've got a proposal in right now.
There's a lot of grant money out there for right now I'm just trying to raise the capital for the exploratory wells, you know, it's going to be somewhere in 200 K.
Just to roll the dice on this but if we hit man this could be a game changer. This would set this town off and we would turn into the most economically viable place to produce cannabis all year long.
You know the winter operations, the cost production goes up. It's rough.
Yeah, exactly.
But it doesn't mean much of does it. It's just very windy right there in the valley.
Yeah, it was a win not much snow you know everything pretty much falls out before it hits us. Thankfully, it's same same with the hail. I call it the Moffitt donut, you know if you're, you're out you'll see crazy shit going on all around the mountains thunderstorms over there snow
over there it's just, you know, sunny sky right above us so we got, you know, just the way the wind blows location is everything right.
Yes, it is.
Virgin Islands.
Are they coming up to area for 20 some of the representatives.
Soon, I think you mentioned some about that and they were coming up and they were getting the paperwork in order for them to launch Do you know when the Virgin Islands might actually get their
license maybe a year or two.
Yeah, well they have a mandate to a one year mandate from the date the governor signed it which was what about a month ago to start the application licensing process.
You know they're really scrambling to pull this together right now it's it's a heavy lift, but the idea is, this is cool. So, we're looking at entering into so I guess let me rewind so I've been working with their
government.
You know, really on this whole social equity thing they were really interested in how we were able to pull this together out here. And I've been offering up, you know, the key players on our team that made this you know common mud with can open compliance.
You know some of the other people work with Jerry with Figaro to to work with them to pull their program together so they're, they've adopted the Colorado model, right, the governor came out here was at last October, with some of the
representatives. So they're, their core regulations are the Colorado, you know language framework so so we understand that now it's just a matter of how do we carve up the social equity thing so
one of their proposals.
We're able to meet with this guy tippy Alfred. So he's very interesting guy he's a Harvard and Yale graduate attorney.
He's a two time Grammy nominated reggae artist, and three time Olympic swimming champion really interesting guy so so he has been nominated as the cannabis czar of the Virgin Islands.
He's the right hand man.
He had the responsibility to roll this thing out so he had a really cool idea which was to enter into a, and actually with with another partner of his Shelley Moorhead, it was the former ambassador of the Virgin Islands, credit, credit,
this idea credit to them.
So what if, what if we joined in an official sister cities designation. And I hadn't really ever heard much about this but what it is it's a real thing it's an international designation.
Yeah.
And for the purpose of this would be, you know, based around the cannabis industry and sharing our, you know, resources and experience that we've had within the industry.
And the component of this is we have the idea of our eye well let's what if we donated an acre of land to their university so you know the governor's pet project is to make sure that the University of the Virgin Islands is able to get into the profits
of these grants for for R&D.
And so I mean you know until they open up this interstate, there's really not much they're going to be able to do with each other, you know, to do this you need to be able to coordinate work with other labs.
So, the thought was if we if we opened up a piece of property out here for them to get that ball rolling, you know, then there could be some some cross work there.
So that's the proposal right now. The town of Moffitt has a, has adopted the ordinance of the introduction for Sister City designation with Christian stead. This is out in St. Croix.
Yeah, we're just we're pulling all that together right now. And the regional going back to the regional grow outdoors down there I know that they're susceptible to blackouts so there's not going to be a lot of indoor grows down there from what I understand.
The lighting is different there, there's going to be perpetual 12 on 12 lighting, which means that the plants will grow longer and flower stage like these long growing sativas.
I can't wait to see what they have going kind of be more like Jamaica, I guess what they're with their strains and their local collie weed. And I think something bread, collie bread, or lamb spread that's it.
And I, and you were talking about the Virgin Islands had something named corn. Is that their local. That's their local slang or their, their, their fire.
The thing is corn, like corn on the cob but but they pronounce it corn. And that's the yeah that's their slang for cannabis that's unique to the Virgin Islands.
So they have a strain name matters that just like you got the ganja. Is it like ganja or is it like Kush, because Kush is more of a specific type of strain.
I don't think there's calling it a strain is just like ganja.
Yeah, the slang terms they don't know you're talking about we.
Definitely. So, is it prevalent there now is it, you spend a little time is it hard to get down there. Was it something that the locals got locked up for before.
Is it. Oh yeah, definitely man they fly helicopters around the island like you know the local growers that I've met.
Very, very small time. I mean if you have a, if you got a 10 like grow out there man I mean you're, you're big time right like that's big shit. So, you know, price of cannabis is crazy as $5,000, $6,000 a pound.
I was in Bermuda and the big thing in Bermuda they don't have any natural freshwater. They have to catch the rainwater the roofs on their houses are made with a certain type of limestone or something that helps to clean the filter water as it rolls off and they catch the water and then they have to use it that way.
Same on the islands, but they do they do actually have some water well supply as well.
Cisterns I think some people are calling them. Yeah, most people are Cisterns but there is actual like wells that you can draw water.
There's a water table. Okay. Yeah, I think maybe I'm not too sure how it works on the other islands but St. Croix is, you know, historically that's the largest agricultural producing island in the Caribbean.
Do they have any wildlife I know in Bermuda they have no, no mammals they have no deer no no animals to come in, father, you know, if they have any thing growing out there.
It's funny as they have little tiny deer. They do. They were introduced by the, you know, in the colonial days, all three islands, they're just one of them.
I think they could all be a little bit.
But I think it's all three.
I think it is all three have them. Yeah.
But yeah, so that's what really interests you know I've been really laser focused on, you know, this whole area for 20 project, you know, we got a pretty good out here I haven't.
I've had a lot of partners, you know, open up some opportunities like New York and some of these other states but really man I just want nothing to do with that with the headache just because I seem coming.
But the Virgin Islands I think is something different you know it's a very unique opportunity and situation down there.
And my main reason and interest is, you know, I think that the economy between what we're doing out here, and the Kush dominance face, but then being able to get down there and start growing some of these achievers and cases that you don't see in the market anymore,
you know nobody's doing that shooting polar opposites of the region are to just polar opposites and the regionals we've been talking about that regional wine type or.
It's just like the wine is made from different grapes the grapes all come from different areas different water different amounts of sulfur, which sulfur has a big thing to do with the grape flavor, I believe.
And some of it, it just doesn't turn out very good and it turns into vinegar, instead of wine. So, a lot of the regional stuff you go around it's going to turn into to vinegar, which is something that's not consumable as flour but it'll be made into other products
like topicals or something like that that's what I'm getting to.
But the Kush region, you're going to have some really good stuff, and I can't wait to see what happens in the with the sativas down there, I would love to go visit sometime and interview some of these people.
I have a friend who went down there after college and kind of dropped off the map and got into one of these rustifier communities.
Then, I haven't seen or heard from him in a long time, but I think he was in St. Thomas.
How many people are on it? Most Americans don't know it is an American territory so most Americans can travel there without a passport, am I correct, maybe with a license with a star on it?
No, you don't need a passport at all. In fact, it's funny that kind of what led me down there, you know, I went down there when COVID hit, and I don't have a passport, I've never really been out of the country or, you know, traveled much.
But my wife is like, you know, we got to go do something. So she actually figured this out.
You know, at that time, they did a very good job of handling this COVID shit.
And they were one of the only areas that I didn't feel like I was going to get locked out and wouldn't make it back home. So I really stumbled into this opportunity. I wasn't going down there to do any business.
You know, before I went down there, I did a little bit of research. And, you know, I'd seen that they had passed their medical bill. There's very limited information on online but they made it look as though they had already stored.
I have this whole thing like I'm not going to a, you know, a state or territory, if they don't have legal cannabis, you know, I'm not trying to get fucking locked up in some Caribbean jail.
So they made it seem that way. When I got to the island and went to the store, it was just CBD. I was like, oh fuck, what is this?
So that's what kind of got me digging into it. Adam Dunn, good friend of ours, he had a contact on the island. This guy, Pavan Nelson, his real name. He's a former seven time legislator and he's the current commissioner of ag.
So I was able to sit down with him. Oh shit. He accidentally cut off here, folks. Let me see if I can get him back there.
I don't know what happened here. Just give me a moment.
While we got a little break here, I'd like to give a big shout out to Miles Filippelli. He hooked me up with some fermented plant extracts for this round so I could sample them out.
Also, he is setting up a class, a three day NICE class in response to a high demand of shorter classes. We will be offering a three day class of NICE process focused intensive classes in Denver, Colorado.
It will be a demonstration only, not a hands on class. Each student will receive and leave with a NICE starter pack of nutrients, thumb drive of class information, certificate of completion, discount room rates for students, and swag bag.
So if you're interested, it's going to be at the Hyatt Place, Cherry Creek, Colorado, April 7th through April 9th, 2023. For more information, email jace at touchbycannabis.com.
Hope to see you there. It's going to be very informative.
All right. So sorry about that. My phone died. He was getting ready to tell us about Adam Dunn's friend down in the Virgin Islands and you sent down talk to him about some stuff and he worked with the Ag department, I believe, or in the politics.
Yeah, so he was seven time former legislator, current commissioner of Ag and he was the sponsor of their medical bill program that they were writing on. So they kind of had, they had like this medical bill that kind of decrimed it, but it didn't, they hadn't gotten the point of opening it up to any sales.
So that's what led to the conversation. He was able to introduce me to the governor and some of their representatives. And this was last February. And then I just went back out there again, well, just over a month ago to meet with Tippie and some of the other representatives.
Were they looking at with a little bit of herb?
Were you able to find out that there was a CBD? So yeah, here's the thing with the island, man. You can get bud.
You know, when I first went down there, I was able to pick some up and I was not impressed. The issue is the humidity, right? All the bud is wet. It's the exact opposite of here. It's polar opposite.
It's so hard to fucking smoke weed down there. It's crazy. So that you literally I'd have to get the bags, open it up, you know, in my room to the AC on just to just to get it to the point where I can smoke it. So I kind of thought I left with the impression like, they kind of got some trashy weed down there.
But when I went out this last time, I was able to meet some of the other growers and there's good growers on the island. They're growing fire. It's just, and this is what I learned.
You know, I brought a bit of fire out from here down there and fully sealed up, you know, and a couple days into the trip, it looked like their shoes was all, you know, humid. It started to rot.
You would need the humidity controlled packs. They actually pull the humidity out of it or a special humidified room like that sucks the humidity out down there pretty much.
Or I think they actually will like wrap it in paper, put it in buried under the ground.
Exactly. Yeah, that's going to be the key to that market, man is making sure that we're using the right packaging and curing properly so that, you know, you know, the customers get good product, you know, has to be in something that even if they don't consume it for, you know, the two, three days on the island, they can open it up and it's not all swamped out.
It's the exact opposite here. So if people come out here and you want to enjoy some Colorado's honest, you're going to be prepared to have some crumbly, crumbly herb that just turns into powder. If you don't have it in the right concealed container with a humidity regulator or something in it.
Like I always have a little regulator in there and there's one from boost, Boveda is another one and it keeps it right at 60% humidity. If you're running at 80% humidity, your weed is going to mold.
Yeah, yeah. And the issue they have accepted the power out there is man, their power is crazy. It's 56 cents a kilowatt hour, which is just about five times more expensive than what we pay out here.
So everything will be out there. They have rolling blackouts all the time. So, so power is a huge issue. You know, if you are doing anything indoor, you're gonna have to have backup generators.
I see more of people maybe having in my idea if they want to grow something that's not sativa, they're going to have to have some kind of blackout. They're going to have a way to cover up their crop after eight hours of sun or something instead of having 12 hours of light.
That would be the only way they could probably grow some different strains there to.
Well, yeah, it's the opposite, right? So my strategy for growing outdoors would be, you know, hoop houses with lighting, LED lighting to extend the day on the veg. And then you just put them out or turn the lights off and they go, it's 1212. It's immediate flower all year long.
Yeah, I know. So you could just add one hour light to make it more. There's a thing called a gas lighting. I don't know if you ever heard of gas lighting. It's a 12 one lighting schedule.
You have 12 hours and then just throw one hour midnight or like halfway in through the night. It'll keep them in veg. And then you just take that one hour out and it'll be on a 12 hour cycle. You'd have some long flowering sativas.
We played with that. Yeah, you got literally to slash your plants with heavy light, you know, throughout the night and trick them from going in. I've also experimented with just, you know, like the little LED lights that you can, the cheap ones.
Oh, yeah. One of those over the cage, you know, you'll extend the season with that doesn't take much to keep them, you know, in the vegetative cycle.
Yeah, that's why some people don't know just like a little light on a humidifier or dehumidifier in your in your grow tent. If it pops on, it's not green, it's white. That little bit at night when it gets full and gives you that warning, it'll it'll fuck up and give you some
herms or it'll keep your flowers from from producing correctly. Interesting point on that I've noticed noticed over the years in our greenhouse production. Definitely something to what you're talking about if you're in an indoor with artificial light versus if you're using the sun.
So, for example, in our year round greenhouses, a little light like that won't trigger anything like it would in a pure outdoor. I think what it is, it's used to getting such full lumen from the sun that any little bit like that isn't going to be that much.
So, so that said, you know, to keep to keep these plants in a perpetual veg is going to take a little bit more light than I think people are talking about a little tiny tent at home, the little tiny.
Oh yeah, so dark in there that one little light kind of brightens it up off the little reflecting sidewalls and everything and it'll screw some shit up. It'll give you some for sure.
It will definitely. I agree. Yeah. Yeah, but yeah, something so I don't know much about it but it's something I would like to learn about outdoor sun grown stuff also gets natural moonlight the moonlight plays a big factor to in plants.
I know there's some people out there that talk about that from Cali. I don't know much about outdoors that's something I'd love to be able to do because I've never been in a place where I could legally do it, not feel paranoid.
That's one of the things I noticed too. Yeah, because you'll see like a full moon is like holy shit that's a lot of light. Another good example is you know one of the first farms we set up in town.
There was a streetlight right across from where our greenhouse was and like a good third of the greenhouse at night was being pretty well hit up with that light and I thought you know this is going to cause problems.
I think that's what I mean there's something different to, you know full sun outdoor really does take a somewhat intense amount of light to disrupt the site.
It's very unique and I think I've heard that if there's no males around and the plants won't get pollinated because and they don't get hermaphrodite as much with a little bit of light, the moonlight somehow.
There's at least three or four cycles of full moon to new moon during a full plant cycle, at least. And I think it's something with the lumens I've heard that the lumens are quite bright.
They're not going to get the spectrum to it's kind of like a green spectrum or something the green light lamps that you have on your hat or your head you can wear those in your in your indoor grow at night and it won't trigger anything because the plants don't recognize the green spectrum.
That it reflects right off the leaves. That's why you see green when you look at it because it's reflecting the green light.
It's interesting, and I can't wait to find out and travel the world and see all these regional, regional grows outdoor. I'll tell people it's kind of like chocolate regional grows outdoor.
I just got off for a second when you push the button there, but I think it's kind of like chocolate, you're going to have better quality chocolate or wine like you said, I just don't like to compare cannabis to wine myself.
I try to like to keep them separate. Yeah, I mean, it's definitely its own thing. I just think that is, I think we're going to go more down that road than like, you know, any other crop I can think of, especially alcohol.
I think this is more like a micro brew or a wine model than, you know.
So I got a question since Colorado has recently gone legal with the psychedelics. Do you see any mushroom cultivating in the future, if it becomes legal and depending on what happens in the state, would that be something that's in the future possible around area 420.
Definitely man. Yeah, yeah, you know, is already taken the position that once the state, you know, opened up their provisions, the towns and full support and will follow suit.
I think that this entire area is going to be, you know, a really good match for this industry. You know, you don't really want to go into Denver and deal with all that chaos to consume. So I think there's going to be a good future for psilocybin type treatments and tourism out here.
You want to get out in nature.
It's a beautiful place for us. Just got to make sure you bring a lot of water, drink a lot of water and sunscreen.
The sun's beautiful.
It's going to take a, you know, this is my only concern is, you know, this isn't exactly like cannabis, you know, I've had some pretty bad trips so it's going to have to be.
It's going to have to be managed properly. You know, I was talking with this lady, I think her name is Jenna.
She, she does these kind of like mushroom, you know, like excursions like, you know, she's there to chaperone the entire trip and takes them out into nature and you know, she like that I think is going to be powerful.
Yeah, you'll need depending. I don't recommend eating a lot of mushrooms I'm microdrift so I don't, I don't eat ever more than a gram.
My, if I want to have a recreational time I might have a gram. That's enough for me, it puts a smile on my face and I don't recommend people eating a lot without having somebody there to overwatch them in case they do have a bad trip.
But some of these medical doses are out there people aren't serving up mushrooms are serving up raw concentrated psilocybin like if you look into john hopkins research and some of their destiny they're giving like
I see that. Yeah, seeing, seeing God. I think they call it the God dose or something like that just like abnormal amounts of psilocybin, and you definitely need somebody there to to watch your back and to help you through it.
It can be very emotional.
Yeah, I can man I'm afraid of something like that.
I am too man I don't really. I do a little bit of micro dosing from time to time but it's really just not my thing I don't think my mind state vibes very well with psilocybin.
Yeah, I understand and that I'm about the same way so when we talk about a people out there don't get it that we're just getting fucked up out there.
Or getting screwed up it's it's a micro dose thing it's something for mental health that just improves the quality of life for a lot of people.
My support comes from what I've seen from from some of my good friends you know I've seen this shit change their lives and this is on the micro dose level you know they're not getting high, but what for depression and anxieties like it's PTSD
curing people like immediately so it's it's powerful and yes nice big dose might be helpful for a lot of people but definitely look for some supervision some people that are experienced with it that I've talked a lot of people down I was experienced with LSD in college
and partied with a lot of people and seen a lot of people have bad trips and I've had to calm a lot of people down in my day.
So be careful with them.
Just realize that everybody out there.
It's not party and it is a way of life for them that is a dream for them to be able to grow their own cannabis and support their own medicine.
Definitely not. This is the dream.
Hey Mike, I thank you for coming on the show. I know you're a busy man, you got things to get to.
I will be seeing you sometime shortly. I'm not sure exactly if not before April 1.
It'll be April 1 I'll be down there for at least two or three days.
And in that area and then I plan on spending a lot of the summer down there so hopefully I might even get some work in get my badge again and lend a helping hand with some people down there.
Yeah, I think it's gonna be a good year.
We'll put that put that space to work a little bit I'll get some more interviews out there and help make area 420 dream come true for everyone.
I appreciate you man. I'm happy and thank you for spreading the knowledge for all these other people in other states. They might be able to find a way to do the same thing in their state and become sister cities with other cities across the nation.
You know, in Thailand, I got a buddy in Thailand and he's talking with some people that he's in.
He was saying that the head of the military is coming in and it's helping set up some kind of big growth somewhere. And they've given plants to everybody.
And I've been giving him a little bit of advice on auto flowers since they have that really long, long season auto flowers are really good. So that might be something to for the Virgin Islands are throwing some auto flowers down for him too so anybody with auto flower genetics, Virgin Islands
might be a place to promote. Okay, and anybody's got some good like nasty hazes man. That's that's the opportunity down there. Yeah, definitely. Acapulco gold something I can't grow up here.
Any of the long growing like Thailand and they have a black tie, I think it is black Vietnamese tie or something like that grows there too and we're not. I think it's like 14 weeks to grow.
There we go. But a super psychedelic. Yes. Nobody's doing that. Let's do it. Hey, well thanks again. Shout outs again to area for 20 Matt brain strap for helping hook all up it up for us and introducing us.
And thanks for tuning in fellas and ladies, grommies.
Peace.
Man.
Thanks a lot, man.
Before we finish today's show. I'd like to give a shout out to clone Ireland. Thanks for tuning in. Send some feedback. Let me know what's happening in Ireland.
Thanks to Melbourne, Australia, I got a bunch of listeners down there give me feedback. Thanks for the feedback keeps spreading a good word. Big shout out to Germany to in Brussels, Belgium, getting a lot of hits and a lot of listens from over there.
Hey, thanks for tuning in and Luis Sweden love to know what's happening in Sweden with the cannabis market right now. Keep spreading the word. Tell people about little farmer and one love.
Next week to refer the refer the podcast.
This is the herbal doctors from all those rumors that you're her.
I'm a little bit of fun.