This episode is sponsored by Transcend, a veteran owned and operated performance optimization company that I introduced recently as a sponsor on this show.
Well, since then, I have actually been using my products and I've had incredible success.
There was initial blood work that was extremely detailed and based on that, they offered supplementation.
So I began taking DHEA, BPC157 for inflammation based on the fact that I've been a stump man and martial artist and a firefighter my whole life, lots of aches and pains,
Dihexa to help cognition after multiple punches to the head and shift work and peptides.
Four months later, they did a detailed blood work again and I was actually able to taper off two of the peptides because my body had responded so well to just one of them that it was optimized at that point.
So I cannot speak highly enough of the immense range of supplementation that they offer, whether it's male health, female health, peptides to boost your own testosterone, which I would argue is needed by a lot of the fire service,
or whether it's exogenous testosterone needed, especially after TBIs or advanced age.
Now, as I mentioned before, the other side of this company is an altruistic arm called the Transcend Foundation,
which is putting veterans and first responders through some of their protocols free of charge.
Now Transcend are also offering you the audience 10% off their protocols and you can find that on JamesGearing.com under the products tab.
And if you want to hear more about Transcend and their story, listen to episode 808 with the founder Ernie Colling or go to TranscendCompany.com.
Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast. As always, my name is James Gearing and this week it is my absolute honor to welcome on the show Firefighter Paramedic and the man behind Rescue One CBD, John Vaught.
Now I'm so glad that John came on because when it comes to CBD, which I have used for years now, there is still so much misunderstanding, miseducation and stigma around this incredibly powerful plant medicine.
And some of this fear is justified if there is THC in these tinctures that could potentially make us fail a drug test.
As you will hear, John's own journey through surgery and prescription meds that led him to CBD, just like it did with me.
So we discuss a host of topics from his journey into the fire service, the history of CBD, the difference between THC and CBD,
the incredible testing process he developed to make sure it is absolutely safe for first responders, sleep deprivation, shift work and so much more.
Now, before we get to this incredible conversation, as I say every week, please just take a moment.
Go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe to the show, leave feedback and leave a rating.
Every single five star rating truly does elevate this podcast, therefore making it easier for others to find.
And this is a free library of well over 1000 episodes now, so all I ask in return is that you help share these incredible men and women stories
so I can get them to every single person on planet Earth who needs to hear them.
So with that being said, I introduce to you John Voort. Enjoy.
Well, John, I want to start by saying several things. Firstly, thank you to Jim Bernicka, who put us together in the most exotic of Beaver Creek, Ohio last year.
Secondly, I want to welcome you on to the Behind the Shield podcast today.
Thank you so much for having me. Really, really excited to be here. I've listened to the show for a while and followed you on social for a while.
So it's it's an honor. Appreciate it.
Yeah, well, everyone listening, you're going to have to find me on a different social now because Instagram shut down my page.
They don't like kindness and solutions to problems clearly.
So so it's a solid 2.0. I'm back into thank you. Yeah.
I at Behind the Shield 911 dots to dot 2.0.
So I called you a minute ago because I had messed up the most recent podcast that I've done.
There's been a lot of things that have happened that have blown up in my face recently.
And so I called you effing and blinding and said, I have to push this back a few minutes.
And then I was like, what can I do to bring myself down?
So I went and took some CBD. So it was a great transition into this conversation.
So very first question, where on planet Earth we finding you today?
At my home in Delray Beach, Florida, and the headquarters of of the rescue one CBD offices here.
Beautiful. Well, I would have to start the very beginning of your time.
And obviously, we'll get to the CBD journey in a moment.
But tell me where you were born and tell me a little bit about your family dynamic, what your parents did, how many siblings?
I was born in West Palm Beach, Florida, and I'm one of four.
So I was the second born, second oldest. And my mom is on the job.
She's a firefighter for Palm Beach County Fire Department.
She's an EMS captain there and kind of followed in her footsteps.
Amazing mother, super strong woman, just kind of an all around badass, amazing mentor and and role model.
And my dad, hardest working person I've ever met in my life.
He's an electrician, still at 64 years old, still an electrician.
He's also one of the two along with me, original investors of rescue one CBD.
So he comes out to like all the conferences.
He like is still actively involved in the business when we travel together for the business.
And it's a it's a cool journey we're taking together.
So awesome childhood. I love both my parents to death.
And they raised all four of us really well.
Going with your dad first. Is it the Teamsters? Is that the electricians union?
Or have I got that right?
They have the IBEW.
Yeah, IBEW, which I don't think he's a part of.
But he's a he works for a private company.
But yeah, they have a large electrical contractors union.
Okay. Yeah, because I'm always curious when people work in other professions,
what their experiences are with unions, because, you know, in the past, at least,
I know there's a new administration now, but in the past, there was a lot of chest beating
about how in the fire service, we have one of the strongest unions in the country.
Me personally, for 14 years, watched very, very little achieved.
And we're both going to talk about obviously, the health initiatives in the fire service,
for example.
So I was curious if he had experience with his union.
No, not the IBEW. His best friend started this company.
And this guy has always taken really good care of his employees.
And nobody's ever gone towards the union side.
They've it's a good it's a good place to work.
Yeah, you take care of people who don't need a union.
That's it, man.
All right. What about your mom, then?
Firstly, Palm Beach County just went to the 24 72.
I know you've worked that schedule in your department for quite a while now.
So what's her percept, you know, perspective of this change in her own department?
And then we'll kind of get to your experience.
They're stoked.
For the most part, I think there were some people that were a little bit leery about it,
just going from a 24 48.
And everybody loved their Kelly, you know, and that's a hard thing to let go of,
especially probably people that had Friday, Saturday or Sunday.
Kelly didn't maybe want to go to a 24 72.
But all in all, I think they're stoked about it.
I think they're doing it in two to three years or something like that.
And it does.
I mean, you get paid more if you think about it.
You know, you're working less days.
And I've only known this schedule.
I worked for AMR for a little bit, like when I was 18 to 20.
And so I had a 24 48.
And when I when I came to my department with the 24 72, it was I mean,
the recovery from off duty is amazing.
So I know they're really excited.
They've been fighting for it for years.
And the recruitment is just going to go up from here, I believe.
So, yeah, she's towards the end of her career, but she'll still be able
to take advantage of it for a few more years, which is really exciting.
Yeah.
Well, I think the people that are at the end, that's a beautiful opportunity to start healing.
Because, I mean, really, when you transition out the fire service,
the first five years at least are unfucking what the job did to you.
You know what I mean?
For lack of a better word.
It's it.
So she gets to kind of start unpacking some of that while she's still on the job.
Yeah, and and it probably you're probably right.
That is a great transition.
You know, especially like lately, you know, she's being an EMS captain.
They see, you know, some of the worst of the worst.
And she's a battalion nine.
So she's station 91 downtown Lake Worth.
I know, you know, the area.
So like just a lot of trauma and a lot of fires and stuff like that.
So she's she's she's she's been around.
She's seen a bunch of stuff.
So it'll be great for I'm really excited.
Told she's going to love it.
Yeah.
Well, let's let's go to your perspective then.
So you have a very unique lens because you've had that schedule for quite a while now.
So when was this go?
Let's go to the beginning of your career.
Is it oh nine that you got hired?
Is that right?
Yes.
OK, so what was the environment as far as the competition level where,
you know, where you were testing in general and then how competitive was it
for your department specifically with such a great schedule?
It was that that time was crazy because of the great recession.
Everyone was on a hiring freeze.
Palm Beach County didn't hire from like oh eight to 2013 or something.
So competition wise, it was already the baseline was very, very high.
And then with our schedule, I mean, we recruit from other departments quite often.
So, you know, the the the I wanted to say there was probably I remember when I got hired,
it was somewhere around four or five hundred people applying for three spots.
And so that was I got very lucky.
I was one of the three.
And ever since, I mean, we've we've we usually get the same amount of applicants in total
as the Palm Beach County Fire Department does when we do hiring processes.
There is a and I'll say this and it's people can fact check me on this one.
It's a very competitive department in Palm Beach County, which anybody in those areas
knows where I work, I'm sure.
But in the 16 years I've been there, coming up on 16 years, I've been there.
Not one person has left our department to go to another fire department.
It hasn't happened.
So recruitment is never been an issue for us.
We're fully staffed.
We don't mando anybody ever.
I've never you know, it just doesn't really happen.
Maybe maybe once every couple of years or something.
But it's like off chance.
So recruitment is is very, very high.
Retention is literally perfect.
We have a one hundred percent retention rate.
So people have left early just to go do other things.
You know, we had a guy leave and start a pot farm in Michigan, you know,
because that's just what he wanted to do.
And God bless him.
And he's doing great.
But nobody's left to go to another fire department.
Our retention is one hundred percent.
It's amazing.
That's I mean, it's just so good to hear because it conversely,
I've had a couple of people now on for Marion County and I'll say the name
because it's who protects my family.
Ten years ago, when I would argue it was still extremely competitive
because we're just coming out of the recession, just like you said,
they couldn't find enough people to hire.
No one was really trying to go to them.
Now you imagine 10 years later in 2024, we've got even worse.
So that really says something if in the time when everyone else was scrambling
for jobs was, you know, testing against hundreds and hundreds of people.
And back then you couldn't get anyone or you were hardly getting anyone.
You know, that that's a decade of issues that you probably should have addressed by now.
You know, so this is why, you know, not to throw shade, but it is what it is.
I know that they've stuck their head back in the sand with this whole 24 72 conversation,
which I find nauseating because it's my friends that literally are getting mandatory.
And, you know, we had one schedule the other day and he couldn't make it
because he got mandatory yet again.
So, you know, when you compare and contrast this conversation, this specific shift schedule
and a handful of stations is competitive with an entire county, as far as the number of applicants
that illustrates the destination department concept that Hugh Bruder talks about.
You want to get people testing to be a firefighter again, give them an environment for them to be
excited about that will allow them to thrive rather than decay.
Of course.
And from the fire department side, the union side, labor management side,
whatever you want to look at it.
If you have everyone around you go into a 24 72 and you are falling behind,
you're not going to maintain a standard.
So the great thing to do is for other departments to raise the standard, you know,
in the collective area so that we can help other people.
Initially, I'm sure it's going to be hard like Palm Beach County going to 24 72.
If and when Dade and Broward counties go to 24 72, there's going to be a huge demand.
And ultimately, it'll be a little bit painful at first because we might have to have some shortages.
But all in all, it'll end up raising the incentive to go there.
They'll end up having to, you know, increase wages and my department, not to brag,
but we don't really have that problem.
But some other places do have a wage issue and you know,
then they can increase their retention because they're trying to keep up.
So it will create maybe a causation for it or like the imbalance might get corrected.
So all in all, I hope it's for the better.
You know, I know it'll be for the better.
I hope that in the short term, people don't look at the headaches and say,
this wasn't worth it because it is a long term thing.
We need to think about this in generation, generations to come.
Absolutely.
It reminds me of those home improvement shows.
You know, they have the house and then they pull the drywall.
Oh, no, the plumbing is all messed up.
Yeah, you have to do that initially.
But the other side of it, you have a much better building that will last another 100 years.
Yeah, exactly.
I know that's my house every time my house was.
I don't know this guy that used to live here.
I think he tried to wing everything.
So every time I open up a wall, something just to change an outlet
turns out into a 12 hour or deal for in three home depot trips.
Yeah, that's a good way to put it.
I think like sometimes it's okay to find the problems.
You know, you should get some headaches to start.
That's a blessing.
Get them out of the way.
Absolutely.
100%.
All right, we'll get off that subject now,
but it was such a unique lens with your mom and yourself.
So thank you for that.
Going back to you as a young boy then.
So talk to me about sports and exercise that you were doing back then.
I played baseball when I was a kid.
I really liked I got into t ball when I was really young.
I stayed very involved in it.
My uncle was actually a professional baseball player.
He was a relief pitcher for every team you can think of.
I think he spent the most time with the Phillies and the Blue Jays.
And so my grandfather coached him.
My aunts who were like championship softball players.
My mom was a championship softball player and I was a pitcher and I really, really liked it.
And I discovered skateboarding when I was in high school and the guitar.
And then I immediately dropped baseball.
I was like, I don't do this anymore.
My attention span towards things tends to go to things I'm really, really passionate about.
And I might forget everything else as extraneous.
So I played baseball up until I got into about middle school or high school.
And then I just went all in on skateboarding with my friends and playing music.
And I got really into music and played several instruments.
But exercise wise, I was always like a pretty lanky, thin, skinny kid.
I felt like no matter what I ate, I was always skinny.
So it would have behooved me to lift weights earlier.
Fire Academy would have been a hell of a lot easier.
But I was always moving, man.
I was always trying to do something that would just keep me at 100 miles an hour.
How did your uncle do with his transition once he couldn't play
baseball anymore?
Because the kind of identity crisis that we see in uniform, you see a lot in sports as well.
My uncle has a crazy story.
So he actually did not do well at all.
He did not stay serious enough to hang.
And he was making league minimum, which is still a lot of money.
But he had a wife and two kids.
He had two daughters.
And he ended up having a hard time going back.
They wouldn't renew his contract.
He just wasn't pitching fast anymore.
And he wasn't keeping up with the younger guys.
And he ended up going to jail for selling cocaine for trafficking for seven years.
And man, the guy is doing great now.
I mean, he got out.
His life is completely put back together.
He's doing awesome.
He re-established the relationship with both of his daughters and his ex-wife.
Like everything is so, so much better.
But that was a really turbulent time.
And I'm sure part of it was just him coping with the lack of fame and fortune.
I mean, he was gambling and partying it up with guys that were making seven figures or
eight figures a year.
And he's making six figures a year.
And he's trying to live the life.
And it's just too much all at once for a kid who basically went from high school into playing
baseball.
And that's too much power all at once unchecked.
So I think it changed him.
And the hardship changed him for the better after that post-traumatic growth kind of stuff.
It really mattered at the time.
But he's doing great now.
But I would say he didn't do good just based on that.
Yeah, he had a hard time with it.
I'm glad I asked that question.
What an incredible story.
Especially putting that hope back into it.
I mean, you're so deep into it.
You've got, I don't know if he was taking the drugs too or just selling, but you've got that element.
No, he wasn't taking them.
He was just selling them.
Yeah.
So he's just trying to fill that void and maybe recapture some of the things that he lost.
And obviously, you're not.
You're a tribe.
Your identity is gone now.
That's why we have to kind of turn the page.
But to do your time and then come out and then start healing, start repairing, I mean, that's absolutely the hope that comes from post-traumatic growth.
So that story needs to be heard.
It's incredible.
Yeah, especially with his daughters.
I mean, his daughters, I don't think they ever visited him in jail.
And when he went to jail, they were very young.
I think they were eight or nine years old, maybe even a little bit younger.
I'm trying to remember.
But when he got divorced from my aunt and they lived in the West Coast on Tampa, and I didn't see him for 12, 13 years.
I mean, I just met him again a few years ago when he started putting everything back together.
But it was so cool to see the forgiveness from them come towards him and the understanding that he wasn't trying to cut them out of his life.
He made a mistake and had to go to jail and pay for it.
And he did.
And he was never trying to pawn off his responsibility or say it wasn't his fault or anything like that.
He owned it.
And I always had a ton of respect for him, looking at it and saying, this was my fault, and just taking it and being a man about it.
It was impressive to see.
It's hard to do.
I'm sure a lot of people think they would do it.
And then when you're put in that situation, you probably don't know until you're actually put in that situation.
And he did. It was cool.
Yeah.
Well, especially when we know, and this is from numerous people that are actually in this profession,
we know that a lot of times prison doesn't foster growth healing.
It can send you down the opposite path, make you worse than you were before.
So to come out of that with the resilience that he did is impressive.
Yeah.
He really has it.
My dad has a great relationship with my uncle Rick, and he has said this before.
He's like the guy from Shawshank Redemption.
And the line that he said, Andy Dufresne can crawl through a mile of shit and come out clean on the other side.
That's my uncle Rick.
Just like everything he goes through, he always comes out all right.
Good for him.
Well, you mentioned about skateboarding and music.
Were any of those factored into your initial dream career aspirations, or was there something else?
I didn't know what I wanted to do when I was a kid.
And my mom didn't get in the fire service until 2001.
She got hired early 2001.
And I didn't know what I wanted to do as a kid.
I loved music.
I've had a proclivity for instruments and just playing instruments and playing guitar and other stuff.
And I was just kind of bouncing along, man.
I was hanging out with my friends and just doing all that.
When my mom got into the fire service, I thought it would be cool to think about it.
But what I remember when she got into the fire service, I thought she was crazy.
So no, I think that was completely separate.
It was going to happen no matter what.
I started initially playing music in school.
And I think the first instrument I picked up was the French horn, which
if you ever want to repel women and make sure you can never get a girlfriend,
you pick up the French horn.
That's what you do.
So I was like, this sucks.
What do I have to play to actually talk to girls?
And the guitar was probably a better one.
So that's what I ended up initially going and I liked it.
So yeah, they were very separate, but I just loved them both.
So you didn't go to like a campfire with a bunch of friends
and just pull out the old horn and start ripping?
Yeah, no, that wasn't one I carried around with me.
I when I picked it up, I was like, yeah, I think this will be cool to start learning.
And then slowly I was like, how do I get rid of this thing, man?
I was like, I can't tell anybody I do this.
I feel like you constantly need to be around the royal family to be playing that effectively.
Yeah, I normally hear it.
That's the other thing is like, where the hell am I going to play this?
Unless I'm a concert musician or something, you know, I'm like, it's just not, it's not.
It's not something.
And when usually when you tell people to like, I play the French horn, they go, what the hell is that?
Yeah, exactly.
It's not an easy instrument to play.
So it did give me some fundamentals, but yeah, I can't say that I would ever want to pick that one back up.
Absolutely. I actually heard a funny skit on it was on Instagram when I can, I can see it again now, but I'll never see this again, because it's gone.
But it was a black comedian and he was talking about, I think he was playing the French horn or something like that.
And his music teacher, I'm sure it's a true story, has said to him, you need to play the, I think it was a tuba.
And he was like, why?
Because you've got those big luscious lips.
And he was like, racist ass motherfucker.
Anyway, and then he goes on and on.
And then he goes on and talking about the moment he put his lips on the tuba, it was the match made in heaven.
And he was like, that motherfucker was right.
That's so funny.
Yeah, I mean, you do have to, it is a very specific, a lot of those, a lot of those wind instruments, but it's a very specific mouth type.
You can't, not everybody can play them.
It's very physical.
So then, so walk me through then it was the EMS side that you got into first, wasn't it?
Yeah, I joined the Explorer program when I was 15.
And that's when I, like I saw my mom in the fire service and a buddy of mine who was my neighbor, like one of my best friends from high school.
So I'm joining this Explorer program and it, they let you ride on trucks and you can get trained up and all this stuff seems like it'd be pretty cool.
And he's like, you want to do it?
I go, nah, I'm good.
No, thanks.
So he goes to the first night and he comes back and he's like, man, you have got to go.
This is really, really cool.
So I went the second night and I ended up staying there for five years.
And I got hired out of that program at the same department.
And now I run the Explorer program at my department.
So I'm the lead advisor for that Explorer program and, or also known as cadets.
And I've been doing that, man, I don't know.
We're going to hit our 20 year anniversary this year.
And I've been with it since day one, either as a cadet or running it.
So I don't remember when I took it over, but I've been there for 20 years doing that.
We have 30 kids in the program.
But that is what really solidified that I wanted to do this for the rest of my life.
I was like, this is the only thing I want to do.
So film over the job as a teenager, riding on the trucks, being at the firehouse table,
seeing how the guys and girls interact with each other, the family.
And that if it wasn't for the Explorer program, I don't know if I would have,
I think it does seem inevitable, but it's hard to make that judgment now.
Cause like I'm already in it, but I think I would have ended up in the fire service at some point.
And seeing how much my mom loved it.
But that was the, I remember that that was when after the first night I was there, I was like,
okay, I think I'll, I think I'm going to do this forever.
Talk to me about that experience as a young man and then running it.
Because when, especially when there's that diversity conversation,
there's two sides to the coin.
Of course, there are absolutely groups of young men and women that the fire service is just not
on the radar or not even an option because a lot of us went to fire academy.
That's not cheap, you know, EMT school, paramedic school.
And then there's a lot of people that, you know, they're not seeing themselves in uniform
represented in their community too, but scooping up a bunch of people based on pigmentation or
sexual orientation is not the answer either.
So I think, you know, it's already been out there for a long time, but Marion Ocala here,
my friend, Chris Hickman started one and it's phenomenal because they offer all the training
for free.
They put it in a central location.
So all these kids have to do is be able to get there three times a week.
They get all the training, they get the equipment, and then there's a, we have the state fire
college here in our, in our city.
So then there are, you know, scholarship positions to go to fire school.
So they've removed a lot of the barriers to entry, but they've also said you can be a
firefighter, but you've got to prove that either A, you can be a firefighter or B that
you even want to, because I think it's a lot of value for people that don't want, they
try the mentorship program and they go, oh, it's not what I want to do.
Beautiful.
You just saved yourself a lot of stress, maybe a lot of money.
Now you can check that off your list and go pursue some of the other ones.
So I think those programs are phenomenal, but talk to me about your experience as a
young person and then what you're seeing now 20 years later.
The generational difference is wildly different.
I, um, when I was coming up in the program and I think this is definitely true for like
my dad's generation and stuff.
If we made mistakes, um, someone can pull you aside and say, Hey, Jack, ask, knock it
off.
You know what I mean?
And, uh, you're like, okay.
And you respond well to that.
And slowly over time, um, I noticed that when I tried to run the program like that, it
didn't go that well.
And I had to learn a lot about the psychology of, of mentorship and teaching people.
And, um, you know, my biggest thing going from a young man and into leading it and
running it was understanding that running that program, the idea of leadership behind
it meant more that you had to care about people, not that you were the smartest and
most capable.
And I just thought if I was a really good fireman and a really good paramedic that I
could teach people that skill and that that's all they needed to know.
And in reality, um, especially at, we take, we take kids in as early as 14 years old,
14 years old.
They don't, they do care how much, you know, but they want to see that you care about
them first.
Um, and then they'll run through a wall for you.
Um, but that was a really hard part for me.
And I had a lot of headaches early on because I couldn't understand why it was so
difficult to get buy-in, um, until we did that.
And the program I run is these, I don't like calling them kids because they don't
act like children.
Um, but I think that's the biggest thing.
They don't act like children.
Um, but they are, um, second to none.
I mean, I'm biased obviously, but I'd put them up against any Explorer program in
the country.
We've traveled nationally to go to national competitions and these, these kids are the
most competitive, dedicated, uh, hardcore, uh, explorers that you'll find.
I mean, we have a reputation of just dominance, like they go and compete and they
want to crush everybody.
Um, and that, that attitude reflects and permeates through everything they do, the
way they wear their uniform, the way they show up to the firehouse.
They're amazing.
So we've, we've, I went from trying to figure out how to like get buy-in to
establishing this, this culture to the point where it's not, it's not me at all.
Like if I leave tomorrow, this is going to continue that way because of, um, the
people I've brought in and the culture that they set up at the, at the ground
level.
And I wish I could, we, I could figure out how to do this in my fire department.
I wanted, I want to, uh, translate that.
Maybe I will one day, but, um, you know, the, the culture, I use that word so
passionately that in that program, they're there and no matter who joins the
program, they will assimilate to exactly how these, these other young men and
women are.
Um, they demand excellence every, from everyone.
And, um, what you said earlier is exactly what I tell them.
Funny enough, I'm like, there's three kinds of people that join the program.
There's kids that really want to do this.
There's kids that are unsure and they could go one way or the other.
And then there's kids that definitely don't want to do this, but this seems
like something cool and they get community service out of it and all this
other stuff, which is fine.
But if you join, no matter which one of those three groups you are, you have to
meet the standard.
So as long as you do that, you're welcome.
And it's a, we actually pay a hundred percent of their school.
So if you're in the program for two years, they get free EMT medic and fire.
So, um, we had a local billionaire, uh, donate a hundred thousand dollars to us.
Um, as a scholarship check in, I want to say it was 2007 or 2008.
And we've been using it ever since and slowly replenishing it.
We do fundraisers and stuff, but we've still been able to give that out.
We've given out over 130 something thousand as of, as of yet.
And, uh, we do, we're still doing it every year.
So one of my kids just got hired at Delray beach fire department.
Uh, his badge ceremony is Friday and I'm going to go, he was a recipient as well.
I'm going to go see that, but we're turning them out, man.
And they're the absolute best.
They're going to be little force multipliers wherever they go.
They're going to hopefully change the fire service every, every, every time
they get hired at one.
So it's a huge passion, mine, if you can't tell it's like the most important
thing I've done in my career.
I hear two kind of, um, philosophies when it comes to the young recruits of today,
the, you know, the, the kind of blinkered, uh, ignorant statement is, oh, the reason
why we can't hire our kids is because they don't want to work these Gen Z kids.
Now to me, I mean, yes, there's that group in every single generation, you know?
So I call absolute bullshit.
What makes sense to me and what I see with my own eyes is that this young generation
values far more than money.
And if you think about our generation, what's every fucking union negotiation,
oh, we need to pay raise pay raise.
And what's the most resistance the 24 72, like it blows my mind that the people
that's benefiting work against it because they just don't understand it.
And it was taken a step back and just critically thought that concept for a moment.
If I work 42 hours a week, I could be with my family more.
So what I hear from these people now that are, that are recruiting, that are open-minded
and really looking at these young people is they're like, James, they value their time.
They value their, their mental health.
They value their physical health.
They value their relationships.
So I would argue that's one of the reasons why we have the recruitment crisis is because
when you look on a piece of paper, what it's like to be a firefighter in America,
yes, there's all the good things that we both ran towards it for, but now when you Google it,
there's the divorces and the testosterone and the reproductive issues and the cancers
and the suicides of which we just had one in my town during a firefighter Memorial weekend.
I mean, just absolutely tragic.
So these children, these young people are seeing this and it doesn't look good
to that young fired up applicant, but then they go to your city where you've got this
excellent mentorship program and you're showing them that you care by the work weeks and other
elements.
And you've got these fricking spark plugs dominating all over the country.
So talk to me about that concept, you know, do these Gen Z kids just air quotes, not want to work
or are they just more mature and more well-educated than we were because, you know,
of the information that's available now and they absolutely will work if they're given the
right environment.
I think it's the environment all the way.
And I can prove it because I take, like those three groups I just said, I mean, I'll put it to you
this way to answer that question better.
We, it's a free program.
We pay 100% of their tuition as long as they stay for two years and we will make them more prepared
to join the fire department than anybody else.
By the time they get into fire Academy, this is old.
They've already figured all this stuff out.
They know everything except going into a burning building.
They've done everything else.
And 90% of them don't get into the fire service in my program.
90% don't not because they can't, but because they don't want to because we have another stat
where over our entire the life of this program, the last 20 years, 100% of the kids that we've
put through EMT, medic and fire have been placed in the fire service.
100%.
We haven't had one kid.
We're not a big program.
I only have 20 at a time, but we've never had anybody go through EMT, medic and fire in 20
years and not get into the fire service.
And that tells me two things.
One, the kids who do it really, really, really want to do it.
But two, the other 90% that aren't, they're working just as hard.
They're maintaining the standard.
We wouldn't keep them if they didn't.
So, you know, you could make the argument.
One could make the argument that saying, well, Gen Z is lazy.
The kids you're picking are just super into being firefighters, so they're the exception.
And I would say, well, 90% of them don't get into the fire service.
And yet each of them acquires hundreds of hours of community service every year.
They break their back for our fire department.
They show up at everything.
They're there early.
They leave late.
They go and compete.
And, you know, they're extremely, extremely respectful.
They've shown time and again that they're willing to get their hands dirty.
And I'll tell you, we have a really strict phone and social media policy.
So when they show up, we don't see a phone in their hand at all.
And when we go to events, you know, we don't let them click together or anything like that.
We immediately send them out to go and mingle with every other Explorer program and all that stuff.
So, I mean, I call it bullshit.
I agree with you.
I don't think it's Gen Z at all.
I think the difference is we have a misalignment of understanding what they need to be instructed
with, which is patience and reasoning, like why we do everything.
Whereas previous generations could just say, get out there and go do it, you know,
and that's kind of it.
And I'm not saying one is better than the other, but I can get the same result.
I've seen the generations come through and I can get the same result or better from this newer generation.
You just have to show them that you give a shit first.
And, you know, they don't really respond to the other ways of instruction, but explaining things.
And getting by in that way, and you will have the highest quality and highest caliber of people
you can imagine.
They're very easy to refine.
So, see, one of the pushbacks I get from switching to the 2472 is, oh, we can't hire enough people now.
It's like, yeah.
And conversely, we used to test against hundreds, if not thousands of people.
So there's one common denominator, the leadership and the fire service, because it's the people
working in uniform that are doing all the extra hours for you when you mismanage it so much that
it's devolved to this point.
So if you fix the thing, you will once again have all these young spark plugs from around the country
in similar programming, excuse, programs that are now banging on your door wanting to be a firefighter.
And once again, you can take the top 10% of the list, just like we used to.
So the answer is not to point your fingers at other people.
The answer is to look in a mirror and go, we have some people that are doing this.
We have screwed this up.
It's time that we turn this corner.
So all these different perspectives, including yours, are adding layers to this conversation.
It's like, it's not no one wants to be a firefighter anymore.
It's no one wants to be a firefighter in 2024 until we fix the things that are broken.
So fix the things that are broken.
Yeah.
Isn't it weird right now that if you find a fire chief who the entire department adores,
it's so rare, it's abnormal.
And I don't know what the answer to that is.
I just know that that is a fact.
Like if you went around, that may be because some people are overly critical.
I don't know.
But I do know that overall, most people would be very unhappy with their fire chief,
or I should say the administration in general, than not.
And I don't have any aspirations to become a fire chief.
But every once in a while, I get this whim where I'm like, could I change that?
And I don't know.
Because I've known this department since I was a teenager.
So I figured if anybody could help, I figured I might be able to.
But I'm not even halfway through my career, so I don't want to think like that right now.
I think what I'm seeing, and it's so disappointing, you want to be like,
I was only ever a firefighter, and I'm proud of that.
It was not like I'm looking down at my career.
I adored that position.
That's what I dreamt of in fire academy.
I never got past that.
I just still want to be holding the saw, going interior, whatever it is.
But you want the people in the white shirts, the ones with the bugles,
whatever it is, to be better than you, to be the leaders,
to be the ones that's blazing a path, and then you all kind of follow.
But when COVID happened, and you saw how easily the country was divided
to the point where families and friendships were shattered over a vaccine or a mask,
that's when I went, oh, shit.
I just assumed that all the people in leadership positions were really good at their job,
but now we're seeing misinformation and division and all these things.
It's horrendous.
That is what I think is happening now in the fire service.
I put a post out a while ago.
I think it said, there is no greater cowardice than a leader that refuses
to advocate for the health of their people.
And that's what I'm seeing.
I'm seeing people that should never have been in that position
now being called upon to do what they've been paid for for 5, 10, 15, 20 years,
and they just don't have the balls to do it.
And so I'm seeing cowardice, plain and simple.
If you, like where I live now, have had multiple suicides of young people in the last four years,
and you still refuse to do anything about it, then you don't need to be in that position.
You need to step down and let someone with a set to actually make change, step in that position.
And if your city or council or county council members are doing the same thing,
then you need to educate the people in your town or county and get rid of them as well.
Because otherwise, you're just going to have the same thing over and over again.
So optimistically, we are a beautiful point where we can turn a corner and really force change,
but only with a later leader who's willing to actually make that happen and a, you know,
workforce, a fire department that will actually get behind that and force that.
But if we just put our heads back in the sand and say, oh, that will never happen.
They'll never go for it.
Then you're absolutely right.
But then you'll be the department that no one wants to work for because everyone around you has fixed it.
Yeah, I see a lot of people in my department where, so just to echo what you're saying,
in the next five years, all of our chiefs at my department are leaving except for two of them.
And that means that I mean, all of them, James, like every single chief assistant,
assistant chief and upward are gone, including the fire chief.
So, you know, that makes us look around and go, okay, we have five years to figure out who the team is going to be.
And I'm looking around and I'm asking and I'm trying to figure out and I'm an admin now,
which I'm supposed to go back in like June back to shift.
But, you know, I'm around all these guys and the succession plan is zero, you know,
and I'm like, man, I would love to like, let's work this like an NFL draft, you know,
start coaching people up, start getting the best of the best.
The problem is right now is the perception of admin is like, that's them and we're us, you know,
and everybody who you would really want to see in charge, they are kind of resistant to it.
They're like, I don't want to go, you know, to the dark side, man.
I just want to be one of the guys.
And it just underlines exactly what you're saying.
Like we need those people to be up there too, which is funny because when I brought that up,
the one of the only assistant chiefs that's going to be around,
the one of the only two assistant chiefs that's going to be around, he goes, perfect.
You should say, you know, like saying, okay, put your money in your mouth as asshole, you know,
and I'm like, oh, about that.
You know, so which was a compliment.
Like I don't want, I don't mean to say that like I'm bragging or anything.
That's not what I was saying, but I, he was just saying like, hey, if you see change, you want to
do stuff, why are you going back to shift?
And I, me, I'm like, I got promoted to captain so I could be a captain and I've worked zero days
as a captain.
I was like, I'd like to get some experience as an officer on an engine for a while before I,
you know, tuck, you know, just tuck it away.
So it'd be cool.
I'm halfway through.
Like I don't want to go to admin yet, but you know, I hope that I get to the point where I
know, I hope there are a lot of people that have these ideas for change that could do good stuff
and bring it up because a lot of the issues that I've taken, that I've taken issue with,
speaking of circle is from lack of leadership, whether it's mental behavioral health or physical
health, or just trying to understand recruitment and retention or just being a good leader.
Um, it's all from, it's all from a lack of like the right people in the right seats.
Absolutely.
Well, I want to kind of shift a little bit to make sure that we dive in and spend a lot of time on
the CBD conversation.
So as you progress through your career, talk to me about the, the injury that you have and then
how that ultimately leads you to trying CBD for the first time.
Yeah. I had foot surgery in 2018, 2018.
Yeah. It was six years. Yep. I was turning 30. Yeah. So I had, I had foot surgery in 2018
and, um, uh, I was, it wasn't really an injury. Um, I had a very tight Achilles as a kid
and I didn't notice it, but it was slowly deforming my foot.
So I had to get my foot rebuilt. So they had to, uh, break my, my, uh, my ankle in a few places
and infuse, uh, three joints. So, um, very painful procedure. So I had to take opiates, uh, and I
took them for, um, almost two months every day. So it was, um, it was hard stopping them and I
really screwed up my sleep. So when I tried to figure out how I could correct my sleep,
the options were just more medication. Um,
or to do something natural that I wasn't allowed to take, like, like THC or CBD. And, uh, that was
all I was finding online, you know, and we talked to my, when I talked to my doctor, he's like,
would you like Xanax, Ambien or Lunesta, you know, and I'm like, why do I have to correct the, uh,
the, the, the issue of, of lack of sleep with more medication, medication put me in this spot.
Well, when I started searching, I got really interested in CBD and a friend of mine recommended
it on the department. And, uh, he mentioned to take CBD for sleep. I, uh, I, I was trying to find
something that was safe for firefighters and nothing was coming up. So, uh, put me down this,
this other path. I started working, um, doing like website development, uh, and stuff. My fiance and
I have done that before. And, uh, I started doing it for this, this guy who had a CBD company. Um,
I learned a little bit of the ins and outs of the company and the brand. I didn't really like the
product. I went down my own route of making CBD, uh, generic, like just generic CBD, not for
firefighters. And I got very educated on the process. Well, over time, some research came out
to show CBD isolated does not cause failed drug tests. It was preliminary. I went very, very deep
into that. I actually called the guys at Johns Hopkins that did the study and talk to them about
it and, um, talk to lawyers. I did all my own stuff. And, um, I found a group of scientists in
Colorado that can isolate CBD to zero parts per billion in the refined product. And I, um,
get the wrong grading from them. We make everything here. And, um, so that's kind of like the really
abridged version, but the, uh, the, the push was my foot surgery, but what really has motivated me
and has kept this brand going and, and, uh, I guess been like the fuel on the fire is that
the counterfactuals, like there's so much stuff that has been, uh,
so much stuff that happens in the fire service that makes absolutely no sense to me for health
and wellness. And with this compound, first of all, doesn't produce a high and it's, you know,
um, it's not addictive and you can, there's no withdrawal. So you're like, all right,
they're worried about drug testing, but the same exact, um, I guess fears that, that are with,
uh, THC are applied to Xanax as well, or any Benzo, I should say stays in your urine for a month.
THC and Benzos, you can't tell active intoxication with it. THC and Benzos, right? Um, there is no,
uh, sobriety test to say, did you take this today? Or did you take this, you know, three days ago or
two weeks ago or whatever THC and Benzos, and yet one of them, you can have a prescription for me,
an active firefighter and it has withdrawal symptoms and it's very deadly. If you know,
addictive. Uh, and I was like, w what in the hell are we doing with both of these things? Um, so
then it just became more mission driven for the entire fire service because it changed my sleep
forever. And, um, I'm 36 now and I feel in better health than I ever have, uh, way better than when
I was in my twenties. I've also prioritized like proper nutrition and I've prioritized working out
and it's a holistic approach. It's not this one thing, but you know, in general, I look at it like
the lack of, you know, priority on this stuff is, is what, um, is what is, is the biggest motivating
factor for the day to day, because I think we're, we're just missing the, we're, we're, we're missing
the forest for the trees here. Your origin story is the same as mine. I had a meniscus tear, um,
and was on opiates. I think it was my second one, I believe, which was uber painful. The guy,
the surgeon told me that my meniscus was kind of stuck between my tib fib and my femur and he had
to like crank on my leg to get it out. Um, so yeah, the bruising and the pain was, was pretty brutal,
but I remember I got, I think it was like, uh, I don't think it was even two weeks. I forgot
10 days and then I refilled it once and I had Dr. Gregory Smith on the show, who's a pain physician
in LA and he had a company or has a company called red pill medical. And he sent me some CBD, zero
THC CBD. Awesome. And, uh, I literally, I remember posting a picture again, it's gone now on Instagram
of the prescription torn up and then a side of the thing, a CBD next to it. And then we're talking,
this has to be seven, six, seven years ago. So very similar to when you had yours. And I was just,
I was amazed. And again, he, he sent me the mass spectrometry of the, you know, each batch that we
were taken to prove that there was no THC in there. Um, and so I had the same exact thing. And even
with the sleeping pills, when you, when you actually learn about sleeping medication, you're
not sleeping, you're unconscious, you know, only natural products can create real sleep. Those,
those, uh, you know, prescription sleeping pills, you are not getting that restorative sleep. You're
never getting into that deep, deep sleep, which is why, um, I think it's Benadryl, for example,
they did a study and people that took that every single night had the same ill effects as, as us,
you know, people that don't sleep every night. So you might think you're asleep, but you're not
actually sleeping properly with those. Whereas CBD, you're actually getting into a deep restorative
sleep, especially when you're off shift. Yeah. I haven't read that Benadryl and I want to look
that up that, uh, I love seeing stuff like that. And that, that's all I'm trying to do. And I,
I, um, I've had conversations with, um, physicians and, um, one, I had a conversation with a
psychiatrist that wasn't a big fan of what I'm doing because, um, this person said, you have to
understand the reason you're not sleeping first. And I said, totally agree. But with all due respect,
I know the reason I'm not sleeping. I work a 24 hour shift. So, um, when we can take the, the,
when we, we should start the conversation by saying we do a very unnatural job and we're creating
unnatural, um, circumstances and environments for our brain and body. And the answer to that should
not be create more, uh, or solve that problem with more unnatural stuff. How do we get back to balance?
And, um, you know, um, there are certain things like, you know, that are debatable, right? Like
people have, uh, made the debate that, that, um, high doses of melatonin can be good.
Testosterone replacement therapy can be good. You know, I don't know where I stand on that stuff.
I'm not educated enough, but I do know that, um, in, in, I've become a very big consumer of CBD
research. Um, the overall health, um, profile, safety profile of CBD is extremely high, uh,
compared to almost any other compound. There are no long-term effects. Um, and it's been studied
for decades. I studied it in kids, I studied it in adults. Um, it's, it's got all of, uh, the upsides
that you would want in restoring your circadian rhythm. Um, and more research comes out, like
the biggest one and the most important one that I always try to tell firefighters, which I know you
heard me talking about at Beaver Creek was we learned that the brain's circadian rhythm, the
master clock is set by cannabinoids. Um, and this is a very interesting development because
that part of your brain called the super chiasmatic nucleus or the SCN, the SCN, uh, has these,
these components in it that say, what is daytime? What is nighttime? When should you get tired?
And when should you be awake? Well, they get jacked up with light. So if you're up all night,
you know, those, those hormones are completely off. So cannabinoids are at an all time low when
you're sleep deprived. They're at an all time high when you're in a sleeping state. Um, if they go
backwards, how do you correct that? Well, if you ask any sleep expert, they'll say, uh, and they
uh, any for an hour of disrupted sleep, you need several days of proper sleep to recover from it,
which basically means if you work a 30 year career, you're going to be in 30 years of
sleep deprivation. There's no way to restore it. The best shift is the 24 72 to try to recover from
those. Um, because it allows them those time off in between shifts, but it, you know, ultimately,
uh, to correct that circadian rhythm, it's either take several months off or quit the fire service.
So, you know, what we're trying to do is just be advocates for the us fire service to say,
this is a way to naturally correct that part of the SCN that gets disrupted without having to
put in a bunch of chemicals or drugs that are addictive and have withdrawal symptoms.
I had Paige Figgey on the show. Uh, her daughter, Charlotte was, uh, really the origin story of CBD
as we know it today, at least, and I'm sure it's been used for millennia. You know, we, we tend to
turn our back on the ancient wisdom that surrounds psychedelics and CBD and acupuncture and all the
things that have worked for a long time. Um, but, uh, you know, you listen to her, she was at death
store and it wasn't THC in this particular case, it was pure CBD and she saved her life and she had
years and years and years, you know, of, you know, full life again until she actually passed away
from, uh, she got these horrendous seizures through kind of febrile seizures. And when COVID
came through, she actually had a febrile seizure and she passed away in her sleep. But I think she
was a, an infant when she, or was a toddler, at least when, when she had this initially,
she lived to be nine years old and she was at death store when she gave her the CBD initially. So,
you know, there's so much evidence to show, you know, that THC specifically with pediatric
seizures, they've shown a lot, you know, obviously with cancer patients, when they lose their, uh,
their, their, uh, appetite, excuse me. I mean, there's over and over and over and over again,
but CBD specifically, there are so many things that it does so well without the THC at all,
which is why zero THC is such a, an important product for the fire service. So for people
listening, you know, kind of just unpack the difference between CBD and marijuana. And let's
kind of go back to, you know, the, the, uh, elementary levels so we can then build on it.
Um, the basic, the most basic thing to think about is that CBD is most, um,
prominent in the hemp plant. It's not, uh, from marijuana. And, um, what it is, is a compound
in the family called cannabinoids. It's non-psychoactive. It doesn't make you high.
THC is also a cannabinoid, but it's like its cousin. It does make you high. Um, and it, it, uh,
will cause a failed drug test. So that's the other side of the, the issue with firefighters.
These two compounds are the most prominent cannabis compounds in hemp and in marijuana.
Um, CBD is more prominent in hemp and THC is more prominent in marijuana. So they're very closely
related plants. And at the outset, they look, uh, the same and smell the same, but the inner
workings are very different. When you want to use CBD, um, I'm sorry, when you want to make CBD,
they use the hemp plant and they try to extract all the CBD out of it into, you know, an elixir
or a powder, um, something like that. And, um, THC is just a natural by-product. So a lot of times,
uh, that THC gets kind of, um, extracted and kept and they use it and resell it, you know,
and so, uh, a lot of people associate CBD with like marijuana or like going to a head shop or,
you know, they see like the big pot leaf and they put CBD on it and that's,
it's a misnomer. That's really not accurate. Um, CBD is very different from THC in its, uh,
effect, like the, the way it doesn't make you high, but also in its properties of inflammation.
So CBD is a potent anti-inflammatory. THC is not. THC doesn't really help inflammation. CBD
increases overall REM sleep. THC disrupts REM sleep. So they're kind of push and pull. Um,
there are things that THC does great. Uh, it's way better at, uh, pain relief, um, for actual
interruption of pain receptors. It's better than THC. It's better than CBD is, uh, but for
inflammation, you know, which most of us have to deal with chronically, uh, CBD does reduce that.
So the most important thing to remember is that CBD is not weed. It's not from weed. Um, it's from
hemp. And even though they look and smell similar, they are very different from a legal standpoint.
Um, and they do have different properties. They are like, like I'd say, push and pull, uh, CBD is
more of an inflammatory and a, uh, anti-inflammatory and a sleep aid and THC is more of a pain reliever.
It seems like the standard kind of percentage of THC that's in a regular CBD tincture is
0.3%. Um, I know there was some stronger ones. Charlotte's web sent me some a while ago and, uh,
I'll tell you a funny story. There was what I thought was basically one more dose left in a
bottle. So I ended up just not using the little dropper, but I just chugged it. I have a super
low tolerance to CHC and I accidentally got high for like the rest of that day. It was done. It
was shot. So yes, there is, there is a danger of getting regular, even clean, you know, Charlotte's
web is a very clean, trustworthy, um, CBD, but yeah, when there is that element, you do have to be
careful as the first responder conversely. And this is where I think it's so important to
storytell like red pill, like Charlotte's web does have a zero THC line as well. Like rescue one CBD,
when you absolutely guarantee that there is no THC in it, therefore you are safe because they
are not testing for CBD in a blood test. You know, it'd be like, I was told we would be like
testing for red blood cells. Like we have cannabinoids in us. I know it's exogenous, but
you know, you're testing for something that naturally occurs in the body. Um, so talk to
me about that differentiation and how have you been able to, uh, gain confidence from people
that your product is safe because that fear of failing a workplace drug test is clearly one of
the biggest stigmas when you come to this conversation. That is everything. Um, and
you know, uh, to start, I should say Charlotte's web is the CBD company. They are the original.
They've established what quality is and they, uh, like no other CBD company would even be here if
it wasn't for the work that the Stanley brothers did. Um, so like everybody owes them a debt of
gratitude that's in this industry. Um, however, they do not, uh, make a truly THC product, THC
free product. And in their marketing material, they'll tell you THC free is guarantee is a, uh,
their level is 0.02% or less. So they can allow it to 0.02% THC in their THC free products. And
that's the industry standard because it's very, very hard to refine THC out to a smaller number
than that. Um, I've seen it done several times. I've toured facilities around the country and I've,
I've learned what this process takes and it's very expensive and intricate. Um, so I understand
when most of the country doesn't really care about failing a drug test or having THC in there. So,
um, what we had to do because that's the industry standard, separate ourselves.
And the only way to do that, I had to, I have to give my fiance all the credit. Um, if you ever
meet May, you'll, uh, you'll understand how I also have so much drive cause she's like, she's a force
in nature. She's awesome. And, uh, she asked me probably the most important question. She was like,
if you were, if you were a firefighter and you didn't own this company and it's not a THC,
and another firefighter started rescue on CBD, would you trust him? Would you trust him to take
his CBD? And I said, no. And she was like, okay, what would you have to do? What would he have to
do to gain your trust? I was like, how's he going to prove it? Right. So we're like, okay, well,
let's test it. Okay. Well, what if he thinks that you didn't test every bottle or that you skipped
one? I'm like, well, we'll, uh, we'll give him a drug test in his order. Right. So we put little
drug tests in the order. When you, when you take the product at home, you get a little drug test
with you so you can see for yourself. Like, okay. Well, what if that, uh, what if he doesn't trust
that drug test? So now we've actually gone to the third step and this is really exciting because
I think we're supposed to get the actual announcement tomorrow. Might be even today. Uh,
our CBD, uh, was used in a study with the university of Maryland and Arcadia university
for the last year. It's been going on for a year and we've been taking firefighters
from around the country and they've been using our product. And then they submitted urine samples
to the universities for lab analysis. So they perform a urinalysis dipstick and they test their
urine to prove that isolated CBD does not cause a field drug test if you isolate it properly.
So, uh, initially it was like, okay, well let's lab test it. Like, yeah, anybody can lab test.
How do they trust you to giving the drug test in the box, which my buddy Joe gave me that idea.
I always say I'm going to give him credit. And then, uh, all the way up to saying, well,
if you don't want to trust the CBD guy, trust the scientists at Arcadia and university of Maryland.
Um, other than that, man, it's getting out in front of people and just saying it and talking
to people and answering the questions, showing them the process of how we make things because,
um, the, the reputation of the CBD industry is that's the wild west. I mean, there's no regulation.
Um, you can buy the stuff in a gas station. You have no idea what you're getting.
So, um, me putting my face out there saying, I'm an active duty firefighter. I'm still working.
I get randomly drug tested three times a year and, um, I'm putting my reputation on it. And we've
had thousands of firefighters use it over the years helps. Uh, I think that's what did it because
like the first year we went to FDIC, I was like, man, I don't know if we're going to even be able
to give this stuff away. And, uh, it wasn't that well accepted and this will be my fourth year
going. And last year we had a line, you know, I mean, it's just the amount of acceptance and
understanding and people willing to take a second look at it and seeing us there, we had people
come up and say, Hey, I've seen you here years before. If you sucked or you caused a field drug
test, I'm sure you wouldn't come back. So it's gotta be something to that. So I think it's a
combination of those things, but we're trying to just hit everything. Um, I want to be very
scientific about it. Um, and I also want to, you know, just kind of put, put my neck out there and
say, uh, I'm, I'm the person who's trying to, um, take all the risk and show you that it's safe.
When you did the interview with Jim last year, um, you talked about, there was a study you were
hoping to do. You'd gone to the IFF for funding. Um, did that funding come through? No. And this
is the study. Um, it, I, I tried to ask around, um, and I went through local channels and I was
repeatedly like ignored. Um, and I didn't go any higher. I, if I, if I really wanted to put my foot
on the gas, I could have gone to, um, uh, so a friend of mine, Stephanie white, she writes for
fire engineering. She's, um, she does the five after midnight podcast. She, uh, she's a, um,
union executive in Virginia. She worked for Fairfax County and she was, uh, uh, she was like,
Hey, you can come up to, you know, the, um, I can't remember the damn name of it, but it's where,
you know, where all the union leaders get together every year and, uh, you can make motions to,
to ask for things. It's where people get funding for stuff. And she's like, let's go do that.
At the time, uh, Dr. Heather Harris, um, from Arcadia university, I got put in contact with her
and this woman is the premier senior foremost expert on forensic science, uh, when it comes
to drug testing in the country. Um, she testifies, uh, for, for like big court cases. She's been on
Netflix. She was on this really cool special called how to fix a lab scandal. Um, and she, uh,
she's, she's got this amazing reputation and she wanted to do the study for us.
So I didn't need the funding anymore. And they were so excited about the study, you know, uh,
because it hasn't been done before. Um, so it would help her career as well. So her and her
PhD student, um, the, she is a professor at, uh, associate professor, I think at Arcadia
and just colleagues at university of Maryland. They were like, just, they're like, okay,
you have to do all the legwork. You have to get the participants, you have to do the paperwork,
you have to submit the stuff. Uh, we will run the tests and we'll get it published. So, um,
but they're presenting it this week at a conference in New Jersey, which is super cool. Um, so I'm
waiting to get the zoom meeting cause I want to watch it. Um, but it's, uh, it's first of its kind.
Uh, the IFF is aware of the study, so I'll bring it to them once it gets actually published, but
yeah, I didn't, I didn't at a local level, I, I was ignored quite a bit.
The reason I asked that people, when it comes to 24 72, they're all, but can you send me some studies?
I'm like, there aren't any because the fire service hasn't done any on shift work. You know,
I can send you a bunch on smooth ball versus, you know, combination nozzle or, you know,
you insert thing here, but no, when it comes, and even if you look at the cancer studies,
there's no conversation about sleep deprivation, a known carcinogen when it comes to the cancer
studies either. So the reason I asked that obviously a very loaded question is this is what I found
when it comes to the wellness point of view. There's a handful of studies, but they're all
always in these very myopic areas. I don't know if there's a specific entity that's funding them for
another reason, but you know, when people come to me and go, Oh, show me the data, like I can't. And
that in itself speaks volumes, you know, we have to just reverse engineer. Like I said before,
we are in a crisis now doing it this way. Well, then if we're going to sit in a lab,
well, the hypothesis is then if we change it around the other way, things will get better.
That's the only study we have is a 50 long year, most churnal study or longitudinal study on how
to kill a firefighter. So now if we do the opposite, then we'll have healthy firefighters again,
but it is important for people to know, like people are using their initiative, trying to bring some
of these things to light and getting zero support from these organizations that we paid for a long
time, whether it's unions, whether it's chiefs conferences, whatever it is. And that needs to be
brought out into the front. Like, you know, the reason there's no data is because no one fucking
did anything or even worse, there was resistance to doing anything. So, you know, I'm not pointing
at a specific person within this, but collectively as a profession, as a union, we need to change
this. If there's not support for these proactive solutions to our problems, then why not? And how
do we fix it? I've heard we need more research so many times. And that was why I just chased it down
myself. But I think part of the problem with the study thing, and maybe we could talk on the side
a little bit, but I don't want to get myself in trouble. At a high level with union leadership
at the IFF, I know that there is a very real fear of messing with the schedule. And without
naming people or anything, it was explained that I think they're more worried about losing the 24
hour schedule in general. But whenever a local has to try to fight for something other than what their
current schedule is, it comes with a dangerous territory. So it's kind of like you're on your
own a little bit. And with that, that would be the same for research. And to be clear, I think the
IFF would love everybody to be on the 2472. I don't think they are afraid of that at all. I think
what they're afraid of is if they do these studies, they'll uncover maybe some issues with
sleep deprivation that we already know them to be true, but that cities will take that and weaponize
it and say, okay, then we're going to get away from a 24 hour shift and it'll go the exact opposite
that we want it to go. Whether that is true or not, or whether the data will even support that,
I don't think it would. But I think that's what they're afraid. It actually helped for the 2472,
but I think maybe that's what their fear is. I'm totally speculating. I don't think, I know
they've had talks at a high level where they're like, we can't ever lose a 24 hour shift.
Whether it's just what the guy's like, the tradition of it, the fact that people work
other jobs and stuff, I don't know, but that has definitely been talked about.
I always say if a freaking idiot can come across the pond and become a firefighter and find the
people with the answers, then what the fuck? Here's the thing. I can tell you from all the
sleep experts and the military, every single branch, the sporting world, if you look at
people who work 12 hours, ER doctors and nurses, corrections officers, police officers, are they
pillars of health? No. Your ER nurses are a hundred pounds overweight. They're at the back smoking
while they're dealing with people dying of lung cancer and diabetes. It's insane. It's because
that environment doesn't do them any justice and they also should have more rest and recovery
between the shifts if we're going to ask them to work a night shift. The 24 hour clock, just as you
alluded to earlier, the circadian rhythm, we still get up in the morning. We still work all day and
then our disrupted sleep or no sleep at night means that we have to play catch up. But the
advantage of living in a house, a fire station, is that we don't have to go to bed at night,
go to bed in the day and then work all through the night. It's different. The dispatch is another
perfect example of 12s. So no, if you had the guts to actually just do the fucking research,
you would find all these entities would say, no, the 12s aren't the right answer.
But they're not asking the real question, which is why a firefighter is working 56 hours a week.
That's the real question because 24s are great. You just put an extra 24 in the middle to make it
a 42 hour work week and therefore you have another day to do your side hustle. As long as you're just
not working through the night. Don't do an ambulance. Don't work in an ER, you know, but this is
what's crazy is that every time I hear a rebuttal, there's no fucking sense to it whatsoever. It's
complete ignorance. So it goes back to cowardice. If they just say, oh, it's too hard, then we'll
just keep burying fire fighters. Fine. Get the bagpipes ready. There's another one coming.
It takes a set of fucking balls to actually say, look, the way we've done it is wrong. Oh,
and by the way, the Northeast everyone admires, we've worked a 42 hour work week. We should advocate
for everyone else, but that's not the case. So, you know, it really turns my stomach because we
spend, I mean, how much, you know, collectively from over a million firefighters paying union dues,
how much financially is there going to that? And you can't even address the most basal thing that
a union is made for a work week. You know, so I call bullshit on that. I mean, that's just
fucking cowering and not stepping up and truly advocating for your people.
Yeah, that's true. We have to remember that is what the union was founded on was the work week,
right? The 40 hour work week. And I knew that, I know they secure funding, like our union dues
just went up to the IFF for cancer research. And it was to research cancer in firefighters children,
like the effects of the fire service line, all good initiatives. I mean, I'm all for it. But I
know that to your point, I think you can you can allocate money to go do that. This guy who's the
medical director for the IFF now Danny Wu, Dade County fireman for a long time retired, became a,
I don't know if, do you know Danny? Do you know? I don't think so. I might be wrong though, but it
doesn't ring a bell. He was a Dade County firefighter for a long time. So like South of us
and was on the task force that went to Katrina. He was at 9-11, became a doctor after he was a
firefighter. And I think he's recently put up there and he's trying to change shit up. I mean,
he's, people speak really highly of him, but he was the first person, I know Ed Kelly as well,
like trying to do, I don't know Ed Kelly, I'm saying I know Ed Kelly is trying to do like a
lot of stuff to bring the awareness to the PFAS and the gear. And Dr. Wu was doing some research
in that. He's, I've talked to him on the phone. He's aware of the study I was trying to do. He
loves it. And he's like, bring this to my attention. He's very pro cannabis guy, which is crazy.
I said he's pro psychedelics, pro cannabis. He just wants to have research done and stuff. And
obviously, so I hope like that could be something that he would tackle because I know with his
contacts, he's got to know people that can do sleep studies. And this doesn't seem like something
that's extraordinary to do. If they can do it in the military. And I know Dr. Breger, Alison Breger,
she does it with special ops in the military, special forces in the military.
We can do it with some firefighters. Well, we don't need it. This is the point. We don't
even need to do it. They've already done it. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. What's so crazy. Apples to,
you know, crab apples almost exactly the same. You know, just go to the military, say, hey,
can I see your sleep studies? Yeah. What you guys doing are insane. Tell me about this 4896. Don't
even start. You guys are no wonder you're all dying. Here's the information. All right, get on with
it. So what's, how do you say spell his last name? Uh, W H U. W H U. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Um,
um, yeah, I'm going to double check that right now. But yeah. Uh, yeah. W H U. Yep. Danny Wu.
Um, yeah, he's a, um, that was the doctor. Yeah. He's, um, he's, uh, he's, he's, he seems like a
standup guy. I mean, um, I hope that he has those things, you know, aligned properly. Uh,
I don't know what it's like going from being a firefighter to being,
you know, in, in the top executive board of the IFF. That's, uh, that's a big change, but, um,
you know, they do have the money and they do have the political power. So, you know, these things,
you mean not even research, just bringing awareness to it to say the IFF is going to
set an initiative in the next 10 years. We want to see 50% of the departments in the United States
be at 24 72. We're going to work our asses off to make that happen. You know, and like, can we do
more? I don't know. I don't know. Should you go for 90%? I don't know. But, um, yeah, that's a, uh,
that's, that one seems like if you're talking about recruitment and retention and you put that out
there, that that's the initiative we want to bring this 42 hour work week to people, all of a sudden
places where people were like, I'd love to be a firefighter, but I feel like they don't really
try to look out for your health and wellness. That's a big change, you know, in a positive way.
That could be great. 100%. Yeah. No, it sounds, I mean, it's the thing, the whole point of this
podcast isn't just to talk shit is to find the people with the answers. And I found so many,
but there is no research in the fire service. And even Joel Billings who I had on, who, you know,
I always say very nice guy, volunteer firefighter. He said he never worked overnight as a volunteer.
He ends up going into research instead, um, does a study on a local department that in his words
ran less than one call a night shows that the 48 96 is better than the 24 48 in that particular case
and the country runs with it. And you have Seattle and all these, you know, guys just getting
murdered every night working this insane thing. And the only benefit they actually found was that
second 24 hours, they didn't have to get up at five in the morning to drive to the firehouse.
So they got a little bit more sleep if they weren't running calls at that moment,
but that's simply remedied by changing your start time to 11 or 12, you know, like midday.
Um, and then all of a sudden, you know, you get to wake up in your own bed, have breakfast with
your kids and your family, kiss them as they go to school and work, then go to the station. And if
you're on shift and you got murdered, we don't have to get up at seven o'clock because the dispatch
does the all call. They let you sleep and you get up at nine or 10. And then when you are relieved,
you're not a liability on the road ready to kill someone because you're so damn tired. So
we can literally take the one, you know, minute benefit that the study showed and apply it to
every single fire department just by shifting that. But the 48 96, you know, a little knowledge is a
dangerous thing. People that got this, I guess it kind of went off like wildfire, completely
misunderstood. I mean, no different than studies that showed that cigarettes were healthy for you
back in the fifties. You know, you got to look at who's doing it, you know, and Joel, again,
innocently, he wasn't trying to hoodwink anyone, but he had no idea how it was going to be taken.
As he said himself, this isn't made for a busy department, you know, and even I would argue,
no department, you know, in, in 2024 should be working 48 hours straight. But, um, yeah, so,
you know, it's a great example of even that, you know, that there's no studies done that particular
one ended up doing way more harm than good. People don't realize it, but it is, and it's through no,
no fault with the researcher at all. It's the fact that people just didn't do their due diligence
looking into what this was, what were the kind of, um, elements that contributed to it and would
it apply to their fire department? The answer is no on, you know, 95% of the departments around
the country. Yeah. And also people always bring their biases in. So when somebody's looking for
an answer, they'll cherry pick whatever they want. If there's only one study and there's nothing to
the contrary, then they're going to use it as leverage for, you know what I mean? Like that's,
that, that, that's the negative of it. Uh, you're asking a bunch of firefighters to be scientific
about something, you know, at a top level. And I've, I've never seen, um, a lot of most times I go
to health and wellness stuff. I don't see a lot of chiefs in the audience, you know, I don't. So
that's part of the problem is a lot of preaching to the choir, which is great because of the
grassroots, you can bring it upward. But, uh, you know, a lot of times that people that really,
really need to hear it, of course, aren't the ones that are going to be there. Absolutely.
What about the FDA and CBD? I know Charlotte's web and a lot of these companies that have the
3% or 0.3% THC and their products, there's been all this kind of opposition and partly, I think,
because of the Delta rate and some of these synthetics that have come out, but it's really
shot the, uh, the good companies, the good CBD companies in the foot with you doing zero THC.
Has that affected you at all? Or are you actually able to just go about business as usual because
there isn't that element in your compound? Yeah, we're business as usual. Um, the, the FDA
does not regulate CBD at all. The regulatory bodies that CBD falls under is the department
of agriculture. Uh, and that's just because hemp is a crop. And then the DEA, if, and only if
your CBD goes above 0.3% because then it's not hemp anymore, it's marijuana. So the only definition
now that the government uses for hemp versus marijuana is a cannabis plant, whether it's
sativa or indica or hybrid, that has more than 0.3% THC in it. So, um, if you grow a cannabis sativa
plant and it's got 0.3% in it, it's hemp. But if you grew that same cannabis sativa plant
and the one next to it had 10% or I'm sorry, uh, 0.5% THC and it's above that legal limit,
they'll consider that marijuana has to be destroyed. So, um, you know, that's the,
that's the regulation side of it, but all of the Delta products, which I don't know if you want
to get into that, but the Delta products, you know, they're, they're synthetic cannabinoids
and they're like, okay, well, we'll change this compound. It'll be Delta A THC. And then they have
Delta 10 coming out. So that's the regulation side of it. And then the other thing that I
want to talk about is the other side of it. So, um, I know that there's a lot of people who are
really upset about this. I know that there's a lot of people who are like, oh, I'm going to
go with Delta A THC. I'm going to go with Delta A THC. And then there's a lot of people who are
like, well, we'll change this compound. It'll be Delta A THC. And then they have Delta 10 coming
out. And then they have, uh, HHC and THC. Oh, and they all have very similar intoxicating effects,
but they're not Delta nine. So they just, basically when they wrote this law,
they painted themselves into a corner of a loophole. So we don't have any issues with that.
Even in California right now, the law, which a lot of other States made may adopt says,
uh, there can't be any detectable amounts of THC in the product whatsoever. So it covers all forms
of THC. We're already fine with that. Um, which I'm against that by the way, I don't, their,
their argument is that kids are getting it. My argument would be then, you know, uh, crackdown
on the, the businesses that are selling it to kids don't, you know, because one person shits their
bed or shits their pants. Everybody's got to wear a diaper. Like that doesn't make any sense.
Um, because for, you know, for example, like Charlotte, um, very, very high doses of CBD,
and she was the catalyst for the, the, uh, all the pediatric research that was done in seizures
by the company, um, GW pharmaceuticals. So Epidiolex is the only FDA regulated medication,
uh, that is CBD and it's just CBD and cherry flavoring and Epidiolex, um, is a pediatric
seizure med. They did all the studies on it. Um, all, most of what we know of how CBD works in
the body was done off of that done by the FDA, three phases of, of FDA trials. And, um, but
you had to take like 20 milligrams per kilogram, which is a lot. And, uh, you can't, you can't
find that in dispensaries, those high, high, high CBD doses with very little or no THC are only
found by CBD companies. So it's a reg, it's like, uh, a regulation that I think had good intentions,
but it's actually going to end up kind of hurting people. Um, although we're kind of on the side of
that. What about the, uh, the quality of the hemp that you use in your CBD? I remember a page talking
about, um, hemp is used for oil spills and some other things where it's a great kind of sponge as
a plant to pull, you know, toxins out of the earth. But the danger again is there's no oversight in
what kind of hemp is being used for the manufacturer of CBD. So how do you, uh, ensure you get good
quality hemp? Yeah. Industrial hemp has been around for that purpose. Uh, it's called the mob
crop. I mean, they pull PFAS out of soil with it. Uh, they're doing a lot of, uh,
they use it at Chernobyl to get radiation out of the soil. It's crazy. So it will pull anything
out of there. Um, we only use, um, uh, organically grown hemp in Colorado. So, um, everyone always,
you know, points to Colorado. It really is Colorado and Kentucky. Um, and now it's funny
enough starting to become South Dakota are really great places to grow hemp. You can see it in
my Fellowship Tips. Um, I've got some気 units out of there. Um, we've got some world super
breaker not too much, um, and the shrimp not too much. And this one, you have the
killer ky Hydrochlorone and節目. The
Colorado, that's a very easy thing to find.
You know, there's so much rocky area
that people don't want to build on
that you can find areas that are far from highways.
So yeah, we use organically grown hemp in Colorado
and we contract with these scientists,
this specific group that can extract it
to our specifications.
What about efficacy?
Again, there's many like Thorne, for example,
is one of my sponsors.
And when you look at a multivitamin,
it might have, and this is not with them,
but with a cheap one,
it might say it's got whatever is in there,
but it doesn't mean the body is gonna absorb that amount,
that many micrograms or milligrams.
And Thorne, as it's developed,
there's where that's what you will actually be absorbing.
Obviously, everyone's metabolism is a little different,
but that's what you should be absorbing.
So talk to me about the, I guess for lack of a better term,
false advertising in some of the products out there
and how you're able to ensure the efficacy of your product.
Yeah, what we have to understand is bioavailability of CBD
is relatively low.
So taking it properly is what matters.
And then really the big thing is making sure
the proper amount is on the label.
So the industry standard is to lab test once a year per batch.
So you could have 10 batches,
but if you just have one lab test
that shows that it's been done in that year,
then that's all you really have to prove with it.
So if you buy a bottle that says 1000 milligrams on it,
it may not actually have 1000 milligrams.
So you're already starting off behind the eight ball
with you paid for 1000, maybe there's only 700 in there.
You can't dose it properly.
So you don't absorb much of that.
Then if it's not made properly,
a lot of fats, waxes, and even part of the plant chlorophyll
gets left behind, it doesn't want to absorb well.
So not refining those products out
leads to low bioavailability as well.
So our ultra refined version inside an MCT oil,
especially under the tongue,
absorbs much better than a lower quality product.
The refinement process is important.
And then there's also the fact that you have to ensure
that the proper amount is on there, especially with sleep.
There's a really crazy biphasic effect with CBD.
If you take less than 25 milligrams,
you're not gonna sleep well.
You'll actually have an awake promoting,
alert promoting feeling.
So they discovered this in animals and in humans.
So I've had people call me and say, hey, I took CBD
and I slept like shit.
It was the worst sleep I've ever had.
I'm like, how much did you take?
They're like half a dropper.
That's only, ours is 30,
our lower one at the time was 33 milligrams.
I'm like, you took 16.
I was like, that's a no-no.
You didn't follow any of the directions.
So the point is with ours,
we make sure that it's ultra refined,
that we have the proper amount on the bottle
and that we've maximized it so that it can be as bioavailable
as CBD can be.
Beautiful.
So for people listening,
let's talk about what you offer
because I wanna give you this platform.
Cause I mean, again, I'm just such a huge fan of CBD.
I trusted it.
Actually, when I got into it,
I had transitioned out the fire service,
but I volunteered.
And so I'm like, well, perfect.
I'm gonna do this workplace drug test.
If I fail, it doesn't matter.
I'm a volunteer, so whatever.
But obviously that wasn't the case.
Cause again, it was also a zero THC product.
So talk to me about the different types that you offer
and then let's get into where people can find it.
We have a daytime and a nighttime formula.
The daytime formula is really,
people take it mostly for inflammation and for mood.
So CBD does have this cool effect on serotonin
where it kind of evens the mood out a little bit
by increasing overall endogenous serotonin.
So a lot of people take it to kind of help with anxiety
and to have that even keel feeling throughout the day,
but it is an anti-inflammatory.
So taking it chronically also helps with that stuff
from what research shows.
Obviously not in the stuff that's evaluated by the FDA,
but the research shows that.
Our nighttime version is called out of service
and it's designed to do exactly that.
We doubled the dose so that you can get to that 25,
that higher than 25 milligram mark with a lower cost.
So you could start that with only half a dropper.
So there's like 60 servings in that thing.
What we found that most people that are taking it for sleep
over time have to increase their doses.
And so it was getting expensive for people.
So we doubled the dose,
but we only increased the price by like 10 bucks.
We tried to keep it as low as possible.
And we added these things called terpenes in there
to make you feel tired.
Terpenes are naturally found in cannabis,
but we didn't get them from cannabis.
We extracted them from things like mangoes and hops
so that we can avoid the THC content as well.
So we've put a lot of science into the product.
I designed all of them myself.
I chose the terpene profiles myself,
but we contracted with people to extract this stuff
and just deliver it to us so we can mix it all up.
So that's the difference between the daytime
and the nighttime.
They do come in flavors, you know.
So sometimes people don't like,
cause it's just MCT oil, it's kind of weird for them.
So they want some flavor in there to help them leave it
under the tongue to absorb.
So there are flavors available.
And then we have a topical that's a local pain reliever,
which I'm very proud of the formula.
We had to really work for a long time to refine it.
And again, we make everything ourselves.
So it's got CBD in it, but it's got a capsicum
which is like the oil from hot peppers.
This is basically pepper spray.
So it creates a lot of warmth to help relax muscle tissue.
And then it's got a lot of arnica in it and that flower.
A lot of people in CrossFit use it
to help reduce soreness and bruising.
So with some menthol and the CBD in there,
those four, we call the core four,
those four ingredients are amazing for pain relief
and it works very, very quickly.
So whenever we go to conferences,
that's kind of the one I give out.
I'm like, hey, just put this on and walk around
and just come back.
I don't even have to do a sales pitch kind of thing.
But that is for short-term pain relief.
That doesn't help with sleep or anything like that.
The help with sleep and overall inflammation,
you have to ingest it.
That's where the oils come in.
So those are our main ones.
Just keep it simple.
But everything's on our website
and we shipped all 50 states.
What is the website?
Rescue1CBD.com, but it's one with the number one.
So I wanna get to some closing questions,
but let's just do one more opportunity
to educate the people listening that work in a profession
where they're required to do a workplace drug test
that your product will be safe for them.
The most important thing is lab testing
and we lab test at three different points.
So the first lab test gets done during manufacturing
to ensure that we've made it properly,
that the zero THC mark has been hit.
And when we say zero, we mean 0.000.
So that raw ingredient gets delivered to us as a powder.
It's an isolate.
And we have a lab test from the manufacturer,
from the scientists that we use that say,
this is at 0.000 milligrams of THC,
0.000% of THC in the raw kilo.
So then we lab test it again to make sure
that theirs matches up with ours.
But third party DEA registered lab
has nothing to do with us.
Once those two come back perfect,
then we make the product.
Once we make the product, we test it again.
And this time we're testing not just for the THC content
to be perfect, but we have to make sure
that it has a lack of lead contaminants, pesticides,
solvents, all that stuff, so it's gotta be a pure product.
And that me doing like my fireman math
didn't screw up the amount in the bottle as well.
So you're getting the amount that you paid for.
And again, it has to have 0.000% THC.
So we have to go to really specific labs
to get that number.
You have to be certified by the ISO
to have that sensitivity level set.
So not every lab can test down to the 0.000 mark.
So there's only a few in the country that do it.
So we have to take care in doing that,
vetting these labs, which we've done.
And I guess all I'm saying all this to underscore one point,
we have made, our team has made ourselves the gatekeeper
for the US Fire Service for making a quality product.
So the entire point of what we do
is so that we can be the advocates for the 0.000 THC
firefighters and first responders.
So, or anybody who needs to pass a drug test,
all of us that are on the team, except for my dad,
he's an electrician, but all of us on the team,
except my dad are active duty firefighters.
And all of us put our money where our mouth is.
We all take the product and we all get randomly drug tested.
So on top of that, we're getting the study
published here soon.
Hopefully by the end of the year,
it'll be published and peer reviewed,
which would be really cool.
But that is a multifaceted approach.
That question to answer it, I guess more directly
is we take a whole lot of steps to make sure
that every aspect of the process is covered,
to make sure it's your THC from start to finish.
Brilliant.
I just wanted to underline that because again, I know,
but I've been down a very,
not many people have spoken to Paige Figi
and heard Charlotte's story, for example.
So educating the people and just putting them at ease.
It's a storytelling again,
it's the same with the 2472.
It's debunking the myths.
This is your brain on drugs and all the other
ridiculous stuff that we were raised on
and getting people to, again,
like we talked about earlier, critically think.
So, all right, I wanna transition some closing questions.
So the first one I'd love to ask,
is there a book or are there books
that you love to recommend?
It can be related to our discussion today
or completely unrelated.
Yeah, one of the most powerful books I read,
it might just be because of the job I got into
in admin and it was very tough for me at the time,
but the wisdom of the bullfrog by Admiral McRaven.
People probably seen his video,
the YouTube video where he's talking about making your bed.
He wrote this book, it's very short
and it's about having a very specific outlook
on being a leader.
And sometimes you have to eat shit
and you have to like work a tough job
and how to have the appropriate mindset behind it.
That one I absolutely love.
And then the other one is the culture code
and it speaks for itself,
but I think everybody who's starting
the fire service should read it.
It's just about establishing and building culture
from high performing teams,
but he does these really cool in-depth dives
on people you wouldn't expect like bank robbers.
And then he has like, obviously like athletes
and stuff like that, but he does a little bit of everything.
Brilliantly written book, both of them really good.
Beautiful.
What about films and documentaries?
Oh man.
I'm like a huge comedy movie guy.
So like when you said film,
the first one that popped in my head is the movie
I'm with Gruber because especially for Firehouse movies,
I don't think there's anything better than that,
even though I catch a lot of shit for that.
You know, people think it's like so dumb,
but as far as like films,
one of my favorite films is Lucky Number Slevin.
I love that one.
It's not that many people know about it,
but it's a really, really good murder mystery,
who done it with a A-list cast
that kind of gets forgotten about.
Documentaries funny enough,
the one that I have probably watched the most
is Last Breath.
And it's like, it's not,
I don't know if you've seen that one, the diving one.
Yes, amazing.
Unbelievable.
And it's just because every time I watch it,
it gets my heart rate going through the roof
and trying to put yourself in that position.
I don't even wanna give it away,
but people should watch that one.
And sometimes I just wanna watch movies
just to shut my brain off.
So I don't have one that's like anything groundbreaking
or where you're gonna learn or change your whole life.
I just like, sometimes I just like to shut the brain off.
Yeah, those are important too.
Absolutely.
All right, well, the next question,
is there a person that you'd recommend to come
on this podcast as a guest to speak to the first responders,
military and associated professions of the world?
Yeah, aside from Danny Wu,
who I think would be awesome on here.
The other person I can really suggest,
I'm trying to think of who you haven't had on
because I believe you've had Dina Ali on here, right?
Yes, yeah, she'll be coming back on again though
because she's just about to release,
I think she just released her book yesterday.
Yes.
Yeah, she's a huge deal.
And you know, another interesting guy who I got to meet
was Brandon Stackpole, I don't know if you met Stack.
He's a recently retired firefighter from,
I believe Frederick County, Maryland,
not Frederick County, I'm gonna screw that,
Prince William County, Maryland.
And the guy has a crazy story, he's in the military.
He's been a huge proponent of THC and psychedelics.
So he has a podcast that he's on,
that it's called The Things We All Carry.
And he brings a lot of people on to talk about
some of those, I guess what would be fringe ideas
like psychedelics and marijuana,
but he also recently transitioned into retirement,
which has been early, like he was only on the job
like 12 or 13 years, which I mean, you know,
after that he did get hired late,
but he's just going down this really cool path,
I think is really cool where he's trying to transition
in that phase of his life.
And he's just an interesting cat, man.
He's got a cool story.
So I would say those two definitely,
Dr. Wu and Brandon Stackpole.
Yeah, Stack was on as well a while ago now.
I think he was on his show too.
So, but this is the thing, there's a thousand.
I know he interviewed you, yeah.
Yeah, wow, okay.
Yeah, Dr. Danny Wu, I hope he can bring in
some introspection.
I think there's like a veil a little bit
on what the IFF can and cannot study
or like, you know, how they do that.
I wish there was a little more transparency in it.
So it'd be cool if he got on here just to talk to the member,
you know, platform and talk to the membership,
like, hey, here's all the stuff we're doing
because it doesn't feel like it comes down our way.
No, no, I agree.
And this is the thing, it's not about casting blame.
It's just getting back to, you know,
what I would argue a union is supposed to do, you know,
which is fix the things, you know,
and all of us, you know, coming together.
Union means, you know, unity, not black union,
white union, female union.
I mean, that just, I hate that concept.
That means that we failed as a union
if we've got all these kind of splintering things.
You can have another group call that,
but I don't think you can use the word union
because, you know, it's like, you know,
having New York and not calling any of it New York.
This is just Harlem or this is just, you know,
for me, you failed.
All right, well then the very last question
before we reiterate where we can find you,
what you do to decompress?
Yeah, I don't do a good job.
And I think it's mostly because I'm in admin
and I have to come home and kind of start my second workday
because I still have to like package ship orders
and work with the team to just do my chores.
So when I was at my best, when I was at my best,
when I was on shift, I would do meditation
and yoga every single day.
And I do, I really like the practice of memento mori.
So you meditate on your own mortality
and you try to think of like you dying, unfortunately,
and not being here.
And then remembering that you have your whole life
in front of you and that you are gonna live
in appreciation of the fact that you are alive.
I started doing that after I read this book,
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, like his journal.
And I read that he did that and I was like,
that sounds really dark.
And I was like, that's depressing
and it's the exact opposite.
And I would start my morning doing that and meditating.
And man, I feel like that is something
I really should go back to just talking about it now.
But it taking that time for yourself in the morning
and just, you just live in appreciation.
That whole gratitude thing, that's how I would do it
is practicing gratitude and trying to,
keep the stress level down.
Because CBD is great and I love the way it makes me feel
and keeps my head even, but ultimately it's one part.
So you have to do the other stuff.
And then really it's taking time not working.
And that could be just, and it's always hanging out
with my fiance and my dogs, you know?
But that could just be sitting on the couch,
watching The Office, which is like my absolute favorite show
or watching a movie.
But honestly, if I'm sitting in the chair and just working,
you know, and my brain is going, going, going,
I just work, spawns more work.
So it's hard to do, but like getting on the calendar
and scheduling saying hard stop,
no more work right at this time.
And just dedicating it to just not doing anything.
Absolutely, beautiful.
All right, well then just to reiterate,
where can people find the website
and where can they find you on social media?
Rescue1CBD.com with the number one
and then Rescue1CBD on Instagram.
We are at the moment, Shadow Band,
and I think that's gonna be there forever, unfortunately.
I can't complain too much,
because we do still have a page.
We didn't get it completely shut down.
Unlike the ones with the spoke out.
Yeah, so I was like, man, I'm not gonna,
I hung up the phone with you earlier, man.
I was like, I'm not gonna complain
about our social anymore.
That's wild, that's so, that's terrible.
But the, if you search for Rescue1CBD,
you have to type everything in.
If you type in rescue, the number one, and CB,
we still won't pop up.
You have to type in the whole thing.
We don't really pop up much.
So find us on social there.
We do post a lot of stuff.
And myself or somebody on the team
is like really responsive on Instagram.
So you can reach us there.
Or if you just email support at Rescue1CBD,
again with the number one.
We'll get back to you quick.
Beautiful.
Well, John, I wanna say thank you firstly
for your flexibility earlier
when I was having to uneth that episode.
But more importantly, just for again,
being a trailblazer and getting this to our profession,
but obviously doing it in a way that it is actually safe,
not just trying to make a quick buck.
And then when everyone fails drug tests,
that bright and center, you'll know where to be found,
the opposite to put us at ease
and bring this amazing solution to this community.
Because as your psychiatrist said, yes,
there are underlying things that we also have to address.
You can't just take a pill or a tincture.
This is just one tool in the toolbox.
But I have found it's an incredibly powerful tool
that needs to be accessible to the first responders.
So I wanna thank you so much for being so generous
with your time and coming on
the Behind the Shield podcast today.
Thank you for having me, really.
I'll see you next time.