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Malta Still Hasn’t Awarded Any Cannabis Club Licenses

Editor’s note: This article was contributed by Johnny Green, Media and Content Director for the International Cannabis Business Conference.

Going into 2023, it appeared that Malta was poised to issue non-commercial cannabis club licenses in quick order. However, as we near the midway point of this year, the European nation has still yet to issue its first license.

Permitting non-commercial cannabis clubs was a key component of an adult-use legalization measure passed by lawmakers in Malta in late 2021. In addition to non-commercial cannabis clubs, adults 18 and over can carry up to seven grams of cannabis in Malta and cultivate up to four plants at their residences.

Club applications first became available in Malta nearly four months ago and while 26 applications have been submitted thus far, Malta’s government has yet to approve any of them.

Non-commercial cannabis club provisions

The head of Malta’s Authority for the Responsible Use of Cannabis Leonid McKay stated earlier this month that “just because we have 26 applications, it does not mean we will be granting 26 licences. There will be a rigorous vetting process.”

Each club license applicant must pay a €1,000 registration fee, as well as another €1,000 for the license itself for the first 50 members, if approved. For approved cannabis clubs — however many that proves to be — membership will be capped at 500 members.

The clubs cannot advertise, and they cannot ‘incite the use of cannabis.’ Additionally, clubs cannot be located within 250 meters of a school or ‘youth center.’
Adult citizens in Malta can only join one club at a time, the cannabis sold through the clubs must be labeled in a manner that ‘discourages cannabis use,’ and all packaging must include THC levels. Clubs that provide cannabis to members 18-20 years old must limit sales to products with capped THC levels.

Local banks provide reassurance

One thing that every non-commercial cannabis club will presumably need is a bank account, even though they are not permitted to generate profits. All revenue from club sales is mandated to be reinvested in the club’s efforts and to support club salaries.

While I suppose it’s possible to perform those functions without a bank account, financial tasks will obviously be much easier for clubs in Malta to perform with access to the nation’s financial system.

Thankfully, local banks, via the head of Malta’s Authority for the Responsible Use of Cannabis, provided reassurances earlier this month that they will indeed work with approved club applicants. Securing banking access was a vital component that the government was waiting for prior to approving licenses, yet it’s still unclear what other facets may be delaying approvals.

Malta was the first European country to pass a national adult-use legalization measure and remains the only country to have done so on the continent. It’s an important fact that international observers need to keep in mind, as it is extremely difficult to be the first country to do something when it involves cannabis commerce. However, patience appears to be running out in Malta and any further delays only benefit the unregulated market.

The expected licensing of Malta’s non-commercial cannabis clubs will be a major discussion topic at the International Cannabis Business Conference later this month in Berlin.

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Why Is The Czech Republic Banning CBD Products?

Editor’s note: This article was contributed by Johnny Green, Media and Content Director for the International Cannabis Business Conference.

Policymakers in the Czech Republic recently expressed a strong desire to legalize cannabis for adult use, building on the momentum occurring across the border in Germany. Germany is trending towards adult-use legalization and the Czech Republic has expressed its own plans for legalization. However, the Czech Republic’s Ministry of Agriculture recently announced that it will be instituting new restrictions on CBD products, which is leaving many international cannabis observers scratching their heads.

“The State Agricultural and Food Inspection … is preparing measures of a general nature, which will prohibit the marketing of cannabidiol (CBD), other cannabinoids obtained from hemp, and products containing these substances. According to the EU, food with CBD cannot be marketed in any EU country. Their effects on human health have not been sufficiently scientifically investigated,” a recent Ministry of Agriculture press release (translated from Czech to English) stated.

Previous messaging

Back in October 2022, the Czech Republic’s top drug policy expert seemed optimistic about his country’s chances of passing an adult-use legalization measure in the near future.

“At the moment, there is a political consensus for me to create this proposal for the regulation of cannabis, a substance which is illegal at the moment. We want to regulate it with the help of the market and we believe that this regulation will be more effective than the current ban,” Czech drug policy leader Jindřich Vobořil told members of the press at the time.

Immediately following a legalization presentation to Germany’s federal cabinet by Health Minister Karl Lauterbach in October 2022, Vobořil posted on his Facebook page that “Germany and the Czech Republic [will] go to a regulated market at the same time.”

“Today, Germany announced through the mouth of its Minister of Health that it is launching the legislative process. It won’t be quite the free market, as some would expect. For example, colleagues from Germany talk about the allowed amount, they do not have cannabis clubs that we are supposed to. I’m pretty sure I want to hold on to cannabis clubs until my last breath. I find this model very useful, at least for the first years.” — Vobořil, in the October 26, 2022 Facebook post

“However, we are in live contact with our colleagues from Germany and have repeatedly confirmed that we want to coordinate ourselves, even practically by consulting each other on our proposals. I will also want their expert assessment of our proposals, which we will prepare in the above mentioned working expert group,” Vobořil also stated in his Facebook post.

Conflicting goals?

In addition to Vobořil’s comments late last year, government officials in the Czech Republic indicated mere weeks ago that they will be pursuing an adult-use legalization model that involves a consumer registry. And while pursuing a CBD ban while also simultaneously pursuing adult-use legalization, the Czech Republic recently punished a cannabis educator for “inciting and promoting toxicomania.”

It is clear that much of the rhetoric coming out of the Czech Republic right now seems to be conflicting. Ultimately, the Czech Republic needs what every other country in Europe needs – a comprehensive national cannabis policy that is based on reason, logic, compassion, and sensibility.

The European continent is experiencing a big push right now to try regulating cannabis instead of prohibiting it in order to boost public health. The current continental legalization strategy, which is being led by Germany, is straightforward: the strategy recognizes that adult cannabis consumption will always occur and that it is better for overall public health outcomes for the products being consumed to be regulated versus unregulated. Clearly, that logic applies to hemp-derived products as much as it applies to products derived from cannabis plants that contain amounts of THC that put it above the legal hemp threshold (typically between .2% and 1% depending on the jurisdiction).

Readers can learn more about what is going on in the Czech Republic, and how it fits into the larger legalization push in Europe, at the upcoming International Cannabis Business Conference in Berlin on June 29-30.

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Is Spain Likely to Pass Cannabis Reforms In 2023?

Editor’s note: This editorial was contributed by Johnny Green, Media and Content Director for the International Cannabis Business Conference.

Cannabis reform is on the move across the globe, with the European continent being particularly ripe for adult-use cannabis legalization right now. It is no secret that lawmakers in Germany are pushing for legalization and that a measure is expected to be formally introduced in the first quarter of this year. When that happens, it will likely set off a cannabis reform butterfly effect in many countries across Europe. Will that extend to Spain?

Spain is home to one of the best cannabis communities on earth, with Barcelona in particular serving as the social cannabis use capital of the world. You will be hard-pressed to find a better place on the planet to be a cannabis consumer than in Spain, with hundreds of private cannabis clubs operating in a legal grey market. However, the current situation in Spain has yielded a populace that is seemingly complacent about cannabis reform, and that has historically complicated legalization efforts.

What Is The Current Status Of Cannabis Policy In Spain?

Cannabis policy in Spain is unique in many ways, with the current approach to cannabis regulation being very limited despite commerce being so commonplace. Private cannabis activity is not prohibited in Spain per se, which is why private cannabis clubs have become so popular. Yet it’s a situation that is not likely sustainable and it would greatly benefit consumers, patients, entrepreneurs, investors, and taxpayers if Spain updated its cannabis laws and regulations.

Cannabis reform efforts in Spain are set to be a very popular topic at the upcoming International Cannabis Business Conference in Barcelona, taking place on March 9.

Attorney Bernardo Soriano Guzmán, from the leading cannabis firm S & F Abogados, will serve as the moderator for the ‘Squaring The Circle Of Industrial Hemp In Spain’ panel at the event. I recently reached out to Bernardo Soriano Guzmán leading up to the conference to get the real scoop about what is going on in Spain.

“During this legislative term, four laws have been presented in the Congress and Senate to regulate adult-use cannabis. One of them has been drafted by S&F lawyers along with other collaborators. A law that fully regulates the production and distribution cycle of cannabis and non-psychoactive cannabis. Despite this intense legislative activity, none of the laws currently have the necessary majority for approval. So, without a doubt, this electoral year that we begin, the regulation of cannabis will be an important point in the political programs and possible electoral alliances for the formation of the next government of Spain, as has happened in Germany in 2021 with the coalition of the traffic light.” — Bernardo Soriano Guzmán, in a statement

Medical Cannabis In Spain

Medical cannabis is already legal in Spain to some degree, and medical cannabis industry licenses are already on the books. With that being said, the regulated medical cannabis industry in Spain is focused on exports and research. Updated domestic safe access provisions and regulations are desperately needed, and fortunately, various lawmakers and advocates are pushing for them.

“Last year 2021, a resolution in the form of a report of conclusions was approved in the Congress of Spain to give access to patients of medicinal cannabis,” Guzmán said. “This report is pending to be implemented once the Spanish Medicines and Health Products Agency (AEMPS) proposes how to do it. The regulation proposed is quite restricted to strictly pharmaceutical channels, with flowers of cannabis not having a predominant role, rather finished products and magistral formulas.”

“Self-cultivation for medicinal use is also not allowed. Additionally in Spain for years licenses for research and production of medicinal cannabis have been granted, a total of 21 licenses having been granted to date December 2022.

In terms of industrial hemp: “The position of the Spanish authorities is very restrictive beyond the classic industrial uses of hemp (production of fiber and seeds). The use of hemp flowers is prohibited, even for the extraction of unregulated cannabinoids (Cannabidiol, cannabigerol, cannabidiol…),” Guzmán said.

“This situation has generated a multitude of proceedings in the courts that have made the Supreme Court recently confirm in a ruling the restrictive vision of the Spanish authorities. This situation clashes quite with the wave of positive changes regarding hemp that are taking place in Europe, especially as a result of the position of the Court of Justice of the European Union. Countries such as France which recently, in a completely contrary line to that of the Spanish authorities, has finally authorized the use of hemp flowers for all uses,” Guzmán concluded.

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Will Germany Legalize Cannabis In 2023?

Editor’s note: This editorial was contributed by Johnny Green, Media and Content Director for the International Cannabis Business Conference.

As historians look back on 2022 from a cannabis policy and industry perspective, they will no doubt consider it to be a monumental year. Arguably the most noteworthy item from 2022 was the adult-use cannabis legalization presentation in October to Germany’s federal cabinet by the nation’s Health Minister Karl Lauterbach.

The presentation to the federal cabinet came roughly a year after Germany’s voters elected a new governing coalition dubbed the ‘Traffic Light Coalition,’ which included several members who participated in a historic discussion about cannabis reforms at the 2021 International Cannabis Business Conference in Berlin. During that discussion, which was the first of its kind for cannabis policy in Germany, candidates made it clear they would pursue legalization if elected. The October 2022 presentation by Minister Lauterbach provided the first meaningful glimpse into what German legalization will likely involve after months of the international cannabis community sitting on the edge of their seats waiting for details to emerge.

Part of the proposed legalization plan involves removing cannabis from the nation’s narcotics law. That policy change alone would have a dramatic impact on nearly every facet of Germany’s current approach to cannabis regulation and enforcement, including medical cannabis and research efforts. Adult consumers would be able to possess up to 30 grams of cannabis according to the plan and cultivate up to 3 plants in their homes. The plan also involves the launch of a regulated adult-use industry, and that last component is likely where the heavy political lifting will be focused in 2023, both within and beyond Germany’s borders.

Lobbying The European Union

During his presentation to the federal cabinet, Minister Lauterbach indicated he would first seek approval from the European Union prior to formally introducing a legalization measure for lawmakers to consider. In an ideal scenario, the European Union would grant its blessing for Germany to proceed with legalization, if only to help mitigate legal challenges by other European Union member nations. Other nations could certainly still pursue legal challenges but getting prior approval from the European Union would preemptively throw a considerable amount of metaphorical cold water on any of those pursuits.

Unfortunately, after roughly two months of Minister Lauterbach making his case to the European Union, there doesn’t appear to be much traction being made. Minister Lauterbach previously announced that he would be incorporating an ‘expert opinion’ to help with the push at the EU level, which was subsequently met with cannabis opponents indicating that they too would be incorporating an ‘expert opinion’ into their own strategies.

Meanwhile, pro-cannabis lawmakers in Germany are growing impatient and starting to apply pressure on Minister Lauterbach to proceed with introducing a legalization measure regardless of what the EU has to say about it. At the end of 2022, members of the Traffic Light Coalition blocked funding that had been earmarked for the Health Ministry’s public relations efforts, citing delays in introducing cannabis legalization as the reason for withholding the government funds. Clearly, any perceived foot-dragging on the part of the Health Ministry will not be tolerated by the governing coalition and there will be ramifications for continued delays.

Is An Intercontinental Showdown Brewing?

The effort to obtain EU sign-off on Germany’s legalization plan will take one of two paths in 2023.

The first path is that the EU will grant its approval for Germany to proceed. Given that the expressed desire for German legalization by lawmakers is not new and the EU has yet to grant its blessing, it’s likely that EU approval will not happen in early 2023.

The second path is, of course, that Germany will proceed without the EU’s prior approval. As previously mentioned, domestic ramifications have already occurred due to delays in introducing a legalization measure, and that pressure will presumably grow with every passing week in 2023 until a measure is formally submitted. Even lawmakers who are currently letting the process play out between Germany and the EU will eventually grow impatient and join their colleagues in calling for the country to proceed with deciding its own domestic cannabis policies.

If/when the measure is introduced in 2023, it will almost certainly change the tone of any ongoing discussions and negotiations. It’s easy for the EU to slowplay the process and act as if it is still considering Germany’s proposal in an indefinite fashion. After all, that’s a standard tactic at every level of politics, especially when it comes to maintaining the status quo of cannabis prohibition. But, the second that Germany formally introduces its measure, such tactics get tossed out the window with the EU being forced to move in one direction or another, for better or worse.

The International Cannabis Business Conference in Berlin this June is also sure to spark further interest in Germany’s legalization prospects, and the emerging EU cannabis industry in general.

It’s likely that an intercontinental showdown will occur in 2023 regarding Germany’s legalization pursuits and while prohibition dinosaurs at the EU will no doubt do everything that they can to thwart legalization in Germany and beyond, eventually the walls of prohibition will crumble. Whether that happens in 2023 in Germany or not is something that we will all have to wait and see, however, one thing that everyone can count on is that pro-cannabis lawmakers in Germany are going to continue doing everything that they can to make 2023 a big year for cannabis reforms.

 

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Will 2023 Be A Big Year for International Cannabis?

Editor’s note: This editorial was contributed by Johnny Green, Media and Content Director for the International Cannabis Business Conference.

The legal cannabis industry is rapidly becoming a global juggernaut and as anyone that has paid attention in 2022 will be quick to point out, the legal international industry is barely scraping the surface of its overall potential. It’s likely that 2023 will yield more of that potential being tapped, yet to what degree is open to debate.

As it stands right now there are three countries that have passed adult-use legalization measures. Uruguay was the first back in 2013, Canada followed in 2018, and in late 2021, Malta became the first country in Europe to pass a nationwide legalization bill. Multiple countries also had legal decisions previously rendered by their top courts regarding the unconstitutional nature of cannabis prohibition, such as South Africa, Italy, and Mexico. Legalization efforts are taking longer than expected in those jurisdictions, however, eventually sensible cannabis policy will win out.

Will any country legalize cannabis in 2023?

Going into 2023, there is an enormous ‘cannabis policy elephant’ in every room around the globe where legalization discussions are being held. I am talking about Germany, of course, and no 2023 cannabis policy speculation is complete without first touching on what is happening within Germany’s borders.

In late 2023, following the International Cannabis Business Conference (ICBC) where representatives from all of Germany’s major political parties held historic cannabis policy discussions, a federal election was held and a new governing coalition was elected. The new governing coalition, often referred to as the ‘Traffic Light Coalition,’ wasted no time in indicating its intent to pass an adult-use legalization measure and to launch a regulated adult-use industry.

Currently, Germany’s Health Minister is making the case for German legalization at the European Union level. In an ideal scenario, the European Union would give its blessing to Germany’s legalization plan, which involves producing all cannabis domestically for an adult-use market and allowing adult households to cultivate up to three plants.

Gaining approval from the European Union (EU) would likely preemptively thwart any legal challenges from other EU member nations. What happens with Germany and the EU will largely dictate what happens around the globe in 2023, whether cannabis supporters around the world realize it or not, and it will surely dictate what happens throughout the rest of Europe. According to the latest reports out of Germany, a legalization measure is expected to be formally introduced in 2023, and it could open the floodgates to similar measures being introduced in other parts of Europe and beyond.

Evolving markets

As global cannabis observers continue to hold their collective breath and monitor the political saga in Germany, other regulated markets will continue to evolve. One market that is particularly noteworthy is Malta, where regulators are expected to start accepting non-profit cannabis club applications in February 2023.

Cannabis clubs already exist in Canada and Uruguay but a successful launch of the regulated club model in Malta could prove to be very significant for similar efforts elsewhere in Europe. Spain, for instance, is home to hundreds of unregulated cannabis clubs and activists have tried for years to get them officially recognized by Spain’s government, to no avail. The only exception is Barcelona where local lawmakers passed a cannabis club measure, although the measure would later be voided by a court decision. If Malta succeeds, it could provide a blueprint for other regions.

Meanwhile, changes are coming to Uruguay’s cannabis legalization model in 2023, proving that cannabis policies are still evolving in the world’s oldest legal, nationwide adult-use cannabis market. Uruguay initially passed its legalization measure in 2013 with regulated sales through pharmacies starting in 2017. Since the start of sales, consumers have had only two options of low-THC cannabis to purchase. A flower option with a higher level of THC content is coming to pharmacies in Uruguay this mont, and a fourth option is expected in late 2023.

Canada, which is home to what is often described as ‘the largest cannabis policy experiment on earth,’ will continue to see its cannabis industry evolve, with its grip on direct international cannabis exports continuing to wane to some degree. Many of the countries that Canadian companies were historically exporting medical cannabis to are ramping up their own domestic production, often with involvement from Canadian companies in some manner.

I expect legalization to continue to spread at the local level in the United States and Mexico in 2023, with national reform likely remaining elusive due to ongoing federal political hurdles in both countries throughout the year. The African and Oceania continents will experience significant growth in 2023 in medical markets that are currently established. Unfortunately, cannabis policy on the Asian continent will likely continue to be the worst on the planet, except for Thailand.

A momentum-building year

The emerging legal cannabis industry will continue to thrive in 2023. Statistical records will continue to be broken at the macro level, and that is a trend that will presumably continue well into the future until most countries have passed legalization measures and launched their own regulated industries.

With that being said, unless Germany passes a legalization measure in 2023, it’s likely that no other country will do so in the calendar year. I expect 2023 to be a historic year for cannabis policy but it will be more so on the introduction side of the equation versus the finalization side.

Even if Germany gets a legalization measure to the finish line in 2023 — which I am certainly hoping for — other countries will likely take longer to finalize their own measures, as Germany started its process earlier. Furthermore, actual legal sales of adult-use products in Germany in that scenario would likely not start until 2024, if only because Germany’s current legalization model involves cultivating all market cannabis domestically, and that is not going to happen overnight.

In my opinion, 2023 is going to be the calm before the storm at the global level for cannabis in many ways. It will be the year that we see more cracks starting to leak in the metaphorical dam that is prohibition, prior to it bursting wide open in 2024. As such, innovators, inventors, entrepreneurs, investors, and industry service providers would be wise to position themselves in a way that ensures they can take full advantage of the winds of change that are gaining speed with each passing year. A great way to do exactly that is to join me in June 2023 in Germany at the ICBC, where cannabis industry and political leaders from around the world will once again be converging in Berlin.

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Travis Howard: The Business of Normalizing Cannabis

Travis Howard is the founder and Chief Strategy Officer for Shift, a Colorado-based cannabis producer and product manufacturer.

Travis recently joined our podcast host TG Branfalt for a conversation about his experience as an attorney in the early days of Colorado’s cannabis market, his transition to entrepreneurship, and the journey of founding several cannabis companies. In this interview, Travis offers a candid look at the current state of cannabis, talks about the difference between the industry’s earliest entrepreneurs and the major corporate investments that are becoming more common, what he expects from the cannabis movement in the coming years, and more!

Tune in via the media player below, or scroll down to read a full transcript of this week’s Ganjapreneur.com podcast episode.


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Read the transcript:

Commercial: This episode of the Ganjapreneur Podcast is made possible by 420-friendly service providers in the Ganjapreneur business directory. If you need professional help with your business, from accounting to legal services to consulting, marketing, payment processing, or insurance, visit ganjapreneur.com/businesses to find service providers who specialize in helping cannabis entrepreneurs like you. Visit the Ganjapreneur business directory today at ganjapreneur.com/businesses.

TG Branfalt: Hey there. I’m your host, TG Branfalt, and thank you for listening to the Ganjapreneur.com Podcast where we try to bring you actionable information and normalize cannabis through the stories of ganjapreneurs, activists, and industry stakeholders. Today I’m joined by Travis Howard. He’s the founder of Shift, who also is an attorney, helped the first wave of cannabis companies in Colorado.

He founded Kind Reviews, now PotGuide, and Green Dream Cannabis in Boulder in 2009 and 2010, respectively. In addition to his consulting business, he took part in various ancillary startups, including patient education, staffing, physician services, and wholesale exchanges. A ton of hats in this space. How are you doing this afternoon, Travis?

Travis Howard: I’m doing well, Tim. Thanks for having me. Appreciate you.

TG Branfalt: Really, really delighted to have you on. You’ve a huge breadth of experience. But before we get into the details about what you’re doing now, tell me about yourself. How’d you end up in the cannabis space?

Travis Howard: Well, I like to say we learned our macro-economics and I’ve been a demand side cannabis guy for most of my life. In 2009, dispensaries started opening up and I was interested in getting in there. I’ve had neck and shoulder issues from various car accidents and football, and the rest of it, talked to a doctor, qualified as a patient, and started meeting some of these folks and wanted to help spread the word. Also, there were some that weren’t very reputable or good. That all led into Kind Reviews that I founded with my brother. One thing led to another. I saw what was happening and I wanted to participate and found some ways in and some folks to work with on all the various items that you had listed previously.

TG Branfalt: When you went to law school, was that your focus? Did you say, “Hey, I want to focus on cannabis, or the cannabis industry,” as it ended up?

Travis Howard: No, not at all. The cannabis industry, to me, it’s just another outcry of all entrepreneurial pursuits. I went to law school specifically to become a better entrepreneur and to become a business attorney that could help other people entrepreneur. I love cannabis, and I love the industry. I think there’s a lot of stuff that we still have to do, from getting people out of jail, to full normalization. But underneath that, I really am passionate about entrepreneurialism, and how if we create more entrepreneurs, we’re unplugging people from the corporate system. They’re no longer batteries, they’re their own machines. They’re making good decisions for their employees, for their communities, because they need those people to support their business.

I just think the more entrepreneurs we have, the better community stewards we have, the better communities we have for our kids to grow up in. I think it’s a more healthy economy, if people diversify their portfolios. I don’t think we should be running the size of our economy off of just Fortune 500s, and we’ve seen that move up in the scale. That was my drive in the middle 2000s. The early 2000s when I went into law school was, I wanted to empower myself and others through entrepreneurialism. That just bled into cannabis because when I was practicing law, I got out of law school, and I went and helped my wife and her parents’ company. I was working with special needs speech therapy, and they were going through some transitions. I went down there and did some director of operations internationally, and ended up co-CEOing on the business there.

When I came out of that and moved back to Colorado, I hung my shingle to do the business law and the people that were calling remember all the businesses were crashing, there weren’t a lot of people starting new stuff. This is 2008, 2009 and early 2009 to mid 2009, I started getting a lot of calls into my law office for people that wanted to come from the underground and black market into the, at that time, technically gray market, although it really was white under the Colorado constitution.

But they were looking for leases, partnership deals, operating agreements, and everything that you would want in a normal business. But most of the big business law firms weren’t touching that platform. The early activists attorneys that laid the groundwork for us … At that time, there was the Rob Cory’s in the war and Edsons, and many more that … My apologies to them for stating their names, but they … All those guys that were out there fighting for so many people, they were predominantly criminal lawyers, constitutional lawyers, lawyers that we needed in the space, but there weren’t a ton of business attorneys that were willing to step up.

Vicente Sederberg at this point is one of the more famous law firms. Christian Sederberg went to law school with me. He was a year before me, and he had been focused on business. There was just a couple of us at the time, and I started meeting all these folks that were frankly getting rooked. The irony here, Tim, is that at that time period, you had a lot of business people that were willing to take risks. The ones that I saw, were predominantly from the real estate, either brokers, developers, owners, that … You remember that the economy was tanking, so auto was down at the time, and real estate and development was down at the time, generally in the economy.

You had a lot of people, that had previously been in the real estate world, that were now looking to join forces or move their real estate property or some of the cash that they had saved that they were going to put into a development into cannabis. Well, these folks coming into the cannabis were still called black market or illicit. The people that the business community had been looking down their nose at.

But what I actually saw in 2009 and early 2010, was a whole lot of real estate sharks preying on good natured mom and pop people that wanted to come in, and that is where I actually stepped in for some of my clients. I don’t want to overstate what I did. I was just one small cog in the wheel. But for my clients, we worked on a lot of bringing them up to equal representation and an acumen for these new partnerships that they were forming.

TG Branfalt: You’re saying you hung your shingle, which is one of my favorite turns of phrases. How did people find out about Jimmy? Was it word of mouth? Was this something that you actively advertised and gave out your card to a cannabis business owners?

Travis Howard: I did. It was interesting because, at the same time I was doing that, my little brother had called me and said, “Listen.” He’s like, “I bought these domain names, I had Colorado marijuana reviews, and I have Kind Reviews.” He goes, “I was out in California visiting a friend, and somebody mentioned this website where you could check out if the weed was good.” I was like, “Wait, what?” I’d come out of tech earlier, and during law school I’d started a company called Dealers Link with a couple of my friends that was a software exchange in the auto industry.

Tim called me, and he said, “I know you on tech, can you help me do something here?” I looked it up, and I was like, “That would be awesome.” I’d already got my patient card, let’s go and review these things, start this as a business. As I was going in and meeting dispensary owners, and asking them, buying samples and telling them that I was going to review this stuff online, sometimes I did it blind, sometimes I let them know so that they could give me any background information. I always gave an honest review.

But that’s when they’re like, “Well, who are you? Why are you doing this?” “Well, I’m a business attorney here in the area, but I’m passionate about cannabis and this is something that I’m doing in my spare time.” Well, three, four times being in there, all of a sudden those individuals were calling me back, being like, “Hey, I know you mentioned you were an attorney, would you be willing to work with me? I can’t get anyone else to take the business.” Then word of mouth spread. This was a close knit community. This is back when dispensaries were open under zoning laws. You had a business license, or a sales tax license, and that was it.

The state of Colorado hadn’t written their regulations yet, and growers were growing in their basement with patient cards, and that was what we call the backpacker days, where they were packing in. They’d show up with their backpack with five pounds a weed, and go down Broadway, where we were calling Broadsterdam or The Green Mile at the time. “Hey, do you want to buy any of my wares?” It was traditional guerrilla marketing at the time. The word spread through those individuals that I was open for business and willing to do work.

Truthfully at that time, I probably could’ve served a lot more clients, but it was hard with conflict of interest because everybody knew each other, everybody was working together. We just needed more attorneys to come in, and luckily a lot of brave souls did come in, because back then the Bar Association had issued no information on whether they wanted you doing this, not doing this, whether you could be a patient, use cannabis of course. All that stuff, at this point, has been settled with the Supreme Court and the Essex rules and all that stuff.

But, I remember a time talking to my wife and rereading that oath of office I took when I became an attorney, and I was reading it and I was like, “I don’t know if I’m supposed to be doing this, but this oath tells me that where there is the need, it is our duty and responsibility.” I looked at my wife, Beth, and I said, “I can’t imagine, aside from a criminal death row case or life imprisonment which could result out of some of this trafficking, where an attorney would be needed more.”

There’s a conflict between state law and federal law. They don’t know what’s going on. I was like, “I think we have to do this.” I just followed my heart and my gut on that, and that oath that I took. Then luckily, the Bar Association eventually saw it the same way, and said, “Yeah, we do need attorneys in this industry. This is something that’s going to be important.”

TG Branfalt: Can you describe to me the learning curve in those early days when regulations are being released? Right? You were just having to learn on the fly. Can you just tell me how you managed that?

Travis Howard: Oh my goodness. I had three desks in my office with every piece of paper that came out of the Marijuana Enforcement Division, and that 2010 run up to that … In August 2010, is when everybody met down at the dog track, as we all called it. It was an old … the racing track where they had put their first offices and everyone got in line to submit their first applications. But the rules were coming out. You were reading the Senate bill, you were reading the House bill, HB1284. I’ll never forget those, that letter and number combination.

I lived and breathed it. But on top of that, you had all these local districts. I think what most of the attorneys did was focus on Denver and some on Boulder, because Boulder had its regulations, its first version, before the State had regulations, which caused a whole another slew of stuff in Boulder that we later had to clean up as a community. But it was difficult. We were highlighting stuff every day, you were checking the website to see if any new clarifications … I remember I had Dan Hartman at the time, Mr. Seckman, there were numerous people, the MED, that I had their cell phone in my cell phone on speed dial, and I was calling and asking questions.

Back then, they picked it up directly and answered questions for the attorneys because they knew if they gave the attorney the information, that it was better than taking … that I could talk to my 40 clients versus having all 40 call them directly. It was just a lot of working together. I know that over the years, some of the industries felt like the MEDs worked against them, some, for them, the rest of it.

But in those early days when none of us really knew exactly what was going on, I will say on the defense of the Department of Revenue, they were very open and willing to talk to us and walk through that stuff, because it was a series of landmines. A lot of people lost their businesses because of some false step that they thought that the rule said this and didn’t mean that, and this person was eligible but not. It was interesting at the time. That’s for sure. No dull moments.

TG Branfalt: Tell me about what you’re doing now about … with Shift.

Travis Howard: Shift, at this point, is a tried-and-true cannabis brand. I’ve run the gamut from doing consulting to business operation contracting. We’ve done staffing and such. But I think the industry … About a year ago, I set out to help normalize the plant. I felt like that happened, to some degree, with a lot of people. Other states coming down, I wanted to normalize the business and the respect for the industry, which is why I quit practicing and went ahead and grabbed the license so that the peer group couldn’t say, “Well, you’re just doing it as an attorney to make money. You don’t really believe in this.” They couldn’t say that. They had to look me dead in the eye and be like, “Wow. You really do believe that this is okay because now you’re an owner and you’re doing it.”

We went through all those processes about a year ago. I was like, “Look, there’s a ton of activists out there that are doing a great job. There are a lot of people that … from Steve DeAngelos and the rest of them, to the mom and pops that are in Colorado and the states around us.” Now there is this massive wave of, the last year or two years of the Canadian public companies, Wall Street, big money funds, all the rest of this stuff. Now that we’ve got both of those book ends, what do I believe in the most? What was I passionate about at the beginning, that I think that the industry still wants? That’s on the consumer side.

That’s when I really decided to push Shift with the tagline Genuine Cannabis into a CPG, a consumer good branded products that … I’ve got the same heart and the passion that any mom and pop that has been here. I mean I’ve been smoking weed since the early ’90s, I’ve been through the black market, the gray market, and now the white market. I’ve had my bank account shut down personally. You can’t get a 401(k), I can’t be do 529s because all the broker dealers can’t take me because my social security is on the black list, and all these other things.

On the flip side, being a business attorney and having worked at some bigger companies and seen the business side, I know that there’s the combination that really is going to prove valuable for customers in the long term, and that is all the heart and the love of a brand that you can trust for products that you trusted before this stuff was even in white market. For supply side, a stable business that runs like a machine, but with a heart. You can go and get a little bit of great cannabis from a bunch of different people, but can they supply your business all day, every day and take care of you, of what you need to grow your business?

On the flip side, we’ve got a bunch of these big businesses that are just throwing money and machines over the top of it, that don’t have the heart, the passion and the soul that consumers want. For me, that is genuine cannabis, that is Shift. That’s what I’m setting out to bring to the world, and we’re doing that right now in about 40 to 50 dispensaries in Colorado and we’ve got three dispensaries open in New Mexico. It’s not longterm.

We’re probably not a dispensary brand, even though we have those licenses down there. We’re really looking to be a brand that other retailers can count on, and probably if they own a dispensary, they’re passionate about the products and the use, and they want to know that they’re going to get something from people that care as much as them. That’s the promise I’m making to retailers and the customers both.

TG Branfalt: You mentioned that you’re also in New Mexico, and now that you’ve experienced these different markets, and in various formats, California, Colorado and New Mexico, Maryland, and handful more via application and regulation work, can you tell me about some of the key differences that the average consumer or the average citizen might not understand about how … the differences between the states?

Travis Howard: Yeah. I think the main difference is the constituent that the program is supposed to support and take care of. When you look at New Mexico, and certainly no offense to their Department of Health, they’ve busted their button, tried very hard to produce good results. It’s difficult as a business down there because it’s clear the program is set up for patients. Everything was set up for the medical side, for the medical patient, for their needs. That’s where the program stemmed from, and that’s the foundational work.

When you flash forward to some of the other states that we’ve worked in, especially East Coast and Midwest states, it is clear who the programs are built for regardless of anything they’re touting about the patients. This is the Department of Revenue. That is the constituent, that is who they are working for. It’s about generating tax revenue, it is about generating profits in the corporations, it’s about ensuring that the people that come in to start those businesses, that get awarded the licenses, have the deep capital pockets that acumen in the connections potentially to Wall Street. It really is for the business community.

Now, that’s not to take away and say. In some of those states, that program also dovetails and works really well for the patients or for the recreational consumers. But in some programs, you’d get online and Google unhappy medical patients, and you’ll find the states that the programs aren’t really working for the patients but are working really well for certain businesses. I think probably one of the shining examples of that is Florida, where you have a handful of people that have those early licenses.

Most of those licenses have flipped for 40, 50, $100 million to public companies, and there’s patients all over the state that don’t have, and for the longest time didn’t have, access to enough product because a lot of those licenses hadn’t even opened up and started producing, or opening up dispensaries across the board, when clearly there were a lot of other businesses that were willing and ready to open if they could get licenses, but no more were issued. It’s easy to throw stones in the industry. Everybody’s got somebody that they’re mad at, a scape goat, and I try not to do that. It’s nothing little less than I teach my kids, like, “Try to look at the other side, try to put yourself in their shoes.”

But I haven’t been a patient myself for many years. Thankfully, I’ve worked through some of my issues, but … I don’t know. It’s tough. But I think that’s the major discrepancy between states, is this about the patients or is this about the business community, a.k.a, the Department of Revenue, who’s collecting revenue. But at the same time, Tim, we all have to be honest even as activists and people who care about this. This country normalizes things through profits.

I knew it back in 2010, that it wasn’t going to be Shangri-La, it wasn’t going to be this perfect Kumbaya moment, that if we wanted to actually get what we really wanted, which was the world treating this as a plant, like anything else, and putting it out there, that we were going to have to step into the language that the world, that this western society normalizes things through, and that’s profitability. If the thing couldn’t produce profits, if it couldn’t produce results for Wall Street, that we weren’t going to get actual normalization.

It was sad, but I felt like it was true then, and I feel like it’s true now. That doesn’t mean that I love it, it doesn’t mean that I wanted it to go this way, but I was never confused about how I thought it was actually going to work out. If we were going to have 50 states with legal cannabis, I didn’t think it was going to be, well, grow it at home and just let it be. I just never thought that that was how it was going to make it to all 50 states, unfortunately.

TG Branfalt: It’s an honest and astute observation, man. Just today, the AP, the Associated Press, released this of investigation, noting that when recreational comes to medical states, that the medical programs just plummet the patient health plan — I mean, isn’t that to be expected, and what are the … what’s going to happen? What’s the negative … What negative things are going to happen as that progresses?

Travis Howard: I’m certainly not clairvoyant, but I think there’s a couple things that I’ve witnessed and what I feel like is going to continue to transpire. Certainly, we know that of the original patient populations, you’ve got really what I call the OTC market, which is people that … they are treating themselves, but they’re treating themselves for items that are probably less, on a grading scale, than what the program really thought of when they made the patient program.

Then you’ve got the patients that were clearly identified with the inception of the program, and then you’ve got more recreational users that have been able to talk to their doctors and the doctors are like, “You know what? I feel like this is a fairly benign substance. If this guy’s telling me that it helps him, I’m fine with it.” You’ve got these three groups. When recreational does show up in an area, of course that first group is probably going to be like, “Well, I don’t want to go through the rigmarole of going to the doctor if I don’t have to.” The OTC market might stay as a patient, they might not, because the recreational team is able to move forward.

But what I think, I’ve seen a lot, is that when the recreational comes in, the State obviously … It doesn’t look good to have a high tax and penalty on medical patients. You bring in children with afflictions, you bring in adults with cancer, these sorts of things, and you set them on the stand and then you put them on the news and the State is trying to tax them. That just doesn’t look right, right? It’s a bad look for politicians, they’re not going to push it. They’re going to push where they’re making their money on licenses, tax, excise, the rest of it over to the recreational world.

Well, these are communities that run on taxes, so they’re going to be incentivized to either make those licenses easier to get, the regulations easier to work with, the investors and access to capital is going to be easier, so on and so forth. If you’re a business investor and you’re coming in off the sidelines, and this wasn’t your passion project, but you wanted to see where things are going, you’re looking out there and you’re going, “Well, recreational is moving forward. I believe that’s going to look like alcohol on some level in the future. I know profits come out of there. What if the medical ends up going to the pharmaceutical companies longterm?”

Well, if you’re an investor with $1 million or $100 million, which pool are you going to put that investment in? I don’t want to fight Big Pharma, but I could be myself a new big alcohol. The capital comes into the recreational side. The advertising, the branding, the product development, and that’s not to say there’s not some really great companies out there developing on the medical side. But if you look overall on where that cash is coming in and where the people, the new workforce, is coming out of alcohol, tobacco, wine, food, and all these other things that are going on CPG side, that are coming in to do the marketing and the product development, they’re going to be in the recreational space as well, because this is where they get to build a brand.

You see all of those things. I do envision that long term, you’re going to see more investment and product offering, which is only going to encourage more OTC patients to not go get their medical license because they can get the same products or better products. Looking at Colorado as an example, well, the medical still was forcing you to be vertically integrated and doing the 70-30 rule and all of this stuff. Whereas when you’re on recreational, people that were good at retailing got to do all their retail stuff, people that were good at growing, you had the lab start to process, and you saw this division of people specializing.

Well, you go into a lot of dispensaries that had a medical side and a recreational side, and there were more products offered on the recreational side because they could buy from any of the vendors that they wanted. I see that pattern occurring across the country and I don’t think that that pattern is going to necessarily stop. I don’t know. I have a lot of hope for the people that started out in the medical world, that were willing to put their freedom on the line and come out and be that first wave of people that put their fingerprints and submitted their powers of attorney to the State of Colorado, and all that other stuff, to get those first licenses that were medical that might be stuck as mom and pops. I hope they don’t just get washed out with pharmaceuticals.

At the same time, if there is Big Pharma and they are making advancements and they can make better Alzheimer’s drugs and better cancer treatments with cannabis, why would I not want them to do that? I mean, my grandmother passed away from complications of Alzheimer’s, my father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. He passed away last summer. My other grandmother had Parkinson’s. I mean, these are things … My stepfather is living with cancer right now. I mean, that’s like everyone in my family. Right? If Merck or Bristol-Myers Squibb or one of these companies that we’d like to vilify as a society, is able to put 500 million into research and grow THC out of yeast and put it into a thing that helps these guys, I mean, passionate or not, who am I to stand in the way of that?

I’m not so self-righteous to say that those people shouldn’t benefit too. But I am also cognizant of the fact that a lot of people took those first steps and are going to just get mauled over when that wave comes, and they’re going to lose everything because they tied it all up. Those are the ones, frankly, they’re going to be stuck with all the 280E taxation once the Feds fix that, and then all the big companies are rolling into. It’s one of those ones where you ducked the first wave and then three waves hit you. The truth is that there’s going to be a lot of early entrepreneurs and movers that are just going to get buried and pinned to the bottom of that thing and never make it out, and that sucks. There’s no doubt, but it’s the truth of where we’re at.

TG Branfalt: Do you think that 280E, it is what has prevented maybe some of these multibillion dollar corporations, alcohol companies, things like that, from getting into some of these more mature-

Travis Howard: No.

TG Branfalt: … markets?

Travis Howard: No, I don’t think that 280E really weighs on them at all, for the amount of money that they would spend and put into that, verse the capital outlay, especially the valuations on the stocks at this point. I really don’t think that that is the issue. I think there’s probably a handful of issues. Some of them are worried about brand tainting, and what does their community, how much of their sales are in the Bible Belt, and if something comes out and they’re public and they need to be disclosing this stuff. I think there’s some banking and credit card and FinCEN type stuff that probably keeps them out.

But when you’re looking at Colorado, why aren’t the pub codes here? Well, it’s because Hickenlooper said, “No.” I mean, flat out. I mean, I understand why in 2010, when the regulators were talking to everybody, why they didn’t want outside and public money in that stuff because we are one of those first movers. But by the time two, three, four states had gone after us and they had allowed out-of-state investment and public company investment and such like that, and Colorado just stood the ground and said, “Nope, we can’t do it. It’s the federal government.” It was just a cop out, and I think it was a way for some people in power to try to keep the industry in Colorado under wraps and under their thumb.

But I think Mr. Polis is quite aware. Where things are going this November, I think you’ll see a giant wave. All right? It’s been a disservice to a lot of folks out there that, that we’re able to put in their first 50 or $100,000 and get a dispensary open, and there was only a certain amount of independently wealthy people in Colorado that had an appetite for cannabis, and those people invested in certain companies. You saw LivWell go through the roof, and you saw Native Roots go through the roof, and you saw other companies that were able to put in and have that kind of cash and capital.

But if you didn’t have access to that person, and once the appetite for Colorado got invested into other places, you watch these other states, the Johnny-come-latelys, be able to go to a fund that’s based out of San Francisco or New York or Delaware or Connecticut, and bring in $50 million. The folks in Colorado that had bootstrapped up to three, four dispensaries, they just didn’t have the ability to do that. I am very glad and hopeful that some of that capital will come in and reward some of those good, hardworking people that did make it through the fight.

On the flip side, I’m sure there’s plenty of people that would take issue with what I just said, that are longtime activists and being like, “Nope, they’re going to come in here and they’re going to steamroll everything.” Well, that’s the other side of the coin. Again, it’s back to what I said, “What’s the reality?” There are going to be some good people that are going to get screwed in this, and there are going to be some good people that are going to get their final saving graces and be able to compete and keep the heart of this industry, from 2009, 2010 in Colorado, alive. But, as with anything, you swallow some good, you get a little bad. I’m not the arbiter of that, but that’s what I see happening.

TG Branfalt: I mean, you’re a very well-spoken, very super intelligent guy. Tell me about moving from being a cannabis lawyer to becoming a CEO, and what some of those challenges were, and how having that legal experience and that legal mind give you a leg up.

Travis Howard: That’s a good question. I appreciate the compliments. I’m just a guy out here learning on the street with everybody else. I don’t think there’s anything special about me except that-

TG Branfalt: You have a law degree.

Travis Howard: … I care. Well, I went to law school. I was very lucky. My dad paid for my undergraduate degree. I didn’t have loans like a ton of other people did. I was able to take my loans and put them towards law school. Had I had full four years of student loans for undergrad, I’m not sure I would have been able to stomach taking more of that. I was blessed to be where I was at and for the things that came my way. CU accepted me, and I love learning. I’m good at school, probably better at school than I am at business, to be frankly.

At the end of the day, the difference for me, coming out of the law, is it was all about me. A long time ago, someone wise told me there are two types of people on earth. There are people who are the gift, and there are people who build and share the gift. Those are the two gift givers in the world. I think to be perfectly honest, I’m more situated on I’m the gift, and not to be conceited, that’s not what that means. What that means is, I like to be with people.

When I’m talking to somebody, standing up for them, inspiring them, asking them questions, getting them motivated, helping them get feelings into words and actions stuff, I feel like my cup is full. They are shining and bright, and filling my cup up. There’s just a lot of spark and fun and energy. That is very easy to do when you’re an attorney working with somebody, and it’s a one-on-one relationship, and it’s just a really brilliant time and moment. Most attorneys aren’t good attorneys if they don’t get off on that, and that they’re not somebody that really appreciates and understands that.

On the flip side, becoming a CEO, I needed to figure out how to both give that to each employee and partner that I worked with, which now was spreading me thin, and at the same time, give that to the entity itself, which was trying to build something of its own to give as a gift. For me to be able to manage my own personality and the things that made me feel good and make me want to wake up and do more and be a positive contributor and then to also keep my eyes on the prize of … But my company is making a promise to give the … one time it was consulting services, operational contracts and now an actual good, balancing that and hiring and finding people.

Ultimately replacing myself as the CEO of Shift, was a wonderful gentleman, Edwin Fowler, and moving myself to the chief strategy officer where I could go back to tribal building and product building and make sure that my brand promises were being met, because managing both of those things was very, very intense. In fact, I’ve thought about, once you have a JD, you can go back and teach, and it qualifies you from some things. Whenever this cannabis thing is said and done for me, at whatever stage that happens, I want to go back and teach future entrepreneurs about those lessons of what you have inside yourself and how to scale through that culture and the .. I have made so many mistakes, Tim.

I have had people that I love dearly work with me and for me, that I couldn’t make good on ideas that we shared together because there simply wasn’t enough of me. It was painful for them, and it was painful for me. Those are things that sometimes you have to cut ties and move forward, and do all of these things. It’s very hard to keep … You can’t have sacred cows, and you start with a roomful of sacred cows, and how do you navigate that? I’ll tell you what, there is no shortage of the need for mentors to walk that through, and I’ve had a good amount, for my time, help me and I’m learning every single day. I’m 41 years old, and I feel like I know nothing. That’s how I feel every morning I wake up.

TG Branfalt: It’s a very Einsteinian thing to say.

Travis Howard: I don’t know. But what I know is the truth. I mean, at the end of the day, my wife is such a wonderful person. She’s deadly honest with me. A very strong Jewish woman who just speaks her mind and runs my house and my family, and I am a cog in her world. Trust me on that. She is one of the brightest people in my life, but just a great mirror. I can tell you, for as many lessons that she still tries to teach me, I am certain that I don’t know much yet.

TG Branfalt: You talked about the contributions and the promise of your company. Tell me about the Safe Roots Foundation. What do you do there?

Travis Howard: Safe Roots is a couple of great guys. Ethan Zohn and Kirk Friedrich, these two guys, the cannabis community will hear plenty more about Ethan and some things that he’s doing. He was one of the gentleman’s that first … one of the first survivors and then ended up getting diagnosed with cancer and making it through. Just an absolute inspired life and person. These two gentlemen had played professional soccer, ended up playing together various places, but in Africa they saw what HIV was doing. They told me something ridiculous. While they were in … I don’t want to butcher the country, I can’t remember which country it was.

I want to say Ethiopia, but that might not be right. But I believe it was an eastern country. They said something like 30% of the adults that were living there, while they lived there, had funerals. Every weekend was just the whole town was … and they realized that it was taboo to talk to the kids about sex and condoms and this stuff. They’re just like, who do they trust? Of course, soccer, football over there was such a big thing. They put together this grassroots foundation that was helping coaches and teachers who … Some of the most influential people in my life were teaching me soccer and football and hockey as a kid in Colorado and Wyoming.

These guys did that and really made a huge impact, and they ended up working with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and a lot of stuff. Well, they saw cannabis as a way to get into something that we don’t do a very good job of in the United States, which is being honest with our youth about drug addiction and harm reduction. As a parent for myself, I’ve got three kids, they all know the word cannabis. They know marijuana, they know the difference between medical cannabis, they know the difference between recreational cannabis.

They know what it smells like, they know what it looks like, they know what to do if they find it somewhere or if a friend brings it to them, just like they know with bleach, paint, power tools, knives, guns, anything else dangerous that is a tool and useful for one thing but not for children without supervision or whatever the circumstances are. With all of that stuff said, they said, “Geez, cannabis is a topic that is hot that people are talking about. There is a change in how we’re looking. We want to put some of our paradigm from this grassroots foundation and what we’ve learned, and we want to build Safe Roots which can start talking to teachers and coaches, and this sort of thing, for children.”

The reality is … and of course, that’s a 21+ market. The truth of the matter is, is I used cannabis before I was 21. I don’t want my children to drink or use cannabis or do anything. In fact, I hope they go their whole life as sober individuals. I don’t think that that’s reality. I’ve got three of them. Maybe one of them will choose to live a sober life. But I can tell you one thing, if they’re 17 or they’re 30 and they’re out in a situation and somebody is peer pressuring them to slug the fifth of whiskey, to try this line of cocaine, or to smoke the joint, I want them to know the lesser of those things. I want them to be educated on harm reduction, and what to do and how to do it.

When I talked to these two guys, they were just preaching to the choir, and I was like, “Guys, I am in love with what you’re talking about.” We’ve got a couple of things going on at Shift. We’ve looked at, one, going into New Mexico, where we’ve got the dispensaries. New Mexico, in general, has a depressed economy. It’s one of the poorest economies in the country. It’s got a lot of alcohol and hard drug, methamphetamines, glues, paints, that stuff going on. You’ve got some cultural clashes and issues going on in the State as well. Also Safe Roots … Kirk lives in Albuquerque. It looked like just one of those, “Oh man, no brainer. Let’s put these things together.”

That’s something that we’re working on together and trying to get more cannabis companies and other sponsors to get that up off the ground and going, in addition in Colorado. One of the things that Shift is going to support financially as well is, there’s a Communities That Care program that is about youth prevention and harm reduction. There is a Communities That Care chapter out in Ridgeway, Colorado, which is out by Telluride in the Durango area, where we have one of the companies that I own, is called Dalwhinnie. We’re building a luxury cannabis company on this beautiful ranch, and I can explain part of my normalization push there.

But that brand where we have cultivation, where people are working. There’s a thousand people live in Ridgeway, and we’re the second largest employer in the county. Once we have our greenhouse open, we’ll probably be the largest, even above the school district. We feel like it’s really important to be involved out there, so we’re looking at that. Kirk is coming up next week to talk to that group and see if this is one that Safe Roots can support and make grants for.

Ultimately, Safe Roots wants to be collecting nonprofit funds and distributing them back out into, some instances, its own sports education programs, and in other instances, other community programs that have similar missions that the money can work with, because … especially, some of the stuff that’s coming out over the next few months from Ethan, which will be a national PR push. We believe that Safe Roots will be able to attract donors at a level that a lot of these local community groups won’t be able to. That is certainly something that Shift believes in and wants to be behind.

TG Branfalt: You’re in Colorado, it’s a mature market. You have children. Do you think that the Department of Health there … I should ask, what is the Department of Health doing in terms of harm … Is it harm reduction or they’re doing more propaganda? What are they doing in this regard?

Travis Howard: Yeah. I mean, some in both. Again, it’s intentions versus executions, and I don’t want to belittle any of the efforts at all. I do think some people have made a mockery of the Good to Know program, and there are some interesting propaganda points that I see on some of the public buses, and I’m like, “I’m in the industry, I’ve known cannabis a long time. I don’t even know what that sign means.” There is some stuff there that I scratch my head and wonder why we’re spending our money on it.

But at the same time, there is also a lot of the good programs. I think the Good To Know started with some of those unfortunate and terrible tragic accidents that came off of eating high dose edibles for people that didn’t understand. I know that whole wave that went through in 2014 and 2015 that was very sad for some very specific individuals. I think that was a good part of the program. But there are pieces of that program that is semi propaganda but is also very functional and useful across the board.

But what I see is a lot more of the local side. Sitting on the Boulder Marijuana Advisory Panel for the last few years, rewriting regulations, there were only three constituents from the industry on that inaugural panel, and they had somebody from Boulder Valley School district, they had two parents and community members, they had Boulder County Health on there. We had to balance the advertising. You can go in most of the states, and you can do giveaways of stickers, not in Boulder County. You can’t in the City of Boulder. I can’t give stickers away at a dispensary, I can’t do a buy one and get one for free. You can’t give schwag out for free. You have to sell it at cost.

They don’t want a proliferation of cannabis advertising going out to the youth, and they feel like stickers are a youthful movement. Of course, one of the things this is, is you’ve got this giant university sitting here, and three out of the four years at university in the undergraduate, you’re probably too young to be a participant in the recreational program. There’s been a lot of push in that regard, which has been probably good for the community, but it’s been tough for businesses because the competitors get to do that.

It’s also frustrating when you walk into a bar. I mean, I frequent Avery brewery. It’s by my house, it’s here in Boulder, and I walk in there, and they’ve got two month old onesies with Avery logos all over it. I’m like, “You can dress your kid up in beer outfits all day long and take your kid to Coors Field, but I can’t hand out stickers.” Yeah, it’s asinine. But at the same time, it’s really hard pressed when you look those people … This gentleman, Heath Harman, one of the best guys I know. We both have diabolically different views of what we want out of the cannabis industry.

However, sitting at that table, we’ve become good friends, and we respect each other. The truth is, in a community, back to my point about entrepreneurialism, you can’t just do it’s all for me. You have to be thinking about your community. When you see a guy like Heath that’s talking about real statistics, that really cares about the youth in his community, and he’s making bonafide statements, I can’t hold him accountable for the alcohol industry. I can’t hold him and blame him for some other laws that are hypocritical. I have to take him at face value, and say, “You’re right. You are making something. You’re making a statement that is logical to me, that makes sense, that we should consider these things.”

I recommend for, as many people as they can, to become a part of these political committees where you’re forced to work with, not just politicians but stakeholders in the community, that see things differently than you. One of the most unique parts about the Boulder Marijuana Advisory Panel is that when the city council gave it authority, they didn’t say that we had to come back unanimous. But we determined, in our very first meeting, that we were not going to put forward any recommendations to that council that weren’t unanimous.

To this day, that advisory panel has never taken a vote. If it’s not unanimous, we haven’t moved forward. We figured out how to come to a consensus and then make our recommendations. That process in itself would be great for our society. Forget cannabis, forget anything else. In today’s spectator sport, I mean, when did politics stop being something that you do yourself and becomes a spectator sport, like you’re rooting for your local football team?

TG Branfalt: I could sit here and talk to you for another hour, but we are running a bit long. Before we go, I want to get your advice for other entrepreneurs interested in joining the cannabis space.

Travis Howard: Well, I’ll tell you right now, the biggest piece of advice that I would give is the piece that I would go back 10 years and give myself, which is, with anything … They always says, “Well, when opportunity knocks.” That is horse shit. You are going to have so many opportunities knocking all day long. It is about weighing those opportunities and staying focused. Cannabis is just a microcosm of that, and a lens that has magnified that to a degree that you could quite easily build a business plan that makes you doing everything, being everything for everyone.

It would be so easy in cannabis to get caught in that trap, and what I would say today when, especially in Colorado and the new states that are allowing you to specialize, is take your 10th draft of your business plan and cut that in half. One simple specific thing and just go at it wholeheartedly. Even if you’ve got opportunities thrown at you every day, all day, for the next five years, stay laser focused. That’s my best advice right now in the cannabis industry for a newcomer.

TG Branfalt: Really great conversation. Could you tell us where we could find out more about you and Shift?

Travis Howard: Yeah. You can go to shiftcannabis.com, or Shift.Cannabis at Instagram. I got a lot of pages up there for all of our so called Shift mates. We’ve got phone numbers on there for the sales team. There’s 40 or 50 dispensaries around the metro area and the mountain area where you could find our products. But feel free to send us an Email, info@shiftcannabis. It comes to my desk. I respond to every single one or I put it in touch with the right people. We’re not shy, we’re here to talk, we’re here to help. We want to be a part of the solution in the future.

TG Branfalt: Travis Howard’s the founder of Shift, a serial entrepreneur, a really great guest. Thank you so much for coming on the show, Travis.

Travis Howard: Well, it’s my pleasure. I’m honored. Thank you for having me on here, and for giving us all a platform to share. Appreciate you.

TG Branfalt: Thank you. You can find more episodes of the Ganjapreneur.com Podcast in the podcast section of ganjapreneur.com, and in the Apple iTunes Store. On the Ganjapreneur.com website, you will find the latest cannabis news and cannabis jobs updated daily along with transcripts of this podcast. You can also download the Ganjapreneur.com app in iTunes and Google Play. This episode was engineered by Trim at Media House. I’ve been your host, TG Branfalt.

End


Ken “K” Morrow: Learning from Trichome Technologies

Ken “K” Morrow of Trichome Technologies has been at the forefront of cannabis horticulture for decades. His writing has appeared in High Times magazine 50 times over the last 15 years. He has won 9 California Cannabis Cups between 1997 and 2000, has worked as a consultant to many of the top cannabis activists, legislators, scientists and doctors, and he also recently published Marijuana Horticulture Fundamentals, a comprehensive guide to cannabis cultivation and production. K recently joined our podcast host Shango Los for a discussion about his long career in the cannabis industry, what it’s like to witness legalization happening after spending so much time as a prohibition-era grower, how hash making processes have evolved over time, and more!

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Shango Los: Hi there and welcome to the Ganjapreneur.com podcast, I am your host, Shango Los. The Ganjapreneur.com podcast gives us an opportunity to speak directly to entrepreneurs, cannabis growers, product developers and cannabis medicine researchers all focused on making the most of cannabis normalization. As your host I do my best to bring you original cannabis industry ideas that will ignite your own entrepreneurial spark and give you actionable information to improve your business strategy and improve your health and the health of cannabis patients everywhere. Today my guest is Ken Morrow, a fellow much better known over the last 30 years as K. from Trichome Technologies.

Ken is truly an OG, he has been at the forefront of cannabis horticulture for decades, his writing has appeared in High Times magazine 50 times in the last 15 years. But perhaps his greatest influence has been sharing his experiences informally to small groups, individuals and mentoring others online. In 1999 he was chosen by High Times magazine as having the best grow room in their 25 year history, between 1997 and 2000 he won 9 California Cannabis Cups. He has consulted for many of the top activists, legislators, research scientists and doctors and was featured on an episode of 60 Minutes and has appeared on CNN. K has just published a gorgeous new book title, Marijuana Horticulture Fundamentals, a comprehensive guide to cannabis cultivation and hash production.

Today we’re going to talk about his new book, some cannabis cultivation history and his deep knowledge of hash making techniques. Thanks for being on the show Ken.

K. Morrow: Thank you very much Shango for having me, it’s a pleasure.

Shango Los: Ken, having participated in cannabis for the last 30 years, to see some cannabis legalization finally happening has got to be both a shock and a relief. What has this experience been like for you?

K. Morrow: Shocking to say the least, to see politicians embrace us, to see the whole movement moving forward is just, I honest, me and my friends. Speaking with Mel Frank the other day, never really seen this way happening in reality.

Shango Los: It must be really encouraging to, because we all, back in the prohibition days we were like, if we could only live long enough to see legalization and it’s like, holy smokes it’s here. That must be really gratifying for somebody like you who did so many years of research under prohibition where it was a combination of taboo, disrespect and trying to not get in trouble. It must be a real liberating feeling now to finally be able to step out and have at it.

K. Morrow: Let’s just say it’s gratifying to be proven right in the end. You know, as I said, speaking with Mel Frank yesterday, he’s approaching 70 and he thought he was retired and that was the end of the game and he’s never been so busy as he is right now, it’s incredible. Someone suggested he put his photos in a art exhibit and he literally doesn’t have time to do so.

Shango Los: Good for him, so what has it been like for you going from kind of the shadows of cannabis. I mean you were known as K from Tricome Technologies and now we’re like audaciously saying your name, Ken Morrow, on the air. What does that feel for you to come out from where you are a thought leader in the industry but you had to use a pseudonym to still being a thought leader in the industry. But being able to claim that respect with your real name.

K. Morrow: Still every time someone approaches me and uses my first and last name I expect them to pull out a badge, and that’s reality, you know. It’s shocking to me, it’s very humbling, I’m not really the type of person to be in the spotlight so to speak. It takes me aback a little bit.

Shango Los: Right on, well you’re definitely going to be in the spotlight even more here in the next few months promoting your new book, congratulations on that. It is a really gorgeous volume, one of the things I appreciate most about it is the conversational tone you take, reading it feels like hanging out with you and just having you explain it to me and it makes the writing really immersive. I also appreciated that the book isn’t just packed with bud photos like some are, your photos are very explanatory of what you’re trying to say and they really support your writing. Did you find it challenging distilling your vast 30 years of experience into a single book?

K. Morrow: It was kind of unusual but, like I kept it to the basic fundamentals, just teaching people how to do, what to do and all that kind of stuff was just kind of start at step 1 and go to step 100 kind of sort of thing. Thank you very much for your kind words, it’s a labor of love first and foremost and the limited amount of pictures that are in the book also reflect my amount of work. 40% of the photos in the book are actually my work, I actually did the work, grew the plants, manicured them, dried them, cured them, cloned them, everything else. I’m very proud of that fact that most of the work in the book I did myself.

Shango Los: Well and you can really feel that too because when somebody is taking photographs, say for an internet forum or something and the goal is to show how to do something, they show pictures that are very step by step and that’s what I experienced with your book too. I got to say, when you say the limited photos in your book, you must mean limited versus what you have totally because I thought the book was jam packed, I mean it’s colorful, it’s beautiful. There’s plenty of real solid narrative and you’re explaining me how to do things but it is, there’s so many pictures there that if pictures say a thousand words. It’s as if the book is four times the length because the pictures that you have taken intentionally really do a lot to explain what you’re trying to break down.

Had you always wanted to write a book, since you are already a writer for High Times, or did somebody give you an idea or even beg you to do it?

K. Morrow: Well I was fortunate enough that I knew the owners of Green County Press and they gave me the opportunities and the qualities that you are speaking of. The layout, the design, the color, everything else, the credit really does to Green County Press, their team, everything else. I just wrote the words, I’m proud of the photographers, they’re some of the best photographers in the industry. From Mel Frank, to Bubble man, to Andre Grossman on and on and on. One of the things I’m proudest of in the book is that I was able to give love back to my community, if you look at the acknowledgments, if you look at the references. I explain to people this isn’t the best book, if you buy the book from George Savantes, from Mel Frank, from Ed Rosenthal, from Robert Connel-Clark. If you buy all the information, read all the information then you’ve got a tenth of the picture so to speak, so I’m very, very proud that I’ve got to give love back to people like Thomas Alexander who did the magazine. Sensinalia Tips and many other obscure individuals that people don’t know who they are but, this is how we got where we are today.

I really, really took pride in giving credit to the people that came before me.

Shango Los: That’s really great, you know, another think that I liked about the book is you know, when I was in college and just starting to read these books. The only publishers, like C level, D level publishers were putting out these books and they, you know the binding wasn’t very good and the pictures were kind of a drag and sometimes things were out of focus. But now that people can get behind this and the quality is going up, it’s really a beautiful volume and that’s nice. Because you’re right, there are several different books that you can pick up and only know a tenth of what you will eventually know as a cultivator but it sure is a pleasurable experience when it looks good in your hands.

K. Morrow: Thank you very much.

Shango Los: Right on, so what do you say Ken is one of the most under publicized but extremely helpful new techniques or piece of information that growers should know?

K. Morrow: Right now it’s just, how to you start with your design of your facility, with the mass proliferation of cultivated marijuana in the United States, the wholesale prices dropping, dropping, dropping. The number one piece of advice I can give is be mindful of your actual costs of production, I mean if you’re selling grams for $6.00 but but it costs you $9.00 to produce you’ll very soon be out of business. Be mindful of when you’re creating you’re efficiency to not cut corners because you can create efficient production and still produce top quality cannabis is what I’m saying. That’s the whole thing, is really mindful of your actual cost production and the efficiency of your production facility is the biggest thing I can say.

Shango Los: If we’re going to be talking specifically about saving money and efficiency, are you down with LED lights now?

K. Morrow: Yeah, well LED lights and induction lights are fantastic for cloning and fantastic for vegetative, not for flowering in my opinion at this point. They will get to that level very soon but, a large scale facility I’ve very rarely see an LED bank over their flowering production facility.

Shango Los: It’s amazing that LED is going to have to give up a lot of the bad reputation it had before it had gotten this far. You know, in the early days people were like, let’s use LED and then everything was all laggy and it didn’t work right. But now there’s been so many jumps forward in the technology and the ability to really hone at 6,700K or whatever you want to grow at, to be able to adjust that. The technology really has come a long way, before we go to the break, what’s another good efficiency tool that you think that new school grow rooms should have?

K. Morrow: On a large scale I explain to people the matrix is from what I see it being now is 90% of the product that’s produced today is going to end up turning into concentrates, people are only going to consume the top 10%, the best of the best. The rest of it will be ripened up, once it’s ripened up in a two week period you’re going to get a accentuated level of cannabinoids and terpenoids, up to 25%. In that two week period, if you get up take of and ripening of your desirable compounds like I said, by eliminating the process of cutting them down, replacing them, utilizing that square footage efficiently and properly, ripening up that lower material if you will. You’re going to get a 25% increase, that will take two weeks, two weeks times four is eight weeks, that’s a whole flowering cycle. If you can get the same amount of cannabinoids and terpenoids by ripening up the same material, you get to skip one growth cycle but get the same amount of desirable components.

Therefore you save the money on that whole production cycle then you’re going to turn around and you’re going to, since you only took 10%, the other 90% is going to get fresh frozen so you’re not going to really dry cure, you don’t have to build a huge drying and curing facility for that purpose if you will and the equipment and the labor associated with that process. On a 36,000 square foot facility one of my clients spends between $100-140,000 dollars per month to trim 400 pounds and this is a monthly cost. Well the other 90% won’t be dried, it won’t be cured, it won’t be trimmed so you can eliminate that cost, that stuff will be fresh frozen and extracted. By doing so you’ll get an increased level of terpene content by the simple action of drying you’ll lose up to 30% of the available terpenes on the plant. So by not drying and not curing you saved all the labor costs, production costs, everything associated with it and the final product is a terpene rich concentrate that you can turn into anything you want from there. Therefore, that’s the matrix and that’s how you produced and saved yourself millions of dollars in drying, curing and space allocation.

Shango Los: That is such a beautiful and elegant solution and one other great thing about it is that it is simply a different way of thinking about it instead of actually having to spend money on some kind of new equipment. But we’re going to take a short break and be right back, you are listening to the Ganjapreneur.com podcast.

Welcome back, you are listening to the Ganjapreneur.com podcast, I am your host Shango Los and our guest this week is K from Trichome Technologies. So K, when you were getting into all this 30 years ago, you guys were breeding with landraces and seeds were coming in and shipments, a lot of you guys were going out and traveling internationally and looking for the seeds and bringing them back. But really you were the building blocks, where landraces, the way mother nature had created them in these bio regions all across the globe. Well now a days it’s harder for them to get their hands on the landraces both because we’ve got so many hybrids that are in the economy now, that people can just start with a high quality hybrid instead of a landrace. But also a lot of the landraces in these generally third world countries have been muddied by breeders taking their genetics there to trade. What have you seen has been the big difference between working with landraces for breeding like you did 20-30 years ago versus working with hybrids primarily, which is what people are doing now?

K. Morrow: Well hybrids are much more stable, back in the day when you were dealing with landraces you would go and you would breed new plants and the genetic diversity that you got from the progeny of those plants was very, very, very diverse. With the hybrids it’s a little bit closer, you’re still dealing with a massive amount of genetic diversity if you will but not as wide. You know with the old landraces you could get anything, you know, short, squat, tall. Usually undesirable, very, very lanky and a long, long growth cycle so, both through breeding, genetic selection if you will, turning out the hybrids. The hybrids, you know, you’re still going to get a lot of diversity but certainly not as much as you would with the old school hybrids.

Shango Los: You know I must admit I’m kind of surprised by your answer, I thought you were going to tell me we had whittled down our genetic diversity in a negative way because the original landraces had held so many options. But actually what I’m gathering is those wild plants and those wild seeds they were harder for breeders because they were like a bucking bronco. Whereas the hybrids now have been settled down to the point where that you can still draw out genetic diversity but, there’s a lot less static and noise in the signal. Am I, am I picking up what you’re putting down?

K. Morrow: Yeah, but understand that’s kind of speculation on my part, there’s still a lot of those landraces out there available that have been collected and we really don’t know what the benefits of those plants are because we’re just coming into the age of proper analyzation if you will, what if the old Whahakin from 1977 had a elevated level of a desirable component that we’ve somewhat lost. In the future I expect it will go back and cherry pick some of those to breed them into our current hybrids if you will.

Shango Los: You know a couple times on this show over the last couple months we’ve gotten to the conversation of how technology is helping breeding and we had a really good show with Reggie Gaudino from Steep Hill. Talking about what will be necessary to get patents on these plants and he was suggesting F9 is going to be necessary and how much nicer it is to be able to work with the technology that’s available now to find out so much more about the genetics of the plants and not have to grow them up to maturity. In what ways are you using some of these new technology tricks that are available to us to better your own breeding program?

K. Morrow: There’s only 3-4 genetic programs going on right now and for the benefit of the industry they’re not really focusing on genetically modified cannabis because fortunately nobody really wants this and so I don’t really see it being profitable. People talk about, you know, I won’t mention the names but multiple large scale corporations coming in and monopolizing this throughout their genetics. I just don’t see that really happening because you’ve got multiple programs right now doing DNA research, I believe that that DNA research will guide the selections of genetics we breed in the future and as the great David Watson pointed out, it’s much easier to get the desirable results or compounds or whatever you’re looking for by selective breeding then genetic modify. That’s what I’m looking for right now is to see if, multiple times have mapped the cannabis gene, both sativa, hemp, this that and the other thing. Someone in Canada with a Purple Kush and another hemp variety and I think that that technology is really going to aid in producing the desirable strains, varietals, compounds that we want in the future.

Not varietals but cultavirals if you will.

Shango Los: Yeah, yeah, so I understand from talking to you the other day that one of the things that really has got you juiced right now is doing extractions and you know, you’ve been doing extractions for decades. But specifically doing extractions to isolate particular aspects of the plant that meet particular patient needs so that you can customize an extraction for them to either take orally or to smoke that will help their particular ailment. Tell us a little bit about how you’ve been approaching that?

K. Morrow: Well it’s just, as a kid wants to take apart a toy, I look at the, once you’ve extracted something you understand that there’s multiple components. Well how do you separate those components, so you go back into basic organic chemistry but then you’ve got to go look at other people’s patents and equipment used and stuff, pick pieces and parts from other industries to try to accomplish your goal if you will. But, you know, how do you separate THC’s from CBD? Well me and multiple other people have figured out that be it from either the drug cultivars or the hemp cultivars. Then you separate the terpenes, well how do you fraction-ate the terpenes into the separate compounds and do that. It was just a fascination thing, you know, challenge myself, see if I could, try to figure out how. Now I’ve figured them out and I’ve separated them all, I’m not qualified to say or speak about what they’re good for or what they do.

I consider myself just a formulator, I formulate products that are going to be utilized by medicinal corporations if you will in the future. That’s all I’m really trying to do is formulate products to, when the members of the International Cannabinoid Research Society or the Research Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences wants pure pharmaceutical grade compounds that they can research, I want to be the person that provides them.

Shango Los: Right on, so I’ve got a question for you, but I want to say up front that this is not a leading question, I don’t have an opinion on this. I am looking at this for your opinion. We’re all big fans of whole plant medicine, the entourage effect, we’ve had Ethan Russo on the show talking about how the THC, the terpenes and the cannabanoids are all working together in concert. What do you feel about teasing apart the plant to find it’s discreet parts and then putting them together into a customizable oil? Do you still feel that that is whole plant medicine at that point?

K. Morrow: Whether it is or whether it isn’t, say that you just separated betakeraphaline oxide from a cannabis plant or some other compound that you couldn’t get from another source. If you found out that there was an ailment that that basic component was good for you might put that whole compound back on to the whole plant extracts. Yes, there’s going to be some ailments that you know, require or are treatable by certain compounds, so why would you give them a whole plant extract if they don’t need a whole plant extract? If they just need part A, part B, part C, I mean based on the anecdotal evidence I see this thing has multiple, multiple benefits. I can’t see that the exact chemical composition and ratio is fixing all those different things and maybe one would be helped if it had an accelerated or a higher level of a different component. That’s kind of, I’m not, again qualified to speak but that’s what I’m trying to put together. If someone figures out that I’ve got this great whole plant extract that I wish had more betakeraphaline in, okay boom, there you go.

Shango Los: Right, that actually kind of teases out a new in-between position that I haven’t seen before because you know a lot of people really got into whole plant medicine after Merinol came out. That just isolated THC and didn’t have nearly as good as an effect as whole plant medicine does. But you’re right, with the new technologies and with the new research that guys like you and others are doing, we actually can kind of rebuild a whole plant without just isolating one single part. I’m going to have to mull on that in the shower a little bit. But also for right now we need to take another break. You are listening to the Ganjapreneur.com podcast.

Welcome back, you are listening to the Ganjapreneur.com podcast, I am your host Shango Los and our guest this week is K from Trichome Technologies. Right before the break we were talking about the evolution from just growing cannabis to all of the new school extraction techniques and you know Ken you were there in the early days when people first started talking about BHO. Would you give us a little time machine moment and go back because we’re all excited about extracts now and comparing/contrasting, just give us a little snapshot about what it was like when people started moving beyond just simple hash and into hash oils and these new extraction techniques?

K. Morrow: Well it’s kind of a weird evolution, first cannabis started getting better and better and better so it started producing accelerated levels of THC on the waste materials, be it the trim. I started playing with the trim. There was no internet, there was no information, you couldn’t figure out how to do this so I started. You know, there was very few books or information on how to make hashish, the art was kind of lost in North America until the book from Robert Connel-Clark called Hashish came out and then it demystified everything. But, so I started breeding cannabis and that cannabis produced accentuated levels of chemicals, well I wanted to isolate those chemicals so I taught myself dry sieve.

Then I got a piece of communications from Neville Shoemacker and David Watson that kind of basically, loosely explained the water separation method. So I delved into that and published with Mel Frank the first water hash and dry sieve article in High Times magazine in 2000. Very soon after that produced the very first BHO abstraction article for Red Eye Magazine, in the year 2000 for Red Eye Magazine. 16 years ago explaining the process of BHO extraction but also write the first Rick Simpson article long before he did I just didn’t claim it had a care for cancer, anything like that. It was just a raw hash oil extraction, something the people had been doing for thousands of years so I certainly didn’t invent it or anything else.

I’ve been participating in the concentrate thing for a very long time, so the butane thing, you know, just the raw extraction from trim. But then you started extracting from bud and how do you super refine, how do you refine … a video called medicinalalchemy.com came out, that kind of pushed the industry forward. It taught the person how to make shatter or butter at their house, so that kind of proliferated, helped the industry go.

But the High Times Cannabis Cups, people meet every month and they share information, the internet, they just started to literally explode and then the processes of winterization and the uses of application like vacuum drying ovens or rotary vaporization apparatuses or close loop systems. People are getting hard core crash courses in organic chemistry in the past two years so, to see the thing massively proliferate like this has just been something to watch in the past two years it’s pretty incredible.

Shango Los: Yeah it is really exciting and it’s also kind of strange too to some of the early prohibition growers. I remember the first time I explained a nug run to you know, somebody who’d been growing since 1976, he was aghast right? Because he grows these beautiful flowers and he wants to take care of them and the idea that we were going to put it in a mechanical extraction technique to take out the essential parts was like, some kind of heresy. When you first started doing this all those years ago, were you getting that kind of push back too? You know, that’s cute what you’re doing but what the hell are you doing?

K. Morrow: Yeah, well it didn’t really become commercially viable until like I said, the wholesale price of cannabis dropped. I mean at this point, you know, you can get more for the concentrate than you can the raw flower, so the dynamic has really, really shifted. Once you explain to that individual, I’m going to take your beautiful flowers and turn them into something more desirable on the open market then he completely understands and that’s where it goes.

Shango Los: Yeah, that’s a good point, and that’s probably the big difference too between in the early days you were just using trim, which used to be called trash, which is now totally not trash versus the prices coming down so much that you can use flower. Also probably, there’s probably more people growing now then there ever has been and so there a lot more you know, B- and lower flower on the market that doesn’t have to bag appeal to even be sold at retail, so there’s just more of it in general probably too.

K. Morrow: Correct.

Shango Los: In the early days did you kind of you know, Johnny Appleseed it a bit, you’re very clear that you know, you shared bringing this knowledge out with other people and that is good. But in your own world were you finding that you were going around kind of turning people on to this technique and blowing their minds? Much like you know, people are doing now by turning on their friends to doing a rosin press and hair straightener and like everybody thinks they’re a Demi God. I can imagine that as you were taking this run and showing people their mind was kind of blown.

K. Morrow: Kind of stayed to myself, so I just showed to to a very small handful of friends you know, Ed Rosenthal, Rob Clark, people like that. I don’t really go out and show my wares just for the sake of showing my wares, you know.

Shango Los: Right on and if you’re going to talk about the people you showed it to you certainly named two out of the pantheon right? Ed and Bob so, well.

K.” Morrow: I explained I only got where I am because of people like them.

Shango Los: Right on, we’re all standing on somebody else’s shoulders right?

K. Morrow: For sure, for sure.

Shango Los: Ken, that’s all the time that we’ve got for today. Thank you so much for being on the show and sharing your vast experience with us.

K. Morrow: Thank you so much for having me it’s really been a pleasure.

Shango Los: You can find out more about Ken Morrow, his speaking engagements and his new book Marijuana Horticultural Fundamentals, a comprehensive guide to cannabis cultivation, has production on his Facebook page. At Facebook.com/TrichomeTechnologies. We also have a link to his book on Amazon in the notes attached to this podcast, you can find more episodes of the Ganjapreneur podcast in the podcast section at Ganjapreneur.com and also in the Apple Itunes store. One the Ganjapreneur website you will the latest cannabis news, product reviews and cannabis jobs updated daily, along with transcriptions of this podcast. You can also download the Ganjapreneur.com app in Itunes ad Google Play. You can also find the show on the I Heart Radio Network app, bringing the Ganjapreneur podcast to 60 million mobile devices.

Do you have a company that wants to reach our national audience of cannabis enthusiasts? Go ahead and email us at grow@Ganjapreneur.com to find out how. Thanks as always to Brasco for producing our show, I am your host Shango Los.

End


Jeff Church

Jeff Church: Extraction Methods and the Rise of Rosin Tech

ThincPure - Rosin TechRosin Tech” (or RosinTech, depending on who you ask) is a new form of home hash production which has taken Instagram by storm due to its simplicity and the quality of product it produces. Essentially, Rosin Tech involves using a hair straightener to combine heat and pressure as an extraction method — a process popularized by Instagram user Soilgrown. In our latest Ganjapreneur podcast, Shango Los sits down with Jeff Church (a.k.a. Reverend Cannabis) to discuss how the technique was born, how it has spread, and how it compares to other traditional hash manufacturing processes.

Jeff also discusses how Rosin has spread internationally while recalling his recent trip to Spain for Spannabis, where he encountered people who had heard of it but not yet perfected the technique due to the language barrier (the most popular Instagram videos demonstrating the Rosin Tech method are in English).

Jeff is the owner of ThincPure, and he also consults for legal cannabis processors and pharmaceutical companies. He worked to develop and implement the Medical Marijuana Hashish rating system for consumers and patients, he was formerly Dean of the Cannabis College, and he has worked extensively on cannabis reform with the Coalition for Cannabis Standards and Ethics, The Cannabis Defense Coalition, and the Patient Arrest Protection Group.

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Below are some photos of RosinTech pressed hash that Jeff has posted to Instagram:

https://instagram.com/p/2VDWE8tN6T

https://instagram.com/p/1piMmDtN41

https://instagram.com/p/3ZX0r0tN49

https://instagram.com/p/3ZMKS1tNyZ


Full Transcript

Shango Los: Welcome to the Ganjapreneur.com Podcast. My name is Shango Los and I will be your host today. Jeff Church, also known as Reverend Cannabis has been extracting medicine from cannabis for over 15 years. He has worked with every modern solvent and solvent-less extraction process, including dry extraction, ethanol, and ISO alcohol, water extraction, butane, and CO2. His business Conscious Extracts produces exceptional extracts sold in dispensaries throughout Washington. He also consults for legal cannabis processors and pharmaceutical companies. He worked to develop and implement the Medical Marijuana Hashish rating system for consumers and patients.
Reverend Cannabis was formerly Dean of the Cannabis College and has worked extensively on cannabis reform with the Coalition for Cannabis Standards and Ethics, The Cannabis Defense Coalition, and the Patient Arrest Protection Group. Welcome, Reverend Cannabis.

Jeff Church: Hello.

Shango Los: I know you to be fascinated by historical hash production, as well as being on the cutting edge of the newest techniques. In what ways do you see modern hash production as similar and dissimilar to historical techniques?

Jeff Church: Modern hash has really risen out of all of the historical techniques that we have. The basic types of hashish production, sieving and hand-rubbing kind of translate over into the new things that we’re doing. The hand-rubbing is similar to the live resin that we have nowadays. The sieving we’ve taken that to the purest form where now we’ve got 99% pure trichome heads in our dry sift, so there’s quite a few things.
The one thing that historically hasn’t been done as much is the use of solvents. That’s a fairly new thing, especially CO2 but there’s been ethanol extraction in history and that just stayed around. The old world techniques have really proved to be worthwhile over time. I would see them very similar. The only main difference is today we have all of the technology that we can apply to this. Where you were only able to get so pure of a product with old world techniques we’re able to step it up with a little bit of science and get a lot of pure extract.

Shango Los: A lot of people say, “Oh, old schools can be the best way to do things,” but in this case you’re saying that, “Yeah, the old ideas, it maybe the goal of the end product is the same but we can apply science that we have now to create a better end product.”

Jeff Church: We can be a little bit more selective in what we’re actually getting out of an extract. We can remove any chlorophylls through different solvent extractions. With the refinement in screening techniques we’ve been able to get really, really nice dry sift. The quality of products has just risen quite a bit. Now that’s not to say that the efficacy has changed all that much, we’re just getting to a more pure, more potent, more pleasurable extract nowadays.

Shango Los: In what ways do you think it’s more pleasurable?

Jeff Church: I believe that the terpenes really make it a lot more pleasurable. If you look to extraction with solvents, traditionally it was done with ethanol. To purge out the ethanol you really lose all of those volatile terpenes, the search for terpenes that they just, they fly away really quick with the ethanol when you’re removing it.
I think that there’s been great strides made in doing cryo-extraction, cold extraction of cannabis with butane, where they’re able to retain a lot of the terpenes. There’s also been lots of terpene extraction from cannabis that’s been started recently. It’s a whole new frontier from just your plain old RSO.

Shango Los: A lot of the historical hashish production techniques, they were done in geographic specific regions of the world and they are being done with land resins. Whereas nowadays most of us, some of us have land resins but mostly they’re hybrids that we have created for modern cannabis production.
Do you think that the increase in the potency of the modern hybrids versus historical land resins has created a significantly different product? Or do you think that they’re mostly just similar but maybe with just a different flavor profile?

Jeff Church: Traditionally when you’ve been making hashish it’s been in a region like, say Afghanistan, they have a really indicate dominant pool of genetics there and it’s very suited towards sieving of hashish. You get a really, really nice dry resin. All of these different types of cannabis that we have now a day with the hybrids they don’t all lead to hashish extraction in that dry sift method.
You can definitely do any plant dry sift but some plants are going to be better. That being said there are some that are better for water extraction. Some of them are better for butane extraction. Today we can kind of have to, with the large plethora of strains out there, we have to look at the material, analyze it by doing the different processes to that certain strain, and deciding on what the very best processing method is.
Where historically you had fairly similar things being produced in one region. You would see a lot of plants that were hand-rubbed in the Himalayas. They have a certain type of cannabis that’s there and it’s a bit different than what they have down in Afghanistan, or Morocco where they’re doing a lot of sieving.
Getting away from those land resins has made it a little bit more difficult, but because we have so many different methods to choose from nowadays you don’t need to just extract by sieving alone. We’ve gotten around that. We’ve progressed with the plan.

Shango Los: That’s really interesting that the different strains, they all have their own use. Somebody like yourself who has done this a bunch, can you give us a couple of examples? Like for example if you were looking for a plant that is going to be better for sieving versus a solvent extraction technique, what are you actually going to be looking for in the plant? I encourage you to name a couple strains, even though strains tend to be regional in a lot ways. Give some more concrete examples.

Jeff Church: I’ll start off with Afgooey, that’s my very favorite strain for production of high quality hashish from the water extraction method, and it too works well with dry sift. The one thing about that strain is the resin had seemed to cure so well that they’re just brittle and they pop right off. There is a large amount of resin on there. Now Afgooey, it’s an Afghan cross and that one was really produced and bred over time to be for dry sift production, and then it was brought out to California and bred, and now we have the Afgooey.
Now that being said, the Afgooey’s flavor is just kind of sweet. There’s really nothing to terpenely much that stands out with that. I, myself prefer other strains for their terpene contents that are a little bit more strong and a little bit more in the haze range. Now haze plants, I really have a hard time extracting those with dry material, as the resin had seemed to be a bunch more submented onto their stocks.
Anything like Dog shit or Schrom, those strains don’t give up their resin as easily as Afgooey. Afgooey, our record was 2.75 ounces from 1 lb. of material, and that was all four-star, high quality bubble or greater, some was five-start but at least four-star from that. Where if you run another strain, you’re just going to end up with some two-star and it’s not going to be as tasty.
Those sort of strains you would want to process with a solvent to get the most efficacy of the cannabinoids present in the plant. Because if you’re only getting a 5% yield with water extraction and then you bump it over to a solvent you’re getting 10% to 15% yield, you’re being a lot more efficient.

Shango Los: I follow. I follow. You mentioned a two and three star, and this is the star based hash grading system that you helped to develop for producers and consumers. You developed that a couple of years ago and now a couple of years later do you still find it, is it as inclusive as when it was originally devised? Or are you finding that hash is going in directions that you could never have expected and the star rating system needs to be adapted? Why don’t you explain a little bit about it for folks who are listening who aren’t familiar with it, and then talk about it if you’re still finding it as appropriate now as you did when it was devised.

Jeff Church: The star rating system, it was originally devised by a good buddy of mine who has been making hashish for just as long as I have. We’ve made hashish together for years and he goes by Milton Bubbly on Instagram. He was the owner of the hashish bar in Oakland called The Bazaar. When they opened up their hashish bar they were really into making hashish and they wanted to have a hash bar. [Inaudible 00:10:47] allowed for basically, to do within your private home or business, you were able to have a social club to allow for the distribution of hashish and marijuana and people to collectively smoke.
He really wanted to have a grading system that reflected the hash quality to the consumer. Everything had been pretty much $20, $25 a gram retail was hashish’s standard price, but there was a lot of stuff that was lower quality than that. It didn’t really deserve to fetch that high price, but just because it was hashish it got that price. Then there were a lot of things that were higher priced … or that were higher quality than that, that should have been fetching a higher price because they are much more rare, much more high in potency, but they weren’t able to attain the same prices that BHO at the time was able to attain.
The idea was make a one through six star system. One-star being basically no melt, doesn’t want to press. Two-star presses, melts tiny bit. Three-star, it will melt into a lump and boil into that lump. Four-star will boil into a puddle, it will basically come into a lump and then boil flat into a puddle, and continue to boil.
Five-star will do the same, boil into a puddle and then it will boil big, clear domes that take up basically the whole space of where the hashish is melting on the screen, and the contaminant itself is pushed out to the edges of the screen by the bubble. When that pops you actually can see the bare screen down below it, where previously there had been hashish boiling. That’s the five-star is that crater, once you get that crater to form that’s five-star.
Then six-star is pretty much just the same consistency as hash oil, just a little bit more contaminated than hash oil because there’s some cellulose and blacks that’s actually in the resin had itself, that when you do a solvent extraction that’s left behind. That’s the one through six-star.
It’s really served the patient community very well, as well as the, it’s starting to serve the recreational community. People are able to say, “Hey, you know this is my budget. I want to be able to get at least this quality, so I’ll purchase, you know this much in this star range.” Then some people are like, “I want the very best,” and they’ll only look for four or five and six star. There’s different patients out there that have different needs and this helps fulfill them and gives them a path to walk down.
As far as the future, we’ve come into 2015 with this working really well. It’s getting widely adopted. A Greener Today, a dispensary around here that helped publicized the star rating system has now jumped onboard. They’ve got a six-star on their rating system because they see the need for having these different high-quality differations.
The industry is really picking up on which I think is great for consumer, but we don’t really have anything to differentiate anything of it in melt, at this point. How well is your hashish melting, that’s a direct relation to what is the level of cannabinoids and terpenes in your extraction. The more you have, the better it’s going to melt. It definitely shows quality but there’s a category of quality that it cannot cover and that’s flavor. Flavor is pretty much left out in the star rating system.
Moving forward, having things such as Rosin coming forward, basically every Rosin is a six-star plus but when you heat it, not every Rosin tastes great. Some things that are made from low quality hashish don’t have a good flavor, they have a flavor similar to the low quality hashish. Now they’re way higher in quality, way higher in purity than that low quality hashish was, but they’re still on that lower end. Where if you take a higher quality hashish or a flower and make the Rosin from that it’s going to hit that higher quality level.
I think that really, we need to device a system for that that’s above and beyond the star rating system, something that really we can apply a quality standard to the products so that consumers will be able to say, “Oh well, you know, this is only this good and that one is way better, because it was rated that way.”
The one issue I see with that is that the star rating system is very easy to determine just by looking at it. Everybody has a very good visual cue, you can look at it but every person’s palette is different. Something that taste wonderful to me could not taste as good to you. That’s the struggle. We’ve got to try and figure out a way to reflect the quality but not have it be in such a way that somebody might think that it’s higher quality more than another.
The star rating system really keeps hash producers honest, as well as informing the consumer. I think that if we’re just saying, “Oh well, this tastes better,” it would be really easy for a hash maker to just say, “Oh well, all of mine are in this higher category,” even if they’re not. We’ve got to work together as community to figure this out.

Shango Los: Sure. I could imagine that that we all have our favorite strains and the terpene profiles that we like the most, and maybe not a judgment call about which flavor is actually preferred but actually how much terpene there is to begin with, and then so that we know how much a [inaudible 00:17:27] it’s going to have to begin with. Then within that you find your particular niche.

Jeff Church: The one funny thing about that, I’ve told you that let’s just based it on terpene milligrams, and then I started really thinking about there is a huge difference in between all of the different terpenes. If you’ve got something that’s very, very close to what the flower is, you’re going to have a profile very, very similar.
If you heat it a little bit too much, those terpenes are going to transform into other terpenes. What maybe an off labor could register in a lab as a very high terpene result, but because they were changed so much in the process it’s not very palatable for consumers even though its numbers are very high. It’s an interesting thing, possibly how close is that ratio to the flower that you originally extracted it from could be the mark of quality. How far off are you?

Shango Los: Right on. It will be really, really interesting to find out how that evolves, now that legalization is taking hold in so many states there’s going to be more people taking about this. The information is being exchanged so much more quickly through Facebook and Instagram, and people meeting at Cups, and all these things that it seems like there is … If you were looking at it on graphic, look like a hockey stick where suddenly hashish have come this far during the last couple thousands of years and then suddenly it just taken off.

Jeff Church: To the moon, for sure. It’s quite drastic. We look at Rosin in its infancy and thousands and thousands of people around the world are doing this brand new extraction technique.

Shango Los: Let’s go right into that. I was going to hit on the Rosin Tech in a little while but since we go that way, let’s talk about it, because a lot of people probably have not come across this yet.
I came across it … I think it was soon after Soilgrown down in Southern California developed his technique. I was lucky enough to be following his Instagram feed and he started posting this how-to videos, but since you have spoken with him directly and have been teaching people around the world now how to do it, why don’t you just go ahead and summarize what this new evolution is, and give the credits where they’re due for folks.

Jeff Church: I’d love to give a little quick history of what happened for Soilgrown, at least from my third party account of what’s going on here. Soilgrown is a ice water extraction maker down in California and he loves to smoke melt, that’s his favorite, he loves the melty hash. He started running low on his melty hash. He had noticed when he squished some lower quality hash that squeezing it out to make a dab, that when he squished it a little too long some hash oil leaked out to the edges of where that hashish was, and the contaminant stayed in the center.
He started collecting that up and really turning like two-star hash into five-star hash. It was quite an amazing thing. Then he ran out of his half melt that he had been making into higher melt and kind of processing. He says he was just standing around, he says, “I don’t know what made me do it exactly but I was just standing around with my father in-law, and I just took a piece of button and put it in between the parchment and squished it, because I had been doing that with the hashish and was just like, let see what happens.”

Shango Los: Suppose you don’t know what he’s squishing in it, what’s he squishing in it? That’s a pretty big deal.

Jeff Church: Basically what it is, is you take a piece of silicon coated parchment paper, baking paper, and fold it in half and you put a piece of flower in there. Then Soilgrown’s original method was take a flat iron which is just your basic hair straightener, $20 or less, and you put it at, it depends on who you’re talking to what the temperature is. I personally like 230 degrees, it’s not as quick but if you like, the terps are a little bit better, but you basically just, you’ve got your bud in between a parchment and you squeeze it with this hot iron.
What happens is the cannabinoids and terpenes rupture out of the resin heads that are on the flower and they become liquid. There’s a little bit of steam action because there’s some water that, the water content in the flower, but basically that steam action and the cannabinoids becoming liquid because of heat drives them out to the sides of the bud with the pressure that you’re applying. What you end up with is a completely solvent-less dab that is very, very similar to BHO. In my opinion, better flavor, more terpene content than BHO made from the same type of material. It’s from bud to dab in 30 seconds.

Shango Los: People are … What people come across is on his Instagram feed, which you can find at Soilgrown or in the Facebook group that’s presently exist called Rosin Tech, people are really blown away. To go from a position where we’re using all these complex recipes and expensive technologies, if we’re talking about CO2, to get the hash oil and then suddenly to have somebody realize that you can just wrap a bud at parchment and squeeze it in a hair straightener, and suddenly you’re getting six-plus star hash with no solvents. It’s perfect for patients. It’s a real game-changer for everybody.

Jeff Church: The only thing that’s holding back right now is the ability to produce it on a large scale. When I was down with my buddy, down at The Bazaar in Oakland, the guy who helped create the star system, we used the flat … a t-shirt press because he didn’t have a flat iron. He knew nothing about it at all.
We were just messing around and grab this t-shirt press and started squishing out hash, and then we said, “Oh, you know, we need to filter to hold back this hash,” because we’re only getting five star. He said, “Well, let’s use the pressing screen from the bubble bags and we’ll just toss it, and toss the hash and then see what happens.” Lo and behold, six-star shot out of it and it was quite an amazing discovery that’s kind of changed the world.
Soilgrown, I don’t know if he realizes it but he has created a whole new category of extraction. I knew we had mechanical extraction with his dry sift and bubble hash, and then we had solvent extractions which is CO2, BHO, PHO, ethanol, you name it. You can use pretty much most non-polar solvents. This has created a whole new no solvent heat extraction, heat and pressure extraction.
I think moving forward in the world, this being such a small footprint when you look at what is your production method doing to the resources of the world. Ice water has been great, you’re using water. Water is scarce is some places in the world but you’re not really polluting the water that bad, unless you’ve got horrible material you’re using that’s coated in pesticides and such, but it’s been a minimal footprint. Then you jump over to this Rosin Tech and every day the footprint is getting less and less. You’ve got a little bit of electricity required and a small amount of equipment and you’ve got a product that is solvent-free.

Shango Los: It really liberates hash oil for the people, if you will, right? Because so often you either need an advanced technical skill or you need expensive machinery, and you need to have access to a lot of product to justify that as well, but now suddenly if you want to do it real small you can literally take one of the buds out of your eight and squeeze it, and now you have your own personal dab that you made at home yourself. You don’t have to go through all these intermediary people, and even if you upgrade and you’re doing larger amounts in a t-shirt press, it’s still something that you can do with a $300 piece of equipment, and some parchment paper. Now suddenly this power’s in the hands of everybody.

Jeff Church: That was the most important thing for me, within a new technology we see a lot of hoarding going on and it’s tough for every human. We are designed to go out there, find the best thing, hold it for ourselves to make a profit off of it. That’s just built in to our genes, and it really just blows me away that there are people out there such as Soilgrown that didn’t have that thought, that said, “No, let’s just give this to the people.”
When [inaudible 00:27:48], Milton Bubbly and I came up with the method down in Oakland of using the 25 micron screen, it was pretty much a no-brainer. We have to get this technique out to the world so that everybody can be able to do this. For one, I want it to be applied on a commercial scale, and I feel that releasing this technique to the world is going to up the research that is going into this. Every single person that’s doing this now is researching some way to make it better, which is just, it’s great, and posting it on this Rosin Tech’s group.
But even more important than that is the children. We have kids that are getting a little turkey baster, stuffing it full of herb, and putting a coffee filter on the bottom of it, and blasting butane in their kitchen, which is the worst thing that you could ever do. They’re endangering themselves and others. People have died. People have burned themselves really bad from processing of cannabis just to get a dab that is the same dab as you’d be able to get from Rosin.
Now this technique is out there for the world so that we don’t have to have as many hashish manufacturing explosions which are very bad for our progression into mainstream culture of cannabis and cannabis extracts. A lot of places have been scared off and banned cannabis extracts from even being produced, because they don’t want people doing it at home and blowing themselves up. I hear that.
The reason why I haven’t done butane extraction for many, many years now is because of the safety. I felt that the way that I was doing it was only so safe, both for my health in breathing all the fumes, but also for everybody else around me. What if I blew myself up while I was doing it? That’s why we gravitated towards CO2. It’s still a dangerous procedure to do, but you have to buy clothes, loop equipment, that is manufactured to really high quality specs to be able to even do CO2.
We felt comfortable that the equipment we were using was good, and that the footprint, our ecological footprint from CO2 was a lot better than just open blasting cans and allowing them to evaporate into the atmosphere. We’re using really clean CO2 for our extractions rather than using something that’s mined out of the Earth.

Shango Los: You touched on the idea of crowdsourcing the evolution, right? I remember seeing Soilgrown’s post to Instagram and he was, it was like four, five days in a row. Each day he was posting another short video of each step of the process. I started seeing them in like day three or something. As I watched the first three days, being a cannabis entrepreneur myself, I can almost feel the ground shake and the industry that this is such a disruptive technology. I was like, “My God, I can’t wait until day four to see how he finishes this, because this is amazing.”
Then the idea that he was just giving away his intellectual property and letting this be open source so that folks didn’t have to use butane, and that they can make it at home. All sorts of folks in the Midwest who are in states where legalization is still coming along but coming along slowly, this has suddenly allows people to be able to make their own clean dabs at home while they get their local laws straight. It’s pretty radical stuff.
Now we’ve got Facebook group where people are exchanging their technologies. I think it’s pretty incredible that now we can all work together. Heck, even our conversation here, this is thanks to ganjapreneur.com and the internet, and the fact that you and I find each other on the internet, and we get together in a talk. This is all stuff that the generation before us didn’t have a chance to do. That’s pretty great.

Jeff Church: Right, I feel that in this new time that we’re in, with the internet being so readily available for everybody, it’s really important for everybody to utilize that. There are going to be trade secrets in the cannabis industry.
I know, I actually have previous knowledge, it was maybe two months prior to Soilgrown’s experiments of people doing hydraulic and heat extraction, is what they said. They said heat and pressure rather, I don’t know the actual machine that they’re using because they were very secretive. They said, “We have this solvent-less shatter that we had made from bubble hash.” They were selling it and they had come up with a great method for it that was working but they were unwilling to tell anybody anything more than heat and pressure.
With the internet being out there’s only so long that you are going to have to hold down any technique nowadays, because somebody else is going to figure it out and post it online. I think that Soilgrown, he’s not the guy that first did this. The first guy that did this was probably a long, long time ago. Honestly, really the first guy that ever pressed some Rosin was … there’s Compassion, who was the guy that did it back in the late 90’s, early 2000’s?
But before that it’s the guy in Morocco that was manning the press. He squeezed his hashish into bricks and oil would squirt out on the sides. They would collect up that oil and it would be a red oil, because it had been heated a whole bunch, but that was the first Rosin. It’s been this progression but nobody’s really picked up on it as a technique, only kind of like a side thing that’s happened.

Shango Los: Certainly no one’s put it in the hair straightener.

Jeff Church: Right. Now, we had this whole dab culture that came on, that really was BHO prevalent. Now we’d move it over towards dry sift and solvent-less. Everybody got a hair straightener to press out their bubble into a dab before they heat it. Most people had the equipment at home to make this as soon as Soilgrown was just willing to give it to the world. I think the internet is going to continue to be one of the best places to learn.
I just went over to Spain. I met with a lot of people from all over the world. I feel like on the West Coast here, we’re a couple years ahead of anywhere else in the world, but the guys from the UK, they really have a very similar level of product. Their product is very well refined. That’s very similar to the BHO that we’ve got on the West Coast is what they’re producing in the UK, and that’s because the language barrier is non-existent. They can follow as many Americans as they want and read every single comment, read everything on there, and Instagram has really taught these people how to make high quality extracts.
Where you go to Spain and talk with the Spanish people, and they definitely have a love for it but their knowledge that they’ve been able to gain from everybody else on Instagram is not as high, because they have this language barrier. It’s not in their main language so there’s less of them that are going there.

Shango Los: We’ve been talking a lot about getting the cleanest dabs possible and getting as close to the source, from a flower material as possible, and a lot of people are still using BHO for extraction, even though it gets a lot of flak for both the health concerns and the potential danger in the extraction. What do you think? Do you think that BHO still has a place in the legal hash oil market?

Jeff Church: I definitely think that the BHO has a place in the legal hash market. I think Rosin is definitely going to become more and more popular but there’s something to be said about a hydrocarbon extraction. You can get near a 100% of cannabinoids out of the material utilizing enough solvent. I think that for a lot of the recycling of material, butane’s going to be very much in use.
If you think about it if you’re making flower Rosin, you’re going to have a ton of leftover material to grind that all up and do a hydrocarbon pass on that after you’ve gotten your Rosin, then you have another product that can be utilized to all kinds of different ways. You can make that into the concentrate type of product or you could make that edible oil. It’s not going to be something that you’re going to want to smoke without purification probably but it’s … I think that there’s always going to be a place for it. You know that not all trim is high quality.
If you make Rosin from low quality material, it’s going to be lower quality flavor. There’s always going to be the best process for any given type of material. I just think that Rosin is going to fill a lot more of that gap. It will kind of eat away from bubble hash and CO2 and butane. I feel that CO2 extraction, a lot of people love that, they definitely do but it’s … and PHO are going to be the less used process, kind of more on the recycling, getting all the waste taken care of.
There’s definitely been lots of people giving into purified cannabinoids. I think that the market is always going to want that but terpene content for me, is always a huge thing. It modulates the effects of the cannabinoids, it acts as a solvent on the CB1 and CB2 receptors to allow for THC and CPD that are take on the receptive surface, to be dissolved so that they may more readily pass in through the receptors.
There’s a lot of use to having that whole plant but that’s not to say that some of the fractions aren’t good.

Shango Los: You mentioned that you had just gotten back from Spain, where you were there for The Secret Cup and for Spannabis. Because I follow your Instagram feed I got to see some of the celebrities that you were interacting with. Why don’t you tell folks a little bit about Spannabis and what you got to see and do there, just so that we can all geek along with you?

Jeff Church: Spannabis was an epic adventure. It’d been many years since I’ve been to Barcelona and it was way different. Last time I was in Barcelona the experience of cannabis there was going to La Rambla and going down to the little park at the end and scoring some Moroccan hashish from the street dealer. That was the best I can do back in 2002.
I came to Spain, and lo and behold they have social clubs there and it is very similar to what you would have in Amsterdam back in 2002. Back in the day they have a bar there where you can get drinks, whether it’s a smoothie, or a fresh juice, or coffee, or beer, or wine, they have that going on. Then they’ll also have a bar where you can buy flowers and concentrates, and they’ll have different ice water extractions, butane extractions, and flowers, and it’s really quite an amazing atmosphere.
They’ve done it as a social club rather than it being just purely recreational or purely medical. It’s kind of not any of that, it’s just you’re coming in and socializing and using cannabis. I guess it’s more on the recreational side, but that being said everything, I guess it’s illegal in Spain. They just have really good privacy laws so people have said, “Well, we’re just going to do this within our own home and the police have no right to come inside our home or business, so we’re just going to do it,” but that was, it was really wonderful.
I got to go to Spannabis for a couple of days and met with people from all over the world that brought samples of hashish to be turned into Rosin. My favorite extraction that I did while I was there was, met a great gardener from Canada. He had his second place winning bubble hash made from [inaudible 00:42:16]. At Dabadoo he won second place. He actually put in, the stuff that he put in as an entry wasn’t quite as good as what he had wrapped for himself.
When I met up with him he had this, what was the second place winner but the better grade of it. We took that and turned it into Rosin and it was just spectacular. It was a really great experience seeing well-known extract artists from all over the world, just geeking and freaking that this was happening in 30 seconds in front of them. They’re like, you just took that hashish and turned it into hash oil like that. It was amazing, that was …

Shango Los: It kind of puts you in a role like Johnny Appleseed of Rosin Tech.

Jeff Church: Right, exactly. We really got to show it to the world. At Spannabis I was hanging out with Mark Bubbleman, he sells bubble bags up there. He had a little booth there at Medical Seeds, who actually the guy, Javier, from Medical Seeds, he was the first place Secret Cup Solvent-less winner, and I got the pleasure of making some Rosin from his Secret Cup entry as well. It was epic.
One of the best parts was during the Secret Cup finals we got to have them in the Hashish, Hemp, Camino, and Marijuana Museum … or wait it’s Hashish, Marijuana, Camino, and Hemp Museum in Barcelona. Camino is cannabis in Spanish. It’s a 15th century building and Ben Dronkers, I believe he sends his [inaudible 00:44:25] he did a 15 year restoration on this 15th century building before he put the museum in there.
He’s got another museum in Amsterdam. This one is over the top. There are pieces of history from everything that you could imagine that cannabis has touched, whether it’s textiles, or medicine, or recreational culture, so many different facets of society were represented through its love of cannabis. I was fortunate enough to go to the awards ceremony which is one of two times that anybody’s ever been able to smoke cannabis in the museum, because it’s usually no smoking because it’s a museum. You don’t want the artifacts damaged.
We got to smoke in there which was really wonderful with all of the judges of The Secret Cup. I was having a little conversation with one of the judges and Bubbleman Mark he yells over to me, “Jeff! Jeff! Get over here.” I walked over there and he said, “Hey, you want to make some Rosin?” I’m like, “Yeah, yeah, give me an adaptor.” I have the US one, I needed the European plug. He said, “Okay, give me a minute,” and I walked back over to my conversation that he pulled me away from.
Then literally 10 seconds later he’s, “Jeff! Jeff! I got the adaptor. Come on back.” I’m like, “Okay, okay.” I walked over there and he says, “Here, here, come, come up my seat.” I’m like, “Okay, okay.” I looked to the right and its Marc Emery and Jodie Emery sitting there. I didn’t see them at all before, and he’s like, “I want you to make some Rosin for these guys. They’d never seen it, never tried it, they want to try it. They want to see it.”
Jodie gave me a flower and I pressed it up and made some flower Rosin for Marc Emery, and he got to have his first dab of it. Then she gave me another bud and I pressed it up and packed one for her and one for myself. It was just really enjoyable to be able to bring this new technique out to so many people in the world, and have people that I really respect highly just blown away by this.
It really showed me how you were talking about the ground shaking earlier. That is really what Rosin is doing right now and it’s crazy. It’s quite, quite an adventure. That Spain was wonderful, lots of good cured meats there and good fun time.

Shango Los: Right on, that sounds like a really great thing. Now you’ve told us all sorts of really cool stories, if folks want to follow your social media feeds, to see pictures of you pressing Rosin for Marc Emery or any of your other adventures, where can they go to find you?

Jeff Church: On Instagram I am @cannabisreverend and on Facebook you can find me as Jeff Church, although friend request I’m not always on top of that, but you can go at least follow me and see I cross-post most things from Instagram to Facebook but Instagram is really where I’m at. Like I said earlier it’s where the wealth of knowledge is right now, and where all the knowledge is being transferred is Instagram at the moment.

Shango Los: Right on. Thank you, Jeff. We’ve been listening to Jeff Church, also known as Cannabis Reverend. Jeff Church is an internationally respected hash producer and researcher, and owner of Conscious Extracts, and is also Vice President of Research and Development at Think Extracts in Washington State. I am Shango Los, Founder of the Vashon Island Marijuana Entrepreneurs Alliance, thank you for listening to ganjapreneur.com.

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