Ghost of Cannabis Past

Your Highness Podcast

To honor all the Christmas movies playing, we are doing a theme: Past, Present, and Future of Cannabis. We begin with the past, as Diana and JR take a trip down memory lane.

Listeners get a 10% discount when they use code YHPOD for Mitragaia products.

Important links:

• Ranchera Familia
• Incredibles

Speaker 1 [00:00:00] During the holiday season. I would like to take a minute to thank all of our listeners and guests for making this past year so special. Thanks to your continued support, we can keep doing our part to normalize cannabis by sharing the uncensored truth with the world. We are honored that you choose to spend time with us and we wish everyone a safe and healthy holiday season.

Speaker 2 [00:00:32] And you're listening to Your Highness, Princess Diana Crash.

Speaker 3 [00:00:52] And I'm J.R. Crash.

Speaker 2 [00:00:54] Before we start this episode, we will begin with our recurring segment, Safe Pot and Shape Up, where each one of us talks about our favorite cannabis related item or thing or whatever item. I guess that kind of clarifies. It can be really anything cannabis related and our fave, not pot, which is our food, not cannabis related thing at the moment. So I'm going to start, as I usually do, my fave pot. I have mentioned this brand before, but I just love their hemp cigarets so much and it's Ranchera Familia. It's a Latina owned, grown and owned hemp business and they seriously have the best hemp cigarets. They're just so smooth. They're so smooth.

Speaker 3 [00:01:47] So smooth.

Speaker 2 [00:01:48] So smooth. And I'm a big fan. They they're really easy to smoke. And I love supporting small businesses when I can. So what's your fave pot right now?

Speaker 3 [00:02:04] J.R. My favorite pot is actually from the company Incredibles. It's their gummies. It's the straw Berry Chews. You can tell it's going to make you relaxed because it's not strawberry but straw berry. So yeah, they are so 1 to 1 with THC and CBD. I recently got over being sick, being very sick that COVID sick, but almost worse in my.

Speaker 2 [00:02:34] Yeah, I think it was worse.

Speaker 3 [00:02:36] Yeah, it was a bad it was a bad one. And really at night I just could not get comfortable enough to sleep. My body itself was just so sore from all the coughing and sneezing and just being miserable. And really these incredible straw berry chews were really the only thing that kind of brought my body to a point where I could be comfortable enough to to sleep. They were really a saving grace during that. So that is why the incredible strawberry chews are my favorite pot this week.

Speaker 2 [00:03:10] Your fave pot.

Speaker 3 [00:03:12] My fave pot.

Speaker 2 [00:03:14] So those are really good gummies. I second that pot and especially when you're sick, I guess cannabis has that that magical getting you over those respiratory illness effects. You know, I'm not going to save my age. I was joking. We're not saying cannabis is magical. I mean.

Speaker 3 [00:03:38] Anything is is magical. This world is a magical place. Christmas time. So.

Speaker 2 [00:03:43] Okay, magic. I heard. But I will say, I think cannabis got us through this, like, wave of just. Health gave this sickness. This was this is something else. I feel like it was worse. I think of it. And I think that's saying a lot because I'm not a big baby when I'm sick. And you are.

Speaker 3 [00:04:07] And I am a big baby.

Speaker 2 [00:04:11] What else got me through us? Being sick was getting you into White Lotus, which is my safe. Not hot right now. I didn't think it was going to be. I tried to avoid the second season because if you've seen the first season, you'll understand what I'm talking about. It's just a weird show, but it's weirdly captivating and the second season it brings the visual escapism elements to the screen, you know, I mean, because inflation is what it is and we're deeply in a recession and some people are still avoiding calling a recession. And we can't just, you know, go off to Italy at a moment's notice. We've never been those people. But like, you know, we can pretend like we could be those people. When we're watching White Lotus, it gives you that, like, escapism elements, like it's it's visually stunning. The acting is good.

Speaker 3 [00:05:11] I mean, I don't think you should really be saying that we want to be in White Lotus because none of the people in the show seem to be really happy with their current state and life.

Speaker 2 [00:05:21] Yeah, but then they look out at The View and they're fine for a little while, you know? Yeah. I'm not saying we want to be those people. I'm saying we want to be there at the. The resort.

Speaker 3 [00:05:34] So what you're saying is your your favorite not pot is Italy.

Speaker 2 [00:05:40] I mean, it's not not right. I mean, I have to say, Italy has a big I think Italy is like whatever whatever character. I don't know. I lost count how many characters are in this season. But you know how people always say like New York's the other character, Sex of the City or Seinfeld or whatever. Right.

Speaker 3 [00:06:02] Or Batman.

Speaker 2 [00:06:03] Or. Isn't that Gotham City, though?

Speaker 3 [00:06:05] Yeah, it's a character.

Speaker 2 [00:06:07] All right. Well, and this and this dramatic series, I don't know what you call it. It's a it's a strange show, but it's like you can't stop once you start. And you know that now because I've drag you into it. You still haven't seen season one. I don't know that you really need to. And if you haven't seen season one out there, I don't recommend it. I just go straight to season two.

Speaker 3 [00:06:30] It's an amazing show because you're watching it and then you're thinking to yourself, I really like this. And then 5 minutes later you're like, But why do I like it? Because it's not really doing anything right.

Speaker 2 [00:06:44] Like, it's it's weirdly slow moving yet also captivating. It's it's a strange mix. Yes. Yes. But that's the case for a lot of HBO shows. I feel so anyway. What's your favorite fight right now?

Speaker 3 [00:07:05] My favorite not part is actually the movie spirited. It is a Christmas movie because it's magic time, you know. So it's a movie with Will Ferrell, Ryan Reynolds. It's a musical which I absolutely love. And it's really it's a take on a Christmas carol, you know, and it's just really magical. It's an it's a fun movie, and it is the perfect movie to kind of segway into our topic at hand. Which is.

Speaker 2 [00:07:45] Yes, we are doing a theme because it's the month of December and you might not be listening to this in the month of December, but that is why we're doing it. So with that Segway, we'll be discussing the past, present and future of cannabis. So today we're going to start obviously on the past and go down a little a little memory, a little trip down memory lane. We're going to take a little trip. When we began this podcast five years ago. Over five years ago. It was a very exciting time. And the person that got me into this idea of doing this for a show actually had been in the industry for a very long time and I was new to it. And she she thought it was really cool that I was so excited. I think that might have been her favorite thing about me because she always is commenting about how how excited I made her about this industry that she had grown very weary of. And I didn't understand it at the time. I'm like, What? There's so much to do. There's so much possibility.

Speaker 3 [00:09:00] But yeah, I mean, a lot of people were really excited. There was a lot of just possibility. I remember when we went to that expo in South Florida, and at that time just the buzz of energy in the air was just so captivating. It was it was awesome, you know, sitting in panels and not just people discussing business. There was people that were like obviously discussing business, but it was more of just the the swapping of of ideas and theories and science. And everyone was just so excited, just eat up any piece of information they possibly could. And it was it was just contagious. You know, you just get into that atmosphere and just think this is going to be the industry that is going to change our world. And I remember I was just leaving there thinking like, this is going to be a game changer.

Speaker 2 [00:10:03] Yeah. Yeah. Because that convention, I mean, we dragged my uncle to it who had been using cannabis for most of his life and was like, What am I going to learn? And I mean, we had that same mentality to an extent, but we were we were learning so many new things, so we were getting so excited about it. And he was kind of like, Oh, we'll see. But I also remember at that same convention seeing people who were just starting out, who are now major figures in this industry and. And like you said, there was a buzz. There was everyone was excited about the so-called green rush. And we drove right in with both feet ourselves. But a lot of the things we dealt with five years ago we thought would get better. And of course, we're going to touch on that later. But one thing that was very prevalent was people working for free. There was a lot more let's trade services and let's let's work for equity. And unfortunately, that started to kind of snowball. And it left a lot of people in the dust, so to speak, because they thought things would eventually get better. I mean, looking back on our first season and I did this recent morning. Most of the people that I interviewed during that season aren't even in the industry anymore.

Speaker 3 [00:11:37] Now. Now they really aren't at all. And really just just piggybacking off of what you what you're saying is, you know, a lot of people were basically creating like a barter system for us to operate and work in. And that kind of set the framework of what the industry kind of. McCain. You know, you had people instead of, you know, offering payment, offering things like like shares in their company, their their nonexistent company. You know, a lot of people who were just one or two people that had an idea, though, a great idea, not really having the understanding of how to to build a business. And in doing so, a lot of those really, really great ideas ended up being taken by larger companies. And the people that created those ideas were oftentimes kind of pushed to the side because they really didn't have a firm grasp on how to start a business, how to operate a business in the early years before you actually go into the black. And, you know, unfortunately, big companies swooped in and kind of took control of everything. And then you also have other companies which were smaller companies, because everyone was kind of making it up as they went along. You know, here in Maryland, we have a lot of dispensaries, a lot of shops, and we have dispensaries and shops that were started from day one thinking on a very compliant level. And then you also have shops who weren't really operating compliant at all and basically viewed things like inspections from state agencies and fines almost as like a shakedown, like it was just a cost of doing business. You know, companies that have been, you know, acquired by other companies. And then those companies are left with a lot of a lot of mess, you know, because the companies beforehand were just operating as in, oh, we're just going to do what we want. Once a month, an inspector is going to come in, shake us down with some fines, will pay the fines. We're making a lot of money as it is. And that was kind of a mindset that kind of fell in place with a lot of these these companies that were just kind of going, you know, just kind of rolling as they went. You know, a lot of these companies really only got the license and opened a dispensary during medical use knowing that eventually adult use will come what would pass and they'd be able to sell their license for a huge profit. So a lot of companies were basically built out of sticks and straws deliberately for financial reasons. And now that leaves us into a situation on a present day where a lot of companies really aren't really operating on the up and up. You know, when we're trying to legitimize an industry, there's still a lot of that ingrained thought process and behaviors from the early days of this is the Wild West, and we're just doing what we're doing and making making the money. And that's led us into a situation that we're at today.

Speaker 2 [00:15:00] Yes. And then, you know, to speak to the podcast and the journey that we've taken and thinking back on the past, I remember writing a few articles about how women executives were on the rise in cannabis, and we were all very excited about that.

Speaker 3 [00:15:17] But I remember that that was a very exciting time.

Speaker 2 [00:15:20] But then as the women in cannabis studies showed and that that was a study that took years to complete. A lot of those positions were not comparable to other industries because if we're calling someone an executive and they have no one below them, it's not really comparing apples to oranges when you're talking about other industries. So it was really easy to conflate these numbers as like progress, like, oh, look, women and non-binary people are going to actually have a foothold in this industry. And spoiler alert, that's not happening. So there was a lot of that excitement as well five years ago, like people were still believing, look, women and non-binary folks can can make a name for themselves in this industry in a way that they can't in others. And I mean, that is just obviously fizzled out as an idea, even though I do still see the Arendt's headline that says things like Women are taking over in cannabis and it's it's just propaganda, really, because that's not the case. And I see less and less representation on just a non-executive level when it comes to women and non-binary folks. So that's dipping into the present, though.

Speaker 3 [00:16:54] Yes, that's for us for our next episode.

Speaker 2 [00:16:56] Okay. Well, even though we're talking about five years ago, this is still in the past bit from the report because I think it speaks to what we're talking about. It says there are many potential paths or there are many potential path. I can't say path paths have. There are many potential paths.

Speaker 3 [00:17:23] You're saying it?

Speaker 2 [00:17:25] There are many potential paths for cannabis workers under broader cannabis legalization likely to come under the low road scenario outlined in this report. Cannabis workers are subject to the same harmful practices inflicted on non unionized workers in agricultural or other industries with parallels to cannabis. Low wages, workplace benefits, unprotected statuses as contract workers and erratic scheduling. So that's just a little bit of a I mean, that's kind of waffling in between the past and present because it's still it was an issue then and in a way more of an issue now. But at the time when we when you were getting used to the industry, I mean, you work on the retail side of things, the medical retail side of things. So I mean, what did you see? People like the attitudes of the people you're working with?

Speaker 3 [00:18:25] I mean, it's it's wild and you still get it now. You know, it's it's weird, this concept and this belief of what it's like to work in the industry in a lot of people will watch disjointed or what have you just TV shows and they're assuming that if they go and work in the industry that we're all hanging out in the back and talking about philosophies and listen, a Pink Floyd and all that stuff. And and that's just not happening. You know, I do make everyone listen to show tunes on Saturdays for show tunes Saturdays. But that's just man maniacal behavior. But no Pink Floyd. We never listen to Pink Floyd if we don't really talk about philosophies. I mean, it's a lot of hard work. It's and that's really all it is. It's just a different product that you're selling. So, you know, you have to basically set that that standard when when people come in, they're interviewing, you know, that's one of the first things I have to tell people is, you know, let's let's set this expectation like this isn't going to be like Empire Records. You know, for anyone that's too young to remember Empire Records, it's an amazing movie about a bunch of kids working at a record store and they're just having just a jiggly. Good time at it, you know? So a lot of people have that same mentality of like, oh my God, this is going to be such a fun job. And, you know, it's it's not. And, you know, I personally come from a standpoint of while I am a huge proponent of of the plant and plant medicine, you know, this isn't my entire life, you know, where a lot of people, though, they'll gauge that, where they think that just because they enjoy the plant, it's like that old monicker. Like you'd love what you do and you never work a day in your life. And they assume that that's what's going to happen. And then they have to hit that realization that, you know, much like any job that you're going to get and capitalism, you're just working very, very hard, you know, to make other people large sums of money. And then you get a small portion of said money.

Speaker 2 [00:20:44] You know, if you're lucky, if you're lucky.

Speaker 3 [00:20:47] You know, luckily I was grateful enough to be grateful. I was lucky enough to get in with, you know, a relatively, you know, good company. But there are a lot of companies out there that really put their their workers through a lot of strife and hardship just under under working conditions. You know, and you this is still a schedule one federal drug. So, you know, there's a lot of things that you don't really think about. You know, the fact that if the wrong person is in the federal level of government, then you could get in a lot of trouble when it comes to banking, when it comes to if you want to buy a house and you're working in this industry, you have a select number of banks that you can actually go through that will actually consider the money that you make in this industry as legitimate. You know, a lot of big banks, you know, like your Bank of America and stuff like that won't loan you a mortgage using, you know, cannabis industry payroll as as, you know, proof of of income. So, you know, it's basically a setting that expectation so that people know that this is a very difficult job that isn't just this glamorized rainbows and Sunshine's Hollywood job that we're all just having this absolute blast that.

Speaker 2 [00:22:17] Right. Absolutely. And to your point, thinking about things I can consider you while you're working in. Industry as a non favorable or unfavorable lender or whatever the case may be, you know, beyond that. Talking about the past. There was a lot of people who couldn't even get into this industry because they used cannabis. I mean, let's talk about that for a minute. In Maryland, for instance, you almost didn't get your job because you failed the drug test. And.

Speaker 3 [00:22:53] Well, they they they eliminated that.

Speaker 2 [00:22:55] Right. They eliminated it now. But in the past, that wasn't something that was that was a very big issue. And it's still a very big issue depending on where you live. I mean, we talk about it all the time. I had Shonda Vrooman recently, and she just she's constantly testifying about it because she's trying to change the laws in her state. And that is a very big thing that a lot of people don't understand, or at least they didn't in the past. I should say more so than now, is that using cannabis can actually prevent you from getting a job in cannabis, and it can also prevent you from getting jobs in other industries. And we'll touch more on that in our future episode. But yeah, that's to me, that's the thing that really stood out because a lot of people thought, Hey, look, I consume cannabis every day. I'm a I'm a perfect fit. And that is not the case. That was not the case for them. And now that things have changed, obviously some people are a little it's a little easier to get in to these these jobs in some states, but it's still very much a problem.

Speaker 3 [00:24:06] And you also have and this is something that's still kind of prevalent and I'll still say I don't want to say that they're they're they're scams or grabs. But a lot of these programs that promise, you know, like, hey, come and sign up for this program and go through this this this training on being a bartender. And I can tell you right now, out of. All the people I've hired, all the resumes I looked at, that means absolutely nothing to me. You know, things like that. Like. Please do not just throw money at stuff like that, because most people that I've talked to really do not care in hell at all. If anything, you know, it's it's nice that, you know, it shows that you want to that you wanted to learn things on your own. But really just saying that you took, you know, maybe a free webinar, you know, or something like that, that will go just as far, you know, no one gets any kind of push in front of any kind of line because they they took one of these expensive courses that gave them a printed out certificate saying that you're worthy of of being a bartender because really, for being honest, you know, that would be like me going in and getting a certification and how to sell cell phones so that I could get a job at Verizon. You know, they just don't care. And that was very big back then because no one really knew otherwise. You know, there were still so little opportunity at the beginning because there was only so many dispensaries open that they thought, oh, I'm going to get ahead of the game by by taking all these courses. And these programs just raked in so much money on programs that are not worth the paper that the certificates printed on.

Speaker 2 [00:26:02] Yeah, I fell for it. I fell for it or I bought I don't even I don't remember the, the fake university that I purchased it from. I don't think that they're in existence anymore. But it was I paid for it and then I couldn't access the courses and then it shut me out. It was a mess and they still gave me some type of certificate. I don't even remember what the certificate was for and it didn't help me at all. And and the thing is, is that, you know, we just touched on how people have different attitudes depending on where you are in the industry and our previous episode. But a lot of the things I learned was from interviewing people who had been in this industry a lot longer than me, you know. And now I'm that person who's been in this industry a lot longer. But I still feel like there's so much to learn. And so.

Speaker 3 [00:27:00] Well, that was another thing, too, you know, because not everything like we touched at the beginning was negative about the early days of cannabis. It was that swapping of ideas. Like that's how we learned just from from talking to people. And now, you know, you do see a little bit more of that that gatekeeping where it's it's decided who is privy to that information, you know, who deserves to get that information. We're at you know, there's beginning years. Like people just loved talking about ideas, talking about possibilities, talking about products that didn't exist yet that could. And like I said, there was some unfortunate cases where people got their ideas lifted, you know, for other people to make large sums of money on. You know, so that definitely wasn't good. But, you know, that openness and that willing to discuss ideas because at that time, people's main focus was on on how we can make this world better. All these amazing things that hemp and cannabis can do that could revolutionize the world. You know, and taking our our health into our own hands, it was exciting. It was exhilarating. And people just wanted to share those ideas. A lot of it.

Speaker 2 [00:28:17] Had to do with the change in legislation as well, because like one of our friends, she started off in this industry by just giving it was like a co-op and she was just giving people their medications. She wasn't charging them. She was able to grow it and formulate it for people. I know that's not the right word for me, but you know what I mean? Like she was able to tailor people's treatment plans and it was a real like holistic co-op. But then the laws changed and she wasn't allowed to do that anymore. And that happened a lot. I mean, a lot of the people that are were our first guess. They were coming up with these really revolutionary ideas and they really were in it for helping the patients, helping the people who need who want to better their lives with plant medicine. I mean, we don't have to always say the patients, but, you know, with that mentality of this is going to improve your life and not just financially. And then it shifted. And obviously that's that's for later on. But yeah, I, I don't want to say that it was all bad. It was definitely challenging in the past and it's still is very challenging. And we're not here to just speak negatively about the industry as a whole. Obviously, we're still in it.

Speaker 3 [00:29:38] So yeah, but we have to we have to recognize I mean, the past leads to our present and our present paves the way to our future. So, you know, we've seen the good and the bad of the past, you know, that have led us into this present, which is both a mixture of of good and bad. And, you know, we need to recognize these things and talk about them. So that way when we get to our future, maybe we can ratio that a little bit stronger on to a good and not so much on on a negative. And but to do that, we need to be open and honest about where we came from in this industry as a whole. You know, what was the beginnings of this industry? What were the intentions of this industry at the beginning? What are we looking at now? What are the intentions that are in place now? What are the actions that are being taken now and what plans do we have for the future?

Speaker 2 [00:30:34] Yeah, and what happens in the future when you don't want to be on campus anymore? That's something that we'll touch on because that is a very complex subject in itself and so look forward to that. And before we end, I have to give a shout out to our sponsor Nature, Gaia, and listeners can get 10% off any non sale item by entering the code. Why h cause. Anything you want to add before we end?

Speaker 3 [00:31:07] No, I'm just very excited to be here with you. Definitely. People check out that metro guy. Their products have been absolutely amazing. So, you know, I want to just be saying that for S's and geez, you know, I do consume it on a daily basis and it's done wonders. So definitely check them out and I look forward to talking to everyone next episode.

Speaker 2 [00:31:31] Until next time, say hi and beautiful. Bye.

Speaker 1 [00:31:36] Thanks for listening. You can find us on Instagram at Your Highness podcast or on Twitter at Finest podcast. Be sure to rate us on.

Speaker 2 [00:31:47] ITunes and subscribe.

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