Chuck D on Cannabis and Traffic Safety
Download MP3Welcome to joint session Diverse Voices in New York State Cannabis where you'll hear from policymakers, legislators, thought leaders, licensees, advocates, and others interested in the state of the New York cannabis market. In this episode, I speak with nationally recognized expert on traffic safety, Chuck DeWeese, about cannabis use and traffic safety. We focus on what is known about possible links between adult use and roadway injuries and fatalities, as well as efforts to create testing tools that might be reliably used in the field by law enforcement. Highlight segment, I speak with our first cultivator, William Labey of Backholm Farm, New York. William's passion and love of farming come through loud and clear, as do the chickens situated near where he logged in for our discussion.
Speaker 1:William and I are joined by Mike Hassell from Elevated Strategies, a consultancy that has been working with Back Home Farm. But first, let's take a spin around the news. Quite possibly because we were doing a segment on traffic safety, that subject was in the news a bit during the last two weeks. First, Department of Transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg has reassured truckers who have been concerned about road safety after rescheduling that he believes that the DOT will maintain their authority to continue their cannabis testing program. The secretary's statement came during a house committee on transportation and infrastructure hearing.
Speaker 1:Quote, our understanding of the rescheduling of marijuana from schedule one to schedule three is that it would not alter DOT's marijuana testing requirements with respect to the regulated community, Buttigieg said. He continued, for private individuals who are performing safety sensitive functions subject to drug testing, marijuana is identified by name, not by reference to one of those classes. So even if it moves in its classification, we do not believe that that would have a direct impact on that authority. Chris Spear, president and CEO of the American Trucking Association said, if the trucking industry's ability to conduct drug testing for marijuana use were to be restricted, a heightened risk of impaired drivers would threaten our nation's roadways, spears in a statement. DOT and ATA share the goals of achieving zero highway fatalities and ensuring the commercial driving workforce is qualified to safely operate, which is why we are committed to partnering with DOT to mitigate harmful impacts caused by the potential reclassification of marijuana.
Speaker 1:In Canada, a group of researchers, including those from the University of Ottawa and the Ottawa Hospital, conducted a review of existing literature that aim to examine the impact of adult use cannabis legalization on traffic related ER visits and hospitalizations. The issue has been a rising interest as more jurisdictions legalize, but no accurate test for cannabis impairment exists. A total of seven studies conducted between 2019 and 2023 were eligible to be included in the analysis. Results were mixed. For example, four of the studies found an uptick in traffic injuries post legalization while three found no significant change.
Speaker 1:This systematic review highlights the complexity of assessing the impact of recreational cannabis legalization on traffic injuries. Our findings show a varied impact on emergency department visits and hospitalizations across North America, Researchers concluded. In New York, the Office of General Services on behalf of the Office of Cannabis Management is seeking to acquire portable cannabis analyzers to be used in the field by the OCM enforcement division to help perform inspections and compliance activities. Let's see how long it takes OGS to get this done. A clinical trial aims to measure CBD's effectiveness for veterans with pain.
Speaker 1:University of Michigan researchers have designed a clinical trial to investigate CBD's effectiveness in managing chronic pain symptoms among veterans. The study will seek to determine whether a CBD oral solution compared to a placebo is linked to more improvement of symptoms. Once complete, this trial will be among the largest to date investigating the efficacy of CBD for chronic pain. Findings from this clinical trial will contribute to a greater knowledge of CBD's analgesic potential and guide further research, researchers wrote. In other medical cannabis news, a New York medical cannabis report highlights how expensive medical cannabis is.
Speaker 1:The office of cannabis management released the twenty twenty three patient and provider survey report and noted many areas that need improvement. The survey is based on 265 provider responses and 10,781 patient responses. One theme that emerged is that the costs are very high. Thirty three percent of survey respondents noted that they are not planning to renew because products are too expensive. The report is packed with information and comes with a series of recommendations.
Speaker 1:We'll attach a link to the report in the show notes. Staying in New York, in response to complaints from retail licensees, the cannabis control board proposed new packaging, marketing, labeling, and advertising regulations, which may, among other things, allow cannabis loyalty programs, discounts, and allow the use of bright colors and bubble fonts in cannabis packaging. And finally, but most importantly, California wants to regulate cannabis products for pets. This week, the cannabis advisory committee's medical use subcommittee met, and a central item on the agenda was cannabis for pets. The California Department of Cannabis Control is asking the subcommittee to weigh in on its implementation of a b eighteen eighty five, which requires DCC to craft regulations by next year for cannabis products for pets.
Speaker 1:DCC's questions for the subcommittee include, for example, what type of cannabis pet products should be allowed? Should there be specific requirements or limits for different cannabinoids and pet products? Should labels include a warning about signs of animal overdose or intoxication? Please let us know what you think. Email me at herb.jointsession@gmail.com.
Speaker 1:I wanna thank Cannabis Wire for the news. In addition to that, I'd like to point out that you can still get 30% off a subscription to Cannabis Wire by going to CannabisWire.com and using discount code c w joint session. Our first guest in this episode is Chuck DeWeese, a traffic safety consultant. He's also president and CEO of Connecting Clients Consulting LLC.
Speaker 2:Welcome, Chuck. Good morning, Herb. How are you?
Speaker 1:I'm great. Thank you for taking the time today. Now, you know, we we always do this sort of, alphabet soup of names, especially government names. So can you talk a little bit about, what the governor's traffic safety committee, SGTSC, and the, governor's highway safety association, what those are?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. So the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the federal agency, gives grants out to to states, and every state has a state highway safety office. And in New York, it was called the governor's traffic safety committee. So we oversaw all traffic safety issues, behavioral traffic safety issues in the state of New York, and there is a a comparable office in every state. So we take these NHTSA grants, and we give them to law enforcement, traffic safety educators to try to reduce crashes, injuries, and fatalities on our roadways.
Speaker 2:And the Governor's Highway Safety Association is just a large association that is made up of all of those individual state highway safety offices. And, they represent all these states in congress to make sure we get our funds to the states and and good traffic safety laws passed.
Speaker 1:So in terms of traffic safety, what have states been seeing? What have researchers been seeing since the country started leg legalizing adult use cannabis?
Speaker 2:So that's a complex question you asked, but I'll try to give a simple answer. So when states began legalizing both medicinal and recreational cannabis, we saw the use of cannabis increase across the country. So increased use of cannabis typically would relate to more people driving under the influence or at least having the presence of cannabis in their body. The problem with data when you talk about this, you know, people will say Mhmm. When Colorado legalized or when Washington legalized, did traffic fatalities increase because of the use of cannabis?
Speaker 2:It's a really tough question. And the reason it's a tough question is because of the poor data collection. When somebody is pulled over for driving under the influence of alcohol, almost every state has a statute that says, you know, DUI alcohol. We we know the substance. Right?
Speaker 2:So we know people are driving under the influence of alcohol at point o eight or above, or even below. But when you talk about drugs, there's so many different drugs. Right? There's cocaine. There's cannabis.
Speaker 2:There's, you know, PCP. There's all types of drugs. So the statutes don't say, you know, driving under the influence slash cannabis or driving under the influence slash cocaine. So we may know that somebody is either arrested or is in a crash or a fatality where drugs were were involved, but we don't necessarily know the compound that caused the impairment. The only way we can get that is if states start collecting data on cannabis specifically.
Speaker 2:So before they legalize, start collecting data to see how many crashes occurred with cannabis as the contributory factor and then look after it's legalized, you know, a year later to see if those numbers have increased. And the only real way to do that is either to change the crash report to add that or with specially trained drug recognition experts who come to the scene of a crash, they do an evaluation and they they call the substance that's causing the impairment, and you have a database in your state that you can kind of query later on to see if cannabis was the contributing factor.
Speaker 1:How large a problem is drug driving in The US?
Speaker 2:It's getting much worse. I will tell you that, fatalities in general in The US are they hover right around thirty five to forty five thousand a year, which is just an astonishing figure in my mind.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:We're north of forty thousand in 2022, '20 '20 '3. It was just a tad better in 2023. We did get down into the mid thirty thousand range at the, like, 02/2016, '17. And then the pandemic hit, and and everybody thought there'd be fewer fatalities because nobody was on the roads. But what we found was the fatality rates actually increased because the most dangerous drivers were the ones on the roadways.
Speaker 2:So in terms of what we're seeing both nationally and in the state of New York is an increase in drug driving and especially polysubstance use. We're seeing some declines in alcohol impaired driving, not as much as we obviously wanna see, but, you know, we have fifty years of education and enforcement on alcohol. Mhmm. But with drug driving, it's it's getting worse and worse. And in New York, roadway fatals increased twenty four percent from 2018 to 2022, and drug related fatals increased thirty five percent in that same time period.
Speaker 2:So, you know, the numbers are definitely going in the wrong direction. And it's it's not just because of cannabis legalization. I think that plays a a part in it. But I just think more and more people are are self medicating, using prescription medications and all types of drugs. And they have to get from point a to point b so they continue to drive.
Speaker 2:So it's been a problem for decades, but it seems to be getting worse.
Speaker 1:When states are looking to legalize, what can they be doing at the same time? Because it's not just the notion of legalizing cannabis and, you know, and doing the expungement and all the other things that are typically done. I mean, is traffic safety something that is considered or or needs to be considered when creating the overall cannabis legislation?
Speaker 2:Great question. And the answer is absolutely yes. You can't pass these bills in a vacuum. You need to involve your counterparts in traffic safety into into the conversations, and we did that in New York. We, you know, we we had good conversations with, the governor's office and the legislature.
Speaker 2:It's just that they didn't they didn't include many of the traffic safety pieces or components that I wanted into the bill. One thing that I think is critically important, everybody wants money from the tax revenue, right, when when when you pass cannabis legalization. And we did ask for a significant amount of money for highway safety. And the reason we asked for such a large amount was because we knew we needed to do an educational campaign. Many people still believe they drive better under the influence of cannabis or are safer.
Speaker 2:So we we knew we needed to do a large campaign. Okay. Cannabis is now legal in the state of New York, but it's still illegal to drive under the influence of cannabis. So we wanted to get that messaging out there. And you think about the New York media market, it would cost $2,530,000,000 dollars a year to do a a sustained campaign that went the whole year.
Speaker 2:So we asked for somewhere around $2,530,000,000 dollars, and we were, allocated, I think, 3.5 a few years ago.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:So it it helped. The legislature said that we should use it to increase our law enforcement training, which we did in New York. We have specially trained police officers who we call drug recognition experts. Not every police officer can be one. It's about 1% of the police population.
Speaker 2:It's an extremely difficult training class that lasts two weeks. And then another week of field certifications. And it's expensive to train these folks. New York has over 400 DREs, but that's a a small fraction of of the total number of police officers. But you really need to make sure when you pass these laws that you consider the impacts on traffic safety.
Speaker 2:You need things in the bill to give law enforcement the ability to to be able to to arrest somebody who's driving under the influence of of cannabis or any other drug. And one of the other things we tried to get into the bill was, roadside oral fluid testing. If you make the analogy, it's like a a portable breath testing device. So if somebody's pulled over and the police officer does their standard field sobriety test and they see that the person is impaired, now you're trying to determine what's the impairment from. Is it a medical impairment?
Speaker 2:Is it alcohol? Or is it is it drug related? So you do the PBT as a portable breath test. It's a nonevidentiary test. It gives the law enforcement officer the knowledge that somebody is, you know, a point zero eight or a point zero five or whatever.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. But if they blow zeros on that, there's an oral fluid test now that you swab the the motorist mouth, and they actually swab themselves. It takes about thirty seconds. You put it into an analyzer, and it's, immunoassay technology. And it, mixes with a buffer solution, and then it, gives a result of positive or negative of the presence of drugs.
Speaker 2:It doesn't tell the officer that the person is impaired.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:There is no technology out there as much the legislation
Speaker 1:And there's no agreed upon sort of level of
Speaker 2:That's correct. There there's no per se. Like, in alcohol, there's point o eight. There there will, in my lifetime, I don't think ever be a per se level for drugs. You know?
Speaker 2:Colorado said five nanograms is permissible inference of impairment, but that's not based on any science. I don't think we'll ever see a nanogram level or a per se level with drugs.
Speaker 1:How reliable is this technology, and is it being used anywhere in The US?
Speaker 2:It's absolutely, reliable. The accuracy rates are above ninety percent. There are some false positives and false negatives, and, there's reasons for that. I'll give you an example. Someone may test positive for the presence of THC at a roadside oral fluid, but then by the time the blood test is done, maybe two, two and a half, three hours later at a hospital, the cannabis has metabolized out of the system, so it'll show a negative result.
Speaker 2:And that's one of the benefits of the roadside test. It it's proximate to the crash. It's proximate to the time of the stop. So the the technology has been used, in other countries for decades. There's about 30 to 35 states in The US now who have implemented programs.
Speaker 2:And I'll point to Indiana as the gold standard. They purchased 200 units and have been using it since February, have done over 4,000 tests, and the results have been phenomenal. They're they're doing more DRE evaluations. Their lab submissions for toxicology have gone through the roof. The number of law enforcement officers that are trained to detect drug impairment have gone up.
Speaker 2:So we've seen a lot of success with the technology. And, again, it's not detecting impairment. It's establishing probable cause of the presence of a drug that's caused that may be causing the impairment.
Speaker 1:So the results are admissible in court?
Speaker 2:No. They're not. It's like the PBT. The PBT is also not admissible in court. You do that roadside test just to establish your probable cause, and then you take them for a DRE evaluation or a blood test.
Speaker 2:Then that's the evidential test that would be used in admissible in court. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:You know, one of the things you talked about earlier was the education that's gone on on on the alcohol side and the, you know, sort of the public messaging that has been, you know, long standing in The US. Why isn't there, messaging on the cannabis side? And is the messaging, is it the
Speaker 2:same? Great question. We Colorado made some mistakes, and and they readily admit that. If you remember some early TV commercials out in Colorado, they, you know, they had a a TV commercial with a a person who was a stoner in quotes, you know, who was trying to start his gas grill and it wouldn't start because he didn't have a his propane tank attached or or hanging a TV. And it said, you know, something about cannabis is legal in the state of Colorado.
Speaker 2:And then it showed, you know, hanging a television and it falling to the ground. They used humor. And what we found in Colorado was you don't wanna make fun of of these consumers. They could be professionals. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:It's not your Cheech and Chong from back in the sixties and seventies. Professionals are using this. Some people are using it for medicinal uses. So you have to engage with the consumers. You have to bring them in and have them help you develop your PSAs and your radio commercials.
Speaker 2:You need to partner with them. You can't talk down to them. You should refrain from using the word marijuana. You should use the word cannabis. So So there's a lot of lessons that we learned in other states who made miss some mistakes.
Speaker 2:So what we learned in Colorado is you gotta work with that industry and let them be the messengers. Right? If you have a police officer giving the message well, the law enforcement officer for the last fifty years has been saying it's illegal and we're gonna arrest you. Right? Now it's legal, but you're having a police officer deliver that message.
Speaker 2:So you have to think about who's delivering the message and what that message is.
Speaker 1:Is there any state that's doing, doing this right as far as the messaging and education?
Speaker 2:Yeah. I I would say that Colorado is the best. You know, they're one of the first states to legalize. The state of Washington is doing really good jobs. I I think New York had a good campaign when we first started with OCM.
Speaker 2:Basically, the first step is to just alert the public that cannabis is now legal recreationally in the state, but driving under the influence is still illegal. Just start with that messaging because that's important because a lot of people don't know that. A lot of people think that they're safer when they drive under the influence of cannabis. So start with that messaging. And then what Colorado has learned is as they've grown and they've legalized now for seven, eight, nine years that they're starting to do events, you know, four twenty events with with the industry.
Speaker 2:They're they're kinda like working together with that industry in partnership, and that's what has been successful.
Speaker 1:Okay. Do you know whether and to what extent, doctors are trained on, you know, and and the medical cannabis side are trained to educate their patients?
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, I don't think there is enough education and partnerships with the state highway safety offices. Cannabis like we discussed. It's you know, all the medications you get, you you know, you hurt your back and you go to the hospital or the doctor and you get a oxycodone or something like that. The, pharmacist and the doctors, they really need to take a stance on advising their patients. I'm giving you this medication.
Speaker 2:Here's what the side effects are. You should not be driving a motor vehicle. How often do you go to the doctor and get a script, and it says right on the bottle, don't operate heavy machinery? Well, that's a car. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Right? That's a car or a truck. So we see that messaging, but does your doctor does your pharmacist tell you that? And we need to educate our pharmacist and our doctors a little bit more that they really need to give that messaging to the motoring public.
Speaker 1:Okay. Well, this is a a New York focused show, and it's been great to discuss what's going on nationally. So how how is New York doing? What is there left to do in New York?
Speaker 2:Well, I think we have about seven days left in the legislative session. And what I would say is that we need to pass senate thirty one thirty five assembly one seventy four. It's called the drug driving bill. We've been trying to get it passed for sixteen or seventeen years. And I will tell you that New York is only one of four states left in the country that the law enforcement officer has to name the drug that's causing the impairment in order to make an arrest, and the drug has to appear on public health law thirty three zero six list.
Speaker 2:So there are many people out there who are driving under, impaired under the influence of substances that are either, a, not on that thirty three zero six list, and as soon as you add a drug to that list, somebody's changing a compound so that it's not on the list anymore, or you have a motorist who refuses to be tested, and the officer can't determine the drug that's causing the impairment. We don't have to say it was tequila or gin or vodka that's causing the impairment with alcohol.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:But yet in New York, we have to we have to name it. It's either THC or it's cocaine or it's, you know, whatever the drug is. And it's insane. We're one of four states that still has that law. So I could give you case after case of people who, you know, they're they're in a crash.
Speaker 2:They get out of the car. They're they're clearly impaired. They can barely stand or talk, but we don't know what the substance is. So they can't be arrested, and that's a shame. And it it's it's it's it's ludicrous that we have that in New York.
Speaker 2:So that's
Speaker 1:So what would the bill do?
Speaker 2:So the bill would change the definition of a drug to be any substance that, impairs your ability to safely operate a motor vehicle. Currently, it says a substance that appears on thirty three zero six. So if it has to appear on thirty three zero six, then the cop has to be able to name the substance. So
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:This would change the definition of a drug. The bill also clarifies the definitions of impairment and intoxication. Impairment with alcohol could be common law. Anything under point o eight, you're still impaired. And then per se, point o eight or above is intoxication.
Speaker 2:Well, we don't have a per se for drug. Right? So we need to clarify those definitions for what drugs are as well. And then the other pieces of the bill, which I don't think are gonna make it through, we're trying to get roadside oral fluid in our statute for preliminary roadside testing. We're trying to allow law enforcement to be able to seek a warrant for a blood draw.
Speaker 2:Right now, they can only seek a warrant if it's a personal injury crash or a fatality. So we would like the ability for law enforcement to be able to request a warrant. And then finally, there's two more things. The DRE evaluation, if somebody refuses to go under a DRE evaluation, we would like to make that, a traffic infraction, like a refusal. And then, also, we don't suspend licenses in New York for drug driving, only for alcohol.
Speaker 2:So there's about five or six pieces to it. Clearly, having to name the drug is the biggest thing that we would like to see. Most of the legislature is behind it. I think leadership still is the one standing in the way, but we really need this bill passed.
Speaker 1:So you say this has been sixteen, sixteen, seventeen years that this bill or something similar. Yeah. So why why hasn't it passed?
Speaker 2:My personal feeling is there's a lot of conversation in this country about pretextual stops that, you know, ever since the civil unrest in our country and there was some, you know, validity to to some of the concerns that law enforcement is going to use any new laws that the legislature gives them to unjustly pull over somebody based on race, or ethnicity. So they're called pretextual stops. You know, pull find a reason to pull somebody over so that you can further your investigation to see if there are weapons in the car or there's other other crimes being committed. This bill does not do that. It does not give police any more powers than they currently have.
Speaker 2:It expands their ability to detect impairment, which is what we want. We wanna get these folks off the road. But there's this, you know, societal trend across the country where we don't wanna give the law enforcement the tools they need to do their job because of fear of pretextual stops. And if you have a bad cop, you have a bad cop. And and they're and they can use seat belts, you know, a seat belt lock as a pretextual stop.
Speaker 2:So I think that's what's stopping it in the state of New York.
Speaker 1:Is there any way to protect against that kind of stop in order to have this built?
Speaker 2:I I I think training, number one. I think when law enforcement goes through training, they need they need to be trained properly. I think it comes with leadership. You know, who who are the police leaders? What type of organization do they run?
Speaker 2:I don't know if you can ever, legislate against a bad police officer. Right? Mhmm. You're you you are going to have them, but this law does not expand police powers. It doesn't give them the ability to do anything more than they currently have the ability to do.
Speaker 2:So it's just what it's doing is it's causing more fatalities, and it's causing more risk to to the rest of us who are on the roadways.
Speaker 1:Okay. Well, in closing, you know, looking ahead, both in New York state and across the country, are are you optimistic or or pessimistic about the direction that we're going in when it comes to, traffic safety and and fatalities?
Speaker 2:Well, I'm always a half glass full kinda guy, Herb. So I'm always I'm always thinking positive. Right? I I I've I've been doing this for thirty five years, and I've seen significant improvements in fatalities. When I started at GTSC, there was, like, seventeen hundred fatals a year.
Speaker 2:When I left, there was just under a thousand.
Speaker 1:And and that's in New York state.
Speaker 2:Good that's that was in New York state. And and those, I mean, a thousand people dying a year is tragic. Right? It's it's it's horrific. Having one fatality because of traffic safety is is horrific.
Speaker 2:But other states, have three three or four thousand fatals a year. You know? New York is doing well when it comes to that. But I am optimistic. I I'm I'm optimistic because of technology.
Speaker 2:There's technology being worked on called DADSS technology where there'll be a sensors in the vehicle that can detect alcohol, So at a point o two or higher, and the vehicle won't start. It's not a it's not an ignition airlock you have to blow into. It'll just it, triangulates your breath or it reads, your your blood through your finger when you start the car. And if you're above a point o two, the car won't start. So if that technology ever comes to fruition, and I still think we're ten or fifteen years away, you'll you'll see ten to twelve thousand fewer deaths in our country a year.
Speaker 2:The oral fluid testing, I think, is technology that can give cops the ability to detect the recency of use and then do a DRE to determine impairment. So I I think we're going in the right direction. Where I am pessimistic is I think that us as a society, I think forty thousand, thirty five, forty thousand fatals a year is acceptable to to people. Right? I I I I find that disturbing, but it's I think, well, you're gonna drive.
Speaker 2:There's gonna be traffic fatalities. We need to get past that. We need to get to zero. And we need to have the leadership in our states and in our in our country to give the money where it's needed for traffic safety, for traffic enforcement, for traffic education. And and I think we can drive these numbers down, but it's gonna take willpower, it's gonna take leadership, and it's gonna take funding.
Speaker 1:Well, Chuck, thank you for your time today. Where where can listeners learn more about this issue generally, but also specifically look for the legislation that you referenced?
Speaker 2:So if you go to deadlydrivingny.org, that's kind of a grassroots website that was set up on that bill. It talks about that whole issue. So that's deadlydrivingny.org. I think that, you know, the NHTSA website is always good just for general traffic safety, information. That's nhtsa.gov.
Speaker 2:And then lastly, an organization that I do work for is called responsibility.org. It's an organization named by a website, and it's funded by the alcohol distillers of the nation. And they, they they give funding to this nonprofit to to help reduce underage drinking and impaired driving and promote responsible, consumption. And and that website has all kinds of information on drug driving and alcohol impaired driving, and that's, responsibility.org.
Speaker 1:Alright. Well, thank you very much.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Next in our licensee highlight segment, I speak with William Labey, owner, operator and founding head farmer at Back Home Farm in High Foyles, New York. William was one of the first licensed cultivators in New York State and is awaiting a microprocessor license from New York State OCM. We are joined in that discussion by Mike Hassell, cofounder of Elevator Strategies. Welcome.
Speaker 3:Hey. Happy to be here, Herb. Thanks for having us.
Speaker 1:Alright. So the first one was William. Second one was Mike. Alright. So so I'll start with William.
Speaker 1:So, William, we're here to talk about cannabis cultivation, but first, you know, you should know you're you're the first cultivator that we've had on. So I wanted to talk about the farm and and your growing philosophy, which I assume informs the approach that you take, with the back home cannabis company.
Speaker 3:Let's see. So there's been a lot of thirst for us over the, last two years. Actually, really since we started the farm eight years ago, kind of leading the way for organic agriculture. And then, then we got the hemp license when the hemp, the farm bill was passed. I guess that was 2018.
Speaker 3:So we were the first to start growing hemp. We watched that market kinda just completely go to S H I T over the door over the three years, it was live still alive now, but we transitioned to cannabis full time in 2021 was when we got our conditional license at UCC, adult use conditional license in June of twenty twenty two one Twenty two. Twenty '2. Thank you. That was a while ago, feels like.
Speaker 1:Now I I I should say, you know, unless you're doing sound effects, so those are real animals in the background.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. So I'm standing in my bedroom and right underneath my bedroom, there's a chicken coop.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:Which, not right underneath, but, you know, it's right out the window. I'm not living in a chicken coop.
Speaker 1:Alright. Very good. But you're living in a hamlet.
Speaker 3:I am living in a hamlet High Falls. It's in Ulster County after COVID this area just like kind of exploded. So I've luckily bought this farm 42 acres the two years before COVID And it was an old dairy farm, and we kind of rejuvenated the whole place. We built the farmhouse, put up a new barn. Luckily, the soil is some of the best soil in in the country, actually.
Speaker 3:It's a uni dill alone. It's called the I don't know how scientific you want me to get on here, but, working with nature and understanding how to work with nature most effectively is kind of what I do as a farmer. And then that's for our outdoor crops. And then we also have an indoor operation where we, they say this is the best way to understand it. When you're growing outdoor cannabis, you're working with God.
Speaker 3:And when you're growing indoor cannabis, you're playing God. So we grow a variety of different ways. We, we light depth in the past. We greenhouse, we straight outdoors, sun grown, and now we're moving into this realm of, indoor CO2, rock wool, more synthetic, substrates.
Speaker 1:But still talking about the the There's
Speaker 3:a reason for it.
Speaker 1:On the on the straight farming side, noncannabis Yeah. You know, one of the things that I've heard is that you grow heirloom varieties, bread for taste.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That you work closely with chefs to make sure that crop is harvested on time and appropriately Yes. So with the intent of going straight straight to the plate. So so what what does all that mean?
Speaker 3:Conventionally, what you buy at a supermarket, all those varieties of vegetables are bred over over the years for storage ability and truck ability and, disease, resistance. So they kind of miss out these large commercial farms in America and forget to breed varieties for taste because it's not so profitable.
Speaker 1:So
Speaker 3:us, we, since we grow strictly for these high end restaurants are. The last two restaurants that picked up from us last Friday were Blue Hill and Eleven Madison Park, which both have Michelin stars. So they don't really care about how long it's gonna store in their fridge. They're literally gonna plate it that night. So the varieties we grow are our breads for taste, which is our thing, you know.
Speaker 1:So now how does that approach play out on the cannabis side?
Speaker 3:So on the cannabis side, we also, for a lot of our field outdoor crops, we also like to use heritage varieties or varieties that really have a history to them. And that's mainly, to be honest, is, is marketing. I think, my approach to the cannabis market is a little bit maybe different than a lot of the companies. I grow things that I love. So when I was growing up, the strains that were popular are maybe not so popular these days, but like our main line is Jack Herrera, a lemon haze, Blackberry Kush, Gorilla Glue, PG3.
Speaker 3:So I just like growing things that remind me of what it was like smoking for the first time and getting high with my friends for the first time, because that was some of my most happiest memories in, in cannabis. And it turns out that, you know, a lot of the rec market is, in my opinion, I mean, I mean, I'm sure there's data on this somewhere, but the rec market skews a little bit old.
Speaker 1:And by and by rec market, you mean the the adult use recreation?
Speaker 3:Yeah. The adult use market to me is has picked up well on that. They like they like that. What's the feeling of, like, feeling, you know, like their first first strains that they were hearing about and and that old school kind of mentality. That's to say, though, we we are launching indoor product that is all new crosses that, to me, you really in in cannabis, you kind of have to be like Baskin Robbins and and supply it all.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:But initially with a, with our AUCC license, we could only grow outdoors. So I wasn't gonna grow like a triple Z cross outdoors. You know, it's just, it wouldn't do well. And, and I don't like growing clones outdoors because they're a little bit more stressed out from the weather in New York. So everything's from seed out outdoors.
Speaker 1:And now, you know, I'll interrupt because, you know, what some of the feedback that I get is that sometimes we have these discussions, say that, that's an adult use conditional cultivator. And this was the first cohort of cultivators in New York State, and that cohort was limited to those farmers that were growing hemp at the time. And they had to have grown hemp for a number of years before then, but they were the first cultivators that were eligible to come into the cannabis, market, and you were one of those.
Speaker 3:Exactly. And that that was a tremendous gift for me because who were they gonna give license to licenses to first to cultivate if it wasn't gonna leave the Mhmm. Existing hemp farmers. I don't know, but I do commend the OCM on that one because that that was great for us.
Speaker 1:What are you finding in the market?
Speaker 3:I keep my prices a little lower. Something about our company is that we have zero outside financing. Okay. My philosophy is that debt isn't really a good thing. I mean, I, I understand it's, it's a double edged sword and in a new emerging market, I don't think it's a good idea to take on debt to grow as big as you possibly can in the first year with, an emerging market in a regulated market.
Speaker 3:So not to get nerdy on financials, but we decided to grow more at like a sustainable pace. And really we weren't like the first year we didn't grow 3,000, 4 thousand pounds. Thank gosh. Because it ended up there there was one dispensary open at the beginning of twenty twenty two, and it was open for two days. I think it opened, like, December 28 or something like that.
Speaker 3:And that's where I met Mike. So we don't we don't take on debt and, which kinda leads our philosophy, like, sustainable, no debt, authentic, old school varieties, and our marketing goes in the same direction. Like, we're not throwing giant plastic, like, flags and posters and banners all over the place. I think probably, I think I'm most proud of of our brand is that it's just real. And, we were talking about logos the other day.
Speaker 3:Me and my buddy designed the logo. People who are packing are local people who've worked on the farm before. The delivery driver is myself. The guy who takes the orders myself. Like, there's not this big waste of there's we're we're super efficient, which in return allows us to keep our prices fair for the consumer.
Speaker 1:Alright. That's, capitalism. Good pot for a fair price.
Speaker 3:Good pot for a fair price, And that's kinda it. I don't know why I have kind of a resentment of these other companies who are spending, like, tens and twenties of millions of dollars, not really on the product. They're spending it on marketing and packaging and, you know, sales more sales reps when instead I would if I prefer to put that money into the product, into the soil, into, growing standards, and then leave the marketing to just happen kinda naturally. Word-of-mouth. That's our that's our thing.
Speaker 1:Alright. Let me turn for a couple of minutes to Mike. You started working in this industry with registered organizations, which are, you know, sort of the, multistate operators in in New York State. Those are the ones that were, allowed to first get into the medical marijuana business. And we're for, you know, number of years the only available source, in New York.
Speaker 1:So that was your start. So how did you transition from that to, to creating your own consulting company?
Speaker 4:I mean, it really, really wasn't planned at that point. The initial you know, I was working in the industry just because, you know, passion for cannabis, you know, wanted to see full legalization.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Knew
Speaker 4:it was on the horizon, and it felt like the best place to start was to to go work for the the giant corporations to see how they do it. And I learned a lot there, mainly how how not to do things properly and that it's incredibly difficult to scale cannabis operations
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 4:On the grow side. And the cultivation processing is one thing. Cultivation is completely different animal. And to watch how they spent hundreds of millions of dollars in the state because they have a vertical license.
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 4:So quick difference there is, the vertical license allows them to cultivate cannabis, grow it from the scratch, package it, you know, grow it, trim it, and package it, distribute it, and sell it retail. Right? They're the entire supply chain. So, obviously, you're growing a plant at scale. It's very cheap, so your margins are pretty incredible on that side.
Speaker 4:Right? But it was only for the medical side of things. So for the organization that I work for, you know, they had 200,000 square feet of indoor canopy, but they had operations ready to scale to a million square feet of indoor canopy. So it just shows that no matter what type of budget you're working with, you know, and we're talking about billion dollar organizations here, that they still didn't deliver a quality product in my opinion.
Speaker 1:And I actually got to visit one of those and I think, you know, William said that when you grow indoors, you're playing God. And it was it was fascinating to see because they, start with the seedling in a particular room with, number certain number of hours of daylight, certain humidity, certain, you know, levels of watering for a certain time period. And then they move all those plants over to another room where they sort of do it again, but with different humidity levels, different sunlight, or light, different water levels. And they keep doing that until they harvest them, and then they hang them in a huge room. And it was really more, like a science project than cultivation.
Speaker 4:And in those specific cases, right, the people who make the decisions, you know, the the people who are in the boardrooms and, you know, the the corporate executives. Right? They're looking at it from a completely different standard than someone like Will. Right? What they're doing is they're going, okay.
Speaker 4:Cool. What is the fastest growing strain
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 4:That I can choose? What's the least amount of nutrients that I can give it? What's the least amount of growing soil or or, you know, whatever, cocoa or whatever they wanna use, and what's the fastest time I can get it to market. Right? And they're not really necessarily worried about the quality.
Speaker 4:Right? So I would say these these multistate operators in here in in New York state, they're referred to as the registered organizations. They're trying to be the Walmart of weed. Right? They wanna have, you know, price point for everyone, but quality is definitely not their number one driver.
Speaker 4:Mhmm. Right? As to where those of us who are passionate about cannabis, quality is everything. Right? And what they're putting out in the market right now is decent product, but by no means is it something that's really desirable by the the true cannabis crowd.
Speaker 3:The, thing that resonated me with that is, like, playing God is is a massive responsibility, you know. And and if you're following a bottom line, I don't, I don't think, and not to get like overly spiritual on this, but I don't think God is the weather is following a bottom line. You know, they're, they're following abundant and care and love, not a boardroom or a shareholder goal, you know? So the strategies are just completely different. So playing God as a is a responsibility and it's no good to mix that with, a double bottom line for sure in my opinion.
Speaker 4:Yeah. So back to your question there, Herb, about transitioning between the two. You know? And and so, you know, basically, what I learned on that side is, you know, oh, this is definitely not the approach that I wish to take. But I did learn a lot about the compliance side of things and how things work in New York as far as, you know, transportation manifest and transportation of product throughout, you know, how the supply chain work and all those type of things.
Speaker 4:Right? And then, fortunately, I was hired at Housing Works, which was the first dispensary in New York state, and I was hired as a co manager there. Shout out to Housing Works and everybody who works there. And they gave me the opportunity to use that skill set and translate it over to to the adult use market. So I was one of the, you know, first people there that has previous cannabis experience, that I could bring to the table and use, you know, to help expedite us, you know, to get up and running because we were absolutely under the gun at Housing Works.
Speaker 4:You know? And that was mainly a political thing Mhmm. To get up and running. But it was a a very exciting experience, a very challenging experience, but that is where where I met Will.
Speaker 1:Well, that that was a huge goal was to have, some legal sales going on in 2023. And, because the Housing Works, the agency was able to to meet that.
Speaker 4:Yeah. And, you know, of course, we had, you know, thousands of people in line, and, you know, the demand was absolutely insane
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 4:Especially on the the processed products. You know? People were able to come in and and buy edibles for the first time that they knew 100 were dosed properly. You know? This is a two point five milligram edible.
Speaker 4:This is a five milligram edible. This is a ten milligram edible, and they could actually trust it. And we saw that that was, you know, something that the market absolutely wanted at the beginning. But it was there that I met Will, and that was on the initial intake for the very first product that was received into inventory at Housing Works, and that was back home cannabis.
Speaker 1:Oh, very good.
Speaker 4:And so once we received that into inventory, we received the other vendors that were available, and that's when all the cameras showed up and and the sales began.
Speaker 1:I remember that very, very well.
Speaker 3:I did wanna say, you know, credits do where credits deserved and to have Mike having that experience before with the, with the medical company before coming to Housing Works was tremendously helpful for everyone. That knowledge in the regulatory side of the things is critical, you know, like that. Yeah, sure. They may, they may not be the best growers or anything, but I don't want to leave it all negative that there's been a lot of experience from the regulatory side of things that might gain that was able to be passed on to us. Like the first time when I delivered to Mike that day, like none of our, our bags were in, in five of rubber bands.
Speaker 3:It was just I think I delivered, like, 350 single pre rolls that was just, like, all in a box. And it was like, here it is. Yep. And Yeah. And it was like, okay.
Speaker 3:We have some learning to do on the regulatory side of things, which, you know, without Mike and without his previous job at the RO, we would have been struggling. You know? We were able to get up to speed really fast. By the next order, we are pretty good. Wouldn't you say, Mike?
Speaker 4:Yeah. I mean, it was a learning experience for everyone there, you know, because coming from a a medical environment where things are highly regulated, you know, down to every single item, you know, is tracked, with excruciating detail. And then transitioning into a brand new adult market where we did not have all the proper facilities at the very beginning. A lot of things where it was like, oh, this is this is shocking, you know, how we're handling product now. But it was just a necessity.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, the OCM was also, you know, transitioning to understanding, like, okay. Cool. You know, we don't have the the crazy corporate money to build these, you know, insane facilities for proper storage and the rest of it that, you know, things would have to be scaled down in the regulations.
Speaker 4:And and, of course, Housing Works met all those regulations at the beginning for sure. But it was a learning experience for both us and the regulators, at the very beginning because it meant, you know, again, it was their first inspection as well. So you have to take that into account.
Speaker 3:Yeah. That's what was so exciting in my mind.
Speaker 1:Alright. So, Mike, you've taken all this experience and and now formed your own consultancy, co created, consultancy, Elevated Strategies. So what services do you provide?
Speaker 4:Yeah. So just a a step back there. So, founded with, Britt Buckner, they, them. And Britt and I also, worked at Housing Works. And, basically, we, you know, we saw a significant need for the licensees that were coming into in the market that needed someone with some prior experience to show them, you know, show them the ropes, you know, to just be fill in the gaps Mhmm.
Speaker 4:Of the information that OCM did not provide, that their point of sale, you know, provider did not provide. And so we felt like it was an opportunity for us to, you know, to grow our skill set and to share our knowledge and also to not be predatory. We saw a lot of people coming into the space that were looking for managed service agreements. Mhmm. And, you know, we're trying to take, a significant percentage of of these people's bottom line, you know, in return for the services.
Speaker 4:And we didn't feel like that was, you know, in, number one, part of the proper social equity that we're we're all supposed to be a part of.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 4:And number two, we we felt like, yes, we're bringing a lot of value to these corp these, organizations at the very beginning. But, you know, it's more of a hands off approach after that. We're we're trying to teach their staff everything they need to know so they they can stand on their own two feet. And so all those things combined, you know, made it very attractive for a lot of licensees to work with us. And so that's how, you know, kinda how we got started, and we've been successful so far.
Speaker 1:Alright. And is is Back Home Cannabis Company your client?
Speaker 3:Here
Speaker 4:are. Yeah. Of course. And now, you know, we'll be able to work with Back Home Cannabis on their, you know, retail dispensary. And I'll let Will share share the details there.
Speaker 4:But, yes, you know, it's it's nice to be able to apply our skill set, you know, to something that's gonna come full circle to assist Will, with the opening of his dispensary. So, you know, it's exciting times.
Speaker 3:Yeah. It's it's so needed. I'm a grower through and through. So as a grower, you wear a lot of hats and to add more hats on, It's such a blessing to have Mike health without because it's just, it's too many boxes to check for one person to do. It's not a bad thing to have the health and, and Mike offers health Without taking the percentage that's that's so cool.
Speaker 3:So tell
Speaker 1:us about the retail space.
Speaker 3:So the retail space is going to be called milkweed milkweed cannabis dispensary milkweeds, a native plant in New York that, helps feed the monarch butterflies during their migration. It's a really cool looking plant and it also has weed in it. So it's a little bit of play on words. Mhmm. It is in Stoneridge, New York, which there's a million play way on words because we're in High Falls and the dispensary's opening in Stoneridge and then it's called milkweed.
Speaker 3:So I'm currently waiting to be transitioned to have our retail arm operable right now. I mean, I applied for our micro business license in November and it's been pretty frustrating that, they still haven't transitioned us into, the micro business. I was hoping we were going to be on this week's meeting with the OCM and granted the license, but we are not.
Speaker 1:So have you heard anything from OCM?
Speaker 3:No. And it's been it's been a real drag because, you know, the space is rented. It's built out. My indoor grow rooms are finished. They're ready to be they're ready our clones are ready to go, and we just keep cloning more clones.
Speaker 3:Pretty soon, pretty soon, we have way too many clones right now for what we can grow indoors because we just keep cloning and cloning and cloning as we're waiting for our license.
Speaker 1:Can you describe what cloning would you mean by cloning?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So, basically what we do for our genetic side of things is we do a bunch of research from all around the country and find breeders that are growing top quality genetics. We buy one cut, one cutting from said breeder. That cutting can go anywhere from a hundred dollars to $3,000 for leaf and stem. We run tests on it to make sure there's no viruses in the leaf tissue.
Speaker 3:And then we start the cloning process. So what we want to do is turn this one plant into a thousand plants. So how you do that is you grow that plant up and that becomes your mother, which is basically like, it's all very practical. The wording actually, which basically is like the parent to all these identical clones and you take cuttings from that. And, then, so what the predicament here is we've taken cuttings from our mother, cloned them all out.
Speaker 3:So we had a hundred, we thought we would get the license, but we don't. Those plants are getting too big. So now we have to cut those. So now we have basically a hundred mothers and we cut those out and we're just like stockpile. We're running out of space for all of our clones, because, you know, it's, it's so hard herb to, to plan anything around the rollout of the OCM.
Speaker 3:It's been such a challenge that on this or January, they had a AUCC transitional meeting. And I specifically asked David and Fagan at the time, when are we gonna transition so we can start growing indoor? And his reply was, AUC transitions are top priority and do not worry. So I was thinking that meant like a month or two away. So at that point, I, I rented the dispensary.
Speaker 3:I invested in the indoor grill rooms, which was a heavy investment for the technology we're using in there, which is a whole other story, but we're we're using some of the same sensors as NASA does on their spaceship. So it was a heavy investment, which, like I was saying earlier, we're not taking on Wall Street debt or financial debts. Mhmm. Like, I'm down to, like, nothing in the bank account, and we really need to start operating this space. And the last contact I had with them was like, thank you for being patient.
Speaker 3:Like, but it's like crazy at this point, you know, it's six, seven months later after we were supposed to get the license. So we've been bleeding pretty hard. But, luckily, we're we're able to stay afloat just a bit from, our wholesale sales.
Speaker 1:Okay. Well, hopefully, you'll be hearing, good news soon.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So now where can listeners, learn more about Back Home Farms cannabis company? Where can they see you? I I I know you're in the city, New York City.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. We're, actually a new headset report just came out. We're, like, in the top 20 most, most sold brands in the state of New York. And then we have, they, they do like a rating and our rating is strong growth expected.
Speaker 3:So we're, we're kicking ass, despite the insane amount of roadblocks that have been in front of us, but you can find us either on Instagram at back underscore home underscore farm. And that's like kind of our main Instagram page where we do cannabis and veggies. And I operate that page. So just reach out. You can find us at the Union Square Farmer's Market every Friday.
Speaker 3:We are there from 8AM to 3PM selling organic, organic veggies. And then you can also find our products in we're in the majority of the dispensaries in the Tri State area. So
Speaker 1:Alright. Terrific. And, Mike, if someone is interested in, talking to you about some of the services you provide, how can they reach you?
Speaker 4:Well, first, well, we finally have a website. It's still a work in progress because, we stay incredibly busy, with work on the ground here. But it's, elevatedstrategies.co, not .com, C o. We couldn'tafford.com. We're working on that.
Speaker 4:So right now, it's .co. And then, you can find us on Instagram at elevated strategies consulting. And, and, of course, you know, we stay incredibly active in the cannabis community. So pretty much all the major events, you can find Britt and I attending. And then, of course, you can always just ask around for Mike and Britt.
Speaker 4:You know? That seems to work for most people. A % of our business comes from word-of-mouth referrals. We haven't done any advertising whatsoever yet, and, we're we're incredibly busy. So, we're real fortunate for that.
Speaker 1:Alright. Well, terrific. Good luck to you both. And I also wanted to thank, who someone who's listening, Wanda Glinert from Elevated Strategies who helped put this, discussion together. So thank you.
Speaker 1:Alright, guys. Good luck to you. Good luck this summer.
Speaker 3:Super cool. Thank you, Erv. I appreciate
Speaker 4:your time. Yeah. Absolutely. Great time. Thanks.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening. We'll be back in two weeks with an engaging discussion with the incomparable Kristin Jordan, founder of the Asian Cannabis Roundtable and CEO of Park Jordan Real Estate, a real estate brokerage and advisory firm serving the cannabis industry. In our licensee highlight segment, we'll feature Reggie Keith, a legacy operator who is the Buffalo based founder and CEO of Kenna House. Reggie has received a microprocessor license, and we speak about his efforts to begin operating in the next few months. If you're enjoying the show, please leave us a rating and review on your favorite podcast platform.
Speaker 1:It helps new listeners find the show. Joint Session is produced by me, Herb Balbo with additional production and engineering by Matt Patterson with Rebecca Malpica on digital marketing and social media. In addition, thank you to Cannabis Wire. You can find us on Instagram at jointsession.pod. That's one word jointsession.pod.
Speaker 1:And on LinkedIn at joint session podcast. Thank you.
