May 23, 2023 • 54 mins
Greg Mcluskey Founder/CEO of the Bear Flag group has a deep personal story of how he got into the cannabis space. Cannabis Talk 101 with Blue and Joe Grande. The Worlds #1 Source for everything cannabis.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Cannabis Talk one oh one featuring Blue with
Joe Gronde, the world's number one source for everything cannabis.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Hello, welcome to Cannabis Talk one oh one, the world's
number one source for everything cannabis.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
My name's Blue.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Alongside of me is mister Joe Grande, and you are
now tuned into the greatest cannabis show on the planets.
Speaker 4 (00:16):
That's right, folks, Thank you for listening to our podcast
all around the world. Make sure you check out the
website Cannabis Talk one oh one dot com. We got
so many great articles and blogs on the site for
you to check out, and make sure you check out
the Cannabis Talk magazine that's on the link there too.
Feel free to call us any time one eight hundred
and four twenty nineteen eighty. Check out the ig pages
at Cannabis Talk one oh one. My brother from another mother,
Blue right here is at the number one. Christopher Wright Hello,
(00:39):
and I am at Joe Groande fifty two. And I
don't know if you guys seen the latest edition of
the Cannabis Talk magazine, but I seen the new one
that's coming out. The cover Well, hello boy, it's official,
like a referee with a whistle.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Yes, some great articles though very cool stories on it.
Speaker 4 (00:53):
Get yourself a hard copy today at your local dispensary
or smoke shop near you. If they don't have one,
have them hit a separate request at that same number
one eight hundred twenty nineteen eighty or go check out
the magazine online at Cannabis Talkmagazine dot com and subscribe now.
Our guest on the show is not only a model
for the plus size GQ, a big and tall male magazine.
(01:16):
Is that Joe Grudde No, I've lost it. Greg took
it away from me. Greg McCluskey the founder CEO of
the Bear Flag Group. Now they manufacture copak and white
label cannabis products. They take your business to the next level, folks.
Bear Flag manufacturers award winning cannabis products for your brand,
our dispensary and works with your team to launch brands
(01:36):
in California by providing education, facilities, partnerships, and other methods
for delivering a successful product to the markets. Their exceptional
quality and service has led to many word of mouth referrals.
As we have ourselves, I love what David Loughglouse, the
owner of Misty Mountain said about the Bear Flag Group.
He says Bear Flag Manufacturing made entering the California market
(02:00):
easy from formulating production, from distribution and retail. The team
is top notch. Now this is a quote from him.
They are finalizing plans on their new ten thousand square
foot building that we're going to talk about a little
bit here. They're building a deck to raise money for
their next project that includes a hotel, mental health facility,
so they're trying to help the community folks. A hemp
(02:22):
facility and fifty percent canopy grows on fifteen acres next
to their current facilities, and they'll be launching their brand
rooster and we'll be launching their podcasts. Sincerely, Cannabis. Make
sure you check out their website, Bearflaggroup dot com. I
want to shout out Albert, Isabelle, and Amanda all from
(02:43):
the team there, but everybody here, please welcome Greg to
the team.
Speaker 5 (02:46):
Man.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Welcome Greg.
Speaker 5 (02:48):
Thanks you for having me no wether.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
It's so good to have you here.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
And you know, I want to hear your story and
I've done some research on you and I love that
you're just such a great dude, and every time I
see you, you actually make me some mile you and
Albert around here. But one of the things I noticed
about you is you come from a religious background, which
you're a Mormon and an ex Mormon at that you
served on missions for a long time.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
For it is if.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
You're not actually okay there it is yeah, I mean
I'm reading about what he says. It says x Mormon
And then get the mic a little closer to you
here you to it's a cheeseburger.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
And then how old? I mean?
Speaker 4 (03:28):
And then how did you end up though in the
cannabis business? Lang in dope because you go from the
Mormons to like flower, Is this what kicked you out?
Or you left because you wanted to know? I know
there's got to be a big story because in my opinion,
you know, I've met a lot of Mormons and they're great,
you know, I mean some of the best people have
(03:48):
hed exactly me too. And that's why I say this,
and I want to know more about it because I
like the I like a lot of religions, and I
like a lot of things about a lot of different religions.
I choose Christianity, but I've been to mosques, I been
to temples, I've been to Buddhist temples as well, and
I respect and and I love it. So I want
to hear your journey on how you became an ex
(04:10):
and even what led you into it.
Speaker 5 (04:12):
Yeah, I love Mormons. I don't love the church. And
you know that's where I'm at. Most of my family's Mormons.
Most of my lifelong friends are Mormons or were Mormons.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
And so where are you from that you're Mormon, You're
that's not a California to No.
Speaker 5 (04:25):
I grew up in Boston, Massachusetts. My story is now
you talk. When I was four years old, my more
my parents joined the Mormon Church. They met two missionaries
and ended up joining the Mormon Church. And I always
joke they're the black sheep of the family, like they
were partying rock stars. Then they met the Mormon missionary,
save them quit all the party. And my dad doesn't
(04:48):
touched alcohol in fifty years. Nice the Mormon Church. Plus
because they're Mormons and the rest of their families Irish Catholic.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Shrinking, smoking cigaret, all that stuff, getting it bite pocular. Yeah,
come on, Kenny Cragg, you know that.
Speaker 5 (05:10):
People ask me all the time because you know I'd never,
you know, drank alcohol before I was fifty years old, ever,
never even taste what And people had ask me what
was because it was Mormon. I said, no, it's because
it was Irish Catholic and there was a lot of
alcoholics around. Sure, sure, And that literally was like the
trigger for me to say, I just don't want to
do that.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
And so you know, I didn't wait till I was fifty, right,
But I mean, and I had drank alcohol before, but
I also really didn't like start drinking any alcohol. So
I was like twenty eight, you know, you know, didn't
for that matter anything. I was pretty I mean, I've
smoked weed before, but you know, yeah, I.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Didn't trying the good shit.
Speaker 4 (05:47):
Well sorry, guys, I started at six with everything, smoking weed,
drinking the whole night.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
That's why I've been sober twenty four years. That's a
good sign, you know. That's a good sign. You know.
So so you know, keep going on this, so yeah,
please continue.
Speaker 5 (06:00):
So I mean at eighteen, you know, I jumped in
a car and drove to a little town called Rexburg, Idaho,
and with a friend of mine and went to college there.
And the way the college was sold to me was
I was we were sitting around doing nothing, working making money.
I graduated with the sixteen. I'm act two point oh GPA.
I was a rock star in high school. I mean
(06:20):
two point oh.
Speaker 4 (06:22):
My whole life was that's barely you could barely play sports.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
I was that rock star too. You were both rock stars.
Speaker 5 (06:28):
I had a two five.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
But whatever.
Speaker 5 (06:29):
Yeah, that's a lot of work just to play football.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Here's exactly, that's it. I just had to pass. I
could play football, baseball, rugby. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (06:37):
Yeah. So, I mean my whole goal was I could
still be on the basketball team with an F and
two d's.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (06:44):
So I could start every semester and decide I'm gonna
flunk that I'm gonna get d in that d in
that I can still play.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
Sure. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (06:52):
So at eighteen, somebody came up to me and said, hey,
there's college out in Idaho. They'll take anybody you need
to go to college. They're seven eight girls to every guy,
and you're right by Grand Targi and Jackson Hole, which
I loved to ski, and I realized my basketball career
wasn't going anywhere. I was offered a scholarship or an
opportunity to play at Massasoy at Community College, and I
(07:16):
looked at myself, six ' four, white center, wasn't going anywhere.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
Oh so you're a big kid. Get back then too,
you're a pretty thick center.
Speaker 5 (07:22):
How much you do know? I weighed one hundred and
forty eight pounds a day A.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Six five right, what are you? Six four six four?
Speaker 5 (07:28):
Yeah? But the problem was I was six ' three
when I was in eighth grade and a freshman, so
I was tagged to be the center of the future team.
Then I never grew and you never got thicker, and
I never got thicker until much later, twenty eight years old.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Wow, yeah, yeah. And so you go to college there?
How was that life for you?
Speaker 5 (07:47):
I was amazing. I mean literally it was. So it's
now called byu Idaho. Back then it was called Rick's College,
and it was a church, Mormon owned school. And that
was the first time I was around a lot of
Mormons because I was from Boston. I had Mormon friends
in Boston, but there's not a lot And uh, yeah,
I went to college there, skied four days a week.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
Never it was a Mormon college in so you really
got sucked in then. Oh yeah, Oh so your parents
were real happy?
Speaker 5 (08:12):
Oh my, yeah, my parents were thrilled. They were they
were rigid, they were rigid growing up, like we had
tough rules.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
You know.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
And let me let me ask you this, what about like,
you know, so when did you actually break away from
the church?
Speaker 5 (08:22):
But what is Yeah, so about forty I left completely?
Long run Yeah, yeah, long run.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (08:29):
I mean I was probably I was probably done in
my thirties. But you know, you're you're raised. I hate
the word brainwashed. I hate the word cult because the
cult is you know, somebody who follows religious venerations. Just
about everything's cult by the definition. Sure, and brainwashed, no,
but you have cognizant dissonance. And so to think of
(08:51):
a world because you're raised that you're chosen people. You're right,
everyone else is wrong. This is the true Church and
there's no fallback position. And so when you're raised with that,
when you leave the Mormon Church, you're leaving behind. You're
no longer going to be with your children in heaven,
(09:12):
You're no longer going to be with your wife. You
can't baptize your children. You can't.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
That's the story.
Speaker 5 (09:17):
Yeah, And when you.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Believe religion though, for God's sakes, I mean, you know,
Christianity is the only way to heaven.
Speaker 4 (09:24):
Follow Jesus Allah is the only way.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Of those things have changed a lot of those things
have changed in the religion through the through the New Testimonies,
and and and and and I don't thinking Mormon.
Speaker 5 (09:36):
As a Christian. You can be a wayward Christian. But
as long as you have faith and grace and belief
in Christ, you're you're going in the Mormon Church. It's
faith without works is dead. And so even when I
was leaving the church, you get a letter that says,
don't worry. If you live righteously, you can still be
(09:57):
with your children. And like, well, I'm not living righteously
according to what your rules are, right, Like if I
follow the yeah, I'm rude. Yeah, And so that that
that like because that was a true believer and I
was not a halfway in.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
I was.
Speaker 5 (10:12):
I went on my mission for two years?
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Yeah? Did what was that mission?
Speaker 4 (10:17):
Like?
Speaker 3 (10:17):
Where'd you go?
Speaker 5 (10:18):
Awesome? It was Dallas, Texas? The belt buckle, the Bible belt.
Everybody advice, what did you do with a smile? Ready?
Speaker 3 (10:25):
So are you a door knocker? Like? What is that?
What is?
Speaker 5 (10:27):
Yeah? You knock on doors?
Speaker 3 (10:29):
You don't drive cars, right right, So most people don't
have a car.
Speaker 5 (10:32):
But you know, look in life, if you're if you're good,
you figure out how to get a car. He's got
a car for twenty months.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Yeah, you figure out.
Speaker 5 (10:42):
If you get in leadership, you get more perks, you
get the nice apartment, you get the hard working companion
because you're in twos and in life, the harder you work,
the better things get. So I was only not in
a car for four months, but I was an ex.
Speaker 4 (10:56):
You explain that more, please, because I'm confused when you
say not in a car, like because you were such
a hardcore Mormon. They said, Greg, you can't drive a car,
and you chose to believe that or what.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Does that mean?
Speaker 5 (11:07):
They just put you on a bike in your area
and you cruise around to your bike and you stop
and you knock on doors and you talk to people.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
And that was your your mission.
Speaker 5 (11:14):
You're not allowed to leave your area, so they give
you Let's say they tell you your area is Stanton, California,
right right right, You can't leave Stanton and you don't
even have all a Stanton and you're on a bicycle
and you have an apartment and you have to stay
in that area, you maybe go to a.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
Couple of that's say you stay right there and you
cannot leave and you hits it out a hole. So
let me tell you. So they came up to give
you anything, to give you an idea, right came to
I was.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
I was flipping a house down the street and the Mormons,
a couple Mormon guys rolled up and and I had
just emptied this hoarder house, you know, and I just
bought the house that closed, desk growing, and I'm empty
in the house and there's this huge pile of just
like you know, everything that was.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
Inside this house. I would just like get it out
to the front and because I was waiting for the.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Uh, the dumpsters to show up, and I was just like,
just get it out of the house, get out of
the house, and put it right there in the front yard.
Start a pile, and then as su as dumpsters get
here the following day, we'll jump it out. Yeah, double
move it right whatever, I'd get stuff.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Out of the house.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
I get the work is working right, yeah, And uh,
A couple of Mormon boys came up and to my
house at my actual house, which is not you know,
it's it's about it's the next city over.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
But it's it's a couple of miles away whatever. Yeah close. Uh,
And and I'm talking to them and I'm like, hey, guys.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
You know, I was like, because I'll talk to anybody,
you know, I'm like the same guy open the door.
I listen to anybody's story, you know, I want to
hear everything. So the guys they're like, hey, you know, well,
what are you going going. I'm gonna head to I
have to tomorrow morning. I gotta do this. I'm kind
of burnt, blah blah. And so they show up to
the pad and I'm like, hey, what's up, guys. And
then they're like, oh, let us help. And I'm like, nah,
I'm a cool dude, Like don't worry about it.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
You know. They're like, no, let us help.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
They ended up helping me for six weeks, dude, shut up,
six bro, And they were there every day. Dude, I
got a mortmage and money, I'm saying, and I'm like, na,
you guys, listen, don't you know, please don't.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
I'm buying lunch. But I bet like they wouldn't take
any money from me.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Yeah, And I'd be like, well, let's talk now then
because we're working, right, So let's just you know. So
they were like I don't want to say praying. They
were expressing to me how they were delivering, how you know,
the whole thing works, you know for them, and what
their beliefs is.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
That's what I mean.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
Man, There's some great things about religion and things like that,
like you know, like the service and then just being
a part of doing their part of God's work.
Speaker 5 (13:29):
Well, and like here's the deal. At nineteen, this is
what happens.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
And they were probably there nineteen to twenty or whatever. Oh,
that's when you go on your mission at nineteen.
Speaker 5 (13:36):
Yeah I went at twenty, but Mosco eighteen nineteen. And
this is what happens. You pay for it, so your
family's paying the LDS Church Mormon Church three hundred dollars
a month, and then they give you a stipend based
on where you're you're living, so apartments paid for, everything's
paid for, and then they give it. They gave me
literally like one hundred and thirty four dollars every month
(13:57):
for food. When it runs out, you're out. You rely
on not that much a month. You rely on members
to fij you dinner, You know, Mormons around the area
will fied you dinner, lunch, and so I tell everybody
when you see these guys, they're genuinely out serving people. Yes,
it doesn't hurt you listen to them, feed them, give
them a little money, and you.
Speaker 4 (14:17):
If I'm now you know, you're changing a whole perspective
on this. Yeah, if the Mormon probably at my house,
can I give them some food and they'll take.
Speaker 5 (14:22):
It percent, they will do that. They might come by
every week and.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
I'll feed them every week. That's what they're doing. And
they did. They did, I'll do that for six I
didn't know that almost eight weeks. I think six or
eight weeks until I was done with that project. Excuse me,
six or eight weeks since I was done with that project.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
They were actually at my place, like religiously showing up,
popping in and they wouldn't take money, but they would
take food.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
And they would take food every day and.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
They're like, no, we're not taking money, just like okay,
And I would just they were not doing this for money,
We're doing it, you know, I'd be like, well here boom,
and I you know bottom.
Speaker 5 (14:53):
You know, yeah, they won't they won't take it. For service.
But I see them around Ramon. Every time I see them,
I'll fill up their gas tanker at the car. I'll
give them twenty dollars. Wow.
Speaker 4 (15:01):
Yeah, So can I get personal and ask Greg? What
was the straw that broke the camel's back?
Speaker 5 (15:07):
You know, I got high and that wasn't it long
before this that broke the camel's back for me? I
like to be careful and respectful.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
But the truth is the truth.
Speaker 5 (15:18):
I'd reached a point where I didn't believe anymore, and
I knew that you didn't.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
Believe at all, or you didn't believe in that system.
And these are too big.
Speaker 5 (15:28):
Belief in God. Okay, but I don't have a strong
belief in a true church. As I said it to
my dad, you dropped calling it the true church. Then
I would consider going back to church. Probably wouldn't, though,
because there's too many other problems, Like I do not
like the way they so I don't believe in tolerating gay.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
People, tolerating what gay people.
Speaker 5 (15:53):
That's one of their favorite things to say is you know,
we tolerate, we will tolerate gay people. No, the Bible
says love them right, love the sinner, Love yourself, love
others as you love yourself.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
Well, the Catholic Church had a hard time with it
for the longest time.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
Just this year the pope came out in twenty twenty three,
like to think about it, just this year the new
pope finally said something addressed.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
It, like you guys are welcome and it's coming crazy,
which is which is really absolutely crazy.
Speaker 4 (16:23):
You know, I got heels right now in my face,
my hair is because I think that.
Speaker 5 (16:30):
What Yeah, but to me love, don't tolerate them?
Speaker 3 (16:33):
Yeah, love everyone. We're all sinners for good.
Speaker 5 (16:36):
And they'll tell you they do, but they throw you
have to listen to what they actually say when they're
not sure paying attention. So the other thing I'll blow
your want mind is my wife and I have eight children,
eight eight very Mormon of you, yes, but we haven't
you know when you have eight kids, like, am I
supposed tolerate a kid that isn't flying right? Or do
(16:57):
I love them?
Speaker 3 (16:58):
Love? Period?
Speaker 5 (16:59):
You know? So and then when you start raising these kids,
you know there's things that say the Mormon Church, they
don't know they say it, but you know, if you
have sex before you're married, you're like already chewed gum.
And then I look at him and go, okay, so
if a girl gets molested, are they already chewed gum?
Because that's what they just heard you say. No matter
what you meant, you can't say this shit to people,
(17:23):
you know. And that's not even getting into the beliefs.
And then you get down a rabbit hole and you
start examining the beliefs. And I would say when Joseph
Smith was proven that the church was in the church
put out a letter admitting this, and they said, yes,
he had sexual relations with an almost fifteen year old girl.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
And this was the leader of the Mormon Church, the founder.
Speaker 5 (17:47):
Yeah, And I look at that, and he was married,
and I look at that and I go, okay, an
almost fifteen year old girl's actually fourteen boys. So you're
still your coding it.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
Yeah, I got a problem with that.
Speaker 5 (18:00):
I got I got six daughters. I got a problem
with that. Yeah, like stop, you know, so as as
I moved away from the church, that's and I try.
I don't bet like I have a lot of friends
that have left a lot like they spend a lot
of time bashing the church online. I don't do that.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
Sure, Yeah, you're not trying to go to war.
Speaker 5 (18:21):
With I've moved on in my life, but man, it's
it's still serves some people with.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
That, and if it works for you, God bless.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
And let me say this thing, you know, is that
I was I've been on the road, you know, almost
my entire life, right since I was fifteen. You know,
I've been on the road, and you know, being on
the road and being on tours. I you know, you know,
as you know you have to know and I we've
talked about this offline, is that Mormons on the road,
(18:47):
you know, they're traveling Mormons. You know, it's like it's
almost that there's a movie on it, right but but
it's a real thing. And I traveled with so many
Mormons on the road, you know, for so many years,
and some of the best people I've ever worked with.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
I agree.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
I don't believe with the same system, you know, you know,
I think that all of us service the same God.
Whether your God is Jesus Christ, Buddha, Joseph Smith, I
don't care who it is, whatever you want to call it,
it's the same God that that you know, and I
and I you know, that's my opinion and that's it.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
You know, it dies there. But but some of.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
The best people I've ever worked with, more Mormon guys,
and some of my best friends still are Jack Mormon
what we would call him, you know, they called themselves
I'm a Jack Mormon, you know, which I didn't know
was until.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
We were on the road together.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
But but you know what, But but getting off that
for a second and asking you one thing here is
there's somebody that's in your life.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
You know that, you guys. You know.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
That came to you guys in a in a need
in Ramona. I believe your dispensary where he needed help
to bury his child. I want to talk about that
when we come back. It's Cannabi's Talk one of moments,
right back after this.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
Break, right now.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Subscribe to our weekly newsletter on our website, Cannabi's Talk
one on one dot com.
Speaker 5 (20:01):
Welcome back, Talk one to one.
Speaker 4 (20:04):
The Bear Flag Group is your white label partners, you guys.
They are known to be on time, accurate and new
quality copackaging. They have been launching brands in California since
twenty fifteen. And at the Bear Flag Group, they do
what they say they will do. Go check them out.
Online at bear flaggroup dot com speaking of Bear Flag
Group ironic.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
It's great.
Speaker 4 (20:21):
It's great to he exactly. Greg Blue was asking you.
I mentioned about a family that you helped. I don't
know this story out in Ramona. First off, it's Plug,
the dispensary that I think you're part owner of.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
Correct.
Speaker 5 (20:34):
Yeah, Bear Flag owns Ramona Cannabis company, and so that
really helps us in our manufacturing actually little Plug. But
you know, we see all our customers every day. We
know what people actually buy versus what people think they buy.
We we go in, we listen, we you know, ninety
percent of people in this industry are like, I got
twenty bucks, What can I get for twenty bucks? I
need to fall asleep tonight. I need to And they're
(20:55):
a plumber, they're in h fact, they're you know, whatever
they're doing, that's what they're afting. And so we try
to design products to fit with every day people need
because insurance doesn't cover this, and if you need it medically,
it's expensive.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
And you know what's crazy is I think a lot
of people, you know, forget where we come from and
where this industry you know, comes from, which is the
medical side. I think a lot of people have got
you know, clouded with the you know, the look of
their cannabis or the what their their messaging is level,
their tach levels or their messaging, you know. And I
(21:28):
think that it's it's unfortunate because you know, we were
discussing this previously, is that you know, the more you give,
the more you get back, you know. And and a
lot of people don't understand that by you know, you know,
you help people, you know, you tend to get helped,
and uh and and it's it's it's some things that
you know you can't teach, you know, I think you
have to you have to learn from you know, and
(21:49):
and having those kind of actions. And I know that
you know, your guys' team, you know, like will stay
open on Thanksgiving for an example, and and sacrifice your
own employees time on a on a you know holiday
so that your patients can get their medicine. It is
not about getting extra money, It's about staying open so
your patients could get medicine on a day that they're
(22:10):
off and they can get it.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
Because people and the boon dogs need it too, because
your dispensaries on the moon dogs out there, right.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
But they need it. Yeah, I agree, I love it.
I've been there before. It's a nice place. It's cool.
Speaker 5 (22:20):
Yeah, you know how far people will drive on a
Thanksgiving to an open dispensary.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
To get Yeah, but it's you know, like I said,
it's it's important though that people could get medicaid to
get their medicine and stuff like that. So you know,
with that being said though, like you know, you guys
have a you know, a driver named Joe. Yes, right,
And can you tell us a little bit about the
story of Joe and how he came into the Romona
cannabis story.
Speaker 5 (22:46):
Yeah, So Joseph Flores, he's our driver and he's a
rock star. He's on call seven days a week, twelve
hours a day, always available, like big part of our team.
He we originally met him. He was he was a customer.
He come in his son had down syndrome. He would
come in to get product for his son. And when
one day he came in and he was out knocking
(23:06):
doors and Ramona to businesses, his son passed away. He
had a problem. They put a trachey out of me
and he wasn't being watched at the hospital. He pulled
it out and he ended up needlessly passing away there
in the hospital and Joseph you know, told us his
story and was like, hey, I don't I don't have
any money to bury him. I got to get him here.
He was, you know, probably a couple hours away at
(23:28):
the time, and so you know, we started a huge
drive with our customers and then we matched everything and
we eventually got that funeral paid for and and we're
he was able to bury his son right in Ramona
so he could be close to him, which is where
he needed to be. And then you know, a couple
of months passed and he was depressed and down. He said,
I just need something to do. Would you guys hire
(23:50):
me for anything? And that's when we hired him to
be a driver. And I mean that that's going back
now three or four years and we had our biggest
week ever or the first week that we wrote them
a check and help them. And it just reminded me
that you know, the more you give, the more you get,
the more good you do, the better things are gonna
happen for you. And so we you know, even now,
(24:12):
every month we donate to Battle Brothers with Brian Buckley.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
Love brun What's a company not help HV.
Speaker 5 (24:20):
Hel Enolument Valley. But the foundation side of that is
Battle Brothers, and a lot of people get that confused.
Battle Brothers is about helping veterans to be able to
access cannabis through the VA. And you know, Battle Brothers
and Brian have one of the few federal research grants
that are granted in order to do the research to
make that happen. And so then we also and and
(24:43):
I think that's going to be the best way to
get it legalized, because if you can do the research
and the VA decides yes, we can give cannabis to
veterans to help them with their PTSD and their pain
and all the other problems they have, how do you
not legalize it? And so it's a great backdoor entry
that's out there that I don't think the cannabis industry
is doing enough to take advantage of.
Speaker 4 (25:03):
I think that what Brian's doing, and you backing that
up by giving them money to help with that is
one of the key elements that this whole cannabis has
been missing, right and Blue and I have been talking research, research, research.
That's what made me love Brian Buckley because I know
that this guy. From the first time we interviewed him
at our old place. I literally fell in love with him.
And Blue wasn't at that first meeting, and I'm like,
(25:25):
me and Chris fray Keto wherever we were.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Like, oh my god, he's the best badass in the world.
Speaker 4 (25:29):
But he's doing so much for this plant and for
veterans and for people because once it helps the veterans,
it's gonna mold over to everyone else because they'll be
able to see how it's helping them, and as he
should be helping these veterans.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
And he's got an ear in the White House. The
dude can like walk up there to Washington, DC anytime.
He's like, Hey, let's talk to this and he's very knowledgeable.
Speaker 4 (25:49):
I just love the fact that you guys are working
and the bottom mind, you guys are both in the
San Diego area.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Sure you know they are certainly a great outfit. Yeah,
you know, they're great, great guys. So so, so tell
us a little bit about, you know, what what your guys'
overall plans are for the year. You know, you discussed
a new place coming up, you guys, ten thousand square foot.
Speaker 5 (26:10):
Yeah, so Kyle totally is one of my partners, and so.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Going helmets around there too.
Speaker 5 (26:16):
I'm sure, Hey, we're about to launch flying helmets. Are
you really a strain called flying.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
Helmets as you should? So?
Speaker 5 (26:23):
Dope, No, No, it's all Kyle.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
I love him. I mean, for that's great.
Speaker 5 (26:32):
That's it.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
That's the lion helmet.
Speaker 5 (26:35):
One thing that's great about Kyle is he's also known
for cannabis. Like I think he's probably more known for
that than his NFL career and his you know, rock
career and all that. I mean, the guy, he's done
a lot. But yeah, so Kyle and I put it
together and where you have ten thousand square feet, we're
just working on the septic tank. As soon as we
(26:55):
figure that out, we'll be able to finalize the plans
and then we'll have it put up in six to
seven months.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
And is that next door to the Ramona lookish?
Speaker 5 (27:04):
It's going to be attached to the current building, gotcha?
Speaker 3 (27:06):
Right? Next right up right? The same address? Yeah, I
mean different address.
Speaker 5 (27:10):
No, same address. So the problem is politics wise, So
we have an exemption if every problem. If we do,
we can do ten thousand square feet with our exemption
if we attach it to our current building. If we
don't attach it to our current building, we can only
do twenty five hundred square feet. So I'm going to
attach a ten thousand square foot building to our current
small house that we do everything out of.
Speaker 4 (27:31):
That's gonna be interesting. It's going to go behind them
and to the left. I'm sure because you guys are
not problem.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Basically build up straight, back straight, just one wall that
attaches and then you're gone.
Speaker 5 (27:42):
Yep. And once we finish that, we're building out a model.
I'm doing this with Kyle Mike Langford i think been
on the show, and so we're building out a model
where they want to have a place for veterans and
NFL players to come. They're dealing with dementia, dealing with
early on set. I'll sign ct PTSD. So that's the
(28:02):
mental health facility aspect. Uh, we're gonna name Revenant House,
and then we're talking about a cannabis hotel and then
we want to expand more to you know, have more
cannabis businesses out behind that as well.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
So in Ramona.
Speaker 5 (28:18):
Are just in Ramona, right, m Yeah, build ma Romona.
So there's a lot of reasons.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (28:24):
Number one, the town itself, we have a great relationship.
It's partly we donate to the Ramona Senior Living Center.
You know, they have a planning group there with twenty
five people on it, and I think twenty of them
are four, three are ambivalent, and two are against. And
so they've wanted an industry out by the airport for years.
It's across the street from a five thousand foot runway.
(28:45):
I bought the business based on political dominoes. We were
supposed to close in November of twenty twenty one based
on the moratorium we had, and I bought the business
before then on a gamble that it wouldn't ever close,
and we within three months they got rid of the moratorium.
The business went up in value. Now the next gamble
(29:07):
is federal legalization. When it goes federally legal, we're we're
gonna have that huge facility forty minutes from San Diego,
less than two hours to Orange County, and there's not
too many businesses that big that close to the city.
And we have a five thousand foot runway that we'll
be able to fly things out when the time comes.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
How cool is that? Can we can we use it? Now?
That is unbelievable. It can't.
Speaker 5 (29:32):
I'm sure it's being done.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
Yeah, it's being done. I love California and Ramona, the
whole town.
Speaker 4 (29:39):
It's just outside of San Diego, just you know, further
south of Orange County that we have, not that bad far,
about forty five minutes from us, because it's a little inland,
a little east of the water, but not too far,
beautiful area. I love the drive when I went there,
and the place is so nice inside, very very cool.
When we come back, we're gonna take a break real quick.
I want to talk about the Bear Flag group itself
on what people can expect because I know you guys
(30:01):
do quality work, accurate on time and all that good stuff.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
And we're gonna do the high five with you. Greg.
It's Cannabis Talk one on one. We'll be right back
after this.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
Go make sure you like, follow and subscribe to Cannabis
Talk one on one. Now now back to the number
one cannabis show on the planet. You know what get
Now back to the number one tennabis show in the UNIVERSEABS.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
Talk one one.
Speaker 4 (30:26):
Turn your typical into something special, folks. When it comes
in fused products, the flavor you taste should be just
as enjoyable as the feeling you experience. Visit the website
loranoils dot com. We got the Bear Flag Group CEO
himself in the building a day.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
Give it up a grade. One more game.
Speaker 4 (30:40):
Let's go, Greg, Let's talk about the Bear Flag Group.
Because you've helped a lot of big brands that I've
seen here and I'm looking on your website right now,
which is very nice, and I see it and I go, Okay.
I read a statement from another owner of a brand
that says, it's great. You guys got manufacturing retail out there, Arimona,
(31:01):
Emergency Transportation coming soon, Cultivation, and then you've worked with
some big brands Easy, Grizzly, Peak, Revenant, HVGC. I mean,
the list goes on and on. How did you get
started with this and what drew you to this? From
being the Mormon itself to of course getting into real estate.
Speaker 3 (31:19):
I know that's your background there.
Speaker 4 (31:20):
That probably gave you some loot to get all this
started because you were a tycoon in that field.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
But why cannabis.
Speaker 5 (31:26):
Yeah, so I was doing real estate. I'm really good
at real estate. I just lost any passion for doing it.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
Sure, and I know the feeling, but you keep doing.
Speaker 5 (31:36):
It because well, I'm good at it right. Kind of
like I had a neighbor that played in the NBA
greg Oaster Tag. A lot of people would fault that
he didn't put more heart into it. The man loved
to fish. He didn't love to play basketball, but you
could pay me seven million a year, I'm gonna go
play basketball so I can fish the rest of my life.
So that's what I was kind of getting with real estate,
and so I was I was like, man, I wish
(31:56):
I'd gotten involved in the Internet in THEOL days. I
wish I got an internet marketing in the early two thousands.
And then I started, I wonder what out there is
like in the beginning to where you can get in business,
grow a huge business, and then be like Sean Parker
the rest of your life and just try to pick winners,
put some money in it, advise people. But you got
to get in and learn the industry. Now. I was
(32:17):
naive at the time, and I wasn't and I was like,
I thought, oh, cannabis, but I don't know anything about it.
And then I got a weird call.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
He didn't really have a relationship with it until you're
after forty obviously get no relationship.
Speaker 5 (32:30):
Yeah, didn't know what I didn't know. So I got
a call and it went like this, and this is
a guy who played football at BYU and he said, hey,
I met him at Manwealth and Laguna Beach with Setemanali
and we got talking business and he's like, hey, I've
got this business opportunity. I need a real estate guy.
Operator can come up. Look at it. It's in Humble
and it's with cannabis. Does that bother you? I'm like, no,
(32:50):
it's real estate.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
Let's go. Let's go.
Speaker 5 (32:52):
So I jumped on a plane the next day, land
in Oakland, drove up to Garberville and met a family
up there that has an office right there on Main Street.
And they were growers. And it was awesome. I mean, like,
I go in the like we hang out at the
office and the grandfather just starts educating me on cannabis.
He's blowing my mind, like the medical side. I didn't
know any of this, right. And and when I say
(33:14):
they were there were a Mexican family from California, Like
they weren't from Mexico, right, you know, you know the
families that have been here forever, right, And generation after
generation up and humble, and the son was a coach
at the junior high basketball team. So I'm like, hey,
this guy's growing cannabis selling it. He's a junior high
basketball coach. Nobody cares what was going on here? Seems
(33:37):
so crazy to me. Yes, yeah, just to me, nobody
count exactly. So then they invite us over for dinner
and they cook up and there was three generations of
women in this kitchen cooking, and like, I mean, it
was an amazing dinner. And there was one hundred and
fifty plants on the dining room table growing under lights.
There was two thousand pounds in the guest bedroom. They
(33:57):
showed me. Now understand at this point, like I'd never
seen more than an ounce in my life, and so
I'm like, whoa, this is like right here on Main Street.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
So then.
Speaker 5 (34:10):
I remember their daughter was drivening a soccer ball, and
my daughters played college soccer. But they're driven a soccer
ball around a dining room table, like, doesn't even notice
any cannabis plants there. The father, the grandfather's out by
the back porch smoking a big joint. They're watching the
Lakers game, and I'm like, this is the most normal
family in the world, and they're shrouded by cannabis. And
(34:31):
I'm like, I gotta figure this out. After talking to grandfather,
my wheels were spinning. The medical, the history of it,
what happened in the thirties, the Israeli papers. I've got
a lot of homework to do, so I go back
to Utah ready to do homework. I do a deep
dive and I find out there's a bunch of Mormon
families in Utah with massive medical problems, using cannabis and
trying to legalize it so they're not doing anything illegal
(34:54):
to actually help their children. One of them was a
family of four. They had the same disease the oldest daughter.
The second daughter was now falling apart at age fifteen,
went from being a healthy child to a wheelchair, couldn't
go to school. The mom got desperate, got some cannabis,
drove to Vegas, got the cannabis, came back to Utah,
gave it to the daughter for two months. Two months later,
(35:16):
she's back in school, perfectly healthy. And you start going,
what the hell is going on here? And that just
flipped everything in my life. I want in this business.
We've been lied to we've been we're holding back life.
There's cures out here, there's propaganda all day around this, right. Yeah.
(35:38):
So but then it turns out I'm the business guy.
This this great family up there had nothing legal. We
were gonna buy farms from the farmers. They were worth
about three hundred thousand dollars. They needed fifty thousand dollars
to go legal. We'd lease it back to them. I'd
put the fifty thousand in. Once you did that, they're
supposedly worth a million. Problem is they had no way
to sell the cannabis because the co op didn't have
(35:59):
a license, and at the time, I didn't know enough
about cannabis. I'm like, oh, I'm not getting into a
business where I can get in trouble like it's illegal.
Not going to do that. So went back to Utah
kind of goh, man, I gotta figure this out. I
got I want in sure, don't even I just I'm
being pulled in. And then the guy called me back
and said, hey, I need a coo. I'll pay you
fifteen thousand a month, give you ten percent of the company.
(36:21):
You don't have to raise any money, you don't have
to put any in. I just need you to come
down here and run it Monday to Wednesday. You can
go home to your family in Utah every week.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
Let's go.
Speaker 5 (36:29):
I'm in Boom So I'm in like three months, found
out the guy embezzled most of the investors' money.
Speaker 3 (36:36):
I'm out.
Speaker 5 (36:38):
I'm back in Utah and I'm sitting there. I'm watching
the show This is Us and there's.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
Love that show by the way, NBC show.
Speaker 5 (36:44):
Yeah, yeah, so bad. Beth said, there's always a window, Randall.
We've always been able to find the window and go
through it and make this work. And my wife and
I looked at each other, were laying in bed watching
the show. I'm like, I'm going through this window. So
I went down and made everybody an offer they couldn't refuse.
We wrote an eight hundred thousand dollars check, bought out
all the investors, got rid of everybody involved. We made
(37:07):
a deal with the Carron owner. Brought me down there.
He's a little mad at me to this day. I said, bro,
He said, you're supposed to help me. I said, yeah,
I helped you. I kept you out of Jailah, that's
what that's what I did. If you're not grateful for that.
That's fine. So this is a crazy cannabis story because
I made him a deal. You come back with a
million dollars by December of this year, December eighteenth, you'll
(37:28):
be back in the business at thirty one percent and
we'll go. But you got to earn it now, and
you got to make it happen. Well, got arrested bringing
cannabis into Tonga and sat in a tongue in jail
for six months, and he was with.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
The almost had that million.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
Yeah, and by.
Speaker 5 (37:47):
The time he got back to the United States, it
was long past that date. And you know, my partners
are Kyle Turley, Carlos Hernandez who played for the Padres,
He's also a partner. He was the only partner from
that group that stayed on. And that's how I ended
up in cannabis.
Speaker 3 (38:02):
Really. Yeah, I didn't know this story. That's great.
Speaker 4 (38:05):
Yeah, And is that did you buy the Bear Flag
Group or did you change the name and make that
something different.
Speaker 5 (38:11):
I bought Bear Flag Group. The show Grow was the
original owner, yep. And then when they split up, the
c the CFO of that company got Ramona Cannabis as
his ten percent and then him and his partner made
a go of it, and then you know, they just
got the point they were worried about the moratorium. They
found a sucker me to buy it bang and you know,
(38:33):
there are a couple people even told me you were
crazy to buy that. And then when it went the
moratorium went away, then it became a genius, right.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
Yeah, yeah, Allen. You know what's great though, is that
is that story? Bro?
Speaker 5 (38:43):
I'm both.
Speaker 3 (38:45):
Yeah, yeah, that's a great story, by the way.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
But I think the blessing behind it all is is that,
you know, I get it to meet people that know you,
that have worked with you, that love working with you
and your team. You know, you guys have a great
team of people around you, and it's just it's healthy.
You know, you guys have a great operation, and it's able.
You're able to see, you know that you're helping other people,
(39:10):
and I like it. I mean, I think there's a
lot of people out here that are struggling trying to
figure out how to and and unfortunately, I think some
of them have squandered off their money. Some of them
stop paying their investors, some of them stop paying their
their their retailers. They're you know, you you know, and
we talk about this, we have that conversation. As a
dispensary owner, do you pay back the guys that you
know that they give you cannabis to? You know, of
(39:32):
course you do. If you have that good name. You know,
it goes a long way, and it's it's going to
separate the people that you know that are no longer
with us, you know, in this industry, and every year
there's new faces.
Speaker 3 (39:45):
And I was like, well, how long are you going
to be here?
Speaker 5 (39:47):
Well, you know, I just I looked at it last
night and right now, we've paid our investors over the
last twenty four months about seven hundred K. Yeah, and
I and we're profitable. And I think for a cannabis
company over the last two years that there's a lot
of story. Yeah, to be profitable great, I'm most proud
about right now.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
And like I said, it's because it's the giving. It's
to taking care of the right people, it's to doing
the right thing.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
And the story of why he's in it.
Speaker 4 (40:12):
It's like yours too, like very similar to yours of
your dad speaking to you about, you know, right before
he passes away, go make it legal mealho same kind
of deep roote of like why this is so good
for so many people that are in this industry.
Speaker 3 (40:26):
Don't get it twisted.
Speaker 4 (40:26):
There's some businessmen out there that are I see x's
and o's and I want to do this and execute
that way. Good luck, God bless hopefully. But when you
hear the passion like that and you see Greg who
goes back to Utah and figures out his own people,
because let's just face.
Speaker 3 (40:39):
It, I'm sure that helped.
Speaker 4 (40:41):
When you see the Mormon folk who were doing it
and it spoke to your mind and heart going my
people are using this. I need to get this out
to everyone because that had to hit home for you
because you're a strong.
Speaker 5 (40:51):
Mormon hard the time. Yeah, and I'll take it full
circle for you. My dad who is in his you know,
he's older, he's in his seventies and he haspathy and
maybe early on set Parkinson's. And take a full circle.
My dad, who like is as straight edge as they come,
like he has, he's gone a lot of years. Kyle
(41:12):
Turley has neuropathy, and Kyle Turley's actually active Mormon and
play in the NFL. A lot of people don't know
that active. He is now yeah, right now. So here's
here's the full circle thing in this though. So my
dad can't sleep. He's sleeping like hour two hours a night,
and you know you can't keep that up at his
age and live much longer. And so I say, hey, Dad,
(41:35):
I you know, I think we can help you. I'm
gonna call Kyle Turley. And Kyle gave me rso I
was gonna say that, yeah, And he gave me the
whole regimen for my dad, right, and he gave me information.
He even jumped on the phone with my dad. And
so here I am going a little town in Tabiona, Utah.
My parents grew up in the projects of Boston and
they're now in a town of three hundred and eighty people, Tabiona, Utah.
(41:58):
So we go up there, we give him some our
R S O, and he calls me after two days
he's like, I'm having weird dreams, like this is crazy,
and I call Kyle. Kyle goes, oh, he needs five
hundred milligrams and CBD with it. So we get him
five hundred milligrams CBD. My dad calls me, He's like,
I'm sleeping eight hours a night like a baby. So
a couple months go by and I didn't really talk
(42:18):
to my dad about We called, we talked on the phone.
I went up to visit him and I said, wait, like,
you're not working on the car. He goes, yeah, IVE
been out working on He's got a hot rod in
the garage. He's like, yeah, I've been working on it.
What do you mean you working on You haven't many
able to work on that in like a year. He goes, Oh,
I feel great. He said, Wait a minute, the r
s O. He goes, oh, yeah, I stopped talking taking
that a couple of weeks ago. I didn't need to
take it anymore. It's just gone. Which is the same story.
(42:40):
Kyle hasa think about this. I'm not a doctor, but
when you watch someone suffering like that and it just
your daughter, and this is you know, your Mormon father,
the same thing my Mormon mother in law, who if
you know anything about Mormon's my wife's father was a bishop,
a state president, He was a VP at New York Life.
(43:02):
He was a mission president for the Mormon Church, which
is now you're getting up in the high high echelons
in the Philippines. And he was a temple president in Hawaii,
and in New York City, his wife, my mother in law.
He's passed away. But my mother in law, she had
cancer in her jaw and she's alertic opioids. And you
(43:23):
want to talk about like opioids, this is the other fight.
I have a brother's heroin addict, and I wish he was.
I wish cannabis was his choice, you know, I wish
it was cannabis.
Speaker 3 (43:34):
But is he still around your brother?
Speaker 5 (43:36):
Yeah, miraculously and he.
Speaker 3 (43:38):
Still he's still a partying yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (43:41):
So no, coming back to all of that, you know,
here's my Mormon mother in law walking around church going,
oh yeah, I take a cannabis picture every night to
go to sleep since she had cancer put her right
to sleep. And you know who it took to give
it to her wasn't even my wife and I. It's
the nephew has all the face tattoos. He comes over
and goes, Grandma, we're not doing this anymore. You're taking
(44:02):
this and you're going to sleep tonight without pain. She
took it and that was it. So the people like
we judge like this is the biggest lesson I've learned
from cannabis. It's like, better start listening to people. Don't
look like you, don't act like you, don't walk through
the world like you. And I reached the point where
at the beginning, I'm like, I'm all for medical, and
(44:22):
then I was like, I'm all for spiritual. Now I'm
down to the recreational part. And that was the last
hurdle for me. And I'm like, you, judgmental mother trucker,
Stop judging people. Because some people go home at night
and they need a glass of wine. Some people, you know,
are taking four ibuprofen. Some people they're taking a head
of cannabis to get through whatever they got to get through.
(44:43):
And for you to judge that just makes you a
bad person. It's something you gotta work on. It's an
unworkable behavior in your life. And so once I crossed
all those hurdles, it's just been unleashed for me. Like
this is a better solution than drinking alcohol to relax,
is a better solution than opioids, is a better solution
(45:03):
than drug addiction. So like, you know, I got a
steps on and work on. My BI is amazing human being.
But he's an alcoholic. Yeah, and you know he's sober
right now. He's doing great he's doing his steps, he's
working through it. But like, cannabis is so much better.
And so that's been the best thing about cannabis for
(45:23):
me in my life.
Speaker 4 (45:24):
You know, Greg, your story and everything. I appreciate the vulnerability,
the deep parts of everything. Hearing what you're all about
and now for people to hear this is what Bear
Flag group comes from is truly inspiring to me. Like
I had no clue of all this. I just thought
you were the sexy model that I said at the
beginning of the show that walks around here looking like
(45:44):
this big sexy man of the beast that I'm like, wow, But.
Speaker 3 (45:48):
Dude, what a transition from.
Speaker 4 (45:53):
Now I have that serious agape love for you though
like that it was just I loved you already and
so I'm like, oh, he's a cool dude. But that's
story man of coming from the Mormon Church, like that,
because there's so many people that come from different backgrounds,
and for you to be able to identify the judgmental
parts of you and to look at your shortcomings and say,
this was the last one of my judgmental for recreational use.
(46:16):
There's so many people out there that are like that
and for you to even admit that right now at
the end is just it gives me chills, man, to
see what a man that you are and have are
so vulnerable to admit. Because that's the other part that
I love about what your story it is is you know,
I looked at it this way, and now I looked
at it that way. And now we're going to do
the high five and see when you started smoking and
(46:37):
when it all happened. So question number one of the
high five with the owner of the Bear Flag Group, Greg,
how old are the first time you smoked cannabis and
where did you get it from?
Speaker 3 (46:46):
Mister Mormon smoke?
Speaker 5 (46:48):
You never have steel, I still haven't.
Speaker 3 (46:50):
Have you used it? CBD?
Speaker 5 (46:52):
Yes, okay, so the first time you use it first time?
Speaker 3 (46:55):
You don't hear this right now.
Speaker 5 (46:56):
I would call CBD Mormon cannabis. Yeah, it's not cannabis, right.
Speaker 4 (47:00):
But it still comes from the planet.
Speaker 3 (47:04):
But you just we're not gonna judge you.
Speaker 5 (47:08):
Working on it. But so I have a first time experience.
I just I don't smoke, so I use cannabis, but
I use edibles, tinctures, you know, patches. First time using it,
first time I was with a gentleman at Hall of
Flowers like three years ago, and I thought, this is
the day I'm taking edible and he gave me a
(47:28):
sativa and I popped it in my mouth and then
we went on with the day, and then we went
over I remember we were talking uh with someone over
at Packwoods. We had a little meeting and he was
talking and all of a sudden, like I could just
hear music like I never heard it before, and all
of a sudden, my foot was topping and I'm tapping
and I'm listening and I'm smiling, and the guy I
wentz looking at me like, what the Heck's wrong with you?
(47:49):
And I'm like and then all of a sudden, I
this is what I thought my head. I would go,
I'm a cross mice feet and I'm going to do
a dance span right I'm just gonna do a big
old dance span right now, feeling it. And then right
about that, I'm like, wait, we're standing here in a
business meeting trying to discuss manufacturing. I'm about to do
a dance man, and I start laughing out loud, and
finally they go, what is wrong with you? I go
that edible just hit me and it's awesome.
Speaker 3 (48:12):
Yeah, that movie, I got the rhythm. What was that movie?
That white guy that then he's living with the black bether? Hey,
what's this? What's it was? Yeah, that's so funny. That's
a great story.
Speaker 5 (48:29):
That's how I ended up, you know, And yeah it
was awesome.
Speaker 3 (48:32):
Well.
Speaker 2 (48:32):
Question number two of the high five, what's your favorite
way to use or smoke cannabis or CBD?
Speaker 5 (48:37):
Yeah, I mean that's yeah, edible. Yeah, I just I've
never smoked, and being around it a lot as a kid,
I just kind of steer clear of it.
Speaker 3 (48:46):
And now you don't need it, you don't need it.
Speaker 4 (48:49):
Yeah, I mean, there's so many other ways to use it.
I mean I don't smoke. I use it all kinds
of other products, but I don't smoke either.
Speaker 5 (48:55):
My podcast is going to be a lot about this though,
Like there's in the industry. Everybody who uses recreationally, everybody
who use cannabis for a long time, they know where
to get it. They're usually chasing deals, and that part
of the industry. I don't know how much more it's
gonna grow. The real growth in the industry is going
after people that don't know that you don't have to
(49:16):
smoke it, and it doesn't have to be psychoactive. Yeah,
I agree, and you need this. Like there's a guy
in Marmona. I don't do that shit. I said, what's shit? Well,
that's stuff you say cannabis. And I go, Steve, you're
three hundred pounds, you're bigger than me, and you're shorter.
Your back's gotta hurt, right, Oh yeah, my knees too. Everything,
I go, you should be using cannabis.
Speaker 3 (49:38):
You should be this ship.
Speaker 5 (49:39):
And that's my message that I want to get out
to people that you're all gonna be. Yeah, you're all
gonna be cannabis hypocrites that don't use You don't know it.
In the next five to ten years, either you or
someone you love are gonna need this medicine to change
your life. And the quicker you get educated, better off
you're gonna be.
Speaker 3 (49:58):
I can't wait. A multivie. We're it's just in there,
you know, I mean, it's it's part of the multi vitamin.
Speaker 2 (50:03):
And Greg, I'll tell you that the easiest one that
I've I've learned is to just tell them, hey, you
know we're from the United States, and uh, you know
they've they've made it medical for a reason.
Speaker 3 (50:13):
Yeah, you know, improve don't get it twisted.
Speaker 2 (50:16):
There's no way the United States we'll call the medicinal
unless it really had a medicinal value, right, so you know,
and and when you tell someone that, they're like, uh, oh, yeah,
you know that ship. But you'll take it from viking In, right,
but exactly. But then you know, you sit and you
sit with them and say, you know, hey, maybe they've
learned that viking In and oxy cotone are you know,
(50:39):
aren't as you know, good as bottom line cats.
Speaker 3 (50:43):
I think that way. It's because my doctor gave it
to him. Correct.
Speaker 4 (50:45):
I mean, it's it's that it's it's the top behavior
and it's just a shame, but it's it's what it is.
Speaker 3 (50:49):
And you got to understand it.
Speaker 2 (50:50):
Well, that's why when you teach him that though, and
you say, hey, it's medicinal, hopefully.
Speaker 3 (50:54):
They and you know doctors, you know, so then they
hit the walk away going up. And I do agree,
I do.
Speaker 2 (51:00):
I can't wait for the day that doctors are prescribing
it and it's within you know, our whole eCos in costco. Yeah,
I just don't want them to alter it and change it,
which they will.
Speaker 3 (51:09):
But like they did with Maronal, Yeah that was a joke.
Speaker 4 (51:12):
But question question number three of the High five, Craziest
place you ever used cannabis?
Speaker 5 (51:18):
Yeah, I just I don't know that I have a
crazy place, but I want to create one. This is
my ask. I'll use it. I'm gonna smoke it the
first time with Snoop Dog. Okay, when that happens, we
just tell Snoop I'm here, I'll smoke it. Let's go.
That'll be the craziest.
Speaker 3 (51:31):
Well, he's gonna come here someday soon. Yeah, we got him.
We got him right around the corner. Question number four
of the High five, what is your go to munchie?
Speaker 5 (51:38):
Go to munch? You will always be pizza? Sure, Pepperoni.
Speaker 3 (51:43):
I think we should get from where?
Speaker 5 (51:45):
From where Papa?
Speaker 3 (51:47):
Anywhere in the round.
Speaker 4 (51:48):
Table, the round table or Little Caesar's domin Dominoes is good?
Speaker 3 (51:53):
Now.
Speaker 5 (51:53):
I don't know if I go to Little Caesar's. We're
getting desperate.
Speaker 4 (51:57):
Sometimes it's if we're just yeah, it is blue and
I have pulled into the little Where's a bunch of
people at the office right now, We've got to go
word middle sears right right now? Question number five with
the High five Greg the founder of the CEO the
Bear Flag Group. If you could smoke cannabis with anyone
dead or alive, who would it be?
Speaker 3 (52:17):
And why?
Speaker 5 (52:18):
I mean, that's just simple. My Nana, Oh, the love
of my life, you know, after around life.
Speaker 3 (52:24):
Yeah, she's passed or she's with us.
Speaker 5 (52:26):
You know, she's passed. She's been pasted four years. That's why.
You know, I don't even know if she ever smoked.
Speaker 3 (52:31):
Yeah, yeah, but what did she do that was just
that special?
Speaker 5 (52:34):
That was just amazing woman, Like the She's actually the
one person in my life that I never heard her
say a bad word about anybody, Like if I could
make something about me better to be more like her?
And uh, you know, I grew up in family eight kids.
My parents had three kids in three years at eighteen
nineteen twenty, and I was the oldest, and I spent
(52:56):
a good part of my childhood hanging out with her
so my parents could and survive, right right, So you know,
she just was that person who stepped in and made
my world amazing.
Speaker 3 (53:11):
Is there anything else? Yes, rest in peace, Nana?
Speaker 2 (53:13):
Anything else you want to you know, discuss before we
let you get on out of here man.
Speaker 5 (53:16):
No man, I just love I'm like Ricky Bobby. I
do want to thank all of our vendors. I want
to thank the brands we work with, Gelato, Big One,
you know, Dime, Wonder Brat, elevated supply with their packaging,
Iyespire with the hardware, just a lot of its governors
cut the small ones, the big ones. We just we
love them all and and uh we we wouldn't be
(53:40):
able to do what we do without those people in
our lives.
Speaker 3 (53:44):
Yeah, well, thank you for doing it. Brother.
Speaker 2 (53:45):
Well there it is guys. It's Cannabis Talk one on one.
And remember this, if no one else loves you, we do.
Speaker 1 (53:51):
Thank you for listening to Cannabis Talk one on one
with Blue with Joe Bronde, the world's number one source
for everything cannabis. And make sure you like following to
subscribed to Cannabis Talk one O one now
Welcome to Cannabis Talk one oh one featuring Blue with
Joe Gronde, the world's number one source for everything cannabis.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Hello, welcome to Cannabis Talk one oh one, the world's
number one source for everything cannabis.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
My name's Blue.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Alongside of me is mister Joe Grande, and you are
now tuned into the greatest cannabis show on the planets.
Speaker 4 (00:16):
That's right, folks, Thank you for listening to our podcast
all around the world. Make sure you check out the
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so many great articles and blogs on the site for
you to check out, and make sure you check out
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Feel free to call us any time one eight hundred
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at Cannabis Talk one oh one. My brother from another mother,
Blue right here is at the number one. Christopher Wright Hello,
(00:39):
and I am at Joe Groande fifty two. And I
don't know if you guys seen the latest edition of
the Cannabis Talk magazine, but I seen the new one
that's coming out. The cover Well, hello boy, it's official,
like a referee with a whistle.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Yes, some great articles though very cool stories on it.
Speaker 4 (00:53):
Get yourself a hard copy today at your local dispensary
or smoke shop near you. If they don't have one,
have them hit a separate request at that same number
one eight hundred twenty nineteen eighty or go check out
the magazine online at Cannabis Talkmagazine dot com and subscribe now.
Our guest on the show is not only a model
for the plus size GQ, a big and tall male magazine.
(01:16):
Is that Joe Grudde No, I've lost it. Greg took
it away from me. Greg McCluskey the founder CEO of
the Bear Flag Group. Now they manufacture copak and white
label cannabis products. They take your business to the next level, folks.
Bear Flag manufacturers award winning cannabis products for your brand,
our dispensary and works with your team to launch brands
(01:36):
in California by providing education, facilities, partnerships, and other methods
for delivering a successful product to the markets. Their exceptional
quality and service has led to many word of mouth referrals.
As we have ourselves, I love what David Loughglouse, the
owner of Misty Mountain said about the Bear Flag Group.
He says Bear Flag Manufacturing made entering the California market
(02:00):
easy from formulating production, from distribution and retail. The team
is top notch. Now this is a quote from him.
They are finalizing plans on their new ten thousand square
foot building that we're going to talk about a little
bit here. They're building a deck to raise money for
their next project that includes a hotel, mental health facility,
so they're trying to help the community folks. A hemp
(02:22):
facility and fifty percent canopy grows on fifteen acres next
to their current facilities, and they'll be launching their brand
rooster and we'll be launching their podcasts. Sincerely, Cannabis. Make
sure you check out their website, Bearflaggroup dot com. I
want to shout out Albert, Isabelle, and Amanda all from
(02:43):
the team there, but everybody here, please welcome Greg to
the team.
Speaker 5 (02:46):
Man.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Welcome Greg.
Speaker 5 (02:48):
Thanks you for having me no wether.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
It's so good to have you here.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
And you know, I want to hear your story and
I've done some research on you and I love that
you're just such a great dude, and every time I
see you, you actually make me some mile you and
Albert around here. But one of the things I noticed
about you is you come from a religious background, which
you're a Mormon and an ex Mormon at that you
served on missions for a long time.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
For it is if.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
You're not actually okay there it is yeah, I mean
I'm reading about what he says. It says x Mormon
And then get the mic a little closer to you
here you to it's a cheeseburger.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
And then how old? I mean?
Speaker 4 (03:28):
And then how did you end up though in the
cannabis business? Lang in dope because you go from the
Mormons to like flower, Is this what kicked you out?
Or you left because you wanted to know? I know
there's got to be a big story because in my opinion,
you know, I've met a lot of Mormons and they're great,
you know, I mean some of the best people have
(03:48):
hed exactly me too. And that's why I say this,
and I want to know more about it because I
like the I like a lot of religions, and I
like a lot of things about a lot of different religions.
I choose Christianity, but I've been to mosques, I been
to temples, I've been to Buddhist temples as well, and
I respect and and I love it. So I want
to hear your journey on how you became an ex
(04:10):
and even what led you into it.
Speaker 5 (04:12):
Yeah, I love Mormons. I don't love the church. And
you know that's where I'm at. Most of my family's Mormons.
Most of my lifelong friends are Mormons or were Mormons.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
And so where are you from that you're Mormon, You're
that's not a California to No.
Speaker 5 (04:25):
I grew up in Boston, Massachusetts. My story is now
you talk. When I was four years old, my more
my parents joined the Mormon Church. They met two missionaries
and ended up joining the Mormon Church. And I always
joke they're the black sheep of the family, like they
were partying rock stars. Then they met the Mormon missionary,
save them quit all the party. And my dad doesn't
(04:48):
touched alcohol in fifty years. Nice the Mormon Church. Plus
because they're Mormons and the rest of their families Irish Catholic.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Shrinking, smoking cigaret, all that stuff, getting it bite pocular. Yeah,
come on, Kenny Cragg, you know that.
Speaker 5 (05:10):
People ask me all the time because you know I'd never,
you know, drank alcohol before I was fifty years old, ever,
never even taste what And people had ask me what
was because it was Mormon. I said, no, it's because
it was Irish Catholic and there was a lot of
alcoholics around. Sure, sure, And that literally was like the
trigger for me to say, I just don't want to
do that.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
And so you know, I didn't wait till I was fifty, right,
But I mean, and I had drank alcohol before, but
I also really didn't like start drinking any alcohol. So
I was like twenty eight, you know, you know, didn't
for that matter anything. I was pretty I mean, I've
smoked weed before, but you know, yeah, I.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Didn't trying the good shit.
Speaker 4 (05:47):
Well sorry, guys, I started at six with everything, smoking weed,
drinking the whole night.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
That's why I've been sober twenty four years. That's a
good sign, you know. That's a good sign. You know.
So so you know, keep going on this, so yeah,
please continue.
Speaker 5 (06:00):
So I mean at eighteen, you know, I jumped in
a car and drove to a little town called Rexburg, Idaho,
and with a friend of mine and went to college there.
And the way the college was sold to me was
I was we were sitting around doing nothing, working making money.
I graduated with the sixteen. I'm act two point oh GPA.
I was a rock star in high school. I mean
(06:20):
two point oh.
Speaker 4 (06:22):
My whole life was that's barely you could barely play sports.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
I was that rock star too. You were both rock stars.
Speaker 5 (06:28):
I had a two five.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
But whatever.
Speaker 5 (06:29):
Yeah, that's a lot of work just to play football.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Here's exactly, that's it. I just had to pass. I
could play football, baseball, rugby. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (06:37):
Yeah. So, I mean my whole goal was I could
still be on the basketball team with an F and
two d's.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (06:44):
So I could start every semester and decide I'm gonna
flunk that I'm gonna get d in that d in
that I can still play.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
Sure. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (06:52):
So at eighteen, somebody came up to me and said, hey,
there's college out in Idaho. They'll take anybody you need
to go to college. They're seven eight girls to every guy,
and you're right by Grand Targi and Jackson Hole, which
I loved to ski, and I realized my basketball career
wasn't going anywhere. I was offered a scholarship or an
opportunity to play at Massasoy at Community College, and I
(07:16):
looked at myself, six ' four, white center, wasn't going anywhere.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
Oh so you're a big kid. Get back then too,
you're a pretty thick center.
Speaker 5 (07:22):
How much you do know? I weighed one hundred and
forty eight pounds a day A.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Six five right, what are you? Six four six four?
Speaker 5 (07:28):
Yeah? But the problem was I was six ' three
when I was in eighth grade and a freshman, so
I was tagged to be the center of the future team.
Then I never grew and you never got thicker, and
I never got thicker until much later, twenty eight years old.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Wow, yeah, yeah. And so you go to college there?
How was that life for you?
Speaker 5 (07:47):
I was amazing. I mean literally it was. So it's
now called byu Idaho. Back then it was called Rick's College,
and it was a church, Mormon owned school. And that
was the first time I was around a lot of
Mormons because I was from Boston. I had Mormon friends
in Boston, but there's not a lot And uh, yeah,
I went to college there, skied four days a week.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
Never it was a Mormon college in so you really
got sucked in then. Oh yeah, Oh so your parents
were real happy?
Speaker 5 (08:12):
Oh my, yeah, my parents were thrilled. They were they
were rigid, they were rigid growing up, like we had
tough rules.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
You know.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
And let me let me ask you this, what about like,
you know, so when did you actually break away from
the church?
Speaker 5 (08:22):
But what is Yeah, so about forty I left completely?
Long run Yeah, yeah, long run.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (08:29):
I mean I was probably I was probably done in
my thirties. But you know, you're you're raised. I hate
the word brainwashed. I hate the word cult because the
cult is you know, somebody who follows religious venerations. Just
about everything's cult by the definition. Sure, and brainwashed, no,
but you have cognizant dissonance. And so to think of
(08:51):
a world because you're raised that you're chosen people. You're right,
everyone else is wrong. This is the true Church and
there's no fallback position. And so when you're raised with that,
when you leave the Mormon Church, you're leaving behind. You're
no longer going to be with your children in heaven,
(09:12):
You're no longer going to be with your wife. You
can't baptize your children. You can't.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
That's the story.
Speaker 5 (09:17):
Yeah, And when you.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Believe religion though, for God's sakes, I mean, you know,
Christianity is the only way to heaven.
Speaker 4 (09:24):
Follow Jesus Allah is the only way.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Of those things have changed a lot of those things
have changed in the religion through the through the New Testimonies,
and and and and and I don't thinking Mormon.
Speaker 5 (09:36):
As a Christian. You can be a wayward Christian. But
as long as you have faith and grace and belief
in Christ, you're you're going in the Mormon Church. It's
faith without works is dead. And so even when I
was leaving the church, you get a letter that says,
don't worry. If you live righteously, you can still be
(09:57):
with your children. And like, well, I'm not living righteously
according to what your rules are, right, Like if I
follow the yeah, I'm rude. Yeah, And so that that
that like because that was a true believer and I
was not a halfway in.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
I was.
Speaker 5 (10:12):
I went on my mission for two years?
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Yeah? Did what was that mission?
Speaker 4 (10:17):
Like?
Speaker 3 (10:17):
Where'd you go?
Speaker 5 (10:18):
Awesome? It was Dallas, Texas? The belt buckle, the Bible belt.
Everybody advice, what did you do with a smile? Ready?
Speaker 3 (10:25):
So are you a door knocker? Like? What is that?
What is?
Speaker 5 (10:27):
Yeah? You knock on doors?
Speaker 3 (10:29):
You don't drive cars, right right, So most people don't
have a car.
Speaker 5 (10:32):
But you know, look in life, if you're if you're good,
you figure out how to get a car. He's got
a car for twenty months.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Yeah, you figure out.
Speaker 5 (10:42):
If you get in leadership, you get more perks, you
get the nice apartment, you get the hard working companion
because you're in twos and in life, the harder you work,
the better things get. So I was only not in
a car for four months, but I was an ex.
Speaker 4 (10:56):
You explain that more, please, because I'm confused when you
say not in a car, like because you were such
a hardcore Mormon. They said, Greg, you can't drive a car,
and you chose to believe that or what.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Does that mean?
Speaker 5 (11:07):
They just put you on a bike in your area
and you cruise around to your bike and you stop
and you knock on doors and you talk to people.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
And that was your your mission.
Speaker 5 (11:14):
You're not allowed to leave your area, so they give
you Let's say they tell you your area is Stanton, California,
right right right, You can't leave Stanton and you don't
even have all a Stanton and you're on a bicycle
and you have an apartment and you have to stay
in that area, you maybe go to a.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
Couple of that's say you stay right there and you
cannot leave and you hits it out a hole. So
let me tell you. So they came up to give
you anything, to give you an idea, right came to
I was.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
I was flipping a house down the street and the Mormons,
a couple Mormon guys rolled up and and I had
just emptied this hoarder house, you know, and I just
bought the house that closed, desk growing, and I'm empty
in the house and there's this huge pile of just
like you know, everything that was.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
Inside this house. I would just like get it out
to the front and because I was waiting for the.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Uh, the dumpsters to show up, and I was just like,
just get it out of the house, get out of
the house, and put it right there in the front yard.
Start a pile, and then as su as dumpsters get
here the following day, we'll jump it out. Yeah, double
move it right whatever, I'd get stuff.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Out of the house.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
I get the work is working right, yeah, And uh,
A couple of Mormon boys came up and to my
house at my actual house, which is not you know,
it's it's about it's the next city over.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
But it's it's a couple of miles away whatever. Yeah close. Uh,
And and I'm talking to them and I'm like, hey, guys.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
You know, I was like, because I'll talk to anybody,
you know, I'm like the same guy open the door.
I listen to anybody's story, you know, I want to
hear everything. So the guys they're like, hey, you know, well,
what are you going going. I'm gonna head to I
have to tomorrow morning. I gotta do this. I'm kind
of burnt, blah blah. And so they show up to
the pad and I'm like, hey, what's up, guys. And
then they're like, oh, let us help. And I'm like, nah,
I'm a cool dude, Like don't worry about it.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
You know. They're like, no, let us help.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
They ended up helping me for six weeks, dude, shut up,
six bro, And they were there every day. Dude, I
got a mortmage and money, I'm saying, and I'm like, na,
you guys, listen, don't you know, please don't.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
I'm buying lunch. But I bet like they wouldn't take
any money from me.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Yeah, And I'd be like, well, let's talk now then
because we're working, right, So let's just you know. So
they were like I don't want to say praying. They
were expressing to me how they were delivering, how you know,
the whole thing works, you know for them, and what
their beliefs is.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
That's what I mean.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
Man, There's some great things about religion and things like that,
like you know, like the service and then just being
a part of doing their part of God's work.
Speaker 5 (13:29):
Well, and like here's the deal. At nineteen, this is
what happens.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
And they were probably there nineteen to twenty or whatever. Oh,
that's when you go on your mission at nineteen.
Speaker 5 (13:36):
Yeah I went at twenty, but Mosco eighteen nineteen. And
this is what happens. You pay for it, so your
family's paying the LDS Church Mormon Church three hundred dollars
a month, and then they give you a stipend based
on where you're you're living, so apartments paid for, everything's
paid for, and then they give it. They gave me
literally like one hundred and thirty four dollars every month
(13:57):
for food. When it runs out, you're out. You rely
on not that much a month. You rely on members
to fij you dinner, You know, Mormons around the area
will fied you dinner, lunch, and so I tell everybody
when you see these guys, they're genuinely out serving people. Yes,
it doesn't hurt you listen to them, feed them, give
them a little money, and you.
Speaker 4 (14:17):
If I'm now you know, you're changing a whole perspective
on this. Yeah, if the Mormon probably at my house,
can I give them some food and they'll take.
Speaker 5 (14:22):
It percent, they will do that. They might come by
every week and.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
I'll feed them every week. That's what they're doing. And
they did. They did, I'll do that for six I
didn't know that almost eight weeks. I think six or
eight weeks until I was done with that project. Excuse me,
six or eight weeks since I was done with that project.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
They were actually at my place, like religiously showing up,
popping in and they wouldn't take money, but they would
take food.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
And they would take food every day and.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
They're like, no, we're not taking money, just like okay,
And I would just they were not doing this for money,
We're doing it, you know, I'd be like, well here boom,
and I you know bottom.
Speaker 5 (14:53):
You know, yeah, they won't they won't take it. For service.
But I see them around Ramon. Every time I see them,
I'll fill up their gas tanker at the car. I'll
give them twenty dollars. Wow.
Speaker 4 (15:01):
Yeah, So can I get personal and ask Greg? What
was the straw that broke the camel's back?
Speaker 5 (15:07):
You know, I got high and that wasn't it long
before this that broke the camel's back for me? I
like to be careful and respectful.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
But the truth is the truth.
Speaker 5 (15:18):
I'd reached a point where I didn't believe anymore, and
I knew that you didn't.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
Believe at all, or you didn't believe in that system.
And these are too big.
Speaker 5 (15:28):
Belief in God. Okay, but I don't have a strong
belief in a true church. As I said it to
my dad, you dropped calling it the true church. Then
I would consider going back to church. Probably wouldn't, though,
because there's too many other problems, Like I do not
like the way they so I don't believe in tolerating gay.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
People, tolerating what gay people.
Speaker 5 (15:53):
That's one of their favorite things to say is you know,
we tolerate, we will tolerate gay people. No, the Bible
says love them right, love the sinner, Love yourself, love
others as you love yourself.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
Well, the Catholic Church had a hard time with it
for the longest time.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
Just this year the pope came out in twenty twenty three,
like to think about it, just this year the new
pope finally said something addressed.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
It, like you guys are welcome and it's coming crazy,
which is which is really absolutely crazy.
Speaker 4 (16:23):
You know, I got heels right now in my face,
my hair is because I think that.
Speaker 5 (16:30):
What Yeah, but to me love, don't tolerate them?
Speaker 3 (16:33):
Yeah, love everyone. We're all sinners for good.
Speaker 5 (16:36):
And they'll tell you they do, but they throw you
have to listen to what they actually say when they're
not sure paying attention. So the other thing I'll blow
your want mind is my wife and I have eight children,
eight eight very Mormon of you, yes, but we haven't
you know when you have eight kids, like, am I
supposed tolerate a kid that isn't flying right? Or do
(16:57):
I love them?
Speaker 3 (16:58):
Love? Period?
Speaker 5 (16:59):
You know? So and then when you start raising these kids,
you know there's things that say the Mormon Church, they
don't know they say it, but you know, if you
have sex before you're married, you're like already chewed gum.
And then I look at him and go, okay, so
if a girl gets molested, are they already chewed gum?
Because that's what they just heard you say. No matter
what you meant, you can't say this shit to people,
(17:23):
you know. And that's not even getting into the beliefs.
And then you get down a rabbit hole and you
start examining the beliefs. And I would say when Joseph
Smith was proven that the church was in the church
put out a letter admitting this, and they said, yes,
he had sexual relations with an almost fifteen year old girl.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
And this was the leader of the Mormon Church, the founder.
Speaker 5 (17:47):
Yeah, And I look at that, and he was married,
and I look at that and I go, okay, an
almost fifteen year old girl's actually fourteen boys. So you're
still your coding it.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
Yeah, I got a problem with that.
Speaker 5 (18:00):
I got I got six daughters. I got a problem
with that. Yeah, like stop, you know, so as as
I moved away from the church, that's and I try.
I don't bet like I have a lot of friends
that have left a lot like they spend a lot
of time bashing the church online. I don't do that.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
Sure, Yeah, you're not trying to go to war.
Speaker 5 (18:21):
With I've moved on in my life, but man, it's
it's still serves some people with.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
That, and if it works for you, God bless.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
And let me say this thing, you know, is that
I was I've been on the road, you know, almost
my entire life, right since I was fifteen. You know,
I've been on the road, and you know, being on
the road and being on tours. I you know, you know,
as you know you have to know and I we've
talked about this offline, is that Mormons on the road,
(18:47):
you know, they're traveling Mormons. You know, it's like it's
almost that there's a movie on it, right but but
it's a real thing. And I traveled with so many
Mormons on the road, you know, for so many years,
and some of the best people I've ever worked with.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
I agree.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
I don't believe with the same system, you know, you know,
I think that all of us service the same God.
Whether your God is Jesus Christ, Buddha, Joseph Smith, I
don't care who it is, whatever you want to call it,
it's the same God that that you know, and I
and I you know, that's my opinion and that's it.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
You know, it dies there. But but some of.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
The best people I've ever worked with, more Mormon guys,
and some of my best friends still are Jack Mormon
what we would call him, you know, they called themselves
I'm a Jack Mormon, you know, which I didn't know
was until.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
We were on the road together.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
But but you know what, But but getting off that
for a second and asking you one thing here is
there's somebody that's in your life.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
You know that, you guys. You know.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
That came to you guys in a in a need
in Ramona. I believe your dispensary where he needed help
to bury his child. I want to talk about that
when we come back. It's Cannabi's Talk one of moments,
right back after this.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
Break, right now.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Subscribe to our weekly newsletter on our website, Cannabi's Talk
one on one dot com.
Speaker 5 (20:01):
Welcome back, Talk one to one.
Speaker 4 (20:04):
The Bear Flag Group is your white label partners, you guys.
They are known to be on time, accurate and new
quality copackaging. They have been launching brands in California since
twenty fifteen. And at the Bear Flag Group, they do
what they say they will do. Go check them out.
Online at bear flaggroup dot com speaking of Bear Flag
Group ironic.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
It's great.
Speaker 4 (20:21):
It's great to he exactly. Greg Blue was asking you.
I mentioned about a family that you helped. I don't
know this story out in Ramona. First off, it's Plug,
the dispensary that I think you're part owner of.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
Correct.
Speaker 5 (20:34):
Yeah, Bear Flag owns Ramona Cannabis company, and so that
really helps us in our manufacturing actually little Plug. But
you know, we see all our customers every day. We
know what people actually buy versus what people think they buy.
We we go in, we listen, we you know, ninety
percent of people in this industry are like, I got
twenty bucks, What can I get for twenty bucks? I
need to fall asleep tonight. I need to And they're
(20:55):
a plumber, they're in h fact, they're you know, whatever
they're doing, that's what they're afting. And so we try
to design products to fit with every day people need
because insurance doesn't cover this, and if you need it medically,
it's expensive.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
And you know what's crazy is I think a lot
of people, you know, forget where we come from and
where this industry you know, comes from, which is the
medical side. I think a lot of people have got
you know, clouded with the you know, the look of
their cannabis or the what their their messaging is level,
their tach levels or their messaging, you know. And I
(21:28):
think that it's it's unfortunate because you know, we were
discussing this previously, is that you know, the more you give,
the more you get back, you know. And and a
lot of people don't understand that by you know, you know,
you help people, you know, you tend to get helped,
and uh and and it's it's it's some things that
you know you can't teach, you know, I think you
have to you have to learn from you know, and
(21:49):
and having those kind of actions. And I know that
you know, your guys' team, you know, like will stay
open on Thanksgiving for an example, and and sacrifice your
own employees time on a on a you know holiday
so that your patients can get their medicine. It is
not about getting extra money, It's about staying open so
your patients could get medicine on a day that they're
(22:10):
off and they can get it.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
Because people and the boon dogs need it too, because
your dispensaries on the moon dogs out there, right.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
But they need it. Yeah, I agree, I love it.
I've been there before. It's a nice place. It's cool.
Speaker 5 (22:20):
Yeah, you know how far people will drive on a
Thanksgiving to an open dispensary.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
To get Yeah, but it's you know, like I said,
it's it's important though that people could get medicaid to
get their medicine and stuff like that. So you know,
with that being said though, like you know, you guys
have a you know, a driver named Joe. Yes, right,
And can you tell us a little bit about the
story of Joe and how he came into the Romona
cannabis story.
Speaker 5 (22:46):
Yeah, So Joseph Flores, he's our driver and he's a
rock star. He's on call seven days a week, twelve
hours a day, always available, like big part of our team.
He we originally met him. He was he was a customer.
He come in his son had down syndrome. He would
come in to get product for his son. And when
one day he came in and he was out knocking
(23:06):
doors and Ramona to businesses, his son passed away. He
had a problem. They put a trachey out of me
and he wasn't being watched at the hospital. He pulled
it out and he ended up needlessly passing away there
in the hospital and Joseph you know, told us his
story and was like, hey, I don't I don't have
any money to bury him. I got to get him here.
He was, you know, probably a couple hours away at
(23:28):
the time, and so you know, we started a huge
drive with our customers and then we matched everything and
we eventually got that funeral paid for and and we're
he was able to bury his son right in Ramona
so he could be close to him, which is where
he needed to be. And then you know, a couple
of months passed and he was depressed and down. He said,
I just need something to do. Would you guys hire
(23:50):
me for anything? And that's when we hired him to
be a driver. And I mean that that's going back
now three or four years and we had our biggest
week ever or the first week that we wrote them
a check and help them. And it just reminded me
that you know, the more you give, the more you get,
the more good you do, the better things are gonna
happen for you. And so we you know, even now,
(24:12):
every month we donate to Battle Brothers with Brian Buckley.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
Love brun What's a company not help HV.
Speaker 5 (24:20):
Hel Enolument Valley. But the foundation side of that is
Battle Brothers, and a lot of people get that confused.
Battle Brothers is about helping veterans to be able to
access cannabis through the VA. And you know, Battle Brothers
and Brian have one of the few federal research grants
that are granted in order to do the research to
make that happen. And so then we also and and
(24:43):
I think that's going to be the best way to
get it legalized, because if you can do the research
and the VA decides yes, we can give cannabis to
veterans to help them with their PTSD and their pain
and all the other problems they have, how do you
not legalize it? And so it's a great backdoor entry
that's out there that I don't think the cannabis industry
is doing enough to take advantage of.
Speaker 4 (25:03):
I think that what Brian's doing, and you backing that
up by giving them money to help with that is
one of the key elements that this whole cannabis has
been missing, right and Blue and I have been talking research, research, research.
That's what made me love Brian Buckley because I know
that this guy. From the first time we interviewed him
at our old place. I literally fell in love with him.
And Blue wasn't at that first meeting, and I'm like,
(25:25):
me and Chris fray Keto wherever we were.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Like, oh my god, he's the best badass in the world.
Speaker 4 (25:29):
But he's doing so much for this plant and for
veterans and for people because once it helps the veterans,
it's gonna mold over to everyone else because they'll be
able to see how it's helping them, and as he
should be helping these veterans.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
And he's got an ear in the White House. The
dude can like walk up there to Washington, DC anytime.
He's like, Hey, let's talk to this and he's very knowledgeable.
Speaker 4 (25:49):
I just love the fact that you guys are working
and the bottom mind, you guys are both in the
San Diego area.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Sure you know they are certainly a great outfit. Yeah,
you know, they're great, great guys. So so, so tell
us a little bit about, you know, what what your guys'
overall plans are for the year. You know, you discussed
a new place coming up, you guys, ten thousand square foot.
Speaker 5 (26:10):
Yeah, so Kyle totally is one of my partners, and so.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Going helmets around there too.
Speaker 5 (26:16):
I'm sure, Hey, we're about to launch flying helmets. Are
you really a strain called flying.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
Helmets as you should? So?
Speaker 5 (26:23):
Dope, No, No, it's all Kyle.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
I love him. I mean, for that's great.
Speaker 5 (26:32):
That's it.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
That's the lion helmet.
Speaker 5 (26:35):
One thing that's great about Kyle is he's also known
for cannabis. Like I think he's probably more known for
that than his NFL career and his you know, rock
career and all that. I mean, the guy, he's done
a lot. But yeah, so Kyle and I put it
together and where you have ten thousand square feet, we're
just working on the septic tank. As soon as we
(26:55):
figure that out, we'll be able to finalize the plans
and then we'll have it put up in six to
seven months.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
And is that next door to the Ramona lookish?
Speaker 5 (27:04):
It's going to be attached to the current building, gotcha?
Speaker 3 (27:06):
Right? Next right up right? The same address? Yeah, I
mean different address.
Speaker 5 (27:10):
No, same address. So the problem is politics wise, So
we have an exemption if every problem. If we do,
we can do ten thousand square feet with our exemption
if we attach it to our current building. If we
don't attach it to our current building, we can only
do twenty five hundred square feet. So I'm going to
attach a ten thousand square foot building to our current
small house that we do everything out of.
Speaker 4 (27:31):
That's gonna be interesting. It's going to go behind them
and to the left. I'm sure because you guys are
not problem.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Basically build up straight, back straight, just one wall that
attaches and then you're gone.
Speaker 5 (27:42):
Yep. And once we finish that, we're building out a model.
I'm doing this with Kyle Mike Langford i think been
on the show, and so we're building out a model
where they want to have a place for veterans and
NFL players to come. They're dealing with dementia, dealing with
early on set. I'll sign ct PTSD. So that's the
(28:02):
mental health facility aspect. Uh, we're gonna name Revenant House,
and then we're talking about a cannabis hotel and then
we want to expand more to you know, have more
cannabis businesses out behind that as well.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
So in Ramona.
Speaker 5 (28:18):
Are just in Ramona, right, m Yeah, build ma Romona.
So there's a lot of reasons.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (28:24):
Number one, the town itself, we have a great relationship.
It's partly we donate to the Ramona Senior Living Center.
You know, they have a planning group there with twenty
five people on it, and I think twenty of them
are four, three are ambivalent, and two are against. And
so they've wanted an industry out by the airport for years.
It's across the street from a five thousand foot runway.
(28:45):
I bought the business based on political dominoes. We were
supposed to close in November of twenty twenty one based
on the moratorium we had, and I bought the business
before then on a gamble that it wouldn't ever close,
and we within three months they got rid of the moratorium.
The business went up in value. Now the next gamble
(29:07):
is federal legalization. When it goes federally legal, we're we're
gonna have that huge facility forty minutes from San Diego,
less than two hours to Orange County, and there's not
too many businesses that big that close to the city.
And we have a five thousand foot runway that we'll
be able to fly things out when the time comes.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
How cool is that? Can we can we use it? Now?
That is unbelievable. It can't.
Speaker 5 (29:32):
I'm sure it's being done.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
Yeah, it's being done. I love California and Ramona, the
whole town.
Speaker 4 (29:39):
It's just outside of San Diego, just you know, further
south of Orange County that we have, not that bad far,
about forty five minutes from us, because it's a little inland,
a little east of the water, but not too far,
beautiful area. I love the drive when I went there,
and the place is so nice inside, very very cool.
When we come back, we're gonna take a break real quick.
I want to talk about the Bear Flag group itself
on what people can expect because I know you guys
(30:01):
do quality work, accurate on time and all that good stuff.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
And we're gonna do the high five with you. Greg.
It's Cannabis Talk one on one. We'll be right back
after this.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
Go make sure you like, follow and subscribe to Cannabis
Talk one on one. Now now back to the number
one cannabis show on the planet. You know what get
Now back to the number one tennabis show in the UNIVERSEABS.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
Talk one one.
Speaker 4 (30:26):
Turn your typical into something special, folks. When it comes
in fused products, the flavor you taste should be just
as enjoyable as the feeling you experience. Visit the website
loranoils dot com. We got the Bear Flag Group CEO
himself in the building a day.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
Give it up a grade. One more game.
Speaker 4 (30:40):
Let's go, Greg, Let's talk about the Bear Flag Group.
Because you've helped a lot of big brands that I've
seen here and I'm looking on your website right now,
which is very nice, and I see it and I go, Okay.
I read a statement from another owner of a brand
that says, it's great. You guys got manufacturing retail out there, Arimona,
(31:01):
Emergency Transportation coming soon, Cultivation, and then you've worked with
some big brands Easy, Grizzly, Peak, Revenant, HVGC. I mean,
the list goes on and on. How did you get
started with this and what drew you to this? From
being the Mormon itself to of course getting into real estate.
Speaker 3 (31:19):
I know that's your background there.
Speaker 4 (31:20):
That probably gave you some loot to get all this
started because you were a tycoon in that field.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
But why cannabis.
Speaker 5 (31:26):
Yeah, so I was doing real estate. I'm really good
at real estate. I just lost any passion for doing it.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
Sure, and I know the feeling, but you keep doing.
Speaker 5 (31:36):
It because well, I'm good at it right. Kind of
like I had a neighbor that played in the NBA
greg Oaster Tag. A lot of people would fault that
he didn't put more heart into it. The man loved
to fish. He didn't love to play basketball, but you
could pay me seven million a year, I'm gonna go
play basketball so I can fish the rest of my life.
So that's what I was kind of getting with real estate,
and so I was I was like, man, I wish
(31:56):
I'd gotten involved in the Internet in THEOL days. I
wish I got an internet marketing in the early two thousands.
And then I started, I wonder what out there is
like in the beginning to where you can get in business,
grow a huge business, and then be like Sean Parker
the rest of your life and just try to pick winners,
put some money in it, advise people. But you got
to get in and learn the industry. Now. I was
(32:17):
naive at the time, and I wasn't and I was like,
I thought, oh, cannabis, but I don't know anything about it.
And then I got a weird call.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
He didn't really have a relationship with it until you're
after forty obviously get no relationship.
Speaker 5 (32:30):
Yeah, didn't know what I didn't know. So I got
a call and it went like this, and this is
a guy who played football at BYU and he said, hey,
I met him at Manwealth and Laguna Beach with Setemanali
and we got talking business and he's like, hey, I've
got this business opportunity. I need a real estate guy.
Operator can come up. Look at it. It's in Humble
and it's with cannabis. Does that bother you? I'm like, no,
(32:50):
it's real estate.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
Let's go. Let's go.
Speaker 5 (32:52):
So I jumped on a plane the next day, land
in Oakland, drove up to Garberville and met a family
up there that has an office right there on Main Street.
And they were growers. And it was awesome. I mean, like,
I go in the like we hang out at the
office and the grandfather just starts educating me on cannabis.
He's blowing my mind, like the medical side. I didn't
know any of this, right. And and when I say
(33:14):
they were there were a Mexican family from California, Like
they weren't from Mexico, right, you know, you know the
families that have been here forever, right, And generation after
generation up and humble, and the son was a coach
at the junior high basketball team. So I'm like, hey,
this guy's growing cannabis selling it. He's a junior high
basketball coach. Nobody cares what was going on here? Seems
(33:37):
so crazy to me. Yes, yeah, just to me, nobody
count exactly. So then they invite us over for dinner
and they cook up and there was three generations of
women in this kitchen cooking, and like, I mean, it
was an amazing dinner. And there was one hundred and
fifty plants on the dining room table growing under lights.
There was two thousand pounds in the guest bedroom. They
(33:57):
showed me. Now understand at this point, like I'd never
seen more than an ounce in my life, and so
I'm like, whoa, this is like right here on Main Street.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
So then.
Speaker 5 (34:10):
I remember their daughter was drivening a soccer ball, and
my daughters played college soccer. But they're driven a soccer
ball around a dining room table, like, doesn't even notice
any cannabis plants there. The father, the grandfather's out by
the back porch smoking a big joint. They're watching the
Lakers game, and I'm like, this is the most normal
family in the world, and they're shrouded by cannabis. And
(34:31):
I'm like, I gotta figure this out. After talking to grandfather,
my wheels were spinning. The medical, the history of it,
what happened in the thirties, the Israeli papers. I've got
a lot of homework to do, so I go back
to Utah ready to do homework. I do a deep
dive and I find out there's a bunch of Mormon
families in Utah with massive medical problems, using cannabis and
trying to legalize it so they're not doing anything illegal
(34:54):
to actually help their children. One of them was a
family of four. They had the same disease the oldest daughter.
The second daughter was now falling apart at age fifteen,
went from being a healthy child to a wheelchair, couldn't
go to school. The mom got desperate, got some cannabis,
drove to Vegas, got the cannabis, came back to Utah,
gave it to the daughter for two months. Two months later,
(35:16):
she's back in school, perfectly healthy. And you start going,
what the hell is going on here? And that just
flipped everything in my life. I want in this business.
We've been lied to we've been we're holding back life.
There's cures out here, there's propaganda all day around this, right. Yeah.
(35:38):
So but then it turns out I'm the business guy.
This this great family up there had nothing legal. We
were gonna buy farms from the farmers. They were worth
about three hundred thousand dollars. They needed fifty thousand dollars
to go legal. We'd lease it back to them. I'd
put the fifty thousand in. Once you did that, they're
supposedly worth a million. Problem is they had no way
to sell the cannabis because the co op didn't have
(35:59):
a license, and at the time, I didn't know enough
about cannabis. I'm like, oh, I'm not getting into a
business where I can get in trouble like it's illegal.
Not going to do that. So went back to Utah
kind of goh, man, I gotta figure this out. I
got I want in sure, don't even I just I'm
being pulled in. And then the guy called me back
and said, hey, I need a coo. I'll pay you
fifteen thousand a month, give you ten percent of the company.
(36:21):
You don't have to raise any money, you don't have
to put any in. I just need you to come
down here and run it Monday to Wednesday. You can
go home to your family in Utah every week.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
Let's go.
Speaker 5 (36:29):
I'm in Boom So I'm in like three months, found
out the guy embezzled most of the investors' money.
Speaker 3 (36:36):
I'm out.
Speaker 5 (36:38):
I'm back in Utah and I'm sitting there. I'm watching
the show This is Us and there's.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
Love that show by the way, NBC show.
Speaker 5 (36:44):
Yeah, yeah, so bad. Beth said, there's always a window, Randall.
We've always been able to find the window and go
through it and make this work. And my wife and
I looked at each other, were laying in bed watching
the show. I'm like, I'm going through this window. So
I went down and made everybody an offer they couldn't refuse.
We wrote an eight hundred thousand dollars check, bought out
all the investors, got rid of everybody involved. We made
(37:07):
a deal with the Carron owner. Brought me down there.
He's a little mad at me to this day. I said, bro,
He said, you're supposed to help me. I said, yeah,
I helped you. I kept you out of Jailah, that's
what that's what I did. If you're not grateful for that.
That's fine. So this is a crazy cannabis story because
I made him a deal. You come back with a
million dollars by December of this year, December eighteenth, you'll
(37:28):
be back in the business at thirty one percent and
we'll go. But you got to earn it now, and
you got to make it happen. Well, got arrested bringing
cannabis into Tonga and sat in a tongue in jail
for six months, and he was with.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
The almost had that million.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
Yeah, and by.
Speaker 5 (37:47):
The time he got back to the United States, it
was long past that date. And you know, my partners
are Kyle Turley, Carlos Hernandez who played for the Padres,
He's also a partner. He was the only partner from
that group that stayed on. And that's how I ended
up in cannabis.
Speaker 3 (38:02):
Really. Yeah, I didn't know this story. That's great.
Speaker 4 (38:05):
Yeah, And is that did you buy the Bear Flag
Group or did you change the name and make that
something different.
Speaker 5 (38:11):
I bought Bear Flag Group. The show Grow was the
original owner, yep. And then when they split up, the
c the CFO of that company got Ramona Cannabis as
his ten percent and then him and his partner made
a go of it, and then you know, they just
got the point they were worried about the moratorium. They
found a sucker me to buy it bang and you know,
(38:33):
there are a couple people even told me you were
crazy to buy that. And then when it went the
moratorium went away, then it became a genius, right.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
Yeah, yeah, Allen. You know what's great though, is that
is that story? Bro?
Speaker 5 (38:43):
I'm both.
Speaker 3 (38:45):
Yeah, yeah, that's a great story, by the way.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
But I think the blessing behind it all is is that,
you know, I get it to meet people that know you,
that have worked with you, that love working with you
and your team. You know, you guys have a great
team of people around you, and it's just it's healthy.
You know, you guys have a great operation, and it's able.
You're able to see, you know that you're helping other people,
(39:10):
and I like it. I mean, I think there's a
lot of people out here that are struggling trying to
figure out how to and and unfortunately, I think some
of them have squandered off their money. Some of them
stop paying their investors, some of them stop paying their
their their retailers. They're you know, you you know, and
we talk about this, we have that conversation. As a
dispensary owner, do you pay back the guys that you
know that they give you cannabis to? You know, of
(39:32):
course you do. If you have that good name. You know,
it goes a long way, and it's it's going to
separate the people that you know that are no longer
with us, you know, in this industry, and every year
there's new faces.
Speaker 3 (39:45):
And I was like, well, how long are you going
to be here?
Speaker 5 (39:47):
Well, you know, I just I looked at it last
night and right now, we've paid our investors over the
last twenty four months about seven hundred K. Yeah, and
I and we're profitable. And I think for a cannabis
company over the last two years that there's a lot
of story. Yeah, to be profitable great, I'm most proud
about right now.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
And like I said, it's because it's the giving. It's
to taking care of the right people, it's to doing
the right thing.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
And the story of why he's in it.
Speaker 4 (40:12):
It's like yours too, like very similar to yours of
your dad speaking to you about, you know, right before
he passes away, go make it legal mealho same kind
of deep roote of like why this is so good
for so many people that are in this industry.
Speaker 3 (40:26):
Don't get it twisted.
Speaker 4 (40:26):
There's some businessmen out there that are I see x's
and o's and I want to do this and execute
that way. Good luck, God bless hopefully. But when you
hear the passion like that and you see Greg who
goes back to Utah and figures out his own people,
because let's just face.
Speaker 3 (40:39):
It, I'm sure that helped.
Speaker 4 (40:41):
When you see the Mormon folk who were doing it
and it spoke to your mind and heart going my
people are using this. I need to get this out
to everyone because that had to hit home for you
because you're a strong.
Speaker 5 (40:51):
Mormon hard the time. Yeah, and I'll take it full
circle for you. My dad who is in his you know,
he's older, he's in his seventies and he haspathy and
maybe early on set Parkinson's. And take a full circle.
My dad, who like is as straight edge as they come,
like he has, he's gone a lot of years. Kyle
(41:12):
Turley has neuropathy, and Kyle Turley's actually active Mormon and
play in the NFL. A lot of people don't know
that active. He is now yeah, right now. So here's
here's the full circle thing in this though. So my
dad can't sleep. He's sleeping like hour two hours a night,
and you know you can't keep that up at his
age and live much longer. And so I say, hey, Dad,
(41:35):
I you know, I think we can help you. I'm
gonna call Kyle Turley. And Kyle gave me rso I
was gonna say that, yeah, And he gave me the
whole regimen for my dad, right, and he gave me information.
He even jumped on the phone with my dad. And
so here I am going a little town in Tabiona, Utah.
My parents grew up in the projects of Boston and
they're now in a town of three hundred and eighty people, Tabiona, Utah.
(41:58):
So we go up there, we give him some our
R S O, and he calls me after two days
he's like, I'm having weird dreams, like this is crazy,
and I call Kyle. Kyle goes, oh, he needs five
hundred milligrams and CBD with it. So we get him
five hundred milligrams CBD. My dad calls me, He's like,
I'm sleeping eight hours a night like a baby. So
a couple months go by and I didn't really talk
(42:18):
to my dad about We called, we talked on the phone.
I went up to visit him and I said, wait, like,
you're not working on the car. He goes, yeah, IVE
been out working on He's got a hot rod in
the garage. He's like, yeah, I've been working on it.
What do you mean you working on You haven't many
able to work on that in like a year. He goes, Oh,
I feel great. He said, Wait a minute, the r
s O. He goes, oh, yeah, I stopped talking taking
that a couple of weeks ago. I didn't need to
take it anymore. It's just gone. Which is the same story.
(42:40):
Kyle hasa think about this. I'm not a doctor, but
when you watch someone suffering like that and it just
your daughter, and this is you know, your Mormon father,
the same thing my Mormon mother in law, who if
you know anything about Mormon's my wife's father was a bishop,
a state president, He was a VP at New York Life.
(43:02):
He was a mission president for the Mormon Church, which
is now you're getting up in the high high echelons
in the Philippines. And he was a temple president in Hawaii,
and in New York City, his wife, my mother in law.
He's passed away. But my mother in law, she had
cancer in her jaw and she's alertic opioids. And you
(43:23):
want to talk about like opioids, this is the other fight.
I have a brother's heroin addict, and I wish he was.
I wish cannabis was his choice, you know, I wish
it was cannabis.
Speaker 3 (43:34):
But is he still around your brother?
Speaker 5 (43:36):
Yeah, miraculously and he.
Speaker 3 (43:38):
Still he's still a partying yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (43:41):
So no, coming back to all of that, you know,
here's my Mormon mother in law walking around church going,
oh yeah, I take a cannabis picture every night to
go to sleep since she had cancer put her right
to sleep. And you know who it took to give
it to her wasn't even my wife and I. It's
the nephew has all the face tattoos. He comes over
and goes, Grandma, we're not doing this anymore. You're taking
(44:02):
this and you're going to sleep tonight without pain. She
took it and that was it. So the people like
we judge like this is the biggest lesson I've learned
from cannabis. It's like, better start listening to people. Don't
look like you, don't act like you, don't walk through
the world like you. And I reached the point where
at the beginning, I'm like, I'm all for medical, and
(44:22):
then I was like, I'm all for spiritual. Now I'm
down to the recreational part. And that was the last
hurdle for me. And I'm like, you, judgmental mother trucker,
Stop judging people. Because some people go home at night
and they need a glass of wine. Some people, you know,
are taking four ibuprofen. Some people they're taking a head
of cannabis to get through whatever they got to get through.
(44:43):
And for you to judge that just makes you a
bad person. It's something you gotta work on. It's an
unworkable behavior in your life. And so once I crossed
all those hurdles, it's just been unleashed for me. Like
this is a better solution than drinking alcohol to relax,
is a better solution than opioids, is a better solution
(45:03):
than drug addiction. So like, you know, I got a
steps on and work on. My BI is amazing human being.
But he's an alcoholic. Yeah, and you know he's sober
right now. He's doing great he's doing his steps, he's
working through it. But like, cannabis is so much better.
And so that's been the best thing about cannabis for
(45:23):
me in my life.
Speaker 4 (45:24):
You know, Greg, your story and everything. I appreciate the vulnerability,
the deep parts of everything. Hearing what you're all about
and now for people to hear this is what Bear
Flag group comes from is truly inspiring to me. Like
I had no clue of all this. I just thought
you were the sexy model that I said at the
beginning of the show that walks around here looking like
(45:44):
this big sexy man of the beast that I'm like, wow, But.
Speaker 3 (45:48):
Dude, what a transition from.
Speaker 4 (45:53):
Now I have that serious agape love for you though
like that it was just I loved you already and
so I'm like, oh, he's a cool dude. But that's
story man of coming from the Mormon Church, like that,
because there's so many people that come from different backgrounds,
and for you to be able to identify the judgmental
parts of you and to look at your shortcomings and say,
this was the last one of my judgmental for recreational use.
(46:16):
There's so many people out there that are like that
and for you to even admit that right now at
the end is just it gives me chills, man, to
see what a man that you are and have are
so vulnerable to admit. Because that's the other part that
I love about what your story it is is you know,
I looked at it this way, and now I looked
at it that way. And now we're going to do
the high five and see when you started smoking and
(46:37):
when it all happened. So question number one of the
high five with the owner of the Bear Flag Group, Greg,
how old are the first time you smoked cannabis and
where did you get it from?
Speaker 3 (46:46):
Mister Mormon smoke?
Speaker 5 (46:48):
You never have steel, I still haven't.
Speaker 3 (46:50):
Have you used it? CBD?
Speaker 5 (46:52):
Yes, okay, so the first time you use it first time?
Speaker 3 (46:55):
You don't hear this right now.
Speaker 5 (46:56):
I would call CBD Mormon cannabis. Yeah, it's not cannabis, right.
Speaker 4 (47:00):
But it still comes from the planet.
Speaker 3 (47:04):
But you just we're not gonna judge you.
Speaker 5 (47:08):
Working on it. But so I have a first time experience.
I just I don't smoke, so I use cannabis, but
I use edibles, tinctures, you know, patches. First time using it,
first time I was with a gentleman at Hall of
Flowers like three years ago, and I thought, this is
the day I'm taking edible and he gave me a
(47:28):
sativa and I popped it in my mouth and then
we went on with the day, and then we went
over I remember we were talking uh with someone over
at Packwoods. We had a little meeting and he was
talking and all of a sudden, like I could just
hear music like I never heard it before, and all
of a sudden, my foot was topping and I'm tapping
and I'm listening and I'm smiling, and the guy I
wentz looking at me like, what the Heck's wrong with you?
(47:49):
And I'm like and then all of a sudden, I
this is what I thought my head. I would go,
I'm a cross mice feet and I'm going to do
a dance span right I'm just gonna do a big
old dance span right now, feeling it. And then right
about that, I'm like, wait, we're standing here in a
business meeting trying to discuss manufacturing. I'm about to do
a dance man, and I start laughing out loud, and
finally they go, what is wrong with you? I go
that edible just hit me and it's awesome.
Speaker 3 (48:12):
Yeah, that movie, I got the rhythm. What was that movie?
That white guy that then he's living with the black bether? Hey,
what's this? What's it was? Yeah, that's so funny. That's
a great story.
Speaker 5 (48:29):
That's how I ended up, you know, And yeah it
was awesome.
Speaker 3 (48:32):
Well.
Speaker 2 (48:32):
Question number two of the high five, what's your favorite
way to use or smoke cannabis or CBD?
Speaker 5 (48:37):
Yeah, I mean that's yeah, edible. Yeah, I just I've
never smoked, and being around it a lot as a kid,
I just kind of steer clear of it.
Speaker 3 (48:46):
And now you don't need it, you don't need it.
Speaker 4 (48:49):
Yeah, I mean, there's so many other ways to use it.
I mean I don't smoke. I use it all kinds
of other products, but I don't smoke either.
Speaker 5 (48:55):
My podcast is going to be a lot about this though,
Like there's in the industry. Everybody who uses recreationally, everybody
who use cannabis for a long time, they know where
to get it. They're usually chasing deals, and that part
of the industry. I don't know how much more it's
gonna grow. The real growth in the industry is going
after people that don't know that you don't have to
(49:16):
smoke it, and it doesn't have to be psychoactive. Yeah,
I agree, and you need this. Like there's a guy
in Marmona. I don't do that shit. I said, what's shit? Well,
that's stuff you say cannabis. And I go, Steve, you're
three hundred pounds, you're bigger than me, and you're shorter.
Your back's gotta hurt, right, Oh yeah, my knees too. Everything,
I go, you should be using cannabis.
Speaker 3 (49:38):
You should be this ship.
Speaker 5 (49:39):
And that's my message that I want to get out
to people that you're all gonna be. Yeah, you're all
gonna be cannabis hypocrites that don't use You don't know it.
In the next five to ten years, either you or
someone you love are gonna need this medicine to change
your life. And the quicker you get educated, better off
you're gonna be.
Speaker 3 (49:58):
I can't wait. A multivie. We're it's just in there,
you know, I mean, it's it's part of the multi vitamin.
Speaker 2 (50:03):
And Greg, I'll tell you that the easiest one that
I've I've learned is to just tell them, hey, you
know we're from the United States, and uh, you know
they've they've made it medical for a reason.
Speaker 3 (50:13):
Yeah, you know, improve don't get it twisted.
Speaker 2 (50:16):
There's no way the United States we'll call the medicinal
unless it really had a medicinal value, right, so you know,
and and when you tell someone that, they're like, uh, oh, yeah,
you know that ship. But you'll take it from viking In, right,
but exactly. But then you know, you sit and you
sit with them and say, you know, hey, maybe they've
learned that viking In and oxy cotone are you know,
(50:39):
aren't as you know, good as bottom line cats.
Speaker 3 (50:43):
I think that way. It's because my doctor gave it
to him. Correct.
Speaker 4 (50:45):
I mean, it's it's that it's it's the top behavior
and it's just a shame, but it's it's what it is.
Speaker 3 (50:49):
And you got to understand it.
Speaker 2 (50:50):
Well, that's why when you teach him that though, and
you say, hey, it's medicinal, hopefully.
Speaker 3 (50:54):
They and you know doctors, you know, so then they
hit the walk away going up. And I do agree,
I do.
Speaker 2 (51:00):
I can't wait for the day that doctors are prescribing
it and it's within you know, our whole eCos in costco. Yeah,
I just don't want them to alter it and change it,
which they will.
Speaker 3 (51:09):
But like they did with Maronal, Yeah that was a joke.
Speaker 4 (51:12):
But question question number three of the High five, Craziest
place you ever used cannabis?
Speaker 5 (51:18):
Yeah, I just I don't know that I have a
crazy place, but I want to create one. This is
my ask. I'll use it. I'm gonna smoke it the
first time with Snoop Dog. Okay, when that happens, we
just tell Snoop I'm here, I'll smoke it. Let's go.
That'll be the craziest.
Speaker 3 (51:31):
Well, he's gonna come here someday soon. Yeah, we got him.
We got him right around the corner. Question number four
of the High five, what is your go to munchie?
Speaker 5 (51:38):
Go to munch? You will always be pizza? Sure, Pepperoni.
Speaker 3 (51:43):
I think we should get from where?
Speaker 5 (51:45):
From where Papa?
Speaker 3 (51:47):
Anywhere in the round.
Speaker 4 (51:48):
Table, the round table or Little Caesar's domin Dominoes is good?
Speaker 3 (51:53):
Now.
Speaker 5 (51:53):
I don't know if I go to Little Caesar's. We're
getting desperate.
Speaker 4 (51:57):
Sometimes it's if we're just yeah, it is blue and
I have pulled into the little Where's a bunch of
people at the office right now, We've got to go
word middle sears right right now? Question number five with
the High five Greg the founder of the CEO the
Bear Flag Group. If you could smoke cannabis with anyone
dead or alive, who would it be?
Speaker 3 (52:17):
And why?
Speaker 5 (52:18):
I mean, that's just simple. My Nana, Oh, the love
of my life, you know, after around life.
Speaker 3 (52:24):
Yeah, she's passed or she's with us.
Speaker 5 (52:26):
You know, she's passed. She's been pasted four years. That's why.
You know, I don't even know if she ever smoked.
Speaker 3 (52:31):
Yeah, yeah, but what did she do that was just
that special?
Speaker 5 (52:34):
That was just amazing woman, Like the She's actually the
one person in my life that I never heard her
say a bad word about anybody, Like if I could
make something about me better to be more like her?
And uh, you know, I grew up in family eight kids.
My parents had three kids in three years at eighteen
nineteen twenty, and I was the oldest, and I spent
(52:56):
a good part of my childhood hanging out with her
so my parents could and survive, right right, So you know,
she just was that person who stepped in and made
my world amazing.
Speaker 3 (53:11):
Is there anything else? Yes, rest in peace, Nana?
Speaker 2 (53:13):
Anything else you want to you know, discuss before we
let you get on out of here man.
Speaker 5 (53:16):
No man, I just love I'm like Ricky Bobby. I
do want to thank all of our vendors. I want
to thank the brands we work with, Gelato, Big One,
you know, Dime, Wonder Brat, elevated supply with their packaging,
Iyespire with the hardware, just a lot of its governors
cut the small ones, the big ones. We just we
love them all and and uh we we wouldn't be
(53:40):
able to do what we do without those people in
our lives.
Speaker 3 (53:44):
Yeah, well, thank you for doing it. Brother.
Speaker 2 (53:45):
Well there it is guys. It's Cannabis Talk one on one.
And remember this, if no one else loves you, we do.
Speaker 1 (53:51):
Thank you for listening to Cannabis Talk one on one
with Blue with Joe Bronde, the world's number one source
for everything cannabis. And make sure you like following to
subscribed to Cannabis Talk one O one now
Hosts And Creators
Joe Grande
Marc Wasserman
Craig Wasserman
Christopher Wright (Blue)
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