December 13, 2024 • 45 mins
🌿 𝐌𝐉𝐁𝐢𝐳𝐂𝐨𝐧 𝐑𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐩: 𝐈𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐎𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰𝐬 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐰, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐇𝐢𝐠𝐡 𝐒𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐬 𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐌𝐢𝐱𝐞𝐫, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐛𝐞𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐝 🌿
Join us for a special episode of High Spirits, where your hosts Ben & AnnaRae share their experiences and insights from MJBizCon 2024 in Las Vegas. Fresh from hosting the High Spirits Morning Mixer, they're ready to dive deep into the event's highlights, key takeaways, and the future of cannabis trends they witnessed.
📅 𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗧𝘂𝗻𝗲 𝗜𝗻? Whether you're a cannabis industry professional who missed the event, or an enthusiast eager to catch up on the latest trends, this episode promises a comprehensive recap with personal flair. Get the scoop on what's next for the cannabis industry from two of its most passionate advocates.
Tune into High Spirits: The Cannabis Business Podcast this Wednesday on LinkedIn Live for an episode packed with insights, laughter, and the best of MJBizCon.
#MJBizCon #CannabisIndustry #HighSpirits #CannabisCommunity
--
High Spirits is brought to you by Vertosa and Wolf Meyer.
Your hosts are Ben Larson and AnnaRae Grabstein.
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Visit our website www.highspiritspod.com and listen to all of our past shows.
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Remember to always stay curious, stay informed, and most importantly, keep your spirits high.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ben Larson (00:05):
Hey everybody, welcome to episode 70 of High
Spirits.
I'm Ben Larson and with me, asalways, is Anna-Rig Grabstein.
It's been a couple weeks, butnow it's December 11th 2024.
Still, we're going to catch upbecause, yeah, wow, what a
whirlwind.
We had Thanksgiving, we had MJjbiz.
I just got back from la inbevnet and trying to settle back
(00:28):
in before before we hit therest of the holidays.
So, anna ray, how are you doing?
AnnaRae Grabstein (00:34):
I'm good, I'm a year older than the last time
we talked, it was yesterday.
Happy birthday.
Ben Larson (00:41):
Thanks I.
I should know that.
Why don that?
I'm an asshole.
AnnaRae Grabstein (00:46):
It's cool.
I didn't really make a big dealabout it, but I had a great
birthday, did you?
Ben Larson (00:52):
get your haircut.
AnnaRae Grabstein (00:54):
Before Vegas You've seen me.
Ben Larson (00:57):
I would say I went to.
AnnaRae Grabstein (01:01):
You can't tell on the video, but I'm an
accidental redhead right now, alittle bit more than I would
prefer.
But as one actually didn't havetime for any color, because I
(01:26):
needed to take a call with aclient and she was like it's
okay, I'll just put the color inyour hair, you take the call in
your car and then I'll come andwash it out, and she washed it
out and I was like, uh, that wasnot the plan well, at least, at
least, at least it's.
Ben Larson (01:46):
I don't know what age it becomes where you migrate
from red to purple.
AnnaRae Grabstein (01:50):
But yeah, totally you didn't end up there,
so that's good.
I didn't end up there and Ithink that that's like when
you're 70 or 80.
But my birthday was really fun.
I celebrated on Saturday withfriends and then last night my
husband took me out to dinnerand to one of our favorite bands
.
The Bar Brothers was playing inSan Francisco, and so we did
(02:10):
that, and if people have beenlistening to the podcast, they
might have heard me talk aboutmy hobbyist passion for San
Pedro cactuses and as mybirthday gift I asked my husband
and son to build me a new bedin the backyard for me to plant
cactuses, and I took a half dayoff work yesterday and they had
(02:33):
prepped Like a planter box.
Exactly.
I wanted a new area to put morecactuses in the ground, and I
spent half of my day yesterdayinstead of working planting
cacti to start my new year.
Ben Larson (02:52):
Very nice.
Well, congratulations and happybirthday again.
I'm a terrible friend.
AnnaRae Grabstein (02:58):
We're good.
You owe me a hemp beverageCheers.
Ben Larson (03:03):
The next time I see you, which hopefully will be
next week, we're going in person, hopefully so yes, yes, man, I
don't even know what day of theweek it is, and it doesn't help
that we're recording on adifferent day.
AnnaRae Grabstein (03:15):
Wow, I know, tell me about your thanksgiving
uh, oh, disneyland.
Ben Larson (03:23):
I went to dis, to Disneyland with my family.
That was.
It was a lot of fun.
We did a road trip.
We went from the Bay Area downto LA.
We stopped at PinnaclesNational Park on the way down
and did a little hiking.
Really amazing rock formationsand caves.
You basically hike up the sideof this hill but you do it
(03:43):
inside a cave like a rock caveand it's.
It was just really cool.
And there's like this littlereservoir up on top.
And then I got to show my kids,uh, my old stomping grounds at
Cal Poly.
So we we stayed downtown slow.
I took them around campus withmy wife.
We ate at Firestones Anyonethat knows, uh, san Luis Obispo
knows the Firestones tri-tipsandwich.
(04:04):
Firestones Anyone that knowsSan Luis Obispo knows the
Firestones tri-tip sandwich.
And then the next morning wewent out to Pismo Beach and had
Splash Cafe, the clam chowder,just all the hits.
And by the end they're bothconvinced they're going to Cal
Poly.
So I did my job.
AnnaRae Grabstein (04:16):
I love that.
I think everybody should taketheir kids to visit the colleges
that they went to if they did,or just a college in general.
I did it my 20 year anniversaryfrom UC Santa Cruz and we went
and walked the campus.
This was like yeah it was sofun.
And there was actually.
We walked through the areawhere the dorms are and some
(04:36):
current residents of the dormsinvited us in and let us walk
around and show the kids thedorms.
And I mean I don't think thatanything seems more fun to like
an elementary school person thangetting to live in the dorms
away from your parents.
So fun.
Ben Larson (04:52):
I love it Sounds kind of fun as an adult.
Yeah, Anyway, we did Disneylandafterwards and Disneyland did
not disappoint and you know wehad a lot of anxiety about it.
In fact, we packed a lot ofinfused products and while we
did consume them, it was also avery nice time.
It's just like you know, it's abig machine but it's a
(05:14):
well-tuned machine and it wasjust magical during Christmas
with all the Christmas lightsand music and our last night
there.
You know know we broke therules.
We stayed up extra late.
Uh, we got to watch thefireworks show and even after
the fireworks show, like my, mydaughter uh got sucked into this
(05:36):
like character dance party thatwas happening on the stage in
tomorrowland and lilo and stitchwere dancing on stage and she
just gravitated towards, towardsthe dance floor and she
proceeded to dance to themusical performances for like
the next hour and a half andlike saw, like Goofy and Pluto
(05:58):
and all this kind of stuff.
AnnaRae Grabstein (05:59):
And did you join her on the dance floor?
Ben Larson (06:01):
Yes, yes.
AnnaRae Grabstein (06:02):
Good, okay, yeah.
Ben Larson (06:04):
All four of us ended ended up there, but she was
definitely the first.
We're like trying to keep aneye on her at first and um, you
know, it was at this pointgetting towards like 10, 30 and
um, she was like just leaning upon the stage at a certain point
, just like in awe, and so it'sjust like that kind of um yeah,
perfect, ending to to adisneyland trip nice.
AnnaRae Grabstein (06:27):
Well, I hope we're not boring people too much
with our family stories.
Uh, no one watches this.
It's okay.
Yeah, it's fine, and I think itis a great segue.
We have a lot of news and kindof complex stuff in cannabis to
talk about today but the firstthing that we want to talk about
is actually MJBiz and a littledownload, and I think I'll cue
(06:49):
it up by just saying that who weall are as humans and as people
, as individuals and like thestories that we were just
telling about our families, arejust one of those things that
gets to be a part of going toconferences and seeing people at
events, and so that was reallyone of the things that I loved
most about being at the wild,crazy mess of Weed Week in Vegas
(07:11):
was getting to connect on ahuman level with so many people.
But, yeah, tell me, tell me howyour time was and some big
takeaways.
What do you got?
Ben Larson (07:21):
Wow.
AnnaRae Grabstein (07:23):
Does anybody out there not know what mj biz
is?
Do we need to explain?
Ben Larson (07:27):
it's, it is the.
I've heard many differentlabels for the the super bowl of
cannabis, the, um, I don't know.
For me it's vegas, isdisneyland for adults and also
hell, um, I, just I, I don'thave a lot of self-control, I
think I, you know, tuesday nightI showed up, I ended up seeing
(07:49):
like the Keefe and Can team andbefore I knew it it was four
thirty in the morning and myWednesday was really rough.
But so sorry if I met with youand I seemed like I was
struggling because I was, andthat's Vegas.
But you know, a lot of businessgot done.
What I, what I think I realizedis you know, it's this kind of
(08:09):
the same old story with thebroader cannabis community.
You know, still a lot ofchallenges, still a lot of
people needing to pay theirbills.
Things could be better from aregulatory perspective.
And then you know the, the, thetale of the other city is is
hemp beverage, uh, which didn'tI don't, from what I heard,
(08:31):
didn't have a huge presenceoutside of the chandelier bar
and and our suite, uh, where wehosted the, the morning mixer on
thursday, which thank you toeveryone who came.
We saw a lot of, uh, old futureguests, business partners, all
that kind of stuff.
And yeah got a lot of positivefeedback and so that's what's
really filling my cup.
(08:51):
That's like.
My major takeaway is howexcited people are about that
event, how many people want topartner on it next year and make
it even bigger and better.
AnnaRae Grabstein (09:01):
So I'm excited to start planning that
um, so I'm excited to startplanning that.
Yeah, so we had this incredibleevent 350 people rsvp'd to come
to it.
I was full of anxiety that oursuite and the space for our
party was going to be too smallfor all of the people and it was
so sorry for everybody thatcame, but I really care about
(09:23):
being an excellent host and theidea of too many people coming
to our party made me feel that Iwould not be an excellent host.
But I will say a few bigtakeaways.
It really was the only beveragethemed party and at the entire
super bowl of cannabis, which isabsolutely wild compared to how
much people are actually payingattention to the category, and
(09:46):
it wasn't even that much of itwasn't only supposed to be
beverage themed, but we had lotsof beverage sponsors and we
must've had probably 40different companies that
sponsored by providing THCbeverages that we were able to
put on display at the party.
And my favorite thing at theparty was just standing near the
display of products andwatching people come up and
(10:09):
explore them and pick up thecans and check them out and talk
to each other about what kindof flavors and and and just like
categories of beverages they'redrawn to, whether they like
more of a seltzer or more of atraditional soda, whether they
like more of a seltzer or moreof a traditional soda.
It was just really fun to watchhow excited people are to try
these things and I even tried afew beverages for the first time
(10:35):
that were sponsors to the eventthat I went home and tried to
order because they were so goodand then I could not because of
the ban in California.
You can't ship to me.
So Louie, louie, I loved thatbeverage.
I loved flavor, so good.
Ben Larson (10:50):
Yeah, I was.
I got to hang out with EricBecker again in LA for BevNet.
That this week Awesome, awesomeproduct.
A huge thank you to Sarah Falvofor for really heading the
leading the charge on on theorganization of all that.
Uh.
To our recruiting partners, jbc, for for hosting or or
(11:11):
sponsoring Um, it was just agreat.
I mean really leveled it upfrom the year prior.
I think we probably had threetimes as many beverages, um, and
and.
Look, I mean I guess this kindof helps create a segue for just
like.
I guess another takeaway fromMJBiz is I heard less flattering
things about a lot of the otherevents, and not that I want to
(11:35):
invite a whole bunch ofcompetition, but I heard a lot
of the other events were prettybro-tastical or just like dark
and hard to have conversations.
AnnaRae Grabstein (11:45):
Did you just say bro-tastical?
I love that word.
Wow, I'm going to use it.
Yeah, so our event was in themorning and you know, ben, you
talked about staying up late andthere's a lot of that in Vegas.
But people also do come to workand want to form new
relationships.
Like I like to get to knowpeople on a deep level, and if
(12:06):
you're at a loud nightclub at 11PM and there's super bumping
music, it's really hard to getto the heart of who somebody is,
and so I loved that.
We got to meet with people fortheir first event of the morning
when everybody was fresh andready and, you know, their feet
didn't hurt from being on theirtoes all day, all that stuff.
(12:28):
Yeah, I think we should do more.
I want to hear from people whattype of other times they want
to have events like this.
Ben Larson (12:36):
I was trying to think of other conferences that
might be fun to host, stuff likethis or or other things for us
to piggyback on when people aretogether to have more
experiences to get to trybeverages and get to know them
yeah, and, and you know, I Iknow we're guilty of talking
about beverages a lot on theshow and maybe it's because I'm
surrounded by them and becauseof what I do, but I like kind of
(12:59):
like feel like I need to remindour audience that you and array
, you know, are interested.
But, from a perspective of,this is what is important in the
hot in cannabis right now.
And it's interesting for me tohear that there wasn't a large
presence outside of uh, outsideof our event or or our suite,
(13:20):
and it's crazy because themeetings that we were having and
I have to not give too muchtransparency into who is coming
into the room, but there's a lotof like just a beverage
conference, but a lot ofparticipation from hemp and THC
(13:48):
brands.
Steve Jabbour from Spex, theTexas retailer, was on stage and
just talking about thisemerging category For him as a
mainstream alcohol retailer.
He said on stage, this is thefastest, most exciting category
that he has ever experienced andthat all these other brands,
(14:11):
all these other products, themushroom seltzers, all this kind
of like all this kind of likecutting edge uh categories, he's
like they just all pale incomparison as far as like the
interest level, uh, of these,and so you know I ran into
brands that I've admired in themainstream space a long time,
that I would, you know, love tosee getting into the space, and
(14:33):
they're warm to it.
Now they're getting in.
You know, marketplaces thatfocus on non-alc retail, they're
going to get in.
You know it's like it's justit's happening and people are
ready.
AnnaRae Grabstein (14:45):
Well, it's the same thing.
Like you said, my work isacross the different categories
of cannabis, with ancillarycompanies, with supply chain
operators, but everybody'spaying attention to beverage and
is looking at different pathsto growth, and this is one of
them, and it's a serious one.
And if you're someone thatmakes a mushroom beverage, my
guess while that is not myexpertise is you're realizing
(15:07):
that your addressable market isonly so big and that people are
coming back time and time againfor THC beverages, but they
might not be coming back foryour like apple cider vinegar,
adaptogenic brain drink.
And part of that is that THCmakes you feel a certain way and
(15:27):
you consume, whether it's abeverage or a gummy or whatever
the form factor is, but you knowthat you took it.
It's the same problem that youknow the FDA was just having
with their double blind studiesfor MDMA and they're saying well
, the people that took theplacebo knew and the people that
took the MDMA knew, and it'slike, of course, they did.
(15:48):
You know MDMA.
And same thing.
Like you know, if you consumesome THC and if you like that,
you're going to come back andhave more, and what we're seeing
is that people seem like theylike it.
They like it a lot and and yeah, I will say there were some
other wins.
It wasn't just beverage at MJBiz.
(16:10):
I did spend some time at theconference on the expo floor.
I walked the whole thing and um, I think that there was an area
where um, genetics and seedcompanies were highlighted.
That was very different inyears past because of the farm
bill and of seeds beingqualified as hemp without having
(16:34):
THC in them.
The seed companies wereactually selling seeds on the
floor at MG Biz and I don'tthink anybody has.
Ben Larson (16:45):
So this is not my world.
Are people like growing fromseeds, like we always talk about
clones, like cloning was a bigpart of the industry still, as
I'm sure?
AnnaRae Grabstein (16:55):
oh, it still is yeah, but people do grow from
seeds still apparently yes, uh,well, so wow, this is a huge
can of worms to open and weshould talk more about this on
its own episode.
But yes, commercial cultivatorsdo buy seeds.
They generally aren't growingindividual plants to cultivate
(17:19):
for commercial harvest.
From seed they're growing outmother genetics and then they
take clones from the motherplants that are grown from seed
to populate like a whole growroom.
But part of what is worthtalking about is there are a
whole bunch of genetics groupsnow that are starting to breed
more stable seeds and aremarketing them as crop seeds for
(17:44):
crop, so that you would plantout the whole room and you would
skip the clone and the motherphase and just go straight into
growing from seed at a on alarge, on a large scale yeah, I
guess that'll become superimportant, especially in a
post-legalization era whereyou're talking about just
planting fields of it andwanting consistency, because
(18:05):
you're not going to go plant afield of clones yes, you can
still plant a field of clonesyeah, oh, that's right.
Ben Larson (18:12):
I've seen it on the videos where they sit in the
little thing and it's likeabsolutely can.
AnnaRae Grabstein (18:16):
It's even done in certain other types of
vegetable crops and things likethat.
But there there are somebenefits on both sides.
But anyway, the the geneticspeople, I think had a better and
different presence than theyhad in years past and they
actually got to make revenuefrom the price of their booth.
So that's pretty cool.
Yeah, I don't think that therewas really anybody else in that
(18:40):
category of driving revenue.
Ben Larson (18:43):
Did you go to the show?
I did.
I did not go to the.
Did you go to the show?
AnnaRae Grabstein (18:46):
I did.
I did not go to the conferencepanels, but I walked the whole
floor.
That day I walked close to40,000 steps.
It was crazy.
My legs felt like they weregoing to fall off at the end of
it.
Ben Larson (18:59):
That's insane.
Yeah, that's a lot of booths.
AnnaRae Grabstein (19:03):
So many booths and you know, there were
some things that I had to kindof look a side-eyed at, Like I
don't know how many vapehardware companies or packaging
companies the industry canreally support, but there were a
lot of those types of boothsand I don't know it doesn't make
any sense to me how that manycompanies can can sustainably
(19:26):
operate in the state in thespace and sustainable is the
wrong word because just the vapehardware and packaging at its
core are not sustainable inalmost any way.
But what I meant wasfinancially sustainable.
But yeah, so the event was wasI think that they tried to
innovate the company and toreally make MJBiz more relevant
(19:48):
in today's times.
They also included brands andretailers in a different way
than they had in the past.
Not a ton of participationthere, but definitely some
important participation.
So I enjoyed it and I willprobably go and walk the floor
again next year.
They actually thank you, mjbiz.
They gave me a press passbecause of this podcast, so
(20:11):
thank you very much, mjbiz.
Ben Larson (20:13):
Thanks for the invite, MJBiz Thanks for the
invite.
AnnaRae Grabstein (20:20):
Anything else that we want to mention about
MJBiz before we go on to somebreaking news and some more
in-depth discussion.
Ben Larson (20:27):
No, I don't think so .
That was.
I'm excited that MJBiz is stillgoing strong.
It is like the thing you know Ithink I talked about this last
year.
It's like it's that time ofyear where you just like
reground yourself like how farwe've come as an industry or
haven't, but it doesn't seem tobe slowing down at all.
So we'll see all next year atour next morning mixer.
(20:51):
But maybe we don't have to waittill MJBiz.
AnnaRae Grabstein (20:55):
Maybe we do something in the mean.
Ben Larson (20:56):
We're not going to wait.
AnnaRae Grabstein (20:58):
We're not going to wait.
I'm going to put that flag inthe ground.
I'm not sure when it's going tobe, but sometime before MJBiz
we will do another morning mixerwith wake and bake, THC
beverages and some bagels anddonuts.
Ben Larson (21:12):
It works pretty well .
I'm a big fan.
AnnaRae Grabstein (21:15):
Yeah.
Ben Larson (21:15):
Yeah, so what's next ?
What else is top of mind foryou?
AnnaRae Grabstein (21:19):
Breaking news today, as of a couple hours ago
Minnesota.
Ben Larson (21:25):
Minnesota, my favorite state totally so.
AnnaRae Grabstein (21:30):
Um, if you guys have been listening to the
podcast and more of you have allthe time you would know that I
have been yelling um from themountaintops about the injustice
that has happened in minnesotaover the past couple weeks with
this mass rejection of socialequity applicants into their
adult use lottery process.
And today Minnesota announcedsomething that might be a move
(21:54):
towards justice.
In my opinion, there are mixedopinions, but they have decided
to cancel the lottery and createa new process whereby
applications will be reassessedin February, all of the
projected applicants will beinvited to participate again to
fix the deficiencies in theirapplications, and a lottery will
(22:19):
still be conducted, but it willbe both for social equity
applicants and generalapplicants at the same time, and
that will happen likely in Mayor June.
So the big injustice here topresent both sides is that the
lottery was supposed to happenbasically now.
So the whole adult use programin Minnesota is being pushed
(22:41):
forward six months.
And also the folks that did makeit into the lottery and weren't
rejected the one third of theapplicants were excited that
they had less competition in thelottery and felt that they had
done everything right.
So those groups aredisappointed in this outcome.
However, I think that Minnesotamade a whole lot of mistakes
(23:04):
and I think that where this islanding is going to be a lot
more fair, so I'm really hopefuland excited and feel that this
is justice, so woohoo bigproponent of this is like this
(23:27):
the every effing time they tryto roll out, a system is botch
it and yes and even after itgets rolled out, then it's like
it's still not good and it'sjust like overly regulated and
the businesses are just dyingleft and right, like it's crazy
to go.
Ben Larson (23:40):
You know we I've been traveling a lot the the
second half of the year here,going to Charleston and
Charlotte and Austin, nashville.
It's just like to see what redstate weed looks like.
It's not perfect, probablyneeds a little bit more
guardrails, but just to havethat unfettered access in places
(24:01):
where you would hope to see itis just so incredible.
It's like how do we meet in themiddle?
Like how do we bring this allcloser together and realize that
the consumer wants it, thatthey deserve to have access to
it and that the world's notgoing to fall apart if we
actually create that for them?
AnnaRae Grabstein (24:23):
I mean, I'm with you, I believe in open
access at its core.
But I would push back and justsay that a huge part of what I
try to do is to not be in denialand accept the reality of
what's in front of us.
And I find it very unlikelythat a world that free and
(24:44):
unfettered access to anythingthat looks like, even in even
red state, weed is is going tocontinue for much longer.
And that is because we alreadyknow we've been talking about
for weeks and there's not anynew news about it.
But you know, the farm bill,which is the unlock for hemp, is
(25:06):
up for debate and what thatlooks like could go a lot of
different ways.
But it doesn't seem likely thatthe Republican establishment,
that the Democraticestablishment, really that the
politicians and the powers thatbe want to allow unfettered
access to THC and even thestates that have allowed it, are
(25:27):
creating more regulations forsafety.
So in the end, let's acceptreality that there is going to
be some sort of regulatory andlicensing regime.
Like how you skin that onion iscomplicated, there's lots of.
Ben Larson (25:40):
I mean I'm okay with regulations and licensing.
Like the alcohol industry hasregulations and licensing, the
cigarette industry hasregulations, licensing, but they
also have like economies thatwork, they do but they also have
limited licenses.
AnnaRae Grabstein (25:54):
Like you want to go open a bar in san
francisco, like there's alimited amount of liquor
licenses, and so there is people, people buy and sell liquor
licenses because they're notissuing new ones, and that has
created some amount of safety inthe market for the people that
choose to invest in one of thoselicenses.
(26:14):
Yeah, it would be amazing ifthe market could just take care
of it and there could be anunlimited amount of licenses and
you could just go register,like in Texas.
Ben Larson (26:25):
But I just I don't think that's where it's going
yeah, speaking of speaking oftexas, uh, I I heard the the.
Uh, the numbers have reallyshot up.
Last time we were talking towhen ben megs came on from howdy
, I think we're saying there wassomething like 7 000 licenses
had been issued and it's prettyeasy, like, if you're a retailer
(26:46):
, you apply it's probably like1500 bucks or something like
that,000 licenses had beenissued and it's pretty easy,
like if you're a retailer, youapply it's probably like $1,500
or something like that, and thenyou have your hemp license.
AnnaRae Grabstein (26:50):
Way, way less .
Ben Larson (26:51):
But yeah, is it less ?
Yeah, they should up the price.
But at BevNet I heard that itmight be even in excess of
20,000 now, which is an insanenumber.
But at the same time theLieutenant Governor, dan Patrick
, is putting out legislationthat would essentially ban all
(27:14):
of intoxicating hemp.
So interesting to have a Texanfollowing in the footsteps of a
California governor.
All that to say and I, you know,I was, I tuned into Emily and
size podcast and they hadhighlighted it but boots on the
ground, at the beverageconference I got to speak with,
(27:36):
with Steve from specs, the howdyteam.
There's a lot of confidencethat this doesn't get go through
as written and so so, um, youknow, as we talked about before,
texas is on this two-year cyclewhere you have a very limited
time to have the legislativesession.
If nothing goes through, or ifit does go through, you have
another two years before you getto fix it.
(27:57):
Um, and so it seems likethere's a lot of acceptance
around the low dose beveragecategory to kind of like
maintain that opportunity, andit seems like the political
appetite is that if that's there, then people will come to the
table and compromise, but ifit's an all out ban, highly
(28:21):
unlikely that it goes through.
AnnaRae Grabstein (28:24):
So people say that the lieutenant governor
has basically a golden pen andthe priorities set by the
lieutenant governor are thepriorities that are going to
push forward with thelegislative agenda.
Breadth of discussion aroundpolicy as it relates to THC in
(28:51):
Texas and I get that LieutenantGovernor Dan Patrick has a ton
of power has made this broadsweeping proclamation about
banning THC.
But there's just so much moreto this puzzle.
We've got this reallyunrealized medical marijuana
program we had on Richardsonfrom Texas, from texas original,
earlier this year.
There's only a deplorablesystem it's a deplorable system.
(29:14):
There's two operators.
They're doing less than 50million dollars significantly
less collectively for the wholeentire state, while the hemp
space is doing potentially whiteconomics as $8 billion a year.
So it's like we've got thiscrazy disparity between the
legal system and the unregulatedhemp system.
(29:34):
So there are other bills thatare being proposed to address
this in what I perceive to bemuch more sensible ways than
what the Lieutenant Governor ispromoting.
We have a bill that's beenintroduced by Representative
Jessica Gonzalez it's a housebill and that is a recreational
(29:55):
adult use bill to allow andcreate an entire adult use THC
program that isn't specific tohemp.
We have another bill that is bya different House of
Representatives member to expandthe medical program, to expand
the qualifying conditions andthe form factors, to basically
(30:17):
create more of like aFlorida-style medical program in
Texas.
And then, lastly, we haveanother bill that is being
proposed to actually leadefforts to regulate hemp
products and um so how this allcomes to be.
Ben Larson (30:36):
Maybe it's true, maybe the lieutenant governor
wields, wields the gold pen andanything I think he does, from
what I, what I've heard, I thinkhe does with half of the
legislative body, but I don'tthink he has the power to kind
of unilaterally get somethingthrough, yeah.
So he's almost there, and he'sbeen known for expanding his
(30:59):
power as well.
He's been lieutenant governor,so he just hasn't been fully
successful with that yet.
AnnaRae Grabstein (31:05):
Yeah, and I mean good on him.
Great, that sounds wonderful tohave that much power, and yet
there's just there's a lot ofstakeholders that are a part of
this discussion and, like yousaid, you spoke with some of the
leading beverage folks thatwe've talked to here.
I know that the folks at TexasOriginal are really really
(31:27):
clever and smart when it comesto policy and I'm sure that
they're interested in more thanjust banning hemp THC, but
really expanding their marketopportunities.
Like you can't just take away.
Even if he was successful atbanning hemp THC, it would just
create a massive illicitmarketplace without in some
(31:47):
other way, with some othercomplementary policy to allow
new types of access.
So, lieutenant Governor, ifyou're listening, the people in
your state like THC a lot and wecan't ban something without
creating some other regulatedsolution to access.
(32:08):
So please, like, like, let'snot be short-sighted here.
Texas, this is way too big ofan opportunity to do something
that is sensible, please yeah,it's, uh, it's all the rage
these days.
Ben Larson (32:20):
uh, just was it.
Yesterday I got a text messagebeing like oh, uh,
representative lashawn ford fromillinois is in la, would you be
willing to meet with them?
Because he's concerned aboutthe governor in illinois doing
the same thing, which we allknow is msl land, so I wonder
why that is.
But, um, so he actually camethrough and because it was a
(32:43):
beverage conference, I got topull in a few friends which we
had diana eberlein, who's thepresident of the coalition for
adult beverage alternatives.
We had, uh, shreyas from fromdelta bev.
It's a mate like he's got likea 22 million dollar facility in
southern california that's doingco-packing like large scale.
(33:05):
Um, we had ken from colex, uh,one of our beverage sponsors at
the uh, the morning mixer.
And then, um, oh, shoot, I'mprobably missing someone.
Uh, but it was so great toactually sit down and give them
all the talking points Likehere's the impact, here's the
negative effects of a ban,here's why you don't need to do
it, here's why you don't need todo it, here's why it's actually
(33:33):
bad precedent about what he did, because it was on the heels of
failed legislation rejected bythe legislature and, yeah,
sending them back up to Illinois, hopefully to, to, to work some
magic, but it's it's.
It's interesting to see thesepoliticians just trying to yield
like unilateral power.
Um, I don't like, uh, theprecedent that it sets no, and
(33:55):
it's unfortunate that it camefrom california.
AnnaRae Grabstein (33:58):
California really needs to get out of its
own way.
The, the ban that californiastarted with, was not intended
to set the stage in a dominoeffect to encourage states all
over the country to levy bans aswell.
It was intended to be a push tofigure out a way for both sides
(34:19):
hemp and cannabis to worktogether and to do some type of
positive integration.
Ben Larson (34:26):
Which we have heard right or we are doing.
I should say If you watch thisshow, you're probably relatively
plugged in and have seen thatthere are brands on the hemp and
cannabis side that have cometogether that are doing some
horse trading, figuring out whatmakes sense and hopefully makes
it viable for both sides toparticipate in the California
(34:47):
market and, in turn, enableCalifornia to actually truly
lean into the California weedbranding that they're so proud
of and play in the the nationalmarketplace, because that's
what's at stake right now.
Like Governor Newsom made itimpossible for California brands
to really play on the nationalstage of what's happening in
(35:08):
hemp and it's big.
You go to these other statesand there's entire aisles of THC
products.
If you're going to make it solike a California company can't
participate in that, it's likewhat are you even doing?
AnnaRae Grabstein (35:21):
And even not on the brand level but on the
manufacturing side.
California has been the centerof agricultural production for
years and on the back of thathas gotten really good at
post-harvest manufacturing ofall types of products, but in
particular wine and beer.
There's a ton of that that hasbeen produced here for a long
(35:43):
time and some of those beercompanies are struggling Exactly
time.
Ben Larson (35:47):
And some of those beer companies are struggling
exactly like I was actuallyspeaking with the head of
co-packing for for a brand thatwe all know in the bay area 21st
amendment.
They have a large facility outin san leandro and up until the
band that they were just theywere about to flip on the switch
to get into co-packing for THCbeverages and they were really
(36:08):
hoping to fill up that extracapacity that they had with that
option.
But yeah, so that's revenue,that's tax dollars, that's jobs,
Jobs infrastructure, all ofthese things, and we need those
things here.
Yeah, yeah, so a lot of work todo.
AnnaRae Grabstein (36:35):
Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm hopeful.
I don't know why I stay hopeful, but I do.
I stay hopeful on all of thisand and I not not that governor
Newsom needs to change the lawjust for me, but it is.
It has been a bit of a surprise.
I thought more brands weregoing to be pushing the limits
with their direct to consumer uhfulfillment because it is so
(36:56):
hard to track.
And I have noticed, as someonethat lives in California, if I
have gone and tried to purchaseum uh hemp derived THC product,
every single brand that I havegone to has chosen to be in
compliance and has said oh, yourshipping address is in
california, we cannot send youthis product, and it's.
(37:19):
It's been a bit of a surprise.
I thought there was going to bemore refreshingly responsible
yeah, and there's a lot ofhumans you can still find them.
You just have to look a littleharder well, the brands that I
love their products for havechosen, and no big surprise that
the ones that I like are alsochoosing to be compliant.
I'm sure there are others outthere, but, um, yeah, that's
(37:43):
been interesting.
Um, some other things that havecome up since, uh, since we
last checked in on the news isthere has been some shifts, um,
in terms of the process forschedule three.
Um, while we didn't have anybig news come out of the
december 2nd hearing, um infront of the administrative law
(38:05):
judge, we do have more clarityon what the process is now and
what that process looks like is.
Witnesses have been scheduledand they have dated that.
They're going to be testifyingand that starts, I think,
towards the end of January andit goes into March and then
after that, theoretically, theALJ judge would make a
(38:28):
recommendation and ruling movingmore towards Schedule 3.
But I think that the moreinteresting part of that news is
just starting to think aboutwhat might actually happen in a
new Schedule 3 space, and I knowyou had some thoughts.
You were thinking about GTI andspinning out their performance.
What are you thinking aboutwith Schedule 3 and what that
(38:50):
might mean for 2025?
Ben Larson (38:53):
Yeah, good question.
Before that, just like hugeshout out to my colleagues at
NCIA, and specifically KhurshidKoja, who got a very nice
compliment from the judge for afine piece of lawyering, because
really the only witnessesreally were supposed to be
(39:13):
people that were negativelyimpacted by the decision for
rescheduling, and so they did avery good job, after being
selected, of being like hearthis, we are actually very much
in support of this move, butthis is the aspect of it that
might negatively impact us.
Um and so at least we have somerepresentation there, like for
(39:37):
you know, like, uh for the justmaking sure that our voice is
heard, because it was very scary, like seeing how many uh people
were going to be having thatopportunity to be heard and to
not have any defense against.
It was scary.
All that to say, you know,schedule three process still
moving forward, likely to gothrough, and I people used to
(40:03):
say, oh, how's it going toaffect your business?
I'm like, largely not, likeyou're just going to keep
operating, things probablyaren't going to change.
It's not like it's not comingthrough to like shut anything
down.
If anything, it's just to, likeyou know, hopefully remove 280e
and and that sounds nice alittle bit of extra money in
people's pockets, but then Istarted thinking about it's like
(40:24):
not just a little bit of extramoney, it's a lot of fucking
money.
Like in gti has been on the tipsof people's tongues uh, lately,
because it's just their powermoves that they're profitable,
all this kind of stuff.
They will be extra profitable,uh, in a schedule 3 era, and
extra profitable means 150million dollars of extra cash
(40:47):
flow and so, like, if they'remaking power, power moves, now,
what's 150 million dollars ofextra cash every year, if not
more uh gonna do for them, um,or for the rest of us?
Right, like, obviously, billswill probably get paid.
I'm sure they're fine at payingtheir bills.
Uh, acquisitions, obviously, uh, obviously will happen and just
(41:08):
money will be flowing.
And so that's just one operator, right, it might probably save
the ass of another handful ofMSOs and hopefully the smaller
operators too, but I have lessvisibility into those impacts
(41:34):
those impacts.
AnnaRae Grabstein (41:34):
I have confidence that the GTI won't be
guilty necessarily of passingthose savings back that they get
from the tax man if schedulethree moves forward back to by
reducing prices to the consumer.
But what I one thing that that Ihave seen happen in the market
in every state is that, you know, the price of cannabis
continues to go down forconsumers and that has had all
(41:54):
types of trickle down effectsacross the industry.
And I've been trying to figureout why, when we have retail
stores that are not profitableeven if wholesale prices are
dropping, why are people justusing the same markup and not
making it so that they haveprofitable sales?
(42:15):
It doesn't matter if you've gota great margin if you still
aren't covering the cost foryour rent and your staff and all
these things.
And it seems to be the patternin the race to the bottom that
has been adult use cannabis tojust keep lowering prices
endlessly and that when we getany type of savings, that that
gets transferred down to cheaperweed to the consumer.
(42:36):
And I just don't think thatweed can get any cheaper at this
point in many markets.
There are some markets where itis still a profitable venture,
markets where it is still aprofitable venture, but we're
looking at like this massive taxissue in California, with it's
estimated of over a billiondollars of taxes that are owed
to the state from retailers, andthen why are retailers selling
(43:02):
$1 joints?
That's what I want to know.
It's like you can sell thejoints for five dollars and
people will still buy them andwe're just, we're breaking the
consumer.
Um, as as inflation and theprices of everything in the
market have gone up?
Uh, we have.
We have seen the opposite, uh,in cannabis, where prices just
(43:24):
keep going down.
I don't know, I'll get off mypedestal, but I am confused of
why people don't understand theway that the economies of
commoditization are affectingtheir retail businesses and why
that is the cause of so manyretailers being unprofitable.
They just keep lowering theirprices.
(43:44):
Of course they're not going tomake money.
Ben Larson (43:47):
Yeah well, $1, $5, $18.
People's bills are not gettingpaid.
Keep lowering their prices, ofcourse they're not going to make
money.
Yeah well, one dollar, fivedollar, eighteen dollars.
Uh, people's bills are notgetting paid.
So, um yeah, I don't know whatthe answer is.
AnnaRae Grabstein (43:56):
The answer is deschedule and yeah, light it
all on fire.
Um.
So I think that's all of ournews for today, I think that's
all.
Ben Larson (44:10):
Yeah, it's good to be back it is we, kind of
unannounced, took a little bitof a break, but I think it was
very needed.
I think everyone else was doingso many other things.
Anyways, no one, no one missedit, but it is good to be back.
We have our end of the yearwrap up next week and then and
then it'll be the new yearshortly thereafter.
So kind of wild, another yearin the in the bag.
(44:32):
Everyone, if you're listening,please go like and subscribe,
share.
We're going to be investing inthe show, going into the new
year and excited about all thethings that we're going to do.
Apparently we're planning moremorning mixers and so we'll have
more information about that inthe not too distant future.
But really, really just sograteful for all of our fans,
(44:57):
people that come up to us atthese events even non-cannabis
events now and coming to themixer and hanging out with us.
All of our beverage sponsorsslinging beverages at 10 am ona
morning in Vegas, reallyenergized to see that Love the
community that we're building.
Thank you everyone for tuningin every week and supporting us.
(45:19):
It means a lot.
Until next time, stay curious,stay informed and keep your
spirits high.
We'll see you soon.
Hey everybody, welcome to episode 70 of High
Spirits.
I'm Ben Larson and with me, asalways, is Anna-Rig Grabstein.
It's been a couple weeks, butnow it's December 11th 2024.
Still, we're going to catch upbecause, yeah, wow, what a
whirlwind.
We had Thanksgiving, we had MJjbiz.
I just got back from la inbevnet and trying to settle back
(00:28):
in before before we hit therest of the holidays.
So, anna ray, how are you doing?
AnnaRae Grabstein (00:34):
I'm good, I'm a year older than the last time
we talked, it was yesterday.
Happy birthday.
Ben Larson (00:41):
Thanks I.
I should know that.
Why don that?
I'm an asshole.
AnnaRae Grabstein (00:46):
It's cool.
I didn't really make a big dealabout it, but I had a great
birthday, did you?
Ben Larson (00:52):
get your haircut.
AnnaRae Grabstein (00:54):
Before Vegas You've seen me.
Ben Larson (00:57):
I would say I went to.
AnnaRae Grabstein (01:01):
You can't tell on the video, but I'm an
accidental redhead right now, alittle bit more than I would
prefer.
But as one actually didn't havetime for any color, because I
(01:26):
needed to take a call with aclient and she was like it's
okay, I'll just put the color inyour hair, you take the call in
your car and then I'll come andwash it out, and she washed it
out and I was like, uh, that wasnot the plan well, at least, at
least, at least it's.
Ben Larson (01:46):
I don't know what age it becomes where you migrate
from red to purple.
AnnaRae Grabstein (01:50):
But yeah, totally you didn't end up there,
so that's good.
I didn't end up there and Ithink that that's like when
you're 70 or 80.
But my birthday was really fun.
I celebrated on Saturday withfriends and then last night my
husband took me out to dinnerand to one of our favorite bands
.
The Bar Brothers was playing inSan Francisco, and so we did
(02:10):
that, and if people have beenlistening to the podcast, they
might have heard me talk aboutmy hobbyist passion for San
Pedro cactuses and as mybirthday gift I asked my husband
and son to build me a new bedin the backyard for me to plant
cactuses, and I took a half dayoff work yesterday and they had
(02:33):
prepped Like a planter box.
Exactly.
I wanted a new area to put morecactuses in the ground, and I
spent half of my day yesterdayinstead of working planting
cacti to start my new year.
Ben Larson (02:52):
Very nice.
Well, congratulations and happybirthday again.
I'm a terrible friend.
AnnaRae Grabstein (02:58):
We're good.
You owe me a hemp beverageCheers.
Ben Larson (03:03):
The next time I see you, which hopefully will be
next week, we're going in person, hopefully so yes, yes, man, I
don't even know what day of theweek it is, and it doesn't help
that we're recording on adifferent day.
AnnaRae Grabstein (03:15):
Wow, I know, tell me about your thanksgiving
uh, oh, disneyland.
Ben Larson (03:23):
I went to dis, to Disneyland with my family.
That was.
It was a lot of fun.
We did a road trip.
We went from the Bay Area downto LA.
We stopped at PinnaclesNational Park on the way down
and did a little hiking.
Really amazing rock formationsand caves.
You basically hike up the sideof this hill but you do it
(03:43):
inside a cave like a rock caveand it's.
It was just really cool.
And there's like this littlereservoir up on top.
And then I got to show my kids,uh, my old stomping grounds at
Cal Poly.
So we we stayed downtown slow.
I took them around campus withmy wife.
We ate at Firestones Anyonethat knows, uh, san Luis Obispo
knows the Firestones tri-tipsandwich.
(04:04):
Firestones Anyone that knowsSan Luis Obispo knows the
Firestones tri-tip sandwich.
And then the next morning wewent out to Pismo Beach and had
Splash Cafe, the clam chowder,just all the hits.
And by the end they're bothconvinced they're going to Cal
Poly.
So I did my job.
AnnaRae Grabstein (04:16):
I love that.
I think everybody should taketheir kids to visit the colleges
that they went to if they did,or just a college in general.
I did it my 20 year anniversaryfrom UC Santa Cruz and we went
and walked the campus.
This was like yeah it was sofun.
And there was actually.
We walked through the areawhere the dorms are and some
(04:36):
current residents of the dormsinvited us in and let us walk
around and show the kids thedorms.
And I mean I don't think thatanything seems more fun to like
an elementary school person thangetting to live in the dorms
away from your parents.
So fun.
Ben Larson (04:52):
I love it Sounds kind of fun as an adult.
Yeah, Anyway, we did Disneylandafterwards and Disneyland did
not disappoint and you know wehad a lot of anxiety about it.
In fact, we packed a lot ofinfused products and while we
did consume them, it was also avery nice time.
It's just like you know, it's abig machine but it's a
(05:14):
well-tuned machine and it wasjust magical during Christmas
with all the Christmas lightsand music and our last night
there.
You know know we broke therules.
We stayed up extra late.
Uh, we got to watch thefireworks show and even after
the fireworks show, like my, mydaughter uh got sucked into this
(05:36):
like character dance party thatwas happening on the stage in
tomorrowland and lilo and stitchwere dancing on stage and she
just gravitated towards, towardsthe dance floor and she
proceeded to dance to themusical performances for like
the next hour and a half andlike saw, like Goofy and Pluto
(05:58):
and all this kind of stuff.
AnnaRae Grabstein (05:59):
And did you join her on the dance floor?
Ben Larson (06:01):
Yes, yes.
AnnaRae Grabstein (06:02):
Good, okay, yeah.
Ben Larson (06:04):
All four of us ended ended up there, but she was
definitely the first.
We're like trying to keep aneye on her at first and um, you
know, it was at this pointgetting towards like 10, 30 and
um, she was like just leaning upon the stage at a certain point
, just like in awe, and so it'sjust like that kind of um yeah,
perfect, ending to to adisneyland trip nice.
AnnaRae Grabstein (06:27):
Well, I hope we're not boring people too much
with our family stories.
Uh, no one watches this.
It's okay.
Yeah, it's fine, and I think itis a great segue.
We have a lot of news and kindof complex stuff in cannabis to
talk about today but the firstthing that we want to talk about
is actually MJBiz and a littledownload, and I think I'll cue
(06:49):
it up by just saying that who weall are as humans and as people
, as individuals and like thestories that we were just
telling about our families, arejust one of those things that
gets to be a part of going toconferences and seeing people at
events, and so that was reallyone of the things that I loved
most about being at the wild,crazy mess of Weed Week in Vegas
(07:11):
was getting to connect on ahuman level with so many people.
But, yeah, tell me, tell me howyour time was and some big
takeaways.
What do you got?
Ben Larson (07:21):
Wow.
AnnaRae Grabstein (07:23):
Does anybody out there not know what mj biz
is?
Do we need to explain?
Ben Larson (07:27):
it's, it is the.
I've heard many differentlabels for the the super bowl of
cannabis, the, um, I don't know.
For me it's vegas, isdisneyland for adults and also
hell, um, I, just I, I don'thave a lot of self-control, I
think I, you know, tuesday nightI showed up, I ended up seeing
(07:49):
like the Keefe and Can team andbefore I knew it it was four
thirty in the morning and myWednesday was really rough.
But so sorry if I met with youand I seemed like I was
struggling because I was, andthat's Vegas.
But you know, a lot of businessgot done.
What I, what I think I realizedis you know, it's this kind of
(08:09):
the same old story with thebroader cannabis community.
You know, still a lot ofchallenges, still a lot of
people needing to pay theirbills.
Things could be better from aregulatory perspective.
And then you know the, the, thetale of the other city is is
hemp beverage, uh, which didn'tI don't, from what I heard,
(08:31):
didn't have a huge presenceoutside of the chandelier bar
and and our suite, uh, where wehosted the, the morning mixer on
thursday, which thank you toeveryone who came.
We saw a lot of, uh, old futureguests, business partners, all
that kind of stuff.
And yeah got a lot of positivefeedback and so that's what's
really filling my cup.
(08:51):
That's like.
My major takeaway is howexcited people are about that
event, how many people want topartner on it next year and make
it even bigger and better.
AnnaRae Grabstein (09:01):
So I'm excited to start planning that
um, so I'm excited to startplanning that.
Yeah, so we had this incredibleevent 350 people rsvp'd to come
to it.
I was full of anxiety that oursuite and the space for our
party was going to be too smallfor all of the people and it was
so sorry for everybody thatcame, but I really care about
(09:23):
being an excellent host and theidea of too many people coming
to our party made me feel that Iwould not be an excellent host.
But I will say a few bigtakeaways.
It really was the only beveragethemed party and at the entire
super bowl of cannabis, which isabsolutely wild compared to how
much people are actually payingattention to the category, and
(09:46):
it wasn't even that much of itwasn't only supposed to be
beverage themed, but we had lotsof beverage sponsors and we
must've had probably 40different companies that
sponsored by providing THCbeverages that we were able to
put on display at the party.
And my favorite thing at theparty was just standing near the
display of products andwatching people come up and
(10:09):
explore them and pick up thecans and check them out and talk
to each other about what kindof flavors and and and just like
categories of beverages they'redrawn to, whether they like
more of a seltzer or more of atraditional soda, whether they
like more of a seltzer or moreof a traditional soda.
It was just really fun to watchhow excited people are to try
these things and I even tried afew beverages for the first time
(10:35):
that were sponsors to the eventthat I went home and tried to
order because they were so goodand then I could not because of
the ban in California.
You can't ship to me.
So Louie, louie, I loved thatbeverage.
I loved flavor, so good.
Ben Larson (10:50):
Yeah, I was.
I got to hang out with EricBecker again in LA for BevNet.
That this week Awesome, awesomeproduct.
A huge thank you to Sarah Falvofor for really heading the
leading the charge on on theorganization of all that.
Uh.
To our recruiting partners, jbc, for for hosting or or
(11:11):
sponsoring Um, it was just agreat.
I mean really leveled it upfrom the year prior.
I think we probably had threetimes as many beverages, um, and
and.
Look, I mean I guess this kindof helps create a segue for just
like.
I guess another takeaway fromMJBiz is I heard less flattering
things about a lot of the otherevents, and not that I want to
(11:35):
invite a whole bunch ofcompetition, but I heard a lot
of the other events were prettybro-tastical or just like dark
and hard to have conversations.
AnnaRae Grabstein (11:45):
Did you just say bro-tastical?
I love that word.
Wow, I'm going to use it.
Yeah, so our event was in themorning and you know, ben, you
talked about staying up late andthere's a lot of that in Vegas.
But people also do come to workand want to form new
relationships.
Like I like to get to knowpeople on a deep level, and if
(12:06):
you're at a loud nightclub at 11PM and there's super bumping
music, it's really hard to getto the heart of who somebody is,
and so I loved that.
We got to meet with people fortheir first event of the morning
when everybody was fresh andready and, you know, their feet
didn't hurt from being on theirtoes all day, all that stuff.
(12:28):
Yeah, I think we should do more.
I want to hear from people whattype of other times they want
to have events like this.
Ben Larson (12:36):
I was trying to think of other conferences that
might be fun to host, stuff likethis or or other things for us
to piggyback on when people aretogether to have more
experiences to get to trybeverages and get to know them
yeah, and, and you know, I Iknow we're guilty of talking
about beverages a lot on theshow and maybe it's because I'm
surrounded by them and becauseof what I do, but I like kind of
(12:59):
like feel like I need to remindour audience that you and array
, you know, are interested.
But, from a perspective of,this is what is important in the
hot in cannabis right now.
And it's interesting for me tohear that there wasn't a large
presence outside of uh, outsideof our event or or our suite,
(13:20):
and it's crazy because themeetings that we were having and
I have to not give too muchtransparency into who is coming
into the room, but there's a lotof like just a beverage
conference, but a lot ofparticipation from hemp and THC
(13:48):
brands.
Steve Jabbour from Spex, theTexas retailer, was on stage and
just talking about thisemerging category For him as a
mainstream alcohol retailer.
He said on stage, this is thefastest, most exciting category
that he has ever experienced andthat all these other brands,
(14:11):
all these other products, themushroom seltzers, all this kind
of like all this kind of likecutting edge uh categories, he's
like they just all pale incomparison as far as like the
interest level, uh, of these,and so you know I ran into
brands that I've admired in themainstream space a long time,
that I would, you know, love tosee getting into the space, and
(14:33):
they're warm to it.
Now they're getting in.
You know, marketplaces thatfocus on non-alc retail, they're
going to get in.
You know it's like it's justit's happening and people are
ready.
AnnaRae Grabstein (14:45):
Well, it's the same thing.
Like you said, my work isacross the different categories
of cannabis, with ancillarycompanies, with supply chain
operators, but everybody'spaying attention to beverage and
is looking at different pathsto growth, and this is one of
them, and it's a serious one.
And if you're someone thatmakes a mushroom beverage, my
guess while that is not myexpertise is you're realizing
(15:07):
that your addressable market isonly so big and that people are
coming back time and time againfor THC beverages, but they
might not be coming back foryour like apple cider vinegar,
adaptogenic brain drink.
And part of that is that THCmakes you feel a certain way and
(15:27):
you consume, whether it's abeverage or a gummy or whatever
the form factor is, but you knowthat you took it.
It's the same problem that youknow the FDA was just having
with their double blind studiesfor MDMA and they're saying well
, the people that took theplacebo knew and the people that
took the MDMA knew, and it'slike, of course, they did.
(15:48):
You know MDMA.
And same thing.
Like you know, if you consumesome THC and if you like that,
you're going to come back andhave more, and what we're seeing
is that people seem like theylike it.
They like it a lot and and yeah, I will say there were some
other wins.
It wasn't just beverage at MJBiz.
(16:10):
I did spend some time at theconference on the expo floor.
I walked the whole thing and um, I think that there was an area
where um, genetics and seedcompanies were highlighted.
That was very different inyears past because of the farm
bill and of seeds beingqualified as hemp without having
(16:34):
THC in them.
The seed companies wereactually selling seeds on the
floor at MG Biz and I don'tthink anybody has.
Ben Larson (16:45):
So this is not my world.
Are people like growing fromseeds, like we always talk about
clones, like cloning was a bigpart of the industry still, as
I'm sure?
AnnaRae Grabstein (16:55):
oh, it still is yeah, but people do grow from
seeds still apparently yes, uh,well, so wow, this is a huge
can of worms to open and weshould talk more about this on
its own episode.
But yes, commercial cultivatorsdo buy seeds.
They generally aren't growingindividual plants to cultivate
(17:19):
for commercial harvest.
From seed they're growing outmother genetics and then they
take clones from the motherplants that are grown from seed
to populate like a whole growroom.
But part of what is worthtalking about is there are a
whole bunch of genetics groupsnow that are starting to breed
more stable seeds and aremarketing them as crop seeds for
(17:44):
crop, so that you would plantout the whole room and you would
skip the clone and the motherphase and just go straight into
growing from seed at a on alarge, on a large scale yeah, I
guess that'll become superimportant, especially in a
post-legalization era whereyou're talking about just
planting fields of it andwanting consistency, because
(18:05):
you're not going to go plant afield of clones yes, you can
still plant a field of clonesyeah, oh, that's right.
Ben Larson (18:12):
I've seen it on the videos where they sit in the
little thing and it's likeabsolutely can.
AnnaRae Grabstein (18:16):
It's even done in certain other types of
vegetable crops and things likethat.
But there there are somebenefits on both sides.
But anyway, the the geneticspeople, I think had a better and
different presence than theyhad in years past and they
actually got to make revenuefrom the price of their booth.
So that's pretty cool.
Yeah, I don't think that therewas really anybody else in that
(18:40):
category of driving revenue.
Ben Larson (18:43):
Did you go to the show?
I did.
I did not go to the.
Did you go to the show?
AnnaRae Grabstein (18:46):
I did.
I did not go to the conferencepanels, but I walked the whole
floor.
That day I walked close to40,000 steps.
It was crazy.
My legs felt like they weregoing to fall off at the end of
it.
Ben Larson (18:59):
That's insane.
Yeah, that's a lot of booths.
AnnaRae Grabstein (19:03):
So many booths and you know, there were
some things that I had to kindof look a side-eyed at, Like I
don't know how many vapehardware companies or packaging
companies the industry canreally support, but there were a
lot of those types of boothsand I don't know it doesn't make
any sense to me how that manycompanies can can sustainably
(19:26):
operate in the state in thespace and sustainable is the
wrong word because just the vapehardware and packaging at its
core are not sustainable inalmost any way.
But what I meant wasfinancially sustainable.
But yeah, so the event was wasI think that they tried to
innovate the company and toreally make MJBiz more relevant
(19:48):
in today's times.
They also included brands andretailers in a different way
than they had in the past.
Not a ton of participationthere, but definitely some
important participation.
So I enjoyed it and I willprobably go and walk the floor
again next year.
They actually thank you, mjbiz.
They gave me a press passbecause of this podcast, so
(20:11):
thank you very much, mjbiz.
Ben Larson (20:13):
Thanks for the invite, MJBiz Thanks for the
invite.
AnnaRae Grabstein (20:20):
Anything else that we want to mention about
MJBiz before we go on to somebreaking news and some more
in-depth discussion.
Ben Larson (20:27):
No, I don't think so .
That was.
I'm excited that MJBiz is stillgoing strong.
It is like the thing you know Ithink I talked about this last
year.
It's like it's that time ofyear where you just like
reground yourself like how farwe've come as an industry or
haven't, but it doesn't seem tobe slowing down at all.
So we'll see all next year atour next morning mixer.
(20:51):
But maybe we don't have to waittill MJBiz.
AnnaRae Grabstein (20:55):
Maybe we do something in the mean.
Ben Larson (20:56):
We're not going to wait.
AnnaRae Grabstein (20:58):
We're not going to wait.
I'm going to put that flag inthe ground.
I'm not sure when it's going tobe, but sometime before MJBiz
we will do another morning mixerwith wake and bake, THC
beverages and some bagels anddonuts.
Ben Larson (21:12):
It works pretty well .
I'm a big fan.
AnnaRae Grabstein (21:15):
Yeah.
Ben Larson (21:15):
Yeah, so what's next ?
What else is top of mind foryou?
AnnaRae Grabstein (21:19):
Breaking news today, as of a couple hours ago
Minnesota.
Ben Larson (21:25):
Minnesota, my favorite state totally so.
AnnaRae Grabstein (21:30):
Um, if you guys have been listening to the
podcast and more of you have allthe time you would know that I
have been yelling um from themountaintops about the injustice
that has happened in minnesotaover the past couple weeks with
this mass rejection of socialequity applicants into their
adult use lottery process.
And today Minnesota announcedsomething that might be a move
(21:54):
towards justice.
In my opinion, there are mixedopinions, but they have decided
to cancel the lottery and createa new process whereby
applications will be reassessedin February, all of the
projected applicants will beinvited to participate again to
fix the deficiencies in theirapplications, and a lottery will
(22:19):
still be conducted, but it willbe both for social equity
applicants and generalapplicants at the same time, and
that will happen likely in Mayor June.
So the big injustice here topresent both sides is that the
lottery was supposed to happenbasically now.
So the whole adult use programin Minnesota is being pushed
(22:41):
forward six months.
And also the folks that did makeit into the lottery and weren't
rejected the one third of theapplicants were excited that
they had less competition in thelottery and felt that they had
done everything right.
So those groups aredisappointed in this outcome.
However, I think that Minnesotamade a whole lot of mistakes
(23:04):
and I think that where this islanding is going to be a lot
more fair, so I'm really hopefuland excited and feel that this
is justice, so woohoo bigproponent of this is like this
(23:27):
the every effing time they tryto roll out, a system is botch
it and yes and even after itgets rolled out, then it's like
it's still not good and it'sjust like overly regulated and
the businesses are just dyingleft and right, like it's crazy
to go.
Ben Larson (23:40):
You know we I've been traveling a lot the the
second half of the year here,going to Charleston and
Charlotte and Austin, nashville.
It's just like to see what redstate weed looks like.
It's not perfect, probablyneeds a little bit more
guardrails, but just to havethat unfettered access in places
(24:01):
where you would hope to see itis just so incredible.
It's like how do we meet in themiddle?
Like how do we bring this allcloser together and realize that
the consumer wants it, thatthey deserve to have access to
it and that the world's notgoing to fall apart if we
actually create that for them?
AnnaRae Grabstein (24:23):
I mean, I'm with you, I believe in open
access at its core.
But I would push back and justsay that a huge part of what I
try to do is to not be in denialand accept the reality of
what's in front of us.
And I find it very unlikelythat a world that free and
(24:44):
unfettered access to anythingthat looks like, even in even
red state, weed is is going tocontinue for much longer.
And that is because we alreadyknow we've been talking about
for weeks and there's not anynew news about it.
But you know, the farm bill,which is the unlock for hemp, is
(25:06):
up for debate and what thatlooks like could go a lot of
different ways.
But it doesn't seem likely thatthe Republican establishment,
that the Democraticestablishment, really that the
politicians and the powers thatbe want to allow unfettered
access to THC and even thestates that have allowed it, are
(25:27):
creating more regulations forsafety.
So in the end, let's acceptreality that there is going to
be some sort of regulatory andlicensing regime.
Like how you skin that onion iscomplicated, there's lots of.
Ben Larson (25:40):
I mean I'm okay with regulations and licensing.
Like the alcohol industry hasregulations and licensing, the
cigarette industry hasregulations, licensing, but they
also have like economies thatwork, they do but they also have
limited licenses.
AnnaRae Grabstein (25:54):
Like you want to go open a bar in san
francisco, like there's alimited amount of liquor
licenses, and so there is people, people buy and sell liquor
licenses because they're notissuing new ones, and that has
created some amount of safety inthe market for the people that
choose to invest in one of thoselicenses.
(26:14):
Yeah, it would be amazing ifthe market could just take care
of it and there could be anunlimited amount of licenses and
you could just go register,like in Texas.
Ben Larson (26:25):
But I just I don't think that's where it's going
yeah, speaking of speaking oftexas, uh, I I heard the the.
Uh, the numbers have reallyshot up.
Last time we were talking towhen ben megs came on from howdy
, I think we're saying there wassomething like 7 000 licenses
had been issued and it's prettyeasy, like, if you're a retailer
(26:46):
, you apply it's probably like1500 bucks or something like
that,000 licenses had beenissued and it's pretty easy,
like if you're a retailer, youapply it's probably like $1,500
or something like that, and thenyou have your hemp license.
AnnaRae Grabstein (26:50):
Way, way less .
Ben Larson (26:51):
But yeah, is it less ?
Yeah, they should up the price.
But at BevNet I heard that itmight be even in excess of
20,000 now, which is an insanenumber.
But at the same time theLieutenant Governor, dan Patrick
, is putting out legislationthat would essentially ban all
(27:14):
of intoxicating hemp.
So interesting to have a Texanfollowing in the footsteps of a
California governor.
All that to say and I, you know,I was, I tuned into Emily and
size podcast and they hadhighlighted it but boots on the
ground, at the beverageconference I got to speak with,
(27:36):
with Steve from specs, the howdyteam.
There's a lot of confidencethat this doesn't get go through
as written and so so, um, youknow, as we talked about before,
texas is on this two-year cyclewhere you have a very limited
time to have the legislativesession.
If nothing goes through, or ifit does go through, you have
another two years before you getto fix it.
(27:57):
Um, and so it seems likethere's a lot of acceptance
around the low dose beveragecategory to kind of like
maintain that opportunity, andit seems like the political
appetite is that if that's there, then people will come to the
table and compromise, but ifit's an all out ban, highly
(28:21):
unlikely that it goes through.
AnnaRae Grabstein (28:24):
So people say that the lieutenant governor
has basically a golden pen andthe priorities set by the
lieutenant governor are thepriorities that are going to
push forward with thelegislative agenda.
Breadth of discussion aroundpolicy as it relates to THC in
(28:51):
Texas and I get that LieutenantGovernor Dan Patrick has a ton
of power has made this broadsweeping proclamation about
banning THC.
But there's just so much moreto this puzzle.
We've got this reallyunrealized medical marijuana
program we had on Richardsonfrom Texas, from texas original,
earlier this year.
There's only a deplorablesystem it's a deplorable system.
(29:14):
There's two operators.
They're doing less than 50million dollars significantly
less collectively for the wholeentire state, while the hemp
space is doing potentially whiteconomics as $8 billion a year.
So it's like we've got thiscrazy disparity between the
legal system and the unregulatedhemp system.
(29:34):
So there are other bills thatare being proposed to address
this in what I perceive to bemuch more sensible ways than
what the Lieutenant Governor ispromoting.
We have a bill that's beenintroduced by Representative
Jessica Gonzalez it's a housebill and that is a recreational
(29:55):
adult use bill to allow andcreate an entire adult use THC
program that isn't specific tohemp.
We have another bill that is bya different House of
Representatives member to expandthe medical program, to expand
the qualifying conditions andthe form factors, to basically
(30:17):
create more of like aFlorida-style medical program in
Texas.
And then, lastly, we haveanother bill that is being
proposed to actually leadefforts to regulate hemp
products and um so how this allcomes to be.
Ben Larson (30:36):
Maybe it's true, maybe the lieutenant governor
wields, wields the gold pen andanything I think he does, from
what I, what I've heard, I thinkhe does with half of the
legislative body, but I don'tthink he has the power to kind
of unilaterally get somethingthrough, yeah.
So he's almost there, and he'sbeen known for expanding his
(30:59):
power as well.
He's been lieutenant governor,so he just hasn't been fully
successful with that yet.
AnnaRae Grabstein (31:05):
Yeah, and I mean good on him.
Great, that sounds wonderful tohave that much power, and yet
there's just there's a lot ofstakeholders that are a part of
this discussion and, like yousaid, you spoke with some of the
leading beverage folks thatwe've talked to here.
I know that the folks at TexasOriginal are really really
(31:27):
clever and smart when it comesto policy and I'm sure that
they're interested in more thanjust banning hemp THC, but
really expanding their marketopportunities.
Like you can't just take away.
Even if he was successful atbanning hemp THC, it would just
create a massive illicitmarketplace without in some
(31:47):
other way, with some othercomplementary policy to allow
new types of access.
So, lieutenant Governor, ifyou're listening, the people in
your state like THC a lot and wecan't ban something without
creating some other regulatedsolution to access.
(32:08):
So please, like, like, let'snot be short-sighted here.
Texas, this is way too big ofan opportunity to do something
that is sensible, please yeah,it's, uh, it's all the rage
these days.
Ben Larson (32:20):
uh, just was it.
Yesterday I got a text messagebeing like oh, uh,
representative lashawn ford fromillinois is in la, would you be
willing to meet with them?
Because he's concerned aboutthe governor in illinois doing
the same thing, which we allknow is msl land, so I wonder
why that is.
But, um, so he actually camethrough and because it was a
(32:43):
beverage conference, I got topull in a few friends which we
had diana eberlein, who's thepresident of the coalition for
adult beverage alternatives.
We had, uh, shreyas from fromdelta bev.
It's a mate like he's got likea 22 million dollar facility in
southern california that's doingco-packing like large scale.
(33:05):
Um, we had ken from colex, uh,one of our beverage sponsors at
the uh, the morning mixer.
And then, um, oh, shoot, I'mprobably missing someone.
Uh, but it was so great toactually sit down and give them
all the talking points Likehere's the impact, here's the
negative effects of a ban,here's why you don't need to do
it, here's why you don't need todo it, here's why it's actually
(33:33):
bad precedent about what he did, because it was on the heels of
failed legislation rejected bythe legislature and, yeah,
sending them back up to Illinois, hopefully to, to, to work some
magic, but it's it's.
It's interesting to see thesepoliticians just trying to yield
like unilateral power.
Um, I don't like, uh, theprecedent that it sets no, and
(33:55):
it's unfortunate that it camefrom california.
AnnaRae Grabstein (33:58):
California really needs to get out of its
own way.
The, the ban that californiastarted with, was not intended
to set the stage in a dominoeffect to encourage states all
over the country to levy bans aswell.
It was intended to be a push tofigure out a way for both sides
(34:19):
hemp and cannabis to worktogether and to do some type of
positive integration.
Ben Larson (34:26):
Which we have heard right or we are doing.
I should say If you watch thisshow, you're probably relatively
plugged in and have seen thatthere are brands on the hemp and
cannabis side that have cometogether that are doing some
horse trading, figuring out whatmakes sense and hopefully makes
it viable for both sides toparticipate in the California
(34:47):
market and, in turn, enableCalifornia to actually truly
lean into the California weedbranding that they're so proud
of and play in the the nationalmarketplace, because that's
what's at stake right now.
Like Governor Newsom made itimpossible for California brands
to really play on the nationalstage of what's happening in
(35:08):
hemp and it's big.
You go to these other statesand there's entire aisles of THC
products.
If you're going to make it solike a California company can't
participate in that, it's likewhat are you even doing?
AnnaRae Grabstein (35:21):
And even not on the brand level but on the
manufacturing side.
California has been the centerof agricultural production for
years and on the back of thathas gotten really good at
post-harvest manufacturing ofall types of products, but in
particular wine and beer.
There's a ton of that that hasbeen produced here for a long
(35:43):
time and some of those beercompanies are struggling Exactly
time.
Ben Larson (35:47):
And some of those beer companies are struggling
exactly like I was actuallyspeaking with the head of
co-packing for for a brand thatwe all know in the bay area 21st
amendment.
They have a large facility outin san leandro and up until the
band that they were just theywere about to flip on the switch
to get into co-packing for THCbeverages and they were really
(36:08):
hoping to fill up that extracapacity that they had with that
option.
But yeah, so that's revenue,that's tax dollars, that's jobs,
Jobs infrastructure, all ofthese things, and we need those
things here.
Yeah, yeah, so a lot of work todo.
AnnaRae Grabstein (36:35):
Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm hopeful.
I don't know why I stay hopeful, but I do.
I stay hopeful on all of thisand and I not not that governor
Newsom needs to change the lawjust for me, but it is.
It has been a bit of a surprise.
I thought more brands weregoing to be pushing the limits
with their direct to consumer uhfulfillment because it is so
(36:56):
hard to track.
And I have noticed, as someonethat lives in California, if I
have gone and tried to purchaseum uh hemp derived THC product,
every single brand that I havegone to has chosen to be in
compliance and has said oh, yourshipping address is in
california, we cannot send youthis product, and it's.
(37:19):
It's been a bit of a surprise.
I thought there was going to bemore refreshingly responsible
yeah, and there's a lot ofhumans you can still find them.
You just have to look a littleharder well, the brands that I
love their products for havechosen, and no big surprise that
the ones that I like are alsochoosing to be compliant.
I'm sure there are others outthere, but, um, yeah, that's
(37:43):
been interesting.
Um, some other things that havecome up since, uh, since we
last checked in on the news isthere has been some shifts, um,
in terms of the process forschedule three.
Um, while we didn't have anybig news come out of the
december 2nd hearing, um infront of the administrative law
(38:05):
judge, we do have more clarityon what the process is now and
what that process looks like is.
Witnesses have been scheduledand they have dated that.
They're going to be testifyingand that starts, I think,
towards the end of January andit goes into March and then
after that, theoretically, theALJ judge would make a
(38:28):
recommendation and ruling movingmore towards Schedule 3.
But I think that the moreinteresting part of that news is
just starting to think aboutwhat might actually happen in a
new Schedule 3 space, and I knowyou had some thoughts.
You were thinking about GTI andspinning out their performance.
What are you thinking aboutwith Schedule 3 and what that
(38:50):
might mean for 2025?
Ben Larson (38:53):
Yeah, good question.
Before that, just like hugeshout out to my colleagues at
NCIA, and specifically KhurshidKoja, who got a very nice
compliment from the judge for afine piece of lawyering, because
really the only witnessesreally were supposed to be
(39:13):
people that were negativelyimpacted by the decision for
rescheduling, and so they did avery good job, after being
selected, of being like hearthis, we are actually very much
in support of this move, butthis is the aspect of it that
might negatively impact us.
Um and so at least we have somerepresentation there, like for
(39:37):
you know, like, uh for the justmaking sure that our voice is
heard, because it was very scary, like seeing how many uh people
were going to be having thatopportunity to be heard and to
not have any defense against.
It was scary.
All that to say, you know,schedule three process still
moving forward, likely to gothrough, and I people used to
(40:03):
say, oh, how's it going toaffect your business?
I'm like, largely not, likeyou're just going to keep
operating, things probablyaren't going to change.
It's not like it's not comingthrough to like shut anything
down.
If anything, it's just to, likeyou know, hopefully remove 280e
and and that sounds nice alittle bit of extra money in
people's pockets, but then Istarted thinking about it's like
(40:24):
not just a little bit of extramoney, it's a lot of fucking
money.
Like in gti has been on the tipsof people's tongues uh, lately,
because it's just their powermoves that they're profitable,
all this kind of stuff.
They will be extra profitable,uh, in a schedule 3 era, and
extra profitable means 150million dollars of extra cash
(40:47):
flow and so, like, if they'remaking power, power moves, now,
what's 150 million dollars ofextra cash every year, if not
more uh gonna do for them, um,or for the rest of us?
Right, like, obviously, billswill probably get paid.
I'm sure they're fine at payingtheir bills.
Uh, acquisitions, obviously, uh, obviously will happen and just
(41:08):
money will be flowing.
And so that's just one operator, right, it might probably save
the ass of another handful ofMSOs and hopefully the smaller
operators too, but I have lessvisibility into those impacts
(41:34):
those impacts.
AnnaRae Grabstein (41:34):
I have confidence that the GTI won't be
guilty necessarily of passingthose savings back that they get
from the tax man if schedulethree moves forward back to by
reducing prices to the consumer.
But what I one thing that that Ihave seen happen in the market
in every state is that, you know, the price of cannabis
continues to go down forconsumers and that has had all
(41:54):
types of trickle down effectsacross the industry.
And I've been trying to figureout why, when we have retail
stores that are not profitableeven if wholesale prices are
dropping, why are people justusing the same markup and not
making it so that they haveprofitable sales?
(42:15):
It doesn't matter if you've gota great margin if you still
aren't covering the cost foryour rent and your staff and all
these things.
And it seems to be the patternin the race to the bottom that
has been adult use cannabis tojust keep lowering prices
endlessly and that when we getany type of savings, that that
gets transferred down to cheaperweed to the consumer.
(42:36):
And I just don't think thatweed can get any cheaper at this
point in many markets.
There are some markets where itis still a profitable venture,
markets where it is still aprofitable venture, but we're
looking at like this massive taxissue in California, with it's
estimated of over a billiondollars of taxes that are owed
to the state from retailers, andthen why are retailers selling
(43:02):
$1 joints?
That's what I want to know.
It's like you can sell thejoints for five dollars and
people will still buy them andwe're just, we're breaking the
consumer.
Um, as as inflation and theprices of everything in the
market have gone up?
Uh, we have.
We have seen the opposite, uh,in cannabis, where prices just
(43:24):
keep going down.
I don't know, I'll get off mypedestal, but I am confused of
why people don't understand theway that the economies of
commoditization are affectingtheir retail businesses and why
that is the cause of so manyretailers being unprofitable.
They just keep lowering theirprices.
(43:44):
Of course they're not going tomake money.
Ben Larson (43:47):
Yeah well, $1, $5, $18.
People's bills are not gettingpaid.
Keep lowering their prices, ofcourse they're not going to make
money.
Yeah well, one dollar, fivedollar, eighteen dollars.
Uh, people's bills are notgetting paid.
So, um yeah, I don't know whatthe answer is.
AnnaRae Grabstein (43:56):
The answer is deschedule and yeah, light it
all on fire.
Um.
So I think that's all of ournews for today, I think that's
all.
Ben Larson (44:10):
Yeah, it's good to be back it is we, kind of
unannounced, took a little bitof a break, but I think it was
very needed.
I think everyone else was doingso many other things.
Anyways, no one, no one missedit, but it is good to be back.
We have our end of the yearwrap up next week and then and
then it'll be the new yearshortly thereafter.
So kind of wild, another yearin the in the bag.
(44:32):
Everyone, if you're listening,please go like and subscribe,
share.
We're going to be investing inthe show, going into the new
year and excited about all thethings that we're going to do.
Apparently we're planning moremorning mixers and so we'll have
more information about that inthe not too distant future.
But really, really just sograteful for all of our fans,
(44:57):
people that come up to us atthese events even non-cannabis
events now and coming to themixer and hanging out with us.
All of our beverage sponsorsslinging beverages at 10 am ona
morning in Vegas, reallyenergized to see that Love the
community that we're building.
Thank you everyone for tuningin every week and supporting us.
(45:19):
It means a lot.
Until next time, stay curious,stay informed and keep your
spirits high.
We'll see you soon.
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