March 7, 2024 • 56 mins
In this enlightening episode of High on Tour, hosts Victor Pinho and April Black invite the New York Times bestselling author Brian Box Brown for a captivating discussion. Best known for his thought-provoking comic strip - Legalization Nation, Brown shares his journey from a mundane office job to becoming a successful professional cartoonist.
Listen to how Brown navigated his way from self-publishing opportunities to making a lasting impression with his comic strip that sheds light on American cannabis industry trials and challenges. Among his fascinating insights, Brown discusses the striking differences he observed in dispensaries across the country due to varying regulations and the complications of establishing a cannabis business.
Despite revealing that the legalization process is becoming more restrictive, Brown's journey provides hope and inspiration to those who dream of turning their passion into a career. Along with insights into the cannabis industry's challenges, this episode also explores its promising future and the beneficial impact of dismantling inhibitive regulations.
This episode also dives into the impacts of heavy regulations on small cannabis businesses and how they are deterring potential participants. Furthermore, we journey into the industry's security theatre and how restrictions, fear of judgment, and cultural differences across states further complicate cannabis-centric services.
Join us to explore the captivating world of cannabis with Brian 'Box' Brown. His comic strip, Legalization Nation, is distributed by King Features and available on various social platforms, aiming to educate a wider audience about cannabis, helping to combat persisting stigma.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Music.
(00:31):
So get on board the Weed Bus, buckle up, and as always, smoke them if you got them.
You're about to get high on tour with Victor Pena. And April Black.
Music.
(00:54):
And welcome back to another episode of High on Tour. This week,
we have our good friend, Brian Box Brown, New York Times bestselling author
and creator of Legalization Nation, a very, very popular cartoon, comic strip.
Pardon me, it's not a cartoon. It's a comic strip that represents kind of the
trials and tribulations of our cannabis industry in America today.
(01:17):
Brian Box Brown, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me on. I'm happy to be here.
Well, we're happy to have you. April, how are you doing, friend? friend.
Hey, I'm doing pretty good. Yeah. How are you? I'm doing well. Thank you for asking.
Shout out to all of our listeners this week. Happy to have you back for another
one. And let's get started.
(01:39):
Brian, if I may, I know you go by the moniker Box Brown, but we've known each
other before then, right?
Before the BB times, right?
Yeah, yeah. We met a very long time ago in in Newark, New Jersey at an office
job, right? Yeah, totally.
We worked on, I believe, the 16th floor, right?
(02:04):
Possibly. Possibly the 16th floor of a healthcare building. We were on the marketing team together.
And on my first day, I got seated down next to this guy named Brian Brown,
and he's supposed to teach me his job.
Yeah. Which I didn't even know what I was doing, really.
Isn't that how it is we don't really know what the fuck we're doing,
(02:29):
Like, I was always, even when I was working there, like, all I wanted to do
was make comics all the time.
Like, I remember, like, when I was working there, just, like,
thinking about how I was going to one day, like, not have to work at this job and just make comics.
That's what I do now. It's kind of crazy. Yeah, you made it happen. You made it happen.
Were you one of those kids, you made comics as little kids and,
(02:51):
like, made little flip books and stuff? Yeah, definitely.
Up until a certain age, I kind of stopped. like i didn't really do like stopped
like in high school kind of for a while and stopped kind of like making art
and drawing and just like checked out kind of but then i got back into it like in my.
20s and started making comics yeah like and then at some point i just became
(03:15):
obsessed with this like just doing that's what i wanted to do like all the time
and yeah then i like made a bunch of books,
you know, and I made it to the New York times bestseller list. Like, come on, right.
All right. Let me, let me back this up. Let me back this up.
You're moving too quick, right?
So, so, okay. So we meet where we're work buddies in a marketing on a marketing team, right?
(03:37):
At that point, you know, 20 years ago, right? Like almost like 20 years ago,
you were doing the art thing.
You were kind of, I remember when I met you, you were
like trying to you get back into or you're trying to pick it up as a career
i remember i remember the day you left like i remember your farewell and you
were like you know f this place i'm about to do some comic work you know like
(03:59):
i'm about to just draw some shit and and then a few like not even a year later.
Right you released which which was your first your first big published piece
once you left that marketing gig with me?
So the first thing I did was I received a grant to publish a book.
(04:21):
Pretty quickly after after i left
that job and that was called love is
a peculiar type of thing and then spent like
a bunch of years self-publishing for you
know for a long time before before onto the
giant came out and because that
came out in 2015 yeah but i
(04:44):
remember that was like that was what you were talking to
me about having an interest having taken an interest in even
back then you were a big andre the giant
fan yeah i was like obsessive uh
obsessively like making comics while i was working so that's what you did all
day focused mostly on that like all the time like i remember when i left there
(05:06):
i actually had an interview with like another company and they were like where
do you see yourself in five years and i was like professional cartoonist.
I'm not, I'm not here.
It's very funny. That's really good. I remember also going back.
So we had like, we've lived concurrent lives in cannabis now,
(05:31):
like more recently since your, your launch of legalization nation,
the book, the, the series, right.
You have multiple volumes of this of this
comic and tell me a little
bit about the transition from uh you know
best-selling you know new york times with you know was it with just uh andre
the john for tetris too right well tetris wasn't a new york times bestseller
(05:54):
but it did pretty well it was nominated for an eisner and stuff wow like real
that's that's pretty cool like i know i know this This guy,
Brian Brown is a clean book about Andy Kaufman. Yeah.
Came out a year or two later, actually won the Eisner. That was,
that was, yeah, I was not aware of that, but that was another one that I,
(06:15):
I have proudly displayed in my, in my collection.
Yeah. So like I was, you know, I was making these books and stuff and then.
Kind of like i got backed up where like i had like two books
in the can ready to come out and i was like waiting for
them to come out and i was like getting involved
with with cannabis in a big way because like they had
(06:36):
just they had legalized so i had
i had been to a bunch of dispensaries all over
the country but they finally had legalized in ta like in philly they were building
they made what year this was probably like that long ago yeah it wasn't that
long ago maybe like five years ago no it had to be like 2018 2017 yeah maybe
(06:59):
it was longer i don't know i can't tell i'm really,
so it was a while back but when they first came and
i remember i was like really excited i have dispensaries
you know and i remember going there
and being like really excited to
like buy weed and like prices were like really high but like i was like i was
(07:21):
just like taken in by like by like the packaging and stuff and just like i was
just so pumped and pretty soon after that like i realized it wasn't going to
be like you know the california dispensaries and or like.
Colorado or anything like that because there's only
like five companies making selling wheat like
(07:42):
the most like watered down like whack
version of so was this so i
totally heard that about pennsylvania like just
a handful and it was totally whack yeah yeah
and it started in 20 uh february 15th 2018
so yeah yeah so
that's like when i also i was like working on a
(08:04):
book about cannabis like the history of
cannabis and so like between those two things and happening i started to get
like super involved in like the whole situation because i was like this is so
fucked up and like i'm not seeing
any i wasn't i didn't feel like i was seeing it being represented in,
(08:25):
in the media or wherever in like a real way like there was you know the you
know the mainstream media covered it like in that not like serious way and like
weed media covered it in a very like.
Market centric way but like
none of it to me was like realistic yeah and so so
(08:48):
was this kind of like an activist move for you it was like your
way of kind of like sticking it
to the corporate corporate cannabis man yeah like
i was like yeah like was talking about it a
lot right and like telling everybody i could
about like how fucked up this is and i feel
like i was uncovering like you know some sort of
(09:09):
like conspiracy or something like that i mean to some degree maybe you know
it sounds like in a lot of you have right monopoly kind of shit yeah and you've
also you've also brought light to through the comic strip you've brought light
to some situations that have gotten.
Notoriety for being just bad behavior right like
(09:30):
you've brought to the attention to the mainstream through
a comic you know you know you wanted you wanted
to do like a very very real real commentary
in a very kind of artistic creative way but you nailed it right well this is
like the my way to like it's the one thing that i like know how to do right
(09:51):
so like make comics because i spent so much time doing it and i was like it's
my one way that i can contribute to this like discussion.
And like in the best way that i can is like through comics
like right i would like you know
well it's very engaging and it really you know
sparks the conversation i see your comics get it's
(10:12):
shared over and over and over again yeah it's
it's cool like i love that like it's i love how people
just start talking and always like in the
commentary under the comic strip i like try
to like follow what's
going on but it always like takes on a life of its own completely that
i'm just like i don't know there's so many people having a conversation
(10:34):
with each other in the the comment section like
i can't even keep up with it at all but i
mean that means that's like that's success right like
that's a measure of your own impact yeah with
what you're doing right like just the fact that like you're just overwhelmed by
people's discussions around this insightful
you know prompt that you give every week right every week you drop one and now
(11:00):
we get to know know what's going on like in all the states because everyone's
commenting so you know you get to hear about all the shitty shit going on all
over often and people send me stuff too all the time so i'm like.
Sometimes i'm just like i don't know what i'm gonna write about like what did people
send me this week and it's like
all kinds of funny weird shit going
(11:21):
on in different places like someone sent me
this article this week i was just reading it today like some
company in maryland like it got
fined 26 000 for they like
put a bunch of product in the dumpster and then
like four days later pulled it out of the dumpster and
repackaged it and sold it oh my gosh so they basically dumpstered it so they
(11:46):
had the whole thing on camera so they got they got fined $26,000 and like in
the article too they're like this they resold this and they made $3,000.
Oh my god was it
worth it yeah you got you made three grand you got fined $26,000 yeah and the
(12:06):
bad press yeah just bad and when they were this company was a like an mso right
it was a big company right i mean there's only kind of like big companies in maryland it's like,
the least one of the least competitive that's so
weird because my husband he is does
the competition director for leaf magazine and so
(12:28):
they're getting ready to have their maryland leaf bowl
those are they're oh yeah cops and so
he's like well i didn't know bezel was out there and
like now all these people are submitting their entries and
it's all these companies that i've heard of yeah i mean that explains it it's
the whole east coast rollout of legalization of them like so like it's actually
(12:52):
all of legalization has kind of just gotten worse over the years if you look
look at like the first law,
like in 96, it was like so much more.
It allowed so for so much more than what has happened since.
You're talking about two 15, like proposition. Yeah, totally.
I mean, that was what we refer to as the wild west of weed.
(13:14):
Yeah, man. Yeah. I came at the tail end of that.
Yeah. And it was like, you know, and then since then, look at even California
with like the rec law, which has like.
You know shrunk the market okay it's like literally regulated the market into
shrinking because uh you know farms can't like keep up with like the harsh regulate regulations and,
(13:39):
whatever new or the ever-changing regulations right right i mean there were
there were companies back in you know back in the day like when i say back in
the day just a few years ago.
That when legalization happened there was this flux and
laws and regulations around packaging around
you know different things and there it
did those changes i remember just they flattened
(14:02):
a bunch of companies just like took a bunch of companies out
yeah it was even stuff like you know you
need like this type of bathroom like put
into your facility yeah or you need to like lower your
curb here by a half an inch oh
well let's let's not talk about the cannabis tourism tourism initial regs
out of humble county they wanted us to like measure road
(14:24):
widths and stuff like that it was like insanity it was like
but eventually that stuff all changed and then
you feel bad for the guy who like did the thing and like went through the process
and he's like oh you know matt our buddy matt out of humble tours he went through
that process and it was not fair it was not cool it's just like why are you
doing this like over complication of they wouldn't do If they were to do it
(14:47):
to other industries, they definitely would not.
It's like that, you know, the whole over-regulation of the industry everywhere,
it leads to, like, total...
Like, this is the reason why we don't have a lot of, like, small business participation,
because it's just, like, you can't just...
Like open a store it has to be in this
(15:10):
like really really specific serpentine process yeah
like really with like a total like catch-22 of
permitting it's like the whole thing is just like yeah you gotta
pay taxes on your wet weave yeah all this stuff
and then then it's also like you know county regulations
and city regulations meanwhile local
localities are even though the state
(15:32):
will have legalized cannabis each individual
township will have to like opt in
or opt out so like even in california something like
70 percent of townships don't
even allow weed businesses yeah i live in one
of those yeah yeah no it's most of the state and
it's actually it's incredible because the the
(15:55):
majority of those dispensaries exist in like
two three places right like like yeah pretty much like the bay area and yeah
in la and that and you know some parts you know north and east yeah yeah so
it's just a little you know sack norcal and in la that's it people are surprised
to hear that about california because it's like that in jersey you know like.
(16:18):
And massachusetts there was like a hundred how many
how many dispensaries in jersey now it's like over a hundred right
i mean because i heard there's some in jersey city
where we used to live and i'm thinking damn there's many
coming i guess but like there's not
enough producers in jersey yet so this
is like this is what i keep saying right it's like to all
(16:39):
these like growers out here who are like struggling to stay alive i am just
praying for the day that the the controlled substances act falls apart and they
repeal that and then you know interstate commerce will solve that problem and the local farmer,
you know, demand problem, you know, anyway,
(17:02):
what'd you say? What'd you say? What'd you say?
Interstate shipping thing is like the key to
the whole thing because like let's face
backs here like in the traditional market it's
like all california product it's like 90 percent california product in like
the traditional market around here right you know all up and down the east coast
(17:23):
and probably like in most states and how much of it may is stolen product how
much yeah I mean, it's all fucking who knows.
You know, you hear everything about like the California product.
Like it's, you know, backdoor stuff.
It's fucking fake stuff.
Like, you know, the sprayed buds. Yeah. Big trap bags. Yeah.
(17:46):
You hear like everything you can imagine. I mean, I just saw this video.
Someone sent me yesterday about like that had this like fucking weird weird
looking like terp bending machine thing where like you you take like you take
like your cannabis and put it in like a microwave type oh god and it comes here it comes it's like.
(18:08):
You like type it's like the coke machine like the any.
Kind of coke machine where you type in what flavor
you want and it like sucks the terps up through these tubes and
like infuses the bud this is what
prohibition causes guys like prohibition makes shit like
this a possibility gross exactly i mean like
this is like just sounds like fair food yeah yeah
(18:32):
yeah i mean like and this you know that
you don't when you when you i don't know
this is why we need the interstate because it's all
california weed anyway and it's all yeah it's well it's because for
you know forever you know california has
a has a climate that can grow cannabis
you know the way we grow it and it's not so
(18:52):
conducive in other parts years like these new
states come in and like they're they're running they're doing like
that first run ever like in new york
whatever it's like the sir or whatever and then
yeah and then that weed's got to be sold right and then it goes into the
hands of consumers in new jersey for like 90 bucks
a quarter 100 bucks a quarter like it's
(19:13):
all one big market right the legal market in the traditional market
like these small companies
are just starting out growing weed like first time
in this facility whatever and then the actual competition at a street level
is california weed yeah like you know like there at least needs to be an opportunity
(19:35):
for for those dispensaries to sell that exact same product like that.
People are actually buying and why i'm ask you explain to me how it feels to
be so good at explaining i mean you have this wide knowledge and it's like at
times it's intricate understanding.
(19:57):
Of how the how the industry works explain
what it what it's like to how do
you distill that down down in a in a strip
in just a few panels like what's that
what's that process like for you it's it's hard
sometimes because you're like i gotta say this but
i can't i can't just i have
(20:19):
to explain this part of it too it it
can be really difficult especially like when i
try to think about like who the strip is for like
is it for like people
that already know like a lot about that weed and they're
like in the industry anyway or is it
for just like people that don't even
(20:41):
know anything about weed and just like are interested because
the comic whatever and so i
try to like ride that line where i'm like constantly having to like explain
like technology or like or just like industry jargon yeah like how how things
(21:01):
are made in the industry yeah totally yeah i mean And like,
I've probably like, I stopped using the term MSO, right?
Because like, everybody knows it, like in weed industry, but like,
people, the average person doesn't know the term MSO, like that doesn't mean
anything to like, some Joe Schmo walking down the street or whatever.
(21:22):
Like, I always have to be like, you know, large corporate.
You know we beam it yeah also like
as as the markets and as
things go on like there's small
businesses that are technically mso's at this
point you know they happen to be in like a couple states
(21:45):
whatever you're in maine and massachusetts or
like something like that you're technically an mso so it's
like but but so it's like i'm speaking about like it
refers to a specific class of of
of like corporate cannabis you
know group yeah corporate personhood yeah
yeah like truly yeah exactly like
(22:08):
truly yeah cresco those
type of yeah there's three of the top yeah yeah
cresco was like the first company i
remember seeing in pa PA and they've
been here this whole time you know it's
just like I still have not Jersey's been
(22:29):
legal for a while and I still there's never been there
hasn't been any product that's come out in New Jersey that has like made me
even for a second consider driving to New Jersey to go oh i'll go get that jersey
weed brutal so yeah new jersey is mids a new podcast by chris gethard.
(22:53):
In the stores are the same as what's in the medical market in pa it's actually
not even as good as the pa medical market yeah because that market has had time
for other people to come in and people would be like we want more yeah and it's
actually it's crazy because like it'll be like the
cure leaf in philadelphia and the cure leaf
(23:16):
in belmar new jersey which are like 20 minutes
away from each other maximum and one will
be selling like a cure leaf weed
for you know 200 bucks an ounce and then over in jersey it's 350 an ounce or
something like that which is insane it's 15 minutes away dude those people don't
(23:37):
even know what they're doing so they're in arizona and one one of my closest
and dearest friends is from Arizona.
He had moved to Denver for a while to like work in making hash and working in
a lab. And then he saw there was labs in Arizona.
So we moved back to Arizona, started working at Cureleaf and they're selling
distillate pens and calling it live resin.
(24:00):
And he called them out and like, they got all weird.
And you know, they did some like company wide training and stuff.
And he ended up leaving there and working for a smaller company,
but that just shows you how shady they are.
I've heard this a lot from growers and stuff that have gotten jobs at a corporate cannabis company.
(24:23):
And the grower is an experienced grower and knows a lot.
And comes in and is like, we should actually be doing it this way or whatever.
But they don't really want to hear that. It would be like going to a McDonald's
and being like, we should actually cook these burgers in a different way.
And McDonald's is like, no, no, we do it this way.
Like this is like whole fucking franchise thing that
(24:46):
happened to another friend of mine and he was
supposed to run some stuff and with the i won't say
the company because they're pretty big here in california and he ended up getting
paid like a hundred thousand dollars just to like pretty much defoliate because
they didn't want to implement any of the things he wanted to change yeah that's
the thing i mean look even working in marketing and and consultative work Like,
(25:10):
you know, how many times have I given people like paid advice that they just don't listen to?
Like that's a thing, but I don't think it's a unique to the cannabis industry.
I think it's, it's a thing, but yeah, it's, uh, and you know,
I'm really kind of like, you know, torn a little bit because I am total Brian box Brown fan boy.
(25:35):
Right. I have to admit I'm a total giddy fan boy.
What are you working on right now what's what's
keeping you busy right now so i've been
doing a lot of uh freelance work over the last couple
months freelance illustration and stuff
and but you know i'm also working on this a book that is like a fiction book
(25:57):
that i'm slowly tipping away at which was interesting i haven't you know i haven't
messed around in fiction in in a long time are you writing words so it's no
more drawing just words it's a comic oh but.
It's kind of about like death and well, it's about a, like a technology that
(26:19):
allows people to be like downloaded into like,
into like an app that their loved ones can like communicate with,
like after they're dead. Very black mirror. Yeah.
That would not be so, I mean, it's weird, weird, but it would be kind of cool.
Yeah. It's kind of like coming soon to an app store near you.
(26:39):
It's kind of like, you know, you're upset if you're, your parents
you know well you don't expect to die or whatever
but like what if they were around all the time oh i don't know they're just
watching all the time i mean i'm sure you're posing some quite quite the existential
questions right yeah so yeah so so how's that coming along what do you what
(27:01):
are you most excited about on that you know chipping away at it slowly,
and and it's just like my you
know side gig kind of right now and
working on legalization nation and then like
that to me is like my my favorite
thing to work i get excited sometimes i'll be bummed out
on like tuesday morning i'm like a man
(27:24):
like ever pissed off or
something and then i'm like oh it's tuesday like today's the day
i post my comment and i like get real excited i'm
just like you know get to
see what everybody has to say yeah is it does it feel very
like like a lot of people work on things in their career and you know it's like
a long-term deliverable and then you feel like you deliver it and you feel the
(27:47):
the good vibes and the good feels of of having done good work but you get a
chance to do that once a week yeah no it is that's like why i.
On its face like it doesn't like make it makes a little bit of money but like
only like a tiny bit so it's kind of like almost a loss leader because it's
(28:08):
my way to like be involved in the.
Cannabis industry you're making a huge impact with
that loss leader dude like i think like like you
know in many ways most activists will pay to do activism work
like that's what being an activist activist is all about
and even though you are making you know a little bit of a living off
of it you're still your impact is felt globally
(28:29):
you're presenting yeah people are talking
you're you're talking to people in a
way that is very accessible relatable you're
talking to people in a way where you're not you're very
like an omniscient fly on the wall but you know
you're not guiding them in any one direction or the other like you're
(28:49):
glad you're a real stoner oh yeah you're real deal dude
you're real deal like that was my next question like what do
you smoking on dude oh i've actually
been been on all kinds of
different trying out all kinds of different shit lately i had
a big event in in new york city in january and so i got to sample a ton of the
(29:13):
like legacy slash traditional cannabis from from a couple of the growers out
there it's crazy he's so sweet it's fire,
yeah these guys like literally this guy I designed him very,
oh wow it's super sweet so now do you all just get weed whenever you want from them they hook it up.
(29:36):
When i see them as they should but so they
have fire fire ass weed they've been growing for like 20 years and now they're
like trying to you know they they gave legacy operators kind of some cover a
little bit to like come out of the shadows and try to get like license in new
york but it's still been a struggle for these guys like it's been a couple years
(29:57):
now and they're still like trying to.
Like going through that process you know
it's always so funny brian when like i
hear this from people but it's like i always wonder how
much of this and this is a question for you how much of this is like you
know legacy operators are used to operating in a
certain very specific way it's a
(30:18):
different kind of business yeah and then when you break open the nut of legalization
everybody's like you know running around with a chicken like with like
a chicken with their head cut off it's not that they're bad
business people it's that they've never done business
that way way yeah too much computer work oh
there is a ton of there is a ton of more
extra shit that's another thing though why i'm like why there's
(30:39):
too much shit there's too much shit there's too
much and the rent's too damn high yeah that's
like extra hoops regulatory hoops and
stuff yeah it's already bad enough running a small business
hard stop you add weed to that and you're
just like inundated with just bureaucracy and
garbage you're selling whatever pencils like it
(31:01):
would be you know a total you know
you'd have to go through the whole like getting licensed finding property whatever
that whole situation it's not easy but then
add if they had a million different regulations on
how you're able to create pencils your pencil packaging yeah and like everything
everything imaginable it's like you know is well i mean is that necessary even
(31:26):
like i think it stems from stigma.
On cannabis and like fear and like yeah and like it's a lot of it is.
There's a lot of security theater type stuff going on. Like window dressing kind of thing?
Yeah, it's to keep the people that aren't smoking weed happy.
(31:49):
It's really funny that you mentioned that. In many ways, when I run the tours
into Mendo or I meet with a new farm or a new farmer, a lot of times,
most times, and this is a good question, it's not a bad question,
but I have a better answer to their question than they have a question.
So a lot of times I'll get asked, like, what do you plan to do to protect my farm?
And I'm like, bro, you got a permit in California.
(32:11):
You should have a security plan to protect your farm. I'm not doing anything to protect your farm.
Like, you know, I'm paying you to provide a service to guests and we're going
to be as responsible and as as tidy and as as as as good stewards of your property as we can be.
But like how like what am i supposed to do like
send up helicopters and drones to prevent like people forever from
(32:33):
like breaching your security plan like dude you
you got through the process you have the plan it should work you know i mean
you gotta think like it's going on tour at at this could only bring like good
word of mouth and stuff to the oh totally and that's what we do like Like,
(32:55):
I mean, Brian, ultimately,
like, like, you know, in many ways we do a very, we provide educative services
to the, to the general populace who, uh, you know, read your,
read your, read your work and, and, and also the folks that take our tours.
But at the end of the day, we're, we're exposing two very different sides of an industry, right?
(33:19):
The same industry, right? Like I'm bringing people to this, I'm,
I'm sharing people into the story, the storyline, this legacy of the cannabis
trail from San Francisco. Yeah. A deeper appreciation.
And you're exposing kind of the antithesis.
Antithesis, antithetical, the antithetical, you know, force there. Right.
(33:44):
And I think it's such a, such a, you know, I would have never,
I would have expected you when I, when we first met, I would have thought to
myself, this guy's going to do big things. Right.
But I never, ever, ever thought that you would have done it in the way you did it.
And it's such a refreshing way way to look at.
(34:05):
Look, being a fanboy of your strip, of your work, I look forward to it when
it drops because in many ways, it's like a little bit of that insider tip that
I may not be connected with.
And I learn a lot. Dude, I've been in this industry 20 some years.
You provide me a little glimpse into things that I don't know about,
(34:28):
and you do it in a quick, digestible, easy way, almost
dare i say for the social media you know
generation it's so easily digestible it's so easily understandable and it makes
such an important impact on people's lives every week um and i think it also
shows that how most of us are on the same team yeah absolutely you know and
(34:50):
we get to connect with people all over on the on these same topics and i think that's.
Fucking marvelous you didn't answer my question though you have to tell go ahead
go ahead go ahead I have a question.
I always think that... So you've been in California a while,
right? A little over 12, 13, almost 13 years, yeah.
Yeah, but you come back to the East
Coast sometimes. I always think that like... No, go on. I wonder if...
(35:16):
Like that sometimes people that are in California can't really see the rest
of the industry like at all.
Well, you know, it's, it's funny that you mentioned that I've been with cannabis
bar services now been back into those other markets. Right.
And I have teams in other markets, Michigan, New York, New Jersey, you know, Oregon.
And, you know, you're right. Like it's, it's, it's easy to put the blinders
(35:38):
on and live in California.
It's easy to not look out. but I've been forced to, to kind of experience the,
the way others live in their world.
And look, I've hit my face on the floor pretty hard a couple of times,
like from a business perspective, right?
Like, look, not every place is like California in many different ways.
(36:00):
And one of those aspects for me that I found most intriguing,
hindering, whatever you want to call it is the fact that in like,
for example, like Michigan, comparatively to California.
The laws in Michigan are pretty awesome and permissive, but culturally speaking,
people are still in that period of like looking over their shoulder,
(36:21):
worrying about people, worrying about the car.
It's not as open. It's not as free. It's not as talked about.
It's something you've still got to be like looking across the way to see who
you're talking to, to understand if it's going to be taboo for them or not.
So it's like something that I have to be, very measured
and careful of when you know selling services
in other states and regions that are cannabis centric because
(36:44):
people are just not as wild and loosey-goosey as
these crazy liberal californians we are
loosey-goosey and we will roll up everywhere the market in california has shrunk
a little bit still it's like so like much bigger than many other states it is
contracted but yes we are the seventh seventh largest you know economy in the world like yeah.
(37:09):
It's a numbers game yeah and like
everything yeah yeah and then
it's just like there there's also california has is
not dominated california has its
own like huge fucking cannabis companies that
are like california only that are actually probably going
to be like the companies that are national names
(37:32):
one day you know well that's why i think like right
now like even the term mso if you really think about
it like there are state operations that exist
only in california that will overshadow like half of the msos out there oh my
god definitely even even like you know like steezy or something like that yeah
(37:52):
those guys yeah whatever they're they're huge and they're they're like just
in California and you know, their,
their product is everywhere. Yeah.
True. But I mean, you know, they would.
They're able to compete in california where cresco
can't compete and like and like cure
(38:13):
leaf left california like they're just
like not even bothering like they can't move any product
at all it's weird like new jersey's like a weird like
stockholm syndrome weed market it's like
it beats you to death and but you still got to go
back to it every time it's just it really
is there's certain people that will even that defend
(38:34):
it like there's certain like class of people i
feel like that will defend stuff like that the nimbys yeah because
it's so still convenient like and being
like oh yeah you know like i don't care that it's
just like sucks but like because i can
just still go buy it whatever they're like happy about
it and i'm like no man like go anywhere else like leave
(38:55):
the state once like yeah get higher standards for
for yourself um but like i still
every time i i think about the jersey thing i'm like still
it's it's gonna get better it's gonna get better but
like you know it's just like this endless baby
step process just like so annoying to like watch go down let me ask you a question
(39:18):
about this is going to be kind of a funny one but i want to take i want a couple
takes on some things all right we're going to play a little game i'm going to
say something and you're going to tell Tell me what you think about that something.
So here, microdosing cannabis, necessary move or marketing genius?
(39:38):
Microdosing cannabis? Yeah, microdosed cannabis. Yeah, I don't know.
I think that just seems like a way to sell more weed at a higher price.
Okay. No, less weed at a higher price. Less weed for more. Less weed at a higher
price. All right. Next question.
Live resin take it or leave it you
(40:00):
know like i hadn't smoked live resin in a really long
time and i got some recently someone
gave me some and i just i couldn't even
take it compared to like rosin yeah yeah like
live resin is still like ultimately distillate no yeah
i mean like no i'm sure
there's like i'm sure there's people out there that
(40:22):
are making like buyer live resin but like i would
turn it down at this i'd rather smoke flour and agree we'll do one more of these
brian all right last one what new jersey rec market a mess a mess forever or the best is yet to come.
(40:43):
It's not going to be terrible forever. Like there needs to be more.
And this is going to happen when it's just taking forever with New Jersey and like, whatever.
I think like Jersey real estate has a lot to do with this because like it's
expensive as hell, like everywhere.
Well, they all, the Jersey also has that similar thing.
(41:04):
California was doing with green zones, right? Like approved arbitrarily approved,
proved AK arbitrarily also known as lobbied for zones where buildings are allowed
to be cannabis, you know, facilities.
I think that's township by township and like pick the spots,
you know? Yeah. That's really, that's some bogus BS.
(41:26):
If you ask me, I think that's like perfect. Like that's like,
you know, you want to talk about like nepotistic behavior.
You want to talk about, you know, cherry picking, gerrymandering,
whatever you want to call it.
It's all. Yeah. Yeah, it's just perfect awfulness. And it's discrimination.
It is, yeah. All of a sudden, because somebody draws a green line around your
(41:47):
neighborhood, now your building can rent for six times more than everything
around it. That's some bullshit.
If you look at Massachusetts has had legal weed for a lot longer than Jersey and they're like, just.
Starting to have a more more
(42:08):
mature market that's like not all corporate
and like some you know local
massachusetts businesses like are you know developing a little bit you know
and so jersey is going to be slow like that it's going to be you know we're
talking you know maybe like five years from now i could go go to the dispensary,
(42:34):
that's nowhere near the beach.
There's no dispensary. All the beach towns, there's no dispensaries in the whole
county. By design, I'm sure.
Which is obnoxious. They fucking let Jersey Shore happen, but they won't let dispensaries.
You drive up this one town in Jersey, Tom's River, right? It's like the gateway to the beach.
(42:55):
And you're driving through it, and there's no dispensaries allowed.
They permanently banned all cannabis businesses.
And the whole town is like one commercial drag that has everything on it.
Like every liquor stores like any every fast
food place like vape shops like dispensaries
(43:16):
even not dispensaries but like head shops even but
like no not allowed to sell weed so you
can go and get like everything you need here for your vacation like
right before you get to the beach except we have to like get
bring that with you new jersey levels of
inconvenience you never thought stronger than the
storm remember that one victor but i
(43:39):
hear atlantic city is supposed to be gonna be
like kind of like a wee destination we're hearing
about that i've actually spoken to rob meja at stockton university in his class
about i've spoken to them about you know what i do for work and emerald farm
tours and everything and had a really nice reception there with those those
guys it was a nice conversation they were really engaged we're coming victor what was that.
(44:05):
How many times did you go vacation in atlantic city when
you lived out there because i went exactly zero times dude
i've been to atlantic like i've been let me just put it to you
this way i've been kicked out of atlantic city more than i've actually spent time in
atlantic city like it's not it's not
i mean like look it's all right
so the philly people will go to atlantic city area
(44:26):
like but they go to like ventnor yeah
they do see what i'm saying like it's nobody has actually ends up on
the boardwalk in atlantic sea that's like misery there were weed stores
there that had of course shit i would
go there when i was going to the pto but i think
that's the intention right like that's what my understanding is like
they're they're trying to you know sin city
(44:47):
in new jersey which is atlantic city right you got all the
casinos and everything they're trying to kind of push
more again more of the whole like let's
force this into the place where it belongs and not make
it accessible to everyone you know it's kind
of crazy like you know why does atlantic city need to be this epicenter of of
of cannabis lounges like cannabis lounges should be in places where there's
(45:11):
high density populations right like there's lots of people living together where
like maybe you want to smoke with other people maybe you're Maybe you want to
get together with your friends and like not smoke in your apartment,
you know, like, like the, the, the lounge places would be best, like near other shit.
(45:34):
As like a stop on a trip, like on a night out. The road trip.
Well, look, you look at dispensaries in San Francisco right now,
and I'll tell you, I go into a lot of dispensaries often,
and the ones that are doing the best are the ones with a lounge.
(45:55):
Yo, well, listen to this. In rural Illinois, kind of near Gary,
Indiana, my good friend Dredd, he's building to grow right there.
And right across the street, which is part of the same thing,
there's a dispensary, a casino, a bar and a restaurant.
So for his break every day, he gets to go and like, you know,
(46:16):
roll up a joint, enjoy it in the lounge and then buy food.
And it's like perfect. And it's like they're leaps and bounds ahead of us here
in California. And it's in rural Illinois.
Yeah. Well, hey, Brian, we're coming on our time here soon.
I I got to ask you a couple more things that I want to get on record here.
Let me just ask a very 30,000-foot question.
(46:41):
In your years writing cannabis comics and writing about and learning about cannabis
and kind of talking to multiple folks in the industry and learning the way you
have learned to be this foremost scholar on cannabis stuff here in this format.
(47:02):
What has been the biggest learning moment?
What was the aha moment? After all these years, you look back on the thing that
you're most impressed about,
either yourself or something you learned about the industry,
but more importantly, about yourself and about how cannabis brought you to that.
(47:23):
Well, I think the biggest like aha moment I probably had was after we had like
legal medical cannabis here.
Finding the cultural markets here and like the places where,
(47:45):
and talking to the people that just like, we'll never buy wheat at a dispensary
and like haven't ever, and have no interest in like it at all.
Like, it's just like totally.
That's a thing. And that's surprising to me too. Always. Yeah.
A hundred percent. There's like tons of people like,
like I always think about like the, the people that
(48:06):
would have made up like a grateful dead parking lot scene like
that will just like i have the
access to like all the best weed and like already like
are consuming and enjoying way better weed than you could ever buy at the dispensaries
around here and how many how big that section of the market really is i mean
(48:30):
and that's like the gold mine right it's still like Like that's like the ultimate conversion.
Like if you, those people that are like on the forefront of like the craft of
the industry and like the best products really in the industry,
like, you know, like the people that were,
that were making hash rosin and using it like before,
(48:53):
before like whatever Cresco was, you know what I'm saying?
Like these people, these are the people that have like the best that are on
the forefront of of like the culture of cannabis and like.
I always think that like the best cannabis markets will be ones.
And like, I won't, I won't even see a, you know, a legal cannabis market that
(49:15):
I think is good unless it like incorporates these people into the market,
you know, in a place like Maine or something like that, where you're allowed
to be a caregiver and like, you can get your products into a dispensary pretty
easily as like a small producer or whatever.
Like until you see
(49:35):
stuff like that happening and and it's
not like impossible for like the average
joe to like to like get their
stuff out there there's always going to be like this separate markets
like this cultural market that
exists beyond the legal market now that
(49:55):
is a great great point and i want
to ask on the heels of that is culture cannabis
culture regardless of where it comes from
is that the new commodity here is that the
valuable is that the value prop on the
industry now is it the culture i mean yeah i mean that's the thing that i feel
(50:16):
like a lot of i mean the that's the thing that the corporate cannabis can never
like emulate right like they they haven't been able to at all figure out a way
to incorporate that into their product.
It still feels like, you know, this like, you know, culture lists like inauthentic,
(50:39):
like buying weed at like an Apple store.
And like, it was feels like it was made by a computer or something like that too. Like.
So, like, that is the commodity. You're right. Like, that is a commodity right now.
And, like, you can also see it in, like, the most savvy legal operators trying to co-opt that culture.
(51:02):
You know what I'm saying?
Like, you can see it. You can see it in, like, the more savvy large operators.
Still, like, the big demos, like, just don't give a shit at all.
Like, they're, like, operating.
They don't need us. Well, their customer, they understand their customer.
Like, they know. Yeah, like their customer base is not that. It's not that.
(51:23):
Exactly. And I don't think they, you know, the smartest among them know that
they'll never, you know, get that market.
But they're happy selling mids to the general populace.
Mids to the kids, but not the kids. You know what I mean?
No, it is. It's like 30% of the sweet smoking population.
(51:43):
Like the, you know, baby boomers, like, and just like casual users.
What's the most important thing you want people to take away from reading your strip?
So like one of my goals always is to just reduce stigma of cannabis and like,
just like the way we talk about cannabis.
(52:04):
Like I just, I don't think that it always has to be, even though it's a comic
strip, people are like, it's like the least funny comic strip, right?
Like it's not like, not like funny at all because I just think that like the
way people talk about cannabis, it's like always a joke.
Right. Like it's always like the butt of the joke. And so like I try to take
(52:25):
cannabis seriously and talk about it like without considering like the overall
stigma of it and how like,
you know, I try never to like build upon that.
Like you'll never see me talk about cannabis people being stupid or anything like that.
(52:45):
You have a lot of respect for it. You have a lot of respect for it.
Totally. And we see that.
I try to keep it on the level. I want people to walk away.
This is like a defense mechanism, I think, for making comics.
The way people think about comics as a childish kind of thing.
And I always thought of it as something that could be much more powerful than
(53:09):
just something that's there for a joke or whatever.
And so and i think of cannabis kind
of in the same way it's not it's people think
of it as like this like goofy thing you know
maybe because of years of representation in media
or whatever but like it's a serious thing that
(53:29):
people use and take some
people take it seriously and like it's and
if we can take it seriously we can
like you know talk about it seriously i think
we'll see better laws and like like all of
the bad laws come from stigma they get they're
able to get away with it because yeah agreed brian we're coming to the end of
(53:53):
our of our time together and i want to thank you so much for an incredible an
incredible hour here spent learning more about you as a friend i thought i knew
brian brocks brown i'm learning so much more every day.
Brian, there's something we do on every episode of High On Tour.
We wrap up an episode. We give our guest the High On Tour hot take of the show.
(54:17):
You're going to get yourself 30 seconds to tell our audience,
your listeners, anything you want to share with them.
Now is your moment. Now is your shining chance.
Go for it, Brian Box Brown. Well, first, I'd like to tell everybody who doesn't,
please check out my comic strip. You can read it on my Instagram,
(54:38):
Fox Brown, and you can check out my Patreon also.
And yeah, I don't know. Where can they find the strip?
So yeah, you can, if you search legalization nation, you'll find it.
And yeah, you can find it on my Instagram and my, and on my Twitter.
I also posted on my blue sky account and LinkedIn. I've been posting it on.
(55:03):
And also it's distributed by King features, the same company that distributes Popeye.
Super cool. So it does get out a little bit to like the general population.
Well, thank you so much, Brian Brown.
You are a, a, a true gentleman. You are a true hero.
You are a true artist and we love all your work.
(55:27):
We love how you're really, really beating back the stigma and educating masses
of people globally about the things that they, they don't hear that they should
be hearing. So thank you so much for the work you do, Brian.
April, as always, thank you for being a great co-host. You're the best.
We'll see everybody again next time on High On Tour with Victor Pino and April Black.
(55:54):
Music.
Music.
(00:31):
So get on board the Weed Bus, buckle up, and as always, smoke them if you got them.
You're about to get high on tour with Victor Pena. And April Black.
Music.
(00:54):
And welcome back to another episode of High on Tour. This week,
we have our good friend, Brian Box Brown, New York Times bestselling author
and creator of Legalization Nation, a very, very popular cartoon, comic strip.
Pardon me, it's not a cartoon. It's a comic strip that represents kind of the
trials and tribulations of our cannabis industry in America today.
(01:17):
Brian Box Brown, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me on. I'm happy to be here.
Well, we're happy to have you. April, how are you doing, friend? friend.
Hey, I'm doing pretty good. Yeah. How are you? I'm doing well. Thank you for asking.
Shout out to all of our listeners this week. Happy to have you back for another
one. And let's get started.
(01:39):
Brian, if I may, I know you go by the moniker Box Brown, but we've known each
other before then, right?
Before the BB times, right?
Yeah, yeah. We met a very long time ago in in Newark, New Jersey at an office
job, right? Yeah, totally.
We worked on, I believe, the 16th floor, right?
(02:04):
Possibly. Possibly the 16th floor of a healthcare building. We were on the marketing team together.
And on my first day, I got seated down next to this guy named Brian Brown,
and he's supposed to teach me his job.
Yeah. Which I didn't even know what I was doing, really.
Isn't that how it is we don't really know what the fuck we're doing,
(02:29):
Like, I was always, even when I was working there, like, all I wanted to do
was make comics all the time.
Like, I remember, like, when I was working there, just, like,
thinking about how I was going to one day, like, not have to work at this job and just make comics.
That's what I do now. It's kind of crazy. Yeah, you made it happen. You made it happen.
Were you one of those kids, you made comics as little kids and,
(02:51):
like, made little flip books and stuff? Yeah, definitely.
Up until a certain age, I kind of stopped. like i didn't really do like stopped
like in high school kind of for a while and stopped kind of like making art
and drawing and just like checked out kind of but then i got back into it like in my.
20s and started making comics yeah like and then at some point i just became
(03:15):
obsessed with this like just doing that's what i wanted to do like all the time
and yeah then i like made a bunch of books,
you know, and I made it to the New York times bestseller list. Like, come on, right.
All right. Let me, let me back this up. Let me back this up.
You're moving too quick, right?
So, so, okay. So we meet where we're work buddies in a marketing on a marketing team, right?
(03:37):
At that point, you know, 20 years ago, right? Like almost like 20 years ago,
you were doing the art thing.
You were kind of, I remember when I met you, you were
like trying to you get back into or you're trying to pick it up as a career
i remember i remember the day you left like i remember your farewell and you
were like you know f this place i'm about to do some comic work you know like
(03:59):
i'm about to just draw some shit and and then a few like not even a year later.
Right you released which which was your first your first big published piece
once you left that marketing gig with me?
So the first thing I did was I received a grant to publish a book.
(04:21):
Pretty quickly after after i left
that job and that was called love is
a peculiar type of thing and then spent like
a bunch of years self-publishing for you
know for a long time before before onto the
giant came out and because that
came out in 2015 yeah but i
(04:44):
remember that was like that was what you were talking to
me about having an interest having taken an interest in even
back then you were a big andre the giant
fan yeah i was like obsessive uh
obsessively like making comics while i was working so that's what you did all
day focused mostly on that like all the time like i remember when i left there
(05:06):
i actually had an interview with like another company and they were like where
do you see yourself in five years and i was like professional cartoonist.
I'm not, I'm not here.
It's very funny. That's really good. I remember also going back.
So we had like, we've lived concurrent lives in cannabis now,
(05:31):
like more recently since your, your launch of legalization nation,
the book, the, the series, right.
You have multiple volumes of this of this
comic and tell me a little
bit about the transition from uh you know
best-selling you know new york times with you know was it with just uh andre
the john for tetris too right well tetris wasn't a new york times bestseller
(05:54):
but it did pretty well it was nominated for an eisner and stuff wow like real
that's that's pretty cool like i know i know this This guy,
Brian Brown is a clean book about Andy Kaufman. Yeah.
Came out a year or two later, actually won the Eisner. That was,
that was, yeah, I was not aware of that, but that was another one that I,
(06:15):
I have proudly displayed in my, in my collection.
Yeah. So like I was, you know, I was making these books and stuff and then.
Kind of like i got backed up where like i had like two books
in the can ready to come out and i was like waiting for
them to come out and i was like getting involved
with with cannabis in a big way because like they had
(06:36):
just they had legalized so i had
i had been to a bunch of dispensaries all over
the country but they finally had legalized in ta like in philly they were building
they made what year this was probably like that long ago yeah it wasn't that
long ago maybe like five years ago no it had to be like 2018 2017 yeah maybe
(06:59):
it was longer i don't know i can't tell i'm really,
so it was a while back but when they first came and
i remember i was like really excited i have dispensaries
you know and i remember going there
and being like really excited to
like buy weed and like prices were like really high but like i was like i was
(07:21):
just like taken in by like by like the packaging and stuff and just like i was
just so pumped and pretty soon after that like i realized it wasn't going to
be like you know the california dispensaries and or like.
Colorado or anything like that because there's only
like five companies making selling wheat like
(07:42):
the most like watered down like whack
version of so was this so i
totally heard that about pennsylvania like just
a handful and it was totally whack yeah yeah
and it started in 20 uh february 15th 2018
so yeah yeah so
that's like when i also i was like working on a
(08:04):
book about cannabis like the history of
cannabis and so like between those two things and happening i started to get
like super involved in like the whole situation because i was like this is so
fucked up and like i'm not seeing
any i wasn't i didn't feel like i was seeing it being represented in,
(08:25):
in the media or wherever in like a real way like there was you know the you
know the mainstream media covered it like in that not like serious way and like
weed media covered it in a very like.
Market centric way but like
none of it to me was like realistic yeah and so so
(08:48):
was this kind of like an activist move for you it was like your
way of kind of like sticking it
to the corporate corporate cannabis man yeah like
i was like yeah like was talking about it a
lot right and like telling everybody i could
about like how fucked up this is and i feel
like i was uncovering like you know some sort of
(09:09):
like conspiracy or something like that i mean to some degree maybe you know
it sounds like in a lot of you have right monopoly kind of shit yeah and you've
also you've also brought light to through the comic strip you've brought light
to some situations that have gotten.
Notoriety for being just bad behavior right like
(09:30):
you've brought to the attention to the mainstream through
a comic you know you know you wanted you wanted
to do like a very very real real commentary
in a very kind of artistic creative way but you nailed it right well this is
like the my way to like it's the one thing that i like know how to do right
(09:51):
so like make comics because i spent so much time doing it and i was like it's
my one way that i can contribute to this like discussion.
And like in the best way that i can is like through comics
like right i would like you know
well it's very engaging and it really you know
sparks the conversation i see your comics get it's
(10:12):
shared over and over and over again yeah it's
it's cool like i love that like it's i love how people
just start talking and always like in the
commentary under the comic strip i like try
to like follow what's
going on but it always like takes on a life of its own completely that
i'm just like i don't know there's so many people having a conversation
(10:34):
with each other in the the comment section like
i can't even keep up with it at all but i
mean that means that's like that's success right like
that's a measure of your own impact yeah with
what you're doing right like just the fact that like you're just overwhelmed by
people's discussions around this insightful
you know prompt that you give every week right every week you drop one and now
(11:00):
we get to know know what's going on like in all the states because everyone's
commenting so you know you get to hear about all the shitty shit going on all
over often and people send me stuff too all the time so i'm like.
Sometimes i'm just like i don't know what i'm gonna write about like what did people
send me this week and it's like
all kinds of funny weird shit going
(11:21):
on in different places like someone sent me
this article this week i was just reading it today like some
company in maryland like it got
fined 26 000 for they like
put a bunch of product in the dumpster and then
like four days later pulled it out of the dumpster and
repackaged it and sold it oh my gosh so they basically dumpstered it so they
(11:46):
had the whole thing on camera so they got they got fined $26,000 and like in
the article too they're like this they resold this and they made $3,000.
Oh my god was it
worth it yeah you got you made three grand you got fined $26,000 yeah and the
(12:06):
bad press yeah just bad and when they were this company was a like an mso right
it was a big company right i mean there's only kind of like big companies in maryland it's like,
the least one of the least competitive that's so
weird because my husband he is does
the competition director for leaf magazine and so
(12:28):
they're getting ready to have their maryland leaf bowl
those are they're oh yeah cops and so
he's like well i didn't know bezel was out there and
like now all these people are submitting their entries and
it's all these companies that i've heard of yeah i mean that explains it it's
the whole east coast rollout of legalization of them like so like it's actually
(12:52):
all of legalization has kind of just gotten worse over the years if you look
look at like the first law,
like in 96, it was like so much more.
It allowed so for so much more than what has happened since.
You're talking about two 15, like proposition. Yeah, totally.
I mean, that was what we refer to as the wild west of weed.
(13:14):
Yeah, man. Yeah. I came at the tail end of that.
Yeah. And it was like, you know, and then since then, look at even California
with like the rec law, which has like.
You know shrunk the market okay it's like literally regulated the market into
shrinking because uh you know farms can't like keep up with like the harsh regulate regulations and,
(13:39):
whatever new or the ever-changing regulations right right i mean there were
there were companies back in you know back in the day like when i say back in
the day just a few years ago.
That when legalization happened there was this flux and
laws and regulations around packaging around
you know different things and there it
did those changes i remember just they flattened
(14:02):
a bunch of companies just like took a bunch of companies out
yeah it was even stuff like you know you
need like this type of bathroom like put
into your facility yeah or you need to like lower your
curb here by a half an inch oh
well let's let's not talk about the cannabis tourism tourism initial regs
out of humble county they wanted us to like measure road
(14:24):
widths and stuff like that it was like insanity it was like
but eventually that stuff all changed and then
you feel bad for the guy who like did the thing and like went through the process
and he's like oh you know matt our buddy matt out of humble tours he went through
that process and it was not fair it was not cool it's just like why are you
doing this like over complication of they wouldn't do If they were to do it
(14:47):
to other industries, they definitely would not.
It's like that, you know, the whole over-regulation of the industry everywhere,
it leads to, like, total...
Like, this is the reason why we don't have a lot of, like, small business participation,
because it's just, like, you can't just...
Like open a store it has to be in this
(15:10):
like really really specific serpentine process yeah
like really with like a total like catch-22 of
permitting it's like the whole thing is just like yeah you gotta
pay taxes on your wet weave yeah all this stuff
and then then it's also like you know county regulations
and city regulations meanwhile local
localities are even though the state
(15:32):
will have legalized cannabis each individual
township will have to like opt in
or opt out so like even in california something like
70 percent of townships don't
even allow weed businesses yeah i live in one
of those yeah yeah no it's most of the state and
it's actually it's incredible because the the
(15:55):
majority of those dispensaries exist in like
two three places right like like yeah pretty much like the bay area and yeah
in la and that and you know some parts you know north and east yeah yeah so
it's just a little you know sack norcal and in la that's it people are surprised
to hear that about california because it's like that in jersey you know like.
(16:18):
And massachusetts there was like a hundred how many
how many dispensaries in jersey now it's like over a hundred right
i mean because i heard there's some in jersey city
where we used to live and i'm thinking damn there's many
coming i guess but like there's not
enough producers in jersey yet so this
is like this is what i keep saying right it's like to all
(16:39):
these like growers out here who are like struggling to stay alive i am just
praying for the day that the the controlled substances act falls apart and they
repeal that and then you know interstate commerce will solve that problem and the local farmer,
you know, demand problem, you know, anyway,
(17:02):
what'd you say? What'd you say? What'd you say?
Interstate shipping thing is like the key to
the whole thing because like let's face
backs here like in the traditional market it's
like all california product it's like 90 percent california product in like
the traditional market around here right you know all up and down the east coast
(17:23):
and probably like in most states and how much of it may is stolen product how
much yeah I mean, it's all fucking who knows.
You know, you hear everything about like the California product.
Like it's, you know, backdoor stuff.
It's fucking fake stuff.
Like, you know, the sprayed buds. Yeah. Big trap bags. Yeah.
(17:46):
You hear like everything you can imagine. I mean, I just saw this video.
Someone sent me yesterday about like that had this like fucking weird weird
looking like terp bending machine thing where like you you take like you take
like your cannabis and put it in like a microwave type oh god and it comes here it comes it's like.
(18:08):
You like type it's like the coke machine like the any.
Kind of coke machine where you type in what flavor
you want and it like sucks the terps up through these tubes and
like infuses the bud this is what
prohibition causes guys like prohibition makes shit like
this a possibility gross exactly i mean like
this is like just sounds like fair food yeah yeah
(18:32):
yeah i mean like and this you know that
you don't when you when you i don't know
this is why we need the interstate because it's all
california weed anyway and it's all yeah it's well it's because for
you know forever you know california has
a has a climate that can grow cannabis
you know the way we grow it and it's not so
(18:52):
conducive in other parts years like these new
states come in and like they're they're running they're doing like
that first run ever like in new york
whatever it's like the sir or whatever and then
yeah and then that weed's got to be sold right and then it goes into the
hands of consumers in new jersey for like 90 bucks
a quarter 100 bucks a quarter like it's
(19:13):
all one big market right the legal market in the traditional market
like these small companies
are just starting out growing weed like first time
in this facility whatever and then the actual competition at a street level
is california weed yeah like you know like there at least needs to be an opportunity
(19:35):
for for those dispensaries to sell that exact same product like that.
People are actually buying and why i'm ask you explain to me how it feels to
be so good at explaining i mean you have this wide knowledge and it's like at
times it's intricate understanding.
(19:57):
Of how the how the industry works explain
what it what it's like to how do
you distill that down down in a in a strip
in just a few panels like what's that
what's that process like for you it's it's hard
sometimes because you're like i gotta say this but
i can't i can't just i have
(20:19):
to explain this part of it too it it
can be really difficult especially like when i
try to think about like who the strip is for like
is it for like people
that already know like a lot about that weed and they're
like in the industry anyway or is it
for just like people that don't even
(20:41):
know anything about weed and just like are interested because
the comic whatever and so i
try to like ride that line where i'm like constantly having to like explain
like technology or like or just like industry jargon yeah like how how things
(21:01):
are made in the industry yeah totally yeah i mean And like,
I've probably like, I stopped using the term MSO, right?
Because like, everybody knows it, like in weed industry, but like,
people, the average person doesn't know the term MSO, like that doesn't mean
anything to like, some Joe Schmo walking down the street or whatever.
(21:22):
Like, I always have to be like, you know, large corporate.
You know we beam it yeah also like
as as the markets and as
things go on like there's small
businesses that are technically mso's at this
point you know they happen to be in like a couple states
(21:45):
whatever you're in maine and massachusetts or
like something like that you're technically an mso so it's
like but but so it's like i'm speaking about like it
refers to a specific class of of
of like corporate cannabis you
know group yeah corporate personhood yeah
yeah like truly yeah exactly like
(22:08):
truly yeah cresco those
type of yeah there's three of the top yeah yeah
cresco was like the first company i
remember seeing in pa PA and they've
been here this whole time you know it's
just like I still have not Jersey's been
(22:29):
legal for a while and I still there's never been there
hasn't been any product that's come out in New Jersey that has like made me
even for a second consider driving to New Jersey to go oh i'll go get that jersey
weed brutal so yeah new jersey is mids a new podcast by chris gethard.
(22:53):
In the stores are the same as what's in the medical market in pa it's actually
not even as good as the pa medical market yeah because that market has had time
for other people to come in and people would be like we want more yeah and it's
actually it's crazy because like it'll be like the
cure leaf in philadelphia and the cure leaf
(23:16):
in belmar new jersey which are like 20 minutes
away from each other maximum and one will
be selling like a cure leaf weed
for you know 200 bucks an ounce and then over in jersey it's 350 an ounce or
something like that which is insane it's 15 minutes away dude those people don't
(23:37):
even know what they're doing so they're in arizona and one one of my closest
and dearest friends is from Arizona.
He had moved to Denver for a while to like work in making hash and working in
a lab. And then he saw there was labs in Arizona.
So we moved back to Arizona, started working at Cureleaf and they're selling
distillate pens and calling it live resin.
(24:00):
And he called them out and like, they got all weird.
And you know, they did some like company wide training and stuff.
And he ended up leaving there and working for a smaller company,
but that just shows you how shady they are.
I've heard this a lot from growers and stuff that have gotten jobs at a corporate cannabis company.
(24:23):
And the grower is an experienced grower and knows a lot.
And comes in and is like, we should actually be doing it this way or whatever.
But they don't really want to hear that. It would be like going to a McDonald's
and being like, we should actually cook these burgers in a different way.
And McDonald's is like, no, no, we do it this way.
Like this is like whole fucking franchise thing that
(24:46):
happened to another friend of mine and he was
supposed to run some stuff and with the i won't say
the company because they're pretty big here in california and he ended up getting
paid like a hundred thousand dollars just to like pretty much defoliate because
they didn't want to implement any of the things he wanted to change yeah that's
the thing i mean look even working in marketing and and consultative work Like,
(25:10):
you know, how many times have I given people like paid advice that they just don't listen to?
Like that's a thing, but I don't think it's a unique to the cannabis industry.
I think it's, it's a thing, but yeah, it's, uh, and you know,
I'm really kind of like, you know, torn a little bit because I am total Brian box Brown fan boy.
(25:35):
Right. I have to admit I'm a total giddy fan boy.
What are you working on right now what's what's
keeping you busy right now so i've been
doing a lot of uh freelance work over the last couple
months freelance illustration and stuff
and but you know i'm also working on this a book that is like a fiction book
(25:57):
that i'm slowly tipping away at which was interesting i haven't you know i haven't
messed around in fiction in in a long time are you writing words so it's no
more drawing just words it's a comic oh but.
It's kind of about like death and well, it's about a, like a technology that
(26:19):
allows people to be like downloaded into like,
into like an app that their loved ones can like communicate with,
like after they're dead. Very black mirror. Yeah.
That would not be so, I mean, it's weird, weird, but it would be kind of cool.
Yeah. It's kind of like coming soon to an app store near you.
(26:39):
It's kind of like, you know, you're upset if you're, your parents
you know well you don't expect to die or whatever
but like what if they were around all the time oh i don't know they're just
watching all the time i mean i'm sure you're posing some quite quite the existential
questions right yeah so yeah so so how's that coming along what do you what
(27:01):
are you most excited about on that you know chipping away at it slowly,
and and it's just like my you
know side gig kind of right now and
working on legalization nation and then like
that to me is like my my favorite
thing to work i get excited sometimes i'll be bummed out
on like tuesday morning i'm like a man
(27:24):
like ever pissed off or
something and then i'm like oh it's tuesday like today's the day
i post my comment and i like get real excited i'm
just like you know get to
see what everybody has to say yeah is it does it feel very
like like a lot of people work on things in their career and you know it's like
a long-term deliverable and then you feel like you deliver it and you feel the
(27:47):
the good vibes and the good feels of of having done good work but you get a
chance to do that once a week yeah no it is that's like why i.
On its face like it doesn't like make it makes a little bit of money but like
only like a tiny bit so it's kind of like almost a loss leader because it's
(28:08):
my way to like be involved in the.
Cannabis industry you're making a huge impact with
that loss leader dude like i think like like you
know in many ways most activists will pay to do activism work
like that's what being an activist activist is all about
and even though you are making you know a little bit of a living off
of it you're still your impact is felt globally
(28:29):
you're presenting yeah people are talking
you're you're talking to people in a
way that is very accessible relatable you're
talking to people in a way where you're not you're very
like an omniscient fly on the wall but you know
you're not guiding them in any one direction or the other like you're
(28:49):
glad you're a real stoner oh yeah you're real deal dude
you're real deal like that was my next question like what do
you smoking on dude oh i've actually
been been on all kinds of
different trying out all kinds of different shit lately i had
a big event in in new york city in january and so i got to sample a ton of the
(29:13):
like legacy slash traditional cannabis from from a couple of the growers out
there it's crazy he's so sweet it's fire,
yeah these guys like literally this guy I designed him very,
oh wow it's super sweet so now do you all just get weed whenever you want from them they hook it up.
(29:36):
When i see them as they should but so they
have fire fire ass weed they've been growing for like 20 years and now they're
like trying to you know they they gave legacy operators kind of some cover a
little bit to like come out of the shadows and try to get like license in new
york but it's still been a struggle for these guys like it's been a couple years
(29:57):
now and they're still like trying to.
Like going through that process you know
it's always so funny brian when like i
hear this from people but it's like i always wonder how
much of this and this is a question for you how much of this is like you
know legacy operators are used to operating in a
certain very specific way it's a
(30:18):
different kind of business yeah and then when you break open the nut of legalization
everybody's like you know running around with a chicken like with like
a chicken with their head cut off it's not that they're bad
business people it's that they've never done business
that way way yeah too much computer work oh
there is a ton of there is a ton of more
extra shit that's another thing though why i'm like why there's
(30:39):
too much shit there's too much shit there's too
much and the rent's too damn high yeah that's
like extra hoops regulatory hoops and
stuff yeah it's already bad enough running a small business
hard stop you add weed to that and you're
just like inundated with just bureaucracy and
garbage you're selling whatever pencils like it
(31:01):
would be you know a total you know
you'd have to go through the whole like getting licensed finding property whatever
that whole situation it's not easy but then
add if they had a million different regulations on
how you're able to create pencils your pencil packaging yeah and like everything
everything imaginable it's like you know is well i mean is that necessary even
(31:26):
like i think it stems from stigma.
On cannabis and like fear and like yeah and like it's a lot of it is.
There's a lot of security theater type stuff going on. Like window dressing kind of thing?
Yeah, it's to keep the people that aren't smoking weed happy.
(31:49):
It's really funny that you mentioned that. In many ways, when I run the tours
into Mendo or I meet with a new farm or a new farmer, a lot of times,
most times, and this is a good question, it's not a bad question,
but I have a better answer to their question than they have a question.
So a lot of times I'll get asked, like, what do you plan to do to protect my farm?
And I'm like, bro, you got a permit in California.
(32:11):
You should have a security plan to protect your farm. I'm not doing anything to protect your farm.
Like, you know, I'm paying you to provide a service to guests and we're going
to be as responsible and as as tidy and as as as as good stewards of your property as we can be.
But like how like what am i supposed to do like
send up helicopters and drones to prevent like people forever from
(32:33):
like breaching your security plan like dude you
you got through the process you have the plan it should work you know i mean
you gotta think like it's going on tour at at this could only bring like good
word of mouth and stuff to the oh totally and that's what we do like Like,
(32:55):
I mean, Brian, ultimately,
like, like, you know, in many ways we do a very, we provide educative services
to the, to the general populace who, uh, you know, read your,
read your, read your work and, and, and also the folks that take our tours.
But at the end of the day, we're, we're exposing two very different sides of an industry, right?
(33:19):
The same industry, right? Like I'm bringing people to this, I'm,
I'm sharing people into the story, the storyline, this legacy of the cannabis
trail from San Francisco. Yeah. A deeper appreciation.
And you're exposing kind of the antithesis.
Antithesis, antithetical, the antithetical, you know, force there. Right.
(33:44):
And I think it's such a, such a, you know, I would have never,
I would have expected you when I, when we first met, I would have thought to
myself, this guy's going to do big things. Right.
But I never, ever, ever thought that you would have done it in the way you did it.
And it's such a refreshing way way to look at.
(34:05):
Look, being a fanboy of your strip, of your work, I look forward to it when
it drops because in many ways, it's like a little bit of that insider tip that
I may not be connected with.
And I learn a lot. Dude, I've been in this industry 20 some years.
You provide me a little glimpse into things that I don't know about,
(34:28):
and you do it in a quick, digestible, easy way, almost
dare i say for the social media you know
generation it's so easily digestible it's so easily understandable and it makes
such an important impact on people's lives every week um and i think it also
shows that how most of us are on the same team yeah absolutely you know and
(34:50):
we get to connect with people all over on the on these same topics and i think that's.
Fucking marvelous you didn't answer my question though you have to tell go ahead
go ahead go ahead I have a question.
I always think that... So you've been in California a while,
right? A little over 12, 13, almost 13 years, yeah.
Yeah, but you come back to the East
Coast sometimes. I always think that like... No, go on. I wonder if...
(35:16):
Like that sometimes people that are in California can't really see the rest
of the industry like at all.
Well, you know, it's, it's funny that you mentioned that I've been with cannabis
bar services now been back into those other markets. Right.
And I have teams in other markets, Michigan, New York, New Jersey, you know, Oregon.
And, you know, you're right. Like it's, it's, it's easy to put the blinders
(35:38):
on and live in California.
It's easy to not look out. but I've been forced to, to kind of experience the,
the way others live in their world.
And look, I've hit my face on the floor pretty hard a couple of times,
like from a business perspective, right?
Like, look, not every place is like California in many different ways.
(36:00):
And one of those aspects for me that I found most intriguing,
hindering, whatever you want to call it is the fact that in like,
for example, like Michigan, comparatively to California.
The laws in Michigan are pretty awesome and permissive, but culturally speaking,
people are still in that period of like looking over their shoulder,
(36:21):
worrying about people, worrying about the car.
It's not as open. It's not as free. It's not as talked about.
It's something you've still got to be like looking across the way to see who
you're talking to, to understand if it's going to be taboo for them or not.
So it's like something that I have to be, very measured
and careful of when you know selling services
in other states and regions that are cannabis centric because
(36:44):
people are just not as wild and loosey-goosey as
these crazy liberal californians we are
loosey-goosey and we will roll up everywhere the market in california has shrunk
a little bit still it's like so like much bigger than many other states it is
contracted but yes we are the seventh seventh largest you know economy in the world like yeah.
(37:09):
It's a numbers game yeah and like
everything yeah yeah and then
it's just like there there's also california has is
not dominated california has its
own like huge fucking cannabis companies that
are like california only that are actually probably going
to be like the companies that are national names
(37:32):
one day you know well that's why i think like right
now like even the term mso if you really think about
it like there are state operations that exist
only in california that will overshadow like half of the msos out there oh my
god definitely even even like you know like steezy or something like that yeah
(37:52):
those guys yeah whatever they're they're huge and they're they're like just
in California and you know, their,
their product is everywhere. Yeah.
True. But I mean, you know, they would.
They're able to compete in california where cresco
can't compete and like and like cure
(38:13):
leaf left california like they're just
like not even bothering like they can't move any product
at all it's weird like new jersey's like a weird like
stockholm syndrome weed market it's like
it beats you to death and but you still got to go
back to it every time it's just it really
is there's certain people that will even that defend
(38:34):
it like there's certain like class of people i
feel like that will defend stuff like that the nimbys yeah because
it's so still convenient like and being
like oh yeah you know like i don't care that it's
just like sucks but like because i can
just still go buy it whatever they're like happy about
it and i'm like no man like go anywhere else like leave
(38:55):
the state once like yeah get higher standards for
for yourself um but like i still
every time i i think about the jersey thing i'm like still
it's it's gonna get better it's gonna get better but
like you know it's just like this endless baby
step process just like so annoying to like watch go down let me ask you a question
(39:18):
about this is going to be kind of a funny one but i want to take i want a couple
takes on some things all right we're going to play a little game i'm going to
say something and you're going to tell Tell me what you think about that something.
So here, microdosing cannabis, necessary move or marketing genius?
(39:38):
Microdosing cannabis? Yeah, microdosed cannabis. Yeah, I don't know.
I think that just seems like a way to sell more weed at a higher price.
Okay. No, less weed at a higher price. Less weed for more. Less weed at a higher
price. All right. Next question.
Live resin take it or leave it you
(40:00):
know like i hadn't smoked live resin in a really long
time and i got some recently someone
gave me some and i just i couldn't even
take it compared to like rosin yeah yeah like
live resin is still like ultimately distillate no yeah
i mean like no i'm sure
there's like i'm sure there's people out there that
(40:22):
are making like buyer live resin but like i would
turn it down at this i'd rather smoke flour and agree we'll do one more of these
brian all right last one what new jersey rec market a mess a mess forever or the best is yet to come.
(40:43):
It's not going to be terrible forever. Like there needs to be more.
And this is going to happen when it's just taking forever with New Jersey and like, whatever.
I think like Jersey real estate has a lot to do with this because like it's
expensive as hell, like everywhere.
Well, they all, the Jersey also has that similar thing.
(41:04):
California was doing with green zones, right? Like approved arbitrarily approved,
proved AK arbitrarily also known as lobbied for zones where buildings are allowed
to be cannabis, you know, facilities.
I think that's township by township and like pick the spots,
you know? Yeah. That's really, that's some bogus BS.
(41:26):
If you ask me, I think that's like perfect. Like that's like,
you know, you want to talk about like nepotistic behavior.
You want to talk about, you know, cherry picking, gerrymandering,
whatever you want to call it.
It's all. Yeah. Yeah, it's just perfect awfulness. And it's discrimination.
It is, yeah. All of a sudden, because somebody draws a green line around your
(41:47):
neighborhood, now your building can rent for six times more than everything
around it. That's some bullshit.
If you look at Massachusetts has had legal weed for a lot longer than Jersey and they're like, just.
Starting to have a more more
(42:08):
mature market that's like not all corporate
and like some you know local
massachusetts businesses like are you know developing a little bit you know
and so jersey is going to be slow like that it's going to be you know we're
talking you know maybe like five years from now i could go go to the dispensary,
(42:34):
that's nowhere near the beach.
There's no dispensary. All the beach towns, there's no dispensaries in the whole
county. By design, I'm sure.
Which is obnoxious. They fucking let Jersey Shore happen, but they won't let dispensaries.
You drive up this one town in Jersey, Tom's River, right? It's like the gateway to the beach.
(42:55):
And you're driving through it, and there's no dispensaries allowed.
They permanently banned all cannabis businesses.
And the whole town is like one commercial drag that has everything on it.
Like every liquor stores like any every fast
food place like vape shops like dispensaries
(43:16):
even not dispensaries but like head shops even but
like no not allowed to sell weed so you
can go and get like everything you need here for your vacation like
right before you get to the beach except we have to like get
bring that with you new jersey levels of
inconvenience you never thought stronger than the
storm remember that one victor but i
(43:39):
hear atlantic city is supposed to be gonna be
like kind of like a wee destination we're hearing
about that i've actually spoken to rob meja at stockton university in his class
about i've spoken to them about you know what i do for work and emerald farm
tours and everything and had a really nice reception there with those those
guys it was a nice conversation they were really engaged we're coming victor what was that.
(44:05):
How many times did you go vacation in atlantic city when
you lived out there because i went exactly zero times dude
i've been to atlantic like i've been let me just put it to you
this way i've been kicked out of atlantic city more than i've actually spent time in
atlantic city like it's not it's not
i mean like look it's all right
so the philly people will go to atlantic city area
(44:26):
like but they go to like ventnor yeah
they do see what i'm saying like it's nobody has actually ends up on
the boardwalk in atlantic sea that's like misery there were weed stores
there that had of course shit i would
go there when i was going to the pto but i think
that's the intention right like that's what my understanding is like
they're they're trying to you know sin city
(44:47):
in new jersey which is atlantic city right you got all the
casinos and everything they're trying to kind of push
more again more of the whole like let's
force this into the place where it belongs and not make
it accessible to everyone you know it's kind
of crazy like you know why does atlantic city need to be this epicenter of of
of cannabis lounges like cannabis lounges should be in places where there's
(45:11):
high density populations right like there's lots of people living together where
like maybe you want to smoke with other people maybe you're Maybe you want to
get together with your friends and like not smoke in your apartment,
you know, like, like the, the, the lounge places would be best, like near other shit.
(45:34):
As like a stop on a trip, like on a night out. The road trip.
Well, look, you look at dispensaries in San Francisco right now,
and I'll tell you, I go into a lot of dispensaries often,
and the ones that are doing the best are the ones with a lounge.
(45:55):
Yo, well, listen to this. In rural Illinois, kind of near Gary,
Indiana, my good friend Dredd, he's building to grow right there.
And right across the street, which is part of the same thing,
there's a dispensary, a casino, a bar and a restaurant.
So for his break every day, he gets to go and like, you know,
(46:16):
roll up a joint, enjoy it in the lounge and then buy food.
And it's like perfect. And it's like they're leaps and bounds ahead of us here
in California. And it's in rural Illinois.
Yeah. Well, hey, Brian, we're coming on our time here soon.
I I got to ask you a couple more things that I want to get on record here.
Let me just ask a very 30,000-foot question.
(46:41):
In your years writing cannabis comics and writing about and learning about cannabis
and kind of talking to multiple folks in the industry and learning the way you
have learned to be this foremost scholar on cannabis stuff here in this format.
(47:02):
What has been the biggest learning moment?
What was the aha moment? After all these years, you look back on the thing that
you're most impressed about,
either yourself or something you learned about the industry,
but more importantly, about yourself and about how cannabis brought you to that.
(47:23):
Well, I think the biggest like aha moment I probably had was after we had like
legal medical cannabis here.
Finding the cultural markets here and like the places where,
(47:45):
and talking to the people that just like, we'll never buy wheat at a dispensary
and like haven't ever, and have no interest in like it at all.
Like, it's just like totally.
That's a thing. And that's surprising to me too. Always. Yeah.
A hundred percent. There's like tons of people like,
like I always think about like the, the people that
(48:06):
would have made up like a grateful dead parking lot scene like
that will just like i have the
access to like all the best weed and like already like
are consuming and enjoying way better weed than you could ever buy at the dispensaries
around here and how many how big that section of the market really is i mean
(48:30):
and that's like the gold mine right it's still like Like that's like the ultimate conversion.
Like if you, those people that are like on the forefront of like the craft of
the industry and like the best products really in the industry,
like, you know, like the people that were,
that were making hash rosin and using it like before,
(48:53):
before like whatever Cresco was, you know what I'm saying?
Like these people, these are the people that have like the best that are on
the forefront of of like the culture of cannabis and like.
I always think that like the best cannabis markets will be ones.
And like, I won't, I won't even see a, you know, a legal cannabis market that
(49:15):
I think is good unless it like incorporates these people into the market,
you know, in a place like Maine or something like that, where you're allowed
to be a caregiver and like, you can get your products into a dispensary pretty
easily as like a small producer or whatever.
Like until you see
(49:35):
stuff like that happening and and it's
not like impossible for like the average
joe to like to like get their
stuff out there there's always going to be like this separate markets
like this cultural market that
exists beyond the legal market now that
(49:55):
is a great great point and i want
to ask on the heels of that is culture cannabis
culture regardless of where it comes from
is that the new commodity here is that the
valuable is that the value prop on the
industry now is it the culture i mean yeah i mean that's the thing that i feel
(50:16):
like a lot of i mean the that's the thing that the corporate cannabis can never
like emulate right like they they haven't been able to at all figure out a way
to incorporate that into their product.
It still feels like, you know, this like, you know, culture lists like inauthentic,
(50:39):
like buying weed at like an Apple store.
And like, it was feels like it was made by a computer or something like that too. Like.
So, like, that is the commodity. You're right. Like, that is a commodity right now.
And, like, you can also see it in, like, the most savvy legal operators trying to co-opt that culture.
(51:02):
You know what I'm saying?
Like, you can see it. You can see it in, like, the more savvy large operators.
Still, like, the big demos, like, just don't give a shit at all.
Like, they're, like, operating.
They don't need us. Well, their customer, they understand their customer.
Like, they know. Yeah, like their customer base is not that. It's not that.
(51:23):
Exactly. And I don't think they, you know, the smartest among them know that
they'll never, you know, get that market.
But they're happy selling mids to the general populace.
Mids to the kids, but not the kids. You know what I mean?
No, it is. It's like 30% of the sweet smoking population.
(51:43):
Like the, you know, baby boomers, like, and just like casual users.
What's the most important thing you want people to take away from reading your strip?
So like one of my goals always is to just reduce stigma of cannabis and like,
just like the way we talk about cannabis.
(52:04):
Like I just, I don't think that it always has to be, even though it's a comic
strip, people are like, it's like the least funny comic strip, right?
Like it's not like, not like funny at all because I just think that like the
way people talk about cannabis, it's like always a joke.
Right. Like it's always like the butt of the joke. And so like I try to take
(52:25):
cannabis seriously and talk about it like without considering like the overall
stigma of it and how like,
you know, I try never to like build upon that.
Like you'll never see me talk about cannabis people being stupid or anything like that.
(52:45):
You have a lot of respect for it. You have a lot of respect for it.
Totally. And we see that.
I try to keep it on the level. I want people to walk away.
This is like a defense mechanism, I think, for making comics.
The way people think about comics as a childish kind of thing.
And I always thought of it as something that could be much more powerful than
(53:09):
just something that's there for a joke or whatever.
And so and i think of cannabis kind
of in the same way it's not it's people think
of it as like this like goofy thing you know
maybe because of years of representation in media
or whatever but like it's a serious thing that
(53:29):
people use and take some
people take it seriously and like it's and
if we can take it seriously we can
like you know talk about it seriously i think
we'll see better laws and like like all of
the bad laws come from stigma they get they're
able to get away with it because yeah agreed brian we're coming to the end of
(53:53):
our of our time together and i want to thank you so much for an incredible an
incredible hour here spent learning more about you as a friend i thought i knew
brian brocks brown i'm learning so much more every day.
Brian, there's something we do on every episode of High On Tour.
We wrap up an episode. We give our guest the High On Tour hot take of the show.
(54:17):
You're going to get yourself 30 seconds to tell our audience,
your listeners, anything you want to share with them.
Now is your moment. Now is your shining chance.
Go for it, Brian Box Brown. Well, first, I'd like to tell everybody who doesn't,
please check out my comic strip. You can read it on my Instagram,
(54:38):
Fox Brown, and you can check out my Patreon also.
And yeah, I don't know. Where can they find the strip?
So yeah, you can, if you search legalization nation, you'll find it.
And yeah, you can find it on my Instagram and my, and on my Twitter.
I also posted on my blue sky account and LinkedIn. I've been posting it on.
(55:03):
And also it's distributed by King features, the same company that distributes Popeye.
Super cool. So it does get out a little bit to like the general population.
Well, thank you so much, Brian Brown.
You are a, a, a true gentleman. You are a true hero.
You are a true artist and we love all your work.
(55:27):
We love how you're really, really beating back the stigma and educating masses
of people globally about the things that they, they don't hear that they should
be hearing. So thank you so much for the work you do, Brian.
April, as always, thank you for being a great co-host. You're the best.
We'll see everybody again next time on High On Tour with Victor Pino and April Black.
(55:54):
Music.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.