Ep. 56: (Replay) A Green Take on Black Friday w/Author Penny Barthel – Fri, November 21, 2025

KCAA: Just Say KNOW with Maria, by Green Bee Life on Fri, 21 Nov, 2025

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hello again, and welcome to Just Say No, That's No
with a kk Now. I'm your host, Maria Calabrese, and
you're listening to KCAA Radio ten fifty am one oh
six point five FM in the England Empire and beyond
mo I'm so glad you're joining us today on this

(00:25):
special Black Friday edition of Just Say No, because, let's
face it, if we don't carve out time for ourselves now,
the next few weeks is going to feel like running
a marathon in flip flops. Joining me today is my dear,
dear friend and brilliant author of The Cannabis Gardener, Penny Barthel.

(00:47):
Penny has been profiled by the La Times as a
pro when it comes to growing her own cannabis, crafting
her own edibles and tinctures, and sharing with others to
add a little DIY magic to your self care and holidays.
She's here to show us how cannabis can be a

(01:08):
game changer during this most stressful time. So grab your
favorite cozy beverage, kickback, and let's take a little break
from the Black Friday chaos to focus on you. This
is just saying No. Let's get started.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
By twenty twenty. Bank of America and Merrill Lynch estimate
that will go to thirty five billion dollars, and many
experts believe it could eventually reach two hundred billion dollars.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
Each and every year. This biscot can see young moroson.

Speaker 3 (02:06):
You.

Speaker 4 (02:13):
I'm a better fie who is gonna begun taking.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
Me a while to get it.

Speaker 4 (02:18):
Had to live and cry to appreciate life and what
you give this work. When you're holding me, when you
hold me so close someone father and under your skin,
I want to leave them, Mike, so then I can
be welcome.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
Penny, thank you so much for joining us today.

Speaker 3 (02:36):
I am delighted to be here with you. Maria.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
Oh wow, Well we're privileged, and I know everybody's dying
to know a little bit about yourself and how you
came to discover cannabis and what listeners can learn from
your amazing book, The Cannabis Gardner.

Speaker 3 (02:57):
Yeah, thank you for that. I'm going to say this.
I into cannabis very much sideways. I have been spent
a lot of my adult life. I've always loved food.
I've a total nerd. I love plants. I am a
lifelong gardener, a cook actually sort of got myself going
with a food blog, and on that I had a

(03:21):
couple of awesome recipes. One of them made it to
Sunset magazine in twenty seventeen. From that, I kind of
got acquainted with the gardening culture. I always knew that
there was weed in the Bay area. I was neither
for it nor against. I was just kind of beside it.
But about a decade ago I discovered that a friend

(03:41):
of mine was put in a brand new garden tons
of sun and the person who was helping her put
that garden in had stage four cancer, and he revealed
to her how much he used cannabis for his own
well being and to be able to help him withstand
the rigors of chemotherapy. And although she and I were
neither foreign or against cannabis, she thought, look, I've got

(04:02):
this great new garden, why don't I grow some cannabis
for him, and gifted to him.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
And so she.

Speaker 3 (04:09):
Passed me with figuring out how to grow it. Because
I'm just sort of an experimental gardener, I'm like, sure,
I'll try that. And I had some friends in the
bar area. We grew a couple of plants together. We
had a terrible grow we did not know what we
were doing. But through that I decided to do the
research to figure out, well, how can she grow this plant?

(04:30):
I fell deep in love with this plant, just fell
in love with it, started taking my own notes and
went looking for a book that I could give to her.
And there was not a book out there. There was
lots of information for the commercial grower, lots of information
for indoor grows, but nothing that situated this plant where

(04:51):
I wanted to grow, which was in my garden. Since
that time of a decade ago or a little bit
less than that, I have been on the journey of
my own growing the plant and then enjoying it and
using and experimenting with it. I decided to go a
little deeper in and I went to Oaksterdam, which is
a school here in Oakland that teaches the cannabis industry,

(05:12):
teaches people to go and work in the cannabis industry.
So I took a horticulture semester. So I'm a certified
cannabis horticulturist. I came in sideways as a gardener and
a cook, and I ended up a cannabis author and educator.

Speaker 1 (05:25):
Would you say it's true of anyone who's part of
a backyard gardener that just has a love for plants
that if they become acquainted with cannabis, it's going to
have the same effect on them. They're been a fall
in love, I think.

Speaker 3 (05:41):
So you know, I've got friends who grow it and
don't use it. They have a lot of good friends
that they give it to, but they are so in
love with this plant. We'll get perhaps more deep into
the weeze is. Like I like to say on how
to grow it, but I'll tell you one thing. It
goes from a tiny little seed too in my garden

(06:02):
a nine foot tall monster of a plant in four months.
So from seed to drive bud in my jar in
five months. It's a really fun plant to grow, real
easy too, it is.

Speaker 1 (06:16):
I actually tried it myself, and we'll talk about that
too when we get to growing it at home. Today
is our Black Friday special edition, and we're going to
take all green take on on this Black Friday where
we're prioritizing wellness over consumerism. And did you know that

(06:39):
Black Friday originally started in Philadelphia in the nineteen seventies
and had absolutely positively nothing to do with shopping. I
like to make the metaphor that cannabis started out as
a Schedule one, but it really has absolutely positively nothing
to do with Schedule one.

Speaker 3 (06:58):
But no, little Really, I like to say this, I
like to say, cannabis was framed, right, Cannabis was framed.
Doesn't belong there, never did. It belongs in the garden.
And I love what you said.

Speaker 1 (07:11):
And Penny, you know who else was framed? Eve? I
always like to say, evils frain started in the garden.
It always starts in the garden. So there go. But yeah,
what happened with Black Friday? I guess the police used

(07:32):
that term to describe the chaos that was generated from
shoppers wanting to get out early the day after Thanksgiving
to hit the sales, but they wanted he had home
in time for the Army Navy football game, and it
just was a frenzy. There were traffic jams and everything else.

(07:52):
So it got coined by the police in Philadelphia's Black Friday.
But then in the nineteen eighties, retailers grab it. Hey marketing,
let's make it this shopping extravaganza. And it's when the
stores finally went into black and became profitable for the year.
So we do say from your experience that this hands

(08:16):
on DIY approach rather than just even in cannabis, there's
so many I'm not bad mouthing them, but there's so
many emerging brands and products and gadgets. Would you say
the di y hands on approach has it's been more
meaningful and sustainable way to even nurture yourself, especially during

(08:39):
the madness and pressures of the holiday season.

Speaker 3 (08:43):
Oh yes, for sure, you can't. There are there are
young people today who who have grown up with just dispensaries,
and they think that you go to a dispensary and
you get stuff, and that's cannabis. Someone It's there's a
bit analogy between cannabis. I think in food, meaning if
if you've never lived on a farm, if you've never

(09:05):
grown anything in a garden, and you go to a store,
there's a strong association between here's this thing that I
buy in a store and that's what we eat. Right. Well,
there's a whole lot more to food, of course than
just going to a store. And I'm going to say
the truth, the same thing is true with cannabis. It's
only very recently that cannabis was considered anything other than

(09:29):
just one of many medicinal and I will call them
culinary herbs in the garden. But today, just like how
Black Friday transformed so recently, that's a very recent thing.
Cannabis just has never has. It's only recent that it's
something you could buy and that it was in preparations.
That's brand new to the human experience. But for all

(09:52):
of humans, says here, let's go back. Humans have been
interacting with cannabis for we don't even know how long,
twelve thousand years fifteen. There's document tentation that goes a
long time back, so we've had a long time to
experiment with cannabis and enjoy it both as a euphorient
something for health, for fiber, for textiles, for food. You

(10:13):
can use it for building materials. But it's only post prohibition,
which was really started in nineteen thirty seven and it
still exists in some parts of the country today that
we've thought of cannabis as a drug or b something
you buy in a store. Those two things are brand new.

Speaker 1 (10:31):
So for me, when my.

Speaker 3 (10:33):
Relationship with cannabis is very much as a being, in
a way, it's a plant and by the way, hot
for gardening. You asked a little bit about gardening. To
grow cannabis is easy, but you have to know the
plant and then give it what it wants. That's true
for all plants.

Speaker 1 (10:51):
Panels just got to say, it's true for all everything
in your garden. Right, that's it.

Speaker 3 (10:55):
You know, like you, how do you grow a plant? Well,
figure out what it needs and give it to it.
That's gardening in a nutshell.

Speaker 1 (11:02):
That's just and it's the same for parenting. Find out
what it needs? What what? What did you say? The
formula was the planet?

Speaker 3 (11:09):
What it needs? What does it need? Give it to
it and get it to it.

Speaker 1 (11:14):
That's it.

Speaker 3 (11:15):
Give the plant what it needs and it will respond
with huge abundance.

Speaker 1 (11:20):
That's growing. That's growing, and you you share the gift
of this abundance. I mean, just in the book, it's
it's it's incredible. I I really enjoy it. I enjoy
reading about the science of cannabis and the molecule, getting
down to the molecular structure. But this is just it's

(11:44):
it's such a unique literary work because you really do
treat it the way it should be treated, like anything
else in your garden or that you would grow. And
if you don't grow then that you would buy at
a farmer's market or eventually at a supermarket. So as

(12:05):
we dream ahead of our gardens for the spring, what
would we be thinking about now when it comes to
adding cannabis or I mean, do you use seeds? How
do you choose a seed? What should we be thinking
about as we're thinking about our spring.

Speaker 3 (12:25):
That's a great question to ask. If gardeners know that winter,
that gardening is year round, even if you're not outside,
your gardening in your head. And so winter is the
time when all the seed catalogs come to your door,
and gardener is just pour over the pages and salivating, Oh,
I'm going to grow this this year and this and that.
So what seed picking time? But with cannabis, I want

(12:48):
you to back up one step and ask yourself this,
especially now that when entering the holiday season you can
have perhaps some additional drain on your time and energy.
A lot of people have gatherings they need to go to.
Those with social anxiety might feel a little worn out
by these things. So ask yourself this in another year,

(13:11):
how do I want to feel? Do I want to
feel calmer? Do I want to sleep a little bit better?
Maybe have less pain good because that is the first
question you ask yourself before you buy anything to grow cannabis,
which is a summer annual, What do I want to feel?
What do I want from this plant? And then you

(13:31):
can start winnling down your needs and choose the right
seeds to buy. So that's the first step is going
to be. Of course, getting some information is very helpful.
In my book is a good source of that information,
so that would be another thing to buy. But you
can actually start deciding what do you want from cannabis,
and you have to know that Before you can even
decide what type of cannabis to buy seeds for, you.

Speaker 1 (13:55):
Have to know the intention behind it. And I do
that with tomatoes. When I start doing and thinking about
my tomatoes, it's like what do I want them for?
Is if for sauce? Is it for gravy? We call
it gravy in the East Coast Italians. Do I want
to eat it raw? Do I want it for a salad?
So it's it's you're interesting. Some people don't even know

(14:18):
what they could grow cannabis for. So can you just listen, yes, someone.

Speaker 3 (14:23):
One of the classes that I teach is called cannabis
one oh one, And I teach this with my business
partner Kesha through our business Wondering about Weed, and we
offer classes to adults and we start every one of
our classes with a question, why are you here? What
do you need or want from cannabis? And I'll tell
you here the top three things, Number one, top three.

(14:46):
Number one. Pain. People come in saying, you know, from
little aches and pains to big aches and pains, I've
heard cannabis can help with pain. Is that true? Answer? Yes, absolutely,
has wonderful health promoting properties and can be very effective
at treating especially chronic pain, inflammatory pain, but also neuropathy.

(15:08):
And there's more nuance to how that works. But that's
number one. Number two. How about sleep? You know somebody
said I should take a gummy? What do I do?
I've heard a cannabis can help with my sleep. Yes,
it can, and it's a bit bigger answer. There are
a number of different ways and different cannabinoids, which is
a special molecule group of molecules made by the cannabis plant.

(15:32):
So sleep is number two. Number three is anxiety. That's
anxiety I can and so that those are the top three,
I would say health reasons or that people come to
cannabis outside of the obvious, which is I love getting stoned,
and I'll say, yes, absolutely, cannabis does that too. So

(15:56):
that aside, and we're gonna say, that's why they call
it that. The rec market it's built is that I
like to use, say the term adult use. So there's
medical and that's often how it starts. People get warmed
up from using a medical license through state legislation, and
that's how California started. And then there's adult use, meaning

(16:17):
you don't need to have a medical reason, you can
just enjoy it. Those on the inside of cannabis would say,
even if you're using cannabis just to get high, it's
still medical. It's still going to do some good for
your body if you don't over consume. But those top three, yeah.

Speaker 1 (16:32):
I agree. I mean, I mean, just like if you're,
you know, drinking orange juice just for the pleasure of it,
you're still getting you're getting health benefits. You're getting vitamin say,
you're getting vital nutrients, you're getting fiber. All right. So
now I come to your workshop and I say I
want something for those top three guide me.

Speaker 3 (16:50):
All right, here we go. First, of all, I'm going
to ask you this question, how many, oh do you
want to grow? And let's just say you say how
many plants you want to grow?

Speaker 1 (17:01):
Maria, Well, I am going to check down to my
local county to find out how many I'm allowed to grow.
I happen to live in southern California, and where I live,
I've checked and as of now, I'm allowed to grow
up to six plants.

Speaker 3 (17:22):
Oh fabulous, that's far more than you could ever use. Truly.

Speaker 1 (17:25):
Oh really, I'm going to say this.

Speaker 3 (17:27):
If you are growing just for yourself and you are
a pretty average kind of new to cannabis consumer, but
you'd like to have, you know, abundant product at the
end of the season, I'm going to say you can
get away with growing two plants. I agree more than that,
so you could grow up to six and you can
try that. But let's just say you can you just
grow two plants, Okay, you could have at your disposal

(17:53):
just about everything you need for all three of those
different things that we talked about, sleep, pain, and anxiety.
But they are two different types of plants. They're both
going to be cannabis, They're both going to grow as
a summer annual, but one of them should give you
a lot of THC and little CBB. So I just
used two words THHC and CBD. That might be familiar

(18:17):
to most of your listeners, but if not, let me clarify.
They are the two most abundant cannabinoids found in the
resin on the cannabis flower, and those are the things
that we're really after. That's what that's why we grow
cannabis for the large part. So you want a high
THHC plant, you have hundreds of varieties to choose from.

(18:40):
That's very common. Marijuana and hemp are the same species
of plant. They are both cannabis satava. That's the botanical
name for this plant that we're all growing. Whether it
produces a lot of THCHC, a lot of CBD, some
of both, or even other cannabinoids, they are one species
and they grow just about the same. You're going to
grow two plants, one with high THHD and the other

(19:02):
one is going to be filled with CBD in its
ultimate product. So with those two plants, you now have
the raw ingredients to create just about anything you could
possibly make with cannabis. It's going to if you want
to lean on. Let's just say you're feeling anxious, you
want something to calm you, then enjoy some of the

(19:25):
plant that produces CBD. Let's just say you want to
get really elevated, well, you're going to want to lean
a bit more heavily on that plant that gave you
a THHC weed. And for pain, it depends upon the
type of pain, but let's just say everyday pain, you
might have something you want to produce the pain for
in your body. Having a little bit of CBD and

(19:46):
THHC in the same preparation, that's the gold and the ticket.
So those are the only two plants now in my
garden because I just love this plant and there's huge variety,
not just with canabinoids, but then there's this other layer
called terpenes, and that's what makes cannabis smell I think,
so delicious and so strong. At the end of the

(20:10):
growing season, you don't smell cannabinoids, you can't smell them,
but you can smell the terpenes. So know that that's
another class of molecules that this plant and all plants
make terpenes. By the way, not all plants make cannabinoids.
Really only cannabis does. But all plants make terpenes. So
you might have two different plants, both of which get

(20:33):
really big and look lovely, two cannabis plants. One smells
more like lemon and pine trees, the other one has
fragrances of vanilla cake and grape and cheese. It's amazing
the amount of delicious smells. But those delicious smells work
with the cannabinoids in your body to alter the perception

(20:55):
of the cannabinoids. So one might give you a high
that feels like you're like real focused and maybe a
little bit very alert and awake.

Speaker 1 (21:09):
Activating, activating.

Speaker 3 (21:11):
We Sometimes in the cannabis industry they might call that
a set of a leaning effect or a head high.
Those terms are really changing, but that might be the
old way of describing that high. Other even just for
a high THHC plant, you may have terpenes that make
you feel calm or sleepier, so those would be maybe

(21:31):
called a body high. And I will say that most
of that language body high versus head high. The key
word there isn't the body or the head, but the high.
So the key thing to remember for people, especially if
they're new to cannabis, is to understand how much THHC
or cbd is in any given product, and then how

(21:54):
potent is it That is the key determiner. Now, the
nuances of how that THC might hit in your body
or in your mind are going to be impacted by terpenes,
but that is of secondary importance. So focus on first
on what's the cannabinoid content of weed fresh flower, but

(22:14):
if it's dried that you're going to smoke it or
vapor or more importantly, in edibles, it's very important to
know how much THHC and cbd that you're getting, and
especially how much THHC. That's really the one to pay
attention to, because that is the only cannabinoid that makes
you feel epic. The others have.

Speaker 1 (22:30):
Well, that's that's a whole other reason to grow your own,
because then you can really know that with certainty.

Speaker 3 (22:37):
Yes for sure. So with that, Maria, you have every
ingredient that you need. If you've got a high cbd
cannabis and a high THHC cannabis, that's most of what
you're gonna need.

Speaker 1 (22:48):
I love dreaming about this. Now we're into the spring,
we're doing our garden, but then we're just coming off
of October. P optober. How do you like carvested or
drug or cure it or store it? And when is
the best case used to use the fresher Just walk

(23:09):
us through. Now, Penny has a great substeck article. I
have all this weed, Now what do I do with it?
We'll put that on our show page too. Oh yeah,
but if you could talk a little bit about them,
the harvesting it and the drying and the curing. It
does feel a little overwhelming, but maybe not yet.

Speaker 3 (23:28):
It is a lot I will say for first time growers,
it's important to understand that you start with a seed.
Although you can buy these little things called clones, they
are not clones. They are rooted cuttings. I steal steer
all of my outdoor garden growers to seeds. They are healthier,
you have a huge amount of variety, and they tend

(23:51):
to be very strong growers. So you're going to start
with a seed. That's key great seeds. Other than good seeds,
you need a garden spot that has a lot of sun.
That's very important, so you can't get away with shade,
and you need good rich soil. You water it through
the summer because here in California we don't get much rain.
That's it in a nutshell. There are two of my

(24:13):
favorite seed companies. One's a grower in California, the others
in Oregon. Here's why I love both Emily goggle At
Growth from Home and not Pennington's company, the Humboldt Seed Company.
They are excellent breeders. They are scientists. They understand cannabis
genetics and breeding. They have high quality seeds. But they
also offer and here's a key, they offer feminized seeds

(24:35):
because there's a special technique that you'll only get female
plants from there from certain of their seed selections. So
make sure you look for high quality seeds and feminized seeds.
Go to the Humboldt Seed Company and grow it from home,
and you can also order these online. They will show
up in your mail. And that is probably the greatest
cost savings in the world if you were to get

(24:57):
some high quality seeds. They have about a one hundred
percent germination rate.

Speaker 1 (25:01):
You need.

Speaker 3 (25:04):
Out of five seeds, you're likely to get five plants,
maybe four if you're not terribly lucky. But that's a
whole lot of cannabis. People. I routinely get a half
a pound of dried cannabis bud from each of my
plants that are full sized plants grown in my garden.
Let's just say you get a quarter pound of dried
cannabis bud from each of your plants. That's a very

(25:27):
significant amount of high quality cannabis bud. So if you
spend ten dollars on one seed, which is kind of
the going rate, it's still a bargain. And so look
for some high quality feminize seeds. If you don't plant
them all this spring, that's okay. They will last for
a couple of years and you can plant some next
year and the year after that.

Speaker 1 (25:46):
Do you have to do anything? People to ask me
all the time? Ask her, or you're having Penny Barthela on,
ask her about propagation or putting seeds on paper towels.
Are they're all no? Two plants is going to be enough? Yeah.

Speaker 3 (26:02):
Seed, it's an easy to grow seedy. It's as easy
as growing as planting a seed for a bean and
watching it grow. They're really that easy to grow. But
you have to get the right seeds. You want to
get high quality seeds and feminized seeds, so that in
top of your mind, I need to buy a feminized seed.
That's key, so you won't have any male plants in

(26:25):
your garden. You grow it throughout the summer, it grows beautifully,
it grows fast. Of course, there's a couple of tips
and tricks to that, so you know, you might need
to come to a garden workshop to learn that your
first time growing. But then come in California. When we
harvest typical or photo period cannabis, which most of it is,

(26:45):
it's going to actually Los Angeles is going to harvest
sooner than, for example, where I am in northern California,
and certainly sooner up than Oregon, because it has to
do with changes in daylight it is, and you have
changes that are a little sooner than than up north
in terms of how daylight changes into nighttime throughout the seasons.

(27:08):
So you're going to harvest it in September at the
very latest October. Almost all cannabis is then dried. And
we're not saving the leaves, by the way, we're not
saving the stems. We're not saving fruit. We don't want
it to produce fruit, which is seeds. We are saving
the unfertilized female flower bud. Inconsequential, little flowers. They don't

(27:30):
look like pretty flowers that you would see in a
florist shot because they don't need to attract pollinators. They
are wind pollinated, so they are little thick groups of
flowers that we call colas. They're extraordinarily sticky with resin.
They smell incredibly strong and fresh and wonderful. And then

(27:51):
you dry it and boom, that's your weed that you have.
It's ready to go by mid October, late October, it'll
be dry and ready to use.

Speaker 1 (28:00):
You store it.

Speaker 3 (28:01):
You store it in after it's appropriately dried. You just
pack it into either glass jars that are air tight
or mylar bags. These are food storage bags that kind
of look silvery. They're widely available online. And you want
to make sure that you're not using like a ziploc

(28:23):
bag or something that's polyethylene. That's not the best way
to store cannabis. You want to store it in a
cool spot, in with no light. You don't want to
have direct sunlight on it.

Speaker 1 (28:34):
Okay, if you could use a dark jar, or if
it's a transparent jar, put it in a dark space, yes.

Speaker 3 (28:41):
A cupboard in a cool place. You don't want to
have great fluctuations in temperature, so keeping it, you know,
below seventy degrees. If you have a basement or someplace
that's cool, that's a very good thing. It'll help keep
your cannabis fresh for the longest period of time. No
light and little oxygen because oxygen, light, heat, and then

(29:04):
time are the four things that make your cannabis lose
its peak of freshness over time. Cannabis UH good for
about a year and then I use it for something
different for but for fresh use dried cannabis. I like
to use mine every year, so I grow it every year.

Speaker 1 (29:23):
Matt. This is the fun part using it. So how
do we savor the fruits of our cannabis garden? Yeah,
I mean I I I'm gonna let you run with this.
But I saw something in here that caught my attention.
Something called a vanilla bean infused CBB gummy. WHOA, You're
not going to find that anywhere on Black Friday, let

(29:44):
alone on sale.

Speaker 3 (29:45):
I could tell you that, oh cans, So I said
at the beginning, I came into the sideways, and I
came in as a cook and a gardener. Those are
two of the best skills you could possibly have for
understanding and enjoying cann So I also have a degree
in nutrition and food science from UC Berkeley, so that
helped me with a bit of the biochemistry that this

(30:07):
fabulous plant gives us. But that does not mean that
you need to have any education in food or gardening
or anything. You can start out as a I've never
gardened before. I don't know what I'm doing in the kitchen,
and I'm like, fine, you are in good company and
you don't need to once you grow this plant. There
are a couple of key things in which you take

(30:29):
the goodness of the resin on the flower and you
make it available to our bodies. So in my book,
we talk about how to make a tincture. So that's
my number one product that you would make, super easy
to make and it's very flexible. A tincture is something
that is probably the oldest way that people have consumed cannabis,

(30:51):
other than somoking it or inhaling the charred vapor. A
tincture is just do you take I'm sort of spirit.
I like to use ever clear or grain alcohol. You
soak your cannabis bud in it, and then the the
resin from the cannabis moves into the alcohol portion of that.

(31:14):
You get rid of the plant materia. You've got this neat, little,
very potent tincture. You won't find tinctures. By the way,
this is in dispensaries because dispensaries are not allowed to
sell anything with alcohol in them. They will sell cannabis drops,
but they are oil based.

Speaker 1 (31:32):
Okay, wait a minute, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I just
we're not doing a legal update today. But that's amazing. Dispensaries.
Legal dispensaries cancel anything with alcohol in them. But what
about the corner liquor store. Okay, I'm just saying. I'm just.

Speaker 3 (31:53):
Oh yeah, oh oh, the tangled web that we need.
If we just had left this plant alone, we wouldn't
have these weird distinctions. Right, Let's just put it back
in the garden where it belong.

Speaker 1 (32:03):
I did not know that.

Speaker 3 (32:06):
So they are because they want to divorce or keep
separate certain intoxicainst, one of which is alcohol and the other,
which is THHC. Say want to Okay, we can't let
those two things mix because that's just too putent, and
that sadly relates to even the minuscule amounts of alcohol
you would ingest taking half of a milli liter of

(32:27):
a very potent cannabis tincture. Anyway, it's so inconsequential. But
here's the cool thing. You can make it at home.
You can have it at home. You can't buy it anywhere.
It's just not for sale anywhere. You can't buy this
in a dispensary. You can't buy it in a liquor
store because.

Speaker 1 (32:48):
Very very cool. So the tinctures and dispensaries, it is
the oil that it is.

Speaker 3 (32:53):
And they're wonderful. There's nothing wrong with them.

Speaker 1 (32:55):
But yeah, but they're not they're not water soluble and
they don't mix. So well, oh go ahead, I'm gonna
let you go on.

Speaker 3 (33:01):
This is my starting point. If you just make one
thing from your cannabis flower, make a tincture. But with
any given flower, you can make two tinctures. You can
make one tincture with bud that's just dried, but it
has not been heat treated or decarboxylated, so you get
access to the raw cannabis, the raw cannabinoids in that one,

(33:25):
or you decarboxylate it, which is a pretty simple thing
to do. You just put it in the oven for
a certain amount of time. And then you make a
tincture with that, you get a very different cannabinoid profile
we like to call it. So you have two different
products from one type of from one type of plant.
Just let's just say you grew one plant. Well, you

(33:45):
have a suite of you have two different main cannabinoids
going on there. One is the acid form and the
other is the stable form, the one that we are
more familiar with. So that's a tincture you have.

Speaker 1 (33:56):
In the raw form from the CBD plant, you have CBDA, Yeah,
that in your tincture, or you could have c A
and that in your tincture. Or you were saying you
can apply heat to them, decarboxylate them, put them in
your oven, and then have CBD or THC, So exact theory,

(34:17):
you could have a raw form tincture or I like
to take tinctures that mix th C A with THC
and CBDA with CBD. Yes, I feel I feel a
real benefit for pain doing.

Speaker 3 (34:31):
You are and you have into it. It's something that
Canada's science is starting to reveal in the lab as well.
So having both raw and decarved cannabinoids or stable form
cannabinoids together are founding researchers are finding the best and
most profound health benefits from the combination of those cannabinoids.

Speaker 1 (34:52):
Wow, I experienced.

Speaker 3 (34:54):
That is that wonderful. So that's like, let's just think
about that. You grow this, soak it into alcohol. After
a couple of days, you strain it out. There's a
little bit more to it, but not a whole lot
more to it than that. You've got this delightful, potent,
little transportable stuff. One of my favorite things to do
with it that you cannot do with cannabis oil drops

(35:15):
is to put it in a sparkling beverage. It is delicious,
It is wow.

Speaker 1 (35:20):
Now do you perfect for the holidays? Yes? Especially you
know if people are cutting down on alcohol. You know
you talk about sleep, pain, and anxiety. The alcohol's not
so good for any of those three. So a lot
of people are looking for something different. So wow, wow.

Speaker 3 (35:45):
And the second thing, Now, a lot of people might
be familiar with cannabis brownies.

Speaker 1 (35:51):
Right.

Speaker 3 (35:51):
There was a woman named Brownie Mary who was super
famous in the cannabis world for sneaking in cannabis and
few brownies to those patients who are suffering from AIDS miserable.
She'd bring me brownies. All of a sudden, they felt better,
they could eat, they had better lives as a result.
She was quite a maverick in the day. But that

(36:12):
pot brownie is a thing.

Speaker 1 (36:14):
The brownies. Though, when I talk to people, especially of
my age range, they're really really scared of edibles, especially brownies.

Speaker 3 (36:25):
Well there's some basis for that. So brownie's pot brownies.
I'll say this. If you grow it, and you understand
what's in your cannabis, and you apply just a little
bit of math and you make your own infused cannabis
oil or cannabis butter, then you can do some math

(36:47):
and make your own most delicious brownie recipe or cookie
or just about anything. I think I could actually infuse
anything that we could eat. But you can do so
with an eye towards how much THCHC. And that's the
big one to watch out for, is in each serving.
So by doing a little bit of math, you can

(37:07):
control exactly how much THHC is in any given serving
of that batch of brownies. And I give some easy
to use formulas for trying to predict the potency of
your cannabis butter and then using that in just the
right amount to get the right effect. Now, one of

(37:28):
my favorite treats, and it's very giftable recipes in my book,
is you make a cannabis butter or you infuse fat,
then you use a certain amount of that and you
make delicious chocolate sauce. You can put it at the stars,
you label it with just exactly how much is in there,
and then people will know, oh, I'm going to have

(37:48):
one ounce of this or a little scoop on my
ice cream. It'll be just perfect dose to be just
the elevation I want. Now, those people who are more
experienced with cannabis have a little bit higher tolerance, they
can make their stronger. But the reason why people were
scared about cannabis gummies is because people were not calculating

(38:09):
just how potent those brownies could be. And as you
and I both know, with edibles, they take a long
time to kick in, and by the time you've it's
kicked in, you might have had too many brownies. So
it's real important to get that dosing just right.

Speaker 1 (38:26):
Yeah, and the chocolate's also mean. Some people will say
to me, and this makes sense, Oh yeah, but if
you have brownies and the dosing is minimal. You'll have
maybe two milligrams to five milligrams of TC per brownie.
But I want to eat five brownies. Well, okay, I
have one pop browny and then eat up law or

(38:49):
none and none spiked brownies.

Speaker 3 (38:52):
That's right. And I think once you grow the plant
and you spend time with it, and you harvest it,
and then you do a little bit of re search,
it really demystifies this planet. And by did mystifying taking
the fear out of it, you're able then to get
a little bit more real and enjoy its health and
enjoyment benefits without being worried about being overexposed to this.

Speaker 1 (39:16):
And it's like cooking with anything else where. I know
how much hot sauce I could tolerate. And you know,
I know some people are like, is there pepper in
that I can't eat it? Okay, Well you know you
said you learned absolutely.

Speaker 3 (39:30):
I think that hot peppers is a perfect analogy. But
imagine a hot pepper where you eat it and the
heat doesn't kick in for an hour.

Speaker 1 (39:38):
Oh that's great, so we get immediately back with great
other thing we taste.

Speaker 3 (39:44):
But cannas is not like that. It takes a long
time for edibles, especially fat based edibles to kick in,
and then it's got a long duration. So that's a
great thing for other applications, like sleeping is an ideal
time to have just the right little edible because it
lasts the whole night or a good portion of it,
but not so at a social event. So but that's

(40:07):
something you can do. And there's there's another little gift
that's a little bit more advanced. Is I make a
cannabis oil. Some people might know Rick Simpson oil. It's
just a pure cannabis concentrate. I use a special piece
of equipment for that. That's not all that complicated, but
it just allows me to concentrate my cannabis and I

(40:28):
put it in. My favorite favorite is a salve that
I like to call magic sav and I've provided a
simple recipe for that in my book. But that's like
the third way, and that cannot get you high, but
it's incredibly soothing and it's something you use on your
skin as a topical.

Speaker 1 (40:46):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love I love a nice magic
salve for aches and pains. I've even used them for
mesquita bytes and it's it's incredible for sure.

Speaker 3 (41:00):
Yeah, And we're talking about Black Friday and gift giving.
Let's just back back that train of one more step.
Because the reason why we give gifts is that it's
a season of celebration. It's also a season of we're
wishing each other peace and goodwill, well gratitude and gratitude.
You know, if you are giving people the gift that

(41:21):
gives them the ability to have a little bit less anxiety,
a little bit less pain, a little bit less sort
of existential suffering in their lives, I just think that
that's a perfect fit with the season. And then if
you calm down and have some s CBD gummy, get
a little bit elevated in the evening. I think it's
actually going to break cycles of anxiety and worry and

(41:44):
feeling this I don't know, push to outdo one another perhaps,
which is antithetical to the season. But I just think
it's a great fit with the season entirely.

Speaker 1 (41:55):
Well, it's stressful, i'd be kids come from college, patterns
are interrupted. Everything is you've seen people you haven't seen
in a long time, who's still together, who got forbid
passed away, who's no longer together. You know, you get
big groups of people together that you don't normally do.

(42:17):
You're off your routine. It's an exciting time, but it's
a very very stressful time.

Speaker 3 (42:23):
It really can be, especially for those who I feel
the effects of social anxiety. And I think all of
us get that to a greater or lesser. There are
some who people who just have a little bit more
sensitivity to Ooh, I've got to go to the office party,
or it's going to be a big group and for

(42:44):
whatever reason, I'm feeling a little nervous. I actually think
that a low dose edible or a low dose little
tincture can really help offset that in a way that
alcohol doesn't. It hits differently. I make a low dose
gummies and I have named them for my husband. I'll
just say I make them for him. I call them

(43:06):
moodlifters because I call a party gather. There is nothing
that will make me nervous going to a party. But
you know, when you go to a you're just having
one of those days and you need a little bit
of mood switch. It's subtle, and it's nothing you want
to rely upon overly much, but it's just subtle and
it breaks a cycle of negativity. Sometimes helps you to

(43:27):
enjoy situations rather than just enduring them.

Speaker 1 (43:31):
It does, but I can say anecdotally you don't rely
on it. I haven't relied on it. I've the fact
that it has changed my mood or lift that negativity
that I might be knee jerk in certain situations, or
that anxiety and a certain social Having the experience of
it lifted, it becomes experiential. You've had this like corrective

(43:55):
emotional experience. Once you experience it and it helps you
to experience it, then it's easier to not neede it
to get to that space. But unless you've been to
that space of relaxation, you don't know how to get there.
You don't even know what you're seeking.

Speaker 3 (44:13):
Yes, for sure.

Speaker 1 (44:15):
So the chocolate sauce, the sav the tissans. What are
some of your fans favorites?

Speaker 3 (44:22):
Oh, fan, good, good, gosh so much. Well, I have
to just say my number one fan favorite once people
have tried it, definitely the magic sav So that is
well over the.

Speaker 1 (44:34):
Chocolate sauce, Over the chocolate sauce, Over.

Speaker 3 (44:37):
The chocolate sauce, because that's for everybody, even people who
have really had a number done on them by the
War on Drugs. And I'll just say that's everybody over
the age of forty. Number two would have to be
the chocolate sauce. It's just absolutely delicious. It's super simple
to make. Probably the third thing would be one of

(44:57):
my many flavors of gummies. Now we are aware of
gummies at the store, the ones that I have in
my recipe in my book are a little lighter and fresher.
I always rely upon natural ingredients. Like yesterday in my
class we made mier lemon gummies and they were just exquisite.
So they use gelatine, they use some sugar, and it

(45:18):
uses a cannabis tincture in the gummy recipe, so it's
a way of getting a low dose of cannabis, and
you're in charge of what's in that tincture. It could
be raw, it could be dcarved, it could be THHC,
it could be CBD, it could be the both. You
can make custom gummies and they're fast to make and
really delicious and quite low dose, so there's little risk

(45:40):
of overconsumption because they're just one little gummy at a time.

Speaker 1 (45:44):
It's fun. I mean, this is also the holidays, gifting
meaningful gifts and baking cooking.

Speaker 3 (45:52):
And in my book there is oh gosh, gosh, the
I have a recipe for giant cheesy goldfish. They look
like goldfish crackers. They absolutely delicious, and so again they're
one serving is one big cracker. So as long as
you're like, how many crackers do I think people are
gonna make? Or maybe you package them up in like

(46:13):
two little gump you know, crackers and make sure that
they're just like two milligrams each so people feel confident
they'll get a nice little buzz after a while. But
you know, just eat that so you can just say it.

Speaker 1 (46:26):
And for beginners, that's a really good starting dose. I
would like to know just for just every day wellness,
your self care routine, just your baseline what you take
in the morning and throughout the day and in the evening.
So for sure, I mean, yeah, you reap the benefits

(46:48):
of your crop, go ahead, just for yourself personally, your
self care routine. And look, I've never ever ever thought
of Penny Barthel and Stone are in the same sentence.
Not that you won't take it to elevate and on
special occasions, but this this you are the epitome of

(47:11):
someone who uses it responsibly.

Speaker 3 (47:14):
So thank you. I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (47:16):
Verry, guys, it's gonna lead to having your own beautiful
backyard Guardien and having the most popular gifts. Gohad Penny.
How do you integrate it? How do you take it? Daily?

Speaker 3 (47:26):
People who are who express surprise, like you you go cannabis,
I'm like yeah, and they'll some some get cheeky and like,
why are you high right now? I'm like I'm not.
But you know, I like to say this, I enjoy
cannabis every day and I'm rarely stoned. If I want
to be stoned, that's fine, but that's my reality. So

(47:47):
I love the I make a raw tincture that has
C A and THHCA both in it. Every single morning,
I take a pint of water, I throw in some
lemon juice from one of my trees. I put in
several spirts of my rock and abonoids. Boom, I'm hydrated.
I'm feeling good, and I trust that those things will

(48:08):
help to keep down chronic inflammation, basic chronic inflammation due
to just getting older. So that's one thing that I do.
I don't have a sense of that. It doesn't make
me alter my perception of myself at all. Often. Then
times during the day I will rub a topical on
my joints in my hands, my knee if it's acting up.

(48:31):
I mean, I was in a ten k race this morning.
I will be using sab on my knee later on today,
I can tell you that. And then often before I
go to bed, I'll have a little chocolate heart that
I make that has a low dose of THHC in it,
which I find to be very helpful and helps to
promote relaxing sleep for me. That is particular to me,

(48:52):
and each of you will need to figure these things
out for yourself. This is not a prescription, it's just
my practice. So with you and knowing what your health
issues are, what your knees are, you have those things
available to you. But that's just my baseline. And then
there are times when I do want to like test
out a new weed that I just grew. And here's one.

(49:13):
It's on my desk. This is a little sprig of
royal highness and it's really powerful, it's delicious, it's really cushion.

Speaker 1 (49:21):
What does it smell like? What does it smell like?

Speaker 3 (49:23):
Oh, it has what I describe as a classic cush smell.
So here, can you hear it? Yeah, it smells great,
it smells bad, crash, it smells. It has a lot
of hits of like pine and just like you walked
out into a wet forest in the Northwest, it smells
amazing and the nose smells.

Speaker 1 (49:46):
That's these episode. That's another episode. But folks, when you're
worried about well, the predictability, now, I don't know how
it's gonna affect me. What Penny just did. Smell it
just like you smell, you know, and see how it
hits you, See where it hits you getting to your baseline.
We're not saying to give any of these things up,

(50:06):
but wow, to add that point of water with cannabinoids
to my cup of coffee instead of just having caffeine,
which is also legal, I think would probably do me good.
To add the magic salve and cut down on the ibprofen. Oh,

(50:27):
I think my gut would appreciate that so much, definitely.
And then in the evening to take a chocolate heart
instead of a pharmaceutical sleeping pill or a bunch of
wine nothing against that, and you could still have that,
you might find you're having less and you're having less

(50:50):
of something that's serving you but also has negative effects,
and you're replacing it or you know, cutting down on it,
diluting it with something that has the same effects and
is actually can't make health claims. But as the research

(51:12):
will show, as we get even more and more studies,
but there's a lot of peer review studies about the
antioxidant effects and the anti inflammatory effects of the medicinal
benefits of cannabis. It's a magic plant. Yeah. Well, and
then in closing, we always ask our guests. We have

(51:34):
a segment called nip It in the Bud because we
want to brook the stigma. And I'm going to ask
you what is maybe one of your top cannabis misconceptions,
a myth you'd like to clarify it was framed. Let's
nip it in the bud. Do you have a common

(51:57):
misconception that you'd like to debunk.

Speaker 3 (52:02):
Yes, the common misconception is that cannabis always gets you stoned.
It does not.

Speaker 1 (52:07):
Cannabis is that one good one?

Speaker 3 (52:11):
If you buy cannabis, that's all CBD. Guess what. You
can roll a joint. You can look as cool and
as if as you possibly want. You can smoke all night.
You will not get stoned, you'll be super relaxed. So
you just got to know what's in your weed. But no,
there's way more than THHC. As much as that is
a fabulous molecule and it is medical in addition to
being super fun and it gets you high, Cannabis is

(52:34):
much more than just getting high.

Speaker 1 (52:37):
It's much more than the promise of a high. And
there's many things. Hey, today people are chasing sales, not
chasing a high. But we'll say, We'll say they might
come home and want to chase a high. I think
they might want the CBD after the black Fridays. So well,
Penny and we have one other segment. We have consumer
insights and tips. I mean this entire interview was one

(52:59):
big consumer insight and tip. I really love knowing the
intention behind what do you want to have your cannabis
for and understanding who's behind it.

Speaker 3 (53:14):
Absolutely there are in addition to the Humble Seed Company
and Grow It from Home, there are a wonderful array
of just delightful companies. I think the cannabis industry has
some of the most creative and integrity filled people in
business today, but they are under duress in terms of
the licensed dispensaries. There's a pretty onerous tax burden that we,

(53:38):
the people in California, have put on them, so be
aware of how that impacts them. But there's some phenomenal
products out there. Go to a really good dispensary, and
by good, I mean you get to know them. Who
owns them? Are they serving their community? Are they owned
by black people, by women, by queer people. You got
to figure out what your values are and then go

(53:58):
find a dispensary that meets them. So that's the first thing,
and the second is then ask the questions. There are
bud tenders who are really well informed and they can
help you pick out products. Let's just say you haven't
grown your own cannabis, but you love using it. You
can go try things at a dispensary and then think,
then then kind of diy them yourself next year. That's

(54:20):
kind of how I got started making my own products.
I loved some of the things that I tried in dispensaries,
and I still go to dispensaries and look at their offerings.
I'll buy them on occasions. So it's not mutually exclusive
to go to a really good dispensary and try things there.
And that will help inform what you make at home.

(54:40):
It's sort of like going to a great restaurant. You
get inspired, you can home, come home and wow, I
want to make things like that too.

Speaker 1 (54:48):
Yeah, wow, wow, wow, wa wow. What an amazing conversation
today with you, Penny. I got to get you in
studio because I would like a hug um virtual you know, yeah, yeah,
we'll do a virtual hug. This has just been such
a refreshing reminder that you know, we're at the beginning

(55:09):
of the holiday season, but it's a season. It's a
season that should last all year, not be dictated. I
like to say to people, it's a state of mind, guys,
not a date. So you know, it doesn't have to
be about buying more stuff. I know and I know

(55:29):
I do it myself, Like you should see what what
how many treats and bones my dog has? I just
want to shower her, And it's it's is it that
about me? Or is it about her? What does she need?
You know, it's not I know you want to you
want to make an impact on somebody, Buy this book,
grow it from home, make something. Yeah, you'll you'll be

(55:52):
the most I tell you. I've become the most popular
aunt in our family. But I'm sure you two, Penny.

Speaker 3 (56:01):
Yeah, but all this ranking did go up several lines, right,
doesn't it go on? What that's cool?

Speaker 1 (56:08):
Yeah? And it is cool to recap on the key
takeaways from our talk today, Penny you know, shared some
fantastic advice on how to start planning your own cannabis garden.
Whether you're dreaming about it now or ready to roll
up your sleeves come spraying, it's the perfect time to
think about what you'd like to grow and what you

(56:30):
want to get from it. Why do you want to
grow it? You know, whether you're a seasoned grower or
just starting out. This book is fantastic. It is not overwhelming.
It's going to guide you through the process of growing, harvesting,
and all the multiple ways you can enjoy cannabis and

(56:51):
all of its many forms, including gifting it. So don't forget.
We've got more resources waiting for you at greenbe Life Dot.
She mentioned Emily go go grow it from home. We
have some fantastic growing guides and a whole playlist on
GBLTV with Emily showing us how to make herbal teas,

(57:13):
how to start your garden with seed to treats for
your pets. Whether you're looking to learn, creator shop, we've
got something for you. As we wrap up today, I
want to share a final thought. Let's make this holiday
season a time for mindfulness, relaxation, and creativity. Let's focus

(57:36):
on what really matters, you know, just connecting while making
the cookies, not whether your kid got the right amount
of butter in it. I know that matters, and sometimes
you know you're stressed, you lose it. Let's remember what's important.
It's the connection and the feeling that's being fostered, you know.
And then, whether you're crafting your own cannabis infused holiday

(57:59):
gifts or just take a moment to pause and recharge,
remember that you've got the power to make this scene,
to make this season meaningful in a way that's meaningful
to you. So thank you so much for joining us
on just saying no today, that's no with a k K.
Now we now have grown or no, grow your no,

(58:25):
and I hope you leave feeling inspired and ready to
take a new green approach to your holiday season, at
least your Black Friday. Until next time, take care to
stay curious and remember your self care matters, keep exploring,
keep creating, keep listening, and as always, just Say No.

(58:50):
Just Say No is a greenbee Life presentation airing live
weekly on Friday afternoons from four to five pm Pacific
on KCA and CACAA TV. Archived audio episodes are on Greenbeelife,
greenbelife dot com, iHeartRadio, Spreaker, and most third party major platforms.

(59:14):
For archived videos, check them out on GBL TV, on
greenbeelfe YouTube and Rumble. To follow us our Instagram and
Facebook is at Just Say No Radio. To apply to
be a guest on the show or for sponsorship and

(59:34):
advertising opportunities, go to Greenbeelife dot com, forward slash, just
Say No, and feel free to reach out to me
Maria for any questions. I'm at Maria at greenbelife dot
com or call me at eight one eight seven five

(59:55):
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