Cannabis, business, podcasting, host
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Yeah. Whoa, yeah, welcome to the, what the hemp podcast, My name is Dean Heffernan and I am your host. Have you ever wondered where hemp comes from and particularly the hemp from which your CBD is derived? Well today we're chatting with scott profit. Er he is the man who knows everything about how CBD is extracted from the hemp plant where hemp plants are grown, how you grow them and the difference between hemp and marijuana, um all these words in terms that I think often get tossed around, even I mince my words and I'm literally in the business, so um it's very easy to mince words, I mean um up until what, like seven or eight years ago um and in some parts of the country, um like a year ago, um cannabis was just all about getting high, but come to find out there's actually quite a, quite a few cannabinoids in the cannabis plant that have tremendous medicinal value and don't get you high. So in this episode we're gonna chat with scott and we're gonna learn all about that. This podcast is brought to you by Stone, Oak Creek Apothecary, Stoney Creek brings wellness in a bottle. Um We have CBD tinctures and a phenomenal CBD pain cream that is high in active ingredients like menthol, methyl salicylic, camper bark oil and eucalyptus. I mean your room is going to smell like mint, but your body is gonna feel amazing after you use it. I actually just used it um on my wrist and my knees and my back this entire last week because I was building an ice rink for my kids. It's sort of like the story of my life right now is how I built this ice rink in my front yard for the kids and oh boy did it do a doozy on my body, so I kid you not, like I took my CBD religiously every day to help reduce my inflammation within my body, so I took it um orally, we have a advanced potency drops that deliver 50 mg of CBD per dose. And then um we have like I said this pain cream, that is really truly magical. I mean people just call it the magic cream, I wish I could say that, but I don't think legally that's a very smart thing for you to do. So um if you want to learn more about Stoney Creek, please visit shop Stone Oh dot com. That's Shop S. T. O. N. O. Dot com. Yeah. Whoa. Mhm. You know, there's a lot of dispute as far as when you're talking about traditional cannabis versus him, you know? Um what sort of species those are? And I had a really good friend at university of Kentucky. Um dr David Williams, God rest his soul, He passed away I think last year, but David Williams would fight you tooth and nail over distinctions between cannabis indica and cannabis sativa. So basically his premise was that cannabis indica is is pretty much a made up term and really all of these different varieties that we're looking at as far as hemp cannabis, they're they're all cannabis sativa. L they're just like us, all of them, they're just there are several from sub species under cannabis sativa. L that uh that have very specific traits like when you think about hemp for fibre right? You think about the really tall growing looks like bamboo and that and that lends itself to that good long staple bast fibre production. When you think about hemp that's produced for CBD, it looks almost identical to you know it's it's recreational and medicinal cousin. Well that's because essentially exactly when when you map out genetically they are remarkably similar plants that have you know almost the same exact sets of traits. Mm So if I'm looking at the cannabis um genus, is that correct? Okay. And then the Children of that genus or I guess what would that be? This would they be the species? Oh my God. I think I learned this is like seventh grade science and I've already failed twice. Um Okay, okay that's right. So genus is cannabis um species is what are my options there hemp? When you're looking at cannabis? The family is cannabis say. And then the geniuses cannabis and then those those species, you know are your cannabis sativa, cannabis indica which is recognized by some, not by others. And then cannabis router Alice. Okay. Which one drought is the one that really nobody nobody kinda talks about our messes around with because mostly in our industry we're worried about, you know, the cannabinoids that are produced particularly by cannabis sativa. And if you believe in it, cannabis indica, if it's yeah, if you think it exists. Um and cannabis route just out of curiosity, the rude or Alice one that one produces like, is it really used for anything or is it just not really useful? And you know, I mean, I I think I think really when you're looking at cannabis ruber Alice, it's it's one of those things where, you know, it's it's native to eastern europe and Russia apparently. And some scholars accept cannabis ruder Alice has its own species, just like cannabis indica because of different trucks that expose themselves in in that specific genotype. But you know, again, so would I get high on cannabis road rallies or So let's let's kind of dig into that first because because that, you know, euphoric effect. That intoxicating effect comes not from which plant you're consuming. It comes from the concentration of a very specific compound within that plant. And so what that is, is you're talking about the difference between delta nine THC and all of the other 100 14 cannabinoids that that we know of right now and some of those are produced naturally in the plant and some of those are degradation since like CBN for instance you're never going to find a high CBN variety because CBN is a degradation, which means the plant itself doesn't produce it. Mm And a decadent means that like does it, is it emerge after some kind of chemical reaction? Right. And usually most folks are are, believe it or not, you can convert THC to CBN very simply with heat. Mm And what is that the car box elation process? Just serious. Okay. Got it. Yeah. Okay. So I'm up to like a D minus. Well, I'm asking you in this, I'm asking you in this way with a really open mind because I myself have these questions because I often like I I skip over that part at the beginning and go straight to asking questions about, okay, what does CBD do? What does THC do? You know what you know, what are other cannabinoids that are? And I want to get to that. We'll definitely talk about that today. Um but I think it's helpful to know that, right? How it how it all kind of It's a great question to ask because most people, you know, think about think about this this group of plans as as being completely different. And and you know, one you can you can smoke or extract from or you know, consuming other ways uh to get that intoxicating effect. And one is is more of a medicinal effect. I think what we're going to find as the science progresses is there's so much overlap between these plants that that really you're talking about the individual compounds produced by those plants, not the plants themselves, because as as as traditional breeders are getting into this. One of the really exciting things in my mind is you're starting to see genetics that are coming onto the market that are available to growers that produce very specific compounds. And so one of which is is C. B. G. Which there are a number of purported benefits of that compound as well. But you haven't seen that on the marketplace and products because really right now, in the genetic sweet that's been traditionally available to growers, They have hemp plants. Mind you, this is this is hemp meeting the federal definition of hemp of producing below .3 THC but they have implants. I'm sorry, one thing and when you say one distinction that I want to make here, when you say hemp, are you still talking about the cannabis plant? You're still talking, is that where does the term hemp? How is hemp defined, I guess, within that suite of. So I really love to just go straight off the federal definition of hemp. And the federal definition of hemp is uh, you know, a cannabis city evil. And I'm paraphrasing and breaking this down to a very, you know, remarkably uh general level. It's a cannabis sativa l plant that produces Less than .3 THC by dry way dr like when it's still a plant dried out. Right, okay, now, uh so with that, you know hey there are there are a lot of different plants in you know In these subtypes that you could probably consider him but produce more than .3% THC I mean if if a farmer's crop goes hot by the federal different definition, it's no longer hemp. So I I just like to go off the federal definition of him because genetically there's so much spillover between the two. You know the federal definition is the best distinction. Okay. Got it. So okay so if I'm saying so I've had this debate with myself um if I'm if I'm talking about a podcast for instance that is all about hemp but we also but we talk about like that hemp doesn't just refer to, well it does that that would mean that we are only really talking about like CBD products essentially. Right Well though and that and that goes to what I was what I was getting at before, where it's really neat right now when we look at what's going on within the, you know, hemp industry as far as cannabinoids are concerned because you've gotten some really good breeders that have gotten involved and are breeding these plants for production of specific cannabinoids like CBD. Now that plant still meets the federal definition of hemp because it's bread very specifically to produce very high amounts of C. B. G. Which is available and very low amounts in the high CBD hemp but it's also bred to have very low amounts of THC as well so that still meets that definition of hemp. It's the amount of THC that's in it right? Right. And so now we're hitting, we're hitting our stride while we're just now starting to hit our stride as an industry where we can start to tap into, you know the potential of not just CBD and THC but all those other, you know 112 other minor cannabinoids they are produced by this plant, wow. Yeah that's really exciting. It feels it's a little bit overwhelming, I'm going to be honest because it's like at a certain point it's like kind of like alphabet soup, you know it's like okay well um okay well what you know as a consumer, how do I know where to put my attention? So as a brand new um you know cannabinoid is I guess you know Made available. Is that the next best 1? Um is it you know, do I need a certain combination of these in in my products and I know that um I interviewed a medical doctor who specializes in the endocannabinoid system and she specializes in helping her patients to basically like custom create their I guess you would call it like cannabinoid supplementation protocol like for their own particular um body and system. Um So it's exciting. Um But yeah I think that we're still like in terms of just general education for the average person like so like I still have people like, you know, I'm kind of like my inner circles like I can assure, you know, like, I don't know as much as the real connoisseurs out there, but I know enough to be interesting at, you know, social distance barbecue parties, you know, and they're all like, well they're still ask questions like, well, can I, you know, why would I use CBD if you know, I could just use THC like that's the quote unquote real deal. And I think that um this conversation we're having, if we can kind of even dip a little now deeper into the compounds themselves and discuss what, you know about them and how they, how they work and just the distinctions. I think that's a really big point of like kind of confusion I guess. I would say right, it's a huge role in and and you know, I think that without some good hard solid research conducted into into these so that we can actually make claims with these products because right now, you know, with the FDA stance we cannot come out and say, okay, CBD does X, Y and z. There is there is data that would lend itself to, you know, that theory. But right now as for the FDA, you can come out and say that, you know, CBD helps with inflammation or x wires E and so and it's it's promising in that regard because if you go on clinic trials dot gov And you just type in Cannabidiol or CBD? I think the last time I checked there were like 42 open studies that were being conducted with CBD for a range of different medical claims right now. And that's all legitimate research that's being conducted right now by universities or private companies. And that research is going to further our industry in that, you know, hopefully here in in the hopefully early immediate future we can actually make claims with these products. But I say it's probably going to get more confusing because, you know, we were just talking about how there's Depending on who you talk to. 114 different cannabinoids and so there's a lot of crossover in when you look at research in what this cannabinoids do, working within your cannabinoid system in your body. Um so I think it's really neat that you interviewed a medical practitioner that that is coming up with specific formulations for their pigeons. And I think that that is sort of the way this industry is gonna move, you're going to have products that are specifically formulated with a range of cannabinoids and Turpin's for like sleep for instance, because CBN we talked about CBN earlier um you know, the belief there is that CBN is a fantastic natural sedative. Mhm. And is there, is there, is there like data, like do we have any kind of clinical data or other like research studies to back that up? Or is that like when you say belief, I know that you're saying that because it's not something we can claim. But is that pretty right. Pretty much backed by research at this point? I think that there's some research that that lends to that theory. But once again, when you're, when you're looking at research, it's tough to be super definitive at this point because there just haven't been enough of those studies done. And you know, anyone in pharmaceutical development will tell you that, you know, generally speaking If 30% of your test group sees a positive effect from your product, then it's probably placebo. And so you know, it's it's one of those things where you know, as looking at this data right now you've got to kind of take it with a grain of salt because yeah, the studies have been so small. Um you know, the patient groups that you're looking at within these studies have been so small that you're you're still just scratching the surface as far as the data set needed to be able to claim that you know, this is an ethical product. Do I believe that it's an effort that these are ethical products? I certainly believe that because I mean I've been impacted with it in my personal life, my father in law um take CBD every day and and swears up and down that it helps dramatically with his Parkinson's mm So you know, is their efficacy there? I certainly believe there is. I I think that until we have that larger set of data, it's going to be tough to say definitively. Yes. Right. So what needs to happen then together? So the FDA is that this place where they're not quite because it's the FDA is that's the next step is for the FDA to create some kind of standards for. I mean, this goes back to like how the hemp is grown, how the label requirements. Like there's a whole bunch of stuff in there right about customer safety. Is that pretty much where the FDA is caught up right now? Is like how to define those standards? Yeah, that's a that's a huge part of it. Because when you look at, when you look at these studies, one thing to keep in mind too is that before a product comes to market, whether, you know, it's an ingredient in food use, um that's going through the new dietary ingredient process with F. D. A. Or is a pharmaceutical product or anything like that. There has to be a fairly significant amount of safety data that's put forth to the FDA to assure that, you know, this particular product in this case, CBD doesn't, you know, cause seizures in certain patients or it doesn't interact with the liver or you know, it doesn't do X. Y. That would be harmful to this certain set of people and and that data just isn't out there right now. I mean there's some from uh like G. W. Pharmaceuticals application to the FDA that they had to submit some safety data with that. But the problem there is you're looking at an isolated uh pharmaceutical product and so they're dozing is probably 10 times what you or I would think of as a normal dose from like a tincture. Right. Well so what would like an example be of like an average doses like what I've heard between 20 and 50 mg a day. Yeah I I think I think that's pretty standard within the industry right now. Once again there's there's not a whole lot of data tobacco, you know this is an applicable gross right? But I think you're about spot on there that that 22 50 mg range is probably sort of the industry standard right now. And what are they using in those studies? Like I feel like I've read up to like like several 100 mg right. Right. So so I think and it's been a while since I've looked at their particular data sets. But but I think if I remember correctly you're talking in the 3-400 mg range. Mhm. So it's it's significantly more it's in the isolated products so it's not you know a full spectrum product like much of the market segment here in the U. S. Is demanding right now. It's kind of apples and oranges. And I think that that's been a lot of the delay in FDA actually issuing guidance for this. But then you hit on a good point too because talking on on the safety aspect of it and talking all the way back to the growers, one of the things people need to keep in mind with this is this plan is a bio accumulator. And so you know you read those stories on the internet about him being used to clean up you know hazardous materials in like Chernobyl. And I firmly believe that that that is a valid application for the plan because that's a big cleanup. You had no kidding right? But when you look at this plant to right now our growers within our system have to sample their soil before they put it out there for heavy metals and pesticide residues. That's because this plant basically anything that's a bio that's bio available in that soil. This plan is going to take up and concentrate and we just don't know enough about it yet to say, okay, organic arsenic in a sandy loam soil type with X. Ph We'll take up you know 50% of the bio available arsenic. We just we just don't know. And then from there that gets you know taken in through the roots and some of that material stays in the roots, some of it goes to the stock and some of it goes to the flower they call that the translocation factor. And we don't know the translocation factor, any of these contaminants in him. And so right now folks that are contracting growers to grow this have to be super careful about where those growers put these particular plants, otherwise, you know, you're setting yourself up for failure at the end of season when you sample them for those contaminants. Now, a grower has thrown away, you know, $8,000 an acre when he could have just planted it somewhere else and had a good clean crop. Okay, so is it um do you see, I'm really actually very curious about the whole soil contaminants thing because when I, when I look at like a certificate of analysis and I just run through the numbers of, you know, like what's been tested and how clean is this product? And it typically of like a say like a, like a, like a CBD like the raw material, like an extract and it says it has all this list of stuff that I would never think of being having any kind of impact, like it's like you don't think that way, like even when I think about just the food that we eat or like, you know the tomatoes that we get from this or we got cucumbers actually just just now we threw away a bag of cucumbers um because they tasted kind of off, they didn't taste bad, it looked perfect, you know, they were beautiful, but they tasted like they were they had something going on. And uh I'm curious like your perspective and any insights that you have just on that, like What do you think about like what do we see showing up in soil like today versus you know, has it changed over the last 50 years? Does pollution play into that at all? There's any soil like completely safe? Like what a kind of what's the macro of our agricultural, like our soil and the factors that you deal with when you're considering the growing process? Well, you know, I think it's a real question and and keep in mind that the growers that we deal with are traditionally, you know, conventional um conventional tobacco growers. And so these are guys that have been using, you know, your conventional conventional pesticides and conventional fertilizers, they're not certified organic. And so we we definitely take more time on dealing with soil contaminants with them to make sure that we set them up for success. Um as far as heavy metals are concerned, honestly, I worry less about heavy metals than I do with pesticide residence because a lot of times, you know, people get overly worried about heavy metals and one of the things to keep in mind is you can't just look at your soil type and what's available in the material that you're running through, say you're extracting process. So if you're talking about lead as far as the heavy metal is concerned, you know, even if you have a high level of lead in the floral material that you're running through your extraction process, that led probably isn't soluble in your solvent. So it's not going to come through with the extract. Got it interesting. So it'll just be filtered out basically. Right? It just stays in the raw material, it never leaves law material. And so and then you look at contaminants like mold for instance, right? There are a number of different extraction methodologies that basically the mold is one killed and sterilized in the process. And to stays with the raw material, there's dead mold spores don't then transfer through into the extract. Um yeah, once again it depends on your extraction methodology, you know, which is another great topic to go into your doing a fabulous job as the professor by the way. This is that was my next just Oh, extraction methods. So that's well, okay, so you can finish up on the soil bit for sure to before we get into that, you know, the one thing that really worries me is pesticide residue and that's not just from a soil perspective, that's from you know, sort of the holistic in the field approach because you know, grower might be doing everything right and and only spraying it with you know, bio uh oh actives or you know biologics or you know inherently safe products that are used in organic production, but maybe they didn't clean out their sprayer when they switched from the peanut field to the hemp field and so now you've got pesticide residue and and here's how important that is. So by Fenton is an insecticide that you can spray on lettuce before it goes to market and there's no residue, right? That same product I've seen sprayed on hemp clones before they went to the field, this is replanting out in the field and the finished material was contaminated with by french foreign, it just hangs onto it. So efficient, wow, wow. And that's because of that factor of the plant just being, it pulls in whatever, right? It's a bio accumulator, it just pulls in and holds on to everything. Ooh, that's fast, I don't even think about that. So do a lot of the farmers then that you work with, they are, they're farming multiple different types of fields. Is that pretty common, Is that okay? Got it. Yeah, I mean traditionally out here in eastern north Carolina, guys are raising, you know, growers are raising tobacco, cotton, corn, soybeans, sweet potatoes, It there's a whole range of different crops that folks are growing out here are growers are got it, wow, yes, there's a lot to keep track of, so then, so extraction then, right, so that's like seems like another step you ready for extraction, like not to move us along or anything, but this student is at attention um because that's another debate right? Like, so then um, you know, we're both in the industry and I've heard it's almost hard to have, like I like to have a clear point of view. Typically that's just my personality and I've with extraction, I really struggled to have a clear point of view on it because there are some, there are several different methods that all claim to be either the cleanest or the least reactive, the least dangerous, you know, like et cetera, they all basically have the same five bullet points of claims that they share. And I'd love to get an experts insight into the different processes and um, well I wouldn't call myself an expert in an extraction. You know, honestly I've, I've been exposed to so much of it and I'm like you, I I try to read into everything and learn as much as I can about everything and owning part of an extraction company for a while which you know, locality employs uh some of the top scientists in this industry and including a guy who literally wrote the book on supercritical fluid extraction. So you know, being exposed to those folks has given me sort of a unique perspective. But even even still there's so much mysticism around, you know, the extraction saw it and you're right. So the hydrocarbons folks that are extracting propane will tell you that this is the most efficient, the cleanest, the yada yada yada yada yada, their batch times are so much lower and then you get the folks who were doing, you know say cryo ethanol are going to tell you that, you know, this is the meanest, this is the most efficient so on and so forth. All the way up to you know, everything that we do with the company is with Co two is a solvent. And so I think really what it boils down to is picking, picking the attraction methodology, the matches one the capital expenditure that you're willing and able to undertake. But to your your process flow. So you know, there's 50 different different ways you can skin this cat if you want to go with you know, C. 02, you can get extremely selective with C. 02 that you know, I want to pull out X Y and Z molecule in in my first fraction I want to leave, you know, The others in our second fraction you can do that with co two. If you have the right folks developing your protocols with some of the other extraction methodologies, it's tough to get that selectivity. And so then you have to go through further post processing where you know, okay, so I've done my initial extraction and I end up with this green paste that isn't necessarily a formulate herbal product. Uh so now I have to take it through and do a vacuum filtration process with ethanol that they call winterization. Which is you know, a very time consuming process and there's ways to mitigate that, but still it's it's a secondary step. And then from there, okay, I want to take now you've got a full spectrum extract that you can put in a wide variety of different products. I want to take that and I want, you know, a THC free distillate. So now you're talking about, you know, removing a specific cannabinoid out of that matrix that requires further post processing or you know, I want to take this to an isolated 99% pure product for a specific formulation. You know, now you're talking about even further post processing. And so really really when when folks talk about extraction that initial extraction, I I like to shy people away from hydrocarbons because you know, if you're using propane, hex ain butane generally, those are some really toxic solvents that uh you don't necessarily want to consume and you're going to have to remove those residual solvents with some sort of post processing after the fact. So it's going to be inherently more time consuming and expensive on the back end. Although the front end is very, very cheap. Whereas with like ethanol, ethanol is inherently safe for human consumption now, caveat to that you get some folks that try to cut corners and use denatured ethanol, which has a trace amount of methanol in it, significantly cheaper than food grade ethanol, but you know, it's, it's got that little bit of methanol in it, which is not safe for human consumption or you know, hydrocarbons, folks that are that are running these gigantic systems that, you know, that system is not in an explosion proof room. Well, that's something that when the F comes out with guidance, that's something that's going to be a thing of the past. Mhm mm. Uh it was a lot there. I was really interesting. Well, because I was like, my first, my initial thought was, you know, when you're, when you're running stuff through multiple processes, it sounds like it's not a multiple processing stages, it definitely arduous and time consuming on the back end, but also like, I wonder, you know, it's just like putting something in the blender, like you can literally over blend it until you have nothing left, er you can over boil something till you boil out of the nutrients out of it. Like broccoli for instance, you know, is there a similar logic here with that? Or is are these extraction methods? So you're you're right on there because, you know, so there's a large consumer segment right now that that really cares about like the Turpin content. Right? Well, most of these post processing steps are flashing office Turpin's so those, those Turpin's unless you're collecting them and reconstituting them into that matrix are gone. And so you don't you don't have those anymore and and just like just like the further down the line you get, as far as purification is concerned, you're losing um those constituents that are involved in that, in that entourage effect that most people feel provides an a more ethical product, something that works better, something that, you know, it makes you feel better, right? You're exactly right there, right. Um and what would be the extraction process for um like full spectrum versus when you're isolating out um particular compound? Well, I mean the making a full spectrum oil is probably the simplest, well, it's definitely the simplest thing to do because essentially you're running it through that uh initial extraction phase, taking whatever you collected out of that. And then me you have to run it through winterization, which is that vacuum filtration step with ethanol. Um maybe you don't depending on, you know, the selectivity of your extraction method, but but basically right there, you've got your uh first sellable product or your first formulate herbal product. Now, it's important to understand that in that initial extraction, you're gonna take everything that's available and soluble uh in your selected solvent. So whether you're using C. 02 or ethanol or hydrocarbons, whatever, you know, whatever pesticides, whatever contaminants are soluble in that solvent are going to concentrate in your extract by at least a magnitude of five. Oh wow. Yeah, but it just it stays in, it doesn't come out right? Right. And and you know, you're you're taking away, you're taking away all of that other stuff that brought your, so for instance, you can have, let's talk about labs for a second here because you could send your biomass off to a lab that has a standard of equipment that they're using to test for. Let's call it by Finn thrown right? And say your limit on by Fenton is like .5 ppm. Well, maybe that piece of equipment that they have in that lab can't test 2.5 parts per million or you know, you're like .499, you know, in the test that comes back. If you're a .499 and that's your limit for your finished product, you're going to be significantly above that when it comes to that extract. And so I feel like that's that's a uh piece that a lot of folks are saying is that you do get that significant concentration of those contaminants at that first pass, wow, that makes sense why you have to do the testing after, not just at the dry weight basis, but then again, after the extraction has been done. Right. I think it's absolutely imperative. Yeah. So you can I didn't know, I guess I didn't know this um that you can you can use CO2 for full spectrum. Absolutely, absolutely sio two is uh you know, it holds the most expensive. Is that why it's kind of sorry to interrupt your fine. It's absolutely the most capital intensive extraction methodology when you're looking at scaling things up. I mean there are companies like the waters corporation that sell great systems on a small scale that that we're kind of standard in the cannabis industry in its infancy, but now, you know, everybody's trying, you talk to any extraction company and they're the biggest. Um but when you're trying to get those gigantic systems with huge throughput, You know, you're talking about having to deploy $5-$20 million dollars just on the system. Oh, wow, wow. Um and then, but with CO Two is that um I've I've read that that's been coined like the cleanest or like uh do you have to pass it through anything else like you do with some of the other with the other solvents that you mentioned? Or is this, how does this one work? That's different and maybe preferred at least by your company. You're still worried about contaminants. But one of the things that you don't have to worry about with Sio two is residual solvents. And and we kind of hit on that a little bit in that, you know, butane propane heck saying you kind of don't want to be consuming those. You know, it's it's it's kind of detrimental to be consuming hydrocarbons with health product, Right, That would make sense. So really, you know, past that initial extraction phase, we talked about, you're going to be in the parts per million parts per billion range in that solvent in that full special extract. And so now you have to run it through further post post processing to remove those harmful solvents. Uh so that you, you know, have a product that's safe to consume, whereas with Ceo to you don't have to do that. Mhm. Got it. Um Anything you want, anything else you think is worth you want to touch on with um the whole cultivation CBD THC topic that we're kind of, Well, I'll tell you the most exciting thing to me that's going on in the industry right now is cannabinoids are starting to and FDA cans will definitely speed this along. But cannabinoids are starting to be recognized not as their own industry or their own subset of an industry, they're starting to get recognized as actual ingredients for consumer products and dietary supplements. And I think that that is really, really gonna help this industry flourished because when you start talking about some of these major, major consumer companies getting involved and adding, you know, adding CBD into things in our everyday lives or other cannabinoids, things that our in our everyday lives that that's going to be, that's going to be really seeing this industry explode and it's going to impact impact every link in that supply chain from start to finish the growers are going to have a much more stable profitable uh working relationship with hemp than they currently do. Um because I'll tell you there's a lot of hemp sitting around from last season that never got sold because all of these companies that claimed they were the biggest at the end of the day didn't have the money to pay their growers. That's been a huge, huge, huge, huge problem in this industry. And it's something that we, we just absolutely can't tolerate, you know? Yeah, and I would imagine just, yeah, like you have that perspective to of somebody who's, who knows personally, you know, like that the people who make a living and you've lived it um in that, like you said earlier, it's like a it's not so much a way of life, like, oh, can I go run the tractor today? But it's a real determination and a discipline to do that and our farmers are so um they're critical to the supply chain. And it's like one of those things that when you read about like, oh yeah, farmers, they're all poor or you know, they're just kind of like, they're all like on the verge of bankruptcy at all times. It's like, how is that, how is that possible? Like we all eat, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Well it's, it's possible because, you know, the commodity prices keep keep falling and falling and falling and the input costs that are thrust upon these growers keep increasing and increasing. I mean, you look at, you look at just the tax fees that I had to pay to, you know, Monsanto Syngenta, all of them to accept that's really good products, but you know tech feed on tech fee, it starts to add up and then fertilizer costs adding up and then you know, every new pesticide when it comes out costs much more than the generics. And so you couple all of that together with commodity prices going lower lower. And and you end up with a nightmare scenario which is kind of where we're right now that I think that hemp can really help to alleviate once we get some stability in this. You know, if we can if we can get hemp to where we're paying sustainable rates to our growers that are comparable with say, you know tobacco, I think that this can have a lasting impact on agriculture and then expanding out into the minor cannabinoids in cultivation too because if I want a high C. B. G. Product I can't get their efficiently by fraction ating out the C. B. G. From my high CBD extracts, it's just not enough. You're talking fractions of a percent that that plant produces. And so now I have to have growers that are producing high C. B. G. Genetics in order for me to have a sustainable, commercially viable product with that cannabinoid. And so now you're talking about having growers not just growing for CBD not just growing for you know THC whenever it gets legalized, you're you're talking about having growers growing, you know varieties for maybe 100 different product lines and that's what's really exciting to me, wow, that is exciting. That makes so much sense to have. I love that. You know, just referring to these cannabinoids as like ingredients like, you know, I'm gonna put a little CBD in it and I'm going to put a little bit of Caprica. I don't know, I'm not a good look, but like, well, you know, you watch the show, hey, I've watched this tv show, um the cooking one with the weed and they have these brand and it's like they're doing the truffles and they've got the like, you know, it's something in the soup and another thing in some kind of cream reduction or whatever and it's just, it's the coolest thing and it's like, okay, that's very entertaining and probably, you know, you have to be a special person to be able to tolerate that. I'm always like, how are these people standing up? Absolutely right. But when I think about like, yeah, like having that in any kind of like just a general daily, well in this supplement and not having, I just feel like we have so much weight, you know, like, like baggage in this, you know, like just holding down the progress of this industry and like you said that's just the other day, it's just another ingredient that we can use for wellness. I mean, Arnica didn't have a problem. Like what's going on? Well, you know, people worry about, people worry about the transition to people in the industry, worry about the transmission uh to it being, quote quote just another ingredient because they think that you know some of the smaller brands, some of the niche stuff uh is going to end up going away and I really can't see that happening right now because you know cannabinoids right now have an established consumer base that you know you you could definitely call them educated in that they a lot of them want very specific things out of their cannabinoid products. And so I think that those products that are currently on the market and those brands that are currently on the market are going to have place in the market long term as long as they continue to innovate and stay relevant? Mhm. I don't I don't think that I don't think that this transition is going to be forced the little guy out at all. I think what it's gonna do is it's going to force out the bad actors in this industry that have been all of us a bad bad name and a black guy, you know, right, what do you think is going to happen with um like the really really big like the P. And G. S of the world. Um Do you do you think that or has anyone significant like at that level yet gotten gotten into this in a meaningful way? Is that because I look at I can imagine people looking to that as an indicator of how, you know, how much progress we're making and how, you know, how mainstream, how safe it is to go into it as a business endeavor. Well, first and foremost, if anyone from PNG is listening to this podcast, please look me up. I would love to have you as a customer. Um, but but second, you know, so it's really tough for these major companies to break into this industry right now with with so much uncertainty because, you know, realistically could the FDA come out tomorrow and say, you know, CBD isn't safe for for ingestion based on the data set we've received from X, Y and Z. While it is a fraction of a kind of a possibility, you know, stranger things have happened. And the uncertainty with the lack of regulation from the FDA is really keeping the larger players out of the business right now. And I think that there's a lot of interest there with these larger companies. It's just they're not they're not going to do anything that could jeopardize what they have going right now. And so it's really going to take the FDA coming in in a meaningful way for them to want to dip their toes in the water. That makes sense. Um Are you affiliated? Or are you like, do you know much about like the US hemp authority and some of these like quote unquote like watchdog groups or that have. Yeah, we we, I almost forgot to mention that. So I am the chairman of the Technical committee for the temp authority and what were responsible for is uh you know, particularly taking a look at the guidance and procedures for the US Empath Authority and for our growers processors and and brand owners and making sure that our audit processes holding them to the highest standard possible. And so you know it's it's been a struggle getting that to where it is now. Thank thank the lord that we have folks like dr mary Ellen Weintraub who has been spearheading this thing since the very beginning, who really care about this being a system that cares about quality. And so I'm I'm a firm believer in what we're doing at the US EPA Authority. We're working on version 3.0 right now, which has been a process but should be coming out for public comment here hopefully in the next few months and that's that's one of the things that we do is we have this technical committee that's full of all sorts of industry professionals but also you know folks that are very heavy in the scientific and from companies like you're a fins, we've got representation from the american interval process association on the technical committee, all of these folks that have just a tremendous amount of experience, not just in cannabis and cannabinoids but in the broader, you know dietary supplement food ingredient pharmaceutical space working on this but what we do is we take a look at the guidance documents, beef it up or scale it down as appropriate with with the information that's available to us. And then we put it out for public comment. And so anybody who has any input or or you know, has a perspective on how the language should read or what's important to consumers right now can submit a comment on that and I can tell you unequivocally those comments are are all looked at uh as far as, you know, is this something that we should incorporate into the program? It makes so much sense. It's like cutting way back on the red tape and bureaucracy of like, okay, now we're going to we're going to hire a big high powered consulting firm and they're going to put a survey together and we're going to run focus groups and then we're going to come. You know, like it just, you know, it's kind of like the industry as a whole um seems to be embracing more of an inclusive democratic. I guess if you will process of getting some some forward movement, which is a really cool thing for this, you know, Andy at the end of the day, realistically, you know, we do that with the public comment because at the end of the day, if if the consumer or the customer doesn't care about our program or they think that we should be doing something differently than our program has lost all relevance. Mhm. Right. So it's imperative to have all of those different opinions and and look at this thing objectively and incorporate what's important to consumers and customers right now into that full scope. Yeah. And then that you feed them, that feeds to the like, I'm sure that plays some kind of role in helping with maybe guiding the FDA S perspectives or their points of view. Does do you guys have like a direct link to them or you are you communicating with them or they kind of independently work on work on this? So, they kind of independently work on this book. There has been, you know, they've taken notice of of what we're doing because it is something that's that's different. It is something that I feel is special in this industry, in that, you know, instead of instead of being super secretive about everything, like some of these companies tend to be, you know, we want sort of a common to all. Playbook that if you see that us help authority logo on there. You know, if you're a regulator for instance, uh you can be guaranteed that what's in that bottle is below the legal threshold for THC, you know, that one is a compliant Product two, it was responsibly and sustainably produced and then and then three, the customer knows that it's a safe product and it's free from contaminants and you know, hopefully as as we continue to gain recognition that us help authorities symbol continues to be a symbol of trust within the industry that people look for when they're sourcing these products. That's really cool. That makes total sense. Uh huh. I'm gonna have to go and check it out because it looks like on the website, people could like apply online and they can get certified so you can put the stamp on your bottle. And that basically says that we've that were at least following some sort of standard on, you know. Yeah. Right. And we've got certifications like I said for growers, processors and manufacturers and for brand owners and you know, it's it's a fairly intensive audit process um which is taken care of by a third party food chain I. D. Um But you know, it's it's it's definitely in my mind the most reputable uh sort of self regulating organization that's available for, you know, cannabinoid products right now. And how long do you think it will be before the FDA comes out with clear guidelines? Well, you know, we've we've we've been seeing some movement in that direction here lately. I mean they've they've submitted if I remember a couple of different sets of of proposals to the White House to get feedback on. And and so I think it's something that they're going to have to do sooner rather than later. They fully recognize that at this point in time, you can't put the genie back in the bottle. I mean it's, it's not something you can put a full step on. There are so many people that take these products and believe in these products and in some cases rely on these products. Uh it's just not something that you can push the off button to write, get a genus in the bottle. Hey, there you go. If my wife listens to this, just gonna be rolling your eyes so hardcore. Oh God, I couldn't help myself. That's really cool. And I'm just looking, I mean your licensing fees are not that big of a deal. Um like so okay, let's just say extremely yeah um processor manufacturer and brand under brand owner licensing fees are all the same. It looks like uh like that's the same level of licensing or there's different basically per skew. Yeah, but there is no distinction between manufacturer process or a brand owner which is kind of clean. Yeah. And you know that's, that's the actual licensing feed to be able to put that certification symbol on your bottle. Um Prior to that You have to undergo the audit process with which the audit process is another cost. I believe it's $1,395 for the audit plus you have to pay the travel expense of the auditor to come out to you. Oh God, it was an in person thing. How do you do that now with Covid? Is that, have you guys, that's, that's something that, that's something that our third party auditor is, is trying to navigate through right now. I don't know. I don't know if they've done any audits during this, this whole covid process, but uh, you know, that's, that's definitely, it's impacted everything, you know? Yeah, I bet face masks shields. I mean, do you have school aged Children? I do, I do. My daughter was, well, is starting preschool this year and you know, uh, I'll tell you, uh, two days and nights and three days and three days of virtual kindergartener. I don't know how logistically that's going to be feasible. Yeah, we've had a similar situation. Um, here, Well, we have three daughters, two of them are in going into fourth grade twins. And then we have a young one who's in her last year of preschool and um, we've decided to go virtual with the twins are our school district. I'm in a suburb of Chicago in our school district gave us the option of going either in person or virtual. And we ultimately were like, there's just, this is not a lot of clarity right now on how all this is going to go down. So we're just going to go virtual. We have, you know, we have the flexibility in our home to do that. And so hopefully that will kind of free up some space and open up the space in the classroom for other kids whose parents need to go back to work or you know who don't have that freedom and with our young one were like I don't know what we're gonna do with her because she actually needs school. She needs the socializing like the most like she's so energetic and she's a little social being and she just she needs it so much, she's so over us. Uh But you know like again yeah like how do you do virtual priest people like and how do you do in person preschool with social distancing? That's just like so not going to happen. So I'm just like you know trying to be as safe as possible and you know everybody don't take their CBD try to keep yourself taking vitamins once again the to the different companies that are listening to this do not do not do not do not do not advertise that CBD cures Covid 19 FDA will get mad at. Yes do not say that. Do not. And I've actually I've seen I've noticed some emails coming through from various companies that I follow and there are a number of them that are tiptoeing around the like immune booster uh messaging and yeah I guess that's like a whole other thing. Yeah it's a it's a slippery slope and you know I think I think once again, you know as we're looking at CBD and different cannabinoids being combined with other dietary ingredients to that you can make claims on as far as immunity boosters, you know like a C. B. D. And elderberry combination you know I I think that's where it gets a little bit less murky when you have this combination products but if you're just doing a full spectrum of extract in a carrier oil with a flavor and you're saying that it's an immune booster that's dicey. Yeah that is dicey wow. Well my brain is packed full of good information. Do not agree on that. Yeah you've been were incredibly um easy to follow and I love everything that you've shared is I've learned a great deal and quite frankly I mean that's like one of the main reasons why I want to do this podcast because I felt like there are definitely some areas where I felt I feel like it's hard to keep up with all of it you know? Right. Yeah this is fun. Yeah this was great. Thank you again. Thank you so much for having me um need to get you out here to north Carolina on farm during the growing season. One more post covid times. That would be really cool. I would love to see that. I haven't, I have yet to step foot on a farm yet and I'd love to I absolutely love we'll take you up on that offer. For sure. I'm there. Absolutely come on out. Well thank you scott. I really appreciate the time we went over but this anticipated time quite a bit. So um just really appreciate it. This was a very, very good time. It's a lot of fun. Thank you so much for having me. You're so welcome. All right. Take care now. You too. Bye bye bye.