I want to be an American idiot.
There we go slowly back on seven hundred wlw wood a day with a day with a day, always be scared when a politician goes it's about the children.
It's about the children, remember, And it happens all the time when people on when progressives talk about doing things and protecting and saving the children, and tongue in cheek, conservatives laugh at them and go, my god, there's exploiting the kids. What happens when it's the other way. I wonder if democrats and progressives are chuckling when Republicans do it and conservatives do it, because that's what's happening now.
It's about the children. Got to save the children.
Governor Mike Dwine and his jihad against anything pleasurable like Hemp or Potts on full display this morning, as the governor has issued a ninety day ban on THC infused gummies and beverages sold outside of licensed marijuana dispensaries. So if you're a retailer, you got to pull all these products, all sales, all the displays after there can be no sight of anything CBD related after October fourteenth. Got to be gone by October fourteenth, midnight twelve o one am,
October fourteenth. Otherwise, well, you're gonna get You're gonna get a good talking to is what's going to happen there. So what does it mean for small businesses in Ohio? What does that mean for you as an adult and choosing what goes into your body. You're still going to be able to get CBD seltzer at a bar, which is extremely popular. A lot of questions. I don't know how many answers they have, but maybe got caught up.
And this is Jason Friedman. Jason runs Ohio CBD Guys stores in the East Walnut Hills and Montgomery and Jose the show. Now, Jason, how are you man?
Doing great?
Thanks for having me on, Scott.
Well, I appreciate you losing money and doing your part, and maybe your business goes away to save the children. It's the least you could do if you cared about children. Damn it, Jason, you wouldn't sell these products to adults.
Oh my goodness, it's been quite a forty eight hour Scott feeling frustrated but actually cautiously optimistic. Here, okay, this is the first step in cannabis reform here locally to legalize this stuff, I believe.
Yeah, well we'll start with this, okay. And I understand I'm kind of tongue in cheek about this because it's concerning if if you know, they do an undercover operation and a nefarious retail er could be like it's a carryout or something like that, and they go in and they buy a product that that feels like, taste like, and has the same effects as marijuana, which is controlled in Ohio. That that's a problem. That means, you know, there can sell it to people underage, which is not
a good thing at all. And some of these products mimic candy packaging. The one that the wine was holding up with Sour Patch Kids looks just like Sour Patch Kids, you know, stuff like that, like packaging, and you know, and the fact that somebody to carry out would sell this to a teenager or a twelve year old that bothers me. That should not be happening. But it doesn't mean you should ban it, but we need to control that, agreed.
I agree.
And while I the governor's focus on regulating these intoxicating hemp prockets and keeping them away from and not marketed to children, which we are aligned on. I disagree with the methodology to which he's using to achieve his goal, which is disastrous to small businesses like mine.
It really doesn't make a lot of sense because they had a chance, and he's been pushing the legislature to do something. Legislatures and done anything, and so now the edict as well, we're going to ban it for everybody.
That doesn't make any sense.
If the legislature can't legislate, that's on those who we send a columbus to do our bidding for us.
That's something you all got to figure out.
But issuing a ninety day ban and all this stuff, which is largely almost all exclusively consumed by adults, is nonsensical.
Correct, And my understanding is that he took this action to motivate the legislators to pass this. But I asked, is there another way that we could have gone about doing this other than a way that's going to damage small businesses? Called can cause lots of confusion. There's still clarification that's needed on what the definition of intoxicating HEMP
means in this order? Are we talking about anything with THHC, including CBD tinctures that might have a little bit not going to get you high, but it's got THHC in it, or are we talking about a specific milligram dosage. There's still a lot of things that need to be cleared up before October fourteenth, Scott.
Yeah, and that's that's a short time. But the problem is is that retail is like yourself, right, And what happened to conservatives being about the small business guy in business and let business do what they do. I don't know a lot of people like yourself have tons of stuff. You have storefronts, but we have manufacturers and retailers that make their living and make money off of this product. And all of a sudden, now when the blank of eye, the governor of Waves's magic wand and says now it's
going to be illegal at midnight. That doesn't look like democracy. That doesn't look like small governed government conservatism to me, especially because it's politically motivated.
I agree one hundred percent. And I also think the government needs to understand that while there are bad actors out there in these gas stations and smoke shops, there are a large number of responsible business owners like myself that check IDs don't sell products that have any kid focused marketing. Only sell products that are third party lab tested and have those tests available to the customer via
QR code on the packaging. We've been operating responsibly and legally since twenty eighteen, but to threaten our livelihood by implementing.
This order is just flat out wrong.
The legislators need to get working and passed the regulation that doesn't lead to people losing their jobs.
And that's what this says. This is a squeeze on small business.
And I'll get into that a little bit more in the show again in case you're just hearing this for the first time. It's been a big news story for the last twelve few hours and with the governor has issued an edict ninety day ban on THCHU infused gummies, beverages and products sold out of licensed marijuana dispensaries. And of course you drive all over the place, you see places like where you are, Jason, you own Ohio CBD
Guy with your two locations. But there's countless mom and pop businesses like this and also many many more that manufacturers supply not just this, but also THCCBD infused drinks like beers and in particularly selters. My wife's a big fan of the seltzer. She goes you know, it's pretty good, just hits different. It's a different kind of feeling when you drink a couple of these. We're talking about a huge by the way, and this is not in your sector.
I don't know if you sell them these products. But fifty West, for example, they're a huge seller of THHD infused drinks right here, and it's the Cincinnati company and they saw a huge decline in the number. And maybe we're past craft beer right now. I don't know, but the beer sales are going down. Sales of this are offsetting that. If this goes away in ninety days, that's going to be catastrophic for a lot of these small breweries, isn't it.
Well, you literally took the words out of the mouth. I was just about to say that alcohol sales are at their lowest point since nineteen thirty nine. People want to go out, they want to get a buzz, they don't want to feel like crap the next day. So that's one of the reasons you're seeing these THHC seltzers growing. We absolutely sell the sunflower product by fifty West in our store, as well as the stock either another local THC Seltzer. It's probably the fastest part of our business.
And a question was asked during the press conference yesterday, is that what about bottle shops, liquor stores, bars that people can't go in unless they're twenty one?
Yep?
Legally do they have to stop selling these products too? So again, there's a lot that needs to be cleared up before this band takes effect on October fourteen.
Do you see like a lawsuit and an injunction coming down to courts can hold us up?
Well?
Absolutely, I think there are questions as to the legality of this emergency order, and I know of multiple efforts potentially emerging to fight it in courts starting today.
Yeah, and maybe for those listening going listen, I don't drink CBD TA, I don't know what that is. TA, I don't know Delta eight and Delta ten and Delta nine, I don't know what all that stuff means. And all I know is it can kill children. Let's start with that one, because it's about the children, right. The wine set in toxicity happens dangerous and we need to do
better to protect our children. And there's no question that children are getting a hold of the stuff largely because an adult buys it and it's a bag of you know, things that look like sour patch kids or nerds, and they take one and now they're high. But we saw increase eight hundred kids twelve and younger, according to the state, were exposed to cannabi exposed to cannabis in twenty twenty four.
I'm not sure that was you know, poison Control Center's always have fifty percent increase from the year prior.
But what does that mean?
How many kids have died, how many kids have been damage beyond repair, become wards of the state. Whatever it might be, taking too much THC or taking too much CBD or cannabis or cannabinoid or adulta eight delta ten, What does that do to one?
Do you die from that?
So it as far as THHC goes, there's a reason why you have to be twenty one to take it in a dispensary in my store. It's just not good kids or their brains are still developing. It's not a good thing for them. Can it cause depth? I think you'll see varying studies out there that show mostly that it's not harmful. Now, if you take too much a THC, whether you're an adult or a child, yes, you can
absolutely have adverse reactions triggered by the THC. But again, this is why you need to be a responsible adult. And as far as the kids getting their hands on it, look, I don't think there's outside of isolated incidents that a gas a five year old or a ten year old is going to walk into a gas station and someone's going to sell them these products. I think what's happening is, unfortunately, if irresponsible parents are letting their.
Kids get a hold of these products.
So again, why are responsible businesses like mine being penalized for bad actors in gas stations, smoke shops, vape shops, but irresponsible parents.
Can you imagine the outrage the same group of people were talking about if someone said, hey, you know, too many kids are getting shot in Cincinnati. There are too many accidental gun discharges. We have to have a trigger lock. People aren't doing that. We've got guns and cars. Young people are getting hold of the gun, shooting each other. We have to ban weapons. Could you imagine the outrage from the same conservatives. It's don't see the hypocrisy with the same argument.
There is a way to achieve this responsibly, Scott, and this is not the way to go about doing it. And I'm hopeful that this there will be a resolution before the fourteenth, and certainly before the ninety day ban is over.
Yeah, I mean, we'll see. I don't know.
Maybe this is a way for de Wind to scare the legislature into getting something done, but I don't know. They've dragged their feet this long. And you know we've seen this act before. Jason Friedman by the way, Ohio CVD guy in the show with the Wines, ninety day THHD and fused Gummy Beverage CBD, ban on all this stuff. And you know you can't get a celter anymore or vape simply because well now we're going to ban it because a kid make it a hold of it.
And I you know, I don't want to make light.
Let me circle back and say, you know, I'm not saying we shouldn't prevent kids from getting stuff because it's not fatal. No one wants to see a kid, either voluntarily or involuntary, in just something they think is candy or vapor or drink or something. No, we don't do that, but we do have dangerous stuff around. As my point, we have I mentioned guns, but we also have alcohol in a host of other things. Adults engage in that kids aren't supposed to. We have reasonable regulations that prevent
that from happening. We just need that here, this seems totally irrational. Is to ban it. We need to ban it so we can regulate it. It doesn't make any sense. It's like we need to pass the bills so we can see what's in it. It's the same argument that they made fun of and made a lot of political hay out of.
They're now doing themselves.
If that's the hypocrisy of politics in ninety days, what do you see happening?
Well, again, I hope this is sorted out well before the ninety days, But I, like you said, I do believe that the governor is trying to push the legislators to get something done. Really, I would point to what happened in Texas recently if you've been following that at all. In last month, the lieutenant governor there proposed legislation that would ban all him. The governor vetoed to build multiple times, and then Key implemented an emergency order to regulate him,
so did the exact opposite. You can use your power in different ways. I just wish the governor would use it to actually affect positive change as far as opposed to damaging.
Yeah, and I mean, quite honestly, this is because of the ineptitude of the legislature. We've seen this before with Marijuanas. They dragged their feet, dragged their feet, dragged their feet, and finally the people had enough of it. It went to the ballot in the uh you know, citizen initiative. They screamed it was outside money. Trying to tell all
those you had a chance to do. You saw the tea leage, You saw the the demand for recreational weed MA and medical weed to begin with, and then recreational you saw that and still chose to choose to do nothing about it. And then when there's a grassroots effort you try to stop it and subvert it. That I think for those of us who enjoy THHC and CBD products as I do, as you make a living off of Jason f he'd been I found that egregious.
Yeah.
And I think the other thing to consider you mentioned politically driven is that I think that there were certain contingencies that were not happy that marijuana passed here in Ohio and wanted to make some changes to those laws and tried to use that to negotiate regarding the hemp. And they're so they're kind of lumped together as far as the negotiations between the House and the Senate goes, and they can't agree on it. And guess who's suffering?
We are, Yeah, the consumers, but especially small business people like yourself. So after ninety days, lawmakers have to take action to regulate the intoxicating hemp products. Most people agree that if we have intoxicating products available to children, then we should just simply step up and address that issue without having to shut everything down. And he did this back I think well over a year ago. Is he wanted to close these loopholes, and they wouldn't listen to him.
And now he's going to simply take it away from everybody, take the ball away because the kids can't get along and now no one can play, which is, you know, paternalism at best. And I you know part of this, and I mentioned I said in asterisk in the air quotes there I said, the governor has issued this ninety day ban on THHD infused gummies and beverages that are sold outside licensed to marijuana dispensaries. Is this just another money grab by the legislature and that like whoa, wha,
wha wait a minute away. We look at the tax that we pay on medical marijuana, the fact that people are medical marijuana. The only ones that are getting the medical card now are ones that have a stigma about using it recreationally. We see the exorbitant prices we pay in Ohio compared to surrounding states like Michigan, where it's a fraction of what you'd pay for recreational products. And now do they want to do the same thing with THHD.
It's simply they're not getting the if they can control it, and you know, certainly regulations different than control if they can control it, because you can still buy it, but it's got to be a licensed to marijuana dispensary. That means it's subject to that that that sweet tax that they want. Is this all about them getting the getting their hands to getting a bigger share of what it is you sell?
Well, I don't think it's any secret Scott that big marijuana is out there. They are lobbying to destroy the hemp industry period. They don't want us to be competition for them, and so again I would point to Texas and say, look, there's an opportunity for all of us in this free market to be able to one give an opportunity for these these consumers and sometimes patients that
need these products for their daily life. We will pay a vendor fee, Scott, we will pay We will pay additional taxes, even though I don't want that for my consumers. But if it means staying in business, there's plenty to go around. So yeah, I do. I do believe that it's part of it. Maybe it's part of the reason why we haven't gotten the regulation we need yet. But that's what I said. I'm cautiously optimistic that this will
at least trigger change. But what you know, unfortunately, the people that need these products for their daily life, they're the ones that are suffering, obviously in addition to the small businesses, because now they're not going to be able to get their products for ninety days. They're going to be forced to go to a marijuana dispensary. Which marijuana dispensaries are good things, but let's face it, it costs a lot more. You're waiting in longer lines, the higher taxes, yep,
maybe less selection of products. You can't get the drinks. So anyway, it's frustrating.
But hoping for change soon, right right, So again, if you just tax the I don't know, the seltzer, the THCHD lace tough selzer, CBD seltzer at the same right, we're doing marijuana, then they're happy with it.
It doesn't really how does that protect children?
That doesn't It doesn't.
But you know, it's something that everyone's going to listen to because obviously we all want want what's best for the children. But we also need to look at the situation logically and realize that this is just a This is some bad actors that are selling products they shouldn't to people that they shouldn't.
But legislate there, go go after them, make examples of them, shut them down, take away their liquor license, do all that's our hurt them. But punishing the manufacturers, I mean, what does fifty West have to do with this? What does Jason Friedman at Ohio CBD guy have to do?
Nothing?
You're caught up in a political power plays with this and it's it's criminals. What it is, we'll follow, We'll find out what happens. Jason Friedman, all the best, buddy, thanks again for coming on the show.
Hey, thanks for having me on.
Scott, take care.
We'll get a time out in. It's about the children. It's about there. We always laugh when Tracy Hunter said that, you know, it's all the children. Oh my god, stop with the historyonics and II the governor, it's about their children. Just wonder if people who I you know, it's a dumb question, because if you are absolutely one hundred percent conservative and no that it's the only way. There's only one religion. This is that right, you don't see the
apocrisy and the problem with us. And this is why you know we are we are right now as a country. I voted conservative. My whole life are Republican anyway, unless there's like a good libertarian out there. I just want some sense of balance. I want government the hell out of the way and let the rest of us make money. We talked about with healthcare and college everything else that similarly gets gets cocked up in this country right now, we're doing it now in Ohio.
Uh.
And it's at the behest of the Republican legislature. And again, because we tend to vote that way, we look at it and go, ah, it's okay right now, It's not okay. This is nothing but a cash grab, is what it is. Listen, we don't like the fact that fifty West Roomever or some sort of vape manufacture putting this product out there that, yes, kids can get ahold of. But that's true with a lot of things adults do, whether it's alcohol or content whatever it might be porn.
Right, you can at roadblocks.
If you put things up to make sure the kids don't have access to those things, you're not going to get all of it, and you should punish the bad actors out there that are allowing underage purses or consumption or whatever. It might be one hundred percent. But the idea that we're going to take it away because the legislature can't figure out what to do is a flip
and joke. Sorry not sorry, slowly with your thoughts at five point three seven four nine, seven thousand, quick time out More to follow on seven hundred WWT.
Here we go, slowly said.
Out of WW beautiful back Half of the week in store Rain is ouch. Do you hear the old subcum kick and you know it's real, right? And now that's good little green grass for a while for the back half of whatever season. This might be always mother Nature, always messing with us. It's slowly back here on seven hundred WLW and talking about yesterday's emergency order by the governor. My god, we've got to do something about all of these kids who are getting their hands on intoxicating hemp,
which there's probably a few of them doing that. According to the people who quep track of the stuff, namely the Ohio Poison Center, there's a fifty two percent increase year every year and the number of kids twelve and younger exposed to cannabis. And we have cannabis recreationally medically, and certainly you're gonna have kids getting their hands. Don't
encourage that, try to discourage that. But do you need to simply take something away because a percentage of kids are getting I don't know, because they don't break it down out of the eight hundred kids eight hundred kids and younger exposed last year, I you know, I guess you can create an emergency and a crisis out of any number. But inside that number of course as well, how many of that exposure?
What does that mean?
I touched it and someone for parent freaked out, or a grandparent freaked out because they don't know what cannabis does or is, or they were exhibiting signs just being sleepy, or you know, a twelve year old thought it was a sour patch kid and popped a THG gummy and now I'm flipping out because I don't know what's going to happen. They're probably going to sleep for a while, be a little silly and sleep it all. Or my pet got it. I mean, you know, it could be
a host of things. Did they get it from a medical supply because medical marijuana is legal recreationally. Don't know how much of this is what we're talking about here, but nonetheless, it is a an absolutely sweeping order from the governor ordering this ninety day ban on THHG infused coummies. You may go listen, Sloan. I don't care. I don't use that stuff. I don't really know anybody that does. You know, you made a big deal of the vaping. I don't vape, but you know, we we all do
something that someone else does. I don't get it. I don't know. It's not for me. But you know that's today. Maybe tomorrow they come after something that's near and dear to you. And the point of the matter is, as we got in this, how we got to this point where you have allegedly a conservative government in Ohio, conservative run legislature doing things like banning a product that is
manufactured and created in Ohioans for Ohioans. And now you're simply saying, because the legislature can't figure out a way to regulate the product, we're going to simply take it away. What about all these small businesses, What about the capital, what about the investors? What about the people who probably a lot of them voted and supported you, Mike de Wine and state legislature that are now getting the rug literally pulled out from under them. Because while you didn't
regulate this, that your opportunity to do that. You could still turn around and pass regulation right now and figure out a way to make s to punish people who are allowing this stuff getting the hands of kids. Why don't you just do that? It's an easy fix. But of course it's not about that, is it. Because when the medical marijuana movement took root in Ohio, and it was pretty clear to the legislation liketed officials that Ohion's wanted.
When we passed recreational weed. It passed like sixty percent of the vote. That's incredible in this time and ages where look how close presidential races are and council races. It's little. It's it's by the skin of your teeth you win an election. That was it was overwhelmingly passed by OI. Clearly, clearly it was a mandate to get out of the way and let us use weed because we saw what happened in other states, and we went, yeah, it's not as bad as Mike DeWine made it out
to me. I trade he traveled and memory traveled of Colorado when he saw the devastation there. And meanwhile, Colorado wins love the fact that they can get weed. It doesn't mean there's no problems, but they enjoy the freedom that they're allowed to do that as adults. Here, Well, we passed it, and now we've got to go back and the legislature had to go and screw things up. And the fact of the matter is the confiscatory tax
that people pay on recreational marijuana drives people. If you're a border state, I know people from here that and I've gone when I've gone up that way, it's like, ol stop. You go to Michigan. In hell, it's almost like they're giving it away. Friends have come down from Michigan'll bring some stuff in fifty bucks. You're set for you know a year. That's not good for Ohio businesses.
You know what happened to small market? What happened to the being a great competitor and getting government out of the wall that falls away when we lose our mind over saving the children. The minute any politicians screams out saving the children, you know, it's not about that. You know, it's about something else. And I'll point this out too. Okay, how did we get to this point now where we're you know, pulling seltzers and CBD and tintures and things that people might enjoy.
Is not Number one?
Is the fact is we've so highly regulated and I guess maybe not regulated as much as it is taxed recreational weed that people are going to a cheap alternative going well, you know you're naw me on a tax I can only go to a certain place at a certain time and talk to a certain guy. Get this, I can go to any bar in the area and get a THC infused seltzer. My wife really enjoys them. She says, Yeah, I don't feel the next day as bad as I do when I'm drinking alcohol.
Yeah.
And as beer sales decline and happened declining for a while, we're seeing a lot of people be to lean into THCH beverages. Well, guess what that'sply and demand. There's a market for it. And now what you're saying is a conservative market. Forces don't matter, the market doesn't dictate. That's socialism then, right, because I thought you're against that state controlled, state operated, state run Yeah, but this is different because it's why, well, the children ain't about the children, it's
about the money. Now, they got to figure out a way to tax I don't know THC seltzer's at the same right that they do recreational weed. And next thing you know, people won't be buying those because it's going to cost you forty five dollars for a forty But again, I thought that this was the party of being responsible and getting the hell of the way. I guess not and you know, maybe I'm old school, maybe more libertarian
than anything else. I look at this whole thing, and you know, I got a call it like I see it. I'm sorry. You know, there's a lot of people are conservative that hate me because how dare I turn the mirror around on these people. Well, if you're professing to be the party of common sense, the party of individual responsibility, the party of our inalienable, God given rights is granted
in the Constitution. The birth of our nation is inspired by the declaration that our individual god given to liberty should be preserved against the government and government intrusion. I don't know how that stands up against what we're talking about here, because it's the exact opposite. Can you pass legislation to protect bad actors? And that would be I know, some convenience store owners, I guess gas station owners people like that from just randomly because they see profit over
everything else. They simply don't care, kind of like someone who's pushing drugs.
They don't see the.
Effects of you know, they're narcotic sale, they're opiate sales. There the sales of illicit street drugs that are killing people and getting people jam. They don't care. They care about the money. Those people need to be made examples up and segregated from missus Hidi. Whether it's a street pusher or some guy to carry out at a corner who's selling this stuff to twelve year olds, make a rule.
Go after them, Go go after their liquor license, go after their life.
Make an example of them to dissuade that kind of behavior, because that's what offset's greed. Regulation, but far beyond regulation, and I guess I should say rules more than regulation. This is simply extermination. And the overwhelming majority of people who enjoy these products are adults. Kids are getting their hands on it, but at a very very small number. And when you say it's about protecting the children, then I'm sorry, Mike. That then means you have to go
after guns. You have to go over alcohol, you have to go after cars, the things that kids can hurt and kill themselves with. We just had a shooting wear in Westchester of all Lakota for crying out loud, kids getting shot. It's in downtown Cincinnati. This isn't like the you know, this is an OTR. We're talking about the
white ass Westchester and kids getting shot out there. I don't know what the story is with the gun, but you could make an example, I'd say, so, if it's about the children, then we've got to do something about the kids getting shot randomly and discriminately and innocently and ending their lives. We've got to do We can't do anything about the guns. But why we can ban bullets? My god, you'd be run out of the You'd be run out of Columbus on a rail if you propose that.
But how's this any different to me?
It's not.
It's part and parcel at least. You know what, if you say I'm a conservative and it means something, what's that mean? Individual freedom, limited government, rule of law, fiscal responsibility. Where in today's Republican party, whether it's the state or whether it's especially nationally, do we see that at all? Fiscal responsibility? How much is that big beautiful bill costing us?
How much is this government? Well the Democrats are responsible with this, but a trillion and a half dollars to keep the government open for seven weeks seems like a bargain. And we're thirty seven thirty eight trillion in death the rule of law? You kind of ended that play in January sixth dn't you all the way up to today in individual freedom and limited government? Yeah, cracking down on books and gay marriage and drag shows. Seltzer, where's the liberty?
Man?
It may not be for you, but it may be for me. And find me the societal harm that's driving any of this stuff.
And you won't.
No, no, no, no, you're wrong about that because kids are getting these gummies and they're eating the gummies.
Are they dying?
No?
Are they getting sick? Yeah, that's scary, it's frightening, it's frightening. But if that is a low standard for a ban, then there's a lot of things in this country and in the state that are screaming for a ban.
You feel me?
Five three, seven, four nine, seven, eight hundred the Big one talk back radio out Let me get to Barry in Miamisburg on seven hundred.
W over Hey, Barry Hey.
It boils down to middle of the roads quote unquote Republicans who would rather raise taxes than have big government jobs paid for by more taxes, and more taxes than anything else. I mean, really, who cares about marijuana or beer or any other other things they tax? It's not out of it's all about money for Columbus.
Well, no question.
They look at the look at the tax that they look at the tax that they put on on recreacial marijuana, and they're looking at going wow, people are going, hey, you know what, I can still at my buzz on by circumventing that and going after a you know, a delta eight laced seltzer or something along those lines. They created this mess. And now it's like, well the tax is so enormous. People are looking for a black market essentially, is what they're saying is you created the black market.
Look at how.
Hard they fought again letting people.
Grow their own Amen, because you can't patch something somebody grows in their living room.
This is and you're absolutely right, thanks for the call. And that's the problem with politics, Like how many times a day do I say that we have a part two party system. They're hollow, they're empty. It's a soulless fundraising shell on both sides. It's and it's supported by a shrinking number of cultists. And we and and part of this driving this too is we are more individualistic
than ever before. I mean we you know, things like like a better good societal rules are kind of going away by this, and you know we we're not likely to We're not like to say, hey, we're going to take a sacrifice and do something for the common good. We tend to look in that little individual sylum which we're in, you know, a things like authorities, you know, the government, schools, medical establishments all go by the wayside
because of that, because of what we're doing. But how are the two parties helping to fix it?
They're not.
It's more about how much money we can raise and how we can remain in power and leveraging all of that against well, what the Constitution once stood for. And it's a sad kind of decline. Does that mean America's over?
No?
But I think you know enough people get pissed off when they start coming after things like this and go all right, enough of this nonsense. We need some common sense here. You know, you can't simply because I subscribe to one political ally ideology the other simply turn a blind eye towards what it is your I mean, what do you stand for? If you if you if you don't stand for something, you stand for nothing. What are the core beliefs? What are the core tenants? Of what
we're talking about here. You know, I rattled off the launderlist of what Republicans and Conservatives used to stand for at one time, and I considered myself more Republican than a conservative because the social issues. To me, I don't care what you do in the privacy of your own home. If you're a consenting adult and there's no grave harm to society, then knock yourself out. And and I'm an
about libertarian in that sense. But all of these things where we got to save the children from an imaginary boogeyman at the expense of hard working men and women Ohioans who invested life savings into trying to buy up into the American dream and create a product that's taxed but not outrageously taxed and sell it to an open market. Seems to be something conservatives once not long ago stood for,
and now they're against it. Over to al and Montgomery on seven hundred w Al thebody Scott's loan show, OWT, what do you got.
Good?
I'm good, right good.
Now you reminded me of of old Bill Clinton.
Where you fight the children.
It's for the children.
Yeah, Whenever he wanted.
To do any but anyway, I first to say, I don't you know marking anything that up. But I thought, and I might be wrong, that this legislation was only for a synthetic uh EHC products probably a little.
Bit more first than I am in that.
Yeah, and I think that's a good thing. I didn't get it, and your your phone's kind of breaking up. I'll let you go, man, I appreciate you checking in. No, that is that's a solid point in thh fused infused gummies and the like, and it's got to have a percentage of TFC. And I again, I know enough about it to be dangerous, but I'm certainly no chemist here. You know, I'm not Walter White or anything like that. But they back in the day that with the core
of this whole thing was separating hemp from intoxica. So hemps a plant and hep you can make. You know, there's fabric. Think about I don't know, you know, you're you're petullia oil smelling hippie. Think of like Woody Harrelson wearing I don't know it's wearing some sort of hemp hem shirt or something like that.
You're not gonna get high.
You can eat that hemp and smoke it, and there's the intoxicating portion of that. So there's a non intoxic any plant that was legalized by the General Assembly if you years ago. And the problem was when they created this, they didn't differentiate and so people are like, well, it's a hemp products, a hemp derivative, and there's hemp derivative derived can cannabinoids that produce the psycho psychoactive effects would be similar to THHC, like Delta eight, Delta nine is
actually weed. Delta eight is one component off. Delta ten has I don't know, maybe one more component of it, but essentially has the same effect. Delta HTC is a psychoactive compound that comes from a hemp product and the highest similar to traditional delta nine THHDA. It's chemically similar and you can synthesize that and extract it from the hemp plants still a plant. Okay, so you're right, You're
right and wrong at the same time. And so they said, well, if we take this now and it has the same effect, I can put it in a WEP form. I could also put it in a seltzer. I could put it in tinture, which is like a little eyedropper thing you put on your tongue or whatever. The delivery or a gummy or whatever, the delivery system is Okay, So that's the legal loophole.
That was good.
Why not just go back and change a loophole then and say, if it's intoxicating, okay, here's some regulation with it. Doing that, we're shutting the whole thing down, which is a disturbing part. But let's go back and look at well, why would they come up with something, Why wouldn't you Why would you come up with delta eight? And why would you take camp in delta ten and have these you know, chemically different, mollectually slightly different if it has
the same effect as marijuana. Well, to answer your question, I'll come back full circle back to the wine, back to the legislature. That is, the markets are always going to find a way to sell stuff to people that they want. There's a huge demand for getting high, right, or for alleviating pain in the case maybe with me and I like to get high, but also with austin, you know, right, and ligaments that are torn and stuff like that. You know, I prefer that of roqui. It's honestly,
I do, because you get a good night sleep. A lot of people do, and so people learned that and went, yeah, okay, there's something to this. It's you know, maybe there's a long, long term health effect, but right now I can't sleep because you know, I don't I don't have any if I have bone on bone in my shoulder, my knee or my back or whatever it might be. Or maybe I just like the buzz better than alcohol. What's wrong with that?
Nothing?
Nothing, but the whole reason why these synthetics in these derivatives were made. Why was because of the ban on marijuana in the first place. It was the prohibition. So Mike DeWine, who's been anti marijuana's whole life, helped create this problem that he's now trying to solve, and that if you tell people you can't have it because I don't like it, because I think it's bad for you and I know better and it's a nanty state, then the markets will find try and find a way around that.
It's like, well, okay, I can't sell you a weed, but you know we're pretty smart in the creative in business class, and that we'll find a way. We'll come up with something to satisfy avoid in the market and eaed in the market. It's always worked that way in capitalism, and in this case it was marijuana. Like, okay, well we've got delta eight, which is not really marijuana. It's close. Give you the same buzz. Well that's a loophole, Yeah, it's a Look, the reason why is because you banned
marijuana and now someone found a way around that. To statis why the capitalistic need the consumer economy. And that's all this is, either we are a consumer capitalist economy or not. In the legislature, these politicians spend you spend a lot of time telling you they're.
Not socialists or whatever is it might be, but they sure as hell.
Act like it, don't they The home of the best Bengals coverage seven hundred WW Cincinnati.
Do you want to be a.
Flowing back on seven hundred WLW?
Are we on the Fourth Industrial Revolution? What? What fourth industrial legs? The first one was a coal in steam power, second revolution was gas, third was the digital revolution beginning in the late nineteen sixties, and the fourth one is a I artificial intelligence. Recently, Elon Musk said there's a twenty percent chance that AI will take over humanity essentially on humans won't be in existence any longer than can copewters will take over literally the stuff of science fiction.
Frightening, isn't it? And uh, I did twenty percent.
There's other things that's probably a ten percent chance, But that's today. What happens tomorrow? And as I mentioned this, there's a new AI bought out there that with a couple of keystrokes, just words, you can create literally visual content that is about as realistic as what you see with the naked eye. Frightening. What that means for well, entertainment, news and everything else. Chris McKenzie's here. He's a nonprofit called Americans for Responsible Innovation. They cover AI policy and
the public interest. Chris, welcome, Hi, shot, I'm going to be on with you. We've always had fear of the unknown. We have fomo now, but we also had fear of the unknown. Those two factors go together, like peanut, butter and jelly, go back to the days of the cave man.
Right, here's four cave men and there what do they carry off? Pelts?
They've got their pelts, different pelts of things and pelts, and we're bringing pelts here and we need pelts for the winner pelts, pelts, pelts, and some guy goes, hey, what if we took this thing, we'll call it a week and now now we just need one guy.
We don't need for it. Why are you going to put me out of a job? This is anything different.
That's a good point, you know. Resistance to automation, I like to say, is a story as old as jobs themselves. Right whether you're talking about lamp lighters protesting the advent of the street lamp, or textile workers strikes that shook England during the Industrial Revolution, this story has been playing out for a long time. And as you noted earlier, we're in a moment of rapid technological change with AI right now that is similar to the Industrial Revolution in
a lot of ways. It's likely to increase productivity, it will.
Probably benefit consumers in.
Many ways over the long run, but in the short run, it's likely to place millions upon millions of workers. And the key difference here, something to keep in mind, is in its pace. The Industrial Revolution took place over many, many decades.
You know.
The first commercial steam engine was designed in seventeen twelve. Then it took seventy years after that before we put the steam engine into a train, and then forty years before that locomotive train was common. Compare that to AI. CHANGGBT was released a couple of years ago, and companies across the economy are already trying to figure out how does this fit into their business and what pieces of their business can be automated.
Which has all of us in the work sector looking over our shoulders. And it's not just manufacturing and imports and shipping and car manufacturing. Accountants, lawyers, software engineers, graphic designers, drivers, you know. With AI and autonomous vehicles, all that and many many more fields are now in jeopardy. When they once were. You thought, Hey, I'm an account I'm a lawyer, I'm an engineer, I'm set for life. No, that's not true anymore.
That's absolutely true. Depending on your field, the AI will impact employment in different ways and at a different pace. What's expected to happen is that AI will probably impact the INDUS treat retail moving and shipping first, and it could, but in the long run, again, as you noted, it'll impact a really broad range of sectors, including sectors that we previously thought were safe for automation.
I'm in the radio industry.
As we sit here and have this conversation on the radio, I saw not long ago that there was a djab at music station. I believe this is an Australia, I want to say. And they couldn't figure out who this new voice was whatever. About six months into it, the company divulges it's AI. It's not a real person. And everyone thought it was a real person because they're sharing
intimate personal stories and everything else. And you know, it's that always case where it's like, well, you know it's not going to impact my job, Well, it's impacting our jobs right and tomorrow It may not be years today, but tomorrow it is going to be years. I think a great example of that of the porch. It wasn't long ago we had the port strikes in America. We're woefully behind the rest of the world would come to this. But now they're fighting for their market share and jobs,
which I get. But the reality is the rest of the world's already moved, Don and a lot of this stuff is done with artificial intelligence and AI that controls robots.
I think you're right.
What we know is that there is a large displacement of US workers coming because of the AI Revolution. Now, policymakers, unions, employers have some successful examples from history to draw on for how we can help workers transition into the future workforce. During the Industrial Revolution, we created the public education system and we implemented worker protections over a number of years.
That helps to create the factory jobs that we now look back on and say, well, that was a good job, that was a good paying job, and we miss that right. The GI Bill is another example that helps eight million World War two veterans find work back in the US after the end of the war. Of course, we're facing a displacement of workers much larger than eight million workers. By some estimate, that's going to be forty seven percent of the US workforce that's impacted by the implementation of AI.
WOW, and that brings up a whole host of other questions. Is, all right, we've got a lot of people and there's not enough jobs for everybody. How do we survive? Things like universal basic income have come into play. I've also heard people like I don't know, Bill Gay someone like that. It's an idea that's been around for a while, which involves actually taxing the AI and taxing the robots as if they were a real.
Worker as possible.
I think what we need right now are big ideas both in education and in worker protection, specifically over the immediate term. One of the things that Congress can do is implement protections to make sure that AI is not used in an invasive, privacy intruding way on workers to overly monitor their productivity in a way that's dehumanizing.
AI most certainly is going to take a lot of jobs away, and there's going to be huge worker displacement right there.
How do we navigate that?
You're correct, there are jobs that will you know, that will have in the future that we can't imagine right now because they are before the advent of computers, A lot of the jobs that we're doing today we could not have imagined. It did destroy jobs. There was the process of creative destruction where many workers were displaced, but
it also created jobs. Even if you look at ports, there are jobs operating automatic you know, cranes and highly autonomous vehicles that we could not have imagined forty years ago. The number of people those ports employee is different, but there are new jobs that are on their way because of this technological change as well.
It makes a sense, Chris, then to fight, if you're a worker or existing worker, whether it's unions or not, to protect workers from market forces instead of unsafe working conditions. You know, there's still plenty of jobs out there that
are a little bit more dangerous than others. But clearly in the last one hundred years in the industrial level revolution, we're a lot safer than we have ever been in the workplace because of the union, because of the rules and regulations, and so as a result of this thing, now maybe more of the focuses on the market forces, which here would be AI. Is how they is that, I guess in the union sense, is that how they continue to stay relevant because worker safety seems pretty good.
I think you're actually going to see two types of resistance to automation and the implementation of AI from workers and unions. One is the replacement of jobs, which workers are going to protest because they don't want to see their jobs evaporate.
And the second is the unfair.
Implementation of AI that negatively impacts workers on the job. Right and again, I turned to Privy as an example where we see some companies have implemented AI in a way that monitors employees every move in a very intrusive way. It monitors their click movements maybe if you're on a computer, and we're probably going to see some resistance to that as well. So I would describe those as kind of the two paths of resistance that will likely encounter a day I is implemented.
It's pretty scary though, that half the jobs in America are under threat from AI right now, which would totally upend the Apple gart But as you said, and I think of this often as that kids today, if you're in school, you're training for a job that does not yet exist. We'll just find a way to For example, the computer, we're supposed to make our lives easier. Oh my gosh, we'll have all this free time, and it's made it harder. Isn't that going to happen with AI?
It'll make some things easier, it'll make some things harder. You know, we have the computer now, it's made shopping easier. For example, I have access to a whole world of products that I did not USETAB. I do think computers are really informive example, because in many ways it's made the lives of consumers easier. It's given consumers access to many products and things that they did not use to
have access to. But it's created two types of work, and in some cases it feels like it's made life harder for everyday workers in our economy.
Yeah, it feels that way's supposed to be.
Oh God, and we we'll spend all day going shopping with our you know, going out with our family and hanging out. No, we just spend all our days in front of a screen. Now granted it's TikTok, it's Facebook, it's other things. But you know, I think the nature we work more as more hours than we used to. In some cases, we've seen those studies come out go and are actually spending more time working away from work than it used to be.
In the old days.
You know, we'd punched the clock in eight hour shift, ten hours whatever, we'd go home, we'd have the rest of our lives. And now it just follows us home. That's that's the point.
Yeah, and you noted you know, computers, It depends on how you frame it, right. Some people look at computers and they say, well, they've made us much more productive, But at the same time, what is that how does that productivity manifest for workers themselves. Sometimes that's people checking their phones after five pm. The thing can be said a AI, it'll make workers more productive, but how does
that productivity manifest? Is that in you know, monitoring workers every move, every click, and we need to make sure protections are in place so that it's not implemented and dehumanizing our unfair way.
Yeah, exactly how quickly is this happening? We know AI is moving exceptionally fast. I mentioned the four industry revolutions with coal and gas and the digital revolution of the sixties, but this one is moving fast in all three of those.
That's a really good question.
What we've seen with past eras of technological transformation is that it comes in kind of a jay curve.
Right.
You see the implementation of technology, you see companies trying to figure it out, and there's a moment of actually not increasing productivity, but almost decreasing productivity. Is companies are still trying to flop this technology into their business model and figure out a way to make them more productive. And then there's a period of rapid transformation of rapidly increasing productivity.
And we haven't hit that yet.
We're still in the phase where companies are looking at this tech and trying to figure out how to implement it. But we will soon. We will soon see that era of rapid transformation.
And I would suggest too that we're going to see a host of other careers developed as a result of AI that we don't know, as we've mentioned before, and so ultimately scares the hell out of us, because right now are going a Wow, my job may be eliminated. It's probably not going to be tomorrow. But you and I you ought to be looking over your shoulder.
That's true. Your job won't be eliminated tomorrow. And I think what's important to think about is how can bringing AI into your work also help make you more productive as someone who's who's an employee right because it can help make employees more and more competitive piece of the workforce if they are able to find ways to implement AI in their own work.
He's Chris McKenzie with the nonprofit Americans for Responsible Innovation. They handle AI policy and the public interests, not necessarily pro AI, but figuring out how it all works. And now maybe you got some questions answered, Brother's probably you probably have more questions than than answers at this point, which I get but it's so rapidly changing. If you're older, it'll affect you a little less, and retirement it'll affect
you because AI will be doing more for you. But if you're in the workforce into your relatively younger middle age, uh, this is the future you're facing. As we all have. It's technological challenge. America is about innovation. We always lean into that. We don't shy away from it, or we shouldn't anyway. Chris, all the best, thanks.
Again, Thank you, Scott, have a good one.
Yeah, too long, didn't read. We will figure it out. We always do.
Now there's going to be a huge up people in jobs, and again there's going to be jobs created. We don't know that they don't exist right now, that it exists tomorrow. There's That's always been the case, and probably more so today than ever. New AI bot comes out says yeah, I put a couple keywords in and it will generate a fake video for you. And the video is unbelievably compelling. So what does that mean when you could with a few keystrokes create a I don't know, a program, a
TV show, fake news, dialogue between two people. I mean the content that we watch on our screens, whether it's the one in your hand or the one on your wall. What is that going to look like in the next few years, over the next five, ten years, or simply like, you know, does Hollywood go away because it's all AI? Now, that's a really really good question. Now I've see that's kind of hitting home for us here in the creative sector. Will the voice that you hear on the station or
through your phone? I guess I won't even station will be an app in the future, just simply be something that's AI generated. I mean, we watch a lot of fake videos now and go, yeah, I think it's kind of fake, but it's funny dog driving a car.
Look at that.
That's pretty good and you watch it. Okay, So already consuming that count that we know is fake. In the future it won't. And what does that mean for news? What does that mean for information? Do we get more even more divided? That's even possible. When it comes to our worldview, We'll find such a niche of our that reflects our own narrow world views that collectivism and society for that matter, now becomes an out layer. We're moving
more towards the individual and more away from society. A lot of people say that'll end America, this great experiment as we know it, will it or will just look different? Great questions and AA is going to drive this whole thing for sure. Anyway, let me get a news update in and that's real news with a live, breathing human being.
Well it's Uchino, so I think it's I don't know.
If he's breathing or he may be a bot himself, kind of looks like a bo Anyway, whoever has the news, we have it for you live and then we return afterwards. Scott's loan on seven hundred wlw's Sloaney rolling on with you here, seven hundred w LW. When politicians say it's about the.
Children, it's about our children. They gotta save our.
Children, and a never about saving no children, It's about something else. So yesterday Governor Mike DeWine issued a ninety day ban on THHC and fused gummies and beverages and outside outside licensed marijuana dispensary. So you got a license from the state and the tax goes along with that, and if you're not paying that veig then guess what We're gonna shut you down. That's a message I got into this. How about you? So bottom line is this, if you enjoy a I know THCHD infused gummy or
a vape or a product. For example, a lot of brewers have added something new to their seltzer lineup, and that would be THC infused beverages for adults, sold at bars, sold at restaurants. People enjoy it, my wife loves them. According to the Governor's Band here they have to remove displays and sales by October fourteenth midnight October fourteenth. So what does this mean for I don't know, small businesses in Ohio and for those people who enjoy seltzers, particularly CDB seltzers.
What does that? What does that even look like?
I had Jason Freeman on the OICBD Guy first out of the show, and now it's Bobby Slattery. Bobby's the founder of fifty West and joins the show. Now, Bobby, how are you.
I'm doing great. Thanks for having me on the show.
Appreciate you calling and checking in with us. I got to say, I mean, you guys are it seems like you're growing leaps and bounds with the retail establishments that you have, and it I mean it's really something. It's cool to see someone local do so well. But you know, here's the problem with this thing is you guys saw I mark good opportunity here. You invested sizable capital in CBD enhanced beverages, and now I'm sure you woke up this morning and went, what the hell just happened?
Yeah, I mean it's funny.
First off, I was driving in for a meeting this morning down at the County Commissioner's office that's something unrelated, and I was listening to your show and you kept saying our name, and I'm going, oh god, talking about us. I'm happy to talk. So I really appreciate you.
You get me on the show and getting my perspective.
So basically everything I said so far, did I miss anything. I'm not going to slant.
You know.
I look at your success story and go, okay, you guys jump in the craft beer movement. You keep putting in new ventures. You've got new restaurants, and the Mason ones absolutely amazing. You got outdoor volleyball and his kid and dog friendly, and you're drinking beer and my wife likes the Seltzers that did the CBD infused ones, and you're like, there's a market opportunity here, and now you come along and the governor, in one swift move in three months is going to make this illegal.
What's your reaction.
Yeah, I mean I think, first off, I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna eternal opit.
So I'm trying to find the positives in this.
The first about a flower product. We launched that about about a year ago. And when we launched it, we we saw this new space. We thought there might be a customer base there. We weren't really sure who it was. And what was amazing was the amount of customers that are that are moving away from alcohol, especially in the gen Z phase, but also as adults. Your wife might be one of these, but there's people that are just
they don't want alcohol anymore. They beverage is a social occasion, right, the act of drinking that's always going to be something that we do, not necessarily drinking alcohol, but the active act of drinking a beverage. And so a lot of customers started to find this space where, you know, they wanted to be social, but they didn't want it to
mess with their sleep patterns. And so our sunflower product, it was low milligram five milligram dosage, and so it became extremely popular, so much so that in our world, you know, craft beer is down tremendously across across the board nationwide, and beers down tremendously across the board. And so this year we've seen the largest decline ever in sales and craft beer in the history of fifty West. We are going to make more total barralage this year than we've ever made before.
And that's coming from these.
Five milligram THHC beverages that we call Sunflower, and so I think and most of those people that are drinking those this is not that the customer is not it's not who the Governor's kind of discussing here. Most of these people are choosing it as a it's health conscious reasons. It's because it's lower talarie, it's because it doesn't make you feel hungover, because you can function the next day. And so, you know, it's a little you know, it's frustrating.
We obviously created a lot of jobs for us and opportunities, and so I think what we're looking towards is my hope is that the governor did this in an effort to kind of get the kind of get the attention of the legislature to try to pass some laws that would would help help put more structure to this. And so, you know, I think that it's our mission right now is you know, I'm going around every LEGI everyone I can to say, hey, you know, we do believe that
there should be laws in place here. I think that you know, it just twenty one and up, like we write it on our cans. I think that's a pretty pretty understandable thing. The other thing I think you can look at is we can turn to alcohol and say there's a lot of good guidelines we can just follow as far as alcohol is concerned, as it relates to taxation, as it relates to how it's regulated. And so you know, our hope is that that we can quickly redolve this.
We can work with the local legislation to get something agreeable. So, uh, you know, we're we're looking at the future. There's a real this is a real, real growth opportunity for people out there that haven't had these beverages. It's happening, it's happening fast, and it's a major marketplace that's going to create a lot of jobs and a lot of opportunities, especially here in Ohio.
You Bobby Slider, you you're an eternal optimist, you said, I'm a little bit more pragmatic.
I tend to I like to look at the at.
The beer glass, the fifty West glass, to being half full as opposed to half empty. I lets go, Okay, is this just a wake up call, a way to scare the legislature and a compliance here.
I'm hoping that is the case.
But as the weeks turned into months, and is that ninety day deadline rapidly approaches and in business ninety days is you know, maybe for you, it feels like a long time. When you've got a brick and mortar location, you're you know, you're looking at your your daily sales of your barrel sales of whatever you're moving out the door. And whether it's CBD, THC or good old fashioned beer, it could be water. If you're selling, you're going to
make more of it. I get that it's good for jobs, good for the economy, and you made a sizeable personal investment in this whole thing not that long ago, during the peak, you know, during craft beer and the big boom, which you say is kind of on decline right now. Maybe it's a one year off. I don't know if it's a trend or whatever. But bottom line is, you know you're gonna run out of it. Feels like the
clock may run out here on this whole thing. How optimistic are you that the legislature is going to get back in a session and go we got to address this right now? This is this is the biggest thing we've got to face. So so that's what I'm That's what I'm doing today. I mean, that's I'm doing this morning.
That's what I'll be doing for probably the next until we get this thing fixed. But yeah, I mean, my my recommendation to people that are out there is contact your local legislator. If you're somebody that drinks these products, and there's a lot of you out there. I mean, the the amount of growth we saw on this was was I mean, it was tremendous and and you know, if you want to fix this, rech out your.
Local legislator, talk to them about.
These products that have been removed via executive order and and tell them, tell them who you are and why you want it back. Because I believe in America. I believe in the American process.
And I think that that that's.
How we fix this. So let's go out there, let's rally this up, because you are right. I mean I have we hired a whole sales team over the last several months, and you know, I don't know what to tell those people to do as of Tuesday.
It's hard to sell a product that you're not allowed to sell, right, So.
Uh, with that being said, I'm committed to my team and and you know, they made a commitment to me, and so you know, we're going to go out there and you know, if they can't sell product, then we're going.
To go We'll send them into talk to politicians.
I don't know what we're gonna do with them, but we're gonna We're going to figure out a way to make sense of this because our sales, the way I like to look at it is the sales and the growth of of the of the sunflower products was it was the people of Ohio speaking. It was consumer preference, right. They weren't buying these products because somebody was forcing them to. They were buying them because this is this is a new wave that they're moving towards. And so you know,
if that's the voice of ohiolands. Then I think that we should be able to get these laws straight, to be able to cater to the people that live here car wise, you know, yeah.
They're going to go to Kentucky or Indiana or sure.
Exactly it's okay.
I mean, look at how they screw I don't know how big you are in the marijuana thing, but how the song screwed in the first place. I mean, there was an overwhel the grounds flow of support ONLI and you could see the wave coming across America's more and more states adopted medical and then recreational weed. And you
know what's going to happen in Ohio. It passed yere with like sixty percent, and up until the last minute, the governor of the legislature fought and fought and fought against it and then try to create more rules to subvert that the will of the people. And now now we're having government that's screaming about you know.
Uh.
Delta a THHC products, and Delta eight is a psychoactive compound and the highest similar to traditional marijuana. Delta nine is regular marions Delta eight, So it's just a molecule or two all right.
Just clear.
I mean, the governor outlawed all intoxic what he's calling intoxicating hemp.
So whether it's delta, we have a.
Delta nine product that adulta nine THHD products. And there's a lot of opinions on on on that whole that whole side of it, but just to be clear, see outlaud all of it, and that put us. That's where we're we're insta play and that's one of the things they're looking at the state level right now is what is the definition of this because that's I think that's that's one of the gray areas that may exist that people may say, Okay, well what what did.
He outlaged the outloud delta did the outlog tox saying hemp? There is no definition toxing amp, so what is that?
But yeah, because the legislature in twenty and nineteen messed that whole thing up. They just said hamp in instead of specifying hamp as in the fan brick versus happened.
And that's the quote unquote.
But my point on that, though Bobby was and hear me out, is the fact that this whole thing was created by prohibition and that people saw the benefits of marijuana could use it responsibly legally, saying, hey, you don't I feel as bad as they do after alcohol and you know opioids. I'm on NAP because I just had surgery and I'm like, I'd rather use the marijuana and THHC as a pain relief and as a sleep aid as opposed to something that's habited forming and THD is not.
But the fact of the matter is all these you know ta whether it's Delta eight or Delta ten, and the people think, well, you know, they're chemical compounds and it's not the real it's because you prohibited people from getting it. And so to your point about market forces, people found a way around that and said, well, you know what, chemically, I can change it and it's still legal. So and you know, called a loophole is I think disingenuous the fact that you have a product that people want.
You didn't make a product Bobby at fifty West and say, I wonder if people about it. You knew there was a demand for it, and you jumped into it. And that's that you realize the American dream that way they're going, we prohibited it, and now we're going after the thing that problem we created in the first place.
Yeah, I think the frustrating part for us is that our customers that are drinking sunflour this, they're doing it, most of them. This is a health conscious decision. This is not a this is this isn't you know, a different psychoactive that they prefer, most of them.
It's a it's an alternative.
Alcohol that they believe in, not believe, but just healthier. The calories are less, it.
Doesn't disrupt your sleep.
So so I think that's that's what we're trying to understand and try to try to, you know, spread that message because we're the largest seller.
I mean, we were selling more of that.
Here's what's interesting.
This is a five milligram THHC beverage. Now, if you went into the store and for ten dollars you could get five milligram beverage or for ten dollars you get fifty miligram beverage. Naturally you would probably think, well, I would take the fifty because I get more of it. Customers are buying the lower milligram beverage because they're looking
for the healthy alternative. It's we're the better miss of society, right, so for the band to be in place because of safety purposes, Uh, it seems a little you know, that's the part that's a little difficult for me to meet, it for me to grasp, and I feel bad for you know, they talked about the toxicology reports and things like that, and I'm sure there's validity to those, but you know, I would I would argue that if you look at the toxicology reports as it related to alcohol
with the same same group, it would be exponentially greater question.
And so if we were really trying to.
Save the children here, like, are we talking about prohibition on alcohol? Because that I think that would stir ale a whole different, whole difference.
We have.
We have Bobby Slattery from fifty US, We have a litany and there's a long list of kids who have done I mean, vaping is a huge thing. And I mentioned that I had Jason Friedman on the Ohio CBD Guy. They's all vay products too. And if you get a container of nicotine liquid nicotine it can kill you through through either usclar your skin, or whether you drink it or whatever. I mean, enough nicotine will kill a person.
I know, we know enough alcohol kill a person, right, You can't kill a person with hemp and a THHD. Now does anyone want their kid quote unquote oding or taking a hump related product or CBD prey or THHD. No, of course not, because it's it's frightening for the kid to strike to be you as a parent, and if it falls into kids hands, then that that is a huge problem. But I mean, you just open fifty West in Deerfield Township and I've been there a couple of times.
It's phenomenal volleyball and the whole vibe is great, and I look at that and go, that's awesome. People are out there and enjoying themselves. I see people drinking sunflower, which is the beverage you're talking about here. How many kids a day do you serve at fifty West and feed them a sunflower and THG?
How often does that happen?
No?
No, no, no, no, never, kids don't.
I mean the kids come there for the milkshakes and the chicken fingers and the cheapersion, right, and to be the sand I think that's what we saw was especially in the family friendly space and people that are out there listening.
If you've got kids and they play sports.
You've been there on the Sunday after the soccer game where the soccer team has to get together and you're like, I feel like I got to be social, but I really don't feel like drinking because I got to go to work in the morning. And that's where we were seeing these sunflower beverages really take off. Was like it was the soccer team showing up and the moms being like, you know what, I don't feel like drinking, but I got.
To do something social, so I'll have one of these.
So they were really falling somewhere in between what we call an na beverage and alcohol. This was sort of that in between medium, and it was awesome to see. I mean, it's been awesome and I think there's a real marketplace for that to continue. So I think the goal here, though, is in one of the things that you know, it is right now there's no age regulation on this, and I think that that's something that we need to put into effect. Right So my goal, being
an optimist is let's reach out to the legislators. This is an extreme action taken by our governor, right like he took an extreme measure. I'm hoping that our legislators are going to take extreme measures to go make better loss because one of the things that he put in there was if we can get this thing passed through and get some sort of bill and understanding of reasonable laws in place, well then we can go back to selling these things again. And so I can sit here
and I can cry and say this isn't fair. We invested money and there's jobs at stake and all that stuff, or I can sit here and fight and say, hey, we're going to make America better and we're going to find a way to put laws in place that makes sense for Ohio so we can get to the place where we.
Want to be.
And that's that's what my efforts are focused on right now. And you know I would I would rally people that are out there, reach out to your legislator, because that's that's how this thing's going to change.
Yeah, here and cry, we're cry on.
The sidelines and say this isn't.
Fair, it's illegal.
Why did you do this to me.
It's like, hey, let's go change the laws, let's go make o Hio a better place, and let's get this in a spot where we want it to be.
Look, there are people out there. They're bad operators, always gonna be bad. There's gonna be people who are buying the alcohol for underage kids, right, I mean that's happening if we've seen that happen. But in this case, Anna, you got some guy onans a gas station or carry out whatever selling tht laced sour Patch kids. And it looks like sour Patch kids is some fifteen year old or a product that's Delta eight tilta ten product that's going to get them high. And there's a loophole there. Okay,
that's a bad operator, mind book. You go after that person, you shut them down, You make an example of dis wade others from over sheer greed from doing the same thing. That's what we're talking about with fifty West and uh drink that's intended for adults here, but yet we're casting everyone to the same lot.
Yeah, it's it's the unfortunate circumstance that we're caught in right now. But you know, like like I said, this is just part of the fifty West story. Like we're going to go out there and we're going to help change the law and we're going to make it better so that the you know, on the positive, it's going to be good for our sales when we get to fix. On the positive, it's going to be good that we're going to eliminate the bad operators. But the only way
to changes is through the legislators. And they really need to, like this is time where they need to step up and they need to help help small businesses like us, help the consumers out there from you know, product products that potentially, you know, are bad operators. I think I think it's a critical time in Ohio. And you know, the governor took a very bold it made a very bolde on this. Whether you agree with it, disagree with it, whatever, you know, all I can focus on is how do
I make it? You know, the consumers are already smoke spoken. Just look at our sales. Look at what's happening in the marketplace. Thank you, by the way, to everyone out out there that bought bought this, bought our products.
The Sunflower thing. It was.
It was amazing to watch and it's going to continue to be. So let's go out there and fight figure out how to get.
This thing fixed. Like that's that's where mine is.
I got before I let you go to put this in perspective, because a band goes an effect in ninety I don't know if we're going to get to ninety two. I think maybe the legislature wakes up and does something here finally. But at the same time, like if you're saying, okay, we're kind of peak craft beer, like people aren't drinking as much alcohol related products. They're moving to the CBD and the TC related products and all that stuff, and it's a growing market share for you.
The question would be, then can you survive without this?
This is going to affect us. I mean, like I mean, I'm going to survive no matter what happened. We made it through COVID, we made it through. This is part of This is one of the best parts about being an entrepreneur. And if you want to be an entrepreneur out there back part, our days.
Are well they are days like today.
This is when it's fun.
The worst part about work is showing up and being like, all right, well we're just you know, we're gonna open the doors and we're going.
To do this.
This This is when it's fun. So like, yes, we're gonna survive it. Yes we're going to keep employing people. Yes, this is challenging, but like this is this is what makes my job fun and I'm excited about it.
So how long does it take for you to produce a barrel of sunflower or our can of sunflow? Because okay, that's ninety days. But you know, there's it's not like you can wake up and go, Okay, I'm gonna make five hundred barrels of this stuff. How do you you know there's I mean, I mean.
You want to talk about the reality of the situation we're looking at. This is a product that took off. So when a.
Product takes off, we gotta we gotta, we got to go fruit. We get well, no, it's easy to say crank it out, but let's talk about you know, our fruit's coming out of one part of the country and our cans are coming out of another part of the country. So we we saw a massive demand and we're and now all of a sudden, we can't keep up with it.
So we order all of this product. I mean, we've been this is.
Months of work that now we have all these supplies. That's that's locked and you know I'm allowed to use it, right, So that's the that's the reality of the business. And and like I said before, I mean I can sit here and cry about it, say it's not fair, but or you just got to go figure out how to fight and make it work.
Well, let's try and get some Let's try and get this fixed.
Tom, Yeah, call your.
Legislators, tell them, like if you want, if you want these products because you love drinking them, and and you're somebody that found some flower.
And and you know, helped grow that, call your legislator.
If you're somebody that believes in you know, small business in America and you like my story, call them, you know, like help me out here. It's uh, it's this is fun. We're gonna, we're gonna, We're gonna figure it out.
I hope.
So Hey, man, I appreciate calling in and jumping on the show this morning, Bobby and listen, and I thank you for that.
I well, I appreciate you one coming out to our Mason location and saying the nice things about it and too talking about in the radio. I was coming in this morning. It was it's very frustrating. I tell you to sit there and have somebody keep throwing your name out there.
I'm like, I got something to say. I got something.
Hey, well, I'm glad we you know.
But it's on the same point though, Like it's not like you know, we're in the odds of this, we're the same. We're rolling together here because this is that defends every sensibility I have. That that's someone like yourself and many others for that matter, not in brewing, or who may be a CBD store owner whatever, or adults who simply want to enjoy something in the comfort of their own home or at the.
Locations you talk about a fifty west uh.
And to have a band come down in ninety days because it's about the children is offensive to everything I'm about.
So not ninety days. It came down. It came down to five days.
Well five days, Yeah, I guess I should say, all right, right, we're gonna have a band for ninety Yeah.
I got it. It's all right, so much, Bobby appreciate it. Good luck man, Yeah, thank you, everybody. Take care. There you go, Bobby Slattery. Check it on the show this morning.
Yeah, and look at the demand and you're telling like, wait, man, I can't have this anymore, No, you can't have this anymore.
Why, Well, it's politics.
Away, I'm running light I gotta get to new seven hundred wwant to.
Scott clo here seven hundred WLW. Will there finally be peace? Peace in our lifetime.
There's a potential to end the two year war between Israel Hamas Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he's going to convene the Israeli government. He's doing that today as we speak to ratify the Seasfire agreement, and President Trump may travel to Egypt as soon as this weekend, and that's where the talks are being held.
To put in perspective.
As doctor Mark Nziolaco, he's a UTI political scientist, also a Middle Eastern expert, former director International Studies Program, and founder of d's Human Rights Studies program.
Mark, how you been?
I'm fine?
How are you?
I'm fine.
I think peace in the world is a good thing. I think when you see the people being ravaged, not only from what happened two years ago in twenty twenty three, to normal Israelis living their lives, to the bombing and suessant bombing of those in Gosam, any of those people not really other than the fact that they're chatteled in this whole mixed up conflict illustrates the absurdity and just how cruel we are to other human beings, and maybe we'll finally get peace, peace at last. And the question
is will that piece last? Because I'm also well, I think the glass may be half full here. I think that there's some problems. We'll get into that. So let's talk about the deal real quick. Let me outline it in case you're not following this or just hearing it for the first time. Hamas has agreed to release all their remrining hostages Israel. We will draw their withdraw their forces back to what they call the agreed upon yellow line. And this is just the first phase of the peace agreement.
So it's going to be the hostages and then Palestinian prisoners get released, and then once that's finalized and within forty eight hours, all this is going to end. But there are some bombs going off today as a matter of fact. So first and foremost is this is phase one, and that seems to be the easy phase Phase two and beyond that's probably the more difficult.
Can you lay that out?
Oh well, I mean, there's the twenty point plan. It was agreed to a week or so ago, very elaborate, very very elaborate, very detailed, and the phase where now is really just what or too wide of you know, the key is really getting Hamas to lay down its weapons and uh for Hamas to have no future uh in any Palestinian administration that runs that that land. And that's that's a long that's a long stretch. That's that's
when you've laid the foundations for genuine peace. The smoke hasn't cleared yet from a two year and very as you say, very very bloody, very very violent war, I meant destruction on almost unimaginable levels. So I mean just psychologically and emotionally. How do people who are already each other's throats, how do they recover from this? How do they move forward?
Uh?
You know, gritter things maybe haven't been done, but maybe the violence was precisely so bad that everyone finally wakes up and realizes that we have to find a means to uh to coexist and live together. So I'll hope that's the goal.
Yeah, you hope so too. You just wonder how long it's going to last. And I kind of mentioned that in my preamble there as you know, you're the professor in this conversation. You're the student of this more than I am. I can't count how many deals we've had in the past when it comes to different accords and the like, and that's not just Hummas, but generally peace
between Palestine in Israel itself. I mean, the also Accords back in the nineties, you had Camp David in two thousand, You've had summits and roadmaps for peace, and the Annapolis Conference and Trump's peace plan from five years ago, and none of them went anywhere. Why is this the one?
Yeah, you're exactly right. I mean, if those couldn't take hold in a much more favorable environment a peace than now, because, as I said a moment ago, the destruction, level of destruction is so great it's not even mistrust anymore. It's deep, deep hatd hatred. So one could only hope that the violence was so immense chock everybody into into a mind a mindset for a peace. But no, at this stage,
we're looking what hostage you're coming back? I mean, it's really intelligence is assessin that Hamas may even be able to return all the dead hostages because obviously because the yeah, so will we be released, which prisoners will be released what will stay? You know. Still, the big piece is does Hamas retain any any power now both within Gaza, among Palestinians and certainly vis A vis uh is real
who's not going to stop huntings, you know, Israeli? So you're not going to stop hunting Hamas because they meet it. They they reached an agreement sharma shake Egypt. So I mean the roots for violence are so deep that Yeah. So it's work as you can, as the UN says, get the houses is out and get the aid in. Uh, but be realistic about uh, be realistic about the prospects for a long, long term piece.
Yeah.
Yeah, I just don't imagine Hamas is going to go away quiet, That's the thing is. And there's a couple of points in here too, is Hamas is going to lay down their arms and simply guy, I just don't see this as kind of like the American Revolutionary War that all these combatants lay down their arms and go back to beting gentlemen farmers.
Yeah, yes, I don't see that at all.
Uh.
You know, I mean, you know there was back in the day, but Oswell Accords, when you know, elements at PLO fought that were coming and they had a terrorist background and they made a transition from that. But this Hamas is different like his Bulla, there's a there's a different beast. Here's the point though, Gaza is is reubble and it really needs to be rebuilt UH and innicial communities on this before port and billions and billions of dollars. Now,
what happened before was Hamas hijack that process hijacked. They were able to divert those pieces to missiles and tunnels and bombs and uniforms, all those all the belligerency material for war. So in the administration of this piece, if we move forward on this twenty point plant, there's the opportunity and there's really the imperative that the global community monitor their expendors, really control that process so that by by by administering Gaza UH really marginalizing.
Hamas there so.
Hamas will be could be at war UH.
With the self.
Tell us to the ends up war with themselves. If Hamas is to retain is going to try to retain some influence.
And that's the billion dollar question, man, how do you prevent that from happening? Because two things off the top of my head, mark Ensilaka would be human nature, because you know the nature of having control as power and powers that come out and fear as part of that is the current of power. And so hey, how many regimes have we seen in the history of the world where someone's taken over and organizations taken over and it's become a total power grab. And again it's the has
and the have nots. We take everything, we arm up, we scare the hell out of the people, and we keep them in line, whether it's this or poll pot or anybody else. And then the other thing is just out and out graft. Yeah, okay, we're gonna have what the un oversee this? Yeah, good luck with that.
Huh. Yeah.
You know, there's an old expression in diplomacy that the devil lives in the details. It's easy to sort of reach. It's not easy, but it's possible to reach broad twenty point goals and have some sort of pacific vision of the future. But it's in the implement patient as you say, how many tons of food are.
Going to go in per day?
Really, how are we going to reconstruct the destroyed sanitation systems? I mean, really, there is an opportunity out for God as it's for pales Indians in the new administration to build, not just rebuild guys, but build a new society there. And they're going to have to do it because it's literally rubble and it's literally great loss of life, great disruption. But there's going to be a you know, there's going
to be an international relief effort. I hope we're part of that and we don't have to take it over would be the number one contributed bit.
We'll be involved clearly.
The twenty Point Plan, as I understand it, sees a key role for a peace commission chaired by the President of the United States. So we're engaged. We're engaged right, clearly, But it's in the details. Let's get it right. Let's do it right.
But the problem, and the other part of the problem to us who've seen in Afghanistan and backwards, is that we pay attention. Because we're Americans, We've got the attention span of a gnat, and we'll pay attention to what's happening. Once everything signed and the press opportunities over, we'll move on to the next shiny object, uh, and then things will fall apart in the Middle East and we'll wonder what happened. Is that a possibility?
Uh yeah, I mean certainly one would in his in the Maga world. Is this is a step of involvement in other countries wars that exactly what he promised to avoid. I mean, how how will his his loyalists, his most loyal supporters, how do they see? Uh this Nobel Price comes out tomorrow, It's gonna be fascinating, uhly fascinating.
That's why I want to get it done right now, because he wants he wants he wants a Nobel prize.
My my guess is that the votes are at the end.
Uh.
It would be interesting though.
Uh, you know, the name should maybe bows around at Jared Kushner. I mean, he's been working behind the scenes for a long time. I'm not I'm not I'm not nominating him by any means, but uh, there are there is a there was a there has been a great deal of behind the scenes action, uh in the Arab world, and it's gonna be fascinating to see with the passage of time what we learned about that process. History books are going to be fascinating with those period time.
Yeah, he's doctor Mark Nsilako at the University of Dating political science professor there talking about maybe finally peace in the least between Israel and Hamas and regime change there and stopping the bombing, and it could happen relatively soon. The Prime Minister of Israel NET and Yahoo is convening the Israeli government today to vote on this to ratify the ceasefire agreement. The other side, any, I don't, We don't want to see a couple of bitter old men here.
But you know we've seen this movie before, not just in our lifetime, into previous lifetimes. And you are a student of history, your political science professor, and history is the best indicator future behavior. And so if we're a little jaded and pessimistic about this, it's for good reason.
It doesn't mean that this piece won't last. And hell, even if the piece lasts for six months, a year, two years, ten years, whatever, it is that that's better than these two sides blowing each other up, taking hostages, killing, raping women, holding people hostage, and the other side bombing the hell out of civilians.
Yeah, that's you just laid out of panorama. That's really frightening. I mean, yeah, I mean it's long term term. One thing, you would be always sure of the Middle East that there's something will flare up. But at the same time, and I don't want to be too optimistic about things, but the strategically the Middle East has changed a great deal. I mean because of the violence. I mean, obviously.
Hamas has been.
Close to being destroyed, but you know his boiler and the attack on Iran, with even the United States getting involved attacking the nuclear sites. I mean, so you hit this arc of countries that were hostile to Israel's an Israel sort of you know, took the fight to them, and that is weakened these organizations regionally and strategically. Now I'm not simply saying, you know, we're a wonderful new world, you know, post war World War two, uh uh, you
know world. But yeah, there's been changes in the strategic environment, and maybe that could be a basis. I mean, you look at these golf states, Goha and all these emirates, all these they're fabulously wealthy. They're fabulously wealthy societies. And although there's an attachment of Palesiti and cause that I could rather than Protrucian. I mean, there's a lot of people sort of want to get out into their lives, and they'd probably rather talk to Jared Kushner about real
you know, you know, Mediterranean seafront real estate. Then they'll want to run around in a singing lo roc bar uh and and blowing things up, so there could be really environment. I always argue that when I wrote my first book about violence in the Middle East complex September September eleventh, it said looking at a different war, uh,
you know against Alcada in Afghanistan. I simply said, you know this wills will this will end when mothers tell their children suicide in the act of blowing someone up is not you know, jihad in a way of Allah. You know when when you dead, attitude changes, and one could probably say he is ready sit side too. Within the settler movement, the extreme sort of Zionist movements that are that have taken the vigilante law in their own hand. There's deep problems in these societies that speak against a
long lasting peace. But one can build on what.
Was in front of us right now.
Right now, there's a lot of rebuilding, of a lot of destruction, and and make the difficult initial steps in these piece pass, make these count.
Yeah, I think you kind of hit on it there.
And the big question then to summarize what you're saying on Silaca, is this only works if both sides wanted to work.
Yeah.
I remember at ended a chapter in my book once where one of the leaders back in the day said, we don't want peace. Peace would end all our hopes. I mean, if that's the mentality you have, yeah, you've got that, You've got the permanent roots for for for future violence. But right now, clearly in the house to the inside is exhausted. I mean, it's really difficult to assess this because journalists have they not had access to little many have lost their lives in this conflict reporting
from Gaza. But you know, one beginning to hear uh reports or inklings that Pelsis have turned on Hamas and they're saying, you know, yes, there's way these did this great distraction to us. But you provoke them, you know, you poked the bear, uh.
And so you know Hamas Hamas.
Militants will walk around with scars, greens, cigars are on the head and and and the goose step. But in point of fact, there is a serious, very serious defeat for them militarily and politically.
And and all the only multi phaser the point program. We're just in the first couple right now. This is only phase one. So we're a long way away from lasting peace at this point, even the Seas far because bombs are going off this morning as a matter of fact. There as we moved to phase two in beyond, it was France, I believe, the first loft of the notion that Palestinian statehood should be a thing, and some other countries signed on to that and absolutely upset those of
us in the West. How dare you do this? They come in two years ago and look what they did, and now you want to give them statehood and forget everything else. But it sounds like part of this plan is eventually that that's exactly what's going to happen. I mean, if Israel is pulling back to this yellow line, then I'll have a final determination where that is. That would then mean that some degree of Palestinian state right.
Well, you know, I thought, I thought France and Great Britain announcing this a few weeks ago was really sort of and forgive me for putting in such plut terms, sort of you know, media just some media start there is no Palestinian state. I mean, when you say to me, show me your state, the first thing I want to know is where are the boundaries? So and then who's
your leadership Hamas? I mean, it's nothing was going to come on this nonetheless, you know, and so I understand President Trump sort of trying to push back in our allies this tag back you were rewarding. You said exactly what, Scott, You're rewarding Hamas by giving them this prize. But no, the fact, the long term fact is there's going to have to be two states. So at some point you're going to so in the process of building, you know, when you when you really have to just make sanitation
systems and water and deliver food and meta. You know, just the rudiments of running and government really, you know, particularly recovering one right, you can build trust, you can see that people can work together, and and that would has to be to go in building and rebuilding. I think we really have to lay the foundations build out for a long term, long term priest. But the global community,
and that means the United States. What President Trump is the chairman of this this Peace Commission order it is called right, you said this right, the global communities have to stay engaged in that.
Yeah.
Yeah, and that means the United States too, Yeah, turn.
Our back on it.
We turn our back on It's Afghanistan, it's Vietnam, it's all those things. And we just, you know, because the public we lose interest in and why are we supporting them? Why are we doing this? And it's it's going to be I think probably more low key than that. It's not like we have troops on the ground there, but in that regardless of this is something we're gonna have to stay on top of for a long time if
you want it to work. All right, I gotta get going, Doctor Mark Anziolaco, ud I wass appreciate the time in the in the good stuff. I feel like I'm sitting in one of your classes here. Thanks again for the time. I appreciate it.
Thank you so much.
Have a good one. Uh yeah, whether it lasts or not, we're going to find out. Although history is certainly not on their side. But man, you look at the devastation, the destruction, the human casualty is the toll, it's seventy thousand plus people. I mean, that's a lot of people dying. And now it's over and hopefully you can go back to being that gentleman farmer. I don't know if a mos is gonna lay their arms down. I don't know if that's the thing, because there's always gonna be that streak.
As soon as something goes sideways, they're gonna wind up game in more power.
It's just the nature of the beast.
Anyway, Quick time out News on the way Sloany on seven hundred WLW.
The bells. Do you hear the bells?
It could only mean one thing.
It's Real estate time with Michelle Slow, Remax time agent and proud proprietor of Sloan sells Homes dot com. Heed her words or face her wrath on seven hundred WLW.
Well, the government shutdown. You don't have many numbers to go on, and that'll be dwindling as things progress here. But there's just a gut feeling the economy isn't good. Not that it's not doing fine, it's just, you know, slowly dropping a little bit by a little bit. Unemployment remains relatively low, but housing is a big indicator. And that's where my wife Michelle comes in and looking at some of these numbers, it could be better, right, it could be better.
The numbers that we have, we have a lot of new surveys coming out. They're not generated by the government necessarily, but a staggering ninety three percent of Americans believe housing costs are unreasonable.
Unreasonable, six out of ten.
Yeah, people, that's a lot.
And only three percent of the respondent said that housing costs were actually reasonable. Now, if you're looking at your at anything, if you're taking a survey, would you actually say, ah, yeah, it's.
Pretty good, The things are good, things are pretty good.
Although there's another one that I saw as well, maybe you saw it too. I don't know who'd authored the study, so it's hard to say because you don't know. Could be a sample size of four people. But seven out of ten Americans young Americans believe that owning a home is a pipe dream.
It will never happen.
Yeah, sixty seven percent. I saw that as well.
Sixty seven percent of Americans believe that home ownership is impossible. Impossible. Now that's pretty negative, pretty scary. It's pretty scary. I don't think it's impossible. But as you can see these two different things, you know, Americans are actually they're blaming everyone and you know, they feel like there's the world is against them, and the way things are it does make it difficult. I'm not going to lie. You know,
everybody says we should I rent? Should I buy? You know what's the best way?
Now?
As a real estate agent, I'm you're going to think that I'm always going to tell you to buy, but I'm not going to tell you to buy if you're not ready, and you're going to get yourself in over your head, so you don't want.
To do that.
So sixty seven percent of Americans believe that home ownership is impossible. That's just crazy historic lows. And so we're we're trying to figure out how in the world can especially younger people. If you're less less than thirty half of our age, right and you don't have a home yet, how in the world do you do well?
If you're saddled with student debt and you if you're someone who has to work a couple of jobs, a couple of multiple jobs. Health insurance is going to be a big issue as well. We're seeing the rates of health insurance go up and people getting dropped left and right. Don't know what's going to happen with Affordable Care Act. But I'm just talking about private insurance in that regard.
That's a bad situation. We've seen generation after generation keeps delaying having children, if at all, And now we have people going, you know, I'll just have a dog. I'm fine, and not have a child, or maybe not even that. And so home ownership is not on the table for someone who can't afford a new car or a car in general, and is keeping their nose above water. And that's too any Americans, certainly, not all Americans, but it's it's the number itself is too big, and I guess
that's why. And sadly at a young age. You know, you tend to be more optimistic when you're younger, but younger people today tend to be.
More pessimistic, okay.
And that has to do with social media, I think, and a lot of other factors as well, and some of the thoughts.
As you know, people will make assumptions just based on their little world around themselves. Right, half of Americans are actually blaming investors for unreasonable housing costs because the thought is that investors are buying up all of the available properties, and actually that's not true, and it's hard to. You know, people believe what they believe, but it's it's not always true.
It's it's very popular to blame investors, but the housing economics is more still that same old adage of supply and the driving cost is that we have a shortage of actual homes that are available to purchase, and investors only accounted for thirteen percent of home purchases in twenty twenty four. Thirteen percent. That's not very many. And most of those home purchases by investors were from mom and pop investors.
So maybe it is.
Mom and dad or grandma and grandpa who are helping the younger generation purchase their first home. And that's still considered an investment if you're not living in the property. So investors definitely own their share of housing stock, there's no question about it. But as far as that goes, they don't own it all. And investors are not the bad guy. You're always looking for a bad guy.
Well they are when okay, here are these odd of state companies come in by a whole bunch of houses up and pay fairly well for them. But the problem, of course is the maintenance and the upkeep on them. And when you're not doing that when you're not doing your due diligence and making sure that you know the housing is actually a livable that causes the problem. But right, yeah, the numbers are what they are, right, So what one not every five.
Investors about thirteen to fifteen percent?
Yeah, lower than I thought.
Yeah, and that's where you know, those statistics were from realtor dot com, So pretty reliable source beyond investors and material costs that are making it difficult and unreasonable as far as housing costs are concerned. The third big let's let's see who we can blame is politicians. Politicians are being blamed for the lack of affordable homes. And you know, again it's all about the economy and the how you
everybody feels about the economy and their own situation. I know that it is a lot of doom and gloom in that younger generation. They sure you're like it's impossible to get ahead.
Social discord read it.
I mean, all that stuff is pretty toxic and negative if you look at it, and if that's a steady dat or you get your information, you know, the world sucks.
There's no there's nothing good happening.
Right and them you consider to be fed that negative energy. I'm going to say, and here's the thing. Is it harder to buy a home than when we bought our first home?
Yes, I believe it is.
Because sure, But at the same time, there are a lot of things that young people can do to if that's something that they want to do. If you want to buy a home, you need to do some planning, and you need to do some saving. And if you want to rent the rest of your life and you don't want the responsibility of buying a home, that's something you can absolutely do. But you will never build wealth, right, or at least it will be more difficult, let's put it that way.
I mean you can, but plenty of people do that in rent.
Yeah.
One of the things you hear, and I hear this from older people too, is well, why don't you just they just need to work harder, They.
Just need to save, they need to think.
Well, you know that that because when I was your age, I well, when I was your age, it was like, you know, you could have a job. And I pointed this out the other day with college, you know, and we subsidized college. And as an example, like generations ago, will he talks about this like he went to college, paid for it himself. There was no scholarships or anything like that, right, owned a house, had a job, had a family, traveled, you know, did all this stuff and
did it on a part time salary. Basically, that's laughable by today's standards. No one can do that.
No, not not, I don't.
We would go to college, work part time and have a house. How is that possible?
Yeah, that's it's extremely difficult because actually, and you talked about it, most cars, the payment on a car, and it's like a mortgage, is like a mortgage. And so the average cost of a home in Cincinnati is between right around three hundred thousand dollars, And it used to be you could buy your starter home at one hundred thousand dollars or less, right, And you know, you're not seeing that anymore now. Of course, it's just the cost of living is so much different now than it was.
But if you look at what people.
Are being paid, it's not always it doesn't matter for decades.
Now, Well, what's happened.
There's been a disconnect between wages and the GDP like it used to prior to nineteen eighty right about there, it used to say, you know, once GDP went up, once your company's making more money, employees make more money, and it lifts all boats. And we kind of went in the other direction there, and now this is decades of that. So if you don't have enough money to buy what you're making it work or service you're giving it work, then that's what's going to happen in the economy.
Most of it's a consumer economy here. I mean, we're still doing fairly well by world standards, but for younger people they feel left out. And it's a whole bunch of reasons.
Why it is. But you here's the thing.
If you want to buy a home, you can, and so it's going to take the planning of saving because you need a down payment. It's going to take making sure that your credit is not in the crapper right, you know, talk to.
Someone another failure of the education system.
Well and credit people look at the credit and we know people very close to us who have maxed out all those credit cards and then only make the minimum payment.
You'll never ever.
Ever catch up and then complain about not getting head. It's like, well, you went on vacation, you couldn't afford you know, you're getting whatever you're spending your money on. Lifestyle is so it's like, well, I want to we want to live for now, and you know, you never know.
It's try it.
Tomorrow's not promise, but then it's a priority. It's like, if you want to live for now, then you're never going to be able to save enough to buy a house.
So I think for many, many years we didn't have any fun.
We did not have any fun. We still don't have that much fun.
Well, I think we have some fun.
It's fun, yeah, but I get it. I mean, there's people there's something to be said about living in the moment. We try to do that, but when you're coming up, it's awfully hard.
It absolutely is. So you know, you can rent and you can find ways. It may just it may be different. The way things are done today is different than the way we did it, as it will be tomorrow and it will and that's just part of life and you have to figure it out. So if you want to buy a home, you're going to have to start planning and it could take a year, it could take two years.
Here's one thing.
The statistic is just in the last seven days in Cincinnati, over five hundred homes had a price reduction. Okay, what does that tell you? What it tells me is there are opportunities out there because homes are sitting on the market longer and sellers are starting to get little nervous. We're going into those colder months. And if your home is sitting on the market, you have two choices. You can Number one, lower the price. Number two, you can just sit on it. And the longer that it sits,
the longer that it will sit. You know, if you do nothing, likely nothing is going to happen. You can do updates and relist the property and try to, you know, improve the property. But it's always about condition, location, and price. A home will sell. We know that from twenty years ago when we had the Great Recession, when homes were on the market for a year or more, they eventually sold. Now did they get the prices that the sellers wanted?
Not always.
It's not work. No, you don't get to set them. The market sets the rate for night.
So a home is you can price it as high as your names sold two years ago. But two years ago we were kind of at the height of the market. We aren't there anymore.
So we are you saying houses are decreasing in value? Is that what you just said?
I am saying we are definitely seeing a more stable type of a situation.
So by now this is a money loser, is what I.
Cannot say that. I did not say that. No, here's the thing.
You're not going to be You're as not reasonable to think you're gonna make ten percent on your home every year, year after year.
You don't do that. The markets you're not gonna tell.
You you're not going to So right now we're more stable. You may only see a one percent increase. You may not see the giant, ginormous increase in your in the value of your.
Home, all right.
Bottom line, bottom.
Line is if you want to buy a home, you can don't believe all the hype in it and all of the headlines because yeah, headlines are just headlines. They're there to scare you, right, and don't be scared clickbait, that's right, Watch out for the clickbait.
That's right.
You want to know that you spend a lot of time in the evening hours when you're not working. You work awfully hard, but at home you're clickbait.
And everything I do tend to look at a headline and then oh, never mind, not true.
Travis Kelsey's coming to the Bengals. No he's not, Michelle, you said he's coming to Cincinnati.
It's coming for the game. That's not what this says. Oh yeah it does.
Oh yeah, it does.
Swipe.
So you have to read the fine print.
In the fine print.
And if you have a question, call me. Michelle Sloan's loans hell sloms dot com.
Do you like that, Yeah, it's really good. Just talk to her. Yeah, just call her to say hot, you can't yet a little bit, Yeah she does. She's chatty. She's chatty that way.
Uh.
My wife, Michelle actually talked all about real estate today. Nothing. Uh. And then you're still driving me around for another week.
So yeah, I'm still driving mister Daisy. It's it's getting he's kind of getting old, I'll be honest with you.
Yeah, because you got to get up. You used to sleep in.
It's a kindergarten situation. Remember when the kids were in kindergarten and they were only in school for a short time, and then it's like you just get started on a broad turn back, turn around and go pick them up again.
It is like kindergarten.
It's like for you, it's kindergarten. I have to get up earlier than I liked to you and then I have to turn around and get you up, get you, pick you up around noon.
And funny part the first day she did that here, she actually took a sign instead where I was supposed to go and pinned it to my shirt. All right, my wife Michelle Sloan Slow Sloan sells homes dot com open house show that's on the iHeartRadio app where you get your podcast also YouTube as well. In Mainville, Remax time, gotta go, love you, thanks again, and uh, all right, you go warm the car up for a couple of
mon's kind of cool out this money. You go, warm the car up, go downstairs, pull it around.
I'll warm it up. Warm her.
I'll tell you what. Maybe I'm gonna milk you like this. I'm gonna milk this leg thing for a long time. Curb service. This is nice. This is nice anyway? Willi's oi the way coming up to twelve o six today and news in about four or five minutes here on the home of the best Bengals coverage got Green Bay this weekend with Joe Flacco at the Helm. We'll find out how it goes At four twenty with Dan and lap On seven hundred WWE Cincinnati