The Sesh - Presents - A Journey into Cannabis With Narith Panh

I'm Brandon. And I'm Jesse we're. Cannabis school having cannabis infused conversations. With everyday. People. Cannabis companies. Celebrities. And your mom? Welcome to the sesh. All right, everybody, welcome back to the sesh. We have got a very good friend with us today. Nerath, can we say where you're where you're coming from? Yeah. Hell yeah. We're salt. Lake. City, Utah, Salt Lake City, UT. Yeah, yeah. But he please. Do yeah, he is.

He's with Dragonfly and we've been able to partake of quite a bit of Dragonfly. We made friends with them and he was so generous. He brought us down to the grow. Oh, it was amazing. Yeah, we gotta see some really cool products. Amazing product. We gotta see the state-of-the-art facility and we just hit it off so well with him that we needed to bring him on the show to give a different perspective. And we've been loving all of Dragonfly's products.

Oh, it's so good so. As you guys have seen across the show, we've used tons of Dragonfly. Yeah, we continue to review em. I know some of you out there going, damn, I wish we had that here. But yeah, Nerath, welcome to the show, brother. Thank you guys so much for having me here. It's an honor, you know, being somebody who's a avid listener as well, too, just to, to be able to connect with you guys.

And I think I remember telling you guys when we first met, I was like, wait, you guys are from Utah? How did I not know this? So, but no, I mean, likewise, man, I, I, I think anytime you meet people who really appreciate what goes into cannabis and really understands the challenges and the difficulties, the opportunities and the joy, man, you just connect. And I think that's what cannabis culture and community is about,

right? So I appreciate you guys for honestly being real, 'cause you could be just sitting here blowing smoke, right? I mean. Hopefully we are going to be so awesome. But just stroking my ego over here, but genuine. You guys are real about products. You guys wouldn't lie. And if it sucked, you'd be like Nerith. It's it's all right, man, like and I probably wouldn't be here if it was just our right. So probably. Not like we've seen plenty of all right products across the Utah market.

And I mean, I still see all right products. And so, you know, none of them have come on the show. No, no. And, and it goes to speak on the, the quality and the care and what we got to see over there was this amazing process. And it's so scientific down to every drop of water that goes into these beautiful plants. I mean, it's the easiest way to be able to say it was gorgeous down there. Like my clothes stunk so long And even after my wife's like just go put that shit out in the

garage 'cause it's like it's. Oh, that's funny. See I was trying to like rub it on all my other clothes. Like is this like do brands like oh shit, bottle this up, sell it? No, but you know, you know, typically we, you know, we don't want to do the typical like, you know, take us through your entrepreneurial career. But what I think is so fascinating about where you came from is not anywhere near the cannabis scene.

Like take us through that. Like you, you talked about your brother and your brother had some unfortunate circumstances hit him and that kind of opened your eyes. And from what I understand, his eyes and the family's eyes to cannabis take us through that. Yeah, you know, and I, I think, you know, everybody who is involved in cannabis and has a passion for it, everybody's got that origin story, right?

Like what really flipped the switch from you just using it, quote UN quote recreationally to actually looking at this as real science and real medicine, right. And everybody has that moment. And, and for me, you know, that moment came, you know, in 2018 when my brother got into an auto pedestrian hit and run accident and he was basically kind of left on the side of the road to die. And we were fortunate that there was a off duty EMT that just

happened to be there. And, and was able to take him to the hospital and he was able to survive right with a full recovery, but you know, he had like AC6 spinal infusion, he has a metal femur in his leg, you know, and. That's what sounds like a nine month recovery, right? And again, I'm from Salt Lake City, UT, I grew up here. I'm born and raised here, right? So losing friends and family to, you know, the opiate epidemic is nothing new. Here is common. Anybody.

Yeah, very common. So when you see your family hopped up on a hospital bed there, that's the first thing that runs to your mind is like, I don't want my family member to be one of those statistics. So that that was a vow right there. And I remember very vividly, like late sitting next to the hospital bed, right? And it's dark and it literally just happened. And all these emotions I remember I wrote was writing this letter to the person that hit them and it actually got

published in, in a letter. And that was my intent. I was just trying to jot down my feelings and like trying to, yeah, this anger that I had towards this person and trying to find compassion and all those things. But but anyways, in that moment was like, you know what, I'm going to make sure that he doesn't go down that path. And for that entire nine month recovery, it was 100% medical cannabis edibles, one to one ratio, THC to CBD edibles,

right? And I'm not a lot of people understand ratios and the differences in the impact of it. It's not just about getting high, it's about real pain relief. And I credit that to this day, why my brother is here and why he didn't go down this other road, right? And, and his, his ability to maintain his mental health and his recovery and to, to continue to have a positive outlook and seeing friends and family and put this smile on all the time like, Nah, I'm fine.

It's gonna be great. It's gonna. And when inside you're like, man, I, I don't think you can do that on other substances. I've seen other. Substances. Well, you're foggy, you're not there. You're almost like just kind of a shell of the human that you once were. And nobody wants that. No one wants that for the people that they care about to see them exist like that. So, so that was a huge turning point for me. And in that moment, right. And you know, I was working in a

professional career. I'll talk a little bit more about what I was doing then. But in that moment it was kind of that switch of like, dude, what are you? What are you doing, man? Like how many other families are in the same situation as me but don't have the resources, don't have the knowledge? Don't even have the. Courage to knowingly break the law well. Because at 2018, it was. We didn't have a medical program

in Utah that time. We had families here in Utah that were moving to Colorado just. So they could take care of their. Kids, right? Because they couldn't safely and legally do out here without fear of somebody knocking on their door, taking their kids away, judging them. Yeah, there was a lady whose 2 year old, she moved out Landon something from Utah because of that.

And she took him to Colorado because we didn't have a medical program and he was given like less than a week to live because he had stage 4 cancer. Basically make. Him comfortable. Yeah, and so she took him and he now it's been 12 years or something and he's still alive thanks to medicinal cannabis and that. But it's just these stories. But how many people have had to, like you said, leave their home and try and venture out to another place to try and find and we're.

All we're talking about is accessibility. Yeah, that's it. Like people are going to always get access to the things that they want, right. So I guess we either as people, right, as, as, as business leaders, as regulators, as, as you know, people in, in positions of government to recognize and see these things, see that there are people literally leaving our state so they can just take care of their families because we're unwilling

to view them as regular people. When I say regular people, it's like we don't judge somebody who goes gets, you know, Xanax and Valium, you know, and and and opiates for their pain. But that's very normal. Right. Or even Advil or Tylenol or aspirin, like any of those things that people are utilizing for pain as well, and yet we don't look at them and treat them any differently.

Well, and I will say something on the positive note though, what I saw yesterday, I was, I was in the dispensary yesterday over Dragonfly and while I was waiting to get called up to pick up my order, this gentleman who looked like he belonged in some LDS community guy look like a Bishop, if you know what I'm talking about. It's an ecclesiastical leader. And he just when he got up, I could see he was in pain. And I asked and I was like you here for pain he goes, pain

relief he goes. Nothing else has worked just like this. I said, good for you. I said, do you feel ashamed anymore? And he smiled and he goes, I used to, but I don't anymore because what it's been able to do for me and, and you see that like the people that come in, 'cause I know this state has this very strange idea of what it, it's like Reefer Madness, right? Pretty much like how it came in to be like, it was just like, oh, you're gonna throw your life

away. You know you're gonna go down the wrong path. You're gonna start raping people and listening. To jazz music. Yeah, yeah. Then you're gonna start having words, deep conversations, and then it starts going down. Completely differently than what you're talking. Exactly right. You're gonna chill the fuck out. But it was, it's so cool because the people that you do see coming through every single day, they're not a bunch of your stereotypical reefer madness stoners.

These are grandmas, these are mothers, these are fathers, These are sons and daughters who are going through what I've seen and throughout like all of Utah. And I mean, I'm gonna give a lot of props to Dragonfly for what they do for their patients because of the reason is they I have never been treated in any way with disdain. It's always like, what can we help you with? Yeah, I've been actually decently impressed with Dragonfly over any of the other pharmacies that we've. Actually.

But the The funny thing, and I was thinking about this before Nerth showed up was so I remember it was AI want to say it was a 420 event or like a little cannabis event that was going on in Salt Lake. And it was in this like downstairs area. It wasn't super big, but I remember that Dragonfly was going to be there and all of these people who were in the cannabis space weren't nervous because Dragonfly was an investment group.

What really it's a, a Vietnamese family that moved here and has started one business, started another business, invested in local businesses that they like. Like it's not this massive large investment group. It's a small family of people who have like been smart. I look at that and I'm like, well, grandma and grandpa were smart with their money, had lots of investments and properties and stuff. My parents do that. Like, how is that any different than any of these other local people?

But it was this, oh man, Dragonfly's coming to Utah. It's this big conglomerate or whatever. And it was like, OK, but no, we look at it and who else has been here? The block Cannabis Cure Leaf and hands down none of those have had anywhere near as good of an experience as much of like a care for the patient as what I found in Dragonfly. Yeah. And that's, you know, that goes a lot to the people that are

involved in this. I mean, this is a, this is a family owned run business on top of it to be able to create this. And they wanted to create something that was very unique, but also it was open enough to be able to accept cannabis culture. No, I really appreciate you guys kind of teeing up and, and quite frankly, even just recognizing that, right? And the reality is, you know, being an Asian immigrant living in Salt Lake City, right, is, is

a challenge in of itself, right? So trying to fit in and make sure that people take you seriously and you're legitimate and all those things 'cause you want to boil it down. Yeah, our, our team started out with the first Vietnamese pho restaurant in Utah, right? Like back in the 90s when you couldn't find any ethnic cuisine out there, right? So the end of the day, that's, that's the roots, right? That's the roots of bringing culture, bringing community,

bringing diversity. And what's the best way to share your culture with somebody other than through food through your stomach? Right. Yeah, that's, that's that look. That's the Asian way, man. You will never go to Asian's house. And and they will always have food. They will always have something. Hey, you're hungry. You're not hungry. You're not. You're gonna have something. Yeah. It's just part of our. Culture, right?

So I think that's what makes us unique is we have a very eclectic group of individuals that make up our team, right? We've got restauranteers, people who are involved in hospitality. They know what it takes to create an experience where people love to be a part of and come back and talk to other people about, right? And then for me, I got a interesting background because I come from a very corporate

background, right? Like, I spent like 20 years working in the research and consulting world, working with Fortune 500 companies, working with some of the biggest companies on the planet, some of the biggest. Automotive crazy discussion on electrical vehicles on our drive totally changed my mind. So I come from that background of just understanding how brand strategy works, how customer experience matters to your product, to your brand, right?

And, and how to develop products that match and align with those things. So man, you bring this team together that has this knowledge and knows how to take care of people, knows how people think and can provide the things that people before they even know that they need it, right? Who knew that they needed a pharmacy that created a safe space that was a judgement free zone that was open and airy. Not this like, hey, man, I'm, I'm here for some, some cannabis. No, everybody can hear what

you're doing. And that was designed intentionally because when you walk in the doors of Dragonfly Wellness, there is no judgement. We are all here for the same reason. So it creates that warm vibe because guess what, outside of the doors, there's plenty of judgment out there, right? We wanted to make sure that our core values patient first. And that's in something that's important in any business. If you don't have core values, you, you don't, you don't have a, a, a business.

You just have a company that makes some money, right? You don't, you don't have a real brand, a real company because you don't know what your, why is you just show up to make money, right? And that's kind of I think the challenge that you see with corporate cannabis, right? Like you got all these people that are coming in that quite frankly maybe didn't really care that much about cannabis, but saw. Them or even use it opportunity.

And don't even use it. How many executives and people at high levels that you meet in suits and ties and penny loafers at MJ Bizcon and they don't even know what it tastes like or feels like or and, and, and they kind of sometimes just say ridiculous things where you're like, do you even know? Anything about this plant? You know, it's funny, 'cause I, I met this woman and she, it was part of some networking group out in California and she's in cannabis.

She just does credit card processing, right? And she's like, how do I, how do I break into there? And I'm like, do you use the product? She goes no, I said not even CVD. She goes no. And I said then good luck. Yeah. Good luck. Because they don't, they don't it it. That's what's really cool. It's not a snobby thing. It's when you're part of that community. It's it's like when we've talked about it many times on the show, it is the greatest uniter of anything.

If you smell that and you just say, hey man, that smells pretty good, they will straight up share it with you. Like you couldn't get that with food. Yeah, right. And that cheeseburger smells delicious. Yeah. Do you wanna bite? Yeah, you should have a bite, dude. And it was just like. Wow, yeah, you're bringing that up. I was literally talking about this two days ago with Lazy Bone from Bone Thugs and. Harmony.

Yeah, yeah, we're. Talking about just, you know, he's starting a foundation called Brilliant Life Foundation that's focused on mental health awareness, right? You can imagine coming from the streets of gangster rap, going from riches to fame and all these things I used to like you have to deal with, right? And just having somebody like him being vulnerable to talk about those things was crazy. But we're talking about just how crazy that concept is, right?

Where, man, like, I've seen, you know, prescription drugs and alcohol just tear families apart, but I've only seen cannabis bring the most different, diverse people together, right? Like, like, hey, man, you're walking down the street smoking a Jay and you're like, can I get a puff? Like, you're gonna share your germs out of somebody's mountain. Like, yeah, man, no problem. No questions. Asked Here, take a hit. It's this rant. It's the instant connector across the globe and it's like,

it doesn't matter who you are. What it was like, oh shit, here. It it's like what old school Marines were like, 'cause I meet, you know, you meet these guys like it wouldn't even matter if they knew and they know each other just by their walk, their look and they'll just say, hey, brother, do you have a place to stay? Do you need anything? Do you need some food? Do you need money?

Like they truly believe that. And and what I see in the cannabis community is not as extreme as that, but it is very close. Like people will invite you into your home, into their home saying, hey, you know, if you do that now we have this kinship and that's how like, you know, and and we appreciate what you said earlier that we're real because we always are who we are. We don't change just because, like obscurely we because it turned out to be a really big success and that's awesome.

But the other side is when you meet people within the cannabis community. I've yet to meet anybody fake who actually uses the product. So when you know, you know, game recognize game. Yeah, for sure. Something about this plant that once you get connected to it, it just changes your perspective, right? It, it, it opens up this door of, of curiosity, of questions of like, why have I been told all of these lies my whole life? What, what are, what, what were we hiding?

What were we keeping from people? What were we trying to protect people from? And that starts, and, and that's probably the very reason, one of the reasons the, the, the, the government decided to ban all of these controlled substances, right? And you can look back into the Vietnam War, right, during that time in that area where you had all these hippies running around on all these drugs and they don't want to support the war and they don't believe in American.

We shouldn't be over there and blah, blah. No, we can't let them think like this. Boom, here comes the Reagan era, right? Say no drugs. Yeah, it was. A huge what did we do? We just locked up people in jail. We just threw people. We still did just crushed families. We. Did it. We talked about that on the last episode or why it's illegal or that one. And we basically since the 80s, it was like there was an increase of almost 56% of incarcerated humans in the United States.

And it's like, so you're telling us that either we've got five times the amount of population that just instantly dropped, or we've just got five times the amount of stupid people or like, what is it that we're, you know, what correlates to that? Cannabis is always been around our our civilization, right? For thousands of years. You could date it back to, you know, Chinese emperor dynasties. Back. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, using it for treating, for

gout. So to, to, to somehow think that all of a sudden there was just this influx of cannabis usage, you know what I mean? So it's wild again, when you start having those types of conversations and asking why it's, it's really powerful. And those are the things that I think connect and unite people in the community because we know what this plan is about. We know what it can do to disrupt everything in our system right now, right? Like this can help break down that system, right?

How many people that are now cannabis users don't ever have to rely on traditional pharmaceuticals ever again, ever, ever drugs and have these prescription cocktails of just, you know, taking one prescription after the next because you know, this had creates another side effect and all of a sudden you're on 8 pills and you're like, what what the hell just happened? I just I just blew my knee out playing basketball. What what what's going on?

So I think again, when you realize that you're like, there's something here, there is something here, right? Well, Speaking of something here, you have not been able to partake. So you need to warm that up. And actually I wanted to to talk about that if we're able to. So this is a new product that you guys are developing. Yeah, So basically what this is a dry herb vaporizer, right? Nothing novel or unique at the end of the day, right.

But what's unique in Utah to, to a lot of other maybe adult youth States and even some medical states is smoking or or combustion to flour is prohibited, right? Because we are a medical state. And I don't know any doctor that's going to tell you that burning something, inhaling into your lungs is going to be healthy and good for you, right? That that's, that's the reality of it.

So from a medical perspective, being able to safely dry or vaporize, not only is it a healthier way to consume, it's a more efficient way to consume cannabis because you get greater bioavailability by dry or vaporizing than you do if you're burning, right, because you know you're just burning. All that, it's only like 20 or 30% maybe of bioavailability that you get total. Between 22 to 24. Percent. Yeah, Not massive.

So, so yeah, that that. That's even higher than edibles if you vaporize it because edibles is only like it's under 40%. Well, and that's some of the things. Is, is, is actually less because from edibles it goes through first pass metabolism, right? So your body's kicking out all these other things. So you're actually getting less than you are through inhaling, right? So But what's unique about edibles is it creates a metabolite. As less into your. Liver, right?

Yeah, exactly. And it's, you know, 11 hydroxy THC is six to seven times stronger than regular THC. So that's why most of the stories you hear about about people getting really messed up and like, man, I took an edible.

It's cuz you literally. Took way more than what you would have if you'd looked at the milligrams and you're like, well, this puff was only this and you're like, well, the edible said it was this, but when you calculate it as 11 hydroxy THC, you're like, you know, you're way higher milligrams. Oh yeah. It's like giving, I've got an analogy I use is like giving a 16 year old the car keys to a Ferrari and be like here first time go ahead just just drive it right?

You've never driven before right? Here check this out. So that's really unique in of itself. But what I love about these dry herb vaporizers, honestly, is the efficiency, right? The efficiency, because at the end of the day, we're talking about medicine and you want to be able to utilize every single cannabinoid and terpene of your medicine and not be wasting it 'cause you're paying good money for this, right?

And you'd be surprised how much cannabis you save and how much less you go through when you start dry herb vaporizing, right? You can. Sit and you know, smoke a you know a 1G J by yourself, no? Problem. And in this chamber is 1/3 of a gram and I will still get the same effects, if not better than smoking A1 gram J. So that's what's beautiful about this. And having this dryer vaporizer as well too. If you're a connoisseur of

flour. I, I like to explain as if you're a connoisseur of wine and you appreciate all the different varietals and the different notes and tones and flavors that you get, well, you're gonna pick up on this. You're not just tasting smoke, tasting burnt. You taste every single profile. And the cool thing is with theirs, like their dryer vaporizer, it has a lot of them don't give a full temperature control. It only gives you like 3 priests at settings that goes on there.

And this gives you a complete temperature range. And I don't know if you're allowed to or I'm allowed to say the price point on it, but it's coming in at like $50. Yeah, that's the goal. This still has not hit the market. We're still going. Through the prototyping stages and everything, but that is the goal to get this down so it's affordable for people, right? Because most of those dry air vaporizers entry level that are mediocre like. You're 250 if you're $90.00 for

like. Some of the G pans that that that are like just. Like really tiny and. Flimsy and stuff, right? But to get something really good? Yeah, Yeah. These are expensive. 250 This one's 400. This one is 2. 75 the air vape, I mean it's very sexy. It's got all the temperature control, it looks cool, but it is the affordability and especially right now where a company such as like air vap, there's a lot that went into

this. It's a heavy device that being able to scale it down to availability helps people to be able to enjoy more Thailand. Oh yeah. So much more portable than any of these. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, dude, for real. No problem. Like the little Nokias? But but the biggest thing is user interface, right? Making it simple and easy to use. We were talking about this a little bit earlier of like how some of these other devices you got to buy extra stuff and

they're not designed. It doesn't seems like it's not designed for the user. And it's like, wait, who made this? How do you load, you know, herb into your dry herb vaporizer, right? So all those things take into consideration and making something that's easy for somebody who's just entering cannabis, right? So they know how to do it. And this is about as simple as grinding up a little bit of herb, taking off the magnetic top, dropping it into the fundal

chamber that's in there. So none of your herb drops on the outside. It goes right into there. And then pressing the button 12345 times and it turns on and you have variable temperature. And why is variable temperature important? Because there are different boiling points for terpenes, right and even cannabinoids, they all have different temperatures, right? So you know, if you just go straight to smoking and burning, you're at a very high temperature.

So you're actually burning away a lot of the terpenes. And so you don't get a lot of flavor and taste when you're just smoking AJ but in here you can adjust your temperature. You're talking you start around 360 or so. I just buzzed I'm I'm at 380 right now.

That's where I like to start. But most people, they might not get the the type of vapor that they're used to when they're smoking AJ. So they're like, I'm gonna burn it at 450°, which I mean, you're still gonna get the effect, but you miss out on a lot of the experience and the taste and the tone. So, well, and you can always go up. So the cannabinoids that burn off at 380 don't burn off at 365 or don't you know? And same with the ones that burn off at 400 don't burn off at

these lower temps. So you can still hit different temps and get different terps, different experiences from each stage that you go through. Exactly. And what's really cool too is that with the vaporizer, like I can sometimes get 2 or even 3 burns out of one bowl and that's pretty amazing. Like that one time long time ago when we drove up to that cannabis event and we puffed on that packs. In the packs that thing lasted, we had like a 40 minute session on one bowl. One bowl. In a packs.

Cause the packs didn't, I mean, I do like, you know, where they've got time control so they get the most out of your bowl, but that thing just goes. Like that's one thing I will say about the packs was really cool is it just goes. But other than that, like as far as the flavor profiles, everything, it's the best way. And that's a it's an easier way to go flower first. Absolutely right 'cause it's

simple, right? Because look, there's a lot of people out there that don't know how to roll JS, right? They don't know how to do roll blunts or. All this other thing so I've been at least a decade into cannabis and I still I can roll a joint a joint, but I don't hand roll one because I've got devices that will do it. I've even had like the J rolling machine that I use because I've just never been good at hand rolling. AJI can hand roll a blunt just fine. I'm pretty. Decent with the Ji.

Don't like smoking blunts? Honestly, I would, if I'm going to choose that, I would much rather smoke AJ because I don't like the tobacco paper. I'm just a fucking weirdo, but that's me. And so like, like you said, a lot of people don't do that. And this, this is fantastic. You get such a wide range of flavors of terps and you can craft that experience depending on, you know, what temperature that you want on that. So. And that's huge And, and we want more people to have that kind of

experience, right? And how do you do that? Well, you gotta make it affordable for people, you know what I mean? Like people do. Not everybody can go out and buy a $200.00 device. Or a $400.00 device exactly. So that's. I mean, even the cost of regulated cannabis is expensive in its own. And now you tell me I gotta go buy $150.00 device just so I can buy my $50 eighth? Like hold on a SEC, maybe I'm just going to go to my homie down the street. Yeah, yeah, for real.

And that's. What happens every day? Those are the choices people make every single day, right? And that's the the the consumer psyche that goes through peoples minds. We are wired to not do hard stuff right? Like it's our fight or flight mentality. Do not go towards pain and heartache and challenge like we got away from it. So people are always going to gravitate to what's easiest, right? And right now what what I'm super happy about here in Utah's program is we have over 81,000

patients in the program. That said, I don't care about everything else. I'm going to jump through all the hoops. I'm going to go to my doctor, I'm going to get a card, I'm going to register and I'm going to go get a pharmacist consultation. I'm going to go to one of the 15 pharmacies. Even if it's not close to me, I'm going to still do it. And I'm going to do everything harder than what it was pre 2020. How many people are like, yeah,

I want my life to be harder? Like anybody can call a friend or a homie that knows somebody who's somebody and. You get a $25 aid and you're like, cool, well, not I don't have to worry. But for you to order online and get it delivered to your house from us, from Dragonfly Wellness in downtown Salt Lake City, you got to jump through hoops. And the amount of money that it takes you to even get your card in the 1st place, those are all just bottlenecks, right?

Challenges and barriers for people because I can promise you there are more than 81,000 people in the state of Utah with three and a half million people that. Are using cannabis right now in. Fact, I was just in Wendover a couple of weeks ago at Deep Roots Harvest at the border of Wendover in Utah. Every single car in the parking. Lot. Utah, Utah, I'm like, yeah, I don't think that they were building a dispensary in the middle of the desert for Nevada residents, so.

It's not it's Utah ones. It's like same when you go to Dinosaur you go to these other ones. They have 3 dispensaries in Dinosaur Co yet that town is tiny. I don't even know if there's 1000 people in that town. There's no way they need. There was a dyspo that was like what was one of those tough sheds? It looked like a tough shed. But 100%, it is just built on the edges of these states for the other states that they're like, yeah, all of these people

are just gonna come here. Yep, make it more convenient for them and. It's wild. Why? Again, accessibility. Why are we forcing people to drive ours across the border, break the law, bring it back when we could make it more accessible here? Right. And and I know I'm sure there's people listening like Nerys. You're, you're a draft player. You're the one charging these prices, man. What do you you're the problem? Again, it's not like it's all of the trickling down of the

system. And we discussed it like there is no tax. Like you basically don't get tax breaks as a cannabis business. You pay all of your income. Everything is taxed at the beginning. And then like after you've done it all, then you're like, cool,

what do I have left? Versus like companies who write off all their taxes, get all of these tax breaks and then it's like, cool, well, now we have 40% more income to basically work with and you have every cannabis company who's like, well, we have 40% less income that we're working with and we've all got all these same margins.

So it sucks because like Utah has way tons of regulation, but yet and and it's still like no system I look at, I feel like is perfect, but I feel like we are we are trying. But again, there's a lot of miss misdirection. I feel like with our actual system, because we've we've talked about it like there's a lot of things with our medical program that are treated almost like it's a recreational thing

still. And yet everyone who is in there is strictly for medical and even like the allowed conditions for medical is incredibly close minded for our state to go, Hey, this is medical. But like, OK, well, there's proven value for all of these things, but we're going to make it really hard for you to get it unless you have chronic pain. OK, well, who anyone can have chronic pain. So does that mean that we just have every single person in Utah going and going, Hey, I have chronic pain.

Hey, I have chronic pain. That's. Exactly what happens, what the statistics of the medical cannabis program here in Utah are 80% of all medical cannabis patients are qualifying under chronic pain. When you have a whole laundry list of other conditions, right? And what happens is when you create this tiny Ave. for people to get access, people want to be legal.

Oh yeah, people don't. Want to look over their shoulder and worry about what's going to happen to them if their kids are going to get taken away, if they're going to get pulled over right and go to jail, like for doing possessing something. For using that in. The next state over, you could go buy it just like you buy alcohol, Yeah. So real easy. It's so it's wild to have that juxtaposition for people to, to, to be in. And basically what we're doing is we're, we're, we're telling

people to, to lie. Yeah, hey, I know you wanna use this for something else. Maybe you're, you're, you're suffering from anxiety, maybe with some depression, but guess what? Those are not qualifying conditions. Yep. Only PTSD is. And that's if you have like a history where. There's. Psychiatrist and that. PSD is a real thing. That's not something you just roll in doc. Hey, can you tell? Me. No, there's a lot of testing. So it doesn't work that way, right? So, so think about that.

You just left out 30% of our population. And why do I say 30 percent, 30%? Because this is not a great statistic for Utah to be #1 in, but we were number one in mental health related issues. And I believe it. We are it's 100% look it up. It's an it's an just Google it, right? It, it, it's tough to accept that fact, right? When you kind of look around and you live here and you're like, God, we have such a beautiful state, right? We have such a young, vibrant community.

We are also the youngest demographic in the nation. The youngest? Yeah, Mormons multiply like amoeba. Yeah, yeah, we do go to Costco, man, on a Saturday, 246, right? But it's wild. It's wild when you just stop and you just look at those statistics and you ask yourself why. Yeah, why? What is going on here in Utah? That puts US number one. And there's a lot of factors and we could get into that conversation if the conversation

takes us there. But mental health is a real thing in our state and basically what we're saying by not having qualifying conditions that include those people. Good luck. Go through the traditional route, go get your prescription drugs, go get your anxiety medications and those. Just because they're legal does not mean they are good for you. Yeah, have less side effects or less concerning issues or something. Well, and it's it's short term, it's not something that's going

to affect you long term. That's a bad meaning if you. In what's really nice about that and especially those who who could qualify for this if they don't those who don't qualify for it they don't really have any guidance and there's not really anything you can say other than what your experience is is some of the reasons why this podcast has been so successful because you can live vicariously through us and what

we're consuming going. Yeah, I feel this like we one of the funniest reviews I ever said, like this guy put down was I love listening to this even when I'm out of bud because I can virtually smoke with you guys and and and have a sash and have a sash like you guys describe the feeling enough. I'm just like, yeah, that's what I'm feeling right now. Like damn, dude, that's some that one that's sad.

It's very that's sad. But at the other time though, that's, that's what we need those programs open and available to those individuals who are suffering in, in more ways than, you know, bad back, bad joints, whatever, you know, fibromyalgia, it's pretty mad. And you know, it's, you know, I know autism is on that as well, but that's so it's not, not even close as frequent as it should be leveraged.

And it, it's, you know, you, I even I, I work with this functional medicine clinic and working with them, one of their doctors, just like, yeah, I'm actually gonna get this kid. The only reason why they can put him on that one's 'cause he qualifies to under autism. That's it. But it's mostly severe depression and anxiety, like suicidal ideations. And she's like, I'm gonna give this a go. I was like, wow, that's cool.

Let me know how that you know, let me know if the parents buy it because I think that's another difficult thing is the education for the public and, and letting them know that this, this isn't a bad thing. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the thing that, you know, we just need to be able to do more of, right? Is that education side from from everybody, right, from you people like you guys, people like us that are running operations, are our government bodies that have supported this

program, right? And, and are regulating this program that there is more that we could do to educate people. Like we have a program here and it's working for for 81,000 people. Why aren't we on the rooftops shouting about it, right? And talking about it? And sometimes I don't think that the medical cannabis program

gets the credit it deserves. And one perfect example I'll share with you is at the end of last year, there was an article published from Intermountain Healthcare where they basically were looking at data and opiate usage data between 2019 to 2023. And between those years, there was a 30% reduction in opiate usage. Interesting. Which means that less opiate usage, less opiate addiction, less opiate deaths, less people are dying, and.

We have a massive overdose issue with opioids like Utah has a we're top. Five in suicides, yeah, as well, too. And those aren't just intentional suicides, right? Some of them are accidental in some cases, right? So, but those these these statistics are stunning that they're here and we literally have the tools right in front of us to help. And by no means, and I'm saying the cannabis is end all the solution for everybody because everybody's body is different.

Oh yeah, man. It sure helps a lot of people. It's an outside tool to have in your toolbox, yeah. But but back to that 30% is, you know, what was the credit that IHC gave for this 30% reduction? It was education, right? We told people about this, right? We, we educated doctors about the, the, the, the risk of opiates. Well, kind of you'd be like, well, shouldn't you known that already?

And the short answer is we did anybody who knows anything about Pardue Pharmaceuticals, Sacre family and the story behind opiates, you would know that it was all a cover, but been a lie. FDA had all this information. So that's a whole. Other conversation we can talk. About but yeah, give credit to that. Oh, it's the know your scripts program, right. It's because, you know, we, we had this thing to talk to people and and we were able to reduce

it through that. Not one mention about our medical cannabis program started in 2019. Yeah, not one. And, and, and again, why aren't we on the rooftops shouting that? So those are one of the things that I'm working towards as well too, is collecting the data. Because then the data doesn't lie, right? People lie, people have opinions, people misread data, but the data doesn't lie, right?

And what the data will show, and it's going to show that there's a very direct correlation between medical cannabis prescription usage and opiate prescription usage, right? And this study was done in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, right? This was originally done over there where I first met MSA Management Science Associates, right? It's the data analytics company that is that we're working with to be able to do this.

They did that exact study. This is how they actually found me. I was speaking at an event at like one of the cannabis conferences and one of the gentlemen that was from their team approached me after, said, hey, I really connected with what you were talking about. And your goal towards focusing cannabis is medicine and trying to find solutions to our opioid problem. And we have something to share with you, right?

And in Allegheny County, they did that exact study where they were able to take medical cannabis pharmacy data and pair that with EMR data, electronic medical records, right? Then when you go to the hospital, the doctor writes the script. It's in an electronic system. They know all those prescriptions, especially if it's a controlled substance. Doctors are required to have these licenses, so they know you're taking these medications

that are out there. And they were able to show a very direct correlation because you can see the people that were once using opiates and are now consuming cannabis and voila. So we're on this journey to make sure that everybody knows gives cannabis the credit that it deserves, that this is real medicine and it is healing people despite what your belief

is, right. And at one time you could say because it's federally illegal, you can no longer say that because the DEA just recommended to reschedule cannabis from schedule one to schedule three. That is monumental. How are you gonna argue that now? Now you gotta, well, you could probably argue and say, well, I don't believe in the government, which is easy to do, but you can't use that, that, that, that scapegoat anymore and say it's,

it's illegal. That I, I don't wanna well, somebody that, that, that's smart enough to provide data and information. The Department of Health and Human Services of the United States provided that recommendation to them that because schedule one states no medicinal benefit and. Highly addictive and that. You you cannot stand on any leg if you want to try to make the argument and says has no medicinal benefit, so it does not belong on schedule one. No, and and I mean, I know you

know, it's it's just past. I mean it's not going into effect right now. They still have time for individuals to appeal it, to be able to bring it back, which would slow it down. But it is moving forward. That's one thing that is clear. It is moving forward. But with that said and being in the business as you are, what do you see happen to Rex states? What's your? Opinion. Oh, man, I, I mean, look, let, let, let's look at the current landscape of how our healthcare

system works right now, right? Like it is all one integrated system, right? With pharmaceutical drug companies who work directly with insurance companies and those insurance companies working directly with the hospital networks. It's all one ecosystem that is very difficult to crack, right? And the nature of that is, is that these big companies are big companies and have a lot of money and they need to because they have a lot of liability as well. Too, because they.

Are providing prescription drugs for, you know, 300 million Americans, right? So that's a lot of people. That's a big market that you got to take care of. So, but these big pharmaceutical companies also have the deep pockets to go through clinical trials. Like clinical trials are five to seven-year periods. And you're talking millions, millions of dollars to be able to do that, man. I don't know a lot of cannabis operators who even have $1,000,000, right?

Because back to that whole challenge, only 25% of cannabis companies are actually profitable. The other 75% are just hanging on by a thread or just in it for the passion because they love it, right? But that is a huge, huge hurdle to be able to jump over, right? When you think about that. So this system is built to not break. So how do you create cannabis products that are now FDA approved if you're just Dragonfly in Salt Lake City, UT? So.

Double edged sword there. What is the future of that actually look like if you're an adult use state and people aren't getting an FDA approved product, only FDA approved products are going to get covered by insurance. So now you've got the likes of big pharmaceuticals that already have purchased cannabis companies. You can just Google Pfizer and Arena Pharmaceuticals. You can also look up patents that have already been placed

for cannabinoids based products. Yeah. So now it's just a race for who has the most money to get to the first clinical trials to have the first patent that nobody else. Can copy then because they hold the patent so then unless they find a different cannabinoid or create their own version of something different and then again that becomes a patent and then no one can do that so.

We know that maybe that there's something magic in this strain here that could really help people with their mental clarity and their focus and their mood and something that maybe they wouldn't have to rely on an Adderall or something, right, to get things done. And you're happy and uplifted and connected and engaged and having amazing conversations with people. That's what I feel like right now with this. How am I ever going to patent

this? Yeah. Do you guys have, you know, $50 million I can borrow? Let me pull that you. Guys, I can record a. Lot more. So you've been hiding it, huh? But that that's the game that we're talking about right now. So that this is what I'm saying to these adult Hugh states that it's going to be very difficult to compete in a Schedule 3. Space. Almost impossible, yeah.

So. The does that create a separate like do they open up and have it be a medical and then a wreck version of like, well, there's medical for that, But if it's a wreck adult, but again, there's still adult use. Like do they just play outside of that realm of like it?

Hey, it's been schedule one. So that's kind of the realm that it's already been in. I think you'll probably see that because it I mean to think about adaptation in there, there's going to be FDA approved cannabis products, but again, it's going through those clinical trials. So for right now, I think in, in this just hypothesis on my side, it's they're just gonna kind of let things run the way they are.

They're not gonna. I mean, I, I hope that Utah doesn't change to a rec state because I've seen what rec states, what happens there, and it's extremely poor quality product. Better qualifying conditions, More qualifying. Conditions and regulations on.

Better access because again when you're in a medical state and it's classified as a medicine, if you're only having 15 pharmacies in your entire state in this size of a state where it can take over 8 hours to drive from one point to another in certain areas like that's a long ass time. You have to give your patients way more access. So either the ability to do like homegrown or giving way more pharmacies because it limit the like.

And again, maybe not every product is FDA regulated, but there still needs to be a higher set of regulation because we still see sub par products like everywhere. Well, and it, it kind of goes to say like what we, what we were able to see out there grow like state-of-the-art everything from water to lighting to timing the minerals to the drying process to the trimming. Like it's very, very, it's so well orchestrated to be able to get you that final product.

Like what we're smoking on now. Like it, it just pure magic. Yeah, yeah, man. It's something that we we don't see enough of. And that's where other Rex states kind of get away with everything. Like we talked about with with some of your guys over there, they were just like, yeah, in California, they've got, they've got testing labs everywhere and they'll fudge the and they'll fudge the results too. They don't care.

You just pay them. That's one of the things that again, our program doesn't do enough to give ourselves credit for that of how great of a quality program and quality testing we have here. Because when you see the Coas on ours on, on our products, they are actually true percentages, not dry lab results, which is what happens in every adult. You stayed out there like it is the pay to play game. There's that many labs out there.

And if you're not willing to good give a, a, a good test result, they're just gonna take that $30,000 of business somewhere else. And you as a lab gotta make a decision. Do I stay in business or do I do the right thing? Same business And that's tough, right? But for us, you know, when you walk into a dragonfly Wellness pharmacy that you are going to get those potencies and you're going to feel it.

And I think that's a a huge reason why you guys are like, yo, dragonfly flower hits a different because you could go by 30% boof anywhere in Colorado in in in Nevada, you get all day long. But is it truly 30%? How how how like? You go there and if like half of their stuff is 30%, you're like, no, it's not Wow. You guys found the secret sauce? Bro who's your grower? Like hook me up Very. Difficult to get flour above 30% right like that. That is an anomaly.

So it's, it's wild. It's wild that you see that consistently in in other states that are there and then you try it and you're like, that was no different than the 15% that I just, you know, that that I just had. And that's the other anomaly there as well too, is that this focus on THC and potency. The highest that's. Why I appreciate what you guys do because you give a platform on a voice for the other things outside of the one major cannabinoid, right? And you give the love to the

terpenes. That's why this strain that we're puffing on or have been is actually one of their grows and it's not out yet or just about to be out. It is about to drop next week. And it is you imagine an exclusive like it is a high CBG strain and. It is bad. I feel very toasty. Like one of the best experiences that I think that we have had did. You guys say you're a less high or more high than other strains that you normally?

I'd say I'm, I'm right now I'm more, I feel really good though, Like it's, it's so much that I'm super relaxed, but I'm very aware. And that's kind of a unique thing 'cause some sativa strains and again, it's going into the percentages, like it's not about the high percentages when we started this podcast, like it was primarily carts and there's a. Good amount of carts. Yeah, oh, I mean like it was rare when we were had flower on. Now it's like flower all the time.

But we we enjoy the flower just because of of how it hits. It just hits different. It just hits different. And with the carts, it was always about the high percentages. Now I just don't have the pallet for it. Some of them for sometimes. Most of what we were doing, like at the beginning, wow. Oh yeah, Most of it was disti. When we first started, there was a lot of just most lead distillates, distillates across

the the market. And so when I was going out to Denver and getting carts, it was all distillate. It wasn't until a couple years ago that we started seeing more of the live resin, the live resin coming into play. And that was just kind of I think what changed the game because before that it was like, what is your highest THC experience? Because they really it when it's distilled all the way down, you don't get the turbines, you

don't get anything. So it's really just more of like a here, this is gonna make you feel something. And you know, I mean, it did, but it wasn't the best. But yeah, exactly. You're not being able to fully get that experience. And that even goes to now where I feel that consumers are going more towards high quality anyways. They're asking for high quality. You're gonna have those guys drinking the Canadian hose, plastic jug always on sale at the liquor store, you know,

whiskey. You're gonna have those people in the cannabis world, too. They don't care. Yeah. They're like, we just want to get. I just want to get fucked up. Like, all right, cool. I mean, if that's your game, that's cool. That's why those adults state the adult youth states. I don't, I don't like where those markets have gone. I just feel that they've just given subpar product and that people just don't know any better. It's like people who use.

Like Delta AI think it really comes down to a not being properly educated on like the quality of the product, the experience. Same with D8. I don't most of the people that use it and I'm they just. Don't know any better. They. Yeah. And usually it's people who don't consume real cannabis, so they've been introduced into it and they're like, well. This gives me a feeling.

This because my friend said I should try it and it's not weed so it's OK and then they try it and they're like well I like this feeling but for anyone who really uses cannabis it just feels like synthetic fake. Yeah, it's gross. It's a gross experience but for those who have not really had the other, they feel like they look at it and go oh this is a nice experience and maybe it's a good segue for them. But if they actually had tried like the real plant, I bet they

would struggle going back. Oh yeah, absolutely. And that's why, you know, dryer vaporizing is, is, is seriously where a lot of this needs to be going. I mean, I'm odd against burning the plant. I enjoy it. I enjoy bong. You guys know that we love our bong. Oh yeah, George Jetson. And it's, it's an awesome, you know, it's a great experience, but this is the cleanest experience. I even when I went on my tea

break for over a week, right? Like when I did that, I did notice before that 'cause I was doing a lot of stood a lot of bongs and I started to get real like a little like a wheeze. Sometimes I'm like, whoa, but not with the dryer. I I mean, I'll cough because you really get those terps at first and it just hits your lungs just, you're like, whoa. But after a little bit. Still can be hot on your lungs, like I always still cough sometimes.

But I do like the ones that have the adapter that can go down into a bong because using a dryer vaporizer through a bong, holy cow, that is a whole nother level. It is, yeah. And so many different unique ways to consume cannabis, right? And there's going to be more, right? There's tons of other products that are out there you guys have tried.

Some different. Products, So that's where the hope is, that's where the hope in the future still is for the adult youth side of the other states is you can do your seven-year trial and make this one specific product for this one specific condition, right? Because that's that's how regular medicine works, right? You got to prove one's very specific indication that this is going to work for. But the Sky's the limit everywhere else, right?

And to your point, you were saying earlier is, look, we are the United States of America, 50 unique states that can make whatever rules they want in their own states despite what the federal government does, right? So there is still hope, but that doesn't happen unless people like us get involved, right? Get involved and have a voice and get involved in our community and get involved with

our legislature, right? And let them hear that this is something that's important and we want to make sure that it's done the right way and it it it and that goes across the board from every single angle that we don't have companies that just coming in here for just profit that have no interest in our community here at all. Right? Like what are the decisions that are going to be made when your headquarters is in another state? You have no idea what is going on right here in Utah County.

You don't. So there's a a big difference between finding companies and brands and people that truly care about the people that they're serving. And you see that that happens in in dispensaries and pharmacies all over America. But I can tell you those are the ones that are just hanging on by a thread right now. Yeah, well, I feel like. And a lot of them have already exited, right? Like California, man, I mean, it's tough. It's tough to see that, right?

And and it's tough to also be here, a guy that's only gotten into the cannabis industry in the last five years to be like, man, those are, you know, those are some big shoulders that I got to be able to stand on that elevated us right to us even have an opportunity to even have a conversation for you guys to be in 80 plus countries and people listening to what we have to say, it's wild. So with Utah, what do you see

changing here? Well, I think the hope with Utah is that if it's a Schedule 3, it's gonna be treated like any other medication. I mean it should already. Right. So that means if your doctor, not a doctor that had to go through some special training to learn about all, you know, cannabis and four years of school, no, it's like you could prescribe all of these medications, right. So cannabis is now medication, you can prescribe it to your patient.

And actually, if your patient came and asked you and said, I actually prefer this over these other things, it, it's actually your duty to serve your patient, right? Unless you have some other reason why. And it can't be that it's illegal anymore. But right now that's the challenge for doctors because there's not enough research and data. And when I do that, I, what I mean is clinical trials, that's what big pharma gets to do for us at least, right?

They get to spend the money to show to doctors that they can say yes, THC and CBD does work for this. Yes, it is OK for mental health related diseases, right? Yes. There is no known lethal dose of cannabis and you could die if you accidentally take too much. As a doctor, I think I would kind of like that to prescribe you a medicine that you cannot die from.

Well, they, I mean they've already done animal studies for that and they have the guesstimated dose of what it might be, but it's all hypothesized it's. Like a truckload. I mean it's ridiculous it was between 10 to 15,001 gram joint smoked in a 15 minute period might kill a person. I. Think, I think I would kill anything for that. Yeah, just the CO2 alone and they're just suck all the air. Out you would you would pass out long before you ever got to that

point. Like I I don't know how that's possible, but whatever. But yeah, that's the hope that I I see, right? And what does that mean? More accessibility. Yeah, that's what we want.

And guess what, if there's more patients in the program and, and now these 15 pharmacies are inundated with patients, somebody's out there is going to have to say, yeah, I, I think we might need some more pharmacies out there because trust me, there'd be dragonfly wellnesses all over Utah if if it was up to us, right, Right. But there's very specific laws and rules and limitations and and that's, you know, part for making sure that we do this the right way.

We control it in the right way. We collect enough data and evidence and research to make sure that we do the things methodically. And those are the things that I do appreciate about working with our regulatory bodies and our legislators is that they're not just like, let's throw this cap, let's go, whoa, adult use. All right, everybody can just have it. No, we got to do this smartly, right? Because it's also irresponsible for people like us to sit here and say there's no problem with

cannabis. That's perfectly fine, right? There's no risk of addiction or, you know, no risk of you. Know any negative side effect in? Your job, Like, come on, those are stereotypes for a reason. Like, everybody is different, right? But to put everybody in the same box, that's just unfair. Right. Yeah, it totally. Is that's where the hope is that it's just going to be easy for somebody who's like, ah, dude, like I have a have a freaking toothache or you know, I freaking, you know, my arm.

I broke my arm and doctor gave me, you know, pain medication. I'm like, I'd much rather just go to dragonfly and get a chewable tablet. That's, you know, it's way easier, right? And those guys are actually nice and they care. It's way funner than going to a pharmacy at Walgreens or Smiths. Which? Is this is a funny story, right? Like, that's an interesting story as well as like, how easy it is right now to just get access to prescriptions, right? Like my little brother broke his

elbow. You know, he was, he slipped outside of my parents' house after he got done shoveling. There's just walking broken. Anyways, I'm, I, I had to go pick up his prescription for him, right? And I just this piece of paper, you know, that's says, you know what? Hydrocodone. All right, cool. Walk up. And they're like, OK, do you have ID? I'm like, yeah, here's my driver's license. OK, we'll call you when it's ready.

I was like, all right, that's. It the interesting thing is you were saying, so Utah doesn't allow you to do that with cannabis. But with even that, you could have like a care, like a qualifying care provider for you and they'd still have to go through all these crazy hoops. But yet even with that, you don't have to be their care provider to pick up their prescription. You could literally be just anyone going, hey, I'm here to pick up this prescription. Here's their date of birth.

Here's my ID. You don't have to have any association. Was in relation to the person at all at all and and I had an ID and I'm Asian she I was could have. Used you could have been their Uber driver showing up. Asian dude, yeah, that looks like you go. Ahead because they're like, oh, I can't tell the difference anyway because they're like. They're terrible. But then, yeah, so this, this

was sort of funny. And then, yeah, as I'm waiting for the prescription, right, they they're about to hand to me, they're like, OK, that'll be $7.00. I was like, OK, $7.00, get the prescription. And then I was about to walk away thinking like, Oh my God, did I just, I feel like I had to do something. She's like, oh, hold on real quick, the pharmacist needs to

talk to you. I was like, OK, so I stand there and then this old Chinese guy comes out of the back pharmacist dude, because I was like, so these only use these if you have to, OK, Because they're, they can be addictive. All right, all right. Wow, look. That was it. That was the disclaimer, you know, so at least he was trying. At least he was like, I appreciate that, right? But that was it, man.

If it was in the cannabis space here for you to be a caregiver, the first thing you got to do is you got to apply and then you have to get a criminal background check, right, to make sure you're not some drug dealer. But what's funny? Like why? Like what if you don't have a criminal background? Or what if you don't have anything on there? Say there's nothing drug related. Do they decline it still? Or does that even play a factor in it? Because you could still be their

patient, like their caregiver. So who else is supposed to pick up that patient's medicine? Yeah. So there are just these things because of the federally illegality of it, right. So that that's where sometimes it's it, it, it's, it's frustrating as you know, an, an, an operator in the business to be like. Do you know anyone buying Utah products does turn around and

sell them? Because no offense I don't think anyone outside is paying from their plug 50-60 dollars an eighth plus adding on a margin of markup. Like who would ever buy a Utah product to turn around and go, hey, I'm going to sell this to make? Money. It's treated like medicine. That's yours. What if you didn't have a qualifying condition and you wanted safe legal product and you couldn't buy it? Yeah, it's hard. What would you be willing to pay?

So your answer is yes, there are people that are doing it right now. Right now, and you know, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. So yeah, we've actually had issues where people were passing off Dragonfly product, as you know, or packaging and things like that, right. But. Oh, they're trying to mimic Dragonfly products. Right, so that that's that's. Cool. Flattery, right? To the point where we had to get investigated to see if, like, whoa.

Is this your? Product really happening, right? Because then, yeah, they do due diligence. People make reports. You gotta check and make sure that's legit. But yeah, and we're like, no, like we one we don't even use those jars. We don't do these all these yeah, but it's like those are things that are happening because people don't have access. People are always going to get what they wanna get. Doesn't matter, right?

But at least here in the state of Utah, if we've got operators here that are going good quality medicine and we know that these are accurate results and we know that all of these products are full panel tested, that they are free of pesticides, free of heavy metals, free of solvents, right, All of these things and

you can put that into your body. Why wouldn't we want people to have access to that versus what you're getting on this straight that could sometimes potentially be laced with fentanyl? They're not just. Making this up, this is a thing, right? Like this happens, you get, there are ER report visits of this happening in our own communities. So we again, have the tools at our fingertips to solve some of our biggest problems in our community, whether it's mental health, whether it's suicide,

whether it's addiction, right? All of these things and the keys are right here. And we just need people to wake up and realize at what we've been told our whole life. I think that's really hard. I mean, especially like we live in a religious culture here. Looking at any of those things, people often times don't want to question anything or look at something and go like, hey, there's maybe some basis that might not be someone maybe lied to me.

That's hard, especially if it's on a religious governmental like my parents, whoever it is someone that you are supposed to look up to or trust in that Ave. It's hard to go, hey there, they lied to me and how many people even want to look at that in question and go like, oh, did I was I lied to or is it just like all these stupid hippies, you know?

And then what gets pushed out? Well, like you said, there's IHCE that puts out, well, we've had this much reduction in opioids and we credit it to education and this and this. And it's like, but the time frame is exactly when the medical cannabis program came into play. And you know, you can see statistical data of looking at oh, these people had these prescriptions. Oh, look, and these people have these medical cards like it just it's simple correlation of you can.

Willing to speak on the cost part too, you know, if you're in Utah and you're like, you know, I want to get a medical cannabis card, but I don't want to pay those fees though that might. And if you're a person who's getting in the car driving to Colorado or to Nevada, think about the cost that goes into that and how much it's going to cost you to just drive there, get the product, come back. It's way more investment time instead of being able to get your medical card.

So if you have chronic pain, you can check out being able to get that and look at all the other defining characteristics of what qualifies for that. But honestly, it is worth it to be able to get that card. And especially any other time it'd be right now, right now where things are starting to change even more. We'll start seeing a difference out there. Maybe this allows us to have more licenses here for pharmacies.

And if we have more pharmacies, we have more consumers and we have less likeability of that rebound effect where people are like, you know, it's not for me. And that's where like, you know, our podcast comes into there that you're gonna learn a lot on how to consume this and and how you're not gonna have a horrible experience. Like, you know, I mean recently somebody you know. My my brother is bad. I was gonna wait. Yeah, this is.

This is. He's been, oh, he's just left the like local faith here handful of years ago and for him he's been straight laced his entire life. He still is like. Very much so. Straight edge doesn't do caffeine, doesn't do anything. He doesn't like feeling out of control at all. And so he was talking about, he was like, you know, I'd like to try it at least once, see what it was like. And I've got a cousin who also consumes. And she was like, well, let's, let's have a session at my

house. So he'd go over there and she's got the large version of George Jetson, our bong. It's a big ass bong. It is so she decides that I brought all of my flour. I let him Mel between like 10-12 different flowers and he picked one out and he was like, all right, let's try this one. And he ended up taking this big hit and he really did not like it in the in the slightest because within 1015 minutes, he was asking, how do I get this to stop in 10 minutes? And I was like, we can't, but we

can give you lemon juice. I brought CBD like, we're gonna do all of this. And then he's still like, he didn't like that he felt he wasn't in control. I think it's because he's so much in control of everything that he wanted. He maybe he wanted that experience and maybe he got that experience and he didn't. Where you don't care like you really don't sweat. 'Cause that's what he was like, oh man, I don't know how you could, how you could work on this.

He was like, I can't do complex math problems right now. And I'm like bro, you don't need to be doing complex math. Problems. Right now, complex math problems anyway. It's like, it's like Friday night, just chill out. Like there's nothing you need to be doing. The whole intent of hanging out here was we're just gonna have a good time and just chill. So you don't need to be worrying about can I do complex math problems or this or that. What you need to do is just

relax. But again, it's really hard. Like how many people are stuck up here that it's so hard to come out of here and just relax. That's why we have anxiety and depression and all this stuff that we live in, because we're not like we're always living up here. Control that's, that's a, a huge thing. And quite honestly, that first time I ever tried it wasn't, it was the same type of thing. It was like I was not in control of what was happening around me and what I was seeing.

I was like, yeah, you when you first feel that moment, right, you're like, Oh my gosh, there is something else that is actually controlling me, not the other way around. And this idea that we can control things in our life, it's just a fallacy. It's just a fallacy. So we spend our time thinking about things that are never going to happen because we want to make sure we can control those things, right? Or we worry about things that happened in the. Past and you can't change.

Just so hard for us to stay present in this world, right in the society that that we have, right? And it's just, and, and I, I sometimes I don't think people stop to recognize and realize how much has actually changed in our world in just the last 10 to 15 years with the advent of, you know, the phone. And not just the phone, but the phone from going to a touchscreen phone and to the iPhone and getting fast speed Internet and going on from those

phases. Like there's a reason why mental health is at all time high here, right? And a lot of it has a strong correlation with when the phone and how much. That is an important part, an important part of our worth of who we are, who we think we're supposed to be. And we get so caught up in that cycle, right? And why is mental health a problem? We're trying to be all these things that all these other people that are just living fake

lives. Are doing and we're trying to keep up with the Joneses and be like, oh, I'm just like them. Or you worry about other shit, like, I mean, you know, I, I get into conspiracy theories or into deep science and stuff like that. And if you knew the shit that's going on with the planet and you're realizing that some of this isn't because of The Dirty air, you're like, oh shit, some crazy stuff. It, you know, like the stuff we. Used to consume like it was so makes you feel anxious.

Yeah, it makes you feel like you got to get in a. You got to get in a. Bunker you got to get a. Bunker, you know, we're in a good place actually, if we look at the models and stuff like that, like if anything happened, we're in a good place. But even then, though, it's like we shouldn't have total access to that information in a moment. It's an overload. Your body gets hit so much that you just can't stop wearing. I go through my YouTube feed.

It is natural disasters, cataclysms, fucking, you know, mushrooms and like cannabis stuff. Like it's just, it's the sprinkles of happiness with tons of fucking negativity and it's so hard. And but one of the great things that cannabis does for you, like I was telling you just a little while ago, you know, since I've been going back, I don't have to use as much to what you were talking about. What, you know, you use just a third of it, just using a tiny bit and you're still going to

get a great effect. But I got done smoking, came back inside and I just played with my kids. I just had these like awesome conversations with my son about like the Renaissance and the French Revolution, 'cause he's playing Assassin's Creed Unity and it's during the French Revolution and we just got deep into the history of that.

And it was so cool because I don't, my mind is going so fast all the time in the world we're in and I don't get to slow down and just enjoy the presence of others. But with the gift of cannabis, I absolutely do. Like I can just chill out and have a conversation. Yeah, it's like, you know, we, we are prisoners of our thoughts, right? And and the cannabis is the Liberator. Yeah, for sure. Like. Because you can, you can just stop all the things, right? And nothing matters except right

now, right here, right? And those are the things when you talk about mental health awareness, right? And those abilities to one, even have people in your life that you can share these conversations with, right? And feel connected to people and not feel alone, all right? How we live in a world with 7 billion people, How can one person feel alone? That's sad to think about, right? Yeah, we get so many of us here. Especially in this world where you can connect with anybody

anywhere in the world but you. Know we still feel distant. Still have this difficulty talking about real stuff, right? Real stuff that hurts us, right? Real pain because we're ashamed that people look down on us and they have these perfect lives. And I'm sad here, but everybody's life sucks, man, Come on. Yeah, we were just talking about that earlier, right? Everybody's you're going to have to experience pleasure and pain and one can't exist without the

other. And it's not always continuous. It's not always going to be continuous. And that's where, you know, you get that reprieve when you get to puff because it it really takes it like in perspective, you just kind of back up, right, get too angry. I mean, how many, how many arguments has cannabis kept me

from? I know it's kept me from endless like so many of them that I'm like, I need to go smoke and I will step outside and I will go puff on something and you know, sometimes it's 5 minutes, sometimes it's 20 minutes and then I come back in. I'm like way more level headed and usually I'm apologetic of like, hey, I'm sorry I was frustrated. And that wasn't like, let's have a normal discussion. Let's try and approach this and

figure this out. Because when you can step away from the emotion that's attached to it, you can see things for what they are. And usually it's not as big of an issue as we're feeling it is. And it's like you don't have this backpack full of rocks on your back. You can actually take it off and go, hey, shit, no, everything's actually OK. We just need to like, be right here. Yeah, we've had our, we, we, we were actually talking. We had it.

We had an argument at one time. And I mean, we rarely do have an argument, but it was just weird. And, and that goes to say too, that remember that cannabis, there's so many different strains. So there's and it's so much safer than being able to go on a medication. They go, OK, in about four to six weeks you're going to start feeling it like, holy shit, wait a minute, I need it now and 40. Six weeks before you start feeling normal.

Yeah, when you get off of it, right, and it's like, OK, well, you've got to kind of have this toss up, but you literally can switch from one to another. So, I mean, our listeners know that, like, use lemon juice, use lemon juice to be able to kind of dull it down where you're just like, oh, I don't want this riot to go on anymore. Cool, get off it and then go try a different one. Don't get afraid of it because it's something that you just have to figure out what's right

for your system. Like right now. The first time I smoked this strain, dude, it, it's got me the same way. It was like when we were talking to. Was it Desiree? Yeah, it does. Yeah. Yeah. We were talking to Des and she was like really intense. And I'm just sitting there going. Fuck this. This is a really intense conversation. That was that was really high and I was just like, oh, I felt so good. And it's still even now like it is almost for for a sativa strain dude, like.

I'm feeling pretty good. Oh, man. My boy. Yeah. I was playing basketball this morning and I strained my calf right. I like a bandage. I got dragon bomb on it. You know, I'm like old man up over here. I feel you guys didn't smell something. No, I didn't lip this and menthol. What is? No bro, I've been you missed. Oh my cane. I've been walking with a cane for like 3 weeks. But. So I know. Nothing right now, right? I can't like almost limping, right? So but just these little things,

right? And and you learn about the plan and learn that it has anti-inflammatory properties, right, antifungal properties, antiviral properties and you're like, wait, it's a analgesic effect as well too. Hold on. I I think I kind of want some. Yeah, I tried that. But yeah, it has all that, you know, it has all these anecdotal evidences that it provides all these reliefs, right? Oh hey, you know it's been shown to shrink cancer cells or tumor cells in rats.

But it's only anecdotal because there's not like clinical studies behind it. But yet it Yeah. But if you actually look and took every person who uses cannabis and they submitted their data, I bet you would see that that anecdotal evidence would be showing across the board of like, oh, wait, no, it helps here, here, here, here, here, here. The only difference is it's not funded by the government or a massive corporation. It's just individual human studies of.

Doesn't have that FDA CLA approval, which man that that credibility's just kind of I. Trust them so much. Sounds like having a name brand tag on your clothes. I just feel like it's like having ABBB accreditation, you know? It's like, hey, I paid for that. But you know what? I think people are waking up, right? Totally. Yeah. Waking up and realizing that there there's a lot more to the world than you know what we've been told. And that is the flip side of

access to information right now. You don't have to just listen to one narrative that's on your TV from the news anchor or from the one writer in the newspaper. And that's your world. Growing up in Utah, I didn't know anything outside of this world who was reporting on what was happening in China, right? And what was going on in other countries. Like I no, didn't know whatever was in my encyclopedia. That was my view of the world, right?

So now flash forward, boom. Like it is just completely different. And we've got to stop and one, give ourselves some grace to realize like, Dang, man, that really is different. And you start to feel like I don't sound like an old head right now, right? Yeah, dude, for sure. Changed that drastically. It really, really has right And, and I think COVID certainly, you know, forced us to rethink and re evaluate and sit with ourselves a little bit more. And for some they came out

really clear. For others, maybe, maybe it was not such a good thing, right? But I think those are the opportunities where we have to really help provide one of the solutions towards our problems towards mental health, because

it is a trending problem, right? And there are now enough data and studies out there that show the direct correlation and the impact that the sooner you give a child access to a phone, a tablet, right, that connection to, to, to social media more likely than have mental health issues. It's a correlation, right? That the correlation does not always mean causation, but put connect the dots together. You know. Plenty. I mean we are all guilty of it ourselves and getting sucked

into the hole. And just like how do how did I get? Why am I worrying about? This. But how did I spend this much time? Like I just was taking a poop and now it's been like 45 minutes. Wife's knocking on. The door, We're doing it there. Oh. Oh oh sugar honey OST Oh I don't. Know I I can also get there when I'm pretty high though. I mean I can sit down just like and then when my leg goes numb I'm like, oh wait, how long have I been in here? Why am I down this rabbit hole?

But it's seriously it's it's a great uniter and it's a great way to be able to slow down and just enjoy the world as it is. Like that's there's a reason why I like hardcore hippies or pie heads because they don't want to deal with the the this busyness unnecessary. They want to disconnect from the matrix. Yeah, totally. And I, and I mean just like you, man. I, I like, I like being plugged into the matrix.

I like the intricacies of our society and our culture and the world as it is in a technological age. But at the same time, I like to take a break too. And I want to take a break often. I don't want to ever want to be plugged in 100% of the time. And I feel for those who feel like they have to be and that they have no outlet and that there is no change. So yeah, man, this is. It's been awesome.

This has been great man. Thank you so much for being able to come on the show, share a lot about you and why you're so passionate about the medical cannabis state that we are in and why you're you're so passionate about being able to bring this to so many different patients right now in our state. Where should we be going to look up more about you, man? Can people connect with you? Yeah, absolutely.

You know, go to Dragonfly Wellness, you can learn more about just our medical cannabis program in general. Our state has plenty of incredible resources. Go to medicalcannabis.utah.gov. Like we have a really, really great program here, but we just need people to participate in the program as opposed to just, I can get it elsewhere, I can get the same thing. It it really isn't the same thing. No, it's not.

It really isn't. And we've been really impressed because the difference in like quality and experience has been fantastic. The CBG strain alone, there's not been anything like that. Nope, I've never experienced anything like that. And you know, dare I say, you know, even for being a desert strain, this stays really close to Cali strain, dude. You wouldn't even know if you walked in the facility. Where you were.

Right. So at the end of the day, you know our, our, our, some of our team comes from California, right? Like. They've yeah, that's right. For a long. Time we didn't just pluck people out, you know, like we didn't just have a bunch of Vietnamese people in the backroom like a sweatshirt abyss. We found people that were real professionals that came out that have been doing this for a long

time. And if you've been doing it for a long time, you have a care and a passion for the plant because you're willing to do something for nobody wanted to give you credit. I waited until it was legal and I could go to my family and not be shamed by them, but still got shame 'cause that's just how Asian families roll like you. What, you're gonna give up your 20 year career working with Fortune 500 companies to sell weed?

That's wrong with you. It's a. Really good opportunity to make change in our community, Mom. Yeah, right. So, but it's crazy in that 180 flip, like my parents are huge supporters, right? I mean, they talk to our families about it. They're very proud about what we're doing here. So that alone, right when we worry about the judgement and the stigma of others, it's pretty crazy. When I bet that's a future authentic.

Self and not have to tiptoe around my parents lie and hide and stuff and there's so many people who have to struggle through that and those are challenges, right And and for us that'd be able to have a platform and a voice and a platform to show that look, we can talk about these things and there are other solutions to these things, right? Not just to the same medications you're taking over and over and over just because your doctor said it right? And again, cannabis isn't for everybody.

It's not totally. Yeah, but you should be able to have access to try it just like all these other drugs that are out there. Yeah, man, no. And thank you for the example you set being open about it. You know, we, we do that. We encourage everybody else to do it. So they're not only their friends and family wherever, but the the areas that they live, their neighborhoods, their society. Like you shouldn't treat it as a stigma.

We don't. We, we, we're loud and proud and we never get, I have never been like, oh, I'm not talking to you. Yeah, it's cannabis. It's usually just sparked more conversations and they go. I want to learn more about it so it really helps, but man, thank you for being that example here. Thank you for being on the show and and thanks for all your hospitality and showing us everything that you guys do and why we love you guys so much.

It's an honor, guys. Thank you for help and support our mission towards normalizing this right, so that way we can all just be healthy, happy people, live in one community, not judging each other. And thank you guys for allowing me into your home and into your studio. Rather, I'm pretty sure we're going to have you back on for another episode. Oh hell yeah dude. So sick of me man. You know. No way man, I want. To go meet George Jetson.

So yeah, yeah, for sure. And to everyone at home, we love you guys. Thanks for tuning in. Yeah, Patreon supporters, we absolutely love you. And TuneIn Next week for another episode of the Session.