Being High w/ Dualistic Unity feat. Riley Kirk

hello and welcome to another episode of Being High with Dualistic Unity sponsored by Kavva Brands the THC gummies of choice for better days and better nights legally and discretly delivered directly to your door anywhere in the U.S unless you live in Idaho sorry Idaho get coffee gummies online at kavvabrands.com forward slash du10 that's k-a-v-v-a-b-r-a-n-d-s.com forward slash du-10 and definitely don't forget to use code du10 for 10 off your order I am really excited for today's episode we

are joined by a tick tock creator that I've been following for a long time Riley Kirk she is a cannabis research scientist a daily user and an educator I do encourage you to check out her content online we will put all the links in the description after this episode because that is really incredible if you're new to cannabis if you've smoked it for a very long time there's so many ins and outs to the plant so many things to learn and I know I have a shitload of

questions so I'm very very excited to chat with Riley without any further Ado enjoy the episode so I just wanted to take a quick moment Riley and say thank you very much for joining us today I'm very excited to introduce you to the audience uh we have been discussing not just cannabis but the mentality that one can learn through the use of cannabis even through the cultivation of cannabis here and there but there's a lot that we don't know I'm just an Enthusiast I've been smoking for

a very long time I've been around Growers I've done a lot of weed related things in terms of of selling soil amenities and things like that so I have an overall General understanding of cannabis as a whole and I love the plant but there's so many things I don't know and I've been watching your account on Tick Tock for a very long time uh you are the host of the bioactive podcast now as well so I was hoping maybe you could tell our audience a little bit more about what you do

um why you love it and what it is that you're doing moving forward with your podcast because that's very exciting cool yeah thanks for that introduction so yeah my name's uh Riley Kirk my background is in actual pharmaceutical side science specifically looking at plants fungi bacteria and the chemicals they make and how we can use them as medicine so like really studying like traditional medicines and you know how they're used and then over the past like five years I've really been focused just

on cannabis and hemp um essentially I kind of started in this field just by communicating some of the science around cannabis I didn't realize there was like such a lack of stuff on the internet but now with the censorship I do realize why there is such a lack of information on the internet because it's bad um but essentially my goal is to communicate with people the science of cannabis how cannabis works in your body how natural products work in your body and with the hope that as people get

educated and learn more about these plants they can start using more intentionally and use it kind of as a harm reduction tool like education as harm reduction so that people don't have any negative experiences not just with cannabis but with with all substances in general um so that kind of you know led me through my career I studied cannabis smoke for a while in the laboratory at a company that was really interesting and now my focus is actually mainly like

working with the Cannabis community and private companies and Academia to try to do a consumer relevant research so you know often we're asking consumers like what kind of research do you want to see and then when we go do that research we we show people online um you know the process through that R D um and of course yeah always communicating and keeping people kind of in the loop because that's what keeps people interested when you feel like you're part of the research and you know

you feel like you're making a difference and then recently I started a new podcast called the bioactive podcast and and bioactive just means a substance that has an effect on your body so it's not just about cannabis although it's very heavily centered towards cannabis because that's kind of what I'm known for on the internet but it's also kind of tying in other natural products psychedelics and really trying to get people to understand what's happening in the body when you take in these

substances and then you can kind of better be in charge of your own medicine extracting your own medicine dosing yourself appropriately Etc wow that is incredible and then just to to quickly give a little bit of a background with my weed story I'm very new to weed so so on the other end of the spectrum from Ray so I have nothing but questions and and I saw your running videos with the Edibles and I was laughing so hard I just said I know that those those are so funny I'm glad you

enjoy those I enjoy making them for the most part besides sometimes going into you know the pits of just [ __ ] waves of thought so I guess uh I guess the star and I have so many so many questions for you but I guess to start with that and this is I don't know for people in my life a few come to mind just in regards to stigma and whatnot and I'm curious like when it comes to THC and cannabis like I've heard many times you can't die from weed like you can't overdose on weed so how much of

the concern about it is like almost entirely stemming from propaganda and stigma versus in your opinion in your research have you found that cannabis can be detrimental if like maybe obviously if you take too much can there be permanent risks to doing it is it person dependent are there certain people who who maybe are more at risk or less at risk I'm just very curious about the stigma and basically if it has any Merit whatsoever yeah so I'm really glad you brought that

up because about 99 of cannabis is just like propaganda that's stemming from like the 60s and it's just continuing in our society today and a lot of that is because the politicians are of that age group who was readily subjected to the propaganda saying you know weed makes you stupid it makes you lazy you're not going to be a functioning member of society Etc and you know those are the people making um laws today which is pretty sad um and you know of course even if you

look at um you know why a substance would be considered a schedule one drug there's really two things one is a no approved medical value and we have two FDA approved drugs from the cannabis plant we have epidiolex which is literally just CBD and Marinol which is just THC so we have FBA approved drugs we have you know a medical cannabis program throughout this country all many many states have this program and so you know that's obviously not true and then the second one is a high

potential for abuse and if you compare cannabis to drugs that are actually abused like Fentanyl and heroin and meth you know the data just is screaming that it's it's not even remotely in the same category as these other substances um actually fentanyl is a scheduled two drug I believe and cannabis is a schedule one drug uh just as a little um fun fact there so I would say the majority of it is definitely definitely um propaganda and just I I think it's big Pharma big tobacco big alcohol like

the government is being manipulated by um you know we won't go down that path at all but um but being manipulated by all these different big corporations um as far as the potential for negative cognitive effects specifically I think there are some populations of people who should definitely be weary about about overusing high THC products you know if you have a if you have a genetic predisposition like other members of your family have struggled with schizophrenia or some other form of

psychosis like you definitely should just be aware that using high THC products chronically probably isn't a good idea for you at least without you know Consulting a doctor and other medical professionals so like that's definitely an area where you should be aware and you know some people who struggle with just like Addiction in general like addictive personalities uh using cannabis can increase dopamine in the brain and that's you know it has its medical benefits but also for some it

can lead to that kind of reward response and you're going to want to keep going back to it and you do need a certain level of discipline if you are a chronic THC user um you kind of do need to like rewire your brain in a way to say when I use a substance like I need to like go for a walk after get my body moving or you know I'm going to use this and or I mean for some people for like a lot of medical people or people who need it with sleep you don't need to do that but

if you're trying to use it chronically throughout the day it's good to develop some brain Pathways to kind of lead you down a you know spot where you want to be after using cannabis if you want to be sleeping and taking a nap on the couch that's totally cool if that's your intention and that's why you're using it that's fine but if your intention is to work or work out or you know go hang out with friends or you know be moving your body in some way you you need to train

your body to do that and not everyone is ready for that discipline in their life so maybe being an end of the day user would be better um for some people rather than chronically throughout the day that's a great point I think a big part of it comes down to the gap between where we live most of the time versus where we end up when we're using marijuana in terms of there being a more relaxed state they're being a little bit more presence things are a little bit more

colorful taste has a little bit more impact in terms of getting your attention and if we're coming out of a state where we're never really in what's happening where we're always looking forward or looking back or worrying about all of our assumptions of everything around us that contrast can be very jarring in the same way that psychedelics can be I like that a lot and I think a lot of people struggle with having an appetite when they're not using cannabis and I

think this is kind of um in line with what you're talking about of if you only allow yourself to have food when you're high then you have this you know huge gap between enjoying food when you're not high and enjoying food when you're high so then nobody wants to eat when they're not high because it just doesn't have that same Pizzazz you know exactly so there's a certain degree of mindfulness that I think is important with with the use of the plant which goes back to addiction as a whole right

like what are we using it for if if it's an Escape then it's going to end up being a detriment if it's something that comes as a result of already being kind of fulfilled and where you are right now then it's just something that enhances that experience to some degree I'm a chronic user in that I have uh pigment dispersioned glaucoma I have since I

have I was 27. I used before that as well and there is so much to be said for there being a level of responsibility understanding that all the weed is really doing is slowing you down in that state it really comes down to you whether or not you want to get up and move around or not and so many of us are kind of forced to be on the move all the time that when we finally do relax we're like I don't want to do anything I just want to eat these and watch that and I

think that that's kind of the point is that it's worth it to get the experience and to talk to other people in the community to realize that they went through that too at one point yeah and I do think a lot of people do use cannabis as escapism and honestly that can be one of the medical benefits in a lot of cases I mean if you're dealing with really really bad depression or you have this event in your life where you just can't handle it like for a short period of time escapism

is okay but if you're escaping from reality every day for five years you know that's where it kind of becomes an issue um and you need to kind of reevaluate your relationship with THC and with the plant and you know make sure you're using it in a way that's benefiting your life yeah for sure I think that intention um I guess it's kind of similar to anything we do in life and and even with cannabis because I know there's just like such a big stigma out there and a

lot of times when I've been talking with people about it because even you know there there are people in my life who when I post about you know smoking or the gummy runs or something there's like there's still a stigma behind that and of course there is but I I've started kind of comparing it to like caffeine or something it's like it's like coffee like they're a lot because they'll bring up just these kind of arbitrary stigmas that everyone has about it about how it

uh you know the potential for for addiction and with something like that I'm kind of like okay but what are people doing when they're smoking like they're not being [ __ ] detrimental to society it's like is even if it was say hypothetically it was very very addictive and it's just like what people are now more relaxed and more chill and more happy and it's like so we don't want to look at that we just look at section something like that as as this objectively bad thing and and so with

caffeine though like people will drink you know a cup and then they'll have to go to two and then they'll have to go to three and then there's this kind of push for just more more and we see that as addictive but it so it has to just be the stigma behind it for most people right right because I mean you do build a tolerance to to any substance that you regularly put in your body kind of what you're talking about and I mean there's a stigma associated with a lot of things

but I think for cannabis it's just like so unfounded like it really there's not it doesn't make sense because realistically what it's doing to your brain is similar to like what you're talking about either caffeine nicotine pharmaceutical drugs like people are taking a bunch of substances anyway and because somebody chooses cannabis for some reason you're treated as a lesser member of society when realistically you're less of a danger to yourself and to society compared to almost all these

other substances that are regularly consumed by the majority of Americans absolutely um I have the advantage of having about 16 years on Andrew so I was smoking cannabis during the prohibition against it here in Canada and uh I remember in the early 2000s especially still hearing people call me a hippie simply because I was smoking weed like there was still this judgment despite the fact that I lived in western Canada which was you know cannabis is kind of everywhere to

some degree but nobody wanted to admit it everybody did it in secret and it was largely just because there's this overall opinion that it's bad and why is it bad well it's illegal right of course it's bad because it's illegal and it's just it made no sense but I do have a question because and admittedly I I get a kick out of the government I get a kick out of this overwhelming Collective need for control and fear of change and how it kind of manifests in all of our life you find

some very creative ways of creating Tick Tock videos of talking about THC and CBD and the plant itself um how has that been as an experience because I imagine on the one hand Tick-Tock is its own kind of governing body which is annoying but on the other hand you just have people who are just waiting to report you yeah I think there's a lot of people who are waiting to report me um but it's been a journey like I never expected to toss my face on the internet like I

I just I can't believe I'm still making content but um you know when I started to do it it was fun I never got any videos removed they were all just up and everything was good I didn't have to self-censor I wasn't getting in trouble whatever and then something just like switched one day on Tick Tock it was probably like a month after I started creating content and it was just like Community guideline and then a bunch of videos I made in the past started getting flagged and removed too so I was

like what just happened on the logarithm like did somebody find my page and start like Mass reporting or was it the actual algorithm I think it was the actual algorithm because really since then it's kind of gotten not more and more strict but it's been more of a learning experience like I self-centered for a self-censored um for a long time um you know I used to say like krannabis and like use a bunch of like really difficult words and then one day I was

like [ __ ] that man like if I'm gonna try to teach people like I can't be using the wrong word to describe this so I'm either gonna do it and you know keep my content up or take it down whatever or I'm just not going to do it but you know using cryptic language it's not helping anyone it makes us look bad as a you know as a society like the Cannabis culture like so it should not be censored like it's a drug that kills people it's not like we should be able to talk about it um and more recently

I think I mean I just had a video removed today but other than that one um it's been a bit better um and maybe that was because I was like really focused on you know education only not posting any like kind of ancillary information about other things it was just about education I don't know but it's been a roller coaster up and down but I mean that's kind of why I try to make content on different platforms too like I make content for YouTube I make it for tick tock Instagram

I tried Twitter I didn't love that but that way in case one of my you know accounts gets taken down hopefully people know where to find me otherwise and I think that's specific to anyone who makes content in kind of a sketchy area you should follow them on every platform because people in our community are getting deleted every single day or banned um so you can support them by just following them on other platforms well said yeah I can totally relate with the flag I think I was in the I was in

the Creator fund for a bit on Tick Tock uh like a two years ago and I got banned from it for like a year had an account warning for a while and that was from mushroom videos mostly because like as I said the Cannabis stuff for me like I really only started smoking even to smoke semi regularly I don't know like six months ago more more intensely but uh yeah with the mushroom stuff and then and then with the with the gummy runs like those are always getting flagged

then I'll appeal and sometimes I say it's just like a caffeine gummy because for the most part I don't think I ever really mentioned cannabis or weed I just say gummy and and then it'll get added back up but then it got I don't know it'll get suppressed and it'll just kill the views and all of a sudden you know the views are gone I've also noticed I think sometimes they're still visible to like some people on Tick Tock but it's actually hidden from the majority of

people I had somebody like show me my page from their own and some of my videos that said they were up on my page weren't up on their phone I was like what does that mean that's so scary on the other hand who knows what is happening I made a video saying that Jesus never once recommended the New Testament and that was flagged within about five minutes oh yeah that's Brave I don't know if I'd get into religious controversy tick tock oh yeah we've had ads I've had some

videos that we've used as ads on Tick Tock they get taken down because it was I don't even what was the reason again inflammatory content I think yeah yeah yeah yeah like basically triggering content so it's uh yeah it's it's wild just how much but but then again if it's in you know the categories for these things as absurd as the stigma is it's just gonna keep keep having that until the you know broader landscape shifts but uh yeah I mean I I'm just like shout

out to everyone who still makes content in the Cannabis space because it's definitely not easy but we are such a resilient community that like many people I know have had like seven accounts and they just keep keep making them and I'm like dang I keep it up because that's not easy to like even getting like suppressed like you know a video's absolute fire and you know it would have done so well if if you would have made it about some other content but but you you know it's it's flagged and you're

just like whatever at least it's still up it's out in the world and you got to just keep trying and someday maybe it'll change I think so I I'm encouraged by the fact that there are whole generations of people that are going into their 20s right now that can access cannabis legally and without that paranoia that fear that goes with it I mean even just here in Canada I can just go to the dispensary and pick up weed I don't have to meet somebody sketchy in a sketchy

neighborhood get sketchy weed that I'm not sure where it came from you know like there's a lot more in terms of a benefit I think from using it because of that lack of fear because of that lessening of the stress right but that also makes me wonder if the reason the system is so resistant to this is because of that lack of stress because that's what drives us in a lot of ways it's what gets us going to work fear of losing our job right not being able to pay our rent not being able to get the

things that we want or need depending on our mentality and so all of a sudden you find yourself enjoying the present moment you're not buying as much stuff you're not as much in a hurry right and so that kind of makes me wonder if it's about the plant at all well I love love this conversation and I mean I agree I think we're seeing a paradigm shift happening and honestly tick tock's kind of the the talking stage for that Paradigm Shift there's so many people you know you see someone

like go up to someone and interview it's like what do you do for work and they're like nothing like I Just Vibe all day long and you're like okay cool like that's what that's what people want to do and if you can make money and sustain yourself like you should be able to do that and yeah I think gen Z is making huge change and again I think as Millennials and gen Z kind of move up the corporate ladders we're going to start seeing this change and I can't wait for everyone to get those jobs

because that's that's really what we need is the top-down approach you know ending censorship promoting educational content harm reduction content like scientific information um you know we we should be promoting that stuff so people can can learn on their own but oh also just you're noted about you know going to a dispensary and it's just so much easier and safer and just the fact that we have somebody to have a conversation with now about it whether it's your bud tender or like your friend

who uses cannabis or there's so many people who use cannabis now and it's such a helpful resource I don't I mean I guess I started smoking in in high school right I I didn't know what a cannabinoid was I didn't know there was strains I just you know whatever whatever Jake had like that's what I'm buying because that's where I buy my weed from um so like we didn't know anything I didn't know hemp existed I didn't know how to dose myself I didn't know like even like safety mechanisms to do when

you're too high and now we have not just the internet but we have a lot of people who are using a lot uh more cannabis like regularly and openly like I say on the internet all the time that I'm a daily cannabis user just to help kind of dampen that stigma like yes we we're in every realm of every job of every industry everywhere daily cannabis users are everywhere and we're functioning members of society hell yeah [ __ ] yeah so with uh with that and and with I I guess in your

experience but also just in your from your knowledge like when people respond differently to cannabis like some people I I know a lot of people say oh I can't I don't smoke oh I tried it once when I was younger and it made me paranoid it made me anxious like how much of that do you think is an impact of THC versus how much do you think it's just something they're suppressing like that they're someone who is actually paranoid and anxious and the weed is just showing

them themself and they see that and rather than you know looking at it working on it they run from it blame the weed blah blah blah how much of that do you think is impacted by the weed versus just them and them that they've suppressed for a while this is such a good topic because anxiety is you know something that the majority of people struggle with in some way right and to your point if you've used THC products if you use cannabis products even some CBD products like you're gonna

feel a bit more like open and aware of yourself and your emotions and your surroundings and food and colors and everything and part of that is the anxiety component and I think as you're saying like a lot of people don't like that feeling of like that wave of anxiety going over them and like I literally felt anxious today and from using cannabis like and I don't usually feel anxious and I felt really anxious today and then I'm like oh I know I feel anxious because I have a shitload of

stuff to do I'm sorry I keep swearing on this but because I have you know so many things to do and that's like very rational for me to have anxiety right now like I have a lot on my checklist and I should start checking things off of that checklist and I think a lot of people you know who struggle with general anxiety but have like panic attacks or something like really severe I don't think those people should use cannabis right now at like high THC doses if you want to try a product to

make you feel better I would essentially recommend micro dosing THC so that you really don't feel the like super impactful heavy hitting high in anxiety from Cannabis but you can still have a little bit of that like suppression of anxiety that you get at low doses so thc's I mean what you call a biphasic response by meaning two and phases so at low doses it causes one response and at high dose is a very different response so when we think about that with anxiety

at low doses it can be anxiolytic it can help relieve anxiety but at high doses it absolutely generates anxiety and it you know if you're someone who's already anxious yeah you know checking things off your list and doing that can help but for some people it can just result in like debilitating anxiety where they can't get anything done and they just feel like trapped um so I think it's a it's a balancing act but I would agree I think most of the time if you're not a super anxious

person you start feeling that anxiety when you're using cannabis it may be because you have a lot of things to do you you're really busy you are your body's telling you you have a lot of things to do and like that's something you can kind of work through by like maybe even if I feel that way I will smoke and then go do a couple of the things I'm like okay I feel better I did I sent those emails I followed up with those people um But anxiety is such a it's it's a

difficult topic because like everything it's a huge Spectrum some people have really really bad anxiety and definitely need to be careful with THC products High th2 products but most people can benefit from a really really low dose of THC even if you suffer with anxiety I find that really interesting uh what you were saying about there being two different impacts that depending on whether it's a low dose or a high dose and the same is very much true with psychedelics uh low dose all of a sudden

there's just less of what you think about most of the time you know and then in a high dose all of a sudden you find yourself in the middle of a state of confusion with the urge to panic possibly and yeah it's so interesting because anxiety to me when you stop labeling it anxiety it really is just a feeling and you're not sure what to do with that feeling but you know all of a sudden there's like there are more considerations which I think is why it's helpful to get things off your list

because then there's not so many unknowns that are still in the air and I think that's what it is we're dealing with uncertainty to a greater degree because life is uncertain and most of the time we're all clinging to an idea of what's going to happen next and we don't really know and we try to convince ourselves but we don't really know and so there's this urge to Panic or to try and avoid that and so on cannabis we just become more present which means we have less certainty we're not looking

forward as much right and same with psychedelics on a larger dose and so I find it so very interesting that if you look at it for what it is it's a spectrum somewhere between being stressed or relaxed in response to uncertainty from moment to moment to moment in which case we can learn a lot just from the use the gradual use of cannabis the gradual increase of dosages even to look at it almost as we would like going to space in terms of larger doses you really are

you know kind of bootstrapping yourself for an entirely different experience and it's largely just because you're uncertain and you have to have faith in yourself yes I think you know the fear of the unknown and the faith of the unknown like that's kind of you know what you're talking about and I I do agree that that fear of the unknown is a lot of what people struggle with with anxiety and and thinking that they can like line up their whole life by doing something but

there's nothing you can do other than like pursue your passions that you know that can help you get there which you know I I it's all about mindset and it can be really daunting especially if you're in a place in your life where you're not happy and you'll do anything to get somewhere else um I think that's I mean that's a stressful situation for anyone and can lead you down a pretty negative mind space oh for sure yeah and that that uncertainty and you know uncertainty

reality Freedom it all kind of kind of goes hand in hand and it's most things are our avoidance of that state of uncertainty and the willingness to to recognize that I actually don't know where this is going I don't know what's to come I don't know anything really like it put anything after that statement and that's the reality almost always so with you mentioned with your experience that you started a bit when you were younger and I'm curious just because in my

experience with at least with Edibles I I had two experiences in college I took them like three times in college two of them were two of the worst experiences of my life like straight up like when ghost white one time when totally green another time threw up a bunch and was just like paranoid as [ __ ] anxious as [ __ ] freaked out and I don't know the dose um so I'm not sure if it was like wicked high dose or what it was exactly but found myself now i i s and so basically after that I was

afraid of gummies like it was one of my bigger fears was like that [ __ ] because at the time without really realizing it but looking back I certainly recognized that I was way more tense I was way more stressed I was way more concerned about everything and and basically my perception and how I was perceived by people um despite thinking that I wasn't as much and so and I didn't smoke that much and so Edibles definitely brought that up but now I can get a lot of the same

feelings I kind of get a lot of those but I don't have the same degree of concern about them I don't get as worked up about seeing all those things and so I'm curious in your experience and just when you first started using uh cannabis how that was and and if you've seen a shift in your response to it as maybe your mentality has has shifted as you've grown up or things have changed in your life well yes definitely but I also want to say like I bet that was a high dose of

Edibles and Edibles do affect people differently compared to other consumption methods like smoking because your body processes it and actually changes the THC into a metabolite of THC which is a little bit stronger in the brain and some people just react very differently to Edibles compared to other consumption methods and even like during the smoking process some of that THC is actually converted to other molecules so it's sometimes like a little bit less

strong even on top of that um but I mean I know you're an edible person now so or at least partly um so I mean maybe it's not that but just that was a side note um my like relationship with cannabis in general has changed a lot over the years I think it's gone a lot more or less of recreational and more of medical as I kind of uh get older and I mean I I still consider myself part-time recreational user but um when I first started using when I was like 14 I just didn't know why I was using it

just made me feel better and like so I just kept doing it and hanging out with people who reacted really well to it and that was just kind of like the stoner crowd in high school um but you know a few years later I realized that I hadn't had any seizures um since I started using cannabis regularly and I had them when I was kind of growing up and younger and then I kind of started to read more on it and of course like this is where the data came out that epidiolex is used as a

seizure medication and that's literally CBD um and you know I think part of the reason I struggled with that when I was younger was some sort of dysregulation in the system in the body that cannabis interacts with it's called the endocannabinoid system um so that kind of when I started getting older I started to realize that he uses in cannabis using THC products at lower doses regularly made me feel better consistently and that's kind of when I started almost like a dosing

regimen um you know it's not strict or anything but like that's when I really was like yeah I'm a daily cannabis user and I like not need to use every day but like it definitely helps me feel better um both mentally physically like it I definitely benefit from this plant a lot and you know from that point and just like educating myself more um not just like through academic institutions but even in my free time like learning about how plants interact with the body learning specifically how

cannabis interacts with the body and then you know building on that knowledge through graduate school and comparing that to other drugs and how safe cannabis really is compared to even other medicinal plants like cannabis is incredibly safe compared to other drugs and other natural products so yeah over time you know I've definitely used it in you know Recreation settings like a lot of my friends we don't love to drink a lot anymore um so we will smoke like 10 joints and

just have a good time like that's that's our good time now um so and some other substances sometimes um but you know that's that's kind of what I'm just more cannabis focused and I'm like totally okay with myself being a regular cannabis consumer and like being able to just talk about that and and talk about the the medical benefits so in regards to understanding the benefits and kind of getting that understanding as opposed to more of the recreational use just like holy [ __ ]

there's so many benefits to that like that's really the spot I'm in now like last year is more mushrooms and like getting a big hit of like understanding like well holy [ __ ] like everyone's everyone's wrong about this [ __ ] and just being so curious and so with cannabis and especially when it comes to the medicinal side and and like you know Pharmaceuticals that for me makes a lot of sense why it's why it's illegal like so much money made off of the pharmaceutical industry for politicians

for all most rich people you know and uh so I'm curious because as I'm starting to learn more and more about the benefits like there's so many benefits in so many different ways of the hemp plant and the you know marijuana plant and just cannabis in general and so do you think with the rise of big Pharma that like cannabis could replace Almost maybe not all but most pharmaceutical drugs and like the benefits that we get from those that have so many [ __ ] side effects we could get almost all if

not most of the benefits from some use case of of cannabis without so many side effects I do I mean I do think there's still a place for some pharmaceutical drugs um like very specific ones um but I do agree that I think the majority of pharmaceutical drugs um could at least in part be replaced even lessening the dose um which we have evidence for that even with like opiates um whereas some people like need to need to be prescribed opiates at some point during say it's a surgery or something

like that um there's evidence that including cannabis can significantly reduce the amount of opioids that someone needs which can help you know be a preventative medicine for the opioid epidemic like we have a huge problem in this country and we have evidence that cannabis can help for these people that are struggling with either The Addictive aspect of it or the medical aspect of it because a lot of people who start using opiates and get addicted are chronic pain patients and they started using

opiates because they needed relief from that pain um and you know they needed something that made them feel good and we have a lot of evidence that now that cannabis can help with chronic pain that's one of the best documented and researched subjects for a medical cannabis and then help somebody wean off the opiates because that's painful in itself it can be really make people really nauseous it can make their whole body ache and cannabis is one of the best things for

nausea and we don't have a ton of anti-nausea drugs it's not a super well-known like mechanism and we don't have great animal studies for it but I mean I'm sure you both know and I sure know that when you're feeling sick cannabis can be like one of the absolute only things that helps um so yeah I mean I I think there's a lot of good evidence of why big Pharma would hate the Cannabis industry um but you just kind of hope that maybe small Pharma will come through or

something and and be able to to help everyone understand that like we we really need to stop pushing pills in this country we need to start healing people because it's it's very sad what's happening to the Health Care system in this country and it really is a reflection again of a certain degree of fear versus enthusiasm I mean the Cannabis Community is just brimming with enthusiasm because they recognize exactly everything that you've both been saying in terms of the

benefits in terms of how much Society is very much stepped away from things that would have less of a negative impact on us and how much we've over invested in pharmaceutical industry but the Pharmaceuticals are largely invested in by people because they're afraid and there's the promise of a quick solution to the thing that you're afraid of and so there's a different mentality in in that as well I do have a quick question because I'm very interested in some of

the coolest research maybe that you're aware of but I have a question regarding um I guess the subjective experience related to cannabis do you know of any research in regard to how our subjective experience of our body is also influencing say the increased healing capacity of our body do we have some impact or any degree of change to how efficient the placebo effect is under cannabis use because we'd be more present we'd be more involved I am not I'm not aware of any research there but

this is such a good point because the placebo effect by itself is impactful I mean it's we've seen a lot of people have a lot of healing experiences from just the placebo effect um now I want to do this research because this sounds so interesting yeah to have like you know how how does Canvas OR THC use in general like impact the ability of the placebo effect to be efficacious in certain conditions yeah I'm going to take a mental note of that and and hopefully move forward

someday I would be very excited to hear how that goes because they're there almost has to be and just the the mind-body connection in general um which is why a lot of people do use cannabis while they're working out because they like they like feel their body like every component every isolated muscle you know when you're working out so you know having that connection and actually that's why some people actually don't like cannabis is because they're too in their mind and they can't get out

of their mind which is I mean reasonable but definitely always try a lower dose if you have something like that happen um but yeah I mean I think that has some rationale for that for the for the placebo effect of spirituality because it definitely I think we do have legitimate research showing that it enhances the spirituality aspect and the community aspect from using it which is in line with Placebo for sure that's awesome thank you for entertaining that ex that thought

experiment in mind I love that back to my original question though some of the coolest research that maybe you've run across or are involved with right now oh well I am doing a this is just a fun experiment a specific CBN experiment with smoking so we're actually planning that for the end of this month and it's essentially going to investigate like how the size of your joint relates to the amount of CBN produced while you're smoking because THC converts to CBN during the smoking process so

essentially we're like if at the end of that challenge cone is it like 90 CBN if that's just getting converted and like accumulated throughout the process and if you want more like specific THC should you like be rolling little pinners and just like you know smoking those so that's just this is just a fun experiment we're working on um and the point of this one too is like again to like record videos while you're doing it which you're not always allowed to do in like research Labs

um but that's like part of this proposal and like show people what we're doing because there's like a cool smoking apparatus it's just it's just cool you know it's kind of just research people would care about so it kind of yeah similar to the rote research that you were doing yes right and that was kind of the um so it's called Roaches for research that was kind of the uh the initial experiment that definitely got I was talking about that experiment uh when we started

planning this this next one because I mean the road the chemistry of roaches like the end of your joint is it's really interesting it's um you know specifically it's heavier terpenes it's uh way more CBN than starting material and you know there's been this kind of folklore in the industry for a long time that you know smoking roaches feels different and everyone's like yeah it tastes like [ __ ] you know like that's why that's why it's different and we're

like no like what's the chemistry behind that like there's got to be a reason it makes you feel different so that's kind of led to that experiment that's really cool and I'm curious because I'm not familiar with that transition you said THC to CDN that that is is a shift is that how your body breaks it down like it doesn't actually break down THC nope so that's actually before it even reaches your body that's like when you light a joint on fire that fire is like the Catalyst for converting

THC to CBN so even if you're like vaping at relatively high temperatures like you're still going to get some of that conversion but that would also happen like if you're someone who dabs or you have just flour if you just like leave it out in the light or like heat or Just Like Oxygen in general like the THC is slowly going to be converting to CBN uh so if you have really really old weed there it might feel different maybe like a little more body high like relaxing

that might be the CBN uh because it's kind of accumulated over time as the THC broke down so do you smoke both is the THC and the CBN being ingested and like what are so what are the difference is there a difference in Impact between the two of them there is a diff icult difference um so I'll preface this was saying we don't know a lot about CBN but I'm happy to share what we do know about CBN um so yes both are entering your body so you're smoking um and both there's still going to be

more THC than CBN but that's still going to enter your body and both of them act on your cannabinoid one receptor which is the receptor that makes you feel high and euphoric and like responsible for a lot of the medicinal effects from Cannabis the difference here specifically of this receptor is CBN actually acts more weekly compared to THC so THC like fully like binds to and activates actually technically it's not fully but you know what I mean stronger activates that receptor compared to CBN

which does it at like I think it's like one-third of that activity um there's been a lot of um just word of mouth and people saying anecdotally that CBN makes you feel sleepy helps you stay as asleep but we do we recently had a a review paper published saying hey we really don't have any data to substantiate that but I mean Community stories are still important and it's been you know you'll see a ton of cannabis Sleep Products um marketed with CBN in them so

part of the issue is the marketing just kind of took off with it before the research backed it up at all so um we don't really know but even even its ability to activate that CBO interceptor there's enough rationale there that at least helps with sleep a bit um because that's really why THC helps you with sleep as well um is activation of that receptor and manipulating your circadian rhythm um so it likely CBN is still through that receptor system but we don't know

if it might act on a different receptor as well or if there's more to that pharmacology story than just the CB1 receptor wow that's really interesting and so then so then with uh if you take a gummy or an edible it's not being lit you said that was kind of what stoked the transition so does that mean that when you eat a gummy that it's just THC and no CBN or is there some CBN added typically to have that's a great question so for most gummies it's going to mean there's no CBM although some

companies will add in CBN but they're adding it like as an isolated molecule they're adding it into their gummy mix and then making gummies it's not like it's produced through the process with that being said um so this is where it gets kind of difficult because a lot of people who make edibles are using what we call like THC distillate so it's essentially like pure THC that they add into the gummies and then make a gummy so that it doesn't taste like a plant material

um so it's like a lot more you know you can make it taste like a watermelon sour candy whatever um but some people are making gummies that they make by taking the flour and activating it in an oven so you heat it up and then you extract it and you put it into your gummies so if you were to make it that second way the heat from the oven could cause a little bit of a conversion but it's not going to be to the same level as the heat of directly lighting a joint with a flame which

could be like a thousand degrees Fahrenheit um you know up to and that's that's not what you're putting in your oven that would be crazy so uh yeah there's a lot more heat involved so there's a lot more conversion happening with the smoking process but so yeah in your body for if you had like a regular watermelon sour candy edible that had just THC in it what would happen there is you eat that gummy your liver metabolizes it changes the THC into a different molecule called 11-hydroxy THC

and that's the molecule that's then circulating your body and getting to your brain and making you feel high and that's part of the reason why it takes a while to feel Edibles is your body needs to process it before it reaches your brain and you can feel those effects so then and then so then the difference with smoking would be that it impacts it more quickly but then I'm also curious just with a gummy and and the impact not just from the digestion but just from

well I guess it is from digesting in your stomach versus smoking it into your lungs the difference between gummies and then smoking like a joint just flour versus vaping if there's like some noticeable differences both in impact and just in the science behind our body takes it in well I'll start by saying not everyone can feel Edibles and this is actually data that we acquired on social media on Tick Tock and on Instagram and our data showed that up to 20 people 20 of people can't feel

Edibles which is substantial and what was funny is we were talking to other medical professionals after and one of the Physicians before we even said this said that he said about 20 of his medical patients can't feel Edibles so that could be a multitude we don't know the exact reason why people can't feel Edibles um but it likely has to do with how our body's processing it whether it's the enzyme and the liver that's not properly processing it and converting it

um it could even be a specific person's gut microbiota like the literal microbes in their gut it could have to do with your gallbladder's ability to absorb fats and process in that way um so there's a lot of different factors that could go into why someone might not feel edibles but that's one thing and also some people feel Edibles extremely extremely strongly which is another you know part of that Spectrum so some people might not want Edibles in that way

um but yes you feel smoking oh sorry go ahead I just have one quick question with in regards to gummies is that so the people who can't fail at that 20 is that like they can't feel it period even if they take like a thousand milligrams of THC yeah in general people can't feel it at all but some people will be like oh I have to take 500 milligrams to feel anything and I'm like you should stop doing that because that's a lot of milligrams of THC to put in your body

for your body to process for no reason um so switch up your consumption method I think this is where like maybe vaping or smoking would be a better method I had one more fall too because I heard once when I was talking to someone who I think it was a founder of of like some gummy brand or drinkable THC brand they were talking about how genetically we have a different predisposition to our response to gummies so some for someone it could be 100 milligrams impacts them

the same exact way as someone who takes 10 milligrams and it's just because of I don't know if it's the endocannabinoid system or it's some thing that you know our body responds in the way that it's it's just genetic so I'm curious if that would probably have to do with um like genetically um how your liver enzymes are functioning um so some people have different like forms of these enzymes some people have enzymes that work a lot faster and a lot better some people have

enzymes that are a little bit different and work slower and you know less efficiently and this is also so that's kind of the genetic component because that's like in your DNA as far as your ability to produce and and process things like that so it could be very different um but if you do have a really slow metabolism and you're someone who's taking a lot of product it's something to be aware of if you're also taking pharmaceutical drugs because essentially what's happening if you are really slow

at metabolizing those Pharmaceuticals are circulating in your body and you have a ton of THC circulating in your body now and oftentimes it's the same enzyme in your liver that needs to process both of those things so you're just overwhelming those enzymes in your liver by making it process 500 milligrams of THC and Lipitor and you know an anti-anxiety medication Etc like you don't want to overwhelm them um but you also can go to websites like drugs.com and actually learn like how

certain drugs are processed and see if there's overlap there and if that's something you should be concerned about oh um as far as like onset also like time so when you're smoking or vaping you're absorbing the active compounds like directly in your lungs and then it's immediately going to your brain and your bloodstream like it's immediate so the peak effect from smoking is within seven minutes which is that's your Peak effect you're gonna feel it within like one minute

um but your Peak effect within seven minutes um which is why some people if you do struggle with something like anxiety or these other conditions some people do prefer smoking because it's easier to titrate your dose you can take like one hit and then be like okay how do I feel am I good do I need a little more you know you can wait a couple minutes and be like okay I'm gonna I'm gonna wait 30 minutes and take another hit and you can kind of build that whereas edible as

it's like oh I'm fine I'm fine I'm fine I'm fine oh my God I'm way too high like I'm gonna die not really because nobody dies but I mean that's why people go to the emergency room is they feel they feel like the world is caving in and you can feel your heartbeat you know increasing for older people specifically like it can be very very overwhelming and kind of your college story about I don't know what milligram it is like I that's so relatable to so many people

including myself and I'm usually like the edible tester in my friend group like if there's a homemade product I'm like all right give me a bite I'll tell you approximately what we're dealing with here because I know I'm somebody who's so comfortable like in my brain with weed that I'm not gonna have a horrific experience I'm not gonna be overwhelmed with anxiety I'm not going to feel that way I'm just gonna be like whoa like I'm really high right now which is fine because I'm comfortable in that

situation um but for people trying cannabis products for the first time you know this is why you probably should buy that product from a dispensary so you know this Cube has five milligrams in it maybe you want to start with just 2.5 milligrams cut that in half take it don't take it anymore for that night and just be like how do I feel then the next day you can always increase that Etc but homemade Edibles are not the the first stepping stone for somebody trying to

get into their cannabis Journey unless of course you live in a state where you don't have any access to medicine and then I have a YouTube video teaching you exactly how to do it that's awesome um I have another question regarding research I was just wondering do you know of any research that's currently happening um wherein the effect of cannabis is being looked at in regards to combination with psychedelics because I know psychedelics is getting a lot of research right now there's a company on

the island that I live on that's doing research um I'm just wondering if cannabis is anywhere in there that you know of because I know from experience that I love to smoke a joint before I eat some mushrooms it kind of sets the tone sets that state of relaxation and really makes the rest of the trip far more therapeutic yeah and have you noticed you can smoke a lot more when you're on mushrooms too like you can you can like chain smoke joints and you're just like feeling

normal you're feeling great um so there's definitely interactions happening there right like that I mean there's no isolated systems in the brain and the endocannabinoid system is literally everywhere um as well as you know serotonin receptors and these other receptors that are important important for psychedelics so they're definitely related but I don't know of any specific researcher that's looking into you know the synergistic effects or you know how they could kind of play on each other and

then of course what are the potential medical benefits with them combined because now we're in a whole realm of research that talk about replacing Pharmaceuticals that might replace the majority of pharmaceuticals right there is having that spectrum of you know cannabis on this side and psychedelics on this side and you just gotta find where on the Spectrum your right ratio is oh absolutely yeah we're actually uh testing that at our Retreats actively right now wait you guys have Retreats oh

yeah oh yeah we just had our fifth this past weekend in Vancouver our next one is in uh Vermont at the end of August and then we have another one in Vancouver in October and then one in the Netherlands in November and that one's going to be a nine-day retreat that'll be our third nine-day Retreat uh where we actively experiment and and look at the synergistic effects of these two things as well as how they apply to the conversation that our podcast is based on which is that you are whole and

complete in yourself that thought is not truth that getting caught up in thought is in fact where most of our suffering comes from is the idea that nope that's true I have to respond to it um and these substances are a great way of practicing taking that breath before reacting and allowing yourself to learn from the experience rather than just running from it or running towards something else I love that I want to know more about the Vermont one I live right next door

and I'm just curious so we'll talk about that offline but this sounds awesome and again like giving people a space you know to experiment and to have conversations with like-minded people and to feel comfortable around you like again like that's the point of the community aspect here and you can go to someone you can say hey man when I smoke like I get really bad anxiety has anyone else felt this like what do you guys do and then you just start that conversation and then that leads to way

deeper conversations that you can't you sometimes can't even have with your like close friends because sometimes you're just not ready to break that barrier um and you know sometimes just being around other people that want to heal themselves or change themselves in a specific way is like the most beneficial that's actually exactly what we've been doing the podcast itself well not about cannabis is always about the experience of uncertainty the temptation to doubt

yourself to overanalyze what you're doing and the benefit of understanding that you can just arrive as you are into every situation and you will continue to do the best that you can do and there is nothing you need to do other than just that and so our entire podcast has been about that recognition but also the community that builds in just being able to empathize with one another relate to one another somebody comes into we host groups five days a week wherein we have

a lot of community members who touch base with us they talk about things that they're facing insights that they've had and other people in the community who are still struggling with some things get inspired by those people and we've built a thriving community of about 16 000 people at this point who are actively engaged in this discussion which is why we started this series about cannabis because the two mentalities coincide and work together so very well the lessons are in fact the same

um I have a question for both of you about that mentality of um kind of being inside yourself and just like uh confidence in general have you guys noticed that when you do use cannabis it's really hard to like record yourself or like create any sort of content because I've never like resonated with other people about this but I'll be like Oh I'm gonna make a video I'll plan it out and whatever I'm like okay I smoke and then I like hit record I'm like who is that like that's

me like I can't make this video I look terrible like I can't do this I don't know if anyone else has struggled with that oh for sure yeah actually on that uh my most recent gummy run I clipped out a lot of that conversation I had to Cliff out so much I just like I'm just baked and I just feel myself and I just talk with no regard for like this is gonna take you like [ __ ] 10 hours to edit later you may want to just chill with some of that but one of the things I was

going on about was how weird it felt to record myself in the sense of like like the unnaturalness to it like there was a subtle like inauthenticity to recording that I think is a lot different than something like this where it's just the camera's right in front of you it's just a conversation where it's like you're talk because you're talking here we're talking to each other on the phone you're just talking to a phone to a device and there was like this deep

deep on I mean I was going through like a lot of whack [ __ ] like at this point I was feeling like everything and like there wasn't much idea of myself and so I was just like feeling like I was everything basically and so looking at this device and even sometimes looking at myself and same thing happens on mushrooms it's like you're like who is who is that because because you're not so siled into thinking you are what you think you are and you're more seeing

reality for what it is and when there aren't so many thoughts you know there isn't so much of an idea of yourself you don't feel as divided from everything else and so you know law long story short it was very unnatural to film on my phone in that state and I guess it's kind of similar to mushrooms in that when you really peeled back there can be like a sense a sensitivity to everything so that that twang of but whatever for me I felt like inauthenticity and the

gap between a thought and like filming or recording and part of it was with my mom so it was like you know we're talking about something oh let's bring the phone out it's like oh it made me almost sick in a way that it was so weird it was so visceral so uh yeah I totally relate though likewise uh I kind of started recording videos back in 2005 when YouTube was first a thing and uh I remember sitting in front of the computer just looking at myself kind of wondering like when am I

going to start talking something's got to happen at some point here um and so I got into the habit of basically just kind of looking off into the middle distance so I wouldn't see myself I'd get through the video and then later on after it was posted then I would watch it because I felt I had already committed to it I find that helps a lot and and now I don't really think of it because my perspective has changed so much over the last several years that to me I'm always talking to

myself even if I'm talking to other people I'm still talking to my assumptions based on how I see myself and so there's really no difference between talking to people and talking to myself anymore so I just basically consider everything to be self-dialogue and I really like myself so I don't worry too much about it no that's good I mean I'm glad other people have struggled with this at some point and I feel like also if you do you know smoke or take an edible or whatever and you look High

um and you're making content like all the comments are just like she's blasted right now and it's like well yeah but like also listen to what I have to say like it's important um so I think that's part of the struggle too is like your brain is thinking one way like my brain isn't like oh my God you're so high it's just like oh we're so creative right now like let's make content like let's make interesting stuff but then you look at the the visual component of you and

you're like oh yeah I'm pretty high right now yeah but it's dangerous to want to cater to the type of person that is looking for that easy out they're looking for that way to justify not listening to you because frankly what you're saying is something that might change their life might change their perspective and they want to resist that and the easiest way to resist that is to vilify you is to find something about you that makes you less credible and considering the way that you describe

everything that you're talking about the knowledge that you have and the way that you deliver it it's very difficult to make you less credible and so people would have to cling on to the thing that they're afraid of which is the experience of being high despite the fact there's no drop in efficacy whatsoever I smoke all the [ __ ] time and nobody would be able to tell unless I told them like I just got high yeah yeah it actually that it's a good point it makes me wonder

with because a lot of times when you use uh weed and smoke like there's a depth to your thoughts depth to the conversation and so like when I post the especially like the gummy run videos like I'm not saying anything any different than we talk about on the podcast and there's so many comments like oh dude's got crazy high thoughts I have the same high thoughts and and it makes me wonder almost just from like a symbolic perspective of how much of that is you know our our Collective stigma

Collective resistance to certain thoughts that arise when you're high and like how quick we are to write them off as oh that's just a high thought like oh you I feel I don't feel disconnected from anything oh bro you're just high it's like maybe that's that's our Collective resistance as this you know from an egotistical very very divided mentality to letting go of some of the walls that we hold on to like how much of the stigma does come from that and and and both the resistance when

someone's like oh they're just just high like oh being high is bad or oh they're high they're just having high thoughts and and they'll write it they'll people will come up with so many different excuses and I wonder if it's not it's not a collective resistance but then also our individual resistance to you know some of those some of those depths and I don't want to look at that because I'm telling myself this story and that contradicts that story and so I'm gonna

write them off as as high and and like that's interconnected with the stigma to it like our avoidance of uncertainty or looking at things like just a tiny bit deeper than than we want to I I love that point because you're so right like if you have something creative and unique and potentially impactful to say whether you're high or not like that's still really important and I mean how many great discoveries and inventions and like science came from people getting high

and you know writing down that thought or pursuing it further or doing LSD with their co-workers and their you know it's not just cannabis it's so many different substances that open up your brain in such a unique way and like you can either utilize that and like benefit from it and you know have like really interesting cool thoughts or you could suppress them and be scared what like the internet's gonna say but the internet's gonna say something regardless like you could have you could

not be high and create just a perfect cookie cutter video and you're still going to get comments that are like not positive so you might as well just create the content you want to and stick behind it no matter what you do it doesn't matter you could try and live up to everybody's expectations and what you'll find is that everybody has different expectations you're always going to come up against somebody who's going to judge you for something based on the fact that

they need to they need to judge you what I find really interesting and I've said this numerous times is that you know being high is basically synonymous for being relaxed and in that state of relaxation we connect with one another but we connect through authenticity and vulnerability and often that's what people are running from is a state of being vulnerable enough to connect to the people that they want to connect with and so all they're left with is control and manipulation and the need to

try and be something in order to try and get that connection that never comes and so I find it beautiful that the Cannabis Community is a perfect example of the benefit of relaxation even on the body as well as the mind I I can agree more and I think a lot of people in the Cannabis Community you know people who maybe even don't use cannabis or strangers or whatever would be like oh you know that person has Good Vibes and I think that like that good vibe is that sense of like openness that

you know we're often always open and receptive to ourselves and our environment and other people and I think people feel comfortable coming to people who are regular cannabis users because we we are open we are accommodating we will listen to you and we I mean a lot of people um you know will even if they disagree would be able to you know at least have a conversation about it without you know getting too angry about it we're very open or at least like the people that

I've associated with I've seen that Trend maybe not everyone oh for sure and I always find it interesting how how resistant certain people who try to maintain that degree of control and certainty at all times and kind of rely upon that how how much of a difficulty they have with cannabis in general like they're they're such a massive resistance to it to the point that you know they've tried it a couple times and they just totally avoid it because they don't want to let go and

and what they don't realize is the thing that they're holding on to is the thing that's weighing them down like they're holding on to this weight and cannabis is trying to like loosen the grip a little bit and they think that it means something about them as it's holding them back from just you know being free to be themselves because it's hard to maintain an idea of what you are or what you think you should be or some [ __ ] [ __ ] societal standard and be yourself at the same time and so if

you're holding on to one and cannabis is helping you in one way shape or form even if it kind of knocks you around a bit it's it's showing you that self and once you get through it you're a little bit more yourself is just what you are when you're a little more relaxed a little less concerned about being something for anyone else prioritizing your experience and and so it's a beautiful thing that it gives us the opportunity to do so but for those who have tried to be something for their

whole life it's there's going to be this sort of inevitable resistance to some degree if that's where they're driving their value and no hate to anyone but a lot of those people who do struggle with that are often heavy drinkers like that's a trend that I see often and that's back to kind of like escapism and unlike cannabis it's like cannabis makes you aware of your thoughts it makes you like more I guess comfortable in your brain with your feelings and your body and

everything and alcohol is kind of the opposite like it is drowning you out it's trying to tell your brain to stop communicating and like just you know give me a break and stop and I think that's a lot of people you're talking about it's like and maybe they're maybe they need somebody to kind of guide them through the process of learning about cannabis and I think this is also where like dosing becomes really important too because I've had a lot of people who are

converted to cannabis like they're like okay Riley like I I want to try it but like I really like I really don't want to feel really high and like I really want like you know whatever they're really scared of it and I'm like okay and I give them like such a low dose of THC and like a lot of CB led a really balanced product and they're like that was such a positive experience and like these are the minds that are so important to change like and give them a good experience don't like don't give

them a full joint of like a heavy hitting you know 35 THC cannabis strain and be like here just smoke this and have a good time because if somebody were to like smoke that full joint who's never smoked before like they're they're not going to have a positive experience but as the Cannabis Community like oftentimes we're curating these experiences and we have to be so careful with making sure that it's intentional and they are properly educated and it's a dose that they can

handle so that they have a positive experience they can tell they're like-minded friends about that experience and like from the bottom-up approach we can start to like change minds and get people more comfortable and eventually stop using as much alcohol maybe stop using as many Pharmaceuticals and like really start listening to what our brain is asking of us all right imagine the impact just just on the reduction in alcohol use in terms of just violence yeah which is um I don't know if you

guys know in a lot of States um when you sign up for a med card you get a notice um about uh owning Firearms too and the language and I sh do you mind if I read it to you it's like right on my phone it's actually crazy because as you're talking about like alcohol is so associated with violence like an increase in violence and domestic abuse and like very negative um circumstances whereas cannabis is is not associated with this at all and it says this is the second paragraph here if a federal

firearms licensee is awarded uh that a person is in possession of a card authorizing The Possession and use of marijuana under state law the licensee has quote reasonable cause to believe that the person is an unlawful user of a controlled substance and may not transfer transfer Firearms or ammunition to that person even if the person answered no to another portion of it so it's saying that if someone's a cannabis user they're a danger if they possess Firearms they're irresponsible using a

schedule 1 drug and should be treated as so so you you can't um you can't like get a firearm license in a lot of States I think this has been recently brought to at least like state courts and I would if we get Federal legalization of cannabis this will be a Supreme Court case that I think you could count on absolutely but no question about alcohol right I mean that's the crazy part it's not it's not even about what they say about cannabis it's that alcohol is fine which is

I mean absolutely insane and probably other Pharmaceuticals right there's probably not even a consideration of that you know overdosing on something and it's like you like sleepwalk and not remember anything that you did for like five hours of the night whether you're like going out and and like you know eating a bunch of food and then you go drive a vehicle and like I mean it's scary a lot of and we have documented cases of stuff like this happening on Pharmaceuticals

and of course yeah people black out drunk like like bad things definitely happen yeah I was gonna say if I was baked and I knew there was a gun in the house I'd probably just run out the house like I'd get as far away from that it would be like freaked me out to even consider like touching a gun when I'm high like I'd be so sensitive to to the impacts and that's that's one of the funniest parts like oh you know it's gonna be you're gonna be dangerous because you know Earth things are going to be

dangerous for you because you're super high walking around like be careful it's like I'm nothing but careful I look I looked across the street like 12 times before I before I do it and then you know there's that car that's 200 yards away and I'm like um not gonna risk it better way to know for it exactly so it's oh man it's so so fascinating the backwardsness of well just the way cannabis makes you so much less angry like if I'm ever like really riled up about something before I

send an email a text a phone call imma smoke a little I'm gonna make sure I still agree with what I was gonna do and 90 of the time I'm like oh my God what was what was I about to do like that was so aggressive and angry for no reason and like I don't think we have many documented cases if any I think we have zero of the opposite happening where someone smokes and they're like oh my God you know I want to break something I want to you know get violent like it's

it's just not the way cannabis works in the body well and it's incredible to me especially in the states given how fond the founding fathers were in terms of hemp yeah George Washington like like literally growing hemp and at that time the hemp I'm sure was above 0.3 percent THC which is currently the legal limit so by all means of the definition he was growing marijuana type one cannabis um I'm sure so I'm very unpatriotic that's what I'm saying absolutely Riley I have to say I'm so

grateful that you could join us for this episode I would love to have you back on the show again in the nearest Future um for our audience could you let us know where they can find you uh on Instagram and Tick Tock and uh of course on your podcast where is the best platform to find you there and uh how many episodes are you in now three four I'm gonna release the fifth episode tomorrow and actually tomorrow's episode is about psychedelics and some newer research about separating the

hallucinogenic effects from the um like uh brain expanding and beneficial effects for something like depression and PTSD to hopefully allow more people to who struggle with these um you know debilitating conditions to be able to dose themselves at home instead of going to like a therapy clinic so we have the CEO of a company called Solera um a small biotech company on it's my favorite episode so far it's really cool um that's released tomorrow morning um so you can find me on Tick Tock is

where I post mostly but I'm also on Instagram and YouTube at the name cannabacam that's c-a-n-n-a-b-i-c-h-e-m um I post all my podcasts on YouTube as well if that's if you like to like watch videos you can do that sometimes hand motions are helpful with scientific things and I'll put like Little Snips on the screen too um but yeah that's essentially the way to contact me and if I'm ever deleted off one of those just try to find the other ones and go from there

yeah yeah definitely check out Riley's stuff I love I love your content I'm super interested as I've been saying very very curious about cannabis in general so this was this is a [ __ ] Blast for me I think I had like a bunch of questions written down I think we got to every single one that I that I was even considering so thank you so much for taking the time to uh to chat with us today I'm very very excited to chat again at some point soon me too and yeah I didn't answer that portion but I'd

love to come back on literally whenever this was so fun um and I love podcasts where it's encouraged for you to smoke before or consume before just a lot more chill from the beginning absolutely and again it brings across the message that it's okay to do that that you can just arrive you don't have to doubt yourself regardless of how uncertain or anxious you might feel it's going to play out regardless that you can do the same thing with your doubt that you can do without your doubt the

doubt is totally optional you're going to do it anyway you may as well just jump in so thank you Riley for being such a good example of not just the scientific benefits that we're discovering but the benefits in terms of mentality and your state of relaxation when you're communicating with your audience we really appreciate you being here thank you everyone for joining us we will see you again next time for the next episode of being high bye everyone foreign