The Cole Memo

In this episode, I catch up with Dr. Eric Lee. 

Dr. Lee moved to Oregon to practice psilocybin assisted therapy. During this episode, he tells us what that looks like, how much it costs, and more.

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Links mentioned during show

• Dr. Lee’s website can be found here
• This is the post that I read by Mycopreneur
• Post about Illinois CURE act

The auto-generated transcript is available below.

longtime listeners of mine will recognize my next guest Dr Lee is sitting back down with me in this episode of the Cole memo in case you didn’t know Dr Lee recently moved to Oregon to provide psilocybin assisted therapy you can check out his website at space portland.com we’ll have that link in the podcast description folks you’re listening to the Cole memo I’m your host Cole Preston every episode is released in audio video and transcript formats to find the transcript audio or video version of any episode please refer to the description of the episode that you’re listening to now within that description you will find a link that will take you to our website which will display the transcript for this episode and the platforms where you can find this episode in audio or video formats if you’re unable to locate the episode description on whichever platform you’re listening from Simply note the episode number and visit the memo.com from there you can use our new search functionality which can be found in the top right hand corner to find the corresponding episode and then you’ll be able to access the audio video and transcript version of that episode for example if you’re looking for episode 57 featuring Dr Bob Miller just use the search functionality and type in 57 and it should pull up the episode you might also find any links that we reference during the episode so that you might be able to do your own research for example space portland.com will be in the show notes for this episode if you’re not listening to this episode of the coal memo on patreon then you’re listening to this episode later than our patrons to become a patron go to the memo.com patreon it’s a great way to support our show one of the best ways to support our show is absolutely free subscribe to or follow our show leave us a positive review from wherever you’re listening to us from favorite this episode give it a thumbs up leave a comment comment or post a review your engagement and support is appreciated parting thought there’s one other option for support if you go to the memo.com support you can give us a one-time monthly or yearly contribution of your choice that’s right you could donate a dollar once or you could donate a dollar once a month which would be $12 per year every little bit counts if you’re able to support us financially that is greatly appreciated but once again one of the best ways to support our show is free just tell your friends about it leave a positive review folks today is February 22nd 2024 enjoy this episode of the Cole [Music] memo Dr Lee it’s a pleasure to sit back down with you uh it’ll be for the first time though on the Cole memo welcome thank you I’m happy to be here yeah if you don’t mind uh tell uh the audience who you are in case they haven’t been listening is because you were like a recurring uh character let’s say in the chinois podcast um yeah and I had a great time doing it it was a lot of fun uh my name is Dr Lee I am a physician although it has been a long time since I practiced like a normal doctor um in 2020 I started a tele medicine business called Green M Physicians it was a medical marijuana certification business so me and Cole met through you know however people meet I think it was Reddit yeah definitely we met through Reddit and we had a lot in common so we did a few podcasts together um last year I sold a business which is crazy you know I was never trained to do anything like that but it was just something cool that I had the opportunity to do so I did it and it was great um when I sold green M Physicians I thought a lot about like what I wanted to do after that and psychedelics were something that was always a huge part of my life and Oregon started a uh silos cbin program so they voted on it in 2020 and it got started last year so I moved out here to Portland um and here I am and it’s just a crazy it it’s crazy to look back and think about how it all went down you know the first business was related to marijuana and the second business was related to syy cbin it’s just like things are coming into play like right when right when I need them to um so we gota just be grateful for it all it’s been a fun time yeah dude ride the wave ride the wave um well that’s really cool that’s really cool um yeah I remember when you said you were doing that I was like like well this is going to be perfect cuz part of uh changing the show name was to kind of bring a more National focus and to be able to you know sometimes when I would talk about things that were happening in other states they’d be like but this is the chinois podcast so we can now kind of I feel more comfortable talking about everything um anyways though uh tell us how that’s been going man like it sounds so cool you know and I hear about it but you got the boots on the ground so yeah I mean it was psychedelics are coming they’re coming for you soon I’m sure they will you know Colorado uh voted last year and Oregon and Colorado coming first that makes sense to me the Midwest will soon follow I’m sure um and I kind of feel like it’s going to be similar to marijuana you know piece by piece state by state it will do its thing people are very interested in it by and large um I’m a lifelong psychedelic user I will not stand here and love to you I have been using drugs for many years uh what has been created for us in Oregon like as a legal system it’s really different from what you know you or I or anyone else who might be listening um has traditionally experienced with psychedelics it’s very different um obviously when you are dealing with the government they’re going to take the most cautious approach and it’s going to involve a lot of Licensing and a lot of paperwork and a lot of fees and that’s what we experience here um the type of business that I own is called a service center it’s kind of like a clinic so it kind of makes sense for me as a doctor uh people will come in they will have their psychedelic experience there be able to take a dose of mushrooms however much they want um and then there are all kinds of rules you know you take this dose you have to be at our building for this many hours um you have to be with a facilitator or a counselor the entire time um and you can only legally do mushrooms at our service center so that’s like you know a ton of rules and that’s not necessarily a awesome feeling I would say I would say that I would ideally like people to experience psychedelics in a different setting uh but you got to get started somewhere and what we have is safe and um it makes sense and it does reflect the research to some degree but it’s uh you know it’s got its up ups and downs for sure yeah so when you go to the service center do you do you acquire the the iloc cybin there as well like you purchase it yep you purchase it um you can choose how much you want to take so you know there’s a ton of national interest in micro doing that’s like a huge thing uh it really doesn’t make sense for the legal cybin model it just it just doesn’t make sense um but you can choose like a normal dose which is about 25 milligrams of syoc cybin like an eighth of mushrooms back in the day that’s probably about what you’re going going to get um and for people who are really interested in having certain type of experience you can take up to 50 milligrams which is you know uh it’s gonna get you somewhere so you’re saying 25 milligrams is like equivalent to an eighth approximately I rough math sure um in Oregon when you get the product at the facility you have to like send it through a laboratory so you kind of know a little more um but in roll 25 milligrams for a bag of shrooms it’s probably what we’ve been doing for years right no yeah for sure that was like the go-to um I’m curious will it be like uh you know mushrooms themselves or will they be capsules or will there be different options I don’t know there will eventually be different options I’m sure um when you apply as a manufacturer you have to you check specific boxes that say you know I’m going to be doing whole fungus I’m going to be doing extracts I’m going to be doing baked goods I don’t know if they do baked goods but you you got to choose when you apply for the permit so um at the moment I just don’t think there’s enough interest in the state you know they do release numbers on like how many patients are sitting for sessions and stuff um so the only thing I’ve really seen are just the mushrooms themselves for sale uh but that’s where we are right now gotcha and how what are the numbers not to pop quiz you but I’m just curious like are they good you know are many people taking advantage of the service um there’s oh there’s so much to say um the average price of a Sil cyber Tri in Oregon right now is like $2,000 so let’s start there whoa yeah it’s crazy it cost me 30 bucks exactly so it’s not it’s not you know that that has to be a huge conversation point it is the conversation point when it comes to legal syy and is a price point because it really doesn’t make sense and um I like uh I pay like $100 for therapy you know I pay $100 for an hour and I think of it as being a good price you know so and therapy Psychotherapy is something that you do over and over again and I think for a successful psychedelic practice repetition is part of the situation um so none of this is easily executed when your price point is a few thousand um so it really becomes a question of what you’re willing to do as business owner and like what you’re trying to do with psychedelics it was never my dream to sell a $2,000 mushroom trip you know in no version of myself across the infinite timelines was there ever a version that wanted to sit down and like charge someone $2,000 to take mushrooms uh it just doesn’t make sense to me but uh we have to pay $10,000 for one year of business business permit to like operate as a service center um so if you look at General economics you know you know for sure that you got to charge a shitload to make up for that $10,000 thing um so yeah I’d say that that is a huge hindrance um there’s reporting suggesting that most of the people using our industry are rich people from out of state that fly in and pay for the $2,500 trip and then fly back um there’s also you know just talking to other business owners I would say you know 30 trips a month is kind of average so like one or two a day it’s really not like a crush of people or anything it’s uh it’s trickle in um but yeah that is you know that’s that’s the state of things at the moment yeah I’m frustrated with myself because I can’t find it maybe I’ll find it in a second but there’s another great content creator my co preneur and he was talking about like just like I don’t even know what the number numers he was sourcing I really I hope I can pull these numbers up but he was basically just pointing out that it almost even worse off than cannabis there it’s like a sorry I’ll try to put my thought in a bottle here there’s so many mushrooms that are being grown just like openly and in Oregon and California and all across the United States that it’s like like you say you’re running up against like it cost me $10,000 to get this [ __ ] license and I got to make this money back but but you know who wants to pay this money for [ __ ] a mushroom trip you know so it’s like a hard place to be it’s a really hard place to be and it’s uh the people that own these service centers are not like it’s it’s not like what you see with marijuana where it’s like a bunch of slick businesses that probably have franchises and stuff it’s randos it’s people like me just people who have lifelong interest in psychedelics hippies people like that by and large that’s what I see um so it is kind of funny to have this perspective perspective and like being put in this situation where we basically have to charge this much um I don’t like it and I don’t want it like whatever I do in the future is always going to you know think about that type of thing the the money and the finance and like what is going to it um the way our law Works makes it very clear that you can have a session with a few people at once uh like a group session you have to do a little different preparation and the way you hold it has to be a little different of course um but it’s legal um and at the same time it’s legal for a counselor or facilitator to sit with a few patients at once so when you put all this together um it seems very clear that to make the facilitator money and also to keep the cost low for the for the client uh the group session is probably best um so I I do think that there’s a way where the facilitator can still make you know it costs them a lot to make their to get their licensure too um to compensate them well but still keep the cost down I think there’s a way to do it um I don’t think people are very interested in it the other businesses but you know that’s what we’re here to do Shake It Up the same way we did with the last business uh and then the other thing that I am interested in is research um I’ve always been an evidence-based person probably talked too much about it in our previous podcasts uh but it is a huge need in silos ibin because what exists in research does not reflect what happens in reality um so those two things definitely need to close the gap and having my type of business which exists outside of hospitals and where research used to occur um that’s a step in that direction so I’m really interested in pushing that aspect um and when you [ __ ] with research you’re dealing with research grants and universities and at that point you know I’m not really worried about the price point I’m charging um because you know those those things are built into the grant so there are other things with syus ibin that I really really care about um and whatever we do with this service center I will not be charging the thousands of dollars I just can’t do it it feels too weird yeah um I yeah I mean it was one of your s that’s why you were so popular in Illinois because you were uh the the best option not like most compassionate and pricing and and easiest to really get a hold of I gotta say so um I wouldn’t expect anything less from you and um I wanted to ask you know I can make sure to put it in the bumper of the episode so that it’s not 15 minutes into it or however far we are um do you want to plug like how people can find your services yep you can visit our website at space Portland it’s all spelled out SPAC Portland uh um you can check out our facility and see what it looks like to have a legal silos cybin facility that was designed by someone who enjoys draws and you should uh yeah you should check out some of the other businesses this is our outside area I landscaped it by myself because I’m a crazy person beautiful yeah thanks it would be nice to you know it’s just nice to have an outdoor element to a psychedelic therapy session I just think that that makes sense um these look dark I’m GNA get new pictures but these are all this is a building that I renovated um I’m really proud of it I I the green mine physicians’s money uh went to this and it’s something I really believe in so I’m happy to be doing this and talking about it um where this goes in the future um I think your other point is very correct you know mushrooms already exist there’s a huge interest in them and for most people uh putting together a trip for yourself you know at home or in the woods or doing whatever you want to do I think that is very appealing that’s how I would like to experience the drugs um there will always be a case for guided facilitation or for sitting down with therapist and uh going through your psychedelic experience U there will always be a case for that the same the same way that there will always be a case for traditional therapy um I think those things coexist those ideas of doing psychedelics on your own and then having the option to sit down with a license facilitator um in the future I would love to be able to directly sell psychedelics to the public and not just syy you know I’d love to be able to sell MDMA or Iain or you know anything I do think that should be something that we are able to access as a human people um that’s a long way from now you know in my perspective I do a good job now I offer a fair price I have good reputation in a few years I’ll be able to do what I really want to do which is Broad in psychedelic access um I think that’s where this goes if if I’m lucky yeah and uh this was the tweet I was referencing earlier again from the Creator micropreneur a little bit unrelated but somewhat you know on the same page they said just did a podcast with a mushroom facility consultant who says nine out of 10 grows in La they worked with are doing 1,000 pounds of psilocybin mushrooms per month add to that the infinitely available home kits all models projected by the Emer emerging industry are worthless so it wasn’t so much in the same I was you can see why it made me what you said made me think of that though right yeah 100% with what you’re stacked up against yeah and I I’ve talked to other business owners and they’ll say stuff like they’re just trying to figure out how to get people through the door and I’m like yeah yeah um and that is very true you know go kind of goes back to what we’re saying about you know the context of what you’re doing your psychedelic in um there are people who get exactly what they need at home or dancing in a club or you know whatever way that you access psychedelic treatment and there people that need a person to be with them it’s just a fact right right I mean sometimes I feel like that honestly you know yeah so sure same and if I was going to do something really crazy like iasa definitely wouldn’t want to do it by myself right right or DNT or something yeah I mean I think I think it makes sense to have a cost for that type of treatment but I don’t think that’s the only thing that exists with psychedelics sure um yeah as as uh one of my favorite activists in Illinois says uh who helped to introduce the Cure act which I’ll display the graphic for that right now which you’ll like because it has a chill illo logo uh for mushrooms um so the Illinois psychedelic Society uh helped to you know uh introduce House Bill one a Senate bill was actually just introduced with the same language so you know we’re seeing some movement um but as she says yes multiple points of access so definitely there’s a space uh for the the guided therapy which is what we’re going to have in Illinois um and that’s going to be the legal component it sounds like we’re basically doing exactly what Oregon is doing we’re creating a legal component but we are also this is my favorite part of the bill uh descheduling psilocybin which effectively does make the cultivation and possession uh and use decriminalized uh so yes while your only legal place to procure uh and get a guided experience will be a licensed Place uh you can still share mushrooms and even have like the sacramental uh you know ceremonies or whatever if if one of those options are cost prohibitive which like you say it’s like all of the options should be on the table you know what I mean yeah yeah and I hope people really learn from what’s happening in Oregon we’re the first ecosystem in the country that’s doing what we’re doing and the way that it turned out is this way and who’s to say if it’s a good way or a bad way you know I’m not going to criticize something that I’m you know just dipping my toe into uh but I didn’t I didn’t get into psychedelics to only serve rich people from out of state it’s not what I like it’s not what I like to think about there has to be a different way to do this and until we figure it out uh you know we’re doing the doing it this way oh your volume is voluming thank you um two questions that are unrelated um yeah do you have any um like notable stories to share so far like any good you know obviously you can’t get into specifics but like I don’t know just like high level good experiences to share so our clinic is at we’ve gone through all the inspections and we’ve turned in the eight million parts of paperwork we paid today um so we’re actually not going to be starting starting until the first so business-wise I have nothing important to share um I will say that [ __ ] is crazy out here there’s a lot of businesses and you get the feeling that there aren’t a lot of good actors you know um I was undergoing facilitator training of my own which was expensive and kind of silly um and the company that I was going through I paid everything upfront they went under and I was at a point where I was like a few G’s into this thing and the company was like we’re not doing this education anymore um so so [ __ ] like that is like occurring and it’s gross um and I don’t think it’s going to stop you know I think there’s going to be some crazy abuses in the Psychedelic realm at first um is that required the facilitator training like from facilitator oh yeah to get your license with the state okay it sure is um positively I mean the whole the whole reason I’m in Oregon is because after I sold the business well while I was selling the business we went through a whole bunch of crazy [ __ ] you know I had to go through some legal [ __ ] with another company uh over a previous contract and like a breakup was involved they’re always involved um so I was really at the end of my rope and I was at a music festival with a bunch of my friends and I went on my first trip in like four years um and during this trip it was very very clear you know like I was feeling like [ __ ] for a really long time and at some point during this experience I was like I need to move to Portland and be about this life because this is what you actually care about so this in some ways all comes back to a psychedelic trip and I’m very grateful to the guys I was with on that trip too because it was you know it’s that type of thing and you owe a lot to the people you’re with when you’re on those experiences yeah um so that definitely you know something I’m happy to share for sure yeah and I want to dwell on something that you said for a moment because I think it’s important uh for people that don’t take mushrooms to understand that I don’t know most people that I talk to that take mushrooms just like you said it was your first trip in four years I had a trip recently it was my first trip in I think two years like I I have so much respect for the experience that I like seldom engage in it uh I I feel like it’s not ripe for abuse do do you see that from a I wanted to ask you that anecdotally but does the data reflect that as well yeah that’s a really good point um it’s kind of like an anti-abuse drug because you cannot take it on consecutive days it’s really almost impossible um it’s just the way that it affects your system doesn’t it doesn’t give you the same things that produce a good oldfashioned addiction so it is pretty much impossible to get addicted to psychedelics um and say that we actually have a pretty decent amount of data suggesting that psybin is fairly reputable treatment for things like opiate addiction um it’s one of the things that we don’t have like a great care for in general which is what makes psychedelics kind of interesting um and the other thing that you said is that you only use psychedelics once in a while uh totally makes sense it is very intense situation especially once you get those higher dosages um but the research that we have that proves that siloc cybin is real um it’s all pretty much the same across the board you have like a 12 week chunk of time and you’re getting therapy like all throughout and you get this introduction to the psychedelics before your session and then you take the drugs and then you uh have a debriefing session and you do drugs twice um all research Protocols are pretty similar it’s 12 weeks to uh psychedelic sessions 25 milligrams like we said earlier um that’s where research is so it is suggestive that two trips is like the gold standard or whatever just because that’s what we’ve been doing um but yeah that’s a huge part of what I do I do you know what I just described to you is [ __ ] who wants to sit in a hospital for 12 weeks and like have a [ __ ] dude with a white coat poke you while you’re on your trip absolutely not what I experienced two years ago in Portland to to give me to move to Portland like that’s the [ __ ] magic um so how are you going to like like take the magic and what you know already works and put it into this rigid system like how do you find that balance um what I’ve seen so far suggests that other people cannot find the balance because we’re looking at a lot of places that just look like an office building and that’s not a great place to have this type of experience yeah so all that [ __ ] is really fun to think about um personally if I can like move psyched research a little bit forward into the point where it’s like you know now we have scientific proof that like doing Molly and dancing around is good for your mental health for the next year if I can prove something like that then I will consider it a career well spent it’s just the things that we know as like a human people and people that enjoy life and have had their lives change with psychedelics like basically none of it has been captured in research um so if we move life a little move science a little more more in that direction and whatever way that means um that’s what I really hope to do yeah I’m curious is this model B I’m pretty sure that ketamine is like kind of ahead of mushrooms in many ways in the in the sense that like right now in Illinois you can go to a ketamine clinic and and get go through undergo a same a similar experience it sounds like where you you you are you know administered and you you’re guided and and such is that what this is this at least initial model is moded after we’re not just I guess my point is we’re not just making this up as we go are we or or is it both oh there’s so much fun stuff to talk about um we are kind of making it up as we go just based off like the best that we know frankly um the number of total studies that looks at syo cybin that’s been published it’s like two dozen it’s really not that much um ketamine is you’re totally right it’s more widespread it’s easy to access there’s shitload of it that’s been produced by pharmaceutical companies so it’s in the supply chain it’s just easy to get um in addition to that you can take it in two different forms you can take it intral form which means you snort it and you can do that at home um and then there’s another kind that you C take that is the kind that actually works where you um inject it like a intramuscular U intravenous would probably be even better but that is not something that we can access as normal humans um ketamine is slightly different because we’ve been using it for so long medically for anesthetic it’s been in our hospitals for ever it’s been used for induction we use it in the ER for pain control for anxiety control we use it a lot um so that has really helped ketamine be a little different than the other psychedelics um but I do want to say that the evidence is not as good for ketamine and it’s not even close if you look at the body of evidence supportive of the fact that ex psychedelic is good for you know PTSD anxiety depression the stuff that we think they’re good for um where is evidence at this point it’s pretty much exclusively with syosin u so you can’t really say that ketamine is ketamine is uh is it’s more of a to me is more of a money thing you know you can definitely make your money with ketamine and people are already doing it um and then syo sibin you have to do this like annoying session that’s 6 hours long and is expensive and stupid and like the business doesn’t scale so like why are you doing it to begin with well it works you know the evidence is there yeah yeah it’s interesting it’s very interesting I asked these questions some of the questions I’m asking I was supposed to have a conversation with uh and it’s not the first time but a person that doesn’t believe cannabis should be legal at all so on the same token they don’t believe any of this stuff should be legal so I asked some of these questions you know with a thought in mind that somebody like that might be watching right now and like a skeptic you know what I mean um so I try to like yeah ask questions like that like where what is this model you know what I mean and I figured it was I mean how how else like we’ve never had this system before so like yeah of course we’re creating it as we go and like you say it really it doesn’t seem ideal right now like we’re doing what we’re doing I think to I correct me if I’m wrong but I feel like it was kind of a conservative pitch where it’s like all right you’re going to have a licensed person here like a health professional it just makes everybody feel at ease and I think rightfully so again I want to return to the fact that there are sometimes when I do I would prefer to have like a strong person in the room if I’m having a trip you know somebody that can like say Get It Together Cole you know something like that or hey it’s okay uh so I feel like that whole structure at least initially like you say it’s not ideal but it’s kind of put together to to maybe even satisfy the concerns of the person I was just talking about you know to be like hey it’s not just a [ __ ] wild rave party this is like a [ __ ] medical procedure I think that’s the intention to you know establish a good safety record know no issues there haven’t been any issues in the state so far um you know to have this very conservative very structured thing you we have to even kind of root out people with issues that might not do well with syosin before the fact so there’s all kinds of systems in place um to make sure people have good experiences and that’s that’s the essence of legality you know you go through those Hoops to prove that it’s a good thing and then maybe down the line it will be a little different um one of things you said earlier about you know postion and like how did we get to this point um it is fun to think about that crazy 12we session in the hospitals with the two psychedelics and like thinking about how much it sucks and like who would ever want to do that and at the same time being like well it still [ __ ] works you know like those people who sat through all that crazy [ __ ] and went through the 72 hours of therapy and the 1800 surveys that they have to take when you’re in psychedelic research at the end of the day you sat down and you told us that it really changed your life so you know even in really bad situations it still works and if that’s all we’ve shown up to this point we we have more to show for sure um but another interesting point is that we collect large scale data on American drug use there’s this thing called oh I’m gonna [ __ ] up the name it’s nah SMA or something like that there’s six letters um and basically hundreds of thousands of people respond and they tell us how they’ve used drugs and what kind of mental health outcomes they’ve had they tell us a bunch of other [ __ ] but that’s stuff we’re interested in for the purposes of this conversation um lifetime psychic pelic use has been linked with lower risk of suicidal ideation and mental distress and that’s just taking psychedelics one time at any point in your lifetime um it’s also been linked with lower rates of many mental health outcomes and this stuff has been published it’s been sifted through by statisticians and it’s been published in really reputable journals so to the best of our knowledge we can say that if a human being uses psychedelics at some point in their life even once even this vague ass sentence I’m saying um in general it does seem like they will enjoy slightly better mental health so you add that fact together with the fact that psychedelics work even in the worst conditions in these hospitals and you just say to yourself that there is something there um there’s a lot of crazy [ __ ] going on in the world right now um but I have like I have pretty unfettered optimism for psychedelics um even with other crazy [ __ ] so it’s nice just be working with something that you really believe in yeah and you know to be clear for folks because I think this is exactly how um um Illinois is like you can take advantage of the Serv or sorry I don’t mean to say Illinois is the way Illinois would be if the Cure act became law um you could take advantage of this legal psilocybin option if you had like some sort of like PTSD or whatever else but you could ALS Alo just if you just wanted to go through that experience you you can do that is the same can the same thing be said about Oregon yep you can just choose to do it great that’s good that’s good I’m glad that that’s the case and there’s it’s just a matter of connecting with the facilitator there’s no there’s no process you have to go through like getting a card or anything like that no you just have to be 21 and you do have to sit down with your facilitator 24 hours in advance Advance um endure all the screenings uh there’s a little song and dance but not too much um we’ve even been able to access like traditional banking resources so people can pay with credit cards way more than I thought we’d be able to do right off the bat um so it it feels like very secure thing at the moment um I definitely think we should talk again in six months and see how things are going yeah but it’s yeah I’m curious yeah yeah it does um how does I mean you probably didn’t have to deal with it as a doctor but everybody that I’ve talked to in the Cannabis industry like especially if they work in it they’ve run into one issue or another whether it’s having to use a credit union to hold their cash because a bank won’t accept their cash because it’s cannabis cash or maybe even in the case of loans they might say well your income is cannabis and some banks are just weird about it is there is there anything like that with siloc cbin or have you experienced anything I mean it sounds like you have access to credit cards so that’s at least something different with yeah I mean I think a lot of everyone’s experience is Guided by the marijuana industry um like a lot of the rules that I read are like straight lifted from the marijuana laws um and then the banks are the same way you know the banks that were Progressive about giving marijuana businesses bank accounts had a good experience with that are definitely the ones that have you know offered to work with us um I don’t expect to deal with a lot of cash at all I know that is part of the whole Spiel with marijuana but thankfully it seems like we’ve kind of gotone to skip over that um other than that we’ve gotten traditional insurance and then oh yeah the other thing you mentioned I want to say is the mortgage or the lease um that is a huge sticking point for sure especially with the way the law is right now there’s no like you really have no protection you know even if you go into something with a you know property owner or a bank and you’re good at first and you’re operating like what if someone along the way just decides they don’t want to work with a mushroom business and you have to pick up shop and move somewhere else this it’s crazy to think about like I I went through a lot of like mental processes when I was looking for the location I didn’t really see a good outcome uh when I don’t own the property um that’s a huge knock against the Oregon system by the way it means that a lot of people can’t own businesses uh because you basically have to own your own property um I magically sold a tele medicine business last year so I was able to do that kind of thing but I don’t really expect you know the average person to be able to do that I think the only secure way to exist right now is to basically own your place yeah um well I think I have about two other questions and then I want to give you the space in case we haven’t mentioned anything that you wanted to talk about but um did you just mention that insurance can be used that’s pretty freaking cool I didn’t know that not health insurance so patients can’t use their health insurance yet um we have like traditional building and business insurance that’s from the business owner standpoint that’s very fting um but I would love to be able to take uh Private health insurance or state more likely Oregon State Health Insurance um because that covers poor people or people I I gota stop saying that people with a limited income it covers all kinds of people that can’t traditionally afford syo cbon Services um and uh syo Cy or sorry Oregon is Oregan insurance is very Progressive like they already cover acupuncture and stuff um so I would assume that they would be interested in covering something like cyon um so I do think that it’s on the table and living in this state maybe something that will come up sooner rather than later hopefully yeah and if you want to plead the fifth on this question for now uh you have experience dealing with the state of Illinois what’s it like I and I say that because if you’re like trying not to make any regulators mad you know we don’t have to go here but I was just curious this dealing with the state of Illinois sounded like a pain in the ass for you you know dealing with the website and everything else I was just going to ask you what’s what’s your experience been like so far with Oregon Regulators you’ve said a little bit so far but it doesn’t sound like you’ve really had a lot of headaches but I just kind of wanted to ask that question more clearly uh there’s a lot of good energy people are pretty excited about what’s going on the workers that are working in the silid branch of the government are all helpful I zero complaints um I’m the one who’s difficult to work with I’m certified crazy person um yeah Illinois you know the Midwest times were crazy for a while but at this point I guess hard to say anything bad about anything you know you remember you had to log in 200 times a day change your password and all that I haven’t I haven’t done it in like I haven’t certified anyone in Illinois in like two and a half years it’s crazy but you’re it’s funny I remember that uh I remember too those I could play that stupid system like a fiddle I knew every weird glitch about that system yeah that’s funny to think about that man well uh you know like I said I wanted to give you the space that’s that’s all I can think of for now I’m sure like you say I’d love to talk to you six months down the line kind of check in see how things are going but uh did we cover all of our bases or did you have anything else that you’d like to speak about before we wrap today no I think we talked about a lot of good stuff um and you know I really just I it’s not really anything worth sharing but I I’m very happy at this point in my life I’m really happy to be talking to you again you were like one of the first people who ever like cared about the other business that I was doing um and you know the risks I paid I took actually paid off and like who can [ __ ] say that in this day and age I just feel very very lucky and like this place this place is my dream and when I talk about like offering free services or cheap services to other people like I don’t I don’t think everything always has to be about you know making the most money or anything I I feel like I’ve already had my dream come true and I want to like give that to other people um and the only reason that I can say that after being all through all this crazy [ __ ] it’s not the only reason but a big part of it has to do with the Psychedelic situations that I’ve experienced in my life um this is getting pretty cheesy but I just really appreciate it and I’m sure we’ll talk again yeah no and I was gonna end by saying that I appreciate you uh and everything that you know you’ve done for the community over the years uh you know I still see to this day people recommending green mind and thinking that you’re still there I I can’t I can’t I can’t like take I don’t want to like destroy them by like no he’s not actually there anymore you know I want them to just believe that you’re there in spirit no you can tell them to start hunting for a best the best price at this point because green M just like everybody else know y um but but anyways seriously uh I want to thank you for what you’ve done uh for the community and what you’re doing now for the the community I look forward to hearing how everything goes and um yeah I just wish you the best of luck uh Dr Lee thank you for always taking the time to speak with me and I don’t you know if people haven’t checked out other episodes one things one of the things I do appreciate about you you kind of Knocked yourself forward earlier but it is your honest evidence-based approach you know one of the questions you’ve always had with me and I’m surprised you didn’t yell at me about it I was kind of hiding it I was like didn’t want you to see that I was vaping because you’re like you’re honest as a doctor like I still than you I’m not gonna stand here and lie it’s not like do not but I know that it’s wrong and when I do it in front of you I feel bad because I’m like he’s he’s told me you know it’s not healthy so no no no you gotta you gotta live your life and there’s a there’s I me that out of respect though I I you know one of the things that I respect about people like you is that you you do say it the way that it is you know and you produce the evidence and you’re still honest about the fact that you do it like that’s that’s fine you know but you’re you’re honest about the risks that you’re engaging in and that’s important you know what I mean so I I respect that about you and uh it goes a long way especially you know to wrap back around to the conversation I was referencing earlier with people that are critical like that deflates their [ __ ] steam whenever I acknowledge that I’m like yeah okay I’m not saying that cannabis use is entirely healthy but for you to say that it’s entirely wrong is also not true it’s somewhere in the middle and you know respectful responsible use has to occur you know you can abuse anything so yeah so so again I know I got off on a little tangent there but yeah being honest takes the steam out of any critic and allows us to just keep moving forward you know makes you feel better about what you’re doing with your own stuff um and I totally agree with that and you’re you’re one of my very favorite people that I’ve never met in person yeah we’ll have to make that happen I’ll have to come over to Oregon and maybe uh maybe go through an experience so sure well I’d be very happy if you did sweet well folks I hope you found as much value in this conversation as I did Dr Lee I’m looking forward to the next time I talk to you on the co memo likewise take care everybody