In this episode, I sit back down with Jordan Davidson from Smart Approaches to Marijuana(SAM). Jordan and SAM do not believe that cannabis should be legal.
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Links mentioned during show
- First episode featuring Jordan Davidson – Watch for free here
- Second episode featuring Jordan Davidson – Watch for free here
- Third episode featuring Jordan Davidson and Justin Strekal – Watch for free here
- Fourth episode featuring Jordan Davidson – Watch for free here
- The Drug Report click here to learn more
The auto-generated transcript is available below.
hello and welcome in this episode I will be speaking with somebody who does not believe that cannabis should be legal this is not the first time I’ve spoke with them so I just wanted to share a short message at the beginning of this episode I encourage you to check out our previous conversations because there are times throughout this episode where we say oh but we’ve discussed this at length before and and if you haven’t seen those episodes you might just think gosh we’re breezing over some really important subject matter I want to reiterate please check out the former conversations I’ve had with my friend Jordan I believe this will be the fifth conversation I’ve had three on the chinois podcast and one here on the cole memo this will be my second on the coal memo I’ve hosted a debate with Jordan I will have links to everything that I’m referring to in the show notes for this episode so please if you want the full context uh for these conversations I would encourage you you to watch all of these conversations um before watching this conversation enjoy the [Music] episode hello and welcome folks this is the Cole memo every episode is released in audio video and transcript format 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 can 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 are unable to uh locate the episode description on whichever platform you’re listening from I get it every platform’s different simply note the episode number and visit the memo.com I just rolled out a new search functionality so you can take not note of that episode number search it in our search bar and from there you can find the corresponding episode and then you’ll be able to access the audio video and transcript version of that episode you 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or post a review I said it twice so you can tell reviews are important your engagement and support is appreciated today is March 1st 2024 I’m sitting back down with my friend Jordan Davidson Jordan say hi uh for our listening audience hey everyone uh it’s great to be back here with you Cole excited for the conversation today yeah last time I saw Jordan in case you guys missed it uh was in Washington DC our nation’s capital here’s a picture of us having a great time together and um I guess just to kick off our conversation Jordan I want to give you the floor I know that you know you’re with learnabout Sam and you can go to learnabout sam.org to learn more um but I’ve also saw that recently you uh are VP of another organization maybe or something so I wanted to give you the floor to not only remind us who you are but maybe even give us an update on what you’re doing nowadays yeah sure um well first of all I’m actually one room away from where I we we hung out and filmed in the in the Wei were um but yeah so doing everything with Sam and everything with the foundation for drug policy Solutions which is another one of our kind of organizations doing just drug policy generally not just marijuana um but there is a political action committee called protect our kids pack that I’m now helping to run and it’s really exciting kind of relatively new vent and it’s uh you know we’re going to be doing some some good work and kind of supporting uh candidates both Democrats and Republicans especially at the federal level um who are you know in our view uh good on drug policy uh might have some what that means might mean a different thing uh to you than to me but um that’s going to be our kind of you know General goal yeah through of a different realm yeah and I know I say it every time we get together but Jordan I appreciate your willingness to so and we also launched our own podcast yeah TDR podcast right the drug report podcast it’s about damn time you have you seen you know what this your F your your listeners might actually be interested in this anyway because it’s not really uh it’s it’s pretty good so the drug report is something that we put out now which is a like you can sign up for it you can just look it up it’s um basically like all for all drug policy just is like shows just like tons and tons of the all the latest articles out there so like all the latest stories for kind of just drug policy at large not just marijuana not just the fital not just psychedelics kind of everything um and so it’s kind of like just a resource hub for people to say oh I didn’t see that story came out or you know and you know even your listeners even if they disagree with you know a little bit or half or everything that I say um you know they might be interested in seeing kind of what’s going on just in drug policy stories they haven’t heard of so I’m pretty sure the website is I mean that’s the podcast you have right there but the website’s got to be uh like the drug report.com or something yeah the drugreporter drugreporter asking you when you we when you would start a podcast last time we were chatting I think yeah yeah so you know we just decided to do it it’s not like it’s not like a big you know it’s you don’t you don’t have to have a super crazy major operation these days to do a little podcast it’s only gonna be you know maybe five to 10 minutes maybe 15 you know it’s not super long so yeah um just little something that we’re doing probably yeah you probably brought it up in a meeting you’re like dude this this freaking Stoner came to DC and just set up his mic in like minutes we could do this we could do this guys so I actually haven’t been the one pushing for the podcast my boss has been pushing long time I I don’t I was kind of I know it’s not like I’m against the podcast but I us never thought about it that much but yeah I was just making the joke that to your point to your point it’s something I always say like folks it’s not it’s doesn’t take much I bought this little mic from Guitar Center you know you buy a little thing to hook into your computer and and Off to the Races you can host yeah so well dude I I you know every time we sit down and talk I never know where to start but I thought maybe we could start with uh well we’ve got a lot of different things we could talk about today you know rescheduling and all of that stuff uh some news has came out since the last time we spoke um but one thing I wanted to start off with that I just um feel like uh I don’t know I I brought it up last time and I never really thought about it clearly so I wanted to bring up the idea again of it seems like um in a weird way what I’m pushing for often times which is like the complete decriminalization of cannabis and sometimes I’ll even go to further drugs which I know I would probably never get you to agree to not going to try to today but at least with cannabis I pretty well argue that like we should completely decriminalize The Possession cultivation and uh use not in cars you can’t drive high not saying that but like you should be able to smoke it where you smoke a cigarette that’s that’s what I believe and I guess the question I asked you last time was in a weird way it seems like Sam is like on the same page obviously not but it seems like Sam is on the same page as uh licensed cultivators and that they only and by licensed cultivators I mean um people that are legally in the Cannabis business right legal cannabis businesses it seems like Sam in legal cannabis businesses both agree that like it should be maybe decriminalized for personal use but that’s it and and it was just interesting last time we chat last time we chatted I feel like you were saying that complete decriminalization would lead to like this you know Panacea of you know bad things abuses with cannabis companies and my thing about that is it seems like the cannabis companies don’t agree with me so it’s like they see is is the point that you’re trying to make that there are some marijuana companies who are msos and who who think that right now they’re kind of reaching their Peak because with Federal legalization you know it opens it up a little bit more and you know they’re worried that they’ll have a harder time controlling their Monopoly yes you you got right to the point yeah right so so I mean I mean I I I just I think like if I mean I guess the answer to question to that would be like kind of yes kind of no I don’t I don’t think we’re on the same page because because even if like they I’ll be articulate about our position I think is one that’s based in principle right our position is the same position for the federal government as is for the state government as would be for a local government right like we think there needs to be an easing up in terms of Criminal Justice restrictions that have been criminal restrictions that have been put in place and some criminal sanctions for some activity like possession or use in certain circumstances right and there’s a lot of nuance and we’ve gone very deep in that a bunch of times yeah I think the position of the marijuana companies is different in a couple ways one I don’t think it’s as principled what they’re saying is we don’t want just decriminalization we want complete legalization in the states that we operate in so that we can sell it right we don’t want legalization in the States but what they also say is well we we don’t want legalization at the federal level not all of them but maybe some of them because they think it would threaten their like oligopoly or Monopoly or whatever right um in within the industry and that’s just about the bottom line and that’s kind of like what our critique of the marijuana industry is anyway right we think they’re about their the you know the bottom line and resulting in addiction for profit and by the way you know this might be a little bit off course from your question but I think it’s worth saying because it’s something that I don’t think I’ve articulated well enough before on your show and I actually was at an event my my boss Luke was in DC today and so we did some things together and he talks about this all the time like he talks about kind of the operators in the marijuana industry and he makes very clear to say I don’t think all maybe I don’t think you know all Maybe not even like most of the operators in this space are these like evil people conniving to send our country into a spiral of addiction that’s not what I think either and I’d like to make that very clear I think there are some very bad actors in the space but definitely not all maybe not most the issue that we have when we say addiction for profit it’s not necessarily all evil corporate boardrooms who want addiction it’s just the my because my boss did some some startup um years ago that he ended up selling in the health space and so he kind of learned a lot about business probably knows more than I do and and his whole thing is that you have a legal responsibility to your shareholders right when you run a for-profit business when you run a corporation and he he he says that you know um there were investors in his business that came to him and said I expect a 10x return and so they head fun FS that are specifically designed around cannabis now and those guys are are expecting a certain return on their product so let’s say you’re trying to be a good guy and you’re in the marijuana space right and you’re getting all this investment to to grow your business um you might have the best of intentions but you’re expected to return for your share shareholder your dut your legal Duty isn’t to the public and so um the point is when we when when when they know whether they think of it concretely or not the statistics that in the alcohol industry this is statistics right this is real I have the data for this 75% of sales are made up from 10% of customers 22% of sales for marijuana in Colorado are made up or sorry 22% of the customers make up 67% of the sales that’s like what we talk about that’s what I mean when I say addiction for profit sorry 22% of customers in the marijuana Market are you know making up 67% of the purchases yeah right of the profit so so like that is a population that’s very likely depend dependent on marijuana or addicted just like with alcohol alcoholics right it depends on that you might not go into it thinking oh I’m G to get more people Hooked On A substance I doubt many people do but that is what you basically have to go toward in order to meet the demands of your shareholders and so so that’s like I just want to kind of explain that more in detail what I mean it’s like that the trappings of the capitalist system that we live in right and great you know free enterprise is great in many ways but I think for Addictive substances it’s it it isn’t great so so I just want to lay that out more thoughtfully maybe because I think people try and on the other side of the issue I think there’s a lot of demonization that goes on in this space and I think people who are against Sam and like really really hate Kevin inet my boss and hate luk Nado my other boss and hate me and everything we do I think a lot of that hatred you know we could go into the kind of like the psyche of that but I think a lot of that has to do with like a perception that we think these people are like all the people who listen to you or support legalization are evil or in the industry are just like purely evil demonic like terrible people and that’s not actually what we think we think there are very bad actors in the space and some of them probably dominating the space but there’s more Nuance to it so want to like kind of clear that up and and maybe also humanize my perspective a little bit on this issue yeah yeah no I appreciate that and I guess you really did touch on it and it seems like you understand where I’m coming from but I I just feel like the one part that I don’t that we’re not on the same page about is they say that so you’re saying that this could lead to like complete legalization could lead to um addiction for profit but as you also acknowledge they view complete legalization as something that might challenge their Monopoly in other words no what I’m saying is complete first of all I don’t think everyone in this space thinks that I I doubt I doubt even a majority think that it will um necessarily challenge that and um they’re making sure that I think a lot of these Corp corate entities are making sure that that won’t happen for example you have the prepare act which is a bill introduced by John hick and Looper senator from Colorado which is written by the alcohol industry right it’s written by probably like groups like cir which which is the pro which is a big tobacco big alcohol kind of marijuana lobbying firm right like those are the groups that are writing a bill which prepares for federal legalization kind of like lays out a plan for regulation and all it says is essentially we’re going to regulate it like alcohol right going to instantly to the corporate model that we know best so I mean I don’t think everyone’s probably as nervous um but even if they are it’s like that just like proves the point like they care so much about their bottom line that they don’t even care about the supposed Justice that legalization would bring like they just care so much only care about the money right if you’re really against Federal legalization and pro State legalization because you’re worried that you won’t up Monopoly you do not care about the social justice and we’re seeing and I’m sure you know this because I put you in the camp of like I’d say the good camp I think there are two camps it’s like bifurcated there’s one people like you who really believe in the criminal justice like to their core and like maybe more have the the roots in the more the hippie style movement right like Peace Love Justice um doing what’s right and you and I might disagree on what Justice should looks like um but still you are a firm believer in that and there are even like other folks who I like put in that camp like you know in all all name drop like like you know I you know I haven’t interacted with all these people as directly and I don’t know you know I think shellene tidle probably Falls really much in that camp you know Tom angel I think marijuana moment probably really does fall in that camp as well and and you know probably hates the like you know I’m just guessing I can’t speak for him but probably maybe not hat I don’t know but skeptical of just like how big business is taking over just like how beenin that I see in some of his work people like that and then you have the people like green thumb Industries and uh you know all the the the SE pairs of the world and like Andrew fredman runs SE pair you know those kind of people like they’re different the suits the corporations right the guys who just care about the bottom line so I think those are two different camps and one Camp I have a lot more respect for than the other uh and the other Camp just cares about the money I think and the and you know the former one you’re in probably really cares about the policy and kind of Criminal Justice stuff we might disagree at the end of the day but at least it’s it’s a matter of intention I think yeah yeah I think that yeah you hit it on the head I for a second there I thought we weren’t still but that last bit that you said I was like okay we are on the same page like when yeah um yeah right yeah right it’s just interesting like that yeah that they say these companies position themselves to support social justice efforts and they don’t they don’t really because it’s like half measure to keep their profitability like you say they report to their shareholders they don’t report to somebody like me per se or or the public like hey yeah you know and actually I’ve even had people because I kind of go and I put I kind of litmus test some of these bigger operators I say like if you’re going to claim to be you know for this movement movement and everything you should support you know what I believe to be meaningful reform and not what I call these like half measures where you can only possess or purchase a certain amount because if if somebody can purchase more then they we might not get them to keep coming back to the store all the time like this is actual logic I’ve heard uh applied you know like yeah so um anyways that that point was hard like it’s hard to verbalize but it it’s I do feel that it’s like an interesting you know when we say smart approaches to marijuana I I I think it is notable to say that it seems like at least what I’m proposing seems to challenge what these companies stand for which is profitability like they they view the complete decrim ization is like and you’re right actually I should say not all companies but it seems like the big predatory ones you know the big ones that are just yeah so I mean I know people I won’t you know I won’t like uh like I mean it’s public it was on your show right so like when I talk to Justin stle who you know I’ve talked to since and I know he’s not really in the space anymore um and wish him on and his family all the best um but like you know I’ve had a good rapport with him and you know he he’s like I’m with you Jordan like ban advertising and I think that would make all those that would scare you know Del living crap out of people who run these big firms and are part of the kind of MSO gang type whatever you want to call them yeah no straight up so well that was the first thing I wanted to discuss with you I I wrote down complete drim is against the pro profit mode of of these big companies um it’s just again it’s a thought that I had last time and I felt like I didn’t I didn’t vocalize it well enough when we spoke last time so um so uh you want to talk about deschedule reschedule it seems like it’s going to be reschedule but uh let’s talk about it so last time we spoke we were kind of speculating and you know I believe that at the time President Biden had given the directive to HHS and that maybe something was occurring but at the time the actual recommendation from HHS had not been released so since since we last spoke I believe that the HHS recommendation had been revealed via Foya and that it is hhs’s recommendation is to reschedule to schedule three yeah do you still stand where you did last time which we were I know I’m sure the DEA still doesn’t uh agree with it as you said last time so I doubt that changed but now that it is public that the recommendation is schedule 3 do you still feel as like confident that they’re not going to do that to schedule three so this is how I’ll frame it um and I don’t want to be in like a crazy predictions gang game and you know I don’t want people listening to this to be like tweeting like oh like the Sam prediction is this or that like this is yeah disclosure we’re both just talking this is personal just this like I’m just you know if I’m like wrong about this like don’t you know sure I think I think um how should I word this I actually was thinking this and I came up with a good way to word it now I forget going to word it on your show um I can play that one I think schedule I think I think schedules three is them accepting the recommendation putting a schedule three is certainly very possible I think them putting it in schedule two in a weird way might even be the most most likely situation and I think putting keeping it schedule one is certainly not out of the realm of possibility but I but I but I kind of doubt they will um but but but I don’t you know I don’t give it like even less than 10% I I give it more of a chance than that that they’ keep it schedule one um you know but but I don’t think it’s like the leading candidate for what will happen that’s kind of what my opinion is I think I think them putting in schedule 2 is basically like the sleeper p pick in terms of for what will happen that no one really thinks about but I think it will um might even have the highest likelihood but it look they could do anything like they’re not gonna deschedule it that’s for sure but um yeah damn it so yeah so damn it to you but yeah so but you know like that’s that’s that’s basically my what what’s your opinion I I feel like they’re just goingon to reschedule it to schedule three yeah and as I told you last time like the co memo like it’s these State markets are going to go forward um big Pharma is going to have access you know to be able to research or do whatever the hell else they want to do um but I don’t view it as changing much of anything maybe these like big companies they won’t have to pay 280 anymore maybe but I’ve even heard it’s all speculation right now again let’s reiterate that for the third time but I’ve read that that maybe the 280e would only apply if you actually had that schedule 3 DEA license and so if you have a state license you’re still 28 buddy because you’re not you know you’re not within that framework if you will um so yeah I I really don’t know what to I’m right there with you and that like I just don’t know two just I I think I think for them I think schedule two just avoids so many headaches and Biden will can still for the pro marijuana constituency frame it as progress yeah like like schedule three will give the administration and the DEA so many headaches I and I think to your first point it’s gonna get to people that don’t pay attention as much as you and I do and they’re going to be like oh the federal government recognized can as a medicine and they’re just I doubt Biden really like I mean I just like with his historic stances like maybe maybe he’s moved and really doesn’t want it out of schedule one maybe his advisor has just told him that he has to say that like like I don’t think deep down he’s gung-ho about this right like just his history on drug policy would say otherwise right like I think everyone who listens to this program probably knows that um know you know so I’ve got a quote from him back in the day that I WR read on one of our first shows together he he could he said that today’s marijuana is like comparing a laser gun to a buckshot um yeah right I think he said that back in the Senate so so he was saying kind of what you said back in the day you know yeah you know and and like look I know you I’m not I’m not gonna names but like I I know for I know former Biden people like in terms of from the Senate date and like like like he doesn’t like he doesn’t like this he doesn’t like it he doesn’t like the stuff you know you’re saying that Biden doesn’t smoke weed I’m just joking well no he doesn’t like it no I’m not saying it like that saying he doesn’t you know he’s never been a legalization guy so and I think we all that’s I was trying to make a joke to that he doesn’t is the I’m not I’m not breaking any news here by saying right but yeah so I mean I just think I just think with and you know we can get into however deeply want to get into it but schedule three presents a lot of real problems I think for the administration um and potential roll out and potential challenges that you know they would have to overcome in order to make that really happen um I think they I think there were already challenges and issues with just because of how the HHS recommendation ended up going yeah well I uh let’s watch this clip and then we can get back to reschedule I actually want to ask you because I’ve heard from a cannabis industry lawyer that yeah Des schedules out of the question I want to ask you why you say that but let’s watch this clip that um I know that we both uh caught interest in uh it’s from a gr seminar because there has been a lot of research in the you know last five to 10 years um but there’s no mention of the five-part test it just disappears it doesn’t exist anymore um now there’s a two-part part test and the two-part test in the same way the five-part test was written in a way that you couldn’t pass cannabis could not fail the two-part test it was like is it being medically used under the supervision of healthc Care Professionals yes is there some credible evidence that maybe it helps in a medical way yes so it’s really interesting and this happens in law a lot and in politics a lot the way they set up the question made the answer inevitable right and the way they set up the question I think was politically motivated you know this time it broke our way so it’s great um but it did you know we can talk about this later it will open things up to CH what do you think about that uh hit the nail on the head hit the nail in the head yeah uh totally uh totally right um you know for your again I’m sure your listeners and viewers know more about this stuff than you know comparatively than probably most people in the world um but a brief overview and you know we haven’t Sam has an analysis on it you encourage any everyone to read it um basically the HHS review was totally bogus um as people on our team say actually like it’s it’s basically know in a weird way like the death of medicine I think it’s a little bit extreme obviously but but but really what what that and is IT Joanna was that her name I for yeah what Joanna was saying is totally right that the the review basically says okay are there practitioners who are prescribing slash reccommending marijuana and they’re only allowed to do that in certain States because of ballot initiatives and state legislatures that have legalized medical marijuana um and so basically FDA is saying well because there are people who use medical marijuana then it must be medicine it’s like a total logical fallacy but like that’s the death of if that’s what we’re defining as medicine then what’s medicine right that like what is the standard for that right there should be some level of efficacy the five Factor test that she was mentioning you know there’s a little bit more depth to that so for the past 30 years the FDA has used a five Factor test um in terms of for criteria for current accepted medical use U reviews in drug scheduling recommendations now this test isn’t just some random thing that was drawn up and some random bureaucrat said no that makes sense um it was actually something that was uh created in in the 90s a federal court actually overviewed it and they even said that the test was um you know effective it was the United State Court of appeals in the District of Columbia um and they examined and validated it funny enough the case in which this is mentioned was Alliance for cannabis Therapeutics vers Drug Enforcement Administration and in the Court’s opinion it it explains that the the marijuana industry practitioners had conceited that the five Factor test had no flaws that is very very important so the mar the pro-legalization movement in the 1990s in federal court was saying that this test was good Flawless federal court said that too now and and so it was used it was used for Republican Democratic administrations now because because marijuana has certain aspects to it to it that make it very hard to pass the test aspects which by the way are very important medicine like one of the aspects with which the marijuana people have an issue with is under the five Factor test it needs to be like reproducible the drug needs to be it’s like of course it should need to be reproducible they’re like well marijuana can’t exactly it’s very hard to do that I’m like okay well big whoop then it shouldn’t be medicine do you really want to go to a doctor who prescribes you a dose of medicine and then someone else the same exact dose of medicine for the same exact issue and you can’t rely you can’t trust that the the pills you’re getting in that bottle or whatever you’re getting is is is effectively reproduced it’s the same stuff of course you should know that like it’s ridiculous to your point that does that does happen so first of all against your point that does happen sometime with medicine but to your point so I can explain that if you’d like I can expand upon to your point um like to your point first is is like cannabis I’m going to hold up a cannabis joint right now this is not a hetero this is not a homogeneous mixture like a Tylenol pill this is leaves that I rolled up myself it’s a heterozygous mixture right and as a result as you say it’s not replicable this joint there’s no other joint like it I just rolled it myself but I say that as a joke but I say that really because there’s no way as far as I’m concerned that you can standard standardize it in fact many states have an allowable potency threshold you can be above 10% or you can be below 10% and like you say think let’s not even I mean we can use medicine because that’s a powerful example but Marinol is approved right like I’m not saying that it’s not possible to have cannabis derived drugs like Marinol epid right the cannabis plant like like literally the plant and everything that comes with it that’s the difference Bingo and that that is the difference I mean yeah as the plant it again it’s just it’s a hetero it’s a het heterozygous mixture versus what you just described like Marinol which is a homogeneous mixture which like they through and through it is the S like you know I don’t know I don’t think you drink it’s like which is pure THC so THC drug right but to so I guess what I’m saying is nobody can grow anything to your point consistent enough to where it would ever be the same experience for one individual because back to my point that I said that was against your point for example you know I’ve been prescribed ADHD medication in the past and they haven’t given me enough and they thought they’re like well based on your weight you know that should be enough and it just wasn’t doing it and all of a sudden they gave me the right dose and Bam so it’s not so much against your point but I just wanted to say that yeah medicine is not as cut and dry as oh hey Jordan and Cole are the same weight let’s give them the same dose like we’ve got different metabolisms we you know but I know it’s a kind of a we point yeah yeah no no it’s a good point yeah I I wanted to say too this was in our analysis and it’s a great it’s a great quote like no one has hyped up really that much in the r case which is a famous case about you know that involves some marijuana stuff um during the oral arguments uh famous Supreme Court Justice Stephen Brier said Medicine by regulation is better than medicine by referendum I think that’s a fantastic quote um and you know the kind of reason that we included that here is um and Justice Byer joined the decision in that case which prohibited medical marijuana or marijuana from medicinal use under the CSA control Substances Act you know I think that’s a great quote because this FDA review kind of seeps into that kind of like using you know the the referendums that of legalized this as part of almost the evidence for its medicinal valume um there you know there like it would take us hours to get through why uh this review was so bad um you know a few highlights that just that I’ve told talked to you about and maybe texted you about that are kind of shocking to me um part of the new kind of two-part test I’m trying to find right here it says um I just want to actually while you’re looking for that I don’t mean to to throw you another question but can you just yeah try to like how are they able to just drop the fivepoint test and just do a two-point or do you really know no so so I mean I well I don’t know they just could probably do they they didn’t explain so yeah so so basically what they said um was that so the old five-part test part of the third point was there must be adequate and well-controlled studies um you know to proove kind of like efficacy yeah yeah uh you know you need like controlled trials and things like that um for the two Factor test I will read directly quoting what it says first Factor factors consist considered in favor of finding sorry factors considered in favor of a positive finding for you know medical value of marijuana included whether one favorable clinical studies of the medical use of marijuana although not necessarily adequate and well-controlled clinical studies that would support approval of a new drug application have been published in peer rreview journals and or you know another than another point so what they’re saying is that as long as a study says favorable things about medical marijuana it doesn’t have to be well Well Control a well-controlled clinical study that you know would actually lead to supporting the approval of a new drug an NDA new drug application and an NDA is not a non-disclosure agreement the new drug application like that is what ends up if it’s approved leads to a drug I think like like Marinol right like an actual drug being approved by the FDA so the FDA is literally saying like let’s just accept medical marijuana um but let’s admit through the process that our acceptance doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s even a shot that there will ever be another kind of like a marijuana drug because they probably don’t think there could ever be so so like that’s ridiculous that that’s the standard it’s such a loose standard um you know you know that’s just another thing and then and then the the actually even more significant than that um which no one I don’t think really looked at I did a very deep dive on this to get this information they only used three studies uh to basically justify their position that marijuana is is medicine um so the strongest evidence um for example for pain pain was one of the things that they said it was effective for that the FDA cited was from nasm the National Academy of Science and Medicine their report from 2017 I just froze here I’ll just yeah I was gonna say yeah yeah so their report from 2017 concluded that there was substantial evidence that marijuana helps with pain right that’s basically the strongest point they have I don’t know if the people at the FDA actually went back in the nasm report and looked at the primary sources and read the primary sources but I’m guessing they didn’t because what they’ll see is the strongest study that helps kind of nasm toer make that determination was a study from 2015 called Whiting at all um that was like the authors of the study White at all and the in the result section of that paper the authors wrote quote most trials showed Improvement in symptoms associated with cannabinoids but these associations did not reach statistical significance in all trials so like like they admitted that their their their actual odds ratio like from a statistics lens uhuh was statistically insignificant interesting and so of evidence in this whole thing relies on a study that says by the way our results are not statistically significant the other study they FDA admits that the negative side effects from marijuana were more harmful than any potential benefits and the third study that they referenced said that uh the results were quote inconclusive FDA even admits that and then they say well these three studies prove that marijuana is medicine this is what HHS used to make the recommendation okay yeah and it’s like they they they they could have scoured the in any study they could have used any study and the three best ones they could pick one is statistically insignificant the other is inconclusive and the other FDA admits has more downsides than upsides like really huh that’s like half of your justification so people if people want to look into this it’s the recommendation and it’ll be the three studies that they site or whatever yeah gotcha yeah thank that’s what they’ll find thank you find me I I would love to get proven wrong because this has completely disillusioned me this process love no that’s why I yeah that’s why I ask so that people can look into it someone come prove me wrong um yeah you know they also handpicked selector drugs comparator drug sorry hand selected comparator drugs so like what they did was they said okay what we’re going to do is we’re going to compare marijuana to certain schedule one drugs and certain schedule Two drugs and certain schedule three drugs and kind of see in terms of its abuse potential and a bunch of negative aspects how it Stacks up to see which bucket it should basically fall under is it closer to the schedule one drugs or closer to schedule two or three okay yet they just handpicked what those drugs were so they picked the drugs that almost like seem the worst so like they picked heroin in schedule one they didn’t put any hallucinogen even though lsds in schedule one and some other hallucinogens are in those top three schedules like psilocybin LSD peyot mcine MDMA DMT they’re all scheduled one substances um you know those weren’t selected instead of comparing it like if if the FDA is really going to do this groundbreaking review shouldn’t you compare it to all schedule one drugs like why just handpick a couple of the random drugs that everyone universally agrees are kind of the worst yeah you know it’s like and weed’s not like meth and heroin yeah like it’s like it’s like it’s like really um the FDA didn’t talk talk about any impacts on pregnant women and children none like literally they didn’t mention it at all um they had a bunch of other kind of misleading statistics I think one of the most severe cases in this report and I’ll find it of misleading statistics um was regarding uh kind of the hospitalizations um emergency or like emergency department visits um [Music] the the report basically said that marijuana uh has like the lowest value in terms of drugs they looked at terms of like number of hospitalizations um that’s true like Federal data shows that that’s absolutely just like not accurate actually it was like probably one of the most misleading things in in the report so anyway I’ve gone on for a while about this but the point is it’s like it’s just it’s kind of like in my opinion bit like junk science like there’s no way around it yeah absolutely yeah um this is going to be an interesting question uh so is this the template this is how we reschedule drugs because we’re we’re talking about uh in Oregon right they’ve they’ve allowed it for medical and I guess adult use I just interviewed a doctor that does that um I you saw what happened yesterday in Oregon right no one of the biggest developments of drug policy history I guess I missed it what happened in a landslide vote the the state house there um voted to rec criminalize drugs roll back measure 110 the house did right so it still needs to go by the Senate yeah but it’s it’s it’s like it’s like yeah I think it’s gonna it’s gonna get signed law it’s gonna happen yeah it’s gonna happen I mean I can’t can’t like I’m pretty certain it’s gonna happen yeah that’s they know if they don’t do it in the legislature and have an approach that’s more democratic um like the party like come more a little bit more liberal um that there’s gonna be B measure that’s going to be much more conservative so that that’s why they’re doing it um but it’s it’s being done interesting well anyways these yeah sorry no it’s okay I I appreciate you uh because I did miss that and um I appreciate you throwing it out there uh but to to back to your point that I think this is almost like the maybe your fear maybe this is why you bring this up and you’re even talking about it at length look in Oregon right now they can use it medically or just for adult use whatever purpose in in Illinois uh there’s currently a bill at the house in the Senate level it’s called The Cure act it would do basically the same thing I think I saw in Arizona they just passed something through the house so there’s are you saying are you saying drug decriminalization just broader no no I’m talking sorry I’m talking about psilocybin in general I apologize thank you for okay yeah thank you for helping me to because that is the scope I’m talking about not so much you’re not you’re not legalizing you’re not just legalizing soloc and you’re legalizing Healing Centers correct that’s right so important you use the right language Healing Centers well anyways do you see my where I’m leading to though because if if this two-part test says well hey we just got to look if states are doing this then we can reschedule right could they could they hypothetically do the same thing with mushrooms this this sets a very bad precedent in my opinion that this sets a very very bad precedent yeah that’s basically what the deal is um since you since you brought up actually sosyan in particular um I’m trying to find this right now I didn’t even think um sosin and use um there was a study that was just released um that I’ll send to you u i I can’t find the the graph for some reason um but in in Colorado you know how they legalize like cocy and The Healing Centers or whatever um oh yeah Colorado’s another one thank you yeah yeah yeah Colorado um so the the youth use has just been like absolutely outrageous like outrageous increases in youth use it’s crazy a study just came out it like actually skyrocketed so hard I what I always wonder about that is whether or not cuz if I was a kid and you asked me if I used mushrooms before it was legal I’d tell you no but when it was legal I’d tell you yes and know it may not be as simple as that but I do wonder that all the time about the youth use like our kids just more comfortable CU like I was comfortable saying I you know we got surveyed sometimes and they’d be like do you have you ever drank alcohol I promise you won’t get in trouble this is just for data and I’d be like yeah I’ve drank alcohol like I’d be honest about it because I didn’t think it was an issue but when they asked if I smoked weed I was like no I’ve never smoked weed before you know yeah but but but that’s a great point that you bring up because the point you just made basically one of my points for me that these policies really impact the normalization of the product right that the cultural normalization you’re saying that as a kid you like you realize that once something becomes legal becomes much more normalized and the use of it becomes much more accepted right so like you’re comfortable saying that because you don’t think you’re going to get judged and like there’s two sides to that right like there’s one side where you could say well if someone has an addiction not so much judge but the Criminal part too the Criminal part right of course yeah you know but like if you have an addiction maybe that’s good that like you’re more comfortable talking about it or being open about it in that kind of an environment like that could be one thing that you think of but on the other hand then you lead to kind of like a more just mass normalization and that leads to lower P you know youth risk perception of use and all all sorts of uh you know negative consequences in my opinion uh but anyways you were making the point though and I cut you off you’re making the point I can’t find the graph now but it just like you increases in s i is basically what I’m trying to say hey you want to hear something interesting I think you might find this interesting I’m interviewing a high schooler later today and I’m talking to them about how easy it is for them to get drugs might just be making a piece of propaganda for Sam uh good stuff man no this kid I know him and he he can acquire drugs so I’m just curious like how are you as a kid a 17-year-old able to just acquire alcohol cannabis you name it and it’ll be interesting uh that’s actually very interesting yeah hard to hard to arrange that but it’s the perks of having siblings yeah legal that’s the thing I that’s you know I can speak to them unfortunately you know uh I’m making a joke here I would never consume in front of a kid I was like unfortunately I can’t smoke in front of that’s actually technically illegal in Illinois did you know that you cannot smoke in front of uh even if it’s in your own house I I didn’t know that that was illegal no yeah so it’s know yeah yeah um but uh well we pretty well covered reschedule deschedule I wanted to talk about cannabis addiction it’s a real thing um that that even I’ve admitted I struggle with but before I talked about that I just wanted to like run some small details by you there was an interesting development recently in Illinois where a medical patient who as far as I was concerned I don’t mean to get into the the Nuance of the story and everything but I was under the impression that that medical patients in the state of Illinois after speak speaking to Legal professionals that they do not have a possession limit this individual was charged with possessing a little bit over a 100 grams of cannabis uh it was his personal stash and um I’m displaying the story that I wrote right now uh for folks that want to check it out I didn’t read the whole thing but I saw the story that you wrote on that yeah and what’s interesting about this story is that so he gets charged with possession uh Crim uh it was a criminal charge at the time I believe his uh he pled guilty to it and his lawyer was able to expunge it um what was interesting was that it it went the way that Sam recom or or at least we’ve described now correct me if I’m wrong here I’m going to tell you what happened so he got in legal trouble for possessing too much cannabis um he had to go to court he had to do a few different things pay some fees and he was required to go to a drug evaluation okay which which I thought was interesting because those are your uh those are the recommendations that you’ve given in the past for like an Ideal World I’m not setting you up for AA here I’m just saying that it’s interesting that that is like that is going on in the state of Illinois a state that is quote unquote legal people we already kind of talked about this at the beginning you know the possession limits and why they exist but it’s interesting that I didn’t know that it was more so the last part that I brought this up he was recommended to do the drug evaluation I always thought that that was just some idea you had uh to like try to get somebody else involved in the equation I didn’t realize it was something that’s actually currently practiced in the state of Illinois I thought this was like a proposal you had like oh this would be a good idea we need to have this A drug evaluation if somebody’s charged with possession yeah I mean I think like yeah I mean that that is one of our ideas right like that’s something that we we definitely support um great that that’s happening in the state of Illinois but it’s still that is legalized and commercialized marijuana so it’s like you know our our whole thing is like you need to be you know proactive in different ways like you need to have proactive um measures uh to kind of have prevention you need to have good reactive measures kind of like that but like you we don’t want to have policies that are just going to make the situation worse like it always it pisses me off honestly it kind of offends me especially someone in recovery um when officials say well let’s legalize marijuana and then you know we’ll fund more addiction treatment it’s like really so you’re just saying like we’re gonna do something that’s going to make the addiction crisis worse but we’ll make up for it by having more hospital beds for people who are addicted to drugs like really like that’s so effed up in a way uh so I don’t really you know so it’s great but it’s still legal marijuana so I don’t know yeah I get what you’re saying like your overall goal but in this case and I know that you we can talk about the fact that this is a unique case just like last time I think I talked to you about this when I asked you I you know I asked you I’m sitting in front of you what is the thing and you’re like Cole generally speaking I feel like I can trust you but this is the thing the broader populace they go buck wild this guy like was really it seems like he was really TR what he told me I want to be clear folks you know I’ve I don’t know he’s he’s going to come back on the show and share the raid footage of of what exactly so I can better see the full uh circumstances but from what he told me he was really trying to comply with the law I mean he had a lock on his grow room door to keep his kids out of the grow room um and that’s what’s interesting he they took his grow equipment but he wasn’t growing at the time I know we’re getting into a unique case but I guess what I the reason I’m even continuing to talk about this before we move on to the subject of cannabis addiction is because this guy just went through so much [ __ ] when really it seems like he did nothing wrong like DCFS came to his house like it’s not like he was smoking in front of his kid like it seems like he was really trying to do from what he tells me I’ll say that again it seems like he was really trying to do his due diligence to be in compliance with the law and you know I want to be more clear the the DCFS came thing came up because they said well you’ve got a lock on the door are you locking your daughter in the in the basement and he explained like no the the lock keeps people from coming in it doesn’t lock them it doesn’t lock them in when you’re in the room you can get out as much as you want it’s to prevent unauthorized individuals I guess what I’m saying is Jordan what happened sounded like kind of like the ideal situation that you were talking about where yeah he didn’t go to jail but he got got you know he went through the system and then he had to go to a drug EV Val and he said this was during the holiday season and it just [ __ ] up a lot of things for his family it you know traumatized his daughter cuz Daddy’s in legal trouble and it’s like he she doesn’t even really have a concept I would bet that he even uses cannabis because he doesn’t do it in front of her so it’s like this weird case where you frozen again or you oh no okay it was this weird CA I was just making sure uh weird case where it’s like it does seem like it was like a responsible adult um not doing anything wrong and if you’re asking why theop cops showed up that answer is unclear to me but I will say that he has a very very very popular YouTube channel which covers law enforcement interactions okay well that makes sense makes a little bit more sense right but it’s just again your the ideal situation played out and it just look look when you craft policy right when you make policy it has to be made for everyone in terms of just like you you can’t like you have to have something that’s just generally applicable and you can have as much Nuance as you know you can try and have a lot of nuance in your policies and make it so that’s it’s crafted well but like there might be situations in which one person might think well that that policy you know resulted in something a little extreme or a little unnecessary this or that I would just ask like is the system of getting an arrest like is the system of getting an arrest record for possessing marijuana like really great I don’t think any of your listeners would say yes I wouldn’t say yes there’s certain cases you know I think there’s some nuances you know sometimes repeat offenses certain amounts maybe but you know we’ve gotten into that before but like just generally for having a little weed on you no um so but how do you replace that with a system that is actually going to do something to safeguard Public Health promote Public Safety uh I think something like a referral is a lot better I think he probably would have preferred this to uh going to jail and getting arrested and getting a record and having that f for the rest of his life and you know maybe do some time or whatever that will be right so I think it’s a far better system and you know for guys like that who maybe he doesn’t have a problem right maybe he doesn’t like let’s say he doesn’t like okay like sucks for him I’m sorry it effed up his holiday but guess what for the people who are struggling uh that could save their life uh that could put them on a totally different trajectory uh and kind of their path and so that’s really important and when you craft public policy I think you have to look out for kind of like the most vulnerable populations uh and that’s who you know would benefit from that kind of a system so that’s kind of like what my theory the case is behind that doesn’t mean that every single person who goes in front of an eval needs it I’m not saying that that will 100% happen like there are probably going to be people who don’t need it who have to go there if that’s kind of the law and we can try and prevent that but like is it is it is isn’t that preferable kind doesn’t that balance different needs and different things like balance criminal justice and public health better than most other options I think so yeah we might disagree on that that might I don’t I am just trying to chew on it the I guess the part that I it is tough to me like you say I I get what you’re saying on the policy side you can’t always for lack of better words code for nuance right account for nuance yeah um I don’t know it just I know I feel like I know what you think about this but it’s the idea that people are like helpless and I know let me say what I think you think about this I think you’re acknowledging that some people get into a cycle and that they will never get out of it unless they’re forced forced to by some intervention or whatever else maybe I’m phrasing it roughly but am I right on maybe that’s why you feel yeah I mean I think the more I think I think the more nuanced way of looking at it is in my opin right and I might have even said this on the show like you know whenever you reach Rock Bottom in an in an addiction that’s kind of the end of your phase of denial right like you’ve run out run out of fuel for your own denial right like the bet the the foundation of addiction is denial um and so once you are able to confront that and kind of admit that you have an issue like when you talk you know some people are pro the 12-step programs and some people are anti but like regardless I mean I I think it’s great but regardless like there’s a reason that the first step is basically admitting your powerless to drugs and alcohol or whatever right like that’s why that’s the first step because programs like AA know that to go on a journey of recovery you have to get rid of that denial right that’s why that’s the first step so my whole thing is maybe it’s not necessary for everyone but you from my personal experience you start to have kind of doubts in your mind about your own use and the starts to fade when you are kind of forced to see that your life and your path is not really normal that things are happening to you that don’t really add up and they’re really not happening to other people and it’s really and they’re not happening to other people who use marijuana or use alcohol more in moderation or use other drugs whatever it is right like for example um like for me you know I had friends who would hold an intervention for me well guess what they weren’t holding intervention for their other friends who they knew smoked weed it was just for me right like my one of my friends called me and told me like seriously talk to me sitting down like it’s time to start talking about quitting smoking marijuana well she wasn’t saying that to other friends who smoked weed my girlfriend gave me an ultim ultimatum like it’s either me or this other people’s girlfriends weren’t doing that to them right and and so for me like I finally started after a while to get the message there are people out there who never get that message and they die in addiction there are people who are so deep and in such Peril to their themselves and others that they need some things to FasTrack that process and I think that the criminal justice system can possibly be a way for some to help FastTrack that because guess what really most people don’t serve a night in jail because of their substance use most people are not doing that it’s a people have a problem who are doing that right so the point is maybe they can sober up and look at themselves in the mirror and say oh [ __ ] like this is not normal man like what the hell is going on in my life like that can be a rock bottom so so that’s why like I think that’s kind of a necessary element for some um and I by the way totally 100,000% believe that if you spend any time in jail have a record for things related to like drug use you know as long as it’s not like violent things um that if you complete a program if you’re on the road to recovery and you kind of reenter like that that should be scrubbed like your record should be wiped your record should be expunged it should be sealed like you should not have things unless they’re violent acts that are like impeding you from kind of re-entering society like getting a job like supporting yourself supporting a family that’s I also strongly believe that so yeah yeah well thank you for getting into that and um you know um it’s an interesting conversation that I’m sure that we’ll continue to have one thing that I haven’t brought up with you and in these conversations I’m curious to hear about I’ve seen more of a movement recently I feel like this would make you happy to see uh people trying to be more responsible with their cannabis use I mean have you heard the term tolerance break before like a lot of people yeah yeah yeah yeah of course yeah so it’s interesting to me that a lot of people are doing this I even familiar with this community online I’m sharing it right now and I’m sharing this for people that might need help um this is called petals it’s a it’s a positive Community for those interested in responsible consumption of cannabis discussions include everything from tolerance breaks to personal feelings and Cravings it there’s 141,000 people there’s a you know people joining anybody else not excited to start a tolerance break here’s my progress I’m new here also a little scared on day two on day six you know there’s people um talking about cannabis induced psychosis uh there’s some good conversation here now I would say that there’s another subreddit called leaves I feel like they are more yeah I know leaves yeah I’m not a huge fan of them because they are just like abstinence only I feel like this is it acknowledges the Nuance in that it again the subline of it is for the reduction moderation and responsible consumption of cannabis thought it was an interesting Community to see yeah for sure absolutely look um I think we get very complicated and messy very fast when talking about moderate use especially for people who definitively struggle with addiction I think that can be a very messy kind of area and potentially dangerous in my opinion area to kind of wait into um and I have my own thoughts about that but like if there’s someone who is trying to have you know healthier use or whatever like that’s great like that there’s a community for that like I’m you know I’m not I’m not against that at all like there’s I was just asking like are you surprised no I’m actually not surprised I’m actually not surprised I like I’m not you know I even when I was smoking over five years ago like you know tea breaks were a thing like I you know people but I mean I think as marijuana has you know exploded in popularity even more since then right like even since five years ago it’s way more popular so I people are exploring I mean I see on Tik Tok all the time like influencers who smoke M weed you talking about taking tea breaks and things like that [Music] um I just I think that when it when you come to addiction and stuff um in my opinion it’s just much more of a binary thing yeah no I agree with you it’s just I kind of the reason if you saw me smile there is I’m not laughing at addiction I’m laughing at the idea of Tolerance breaks because if you think about it and I think we actually have talked about it once before like it was a small point that I tried to make and we moved on but if you think about the discipline that it requires for a tolerance break like you’re saying like I’m going to abstain so that I can get [ __ ] up because I mean that is the point generally speaking so like it’s just you’re right it’s like such a ridiculous and and do you know but isn’t that crazy like I know you’re GNA disagree with I say it’s crazy responsible maybe you completely agree I agree I agree that that’s like this this is like my my my thing about kind of moderate use for people who have struggled with substance abuse right it’s again I think part of the denial thing like if you if you really struggle with substance abuse there’s a strong likelihood you’ve had people in your lives tell you that you’re putting yourself at risk that you’re damaging relationships with your friends with your family that you might you might be damaging your work you might be you know you’re having some negative consequences right in your life likely it’s very unlikely that you’re not so like if and yet those people will deny that they’re like addicted to drugs right there are people who deny it so I always say okay like let’s say you say no no I’m not addicted I’m fine I can just reduce my use or whatever this right like if someone told you if if your entire support system was telling you Cole like just as an example I’m not singling you out I’m just saying like Cole like your peanut butter and jelly eating is out of control like you’re destroying your relationship with your mom your job your girlfriend hates you is about to break up with you I’m assuming Cole you don’t really have a problem with PB and JS right if that was really the case you’d be like oh my God okay chill I don’t know what you guys are talking about but like if it’s that of a deal I won’t eat PB&J like gez man like chill out you probably would be like if it was like your mom was G to cut off a relationship with you you probably stop eating PB&J right because it’s not that big it’s not that it’s not that deep right that should be the reaction of every single person who goes through that with a drug like marijuana if they really aren’t addicted it’s only the people who are addicted who will will fight tooth and nail to like continue the use and say no no no I’ll moderate it like I’ll work on it I’ll take a tea break I’ll do this I’ll do that it’s like bro if you’re not actually addicted to it and your life sucks and everyone is telling you you have an issue just stop if it’s if you’re really not addicted to it you shouldn’t need to keep doing it it shouldn’t be that deep so if it’s just a hobby it shouldn’t be that deep so that’s kind of why I am so skeptical I’m like those people who are like obsessed with moderation like that um have struggled with heavy use like just skeptical I think just abstaining is the safest there’s no harm to abstaining there’s like literally no harm to abstaining yeah um that’s my thing like it’s kind of an easy choice I not not easy to do but in terms of just like logically right so that’s kind of my fall in that but yeah I actually never thought Cole about that it’s funny about the teab bre thing like with the just is such a bizarre I never thought about that’s Reed very it’s actually very bizarre yeah yeah um so it’s just a interesting idea and here’s where you know I have admitted to you that that I personally feel I have an addiction to cannabis like it is besides the fact that I do enjoy how it makes me feel um sometimes I’ve even noticed that like I’m like oh I got to do a podcast I got to roll up a joint I mean I I just did it here and I’m like I but I don’t it’s just like habit right yeah and um so you know I’ve admitted it to you I also saw this post on LinkedIn recently let’s share it um this person I this popped up on my feed Brett puffen Barger I have a confession to make it’s something that as recently as a week ago I would have veeh vly I can’t say that vly denied something I would have said isn’t even possible and anyone claiming it is is full of [ __ ] I am addicted to cannabis not like I love it and need it to function wait not like I love it and need it to function that’s still very much true I mean like physically sorry I read that wrong but you know what I’m trying to say as many of you know I was trying out a new method of tolerance break that wasn’t working out so I decided to take the best of the Myriad advice I received and put it to test I went cold turkey I took hot baths to sweat it out drank a ton of fluids the whole nine yards I got the sweats no appetite nausea mood fluctuations tired you name it I was experiencing it worse than when I quit smoking cigarettes as bad as any alcoholic I’ve ever witnessed I’ve known a lot but that’s a story from a past life for another day point being I know what it looks like and I experienced it I don’t know what it means for me I don’t love or support the plant any less I don’t think it’s more dangerous than I did before no plans on changing much other than whatever it takes to bring my tolerance down and get me back to a place where I can enjoy the plant not sure if I have a point other than I don’t I didn’t want to experience this personal revelation in science in silence anyone else experienced something like this I’ve experienced something like that when I’ve tried whitting cannabis I got the sweats I lost my appetite I would get nauseous while I was eating I would have crazy dreams I would get I would have those mood fluctuations um I dreams I think are really common yeah I’ve personally never like I am not addicted to cigarettes I do drink occasionally but I wouldn’t say it’s so occasionally that you know I I I so I don’t have another struggle with addiction this is the closest thing that I I do have and um yeah I’ve had physical withdrawal symptoms and I’m not afraid to admit it um did you have physical withdrawal symptoms when you quit oh yeah yeah um like yeah definitely I mean it makes sense you’re changing your biochemistry right I mean you know I mean I think the two biggest things that I experienced or maybe a few like I mean there would be times where I would like when I didn’t have it and I just was like so so like using it multiple times a day every day and I didn’t have it like going to bed at night or something and I was like relying on it like felt like ants were calling Under My Skin so like I mean you know I I’ve actually I’ve experienced nicotine with braw as well and I actually it actually pretty reminiscent in a in a weird way to what I felt with nicotine withdrawal um which was just interesting and that specific kind of One symptom I mean when I quit totally I had like no appetite for days like I couldn’t even I couldn’t even eat like half a sandwich like for an entire day like on end um that was something I noticed um total like total depressed mood like depressed like I guess depression like I guess I never even thought about until I just said that out loud but I guess depression in a way yeah I had almost like an in inability to experience elevated mood I would literally just lie in bed all day I couldn’t even watch TV cuz like I needed marijuana to like watch TV and to enjoy TV and to laugh at a TV show or to you know watch an interesting movie and just you know because I was smoke and I’d feel like oh my God like I’m getting so deep into it like on another level thing right so like it was literally weeks before I turn on the television so like that kind of the thing I felt like you know somewhat somewhat somewhat mental but also somewhat physical so yeah you know one of the things I know this is a serious conversation but and I really respect that guy for making that post his name can’t really be puff and barber right is that that cannot be the guy like the marijuana industry that is real last name huh yeah that’ be perfect anyway sorry I just looked at that and that was the first thing I noticed was the name no that’s funny I didn’t even think about that that’s funny no I yeah um so it’s it’s just an interesting topic that I thought it’s you know I know that some people really by the way some people take issue with me like agreeing with you on a point like that they’re like what are you doing it’s like I’m being honest I would be lying if I didn’t say that if I you know thank you by the way but I’d be lying if I didn’t say that that happened to me and but I’d also be lying if I didn’t say that just like this person it’s not so much like you just described it for me but that’s just for me right I I don’t feel I have a problem and obviously you know you’re different one thing I you said to me I think after we were on air last time that I realized I have a lot in common with you is that I cannot keep snacks in the house because I’ll eat him the [ __ ] first night and I was like I when you said that I was like wow he he really does have an issue and then I I thought about it and I was like hold on Cole you just bought a box of fruit snacks last night and that box of fruit snacks is no longer in the house yeah so I have enough I I don’t know if I was I think I might have explained to you this way so I I have enough self-control that like if I’m in the grocery store I can like easily not purchase it right but if you bring it home whatever the second it’s there it’s freaking toast I’m actually myself I’ve had um a box of like lint chocolates that I got like around Christmas time from someone else and I and like it’s still less than halfway done and it’s been like a couple months and that is like the biggest Improvement I’ve ever made in my life with that my roommate I think I was even telling this my roommate in college of three years he had like basically no appetite like he didn’t eat that much but he whenever he he just ate like pure crap he like literally never ate a vegetable in his life probably so he would go to the grocery store and buy all this crazy crap and it would last him you know like three months um but the thing is for me and we would like share food we wer it wasn’t like that bad like we were that because it was in the apartment oh my God I just like I get out of bed at night and be like you know what I want some more of this Donuts right it’s like horrible it’s like oh my god there but he did he was totally fine with it so you know so it was just terrible for me so I got I gain 20 pounds in college yep yep so I like I say I can relate to you a lot there and um yeah I I don’t know it’s it’s it’s an interesting point I think people should get the help if they needed I think these Services should be widely known and widely available I think the point and I know we’ve basically beat this horse dead it’s swollen now I think the point where we digress or or split is like the idea of a mandatory thing and it’s just it’s tough for me cuz I could see and I hate to use my but it’s like it’s all I know is myself I could just see somebody trying to categorize my use as problematic and to your point yeah I get a little anxious about the idea of somebody like saying hey you like you’re going to go to this and you’re not going to be able to use anymore or whatever the case might be that’s proving your point that I am addicted because right right another example is uh in a comedian said this once he said he was on a road trip with several other Comedians and he was like Hey man uh can we stop real quick I want to just load up a bowl and smoke and he just he looked at the other guy and winked at him and he goes uh no we’re not stopping for another four hours and the guy just started losing it like you would have thought you told him like he but I I got to be able to smoke blah blah blah you know starts freaking out and he’s like dude we’re we have to get gas we’re going to stop you can smoke like you know but to to your point people can get really touchy about it you know and and yes I think it’s indicative of a of an addiction you know what I mean and I I do believe um that one of these days it will be taken a little bit more seriously um you know and there are starting to be notices posted at uh dispensaries um and on just products in general that says you know the these products are not to be used while you’re pregnant um right and they are always have but like I’m glad that they have them but they didn’t always happen it’s like some of them used to even advertise too or still do advertise pregnant women um yeah addiction thing it’s like dude the I like for people for some people it’s like talking about marijuana like the addiction word is like literally like sunlight to freaking Dracula man or right and I don’t see it that’s the thing it’s like oh my God no like it’s like oh my God you know it’s like it’s like if people are losing it by the way like if people are losing it to like our conversation you’re really losing it that much and you have that much of an issue like normally if you disagree with what someone says it’s like oh that’s stupid like I don’t feel the need to go ape [ __ ] in the comments like l call them names call come for your life and just like be like you are evil and terrible it’s like guess what I’ve never said that about anyone on any issue and I have some pretty strong convictions someone disagrees with me okay fine they’re d just might maybe maybe I I could just oh you’re an idiot whatever you know like yeah well I want to be mindful of your time and I know we always still pretty long but I want to be mindful of your on this 4 minutes after 420 here for me uh yeah yeah it’s four minutes after surprised you were you made that joke before me but uh I’m full surprises man yes you are uh I was gonna ask you like I don’t think I’ve maybe I did ask you this last time but why do you sit down with me and like give me your time and like I got to imagine that the people like when you Flo this idea in the past or something they’re like why are you going on the pot podcast or something or do they not really care yeah because I just think like um because I like you and like our conversations um and there aren’t really that many formats that are interested in talking about this issue um where do you go on other podcasts for lack of better words I go I mean I go on other podcasts and do interviews I mean I just did an interview about Virginia’s legalization plan which by the way like you I think this would even piss you off like when I say they don’t prioritize Public Health after the money the tax revenue in Virginia under their bill to commercialize after you know how should I say like so out of the tax revenue gain they’re going to use part of it for like actually enforcing like regulation right and then like after that whatever’s left over only 5% can be used for public health awareness 60% is for like their micro businesses program like really really and 5% is for public health like campaigns like seriously it’s kind of a joke um but no so like like I can talk about those things but like when you go on TV you have like five 10 seconds to make a talking point I mean I an interview for Virginia was great and the reporter was really nice but guess what they used about one sentence out of a interiew so it’s like it’s like I I get the chance to do that and um you know may maybe I change one person’s mind yeah or not even change their mind but maybe on like change their mind on one little issue in the grand scheme of things um so and I love talking about this stuff and uh there aren’t that many people and I’m just very also fascinated um by kind of your position and and how you know I think honest you are and um I I have a lot of respect for you and I don’t have a lot of respect for so many people in this space unfortunately uh and the fact that we can you know find common ground is really rare so enjoy doing that whenever I can yeah well I just I’m curious about it just um thank you for for and I look forward to many more conversations with you Jordan because I do you know even though we don’t always agree um I do enjoy my conversations with you and and like I I learned things too like you we brought up with the Oregon thing earlier yeah um I saw Sam shared a study recently I just thought this was interesting I’m not even really it’s it’s like I ask you about these things I saw this and thought of you and Sam uh just in general it’s interesting to see I just interviewed the CR and CEO of this company good advice this is from mared good advice for cannabis lovers choose non-smoked options for a healthier heart seems like they were it seems like they were acknowledging that study that that you guys were sharing and I saw other people share Am I Wrong wasn’t there just a study that came out that said something like smokable cannabis is bad on your heart am I wrong yeah there was just so there’s just a major study that uh linked uh marijuana use but um but you know I I believe so so I’m I’m looking at kind of these articles so um I’m sure smoking is worse but I don’t I I don’t know if it was just for us I think it might have been for all I think it might have been for all because so smoking was the common so this is from NBC they wrote smoking was the most common way cannabis was consumed in the new paper although Edibles are not necessarily safe either I think maybe this was one of the guy who wrote the study I just don’t have enough time to go through this whole thing but someone was quoted saying if you force me to answer I would say not smoking is a better way of consuming it when you smoke things that makes them more toxic but that doesn’t mean that we can definitively that we can say it’s definitely safe to consume in edible so you know like look it’s um oh so when you eat an edible apparently um so if you’re smoke someone someone else said if you’re smoking marijuana it’s probably doing double the damage compared to just using Edibles when you use the edible the THC goes into your body and can cause vascular inflammation inflammation whereas when you smoke there’s damage from particulate matter uh uh yeah from the particulate matter and then the THC gets absorbed into your body as well so like yeah I mean I I think that probably should be obvious to most people right like I think you know like oh you have to either choose of course I think the Edibles I mean I think I think also what you probably know even from experience as well is like the dosages and Edibles can be maybe a little bit trickier sometimes right like you don’t know maybe it’s not evenly distributed throughout an editable whereas it’s going to be a little different like that when you smoke it it hits later so especially for new for new users consumers like you eat it and you know an hour later you feel fine and then you take another one and then two hours later you’re totally screwed right so it’s I think there’s some different types of dangers but in terms of like raw Health impacts I mean I’m sure smoking is worse yeah the fact that people have for years have been like smoking marijuana is like fine for you great like why are you comparing cigarettes like you’re still smoking stuff right I like to say that science right you’re still lighting something on fire and inhaling it inhaling it like like who thinks that’s good yeah one thing I love about you is that it is obvious that you did smoke just different things that you’ve said through through our time like the fact that you were calling it tea breaks earlier show like that’s like a colloquialism among like yeah no I’ve been accused of being a paid actor but I’m wrong yeah that wrong um at least you’ve convinced me in our private conversations and everything else like no you’re not lying you did use a certain time you just know way too much about it it seems like to to if I can explain how to what’s it call you could probably talk somebody you could probably like explain how to take a dab you’d be like look I don’t recommend this but I can coach you through how I think I think if I can I think if I can explain exactly how to how to smoke a cart without a pen with a with a USB and which ones exactly how to go through that process and make that happen I think it’s pretty pretty clear yeah yeah that’s I think that’s pretty much only inside information uh how to strip the wires and which wires to cross right so the last I’ve got just got a few more questions as we close and this this this question I have to ask because every time I have you on my podcast somebody tweets me and says why didn’t you ask them who funds Sam what can you tell me you can’t tell me anything I don’t want to answer oh yeah let me I’m I’m guessing I’m guessing your viewers say let me get let me guess tobacco and Pharma onun Sam right okay great so we take zero money from Big tobacco big alcohol big farma okay do not take any money zero dollars so that’s just one thing yeah um I wouldn’t work for Sam if they did um so and after so many you know after a years guess what like for it doesn’t even make sense funny people like big tobacco funds you I’m like why would like like why would they even want to like they’re investing hundreds of millions and billions of dollars into this Farm alcohol and tobacco like why would they do that like pharmaceutical companies are buying up you know medical marijuana companies like they they just are like you can read those stories why would they fund an organization that’s trying to like prevent that it doesn’t even make any sense when you really think about it but we wouldn’t take it even if it was offered our money is donated by private individuals right like most of the time it’s people who have family members kids husbands wives parents whatever like who has struggled with marijuana use who have seen negative impacts from marijuana use could be something as small as like not small necessarily but someone who struggled with dependence or addiction some people their children psychosis die by Suicide you want to give kind to the cause people’s marriages break up from you know marijuana and you know some people you know want to want to give uh for that or or just you know there are also just people out there who who are seeing the negative impacts of legalization um and want to see that kind of prevented uh so all sorts of different different people but it’s just kind of private donors and we don’t take money from those addiction for-profit Industries um you know I’m not like I’m not going to give like names but uh you know that was by the way a scand a supposed Sam Scandal was like that we I was gonna ask you about that because that’s ridiculous it’s ridiculous no C4 gives that up yeah they wanted to know our Sam action which is our C4 right they want like people wanted us to disclose our donors and like no C4 discloses their donors like none like that’s the it’s like part of the point like like like that’s it was it was absolutely absurd yeah it was absolutely absurd like go to any issue you care about there’s going to be a million C4s that exist that do work on it and none of them disclose their donors and like whether you agree with them or not it’s not like a statement like some people and also inherently what’s I mean you think that they don’t want to dis we don’t want to disclose because you think we’re being funded by to not you but people I get it okay like like like I I I can’t say definitively but guess what like this issue is so charged there are probably people who who who care about this and maybe they don’t want to take the [ __ ] from people guess what the the the the the culty pro marijuana people can be ruthless and cruel I mean someone I did this happen when I was last on your show that someone found uh a video of me talking about my recovery on the same Instagram account from two years ago and my mom did a a clapping Emoji oh you told me about this at our lunch together yeah yeah and some so my mom commented on did clapping someone told her you should jump off a bridge and kill yourself a hundred weeks later so my mom which is by the way just like piss me off it’s like maybe maybe stuff like that happening is why why some people might like not want to be super public of support all the time not that we don’t have public supporters but like maybe think about your actions and how you know the same people who are screaming at us to disclose everything are probably the people who are saying those types of things so uh anyway that’s just my two cents on it it’s it would be incredibly abnormal and and almost unethical probably for sea Force to disclose that kind of stuff so yeah yeah makes sense makes sense well all I will say and this is just to make you laugh you probably don’t appreciate it but I I just I’m saying it I these people bought me a meal um once while we were in DC right yeah yeah yeah you bought my meal and and I just have to say this is the part you won’t appreciate I was high during that meal so they bought a high person a meal you know I’m sure I’m not surprised I’m not surprised I’m kind of expecting it like like do I discourage that maybe but I’m not like moralizing to you oh yeah and I I’ll say that for the record that when I hung out with you uh I mean I figured you knew I was high but it wasn’t a conversation it’s not like you were like Cole before we hang out and proceed I need to take your cannabis levels of your blood you know um you you it didn’t even come up and I even asked you not that I planned to but I believe I even asked you I was like if I for example hit my V pin or something ask me that yeah and you were like I mean I prefer you not to do it around me but it wouldn’t it wouldn’t be something that ends our day together you know yeah right exactly exactly yeah exactly so um I I say that to humanize you a little bit more like yeah we hung out list if you’re listening this far in I’m a real person yeah you know I have I’m a real person who lives a real life and I’m not just like I don’t I don’t sit in my room at night like punching my pillow screaming how mad I am that people smoke marijuana okay like that’s not how I live my life yeah yeah I know that that’s what people think though that’s what people Arthur fist like my God yeah I L hate people who smoke marijuana um yeah every time you look at the [ __ ] and it says 420 you’re like son of a [ __ ] I literally literally punch my clock literally you have to get a new phone twice a day every night yeah that’s funny dude well I feel we’ve pretty pretty well run the game let me just double check and make sure that everything I wrote down I feel like I oh oh there was this last Point iron law iron law of prohibition we’ve talked about it before oh yeah I saw that Kevin sbet I believe uh share retweeted like something about it and he said like iron law of commercialization and I was like yeah I actually like kind of get where he’s coming from but the the where I disagree with them for oh here it is let me share it let me share the tweet I saved it because that’s this is for Kevin he’ll be able to see see yes sometimes if you see a bookmark it’s Cole he’s bookmarking your tweets for later reference um oh here it is I bookmarked this one too you can see I’ve bookmarked two Kevin seet tweets um more like iron law of commercialization so he’s retweeting somebody Keith humph the illn named iron law of prohibition attributes the potency of drugs to their illegality now that cannabis has completely disproved this it should only be a century or two before academics sto making this claim don’t Keith humpr by the way Keith humpr is an internationally respected um addiction expert who is a renowned Professor teacher at Stanford University and he he was just here testifying for the US Senate um he he’s like Ren outed yeah H how do you think that cannabis legal legalization disproved I don’t mean to make you speak on Keith yeah no I mean I don’t know like I haven’t seen a tweet so I’m not going to speak for Keith but I’ve talked about this I’ve talked about this before so I’ll speak for kind of like what my opinion is like I understand kind of what the iron law prohibition um meant uh but with but there’s kind of a iron law of commercialization as Kevin said which is that they want to sell more what we talked about before with kind of that 8020 rule or you know 6 7020 whatever it is in in different kind of Industries uh that shows um that Industries like this need to kind of make their products more addictive they need to get more people dependent and hooked on their on their products right and what’s the number one way to do that is to make it more potent right like you’re going to have more people addicted to 30% THC joints rather than uh you know three% so you’re going to increase that potency because that that’s what people want right and there’s a lot of studies like um there’s data so for example um I can I actually sent what was this um I had actually typed some things up um I’ll have to find it um but about kind of a bill that we were like looking at I think I actually might have asked you about it um but I don’t have the statistics right in front of me unfortunately oh yeah yeah yeah I have them right here so like so for example let’s and I’ll be quick about this so um the according to one study more than half of frequent concentrate users from legal states typically use at least 80% THC concentrates and 30% THC flow so most of frequent users are using the upper limits of potency right the industry knows this um another fact um that the average in 2020 the average potency for concentrates in Colorado was 68% around 68% for Vapes around 80% and the average edible kind of concentration like around 737 milligrams um maybe per standard dose of an ebal um so we was it weed maps or Leaf Le or something did did s of survey of its users and found that over three years concentrates and edibles made up over 30% of sales so like like my point being that the industry knows all this data and they know that all you know the average product that they’re selling is higher concentration and that the most heavy heavy users are using con products that are even higher concentration than that on average at least so like the iron law of commercialization means that because this industry exists because this is the reality within that industry they’re going to need to keep jacking up the potency in order to increase their bottom line because the people who are giving them the most money and their most kind of the returning customers are demanding that um and it’s kind of like a vicious cycle of that so that that’s why we say inar of commercialization that’s why I assume Kevin said that yeah that I mean I actually agree with like it on the face I agree with with that and actually I’m about to play a short clip that that reins Stills your point um I just view I guess where I get caught up I always get caught up in the Nuance of it I I like to point out that concentrate concentrated forms of cannabis especially are products I would say of prohibition because because weed is so smelly let’s just be a blunt about it it’s easier to it’s I didn’t even mean to make that but uh pun but um it is big bulky like the flow it’s uh you know you can’t compress it or people won’t find it like that’s flower that I just showed you can’t compress it or people won’t find it as like aesthetically pleasing but concentrate you concentrate it you could put it into a thing and and pack it and and smuggle it uh much more easily not only yeah do the do the users like it more but it’s easier on the trafficker um and so I view these products as as products of prohibition but like you say now yes of course these operators are leaning into them because the users especially split it both ways I yeah I think both are true I mean I don’t know I need to read I’d love to read more about what Keith says about kind of like Keith seems to think that’s a little debunked I’d like to read more about that same but um but yeah I think there’s probably a lot of Truth in in in both of those things yeah well after we watch watch this clip I think we can wrap uh cuz uh I don’t have much more but like I say this is the context here I’ve had a long week I’m lit I’m crashing I’m crashing after this hell yeah dude hell yeah well th this clip like I said I think uh kind of reins your point in the context of tobacco and alcohol um the context of this conversation is is not exactly what we’re talking about but you’ll see how it relates let’s check it out you’ll also recognize this show um Joe Rogan and Cat Williams he’s pausing speak we value strength in product so there’s this whole thing with liquor and malt liquor and the difference between the two and one is richer and stronger the more potent version right and as that Mak as a people we tend to go with those products things are stronger that makes sense right like before things were called concept conate yeah that’s what we appreciate that makes sense concentrated and the fact that um yeah that’s the that’s the point really um just thought it was interesting in a different context how people can prefer concentrated products and it doesn’t even really that didn’t even really relate to what we were talking about but terms of the the iron law of prohibition but um yeah I thought that that was interesting to your point companies will push more potent products uh on you know all of their customers so yeah yeah right of course yeah of course yeah um well man it’s been a pleasure talking with you and yep love this format and um likewise let’s do it again sometime soon absolutely Jordan we will I don’t know when it will be and I really don’t unfortunately um but you know after the rescheduling decision from DEA out I’m sure we’ll sit back down and go over that there’ll be probably a lot to talk about either way yeah that’s what somebody says that does know when it’s going to be you’re you got an inside source you just don’t want to tell us you know when it’s gonna happen I’m just joking just joking don’t Jordan I uh I appreciate you seriously dude um yeah just appreciate you I’ve said it at length time and time again but I just want to say it one more time you’re one of the easiest people that I that I book with and it’s just surprising to me because I am seen as a pro cannabis pro drug policy um show but some of these cannabis companies are a little hesitant cuz cuz yeah I don’t I’m not just like I have a Nuance in my beliefs I will All Hail to the corporate right I don’t get down and kiss their feet yeah exactly it’s just so anyways that’s all to say that uh I respect you thank you for for sitting down with me for so long as always and folks I hope you found as much value in this episode of the Cole memo as I did Jordan we’ll see you on the next one take care see you thanks Cole
The Cole Memo 
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