Episode 80 – Tanya Griffin

In this episode, I speak with Tanya Griffin about her cannabis-infused sex products, harm reduction, and narcan. I also speak with Tanya about how she acquired an Illinois cannabis license in 2014, her thoughts on hemp, and more!

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hello and welcome to the coal memo today we’re going to be talking about sex drugs rock and roll we might even be talking about the early days of the Illinois medical cannabis program what it’s like to comply with the coal memo and that’s not a reference to this show name it’s actually uh well we’ll get we’ll dig into that later uh but you are listening folks to the coal memo I’m your host Cole Preston every episode is released in audio video and transcript format to find the transcript audio or video version of any episode just 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 and video formats if you’re unable to locate the episode description on whichever platform you’re listening from Simply take note of the episode number and visit the memo.com from there you can use the search functionality to find the corresponding episode and then you’ll be able to access the audio video and transcript version of the episode you might also find any links that we reference during today’s episode so that you might be able to do your own research or purchase awesome products from oh yes if if you’re not listening to this episode of the coal memo on patreon then you’re listening to this episode later than our patrons to become a patron go to the co memo.com patreon it’s a great way to support our show it only costs $3 a month and it gives you access to our episodes as they release another way to support our show is at the memo.com support you can make a onetime monthly or yearly contribution of your choice if you’re not able to support us financially though that’s all right one of the best ways to support our show is free subscribe to or follow the show leave us a positive review from wherever you’re listening to us from favorite this episode give it a thumbs up leave a comment or send it to your best friend your engagement and support is appreciated today is April 3rd 2024 I’m sparking up a joint with Tanya Griffin how’s it going Tanya it’s going well it’s going well I don’t have a joint to uh spark up so I’m missing out but well you’re joining me in I’m roll you I’m joining you in well I wasn’t joking for folks uh that are tuning in we will be talking about sex and maybe maybe they realize by looking around in your room right now that that it wasn’t a my office we’re going to be talking about sex drugs and rock and roll baby yes so um please tell us who you are and where we can find you online all that good stuff all right sure uh my name is Tanya Griffin um I know a lot of your listen listeners um come from Illinois and so do I so I kind of got into the Cannabis business in the first round of medical licenses I had some dispensaries that I uh sold to an MSO and I’m back in the dispensary business with uh our dispensary snap Cana in Pontiac and Oak grve Village but I’m here talking to you today really about my ecstatic sex brand oo yes so double O orgasm yees uh oh thanks Cole and I also think I I would love to talk to you about my nonprofit save my life um which definitely ties into this whole sex drugs and rock and roll vibe in the sense that I have you know created these vending cabinets distribution cabinets and can provide free Naran which brings you back to life uh if you’re at risk of an overdose in any dispensary you go to Bar restaurant anywhere people work live and play in Illinois so hopefully we get to dance around both of those subjects today absolutely absolutely I’m noting that right now so that I don’t forget um because it’s a very mostly sex and drugs though Cole yeah let’s stick to the point yeah for sure well yeah I just displayed for our listeners uh your line of products um do you want to tell us it’s a pretty unique line of products the floor sure um so oh yes um the the big my big good news for your Illinois listeners and anybody who’s going to make their way to Chicago is that um I have partnered with uh Nature’s Grace and wellness and we will have three of our 10 products um with THC on dispensary shelves uh by 420 um so the products that were are coming to Illinois that are going to give you that real cannagasm you know jacked up with TC is roll baby roll so that’s uh our oral sex Elixir um coconut oil base really you know just leaning into that retro Vibe uh it’s sublingual but that doesn’t mean it just goes on your mouth and then we have roll baby roll which on this little guy I made it with a roller ball which goes very very nice on the clitoris and start me up this one this guy is our water-based liable Glide so those are the products that are going to be on dispensary shelves in Illinois um coming up very soon but if you go to oo yes. love I have um all of these products including um you know Groove grease our candle love me too of course a nod to The Beetles um which is our uh SB my best product unplugged which doesn’t have any canabo but is a premium silicone lube and you know that’s one Cole you just uh should not do without oh wet wet is awesome those are my uh medicated dry mouth lingers so I medicated those with zorbit so they don’t have any cannabinoids in them but if you uh you know smoking that joint you may end up with some cotton mouth so either cotton mouth or oral sex both of those deserve wet be Wilds that you see there that’s um that is our be wild tantric honey and coold that is coming to uh elois so we’re going to bring bee wild um where we you know not only Feed the Bees hemp but THC and you get this single ingredient raw honey that’s you know infused with aphrodesiac herbs Mario and kachuba THC hemp and you get this raw honey that uh get high the one on the website does not get to it high as high but it’s it’s just an incredible story where the bees have eaten this uh nectar rich in RSO and we can get you you know it’s almost equivalent to well it is equivalent to nanoemulsification in the sense that in terms of bioavailability this raw honey um is fast acting and about nine to ten times more bio available than a traditional tincture well that’s kind of cool very cool very cool yeah that’s awesome so um you know to put a finer point on some of this because some people might be like wondering like cannabis sex like of course you know maybe that’s not new to people like maybe they’ve gotten high and had sex before and you know as I think you pointed out in one of our private conversations before we got on air like that’s something that’s been happening historically for as long as and I do want to bring that up I I did not invent you know sex and drugs they have gone together magically sex and cannabis you know since the Egyptians you know fast forward to the Indian culture with with bang um it wasn’t really until the 1930s when we started really demonizing cannabis and prohibiting and criminalizing cannabis um I that we started really separating sex from Cannabis it was always in the pharmacological journals we always connected the two and then when we started prohibiting and and demonizing it we were very concerned you know it was all about lock up your white women they’re going to turn into sexual freaks if you give them cannabis I personally think that’s a good thing so I have leaned into that concept um and can tell you from experience uh cannabis and sex go extremely well together yeah yeah touche amen um yeah so and I guess to like I said some people may not understand the absorption that not only yeah can you talk about that true yeah absolutely so um relative to cannabis coal is is partaking in a joint or flow we have cartridges these ways of getting cannabis into your bloodstream you know activate very quickly this gives you that high feeling right away on the other hand if you are taking a gummy for example that’s got to go through your digestive system and the uptake takes a little longer all of my products are if you go into a dispensary for example and you’re looking at the online ordering you’re going to find them in the edible section so mine are sublingual edible products designed to be eaten um off your body parts quite frankly and because they are sublingual and hit the mucous membranes whichever ones we’re talking about um it does get you high a little quicker which is absolutely lovely and I one of the things you and I had discussed which is not something everyone knows but I always like to remind people uh about is um THC cannabis doesn’t always act alone you know it needs your body’s um help in in metabolizing the THC and and as a female um estrogen is an absolute incal part of metabolizing THC and and women um fluctuate in their estrogen levels at all kinds of times you know during the month we cycle in and out of estrogen if you’re per menopausal or post menop pusle you may have wiped out your estrogen all together and are using you know um a topical or stagnant to increase that estrogen but what estrogen is doing whether you’re talking about cannabis and estrogen and estrogens help in jumping in and reaching grabbing THC from the CB1 receptors and pushing it through the indican avonoid system or even psychedelics you know psychedelics of course you’re you’re hitting neurotransmitters but estrogen is intrical in that relationship too so one of the things that’s very important to me um and that I’ve I’ve been working on I you know to me this brand oh yes was absolutely about building and creating mindful naturally um natural Botanical products that is that that was very very important to me because I used them myself but really the core of this brand the reason why I built it was to help people have more and better sex full stop I built a sex quiz where you get to say it’s all online you go on your phone you can say oh yes oh no oh maybe so to a hundred different sex acts you share with your partner and I only share what you’re willing to do together and the purpose of here you go the purpose it’s very discreet you know all the security measures are in but the purpose of that was to get the conversation going and be stigmatized the conversations around sex and of course by extension um drugs tied to that and the reason why I even um I kind of got lost in the estrogen conversation is one of the other pieces of the brand that’s important to me is really helping women also understand that their cannabis use and their cannabis dosing can fluctuate during even the month and that when you use cannabis in the bedroom with sex there are ways to do it to to make it work um exceptionally well um and and not that the not that the goal is always an orgasm but you know why not why not have that orgasm yeah well and I mean uh I just read that um I think Illinois news joint reported this and you know a few other outlets reported that um sorry I’m I’m for the AR she’s she’s a friend of mine suan Melville and she’s been doing work she actually Liv lives in Italy but she came back here to Illinois to help get um orgas you know basically female orgasm disorder I’m GNA simplify payment term on into you know one of the um you know things that we treat with medical cannabis which you know thank you for that because the the real and the reason why it did that is she did a huge survey of women and has been working on this with her postto and her um oh there you go go in her Center for some time so what we understand is that yes cannabis is instrumental in helping with female orgasmic disorder if you don’t have that disorder it’s also quite good yeah so yeah Suzanne’s done great work I’ve I’ve uh we used the sex quiz a little bit to kind of help with that uh as well um but it’s it’s it’s back to that same notion when you start marrying sex and cannabis like we used to for thousands of years um that’s a very happy place you can be and I keep it the other thing that was important to me Cole is keeping the price point low so you know these are these are uh we keep it under $30 uh for that cannagasm that was super important to me so that you can just try it you know I to me arousal sex is not as much about you know whether cannabis works for sex or this works for sex it’s about it’s it’s a mind thing your biggest sex organ is absolutely your mind so if you can get in the game and you can feel aroused that’s what’s helping with blood flow now yes CBD happens to be a very very effective vasil dilator vasil dilator is is something that helps increase blood flow other things that increase blood flow is estrogen Viagra Calis these are all things that increase blood flow but the other thing that increases blood flow is arousal so for me the oh yes brand and tying it to that you know sex drugs and rock and roll Vibe every one of my products are tied to some album you know Start Me Up of course the Rolling Stones R baby roll the doors you know all of my my products are trying to take you back to that 1960s 7s um period when sexual Liberation and and the pill came out I mean we were we were enjoying sex back then and we certainly um approached it with a little less unfortunately purism purism W that’s a big one um than we are now and I want to swing it back to um free sex and love baby hell yeah yeah no and I think it’s good that that you you know I didn’t even think about this until you were talking about what your product will be sold as as an edible like under the edible menu yes um infused products in Illinois are actually taxed at a higher rate unfortunately and so it’s good probably that you’re keeping that price on the lower end of things and when you really put it that way you know it’s funny I’ve never really had um a solid Point here until we’ve got your product and I promise I’m not just giving you free advertising here I’m just saying that so the point I’ve made and why I think it’s backwards that we tax infused products more than we tax other products is because you could argue that infused products are maybe the healthiest products you can consume and look people will actually get pretty upset with me when I talk about this and some may even call me a hypocrite because I’m sitting here smoking a joint but I want to acknowledge right now that this joint that I’m sming there are probably healthier ways to consume cannabis I’m not absolutely and so and so like in Illinois um there there’s this idea in other states like this idea of a soda tax where we tax drinks or you know things with a lot of sugar and the sugar tax basically yeah Bingo yeah to dissuade people from from engaging in these more harmful activities but here in cannabis it’s weird it’s like the more healthy products are taxed at a higher rate it’s like again I’m not I want to be very clear I’m not I’m not saying that we should raise taxes on flour I’m not saying that I’m just saying obviously well we got to go the opposite direction what we’re doing from a taxing standpoint is is driving so much business into the Legacy Market um which makes you know absolute sense we we certainly have made some huge missteps since the Inception of legalization about Taxation and how we’re um managing compliance regulation you know that that is the world I come from my core company is water and trees and and that company is really a marketing growth growth management agency but what we you know dancing around whether it’s healthc care or even certainly at a more extreme the Cannabis industry navigating the the regulatory process and then by extension to ad is is um so crippling that companies like mine you know it’s very hard to do it I own my company 100% I am self-funded it this has been a process and starting a cpg brand in in any sense like you mentioned a beverage is very difficult when you layer coal cannabis on on top of that you know it’s um you got to have a very strong stomach and and arguably pretty deep po Pockets to um navigate this space it’s it’s amazing many of us are still solvent to be honest because it’s a tricky It’s Tricky business as you know from your other guests yeah and I want to get I want to get more into that on the later half of the show but I wanted to give you more space on uh your OS products and then I also wanted to talk about the Naran uh project anything else that you wanted to talk about with regard to the OES pro products I mean you said they’re coming to Illinois soon right so I’m I’m super excited about that and again that partnership is with Nature’s Grace I don’t know if anyone knows you know many of us here in the industry in Illinois know Nature’s Grace but Larry and Kelly and Tim and Claire and Patrick and the guys I mean it’s a family-owned business they’ve been doing this for a long time it’s woman-owned um and those things were super important to me um keeping price point where it was affordable for people to come in and and try this ecstatic sex experience was super important to me and uh so I’m just really excited to get it out in Illinois now now that all being said if your listeners are outside of Illinois or aren’t planning a trip to Chicago in the near future you know we’ve put a lot of um I have put a lot of attention into mindfully creating products that are very rich in the minor canabo which which also go a long way for sex like again I mentioned CBD is a vasil dilator I used CBG in my products which you know um the the the the true studies and resources are are should still be forthcoming but we do understand that CBG does help with mood and anxiety and and those are the things relative to sex that are important having said all that the most important thing about sex is what I said initially show up stay present and you know learn to communicate your needs um that’s what’s going to get you to that you know place where you’re heading hopefully a big O my friend yeah so uh folks if you want to check it out I’ve got the link to the store in the uh podcast description and uh you can check it out it looks like uh they’ve got free shipping for orders over $69 well I’ll tell you about that yeah you know that’s just how do you not jump into the $69 thing but we do these sexperience o boxes where you basically get a selection of four different products for $69 and that’s just fun um yeah so you you know that’s going to be a good weekend that’s awesome for sure yeah um so so your other project and I’m just displaying those boxes before we segue oh that’s yes those are our o boxes um your other project that I found very interesting was the Narcan project um we actually you know just stocked up on Narcan recently not that we I ever plan to need it but that’s exactly the point um that is the point that is the point yeah uh save my life uh savey life.org is a project I have been working on you know since the early days of cannabis since literally since 2014 Dr Kathleen Burke is on my board she leads up the Will County F reduction projects over there and what we set out to do and we’ve now done it success successfully is I designed these distribution cabinets uh small discret they can go indoors they can go in the reception or in the bathrooms of a dispensary or a bar or a hotel anywhere in Illinois where people work live and play and we yes and we Supply those cabinets with an unlimited supply of noxin now noxin is just the name of a Naran nasal spray so you’re getting uh two nasal sprays absolutely no questions asked you don’t have to give me your name anything um and the objective is to get these into every every everyone’s hands now to your point Cole that does not mean that you’re uh using drugs necessarily but you can save someone else’s life if a if Naran is accessible if someone is overdosing and what we need to keep in mind is because we are are in the drug business cannabis is can you know can be considered a drug we like to call it medicine and everything else but it it falls in that category when you’re buying cannabis from a dispensary arguably you are not at risk of an overdose you know because it’s lab tested the The Joint you are smoking the Edibles you buy at a dispensary those are going to be safe but if you go to a bachelor party and somebody you know it’s it’s showing up in everything else so if you’re buying Legacy gummies absolutely that can INF fentanyl in it if you’re if you’re taking a if you think you’re taking a Xanax a pressed pill that absolutely has could easily have a lethal dose of um fentanyl in it and and if you’re following you know what’s going on in harm reduction right now in the US in the world Cole it is it is so absolutely devastating and if in your mind you are picturing a junkie overdosing you are getting it absolutely all wrong you need to really picture a young you know a young high school kid overdosing because that is where it’s just it’s rampaging through our our suburbs so my big shout out other than of course go have a lot of sex uh this week my big shout out to the other dispensary owners is um this will not cost you anything I mean if you’re willing to donate the cost of the cabinet thank you but otherwise please put a dis a distribution cabinet up provide access to free Naran to anybody who wants it um your customers and your bud tenders and your entire team are going to thank you because everywhere we have it right now um that is my experience and I think it’s um important in my opinion for the Cannabis industry to you know get behind this uh and support protecting each other from any kind drug use and I just including prescription pharmaceutical my friend you know that’s included in this mess well said and I just want to I’m not asking you to name any names or anything else but I do kind of want to issue a challenge I was told by you that you kind of proposed this to people and that they were kind of obstinate to the idea so I’m not asking you to name names I don’t want to name names but what what I want to do is thank you for bringing that up all of you who own dispensaries in the industry please please keep this in mind by providing Naran you are not communicating to your customers and your community that cannabis is is a lethal drug or that they are at risk of overdosing I think the your communities are more educated and furthermore it is Our obligation and and we should um really be out there to protect people we do a red newspaper stand that holds aund 50 uh Narcan boxes and you know the dispensaries if you know your community if you know the city you can donate these to the high school you can donate one uh to the library to the city hall because again keep in mind while our cannabis is safe it is lab tested um we still want to protect everyone and and pro getting making sure Naran is everywhere is the right thing to do so please please call me on this jump on um savy life.org hit me up through Linkedin um we are eager to get you a cabinet and get uh everyone in Illinois access yeah and that link will also be in the podcast description folks so just check that out if that makes it easier for you and I just want to say like if you’re not um aware of the idea of harm reduction I would recommend you check out uh there’s a YouTube channel called Channel 5 with Andrew Callahan and he visited a harm reduction facility and um he even included the perspective of somebody who is generally opposed to harm reduction and I think it’s important to hear since we just brought up this subject let’s just play a small snippet I want to reiterate this person is against harm reduction but it’s interesting what they have to say about Naran um it’s because they love right they’re learning to love themselves they’re learning to love families again they’re learning to love their Community right those people give back now that being said Richie isn’t completely against all harm reduction Services the only harm reduction that should be going on is noran I have no problem with that you want to go around give out Nan to individuals so they don’t o on their own accord that’s fine you need so yes thank you against harm reduction he will say you know and I’m I think we would probably disagree with this person on most subjects given that but but he agrees that you can at least save somebody’s life because if if somebody’s on the ground dying that’s not the time to say well you know you can either make the decision to save their life if you have Naran you know that’s that’s that’s really what it comes down to you know it is it is literally the difference between life or death and you know and and portraying I mean every life we need to we need to care deeply about but just think these are your kids right so this is not just somebody you know homeless person living on the street which we should love and protect but these are our kids that are that are dying our 14year olds and I and I’m in this space so I’ve touched so many of these crisises and Cole it would absolutely break your heart and we have to solve the problem we are just we’re killing we’re killing each other wholesale with fentol and there’s there’s a way to fix it yeah yeah yeah well uh just once again folks uh We’ve mentioned at least three links right now I just mentioned a YouTube video so those are all in the podcast description and uh I just thought maybe to segue um I could play just a small joke before we get into business talk does that sound good just because it’s a joke that actually has a little bit of like actual science behind it and it’s you know uh I know I’m going to play this and people will say this isn’t maybe by the Best comedian but I think this is a really good joke so let’s see what you got let’s watch it yeah see the thing about animals one of the problems with it being illegal is that a lot of us don’t have a lot of information that we could use like there’s a difference between smoking it and eating it when you smoke it you get THC but when you eat it it’s processed by your liver and it produces something called 11 hydroxy metabolite that’s five times more psychoactive than THC and lets you talk to dog dophins all right yeah there’s the thought you could talk to dolphins anyway right right right so um I wanted to return to a a point that that you mentioned earlier um and you know I’m sure we can spiderweb in many different ways um but I never thought about it I think it was because I was smoking a joint when you said it but I never really had thought about this until now like I had a light bulb go off you were talking about and this is I’ve heard that from many other people than you uh like the idea of legalization is to replace you know the Legacy Market with a market that’s you know tested legal taxed all of those things and um it was interesting I just recalled a conversation that I had with a University of Illinois um Professor that he does um he collects data for the state of Illinois for like diversity and inclusion um data but we were talking just about kind of that subject the idea of replacing ing the Legacy market and one thing that he said to me that I never really thought about until you were just saying that is he said you know Cole there’s still a black market for milk or a legacy market for milk yes and I was like oh my gosh I never even thought about that you know I say that because you think about when like a flood or bad weather is coming in you go and you get milk and eggs and bread or you know I’m just being cliche but seriously that’s part of the cliche right so when you think about the fact that there still is a legacy market for things like eggs and milk and you know I mean even meat for example right right I’m curious just like you know if this exercise is like if we’re not acknowledging that I’m not saying we can’t get to where we are with meat and eggs where which is where most people just go to the store and buy it right right which that’s the goal right I’m not saying we can’t get there but I think it’s weird that we’re also not acknowledging that other truth that it’s always going to exist I don’t I I don’t know that I was ever in the camp of not acknowledging the Legacy Market I I I agree with you I think they run parallel I think that you know my my instinct as you know the mother of six kids is is we want our loved ones and everyone around us protected so the the advantage of pasteurized milk eggs those things is that that we have a layer of regulations that protects us um in the communities where we live and that is the advantage eliminating the Legacy Market uh completely I I I it’s not even a hope of mine I mean I don’t think that’s what we are going for but we also don’t want to create such a vast Gulf uh between you know buying a product from the guy who brings a bunch of weed to your house the Legacy market untaxed and the obligations we as dispensary owners have not only from a regulatory but currently until cannabis is rescheduled you know fingers crossed you know all all of our net profits that 25% that if you’re running a a clean smart operation you are sending that to the federal government so that makes your business untenable which is why we’re seeing such incredible stress in the Canabis Market over the last two to three years just sort of bubbled up to the surface now I would argue that we can we’re going to see some positive movements when we get rescheduled we will see the next bubble just like Silicone Valley had a a secondary uh really you know vibrant bubble when we see institutional investing coming in when we see banking being able to be coming in in in a way that is not so heavily taxed when we see some of this just cannabis tax tied to everything we do real estate you know everything we buy everything we do has that tax on it above and beyond what we get hit with 28 when those things start to normalize we’re going to see more of a balance I would would believe between the Legacy and the regulated market akin to the grocery store yeah as you mentioned yeah yeah yeah it’s interesting to think about and I think part of what you’re talking about if I’m not mistaken with the rescheduling and you kind of mentioned it at the beginning of the show is the idea that you know some of these operations I think the word you said I think you said insolvent or something like that I don’t know that’s a big word well yeah let’s say that they’re no longer solvent you know that that you’re basically you have way more money going out than you do coming in and that comes when you’re when everything you do when when you are told you need you know um more staff than you would normally do in a traditional business so your labor costs are higher your real estate costs are higher you’re in a in a regulatory atmosphere where the Hoops that you have to jump from not only from a security standpoint obviously but just from a a paperwork standpoint to the idfpr are so rigorous that um it’s very hard to balance profits at the end of the day and over time um that is uh unsustainable and we’re watching uh cannabis um uh companies go out of business left and right right now and that’s the reason for it it’s not always because you have operators that can’t get a good handle it’s that you’re dealing in an industry that is very very difficult to manage and operate within well to your point you know this is my old show was called the chillino podcast let me see if we still have a logo for that um but you know um doesn’t look like I do um but uh on that show to your point Mike fuche from a website called grown in came on and was yeah you know Mike uh yeah I do he was on my show talking about and I’ve actually got this you made me think of it um I’ll this a little bit bigger on July 4th he came on and he was saying that state data showed at the time that 77% of the Cannabis cultivation Market was controlled by six companies but he pondered whether or not these operations are actually profitable he mentioned that many people in finance question whether or not the Cannabis industry is profitable in the short short term or the long term he goes go on to say that he hears that most people running cannabis companies are running them with the expectation that they’ll make their money when they sell their operation right the Big Exit and and and that cool you know because I’ve spent the last you know now I think 13 years in the Cannabis in Industry which is a long long time I got really got in in around 2011 and um and the ride I’ve been on is is very like I myself had a very good exit in the Cannabis industry the exit I had I would not have again in this current bubble like it those things are not happening anymore and back in the day you know it was 30 40 times eida you were throwing you know just vomiting some ideas on a piece of paper and you were getting funded that is no longer the case and The Awakening that the industry had to go through you know uh coming out of covid right in that in that move um BCS Angels investors I don’t think any of us are romanticizing the Cannabis industry any longer this is a tough business um the fact that I have you know recently launched an ecstatic sex brand into the industry um questions my my my sense what the heck I’m doing but but you know but also when you’re inside this bubble coal it’s so exciting and you’re you’re just you’re pushing through trailblazing literally such new territory that it is very very hard to walk away when you’re in it I I made the decision to sort of navigate the path of sexual wellness and cannabis for very specific reason if I had to put my eggs in a particular basket it’s always sex cannabis is is is is a back stop to sexual Wellness which um has a lot more uh growth potential in the sense that like I don’t know if you you’ve read the M latest McKenzie report that just came out but the you know the wellness industry which cannabis can kind of carve a little piece out of globally is a $1.8 trillion doll industry the top two growth markets in that industry are sexual wellness and you know menopause we find Cycles women’s Cycles we really have um taken a liking to that if you then toggle that over to cannabis and that does for sex and then throw a little tourism in there to me that’s the magic sort of Trifecta of how we can reach men and women in this space um anyway those are my yeah those are my thoughts I’m not even smoking if you gave me a joint you’d never get me to stop talking hey but that’s seriously it’s welcome oh yeah great article by the way and and very interesting to kind of dig into those Trends because it it it certainly affects cannabis whether that’s the you minor cannaboid CBD CBG CBN or we’re looking at a decriminalized or progressively legalized cannabis industry that includes THC like if we go to schedule three we’re going to see a huge movement my goodness if we fully legalize and pull cannabis off the schedule um it’s going to be very interesting to watch how that connects with not only sex obviously that’s a small piece of Wellness but how it really explodes into the Wellness industry yeah far more than it has you know thus far yeah um what was it like you said you got in the industry in 2011 well you know I I say 11 because I was dancing around in 11 but I I was back in 2012 13 I was building surgical centers and I because with my company water and trees I was deeply involved in the healthc care industry and I was sitting in a surgical center in pilson Illinois that we were we were building and I read this article that medical cannabis is coming to Illinois and I it it literally blew my mind and I and I I at at the time I was married to a blues musician um was you know token up with a volcano in the basement so even though I was Raising four kids and really didn’t have a good grasp of of any kind of drug use at the time it definitely made a lot of sense to me and and because I come from you know Irish Stock um alcoholism has just rampaged through my family it has blown it up in every little pocket you know parent every everywhere I look alcohol has been extremely destructive so when I looked at cannabis to me not having the hangovers not making you mean and ugly changing your your your perception about where you are in the universe to some extent that mindfulness um you know I have always been uh a salesperson you know I my whole life I’ve been you know selling and cannabis was an absolute no-brainer so I literally you know looked at the industry like I look at Healthcare at the time Colorado was the most regulated industry you know they had come on board by 2008 and I cold called all the top players in um Colorado and I ended up partnering with The Green Solution you know young men who were just you know Blood Sweat and Tears built that business and I came on board as the only non-family member I built with The Green Solution but oversaw building the first vertically integrated National franchise in the country country and we got it registered in almost all 50 states uh California believe it or not was the one that opted out but um that was you know my initiation into cannabis and you learn very quickly if you come out of Health Care my my world was about regulation and about you know filling out rfps and and and compliance and documentation so I fit very easily into the Cannabis space and adapted to that and um my background is owning restaurants and chains of retail stores so from an operational standpoint uh particularly dispensaries that was a very natural space for me to land so building dispensaries and branding and naming them and and and creating an experience-driven um space for customers to um learn about cannabis purchase cannabis and and kind of dig into this brand new experience was I I could not look away literally there was you know nothing better so that’s kind of my journey how I got in it so long unfortunately I will tell you I was not smoking pot in high school I started popping out kids way too early so I didn’t get to do any drugs then now I’m doing all the drugs and I love it but I you know I’m none of my kids live with me anymore I’m a grandma so you know now now is the time for me to get to do my drugs yeah well better time than now absolutely yeah um well cool how did you get into like you said like what was getting into the Illinois cannabis industry like because that’s well it was it was you know at early days it was you know community meeting after community meeting so the first part of the of the race was to secure a lease back and that you know the first round of the medical licenses we had to have a either buy the building or have a lease we had to get the community on board we had to apply with zoning intax so you know the first multiple months of that Journey for me was navigating communities I I I raised my kids in Western Springs uh lrange they were a hard no and you just fan out and figure out you know where you can go I grew up I’m the oldest of 10 kids and I grew up in Belleville Illinois which is five minutes a Stones Throw from St Louis Missouri and my best friend growing up was the daughter of the mayor of so Illinois so I put my first dispensary in so um Illinois it was big and we built it on the back of understanding that adult use was coming um of course uh when you when you position anything on to to Captivate the attention of another state when that state goes legal and in the case of Illinois and Missouri Missouri has always been the place where if you live on the border in Illinois you go get your gas your alcohol your cigarettes and your drugs in Missouri because they are back to speaking about the issue of tax Missouri uh is very different than Illinois in how they approach excise tax so that very difference um you know can be very crippling so that was my journey in I put one in my hometown I put one you know over by ISU in in in Normal Illinois those multiplied to four and that was really my start in the industry you know back in the day I it was I was I was having lunches with Lou Lang I mean it was a different world back then everything we did you know a decade ago was very different than the race I I subsequently won additional licenses um in Illinois um but it was so different coal I mean we we had the highest dispensary scores in the state for the application that we wrote for the first round of dispensaries that we did the second one it was it was a luck of the draw you know it was a lottery essentially so no matter how much we knew about building dispensaries of those applications all of those rfps were essentially the same I mean you check the box and then you you know kind of fingers cross that you were going to break through the system we did fortunately but there you have it that’s how I got in and I have not looked back it’s been a blast yeah I have loved every minute of it was that hard because like I a lot of people credit Illinois is like creating generation two of cannabis like was that I would argue Illinois cre generation one of cannabis I mean everything was so fledgling like when I was going to MJ Biz back in 2013 2014 it was it was at the Reel I mean you could throw a stone and hit almost everybody in the room it was a bunch of young 30y old men I was like a old lady Grandma even then showing up to those things I mean fast forward it’s at the convention center in Las Vegas you know what I mean so um my experience in the industry is a little different I I would argue that the first wave originated in Illinois I mean that’s where all of our multi-state operators were born purely pharmacan GTI we were all born you know sitting in that space you know TGs became Colombia care I mean all of those guys were the the ones that really set the stage for how the Cannabis industry was going to work that also understanding that of course you know why do I look to Colorado as the as the first because California Oregon they had been rolling in cannabis for some time but Colorado was the first to seriously regulate and then Illinois took those set of rules and really cemented them and created a monopoly whereby you could create these multi-state operators and allow them to flourish and that is what we did so I would argue Illinois started started the the the true industry as we see it today yeah how do you see that changing like um or do you see it changing I I know I know one of the things you mentioned to me that I wrote down excuse me the joint is hitting me back um you said uh it’s not easy to start a hemp or cannabis business coal it’s not a cheap Venture it’s and this is kind of what we’ve been talking about it’s you people question whether or not it’s profitable but one of the things that I really like you said is people who think they can just slap a label on and it will work out out are in for a rude awakening so like with that in mind absolutely and with the the whole hemp dynamic in mind what do you think the future looks like yeah I I it it certainly doesn’t look like that little weird Heyday we had in 2016 up until 2019 we’re literally as you just said companies had to do nothing more than slap a label on and and and sort of you know sort of you know hope for the Big Exit I I I that I always understood was shortlived I I don’t think any brand really gets its teeth and its longevity without being authentic you know when I built oh yes that the products were like I said were super important to me but I immediately invested money in building you know the tech stack you know building the OS quiz making sure that we were adding value to the customers’s experience at every single hands term because the product enough isn’t enough um where do I see the industry going um I do think that um the the Cannabis will be rescheduled I think it’ll it’ll be used for the election and we are going to see some major uh changes with that right now we are all just so Fred anyone who’s been in this industry you know for the last five years is so burnt out it’s hard to romanticize it anymore so we’re just sitting here you know with the aftershocks but with rescheduling like I said we’re going to see a relaxed you know some relaxed um regulatory uh stuff around banking that’s big we’re going to see institutional investors and we’re gonna see I believe players who are not sharp operators weed it out now in any industry um I would argue the cream Rises to the top and those stable companies um that provide a good authentic product and service to customers and follow through um should be standing and that that the that those companies that are Fly by Night and thinking they can slap a label on a bottle and pull this off aren’t going to make it but when we weed that out I think we’re going to see the industry balancing out to some extent and I hope for my own sake that we get some degree of reprieve relative to not only Taxation and 280 which will come with rescheduling but with some of the regulatory oversight that has absolutely crippled us um at every hands turn all you know certainly in the dispensary retail uh sector but when you manufacture products you get you certainly get hit and in cultivation um so I think those changes will really give a nice boost to Sharp operators and I think we we’ll see this industry flourish I hope in the way that Silicone Valley had their second bubble and just um buil it yeah yeah that’ll be it’ll be interesting um like you say I never really yeah I haven’t hadn’t thought about it that way I almost wonder what I what I wondered honestly because like rescheduling and you know like you do see big companies you know some of them that you mentioned like I mean I had like Charlie backel on the podcast recently and I was watching like a safe Banking and I could like see him in the background I was like oh that’s Charlie so like they’re all all those people are in Washington so I I what I was wondering if like rescheduling might look like is kind of like an Illinois where it’s like this limited license except National thing you know what I mean but I didn’t know yeah um rescheduling the biggest advantage to retailers with rescheduling is that we are going to see an immediate reprieve to 280e which is a tax code that that takes our 25% profits and sends it to the federal government that alone is going to provide some breathing room from for cash strap and just Heming uh companies the bigger players you know if you look at some of the the the tax rebs that some of these bigger players are getting true leave I think I read an article recently you know we’re talking you know hundreds of millions of dollars back in the coffers to reinvest in Innovations going abroad I mean I I sat with Cur leaf and I I know their interest has has moved from the US to Europe um for reasons that we can all accept which is if I can’t you know show my investors some degree of profitability here we’re going to have to start you know sewing our oats elsewhere and we are going to see that so I am My Hope because I am a mom and pop is that the mom and pops and and sharp operators can can remain solvent back to that word in what will be this new climate for cannabis um I don’t really know the answer to that uh the big boys I think the ones that are stable and strong um they’re going to get stronger not weaker and the ones that have um have overreached in terms of debt and financing and and and you know big reaches that they could not never have hit will not make it but again we’re going to weed out um the strong from the weak and we are going to get to rebuild and I hope Mom and Pops and social equity and those of us who are coming at it from a a less financially stable uh place can play in this business that is my dream yeah well said well said and um I’m curious uh this is kind of a separate note then we can maybe wrap here soon um it’s interesting to see and I mean I guess you kind of even do this I know you you don’t sell the THC uh hemp products but I recently put this together for my fans because I thought it was interesting you can see these are Brands you can find in the dispensary that now also sell their products as hemp you actually mentioned Cur Leaf they’re in it now cure Leaf Wana of course um yeah Incredibles I recently saw actually and well the beverage industry coal is is absurd and I think while we talk about that I think we should we should break it into three categories certainly the minor cannaboids CBD CBG CBN are our go-tos those um with some regulatory oversight I mean none running a hemp business is not easy I do it so the regulatory hurdles from that standpoint are are absolutely real and then of course we have the highly regulated THC infused cannabis industry and then we’ve got this little sneaker sitting right in the middle with Delta 8 and Delta 9 now that’s a place I absolutely will not play in I I believe that that is going to go away I I think it’s very risky to drop you know a 100 Grand on a line on even if it’s a small mqs on a skew uh on um a synthetic ingredient Delta 8 or Delta 9 that is showing up in the convenience store next door to our high schools and getting young kids high without regulation I think that is shortlived and I hope that the bigger players are not indulging in that little little win short windfall of uh of Revenue that can come um but that’s another category that we always should discuss and and the the people that you put up on the screen I don’t think are playing in that Delta 8 Delta 9 space and I know in Illinois we’re really pushing to that off the convenience store shelves um but you know that’s a sweeper that’s a tricky one right there because now we’ve got something that is unregulated that can get you high and is circumventing all of our taxs all of our regulatory requirements that we are burdened with on the THC side and still have to navigate on the CBD side yeah I’ll just say yeah though The Incredibles I bought those from my local smoke smoke store yeah they’re actually bar like I will eat one of them and uh like they’re they’ve got a lot of Delta a in them so they’ve got Delta a uh there were a few other canabo I’ve got the package in the other room but I just bought it because I was so surprised curious right well yeah and I went to the smoke shop just to get some papers and then I saw a brand that I recognized from the dispensary and so that’s I kind of wondered I noticed that you didn’t go into like you say you kind of put Delta 8 Delta n Delta Delta 9 but I was wondering like when you see bigger brands do you like start to wonder you’re like like do you start to feel less it’s it’s a quick money grab it’s very you know Florida just you know kicked it out so I mean they’ve got the capital to kind of push through those markets and pull out quickly and again let’s say you’re running 100,000 chocolate bars and Illinois turns around and says you know this is a nfly Zone we’re not going to allow this you are you know sitting on those products now I did feed our bees Delta eight and it got that raw honey get you super high now we never let that out into the market but just as a as as an innovation and and an exploration we understood what was happening by doing that um it’s not a space I’m willing to play in I I know some of the bigger companies are doing it I believe it’s shortlived I think it’s um destructive to the over if we’re looking at the three buckets and we’ve got CBD and CBG and and and and uh CBN fighting their way for space and getting kicked out of Walgreens and Target you know kind of Whole Foods you know managing that space and yet we’ve got these convenience sores selling it wholesale to our kids and then we’re taxed at a plus 25% with 280e with THC that is definitely a recipe for disaster right so I I I get why they’re doing it I it’s the the margins are very very tight on the teach side you know oh yes doesn’t make money going into the Illinois Market with THC all that money goes back into marketing that that is you know there are not high margins there um but I do think the experience is worthwhile now whether using Delta 8 in an unregulated chocolate bar bought at a convenience store with our kids is the right move I my take is no I don’t like it I would definitely push the other direction do you think if they were just subjected to the same like regulations then that would be acceptable like a we do that so absolutely so to your point if we take Delta 8 and Delta 9 and we you know we apply 28 on it we force it into the dispensaries right into that regulatory environment then it’s it’s going to compete with you know with with THC and and that’s a much harder competition than competing with CBD in an unregulated market so so you know there there there’s a couple of paths that we can take with cannabis all of them valuable we have a medicinal path and there’s places for CBD and CBN and CBD all of those things absolutely in the medicinal space and then we have the space where you and I want to relax on the weekend we don’t want a glass of wine or a margarita and we want to smoke a joint or we want to take an edible and that’s the place we can go and that’s about getting high and that is okay too because people uh for as long as we can think back have looked to getting high but slipping in an unregulated synthetic product that is not going through the rigors of lab testing and everything else that we place on THC um that’s an unfair advantage and we are going to get ourselves in trouble and and we’re going to see bad things creeping up in that non-lab tested products that are going to go after our kids and that I’m against well selfish plug I had to hold myself back earlier when we were talking about sex uh folks if you’ve made it this far I actually have a series focused on sex work uh if you go to co memo.com seex you can check it out also ear ier when I displayed that document if you were curious you’re like oh that seems like like history that I would want to learn more about if you go to Coal memo.com hisory I have started a Illinois cannabis history project where we kind of go through and talk about you know how the Cannabis system came to be but my most exciting project that I recently released which actually is how I met the person that connected you and I uh was a project called well the protest was called hash Wednesday and so if you go to co memo.com hisory you can check out our uh archive on hash Wednesday and it was a protest that started in Illinois um it seems like as early as 1977 on the University of Illinois Quad it was modeled after other hash bashes and um it basically involved people just openly smoking cannabis on the uh University of Illinois campus and um like I said I you know have a whole interesting newspaper archive here are students getting arrested in Illinois for smoking weed they just did it openly um here’s weed growing in Illinois back in the day it’s wild w i mean if this is 88 Cole we are in the thick of just say no to drugs here I mean we’re out a we’re out of rean but we this is these are not comfortable times I grew up here I mean this is when I was in I was a couple years out of high school at this point but are you familiar with the name Debbie Goldsberry no I don’t no okay probably I am it could be my shortterm memory yeah it’s all good you know same here um but I ended up interviewing her I guess a lot of people knew her name this is her as a as a kid um oh wow look at that and I also interviewed this this kid here um he’s an adult now of course but of course um looks like he’s my age now yeah I was going to show you the person that that connected us um I thought I had a picture of Tony yeah I was looking for a picture of me and Tony but yeah got his picture in the paper I love that yeah oh there he is there he is picture in the paper brilliant oh I saw him in the other picture too yep and then here’s all right Tony you held up okay nice here’s Tony and so that looks great that is awesome but just had to give a plug for you know our history and I also just wanted to give a that was my way of giving Tony a shout out and I guess I guess I should also just show this quick picture just because it’s funny he sent me this picture apparently these were some of his friends it’s on the quad oh look at and they’re hitting a bong and I it took me a while to realize this um but they’re standing on another kid’s shoulders that’s not a ladder oh wow I could that’s uh I wonder how effective that bong was really yeah I that looks like it’s 10 feet of piping right right you know yeah I had to wonder the same but um it’s been a pleasure um speaking with you today and I doubt it’ll be the last time we talk you know especially since you’re getting into the Illinois cannabis industry and it sounds like you know you have many more plans uh and of course the future we plan to be at Pride come down to Pride we are wa I renovated a 1969 Airstream like a a 20f footer so we’ll show show up at Pride we’ll be giving away you know maybe some condoms some matches some fun and just digging into some sex drugs and rock and roll that sounds so fun yeah 22 23rd yeah hell yeah thank you for giving that shout out so folks and maybe we’ll see you there um we’ll see me there for sure yeah absolutely well I hope you found value everybody in this conversation and before we go Tanya did you have any last words or do we cover it um please y’all have a bunch of sex go take the sex quiz um have a great weekend and uh support your local dispensar yeah if uh you want to take that sex quiz the links once again will be in the podcast description Tanya thank you for your time today and uh again I look forward to the next time we can chat yeah likewise thank you so much

The Cole Memo