In this episode, I sit down with my friend Phil and Chris Berry from Illinois Hemp Growers Association. During the conversation, we recap a press conference that occurred in hemp that seems to aim for a ban on hemp products in Illinois.
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Links mentioned during show
- IllinoisHGA.com
- Study that Chris mentioned – https://www.heraldopenaccess.us/openaccess/the-public-safety-risk-of-hemp-products-sold-at-unlicensed-retailers
- Episode with Rod Kight – https://thecolememo.com/2024/03/29/e76/
- Press conference – https://thecolememo.com/2024/04/12/hempban/
- Bill that was mentioned during press conference – https://legiscan.com/IL/text/SB3926/2023
- Fireside chat – https://thecolememo.com/2023/12/09/recap-fireside-chat-with-cbai-and-croo/
- Click here to watch my interview with La Shawn Ford. We talk about hemp, home grow, psychedelics, and more.
- Chris’s last episode, among other things we discuss Representative Ford’s bill – https://thecolememo.com/2024/02/29/e62/
The auto-generated transcript is available below.
Chris Phil welcome back to the Cole memo how are we doing this morning great good to be with you this morning Cole and Phil love lovely always great to be here yeah thank you both for joining me I said I said once again I said it’s this morning usually we talk at night so thank you for giving me your morning folks you’re listening to the Cole memo I’m your host Cole Preston every episode is released in audio video and transcript format to find that please just refer to the description of the episode that you’re listening to now within that description you should be able to find a link that will take you to our website which will take you to a place which displays the transcript audio and video versions of that episode if you’re unable to locate that link just take note of the episode number and visit the memo.com from there you can use our search functionality to find the corresponding episode and then you’ll be able to access the audio video and transcript version of this episode you might also find any links that we referenced during this episode so that you might be able to do your own research we’re definitely going to be referencing some links today if you’re not listening to this episode of the Cole memo on patreon you’re listening to this episode a bit later than our patrons to become a patron go to the memo.com patreon it’s a great way to support our show another way to support our show is at theol memo.com SLS support I just wanted to give a big thank you to Tom G he’s been giving me contributions lately at the co memo.com support and Tom if you’re listening right now I just wanted to personally thank you uh the money is is used to pay to keep the show going you know the equipment costs a lot hosting fees travel everything else so if you’re able to support us that way it’s appreciated if you’re not 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 share it with your best friend your engagement and support is appreciated today is April 13th 2024 almost to 420 Chris Phil once again I just wanted to welcome you all back and today I thought it’d be interesting to talk about a recent press conference occurred that occurred but before we do that Chris why don’t you go ahead and uh reintroduce yourself to our audience thanks Cole hey everybody my name is Chris Barry I’m the chief of operations for the Illinois hemp growers association which is a Grassroots agricultural organization supporting the hemp industry in Illinois um we’ve been doing this since 2018 and um we’ve learned a lot and and we’re um having a a Lobby day coming up next week uh and we are advocating for broad legalization uh in and um overall we just want to emphasize that you know um it it’s best to to be unified on on these issues and and to not have this infighting between cannabis and hemp but um yeah anyway uh I’m I’m a farmer I’m a uh millright by trade uh I work in uh engineering right now and um yeah you know I guess I preface everything I say today by saying I’m not a lawyer but I do have to deal with uh contract laws and Technical documents all the time so I’ve done some deep dives into research papers um uh legislation uh and just in general digging into you know letters from the DEA uh just whatever I could find to kind of support uh a more reasonable argument uh for all the issues that we’re going to talk about today um and yeah if you uh if you’re curious about hemp in Illinois please visit our website at illino hg. comom uh and some of you probably know my wife Rachel Barry who’s the CEO of the Illinois hemp growers association um she is currently speaking at NOCO today so it’s it’s great to to be out and be doing this uh at the same time and yeah just really happy to be here and and to um to share everything I I can I can share with uh with your audience here Cole absolutely absolutely yeah and uh thank you for joining us and you know that’s what I always say about your group is that that you are fighting for what I would call actual legalization uh I’ve been told lately that I need to stop saying uh that we failed at legalizing because the lawmakers don’t like to hear that I don’t know how else to characterize what we’ve done if criminalization continues in the state of Illinois you say cannabis is legal but people still go to jail for a variety of reason I don’t what am I supposed to say yeah and and even when uh they say things like it’s not there’s no criminalization it’s like yeah it’s technically correct however you know there’s massive fines that could come down on you for you know stupid little simple things that you might think are totally harmless but in the uh in in Illinois state law you you’ve done something you know you’ve you’ve chosen to practice an unlicensed practice or what you know whatever it is um and that can get you in some serious trouble and it can be as simple as you know uh maybe you tried some edibles and you didn’t really like them so you want to sell them to somebody because you know they’re freaking expensive uh and you uh if you attempt to sell that to somebody you may be in trouble uh you’re just trying to get rid of this you know $20 worth of gummies or whatever that you didn’t really like that could get you in trouble and that’s that’s way is that legal like in no way is that legalization sorry Phil what was that yeah like like it’s a felony right it’s not like it’s like a business offense yeah it’s not it’s no white collar crime you’re yeah they’re treating you like you’re you know slinging on the street yeah I always like to say and I’m also not a lawyer I’ll say that right now but the lawyers I’ve spoken to uh have indicated to me that the Cannabis Control Act of 1978 is the main enforcement mechanism for cannabis right now um and and folks if you can’t put two and two together a law that was written in 1978 isn’t exactly up to today’s standards um it is what created the graduated set of penalties that that we were all familiar with before legalization and this is important to acknowledge we’re all still exposed to after legalization and that that’s kind of my point just going into all of this is that criminalization is alive and well um and in fact if you’d like to read or hear stories about victims of the continued criminalization that I’ve spoken to I’m also going to start Gathering stories and kind of putting them on a blotter sort of uh display you can go to thecool memo.com isit Legal because I’m always asking is it legal anyways um today we’ll be talking about kind of another layer of that and maybe um just some quick background Chris before we get into this in case somebody’s been living under a rock can you tell people just briefly how we got to where we are today and what I’m looking for is like an explanation for how these hemp products came to be so that we can then segue to this Crackdown sure yeah I mean my understanding and my experience is uh in 2018 with the farm bill uh there was a very specific definition given in the farm bill um of what hemp is and what hemp is not uh and what it is is basically anything that you can get out of the plant besides Delta 9 THC and what it is not is a controlled substance um it’s they they specifically Exempted hemp from the Controlled Substances Act so if you look up the farm bill this is really easy to do you get the full text of the farm bill and go all the way to the end you’ll see that there is an amendment to the controlled substance’s act literally at the end of the farm bill uh that says that uh hemp is not controlled substance so any cannaboids in hemp that occur in hemp are not controlled um and uh because of that uh it opened up a massive opportunity for um farmers and just regular people to jump in and say hey I’ve always wanted to do this I love cannabis I love hemp I love you know um plant medicine I I love growing things I love agriculture let’s go for it uh and so starting at about 2019 you start seeing uh products other than um you know the classic CBD um which you know is still a very popular product but um a whole Cornucopia of hemp dve canabo uh start filtering into all types of consumable products um from Vapes to gummies and and all the rest um yeah there it is uh yeah yeah it says except for tetrahydro canab and hemp at the very last sentence so beautiful um anyway uh yeah so you have this whole Cornucopia of canabo that you know Delta 8 THC Delta 10 you know these they do occur naturally in the plant they’re they’re not in what some people might call like commercially viable quantities uh or concentrations in the plant but um regardless uh you know the language is very clear in the farm bill that this is a agricultural commodity uh and that it should not be regulated as a controlled substance uh and and that’s kind of where why we’re meeting up today is because there you know there’s been repeated pushes from uh essentially competitors in in state licensed marijuana programs um who are um attempting to sort of lock down their their market share by um insisting that these hemp derive cannaboids which are agricultural Commodities and not controlled substances that they must be regulated like a controlled substance uh at the state level um and and that you know whatever federal law says that doesn’t matter we we want to um bring hemp Under the Umbrella of our state level marijuana program uh and we also want to make sure that any type of THC uh is is part of our market share rather than the the hemp market share so that’s why we’re here today we have another push coming through from uh another cannabis organization that’s out there um that’s been kind of pushing for this for a few years and and it’s not just in Illinois it’s all around the country many states have gone through you know bans on various hemp can abono Etc um and so that’s it’s been a struggle since ever since it came out it’s been controversial people have been calling it a loophole people have been calling it a gray area people have calling it The Gray Market uh you know all of these things uh but you know uh Cole had you had um Rod kaidon recently and it was an excellent podcast where he basically just says you know that’s straight up wrong that’s just not true right and well what is man’s a lawyer he’s been doing he’s been he’s been working on this for years um the most enlightening the most enlightening thing I heard him say in that interview was that they removed the word industrial from right you know like it used to say industrial hemp and someone removed that word so like how how much of a loophole really is it oh yeah you could tell I mean that Lang and they added the whole language about uh isomer salts extracts and everything else yep they knew exactly what they were doing and and that’s that common narrative that you see out there maybe you’re arguing with people about this in the Cannabis industry and they’ll say the intention of Congress was to never make it so that you could get intoxicated off of hemp and it’s like man there’s so much to unpack with that statement yeah there is a lot to unpack with that I like to start with Mitch McConnell the lead spon like often referred to as the lead sponsor on that bill didn’t write it himself somebody else did so like we say there was somebody in that room that knew it was going on but they may have just been quiet about it I love when people bring up the intent of the law because one could argue the intent of the Illinois cannabis law based on the first few sentences from the crta would be to give people the police the bandwidth to focus on violent and property crime yet they continue to focus on simple possession and use so if you want to talk about intent it’s like okay well the intent of the Cannabis law was supposedly to end the criminalization of cannabis yeah maybe we should revisit that right right close that loophole yeah yeah that’s a loophole that I’d be interested in closing um CL close the loophole where like police can just randomly arrest you for having a sealed eth in your glove box like yeah which you can read about at thecool memo.com is illegal that actually happened a sealed a sealed product um yeah are they still trying to say it needs to be in your trunk or what yeah it needs to be odor proof which is impossible the so that’s on the manufacturer not really the consumer but yeah exactly they’re not sold in odor prooof containers yeah I’m pretty sure it sounds like I mean pretty much anyone that winds up with that kind of charge also is just going to plea out in some way so it’s like I I just feel like it hasn’t even been challenged because it’s just it makes makes no sense yeah like someone’s got to get arrested for this and like actually challenge it yeah because it’s it’s ridiculous yeah yeah if I had the freaking money I I would I would love to do it but anyways um so yeah I think that’s a pretty good summary of of how we got to where we are today thank you Phil for bringing up that you know industrial because that’s part of this argument that you know this was never you know it goes into the idea of this was never the intent and this is the industrial hemp out do you do you consume industrial Pro you know no um industrial was was dropped in the 2018 version of the farmu industrial was only present I guess in the 2014 language um from what Rod kite told us in episode 76 the other thing I just wanted to say to you Chris uh just to like add to what you said you said they want to control any version of THC I would even take it a step further they want to control all intoxicating cannabinoids they say you can have CBD it’s not fun yeah like yeah you hit it on the head they’re they’re essentially trying to monopolize what they call intoxication right um intoxication it’s always um intoxication is always mentioned um right you know they might even say they might even add more on to it like safety is always mentioned too not to cut off your point about intoxication but like they go hand in hand it’s all about safety and people getting intoxicated that’s what they on the face I I think it’s good to start this this whole conversation on its face is about safety but if you just like peel the sticker off a little bit you realize it’s like oh this says limited licensing behind it you know yes yes it yeah definitely um but um just focusing on that intoxicating word for a minute there you know the word intoxicant is Al is always used but never really defined um so and it’s not really possible to Define it if you want to look at legal definitions again I’m not a lawyer but it’s you’re not going to have an easy time making a legal argument saying someone is intoxicated off of cannabinoids right it’s just it’s that that’s been a issue for the longest time even before state level marijuana programs came into effect if you P if someone gets pulled over and they appear to be high there’s really no test for that um so to prove cannabis intoxication it just doesn’t really exist so to prove intoxication really is so yeah so intoxicating doesn’t seem to be enough anymore so now they say things like dangerous synthetic THC intoxicants yeah and that’s like you know that’s like uh conservative political commentators saying things like um woke radical leftist socialist like they’re just trying to stack as many scary words on top of each other as they can to like elicit some kind of reaction but it yeah you know the the word and intoxicating is it’s not the right word to use and they’re still using it they in the end I think it’s going to crash into a brick wall if that if that’s part of your you know the one of the main points of your argument is that people are getting intoxicated yeah it was like the main part of that press conference was all this fear-mongering around intoxication and like even like that guy from the I have to bring him up because it just drove me so crazy that guy from theic Cannabis working group yeah yeah he’s a doctor and he’s up there telling some [ __ ] story about some 40 mgram cupcake that two of his friends split and were still high two days later like that’s a lie he’s lying that that doesn’t happen no one is high for 48 hours on 20 milligrams of Delta eight well I think the point he was trying to make was that you don’t know how many milligrams are actually in it and that it said 40 milligrams and they split it two ways but maybe it was 400 or maybe it they still wouldn’t be tied two days later yeah I I agree with you on that one and and also what I want to say about that story that was brought up and I’m glad you brought it up um was two guys hanging out during the Super Bowl hey let’s try something new you know let’s go down to that corner shop Let’s Have Some Fun you know get a little crazy and and yeah they got way what maybe they did get way more High than they intended to but this is you know it’s not a convincing story to use to push for a ban it’s it’s a great story about personal freedom these guys were in the mood to do something out of the ordinary and that’s what they got and that there’s nothing wrong with that they’re not there’s no impact on their long-term health or anything like that they just have this wild story now that’s personal freedom that’s great that is a great story I love that story it is not a a good story to push for Banning anything no what yeah it’s just I mean how how are we ever going to get things like mushrooms legalized if that the standard for a for something that shouldn’t be out in the wild it’s like like some people are going to take too much and freak out like you just got to deal with it yeah yeah well said very well that’s definitely a recurring theme uh is children and just people in general are getting a hold of these things and taking way too much and then they say they’ll they’ll take it a Step Beyond that which you know that may be the case people are dosing up more than they probably should especially if they’re first timers um but um I mean people are people are experienced Drinkers and they still will wind up on their knees throwing up outside of a bar yeah looks like every weekend children was mentioned 11 times during this press conference kids was mentioned eight times I was just thinking about that because I was like every time I heard the word that I was just think it was just interesting to me sorry I cut off your point though Phil oh no that was that was a um yeah and those just you were showing that image of those 600 milligram bags of like literally counterfeit products like things that aren’t legal in like you’d get sued over that anyway uh like those bags are just [ __ ] like the stuff that’s in them is probably just real chips aoy and someone is selling them to idiots with no THC in them at all because you can just buy that packaging like online yeah it’s also interesting right here you see this package right here these are Mike Tyson ites there are Mike Tyson branded products sold in Illinois dispensaries uhhuh just saying um yeah it they they protect the anonymity of the uh retailers who have these products so it it becomes they you know if you want to talk about gray areas that’s a gray area where you getting these things um but yeah the um uh if you I don’t know if you have a picture of it but the the picture of um uh Tiffany Ingram uh holding up the two different bags of Fritos yep and she’s like my daughter couldn’t tell the difference between these two I was like actually plan to play that clip um okay I was like man is she okay because like those those two those two bags like one of them you can see the little perforation on the top where it’s like meant to hang on a hang on a shelf uh and you can see that the bag is like half the size of an actual like lunch siiz bag of Fritos so like it’s it’s very obviously like a a heavy Duty like tin foil package that is much much smaller than your regular bag of chips you could see the one on the right I you don’t even have to hold it up like at this point you can already tell the one on the left is regular Fritos the one on the right is the um the canabo um infused ones yeah uh and yeah it’s like I said if if you can’t tell the difference between those two you it it you must be wearing a blindfold or something like even if I was wearing a blindfold and you put those two on the desk in front of me I could feel my way out and be like okay this one is not actual Fritos uh and and just going way back to what something you said earlier now that i’ I’ve said that you know you were saying uh They removed industrial and people are like well do you eat Industrial Products well I would argue that you do if you eat Fritos that’s produced an an industrial environment right it’s a GMP environment but it’s a massive factory that creates those I’ve worked in the food industry quite a bit um you know Mars chocolate and and Wrigley and um many many others Unilever um and yeah it’s very much industrial all half more than half the stuff in your fridge comes out of a huge Factory so uh that yeah that whole industrial thing doesn’t make any sense to me but sorry sorry to kind of go off the rails there and and CLE it’s all good um let’s let’s play that moment real quick and then yeah I’ve got an interesting point that that you just raised uh to bounce off of what you just raised about you know commercial and food and stuff like that or industrial and food you know over the last several years there’s been a proliferation of unregulated THC products um these products can be found in corer stores and gas stations and bakeries um and even unlicensed retailers that hold themselves out to be dispensaries um that’s created a lot of consumer confusion um you know however things aren’t what they seem you know this this is Case in point here on one hand have they look like Fritos right um corn chips these are corn chips and the other contains 600 milligrams of delta8 I beg to different my daughter wouldn’t be able to tell the difference um which is extremely intoxicating so terrifying extremely intoxicating the problem is not that the little bag of chips has 600 milligrams in it and it’s being sold in the corner store the problem is that someone is ripping off Fredo’s branding and if they were licensed that would not be allow yeah the problem is copyright infringement there is no Public Health danger here I just wanted to say to your point of copyright infringement I apologize for jumping in the middle there uh Chicago Sun Times reported that Skittles maker Mars Wrigley was suing people a few years ago for infringing on you know calling their their products Skittles and in fact it looks like some of the products that were on display are some of the ones they were targeting here’s from the article uh I’ll show there were Skittles packaging just like this that were being on that desk and here’s you know Mars uh this was from a federal lawsuit from Mars so again if if they were licensed I don’t think these products would be allowed on the shelves because of copyright infringement and everything you have to go through is a licensed company uh let me just say before we go any further um I my girlfriend works in a smoke shop people get really upset when they go in there and the cookies bags aren’t available so that they can’t stuff their weed into the cookies bags and then sell it to people it’s not illegal to sell packaging um right from what I understand or at least it’s really hard to enforce somebody just selling plastic with stickers on it basically so I just this is like a issue that I think you can only really Wrangle if you keep it above board if you push people under they can do this there’s nothing stopping them from doing this um for lack of better words so um this next point I think will open us up to an interesting discussion that I don’t know has really been discussed in the media often Chris and I wanted to give you the opportunity there’s a study that’s referred to although not directly cited as I think you pointed out to me uh before we went on air um and and you’ve gone through the study so maybe we can talk about it a little bit um let’s check out this clip dispensaries can sell researchers have similar products found that there were you know well over the legal limits of THC and the hemp products as dictated by federal law and contain things like heavy metals and Lead You know this is why Illinois needs to push paws on these products and so what’s the study you think she’s referring to because she did I don’t believe she directly cited it yeah as far as the the part she was mentioning about THC levels being over the federal limit yeah um you know I’d love to know all of the studies that she’s looking at I’d be happy to review every single one but the one that I found recently and I think probably is informing a lot of the um the rhetoric that she’s got here yeah is the one you’ve pulled up here by Jennifer Bash um public safety risk of hemp products sold at unlicensed retailers so right in the name there um you can see that the the agenda begins to be pushed uh unlicensed retailers right so these retailers do have a business license um when when people say unlicensed uh what they mean is or unregulated or um um what or they say untaxed uh yeah untaxed and untested is another one that they use um but when they say those things it’s it’s spin right what they they don’t mean it’s actually there’s zero regulation or zero you know any sort of um applicable law to these people um what they mean is it’s just not subject to the same regulations in the marijuana industry so the first thing that I did was I read this paper all the way through and then I was like let’s count how many times the author says unlicensed untaxed or untested in this paper it’s a four-page paper there’s not a whole lot of text here they they mentioned unlicensed untaxed or untested 41 times in in the um four pages of that paper so like they’re definitely pushing an agenda there um and if you if you would just bring up that paper again there’s there’s um is something extremely you know that just peaked it Peak my interest right away it sounded like [ __ ] essentially uh if you go up to the very top where the author starts off saying children were hospitalized in serious and critical condition um yes so it’s a it’s a quote um here it is we’re hospitalized and serious yeah serious and critical condition right so um critical condition it’s a very specific phrase that you use when some when you’re evaluating someone’s medical condition in a hospital um so critical condition means it’s an unstable State resulting from severe illness or injury where the patient’s Vital Signs and other symptoms indicate a significant risk of death okay so the no one was anywhere close to death from the incident that she’s mentioning in that Source number one uh and if you actually go to that Source nowhere in that source does it say serious or critical condition I will say I’m trying to find it right now there is a news report and this doesn’t I’m not this doesn’t necessarily put down what you’re saying but there is one news report that I do remember using because I used it in cannabis industry billionaire part two um is a news reporter saying what two in critical so uh he says that but that doesn’t give not in the source that’s used by the author here thank you so that that article I I did download it and make sure that you know I have I have the um full text of that article and yeah nowhere in there what it does say is the child was um uh very paranoid and delusional or something like that you know like it was like okay they were just scared they took too much right right um but it’s not anywhere near critical condition right critical condition means you’re you they got the crash cart nearby like this is not so it’s like all right very first paragraph of this paper and very the beginning in the introduction you’re already bending the truth you’re already choosing to emphasize certain things that um sort of exaggerate the seriousness of the situation uh and and again you know it’s it’s really bad academic practice to write a paper about uh cannabis or hemp when and not mention that you have a conflict of interest because you’re on you serve on the Advisory Board of crco so even though you may not be paid you may hold stock you may hold stock in other cannabis companies I’m not suggesting I haven’t investigated any of that but I would say that any scientist worth anything will CLA will straight up say in the paper which there is no disclaimer in that paper that said they they’ll say I am a a member or I’m a I’m I’m a board member for a a licensed cannabis company or marijuana company you know like that that you’re supposed to mention that so anyway I went through the whole paper counted all the instances of you know sort of this weasel language that that’s used it the paper itself the the key the key point of the paper is yeah they found some products that they didn’t test or that didn’t test for exactly the milligrams that they expected um per serving but also if you look at the methodology in that paper basically what they were doing was taking a 10 milligram sample of the object that they were testing so they they break off 0.01 G of an edible and then tested it right so they’re not testing the whole edible so like that methodology seems to me like you’re you’re kind of flirting with inaccuracy at that point right and and even after that they talk about there are many reasons why it could be inaccurate including you know a lack of uh full emulsification or whatever full uh cohesiveness or or what do they call it like homogenization of the of the product itself like yeah we so you broke off like a a tin little crumb of a cookie and then tested that and then you said oh the milligrams aren’t accurate uh and sometimes it’s more sometimes it’s less sometimes they can’t detect anything at all and it’s like well you no [ __ ] you can’t detect anything at all you literally broke a crumb off of it like you anyway uh furthermore at the end of that paper it says at the beginning of the paper it says the goal this paper is to inform law enforcement legislators and the public about the dangers and and what to do uh and then at the end of the paper it says none of this is validated and should be used for informational purposes only yeah so it no there’s if you look at the sources there are no other s like there’s no scientific sources here it’s literally just quoting news articles and legislation so like it’s not and and this if this is if this is an example of the type of studies that that uh you know the recent press press conference that we were watching that that they’re using these as sort of their their rally and cry saying these products aren’t safe or they’re not they’re not uh they don’t test as what they they say on the label it’s like this type of stuff is it you’re pushing an agenda with this it’s it it doesn’t seem convincing at all to me um that this is what you wave around when you say it’s not safe you’re just assuming that people will see this see that it looks official see that it says toxicology on there see that you know a scientist with 10 years experience or research a 10 years experience and then just think oh well it must be true well is there any I wonder if there’s any control like did they do the same sort of tests on dispensary Edibles because I’ve always heard the same thing to be said about dispensary Edibles uh that that there is no uniformity perhaps you know and that sometimes people eat what they think is a 10 milligram piece and then it’s like 20 I know it’s a small point but I’m just bringing it up you know as controls are important no what uh they did the same thing that they did in the Press conference they grabbed a bunch of products from some dispensaries in Chicago cuz that’s where they’re located uh and they said um we left them Anonymous uh to or we we didn’t uh um say where we bought them we just labeled them with a with a number uh to to maintain anonymity of the retailer so each one’s just numbered like exhibit 10 exhibit 12 yeah well um okay I just want to make a small point it still doesn’t it’s actually kind of underscores the point you made I think it adds to your point in the citation they met that they made for the serious and critical serious is mentioned once in the article it says suggesting a potentially serious condition yeah yeah and that that code red thing that’s another thing that doesn’t exist code red means there’s a fire it does it doesn’t mean that someone’s dying or that it’s related to their health condition code red like that’s not it’s just not a thing but so this this is just interesting because the study says five were in serious and critical condition this says one was classified as and then and then in this report though this one I’m pretty sure says two two were in critical condition again I’m being oh no it does say one was in critical condition I know I’m being nitpicky here but like I just wanted I felt like it added to your point that this you would be led to believe that all five students were in serious and critical condition when really the report suggests one um just wanted to say that I feel like it adds to your point so yeah I mean if you’re if you’re looking at an article from that’s not from the source it it just it just adds confusion right so like yeah the in in the article that’s sourced there’s no mention of that it maybe the author read that other article and said well this is just you know this is just going on maybe they sourc the wrong Source but again that just shows that like a lack of rigor uh as far as academic practice or you know scientific accuracy there uh it just and it’s irresponsible because people take that and run with it right and it’s like we can’t me were they were up there just fearmongering in general like there was the instance she was talking about like Delta 8 I don’t remember I think it was Tiffany Ingram was talking about Delta 8 and during the questions someone asked like if the licensed cannabis comp sell Delta 8 and the guy behind her I don’t know who he was but he just shook his head it’s like well that’s a lie they do sell Delta 8 why are you like fear-mongering around Delta 8 yeah I I again great Point Phil brought up something that I noticed as well and can we play that moment real quick yeah sure cool all right let’s let’s watch that moment it uh it would be the Department of Agriculture what makes Ting Delta different than regulating cannabis the way that it is right now under state law so the person just asked what makes regulating Delta 8 different than regulating cannabis right now at at the state law um so under state law currently there is no regulation because they’re operating under an unregulated space right it’s just a virtue of the the N like the the product that’s created right so that’s what we’re trying to get our arms around does the recreational industry also sell Delta 8 the person just asked does the recreational industry also sell Delta 8 or similar or similar products I I think I’m I don’t know quite how to answer that but I do understand um there’s a lot of cross-pollination in these spaces um because the canis indry is an extremely hard business to be in I mean it’s still not federally legal um taxes especially in elor are extremely high um so there there are lots of operators not Illinois that they’ be operating in both spaces to make ends meet until things change across the country I just want to say that the first place I ever tried Delta 8 was in an Illinois dispensary from Cur Leaf which is a member of cannabis Business Association of Illinois yep yeah that’s what I was gonna say is to answer the question that CB could not you say yes like him shaking his head and then her couching of that it’s like no the answer is just yes MH yeah like the licensed companies are doing it and they’re also operating in the hemp space which they’re trying to ban themselves and everyone else from doing so they can just revert to their licensed business yeah very well said uh yeah and then you know you’re you’re admitting that the the taxes in the marijuana industry are way too high and and that people will do anything to get around them she’s literally making the case for him yeah which is pretty funny yeah I want to get this is really gets to the point of this press conference I’ve got a few different quotes that say this exact thing that we should also watch but this is just a short moment that I think is really gets to the core of this press conference we also want to protect the public health and maintain the Integrity of our state’s long fought for legal cannabis industry which is undermined by these under unregulated products um I’d now like to turn over undermined by these unregulated products yeah yes uh the word that kept the phrase that kept coming to mind when hearing this over and over again and I’m I’m really glad you brought this up Cole this is what I was thinking about this morning um before we started was the the phrase that comes up is sunk cost fallacy right that’s that’s to me that’s what this screams is like we put so much time and money into State marijuana like we can’t abandon it it’s like it almost a year and a half ago we gave some testimony uh at the department of a and I kind of suggested that this like I thought I was being really cheeky like I was like being like almost too edgy to to suggest that this is what the motivation behind this was and now a year and some later they’re just straight up saying it they’re just saying like we have to protect our investments can I I’m just I can’t believe it so it’s sunk cost fallacy and also it’s um it’s purely special interest like it’s very much special interest politics here like this is not reflecting the will of the majority if we if this was an open referendum uh they’d be out of business overnight I think um but yeah it it um so sunk cost fallacy is clearly a major component of the agenda of SB 3926 um and using public health as a rally and cry is a devious way to gain traction and and that seems to be what’s going on here it it it’s really the only interpretation that that I can see from this and you know I don’t own a hemp a business that sells hemp products at all I don’t sell any hemp products at all I’m looking at this from the from the perspective of someone who is participating in from an agricultural side um we want Simplicity we want we want minimal taxation if any um and we just want Clarity uh and none of this is a step in that direction and and to to make it so that you know the bill itself makes it so that it it it mandates um the transfer of the the highest value highest demand sector of the hemp industry uh to uh uh basically like they said they want to put it on pause they create a Safety Committee um which they mandate comes up with comp comprehensive regulation by January of 25 so you know in less than eight months they’re going to come up with Comprehensive regulation that the FDA could not produce in over five years so the only way they could potentially do that is by straight up copy pasting the crta um and that’s clearly what they’re going to do um that’s they’re all going to handpicked right it’s not like these people are voted in they’re appointed so you can appoint people who are crta workers people who have had some hand in in that bill or in that you know in that whole program um and that’s what they’re going to do they’re gonna and come January they will say okay these are our recommendations uh control a control V uh on the crta uh and you’re you’re um you’re GNA once that kick in then you know all the bill already defines all uh THC Delta anything that contains the letters THC uh to be marijuana like that’s that’s the big I think a big takeaway from this is they’re they’re taking a bunch of natural occurring hemp can abono that are not controlled substances uh and they are saying they are controlled substances they are THC and they are essentially marijuana which is our um what our whole program is based upon about so come January 25 when they decide that all of this needs to be under crta what’s going to happen is only licensed marijuana operators will be able to sell anything that contains THC because they already classified all this hemp stuff that’s currently hemp stuff as THC which then turns it into marijuana so come January 25 the only if this bill passes the only people that will be allowed to sell delta8 or anything else will be the the marijuana license holders it it’s taking the highest value highest demand segment of the hemp industry and and um mandating a massive transfer of wealth from the broad and Equitable hemp industry to the select few license holders and almost as a token gesture at the end of the legislation that they’re they’re pushing through this press conference um is uh 50 50 licenses 50 new licenses for uh for for uh processing 50 new ones for dispensaries something like that dispensaries and infusers yeah yeah it’s such a it’s such a token gesture it’s like Corporate social responsibility right like Walmart makes like billions and billions and then they donate a million and everyone’s like oh great job like it’s like the same thing it’s just anyway go on Phil well one of one of the crazier Parts about the bill is that is the thing about limiting I mean it’ll essentially just run all these hemp drink like can ofous drink companies out of business like a lot of breweries have started doing it cuz like you know breweries are down in like business like 10 or 15% I think lately you know they’re trying to make that up with these cannabis Beverages and like you have companies like binnies that are like selling cannabis beverages at the store and that would not be happening anymore like that that definitely seems like a step backward oh yeah definitely there the the the squeezle things that they’re doing with the way they Define things in this bill um it’s going to cause all kinds of problems down with businesses that have made like like they said they’ve made lots of Investments they want to protect their investment there are people on the other side saying the exact same thing so like and probably more of them than there are of you more maybe you have more money but you know because and man like like um like she said in the press conference she’s like they’re operating in both spaces because they’re just trying to make ends meet and it’s like what 65 bucks an Nathan you’re trying to make ends meet what is this we’ve talked to people that are licensed under the Cannabis regulation and tax act that also operate in the hemp space so I mean I it’s just that’s adds a whole other layer but I wanted to play This Moment really quick because it added you said that you you kind of said this tongue and cheek a while ago and now they’re saying it out loud let’s let’s listen to them say it out loud um can you respond to that uh the person no thank you for you’re are you just trying to Tamp down on competition that question um we you don’t want to clamp down on competition in the sense of like if you want to sell hemp a non- intoxicating product you’re welcome to sell that um but if you’re wanting to and I’ll give you an example I’ll tell you a story I get tons of information um from Cannabis operators sending me pictures of billboards that say come to come to my dispensary where without the tax you have this gentleman here that’s a principle that Blood Sweat and Tears to get his business running according to state law licensed taxed heavily regulated heavily it’s it’s not a competition frankly you know it’s it’s basically a way to destroy the Cannabis industry frankly so legalizing it was the problem say more legal somebody asked legalizing it what’s the problem they don’t end up making their point I don’t know exactly what their point is but I love I loved that thing that she said though because I don’t know exactly what she meant by so legalizing it was the problem but I also I almost took that as so regulating and taxing it the way you did was the problem yeah right yeah I yeah if this was addressed at the federal level really quick I just want to play what the guy said she was referring to what he said because he did say this is direct competition so that’s what he said um let me play that and their eventual eventual journey to be being adults one thing I do want to mention is my family along with other other other talented people in the in the community we went through a rigorous process to obtain our license to be a regulated State dispensary in doing so we spent thousands thousands of dollars a lot of time and in doing so we maintained the compliance to work with the state to make sure that the right products are on the right shelves it is deeply and frankly a betrayal by the state to allow these these these shops to pop up and call themselves dispensaries in fact my shop is in direct competition with some of these shops that are allowed to sell synthesized TSC intoxicated products which are just as intoxicated as the products that we sell but half the price and unfortunately without any type of compliance so yeah he says okay so so I feel bad for the guy and like kudos to anyone for trying to get into the industry at the time but it just reminds me I I read this article the other day and I think you’ve had this guy on before Cole step Philpot yeah so he he’s just saying quoted in this article from Southside weekly somebody said what’s your background why didn’t you apply for a dispensary license Phil pot said but as soon as I read the application I was like oh this is a hoax because the price of applying a loan was a barrier it’s like you know I’m sorry you couldn’t see that this was going to be [ __ ] for you from the get-go and that now you’re really getting screwed over but like that’s not hemp’s problem that’s your and the state’s problem and maybe you should sue them for all the money you’ve lost or whatever yeah I mean and that whole idea this you know I may not play these clips but just if you’re looking at my transcript which I’ll have linked in the uh uh podcast description look up the phrase playing field because a lot of people say there’s an unlevel playing field I want a Level Playing Field um it would seem that a Level Playing Field is is hemp especially with what they’re talking about with all these you know they’re talking about the fact that they are they’re dealing with the uneven part they’re like acknowledging it but they’re like not wanting anyways I’m getting lost in this thought um one of the things that going back to the original quote from uh from the press conference uh what she was saying was you know we don’t want to clamp down on competition in the sense that if you want to sell hemp a non- intoxicating product you’re welcome to sell that so it’s like uh it’s like um it reminds me of the original um Ford cars they said the customer can have any color they want as long as it’s black uh and that’s exactly like it reminds me so much of what she said there was like you can sell all the hemp you want as long as it’s CBD uh and and consumers are not going to go for it I don’t think like once you take things away like I ultimately I feel like that’s that’s what’s Happening Here is like we’re reducing consumer choice we’re reducing free market competition we’re reducing the quality by doing all of that and you know a lot of what I do is related to Quality um in many ways and and uh that’s what happens when you when you kill competition it’s like we have we have uh the high prices but without the without the competition um you’re still not getting good quality um and I think everybody would agree that the selection’s not great and quality is not great and the only way to make that better is competition uh and it like I said previously um it’s just a step in the wrong direction well and accessibility is and the state hasn’t done anything about delivery or like really increasing access for down state and the fact that you can order hemp products through the mail like there are people that can’t leave their house there are people that don’t have cars you’re just you’re you’re just screwing over people who don’t have more options you know yeah yeah and and a person like that maybe I would say hom grow is right for you but if you can’t get uh a medical card for whatever reason maybe you can’t afford it uh or you just you know you don’t want to register your name on some list or something uh which is totally within your rights if you tried to grow one plant at your house um from seed to harvest under the SB 3926 that they’re pushing through this press conference you could be F $10,000 a day for doing that so if if say you um you wanted to grow one plant in your house and you didn’t have a license but what you were doing was taking pictures and sharing them on like a a private Facebook group or whatever social media that you share with your friends you’re sharing these pictures every day of the growth cycle of your plant uh and by day 120 um you’re you’re harvesting and all of those pictures could be used as evidence against you to find you $10,000 a day for 120 days of $1.2 million for growing one plant at your house 3926 SB 3926 does like legally codify that as a possibility is there so there’s stuff about seeds in here um the no the from seed to harvest so so um I’d have to find this okay here it is it codifies is a $10,000 per day fine for anyone who uh cultivates processes distributes sells or offers for sale cannabis Canabis can AB concentrates or cannabis flour without being licensed under this act uh yeah um I am uh not gonna share so it’s so it’s almost like because now it’s I mean they at least say that it’s like a fine if it’s less than five plants but this is actually adding additional criminal penalties potentially to someone who’s just growing a couple plants at home it’s $10,000 a day for unlicensed cultivation and in all regards so okay some people say in fact that Southside weekly article even said you know kind of pairs cannabis Business Association with being anti homow uh it kind of adds to that I feel a little bit um that’s insan what you can do if you want to find that in the bill Co you can go to the bill and the full text of the bill and just search for uh the in occurrences of the of 10,000 so if you type 10 comma 0000 you’ll find it okay I am looking it up people let’s show you how you can do this Senate Bill 39 3926 sorry we’re doing a contr f of 10,000 here we go um a fine of up to 10,000 for the third violation this is something else maybe there’s three occurrences anybody who cultivates processes distrib UT sells or offers for sale cannabis cannabis infused products cannabis concentrates or cannabis flour yeah that sounds without being liced under the ACT each day a person engages in unlicensed practice in violation of the provision of this section constitutes a separate offense that’s where the 1.2 million comes from from a 120-day grow yes look at all these people that discre CBA so cbai is advocating re criminalizing home grow well it’s not say and I your penalty will be paid to idfpr yeah that’s I mentioned before it’s technically not criminalized it’s just an it’s just a huge fine man that’s that’s pretty whenever a person is convicted of an unlicensed activity under this act shall be the duty of the clerk of the court which bunch of interesting stuff people look at look this up Senate Bill 3926 sponsored by lightford who I don’t I didn’t see their face at the press conference it may have been a busy day um and I know it was in the morning I wanted to just play a moment here because I’ve never heard the Cannabis industry described this way um this is interesting Phil listen to the words this individual says by establishing comprehensive regulations we are not only protecting consumers but also create a Level Playing Field for businesses to compete in a fair and transparent Market it is a matter of public safy have you ever heard the Illinois cannabis Market a fair and transparent Market transparent the literally the ownership information in the state is confidential how are you going to call it transparent that’s thank you you you I knew you’d Glam On To those words um I mean they just I I wonder if they if they know what they’re talking about or if they just say these platitudes just thinking like no one’s going to really question them yeah uh I would say it’s fair and transparent in that it’s transparent that they want a lot of money and it’s fair that everybody has to pay it if they want to play yeah yeah um it’s uh so let’s just because there was mention of that $10,000 uh it was a very short moment at the very end of the conference um I just want to cover that moment because it’s interesting uh that not only you pointed it out but a reporter had uh spotted it as well benefits of you know artificial or synthetic canav us we we just don’t know oh by the way it does that but then it also says Hey and folks will say hey this is a ban right they’ll say oh you’re just you know you want everything for yourself that’s not the case we’re saying that let smart people like this gentleman here study to see what may be the benefits of you know artificial or synthetic canav us we we just don’t know and so we’re like right now we’re just saying hey you can just get this so I see in the bill there’s a $10,000 peny for each events correct that though you know as we know means nothing if there’s not actually going to be more people you know going into these places do you think that is the responsibility supposed to fall on local law enforcement this will be the last question I’m getting S no go ahead go ahead is the responsibility supposed to fall on local law enforcement or is the Department of Agriculture supposed to hire a bunch of new enforcement enforcement team so she asks if uh if it was too quiet it doesn’t low does enforcement fall on you know in agriculture does local law enforcement like does Department of a need to get new agents that type that type of question in case you didn’t hear it you you clearly understand uh State uh uh State processes so so um it’s an end right so you know it empowers local law enforcement to be able to look in look into these things right um because it’s really at the local level that you’re seeing a lot of this stuff but also the Department of Agriculture has the opportunity with the regulatory regulatory Authority to actually go in right now they don’t they can’t go in like they can go in so um yeah I think it’s um I think it’s interesting that they’re saying that they need to go in um because you’re you’re you’re deleting the industry like if this passes tomorrow everything has to be ripped off the shelf uh so there would be nothing for enforcement to enforce uh and then after that it just becomes it goes to the hands of the marijuana operators so like they’re already in there right so it’s this another problem I have with the bill in general is it doesn’t seem like it’s cohesive it seems like it’s sort of a mish mash uh and that if you follow one part of the bill the other part of the bill doesn’t make any sense anymore uh and so there’s a good example of this at the end of it actually where they they go to um amend the industrial hemp act that’s that’s the current Illinois Law um and they refer because they’re doing squirly things with the definition of hemp and THC when they start amending the definition of hemp in the industrial hemp act it doesn’t match the definition of hemp in 3926 and so when you try and then they start adding in phrases like not intended for human or animal consumption for some reason because they’re not considering that the the feed aspect the animal feed aspect of hemp so it just becomes extremely con are you saying they’re trying to make feed uh licensed thing too under you look at the language of 3926 basically what it says is it it sort of redefines what hemp is and it says it’s not intended for animal consumption they’re not considering that hemp can be used for animal feed at all like it’s it’s clear that they’re they’re F they’re laser focused on cannabinoids which is fine that’s all they do but uh you know this is why the IHG exist is to look at this from a sort of different point of view and and say let’s make something that makes sense for everybody um you know hemp is not just this cannabinoid thing and and we have a pretty strong backing from uh the federal government on this and yeah one of the things that I um wanted to mention about how they’re they’re saying um it’s a strategic pause you know we need to let the smart people figure this out so you know it’s been over five years since this started and really technically hemp research started in 2014 with the 2014 Farm Bill uh and a lack of researches um on canabo consumption of all kinds is like it’s longstanding it’s welln and it’s ubiquitous across both hemp and cannabis industry so to say that we just don’t know that never stopped them from pushing state level marijuana uh laws into place right that they did that even though the jury’s still out like the official jury is still out you know if you ask the FDA is is cannabis safe they’ll say well we can’t it’s not it’s not doesn’t fit our framework at the at the time so it could potentially be unsafe and that’s what they’ll say that’s what they say about everything that’s not Gras if if it’s in a if if it’s being added to uh the variety of things that humans consume and it’s not Gras they say generally recognized as safe yes they if they say if it’s not Gras they’ll say this may potentially be unsafe and then journalists and politicians and scientists take that and they run with it and they say it’s dangerous it’s synthetic it’s intoxicating it’s killing kids it’s putting people in critical condition in the hospital and and then they go and they quote the FDA and all the FDA says is it may potentially be unsafe we need a we need a grass’s grass campaign and that’s what’s interesting is that this is that’s kind of like there was a lot of different reasons that the legalization movement started but one of them was that cannabis is not dangerous and um and and one might say generally recognized as safe although not formally I guess um well certain aspects of the plan are Gras you know the seed part uh and just recently they’ve um and the hemp seed oil as well um anything that comes from the seed pretty much but they just approved the um the the meal the cake that comes off like when you press hemp seed to get all the oil out you’re left with this like thick dense cake of like green matter and uh you can take that and Mill it like flour uh and it’s was just approved to be added to the feed of laying hens um in an up to 20% uh concentration of whatever animal feeds so like 20% of all animal feed and FDA approved this um FDA CVM I think is the the so we’re going to be saying you can’t only cannabis licensed people can can promulgate for lack of better words that as it’s written right now yes that’s what that’s what it seems like at the end it just doesn’t even seem like they would be in that business either like calling Southern Illinois Farmers like hey y’all need some feed like yeah like I just doesn’t seem like their businesses are like angled to to supply that Dem even the demand of consumers let alone Phil where you uh no well I was I was just going to say yeah because it’s like they’re they’re barely even cannabis companies they’re licens acquisition companies you know and they dysfunction on acquiring these limited licenses and then protecting that market yeah and I just have to say you know I have to bring this up it’s an old report I produced but we have to remind oursel like the the attitude inside of the government you know for in our cannabis regulation oversight office is that if theed federal government closes the the loophole uh that n this is a quote 95% of our problems go away end quote uh Aaron Johnson mentioned that right now local law enforcement is reluctant to do anything due to him’s Federal legality Aaron mentioned they would be re reaching out to the Attorney General’s office to see if there’s quote anything they can do and quote right now there’s not anything that they can do like she said uh but this bill once again the reason I played that and if I could just say the quote Tiffany Chapel Ingram said this empowers local law enforcement to look into these things because it’s really at the local level that you’re seeing a lot of this stuff but also the Department of Agriculture has the opportunity with the regul authority with the regulatory authority to actually go in right now they can’t go in doesn’t it just seem weird too that the croo is even like expressing opinions about hemp like why why why does the cro have an agenda shouldn’t she just be regulating Canabis and it just makes me extremely well it just makes me uncomfortable too because Tiffany Chapel Ingram used to work as the deputy cannabis regulation oversight officer right so it’s like you have this you know you have this fireside chat between the two of them and it’s like why are you guys like why is the business advocacy group like coll with the Cannabis regulator Regulators office about hemp it’s just it just seems not clean yeah and uh the you know this one is not like it goes another thing that we we haven’t mentioned here you know last time we talked about this we talked about bills from lesea Ford um and this one goes way further than that like uh I think in somewhere in there uh in the press conference they were quoted as saying you know we respect lesea for work um but we feel like his legislation didn’t go far enough right uh and this this the one that they’ve got now is much much more uh restrictive and and I think another clever thing that they did with it was they didn’t mention taxes at all it’s just implied in the background that like all of this Revenue will be shifted to the state level marijuana program where all of these products will be taxed at 20% or whatever the same rates for flour concentrate Etc um but no in the bill is or is taxation mentioned at all because they they they sort of shift that responsibility of figuring it out to the committee for a couple of months and then they come back with well whatever the committee said that’s what we have to do so that’s yeah it’s it’s this is a much more I would say devious effort in General lesea Ford at least like he put it out there trying to sort of meet in the middle uh and and get those taxes but um yeah this one this one is just like shut it down stop it 100% transfer of wealth well and those two bills are like this classic like we were saying it’s like the license caps versus no license caps thing they want to bring this all under the license cap structure Lesean fordsville didn’t have caps right to kind of get a have license I I don’t mean to speak for them but I think that’s what they mean when they say it doesn’t go far enough because they talk about all the money you have to M to put in to make the dispensary and all the regulations you have to comply with with and if you just give this head shop a license well what the hell man I think that’s what they mean by it doesn’t go far enough at least you know to start yeah it’s so that’s what I was going to say was you know the Cannabis regulation oversight um that they just want to um run the same program they have uh and expand like that’s really all they’re looking for is just an expansion of their budget expans of their ability to enforce and expansion of their uh sort of bubble of influence over um what they would consider you know intoxicating products uh in the State uh and it it to to me it’s like the the like like you said earlier Cole um or maybe it was you Phil you you said they’re the ones dealing with the uh the difficulties they’re the ones dealing with the diff difficulties based on what they’ve created uh and there there’s no reason for uh state bureaucracy to grow around um this crop it’s it’s an you know an agricultural commodity uh and at at a certain point like we it’s going to have to be wiped out um in in some regard right like there’s no way that this limited license system can last forever uh and this is sort of just swimming Upstream uh from the the the torrent of um that that the torrent of um I I guess uh support uh Nationwide support and interest behind hemp uh and it to me it’s like uh there’s no there’s no stopping it uh and and this is these are the struggles that that uh we’re seeing from the sort of next generation of prohibition or just protectionism cronyism almost I would say that that they’re sort of getting into with the way you describe uh how the revolving door between cannabis organizations cannabis advisory boards uh and scientific you know research uh and government uh this sort of you one of the things it’s like I I’m not trying to say there’s a iracy it’s not a conspiracy it it it’s much more plain than that uh it there’s enough people out there entrenched in positions of power uh to have their way with the uh the market here and and that’s kind of always been my my joke like what what do you think about government it’s like well they get to do all the cool stuff they get they’re the only ones who are allowed to sell drugs they’re the only ones who are allowed to sell guns uh they’re the only ones who are you know allowed to commit violence like they get to do all the uh the things that um SI citizens would be um penalized for like we have the government has a monopoly on all of those things um and the the croo um I I really don’t think that they have a strong comprehension of like all of the the things that are going on at the the federal level with with hemp and cannabis in general uh they’re they’re definitely just focused on their bubble in Illinois um we wrote a very I wrote a very lengthy response to the there was a congressional RFI recently um to uh probably four uh US senators I think um one of them actually was Bernie Sanders um we wrote this 28 page RFI uh with all all of the recommendations of how Congress should adopt rules and how FDA should uh create regulations a request for information okay um so they they issued a request for information uh through like you know official um communication from the US government they said attention all people in the hemp industry if you can answer these questions please do and it was an insane amount of questions it took like I said it a 28 page like a thick 28 page paper about all of the things that they’re concerned about canabo and everything all the way through right they have the full perspective Ive on everything that’s involved with this plant with this crop uh that is hemp uh and to to see state level people in their bubble uh thinking that they can just hop in and sort of take a scoop out of that and and just walk away with it like it’s it it just makes no sense to me like there’s so many people uh in the federal government working on this right now uh and for you to step in and think that you you know uh get in the way of that uh and protect whoever it is you’re trying to protect indefinitely it just you’re you’ve got another thing coming and anyway we we’re it’s perfect timing for something like this to happen because we are doing a Lobby day next week um and so we we wrote up a fact sheet already which is hilarious uh we wrote up a fact sheet that has um among other things four talking points on it um that say uh we we we’re going to request that all senators and representatives that we meet um table any bill that uh attempts to redefine hemp um imposes any milligram caps um tries to ban any cannaboids or tries to create any new licenses um and this bill does all four so we’re basically going to just say hey there’s a perfect example this one this one is is the quadfecta it hits all four categories this thing obviously needs to be tabled it it there’s when you table something it what you’re saying is it’s not even worth the consideration like the debate the debate shouldn’t even exist here like this is not a non-starter there’s no popular support for this and if it does get any and I know the Senate Majority Leader introduced this bill I’m sure that that it was very strategic and very important for for their movement to have that happen if it gets far enough to where we can start signing witness slips we’re happy to go in and testify and we will bring everybody we know to come and testify uh who’s who’s willing um when if and when that ever happens I don’t think it will I think this needs to be tabled and I think it’s you know we we’ve got we’re going to meet with many uh agricultural committee members both in the the house ad committee and the Senate ad committee um next week on Wednesday uh and we’re going to give them this fact sheet we’re going to um bring a large group of people with us and we’re going to split into teams and we’re going to visit as many reps and Senators as we can uh to to to leave them with this information to leave them with this perspective because in that in that press conference you had a lot of Representatives involved in that press conference um and mostly what they stepped up and said was we need to protect our state program and and somebody please think of the children like those are the main two points I think from all the Reps um but yeah they they got a bunch of people um to to push that but we’re going to go meet a bunch of people who are actually the decision makers because like right now this bill is sitting uh in assignments so it needs to be assigned to it’s in a committee that assigns things to committees uh and so um they’re going to assign it to an agricultural committee who you know that’s who we’re meeting next week um so this is it’s perfect timing it’s really easy to just come in and educate and say look there’s so much controversy here this is not even worth your time um th this is you know there there’s too much it just seems bad for business too like like bad for business in the state and agricultural business and you know it just seems like it’ll [ __ ] over so many more people than it would help definitely definitely yeah the it’s the hemp industry is Broad and Equitable man there’s there are many more hemp businesses out there than there are um uh licensed marijuana businesses yeah but it’s also bad for business for reps too for reps and Senators because if they vote Yes they’re screwed if they vote no they’re screwed so if you table the bill you don’t have to do either one that then it’s just like oh we’re too busy we can’t deal with this uh and that’s basically our strategy is like is this really that important is it is something this controversial uh really that important when this has been an ongoing situ it’s been a public health emergency you could see Bob Morgan standing in the background doing his same old thing this is a public health emergency this bill has an emergency authorization in it it’s been going this is the Eternal emergency uh that’s been going on for years now um and you know people like Kelly Cassidy being quoted in the newspaper saying uh someone’s gonna die it’s like nobody’s died uh and and it’s just I know that’s a that’s kind of a shitty metric to say well nobody’s died like yeah it’s it’s kind of a shitty metric but when you got people out there this is a representative out there screaming this in the getting printed in the newspaper uh it’s just we what what’s your agenda here why why are we doing this um and there there’s a lot of confusion out there about um the legal status of these canabo like uh the be and part of the confusion like one of the things I wanted to mention this is kind of like changing the subject here was um the confusion between is Delta 8 synthetic and illegal or is that Delta 8 thco uh and I seen reporter the reporter who wrote that article in the Tribune um made the mistake and also at the end of the press conference um Mr Lindsay made that mistake as well so um in the end of that press conference uh what was his name uh uh Chris Lindsay trade Association for cannabis and hemp MH uh what he says is you’ll hear from folks that sell products like this and it’s just to say well it’s federally legal and I got to tell you that if you ask somebody at the DEA what they think they will very much disagree uh and I my response to that is this is not factual uh the speaker is confused there is a signed letter from the DEA saying the exact opposite uh and you know it’s Terrence booze is the the man who signed it from the DEA uh the confusion of the speaker is regarding dea’s position on Delta a thco which is an acetate Esther uh and Delta 10 thco which are both actually synthetic cannaboids that never occur naturally in hemp uh and it’s easy it’s an easy mistake for someone to make right it’s like and the way that the information was reported it was like is Delta eight illegal now and we we when that when that story dropped the first day we’re like what what is all this confusion uh it it it’s not um we have like like I said I have two letters I have one saying thco Delta a thco is illegal I have another one saying Delta 8 is hemp and therefore not a controlled substance uh and so not like that was like just one that was like a big issue I had with this whole press conference was it just seemed like they were presenting misinformation yeah whether or not it was deliberate it’s it was false information like I was saying it’s it’s an easy mistake for somebody to make um however it’s irresponsible and devious to to put it in print to use it as as leverage for your argument to push legislation like that though if you’re G to use it make sure you got the facts straight all right this is just another one of those things like that it’s it’s like the little ttin in the armor right it’s like you can find you can unravel everything if you just pull on that one little thread um and uh go go on Cole sorry no I just I thought it was a good time because we’re talking about fear-mongering and and language and I just It’s always important to just briefly remind the tape and remind us of the language that got us here this is when uh lawmakers agreed that we should legalize cannabis and let’s just listen to the language that was used just briefly it’s a very small clip this is uh KY cassid and I first introduced this bill two years ago over two years ago um I’d come to the conclusion that prohibition simply does not work nearly 800,000 uh illinoisans use cannabis on a regular basis uh with over 95% of those purchasing it in the illicit Market uh too often we have unsafe products that are laced with rat poison and Fentanyl we hear about people dying from this um teams report easy access for that’s what I wanted to I before legalization I really never heard of cannabis raced with laced with rat poison and and fanol so like from the very beginning we’ve kind of been a little bit dishonest I think I just you know that’s all there is to my point and I apologize for jumping in because you were about to go somewhere else I think Chris so oh I was just gonna say I was going to pull up those uh letters for you if you’d like to see them really sure um there you go can you see this now yep so this is the one from 2021 which is talking about Delta 8 uh and you can see it’s it’s signed by Terren booze um and this this is the one that’s talking about how Delta 8 is compliant [Music] hemp um so even synthetically produced it says yes um can I just take a moment to say that if we could just briefly I’m sorry but you know a lot of people when we talk about the subject they’re like I would never use Delta 8 and like personally I don’t either but I also don’t believe that prohibition is a an exercise that we should engage in and I know that they might say well this isn’t prohibition coal this is $10,000 fines all right well I I just think this is fruitless like this exercise of trying to control molecules and the best way to do it it like you can’t stop the sale of molecules you can only stop the safe sale of molecules so like give people a chance to operate above board I just had to say that because it’s like I’m not in the business either Chris you said that earlier I’m not in the business although I should you know very clearly clarify that because I recently did an April Fool’s joke and a lot of people are still hitting me with like like you know options to to further my brand I’m not in the business I have no aspirations to be in the business again I just think that the war on drugs are trying to control molecules is just a fruitless Endeavor uh that we should move on from uh I just had to say that briefly because it’s like I I personally I don’t know about you Phil are you just really mad that you can’t smoke Delta eight anymore because of this the potential of this bill or something like I don’t think that’s where we’re coming from I wanted to just clarify that you know oh yeah no no I just don’t Banning it yeah Banning it yeah so I I know some people especially middle-aged and getting older um who prefer Delta 8 because it’s it just doesn’t hit them the same way as Delta 9 does like a lot of people say I’ll I’ll I’ll smoke something with thca or from the or like hcv is like a popular new one yeah that one I don’t use that either but you know people should be able to use it right yeah and that one again that’s one that I would argue is not intoxicating at all like there doesn’t seem to be any high from it uh and and it would still under this this legislation be considered uh THC because it has the letters THC in it anything that has the letters THC is now considered marijuana with this law uh with this bill I should say it’s not long um but anyway yeah so on the on the screen this one just just to quickly wrap this one up uh this one explains that Delta 8 is all good and this one explains to Mr rodite no less that that uh in 23 that t the confusion is uh thco so do not occur naturally in the cannabis plant and only can be mained obained synthetic Sy thetically and therefore do not fall under the definition of hemp so you know pretty clear Black and White Night and Day here Delta Delta thco is not a naturally occurring thing it’s a controlled substance Delta 8 however because it’s natural in the hemp plant good to go so and this is the da this is the same guy wrote both letters he’s still there he’s still doing this so when people like Chris Lindsay or uh anyone else say you know like the the author of the Tribune article say that the DEA uh you know anytime they bring up those three big letters DEA when we talk about cannabis everybody sort of gets a little anxious uh and it the DEA in my experience throughout this whole journey since 2018 the DEA is like we don’t want nothing to do with this man we we can see that the law says what it says and we no the way it’s written right now sorry we can’t do anything and and that’s the way it should be and that’s the way it was intended like we talked about all the way back at the definition of hemp that was you know Mitch McConnell was like for everything that everybody complains about Mitch man he did us a solid when when he pushed him through the way he did yeah it’s funny because I was just in Southern Illinois on the way back from the eclipse and I’ve got a video maybe I’ll share uh these kids were walking through the the parking lot this is totally just a random tangent and I said hey you guys want to smoke a joint because they seemed cool uh they said hi to me and they said I had a nice bike or whatever so I was like you guys want to smoke a joint we did and they were like what do you they showed me their wristband they’re like what do you think about Trump and I was like you know not really not really into him uh but and he’s like budy it was just interesting to hear in just these two random people they’re like butd he legalized weed man and I was like I’ll give him that I don’t think he knew he was doing that but I’ll I’ll give him that one you’ll get that out of me um you know that’s the one point he get so anyway sorry I just had to it was just funny to like I did not expect that I I expect to be the one to bring that up never has it been brought up on me you know what I mean like so any anyways just a Kind of a Funny Story I literally have unless you have some points uh other points that you know you wanted to make that we haven’t addressed I have uh a couple of questions that I definitely want to close with but I wanted to give you space uh was there anything like any bases that we didn’t touch today cuz there was a lot said in that press conference and I want to reiterate that um if you’d like to see what was said because we just played a few Clips today folks I I produced a transcript on the colo.com I’ll have it linked in the podcast description So yeah thank you um yeah it was really helpful to to have that transcript available um so quickly so nice job um and yeah I mean uh with there’s so much right I’ve been working really hard the last week um on all of this because we have our lobby day coming up and because all of this uh developments um and so yeah i’ I’ve reviewed a 80 page bill in its entirety I reviewed that research paper I’ve gone through and done deep research on all these news articles and uh on top of that just preparing talking points and and positions um so my head is kind of like just completely overflowing with uh information so I’m sure I forgot something but I yeah I you know I’m happy to take the questions now I we’ve been going for like an hour and a half and abut keep going man that’s that’s what I love about this and that’s why I still do this um but yeah I’m happy to take the questions so this I don’t even know if we need to really devote a lot of time to this first one I I wanted to ask is this about by Design because it seemed like last time I don’t know if you’ve ever seen like dogs play tug-of-war but I feel like they’re throwing like a bone out and then these two groups are like seemingly fighting over something thing and then they just like pass through what they actually need to be done in the dead of the night which might be like a cannabis Agency for example which you you all of a sudden you hear no talk about but but they were hoping it would be done this legislative session I I just wonder through if something like that gets snuck through at the end of the night but again I don’t know if we need to devote so much time to because it’s almost like a speculation question you know is this by Design well what do you mean by like cannabis agency well there’s this debate about you know in the past the Canabis regular oversight has said they wanted a commission now they say they want an agency in the past cbai said they want a commission but now that somebody from croo is in cbai I wonder all of a sudden if they want an agency and if maybe they just be quiet about that and push it through in the middle of the night like they did with uh 28e and getting money out of the medical cannabis fund because like why be loud about things when you can just be quiet and pass it through in the dead of the night yeah I mean we’ve seen that come through again so the but they were alloud about hemp last time is my point and then they did this so you get everybody to like and then you just do what you actually want you know but anyway it’s kind of a speculative question well we’ve seen that tactic before where you try to pass something um by introducing a bill what do they call it it’s like you hot swap the bill it’s like you introduce a bill that’s like about insurance and then you it gets read twice and then they amend the entire bill um and it then they pass it like you said in the middle of the night um but yeah I mean I I do remember hearing about the uh agency thing like um because there’s so many agencies that are mandated by the crta to like regulate some aspect of it they’re like let’s create some umbrella agency that just that’s all they do um and maybe yeah it could be that they’re still pushing for that and they just want to bring hemp under that um but again I would say you know hemp businesses like that’s another thing I haven’t really mentioned so I’m glad you brought this up actually um hemp businesses uh are still businesses they’re still subject to all laws that every other business that sells consumable things is subject to so we have consumer protection safety laws we have the Illinois food drug and cosmetic act if uh if someone is selling a misbranded product like There are rules about what you know what a product can and can’t do and what it needs to do so these people that are selling products with no ingredients on them they’re already in violation of of state law and federal law um and there are there are civil and criminal penalties in the in these on the books acts many of them have been on the books for you know the the what is it the consumer protection safety laws have been around for at least 50 years uh and Mis misbranded products um can still get you in trouble even if they are hemp or whatever anything it’s a product that you’re selling to people like it’s not not like you can say like oh this is something new like it’s in a bag next to everything else that’s been all subject to the same laws it’s like you’re a registered business you’re selling things to people if it’s misbranded you’re in trouble like that that’s a real thing that already exists we don’t need a new agency um to be snuck in uh to to just grow bureaucracy and soak up tax dollars like this is there’s no there’s no reason for that yeah yeah and I guess my last question is it kind of you know I like to ask this I’ve been asking it um to the to the advocacy groups but I don’t know if I’ve ever asked it to you this issue is clearly not going away it’s been on their legislative priorities for the last I guess four or five sessions now I think it’s getting up to that point like since since we legalized it they’re like hemp has got to go um just about roughly um yeah I don’t know maybe there’s not much to it and maybe the strategy is always the same but I always just like to ask this isn’t going away so like is it just always keeping your eyes on it or is there like is there some Middle Ground we can make is this I I don’t know even really what my question is it’s just seems like a zombie you shoot it and it gets back up you know yeah well the question is how do you deal with it right like how do you exist because like we we sit and we talk about this all the time it’s like why is this taking up so much of our time and I think that’s another thing that we want to iterate um in our lobby day next week is have you ever been inconvenienced by something cannabis related when it comes to legislation have you ever been stuck in a committee for hours and hours late into the night trying to vote on some stuff like you could barely understand because it’s all Delta th coov lement o p uh well you know if if this bill goes through you’re are going to have a hell of a lot more of that so I hope you enjoy it I hope you enjoy like sitting and working really hard on stuff that is completely pointless and and complicated because you going to get a hell of a lot more of that uh if something like this goes through but I mean what I’ll say is like yeah basically like what you said you keep an eye on it um like we would prefer not to have to spend so much time discussing canabo um but at throughout our time keeping an eye on it um this one seems like a pretty significant thrust uh in in that not only is is it sponsored by you know the Senate majority leader but also it is um probably the most restrictive uh it’s probably like it’s the one that goes the farthest as far as like flipping uh the the industry Dynamic um and what the overall strategy I maybe you’re right maybe it’s bring out something extreme and then kind of back down and compromise with some amendments or back down and compromise with something new coming out of the the house or something separate coming out of the Senate um but all I can say is you know it’s based but for doing this for years like we’ve managed to time it out pretty damn good we we timed it out to where like this bill came out this week and literally the following week we are in the capital um discussing exactly things like this so that’s how we deal with it is we just sort of you you get used to it and you you just figure okay I’m G to be committing some time to it let’s let’s plan out when’s the best time yeah well cool uh well Phil you got anything before we go cool all right well I just want to thank you both for all of your time this morning um it’s Wednesday right because I’m going to drop this episode right away so folks if you’re able Wednesday the 17th is your lobby day right Chris that’s right um yeah I guess if you’re able to support I’m sure uh we can link a call to action or some information uh in the podcast uh to join so yeah uh at this point you know um reservations are not available anymore okay so if people want to support us we will have some actions that you can take um following the the event um and yeah you’ll you’ll see um content and um Communications coming off of that or during um you know there’ll be plenty of content coming from that um but yeah we’ll we’ll we’ll organize with our with our broader audience um after the event um so yeah don’t don’t just show up to the Capal on Wednesday and be like we’re here with the hemp Growers because like this is a very organized and scheduled event uh and we need yeah we have like parties uh teams of people that are like you know we’ve already grouped people to this is your we’ve scheduled by half hour for the whole day so like yeah that at this point yeah please don’t just show up and say you’re with the hemp Growers sweet well uh again I just want to uh thank you uh for joining me and I just want to remind folks that I’m pretty agnostic about this issue it really is if you just keep it in the pocket and remember what we started this whole conversation about and I’m talking about the conversation about drugs it’s that bands don’t work and you have to bring it above board if you uh have any concerns about it you can’t put push it can’t you just can’t push it into the Shadows because then you will never have your concerns uh yeah you you just can’t make any conclusions based off of things that are in the shadows so on that note folks thank you for tuning in if you’re still listening uh thank you so much and we’ll see you on the next episode of the Cole memo take care
The Cole Memo 
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