The Cole Memo

In this episode, I sit down with Caleb Howard, CEO and founder of Flower Girl and the Illinois State Director for Minorities for Medical Marijuana (M4MM). We dive deep into the challenges facing the hemp industry and the complex landscape of cannabis regulation in Illinois. Caleb shares his personal journey, the obstacles he’s faced, and his ongoing efforts to advocate for equity and opportunity in the cannabis space.

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Links mentioned during show

• My interview with Illinois Representative Ford can be viewed here
• Website for M4MM
• Instagram for M4MM
• Instagram for FlowerGirl

The auto-generated transcript is available below.

beginning January 1st 2020 the recreational use of cannabis will be legal in the state of Illinois available to stream now my mini doc dives into the history of Illinois legalization starting with January 1st what should we expect the biggest thing that we need people to understand is that January 1 in terms of the Criminal Justice System here in this state is the end of prohibition see how Illinois missed its chance at real cannabis reform with key failures including the fact that the program includes regulation on possession limits so people can still be arrested for a possession and I want to highlight that in its first year of legalized recreational marijuana in the state of Illinois they arrested three times as many black people for possession than any other race we’ve run into so much cannabis we’ve run out of places to put it I have represented people and taken their cases through the court system who got charged with more serious crimes only because the police said that they smelled cannabis and not because the police said you have illegal cannabis or not because you have too much cannabis or not because you’re high on cannabis but because I can smell it and that’s it attorney goes he understands that he can’t be smoking and his cannabis flower shouldn’t be open and I was like I’d like to say a further record that I was not smoking and my flower was not open so uh that’s where we’re at right now in Illinois and I hope it changes start watching now at coal memo.com minock [Music] [Music] so yeah there’s there’s always that awkward moment but when I like it happens more so in person where like if I’m like setting up equipment like I like try not to talk to the guest that’s right in front of me like I and if I do it’s like I make small talk because it’s like I don’t want to get too much into the conversation without it getting captured you know what I mean so that’s what you’re saying yeah yeah yeah but anyways dude it’s it’s nice to meet you Caleb uh we were just chatting uh for the first time before we hopped on air uh do you want to go ahead and introduce yourself uh well to me and my listening audience yeah so my name is KB Howard I’m the CEO and founder flower girl and also I’m the M4 mm state director in Illinois awesome yeah and if people want to check that out I actually just pulled up the link I’m going to share my screen right now and I’ll throw this link in the podcast description minorities for medal marijuana.org minorities number four medical marijuana.org once again that’ll be in the podcast description we’ll also throw the social media as well so that you can get hooked up and click follow like I just did right there so Caleb how’s it going dude uh everything’s going fine for the most part just uh getting everything established we uh just had a meeting last week for my for medical marijuana and we even though we’re one of the newest chapters we also had the most people join in the meeting so we’re getting some uh good merch and everything for that and we’re getting the infrastructure laid out so I’m excited sweet man sweet tell me a little bit more about I mean uh we could talk about anything and everything but since we started with minorities from medical marijuana Maybe about that yeah so basically here’s a quick down of what happened I was looking more so when I was starting up my brand with my family and everything how we could expand and understand the playing field so I ended up talking to Charles woo cuz my one of my manufacturers recommended me to him so we kind of break it down we go back and forth and then I learn about this opportunity because me and him we all went to um Lobby and they called my sister criminal and ever since then even though it’s legal and federally legal due to the farm bill hus and we were just lobbying against getting permanently banned in every pretty much everywhere in the state immediately so we made sure that didn’t happen and since then we’ve been working together with everyone m4m ihba and just other hemp and even cannabis organizations in order to um prevent the ban of hemp and also work together as one plant so that’s kind of what we’re doing in that regards with m4mm since that opportunity I have like eight years of uh community service and Outreach when it comes to that so I have some experience when that’s another reason why I got put on board because I’m familiar with the non for-profit spaces so gotcha um so uh very interesting I think I know what you’re referring to um but I don’t want to assume when you say that somebody referred to your sister as a criminal was it somebody in the Gen Illinois General Assembly I believe so yes yeah interesting interesting and uh was it something to the effect I’m actually trying to find the statement right now if you can’t tell I’m looking for things but yeah uh was it something to the effect of uh you are selling illegal drugs and you will not be allowed to kill our children this summer or something to that effect was that the quote something relatively similar you know that’s kind of the thing it’s just more so when I talked to the farmers one of the biggest Farmers for him I remember seeing her at the Champs event and she was just saying I sell lotion basically I don’t sell you know even in the first place and everything that we’re trying to do with the um m4m and everything that who I work with we’re trying to regulate it to make sure that children don’t have access to it we’ll pay more taxes we’ll make sure that it’s regulated better but an allout band doesn’t make sense you know especially because one of the highest unemployment rates for African-Americans I believe in the state out of all the states one of them so it’s just kind of like counteracting that providing jobs for our communities that were affected on the war drugs to try to you know help Illinois become a stronger State yeah and frankly when you make drugs illegal uh you know I don’t know but when I was a kid I was able to buy weed so much easier than I was ever ever able to buy like a Miller Light or you know like an alcohol cuz it required me to get an adult to help me versus weed you know nobody was if you’re not required to card you know you may not and um that was the case with some of the dealers that I found so you know just to bring It full circle I know that you along with other hemp operators said you have concerns about children all right we’ll ageg gate our products I know a lot of you already do um you have concerns about testing and labeling all right we’ll test in labeling our product again a lot of you already do um you know and I know even some of you have agreed and I say I say it that way because I know that not everybody agrees but some of you have agreed uh to be taxed at the same you know yeah that was me I agreed yeah yeah so that’s and no one likes taxes but I understand why you know because it’s just other cannabis is getting mad as well and at the same time I’m kind of like instead of looking at us as the issue you should look at at the people that are charging you I think 25 grand for I think it’s a license right yeah you should be mad you shouldn’t be mad at you know that that’s I’ll be mad at them you know that’s where it gets weird though because that’s that’s like that is you just honed in on the disagreement there you know like I’ve debated a lot of people even this week but you know on just this show and other people’s shows and one of the things it comes down to I’m like all right let’s address all the public safety concerns and I listed out the things that we just listed out which is labeling testing and um you know an age gate and then I mentioned that some people are willing to be tested at the same but then Here Comes it’s like well but they don’t have to pay the same licensing fees as us and they don’t have to set up all this security and all this stuff and I’m like you shouldn’t have had to either yeah exactly those all of those it’s funny because if you take it out of the context of hemp they’ll complain they’ll openly complain about all of those regulations they’ll say these burdensome punitive regulations but when it comes to you they almost like hold them up as if they’re a gold standard and everybody should comply with this and it’s like hold on they’re stupid you know right right right and that’s the kind of thing when I hear people talk about equity and things like that it’s like how you know you think how many people if you’re in a disadvantaged environment let’s just say you don’t have the money or the capital to afford that license to begin with how can you just say oh you know we need a and H and good luck with this you know you’re just going to make a black market and that’s what people have to really factor in and I think that sometimes people forget that hemp is a good barrier it it it allows a lot of people to get into the space and if we do it correctly in the right way we’ll have a great Market you know yeah yeah and I think just people coming along coming together and just looking at are we the real enemy in that because I’m I’m working with cannabis people and hint people but I’m like hemp people the Real Enemy they’re trying to get regulations to trying to make it like uh liquor in a sense you know bringing more money to the state providing more jobs yeah kind of how I look at it and him can be used more than just being consumed also I know this for clothing I heard something about concrete like hemp buildings or something there’s so much you can do with it you know well and that’s that’s what they want you to do they want you to like to use their words they want you to stay in your lane uh you’re you know they say is only for industrial purposes which is I I think debatable because they dropped the term industrial from the 2018 farm bill they added a host of consumable cannabinoids to the law um you know so to me that doesn’t exactly like unless somebody can address that to me that doesn’t I don’t think it’s only for industrial purposes anymore um you know but like I say they’re their debate is is really about you staying in your quote Lane them staying in theirs and and part of being in their Lane is that it’s you know limited par participation in the lane right they don’t they don’t want everybody to have access to that lane so that’s kind of like this other element I feel like to this conversation you know yeah yeah I agree and kind of how look at it sometimes in life either you’re box then or you are the box and it’s kind of just more so the mindset of I’m not going to let people just control or confine me or my ideas or anything I kind of stand for and I’m going to fight for what I believe in and I kind of believe this movement is kind of like that as well you know cuz it’s like there’s so many things that we can do if you want to have a better Nation overall not just for him but you know I’m not going to go too far out but it’s just yeah we should let people have personal freedoms and make sure things are regulated that people are taken care of it’s not poison and destigmatizing things so they can be used properly I’m all for it that’s what I believe so yeah well hey let’s watch the uh quote I think you were referring to a moment ago I’ve got it queued up they are selling illegal cannabis on the streets and you will not be allowed to kill off young people this summer if you want to sell cannabis then get yourself legalized I ask for a i it’s important yeah so that’s one of them you yeah yeah I think like you said maybe there was a different different one where she she specifically referred to uh somebody as criminals so yeah that was my actual yeah my actual sister and that’s the one when we were first talking with her and everything and just trying to convince her remember there was even a doctor there trying to break down the science and she just wouldn’t listen and the thing that I have an issue with is that if we should be able to have a conversation that’s not just shutting people down it’s just like we need to communicate in order to have a better understanding of one another when we have Professionals in here that say this is how I use it when we have veterans there when we have you know minority business owners it’s like if you represent us you should least show that respect and listen to us without shutting us down immediately you know instead of calling people just criminals and you’re saying you’re standing for us but you really kind of seem like you’re against us you know yeah because it and you want to hide it under the word equity in everything or diversity and I’m like well aren’t we all diverse was everyone there not diverse the the veterans the minority business owners the you know everyone else the doctors everyone was diverse that’s how I look at diversity not just as like what people say it is but just true all different colors you know genders everything you know yeah yeah and it’s just weird Illinois what what from my perspective what Illinois has done is they’ve paired the concept of social Equity with the concept of of market share and price compression and receivership so like the Cannabis regulation oversight office will point to States like Mich Michigan which I mean I think I just saw a stat that now Michigan supplies cannabis to you know more cannabis to the United States than California I’ll have to try to find that stat uh that headline really quick but the point is is that it is a vibrant industry everybody goes to it especially from you know this the Eastern I would say side of the United States it’s one of the best cannabis markets and Illinois points to it as a failure because people go out of business sometimes and prices are low like quite literally that’s what the Cannabis regulation oversight office uh their officer Aaron Johnson said something to the effect that they work every day to prevent that from happening in Illinois and limited licenses are what they credit as preventing that from happening in Illinois wow yeah yeah and I mean you know yeah it’s just like yeah maybe people aren’t going out of business but there are certainly look and I’ve heard of people that have gone out of business I don’t think it’s pen has been put to paper on that just yet um and you know what does out of business mean all this stuff like you know you’re not really out of the game until your license is revoked so to say but my thing is okay yeah maybe you don’t have a lot of lienes facing receivership but are a majority of your lenses even operational and the follow-up question is are they selling products that are from new licenses because I have a feeling that still to this day the majority of the market is supplied by the originally established lenes you know because there’s only a handful of new craft Growers that are even growing their own product you know yeah yeah so an interest in uh playing field seeing what’s going to happen down the line I know I’m going to go talk to some more people uh in the next upcoming months just to prevent him from being banned as well I have around 80 people to talk to so once I get that move going I’m going to be excited you know and I’m going to talk to uh I believe Tammy duckor if I pronounced her name correctly this Saturday so that’ll be exciting yeah yeah yeah so I’m curious you know this last go round um there was you know a bit of a a split I would say in the hemp movement and you know Lesean Ford had had a proposal I mean I interviewed Lesean Ford in 2023 about his h proposal at psychedelic science 2023 and he was all about you know open licensing you know giving everybody a part uh chance to participate because as he said and as you just said uh prohibition is proven failure that’s why we legalized cannabis so why would we right you know bans don’t work and and I thought it was really interesting um you know are you still kind of falling on that side of the fence with lesea Ford’s legislation or you know I noticed some people uh you know have signed on kind of almost seemed like they were opposed and now they’re proponents of leader lightford Bill where do you stand on on this uh I’m not really on lightford side I’m on Lesean Ford’s side and I remember reading his piece of legislation and that’s kind of what I was cting to originally and I remember light for also was the one that was basically not listening to even my sister the one that called basically her a criminal and um that’s one of the things it’s just like I want to have a conversation with light for that’s productive and we can meet a middle ground but sometimes well based off all the information I’ve been receiving it’s just been poison poison this is bad this is bad and then she’s like I smoke as well and then I’m like I’m really confused you know and I’m like let’s do proper regulations let’s get it going the right way we can do that but you have to listen to us because that’s just like I feel like it’s just that disrespect and that’s why just can’t you know and also all the jobs at stake all the people that put more money in it than I ever did can just lose it all overnight I think that’s crazy you know yeah for no real reason well you know I mean no it’s you know we can’t it’s possible that’s that’s the thing I I I heard someone there was a a house rep based basically saying that they want to turn it into kind of being like alcohol almost where you can go to a store just show your card and then just do it like that that’s what they were saying yeah that that’s a suggestion I’m not saying this is what’s going to happen it’s just kind of treating it from that perspective and a lot of the H stores I went to you had to show your license you have to type in your name and everything and make sure you’re a ag so right and and I don’t know why that wouldn’t be an acceptable thing you know it’s funny people use the term gas station weed as like a a negative connotation and it’s like honestly when I thought of cannabis legalization I thought that meant that there was going to be some weed behind the counter yeah yeah yeah you know like yeah and you know some of these people will rightfully point out like oh there’s these I’ve never heard of these Brands before it’s like all right what if it what what if it were Brands you’ve heard of before cuz plenty of them now are in the hemp space you know cookies cure Leaf so so I like to ask people what you know if you saw some Brands you knew on the Shelf would you feel better about it and all of a sudden they’re like oh yes so I think a lot of it comes out of you know lack of familiarity but just to round out my point because you know um we sell very dangerous things at the gas station and there’s no outrage about that like you know crazy boner pills different stimulants uh alcohol Ever Clear like that can actually kill you and we all have agreed cannabis will not cannot and so it’s like why wouldn’t it be allowed to be sold at a gas station and that’s another that was just kind of run across my mind I’m like okay if you’re going to ban hemp or you’re going to ban sugar necks you’re going to ban alcohol you’re going to ban opioids there’s a lot of things that you could really ban right now you know that are much more extreme right and that’s just the standard War on Drugs standard it I don’t I well they just want cannabis to take over the hemp industry I get that but I’m just saying other than that it’s very interesting to me and that’s why I got into this space in the first place cuz even when I was starting building my startup at the same time I was just looking at the political side so I can know every angle of the industry that I’m in because that’s really where everything goes around around and that’s right when when I first started to really get into it that’s when the band was coming around and that’s why I was like protecting we’re going to be majority e-commerce based however we’re getting some offers to go into some stores it’s just right now what’s the point of going into a store if you’re gonna get banned right you know that waste everyone’s time you see so that’s just kind of um the whole situation on my end but uh yeah I’m here for the political fight regardless and I’m just here to you know make sure people have their personal freedoms and that they’re not being poisoned and we can communicate with legislators the right way rather than just kind of being screwed over by them yeah yeah I I feel like the key is like we have to figure out I don’t know it’s obviously maybe not as simple as this but like leader lightford for example like she is a proponent of the crta which is this highly regulated compliance focused limited licensed cannabis regime and I just I think that the people that paid for that you know and and you know maybe contributed to her campaign and everything else have been very clear that like unless you drive this through like they almost did like we’re not going to contribute to you anymore and I guess really what I’m trying to say is dude hemp like I’ve been bitching about the way the cannabis license or sorry the Cannabis Market has been for consumers for years I’m not even talking about businesses my I have no aspiration to get into the business I’m just a consumer and I’ve been bitching about this for years and what’s crazy is it took hemp for people to like I feel like actually start having this conversation you know and I’m not trying to say that I was like ahead of the curve or anything I had heard it these ideas from other people I’m just saying that it’s crazy that you know people like me can complain about this and come up with rational arguments all day long but until something like what has happened which I view it and I’m sure you’ve heard this analogy as well I view it like uber and taxis it just happened and then you have to [ __ ] deal with it you know like it kind of flipped the world upside down for an industry and there’s got to be like some answer um so yeah and my thing is even with hemp versus you know cannabis it’s like if one thing is technically the super easier barrier entry to get into when it’s a superior product that’s his capital ISM you know like if you can set set up a store set up a store quicker than you can on the Cannabis side and you can make more money then you should just go with the hemp industry that’s what I would say if I had to choose between the two I’m not trying to you know make anyone really upset but that’s what I think about when it comes to business if there’s a better product you have to do a new iteration like when I think about so I have a product right here in my hand right now so this is one of our Vapes and there’s some iterations I want to do to the boxes and that’s kind of the thing like over time you make changes you you pivot if you want to have a successful business you know right so if there’s a better that’s just kind of what I see and it is hard people to even get you know sometimes medical marijuana licenses Etc and yeah I just don’t want us to have another black market and I don’t think people should be going throwing in jail for selling dog treats with CBD in them or something silly like that yeah yeah but now I I want to address your point using you just brought up like you know lower barriers to entry and I totally agree with you um but this is you know this is how these cannabis companies are structured and this is halfway to address your point but also halfway to give people a sneak peek at my upcoming mini documentary which you can um get screening tickets to screenings to now at Co memo.com minoc or if you just want to watch it you can uh you can actually watch it at Co memo.com do here’s a peak and it again this scene kind of addresses your comment about you know him creates lower barriers to entry well that’s that’s not what they want here’s the clip take Cur leaf and green thumb Industries two of the biggest cannabis corporations now here’s what they’re telling investors Cur Leaf says that it quote maintains an operational footprint of primarily limited licensed states with natural high barriers to entry and limited market participants end quote now that’s an annoying corporate speak way of saying they want Monopoly power Green Thumb Industries says it is seeking to operate in in quote limited Supply markets end quote i’ a slightly shorter but equally annoying way of saying the same thing it so right they they low barriers to injury to them it’s like well then we don’t even want to [ __ ] be here anymore that’s why they’re going to fight tooth and nail like that’s what they sell to stock investors that’s why they left California both cir Lea and Cresco and some you know it’s funny some clip I went on somebody else’s podcast some clip of me went viral where I was saying exactly that and people on the in the comments I don’t even know why it’s like the first time I look at comments in a while and they’re like actually Cresco is still in California as a brand they are they’re not cultivating because it’s a race to the bottom you know so they make these like strategic decisions to pull out um maybe but still have a presence and and of course like a market a presence in a market like uh California so right anyways yeah um again I just have to make sure that you know we talk to the right people and make sure this doesn’t get banned and just go from there yeah yeah well said D I mean yeah yep and uh to go forward to kind of pivot the conversation some more um what got you into this all together you you were talking about more so when you first got you kind of just a consumer and everything and you have the podcast and I was just curious on what got you interested in it yeah uh um so I kind of so I start I’ve been consuming cannabis since I was in like 8th grade off and on not you know not crazy regularly obviously as a kid but that’s that’s about when I started and um I’m trying to think of how it lined up but sometime my like when I was in high school or around then getting into High School col Colorado legalized it which was you know super interesting to see play out I remember watching like Vice reports on it back in the day and sometimes I’ll wa re-watch those Vice reports just for the Nostalgia factor and um I mean starting then I would just every day I’d Google marijuana news and I’ve done that since then I I now sometimes I’ll look up Illinois marijuana news or Illinois Cannabis News you know variations of the title but just to just to like stay in the loop of what’s going on I just find the topic fascinating and and of itself the development of policy and um really the development of access that’s you know because I remember what some of my first memories of Colorado becoming legal was like yes everybody had access but the prices were really high and then that kind of was addressed and there was the whole swing and balance but then you know to bring us to the podcast um I have always sort of liked creating media and videos it’s just sort of been a hobby of mine ever since I like learn to use a computer and a camera but um uh when we were leading up to legalization I was thinking like you know it’d be cool to do a podcast I I’d been thinking about doing a podcast in anyways but I was like I want like a topic you know to really dig into and I was like we were about to legalize so it was perfect and I I had been a medical card holder for I think about a year or two before legalization so I was like familiar with all the brands I’d really become familiar with like the market structure but I had these like questions um and that’s when I started the chillino podcast I had like what I thought to be the truth had a lot of questions didn’t really know how to verbalize any of it and and I still don’t I’m still learning that it’s it’s a skill that I’m trying to get better at but that’s that’s kind of how it all started man was just like I wanted to start a podcast and like I said I started it as the chillino podcast ultimately kind of wanted to break out of the mold of being like limited to Illinois cannabis content because anytime I would talk about like mushrooms or something in another state or they’d be like what the hell man why are you talking about this in Nevada I thought you were the CH Illinois podcast and I started to get frustrated with that and the idea that I could only be limited to Illinois and so um I had been making a joke over the years that you know you can thank me for the state legal cannabis systems that are going on because of the coal memo right which is federal guidance which allows all that to go on yeah and at one Point somebody said like you should start a blog named that and I was like I was just at the time I was thinking I wanted to change my show name and when they said that I was like that’s the new show name yeah you know um just because most people you know you and I probably recognize it as a can as a reference to cannabis policy but most people just think it’s some stupid reference to my own name you know that I’m like so full of myself that I’m putting my own name in the show title and that actually works to my benefit you know if I can get people over that hump it works to my benefit to an extent because now I can talk about whatever the [ __ ] I want to talk about I mostly talk about cannabis and for people again that are cannabis policy nerds they see the name and they know this person’s probably going to be talking about cannabis but for people that aren’t in the know that allows me to just be like kind of flexible and talk about whatever the hell I want so yeah if you check out my episodes you’ll see like it’s a lot of cannabis content there’s some mushroom people you know there’s some state representatives but then there are also like a maintenance man a deer dealer and I’m not talking about like a John Deer dealer I’m talking about like a man in Southern Illinois that raises deer and sells it to like these uh part I don’t even [ __ ] remember I was high and drunk but you have to check it out cool cool cool yeah yeah that’s really cool yeah so long-winded answer but that’s kind of like how I started and how it evolved and you know here we are yeah that’s real nice I like you know what you got going on and I can’t wait to uh even share for m4mm the documentary that you have coming up you know and just kind of more awareness to it because you put in a lot of work so yeah and that’s you know that’s why I’m super excited about that I was talking to you before we went on air like I’m super excited for that because you know in a podcast just like this we go anywhere and everywhere and sometimes you know you can some sometimes you can lose people like we’re on the same page obviously on a lot of these things like we know what we’re we’re talking about it’s not like you’re like what do you if it’s not like you’re like catch me up on that or anything we seem to be on the same page you know what I mean but some people might tune in and they’re not and so you know and it’s hard to just dive into a podcast so I’m really excited to release this mini do because it’s like a TV time slot and it covers I would say about the first two years of legalization as I say in air quotes and um it kind of like I say it just gives you a focused Punchy uh it gives you my vision in a very focused delivered format which like I say in a podcast even like right there I just stopped like lost my train of thought and was like uh so with the mini do it’s just boom boom boom information citations for everything a bibliography will be published alongside of it you know what I mean so it’s like here’s the information take it and run with it and like my hope is people do that and make a [ __ ] better mini do or you know cuz like I’m like how the hell is this not like a Netflix series like there’s some crazy [ __ ] when you really dig into it you know what I mean yeah yeah yeah it could be that’s right it could be yeah it could be yeah just be the Catalyst of everything and then go from there yeah yeah that’ be cool yeah so like I say I’m just happy because if anybody this is what I’ve been saying to you know people when I talk to them about this like privately and this about this project I’ll be like if any from now on once I release this if anybody is like not on the same page like you and I are I’m I’m literally and I don’t even mean to like sound arrogant but I’m just gonna be like let’s I’m gonna give you my mini documentary watch it you can watch it on two times speed which means you’ll have it done in 25 minutes yeah and then we’ll be on the same page and then we can like restart this conversation and if you didn’t understand anything and I like that because like sometimes when people ask me like what’s your what’s your deal with the way Illinois legalized cannabis I’m like [ __ ] where do I begin um so this like I say very focused and in a TV time slot I think it’s I hope it resonates well with the crowd so yeah and also we can send that to light for it as well yeah yeah she uh she’s not in part one but she might be in part two that’s for sure right right honestly at this point yeah yeah yeah so but cool man yeah thank you for for asking me about that and uh you know one thing I didn’t ask you yeah just like before we part ways like how long have you been consuming cannabis and like how did you uh you know find yourself in this um well I around since high school I’ll give you a quick like quick story so basically when I was younger I used to like to create things and I used to I was always interested in business so had like a comic book company when I was just you know like SEC fourth grade it was fourth grade and I was just when I would sell the comics I was making decent money for a fourth grader but then the school banned it because they’re like we don’t want you selling things and I was just like that creative itch kind of got taken away in a sense and then as I got older you know I would study um the War on Drugs I would study things like psilocybin also weed and everything else and kind of that there was a lot more beneficial effects to him and it’s just like people weren’t really paying attention to him so like five six years ago I was just like these things actually have benefits that a lot of people don’t understand you know I know people that were affected on the world on drugs I know people that were hooked on drugs even died from them you know I’ve seen a lot in my life it’s just more so just seeing how the entire system works and how there’s things that can help us as a society that we don’t want to bring you know um we don’t want to give people we don’t want to give people access to things that can help them you know and that’s just one of the things that reasons why I’m even fighting for him because even right now my grandmother she has like terrible back pain she’s going to the ER right now and it’s just we’re seeing like other weed or cannabis products that can also help cuz opioid AR really helping you know the way they should so it’s just a lot on my end that goes on and just interested in the space I’ve always been interested in it I’ve done my research when it comes to just understanding the chemical compounds and just seeing how things can um alter the mind in a positive way you know cuz a lot of these things oh if you want to go on the mushroom route that’s just more powerful you know and they’re doing a lot of scientific research so it’s cool seeing how everything evolved from like six years ago to like now where everyone’s like this is all bad and everything and they’re like oh whoa it has some additional effects and I’m like yeah it’s it I’ve even heard like documentaries where Native Americans were talking about that gave people psilocybin and things like that about like this is more of a medicinal type of product and you guys are going to mess it up now we’re here you know but yeah it’s just making sure people have proper access to knowledge we make sure we just stigmatize things appropriately and just go from there and then we can kind of evolve as a people I believe you know when we just instead of giving the bad things we give the good things and that’s the idealistic way of saying it but yeah yeah so that’s kind of how I got in the weed that’s why I’m interested in this industry I’m interested because just like how government the government banned my last business I don’t want you know this type of business or industry to be banned as well you know yeah yeah well uh Caleb I want to thank you for joining me that you know uh you said you’re moving and you’re not feeling well if I were you I would have cancelled um so um but I want to thank you and you should uh hit me back up when you’re settled and uh you know want to chat I’m sure that you know in the next few months we’re gonna have things to talk about so hopefully hopefully they will be uh good things celebratory things and not bad things yeah yeah cool man well again listeners uh we’ll have the links for minorities for medical marijuana um in the show notes that’s minorities for medical marijuana.org and uh Caleb once again thank you for sitting down with me today all right cool folks take care we’ll see you on the next one Caleb we’ll be in touch see you