[Intro music] Skipper Chong Warson: Hi, welcome to How This Works. My name is Skipper Warson. I'm a design director in San Francisco. This is a show where I invite people on to talk about a topic that they know incredibly well. And today, I'm fortunate to have with me Brad Bogus. He's going to talk to us today about the cannabis industry and the chemical compounds of cannabis and how they affect the human body. Thanks for being here, Brad. Brad Bogus: Yeah, thanks for having me on Skipper. Skipper: So I want to start with an introduction about who you are. How do you introduce yourself? Can you give us some biographical information, maybe a few sentences? Brad: Certainly, you know, I find myself conflicted in this answer because personally, I see myself as an artist, an actor, a musician, and a punk rocker, right, but when people ask this question, often they mean, What's my profession, right? Skipper: Sure. Brad: So, I've been an entrepreneur most of my career and I recently joined the cannabis industry. Well, not recently, I guess now it's over four years ago -- and very quickly became involved in every aspect of the cannabis industry, learning every bit of it. I personally do marketing in the cannabis industry, but -- Skipper: Okay. Brad: I introduce myself as an artist -- that's who I am at heart, right? Skipper: That's fair. So given that context, what's something that people don't know about you? What's something that people don't often guess? Brad: It doesn't have much to do with cannabis other than I'm a huge Shakespeare fan. And I have, I've actually learned Shakespeare from two of the top authorities of Shakespeare in the world, one of which, unfortunately, has passed. But my knowledge and education that I received on Shakespeare is so vast in a way that most people don't realize Shakespeare wrote in so I really like to talk about theater especially, but when you get me nerding out on Shakespeare, I go nuts. Skipper: Do you have a favorite Shakespeare work? And I know that's hard, it's like picking your favorite child. Brad: Yeah, it's a good question. For the most part, I would say Winter's Tale. Skipper: Hm. Brad: "The Winter's Tale" spoke to me when I read it in college. I need to revisit it, that and "Titus Andronicus". And really, Julie Taymor's production of Titus Andronicus with Anthony Hopkins and I'm not going to go through the whole cast, it's a star studded cast, but it's one of the greatest presentations of Shakespeare I've seen. And so it really connected me to that work, too. Skipper: Yeah. Is that available on video? Brad: Yeah, it's on DVD. I think it came out in early 2000s. Skipper: Okay. Brad: It's stunning. Skipper: Okay, we'll link to it in the show notes because Julie Taymor has done so much amazing stage work in terms of The Lion King. I know. Brad: That's right. Skipper: And, you know, she did that Spiderman show on Broadway and you know, etc, etc. So yeah. Brad: Yeah, she also did a version of Midsummer Night's Dream, which is amazing and fascinating. And that's also on video, although I think it's hard to find. Skipper: Well, if we can find it, I'll link to it. Brad: Yeah. Skipper: So Brad, what are we talking about today? What is the topic that you consider yourself very well versed? Brad: I think that a lot of people understand that cannabis affects us either medicinally or psychoactively, but I don't think people really understand why. And one of the things that I've done in my career in the cannabis industry and actually as a consumer prior is get very educated on what exactly is going on, how can we understand how cannabis affects us because I care very much about it. I've seen the medicinal benefits of people who have used it, who were in health hopeless situations, and I've also seen people who just like to get high. And there's there's a whole lot of philosophy as well as science that goes into how cannabis affects us. And we don't have really solid answers. And so it's a hard question to answer for most people. And I think that's what I'm really excited to dig into today. Skipper: Well, I'd love to set up with a little bit of background about the history of cannabis. Brad: Yeah. Skipper: And it used to be that cannabis or marijuana, is it fair to use those two terms interchangeably? Brad: It is. It is for the general public, for sure. There's a lot of controversy around the word marijuana because it has this root in racism in the United States. It was used as a boogeyman term to scare white people of brown people and basically say that, you know, the Latinx community is bringing weed into your communities to destroy white women, right? And so, there's this loaded history of the term marijuana -- Skipper: Reefer madness. Brad: Exactly, reefer madness. And so it was used in that way, but it actually does have its roots in Mexican culture, way prior to its adoption by white racist prohibitionists. And, in that regard, I like to continue to use it because I think it honors its original heritage. In that way before it came in United States, and so -- Skipper: Sure. Brad: Yeah, most people will side with let's get away from the racist roots of the word marijuana and move to cannabis because it's scientifically accurate. But I feel like sort of whitewashes a bit of the history. Skipper: That's fair. How does it start? Cannabis is a thing that grows out in the wild but up until recently, it was illegal -- Brad: Yeah. Skipper: For the most part. So how did this start? Brad: It starts with corporate interests. A long time ago -- when I say a long time ago, I'm talking the early 1900s -- there was a real threat to the newspaper industry, to the textiles industry, and even to the oil and gas industry to a certain extent that the hemp crop, which is but for everyone to understand hemp and cannabis are the exact same plant, they just are grown for different purposes. And you can grow it for textiles, you can grow it for medicine, you can grow it for a lot of different things, but -- Skipper: Okay. Brad: The textile form of the plant was extremely sustainable, extremely useful in many different forms, and in factors. So the paper industry saw this as a real threat. And William Randolph Hearst, who ran the newspapers at the time as a monopoly for the most part, spent tons of money to demonize this plant as being a devil drug, because he knew that he could scare white people to unite against it without really having to give away the ruse, which was that I'm afraid that this is going to supplant my entire industry. So, rather than adopting a much better form or source for his paper, he decided to demonize it and try to kill it. And then a few other corporate interests jumped on with that. And they planted such a powerful seed, that seeds still grows today. I mean, it's like trying to kill a weed now, no pun intended. Because it's out of control and it's rooted even in my psyche, I still have the drug war propaganda rooted in my brain, always. In small little echoes. And that's just how powerful and pervasive propaganda can be when you don't have knowledge and science to help untangle that propaganda and find the reality. Skipper: Yeah. So now, we're in a landscape, at least in this country, in the United States, where, there are a variety of states that have legalized it for medical purposes, a variety of states have legalized it for recreational purposes. I know, even just this past election, there were a few states -- New Jersey was one of them -- that legalized it for recreational purposes. Brad: Yeah. Skipper: But what is the current legal thinking on cannabis? Brad: I mean, for the most part, there's wide consensus that the public is behind legalization of cannabis on a federal level. Skipper: Yeah. Brad: There are a lot of states that have varying levels of opinion. But even in the most red states, you're going to find wide consensus that cannabis should be legal in states and federally. It's one of the random political issues that in this time when we're so polarized, somehow unites both sides. So really, what we're fighting against is the fact that our government is continued to be run by people whom are very many generations older than we are and are just behind on this. I recently saw a stat that Biden and Pelosi are closer to the assassination of Lincoln than they are to today -- in their age. Their date of birth is closer to when Lincoln was assassinated than they are to modern day. And that is a shocking statistic to me. But it does speak to the idea that we just have very old people in power making these decisions who just don't get it. And it's confusing to them. They were told a paradigm and now they're being told a completely different thing. And despite public support on it, you would think that would move the needle, but they still dig their heels in for whatever reasons and public interest and lobbying money from the pharmaceutical industries and all these things -- they are part of the reason why that's the case. But that's where we are as a nation -- we are all united on the idea that this needs to be legalized, that we need to decriminalize and stop imprisoning people for nonviolent drug offenses, particularly ones where they're just using cannabis on their own and are given life sentences for it. People are still serving life sentences to this day for having as little as a joint on their person. Skipper: Wow, that blows my mind. Brad: You know? Yeah, it's feels like we're on the precipice of there being a federal motion to legalize, there's an act in Congress called the MORE Act (H.R.3884) which is probably the most likely to get passed, but at the same time, we just elected a president -- you know, thankfully, we didn't continue with Trump -- but he would not have been for federal legalization. Biden has also said he's not for federal legalization and that's a real letdown because, come on, man, read the room. Hold on one sec, I'm gonna go grab my hoodie to put over this (mic) because I just realized that I'm probably popping on my P's and B's. Give me one second. [Pause.] Brad (cont'd): Super professional, I really need to get a pop filter or something. Skipper: Or even just the foam. I think the foam helps too. Like on the outside. Brad: Okay. Skipper: It's funny. That's my feeling as well, I have a similar feeling that generally speaking, a majority of the country is not on the same page around the criminal laws that surround cannabis. Change sometimes comes very slowly. But when it does come, I think it comes in the right way. Brad: That's right. Skipper: Yeah. Brad: I feel like most of the people in the cannabis industry feel internally about this issue like that Sam Cooke song, 'A Change Is Gonna Come', we feel sort of hopeful for it. There's some joy in it but there's this sadness that it's still taking this long to get there. You know? Skipper: Yeah. Yeah. So that's great to have that context of what's going on with cannabis in this country. But it's not just a consumers' market, though, right? As legalization has slowly begun snowballing across the country -- I guess that might be the appropriate word -- we're beginning to see the industries come up around it. Can you talk a little bit about what's happening backstage? Because a lot of people are aware of the front stage stuff, but what about the backstage stuff? Brad: Sure. Yeah, I mean, the front stage stuff is real sexy. The backstage stuff is normal. It's just like a normal industry. You know, you've got lawyers, accountants, tax attorneys, software providers, ERP systems, and logistics, and -- Skipper: What's an ERP system? Brad: That's a good question. It's how you manage inventory. Skipper: The inventory control, okay, Brad: Yeah, I don't remember what the actual acronym stands for. Skipper: Okay. Brad: Now that you've put me on the spot, but these are different software systems that help people control the flow of logistics within their company, like if they're creating a product or if they're distributing a product. Some companies exist solely to take one product from one side to another, they don't create anything. And this is very normal for every industry, it just so happens that it's a really cool product that's cannabis and that most of the people that you're interacting with in the industry are pretty rad. Skipper: Yeah. Brad: The one thing that makes the cannabis industry very different is that the makeup of the people within it are different than the makeup of the people within most other industries. At least so far, the very first business meeting I ever took in the cannabis industry, we talked about using LSD. So you know, I worked for 11 years -- Skipper: Not the normal topic. Brad: Exactly. I worked for 11 years in Austin, Texas on the marketing content agency side and in all that 11 years, I rarely ever, if never, talked about even smoking weed in a business meeting. So, my very first meeting talking about LSD, I thought, Well, that's a little different. Skipper: Yeah. Brad: But what we were talking about was buying ads, getting impressions, and driving momentum -- so what I'm trying to say here is that the industry itself is relatively boring and normal, right? Skipper: Yeah. Brad: The way that it's working is you've got producers who need to produce a product. And those can be the cultivators out there who are growing the cannabis, either indoors or outdoors, those are probably the companies that most people can relate to because you're talking about people who are farmers, or maybe even have been doing this back in the legacy market when it was super illegal. And so they have the culture and all that behind them. But once it leaves their hands, it goes into scientific laboratories for extraction and manipulation into various other products, it can go into an edibles company, which either looks like a crunchy cookie factory, or it looks like a large scale food production company. And I've been into every single one of these types of businesses at every step along the supply chain and it's a normal supply chain operating industry, but you're just dealing with these really cool products. The thing that makes it really not normal and probably harder to make a buck in the cannabis industry than most people realize is the heavy regulations within the industry that by the way, I think most of them are good things to have in not just the cannabis industry, but should probably be a little bit more far reaching. Skipper: Sure. Brad: One of those regulations for instance, is that every single thing has to be tested. In the cannabis industry, every product when a plant is grown, it's tested while it's grown, as well as after it's grown. Skipper: Oh, interesting. Brad: So you cure the product, you get it tested. That test will tell you what the actual percentage of chemistry is across the plant from the cannabinoids, like THC and CBD. Skipper: Yeah. Brad: But it'll also tell you if there are any heavy metals or pesticides or like negative chemicals that are still present in the plant so that it can be safe for consumption. Skipper: Okay. Brad: This is not something that tobacco industry does, which is probably one of the reasons why tobacco is such a hellacious carcinogenic product because -- Brad: Yeah. Skipper: You know, despite just the smoking of it alone, which is bad, there's God knows what else in that leaf that you're smoking and inhaling. So that's one thing that I really believe is a benefit to not just the cannabis industry, but should be a benefit extended past this to the food and natural products industry. Skipper: Yeah. Brad: We should test plants. Skipper: Yeah. Brad: And once that's tested, then let's say that plant then gets extracted into an oil, that oil has to also be tested, or if it gets turned into an edible, that edible also has to be tested. And so it's kind of onerous and there's a lot of tracking, there's a lot of data that's being collected along the way. A simple cannabis farmer has to become pretty adept at using a data software program to report back to the government all this info. Skipper: Wow. Brad: So that's one of the big wrinkles about the industry that makes it pretty different. Skipper: Interesting. And you call out tobacco but I don't imagine that's something that happens for a farmer that grows corn or wheat -- do they have to test all along the way? Is there any sort of corollary in another industry? Or is it because this is cannabis? Brad: I mean, there is testing in other foods industries, like if you grow basil -- Skipper: Sure. Brad: There's some testing that is required, but it's very minimal. It's not the deep extensive amount of testing that is required for cannabis. And -- Skipper: Okay. Brad: And for better or worse. the cannabis industry as a result of this has gathered more data on this product than is gathered on any consumer product in the world. I mean, if coffee was tested to the level of -- and it should be by the way -- to the level of cannabis, we would learn so much about coffee chemistry that we don't currently know. You know, all we know about coffee chemistry is caffeine. But there's so much else going on there. And, you know, the more testing that we could do at the level that we do with cannabis, we might start to really understand a whole lot about how certain herbs are affecting us. Skipper: Yeah. You mentioned a few things there. You mentioned not only cannabis, but then you also talked about CBD as a product. For listeners that may not be aware -- and look, you walk into a supermarket now or a convenience store and I feel like CBD is everywhere -- Brad: Yeah Skipper: How is CBD different than THC? Brad: Yeah, this is where things start to get really confusing for people because there's two things that tend to bifurcate the cannabis industry from the CBD industry. One is that there's a legal designation on the cannabis plant that determines whether it's cannabis or hemp. Skipper: Yeah. Brad: That legal designation is how much THC is present in the plant. Skipper: Okay. Brad: It's the only single thing that separates the hemp plant from the cannabis plant. It's really the same plant. But this is a legal definition that was determined on an arbitrary chemical distinction because people were afraid of people getting high off of textiles. I mean, literally they thought, Oh, you can do just smoke your shirt -- that was spoken on the floors of Congress in various forms. It's so embarrassing. So, CBD is one of the many cannabinoids that the cannabis plant expresses and it's one of two that the cannabis plant expresses in large volumes. So THC and CBD are the two big players. There's a whole host of about 150 other cannabinoids that the plant produces, but what we find is that CBD has a ton of medicinal value in and of itself like just isolating CBD alone has medicinal value. So the hemp plant can't grow THC and still be designated as hemp, but it can grow as much CBD as the plant can express. And there are some genetic strains of cannabis that are more adept at promoting CBD growth in the plant than THC and so the CBD extracts and medicine that comes from the hemp plant because it doesn't have the 'psychoactive substance' that gets you high is deemed more federally acceptable. And there's a different governing regulation, set of regulations, over the hemp industry, through the Farm Bill that was recently passed in Congress (in 2018) and allows people to trade and sell CBD all over the nation. But we're stuck in a spot between this being legal and it being regulated by the FDA. The FDA currently doesn't have any oversight of the CBD industry except to penalize them for stepping outside of their bounds, which is making medicinal claims and stuff. So -- Skipper: Yeah. Brad: They have to stick to the same sort of like natural medicines world when it comes to marketing and advertising. But ultimately, the reason why this is important is because what you said is CBD can be seen now everywhere. You can go on Amazon, you can go to a grocery store, and you'll see all sorts of CBD products. How do you know that they're actually good products? How do you know they actually contain CBD, right? Well, they're not really tested at the same level that cannabis is being tested. And there's a lot of tricky wording that is used in CBD products. So the problem that we face right now is that a large portion of the CBD products available on the market don't actually contain CBD. And if they do contain CBD, it's a very tiny amount. The only way that you can know -- Skipper: Not what is being advertised or not what would be helpful. Brad: That's right. Yeah, they might say something to you, This contains 500 milligrams of hemp seed oil, right? Or even hemp extract? And you think, Oh, great, that's great. But those words aren't CBD, right? If it contains 1000 milligrams of CBD, then you know, it actually has that compound in it. So you have to really look at the ingredients. A CBD company, that's trustworthy and worth their salt will have lab test results associated with their products, even though they're not required to take this level of lab tests and they and that should be accessible from a link or a QR code right on their packaging. If they aren't willing to put their lab results right on their packaging, they're trying to hide something. So that's one really good benchmark I use to determining what is what when you're out there but in general, what CBD does for people is it reduces inflammation, across the board. Skipper: Yeah. Brad: Inflammation can be the cause of so many different maladies and ailments that we deal with, that aren't just about physical pain. I've seen it help reduce people's chronic headache conditions, it's helped people with arthritis, joint pain, and sports recovery. And just a whole host of different things. You can hear anecdotes about what CBD does and sometimes it sounds like a miracle drug. Sometimes people are over hyping it; a lot of times, it sort of acts like a miracle drug -- to be perfectly honest. Skipper: Sure. Brad: But we don't have enough scientific human trial studies done to say specifically what exactly it does or can do, and what specific treatments you can use it for to combat a whole host of different illnesses. So, there's loose language used around it. And that's because we can't actually claim that this will fix your headaches or that this will treat your arthritis. Yeah, all we can say is it aids in the reduction of inflammation. But then inflammation is core to every thing that we deal with. Skipper: Yeah. Yeah. That's really enlightening. I think there are a few pieces in there that any listener can grab on to -- like that notion of making sure that it actually says this contains CBD and that there's some transparency into lab results. I think that's super helpful for people to know. What -- as someone who's worked in the cannabis industry now for 4-5 years and it sounds like you had an acquaintance with the notion of cannabis previously -- what's something that you're really excited by that's coming down the pike, or is coming up in the very short term future? Brad: I think that what we're starting to learn about cannabis is that an individual cannabis product or type of cannabis flower out there, or bud, or whatever, you might want to call it -- Skipper: Sure. Brad: That it affects each of us differently, and uniquely, based on our own brain chemistry, and the sort of bouquet of chemistry that the plant brings into the equation, we tend to think of cannabis like alcohol in the sense that, Oh, if you use X amount of cannabis, you will get X amount affected, right? There's a very direct correlation to your blood alcohol level to what kind of inebriation you feel. Sometimes, although people will report differing effects on alcohol, I get really angry when I'm on whiskey, right? Like some people will say. Skipper: Sure. Brad: Yeah. Right. But with cannabis, you can feel panicked, you can feel enlightened, you can feel couch locked, and sort of stupid. And you can feel really focused. I mean, there's like a whole litany of different effects you can feel from cannabis. And what one of the things that my wife and I learned is that we both have different reactions to the same product, I can smoke one thing and get really panicked, but she can smoke that and feel very productive and like focused and vice versa. So -- Skipper: Yeah. Brad: That was an aha moment for me a long time ago when I thought, Why do we have different feelings? And then I started to learn all of the chemistry and work within the chemistry side of the industry quite a bit to understand what was going on there. And we've got a lot of research and data on all of these different chemicals that are present, and how they might actually affect us based on our own brain chemistry and our own lifestyles. So I'm really interested to see the industry get past this concept of this gets you up and this gets you down. And more into the concept of, here's how you personally can find what you need to help your lifestyle or help treat your own conditions. And it's not going to be the same for everybody. But helping unlock that door for individuals, I think is key. So many people will use cannabis and have a negative effect and then just stop using it not realizing that there's a whole other set of products that they could try. That might give them a totally different effect that they would be like, If I had that effect then I would definitely use this for my ADD or for my depression or whatever. So sure, that's one of the things I'm pretty excited about and what comes with that is also then finally getting to a more finite treatment. So there's new and different types of products that will be coming out -- one of them will be application directly into the eyes. And using an eyedropper to treat glaucoma is something that I've been waiting to come on the market because my mother is suffering from glaucoma -- so a very personal reason for her to be able to like use cannabis to treat the glaucoma without getting high because she doesn't necessarily do well. Trying to be productive and high at the same time. Skipper: Yeah, sure. And so just to be clear, when you're talking about different strains of the plant, or are we talking about -- I've also read about some distinctions between different types of THC. I recently read about THCA -- a friend of mine who is undergoing some medical treatment that results in a pretty good amount of pain actually found some great success with THCA in the tincture form that really helped with pain that smoking a joint or you know, or vaporizer, or whatever it is, they didn't find that same level of relief. So, are we talking about different types of plants? Are we talking about different strains of THC or is it yes to both? Brad: Yes, yeah. This is where things start to get pretty complicated. I'm gonna get into some like deep chemistry nerd shit here. The cannabis plant genetically has over 3000 different variants. A way to understand this is coffee beans or basil -- Thai basil, Italian basil, Sumatra beans, and you've got these other different types of beans. If you tested the genetics of those plants, you'd find that each of them have a unique genetic kind of imprint. And those genes determine variations of proportions of chemicals that the plant itself creates and those chemicals are flavor, their smell, their effect. So when you experience the cannabis plant, they have a wide range of different smells and flavors. Sometimes, they smell like skunks, sometimes they smell like lemons, sometimes they smell sort of like chemicals are -- Skipper: Very floral. Brad: Yeah, floral. Exactly. Skipper: Yeah. Brad: I personally like the ones that smell like berries and spice so -- Skipper: Okay. Brad: So what you're smelling are different chemicals, right? Your nose is a chemistry detection test in a certain form of fashion. If you actually knew what you were smelling, you would be able to -- for instance, I could smell a cannabis plant and I can tell you pretty accurately what its actual chemistry is. On the smell and flavor side those are compounds known as terpenes. All plants produce terpenes the smell of basil is produced by terpenes. Terpenes also are like the essential oil industry so when you get lavender essential oil, you're getting a lot of a terpene called linalool and linalool is used in perfumes and colognes but it's also used in calming products as well as oils and it's present in the cannabis plant. There are some strains of plant of cannabis called lavender for instance very high linalool producing cannabis plants, linalool tends to be sedating tends to have a more analgesic effect and it's pain reducing whereas there's another terpene known as terpinolene. Terpinolene you'll find in cannabis plants that smell like Lysol. They have this really pungent sort of lemon chemical smell, you know, and pine as well, right, kind of mixes in there, terpinolene is what is more known as a racy terpene. It tends to increase caffeine, increase energy, increase, for some people, mental focus. For me, it's what causes the panic. So I try to stay away from these types of plants because I know if I smoke them, I'm gonna feel more panicky, I'm gonna feel more paranoid. So anyway, this is a very reductive way of saying that there are 300 something plus terpenes that the cannabis plant produces in various proportions. Those terpenes actually have an effect on the body in various little degrees but they're not really the main drivers of the effect, the main drivers of the effect are the cannabinoids -- THC, CBD, but there's also THCA, there's CBDA, there's CBG, CBN, CBB, CBDB, there's over 150, I'm not gonna name them all but -- Skipper: Yeah, sure. Brad: Yeah. And the way this works is the cannabis plant starts with CBG. CBG is cannabigerol, it is known as the god cannabinoid. And the reason why is because it creates through its lifecycle, it creates all the other compounds. So you start with CBG, CBG breaks down to THCA and CBDA, which are the acid forms of those cannabinoids. When you smoke weed, the cannabis itself, it's mostly THCA, the heat from the lighter or the heat from the burn converts that into Delta-9-THC. Delta-9-THC is what gives you the most psychoactive effect. It also converts CBDA into CBD. And so this is a chemical process known as decarboxylation. And when you make edibles, the reason you have to heat the plant material up is to decarboxylated the THCA into THC. And some of the the research that's been coming out lately is that THCA, which is the non psychoactive form of the compound prior to its decarboxylation, actually does have a medicinal effect. And a lot of people -- there's so much to unlock here -- and there's so much that these cannabinoids do individually that are somewhat similar but also somewhat different. And we're still learning that whereas previously we thought you had to have Delta-9-THC for THC to work -- Skipper: Okay. Brad: And that THCA was probably useless because it wasn't psychoactive, it actually isn't useless. But it just doesn't have to get you intoxicated to have an effect. Skipper: Yeah. Okay, that makes sense. And I hear a little bit of what you're saying around that activation mechanism, because you talked about the heat sparking off a reaction -- so does that tell a story that certain, if you're looking for certain effects, smoking is going to be better than a tincture or an edible or even if you're looking for the same sort of cannabinoid, or the same effect, that one of those is going to work better for you? Brad: It could either work better for you or, or differently in the way that you're looking for, you know what I mean? Because like -- Skipper: Okay. Brad: They all have various different things going on. If you smoke cannabis, and personally, I found that smoking is just my favorite form of consumption, I tend to get -- Skipper: Okay. Brad: I don't know a better way of saying this -- a more like rounded effect, meaning I feel like I'm getting more of what the plant provides and less of just an individual thing. When you take an edible, you're mostly just consuming one single isolated compound like Delta-9-THC or CBD. Skipper: Yeah. Brad: And maybe THC and CBD. But what you're not getting is the effects of those terpenes. And what you're also not -- and by the way, they might keep terpenes in an edible -- but it's going through your digestive system so it's going through your body in a very different form than when you're smoking or vaping. And so the Delta-9-THC that might be present in that edible goes through your liver and converts into 11-hydroxy-THC, which is a far more intoxicating compound and a far more psychotropic compound than Delta-9-THC and so it starts with the same compound but because your body processes it in a different way, that's why so many people have really negative side effects for the first time they use edibles, because they over consume, it takes a lot longer to process, and then when they get hit with it, they start freaking out thinking they're going to die. They won't. Nobody has ever died from that. But they will think it. You know what I mean? Skipper: It will surely feel like it, yeah. Brad: Yeah, when you take tinctures, you can get a lot of the benefits of all the other compounds because generally you're going to be taking it sublingually under your tongue. Skipper: Yeah. Brad: And it crosses the blood brain barrier much more effectively going through that tissue. And it doesn't convert to 11-hydroxy-THC as a result, although some tinctures tell you just drop it down your throat and swallow it, in which case it will be 11-hydroxy-THC, right? Skipper: Sure. Brad: And then there's also now a new version of these compounds that are known as nanoemulsions, which is basically taking the CBD and THC compounds, and breaking them down to a very tiny level so that it can immediately cross the blood-brain barrier. And now you can find edibles that have that are called fast acting or nano THC in them. And if you take those edibles, you'll feel the onset of those effects within 5-15 minutes, and it will be very similar to smoking or vaping. Skipper: Oh, wow. Brad: And the beverages market has a lot of that going on. When you asked earlier what I'm also excited about, I'm excited to see the beverages market increase because I think a lot of people are waiting for the day where they can just take a six pack of cannabis drinks over to a football game and know exactly what they're getting into and know won't be overwhelming. And know that they'll feel those effects as predictably as they would a six pack of Bud Light or whatever. Skipper: Yeah. Brad: And we're almost there. In fact, I've even had a few cannabis products on the beverages side that just were released in this year that I feel kind of meet that promise. Skipper: Yeah. Oh, nice. Brad: The delivery method of the medicine is very vital in what the effects of that medicine are. Skipper: Yeah. Brad: And and you know, how you take it, what various forms of it you're taking, whether there's terpenes present or not present. You know, there's a whole lot of different products that answer those questions in various ways. And it's just about experimenting, journaling, and finding out what really works for you. Skipper: Yeah. You know, one phenomenon that I'm I find myself fascinated with is the notion of the placebo effect. Brad: Yeah. Skipper: Have there been studies done looking at cannabis versus a placebo, because some of the benefits that you're describing, like for some people, they sound amazing. And for other people, they think, I'm not really interested in that. But I wonder how this stacks up against giving someone a hemp joint and having them smoke it versus smoking a cannabis joint? Brad: Sort of like the idea of going to a keg party and bringing O'Douls and seeing if everybody acts drunk, right? Skipper: That's right. That's right. Yeah. Brad: Unfortunately, when I said earlier that there hasn't been any human trials that have been conducted in a FDA regulated way, this is one of those things that we just still -- Skipper: Yeah. Brad: They have been done but mostly, this research is being done by private companies. And so that data and that research isn't widely available to the public. It's mostly just used for their own internal innovation and r&d. And so a lot of what has been done, unfortunately, is not readily available or in the public, until we get to a point where we can have some sort of federal regulatory body to oversee this research, and then we can start doing God knows how many different clinical trials, testing against placebo, testing against terpenes, testing against cannabinoids, and trying to unlock a lot of these questions. I think about this a lot too. And honestly, when I said earlier that the drug war propaganda still lives in my brain to this day -- Skipper: Yeah. Brad: I use cannabis a lot for ADD. I'm not diagnosed with ADD, I probably would have been when I was a kid, if I had been born a little bit later, but I was born in 1980. And just kind of wasn't really the big deal, then if you're born in 85, you probably were on ritalin and as a kid, because it just became the popular diagnosis. But I know enough about the conditions of ADD to know I have a mild enough case of ADD that is pronounced but not debilitating. And I treat it by using cannabis, I smoke weed, generally speaking all day and every day. And yet maintain a very productive life. And having a high functioning position at a cannabis software company, that isn't possible if you believe the old drug war propaganda that weed makes you unproductive and stupid. Skipper: Sure. Brad: Or destroys your brain cells. In fact, I've gotten smarter if not only because I'm able to focus more and learn more, right? So -- Skipper: Yeah. Brad: Yet I still always question myself, Am I just justifying this use? Am I just telling myself that, You know, I think I have this condition And therefore I'm using cannabis in this way. Like if I stopped using cannabis, would I really notice an effect. Well, luckily enough, I'm having our first baby in December and -- Skipper: Yeah, congratulations. Brad: Yeah, thank you. I'm in solidarity with my wife, I decided to stop smoking for the last month of her pregnancy up until the baby's a month old. And in this time, I have noticed my focus is all over the place. I am unable to maintain my productivity like I used to, I often feel kind of dumb, in certain situations, like how did I forget to do that thing? It's just so easy to remember to do it. Skipper: Yeah. Brad: My mind just slips a little bit, like I'm on a wet floor trying to run. And if I was consuming the way I had been prior to this point, I probably wouldn't be feeling those effects, because it's a very pronounced shift. Skipper: Sure. Brad: So I think there's probably placebo effect out there, as we've noticed, there's placebo effect for all things. Skipper: For all things, yeah. Brad: Exactly. But I also think that getting this research will help people whom think that they're justifying use, when really they're actually using it for a specific thing. Skipper: Yeah. Brad: I shouldn't continually be guilt tripping myself or feeling this sort of analogy to be ashamed of my usage because it's still ingrained in my brain that using cannabis is a bad thing. I actually am using it to become a more productive citizen, become a more productive professional, and a better husband. And those things actually are happening. And when I'm not using it, those things slip. And it's a very pronounced and noticeable effect. So we need the research is really the ultimate answer to that. Skipper: And really the gate to that is the fact that it's considered by federal law, an illegal substance. Brad: That's right. The federal government is very inconsistent here. They will tell you that this is a schedule one narcotic which means it has first, no medicinal value, and second, then they believe it is as destructive as heroin or cocaine. Actually, cocaine's a schedule two substance. Sorry, bath salts is schedule one. Bath salts make you eat people's faces. I don't know anybody who's ever done that on cannabis, right? At the same time, the government holds a patent from 2005 or 2009 that states that CBD has medicinal value. So, they hold the position that it has no medicinal value and they hold a patent for its medicinal value at the same time, which should tell you everything you need to know about what's wrong with the situation. Right? Skipper: Yeah. Brad: That patent is being used on the CBD side in products in the pharmaceutical industry. There's a company called epidiolex which has released the very first pharmaceutically governed CBD product for epilepsy because CBD does have actually research proven anti-epileptic effects at a great level. So it's confusing that the federal government will say both things at the same time, but they're real quiet about that patent, they don't like to talk about it. Skipper: So we're coming to the end of our time together. But I want to leave room for anything that you think we haven't covered that you really want to get into for a minute. Brad: One of the things that brought me into the industry, other than my curiosity and passion for the science behind the plant, chiefly was the social justice potential for what the cannabis industry can promise, right? We've lived and you know, I'm a D.A.R.E. child, I went through this this entire, This is your brain on drugs culture, and I'm now as an adult able to, like see the destructive effects it has had on communities of color across the nation. And, its intention to do so. Right, the illegality of cannabis was started as a way to both protect an industry and subjugate a minority population. It has always been a tool of oppression and a tool of racism. Skipper: Okay. Brad: And we're now in a world where all of these people are serving prison sentences that should and could be released. Skipper: Yeah. Brad: But we also have an industry where a lot of white people are making millions of dollars off of what should be wealth passed down to the families of black and brown communities. But the initial entrepreneurs of the cannabis industry are serving jail sentences, and most of them are black and Hispanic. And the thing that I really believe strongly in is taking what is the growth of this industry and the national sort of consensus that has finally gotten behind it, and using it to reverse the ills of the war on drugs, to not just decriminalize and expunge the sentences of those prisoners, but to also prop them up and give them funding and give them resources to help them become the entrepreneurs of the new cannabis industry. Skipper: Yeah. Brad: Because they deserve it, they earned it more than I did. Skipper: Okay. Brad: I shouldn't be making a buck while they're serving a prison sentence. And I feel like this is so quintessential to tackling a lot of our nation's problems, from over policing and police brutality, to the problem of wealth being stripped away and held away from communities of color while white communities continued to increase -- the wealth income inequality gap right now is larger than it's ever been in history. And a lot of that it can be pointed towards this and other things, other policies but -- Skipper: Of course. Brad: I really, I feel like this is super important. There's a nonprofit that is called the last prisoner project and its mission is to make sure that that they won't stop until the very last prisoner serving a nonviolent drug offense is released. And I feel like getting behind those types of movements is important, as well as getting behind legalization efforts like are happening in New Jersey, where equity is central to the framework. And by equity, what I mean is ensuring that black and brown licensees, people who want to become cannabis business owners are moved to the front and are given the resources and the money specifically to be able to overcome this hurdle that has been created for them that white people are able to skip over. Right. So -- Yeah. This is one of the most important aspects of the industry. To me, this is what drew me here. This is why I feel like the cannabis industry is wholly different from any other industry I've worked within because we're starting this industry from scratch, other than like trying to take the tech industry or the real estate industry, the oil and gas industry and drag them into doing good. Skipper: That's right. Brad: We can actually start this industry off on the right foot doing good from the very beginning. And I feel a lot of people in the industry have that ethos behind what they're doing and are trying to make social good part of their overall corporate strategy. Skipper: Yeah, totally, instead of disrupting an existing industry, like starting off in the right way, or at least in the right direction. Brad: That's right. That's right. Skipper: Yeah. Brad: And as a consumer, there's a lot of ways that you can get behind this. First off, support these movements, but buy cannabis from black and brown people wherever you are, if you have the opportunity to -- even if there's only one person in your entire community that is black or brown and is creating these products, go support them because they don't have this support most likely coming from the government, they don't have it coming from the regulatory frameworks, and they don't have a network of investors to help prop them up like so many others who are white do. And so you can buy from the those entrepreneurs individually, you can also buy from brands that are committed to doing good, whether that is fighting the restorative justice cause or feeding the homeless. There are a lot of different social causes that are entangled into certain products in the cannabis industry if you just make sure you choose based on those types of ethics -- Yeah You can help make a really big impact. Skipper: Yeah. So Brad, this has been an incredible, wide ranging conversation. I love everything that we've talked about. But we have to wind things down. Unfortunately -- Brad: Sad. Skipper: I want to ask you what's -- I mean, we can do a part two later. But you know, I think this is definitely a good sort of like 101 course. Brad: I like it. Skipper: So what's an important lesson that you've learned in your life, whether it's in your, you know, in regard to your life itself, or work that you carry with you now, maybe something you wish you learned earlier? Brad: Man, that's such a great question. I have probably three answers that I would love to give. I made a huge mistake early on in my entrepreneurial ventures, at least -- Skipper: Okay. Brad: In not believing myself capable. We have this notion that to be successful, you have to have an experience of success, you know -- Skipper: Okay. Brad: You have to come from some sort of, I've had multiple successful exits as an entrepreneur so I'm going to be a successful CEO, or I went to business school. So I know how to be a businessman or businesswoman, right? It's this super old school mentality that I think some of us really still battle with -- at least I did. And I made a lot of mistakes when running my companies early on by deferring leadership to people who had those backgrounds. Skipper: Okay. Brad: One of the things I learned is that nobody knows what the fuck they're doing. No CEO knows what they're doing, no parent knows what they're doing, no adult knows what they're doing. We're all doing this for the very first time. Skipper: Yeah. Brad: People can tell us, hey, here's how to do something. Skipper: Yeah. Brad: And you can maybe take some lessons from that. But it's not going to translate exactly to you. Skipper: Yeah Brad: Your set of circumstances and variables are very unique to your experience. And every company, every venture, every artistic project, every child -- these are all new experiments in the world. And they're predicated off of what we've learned, but they're also creating new things. And so I think it's important for us all to realize that nobody knows what they're doing. Skipper: Yeah. Brad: And that's just fine, right? This idea that we should control everything based on what we've been able to do before. That there's that there's not wild variable chaos involved in each and everything that happens to us, gives us this illusion that we can control everything that happens to us. And that can lead to desperation and hopelessness and feeling really inept when I think a lot of us have the strength to be able to figure out what we need to do. Skipper: Yeah. Brad: And how to succeed. And it doesn't come from doubting ourselves all the time. And it doesn't come from deferring to people who have the "experience", right? Skipper: Yeah. Brad: I found've CEOs that were wildly successful in multiple places that then joined a new company and failed miserably, because they just didn't -- Skipper: Yeah. Brad: Grasp the new set of variables, the culture, the people, the products, right -- Skipper: Yeah. Brad: Everything is always going to be a new experience. And you can take some lessons and you can learn from other people. And you can listen to me and say, Oh, cool, I'm gonna learn this lesson. And I'm telling you a lesson right now that you won't learn until you go through it. But it was a hard expensive lesson to learn for me. And if anything, just knowing when you feel that doubt in a moment that you don't know what you're doing, to know that other people feel the same, even though they might not outwardly express it gives you a sense of there's misery and company or misery loves company, right? Skipper: That's right. Brad: You know, the the most successful CEO, when the camera stop rolling, immediately start to worry about the fact that somebody is going to realize that they're a fraud, and that they don't know what they're doing, and that they're making it up as they go along each and every time. Skipper: Yeah. I love this point that you're bringing up for so many reasons. And like you said, it's great that you're articulating it. It's hard to ingest this and really feel it because I think there's a shred of belief. Have you read the Harry Potter books at all? Brad: No. Skipper: Oh, okay, there's actually a moment in the third book in The Prisoner of Azkaban and look JK Rowling, she's an amazing person for having written the books, however, her personal views, that's something I can't get down with -- Brad: No doubt. Skipper: But there's a moment where (Harry Potter) sees a past version of himself doing a thing that he doesn't think he can do, right? He conjures this protective creature, this patronus -- Brad: Yeah. Skipper: And he sees himself doing it. And because he sees himself doing it, then he has the confidence to actually do it himself. And that's a concept -- I'm currently reading them with my daughter -- and that's a really hard concept to understand. Understand that you can do this thing even if you think you can't, right? You are fully capable right now of doing this thing that you think you can't do. But push past the fear, the uncertainty, the what if I fuck up ... what are the consequences? Like push past it sit in the tension, right, feel it, but then move forward. That's a really tough lesson. Brad: It is such a tough lesson. And it's one of those lessons that you have to fail to learn, you know? Skipper: Yeah. Brad: I feel like being able to know that you're capable of doing something without any knowledge as to how you're capable of doing something -- Skipper: Right. Brad: That's important, right? I've gone through bankruptcy in my life. And I remember at one point I was just so despondent. Skipper: That's tough, I'm sorry. Yeah. Brad: Well, I'm glad I went through it. Because I learned a really powerful lesson at one point, like when I was at my most hopeless, my wife looks at me, and she goes, Babe, they can't take me and they can't take the dog. They could take everything else. But you will always have the two people who love you most right by your side, and they can't take us. And I was like, Wow, where did you come up with that wisdom? That's some like guru level shit right there. But it also gave me all the strength I needed to realize I could make it through a bankruptcy even though I hadn't and nobody in my family had gone through that before. It was a wholly unique experience that I had no knowledge of how I was going to navigate. But the knowledge that they couldn't take away what was most important to me, gave me the strength to just do it. Skipper: Yeah. Brad: You know, sometimes you just like, you just go to war, and you fight a battle, and you don't know how to shoot the weapon, but it's life or death. So you figure it out. Like trial by fire, if you will. You have to believe yourself capable in those moments, even though you don't know why or how you're capable. Skipper: Yeah. 100%. It's super powerful. Brad: Yeah. Skipper: So where can people find out more about you? Are you online? Do you have something coming out that we should be watching for? Brad: You can find me on Twitter at forceghostbrad. Skipper: Okay. Brad: It's sort of a riff on Star Wars. I also run a podcast with a few other cats called nerdAF. Skipper: Okay. Brad: And we we delve into, like all sorts of nerd topics like comic books and video games and movies and really the point of that conversation is to draw out some of the social justice issues that are really being led in our culture from nerd culture. And how movies like Black Panther are changing the way that kids view themselves. And untangling this problem of diversity and inclusion and entertainment. Skipper: Yeah. Brad: So I think it's a pretty fun podcast, you should check, check that out nerd AF show on Twitter and Twitch. Skipper: Okay, awesome. Brad: The thing that I'm doing right now that I'm really probably the most passionate about is volunteering my time with a street organization here in California called tha hood squad. And you can find tha hood squad on Instagram, it's tha, not the. So tha hood squad is, it's not really like your typical nonprofit, this is a street organization from tha hood, black and brown lead. And these are people who are doing everything they can to fight against the trauma of their communities -- from over policing, from racial profiling, and also from struggling to live in conditions of gentrification. East Palo Alto is a little hood, right across the street from very, very rich Palo Alto. And the cost of living here is so high, but the people who live in this community are mostly frontline workers, essential workers, and blue collar workers. So you know, how are they supposed to survive, you know, in such an expensive environment. So one of the ways that we help is by feeding people, whether they're homeless or not, people in need need food. And you can't really ever pull yourself out of a bad situation if you're starving. That's like the number one central focus to almost every movement that comes out of the black community, like the (Black Panthers) had a breakfast program. So does tha hood squad. And so we've been, I've been volunteering with them since May, they've been feeding people for the last four years and will continue to do so. And we've only been able to increase how many people we can feed and because of coronavirus, we're also helping protect these communities by giving out PPE with food and water. So we've got it down to a science. Basically, we can we can give a meal kit with a face mask, with water, with a snack, with the utensils, and all that for $1. Skipper: Wow. Brad: $1 gives one meal out. That covers gas for us to go into homeless camps and actually deliver this meal to them. Because -- Skipper: Yeah. Brad: A lot of these people can't leave these places and won't come to a food shelter. Skipper: Yeah. Brad: But if you go to their encampment and hand it to them, they need it. And they're really happy to take it and so gas, supplies, and all that -- it does cost money. Nobody gets paid in tha hood squad. It's all about feeding the streets and protecting the people. So really, the thing I'm most passionate about is volunteering there and I'm saying all this to say if you're listening, please help support the cause. Like I said, $1 can help put a meal or a facemask into the hands of somebody in need. And we're doing over 1,000 of these every single week. Skipper: Yeah, I can see your posts on Instagram and you and the group are making such an impact in the community. And it's great to see you and other folks getting out there and and lending a helping hand, right? And I think especially this year, it's been a tough year for it might be a tough year for us, you and I speaking, but the reality is that there are a lot of people who've had an even tougher year. Brad: Yeah. Skipper: So to help and and really be focused and principled about the work that you do. Brad: Well, to bring it back to your point right before this about finding the strength to do things that you don't know how to do. Skipper: Yeah. Brad: When the coronavirus pandemic started, I found myself immediately unemployed and was unemployed for like four or five months. Yeah, it was literally my biggest fear because I'm living in the most expensive environment in the United States and I'm like, shit, if I don't have a job, I'm gonna be homeless in a month or two, right? Because the cost of living here is too high. Skipper: Yeah. Brad: And so then I found myself in the worst case scenario that I had conjured in my brain. And, and I didn't know what to do. I started really working with the whole squad, because I had all this additional time. And I had the reasoning to do it. Skipper: Yeah. Brad: And when I saw was what the worst case scenario looks like, for a lot of people. Skipper: Yeah. Brad: And I realized that my worst case scenario was pretty fucking bourgeoisie, in comparison. You know, the worst thing that could happen to me is that we lose our house, and had to move back with my parents in Texas. But you know, my parents have a pretty nice house in Texas, That's not that bad of an outcome compared to being on the streets, being in a tent, you know, in environments that are dirty and messy, where people are riddled with addiction and all sorts of mental health issues. Skipper: Yeah. Brad: That's a real worst case scenario. Skipper: Yeah. Brad: And if you want to, like really help benchmark your perspective here and know that what you're struggling with, while it is unique and difficult, it is not as bad as it could be -- that will give you strength, go put the meal into the hands of somebody in need in their environment, and see that firsthand, that will give you real perspective on what the worst case scenario looks like. And you'll realize you're probably not going to be there anytime soon. Skipper: Yeah. It's a good point, putting everything into context. Brad: Yeah. Skipper: Well, thank you, Brad. I appreciate you making time and space for our conversation today, as it has been enlightening on so many fronts. So, thank you. Brad: Yes. Thanks for having me on. Man, this has been great. Skipper: Thanks for listening to how this works. This episode was edited and mastered by Troy Lococo. You can find us on your favorite podcast app. Please subscribe and leave us a review. Or even better tell someone about the show and why they should listen to it. You can find us at howthisworks.show. That's three words, no dashes. Again, that's howthisworks.show. You can also find us on social media. Thanks for making the time to listen today. I hope that you learned something from my conversation with Brad. I know I'm already thinking about what part two of the conversation could look like. And we'll talk again soon. [Outro music] Skipper: I want you to own the thing, right? Brad: Yeah. Skipper: Because I think so many times we apologize and we're like, Oh, we know a little bit but we're not experts. And it's just like -- Brad: Sure, sure. Skipper: No, fuck it. Own the thing that you know.