In episode 147 I talk with Daniel Bear, Director, Humber Centre for Social Innovation at Humber College in Toronto. He and his team are researching better ways to educate Canadians about cannabis and their current focus is on pharmacists. A Kelowna cannabis store sold some gummies to a minor and face the consequences and I stop on Cultivar Corner and visit Vancouver island’s Orchard Cannabis for Grand Daddy Gellati. Plus a reminiscence of pancakes made more challenging with weed and my brother Bill.
In episode 147, I talk with Daniel Bear, Director, Humber Centre for Social Innovation at Humber College in Toronto. He and his team are researching better ways to educate Canadians about cannabis and their current focus is on pharmacists. A Kelowna cannabis store sold some gummies to a minor and face the consequences and I stop on Cultivar Corner and visit Vancouver island’s Orchard Cannabis for Grand Daddy Gellati. Plus a reminiscence of pancakes made more challenging with weed and my brother Bill.
00;00;01;22 - 00;00;18;26
Ian
From the studio high above the clouds of the Okanagan Valley. This is the Cannabis Potcast exploring the world of Canadian cannabis culture. One toke at a time. Now here's your host and budtender, Gary Johnston.
00;00;19;16 - 00;00;36;16
Gary Johnston
And let me welcome you back to the Cannabis Potcast for one more time. Thank you so much for coming back. Or maybe this is your very first time, if it is, well, an especially warm welcome for you. I had 30 or 40 minutes of information about a plant I'm absolutely passionate about and that is cannabis. Perhaps you are too.
00;00;36;16 - 00;01;00;07
Gary Johnston
That may be why you're here. Now, before we get too much further, let me remind you, this program is intended for those 19 or older in your jurisdiction. And is intended primarily for entertainment and perhaps educational purposes. You should always consume your cannabis responsibly. In Episode 147. We have a conversation with Daniel Beer from Humber College in Toronto about a new program they have of getting great cannabis information out through pharmacies.
00;01;00;23 - 00;01;28;03
Gary Johnston
It's a great conversation. Stay tuned for that. Another cannabis store gets some penalty for selling to a minor. And we're going to recap a story about my brother Bill involved with my parents and an interesting pancake breakfast. All of that and more on Episode 147 of the Cannabis Potcast. Thank you so much for being here. I truly appreciate the fact that you are a listener and I also want to thank my supporters and buy me a coffee.
00;01;28;04 - 00;01;48;17
Gary Johnston
Dot com slash cannabis Potcast. Jordan. Kevin and Jordanna, thank you so much for the support. As we move over to Patreon my patrons, I want to thank Tony, Roger Gage, Rob and Lloyd. I appreciate your support each and every time. And now I'd like to introduce you to Daniel Bear. Daniel is a researcher at Humber College in Toronto.
00;01;49;01 - 00;02;14;18
Gary Johnston
He's been studying cannabis for 20 years. He began studying cannabis, using it to recover from a serious assault that left him with a traumatic brain injury and PTSD. His work at least for the last decade or so, has focused on creating better cannabis, public education campaigns that are stigma free and evidence based. He reached out to me because he's working on a research project in partnership with the Canadian Pharmacists Association to help develop new education materials for pharmacists across the country.
00;02;14;29 - 00;02;37;25
Gary Johnston
They'll be developing new in-store materials so people who consume cannabis will have both a knowledgeable person they can talk to and materials that can help ensure safe and positive experiences with cannabis. We recently spoke about the Weed Out Misinformation campaign that Daniel and his team developed that was so they could hear from consumers what they wanted in access to medical professionals, but didn't necessarily want to have to visit their physician even if they had access to one.
00;02;38;10 - 00;02;51;19
Gary Johnston
So today we're having a conversation with Daniel, who is the director at Humble Center for Social Innovation, Faculty of Social and Community Services, Humber College in Toronto. I started the conversation by asking Daniel where his cannabis journey began.
00;02;52;06 - 00;03;13;07
Daniel Bear
So when I was 16, potentially, I got jumped and there was not fun. And in fact I got knocked out after a short while trying to protect a friend. And while I was unconscious, I got kicked in the face repeatedly. And, you know, the movies make it seem like, you know, you can bounce back or something like that.
00;03;13;07 - 00;03;38;03
Daniel Bear
But I had a traumatic brain injury, PTSD, and I was 16. And, you know, when you're 16, you think you're invincible. And when you suddenly realize you're not, it it's a lot to process. And, you know, it was late nineties and opioids were prescribed when you had serious facial trauma like I did. But, you know, opioids are not great.
00;03;38;04 - 00;04;04;15
Daniel Bear
A lot of things. Temporary pain relief. Okay. But I couldn't function, couldn't go to school, constipated as hell. So, you know, it wasn't until a friend actually said, hey, do you want to smoke weed? And I smoked cannabis once I watched the movie Heat and found it amazing. And I said, Sure, why not? And I wasn't at a place where I could understand exactly what had happened to me when I consumed cannabis.
00;04;04;15 - 00;04;19;19
Daniel Bear
But all of a sudden I knew that I wasn't hurting as much and that I didn't feel I didn't care about the pain as much, not something. All the pain went away, so I didn't care about it as much. And in very short order I was able to go back to school and the teachers were saying, Hey, it's so great that you're back in class.
00;04;20;05 - 00;04;43;01
Daniel Bear
I couldn't tell them I'm high as shit, right? You know, and it was a long process of having to figure out what was actually going on for me. I was in California and we had legalized medical cannabis couple of years previously, but it really sort of dawning on me that this thing that I was having to hide and was helping me was also leading to friends being arrested.
00;04;44;00 - 00;05;04;02
Daniel Bear
And I began to see a difference between how my white friends were being treated when they were caught with cannabis versus how some of my racialized friends were being treated. And it started to dawn on me. Wait a sec. There's something going on here. Like there's there's something bigger than just my experience. And it's a rabbit hole that I jumped in then and haven't emerged from since.
00;05;05;13 - 00;05;26;27
Gary Johnston
And it sounds like from that perspective, though, it's a good rabbit hole. Daniel. Yeah, exactly. Some great information out of that. And you've got some some ideas for some improvements we made. Let me give a bit of a background to what you're doing at Humber. So Daniel has been studying cannabis for the last 20 years. He began studying his cannabis to recover from the serious assault, which we just heard about in the last decade or so.
00;05;26;27 - 00;05;44;24
Gary Johnston
He's been focused on creating better cannabis, public education campaigns that are stigma free and evidence based, and I just love that. Daniel I've taken a look at the website that you guys have created with you and your group at Humber. The Weed Out Information Dossier. That's a great place to start. But you want to take that even a little further, don't you?
00;05;44;25 - 00;05;51;12
Gary Johnston
You want to you want to get some more information from cannabis users and how better education from pharmacists could help us all.
00;05;52;12 - 00;06;17;18
Daniel Bear
Exactly. The weed out misinformation campaign that we built was built with cannabis consumers and bartenders and public health experts and, you know, it revealed a lot of interesting information to us. We thought there was going to be differences in knowledge and knowledge needed. Education needs based on age, but actually turned out it was really about whether you were a frequent consumer or infrequent consumer that dictated the kind of knowledge you needed.
00;06;17;19 - 00;06;38;29
Daniel Bear
But the one consistent thing we did see was that people wanted to engage with medical professionals, with experts, with people they could trust. We saw from our research that people were going to their friends for most of their information, but they didn't trust the information that was coming from their friends. And so we also saw that they didn't really trust their physicians all that much.
00;06;39;17 - 00;07;06;19
Daniel Bear
They found the experiences they're stigmatizing were not with the knowledge they needed. So we tried to identify a low barrier access to medical knowledge. And what we came up with was pharmacists. There are about 48,000 pharmacists across Canada. They are in every town. They have a high level of medical training. And in fact, many of the universities that grant pharmacy degrees do include some discussion of cannabis.
00;07;06;19 - 00;07;26;15
Daniel Bear
Usually it's very limited and related to things like drug interactions. And we thought, well, what if we turn that workforce? It's spread all across Canada and that people can enter relatively easily, right? You just have to walk into your neighborhood pharmacy. And what if we train them with the information they needed to effectively interact with the cannabis consumer?
00;07;26;15 - 00;07;50;29
Daniel Bear
That's not just chemistry properties, that's not just drug interactions. That is, how do you actually understand what people are looking for? How do you speak the same language as someone who's consuming cannabis and then provide the resources in store so that you can have, as a pharmacist say, Hey, we're going to a couple of minutes of conversation. I can't spend an hour with you, but I can now direct you to some alternative resource sources.
00;07;51;11 - 00;08;10;20
Daniel Bear
And so that's what we're working on right now. We're just launching the survey and we're looking to speak to cannabis consumers and to cannabis pharmacists so that we can hear from them what they already know, what they want to know, and how they want these new materials and ideas to be developed. After we do the survey, we're going to then run focus groups.
00;08;10;20 - 00;08;26;11
Daniel Bear
After the focus groups, we're going to build a draft of the new materials using students at Humber College in our Bachelor of Creative Advertising, because they've got great skills and they built the weed out misinformation campaign last time. And then we're going to go back to cannabis consumers and pharmacists and say, Is this what you were looking for?
00;08;26;20 - 00;09;01;20
Daniel Bear
Is this free of stigma? Does this have the kind of information you need? Is it presenting evidence in the way that you need? And the goal is to be able to build a continuing education platform for pharmacists and then in-store materials. So that when you walk into a cannabis shop, a sorry Freudian slip there, when you walk into a pharmacy in the future, you'll be able to have a pretty good sense that your pharmacist has the kind of information you need, whether as a recreational and medical consumer, that you can talk to them, that you can be open with them, and that they can provide you harm reduction information and say, hey, listen, you know,
00;09;01;20 - 00;09;18;02
Daniel Bear
you're telling me that you're frequently consuming. Have you thought about like a dryer vaporizer? Can I help you understand dosing of CBD? Because God knows everybody needs more help with that. So the idea there is that we can really empower pharmacists to be a conduit of information to the community.
00;09;18;12 - 00;09;35;05
Gary Johnston
I think it's brilliant that you selected that area of the medical profession to to to focus on, because I know in my experience, we're talking with various cannabis consumers and you say, well, have you talked to your doctor about that? And they say, Oh, yeah, right. They're not paying any attention. I'm not getting any kind of comfort or relevance there.
00;09;35;23 - 00;09;45;04
Gary Johnston
So having a medical professional and pharmacists is, as you say, it's somebody we see a fairly frequent basis, not just brilliant. Where did the idea come from of hooking up with the pharmacist?
00;09;46;01 - 00;10;02;07
Daniel Bear
You know, it's tough to say the exact origin of it, but it was there. It was the information we were getting from people that was saying, I don't like the physician. I don't want to talk to my physician. It's too close of a relationship. You know, they've they've seen me naked. They've done all sorts of exams on me.
00;10;02;07 - 00;10;23;29
Daniel Bear
They know my name, they know my history. And pharmacists, they're low barrier for entry and they're ubiquitous across Canada. But when the nice thing is there's a little bit of a a distance there. Right? I jokingly say my pharmacist didn't know my name until I turned 40 and then started showing up there more. But it's true, like you, how many people know the name of their pharmacists?
00;10;24;00 - 00;10;42;16
Daniel Bear
I guarantee you it's it's far, far fewer than they know the name of their physician. And so we were just talking about it. Our team was trying to figure out what the next steps were. And I was talking with two pharmacists at Memorial University of Newfoundland, Jennifer Doan and Lisa Bishop, who are now part of this research project.
00;10;43;00 - 00;10;59;19
Daniel Bear
And I was talking with them about research they were doing, and I said, What if we tried going for pharmacists? You're pharmacists. You both have clinical experience, you have retail experience, you have researcher experience. What do you think about this idea? And they thought it was great. And we we sort of just built out the project from there.
00;10;59;23 - 00;11;14;26
Gary Johnston
What an excellent idea. Really happy about that. So give me a sense of how that has happened. Daniel, you started having some talk, got some pharmacists involved. You obviously have some students at Humber which are helping you do this. So how did we get to the weed out misinformation site? Where did where did that come from?
00;11;15;15 - 00;11;49;16
Daniel Bear
So we know misinformation well, launched in March of 2020, we got the notification about the grant about ten days before COVID closed, everything down, which dramatically shifted our plan from doing live in-person focus groups all around Canada to suddenly we had to learn how to do them online, you know, like everything else. But that project came out of my own experiences, you know, going back to my own traumatic incident back in the nineties when I was trying to figure out how to safely consume cannabis, I didn't have any resources.
00;11;49;16 - 00;12;08;29
Daniel Bear
There was nowhere I could turn. And what I'd been taught as a young person was that drugs are bad. And in fact, in school in Los Angeles, I had been taught by the DARE officer that heroin and marijuana were equally addictive and equally risky. And so I was a little in fear for my life when I was consuming cannabis because it was helping me.
00;12;08;29 - 00;12;30;01
Daniel Bear
But I also was like, Man, I'm going to be addicted. What am I going to do here? And you know, I did things like smoke out of a crushed coke can, right? Like that's horrible for you, but I didn't know any better. You know, I've done a lot of research in the intervening two decades. I worked with medical cannabis consumers looking at how they used cannabis as a way of creating community, particularly for terminally ill patients.
00;12;30;13 - 00;12;58;29
Daniel Bear
I spent a long time looking at the policing of cannabis, but once legalization came about, I thought, you know, I want to do something that benefits Canadian society. I'm an American who came here thanks to my wonderful wife. And I thought, you know, I really, really enjoy being in Canada. What can I do that undoes some of the harm that I experienced and provides something that helps people so they don't have to go through what I went through and the idea was, Well, let's build a better public education campaign.
00;12;58;29 - 00;13;19;24
Daniel Bear
Well, let's make it stigma free. Let's make it harm reduction focus. And in fact, let's take a step further and let's talk about benefit maximization, which means let's talk about how to have a good positive experience when consuming drugs. That involves also, you know, limiting the risks, reducing the harms. But it also asks, what do you want out of this experience?
00;13;20;03 - 00;13;39;18
Daniel Bear
Because no one ever asked me that when I was consuming to try and deal with flashbacks or to deal with pain. No one ever said, Well, why are you consuming cannabis? I would have told them, Well, when I consume cannabis, my anxiety goes down. I don't have flashbacks. I feel a lot better. I can function. All I heard around me was, This is illegal, this is dangerous.
00;13;39;29 - 00;13;57;13
Daniel Bear
And it didn't help me. In effect, you know, I, I, I overly used cannabis back in those days. I relied on it. I became, I say, dependent in the sense of like it helped me get through the day, not necessarily in the sense of addiction or anything. But I was I was smoking way too much. I was for a young person.
00;13;57;24 - 00;14;14;11
Daniel Bear
I didn't have the information I needed. And if someone had said back then, you know, listen, don't go for the highest THC or the highest product you can get, it's actually safer for you to have a lower THC product, given that you're a young person, given that you're consuming frequently. Here's what a dry air vape is. This is what you should consider.
00;14;14;24 - 00;14;23;18
Daniel Bear
That kind of information would have been very helpful. And so that's what we wanted to do with weed out misinformation is is create something that just didn't exist before.
00;14;23;18 - 00;14;28;24
Gary Johnston
What's been the most insightful piece of information you've garnered out of your journey so far?
00;14;29;01 - 00;15;06;03
Daniel Bear
How interesting. You know, our survey revealed quite a lot about the consumption patterns and the habits of people 18 to 30 who consume cannabis. One of the most interesting things that came out of it for me was the I put this the it was the way in which they were engaging with knowledge and information. And I, I kind of thought, you know, I'm in my early forties now and I thought, well, this is a generation that's grown up with the Internet, have always had access to it.
00;15;06;14 - 00;15;30;16
Daniel Bear
Surely they are going to be incredibly proficient at finding information and accessing those sites. And what we found was that overwhelmingly people were going to their friends for information, but at the same time telling us in their surveys that they didn't trust their friends information. They were also telling us that they really trusted research articles, academics, professors, medical practitioners.
00;15;30;16 - 00;16;00;21
Daniel Bear
But they also identified at the same time that they weren't accessing those resources. They had high trust in them, but they weren't going to them. Now, part of that is because so much science is behind a paywall. And so often, you know, scientific publications don't then take the next step, which is creating knowledge, translation efforts to take the scientific journal article and bring it into a usable format for people both, you know, free to access, but also in language that they can understand and comprehend and then utilize in an applied manner in their own lives.
00;16;01;02 - 00;16;23;14
Daniel Bear
And I was kind of surprised by that. I thought for sure they'd be accessing that information. And whenever we show them examples of cannabis education campaigns that had references, they lit up. They said, Oh, that's exactly what I want. I want to know where to go so that I can read that article. You know, even even individuals who didn't have a college education were saying, I want to be able to go and read this, even if it's just the abstract.
00;16;23;26 - 00;16;48;14
Daniel Bear
And so one of the things we did with weed out misinformation was that we made sure that on our website, all of the sources that we used in our project are listed in a references section and some of them are behind paywall. But whatever sources we could find that weren't behind a paywall, we included those links to them so that as people are going through the website, if they have questions, they can go to the references section and it's broken down by category.
00;16;48;14 - 00;16;50;21
Daniel Bear
So that they can start digging and doing some of their own research.
00;16;50;27 - 00;17;04;01
Gary Johnston
You know, I found that really useful and it was well-organized. It did dove into to that information. So let's talk about the survey that you're creating now to get that more information, what's being done to generate that and we're might be able to find it.
00;17;04;07 - 00;17;25;11
Daniel Bear
Yeah. So surveys are launching now and we've spent a long time trying to find the right balance of the kinds of questions that were including the amount of questions. As you can imagine, you put six researchers into a room. We've got an initial survey that takes 45 minutes to complete. We've whittled that down quite a bit. And so we're looking at a bunch of different things with people's consumption.
00;17;25;11 - 00;17;51;21
Daniel Bear
We want to understand how they're consuming cannabis. We also want to know where they're getting information, what kind of information they want. We have a bit of that knowledge from our last survey, but we also want to understand the types of practices or engagement that they have with other cannabis sources, because there's no point in creating access and knowledge in the pharmacies that duplicates exactly what they're getting elsewhere or isn't what they want.
00;17;51;21 - 00;18;15;20
Daniel Bear
And so we're really taking a concerted effort to understand how they want to engage with the types of knowledge that might be available and then looking at their understanding of their own cannabis consumption practices. Because if a pharmacist just has, you know, drug interaction knowledge or just has this much CBD, you need to treat X condition. That's part of the way there.
00;18;15;29 - 00;18;44;22
Daniel Bear
But we want to be able to help pharmacists understand how cannabis consumers see themselves. How are they talking about their cannabis consumption? How are they internally creating a narrative about what their cannabis consumption means to them? And so the survey gets at that a little bit. The the focus groups are going to expand on that even more. And that way we'll be able to really make sure that it's an effective opportunity when they do go in and talk to a pharmacist who's been through the continuing education platform that we're going to build.
00;18;45;02 - 00;18;52;26
Gary Johnston
So as this is all developing in front of you, Daniel, where do you see success? What is what is going to be the success metric for you and when this is done?
00;18;54;00 - 00;19;29;22
Daniel Bear
That's a great question. You know, as a research institution, focus on applied work. We can't create a campaign that's going to last forever. Right. We we can identify the issues. We can build this applied campaign. Our partners at the Canadian Pharmacy Association, the Canadian Public Health Association and the Canadian Center for Substance Abuse are going to take this work in a few years once the research component ends, and they'll be able to keep the continuing education work going, they'll be able to keep the fliers and the other material going.
00;19;30;05 - 00;19;53;28
Daniel Bear
And in my mind, success is that this project lives on so that as new pharmacists come into the field every year, they have this continuing education material that they can take because they have a requirement every year to, you know, keep learning, keep growing. But then there's also constantly updated materials that are always available in every pharmacy in Canada that people can access and take home with them.
00;19;54;06 - 00;20;14;08
Daniel Bear
Those materials will take them back to another website that has information, sort of like weed out misinformation, but targeted a bit differently and so maybe it sounds a bit grim, but my idea of success is that this project continues to live on through our partners as as researchers. We can get the information to build it. We can build it because we're at a college.
00;20;14;08 - 00;20;35;08
Daniel Bear
You know, our goal is applied research, not just theoretical, but my goal is that this lives on for, you know, hopefully decades. And that over time the material continues to be updated, that as we find out new, more new and more information about cannabinoids, that that continues to get added in because, I mean, we're learning so much about the 100 or so other cannabinoids that are out there.
00;20;35;21 - 00;20;47;17
Daniel Bear
I can't imagine what in ten or 12 years it's going to look like. When you go to buy cannabis, the labels are going to say THC CBD, CBN, CBG, CBD, and then 20 others below it. Probably.
00;20;47;18 - 00;20;49;19
Gary Johnston
Absolutely. And all the trappings and everything else.
00;20;49;19 - 00;21;17;23
Daniel Bear
Exactly. And with any luck, we'll get genetic testing down. So we'll be able to match your endocannabinoid system to a, you know, an exact profile of of cannabinoids and terpenes that that work just quite great for you. And when that happens, we'll still need updated information. So I hope for you know, I'm in my early forties now, as I said, hopefully when I'm retiring and I walk in on a quiet Wednesday afternoon on a long walk out with my wife, I walk into a pharmacy to pick something up on our way home.
00;21;17;23 - 00;21;23;06
Daniel Bear
And look, there's the version ten of the information packet that we developed all the way back then.
00;21;23;19 - 00;21;37;14
Gary Johnston
That would be fabulous. That's a good insight and I hope we get there. Just the idea of, you know, in a couple of years from now being able to walk into a pharmacy in Canada and to be able to get some some cannabis knowledge from someone that, you know, has has trained in that. I think this is just brilliant.
00;21;37;18 - 00;21;39;17
Gary Johnston
I'm really happy with your idea. Excellent.
00;21;39;17 - 00;22;09;01
Daniel Bear
I appreciate it. You know, this this strives to hit the public health goal. That was a key element of the cannabis act and is evidenced in many ways that aren't particularly effective and that aren't bringing people into the legal cannabis system. They're well-intentioned, by all means, I'm sure, but not necessarily aligned with the needs of cannabis consumers. And so we hope that this project meets people where they're at, provides them information they need so that they can have a safe and enjoyable cannabis experience.
00;22;09;01 - 00;22;12;25
Gary Johnston
So another question I have for you, Daniel. are you still a cannabis consumer?
00;22;13;09 - 00;22;13;24
Daniel Bear
I am, yeah.
00;22;14;03 - 00;22;19;29
Gary Johnston
So why don't I hit my hot seat questions and go for it and see where we go from that perspective? So what would be great favorite cultivar?
00;22;20;28 - 00;22;41;28
Daniel Bear
I honestly can't say that I have a favorite cultivar. I do like the name of The Doctor Grinspoon, mostly because Lester Grinspoon was such a a leader in the cannabis field, I can tell you, well, I don't know specific name. I like a very balanced product, something with really broad cannabinoid profile, usually under 20% thc if I'm having flower.
00;22;41;28 - 00;22;48;20
Daniel Bear
But I'll be honest, most of the time these days it's like a two, two and a half milligram edible. That's why I go, Gee, I'm a lightweight. What can I say?
00;22;48;20 - 00;22;52;02
Gary Johnston
Okay, well, that's right, because that's another one of my questions. Flower are edibles.
00;22;53;03 - 00;23;11;22
Daniel Bear
You know, I, I rarely smoke flower I if I do, it's out of a drier vape because I find that you get much better flavor there, much less smoke and much, much easier on the lungs. Yeah, but I'd say, you know, for looking purely at a, you know, consumption pattern, I would say edibles.
00;23;12;02 - 00;23;16;03
Gary Johnston
Okay, joints, bit of it. Yeah, no question.
00;23;16;20 - 00;23;29;13
Daniel Bear
Yeah. Listen, a joints are fine at a fish concert and they're fun on a hike. But most time of the night, if I consume cannabis, it's it's through a vape. Yeah. Dry or oil.
00;23;29;24 - 00;23;43;10
Gary Johnston
Okay, excellent. This is one that I. I just found. Across our country, everyone has a different terminology for three and a half grams of cannabis since you you come from California originally what was three and a half grams referred to in your world?
00;23;44;12 - 00;23;47;29
Daniel Bear
That was always an eighth or a 20 sec, but 2016.
00;23;47;29 - 00;23;48;25
Gary Johnston
Well that's a new term.
00;23;49;06 - 00;24;02;18
Daniel Bear
Yeah but I mean that was a California thing does back in the day. Yeah. You could get a you could get an eighth for. Well no actually no it was the 26 that. No you could it was it was not very good though. Definitely not since I mean.
00;24;02;18 - 00;24;04;05
Gary Johnston
Well that's an entirely different discussion.
00;24;04;17 - 00;24;29;16
Daniel Bear
Yeah. No, there were definitely there were times growing up in California we were at this really interesting intersection because you had Northern California and the Emerald Triangle up there where stuff would come down from there. But in Los Angeles we were also very close to Mexico. And so you had Mexican ragweed that would come up and, you know, you'd you'd buy a bit of it and you'd still see it like the corner of where it had been packed into like the kilo brick.
00;24;29;27 - 00;24;32;26
Daniel Bear
You could see that corner chunk and they're just full of seeds and stuff.
00;24;34;14 - 00;24;41;07
Gary Johnston
Yeah, we had a lot of weed from Mexico up here it back in the day to it and it was a question about in terms of the quality of it all.
00;24;41;07 - 00;25;01;22
Daniel Bear
Well, and also me back in the day, you know, who knows what it had on? It's a paraquat or something. So, you know, I look at the legal market now and I think about the growth regulators and stuff that people are using in some illicit grow operations and even in home growing. And how they're they're definitely probably not great for you and might not be quite as dangerous as Paraquat or some of the other things that were used back in the day.
00;25;01;22 - 00;25;25;11
Daniel Bear
But yeah, I do appreciate the and I know people have complaints about Health Canada's approach to regulating and pesticides and things like that. But I'll tell you, I went down to New York a couple of weeks ago and there cannabis sitting down there is a Gong Show. And when I asked one of the folks, Oh, what's the sort of testing that goes on to, you know, check for adulterants or chemicals or, you know, things like that on there.
00;25;25;11 - 00;25;32;07
Daniel Bear
He's like, I don't know. We don't really do much. So I was like, Oh, okay, so definitely appreciate it. Health Canada's, Health Canada there.
00;25;32;12 - 00;25;49;05
Gary Johnston
There's things that we can fix, but there's clearly some changes that that we would love to happen and improve our industry. But the fact that we have reached legalization and five years into it now, it's a whole different world. I really like the approach you're taking, Daniel. I'm I have been a big believer in we have to deal with stigma.
00;25;49;16 - 00;26;03;08
Gary Johnston
We've got to just hit that head on and just knock it down. That's one of the things I see as a positive. With both your weed out misinformation campaign and the new survey that you're doing. Do you agree stigma is is a huge thing that we just have to keep pounding on?
00;26;03;08 - 00;26;21;19
Daniel Bear
Oh, yeah. Most certainly. I you know, a couple of years ago, I wouldn't have answered your questions about my cannabis consumption. Sure. It's definitely something where I've gotten looks before. I remember I was at a meeting with some folks several years ago who I'd been out to drinks with after an event several times, had been to drinks with them.
00;26;22;00 - 00;26;40;06
Daniel Bear
And I talked about I mentioned cannabis consumption and everybody clammed up like, Oh, we can't talk about something we talk about. And I looked around the room and I said, I know for a fact several of you consume cannabis, and I know that I've been to drinks with all of you. Why is this suddenly some verboten topic? It's true.
00;26;40;06 - 00;27;05;15
Daniel Bear
And you know, our research with young people keeps coming back to the same thing. They see stigma all over the place. And, you know, at least in my line of work, it's a huge impediment because if they get that whiff of stigma, it turns them off from the rest of the messaging. And some matter how well intentioned or scientifically accurate it is, if it doesn't feel like it's coming from a place that is stigma free and there to support them, then they turn off from it.
00;27;05;15 - 00;27;33;02
Daniel Bear
And that doesn't mean that they get turned off from any messages that point out potential harms are ways of reducing potential harms. They get turned off when it feels like they're being made to feel like another. And, you know, getting rid of that is is going to be it's going to take time. I jokingly say, you know, not to get too biblical on it, but, you know, I jokingly say, you know, in the Bible, after the Jews were freed from Egypt, from slavery, they had to wander the desert for 40 years because you had to get rid of that slave mentality.
00;27;33;02 - 00;27;52;13
Daniel Bear
And then, then and only then could they enter the land of Israel. Right? And it's like, Yeah, no, we can do that here. We got to get rid of this old mentality for a century of prohibition where we told everybody, this is awful and horrible and you know, it. It takes a long time to get rid of that stigma, to get rid of that ingrained sense of what it is.
00;27;53;06 - 00;28;11;03
Daniel Bear
I mean, I can report success in that. My father, who told me growing up that if you ever caught me with cannabis, he'd take me to the cops himself. Now, asked me for advice and said, Well, you know, I'm looking at these new gummies and which do you think I should get this one or this one? And I just have to hope that everybody else can shift as far as he has.
00;28;11;06 - 00;28;26;03
Gary Johnston
Yeah, that's a change in the right direction. Yeah. Really happy to hear that. Well, excellent conversation, Daniel. Really happy about what you guys are doing at Harvard College with the program that you're doing. All the research you've been doing for the last 20 years is setting up for some success for all of us. Any final words for you, Danny?
00;28;26;12 - 00;28;47;15
Daniel Bear
No, I just would say that I really would appreciate if anybody listening to this can take the sort of 10 to 12 minutes to go and take our survey. Last time we were able to gather 1598 responses to our Weed Out Misinformation survey, I'm hoping that with this survey we can go even farther. We're trying to avoid giving any money to social media companies.
00;28;48;28 - 00;29;09;08
Daniel Bear
They're only paid advertisements to get responses. So yeah, your help in and getting us there would be really appreciated. We're going to use the information provided in this survey to make products. Well, I say products, educational resources really that are going to be there to benefit all Canadians. So appreciate your time and helping us learn a little bit more about cannabis consumers.
00;29;09;08 - 00;29;18;01
Gary Johnston
Well, excellent. Thank you for your time. And you're obviously heading in the right direction. You got some great thoughts. It's going to help all of us in the future. Thanks so much, Daniel. I really appreciate it and hope you enjoy the rest of your day.
00;29;18;06 - 00;29;19;01
Daniel Bear
Cheers. Thank you so much.
00;29;19;15 - 00;29;38;26
Gary Johnston
So if all of that sounds interesting to you, why don't you go and do the survey? It's at WW W dot cannabis education research dot K and they've also put a link to it at the Cannabis Potcast Show page again that's WW w the cannabis education research dossier. Don't think about it don't wait go and do the survey now.
00;29;38;26 - 00;29;42;26
Gary Johnston
So we get lots of responses and we'll get some really good education in the future.
00;29;43;01 - 00;29;52;19
Ian
THC CBD Caffeine Profiles. What's in me? Oh, please explain to me. Go to the club.
00;29;53;20 - 00;29;58;27
Speaker 4
Go to local over here. Go to the counter.
00;29;58;27 - 00;30;01;20
Ian
Please explain this stuff to me.
00;30;02;13 - 00;30;23;04
Gary Johnston
And I'll call them out corner. Today we're heading back to Vancouver Island. We've had some good weed from there before with Victoria Cannabis Company and now we're going to Orchard Cannabis. So let's give you the story on Orchard and Orchard skilled fruit and berry cultivators have united with craft Vancouver Island cannabis growers dedicated to the art and science of this extraordinary plant.
00;30;23;14 - 00;30;46;06
Gary Johnston
We're honored to be the stewards of fertile farmland in the Sannich Peninsula and beautiful British Columbia, a local landmark. Since 1960, our farm has been in continuous production and a community gathering place for generations. Orchard is committed to cultivation using organic methods, and we take pride in showcasing talented local and regional growers who are dedicated to the present and future of cannabis.
00;30;46;18 - 00;31;05;24
Gary Johnston
And that's a good dedication to be involved with. So. Orchard Cannabis is what we're doing today, and let's get to the details of the actual cultivar we are talking about today and that is one of our beauties that is out here and that is Grand Daddy to latte. What's the lineage of Granddaddy Gelati? Well, probably not a surprise.
00;31;05;24 - 00;31;36;20
Gary Johnston
The granddaddy Purple is sitting way up there along with purple power and gelati. It's sativa dominant. The top top terpenes are myrcene oats mean alphapinene and linalool, and the aromas are hops, earthy, pine, lavender and cinnamon. And I've already popped the bag. No snap to the bag, but moved it into a jar. Oh, oh. This is something magical is near about opening a jar of cannabis and sticking your nose inside and just fighting those wonderful aromas.
00;31;37;23 - 00;32;04;09
Gary Johnston
Oh, the total terpenes on this could explain why this is so aromatic. 4.33% is my total terps. Oh better me are seen at 1.7. Awesome in 1.16 alpha by 9.41 and a little more at .20. I'm going to pull out one of these lovely little buds. Oh, boy, that's trim. So nicely. No sticks visible, no sugar leaves visible.
00;32;04;27 - 00;32;31;16
Gary Johnston
Let me do a little bit on the tri combs. Oh, there's some nice dry corn fields there. Oh, okay. So we got to a dark green with lots of orange kind of red pistol hairs sticking out there. And let's pull one of those buds out. Let's check it. Stickiness. Oh, pretty sticky, even stickier. Is that break that up and oh, my goodness, you just squish one of those.
00;32;31;29 - 00;32;58;00
Gary Johnston
But to me, it réglages smack in the face. Wow. So, Granddaddy Gelati, a refreshing strain that combines the sweetness of ripe apple, pear and tree fruit with the creamy essence of bananas with balanced effects. These sativa dominant strain takes you on a tranquil and flavorful journey with every earthy and smooth inhale expertly grown on Vancouver Island by Verity West and carefully processed and packaged by the Orchard team.
00;32;58;21 - 00;33;32;29
Gary Johnston
And I picked up the seven gram package of the Orchard Granddaddy Gelati. And after all that interaction, I think it's time we had a taste. This is Orchard Cannabis from Vancouver Island and their granddaddy Gelati. First in the joint. All nice aromas on that one. Hops earthy pine, lavender and cinema. The flavors that I should be expecting. Oh, picking up on those earthy notes.
00;33;32;29 - 00;34;03;02
Gary Johnston
Certainly on the inhale. Probably heavy on the machine. I'm not picking up the creamy essence of bananas, but I tend to not pick up many of those. Now that's probably going to be the AUSMIN that's giving us some of those candy flavors or fruit flavors. All right. Another hit on the joint of the granddaddy gelati. Now, again, THC is sitting at what's my 80, 28.7 and my total trips at 4.33.
00;34;03;02 - 00;34;39;01
Gary Johnston
I'm starting to roll around my endocannabinoid system rather nicely. Let's put the joint aside for a moment and let's have a taste of the weed in the eraser air. Max, this is Granddaddy Gelati. And once again, wow. The taste is just astounding when you put it in the vaporizer. Talk about those aromas of hops, earthy, pine, lavender and cinnamon.
00;34;39;01 - 00;35;09;06
Gary Johnston
There's a little bit of each of those when you pull through the vaporizer. Oh, and here come the happy eyes. Hmm. Very nice. Head forward, sativa. Mm hmm. And here they come in stronger. I just love that feeling, don't you? Intention? My intention in cold of our corner is always pretty. Pretty simple. Does the weed give a buzz?
00;35;10;05 - 00;35;38;25
Gary Johnston
And again, in typical fashion for a cultivar quarter, this is the first of the day and get a true understanding of what this weed is going to do to me. Granddaddy Gilardi from Orchard Cannabis on Vancouver Island. Oh, oh, it's coming on nice and strong now. A really nice, clear head stone. Oh, I love those tears and the taste through the Energizer.
00;35;38;25 - 00;36;06;26
Gary Johnston
Max is just. Just absolutely delicious. But the joint in and of itself is is pretty smooth, too. I don't think that I have coughed once through this little exercise. So let me fire up the joint for one more last hit and get one more off the air, Max. And there goes my endocannabinoid system, enjoying it all? Yeah. Nice and smooth.
00;36;07;10 - 00;36;28;27
Gary Johnston
Nice and smooth. So another part of British Columbia known for growing some good cannabis is still continuing their reputation and vert west we've heard a lot about for two years they've grown for a number of different people I think over the last few years. Nice to have their name out knowing that they're the ones who grew this granddaddy gelati for Orchard Cannabis.
00;36;30;16 - 00;37;01;17
Gary Johnston
29 No. 28.72%. THC 4.33% herbs and once more, I am happy to say at the end of a call to our corner, I really blasted this as a lovely head stone. Ah, it's all right up there. The euphoria strong, my happy eyes are strong. This is going to be a really nice day. You more fine weeds from the areas of British Columbia.
00;37;01;17 - 00;37;33;20
Gary Johnston
This from the sandwich area of Vancouver Island, Orchard Cannabis, the company who produced it and distributed it vertically west. The people who grew it, they they grew some pretty fine weed hair. Little granddaddy gelati you made my day. And as is sometimes required after the endocannabinoid system has had a chance to encapsulate take in all of the THC and the other cannabinoids that are rolling through my systems.
00;37;33;20 - 00;37;57;26
Gary Johnston
You buy CB1 and CBD receptors at the moment. You may you may get a sense by the fact that I'm rambling a little bit here this is a really nice as it came into much more of a euphoria, much more of a happy kind of feeling, just feeling kind of giddy, feeling, feeling really good. And I wanted to share that with you because it's always good to know how the weed is going to take you there.
00;37;57;26 - 00;38;28;11
Gary Johnston
And of course, your reaction could be completely different. This is cannabis. Of course, your endocannabinoid system may react differently than mine, but mine is having a blast today with orchard grandaddy gelati sharing stories about good weed while trying good weed. This is the Cannabis Potcast. We've already talked about the fact that the B.C. government, or at least the enforcement division of the B.C. government, has been doing some checking on cannabis stores, certainly in the Cologne area, looking for people selling to minors without checking for ID.
00;38;29;17 - 00;39;07;22
Gary Johnston
I know that's been going on ever since the first legal liquor store opened. People have been coming in and buying it underage for years, still happening in cannabis stores, but I'm amazed at the lax nature of some of the cannabis stores. So this is a story from Castaneda that a colonia cannabis store will be closed for a week next month after being caught selling thc gummies to a 16 year old, according to a decision from the B.C. Liquor and Cannabis Regulation branch, prime cannabis on Pandora Street sold a five pack of cannabis gummies to an undercover miner working with inspectors on November 30th, 2023, after the teenager made the purchase with $20 in cash and
00;39;07;22 - 00;39;28;07
Gary Johnston
was not asked for ID by the bartender. An inspector also in the store informed a bud tender of the contravention. The button tender took full responsibility for his mistakes and the ruling. The store did not dispute the contravention, but raised the defense of due diligence at a hearing, trying to argue that the business had procedures in place to prevent the sale of product to underage people.
00;39;28;19 - 00;39;47;00
Gary Johnston
Prime cannabis also changed its ID policy after the incident and now requires staff to I.D. anyone who looks to be under the age of 40. Signs have been posted to our doors. The penalty for selling cannabis to a minor in British Columbia is a minimum of $7,000 fine or close. Our business for seven days, said a notice distributed to staff.
00;39;47;15 - 00;40;12;00
Gary Johnston
This penalty threatens our ability for prime cannabis to stay in business and keep everyone employed. This is a significant risk to our company and all staff. The Cannabis Control Board, however, rejected the pot shop defense. There are a number of weaknesses in the licensee's policies and practice. The licensee has failed to produce sufficient documentation to establish due diligence, the decision states, noting there are some inconsistencies about a secret shopper program at the store.
00;40;12;01 - 00;40;43;11
Gary Johnston
It remains unclear if that program was operating before the contravention. The ruling also found a prime cannabis standard operating procedures document, confusing and recommended training checklist be put in place. The shop was ordered to close for seven days starting on April 30, 2024, and signs displayed in a prominent location informing the public of the suspension after a separate inspection of the floor of cannabis in West Helena Court, the store is selling cannabis to a minor and September 26, 2023, the Cannabis Control Board accepted that shop's defense of due diligence and set aside a penalty.
00;40;43;29 - 00;41;07;17
Gary Johnston
The bud tender in that case was terminated due to floor cannabis, a zero tolerance policy of selling to minors. Flores submitted evidence of its secret shopper program and other documentation related to training around ID checks. I find that the bartenders failed to request ID of the minor agent was an unfortunate one time oversight by the bartender who had been trained well and had up to this time been a good and trusted employee at the cannabis retail store.
00;41;07;18 - 00;41;28;12
Gary Johnston
The decision said. Unfortunately for the bartender, the licensee strict policy of terminating any employees who sold to a minor agent was the consequence. I find that the licensee has a strong culture of compliance with every effort being made to ensure IT staff in the store are well-trained in the licensee's corporate policies and are reminded every day of the responsibility of not selling cannabis to minors.
00;41;28;24 - 00;41;47;08
Gary Johnston
And there you go. There's going to be more of those happening over the next little while. I am sure another store gets caught selling cannabis to a minor. And now, as we usually do, let's end with a little bit of cannabis humor to finish off our day. The police say that they'll burn all the way. They confiscate never explain.
00;41;47;08 - 00;42;08;10
Gary Johnston
The donut studies have shown that smoking weed causes short term memory loss. Next thing you know, they'll be saying smoking weed causes short term memory loss. I stopped smoking weed the day after I spent 30 minutes looking for my phone under the bed while using my phone's flashlight. And that has happened to almost every one of us. And let's finish with another story for you today.
00;42;08;20 - 00;42;32;07
Gary Johnston
And this going back a few years. This involves my brother Bill and my parents. They had come to visit us. We were living in Nelson at the time. We had a great place on the north side of the lake. And my brother Bill and I, along with some other friends, had celebrated the night before while my parents were out visiting some other friends in Nelson, they came back home, went to bed and and what was going on while they were out of the house was unannounced.
00;42;32;07 - 00;42;47;19
Gary Johnston
Not sure why. I don't remember using a blender for a lot of weed, but in this particular instance we had a bunch of home grown. I think it was a buddy who was a little further down the lake that I had picked it up from, and I had a bunch of home grown and for whatever reason, I ground it up in the blender.
00;42;48;13 - 00;43;09;22
Gary Johnston
I still don't understand why. That's one area where you don't have a memory and you're trying to find those details and they're just not there. But I did. I ground up a bunch of weed in the blender and then I forgot to clean the blender out. We went to bed, Bill went home, came back the next morning to have some breakfast with us and my parents who are now back.
00;43;09;22 - 00;43;30;26
Gary Johnston
And they were up and I busy building everything for the breakfast got the bacon cooking. I got the maple sirup ready, I got the pancakes. GORDON And there's an interesting hints to the pancakes today and that's when I remember that I forgot to clean out the blender. Now, if it had just been me and my parents, it probably would have slid by.
00;43;30;26 - 00;43;50;20
Gary Johnston
Nobody would have noticed or said anything. But my brother Bill was there. And this was one of the things that Bill always did. He pointed out things that might make you perhaps a little uncomfortable in the situation. So there we are gathered around the breakfast table. Pancakes are distributed. They're all on the plates. They've been buttered. They've been maple sirup.
00;43;50;20 - 00;44;12;29
Gary Johnston
My dad's taking his first bite and my brother says, Carrie, what's all this little green specks in the pancakes? And I was dumbfounded. I did not have a response. I think I stood, as it were. I think I sat there and stared at my brother with some evil eyes. Dairy back at home. Why did you bring that up?
00;44;14;25 - 00;44;33;24
Gary Johnston
I made some excuse about I don't know whether I said it was oregano or something green, but my parents, who didn't pay too much attention to drug references, fortunately ate their pancakes, never paid any attention to it. Now, did they behave a little differently in that day? I'm not sure if they did or not, but that was one of the things that my brother Bill always did.
00;44;33;24 - 00;44;48;02
Gary Johnston
If you were in a situation and there was an opportunity for him to point out something that might make you a little uncomfortable, he would do it, and he did that with my weed pancakes. And that wraps it up for Episode 147 of the Cannabis Potcast.
00;44;48;08 - 00;44;58;09
Ian
From the Cannabis infused studio high above the Okanagan Valley. This was the cannabis Potcast.