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Fostering community unity through education, advocacy for patients and plants, and efforts to eliminate stigma.
00;00;02;14 - 00;00;38;01
Are. Okay. Awesome. Yes. Thank you. We'll try to do about 45 minutes or so. Okay. Good evening everyone. I'm Molly the Corcoran, and we are sitting down today with Mr. Casey Solomon from oops phyto lab. Can we start over? I'm sorry. Okay. Lasted just that quick. All right. Good evening everyone. I'm Molly, the cook. Sharon. And we are sitting down today with Mr. Casey Solomon from Phyto Lab, Minnesota.
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Casey is a veteran, a Ph.D. biochemist, and a registered nurse, so we are happy to have him today. Thank you, Casey, for being here. Yeah. Thank you for having me. Yeah. Tell me about Phyto Lab. Yeah. So we are. So finally, lab is a analytical testing lab, focused on cannabis testing. So we do, currently, we do potency testing.
00;01;01;18 - 00;01;23;21
Unknown
Okay, for home growers. And then in the industry for non, CoA. So like a CoA is, ultimately the PSA documentation that you need to get your product from your grow house on to the shelf to sell to like a customer. Yep. Certificate of analysis that stands for. Yeah. Yeah, I'm trying to that's that's okay. No that's okay.
00;01;23;21 - 00;01;45;06
So but yeah. So we currently we're doing potency testing and then we're expanding. We're having our clean room built right now. We're getting equipment, bigger equipment, and at the end of the month and then, expanding into that full certificate of analysis profile, which includes potency, terpenes, pesticides, mycotoxins, microbial analysis, heavy metals, all of that stuff.
00;01;45;06 - 00;02;06;06
So that okay, potency is is for fun. Everything else is for safety. I guess you're a pizza certified too. Yeah, but like, everything else is safety testing that, right? Do you think that's going to make anybody say it's going to hurt anybody, anything like that? Right. So important for people that maybe, have immuno compromised or, or people that are accessing cannabis as medicine.
00;02;06;06 - 00;02;34;26
So thank you for that work. So right now, the apparatus that you have supports kind of things on a smaller scale, but now you're building out to try to support more, bigger industry companies and whatnot, correct? Yeah. So what we what we have right now is just a mobile testing platform. And it's a it's a mobile version of one of the pieces that we'll use in the lab called HPLC or high pressure liquid chromatography, which is a technique that's used all across sciences.
00;02;34;27 - 00;02;55;13
Okay. Specific to cannabis, there's nothing special about it. And in fact, like the interesting thing is that all the tests that we do with cannabis are all standard food tests. They're all tests that you would do for your Cheerios or corn or anything like that. We have a couple of specific ones, right. Cannabinoids. Yeah. So you've heard the INS, but the safety tests are all this the same beyond there.
00;02;55;15 - 00;03;19;03
So the one that we can do right now is not involved in the safety side of it, just potency stuffs. But, the nice thing about it is that the one that we have, allows us to separate out into major and minor cannabinoids. Okay. And THC, CBD, but you're also seeing thc the CBC, CBN CBG. So a lot of those minors that people are concerned about and then then broadly, you know, level of terpenes but nothing about specific.
00;03;19;03 - 00;03;38;03
So it'll be like high medium low amount of terpenes present. Gotcha. Understood. The machinery again like each of the individual tests has a specific piece of equipment that you are is ideal to run it on. Okay. How did you like what type of an educational background do you have that supports this type of work that you're doing?
00;03;38;04 - 00;03;57;15
Yeah. So, originally I got my, undergrad in biochemistry from the U of M back in December of 2008. And then I went into the military for a little bit because it was about that time. It was the surge, you know, all that kind of stuff. So in mid 2009 to 2010, mid 2010, I was overseas in Afghanistan.
00;03;57;23 - 00;04;14;25
I was an intelligence analyst, did a bunch of, you know, cool stuff over there that I really, I really enjoyed. Got to see a lot of things that, you know, change who you are as a person. Yeah. For sure. Right. My first experience with like, you know, real poverty and real you know, suffering and things like that.
00;04;14;25 - 00;04;39;29
Right. But it certainly cemented in me that like okay let's go back, let's do some science. So I went back afterwards and got my PhD in biochemistry. Okay. I wasn't doing anything cannabis related at the time. We were actually, my research was focused on a human protein involved in HIV response. Okay. So looking at kind of how your own immune system responds to HIV and why it doesn't effectively respond to HIV, right.
00;04;40;02 - 00;04;57;21
Get sick. Right. So we did a lot of work just on the structural biology of that. So I used nuclear magnetic resonance as the name of it. If you've ever had an MRI. Yeah I'm just going to ask okay. Magnet, you know radio waves and, and we get a picture effectively. Yeah. Our picture looks a lot different.
00;04;57;21 - 00;05;18;04
If you ever took organic chemistry and you remember the little NMR arms and stuff, I do remember that. Yeah, everybody needs it. I don't like it when I don't drink either. But when you get a little bit further into it beyond, just like the real basics, there's some cool stuff. So we use that and did like protein, DNA, structure.
00;05;18;08 - 00;05;39;19
Okay in there. And so that was, that was great. I did, you know, my PhD finished in like 2015, decided I wanted to go into teaching at that point. Did you go to the U. I'm sorry. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Nice. Yeah, I was in there. Biochemistry and molecular biology and biophysics department. Okay. Yeah. What a great program.
00;05;39;19 - 00;05;58;02
Yeah. So it's like, associated with the medical school too, right. So a lot of their you know, the, if you call them hard science or the, you know, the experimental sciences like that are attached to that med school. So you do get a lot of interaction with, like, real nice disease and stuff. It's the applicable things. Yeah.
00;05;58;02 - 00;06;18;07
Right. Which is what I wanted to obviously, you know, 2030. Yeah. Cure HIV right. Yeah. Oh I hear I mean I Nobel Prize. Yeah. Exactly what great aspirations know. Obviously I did not do that. But we did some some really cool stuff that was interesting to see. But then obviously you finish your PhD eventually you to figure out what to do next.
00;06;18;07 - 00;06;37;27
So I was, college professor for four years. I did three years at Saint, all of college teaching mostly biochem to premeds and stuff like that. Okay. And then I went to Metro State for a year and taught again biochemistry and molecular biology, the whole, you know, gamut of classes. Okay. And then after that went into a small business.
00;06;37;27 - 00;07;00;09
So I was in, a company that was doing a, spider silk based eyedrop and, oh, a company that was doing a graphene based medical device. Okay. And I've also been in a company that was doing, biosynthetic cannabinoid production from yeast. So using yeast instead of the plant to grow individual cannabinoids. Oh, wow. We're looking for primarily CBG at first.
00;07;00;11 - 00;07;24;00
Okay. You know, then and then you could do like large scale production on those things, thinking about like taking like a 500 acre field and moving into, like a 5000 liter bio fermenter that has a, you know, 500 square foot, you know, footprint and uses, you know, 10,000 gallons of water as opposed to 10 million, right? You know, just think that's awesome dosing for like, pharmaceuticals or extracts or things.
00;07;24;02 - 00;07;40;20
Obviously you miss out on all the extra stuff, right? Yeah. And but you could we were getting so we could do like, individual minors. Did you choose CBG because it's kind of like the mother. Okay. Gotcha. So that's you know, that's a starting. If you can get to CBG in the yeast, you can get, everything else.
00;07;40;22 - 00;07;56;08
Okay. It's one more, 1 or 2 more steps for every other cannabinoid. And it's like, I can't remember off the top of my head, 13 or 14 steps to get to CBG. Okay. 1 or 2 to get to everything else. Okay. If you can make a bucket of CBD, then you can dump an enzyme into it. You can make a bucket.
00;07;56;09 - 00;08;17;10
It is it. It's almost like a stem cell kind of yeah. Yeah. Similar especially for like the cannabinoids. Right. Because if you think about it, the cannabinoids, the structure wise, they're all very similar. And it's a little decorations around the outside that really are the difference between THC, CBD, you know, Delta 910 eight. Right. That's all positioning on that ring right outside of it.
00;08;17;12 - 00;08;39;03
How it attaches attaches. So CBG is basically the backbone okay. Right. So then you start modifying that. And like I said it's like one step to THC right. Wow. So we were at a specific position and now you've had delta nine THC you do carboxylate and then you have THC. Yeah. Cool. Okay. Cool. Yeah. So, yeah. So we were doing that and then,
00;08;39;05 - 00;08;57;23
Yeah. So then, but those, you know, a lot of different companies are doing a lot of different things working for other people. And you know, some at some point in time you're like, well, I think I have better ideas, but I'm not getting to do what I want to do. Sure, that can get frustrating. And that's where I decided to kind of step away from science, because I wasn't finding a home there.
00;08;57;23 - 00;09;14;08
I wasn't finding a space that I could do what I wanted to do. So then I had to kind of find myself in a bit of a pickle. Like what? You spent a lot of years trying for this thing, right? This work in that field anymore? So then that's when I went back to school and got my.
00;09;14;10 - 00;09;38;08
Okay, so, it's been about two, two and a half years now that I started back in the school. So I went up to Saint Scholastica, did a year long kind of transition. Yeah. And then got set up. And then I've been working at regions for just over a year. Nice guy for doing that. And that was all to just kind of get into a job that was like more of a you clock in, you clock out.
00;09;38;09 - 00;09;57;10
Yeah. Somebody else has your back. And right. Part of like a more organized structure. Right. That's what I wanted because in science it's all on you. Yeah. You're building something, so you have to know where it's going. Exactly. But I always had in the back of my head this desire, you know, to work in the cannabis industry because I have a little bit in the past.
00;09;57;10 - 00;10;17;24
And, you know, it's something that's very interesting to me. And even in that field, like two years ago, three years ago now, I started trying to move down this path to testing. Sure. Legal hemp market here. And I was like, great, these beverages are sending to North Dakota. They're sending to California everything to get all this testing, right.
00;10;17;28 - 00;10;42;21
If I'm down the street, that's an easy sell. Yeah, exactly. Come down. Drop it off. I'll do it. You get your results back. Great for thought. Yeah, yeah, yeah, on my part, I thought so. Thank you for your money. So, man, it's tough to convince them. Yeah, to get there. So we just, you know, I back burner that and then in August of this year, labor.
00;10;42;22 - 00;10;58;15
Yeah. Early August of this year, my father in law, who recently retired, was like, you know, I have somebody that I worked with, you know, that was a consultant for me. And she's expressed interest in this cannabis lab stuff before. And it's like, you should talk to her. And so we connected and we found out with two houses down from one another.
00;10;58;16 - 00;11;19;18
Wow. So so that worked out. So we went inside like okay. But we both want to do this. Let's see if we can make it happen. Yeah. So we just started up in August using the business plan that I had built before and just started shopping it out and ended up getting more interest now. Right, okay. In the market, we actually have a bank that's financing us, which.
00;11;19;20 - 00;11;41;02
Okay, amazing. We've talked to a lot of them and only one was able to. Yeah, you did because the testing environment is expensive. Sure. The equipment is expensive. Yeah. This little mobile piece is $25,000 just to have potency. And then, you know, if you're buying brand new, you're looking at a million and a half to $2 million, equipment.
00;11;41;07 - 00;11;59;27
Yeah. And then if you want to get it certified, like federally certified or whatever, that's another additional cost to go through that whole process too. So yeah, it it is a lot of money. It is. And you know, you can't it's it's not something you can bootstrap as much. Right. Not there's not a like partly functional version of it.
00;11;59;29 - 00;12;24;00
Right. You're able to do it all or you can't do. Yeah. And so that that puts you in a spot where you have to be willing, you know, get a large chunk of money upfront and have somebody be like, okay, you can not make any money for a little. Yeah. Yeah. But it's obviously needed. Okay. If you if people were paying attention to the, to the social equity lottery, there was only five applicants in that.
00;12;24;00 - 00;12;42;07
And I think there were only four unique applicants because I think there were some doubling in there. Oh, and I think we're down to 2 or 3. Oh wow. And I wasn't in that round. Okay. You got organized and everything like that. So I think that we're looking on the order of maybe 3 to 5 testing labs that will be operational potentially right away.
00;12;42;09 - 00;13;05;09
How many are they allowing? So they're allowing unlimited licenses for testing. Testing. This is one that they've said is like open. That being said they put like 50 in the social equity round. Gotcha. Okay. So it was like it was the only one that didn't fail. Okay. And then if you look at other states as well, I think it was Kentucky that just recently like fully opened their licensing system.
00;13;05;09 - 00;13;27;01
Okay. To applicants. Oh wow. The entire state. And that was an open call that was on social equity. That was there was no restriction. Right. So yes, it's tough. There's not there's not a interest because of the high capital concern and because, you know, I think you have to kind of have a background like mine, at least right away, in order to establish that you have any integrity.
00;13;27;03 - 00;13;47;06
Yeah, right. I know what you're talking about because, you know, we just don't have a ton of labs. We've got, you know, one that's really operating right now in the Minnesota doing the medical stuff. How can you tell for lab is reputable? Like if it's a good lab? Yeah. So that's I mean that's going to be a tough question at first.
00;13;47;08 - 00;14;07;26
You know, within the lab community, part of our certification is that we have to do like blinded samples between us and show that we are meeting or that we are at least lining up with the results that everybody else in the industry is. Sure. So that should hopefully, you know, help with some of that and that people should be, I guess here's what you should look for.
00;14;08;00 - 00;14;24;22
You should look for somebody who is not afraid to show you that, okay. Like show you the results, show you what they're doing, tell you what you know, how they're doing everything. Somebody who's willing to say, like, yeah, send it to the other lab, too. Right. Let's see, you know, compare us against somebody else, right? We should be getting the same results.
00;14;24;22 - 00;14;42;22
The Lancet I talked to so far, our main goal is to prevent that type of thing. The lab shopping gotcha around. There's really only one area that it that it's, you know, important in. And that's potency. Okay. I would hope now I can't guarantee I one would hope that you're not going to fudge any of the safety test.
00;14;42;23 - 00;15;07;27
Yeah, right. But the potency in all reality, whether it's 2% or 20% or 40%, is not going to hurt anybody, right? Whether it's there, you're going to get too high. Yeah, probably. Yeah. It's not going to hurt you. You know, in the same way pesticide or lead or right. So that's the that's the area that people tend to fudge around a lot in because everybody wants the highest number.
00;15;07;27 - 00;15;32;15
Yes. Most of the uneducated consumers are looking just for that highest number and the cheapest price. Right. ICBC for lowest. Yeah. Right. Which is one way to go about it. Right. And that's where the, the messing around with the numbers comes in. Gotcha. Again people aren't going to be doing that when it's going to like a extraction facility because they're going to know right away that you told them it was too high.
00;15;32;17 - 00;16;00;16
Yeah. Right. If you tell them it's 40% and they do all their crap like it's 40%, and then they only get half as much out. And help me understand the process of testing too, is it tested at every level? So like it's harvested, it's cured. It's ready to go as raw flour. Is it tested at that point, then tested once it's broken down into whatever product material you're going to use, whether it be an isolate or how does that go?
00;16;00;16 - 00;16;18;13
So it really it really depends. So ideally you would be testing it several steps in the process depending on what you're doing. Right. If you're doing flour, there's a couple of spots that you can you can test it. Ultimately all you need tested is your dried cured flour, whatever product that you're trying to put on the shelf.
00;16;18;15 - 00;16;37;01
That's the one that needs to have the full panel on top. Okay, all of the safety stuff. So even if it was a topical, it's the final product that goes to the shelf and gets to the consumer. Yeah. Gotcha. That requires the cow. Okay. That being said, testing I think is useful at a lot of other steps before that, but you don't need the full cow at that point.
00;16;37;01 - 00;17;01;28
Right. Potency testing is good, I think, at a lot of different steps. I think that growers can even use potency testing to determine when to harvest flour. Exactly. Right. So just doing like little testing, you know, Monday, Wednesday, Friday of the week that you think, yeah, harvest. And just making sure your numbers are matching. Also just like monitoring like once a week on your batches, sometimes you have a new variety that you don't know necessarily.
00;17;01;28 - 00;17;16;26
Right? Right. Time to harvest. It is the other thing that we want to add with that, which is again, not like CoA not required, but might be useful for people, is doing like they're being tested. Sure. Because I still don't think we have a good idea on like what? What's the what's the prime time to harvest for turkey profile.
00;17;16;29 - 00;17;39;29
Right. Versus we, we very focused on on oh shoot. Like thc cannabinoids. Right. We're not really like maybe we dropped 2% on our THC, but then we get 20% more, right? So so little things like that I think are useful as well, although not required. Right. If you're making a gummy, then I would say you probably want your extract tested.
00;17;40;06 - 00;18;02;27
You may not need your flower. You know you're starting flower tested, but definitely get your extract tested so that you know, you know how to make a five milligram, right? Yeah. Had a portion it out. Right. I mean, you can take the risk and say like, oh, I understand. Or if the product that you're getting is coming from a tested, you know, facility, somebody who's already doing that testing, you know, with a lab that you trust.
00;18;02;27 - 00;18;20;02
Yeah. Then you can probably take that and run that right in to your next batch, you know, your batch process. But ultimately you'll have to test the final product. Anything that anytime you manipulate, the, you know, the plant material or you change it from one form to another, you should probably test it there just to make sure that you got what you think you got out.
00;18;20;08 - 00;18;38;06
Yeah. Right. And that it's clean, that you didn't take things that you didn't want, you know. So there's a lot of spaces, but ultimately for all of the products that go on the shelves is at least at the very end, okay. Right. When you have your, your final product that you want to sell people, that's what you should test for bacteria and mold and things like that.
00;18;38;08 - 00;19;09;06
Mites and yeah. Yeah. Physically. Yeah. Does it just drop? So yeah. Oh boy. So your journey into the legal cannabis space was through academia, almost. And then, when you were working with that other company and doing that cannabis research for real, kind of like, cannabis. Yeah, I, I well, I've been engaged with cannabis since I was 13 or 14.
00;19;09;06 - 00;19;29;26
Okay. Okay. Great personal use. Sorry. Yeah, a lot longer ago. And I think it's always just been one of the things that I've been trying to find my way into. It's tough when you have an advanced degree, when you have things like that, and going into these industries that are not necessarily as seen as valid or seen as.
00;19;29;26 - 00;19;49;19
Yeah, or anything like that, then you have to kind of think about, you know, what impact look, have on your next job. Yeah. The next thing. Interesting. Yeah. But but I always wanted to be in, in this space. And I finally found the opportunity that works for me. Because I tell you what, I'm not envious of any grower out there.
00;19;49;19 - 00;20;10;27
I'm not envious of anybody making a gummy. I'm not envious of anybody making a drink because there are a lot of good products. Yeah, competition is crazy. And I don't know that I am. I grow in my basement, enjoy it. But I'm not gonna say I'm very good at it. Yeah, and all that kind of stuff. So it's just like I was looking at all that and I'm like, well, that's not going to be my way to enter the market.
00;20;11;00 - 00;20;27;25
But I have been looking at this for a long time and saying like, well, if I can find somebody who will give me an obscene amount of money. Yeah, right. Ridiculous amount of money that I never will never personally have, though, all that kind of stuff. If somebody would be willing to do that, and I think I could make them a few bucks and like, yeah, rolling.
00;20;27;26 - 00;20;46;11
And then especially when I saw the, the need that was the biggest thing that that kind of opened my eyes to see that there was one lab in Minnesota. We actually used to have two, but the other one got bought out by like an international, they shut down their cannabis, by, you know, they just don't want to have to deal with keeping a piece of their business separate.
00;20;46;18 - 00;21;09;18
So banking is so tough. Which is why everything is so tough is because there's still there's a federal law and a state law. Exactly like how to wiggle in between the two. Yeah. Well, I just don't want to take that risk. I love to see nurses doing other things. We have so many incredibly tangible skills. And so to be thinking outside of the box, it was the same with me.
00;21;09;18 - 00;21;32;18
And I was like, well, what can I do here? You know, like and I thought about all the different things. And I was like, well, I'm not going to do consulting. Everyone wants to do consulting. Like, let's what else can we do? You know? So yeah, that's awesome, I love this. Yeah. Find your little niche. And I feel, you know, I feel like whether it was on purpose or not, that my experience has got me just the right set of.
00;21;32;21 - 00;21;47;11
Yeah, conditions in order to be able to pull this type of thing. It was like perfect storm. Yeah, yeah. And it was one of those ones where I looked at it and I was like, if I don't take the chance right now, I'm going to kick myself forever because I said, it's going to work for somebody. Yeah, right.
00;21;47;18 - 00;22;13;22
Well, you know, I might as well try and have it be me and just see if we can, you know, do it the right way. Yeah. Because like you mentioned before, like the idea of lab shopping or just labs not meeting the standards that they should at California had a big issue with that. A couple of years. He spent a year or two years ago now with the Aspergillus testing, where they had to shut down more than half of their labs because they couldn't, you know, they weren't able to test at the level they needed to test.
00;22;13;22 - 00;22;40;11
And somebody died. Oh, wow. From that. And you just don't want that type of thing to happen, right. This industry as well. Right. So especially like I said, you know, when people are already kind of immunocompromised maybe, and, you know, coming to cannabis as they're looking to cannabis as their medicine. So super important. What outside of the COAs, what else is this testing useful for?
00;22;40;11 - 00;23;07;26
I, we kind of touched on a little bit. So like monitoring the potencies and whatnot for growers. What other ways. Yeah. So another area that we think that we can provide a lot of value up front is just like monitoring certain, you know, viral pathogens, bacterial pathogens in gro spaces. Okay. Yeah. Molds. Yeasts. Right. So if you don't know that they're, they're you can't, you know, plan for them.
00;23;07;28 - 00;23;26;15
Right. And I think that's so that I think those are going to be the ones that are going to throw everybody the most pesticides. People are really familiar with. Yeah. And you know, oh I'm not going to be pesticides on my plants. I'm not worried about that. But everybody's bro right now. Yeah everybody's growing has yeast in it and bacteria.
00;23;26;18 - 00;23;51;28
And we need to figure out a way to control for those things. Now people who are spending a ton of money are putting these things in basically clean rooms, right, right. And then filtering all the air that goes in and wearing Tyvek suits, right. All that kind of mitigation stuff. But if you can't do that, then you very, at the very minimum should be, you know, just doing some monitoring to see like, oh, is this, you know, what type of mildew is this, is this mildew that I can treat with, you know, whatever type of organic.
00;23;52;04 - 00;24;10;23
Right. Really need a pesticide or do I really need something else? And those things can, can take out both crops, right. Because if you get, you know, your whole crop is contaminated with something, then you have to you have to toss that whole thing out. And yeah, frosting. You know, it's not cheap. Like, what a herder. But yeah.
00;24;10;23 - 00;24;30;22
Yeah, but then it can be you can save you a lot of money in the long run. If you have to throw away $1 million worth of product. Yeah. Because you didn't do, you know, a 200 or $300 test, then it, you know, you take yourself and I, I wonder how much like, you know, I of course, support, organic growing because, you know, that's the kind of food we should be eating.
00;24;30;22 - 00;24;47;19
It's a kind of cannabis. We should be smoking, like all of the things. Right? But I wonder how many times, like, you know, the living soil, if that can be a source of, like, you know, those types of things. Yeah, and I think so. Right. Yeah. So you're, you're, you're cultivating an environment that's good for microbial growth. Yeah.
00;24;47;19 - 00;25;07;12
You don't usually get to pick which microbe you get. You just read for the best. Right. So living is I think living soil is probably the way to go. And some good, you know, results in the end product. Yeah type of stuff. But again I mean if you have soil like a soil medium in there, then you don't have a fully controlled environment and you really don't want it to be sterile.
00;25;07;14 - 00;25;36;20
Right? It's part of the living soil. Right. Yeah. So then you have to just kind of pay attention for the, for the downstream impacts of that. Right. So nice. Besides the, besides the device and all of the testing implications, the getting of the lab up and running, what else are you bringing to the market? Oh, well, hopefully, you know, some integrity.
00;25;36;23 - 00;25;54;18
The education piece of it. Yeah. For me like I, what I, what I originally wanted to do out of college was be a teacher. Okay professor, I loved that idea. In practice that is not as great as one thinks it, right. It's terrible. But I do. The part that I did love was talking with people.
00;25;54;23 - 00;26;16;24
The people who were interested in the subject, people who want to know more, like we we sit at a great spot to not only tell you what's in in your plant or in your product, but also to explain to you, like why it's there and what that actually means right to you. Like what we'd like to do is have our testing results, not just be, you know, like one piece of paper that says like, okay, here's all your numbers.
00;26;16;26 - 00;26;35;24
Ideally, I would like to have it be, you know, like a PDF that you just you, you hover things and say, oh, my K number is this what is TCA. What is that mean? What's the chemical? What are the, downstream impacts of it? Nice. You know, and even more so into areas that we've never touched before to like the turbines.
00;26;35;24 - 00;26;56;15
Right. Because that's one that I, I don't I don't know why it hasn't been done yet. And so maybe I'm throwing away $1 million. Do you hear me? That's not good at all. But, like, I don't know why we haven't done these terpene profiles and and connected those to people's, like, tastes. Oh, yeah. And like, like I understand that, you know, we do the sativa, indica hybrid.
00;26;56;15 - 00;27;12;28
Yeah. Oh, it only shows you those that you want, but, like, what if you, you know, if you were to go and review something that's high in x13 and low and y, and then you review something else that also happens to be the same, and then, like, you know, there should be something that helps you figure out like, oh, here's the next thing you want to buy.
00;27;13;03 - 00;27;42;05
It's high in that turbine too. You really seem to like that, right? Or it's got the right combination of things. Or if you take or this and this. So having the education piece about turbines I think is going to be really crucial going forward. And I think that helping people to understand that it really doesn't matter the name of the strain, knowing your grower is very important as we spoke to earlier and making sure that, you know, they're growing and operating in an environment that's healthy and, and good.
00;27;42;08 - 00;28;06;25
And then, you know, that breakdown of testing of course, because the turbines is really where the medicine is, you know, it's how it's going to the medicine is going to make you feel. So, you know, to know what turbines are to be able to identify which ones you think will help you for whatever you want to use cannabis for, whether it be for anxiety or sleep or your chronic pain, whatever that is.
00;28;06;27 - 00;28;23;01
To be able to look at that profile then and dial in to like, oh, I know MercyMe is really going to enhance the effects of my THC, and I need that to go to sleep at night. You know, to be able to look at that whole profile and just like we need to throw away those terms of, like, sativa and indica.
00;28;23;01 - 00;28;41;28
And I know that it's easy way to package up something for people and easy for them to digest, but I hope that people start to really grasp on to the fact that, you know, okay, this is a really complex plant, and there's a lot of things that could benefit me if I would just knew, you know, how to break it down a little bit.
00;28;42;01 - 00;28;58;14
Yeah. And I think that that's that's certainly the case. Right? I mean, but a lot of places just don't have that information. Yeah. Right. If you, if you don't have the testing to begin with and there's no place to, to draw that info from. Yeah. So I think that's, that's part of what we again, you got to get the testing out in front of people.
00;28;58;14 - 00;29;18;06
Yep. Yep. The profiles. And then you have to to explain to them why they care. And I think that's where Minnesota's getting into a good spot. Me too. Right in the middle. And despite the delays and everything like that it's it's kept the cannabis market in people's minds. And I think that we're going to have a more educated consumer.
00;29;18;13 - 00;29;42;01
I agree that that's the way that I see the market going is that people are interested in educating, yes, consumer about what it is and and using it in different ways. Right. Intentional ways to. Yeah. Word for it. Yeah. Just like recreationally but like intentionally. Right. And I think that's where or specific like you know what specifically is going to work good for me.
00;29;42;01 - 00;29;57;06
And I know you can always go back to like the nose nose, but to be able to look at it on paper and be like, oh yeah, I do remember Lynn a little like, I really like that last time or, you know, great. Yeah, you can see those things. And I think just having that, that reference point.
00;29;57;09 - 00;30;20;29
Right. For a lot of people is, is huge. And then of course when you get into the medicinal side of it and you're talking about the impacts of those different, you know, terpenes, then you need to know, yeah. How much is in. Yeah. And what, what different terpenes are. And then even probably combinations. Yeah. So I know we only the state hasn't put out the list of turkeys or whatever that we're, that we're looking at yet, but probably only 5 or 6.
00;30;21;01 - 00;30;39;18
You think so? Okay. Yes. Sure. That tends to be how it breaks out. But again, there's, there's so many more and I think there's more that we're finding out, like we talked about today. Beans. And then there's a whole nother family and they're obsessed with turkeys. Okay. Bigger ones. Yeah. And so I think there's a lot of stuff that we just, we haven't even looked for in there yet, right?
00;30;39;25 - 00;30;56;22
Yeah. You know what it's doing. And I think just the more that you, the more you know about this type of stuff, the more data you have in your hands, the better off you are. Yeah. Situations to to make use of it. Right. I always feel like there's consumers that really want to know all everything like down to the minutia.
00;30;56;22 - 00;31;14;04
And then there's just those ones are like, how is this going to make me feel? And there's two great ways to go in. Yeah. My, my wife still tells the story to this day about the first time we went to, like, a real dispensary in Colorado. And I'm trying to I'll try to remember the verbiage, but. Oh, yeah, how can I help you experience cannabis?
00;31;14;07 - 00;31;34;12
Okay. I was like, that was how they greeted her. Okay. Like, oh, okay. And I think a lot of people like that's what they that's what they have. That's. Yeah. Vocabularies. Yeah. Well I don't want to be anxious. I don't want to be sleepy. I want to be motivated. Exactly. You know body mind went in one time and said, I want, I want, a strain that's going to make me want to fly a kite.
00;31;34;15 - 00;31;54;04
And they're like, oh my God. So it's you can go other bunch of different ways. Yeah. So, you know, maybe it's is easier for certain. You'll get less variability if you go in and say like I need a strain. That's 4% mercy. Yeah. Right. Like and then they could just be like okay, here you go. Yeah. And then we can say like, okay, we have 15% THC, you know, 19 and 23.
00;31;54;08 - 00;32;11;22
Right. Whatever. Now picking in that area. Yeah. And I'm with you on the city, the indica, and I'm with you on the, like, the strain name is only as good as the person who sold it to me. Exactly. That's another area. This is a second phase for our lab stuff. Because we're just wanting to do this.
00;32;11;22 - 00;32;35;04
Get the safety testing, you know, in place first. But we also want to do genetic testing. Nice. You know, like strain verification. Yeah, but I also think that I don't know how much of an issue it's going to be. And I hope it's not an issue at all, but just making sure that, the whatever you know, strain and potency you sell to the store is what they're actually putting on the shelf in the mag.
00;32;35;06 - 00;32;50;23
Right? So, like, are they, you know, open and covered with something else and, you know, so those types of things, so you can you can then use a genetic verification to say like, no, that's money. That was this. That's like genetically identical to the plant that I put in the package. Sure. Yeah. Put something else in there I like that.
00;32;50;24 - 00;33;10;23
Yeah, yeah. And so even from there we want to do, you know, you get markers for the terpenes themselves so we can. Yeah. The genetics and like actual plant breeding. Yeah. Identifying plants that are say higher in different terpenes than others. Right. You know, so there's a lot of areas. Yeah for sure. And will you test all the way down to seeds.
00;33;10;23 - 00;33;31;17
And so like people can do like fino hunting and whatnot then too that that's the ideal. Yeah. So this is I'll say that the Koa part of it is like the core of the business area that's really exciting to me is like the R&D side of it. Right? Like people developing new strains, people developing new products and chemo hours.
00;33;31;17 - 00;33;54;12
Right. And, and understanding that you can also grow a medicine that's a ratio medicine, you know, and having a good mix of THC and CBD and being kind of somewhere in the middle. And I think that people are looking for that too. I think they are, to a lot of it that a lot of people ask me for, like CBD high strains, just because they've grown on THC dominant strain.
00;33;54;12 - 00;34;13;04
Right. And they want, you know, to mix and balance it out. Yeah, whatever it is. And so I've had a lot of people looking for that. I think there's a lot of interest in the growing community and getting these, you know, plants that are still high THC plants, but also are high in some minor or specific things as well.
00;34;13;04 - 00;34;35;06
Totally. I've seen people looking for CBG, in those as well. Just so I try and, you know, balance that. Yeah. So I think that, you know, hunting is a great spot. Yeah. We will be able to do like sexing as well. So okay. You know obviously if you're breeding you're breeding not feminized plants. Right, right. So you'll have to so we can do sexing on the, on the seedlings.
00;34;35;08 - 00;34;57;26
Okay. The easiest way to do that, you just take like a hole punch, honestly. Okay. One of their little leafs, and you can send that to me. And then we can determine male female need to determine whether you keep them or toss them. Yeah. The guys room or whatever. Right. You're looking for the guy's room? Yeah. The man cave.
00;34;57;28 - 00;35;26;09
So help my audience understand, what a CoA is, what will be present on there and why that's important. Yeah. So a CoA or the certificate of analysis, is just basically should be a list of effectively all the tests that we've run on that individual sample. I'm not sure if at this point in Minnesota, if that will have to be done within the same lab or if you will be between multiple labs, but ultimately it should be one front and back document.
00;35;26;14 - 00;35;45;27
Gotcha. A few things on it. It should have the majority of your results on it, like the top line results saying like, here's your THC, CBD, all your minor cannabinoids. Here is your terpene profile. Add to whatever tolerance that you think is. You know, if you're anything below a 10th of a percent, you don't put on there everything.
00;35;46;00 - 00;36;06;15
And then it should have, a good CoA. Well, a CoA will have on all of the safety tests. Pass, right. Pass or fail. Okay. So it should pass all the safety tests. It may or may not have the limits of detection and stuff like that. The more technical pieces. Gotcha. You know sometimes the state sets a threshold.
00;36;06;15 - 00;36;23;29
And as long as it's below that we say that's a pass. Sometimes you need to quantify it a little bit, but it should have those numbers on there. And then ultimately so you'll have that for the pesticides that you're testing for the mycotoxins that microbial assays and that, heavy metals. Okay. Be on there. Those should all say pass.
00;36;24;02 - 00;36;49;00
And then ultimately it has to be signed and official eyes by the lab director, lab manager of the place that's, that's providing the testing. Gotcha. Visualize it. So that just means it's been all reviewed within our systems and that it's good to go. We sign off that says it's are you are you optimistic about CMS rule making process and how that's going to look, for testing facilities?
00;36;49;03 - 00;37;10;04
Gosh. Not I mean, not super optimistic, okay. Just because it's not place. Yeah. Right. And the the issue there is that one of the rules that is in place is that before I can get my license to test recreational cannabis, our lab has to be certified ISO 1725 compliant, which is just 17 or 25 is just analytical testing labs.
00;37;10;04 - 00;37;34;07
So, okay, pharmaceutical food, you know, nutraceuticals all have this same it's not specific to cannabis. It's like a basic baseline. You can test for these things like we deem you reputable for that. Gotcha. Third party validation okay. What is the it's like okay. Gotcha. Thank you. So they just come in, they walk through, they they ping you on everything that every nitpicky thing that they see.
00;37;34;10 - 00;37;54;26
But they just make sure that, like, ultimately they come in and say yes in your hands with your equipment, you can run this test accurate. Okay. So but that process is not nothing. Right. So if the rules came out today, then you're looking at for somebody who is ready to implement the test. All the equipment's already in place and everything like that.
00;37;54;26 - 00;38;25;13
You're probably looking at 3 to 4 months at least. Wow. To add a new testing. You know you said and right now we don't have any of those right early finalize. They should be finalized at the end of the legislative session. So in the next few months, okay. But I'm that's my worry with like as far as hang ups in the whole system is that the reality is, is that on day one, like as soon as licenses are issued, you might have one lab, which is the one that's currently running capable of actually testing.
00;38;25;13 - 00;38;45;28
Gotcha. So you're going to have people putting plants in the ground and then you might have 1 or 2, hopefully we were one of those that'll be up and running from the, you know, four months after the licenses drop. Right. Hopefully hit about the same, you know, growth cycle. That's the plant right. But in the meantime, if you're if your plants are done in two months, then I don't know how you're getting them right off the bat.
00;38;46;01 - 00;39;06;22
Okay. And in addition to that, we have, another supply influx, which is, you know, native. Exactly. Right. Yeah. You know, that's thousands of pounds. So it's probably ready to come on to the market on day one and aren't they, aren't they going to grow for the medical problem? I'm not sure about that. Okay. Program and, tribes.
00;39;06;25 - 00;39;25;06
I thought so. Yeah. So and that's that's a possibility too. But again, there's only one line that does the medical program, right? No, I think there is a second lab. But I have not, not actually talked with anybody who's worked with them. Gotcha. So. Okay, how big or who's working with them right now? Okay.
00;39;25;08 - 00;39;44;26
But yeah. So it's going to be it's going to be really interesting right off the bat to see, like, you're probably going to have a lot of people ready to sell stuff and just, you know, holding it in their warehouses until you get tested, which is a but yeah, it will have an expiration date. Well, and and through the denaturation process, you know, it can turn into something else.
00;39;44;26 - 00;40;01;03
Yeah. Yeah. And the potency is going down. Yeah. Exactly stony as you go. And again, you know, most people are looking I think for a couple of week turnaround the that like you get your product out there and you're hoping you're sold out. Yeah. In a couple of weeks. So you don't have to worry about that.
00;40;01;03 - 00;40;19;20
Right? Right. But, you know, if it's not, if that's not the case, if there's not enough testing capability online to get safe product out onto the market, then you know, you're going to have you're going to have a lot of retail locations selling 1 or 2 items may not work for anybody. So tough tough tough. Yeah.
00;40;19;22 - 00;40;40;12
What other do you see any other kind of issues with the current legal market that are, problematic from a testing standpoint that I see from a testing standpoint. And I'm hoping that it's just kind of it's it's in draft stages. But I was listening to the new, head for testing for the state and the pesticide program.
00;40;40;12 - 00;40;57;25
The way they're deciding to test that is a little bit confusing to me, because they're basically allowing businesses to self-report what pesticides they put on, and then are only required to put on or to test for the pesticides that they claim they use. Oh that's weird. So that that's one where I'm like, if that doesn't feel right. Yeah.
00;40;57;26 - 00;41;16;11
Like if you just think about if you go outside, even if you didn't use any pesticides at all, like you the wind. Right. Exactly. You just have to test. Right. And I think under that same you know, I again, I don't know, it's a very, industry, like a very business focused, you know, that's like, oh, we trust you guys.
00;41;16;14 - 00;41;40;04
Yeah. But also like, well, they didn't put any E.coli on there either. Yeah. Why are we testing for E.coli? If they didn't add it, we shouldn't have to worry about it. Right? I just I just don't think that's I mean, so it's we're going to have to argue about safety versus industry desires, and just saying like, you know, because there's also companies out there that are interested, they want to start their own labs that test their own products.
00;41;40;04 - 00;42;07;00
Right. And I feel like that's a conflict of interest. You know, if you're if you're the producer and the tester and the retailer like it just I'm not saying that you're going to cheat, but you are incentivized to write like you're in a position that that makes that more, you know, beneficial to you. Yeah. Right. Because if you have to choose between faking one test or losing $1 million worth of product, you're probably going to fake one test.
00;42;07;02 - 00;42;28;22
Whereas me being not attached to any of the other, you know, companies or anything like that. Yeah. Leaves me in a spot that I can say like, well I'm not willing to risk my reputation for one test. Right. Exactly. I know it's costing you $1 million. Yeah. Sorry. I'm sorry, but it's not, you know. Yeah. You know, I just are not going to fudge it for you and potentially get somebody sick.
00;42;28;22 - 00;42;46;16
So this is the other side of it where I think the nursing piece comes in. Is that. Yeah, the downstream impacts of, you know, this type of stuff. And I just I can't participate in that. So yeah, the goal here is to just make a safe mark. Yeah, I hope I can make some money. We're in a capitalist society, right.
00;42;46;20 - 00;43;06;07
Yeah. To in order to keep the doors open. Yeah. But ultimately, if we can break even, then we can keep people safe. That's where we want to be. Yeah, right. So thank you for doing patient advocacy. Yeah I appreciate that. Yeah. They do they do need it themselves. Exactly. And they don't maybe don't even know these these ins and outs of things.
00;43;06;09 - 00;43;30;04
And this is where like the medical side is so crucial to you know, I understand like in the current caregiver situation there's not required testing. Yes. And then that worries me. So just because like again, people don't know what they don't know exactly. You know, my basement has mold in it. That's how I grow my plants. It doesn't hurt me.
00;43;30;07 - 00;43;50;11
And I'm willing to take the risk on myself, but it's like, if you're going to give that to a sick person who may be sensitive to that, you know, may not have the immune system to handle it. Right, that you need to be. Yeah, we need to be extra cautious with those things. Yeah. There's a balance that we can strike with being overly onerous and also saying like, okay, here's the important ones.
00;43;50;11 - 00;44;11;25
Right? Maybe you don't need to do a potency test on that. Maybe you don't need to do treatments, but you certainly need to check for heavy metals and, yeast and molds and mycotoxins. Yeah, right. You know, I think that there's, you know, there's a balance. Yeah. Especially if you named it the caregivers program. I mean, you're going to grow someone's medicine for them.
00;44;11;25 - 00;44;29;11
So like, let's take care of them. And you know and that's a part of that. Yeah. And again, you know, my personal feeling on a lot of it is if we're going to call it medicine, let's treat it like we treat medicine in a lot of ways. Yeah. Let's just make sure. And these are the very basic level.
00;44;29;13 - 00;44;48;18
We know what's in it, and we know that there's nothing extra in it that's going to be harmful. Yeah, right. Like we do that with, aspirin and Tylenol. Exactly. Everything else that we do. So I feel like this I understand the desire from the from the legacy market to say it's a plant. We've been growing it for thousands of years.
00;44;48;18 - 00;45;10;12
We've been using it for thousands. Yeah, but that doesn't also mean that it's never done harm to anyone. Right. Due to some other. Yeah, I, I know that THC itself has never done harm. Right. Like we don't have any documented right of that. But, you know, people have smoked things that have killed them before, right? Because of, you know, bacteria and things like that.
00;45;10;12 - 00;45;35;22
Right? Yeah. So yeah, for sure, it's it's important. Yeah, I think so. I do too. Let's talk a little bit about your personal use. You said that you started developing a relationship about 13 or 14 with cannabis. Yeah. Which was probably in all honesty, too early. Yeah. The advice that I gave my own kid was wait till your frontal lobes develop.
00;45;35;22 - 00;46;02;22
Exactly like it's, you know, it's. It was my experience. Yeah. And I've been, I've used and then not used. I was in the military for a long while, so I, I did use while I was in the military, but much more sparingly. Sure. Things like that. I'm sure they're not happy to hear that. Well, and I'm sure there's a lot of people doing it, so let's be real.
00;46;02;23 - 00;46;22;28
I mean, that's that's the reality. Yeah. But then, yeah, afterwards, I think, you know, I probably started to use more regularly again when I went back to grad school. Okay. You know, stress. Yeah. Anything like that. Like, it's a it's a lot of work. It's a lot of time and. Yeah, and so I started using more regularly then and got my PhD.
00;46;23;00 - 00;46;42;20
Yeah. Yeah. It wasn't, it wasn't harming me. It was right. It was helpful in a lot of ways. Right. Talk before the show started about just kind of I know the cons, the, the general knowledge is like, oh, your you just can't focus on anything. Yeah. You're just so out of it. Like for me it was a lot of like kind of calming down their racing thoughts and things like that.
00;46;42;24 - 00;47;03;05
So to focus on one thing and then progress on that one thing or just in a lot of ways, letting me calm my negative emotions, some of these, you know, thoughts and concerns. Definitely. And really just shutting down those negative voices and then allowing me to have, like, a more thoughtful. Yeah, you know, experience with it myself.
00;47;03;05 - 00;47;23;12
So anxiety. Anxiety for sure. Yeah. Yeah. And then, you know like the ADHD type stuff, I'm not diagnosed. But you know, again, we all have some aspect of that in there. Right? It was always curious to me that anxiety wasn't one of the qualifying conditions. I mean, that's that's no longer true, but you can use it for whatever you want to.
00;47;23;12 - 00;47;46;06
But, I was just always curious me because I'm like, this scares my anxiety, right? I feel like a lot of it comes from the medical community and the idea of, like, the anxiety medicine exists in the medical community. Benzodiazepines. Yeah. Which are, in my opinion, are the medication that does the thing that they tell you not to do with your emotions, which is to take them, incorporate them into a tiny little box.
00;47;46;06 - 00;48;07;12
Yeah. Experience and numb them down. Yeah. But then once that goes away, once you pull the medication away, then you then all those just come back out at once. Yeah, exactly. I think that that was the worry with cannabis is that you're, you are treating something. You know, you're just pushing it down. Pushing it down. But I don't know for some people I'm sure that's the case.
00;48;07;12 - 00;48;27;15
Right. People use substances for all different kinds of reasons. Yeah. Might be one of them but I don't think it's necessarily true across the board. I think that there is some of that anxiety piece where it's just like slows down some racing thoughts. Right. You know, and I think that there's a lot of people out there that are maybe too smart for their own good sometimes.
00;48;27;17 - 00;48;42;13
And you just see them and you see it just turning and turning and turning. Yeah. You know, sometimes it's kind of helps and makes you a little more understandable to other people and just kind of focus in. That's how I see it. For me, it's just being able to kind of focus in on like one thing at a time sometimes.
00;48;42;13 - 00;49;01;18
And, you know, like you said, just kind of quieting those voices that maybe shouldn't always be there, you know, like worrying and. Yeah, or the one that says you hate doing dishes. Yeah, right. Like you're just like, okay, whatever. I don't hate doing dishes. Yeah, I'm listening to do a podcast or whatever. Exactly. Yeah, there's all of that.
00;49;01;20 - 00;49;25;00
You know, I have, you know, I've not always been super open about my use. I will tell you, in grad school, 95% of the people I was there with who were getting PhDs and have PhDs and are professors now we're using cannabis. Yeah. I'm also alcohol. Exactly. And abusing alcohol. Exactly. You know, after the fact, they had to deal with.
00;49;25;00 - 00;49;43;22
Right. You know, and so it's like, you know, there's a there's a balance. Yeah, to some extent. But I think that yeah, like the, you know, the cannabis use in that context is certainly the lesser of the two evils. Yeah. You view it that way. Yeah. How old is your kid? He's 21. Okay. He's my stepson. Okay.
00;49;43;24 - 00;50;10;10
And his life since he was 11. Okay, great. Just, Do you guys smoke together? Sometimes? We also, I think he would be, to, self-conscious. Like, we took him out on his 21st birthday, and he had, drink and a half and was like, oh, I'm feeling too much to be around my family. So I think there's a there's a very interesting generational differences.
00;50;10;12 - 00;50;26;14
So he's my lab tech. He's the one that I'm training in to do all of our testing. Nice like that. He's going for his chemistry degree now. Okay, so we're bringing him in. And so I was like, well, obviously this is a cannabis business, right? Yeah, I use cannabis. And you know, but what like what's your relationship with it.
00;50;26;14 - 00;50;46;26
Yeah. He tried it when he was 1516. It wasn't his thing. Yeah. He gave it away to his cousin. Yeah. He had left and he hasn't really picked it up since then. Yeah. He likes he loves testing it. He loves you know he's you know he gets blown away when we get a 27 or a 32%. Yeah. That's presumably what he's not interested in using it.
00;50;46;26 - 00;51;04;08
And I feel like there's a lot of that generation that are just going to be substance free. I agree, which is fine, which is great. Yeah. Except for nicotine. They're all going to be on there. Yeah. We can't the vapes are out. Yeah. But I mean yeah no no issues. They're not really interested in in using but interested in the.
00;51;04;08 - 00;51;20;24
Yeah the field and everything like that. That's cool. He might come back to it. I feel like sometimes people try it when they're younger and then they kind of like, well, for me, I was always like, well, I should be responsible. I'm a nurse and I have kids and, you know, so I was just kind of like, every once in a while.
00;51;20;24 - 00;51;43;16
User and then, you know, once my kids were grown and after Covid, I was like, yeah, I need something that's not a benzo. And, you know, a SSRI that will, you know, just numb me down. So yeah. Yeah. And but on the on the flip side of that, I do smoke with, with my dad. Okay. Nice. So he'll,
00;51;43;18 - 00;52;01;15
Yeah. May or may not appreciate this story, but like, one of the first times I smoke weed is because I found this. Okay, so this is one of those things. Yeah. So him and I have have really bonded over that because that's not something that he's been able to be out with during his life. That's cool. I bet he's proud of you.
00;52;01;15 - 00;52;29;09
Yeah yeah. That's me grow. So we talk a lot about growing cool like that and yeah, in this business okay. An investor in this business. Awesome. I don't believe in it. Yeah. As they should. Yeah, yeah. That's that's so fingers crossed. Yeah. Any final thoughts? Oh, man. I think just on my side, I'm. I'm super excited to see what the next kind of steps bring.
00;52;29;15 - 00;52;47;29
Yeah, I've been trying to be as engaged as I can in kind of the, the cannabis, kind of culture that is existing around the Twin Cities. Yeah, but I know it's not all around here. You know it's not it can't just be that there's not enough people with those things to be everybody who's getting into it. Exactly.
00;52;48;00 - 00;53;06;29
I think that when the licenses come out, it's going to be really eye opening for everybody involved as to like, who's actually in what they're doing, what they're interested in, what scale they're operating on. Yeah. You know, my my facility is big, I thought, and then I found out that, you know, not too far from us at $12 million.
00;53;06;29 - 00;53;24;14
Grow Up is going to go in. And. Wow. So there's I mean, there's some real, real money out there. Sure. And I don't know that it's coming from the people that are hanging out at, you know, Giles on. Yeah. Right. So it'll be interesting to see, you know, who else is out. Yeah, it will be. It really will be.
00;53;24;14 - 00;53;48;19
And I hope that, the Ockham keeps in mind supporting our own industry and our own community here, first and foremost, because, I mean, it's our state and I think on that front, like something else that we're very interested in doing. And I'll make it an open call for anybody else who might be interested in doing this, too, is that, you know, there's educational opportunities within this industry.
00;53;48;21 - 00;54;10;06
You know, cannabis lab techs. Yep. But we also need to teach bartenders. We need to teach, you know, distribution people. So I think that there's a lot of educational opportunities in this area, 100%. And I think there's a lot of opportunities to get, economically disadvantaged and disaffected groups into here. I think that cannabis benefits, especially the lab side.
00;54;10;07 - 00;54;33;27
So I'll make my pitch for that. Yeah, I do so like the jobs that we could get people into, right into the cannabis industry, where maybe the bar for what your past behavior was was a little bit different. Is judged by tattoos or whatever. Yeah. We can get you into a job in our lab and the work that we do in our lab is the same work that they do at 3 a.m. at Boston Scientific expense.
00;54;33;28 - 00;54;51;21
Right? Right. So, like, if you want to go to one of those companies and make more money or move up the ladder there or work on pharmaceuticals or food or whatever, like this is an opportunity to get people in to that area. Right. And I think that, you know, lab testing gives you a really, you know, highly competitive set of skills.
00;54;51;21 - 00;55;21;26
But I think there's going to be other stuff in there too that's going to do that. So, yeah, I just hope that we can grab enough people together and get this on, like up and running so that we can train the next generation of people in this. Yeah, this industry. So. Right. So if you're thinking of getting into the cannabis industry, like keep your mind open to the possibility of something other than being a bud tender or, you know, a grower or, you know, there's a full range of jobs that are going to be available in this industry, and it's $1 billion industry.
00;55;21;28 - 00;55;42;13
So yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. So there's gonna be a lot of a lot of different places. Yeah. We've been talking with like the Teamsters. Awesome. So they're like they're obviously not lab testing people, but they're, distribution retail. Yeah. Just like there's a ton of jobs that are going to be in this industry. Oh, yeah, 100%. Tell my audience where they can find you.
00;55;42;16 - 00;56;13;18
Oh, so we, you can find us online. Phyto lab.com pH white lab.com. Awesome. Yeah. Okay. Awesome. Well, thanks, Casey for being here. I really appreciate the convo. And, everyone look for Phyto Lab Minnesota and, check Kql get one of these big apparatuses and, Yeah, let's go. Conversations with Kush, please. Like, comment, share, subscribe.
00;56;13;18 - 00;56;44;08
I'm on almost all audio platforms and on YouTube, so have a great night. Thank you everyone. Who is that knocking dude? Did somebody knock? I felt her knock. So you want to do a little dance? Are we at for toaster? Another person come in. One more. One more person. Just know one time. Do you want to. Cuz if you want to, with Columbia, he's gonna run.
00;56;44;10 - 00;56;56;16
Yeah, yeah. Okay. If you want to get down on camera on all this, show. Yeah. So we'll just. You just let me know when you're set and ready and can.