I'm Brandon. And I'm Jesse we're.
Cannabis school having cannabis infused conversations.
With everyday. People.
Cannabis companies. Celebrities.
And your mom? Welcome to the sesh.
All right, everybody, welcome back to the sesh.
We have got a very good friend with us today.
Nerath, can we say where you're where you're coming from?
Yeah. Hell yeah.
We're salt. Lake.
City, Utah, Salt Lake City, UT. Yeah, yeah.
But he please. Do yeah, he is.
He's with Dragonfly and we've been able to partake of quite a
bit of Dragonfly. We made friends with them and he
was so generous. He brought us down to the grow.
Oh, it was amazing. Yeah, we gotta see some really
cool products. Amazing product.
We gotta see the state-of-the-art facility and we
just hit it off so well with him that we needed to bring him on
the show to give a different perspective.
And we've been loving all of Dragonfly's products.
Oh, it's so good so. As you guys have seen across the
show, we've used tons of Dragonfly.
Yeah, we continue to review em. I know some of you out there
going, damn, I wish we had that here.
But yeah, Nerath, welcome to the show, brother.
Thank you guys so much for having me here.
It's an honor, you know, being somebody who's a avid listener
as well, too, just to, to be able to connect with you guys.
And I think I remember telling you guys when we first met, I
was like, wait, you guys are from Utah?
How did I not know this? So, but no, I mean, likewise,
man, I, I, I think anytime you meet people who really
appreciate what goes into cannabis and really understands
the challenges and the difficulties, the opportunities
and the joy, man, you just connect.
And I think that's what cannabis culture and community is about,
right? So I appreciate you guys for
honestly being real, 'cause you could be just sitting here
blowing smoke, right? I mean.
Hopefully we are going to be so awesome.
But just stroking my ego over here, but genuine.
You guys are real about products.
You guys wouldn't lie. And if it sucked, you'd be like
Nerith. It's it's all right, man, like
and I probably wouldn't be here if it was just our right.
So probably. Not like we've seen plenty of
all right products across the Utah market.
And I mean, I still see all right products.
And so, you know, none of them have come on the show.
No, no. And, and it goes to speak on
the, the quality and the care and what we got to see over
there was this amazing process. And it's so scientific down to
every drop of water that goes into these beautiful plants.
I mean, it's the easiest way to be able to say it was gorgeous
down there. Like my clothes stunk so long
And even after my wife's like just go put that shit out in the
garage 'cause it's like it's. Oh, that's funny.
See I was trying to like rub it on all my other clothes.
Like is this like do brands like oh shit, bottle this up, sell
it? No, but you know, you know,
typically we, you know, we don't want to do the typical like, you
know, take us through your entrepreneurial career.
But what I think is so fascinating about where you came
from is not anywhere near the cannabis scene.
Like take us through that. Like you, you talked about your
brother and your brother had some unfortunate circumstances
hit him and that kind of opened your eyes.
And from what I understand, his eyes and the family's eyes to
cannabis take us through that. Yeah, you know, and I, I think,
you know, everybody who is involved in cannabis and has a
passion for it, everybody's got that origin story, right?
Like what really flipped the switch from you just using it,
quote UN quote recreationally to actually looking at this as real
science and real medicine, right.
And everybody has that moment. And, and for me, you know, that
moment came, you know, in 2018 when my brother got into an auto
pedestrian hit and run accident and he was basically kind of
left on the side of the road to die.
And we were fortunate that there was a off duty EMT that just
happened to be there. And, and was able to take him to
the hospital and he was able to survive right with a full
recovery, but you know, he had like AC6 spinal infusion, he has
a metal femur in his leg, you know, and.
That's what sounds like a nine month recovery, right?
And again, I'm from Salt Lake City, UT, I grew up here.
I'm born and raised here, right? So losing friends and family to,
you know, the opiate epidemic is nothing new.
Here is common. Anybody.
Yeah, very common. So when you see your family
hopped up on a hospital bed there, that's the first thing
that runs to your mind is like, I don't want my family member to
be one of those statistics. So that that was a vow right
there. And I remember very vividly,
like late sitting next to the hospital bed, right?
And it's dark and it literally just happened.
And all these emotions I remember I wrote was writing
this letter to the person that hit them and it actually got
published in, in a letter. And that was my intent.
I was just trying to jot down my feelings and like trying to,
yeah, this anger that I had towards this person and trying
to find compassion and all those things.
But but anyways, in that moment was like, you know what, I'm
going to make sure that he doesn't go down that path.
And for that entire nine month recovery, it was 100% medical
cannabis edibles, one to one ratio, THC to CBD edibles,
right? And I'm not a lot of people
understand ratios and the differences in the impact of it.
It's not just about getting high, it's about real pain
relief. And I credit that to this day,
why my brother is here and why he didn't go down this other
road, right? And, and his, his ability to
maintain his mental health and his recovery and to, to continue
to have a positive outlook and seeing friends and family and
put this smile on all the time like, Nah, I'm fine.
It's gonna be great. It's gonna.
And when inside you're like, man, I, I don't think you can do
that on other substances. I've seen other.
Substances. Well, you're foggy, you're not
there. You're almost like just kind of
a shell of the human that you once were.
And nobody wants that. No one wants that for the people
that they care about to see them exist like that.
So, so that was a huge turning point for me.
And in that moment, right. And you know, I was working in a
professional career. I'll talk a little bit more
about what I was doing then. But in that moment it was kind
of that switch of like, dude, what are you?
What are you doing, man? Like how many other families are
in the same situation as me but don't have the resources, don't
have the knowledge? Don't even have the.
Courage to knowingly break the law well.
Because at 2018, it was. We didn't have a medical program
in Utah that time. We had families here in Utah
that were moving to Colorado just.
So they could take care of their.
Kids, right? Because they couldn't safely and
legally do out here without fear of somebody knocking on their
door, taking their kids away, judging them.
Yeah, there was a lady whose 2 year old, she moved out Landon
something from Utah because of that.
And she took him to Colorado because we didn't have a medical
program and he was given like less than a week to live because
he had stage 4 cancer. Basically make.
Him comfortable. Yeah, and so she took him and he
now it's been 12 years or something and he's still alive
thanks to medicinal cannabis and that.
But it's just these stories. But how many people have had to,
like you said, leave their home and try and venture out to
another place to try and find and we're.
All we're talking about is accessibility.
Yeah, that's it. Like people are going to always
get access to the things that they want, right.
So I guess we either as people, right, as, as, as business
leaders, as regulators, as, as you know, people in, in
positions of government to recognize and see these things,
see that there are people literally leaving our state so
they can just take care of their families because we're unwilling
to view them as regular people. When I say regular people, it's
like we don't judge somebody who goes gets, you know, Xanax and
Valium, you know, and and and opiates for their pain.
But that's very normal. Right.
Or even Advil or Tylenol or aspirin, like any of those
things that people are utilizing for pain as well, and yet we
don't look at them and treat them any differently.
Well, and I will say something on the positive note though,
what I saw yesterday, I was, I was in the dispensary yesterday
over Dragonfly and while I was waiting to get called up to pick
up my order, this gentleman who looked like he belonged in some
LDS community guy look like a Bishop, if you know what I'm
talking about. It's an ecclesiastical leader.
And he just when he got up, I could see he was in pain.
And I asked and I was like you here for pain he goes, pain
relief he goes. Nothing else has worked just
like this. I said, good for you.
I said, do you feel ashamed anymore?
And he smiled and he goes, I used to, but I don't anymore
because what it's been able to do for me and, and you see that
like the people that come in, 'cause I know this state has
this very strange idea of what it, it's like Reefer Madness,
right? Pretty much like how it came in
to be like, it was just like, oh, you're gonna throw your life
away. You know you're gonna go down
the wrong path. You're gonna start raping people
and listening. To jazz music.
Yeah, yeah. Then you're gonna start having
words, deep conversations, and then it starts going down.
Completely differently than what you're talking.
Exactly right. You're gonna chill the fuck out.
But it was, it's so cool because the people that you do see
coming through every single day, they're not a bunch of your
stereotypical reefer madness stoners.
These are grandmas, these are mothers, these are fathers,
These are sons and daughters who are going through what I've seen
and throughout like all of Utah. And I mean, I'm gonna give a lot
of props to Dragonfly for what they do for their patients
because of the reason is they I have never been treated in any
way with disdain. It's always like, what can we
help you with? Yeah, I've been actually
decently impressed with Dragonfly over any of the other
pharmacies that we've. Actually.
But the The funny thing, and I was thinking about this before
Nerth showed up was so I remember it was AI want to say
it was a 420 event or like a little cannabis event that was
going on in Salt Lake. And it was in this like
downstairs area. It wasn't super big, but I
remember that Dragonfly was going to be there and all of
these people who were in the cannabis space weren't nervous
because Dragonfly was an investment group.
What really it's a, a Vietnamese family that moved here and has
started one business, started another business, invested in
local businesses that they like. Like it's not this massive large
investment group. It's a small family of people
who have like been smart. I look at that and I'm like,
well, grandma and grandpa were smart with their money, had lots
of investments and properties and stuff.
My parents do that. Like, how is that any different
than any of these other local people?
But it was this, oh man, Dragonfly's coming to Utah.
It's this big conglomerate or whatever.
And it was like, OK, but no, we look at it and who else has been
here? The block Cannabis Cure Leaf and
hands down none of those have had anywhere near as good of an
experience as much of like a care for the patient as what I
found in Dragonfly. Yeah.
And that's, you know, that goes a lot to the people that are
involved in this. I mean, this is a, this is a
family owned run business on top of it to be able to create this.
And they wanted to create something that was very unique,
but also it was open enough to be able to accept cannabis
culture. No, I really appreciate you guys
kind of teeing up and, and quite frankly, even just recognizing
that, right? And the reality is, you know,
being an Asian immigrant living in Salt Lake City, right, is, is
a challenge in of itself, right? So trying to fit in and make
sure that people take you seriously and you're legitimate
and all those things 'cause you want to boil it down.
Yeah, our, our team started out with the first Vietnamese pho
restaurant in Utah, right? Like back in the 90s when you
couldn't find any ethnic cuisine out there, right?
So the end of the day, that's, that's the roots, right?
That's the roots of bringing culture, bringing community,
bringing diversity. And what's the best way to share
your culture with somebody other than through food through your
stomach? Right.
Yeah, that's, that's that look. That's the Asian way, man.
You will never go to Asian's house.
And and they will always have food.
They will always have something. Hey, you're hungry.
You're not hungry. You're not.
You're gonna have something. Yeah.
It's just part of our. Culture, right?
So I think that's what makes us unique is we have a very
eclectic group of individuals that make up our team, right?
We've got restauranteers, people who are involved in hospitality.
They know what it takes to create an experience where
people love to be a part of and come back and talk to other
people about, right? And then for me, I got a
interesting background because I come from a very corporate
background, right? Like, I spent like 20 years
working in the research and consulting world, working with
Fortune 500 companies, working with some of the biggest
companies on the planet, some of the biggest.
Automotive crazy discussion on electrical vehicles on our drive
totally changed my mind. So I come from that background
of just understanding how brand strategy works, how customer
experience matters to your product, to your brand, right?
And, and how to develop products that match and align with those
things. So man, you bring this team
together that has this knowledge and knows how to take care of
people, knows how people think and can provide the things that
people before they even know that they need it, right?
Who knew that they needed a pharmacy that created a safe
space that was a judgement free zone that was open and airy.
Not this like, hey, man, I'm, I'm here for some, some
cannabis. No, everybody can hear what
you're doing. And that was designed
intentionally because when you walk in the doors of Dragonfly
Wellness, there is no judgement. We are all here for the same
reason. So it creates that warm vibe
because guess what, outside of the doors, there's plenty of
judgment out there, right? We wanted to make sure that our
core values patient first. And that's in something that's
important in any business. If you don't have core values,
you, you don't, you don't have a, a, a business.
You just have a company that makes some money, right?
You don't, you don't have a real brand, a real company because
you don't know what your, why is you just show up to make money,
right? And that's kind of I think the
challenge that you see with corporate cannabis, right?
Like you got all these people that are coming in that quite
frankly maybe didn't really care that much about cannabis, but
saw. Them or even use it opportunity.
And don't even use it. How many executives and people
at high levels that you meet in suits and ties and penny loafers
at MJ Bizcon and they don't even know what it tastes like or
feels like or and, and, and they kind of sometimes just say
ridiculous things where you're like, do you even know?
Anything about this plant? You know, it's funny, 'cause I,
I met this woman and she, it was part of some networking group
out in California and she's in cannabis.
She just does credit card processing, right?
And she's like, how do I, how do I break into there?
And I'm like, do you use the product?
She goes no, I said not even CVD.
She goes no. And I said then good luck.
Yeah. Good luck.
Because they don't, they don't it it.
That's what's really cool. It's not a snobby thing.
It's when you're part of that community.
It's it's like when we've talked about it many times on the show,
it is the greatest uniter of anything.
If you smell that and you just say, hey man, that smells pretty
good, they will straight up share it with you.
Like you couldn't get that with food.
Yeah, right. And that cheeseburger smells
delicious. Yeah.
Do you wanna bite? Yeah, you should have a bite,
dude. And it was just like.
Wow, yeah, you're bringing that up.
I was literally talking about this two days ago with Lazy Bone
from Bone Thugs and. Harmony.
Yeah, yeah, we're. Talking about just, you know,
he's starting a foundation called Brilliant Life Foundation
that's focused on mental health awareness, right?
You can imagine coming from the streets of gangster rap, going
from riches to fame and all these things I used to like you
have to deal with, right? And just having somebody like
him being vulnerable to talk about those things was crazy.
But we're talking about just how crazy that concept is, right?
Where, man, like, I've seen, you know, prescription drugs and
alcohol just tear families apart, but I've only seen
cannabis bring the most different, diverse people
together, right? Like, like, hey, man, you're
walking down the street smoking a Jay and you're like, can I get
a puff? Like, you're gonna share your
germs out of somebody's mountain.
Like, yeah, man, no problem. No questions.
Asked Here, take a hit. It's this rant.
It's the instant connector across the globe and it's like,
it doesn't matter who you are. What it was like, oh shit, here.
It it's like what old school Marines were like, 'cause I
meet, you know, you meet these guys like it wouldn't even
matter if they knew and they know each other just by their
walk, their look and they'll just say, hey, brother, do you
have a place to stay? Do you need anything?
Do you need some food? Do you need money?
Like they truly believe that. And and what I see in the
cannabis community is not as extreme as that, but it is very
close. Like people will invite you into
your home, into their home saying, hey, you know, if you do
that now we have this kinship and that's how like, you know,
and and we appreciate what you said earlier that we're real
because we always are who we are.
We don't change just because, like obscurely we because it
turned out to be a really big success and that's awesome.
But the other side is when you meet people within the cannabis
community. I've yet to meet anybody fake
who actually uses the product. So when you know, you know, game
recognize game. Yeah, for sure.
Something about this plant that once you get connected to it, it
just changes your perspective, right?
It, it, it opens up this door of, of curiosity, of questions
of like, why have I been told all of these lies my whole life?
What, what are, what, what were we hiding?
What were we keeping from people?
What were we trying to protect people from?
And that starts, and, and that's probably the very reason, one of
the reasons the, the, the, the government decided to ban all of
these controlled substances, right?
And you can look back into the Vietnam War, right, during that
time in that area where you had all these hippies running around
on all these drugs and they don't want to support the war
and they don't believe in American.
We shouldn't be over there and blah, blah.
No, we can't let them think like this.
Boom, here comes the Reagan era, right?
Say no drugs. Yeah, it was.
A huge what did we do? We just locked up people in
jail. We just threw people.
We still did just crushed families.
We. Did it.
We talked about that on the last episode or why it's illegal or
that one. And we basically since the 80s,
it was like there was an increase of almost 56% of
incarcerated humans in the United States.
And it's like, so you're telling us that either we've got five
times the amount of population that just instantly dropped, or
we've just got five times the amount of stupid people or like,
what is it that we're, you know, what correlates to that?
Cannabis is always been around our our civilization, right?
For thousands of years. You could date it back to, you
know, Chinese emperor dynasties. Back.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, using it for treating, for
gout. So to, to, to somehow think that
all of a sudden there was just this influx of cannabis usage,
you know what I mean? So it's wild again, when you
start having those types of conversations and asking why
it's, it's really powerful. And those are the things that I
think connect and unite people in the community because we know
what this plan is about. We know what it can do to
disrupt everything in our system right now, right?
Like this can help break down that system, right?
How many people that are now cannabis users don't ever have
to rely on traditional pharmaceuticals ever again,
ever, ever drugs and have these prescription cocktails of just,
you know, taking one prescription after the next
because you know, this had creates another side effect and
all of a sudden you're on 8 pills and you're like, what what
the hell just happened? I just I just blew my knee out
playing basketball. What what what's going on?
So I think again, when you realize that you're like,
there's something here, there is something here, right?
Well, Speaking of something here, you have not been able to
partake. So you need to warm that up.
And actually I wanted to to talk about that if we're able to.
So this is a new product that you guys are developing.
Yeah, So basically what this is a dry herb vaporizer, right?
Nothing novel or unique at the end of the day, right.
But what's unique in Utah to, to a lot of other maybe adult youth
States and even some medical states is smoking or or
combustion to flour is prohibited, right?
Because we are a medical state. And I don't know any doctor
that's going to tell you that burning something, inhaling into
your lungs is going to be healthy and good for you, right?
That that's, that's the reality of it.
So from a medical perspective, being able to safely dry or
vaporize, not only is it a healthier way to consume, it's a
more efficient way to consume cannabis because you get greater
bioavailability by dry or vaporizing than you do if you're
burning, right, because you know you're just burning.
All that, it's only like 20 or 30% maybe of bioavailability
that you get total. Between 22 to 24.
Percent. Yeah, Not massive.
So, so yeah, that that. That's even higher than edibles
if you vaporize it because edibles is only like it's under
40%. Well, and that's some of the
things. Is, is, is actually less because
from edibles it goes through first pass metabolism, right?
So your body's kicking out all these other things.
So you're actually getting less than you are through inhaling,
right? So But what's unique about
edibles is it creates a metabolite.
As less into your. Liver, right?
Yeah, exactly. And it's, you know, 11 hydroxy
THC is six to seven times stronger than regular THC.
So that's why most of the stories you hear about about
people getting really messed up and like, man, I took an edible.
It's cuz you literally. Took way more than what you
would have if you'd looked at the milligrams and you're like,
well, this puff was only this and you're like, well, the
edible said it was this, but when you calculate it as 11
hydroxy THC, you're like, you know, you're way higher
milligrams. Oh yeah.
It's like giving, I've got an analogy I use is like giving a
16 year old the car keys to a Ferrari and be like here first
time go ahead just just drive it right?
You've never driven before right?
Here check this out. So that's really unique in of
itself. But what I love about these dry
herb vaporizers, honestly, is the efficiency, right?
The efficiency, because at the end of the day, we're talking
about medicine and you want to be able to utilize every single
cannabinoid and terpene of your medicine and not be wasting it
'cause you're paying good money for this, right?
And you'd be surprised how much cannabis you save and how much
less you go through when you start dry herb vaporizing,
right? You can.
Sit and you know, smoke a you know a 1G J by yourself, no?
Problem. And in this chamber is 1/3 of a
gram and I will still get the same effects, if not better than
smoking A1 gram J. So that's what's beautiful about
this. And having this dryer vaporizer
as well too. If you're a connoisseur of
flour. I, I like to explain as if
you're a connoisseur of wine and you appreciate all the different
varietals and the different notes and tones and flavors that
you get, well, you're gonna pick up on this.
You're not just tasting smoke, tasting burnt.
You taste every single profile. And the cool thing is with
theirs, like their dryer vaporizer, it has a lot of them
don't give a full temperature control.
It only gives you like 3 priests at settings that goes on there.
And this gives you a complete temperature range.
And I don't know if you're allowed to or I'm allowed to say
the price point on it, but it's coming in at like $50.
Yeah, that's the goal. This still has not hit the
market. We're still going.
Through the prototyping stages and everything, but that is the
goal to get this down so it's affordable for people, right?
Because most of those dry air vaporizers entry level that are
mediocre like. You're 250 if you're $90.00 for
like. Some of the G pans that that
that are like just. Like really tiny and.
Flimsy and stuff, right? But to get something really
good? Yeah, Yeah.
These are expensive. 250 This one's 400.
This one is 2. 75 the air vape, I mean it's very sexy.
It's got all the temperature control, it looks cool, but it
is the affordability and especially right now where a
company such as like air vap, there's a lot that went into
this. It's a heavy device that being
able to scale it down to availability helps people to be
able to enjoy more Thailand. Oh yeah.
So much more portable than any of these.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, dude, for real.
No problem. Like the little Nokias?
But but the biggest thing is user interface, right?
Making it simple and easy to use.
We were talking about this a little bit earlier of like how
some of these other devices you got to buy extra stuff and
they're not designed. It doesn't seems like it's not
designed for the user. And it's like, wait, who made
this? How do you load, you know, herb
into your dry herb vaporizer, right?
So all those things take into consideration and making
something that's easy for somebody who's just entering
cannabis, right? So they know how to do it.
And this is about as simple as grinding up a little bit of
herb, taking off the magnetic top, dropping it into the fundal
chamber that's in there. So none of your herb drops on
the outside. It goes right into there.
And then pressing the button 12345 times and it turns on and
you have variable temperature. And why is variable temperature
important? Because there are different
boiling points for terpenes, right and even cannabinoids,
they all have different temperatures, right?
So you know, if you just go straight to smoking and burning,
you're at a very high temperature.
So you're actually burning away a lot of the terpenes.
And so you don't get a lot of flavor and taste when you're
just smoking AJ but in here you can adjust your temperature.
You're talking you start around 360 or so.
I just buzzed I'm I'm at 380 right now.
That's where I like to start. But most people, they might not
get the the type of vapor that they're used to when they're
smoking AJ. So they're like, I'm gonna burn
it at 450°, which I mean, you're still gonna get the effect, but
you miss out on a lot of the experience and the taste and the
tone. So, well, and you can always go
up. So the cannabinoids that burn
off at 380 don't burn off at 365 or don't you know?
And same with the ones that burn off at 400 don't burn off at
these lower temps. So you can still hit different
temps and get different terps, different experiences from each
stage that you go through. Exactly.
And what's really cool too is that with the vaporizer, like I
can sometimes get 2 or even 3 burns out of one bowl and that's
pretty amazing. Like that one time long time ago
when we drove up to that cannabis event and we puffed on
that packs. In the packs that thing lasted,
we had like a 40 minute session on one bowl.
One bowl. In a packs.
Cause the packs didn't, I mean, I do like, you know, where
they've got time control so they get the most out of your bowl,
but that thing just goes. Like that's one thing I will say
about the packs was really cool is it just goes.
But other than that, like as far as the flavor profiles,
everything, it's the best way. And that's a it's an easier way
to go flower first. Absolutely right 'cause it's
simple, right? Because look, there's a lot of
people out there that don't know how to roll JS, right?
They don't know how to do roll blunts or.
All this other thing so I've been at least a decade into
cannabis and I still I can roll a joint a joint, but I don't
hand roll one because I've got devices that will do it.
I've even had like the J rolling machine that I use because I've
just never been good at hand rolling.
AJI can hand roll a blunt just fine.
I'm pretty. Decent with the Ji.
Don't like smoking blunts? Honestly, I would, if I'm going
to choose that, I would much rather smoke AJ because I don't
like the tobacco paper. I'm just a fucking weirdo, but
that's me. And so like, like you said, a
lot of people don't do that. And this, this is fantastic.
You get such a wide range of flavors of terps and you can
craft that experience depending on, you know, what temperature
that you want on that. So.
And that's huge And, and we want more people to have that kind of
experience, right? And how do you do that?
Well, you gotta make it affordable for people, you know
what I mean? Like people do.
Not everybody can go out and buy a $200.00 device.
Or a $400.00 device exactly. So that's.
I mean, even the cost of regulated cannabis is expensive
in its own. And now you tell me I gotta go
buy $150.00 device just so I can buy my $50 eighth?
Like hold on a SEC, maybe I'm just going to go to my homie
down the street. Yeah, yeah, for real.
And that's. What happens every day?
Those are the choices people make every single day, right?
And that's the the the consumer psyche that goes through peoples
minds. We are wired to not do hard
stuff right? Like it's our fight or flight
mentality. Do not go towards pain and
heartache and challenge like we got away from it.
So people are always going to gravitate to what's easiest,
right? And right now what what I'm
super happy about here in Utah's program is we have over 81,000
patients in the program. That said, I don't care about
everything else. I'm going to jump through all
the hoops. I'm going to go to my doctor,
I'm going to get a card, I'm going to register and I'm going
to go get a pharmacist consultation.
I'm going to go to one of the 15 pharmacies.
Even if it's not close to me, I'm going to still do it.
And I'm going to do everything harder than what it was pre
2020. How many people are like, yeah,
I want my life to be harder? Like anybody can call a friend
or a homie that knows somebody who's somebody and.
You get a $25 aid and you're like, cool, well, not I don't
have to worry. But for you to order online and
get it delivered to your house from us, from Dragonfly Wellness
in downtown Salt Lake City, you got to jump through hoops.
And the amount of money that it takes you to even get your card
in the 1st place, those are all just bottlenecks, right?
Challenges and barriers for people because I can promise you
there are more than 81,000 people in the state of Utah with
three and a half million people that.
Are using cannabis right now in. Fact, I was just in Wendover a
couple of weeks ago at Deep Roots Harvest at the border of
Wendover in Utah. Every single car in the parking.
Lot. Utah, Utah, I'm like, yeah, I
don't think that they were building a dispensary in the
middle of the desert for Nevada residents, so.
It's not it's Utah ones. It's like same when you go to
Dinosaur you go to these other ones.
They have 3 dispensaries in Dinosaur Co yet that town is
tiny. I don't even know if there's
1000 people in that town. There's no way they need.
There was a dyspo that was like what was one of those tough
sheds? It looked like a tough shed.
But 100%, it is just built on the edges of these states for
the other states that they're like, yeah, all of these people
are just gonna come here. Yep, make it more convenient for
them and. It's wild.
Why? Again, accessibility.
Why are we forcing people to drive ours across the border,
break the law, bring it back when we could make it more
accessible here? Right.
And and I know I'm sure there's people listening like Nerys.
You're, you're a draft player. You're the one charging these
prices, man. What do you you're the problem?
Again, it's not like it's all of the trickling down of the
system. And we discussed it like there
is no tax. Like you basically don't get tax
breaks as a cannabis business. You pay all of your income.
Everything is taxed at the beginning.
And then like after you've done it all, then you're like, cool,
what do I have left? Versus like companies who write
off all their taxes, get all of these tax breaks and then it's
like, cool, well, now we have 40% more income to basically
work with and you have every cannabis company who's like,
well, we have 40% less income that we're working with and
we've all got all these same margins.
So it sucks because like Utah has way tons of regulation, but
yet and and it's still like no system I look at, I feel like is
perfect, but I feel like we are we are trying.
But again, there's a lot of miss misdirection.
I feel like with our actual system, because we've we've
talked about it like there's a lot of things with our medical
program that are treated almost like it's a recreational thing
still. And yet everyone who is in there
is strictly for medical and even like the allowed conditions for
medical is incredibly close minded for our state to go, Hey,
this is medical. But like, OK, well, there's
proven value for all of these things, but we're going to make
it really hard for you to get it unless you have chronic pain.
OK, well, who anyone can have chronic pain.
So does that mean that we just have every single person in Utah
going and going, Hey, I have chronic pain.
Hey, I have chronic pain. That's.
Exactly what happens, what the statistics of the medical
cannabis program here in Utah are 80% of all medical cannabis
patients are qualifying under chronic pain.
When you have a whole laundry list of other conditions, right?
And what happens is when you create this tiny Ave. for people
to get access, people want to be legal.
Oh yeah, people don't. Want to look over their shoulder
and worry about what's going to happen to them if their kids are
going to get taken away, if they're going to get pulled over
right and go to jail, like for doing possessing something.
For using that in. The next state over, you could
go buy it just like you buy alcohol, Yeah.
So real easy. It's so it's wild to have that
juxtaposition for people to, to, to be in.
And basically what we're doing is we're, we're, we're telling
people to, to lie. Yeah, hey, I know you wanna use
this for something else. Maybe you're, you're, you're
suffering from anxiety, maybe with some depression, but guess
what? Those are not qualifying
conditions. Yep.
Only PTSD is. And that's if you have like a
history where. There's.
Psychiatrist and that. PSD is a real thing.
That's not something you just roll in doc.
Hey, can you tell? Me.
No, there's a lot of testing. So it doesn't work that way,
right? So, so think about that.
You just left out 30% of our population.
And why do I say 30 percent, 30%?
Because this is not a great statistic for Utah to be #1 in,
but we were number one in mental health related issues.
And I believe it. We are it's 100% look it up.
It's an it's an just Google it, right?
It, it, it's tough to accept that fact, right?
When you kind of look around and you live here and you're like,
God, we have such a beautiful state, right?
We have such a young, vibrant community.
We are also the youngest demographic in the nation.
The youngest? Yeah, Mormons multiply like
amoeba. Yeah, yeah, we do go to Costco,
man, on a Saturday, 246, right? But it's wild.
It's wild when you just stop and you just look at those
statistics and you ask yourself why.
Yeah, why? What is going on here in Utah?
That puts US number one. And there's a lot of factors and
we could get into that conversation if the conversation
takes us there. But mental health is a real
thing in our state and basically what we're saying by not having
qualifying conditions that include those people.
Good luck. Go through the traditional
route, go get your prescription drugs, go get your anxiety
medications and those. Just because they're legal does
not mean they are good for you. Yeah, have less side effects or
less concerning issues or something.
Well, and it's it's short term, it's not something that's going
to affect you long term. That's a bad meaning if you.
In what's really nice about that and especially those who who
could qualify for this if they don't those who don't qualify
for it they don't really have any guidance and there's not
really anything you can say other than what your experience
is is some of the reasons why this podcast has been so
successful because you can live vicariously through us and what
we're consuming going. Yeah, I feel this like we one of
the funniest reviews I ever said, like this guy put down was
I love listening to this even when I'm out of bud because I
can virtually smoke with you guys and and and have a sash and
have a sash like you guys describe the feeling enough.
I'm just like, yeah, that's what I'm feeling right now.
Like damn, dude, that's some that one that's sad.
It's very that's sad. But at the other time though,
that's, that's what we need those programs open and
available to those individuals who are suffering in, in more
ways than, you know, bad back, bad joints, whatever, you know,
fibromyalgia, it's pretty mad. And you know, it's, you know, I
know autism is on that as well, but that's so it's not, not even
close as frequent as it should be leveraged.
And it, it's, you know, you, I even I, I work with this
functional medicine clinic and working with them, one of their
doctors, just like, yeah, I'm actually gonna get this kid.
The only reason why they can put him on that one's 'cause he
qualifies to under autism. That's it.
But it's mostly severe depression and anxiety, like
suicidal ideations. And she's like, I'm gonna give
this a go. I was like, wow, that's cool.
Let me know how that you know, let me know if the parents buy
it because I think that's another difficult thing is the
education for the public and, and letting them know that this,
this isn't a bad thing. Yeah.
And that's the thing that, you
know, we just need to be able to do more of, right?
Is that education side from from everybody, right, from you
people like you guys, people like us that are running
operations, are our government bodies that have supported this
program, right? And, and are regulating this
program that there is more that we could do to educate people.
Like we have a program here and it's working for for 81,000
people. Why aren't we on the rooftops
shouting about it, right? And talking about it?
And sometimes I don't think that the medical cannabis program
gets the credit it deserves. And one perfect example I'll
share with you is at the end of last year, there was an article
published from Intermountain Healthcare where they basically
were looking at data and opiate usage data between 2019 to 2023.
And between those years, there was a 30% reduction in opiate
usage. Interesting.
Which means that less opiate usage, less opiate addiction,
less opiate deaths, less people are dying, and.
We have a massive overdose issue with opioids like Utah has a
we're top. Five in suicides, yeah, as well,
too. And those aren't just
intentional suicides, right? Some of them are accidental in
some cases, right? So, but those these these
statistics are stunning that they're here and we literally
have the tools right in front of us to help.
And by no means, and I'm saying the cannabis is end all the
solution for everybody because everybody's body is different.
Oh yeah, man. It sure helps a lot of people.
It's an outside tool to have in your toolbox, yeah.
But but back to that 30% is, you know, what was the credit that
IHC gave for this 30% reduction? It was education, right?
We told people about this, right?
We, we educated doctors about the, the, the, the risk of
opiates. Well, kind of you'd be like,
well, shouldn't you known that already?
And the short answer is we did anybody who knows anything about
Pardue Pharmaceuticals, Sacre family and the story behind
opiates, you would know that it was all a cover, but been a lie.
FDA had all this information. So that's a whole.
Other conversation we can talk. About but yeah, give credit to
that. Oh, it's the know your scripts
program, right. It's because, you know, we, we
had this thing to talk to people and and we were able to reduce
it through that. Not one mention about our
medical cannabis program started in 2019.
Yeah, not one. And, and, and again, why aren't
we on the rooftops shouting that?
So those are one of the things that I'm working towards as well
too, is collecting the data. Because then the data doesn't
lie, right? People lie, people have
opinions, people misread data, but the data doesn't lie, right?
And what the data will show, and it's going to show that there's
a very direct correlation between medical cannabis
prescription usage and opiate prescription usage, right?
And this study was done in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania,
right? This was originally done over
there where I first met MSA Management Science Associates,
right? It's the data analytics company
that is that we're working with to be able to do this.
They did that exact study. This is how they actually found
me. I was speaking at an event at
like one of the cannabis conferences and one of the
gentlemen that was from their team approached me after, said,
hey, I really connected with what you were talking about.
And your goal towards focusing cannabis is medicine and trying
to find solutions to our opioid problem.
And we have something to share with you, right?
And in Allegheny County, they did that exact study where they
were able to take medical cannabis pharmacy data and pair
that with EMR data, electronic medical records, right?
Then when you go to the hospital, the doctor writes the
script. It's in an electronic system.
They know all those prescriptions, especially if
it's a controlled substance. Doctors are required to have
these licenses, so they know you're taking these medications
that are out there. And they were able to show a
very direct correlation because you can see the people that were
once using opiates and are now consuming cannabis and voila.
So we're on this journey to make sure that everybody knows gives
cannabis the credit that it deserves, that this is real
medicine and it is healing people despite what your belief
is, right. And at one time you could say
because it's federally illegal, you can no longer say that
because the DEA just recommended to reschedule cannabis from
schedule one to schedule three. That is monumental.
How are you gonna argue that now?
Now you gotta, well, you could probably argue and say, well, I
don't believe in the government, which is easy to do, but you
can't use that, that, that, that scapegoat anymore and say it's,
it's illegal. That I, I don't wanna well,
somebody that, that, that's smart enough to provide data and
information. The Department of Health and
Human Services of the United States provided that
recommendation to them that because schedule one states no
medicinal benefit and. Highly addictive and that.
You you cannot stand on any leg if you want to try to make the
argument and says has no medicinal benefit, so it does
not belong on schedule one. No, and and I mean, I know you
know, it's it's just past. I mean it's not going into
effect right now. They still have time for
individuals to appeal it, to be able to bring it back, which
would slow it down. But it is moving forward.
That's one thing that is clear. It is moving forward.
But with that said and being in the business as you are, what do
you see happen to Rex states? What's your?
Opinion. Oh, man, I, I mean, look, let,
let, let's look at the current landscape of how our healthcare
system works right now, right? Like it is all one integrated
system, right? With pharmaceutical drug
companies who work directly with insurance companies and those
insurance companies working directly with the hospital
networks. It's all one ecosystem that is
very difficult to crack, right? And the nature of that is, is
that these big companies are big companies and have a lot of
money and they need to because they have a lot of liability as
well. Too, because they.
Are providing prescription drugs for, you know, 300 million
Americans, right? So that's a lot of people.
That's a big market that you got to take care of.
So, but these big pharmaceutical companies also have the deep
pockets to go through clinical trials.
Like clinical trials are five to seven-year periods.
And you're talking millions, millions of dollars to be able
to do that, man. I don't know a lot of cannabis
operators who even have $1,000,000, right?
Because back to that whole challenge, only 25% of cannabis
companies are actually profitable.
The other 75% are just hanging on by a thread or just in it for
the passion because they love it, right?
But that is a huge, huge hurdle to be able to jump over, right?
When you think about that. So this system is built to not
break. So how do you create cannabis
products that are now FDA approved if you're just
Dragonfly in Salt Lake City, UT? So.
Double edged sword there. What is the future of that
actually look like if you're an adult use state and people
aren't getting an FDA approved product, only FDA approved
products are going to get covered by insurance.
So now you've got the likes of big pharmaceuticals that already
have purchased cannabis companies.
You can just Google Pfizer and Arena Pharmaceuticals.
You can also look up patents that have already been placed
for cannabinoids based products. Yeah.
So now it's just a race for who has the most money to get to the
first clinical trials to have the first patent that nobody
else. Can copy then because they hold
the patent so then unless they find a different cannabinoid or
create their own version of something different and then
again that becomes a patent and then no one can do that so.
We know that maybe that there's something magic in this strain
here that could really help people with their mental clarity
and their focus and their mood and something that maybe they
wouldn't have to rely on an Adderall or something, right, to
get things done. And you're happy and uplifted
and connected and engaged and having amazing conversations
with people. That's what I feel like right
now with this. How am I ever going to patent
this? Yeah.
Do you guys have, you know, $50 million I can borrow?
Let me pull that you. Guys, I can record a.
Lot more. So you've been hiding it, huh?
But that that's the game that we're talking about right now.
So that this is what I'm saying to these adult Hugh states that
it's going to be very difficult to compete in a Schedule 3.
Space. Almost impossible, yeah.
So. The does that create a separate
like do they open up and have it be a medical and then a wreck
version of like, well, there's medical for that, But if it's a
wreck adult, but again, there's still adult use.
Like do they just play outside of that realm of like it?
Hey, it's been schedule one. So that's kind of the realm that
it's already been in. I think you'll probably see that
because it I mean to think about adaptation in there, there's
going to be FDA approved cannabis products, but again,
it's going through those clinical trials.
So for right now, I think in, in this just hypothesis on my side,
it's they're just gonna kind of let things run the way they are.
They're not gonna. I mean, I, I hope that Utah
doesn't change to a rec state because I've seen what rec
states, what happens there, and it's extremely poor quality
product. Better qualifying conditions,
More qualifying. Conditions and regulations on.
Better access because again when you're in a medical state and
it's classified as a medicine, if you're only having 15
pharmacies in your entire state in this size of a state where it
can take over 8 hours to drive from one point to another in
certain areas like that's a long ass time.
You have to give your patients way more access.
So either the ability to do like homegrown or giving way more
pharmacies because it limit the like.
And again, maybe not every product is FDA regulated, but
there still needs to be a higher set of regulation because we
still see sub par products like everywhere.
Well, and it, it kind of goes to say like what we, what we were
able to see out there grow like state-of-the-art everything from
water to lighting to timing the minerals to the drying process
to the trimming. Like it's very, very, it's so
well orchestrated to be able to get you that final product.
Like what we're smoking on now. Like it, it just pure magic.
Yeah, yeah, man. It's something that we we don't
see enough of. And that's where other Rex
states kind of get away with everything.
Like we talked about with with some of your guys over there,
they were just like, yeah, in California, they've got, they've
got testing labs everywhere and they'll fudge the and they'll
fudge the results too. They don't care.
You just pay them. That's one of the things that
again, our program doesn't do enough to give ourselves credit
for that of how great of a quality program and quality
testing we have here. Because when you see the Coas on
ours on, on our products, they are actually true percentages,
not dry lab results, which is what happens in every adult.
You stayed out there like it is the pay to play game.
There's that many labs out there.
And if you're not willing to good give a, a, a good test
result, they're just gonna take that $30,000 of business
somewhere else. And you as a lab gotta make a
decision. Do I stay in business or do I do
the right thing? Same business And that's tough,
right? But for us, you know, when you
walk into a dragonfly Wellness pharmacy that you are going to
get those potencies and you're going to feel it.
And I think that's a a huge reason why you guys are like,
yo, dragonfly flower hits a different because you could go
by 30% boof anywhere in Colorado in in in Nevada, you get all day
long. But is it truly 30%?
How how how like? You go there and if like half of
their stuff is 30%, you're like, no, it's not Wow.
You guys found the secret sauce? Bro who's your grower?
Like hook me up Very. Difficult to get flour above 30%
right like that. That is an anomaly.
So it's, it's wild. It's wild that you see that
consistently in in other states that are there and then you try
it and you're like, that was no different than the 15% that I
just, you know, that that I just had.
And that's the other anomaly there as well too, is that this
focus on THC and potency. The highest that's.
Why I appreciate what you guys do because you give a platform
on a voice for the other things outside of the one major
cannabinoid, right? And you give the love to the
terpenes. That's why this strain that
we're puffing on or have been is actually one of their grows and
it's not out yet or just about to be out.
It is about to drop next week. And it is you imagine an
exclusive like it is a high CBG strain and.
It is bad. I feel very toasty.
Like one of the best experiences that I think that we have had
did. You guys say you're a less high
or more high than other strains that you normally?
I'd say I'm, I'm right now I'm more, I feel really good though,
Like it's, it's so much that I'm super relaxed, but I'm very
aware. And that's kind of a unique
thing 'cause some sativa strains and again, it's going into the
percentages, like it's not about the high percentages when we
started this podcast, like it was primarily carts and there's
a. Good amount of carts.
Yeah, oh, I mean like it was rare when we were had flower on.
Now it's like flower all the time.
But we we enjoy the flower just because of of how it hits.
It just hits different. It just hits different.
And with the carts, it was always about the high
percentages. Now I just don't have the pallet
for it. Some of them for sometimes.
Most of what we were doing, like at the beginning, wow.
Oh yeah, Most of it was disti. When we first started, there was
a lot of just most lead distillates, distillates across
the the market. And so when I was going out to
Denver and getting carts, it was all distillate.
It wasn't until a couple years ago that we started seeing more
of the live resin, the live resin coming into play.
And that was just kind of I think what changed the game
because before that it was like, what is your highest THC
experience? Because they really it when it's
distilled all the way down, you don't get the turbines, you
don't get anything. So it's really just more of like
a here, this is gonna make you feel something.
And you know, I mean, it did, but it wasn't the best.
But yeah, exactly. You're not being able to fully
get that experience. And that even goes to now where
I feel that consumers are going more towards high quality
anyways. They're asking for high quality.
You're gonna have those guys drinking the Canadian hose,
plastic jug always on sale at the liquor store, you know,
whiskey. You're gonna have those people
in the cannabis world, too. They don't care.
Yeah. They're like, we just want to
get. I just want to get fucked up.
Like, all right, cool. I mean, if that's your game,
that's cool. That's why those adults state
the adult youth states. I don't, I don't like where
those markets have gone. I just feel that they've just
given subpar product and that people just don't know any
better. It's like people who use.
Like Delta AI think it really comes down to a not being
properly educated on like the quality of the product, the
experience. Same with D8.
I don't most of the people that use it and I'm they just.
Don't know any better. They.
Yeah. And usually it's people who
don't consume real cannabis, so they've been introduced into it
and they're like, well. This gives me a feeling.
This because my friend said I should try it and it's not weed
so it's OK and then they try it and they're like well I like
this feeling but for anyone who really uses cannabis it just
feels like synthetic fake. Yeah, it's gross.
It's a gross experience but for those who have not really had
the other, they feel like they look at it and go oh this is a
nice experience and maybe it's a good segue for them.
But if they actually had tried like the real plant, I bet they
would struggle going back. Oh yeah, absolutely.
And that's why, you know, dryer vaporizing is, is, is seriously
where a lot of this needs to be going.
I mean, I'm odd against burning the plant.
I enjoy it. I enjoy bong.
You guys know that we love our bong.
Oh yeah, George Jetson. And it's, it's an awesome, you
know, it's a great experience, but this is the cleanest
experience. I even when I went on my tea
break for over a week, right? Like when I did that, I did
notice before that 'cause I was doing a lot of stood a lot of
bongs and I started to get real like a little like a wheeze.
Sometimes I'm like, whoa, but not with the dryer.
I I mean, I'll cough because you really get those terps at first
and it just hits your lungs just, you're like, whoa.
But after a little bit. Still can be hot on your lungs,
like I always still cough sometimes.
But I do like the ones that have the adapter that can go down
into a bong because using a dryer vaporizer through a bong,
holy cow, that is a whole nother level.
It is, yeah. And so many different unique
ways to consume cannabis, right? And there's going to be more,
right? There's tons of other products
that are out there you guys have tried.
Some different. Products, So that's where the
hope is, that's where the hope in the future still is for the
adult youth side of the other states is you can do your
seven-year trial and make this one specific product for this
one specific condition, right? Because that's that's how
regular medicine works, right? You got to prove one's very
specific indication that this is going to work for.
But the Sky's the limit everywhere else, right?
And to your point, you were saying earlier is, look, we are
the United States of America, 50 unique states that can make
whatever rules they want in their own states despite what
the federal government does, right?
So there is still hope, but that doesn't happen unless people
like us get involved, right? Get involved and have a voice
and get involved in our community and get involved with
our legislature, right? And let them hear that this is
something that's important and we want to make sure that it's
done the right way and it it it and that goes across the board
from every single angle that we don't have companies that just
coming in here for just profit that have no interest in our
community here at all. Right?
Like what are the decisions that are going to be made when your
headquarters is in another state?
You have no idea what is going on right here in Utah County.
You don't. So there's a a big difference
between finding companies and brands and people that truly
care about the people that they're serving.
And you see that that happens in in dispensaries and pharmacies
all over America. But I can tell you those are the
ones that are just hanging on by a thread right now.
Yeah, well, I feel like. And a lot of them have already
exited, right? Like California, man, I mean,
it's tough. It's tough to see that, right?
And and it's tough to also be here, a guy that's only gotten
into the cannabis industry in the last five years to be like,
man, those are, you know, those are some big shoulders that I
got to be able to stand on that elevated us right to us even
have an opportunity to even have a conversation for you guys to
be in 80 plus countries and people listening to what we have
to say, it's wild. So with Utah, what do you see
changing here? Well, I think the hope with Utah
is that if it's a Schedule 3, it's gonna be treated like any
other medication. I mean it should already.
Right. So that means if your doctor,
not a doctor that had to go through some special training to
learn about all, you know, cannabis and four years of
school, no, it's like you could prescribe all of these
medications, right. So cannabis is now medication,
you can prescribe it to your patient.
And actually, if your patient came and asked you and said, I
actually prefer this over these other things, it, it's actually
your duty to serve your patient, right?
Unless you have some other reason why.
And it can't be that it's illegal anymore.
But right now that's the challenge for doctors because
there's not enough research and data.
And when I do that, I, what I mean is clinical trials, that's
what big pharma gets to do for us at least, right?
They get to spend the money to show to doctors that they can
say yes, THC and CBD does work for this.
Yes, it is OK for mental health related diseases, right?
Yes. There is no known lethal dose of
cannabis and you could die if you accidentally take too much.
As a doctor, I think I would kind of like that to prescribe
you a medicine that you cannot die from.
Well, they, I mean they've already done animal studies for
that and they have the guesstimated dose of what it
might be, but it's all hypothesized it's.
Like a truckload. I mean it's ridiculous it was
between 10 to 15,001 gram joint smoked in a 15 minute period
might kill a person. I.
Think, I think I would kill anything for that.
Yeah, just the CO2 alone and they're just suck all the air.
Out you would you would pass out long before you ever got to that
point. Like I I don't know how that's
possible, but whatever. But yeah, that's the hope that I
I see, right? And what does that mean?
More accessibility. Yeah, that's what we want.
And guess what, if there's more patients in the program and, and
now these 15 pharmacies are inundated with patients,
somebody's out there is going to have to say, yeah, I, I think we
might need some more pharmacies out there because trust me,
there'd be dragonfly wellnesses all over Utah if if it was up to
us, right, Right. But there's very specific laws
and rules and limitations and and that's, you know, part for
making sure that we do this the right way.
We control it in the right way. We collect enough data and
evidence and research to make sure that we do the things
methodically. And those are the things that I
do appreciate about working with our regulatory bodies and our
legislators is that they're not just like, let's throw this cap,
let's go, whoa, adult use. All right, everybody can just
have it. No, we got to do this smartly,
right? Because it's also irresponsible
for people like us to sit here and say there's no problem with
cannabis. That's perfectly fine, right?
There's no risk of addiction or, you know, no risk of you.
Know any negative side effect in?
Your job, Like, come on, those are stereotypes for a reason.
Like, everybody is different, right?
But to put everybody in the same box, that's just unfair.
Right. Yeah, it totally.
Is that's where the hope is that it's just going to be easy for
somebody who's like, ah, dude, like I have a have a freaking
toothache or you know, I freaking, you know, my arm.
I broke my arm and doctor gave me, you know, pain medication.
I'm like, I'd much rather just go to dragonfly and get a
chewable tablet. That's, you know, it's way
easier, right? And those guys are actually nice
and they care. It's way funner than going to a
pharmacy at Walgreens or Smiths. Which?
Is this is a funny story, right? Like, that's an interesting
story as well as like, how easy it is right now to just get
access to prescriptions, right? Like my little brother broke his
elbow. You know, he was, he slipped
outside of my parents' house after he got done shoveling.
There's just walking broken. Anyways, I'm, I, I had to go
pick up his prescription for him, right?
And I just this piece of paper, you know, that's says, you know
what? Hydrocodone.
All right, cool. Walk up.
And they're like, OK, do you have ID?
I'm like, yeah, here's my driver's license.
OK, we'll call you when it's ready.
I was like, all right, that's. It the interesting thing is you
were saying, so Utah doesn't allow you to do that with
cannabis. But with even that, you could
have like a care, like a qualifying care provider for you
and they'd still have to go through all these crazy hoops.
But yet even with that, you don't have to be their care
provider to pick up their prescription.
You could literally be just anyone going, hey, I'm here to
pick up this prescription. Here's their date of birth.
Here's my ID. You don't have to have any
association. Was in relation to the person at
all at all and and I had an ID and I'm Asian she I was could
have. Used you could have been their
Uber driver showing up. Asian dude, yeah, that looks
like you go. Ahead because they're like, oh,
I can't tell the difference anyway because they're like.
They're terrible. But then, yeah, so this, this
was sort of funny. And then, yeah, as I'm waiting
for the prescription, right, they they're about to hand to
me, they're like, OK, that'll be $7.00.
I was like, OK, $7.00, get the prescription.
And then I was about to walk away thinking like, Oh my God,
did I just, I feel like I had to do something.
She's like, oh, hold on real quick, the pharmacist needs to
talk to you. I was like, OK, so I stand there
and then this old Chinese guy comes out of the back pharmacist
dude, because I was like, so these only use these if you have
to, OK, Because they're, they can be addictive.
All right, all right. Wow, look.
That was it. That was the disclaimer, you
know, so at least he was trying. At least he was like, I
appreciate that, right? But that was it, man.
If it was in the cannabis space here for you to be a caregiver,
the first thing you got to do is you got to apply and then you
have to get a criminal background check, right, to make
sure you're not some drug dealer.
But what's funny? Like why?
Like what if you don't have a criminal background?
Or what if you don't have anything on there?
Say there's nothing drug related.
Do they decline it still? Or does that even play a factor
in it? Because you could still be their
patient, like their caregiver. So who else is supposed to pick
up that patient's medicine? Yeah.
So there are just these things because of the federally
illegality of it, right. So that that's where sometimes
it's it, it, it's, it's frustrating as you know, an, an,
an operator in the business to be like.
Do you know anyone buying Utah products does turn around and
sell them? Because no offense I don't think
anyone outside is paying from their plug 50-60 dollars an
eighth plus adding on a margin of markup.
Like who would ever buy a Utah product to turn around and go,
hey, I'm going to sell this to make?
Money. It's treated like medicine.
That's yours. What if you didn't have a
qualifying condition and you wanted safe legal product and
you couldn't buy it? Yeah, it's hard.
What would you be willing to pay?
So your answer is yes, there are people that are doing it right
now. Right now, and you know,
imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
So yeah, we've actually had issues where people were passing
off Dragonfly product, as you know, or packaging and things
like that, right. But.
Oh, they're trying to mimic Dragonfly products.
Right, so that that's that's. Cool.
Flattery, right? To the point where we had to get
investigated to see if, like, whoa.
Is this your? Product really happening, right?
Because then, yeah, they do due diligence.
People make reports. You gotta check and make sure
that's legit. But yeah, and we're like, no,
like we one we don't even use those jars.
We don't do these all these yeah, but it's like those are
things that are happening because people don't have
access. People are always going to get
what they wanna get. Doesn't matter, right?
But at least here in the state of Utah, if we've got operators
here that are going good quality medicine and we know that these
are accurate results and we know that all of these products are
full panel tested, that they are free of pesticides, free of
heavy metals, free of solvents, right, All of these things and
you can put that into your body. Why wouldn't we want people to
have access to that versus what you're getting on this straight
that could sometimes potentially be laced with fentanyl?
They're not just. Making this up, this is a thing,
right? Like this happens, you get,
there are ER report visits of this happening in our own
communities. So we again, have the tools at
our fingertips to solve some of our biggest problems in our
community, whether it's mental health, whether it's suicide,
whether it's addiction, right? All of these things and the keys
are right here. And we just need people to wake
up and realize at what we've been told our whole life.
I think that's really hard. I mean, especially like we live
in a religious culture here. Looking at any of those things,
people often times don't want to question anything or look at
something and go like, hey, there's maybe some basis that
might not be someone maybe lied to me.
That's hard, especially if it's on a religious governmental like
my parents, whoever it is someone that you are supposed to
look up to or trust in that Ave. It's hard to go, hey there, they
lied to me and how many people even want to look at that in
question and go like, oh, did I was I lied to or is it just like
all these stupid hippies, you know?
And then what gets pushed out? Well, like you said, there's
IHCE that puts out, well, we've had this much reduction in
opioids and we credit it to education and this and this.
And it's like, but the time frame is exactly when the
medical cannabis program came into play.
And you know, you can see statistical data of looking at
oh, these people had these prescriptions.
Oh, look, and these people have these medical cards like it just
it's simple correlation of you can.
Willing to speak on the cost part too, you know, if you're in
Utah and you're like, you know, I want to get a medical cannabis
card, but I don't want to pay those fees though that might.
And if you're a person who's getting in the car driving to
Colorado or to Nevada, think about the cost that goes into
that and how much it's going to cost you to just drive there,
get the product, come back. It's way more investment time
instead of being able to get your medical card.
So if you have chronic pain, you can check out being able to get
that and look at all the other defining characteristics of what
qualifies for that. But honestly, it is worth it to
be able to get that card. And especially any other time
it'd be right now, right now where things are starting to
change even more. We'll start seeing a difference
out there. Maybe this allows us to have
more licenses here for pharmacies.
And if we have more pharmacies, we have more consumers and we
have less likeability of that rebound effect where people are
like, you know, it's not for me. And that's where like, you know,
our podcast comes into there that you're gonna learn a lot on
how to consume this and and how you're not gonna have a horrible
experience. Like, you know, I mean recently
somebody you know. My my brother is bad.
I was gonna wait. Yeah, this is.
This is. He's been, oh, he's just left
the like local faith here handful of years ago and for him
he's been straight laced his entire life.
He still is like. Very much so.
Straight edge doesn't do caffeine, doesn't do anything.
He doesn't like feeling out of control at all.
And so he was talking about, he was like, you know, I'd like to
try it at least once, see what it was like.
And I've got a cousin who also consumes.
And she was like, well, let's, let's have a session at my
house. So he'd go over there and she's
got the large version of George Jetson, our bong.
It's a big ass bong. It is so she decides that I
brought all of my flour. I let him Mel between like 10-12
different flowers and he picked one out and he was like, all
right, let's try this one. And he ended up taking this big
hit and he really did not like it in the in the slightest
because within 1015 minutes, he was asking, how do I get this to
stop in 10 minutes? And I was like, we can't, but we
can give you lemon juice. I brought CBD like, we're gonna
do all of this. And then he's still like, he
didn't like that he felt he wasn't in control.
I think it's because he's so much in control of everything
that he wanted. He maybe he wanted that
experience and maybe he got that experience and he didn't.
Where you don't care like you really don't sweat.
'Cause that's what he was like, oh man, I don't know how you
could, how you could work on this.
He was like, I can't do complex math problems right now.
And I'm like bro, you don't need to be doing complex math.
Problems. Right now, complex math problems
anyway. It's like, it's like Friday
night, just chill out. Like there's nothing you need to
be doing. The whole intent of hanging out
here was we're just gonna have a good time and just chill.
So you don't need to be worrying about can I do complex math
problems or this or that. What you need to do is just
relax. But again, it's really hard.
Like how many people are stuck up here that it's so hard to
come out of here and just relax. That's why we have anxiety and
depression and all this stuff that we live in, because we're
not like we're always living up here.
Control that's, that's a, a huge thing.
And quite honestly, that first time I ever tried it wasn't, it
was the same type of thing. It was like I was not in control
of what was happening around me and what I was seeing.
I was like, yeah, you when you first feel that moment, right,
you're like, Oh my gosh, there is something else that is
actually controlling me, not the other way around.
And this idea that we can control things in our life, it's
just a fallacy. It's just a fallacy.
So we spend our time thinking about things that are never
going to happen because we want to make sure we can control
those things, right? Or we worry about things that
happened in the. Past and you can't change.
Just so hard for us to stay present in this world, right in
the society that that we have, right?
And it's just, and, and I, I sometimes I don't think people
stop to recognize and realize how much has actually changed in
our world in just the last 10 to 15 years with the advent of, you
know, the phone. And not just the phone, but the
phone from going to a touchscreen phone and to the
iPhone and getting fast speed Internet and going on from those
phases. Like there's a reason why mental
health is at all time high here, right?
And a lot of it has a strong correlation with when the phone
and how much. That is an important part, an
important part of our worth of who we are, who we think we're
supposed to be. And we get so caught up in that
cycle, right? And why is mental health a
problem? We're trying to be all these
things that all these other people that are just living fake
lives. Are doing and we're trying to
keep up with the Joneses and be like, oh, I'm just like them.
Or you worry about other shit, like, I mean, you know, I, I get
into conspiracy theories or into deep science and stuff like
that. And if you knew the shit that's
going on with the planet and you're realizing that some of
this isn't because of The Dirty air, you're like, oh shit, some
crazy stuff. It, you know, like the stuff we.
Used to consume like it was so makes you feel anxious.
Yeah, it makes you feel like you got to get in a.
You got to get in a. Bunker you got to get a.
Bunker, you know, we're in a good place actually, if we look
at the models and stuff like that, like if anything happened,
we're in a good place. But even then, though, it's like
we shouldn't have total access to that information in a moment.
It's an overload. Your body gets hit so much that
you just can't stop wearing. I go through my YouTube feed.
It is natural disasters, cataclysms, fucking, you know,
mushrooms and like cannabis stuff.
Like it's just, it's the sprinkles of happiness with tons
of fucking negativity and it's so hard.
And but one of the great things that cannabis does for you, like
I was telling you just a little while ago, you know, since I've
been going back, I don't have to use as much to what you were
talking about. What, you know, you use just a
third of it, just using a tiny bit and you're still going to
get a great effect. But I got done smoking, came
back inside and I just played with my kids.
I just had these like awesome conversations with my son about
like the Renaissance and the French Revolution, 'cause he's
playing Assassin's Creed Unity and it's during the French
Revolution and we just got deep into the history of that.
And it was so cool because I don't, my mind is going so fast
all the time in the world we're in and I don't get to slow down
and just enjoy the presence of others.
But with the gift of cannabis, I absolutely do.
Like I can just chill out and have a conversation.
Yeah, it's like, you know, we, we are prisoners of our
thoughts, right? And and the cannabis is the
Liberator. Yeah, for sure.
Like. Because you can, you can just
stop all the things, right? And nothing matters except right
now, right here, right? And those are the things when
you talk about mental health awareness, right?
And those abilities to one, even have people in your life that
you can share these conversations with, right?
And feel connected to people and not feel alone, all right?
How we live in a world with 7 billion people, How can one
person feel alone? That's sad to think about,
right? Yeah, we get so many of us here.
Especially in this world where you can connect with anybody
anywhere in the world but you. Know we still feel distant.
Still have this difficulty talking about real stuff, right?
Real stuff that hurts us, right? Real pain because we're ashamed
that people look down on us and they have these perfect lives.
And I'm sad here, but everybody's life sucks, man,
Come on. Yeah, we were just talking about
that earlier, right? Everybody's you're going to have
to experience pleasure and pain and one can't exist without the
other. And it's not always continuous.
It's not always going to be continuous.
And that's where, you know, you get that reprieve when you get
to puff because it it really takes it like in perspective,
you just kind of back up, right, get too angry.
I mean, how many, how many arguments has cannabis kept me
from? I know it's kept me from endless
like so many of them that I'm like, I need to go smoke and I
will step outside and I will go puff on something and you know,
sometimes it's 5 minutes, sometimes it's 20 minutes and
then I come back in. I'm like way more level headed
and usually I'm apologetic of like, hey, I'm sorry I was
frustrated. And that wasn't like, let's have
a normal discussion. Let's try and approach this and
figure this out. Because when you can step away
from the emotion that's attached to it, you can see things for
what they are. And usually it's not as big of
an issue as we're feeling it is. And it's like you don't have
this backpack full of rocks on your back.
You can actually take it off and go, hey, shit, no, everything's
actually OK. We just need to like, be right
here. Yeah, we've had our, we, we, we
were actually talking. We had it.
We had an argument at one time. And I mean, we rarely do have an
argument, but it was just weird. And, and that goes to say too,
that remember that cannabis, there's so many different
strains. So there's and it's so much
safer than being able to go on a medication.
They go, OK, in about four to six weeks you're going to start
feeling it like, holy shit, wait a minute, I need it now and 40.
Six weeks before you start feeling normal.
Yeah, when you get off of it, right, and it's like, OK, well,
you've got to kind of have this toss up, but you literally can
switch from one to another. So, I mean, our listeners know
that, like, use lemon juice, use lemon juice to be able to kind
of dull it down where you're just like, oh, I don't want this
riot to go on anymore. Cool, get off it and then go try
a different one. Don't get afraid of it because
it's something that you just have to figure out what's right
for your system. Like right now.
The first time I smoked this strain, dude, it, it's got me
the same way. It was like when we were talking
to. Was it Desiree?
Yeah, it does. Yeah.
We were talking to Des and she
was like really intense. And I'm just sitting there
going. Fuck this.
This is a really intense conversation.
That was that was really high and I was just like, oh, I felt
so good. And it's still even now like it
is almost for for a sativa strain dude, like.
I'm feeling pretty good. Oh, man.
My boy. Yeah.
I was playing basketball this morning and I strained my calf
right. I like a bandage.
I got dragon bomb on it. You know, I'm like old man up
over here. I feel you guys didn't smell
something. No, I didn't lip this and
menthol. What is?
No bro, I've been you missed. Oh my cane.
I've been walking with a cane for like 3 weeks.
But. So I know.
Nothing right now, right? I can't like almost limping,
right? So but just these little things,
right? And and you learn about the plan
and learn that it has anti-inflammatory properties,
right, antifungal properties, antiviral properties and you're
like, wait, it's a analgesic effect as well too.
Hold on. I I think I kind of want some.
Yeah, I tried that. But yeah, it has all that, you
know, it has all these anecdotal evidences that it provides all
these reliefs, right? Oh hey, you know it's been shown
to shrink cancer cells or tumor cells in rats.
But it's only anecdotal because there's not like clinical
studies behind it. But yet it Yeah.
But if you actually look and took every person who uses
cannabis and they submitted their data, I bet you would see
that that anecdotal evidence would be showing across the
board of like, oh, wait, no, it helps here, here, here, here,
here, here. The only difference is it's not
funded by the government or a massive corporation.
It's just individual human studies of.
Doesn't have that FDA CLA approval, which man that that
credibility's just kind of I. Trust them so much.
Sounds like having a name brand tag on your clothes.
I just feel like it's like having ABBB accreditation, you
know? It's like, hey, I paid for that.
But you know what? I think people are waking up,
right? Totally.
Yeah. Waking up and realizing that
there there's a lot more to the world than you know what we've
been told. And that is the flip side of
access to information right now. You don't have to just listen to
one narrative that's on your TV from the news anchor or from the
one writer in the newspaper. And that's your world.
Growing up in Utah, I didn't know anything outside of this
world who was reporting on what was happening in China, right?
And what was going on in other countries.
Like I no, didn't know whatever was in my encyclopedia.
That was my view of the world, right?
So now flash forward, boom. Like it is just completely
different. And we've got to stop and one,
give ourselves some grace to realize like, Dang, man, that
really is different. And you start to feel like I
don't sound like an old head right now, right?
Yeah, dude, for sure. Changed that drastically.
It really, really has right And, and I think COVID certainly, you
know, forced us to rethink and re evaluate and sit with
ourselves a little bit more. And for some they came out
really clear. For others, maybe, maybe it was
not such a good thing, right? But I think those are the
opportunities where we have to really help provide one of the
solutions towards our problems towards mental health, because
it is a trending problem, right? And there are now enough data
and studies out there that show the direct correlation and the
impact that the sooner you give a child access to a phone, a
tablet, right, that connection to, to, to social media more
likely than have mental health issues.
It's a correlation, right? That the correlation does not
always mean causation, but put connect the dots together.
You know. Plenty.
I mean we are all guilty of it ourselves and getting sucked
into the hole. And just like how do how did I
get? Why am I worrying about?
This. But how did I spend this much
time? Like I just was taking a poop
and now it's been like 45 minutes.
Wife's knocking on. The door, We're doing it there.
Oh. Oh oh sugar honey OST Oh I
don't. Know I I can also get there when
I'm pretty high though. I mean I can sit down just like
and then when my leg goes numb I'm like, oh wait, how long have
I been in here? Why am I down this rabbit hole?
But it's seriously it's it's a great uniter and it's a great
way to be able to slow down and just enjoy the world as it is.
Like that's there's a reason why I like hardcore hippies or pie
heads because they don't want to deal with the the this busyness
unnecessary. They want to disconnect from the
matrix. Yeah, totally.
And I, and I mean just like you, man.
I, I like, I like being plugged into the matrix.
I like the intricacies of our society and our culture and the
world as it is in a technological age.
But at the same time, I like to take a break too.
And I want to take a break often.
I don't want to ever want to be plugged in 100% of the time.
And I feel for those who feel like they have to be and that
they have no outlet and that there is no change.
So yeah, man, this is. It's been awesome.
This has been great man. Thank you so much for being able
to come on the show, share a lot about you and why you're so
passionate about the medical cannabis state that we are in
and why you're you're so passionate about being able to
bring this to so many different patients right now in our state.
Where should we be going to look up more about you, man?
Can people connect with you? Yeah, absolutely.
You know, go to Dragonfly Wellness, you can learn more
about just our medical cannabis program in general.
Our state has plenty of incredible resources.
Go to medicalcannabis.utah.gov. Like we have a really, really
great program here, but we just need people to participate in
the program as opposed to just, I can get it elsewhere, I can
get the same thing. It it really isn't the same
thing. No, it's not.
It really isn't. And we've been really impressed
because the difference in like quality and experience has been
fantastic. The CBG strain alone, there's
not been anything like that. Nope, I've never experienced
anything like that. And you know, dare I say, you
know, even for being a desert strain, this stays really close
to Cali strain, dude. You wouldn't even know if you
walked in the facility. Where you were.
Right. So at the end of the day, you
know our, our, our, some of our team comes from California,
right? Like.
They've yeah, that's right. For a long.
Time we didn't just pluck people out, you know, like we didn't
just have a bunch of Vietnamese people in the backroom like a
sweatshirt abyss. We found people that were real
professionals that came out that have been doing this for a long
time. And if you've been doing it for
a long time, you have a care and a passion for the plant because
you're willing to do something for nobody wanted to give you
credit. I waited until it was legal and
I could go to my family and not be shamed by them, but still got
shame 'cause that's just how Asian families roll like you.
What, you're gonna give up your 20 year career working with
Fortune 500 companies to sell weed?
That's wrong with you. It's a.
Really good opportunity to make change in our community, Mom.
Yeah, right. So, but it's crazy in that 180
flip, like my parents are huge supporters, right?
I mean, they talk to our families about it.
They're very proud about what we're doing here.
So that alone, right when we worry about the judgement and
the stigma of others, it's pretty crazy.
When I bet that's a future authentic.
Self and not have to tiptoe around my parents lie and hide
and stuff and there's so many people who have to struggle
through that and those are challenges, right And and for us
that'd be able to have a platform and a voice and a
platform to show that look, we can talk about these things and
there are other solutions to these things, right?
Not just to the same medications you're taking over and over and
over just because your doctor said it right?
And again, cannabis isn't for everybody.
It's not totally. Yeah, but you should be able to
have access to try it just like all these other drugs that are
out there. Yeah, man, no.
And thank you for the example you set being open about it.
You know, we, we do that. We encourage everybody else to
do it. So they're not only their
friends and family wherever, but the the areas that they live,
their neighborhoods, their society.
Like you shouldn't treat it as a stigma.
We don't. We, we, we're loud and proud and
we never get, I have never been like, oh, I'm not talking to
you. Yeah, it's cannabis.
It's usually just sparked more conversations and they go.
I want to learn more about it so it really helps, but man, thank
you for being that example here. Thank you for being on the show
and and thanks for all your hospitality and showing us
everything that you guys do and why we love you guys so much.
It's an honor, guys. Thank you for help and support
our mission towards normalizing this right, so that way we can
all just be healthy, happy people, live in one community,
not judging each other. And thank you guys for allowing
me into your home and into your studio.
Rather, I'm pretty sure we're going to have you back on for
another episode. Oh hell yeah dude.
So sick of me man. You know.
No way man, I want. To go meet George Jetson.
So yeah, yeah, for sure. And to everyone at home, we love
you guys. Thanks for tuning in.
Yeah, Patreon supporters, we absolutely love you.
And TuneIn Next week for another episode of the Session.