Episode Transcript

Trevor: Kirk, I think you found another kindred spirit. 

Kirk: Yeah, yeah, did it. It's interesting to stumble into people and it's amazing this movement's happening in Manitoba. We picked up on it about a month ago. And, yeah, it's all about getting home grown challenged in this province. 

Trevor: All right. So, his name's Jesse Lavoie. I won't give away the whole things as it is a good interview. So, legalizations, I had to look as I forget, legalization was back in October 2018. Jesse started his journey in April 2020 without telling his whole story. What kind of things you want us to know before we talk to Jess. 

Kirk: So essentially is his case file is C120-028204 - Lavoie, Jesse versus Government of Manitoba. And he filed his first notification of application August 2020. So that's been going on all that long. Now, the government responded to him in December, so I spent some time reading Kristianna Dechant's response and her affidavit. So, where we are at in the story is that he has now responded to the government's argument back to him and he discusses this in the interview. So again, we won't give too much away, but it's how the government is forming their argument and what he's done now, he's gone, he's got the experts to argue against their argument. But, Trevor, I want to raise an issue with you. All Manitobans have been bombarded lately with Mr. Pallister new initiative and as 

Trevor: he has had a few really popular ones lately. Which one? 

Kirk: Well, as a card-carrying conservative, which I trust you still are doing. 

Trevor: I did have a card, I can't remember if I'm up to date, but sure, let's call me card-carrying conservative. 

Kirk: Sure. The one that's promoting economic development in the province of Alberta by allowing liquor to be sold in your corner store. 

Trevor: Yes. Yes. That is definitely most recently in the news in Manitoba. So are you going to ask me if I'm pro or against that or 

Kirk: I'm all over it man, I think as a consumer, why don't I want to have access to booze; readily. I'm a little a concerned. Well, how about yourself? 

Trevor: No. Yeah, overall, yes. Just interesting. We were, a friend of mine has recently become employed with the liquor people in Manitoba. And so we've been harassing him online a little bit lately about another mutual friend traveled to Alberta on a legit business trip, did all his paperwork get yada yada yada, and came back and same complaint that we hear we've heard forever is, you know, how come this rum I really like is, you know, twenty bucks less in Alberta than it is here. So, it's something the conservatives here have wanted to do for a long, long time. 

Kirk: Well, now hold on, a quick answer to that. Is it there's no sales tax in Alberta. So, drop down seven percent there. Yeah. Now, the other thing, the other component of this is that I do like going to the local liquor store and talking to Danny. And Danny does know is whiskies. And and I do have expert advice when I go to the local liquor store. But I'm not against economic development and having booze readily available. But the public health nurse in me, the community health nurse, for me, the person who understands the damages alcohol is made in our society and how it harms adolescent children who can readily accessible, they find the alcohol readily accessible next to the milk. I find it interesting that they're quite prepared to allow alcohol to be more readily available to Manitobans, but they won't let us grow our own pot because they want to save the children. They want to save houses and they want. So I find some hypocrisy there. My friend, as a nurse, I'm a little concerned that alcohol is going to be readily available. And then as a cannabis advocate, I guess, if I'm to name myself as a cannabis advocate, I'm wondering what cannabis is being treated so poorly. Now, Trevor I've got some information here in regards to how the government is arguing their case about why we Manitobans can't grow cannabis. And it's now it's the Liquor Gaming Cannabis Authority of Manitoba, the one who responded to Jesse's... acknowledging he's challenging it. Right. And they put down four pillars that they're fighting and Jesse gets into it. But I just want to make the listeners aware that the four pillars are: social responsibility, education/treatment, protecting the youth and preventing illicit sales. Now the liquor, the Liquor Gaming Cannabis Authority of Manitoba acknowledged that one of their mandates is to educate people with accurate information to protect and promote safe and social responsibility at the consumption of cannabis. 

Trevor: Seems reasonable. 

Kirk: Well, I think it's a wonderful, it's a wonderful mission to have. But I'm just wondering how much information they truly have. I mean, I mean, they're basically saying that by us growing cannabis at home, we're risking the youth.  We're getting into the illicit markets because we're going to add cannabis to illicit market. We are destroying property and people's homes and they can't control the quality of the cannabis that we are creating by growing. And it's also very difficult to enforce that if we were to have cannabis growing at home. So, these are the arguments that the government has put out to Jesse. So, as you'll hear ... 

Trevor: And there's so many of those I want to touch on, I want to ask you about the carboys cutting your feet and… 

Kirk: Yeah, 

Trevor: and and we'll leave that as a cliffhanger for afterwards. But the one other thing I just want to throw in ahead of time and he'll touch on it more is isn't it interesting that in Quebec, which is if I've got all my facts straight, was or as is going through the courts already, maybe even gone all the way through. And that started with someone who was growing at home, got charged and sort of fought through the courts that way. But that's not how Jesse got involved in this. And I thought that was another interesting twist as well. 

Kirk: Well, Jesse, Jesse has a history. Now, we touch on a little bit about how we worked within the same organization Manitoba Corrections, and he got out of the industry over an incident. Now, I Googled the incident that happened in the Remand Center he was involved with. And that's not the story here. But let's say that it's Googleable. Googleable. Is that a word. 

Trevor: It is now. 

Kirk: we are going to make it a word? You can Google Jesse and the dates he gives and find out why he left the industry. But that's not the story. But he was on medicinal cannabis for a while. And I asked him quite bluntly, what are you doing here, dude? I mean, you got a medical ticket, grow your own weed, right? Grow your own medicine. 

Trevor: Yes.

Kirk: His answer is a good one. And it says sort of, he was treating it as medicine and it helped him get through some. 

Trevor: A rough patch. 

Kirk: A rough patch. And then he found that he had gotten through it and he wanted to use cannabis recreationally and he wanted to grow it. So, he wanted to challenge the government as a guy, as he says from nowhere, just challenging them. Come on, let's make this happen. Why can't I grow cannabis? So, the government has responded to him and he's responded back. So, this is a good opportunity to get into the story. Yeah. Then we can come out of it. 

Trevor: Absolutely. Let's listen to Jesse. 

Jesse Lavoie: My name is Jesse Lavoie, born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba, 

Kirk: fantastic, and what are you doing, man? 

Jesse Lavoie: I'm suing the Manitoba government for banning home grown cannabis, which is federally legal. I started doing all the research back in April 2020 and filed the notice of application at the end of August, hired a law firm beginning of June. And I kind of skipped that part. But yeah, it's been, it's been a long road and a lot of time and assets, put into this so far. 

Kirk: Well, and I congratulate you for doing this because one of the things Trevor and I have been saying is that we don't quite understand why Manitoba chose not to go this route. But before we go there, let's let's get a little bit of a background. You and I share something. You worked for Manitoba Corrections. 

Jesse Lavoie: Yes, I did. 

Kirk: Yeah. As I did before, before they pulled the jail out of Dauphin. I was a nurse there for good 12 years. 

Jesse Lavoie: Oh, interesting. I didn't know that I was at the Remand Centre. 

Kirk: It was a big, big loss for our community when they pulled pulled the jail out. 

Jesse Lavoie: I had a lot of friends that worked there. And it was it was a tough time when they closed them. 

Kirk: So, you are. You were, and I guess a corrections officer and you are you open to talk about what happened to you there, because you do make mention to it in your documentation that you had a horrific experience there. 

Jesse Lavoie: Yeah, it happened 2016. I worked at the Winnipeg Remand Center and there was a very violent incident between myself and the offender. And unfortunately, the offender lost his life during that incident. So, yeah, that was my last shift as a correctional officer. And at that time, I was like, I need to find a new industry, new job, because I wanted to be a cop my whole life and then decided after that night I didn't want to do law enforcement anymore. So, yeah, I went into the cannabis industry and have a look back. 

Kirk: Right on. And again, through that situation again, I'm reading through your Webpage, you had PTSD. So, are you a medicinal user of cannabis? 

Jesse Lavoie: Not anymore. I was. I was for three years. And then I stopped using my prescription because I could sleep through the night. I wasn't having night terrors anymore or panic attacks. So, all that stuff was gone. So, I switched to recreational use because I love the plant. 

Kirk: So, here's a question I got to ask you though. So as a medicinal user, you could have grown your own plants and you weren't stuck to four. So why why why take this case on to make recreation grow legal? 

Jesse Lavoie: That's a great question. First of all, because it's wrong. It's unconstitutional. It's federally legal for everyone to have four plants. Even if I wanted to go, the medical route takes at least a month to get my license and any other province, someone going the medical route could start with four plants. They can get four plants to the ground immediately while they get their license application going for their, the rest of their medical plants. So it inhibits people who want to go the medical route. It's inhibiting people who just want to put four seeds or less in the ground and grow recreationally just like they make wine or beer. So, it's wrong. It's immoral. And I'm all about fighting for cannabis reform. So this is my brick that I'm going to lay in the road. 

Kirk: Oh, good on you. Is there anybody else? I was trying to do a search. Manitoba courts. I couldn't find any other lawsuits. I know a lot of people have been threatening to do it. You know, if there's anybody else doing the same 

Jesse Lavoie: lawsuits against the Manitoba government on this ban? Currently, I'm the only one that at least that I know of. But we haven't seen anything online.

Kirk: Yeah, and I haven't either. I did a little search as well. They couldn't find anybody. And and so what is your lawyer saying? So, you're doing this as an individual, but you do have lawyers helping you out? 

Jesse Lavoie: I do. I have a great lawyer. He's yeah. He's fantastic. He likes to stay out of the public spotlight. So, I'll leave his name out of here unless he wants to come on. But, you know, you mentioned earlier you're reading my affidavit. We haven't put the expert affidavits online yet. We're compressing them into PDF, but we file like twenty-five hundred pages of expert evidence on January 29^th from doctors, executives, master growers, h-vac engineers. And all this evidence is just like a mountain of undeniable facts that the Manitoba government is trying to dig out from. Yeah, we're very we're very confident in our case. 

Kirk: Well, I think I think I think you're right. But all this information is actually online. Like I followed through Andrew Hathaway. I've got Ryan Kirwin, Neil Boyd, Dr. Singh, Daniel Bear, Jamie Shaw. I've actually Googled all these guys. I've read them. I've watched your you've got a lot of high-powered people. Interesting, a lot of them aren't from Manitoba though, is a nobody in Manitoba that could be helping you with this. There's lots of expertise here. 

Jesse Lavoie: There's lots of people in Manitoba giving me a hand. Spreading the word. Public pressure is very important. I, just got on the phone and was calling. I was Googling cannabis experts, cannabis, cannabis doctors and just calling everyone I could find. And this team that you just listed is fantastic. They hit like every angle at and I would hate to be the lawyer on the other team and trying to build a defense against this. 

Kirk: Well, you know, and I guess that's I got so many questions for you. But let's stick to the affidavit. So, let's see. Dr. Singh, what is he offer you? 

Jesse Lavoie: He's a master grower. So, he was talking about the government's concerns on humidity, odor, mold, fires from the grow lights. Then he talked about the safety for children because not anything they were worried about is someone, a child grabbing something from the plant and eating it, which is a valid concern. But I mean, you're allowed to make wine at home. And what if the kid drinks that bottle? So, he was he was talking on the scientific effects of if someone if a child was to eat that, how it's not as bad as the government is making it out to be. 

Kirk: There is there's nothing there's nothing there THCa there's nothing there that would harm a child. 

Jesse Lavoie: Yeah. So, he combatted that it was it was awesome that we the team we assembled that the government had their basic outdated arguments they put forward and I had an expert or two for each one that just destroyed it. So, it's exciting. 

Kirk: And now, OK, you've also got Dr. Brae. I was watching his video and he made an interesting comment about breaking a five-gallon carboy and how. Right. And you know what I am? I am a brewer. I've been brewing my own beer for about thirty-five years and I have broken I have broken a ten a ten-gallon carboy that I that I ended up calling Sump-pump Porter because it ended up going into my sump. So been there, done that and didn't cut my seat. But honest to God it was dangerous. I had Porter all over the floor and broken glass so been there, done that. No one got injured. 

Jesse Lavoie: Now that's he made that point. The point on humidity I always love saying is if you take if you take your measurements inside your tent, if you if you live in a legal province and then compare it to go have a shower without your exhaust fan on. 

Kirk: Yes. 

Jesse Lavoie: Which is going to get more humidity and you take a shower at least once a day on average. 

Kirk: Hopefully.

Jesse Lavoie: So, it's not like the cops are coming in and then check in if you turn turning your exhaust fan on when you're taking a shower, it's like, hey, you might cause mold. What are you doing here is fine. 

Kirk: Right, right. And the other issue about the whole smell issue. Four plants, I mean, if you've got grow-op and there has been some issues in Winnipeg with grow-op that stink up a neighborhood, but I don't think four plants it's going to stink up the neighborhood. 

Jesse Lavoie: I don't either. I haven't I haven't been able to do my four yet, but I've been in the industry, gone to grows. And if you keep your humidity low, your ventilation is on point. You can use carbon filters, which are very inexpensive to help even kill it further. I don't think you'll smell it. And yeah, there's been houses that have been completely sealed up, hundreds of plants put in there for to get as much weight as possible to sell on to the black market. You can't take that rare comparison and put it towards the recreational user. Yeah, it's just you're shining a spotlight and you're thinking everyone's cat's, like, looking like, oh, yeah. It's all like that, it not the case. 

Kirk: So, what are some of the other arguments, the government, because I mean, I haven't I haven't actually seen the government's argument listed. Is it someplace that you can access it? The government actually have a list of why they don't want it? 

Jesse Lavoie: Yeah, actually, on Tobagrown.ca it's under the affidavits in the PDF. I can send it to you afterwards. But another argument we didn't touch on yet. Is there fear that people are going to grow four plants and sell it into the black market. So, they're worried that people are going to start injecting it into the black market. So, what we did was we went into all the available documentation from every other province showing growth in the legal market from 2018 or sorry, 2018 to present since legalization. And we're seeing that there's no injection of four plants into the black market. Four plants isn't stunting the legal growth of the market. Prices are. It's not the fact people can grow four plants. So that argument is just words. We have doctors and research stating otherwise. Another thing is so interesting. So, in every province who's legalized four plants from the start, every state an in USA who's done it, legalize home grow, and there's a few other countries who have done it.  None of them have clawed it back, so they've all made it legal, but none of them have seen the sky catch on fire. And then, like, OK, we got to re-criminalize this. No more home grown. So, the Manitoba government is using outdated arguments to try to prop up a ban which is unconstitutional with no backing. 

Kirk: OK? Yeah. What else, what other what other arguments are you going after? And I apologize. You do have, I did go through your website, but you do have a rather large list of documents. 

Jesse Lavoie: So, it's a very long process with lots of documentation. I think we covered it. It's the it's the children that worried about; getting access to it. They're they're worried about the black-market injection. Mold and fires and quality control. They're worried that people will get mold on it and inhale that, which is a valid concern. But there's some legal cannabis that's been put out there that also has mold on it. So, you can't people have to learn to grow and it's on them to make the better product for themselves. So, I'm going to use alcohol again when there's no quality assurance on your home wine. There's no wine police coming into your house and ensuring that it's the right amount of alcohol and it's perfect. OK, now you can drink it. 

Kirk: Well, I have made some vinegar in my time, you know, and actually right now in my basement, in my basement, I have this apple fermentation I had I've had going now for probably about two years. I'm growing my own yeast actually. So, I've got I've got my own wild yeast I'm playing with downstairs. So, when you talk about mold on a cannabis plant, well, I'm growing I'm growing new yeast in my my in my apple cider. So, I have no idea what's going to come with that. But also, when you look at the mold issue, you know, like you say, if you learn how to grow your own cannabis and properly dry it, there's more a risk of getting mold traveling across the country. 

Jesse Lavoie: Well, unlike the government's arguments, what we have nowadays, their arguments are outdated. We have so much connection now with people, with growing communities, with expert growers who have YouTube channels. There's so much technology and community and education around growing the plant. 

Kirk: Right.

Jesse Lavoie: If you're just going to start trying to grow one hundred plants, you're going to probably run into some issues. But you start with one and like, OK, great, I can do this, so let's add two. OK, we're at our four. Perfect. 

Kirk: Ya, and they are a nice-looking plant. So, you must have become a little bit of a midship lawyer in the last year and a half. So. So here's a question for you from a legal perspective, doesn't federal legislation trump provincial regulations? So, do you need to go through all this? I mean, don't we just want to wait for the one guy that goes to goes to court and fights it and says it's unconstitutional? 

Jesse Lavoie: Well, that's what happened in Quebec, is someone was charged with this offense and they defended themselves. Here in Manitoba, we're not seeing a lot of this. I don't want to say there's a conspiracy not to charge someone so there's no one to defend against it. But in this case, I came out of nowhere and was like, I'm going to challenge this. I haven't been charged. I'm not growing. I'm coming out of nowhere. So, there could be a delay on that side. Don't enforce it because we don't want someone defending it through the through the system versus I had to put a bunch of money up, hire a lawyer, build a case and then come in and start the process. So, I know that was a long winded, wordy response. 

Kirk: That's what I was looking for. Yeah. So again, you've gone to a lawyer. You said I have this idea. And what did they say to you? Like, are they, were they interested in this? 

Jesse Lavoie: I went to 12 law firms in total. At first, I was shopping, to be completely honest. I started with MLT Aikins. They built fantastic research, great arguments. And I was just a great team. For the long term though, the bills were getting quite high there. So, I need to transition because the Manitoba government was displaying that they were going to take this the whole way. So, I transition to a smaller boutique firm with a one-on-one lawyer team. And him and I have been working together on this. I've been doing the research and corralling the experts and educating on cannabis. And he's an excellent lawyer. So, everything I like on the legal side, he's got an excess amount of it. So. 

Kirk: So, you've got to go-fund-me page on this. So you want to speak to that a little bit. 

Jesse Lavoie: Correct? Yes. I've had to go-fund-me since the beginning. It's at about ten thousand dollars on it. It's just been absolutely fantastic. The community supporting. Recently, I've also started selling Tobagrown T-shirts and hoodies on Tobagrown.ca. And all the proceeds from their go towards the legal bills. My hope is, so this is going to cost about forty-five thousand without an appeal. My hope is we beat the government, we get cost awards and then any access from the fundraising goes to charity. So, this is all for the people. And it's just unfortunate the Manitoba government is defending this and spending taxpayer dollars to defend it. And on this side, myself in the community, having to spend money to attack it. 

Kirk: Right. And that's a good lead in to my next question was if..  If... When you win this so your fees will be covered by the court. So, you've challenged this law. If you win your claim to this, do you get to get your money invested back or is that money lost? 

Jesse Lavoie: You could apply for cost awards from that. That's a new thing for me. I know it's not a one-to-one, so it'd probably be a little less than I put in. But if you if you're awarded cost awards, you do get some of your legal bills back. So, I'll take those and donate them. 

Kirk: And I'm assuming your lawyers also in it for the long game also sees it as a as a good cause. 

Jesse Lavoie: He is very behind it. I know he's not a big cannabis user himself or at all, but he knows this is wrong. He, when I showed him the arguments and the direction and the expert experts I gathered, he was just blown away. So, he was excited to take it on. 

Kirk: I actually sent, again, your lawyer is listed on the Web pages for the court. So, I sent his firm an email asking for and I copied you actually, asking if he'd speak as well. So, I don't know if he will. But I asked also, I was going to ask you, do you have a crown attorney assigned to this case? Is there actually a crown attorney assigned to it? 

Jesse Lavoie: Our opponent? 

Kirk: Yes. 

Jesse Lavoie: Yes. His name is also on the all the affidavit. It Michael Connor. 

Kirk: OK,. 

Jesse Lavoie: If he's listening. Hey, Michael, I hope you enjoyed that big stack of papers I left for you. 

Kirk: So what do you think of what do you think the government's going to do with this? I mean, they're obviously fighting. You're right. They're obviously saying we're going to take this to court. 

Jesse Lavoie: It's already going that way. So, it's I filed the notice of application. I then filed my first affidavit. They filed their affidavit stating their arguments. I then filed all the experts. Now it's time for them to rebut against my experts. Hopefully they fold because the whole community is screaming, “stop wasting money, let us grow.” And the evidence is overwhelming. If they want to go to court, I'm going to embarrass their arguments. And that's a promise. Like it's we're so prepared. I am obsessed with winning. And their arguments are outdated. It'll if they want to make it a show, I'll participate and it'll be a great victory. Hopefully they just let us grow for the summer, but likely they're going to fight it. 

Kirk: What do you suspect will happen? Let's say that they fold. Right. So, what is what do you think they're going to come back with? I know you're prepared to take this all the way to the Supreme Court, but let's say they fold in and say, “OK, OK, you win.” Right. But now they'll have to go back and they'll have to build a process to allow us to do this. Right. So what do you expect them to do this this government we have. 

Jesse Lavoie: I don't expect them to fold. I hope they do. But if they do fold, I'm sure it's going to be a regulated rollout. I wouldn't mind if I if they're like, OK, you need to buy legal seeds and register and kind of, like a few other provinces have done, that's not a bad model. I don't like the OK, we'll have storage unit set up and you can go there and grow your own like that's like other provinces. You can grow your own property. If it's your property, you should have it there. But yeah, registering your seeds, I wouldn't mind otherwise. It should just fall in line with similar to the other provinces. 

Kirk: OK, I can see you're actually quite excited. You want them. Part of you wants to go to the Supreme Court and have that have that experience. 

Jesse Lavoie: Yeah. 

Kirk: Yeah. 

Jesse Lavoie: But that's just the selfish part of me. 

Kirk: Yeah. 

Jesse Lavoie: My family for like just getting back to my regular life probably would be better if they folded. But that competitive part of me and the fact that when you have such a big case and it's it's all built on so much work's got into it and then they're like, OK, we fold like that's not exciting. Like you should have folded in August when I when I challenged it initially, but not halfway through. 

Kirk: So, is your go-fund-me page like is it working for you or people helping you out? Like, are you draining your bank account on this? 

Jesse Lavoie: So far, we've, we've raised ten thousand and the go-fund-me, we've sold five thousand T-shirts, so we're about a third of the costs are covered. I've, I've put the rest aside and I'm ready, ready to pay it. So far I've, I have paid thirty thousand so I'm fifteen and personally and I have the other fifteen ready to go. 

Kirk: OK. Last words. Anything, anything else. I forget to ask for you something or a topic you want to speak to. 

Jesse Lavoie: I'm yeah when Covid allows, I'm going to be throwing an outdoor event so hopefully this summer but you know just how things are it might not happen for a while, but whenever we're allowed to, I would love to get the community together and all yell together, “Let Us Grow” and hopefully Pallister will hear. 

Kirk: OK, well, let us know when that happens and I'll make I'll make my way down. 

Jesse Lavoie: Awesome. 

Kirk: So what do you think? 

Trevor: I love that one. OK, so again, you're right, it's not the full story, but I think it is worth mentioning. So, PTSD, unfortunately, not uncommon at all in we'll call it law enforcement in general. That was sort of one of the impetuses behind Jesse's medicinal use, but another because we've touched on it in sort of other places. Interesting. Just but we'll do a little bit of medicinal end of cannabis interesting I thought that Jesse is someone who had PTSD and had night terrors and had all this the stuff that goes along with it. Use cannabis for a couple of years and now doesn't feel he needs it anymore, which just, you know, yes, it's a case study of one anecdote, whatever. But, just how I see some people with PTSD, you see lots of people with PTSD. How often do you hear of a case where people say, it's good, it's fantastic, it's wonderful, but I don't hear a lot of cases of people coming out the other side or coming out the other side that quickly so that I do. I like that part a lot. 

Kirk: Well, so do I. And mental health requires a foundation, requires assistance. He does mention his family in the interview. So, I'm going to I'm going to take a risk and say that he has a strong, a strong base of people watching out for him. He was involved with a horrific situation, dealt with. It came out the other end. And, you know, and he does admit to it. He does admit to it. This is his brick. This is his brick in the road. And in Canada's... Canada's deal with cannabis and how we're changing the stigma against cannabis. And in all due respect to Pallister and his government, there's a lot of stigma in this in these decisions. 

Trevor: Yes. So, let's get into the some of throw questions that Kirk. So, Kirk, how how dangerous is a carboy? At first, well, because there's going to be people who have never seen one. What is a carboy and why might it be dangerous? 

Kirk: Carboy or demi-john, I was listening to the interview today and it's actually it was actually a demi-john. Now a demi-john is a great big green jar in a basket. You'll see them Italian wine, excuse me for stereotyping, but you see them in Italian stores all the time. There where you make your wine. So, I had an opportunity back in the 90s. A friend of mine had access to a commercial kitchen. And we used to, we and ironically, Trevor, we've talked about Rick in the early episodes, in the early episodes of this of this project, I talked about my buddy, in LLB who died of cancer and was a chef. And he was using cannabis as part of his his own personal care and never shared it. I told the story maybe in Episode zero that we pulled. So so our early fans got the story. But Rick, Rick Harrison and I used to make beer in a commercial kitchen where I'd be in a soup bucket. And I think it's probably got 40 gallons of soup. So we made beer and we'd make it by scratch. We'd mash our own with my own hops and we made it so I can remember having two demi-johns. So basically 

Trevor: big glass bottles,. 

Kirk: Big glass bottles, 40 litres, 80 liters of beer and two bottles so 40 each. And to this day I was late for a party. I think it had something to do with my in-laws, a birthday or something, and I was carrying these demi-johns. Now these demijohns are heavy. They're about 100 pounds. I was running marathons in those days, a little bit more fit. I was younger trying to carry it into subterranean brewing supply shop into my basement. I used to have I used to sell beer supplies again, another story, take it into the basement. And my table collapsed. My table collapsed, and I dropped this glass carboy on a cement floor in my basement. And I was wearing sandals, actually, you know, maybe even stocking feet. But the phone rings, Michelle saying, “Where are you?” And I'm saying, I'm in the middle of a of a of a crisis. So, yes, I had to I had to basically move all of the beer into the sump. I lived on a property at that time and then collect the glass the next day. But that was sump pump porter and that was breaking your glass and it was quite dangerous. I could have I could have bled to death. I didn't. 

Trevor: And again, so not that it's a funny story. I like the story. I'm glad we got a good chance to tell. But I think a reasonable first-hand account of making beer and wine in your own house is not without risk. You know, they are they are small risks. But, you know, for many, many, many years we have said that this is a reasonable risk that adults, reasonable adults, can do in their own their own house. 

Kirk: And no children died. Nobody drowned. Nobody got cut. It was an accident, 

Trevor: There were risks, but. But reasonable adults should be able to manage it so again, one of Jesse’s is this more is growing at your own house, more more dangerous, OK. Kirk, one of your other favorite things. If a child ate a cannabis bud that you were growing, what what would the THC in that cannabis bud do to them? 

Kirk: Well, again, going back into our library, we have learned Trevor, that there is no THC in those buds. It's an acid form and it hasn't been decarboxylized yet. So, there's no psychotropic effect. I think the child is going to get some really nice greens, maybe some terpene, probably won't even like it. Probably will spit it out 

Trevor: as opposed to again, as a former brewer, what would happen if a child got into a jug of beer that you were brewing at home? 

Kirk: Well, depending on the age of the child, they'll they'll have a very good evening or depending on where it's at in the fermentation process, they may spit it out and go, this is gut rot. 

Trevor: But also could theoretically get drunk. Could you know, if we put all the right things in the right places, we could get a child with alcohol poisoning. 

Kirk: A child 

Trevor: if they tried. If we did everything right. You're right. They're more likely to drink it, vomit and that be the end of it. But that risk does exist. 

Kirk: And getting alcohol poisoning off of beer 

Trevor: is really hard, 

Kirk: very rare, very 

Trevor: we, because the percentage is so low. But if you were making wine and if if a child was young enough,. 

Kirk: 12 percent, 12 percent, 14 percent, very rare. 

Trevor: Yeah, no, absolutely. But just these are the I'm not trying hard to be impartial, but these are I think these are very reasonable comparisons to risk of growing your own at home versus risk of brewing at home. And everybody or I'll say most people seem to think they're the risk of brewing beer and wine at home. Not that much. Kirk, do you have any police coming in to your house recently to see if you turned on the fan after you had a shower? 

Kirk: That was an interesting point. I mean, there's more humidity in the house and the shower and come on, how many of us have gone to a friend's house that's maybe a little older house hasn't been renovated and you can smell the moisture in the bathroom. I mean, we've all been there. I'm sure you were there and in universities when your friends was crashing out 

Trevor: and as a pharmacist, because I'll throw my pharmacy plug. We talk about heat and humidity in your bathroom all the time. That's why friendly neighborhood pharmacist reminder, don't store your medications here. I know it's called the medicine cabinet. Don't keep them there. It gets hot and moist in there. And that is a great place for the medications to break down. So, we talk about that. You know, your bathroom is a terrible place to keep your medications, keep them somewhere else. 

Kirk: Why do we have medicine cabinets in the bathroom? 

Trevor: It is a bane of the existence of my profession. 

Kirk: Two banes for you. One is why doesn't medical cannabis go through pharmacies? and Why are medicine cabinets in the bathrooms? 

Trevor: Yes. Yes. Those are the top two on my list as a pharmacist. But yeah, just and again, I'm not trying to make light of it, but again, it sounds silly, but there are risks of the heat and humidity in a bathroom to medicines. And again, we think these are things that that reasonable adults can deal with. 

Kirk: You think. Right. You know, the other thing we have to think about I'm sorry, are you done yet? 

Trevor: Yeah, yeah. No, no. Jesse did a far better job. Those are just some of my top three three lists of interesting points that you brought up. 

Kirk: Tickle Kirk's fancy. But here's here's one that I found interesting Trevor is that the lawyer that is assigned on the Crown side, Michael Connor, I believe his name was you mentioned he is a constitutional lawyer and word on the street and literally word on the street. 

Trevor: All right. 

Kirk: You know where I'm located. I see everyone walking by my house. Right. 

Trevor: So, for those of you who don't know, Kirk is literally on the same street at the courthouse in Dauphin. 

Kirk: Yeah. So, word on the street without mentioning who the word was from. But the individual, Michael O'Connor is a constitutional lawyer. And as I was reading through the Liquor Gaming Cannabis Authority's affidavit, they spend a lot of time on the federal government debate on the provinces having autonomy on the cannabis regulations. So the government of Manitoba and I didn't discuss this with Jesse because I was sort of seeing if he would lead me into it. But word on the street is this is a conditional issue so, yeah, Jesse may Jesse may have captured, you know, all of the all of the issues and you may have crowned his own kings in a checker game, but if it's a constitutional issue, be damned the province has control and the province can just say no, I guess it comes down to a jurisdictional issue. 

Trevor: Was going to say so. Obviously not a lawyer. Neither are you. But, you know, wouldn't this be fascinating if this is what the province of Manitoba decides to spend their not withstanding clause on. 

Kirk: Yeah, yeah. On the fact that we're going to save the children by not growing cannabis in their in our homes. No, it's it's an interesting story. I bought the T-shirt, Trevor. 

Trevor: I see that. So yeah. That that's an excellent Segway into there is a Tabagrown go-fund-me page. 

Kirk: Yes, there is. And, and go buy the T-shirt and some of our local businesses in town have bought a bunch of t shirts. You can do it, but you know, it really comes down to Trevor and I'm going to step I'm going to step up here and say this as a nurse, I have real, real problems with the government out of one side of the mouth, saying they're going to make liquor more accessible to the population base of Manitoba. But on the other side of the mouth saying they're going to prevent us from growing our own cannabis. Because in my opinion, as a nurse and what I understand about both of those issues and all due respect, man, ignorance is curable. Stupid is forever. Is our government... 

Trevor: What do you really think Kirk? 

Kirk: I'm serious. I'm serious, Trevor. Alcohol has created so many problems for us in the health care field. We know it. It's researched. It's out there, but it's Mr. Pallister wants it more accessible so we can walk down our street during covid, quote unquote, so we can get some activity to get some booze. That's his motivation for us to get out and walk is that we can go to our local store. This is quote unquote, I heard it on CBC. I'm sure you heard the quote. 

Trevor: Yes. Yeah. I'm not going to prejudge Mr. Pallister because. 

Kirk: Honestly.

Trevor: But no, I am going to completely agree with you. I think I knew this before our little podcast project, but because we've been forced to look at this more and more. Yeah. And this is I pointed the finger back at me. I enjoy alcohol. I enjoyed a lot. 

Kirk: Hey, I'm drinking home-made mead, I'm having a glass of mead right now, 

Trevor: but it doesn't take much research to find as a substance alcohol consumption causes a whole lot of toxicological problems, like a whole bunch 

Kirk: oh, domestic domestic violence, fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, 

Trevor: fatty livers. 

Kirk: Oh, 

Trevor: cirrhosis. Like they're drunk driving accident and and and but it's it's it's the devil you know. Right. So, you know, we're 

Kirk: but it's ignorance. It's ignorance. Ignorance is curable. 

Trevor: But, yeah, if you if you do just a cursory dive into it. 

Kirk: Yeah. 

Trevor: On just the safety end, you know, if this is all about patient safety or population safety. 

Kirk: Harm reduction. 

Trevor: Harm reduction is the word I'm looking for. 

Kirk: Yeah. 

Trevor: Cannabis beats alcohol hands down. Hands down. You just it's not it's not even close. 

Kirk: You think, OK, you know what on that, because I thank you for that. You get to choose the music because obviously I Fought the Law and the Law Won is not appropriate. 

Trevor: So, I really wanted that one. I did. I want to do the version with what? What was his name. Oh, John Cougar Mellencamp doing that. That's that's a favorite song. Well, if we can squeeze that one in, that would make me very happy. 

Kirk: But but the law is not supposed to win on this one. 

Trevor: Well, we don't know. It's the the jury. The jury, which they won't be in this, but the jury is still out. I can say the jury is out and it actually kind of means something on this one. 

Kirk: Yes, very true. So we need some sponsors and the Web page. 

Trevor: Web pages is up. 

Kirk: I'm really excited about it, Trevor. There's going to be opportunity for people to look through our library a little bit more dense, more a little bit better. They can see the transcripts. They can cut and paste and quote us. They can search the Web page by key terms. Information will be accessible from the experts that we've we've lectured to the ones we interviewed. 

Trevor: Because that's what we do. We bring it to experts on it, tell them what to think. 

Kirk: Tell them what to do. Yeah. Yeah. Anyways, the point being is that I'm quite excited about it. 

Trevor: You put a ton of work into this and as usual, we've forgotten our introductions till the end. So I'm sure I'm Trevor Shewfelt the pharmacist. Who are you? 

Kirk: I'm Kirk Nyquist the nurse and I'm wearing the T-shirt. 

Trevor: Tobagrown T-shirt, go go to his website. We'll have a link in our show notes. But Tobagrown.ca I think. 

Kirk: That's it, yeah. 

Trevor: And yet there is there, like you said, what during your research, there is more info there that you can shake a stick at. I'm hoping we can keep following Jesse's story for a few more episodes as things progressed because this is fascinating and interesting and harm reduction. Right. 

Kirk: Harm reduction.  All right. Done!