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E105 - CannMed 23 – These are the People in Your Neighbourhood Part 1

Ahmed Labied – Morocco - At the opening reception of CannMed 23, there were all these people with green t-shirts that said Morocco. Trevor introduced himself and was told he had to talk to Ahmed Labied. Ahmed explained that in August 2023 there should be the first legal crop of cannabis coming off the field in Morocco and that they’re organizing a cannabis conference in Morocco in November 2023.

Texas A&M - Everything is bigger in Texas. These tall gentlemen from Texas A&M are all about hemp. Russell Jessup is an Associate Professor Texas A&M. Clayton Moore is a Student Researcher at Texas A&M in AgriLife Soil & Crop Sciences. David Baltensperger is a Professor and the Head of Soil & Crop Sciences at Texas A&M. Listen to hear what Texas A&M has been doing with hemp.

Cathie Hiegel - Hear Cathie’s winding road from cytotechnologist to writing the textbook, “A Microscopic View of Medicinal Cannabis”. It really is a very well referenced, easy to read text on Cannabis.

Markus Roggen - Our Germany, American, Canadian chemist. Markus runs Delic labs at UBC in Vancouver, BC. Although it really has nothing to do with the high-powered chemistry his company does every day, Markus is a little obsessed with cannabis names. He found that every year when he gets new students, he has to re-explain cannabis nomenclature. He wondered if he could develop a new classification system for cannabis. Long time cannabis aficionados may hate this, but the rest of us might really like it.

Episode Transcript

Trevor: Kirk, we're back. 

Kirk: Hey, Trevor. So you've been traveling? 

Trevor: I've been traveling. It's actually kind of nice here in Dauphin, Manitoba, Canada. You know, we were just recently at a outdoor party barbecue at our friend John's house. And, you know, the weather here is nice, but I went a little further south for a few days and met a bunch of people in the cannabis industry. 

Kirk: You met some pretty highfalutin people in the cannabis industry, my friend. I'm very impressed. 

Trevor: No, it was cool. I will tell the listeners to I am fine talking one on one to people. And in fact, I if you put me on a stage in front of a thousand people, I'm fine talking. One of my little, little anxieties is, you know, put me in a big group, you know, a social and go try to introduce myself one one on one to everybody in the room. Gives me a little bit of anxiety. So the fact that I managed to do that in at CannMed 23 in Marco Island, Florida, I'm impressed that I didn't have any little anxiety attacks over that. It seemed to have gone okay. 

Kirk: So quick summary now you went down to CannMed 23. Just a quick summary. How did you end up at this table and who were you sitting with? 

Trevor: So and this will come up more in future episodes. But where I went down. So on the first day there was sort of three streams of talks. There was medical talks, which I'd normally have been at if I was just an attendee. There's a capital markets talk and sort of a cultivation stream of talks. I ended up in the capital markets one. A gentleman called David Traylor invited me to sit on a panel with Dr. Ethan Russu, you know, cannabis legend and Dr. Deedy or David Murray and supposed to be Doctor Stacy Gruber from Harvard, but she unfortunately couldn't make it. And me. Talking about cannabis, cannabinoids, and indications and that went okay. Didn't make too much of a fool of myself and didn't step on the PhD's toes too much. So but because I was down there, you know, I talked for, help talk on a panel for about an hour. But that also meant I got to a whole bunch of other talks and just, you know, with the little events all around the conference, got to meet a whole bunch of cool people. 

Kirk: And bring out your phone and record them. 

Trevor: Well, you know, that's kind of what we do now. Well, hi, I'm from Canada. You want to talk into my phone? 

Kirk: Tell me about what you know about cannabis. So this is almost like your road stories. 

Trevor: I guess this is my version of road stories. Although, you know, I only had to travel once and then sort of just wander around a conference room. 

Kirk: So how are you going to do this? We've got we've got four stories. You're going to you're going to you're going to introduce to me individually. You want to do it right now. All of them. 

Trevor: Have what we'll do, do them one at a time. So we'll start with Ahmed from Morocco. So on opening night, there was a reception for everybody and the the Moroccans were hard to miss because there were there were a big group and they were all wearing green t shirts that said Morocco. So, you know, that was a pretty easy thing to say, okay, these people are all together. Why don't I wander up to them and ask them about, you know, cannabis in Morocco? I was telling you that, you know, historically, apparently people have been growing cannabis in Morocco since at least the time of the Romans. And then you kind of laughed at me and said, you know, there's might even be a song about that. So what song there, Kirk? 

Kirk: Well, Morocco was a destination for the hitchhikers of the sixties and early seventies used to go through Europe and Northern Africa and Tangiers. Tangiers was the place they were and used to go get their hashish. And Crosby, Stills and Nash have a song called Marrakesh Express, basically talking about going to Marrakesh. And it's pretty much a drug song. Not that we're going to get into Crosby, Stills and Nash, but Nash. Nash wanted to record the song with The Hollies, but The Hollies considered it too much of a drug song. So it made me it made me laugh to think that Ahmed made saying that Morocco's for the first time is going to have a cannabis conference. I'm thinking, guys, I've been going down to Tangiers for decades. 

Trevor: But as Ahmed said. 

Kirk: to check out the hashish. 

Trevor: In August 2023, Morocco should have its first legal cannabis crop coming off the field, and then they are running a conference there in November. 

Kirk: Yeah, now I googled, and it's called the Morocco Cannabis Expo 2023. And on the web page it says September 20, 21, 22, 23, September, September 2023. And he's on the panel. So I'm pretty sure that I'm on the right expo. So I guess check the dates. Yeah, they may have they may have changed it. 

Trevor: And but how about let's, let's go and listen to Ahmed. 

Kirk: Fantastic.

Trevor: So we're at CannMed 23 and I'm here with Ahmed. Ahmed is all the way from Morocco. And it's going to tell me a little bit about what's going on with cannabis in Morocco. Ahmed What's going on in Morocco? 

Ahmed Labied: My name is Ahmed. I am the coordinator of the Moroccan team who attend CannMed this year and our association, AMCUC is nonprofit association in Morocco who help the government of Morocco to set up the system, legal system, cannabis in Morocco. The first state where last year that we approved, the Parliament of Morocco approved the law for legalization of the cannabis. And now we are in the second step is to help medical staff to understand all the benefits of cannabis. That why we attend this year, CannMed23 And we expect to organize in Morocco the first the conference in cannabis in Africa. Will we be in November 20 and 21st and 22nd in the city Al Hoceima. Al Hoceima is the capital of cannabis in Morocco. That what we will organize our conference there because Morocco is known as country who have a long history of cannabis cultivation. 

Trevor: Yeah, you were saying that since at least the time of the Romans, maybe longer, right? 

Ahmed Labied: Yes. Yes. We know that the Romans empire 500 year before Jesus, they cultivated cannabis in Morocco and size this state. All the people in the north of Morocco because the weather the altitude produce during one of the best plant of cannabis in the world.  

Trevor: And you said in August of this year there should be the first legal. No, no. The first legal crop should come off in November. In August

Ahmed Labied: Yes, Yes, in August. Yes. Because some farmer get license from the Moroccan government to grow cannabis legally. And we will have the first come in on August that what we organize our conference in November. 

Trevor: That's very exciting. Ahmed, it's really nice to meet you. 

Ahmed Labied: Nice to meet you too. 

Trevor: So I think Ahmed might literally been the first person I talked to at the whole conference. So it's nice that we sort of teed him up first. So from Ahmed next, I want to go to the Texas A&M Group. So during my panel there, there was a group. I think they even at that point said they're from Texas A&M, who asked them what I thought were really good questions. But we sort of ran out of time on the panel to answer them. So I kind of met them in the hallway afterwards and talked to them a little bit. And the first first thing I know now, for those of you who haven't met me in person, I'm a pretty big guy, relatively tall. Everything is bigger in Texas Kirk. This A&M panel towered over me, towered over me. And so but like I saying, the conference definitely had, you know, medical people. Capital markets will call investment type people and cultivation people. So the A&M group were in the cultivation end. And the three voices you're going to hear is we've got Russ, Russell Jessup. He's an associate professor at A&M. Clayton Moore, I thought was interesting, was a student. They brought along a student, in Agrilife and Soil Crop Sciences and David Boltonsperber, who is the head, the professor and head of soil and Crop sciences at Texas A&M. And I thought you'd really enjoy this one, because while we all know how much you like hemp and like to talk about the cultivation of it. 

Kirk: Yeah, I know what we've had. We've had two episodes specifically on hemp, and that's episode 45 Hemp Sense and, and CBDilities. And we've also had season two, Episode nine Hemp. Hemp Hurray. And there's a lot of similarities in in what we learned from those episodes. And these are local hemp farmers in Dauphin Manitoba, Canada, and I just felt that these guys are learning from an academic perspective how to do it locally, because what we learned, what we learned from those episodes was that hemp hemp is like grass, so harvesting hemp is like harvesting grass. As soon as you cut it, it starts to compost. So I'm sure they're trying to research different technologies to grow hemp in a great way. And Lyle talked to us about that when in an episode, Episode 45. So I also found it interesting. Texas A&M means agricultural, mechanical. And you were talking to the agriculture people, and when I Googled their hemp programs, they're into it on the engineering side too, because their engineers are going for are looking at hempcrete, which is another another subject that we dealt with in episode 77, so that this three little three minute spot that you got for Texas A&M kind of we've done 3 hours on it in an episode just saying. So it's kind of cool that you're talking to people who are catching up to Canadians. Does that make sense? 

Trevor: Sure. I don't know if they would agree that they're catching up, but yes, they were very, very polite. Large gentleman who was very happy, gave me some time. So let's listen to the Texas A&M Group. So right now we have a couple of people from Texas A&M. So I'm going to start with Russell. Russell, what are you guys doing? 

Russell Jessup: My name is Russ. I'm a professor, industrial hemp breeder at Texas A&M University, and we have been working on improving industrial hemp for Texas in the southern U.S. for about three years now. Grain, fiber, cannabinoids, any commodity you can think of

Trevor: That's excellent. And Clayton, you're also with the A&M group. What what are you doing? We'll call it cannabis related. 

Clayton Moore: Hi, my name is Clayton Moore. I'm a student researcher in the Industrial Hemp Breeding Program, focusing on the hemp conversion program. I also run a student organization of 74 active members with over 51 different majors in diversity. 

Trevor: That's cool. Okay, What's hemp conversion? I have no idea. What does that mean? 

Clayton Moore: The hemp conversion program is where I reach out to breeders, cultivators all around the world within the 30 degrees north, latitude to a 30 degrees south latitude for more southern coastal adapted hemp. We will take those donations to cross with our heat and drought tolerant lines that are also compliant under the point 3% THC range. And then we'll go to the F2 generation to select from recessive appeals that show higher CBD and lower THC and compliance and heat and drought tolerance. 

Trevor: I'm impressed. And David, you're also with the A&M team. What do you have to tell me about the program you guys are running? 

David Baltensperger: Well, David Baltensperger I'm the department head for Soil and Crop Sciences at Texas A&M, but one of the initiators of tech of research at Texas A&M pushed through getting a research license for the university. And then we have programs from plant pathology to gene editing and molecular genetics to breeding that you heard Russ talk about for the student programs Clayton talked about. But try to stay ahead of all of those and keep pushing for where there's new opportunity to make hemp a viable crop for Texas. 

Trevor: That's excellent. And where where are you guys hoping that maybe the program will go next year? 

David Baltensperger: Well, one of the things that we look for is for hemp to go to the field. So most of the production currently for any of the medicinal hemp or for medicinal marijuana is done in a greenhouse or growth room. We hope to develop the production practices to take it to the field. Hemp has been growing in the field in Texas, so we're starting to get some producers who are successfully growing it and getting it to market. And that's really where we're concentrating is getting it to the field. 

Trevor: Thank you very much, gentlemen. This is great. It was nice meeting you. So, Kirk, there was a bunch of cannabis nurses there. I know. I think you said at some point, well, of course, the most fun people at a conference are nurses and they were fun and got to have fun. 

Kirk: Find the nurses, man, when you go to a medical conference, find the nurses. 

Trevor: So I was I had dinner at the same tables, a bunch of cannabis nurses, and I was trying to get organized the next day to, to get because they had the president of the Cannabis Nurses Association of America. I think I have that right. She was there, but we just never seemed to quite connect. For me to get a few words out of her. But while I was trying to connect with them, the conference had a sort of a trade show area where different companies had booths set up and in one booth was an older gentleman and they asked, you know, what he was doing there. And while he was waiting for his wife, okay, well, she's written a book. And so this is Cathie Hiegel. So she was a she's a cytotechnologist. I had no idea what that was, but apparently that she looked through a microscope at cancer cells. 

Kirk: And it's an education qualification. 

Trevor: Yeah. And she had a friend who was going to open like a cannabis store, a cannabis clinic. And she said, Well, you know, if you're going to do that, you're going to need a whole bunch of documentation. Why don't I help you with that? So she started doing a bunch of cannabis research for this friend who's going to open up a cannabis store, cannabis clinic, and the long and sort of it, the friends business didn't get licensed. It didn't happen. But now Cathie's got all of this research she's done on cannabis and she turned it into a textbook and we were sort of talking off camera. You know, we keep getting told that there's no research to back up cannabis. This is a really well referenced, easy to read textbook on cannabis. You know, you might be able argue whether you like some of the references or don't like some of the references, but it's really hard to argue, "there is no research on cannabis" because she's literally just written a textbook and referenced it all. 

Kirk: A Microscopic View of Medical Cannabis: A Handbook for Clinicians, Medical Professionals, Dispensary Staff, and Patients. 

Trevor: Yeah, and I'll admit, I liked it so much. I bought one and stuffed in my suitcase and brought her back. 

Kirk: And you got her to sign it. I trust. 

Trevor: It's. It's got to be autographed by the author, right? 

Kirk: Yeah, I know. It looks like a really cool book. I'm interested in having to look at it when you have a chance. 

Trevor: Absolutely. So let's listen to Cathie. And we are here with Cathie Hiegel. And, Cathie, let's start with what I hadn't heard of this before. A cytotechnologist. What is that and what were you doing pre cannabis? 

Cathie Hiegel: I was looking at slides under a microscope for cancer. I had studied at Parkland Hospital in Dallas, Texas. I looked at slides and then I got kind of burned out and I went and taught preschool for a while, teachers. And then I got into this writing this medical marijuana book. I feel like there's so much misinformation out there. We really need to get information in the hands of people who can really help people in their patients. A lot of doctors don't even know what the endocannabinoid system is. They never were taught that in college or are even in their teaching. So we really need to go back and look at that because once the endocannabinoid system is in homotasis a lot of diseases will go away. 

Trevor: And I should mention right off the top. So Cathie's book is A Microscopic View of Medical Cannabis. Now, there's lots of really cool stuff in here, including a lot of really good references. But you were saying that every so often you run into a surprise and you said some of the Terpenes surprised you. What what sort of a been a surprising terpene you've run into lately? 

Cathie Hiegel: Um. Phytol. 

Trevor: And what is Phytol do? 

Cathie Hiegel: Well well let's just look in here. 

Trevor: Let's let's look through the book. That's what is here for. 

Cathie Hiegel: I want them to know that the book actually has these things in there. So you look in here. 

Trevor: Yeah.

Cathie Hiegel: And the thing that surprised me the most is it was working with insomnia. Most people think when they talk or think of insomnia, they think of Linalool Myrcene, those types of terpenes. But you have to look at all the terpenes . So a lot of these have pharmaceutical pharmacology properties that you don't even know. So I've broken that into each one, tell you how what the aroma is, what how it makes you feel, its relaxing. And I also put the diseases that it may help. 

Trevor: And for those of you not staring at the book right now, it's this is very heavily referenced like everything that Cathie lists in here she she has a reference for it so it's it's it's both easy to read and and well reference. So let's talk a little bit about the disease as mentioned in the book. 

Cathie Hiegel: Okay. I've taken 26 diseases and 19 cancers and I have the description, the symptoms. The benefits, the risk of using cannabis with that disease or symptom, the cannabinoids, the Terpenes, the flavonoids, the dosage and the chemo-type for each one. And I have a little picture at the end of each one of these that describes exactly everything I just said, but it's in a condensed form. So if you're a doctor or a budtender or you can just flip into there, see what you're doing and know what to tell the patient. 

Trevor: Thank you, Cathie. And she signed my book, so that's really cool, too. Nice to meet you. So Marcus Roggen, a German guy, so literally lived all over the world, you know, he German, I think he said Singapore. Studies in the U.S. and he's now ending up in Vancouver. I was having lunch with Marcus and another gentleman, Terry, O'Regan from Brainsbioceutical, and they were comparing accents. So, you know, Marcus German, but he's lived all over the world. Terry had born in Britain but grew up in South Africa. So, you know, they were sort of teasing each other about speaking English weird. And it made me think of my family, I guess, Doris's family. So Doris's family is all from Germany. And many years ago, Emily was just a toddler. We visited Doris's family in Hamburg. And at that point, you know, when they speaking German, I don't speak German. When they're speaking German, they all sounded the same. But when they started speaking English, it's like being at the UN. Like, Doris's grandmother and one of the aunts, Doris's mom has two sisters. One of the aunts sounded very British. There is a cousin so ballpark Doris's age who sounded Australian because she had taken sort of a gap year and gone to Australia too to work on her English. Or is another aunt who went to university in in Arizona. So to my ears she sounded quote unquote normal. So and at that point now it's 20 years ago. So I don't know what they went off to do. There was two younger cousins who hadn't yet finished high school, so hadn't sort of done this gap year, go learn English somewhere else. But what I really wanted was for one of them to go to somewhere like South Africa and another one to go to like someone like Boston. And that way, you know, the family could, you know, have English accents from all over the world around one table. I thought that would've been super cool. So but after that small connection. 

Kirk: Thank you for that. 

Trevor: So Marcus's company is called Delic Labs. It's in around UBC, and every year he gets new students. Now, he was giving a talk, unfortunately, was on while I was flying out of Florida, so I didn't get to listen to the talk. But it may give me a preview. So it is talk isn't really because he does analytical chemistry. His talk really wasn't on the the chemistry that he does as part of his job. But he found every year he got students and he'd sort of have to explain cannabis nomenclature to them because, you know, every time they came in that it's like. So he started thinking about, well, is there a better way for us to classify cannabis? And my thought was, this is both brilliant and will piss off what we'll call the old timers or the the cannabis aficionados, because this is completely different than, you know, I like Pink Kush, but I thought it was at least an interesting idea to, to, to talk about. 

Kirk: Oh, fascinating. I really enjoyed listening to this fellow talk. Not just his accent, but just what he was saying. I again, I googled him. Power List 2020 analytical gurus considered one of these cannabis scientists gurus in 2020. And I really like what he's saying when he talks about measuring your high and comparing, you know, that everything's based on THC values or, you know, based on how how high you get on THC. That's not how we rate alcohol. You know, he's right. I don't rate alcohol by buying this druggest booze, You know, a cask of whisky will be about 55 to 60%, whereas a store bought whisky is 40%, a store bought. They're both store bought. But, you know, a regular blended whiskey is 40%. Now, the reason you buy a cask whisky is not because he's got a higher alcohol you buy because it's got different characteristics. Right. And same with beer and wine. I mean, you drink a beer that has, you know, 4 to 6% and then you drink a wine as we do nine and ten. So I really liked how he used that. And then when he gets into the international units. So I think let's go in and listen to his accent. And because what he says, I think I think it's I think it's revolutionary. I think it needs to be heard in the cannabis industry. I think I don't I don't care about pissing people off. I think I think he's got a I think he's got a point. 

Trevor: About me too. So let's, let's do Marcus. So it CannMed 2023 and we have Marcus are are German American Canadian chemist who, you know, triathlete, amongst other things. But the most important part is he's got an interesting lab in UBC, and we're going to have him tell us a little bit about what he does. 

Marcus Roggen: Hello, my name is Dr. Marcus Hoggen. As you can tell, I'm German. I have a Ph.D. in chemistry. I serendipity ended up in the cannabis industry, which is a long story too long for this podcast. But I started off first working in California in the cannabis industry, hence the American thing. But if we go by the places I live, then I'm also British, Swiss and Singaporean. But I only hold a German nationality. I eventually moved to Canada to do more fundamental cannabis chemistry research, and we located this private lab that's now called Dalic Labs on the grounds of UBC in Vancouver. 

Trevor: Okay, Marcus, that that is an interesting back. And too bad we don't have a little more time. But really, why I keg holed you right now as you're giving an interesting talk tomorrow that unfortunately, I'm going to missm about we'll call it "the naming of cannabis." I was hoping you could give us just sort of a quick summary of what you're going to be talking about tomorrow. 

Marcus Roggen: Sure. No problem. I have to quickly step back. What do we do in research. In our research, we do analytics of cannabis, not compliance testing, but like the complicated stuff. And in in process analytics, we also do process optimization and some formulation work. Like all the underlying chemistry, and we work closely with the university. I sponsor a few grad students and post-docs and I hire lots of undergrad students for my work, and I have this rotating set of undergrad students that come to my lab and I have to explain cannabis to them, which is weird, right? I have to tell students what cannabis is. I've spoil the youth, but because we have students from all the different fields. We, as we already a fundamental chemistry lab, we look at cannabis from its fundamentals and what not understand why is it done this way? And now you have to explain it to students who have no idea. So you really have to think why are things done that way? And so we got stuck on the question why is cannabis sold as total THC? So total THC is the weight percentage of THC in the plant plus the weight percentage of THC acid with a weight correction, because THCA carboxylics and then is lighter and that leads to the industry selling flower as like cannabis flower with 25% THC, total THC. And that educated and guided consumers to buying cannabis based on that number. And I try to make the argument that the math is wrong, it gives the wrong incentive and we should present cannabis differently to allow the consumer to make a better decision of what product they actually want. And so in my talk, I first get to the point that total THC is miscalculated because it only corrects for the weight of weight loss of the substance, but not about the weight loss of the sample. So the denominator. So it's a quick example: a pure THC, a crystal can never be 100% total THC because the current formula doesn't consider the weight loss of the sample. Only the weight loss of the THC acid. Okay, so a pure THCA crystal would be 87% pure total THC. Okay, this cannot be right. A pure sample can't be impure. 

Trevor: Sure.

Marcus Roggen: So that is the starting point. So if the number is wrong, the industry leaves on the table about four hundred million a year because the price is dictated by that THC number. 

Trevor: Right.

Marcus Roggen: And then I will make the argument that if any other consumer would buy their product the way cannabis consumers do, you would go in a wine store and select vodka because it has the highest alcohol number. 

Trevor: Right.

Marcus Roggen: But that's not why you buy wine. 

Trevor: No,.

Marcus Roggen: You don't actually care about the alcohol number because it's always about the same. So one idea would be that we don't package cannabis by the eighth and then add the total THC weight percentage to it. We should package cannabis flower to a fixed amount of THC. So the weight might be an eighth or a little bit more or a little bit less, but the consumer always gets the same amount of THC. So you don't wonder about the buzz. So you sell it by a Standard Buzz or a Standard Drink equivalent in the cannabis world. And then you can start educating the consumer about the flavor, the aroma, the effects, if you think. But the consumer never feels cheated of buying less THC because they always get the same amount. 

Trevor: Okay, "A" that's fascinating. "B" Now we're going to go down a small rabbit hole. So occasionally Kirk: and I, my co-host we have, we've cooked with cannabis and we've made cannabutter or cannabis infused avocado oil. And then if we are serving it to guests, We, okay the pharmacist, does the math as far as he can tell, to try to figure out how much THC someone's going to get in a serving of, you know, the ice cream, the cookie, the whatever. And I'm assuming that I can just take that, like you said, the 23% THC. Weigh the sample and that will give me the amount of I can use that as a starting point to figure out how much THC is in my final cooking product. Can I do that or is that off to. 

Marcus Roggen: The error you introduced based on the miscalculation of total THC is  minute in flower? It's like half a percent points, 2% points. So that that isn't the problem. The problem is that you extraction efficiency comes into play and that's the other field of my research. And so we are wildly out. There is a wide spectrum of what could have happened. So it's gambling. It's a bit like Russian roulette with with infused brownies. But the infused brownie, all your infused cooking is actually the launching point for my second idea of how to label cannabis. 

Trevor: All right, we're all ears. 

Marcus Roggen: So, do your audience take vitamins or vitamins, depending on which part of the English speaking world you are in. 

Trevor: We are vitamins here. And of course they do. 

Marcus Roggen Okay, so you take about a thousand international units or IUs of vitamin D? 

Trevor: Yes, that's very common in Canada. We have no sunshine. 

Marcus Roggen Right. How much is that? 

Trevor: I don't know, because no one, even as a pharmacist, no one's told us what an IU is. But I'm sure I could look it up. But you're right. They're all labeled as IU's not milligrams. 

Marcus Roggen Right. IUs (international units) have nothing to do with the weight or the moles, which is the number of atoms of molecules of that compound. IUs are there to standardize the effect across different formulations and applications. So a thousand IUs of a cookie give you the same effect as a thousand IUs of a vape cart. 

Trevor: That would be great. That's a great idea. 

Marcus Roggen And now called these IUs "Intoxication units."  And you have my idea for the second way of labeling. You packaged cannabis as a thousand IUs. And at that point it can be a 90% pure THC vape oil. But you know how much THC is inhaled and how it affects in an inhalation aspect to get you buzzed versus maybe five mg THC brownie, which leads to the same intoxication. But the weight you inhaled from a vape cart and the weight you ate from a brownie in pure THC is different, but the effect is the same. So it would allow consumers of jumping from one product form to the next, knowing that they always get the same effect. People will tell that cannabis hits everyone different. That's fine, but it doesn't matter. It's about how it relates for you personally. So if you figured out that you need 1500 IUs, then you know that this number you can now apply to all product types. 

Trevor: Okay, without getting too nerdy because I'm going to lose some of the audience. But the problem is when I eat a gummy, a brownie, part of my high is the is the active metabolite, and if I inhale it, I avoid that active metabolites. So would your intoxication units try to account for that as well, right. 

Marcus Roggen Yes, because you wouldn't you would have to find a way. So going back to the standard unit right. The drink. You just know it's always the same amount of THC milligrams you package. For IUs, you actually have to do clinical trials to figure out how this product affects the person. So you might have to take blood plasma or you have to make an intoxication score. Like you have to ask them, "Hey, how buzzed ya are." Like a roadside test or something. So it's a bit more work. But I mean, they did it for nutraceuticals. For your vitamin C, so why can't we do that for cannabis? 

Trevor: Marcus that's fascinating. Thank you very much. This has been great. 

Marcus Roggen Thank you very much for having me. 

Trevor: So, Kirk, those were sort of four of the four of the interesting cannabis people that I've met that in Florida. We got so many of them, rather than jam them all into one episode, we thought we'd split this up into two. So this will be part one of two. So maybe we should say things like, I'm Trevor: Shewfelt I'm the pharmacist. 

Kirk: Kirk: Nyquist the registered nurse, and we are Reefer Medness - The Podcast found that reefermed.ca and all your social, all your social platforms, we're not all of them, I guess. We're on Instagram, we're on Facebook, we're on Twitter, we're on LinkedIn. And of course our web page is truly dynamic. And did anybody give you a song? 

Trevor: No. 

Kirk: How about the Marrakesh Express. 

Trevor: Sure, you're right. I just learned about that today. So, yeah, So in honor of our Ahmed and Morocco and the good things that are going on there, I would be tickled pink if if Rene pulled up Marrakesh Express. 

Kirk: Perfect.

Trevor: All right, We'll talk to you. Well, come on back, everybody, for part two.