Episode Transcript

Trevor: Kirk. You were back from B.C.?

Kirk: Yes. I went on a road trip back in June and July. How's it going, Trevor? How. How has been your summer?

Trevor: I'm good. Relatively uneventful. What have I done? Well, we. We drove out to Saskatchewan and picked up a new puppy. Her name's Rosie. She, not surprisingly, is adorable. Helped move my son from one side of Winnipeg to another.

Kirk: We haven't had an Eric story in a while.

Trevor: Yeah, well, this one involves a pool table that he bought because that's what you do. And then had no room to put it in the old place or the new place and thought he'd sell it for thousands of dollars. And of course, none of that happened. And then the culmination was trying to get the slate out of the old place because, you know, we were giving up the old place and did you know.

Kirk: A pool table sitting on its side, I imagine.

Trevor: Well, no, no. This is a picture, a pool table in pieces. Did you know that the pieces of slate in said pool table are 300 pounds each?

Kirk: I had no clue.

Trevor: And I'm really glad that these the Eric and his roommate are two big, strong 19 year-olds who spend a lot of time in the gym because I couldn't move it.  So I ended up he ended up giving away the pool table to somebody on Facebook Marketplace and ended up all well. But there was, there was a few moments when the two mothers were none too happy with Eric and his stack of pool table that we couldn't maneuver. But, you know, things happen. I did go on a fishing trip, which is going to tie into this in a bit. I've got to leave the fishing trip there because Mango Chew just remembered the word mango chew. It's going to come. We're going to tie it into some of your your thing in a second. But let's talk about Kirk. You saw a bunch of places and a bunch of cannabis shops and talked to a bunch of people.

Kirk: Yeah. Michelle and I took Van Hood out to Victoria. I mean, our listeners will know that every summer we take VanHoot out. Michelle and I go on, travels and try to find different stories. I mean, we go to, we visit local pubs. We visit thrift shops, we visit ice cream shops, we visit a lot of ice cream shops. And we also I also get an opportunity to go to Rec Shops. And one of the reasons why I go to Rec Shops is because I want to figure out what's going on in the cannabis story at the Rec level, what how are people consuming cannabis and really to learn about how people consume cannabis requires you to go to the Rec Shops. Really. I think bud tenders know more about cannabis and half the medical professionals out there. So yeah, we're out taking VanHoot across the Saskatchwind. I'm sorry, but from here on in Saskatchewan, there's always going to be Saskatchewind for me because taking VanHoot towards the west against that westerly winds, that westerly wind rabbit, I tell you, lots of gas was spent going through Saskatchewind. So, we get Saskatchewind, we get through Alberta, we visit some relatives and we get into British Columbia. As it turned out, I never know how these road stories are going to go, but as it turns out, I end up collecting all of these stories from British Columbia and Trevor it was remarkable. I ended up walking to lots of reserve stores, First Nation shops, not knowing there were First Nation shops, but immediately recognizing them and this took some learning, but immediately recognizing the British Columbia Reserve shops because of the shelving of magic mushrooms.

Trevor: Interesting.

Kirk: Getting magic mushrooms in British Columbia is like getting cannabis circa 2005 to 2010 in British Columbia, it's everywhere. I went to corporate shops. A lot of them didn't give me stories. I went to government shops. British Columbia has government stores similar to they have their B.C. Liquor Stores they didn't get, give me a story. A lot of The Independent did. But what I did Trevor, is I was going around with 50 of our posters and I would walk in, I would walk into a Rec Store and say, Hey, I'm Kirk Nyquist. And from Reefer Medness - The Podcast and I got a poster for you and that would be my in to get a story. I would say 99.9% of the stores took a poster and 35% of them gave me a story. So that's what this is. This is from Tappen, British Columbia to Fort St John's. I think we're going to have two episodes on this. Anything strike you? And before we get into the first set.

Trevor: A million years ago, I actually took a bus to Vernon, B.C. so I definitely went through Salmon Arm, I may or may not have gone through Tappen which presently is nearby but yeah just a small independent on reserve place and that sound sounded like a lovely place to visit.

Kirk: Well, there were two stores there was the cannabis store that did not give me a story. And then right next door is the Top Hat Smoke on the Water tobacco store. So I just wandered in there and you will find it on our Instagram post I posted on Instagram, so you'll see it there. I wander in there and the guy selling cannabis. So not just tobacco, but cannabis. And I got a store. I got a story from a fellow there. So that's that story. And it was kind of a cool little story. And that's sort of where I started seeing the mushrooms.

Top Hat We're located in Tappen just passed Salmon Arm we are a dispensary that has been open for four years that specializes in concentrates, high end cannabis. All locally sourced no chemicals, no pesticides used. Our concentrates are always at 98% or higher as far as purity and our prices are notoriously the best in town. So stop by and check us out.

Kirk: So you're called the Top Hat?

Top Hat Yeah, Top Hat -Smoke on the Water dispensary.

Kirk: So it's a reserve. It's a reserve shop.

Top Hat Yes. On Adams Indian band in Tappen Salmon Arm.

Kirk: in British Columbia and I've noticed you've got you've got smoke here, You've got infused cans.

Top Hat We have infused cannabis. Regular cannabis. Cigarettes. Chewing tobacco. Pretty much everything.

Kirk: Okay. So that cannabis is locally grown.

Top Hat Yeah. Yeah. Everything that we have is sourced here in the Okanogan

Kirk: Okay so but there's so there's not big, big corporate. 

Top Hat No! God, no, no. It's all individual growers and when we, we know their quality so we yeah, we stick with them. We don't, we don't deviate, we don't go to different growers constantly. We have 1 or 2 growers. We know that they don't use pesticides. We stick with them.

Kirk: Fantastic. Thank you. Now we get into the Merritt Store and the Merritt store, the Unity store. There are stores in Williams Lake, Penticton and Merritt. I was in the Merritt store and Lac La Hache. And this is where I started learning about infused cannabis Trevor. Last year when I did Road Stories, everything was about the CBGs, Everyone was doing CBGs. This is where I learned about infused, infused cannabis. And honest to God, I wait to Hope's Marlee's Dan, but I have a story about that as well. So yeah.

Trevor: All right. So, all right. So now I'll say I was surprised to hear about cannabis mommys groups and pregnancy and lactation in a Rec Store.

Kirk: Yeah, this is a good story. Let's listen to the Merritt story.

Trevor: Jessica? Yes.

Kirk: Introduce yourself, please.

Jessica Steffens: Jessica Steffens.

Kirk: And where are we Jessica?

Jessica Steffens: We are in Merritt British Columbia at Unity Cannabis Store.

Kirk: Ay, Unity County Store. This is a First Nation store.

Jessica Steffens: It is. Is owned by the Williams Lake Band.

Kirk: Cool. And is it a busy store?

Jessica Steffens: We are a busy store. They have four other locations. Don't ask. Williams Lake oh, I'd have to look it up. I'm. I can't keep a thought in my head.

Kirk: No problem.

Jessica Steffens: But yeah, they have a few stores and they're wonderful. They're a great company to work for. We always try to cater to our customers, keep everything in stock.

Kirk: And you were saying this year and you're the second. You're the second dispensary that told me this infused cannabis is the big thing this year.

Jessica Steffens: Infused is my baby. I love the infused stuff. 

Kirk: And what's, like what's an infused cannabis.

Jessica Steffens: So it's infused with different things. You can have kief coated, you can have diamonds, hash, all different things in our fuse. Just makes it a little stronger, a little bit more fun for someone like me with a super high tolerance. It's a it's a good choice.

Kirk: So it's so it's an it's a rollie?

Jessica Steffens: It's a pre-rolled joints or blunt. There's different ones and yeah. Infused with different things and lots of them have flavor terpenes added to it. So one I just had the other day is a 24 karat gold and it's an Apricot one.

Kirk: Okay so it's infused without apricot terpenes.

Jessica Steffens: Terpenes and it's got diamonds in there.

Kirk: Now off camera. You were telling me about how you use cannabis. Do you mind sharing that story?

Jessica Steffens: Yeah, for sure. I've used it my whole life, but most recently it has been great for pregnancy.

Kirk: Oh, when did you deliver a child?

Jessica Steffens: I had two kids down the coast. One was natural. One my C-section. Both I was extremely violently sick the entire nine months from the moments to the end. And afterwards. So I use it quite a bit for keeping the nausea down.

Kirk: Okay.

Jessica Steffens: Being able to eat, just staying sane in general.

Kirk: And how did you consume it?

Jessica Steffens: I smoked. My doctor did say I could use edibles as well, but I prefer the smoking, especially because it's easier to keep things down when you don't have to ingest them.

Kirk: Sure. Did you did you talk to a cannabis doctor?

Jessica Steffens: I did not. I just kind of did. I'm part of a cannabis mom's group and did some research through moms on there. And it's moms from all walks of life. So not just newbies, but ones from the 60s and 70s and stuff that have so lots of information there. And then I did talk to my doctor, asked to make sure that I, you know its like me, anything too crazy. But I mean, there's a lot of research on it right now, as far as I know. But just from my experience and my babies came out happy, healthy.

Kirk: How old are your babies now?

Jessica Steffens: So one is five going to be six and the other is nineteen months going to be two?

Kirk: And just so the five year old is just entering kindergarten.

Jessica Steffens: Ending kindergarten.

Kirk: So grade one.

Jessica Steffens: Yeah, they're both born October.

Kirk: Okay. And how was the kindergarten with him?

Jessica Steffens: He is needs to be diagnosed with ADHD. That is from me and my husband though we're both ADHD, so it's bound for both of them. But other than that, like he's social, loves to run and play. Smart as a whip. Just, you know, seem with my daughter, she's 19 months and already understands absolutely everything. Started to talk all that late.

Kirk: Yeah. Interesting. So I'm very interested in the mom group. I'm wondering if you could, you know.

Jessica Steffens: It's just on Facebook. It's the I does Canadian Mom's 420 and that was. And there's groups for every region in Canada there's ones just for your neighborhoods there's one.

Kirk: So these are moms that are using cannabis and it's a support group.

Jessica Steffens: It is a support groups. And it's not just for us to help us out with our kids for everything. And for a lot of the questions a lot of moms are wondering, can they smoke while they're breastfeeding? All that kind of stuff. And so is it really helpful for all of that?

Kirk: So did you breastfeed?

Jessica Steffens: I did, yep. Both and smoked the entire time. So the cross going into your breast milk is very minimal unless you were to be having like an ounce a day type thing is the same with alcohol. You can have almost a full bottle of wine before you need to  pump and dump. Before it all affects your child. So yeah, there's it's and it's great benefits. I mean, I honestly, I'm a better mom because of the pot, I believe, because it's really especially the five year old and I almost two year old and they're both very go, go, go. To have something just to centre yourself is insane. And more mom should do it.

Kirk: That's very interesting. Well, thank you for that. That was a very good story.

Kirk: So I did follow up. I did follow up with the 420 moms. Very similar to when we met Ashley Brown with.

Trevor: Shecann.

Kirk: With Shecann. But these guys haven't got back to me yet. I would love to talk to more people that have used cannabis while pregnant. Now, again, as a registered nurse, I'm not advocating this, but I know people use it and I'd like to hear their stories. So that was a good a little a good little story from our friend in Merritt.

Trevor: So you said from there you want to jump over to Hope BC?

Kirk: Yeah. Then I get to Marlee's Den in Hope, B.C..

Trevor: And you got quite a nice story about cannabis is like an exit drug.

Kirk: Yeah, this was a cool story. You never know what you're going to get. I walk in cold turkey and I wander in. I usually have my dog with me River and in a couple episodes coming up, you hear River getting scratches. But I walk into the store with the River and that usually is an icebreaker and I show them the poster and so Hope's Marlees Den. They have stores in Cache Creek. They have stores in William Lake and Hope this is a great story about a budtender using cannabis as an exit drug. And at Marlee's Den, their motto is Same Low Price, but Always Fresher. And this is where I started talking about infused cannabis. And I think I think I picked one out that was like 51 to 40% THC like and I have a story about this afterwards about my first introduction to Infusion.

Trevor: All right, let's do that and then we'll come back out.

Lorraine Your name is Lorraine. We're currently in Marlee's Den Cannabis in Hope, B.C.. I think a good cannabis story would be how many years ago I did a lot of drugs and drinking. Cocaine. I did heroin, acid, shrooms, a lot of cannabis, a lot of alcohol on the daily. And in the end it was, I gave up everything except for cannabis and it was cannabis that helped me get through it all. And so my withdrawals from cocaine, my withdrawals from other drugs, the quitting drinking, I quit everything cold turkey except for cannabis and cigarettes. To be honest, Cigarettes too. But I quit everything else and it was hard. It was a rough couple of years, but I stuck with cannabis and again, it got me through. I didn't end up turning to pills for pain.  Any aches and all that kind of stuff when you're coming off and your body is detoxing. I did like increase my cannabis consumption, but that's what helped me get through it. Was just smoking. Going back then all we had was cannabis, hash, and oil. We didn't have all of the tinctures and all the stuff that we have now. So I mean, it was just rolling joints or pipe or bong. But yeah, it was cannabis that actually helped me save my life and get off the rest of the drugs and everything. So I'm a huge pro cannabis and I've never had a relapse in the last 20 years. I've continued to smoke cannabis and I've never had a drug relapse.

Kirk: So you see cannabis definitely as an exit drug than.

Lorraine I do. I actually have a really close friend of mine who was an alcoholic and I told him to switch alcohol for cannabis, and he did. And now he's been sober for five years. And then shortly after he was sober and he was confident he quit cannabis and he doesn't do cannabis.  Like he'll do cannabis once in a while now. But he's never gone back to drinking or he's been good in that aspect. So not saying that he might not go have a drink on a weekend or something, but it's not an every weekend. It's not a blackout drunk every week. It's not the way that it was.

Kirk: And so being a bartender, how long are you going to budtender?

Lorraine Just over a year now.

Kirk: So are you allowed to bring that experience to your customer service?

Lorraine Yes. So all of our customer service, all of our knowledge, all our life experienced all does come into play into being a budtender. A lot of it is the technical aspect. Like you got to know what government regulations are and stuff like that, but for actually proposing different strains or different ways to use it, it definitely does come in handy. I mean, unfortunately, it's not like a prescription. We can't say, okay, here, take one gram a day and you'll be good. That's not how it works. But it's always just telling people start small and then go from there for what suits you. Because some people we have CBD flower where it's less than 1% THC, but it's mostly CBD and we have a lot of people, whether it's the flower or the pre-roll, that will buy that and that's their choice. So it's not even about the highest THC all the time or what's going to give you that high feeling. A lot of times it's what's going to work best for you and your body. And knowing some of these things does help.

Kirk: That that suggests to me then that you get a lot of medicinal cannabis users coming here.

Lorraine We do. We get some medicinal we get a lot of recreational, mostly recreational because we are not a medical medical cannabis. So we can't give actual advice on how much to consume or not to consume, which is why we always just say start small and slowly increase to what works for you. Again, cannabis isn't like Tylenol or Advil where you could go take two every four hours.

Kirk: Okay. Yeah, I see. I see it there Canatonic CBD. So that's $23, $23.99 for 3.5g and it's got zero THC. But but I also. That's a very cool story. Thank you for sharing. I find it interesting looking at your board and you're selling infused stuff, 61% THC infused Motorbreath. What's it infused with?

Lorraine So the Motorbreath is actually double infused. It's infused with resin and the diamond.

Kirk: Wow.

Lorraine So diamonds in themselves are between 96 and 99% pure THC. So you have diamonds

Kirk: so diamonds that's the trichomes, I guess. Is that what that is? Is that is what you're calling diamonds? Because this is the second time I've heard diamonds. Is it? Is that the crystal you see on a bud?

Lorraine No.

Kirk: Okay.

Jessica Steffens: The Crystal that you see on the bud is actually going to be the keif. So when you grind it, a lot of the keifs and the trichomes and stuff come off. That is diamonds. So diamonds is almost like a resin or a rosin. It is like a chunk, but it's hard. And it is so, it would be a concentrated cannabis. So just like how you would do pressed hash, how they would use like butane or whatever to make it shatter. So and it's all compressed. It's another form of compression, whereas that is just one of the more pure forms of THC.

Kirk: Wow. Thank you very much for that story.

Trevor: All right. Coming out of Marlee's Den, I'm going to jump over your your infused thing because I think it'll tie in nicely. So I went on a I guess it's turning into a yearly fishing trip with some high school friends. And, you know, there's fish in way too much food and good times. And I had some nice Dauphin grown cannabis with me, which I was quite enjoying. But of course someone always has to have, you know, the next thing. So I had some of a pre-roll of Mango Hichew, which is an infused joint, which is like 40% THC and okay, I am physically a big guy, but when it comes to huge amounts of THC, I am a lightweight. So I did not. I know other people love it. I did not enjoy it because, you know, I was too stoned for too long and I eat during the trip. So there was, you know, a couple people who really use their cannabis a lot and like lots of THC. And then the rest of us who it's more an occasional thing. And that was sort of one of the words of the weekend was I just got Mangoed.  Meaning I'm not really speaking so well anymore because I use some of that freaking infused stuff. So how about for THC lightweight like me, the the infused pre-roll wasn't that much fun.

Kirk: Hey this these road trips took place in June and July and I was scheduled to get back to Winnipeg for the Neil Young concert and Neil canceled his Western Canadian tours which was was sad but I went to Winnipeg and visited up with my cousin in Winnipeg. And she brought out and now I'm not a lightweight. I smoke, I smoke cannabis, I consume cannabis, and I usually consume my own. And I have nice I think I have nice cannabis. Well, I too experienced my an infused pre-roll and it rocked my world. It was it was way, way, way, way out there. I don't you know, when I was a kid, when I was a kid, you would run into, you know, your four finger Mexican. You get some of that little bit of hash and somebody would get some hot hop oil or some cannabis oil. So we thought it'd be kind of cool, You know, you'd paint your zig-zag paper with the oil, you drop a little hash in it and you put your Mexican in. And that, I guess, is what infused joint is today. In those days we did it. I don't know, I don't remember being as rocked as I was the other the other week when I when they brought out this 41, I think it was like 60%. It was way too high. But yeah, so this year road trip was infused cannabis and mushrooms. Mushrooms everywhere. And so that, so that was Hope and that was Marlee's Den. So I'm off to Victoria. I visit, I visited a high school friend of mine in Mission and we hang out there for a while. Shout out to Colin. Colin and his brothers. the Crossleys are very old friends of mine and we have lots of little cannabis stories we can share. And so I visit up Colin and his and his partner Dayle. We cross over to the island. I see my son, I see my brother. We hang out for a week or so and I'm not really doing a lot of cannabis stories just visiting. I head up island, they're going to go visit my sister and my sister lives in Black Creek. And on the middle of the highway is this little supermarket in Black Creek. So you've got Campbell River and Courtney and Black Creeks in the middle. Or you say Courtney Campbell River. But so I'm in the parking lot. Michelle's getting some beer. I go into the cannabis store, share my poster. They don't want to give me a story. I walk out in the parking lot and I meet a fellow name Trevor.

Trevor: I like his name already.

Kirk: Trevor Jones. Yeah. And this could have been its own episode. Let's just jump right into it. We can talk about it when we come out.

Trevor Jones Well, I'm Trev Jones. I'm from Ontario.

Kirk: Trevor Jones.

Trevor Jones: Trevor Jones. My career started in the in the Alderville Indigenous market and I started in there just packing weed before cannabis became legal in Canada. So we had an Indigenous market in 2016 and I started out as a packer in the basement. We were the first, the first cannabis store to have an actual cannabis lab where we studied the medicinal benefits of cannabis rather than recreational effect.

Kirk: But this is 2016. So this is before legalization?

Trevor Jones Absolutely. Two years before legalization, because in Ontario the Indigenous territories are non policed by government police. They're not allowed on the on the reserves. Which gave us a huge open window to be able to study the medicinal benefits long before legalization came. The store I worked out was the Medicine Wheel and we set the pace for medicinal use in cannabis, at least across Ontario. It spread here to B.C. We mostly flew in our our product in B.C. because, of course, it's easy, right? Yeah. But we had a customer base of 60,000 people at our store. And we collected data from every one of them. We had them sign a membership when they came in, whatever their name was irrelevant. But we took from them was their medicinal information. So if they were suffering ADHD or everything all the way up to cancer. And so what our company did and what our team did was we started studying the effects of the different Terpenes and the different types of THC that matched actual, we started DNA and gene mapping to try to match an individual strain that would work better for you if we were treating cancer rather than just a generic RSO formula. Well, so we started working on different strains that were actually focused on the different parts of cancer. We had 91 people take our RSO program through the Medicine Wheel.  42 of them, and we cured cancer. And that's I know it's a strong statement to say, but we had 42 people come back into our store that were cancer free after taking our program. We took the Rick Simpson formulation and his his very generic, you know, 60g over 90 days. But we started to make it very more specific to the person. We engineered specific diets to help people. We learned so much. And so we were able to cure cancer in 42 people to date, two were terminal, one had 60 days to live. Here's my here's my best story. Steve McGinnis. He came to me on my day off and told me he had prostate cancer. He had 60 days to live. He'd never tried cannabis in his life, and one of his friends told him, You should come in and get a couple of joints to try and ease his mind. As the time came. And I asked him if he had 45 minutes and he said, yeah. So I taught him all about the Rick Simpson formulation and the program that we had available. Of course, when a man's got 60 days to live, you have to really, it's a 90 day program. So for a very green man who'd never tried cannabis, if anybody that on your podcast knows the potency of Rick Simpson oil, it's got to be a 75% THC or higher for it to actually be effective. This man started consuming one gram a day for 60 days, and it was really ironic because we were a super busy store. We saw about 300 customers per day. Every day.

Kirk: And this was ingesting cannabis, right?

Trevor Jones Yeah, just cannabis. Just cannabis. And it was about 66 days later after I met Steve and Funny again, I was working on my day off and he'd come in the store and I was getting a look and I wasn't quite sure where he was. And he walked over to me and he was clutching paper just like this, and he was very emotional. He's 55 years old. It was very emotional. And I said, Hey, can I help you? Because I didn't quite recognize him.

Kirk: Yeah.

Trevor Jones And he took that paper and slammed it down so hard on my display case I thought he was going to go through it.  And he said, I'm cancer free because of you. And I said, Pardon? He said, I'm Steve. Remember? I had 60 days to live. My God. And I'm trying to do the math in my head. Had it been over 60 days and his test results were 100% cancer free. They insisted that he go back for three more tests because it was an unbelievable. So we did live interviews with Steve as well. And he was my biggest success story. And from there on, I taught publicly, I taught Instagram channels, I taught workshops across Ontario, anywhere that I could go to spread the education that we learned.

Kirk: What's the name? What was the name of your podcast?

Trevor Jones The podcast was Elder Smoke Shack was the original one. And then we did Kings Court, which had two more hosts with me. Elders Smoke Shack was a cross between a late night cannabis talk show with an education swerved around into it. Of course, stories ran a lot of a lot of people and through that we were able to educate and help so many people. I ended up leaving the Medicine Wheel in 2019 and simply because it was one of those kind of like, my work here is done. We spread the word. We printed treatment and the only guides that we gave away for free that really focused on the 12 major ailments that we thought were the most important that we found. And we were able to help so many people across the board for everything from anxiety to COPD.

Kirk: This is all before legalization.

Top Hat Yeah.

Kirk: So what are you doing now.

Trevor Jones: Nowadays?

Kirk: Are you in the cannabis industry?

Trevor Jones No. No. I stepped away from the cannabis industry, the official cannabis industry, in 2022. Just to pursue another career. However, I still teach and share my knowledge whenever asked or called upon. Most people call me for all things cannabis. I was referred to the master of cannabis for five years running. I received awards. I went and did presentations everywhere. We hosted Karma Cups. I was a judge at two Indigenous Cannabis Cups as well as a stage host. And yeah, it was, it was quite a career run for for being pre legalization. I've been a I've been a cannabis activist since I was 15 years old. I was tried to put on the pharmaceuticals as everyone because I was a hyperactive kid.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Trevor Jones And it took all of, you know, 4 or 5 doses to realize that it was really slowing my brain down, but in a way I didn't like. And my 16 year old cousin said, here buddy, why don't you start this? This is in the 80s. So he said, Here, smoke this, you know. And so I was 14ish, took my first couple of puffs and the world finally slowed down and I could focus. And I knew from there that, you know, this this everybody needs to do is anybody that's suffering in any kind of mental state like I was, this is a much better idea than the Ritalin and the everything that they were giving us back then that just left you mindless. And now here I am. I'm 48 now and I've never had a pharmaceutical in my life. I'm healthy as a horse. I haven't had a cold or flu or fever in 37 years. And I've been smoking pot for how many? 37 years? We were able to teach that the basic cannabinoid system, which is now a lot really common knowledge if you're into that kind of side. But at the time, nobody really understood what a cannabinoid system really was and how cannabinoids were in the natural healing and immune systems for our body. And in order to feed them, we needed a THC or CBD product. So our company engineered an entire line of products which at the time were unheard of. They were tinctures, which are now super.

Kirk: Popular, and that's the Medicine World.

Trevor Jones You got it, man. The Medicine Wheel in Alderville.  They're still standing and still by far, in my opinion, one of the very best medicinal cannabis slash recreational stores in all of Canada.

Kirk: Please connect back with me because I think that's the biggest story here?

Trevor Jones Yeah, I'd love to. I'd love to. Like I said, it's always about spreading the word and helping people understand and the education that comes with it.

Trevor: So, Kirk, you know, no big deal. You've just met someone who cures cancer.

Kirk: Yeah. Isn't that like. Wow. Right. So I Googled this guy. I googled Medicinal. The Medicine Wheel and the Medicine Wheel is a very legit First Nations cannabis dispensary. It opened in June 21st, I guess summer 2017. So I googled them. They're real. When I googled Trevor Jones, ironically, ironically, I come up with a guy the Center for Medicinal Cannabis today announced the appointment of Professor Trevor Jones CBE in the role of the scientific chief scientific adviser for Britain. And it's not the same guy. So there is a Trevor Jones in Britain involved with cannabis. But I could not find this guy. I thought he gave me a good story. I can't vouch that is legit or not.

Trevor: No and you know, as health care providers, we have to say, you know, you have to be. There are many, many people out there who are selling possibly less than reputable cures for fatal diseases. And when you are at end of life, you might be particularly vulnerable to trying them now that being said, what was our Doctor Joe?

Kirk: Yeah. Dr. Joe. I mean, he did a whole book. He did a whole book on saving people.

Trevor: Which they were on. Again, none of this has been proven, but he was basically using his own version, Trevor mentioned it several times RASO - Rick Simpson Oil - so basically a really, really highly concentrated cannabis oil with a really big percentage of THC. And he had some people whose cancer went into remission. So I'm not saying what the Medicine Wheel people did was right or wrong or reputable or not reputable. I just don't know. But we just.

Kirk: Well, you're being Safe.

Trevor: It's really. It's really, really interesting.

Kirk: You're being safe.

Trevor: But but also that that grain of salt thing.

Kirk: I mean, in this in these in these hundred and 30 episodes we've done, we have had so many stories. This is why I like doing these Road Stories.  These Road Stories, I never know what I'm going to get. And there's a qualifier that this is this guy's story. I'm not going to disbelieve him. I like to validate stuff. But we have spoken to a lot of people who have given us some insights on how cannabis has helped their cancer. And that was Episode 116 -0 The Cannabis Cancer Connection with Dr. Joe. Goodstretch that you're talking about. So I think I think there's enough evidence that as a health care professional, I feel safe in saying that cannabis is an option for people who are ill. And depending on what your illness is and how you use it. But this this is just a story in a parking lot. And again, man, I'm listening to and going, wow, this is a good story. So that's what it is. It's a Road Story. Trevor, if you're out there, you promise to listen. Connect with us. And good on you, man, and keep on keeping on. So I'm in Campbell River and Campbell River is in the process of having a gay pride celebration. We have left my sister and we're moving towards northern British Columbia and we stop in Campbell River to get our supplies. VanHoot needed to have some, you know, some food and some some beverages in there. And I'm in a parking lot looking for a cannabis store. I can't find a cannabis store. So I go into a vape store and I go to the Vape Store purely to give our poster because I've I gave our poster away to pharmacies, to cannabis stores. I even walked into a clinic and gave them posters. So I just wandered around handing out a poster to get the name out. So this is a vape store. And Aden, Aden tells us about how when he was a Bud tender in Edmonton. So this isn't even this. Yeah, go ahead.

Trevor: Yeah. And Aden does some really good education, so I'm actually really quite impressed with Aden story.

Kirk: That's her Aden story.

Aden Regner: So my name is Aden Regner, born and raised in Campbell River B.C.. We're at Vape Street and Cannabis Story. I used to work at a place called Lucid Cannabis up in Edmonton. Shout out to Snoozie

Kirk: Okay. Hello Snoozie.

Aden Regner: And. There was a few times where a kid would come in and he was just very misinformed on different aspects of cannabis. And I would always do my best to try to get him to look at certain, just expand his knowledge of it a bit more just because he would kind of go upon words of mouth from his mother or father or anything like that. And one time he came in and trying to tell me that percentage of the cannabis means everything. That's how. Like the strength of it, how it makes you feel. All that. And each time I try to tell them. It depends on a multitude of factors. It depends on the strain. It depends on if it's grown indoors or outdoors. It depends on the type of soil you use and everything. And he I would like to say that he tried to listen to me, but typically he would always take it with a grain of salt and never actually follow through with it. And, you know, I gave him a strain with high CBD because he never looked to get super stoned and he would always smoke because it was a health benefit but never knew the true extent of it.  Where to go. But yeah, so I gave him one with a low THC percentage, higher CBD percentage, and it ended up working for him. So he didn't realize that, oh THC is the only factor in cannabis that helps you manage pain and all of that.

Kirk: So as a recreational bud tender, you're able to help a guy to learn about their cannabis was as medicine.

Aden Regner: Exactly.

Kirk: Cool.

Aden Regner: Yeah. And he did end up looking into more CBN and all that type of stuff. Everything. He actually learned more about Terpenes as well. And, you know, like different tastes and also the strengths that certain strains play. And yeah, it was just nice to share a bit of information with somebody.

Kirk: Thank you very much. So the Vape, the Vape Street stores in Campbell River, it's in Willows Point for those that care, is it? 2204 South Island Highway. What is it you liked about Aden's story?

Trevor: Well, just, he had someone coming in to him as a Budtender who had a lot of misconceptions and even just wrong information about cannabis, and it felt an awful lot like, frankly, being a pharmacist, it never goes really well if you just say you're wrong. You know, people stop listening at that point. You know, he listened to what the younger gentleman had to say and, you know, sort of sort of tried to gently work around the edges of, you know, well, you might be a little bit off on this. Here's a little bit better information on that. And it sounds like over the course of a few visits, he he sort of built rapport with this younger gentleman and helped help change his mind a little bit about what cannabis was and did and how it worked.

Kirk: Yeah, another good news story. Again, you never know where these stories are going to take you. Port Hardy. 100% Cannabis. This guy owns a store in, Derek. He owns a store in Port McNeill and Port Hardy. I walked in and I felt like an all star. He was so excited. I showed him the poster and he just coughed up. He said, you guys got cred. And this is his story. And I've checked them out and will have the linkage and all these all these stories that we've been to. I'll put them on our web page and thank them for the stories. So this is Derek. This is a good story.

Trevor: Just when you thought you'd never heard the word city council meeting and pot together. Listen to this one.

Kirk: Yeah.

Derek Kole: Hey, I'm Derek D. Derek Kole. 100%. Cannabis, one of the owners. And we just opened this awesome store in Port Hardy, but we've got our start in Port McNeill, which is a half hour down the road in.

Kirk: Vancouver Island.

Derek Kole: Which end.

Kirk: And a north end.

Derek Kole: All right, I'll continue.

Kirk: Okay.

Derek Kole: So I've been, you know everyone is legally, a marijuana dude. I'm in my 50s now, but I was in Port McNeill, and I ran for town council. And I really didn't do it, I've always wanted to do. But it was legal, Right? So, you know, like the final thing, I went for it and I won by four votes. Anyways.

Kirk: How many town councilors on.

Derek Kole: There was four. I only ran around one term. Yeah, yeah. There's another story. But so anyway, anyways, the Port Hardy Chamber of Commerce had a nice meeting was the business of cannabis with  Myers North Penny accountants of whatnot. So I went to the moderator like, Hey, you know, what is it? He's like, okay, so ask the guys just like you, okay? Like, it's just it's relatively legal and new, right? So let me introduce them. I've waited a long time to say it's our formal meeting, but I brought the weed

Kirk: I brought weed Port Hardy.

Derek Kole: To the meeting, and I had it all weed. My samples all the way on the table. This was, like, right when it dropped. They are all looking at it. I broke ice nice. And then ever since then, I was just pushing through. We got some.

Kirk: Okay, so let me get this straight. You ran for city council Port McNeill.

Derek Kole: McNeill yup

Kirk: and you ran by handing out weed?  You won by handing out weed, did I get something wrong here? 

Derek Kole: No, no, I'm just at public, public meetings with board members and fancy people.

Kirk: And you were a town councilor at the time.

Derek Kole: That's right.

Kirk: Okay.

Derek Kole: And now it's been really open about. Yeah. Busting the stigma down. And, you know, just these businesses have been icing on the cake. So now we're vegging out in the basement.

Kirk: You know and now you own 100% Cannabis.

Derek Kole: In Port McNeil and in Port Hardy.

Kirk: You have two stores.

Derek Kole: Two stores and you look around this is really innovative. We did here the way everything's on display and

Kirk: It is really cool store.

Derek Kole: online and over 50 oz.

Kirk: You sell online as well.

Derek Kole: Yes and you got to know this all like so many of the shops are mailing it in.

Kirk: Yeah.

Derek Kole: I got goose bumps and upsets me. So if you go to our website, all of our ounces, the exact THC is is no range. No ranges, right? And our shit is always fresh. So like we've got it within a week or two if you're in Victoria or whatever. You'll give you a good idea of like what's hot. And then our half ounces, we do the same like everything in the store is got THC Terps listed. Color coded. We got Green sativa. Blue.  Hybrid red. We are ready. What's the percentage there sir. 

Kirk: it says 23%.

Derek Kole: Yes. And we're the kings of shopping local. Okay. What does that mean? I give you the same price you're going to get anywhere on the island. Anywhere.

Kirk: So if I buy from you online, you will sell at the same price?

Derek Kole: Yup. We do B.C. online like 20 bucks. We do delivery, like 750 around here. Okay. B.A., our prices are shorter, though. Check this out, dude. Our ounces right now.

Kirk: Okay.

Derek Kole: 50, what? $60. $61.

Kirk: $60.99 for 24% THC 28 grams.

Derek Kole: And then we got this bad boys sativa $21.85.  I'm breaking the rules dude, I'm breaking rules?

Kirk: Why are you doing that?

Derek Kole: This was just a complete failure. its gets around nuts.

Kirk: So there are six stories traveling for British Columbia, and, yeah, I. I find these so interesting, and I learn every time. And. Yeah. What did you think of them.  They're  kind cool story, I think.

Trevor: They were, as usual, you meet the most interesting people as you were wandering around handing out posters. You know, everything from, like I said, the the I wouldn't have guessed a pregnancy story. I wouldn't have guessed a story about taking pot to my town or city council meeting. Yeah. Who knew that? Like I like. I'll. I'll steal your thunder. Cannabis people are really are cool people and fun to talk to.

Kirk: They're interesting.

Trevor: And I really wasn't trying to diss Trevor Jones, you know, a, I love his name and B, he did give us a really good story, too. I just, you know, as a pharmacist, got to throw out the little cancer disclaimer.

Kirk: I get it. I get it.

Trevor: But no, everybody you talked to had a great story. And we really appreciate everyone adding to the adding to our story collection.

Kirk: Well, I mean, and as a Registered Nurse, I have to be careful that I'm not seen promoting cannabis like I'm some sort of fanboy. But I do get excited because I do have a recreational history with cannabis, I guess self-medicating in the day. But as a nurse, it's good to just hear people's story and and gather them. And that's what I like about my Road Stories. I just gathering people's stories. So that's what it was. Now also, I just.

Trevor: Comes back to one of our original ideas was the whole De-stigmatization, you know, And again, as a pharmacist, I am not promoting using cannabis, but, you know, if I, as a pharmacist said, you know, on my fishing trip, you know, a buddy brought a really good bottle of rum or Buddy introduced me to a really nice amber beer, which I someone did. It was a really nice beer. No one would think or say, Yeah, the pharmacist is promoting amber beer. But you know, the pharmacist said, You know, I really like this type of cannabis as opposed to that one on my fishing trip can be construed the wrong way. So, you know, stories like this of regular people and their stories with cannabis, I think de-stigmatize a legal substance that people are using medicinally.

Kirk: Yeah, I often think about this how how quickly we go to alcohol. I've just spent I mean, I've had a fabulous summer: Cossack Camp and Summer Games have been very busy. Two weekends playing Cossack and a week and a half, doing well, a week doing medicine for the Summer Games, Manitoba Summer Games. But, you know, alcohol is so much part of our society that we can at Cossack camp we'll sit around at Ukrainian fest and share with people our wares. Like we cook on an open fire. We, you know the farmers in our group butcher a hog and we cook it and we make porgies and we share with people and a few of our guys make alcohol and we share with people, but we don't share cannabis, Right? And it's like you and I, I sat here sipping, during this episode a mead, I think in the last episodes, I make a lot of mead. I like to play with bees and ferment, but we don't sit here and just puff on a reefer and do Reefer Medness. It's still interesting and I wonder if maybe because the effect cannabis has on people versus alcohol, I mean, maybe you can sit around and have two drinks and you're reasonably sober. Yeah, you split an infuse reefer between the two of us and we'd be asleep doing this, right?

Trevor: Yeah, I would mangoed and it would be the most boring podcast ever, because I either A. Couldn't talk or B. Fell asleep. again back to the, I am happy if people out there love their infusions. I don't think that's for me.

Kirk: Yeah. No, it's not for me either. I like my home grown and but yeah, so that was that was the Road Stories. You know Trevor I'd like to stick with Dead Bob again.  I just want to give them a little promo and I think the music is just so British Columbia. It is so powerful. These guys are, I mean, he's in his 60s and he's pounding away. John Wright, pounding away. So let's do let's do Party of One. And it's a short little song that he does. I really recommend people check out Dead Bob, these guys, these guys they'll make you sweat just watching them on the video. I'm Kirk Nyquist, I'm the nurse, by the way. The Registered Nurse.

Trevor: I am Trevor Shewfelt, I'm the pharmacist. We're Reefer Medness - The Podcast

Kirk: Found at Reefermed.ca which we keep forgetting to self-promote. So Reefermed.ca see us on all those web pages.

Trevor: All right. And we'll see everyone next time. Another good one, Kirk. And come back for one more round of Kirk's trip across B.C. and the Yukon. Don't forget the Yukon.

Kirk: The Yukon? Yeah. I was there for all of, like, maybe an hour and a half. Enough time to, yeah. stay tuned.

Trevor: they'll have to wait and see.

Kirk: All right.

Trevor: All right.