Episode Transcript
This is the Video Transcript.
Trevor: Kirk, we're back.
Kirk: Hey, Trevor, how's it going?
Trevor: Good. How are you? Anything new and exciting in your world?
Kirk: Geez, you know, yeah, busy, just really staying busy with little projects and trying to work on the Podcast, work on a webpage, interviewing guests like Owen Smith. We're gonna talk to Owen Smith here right away. You may remember Trevor that we've talked about Owen or around Owen several times. He's very closely knitted with the Victoria Cannabis Buters Club. and we've done like
Trevor: Just because I was confused and sorry with the last name it comes up. So Owen Smith just happens to share a last name with Ted Smith. No relation.
Kirk: Correct, no relation.
Trevor: And from what I'm remembering, he was our baker. He was, you know, making Cannabis cookies for people with medical conditions and then eventually ended up in some lawsuits about whether or not that was a legal thing to do. Am I getting sort of some of the basics of the story right?...
Kirk: That's that's Owen. So we called him in E98 and E97. We did two episodes on him. We called him the godfather of Cannabis 2 Point Oh! in our podcast. So we're going to update ourselves on what he's been doing. He's he's put out a book that follows and chronicles his legal legal track with the federal government and Supreme Court. He's also right now on LinkedIn very, very strongly advocating for buying Canadian Elbows up Cannabis. Basically, the name of his book is Legalizing Cannabis Extracts. This is a deeply moving story. Find out why Cannabis was legalized in Canada and why it must be legalized around the world. Owen and Ted and the crew from the Victoria Buyers Club, Cannabis Buyers Club embarked on a David versus Goliath showdown with Health Canada and the Harper Conservative government. The Victoria Cannabis Buyers Club basically changed the laws in Canada. And we've talked about this, essentially how medical Cannabis was determined by our courts, not by our health system. And medical Cannabis is a national program, whereas provincial healthcare is a provincial program. So that's the disconnect that we have in Canada with Cannabis being medicine. Owen was one of the prime guys that got that rolling, and that's why I have fun with calling him the Godfather of Cannabis 2.0.
Trevor: And so beside the book and like you said in our previous, and I'm sure we'll get more into the story through the Supreme Court with Owen, but besides his books sort of chronicling his trip through the supreme court, and other things that he can detail, what's he doing about promoting Canadian Cannabis?
Kirk: Well, what he's done is he's created a website and a movement, I guess, and it's called the Elbows Up List. It's found at 420elbowsup.ca. And basically it's a list of Canadian-owned Cannabis companies. And it's an independent, non-verified list of Canada's Canadian Cannabis industry. So I got us in there as a... as a Cannabis industry, as media. We are one of the few Manitoba people that have registered with his company. Yeah, so people wanna go up to his website, elbowsup, 420elbowsup.ca. So we're gonna bring him in here soon enough and talk to him about his two endeavors and to catch up on.
Trevor: No, that's really cool. People by this point, I assume, are probably familiar with the Facebook pages and websites that people can go to if you're at the grocery store and you want to know what type of tomato paste to buy because you want to find the Canadian chips versus the American chips. So yeah, no, that I honestly, maybe lack of imagination on my part, but I hadn't thought of needing to do that or there being a reason to do that in Cannabis. But no, that's that's cool that he's sort of spearheading a try to buy Canadian in the Cannabis world.
Kirk: Yeah, okay. Well, let's pause here. We'll wait for him to come into the Zoom meeting and we will introduce him in a couple of minutes. So, Mr. Owen Smith, we've had you as a guest a couple times. This is just me touching base. You're a busy man.
Owen Smith: So busy. So I can tell you that, um, late into the night last night and first thing in the morning today, I'm peeling through the edits that I've been provided on my book, uh, to, to put out that final copy as soon as possible.
Kirk: Cool, man. Very cool. And I was on your web page. Tell us about your book.
Owen Smith: This book, Legalizing Cannabis Extracts, this is the pre-release copy.
Kirk: How thick is it? Show me how thick it is. Okay man.
Owen Smith: it's about 500 pages.
Kirk: Damn, you've been busy.
Owen Smith: It's heavily referenced as a part of it. It is a tradition in some of the Cannabis publishing over the years, started by Jack Herer of trying to include as much of the real world reporting on the Cannabis movement. So that you paint a picture based on that and set off the more higher level prohibition narratives. So you can sort of put your own story together. And that's what I've tried to do here. Jack, in the back of his books, would put newspaper articles. So you'd have multiple pages of those. I've created a digital resource. So on the front, you can scan the QR code and then go to the timeline and the timeline covers the court case from the arrest all the way through the Supreme Court of Canada. All of the video that was made by news outlets, all of the news articles by major newspapers, and also what we wrote and what we put out about the case as we went through that six half-year process.
Kirk: Yeah, so Jack here that that's the Emperor wears new clothes, right? No, no clothes. That book you talk about? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, well, the timeline, when did this all start?
Owen Smith: This started for me. The arrest was 2009. But this goes back years before this.
Kirk: Okay.
Owen Smith: With Ted Smith and Ted Smith's work in Victoria and starting the one of the first compassion clubs in Canada and continuing to do that to this day. And I actually I work with Ted five days a week at the Victoria Cannabis Buyers Club. And we are still, despite having gone through many legal battles and court victories, we are under the pressure of the law and we have multiple cases ongoing.
Kirk: Update us on the Victoria Buyers Club. Last time I was there, the next day, I think it was the public health inspection was coming. Obviously you guys passed that.
Owen Smith: We've been moving through the city licensing process,.
Kirk: Right.
Owen Smith: Has involved many visits and a lot of document preparation. I helped a little bit with the graphic design as well. So I helped little bit making some architectural plans and we have submitted our application for rezoning and we're just getting ready to pay for our Cannabis business license to the City of Victoria. Which the city loves us and they've known us for 30 years. So it started in the mid-90s, but the province doesn't love us so much.
Kirk: So explain that. So I mean, people have to go back to our last episodes because we talked about it. But so you've got you've the jurisdictional provincial regulations, you've got the capital region stuff, and you've got the city of Victoria stuff. So are you guys the City of Victoria recognizes you as a Rec. Shop now. What, as a Cannabis store? Like what recognition is the city given you?
Owen Smith: They've given us a business license to operate, it's like a glass and pipe shop, essentially turning an eye, a blind eye, to what we're doing, but at the same time, recognizing us as a Cannabis business and putting us through the licensing process so that we can get everything ready for the time when we win in court with the province or federally. We have a favorable ruling so that there wouldn't be any delay in getting us incorporated into the system. We strongly believe that we should be part of the legal system and everything that we've done should help to prove that, but we continue to come up against opposition and the federal restrictions on edibles limits and the lack of places for people to go and talk about medical Cannabis, have a community around them, and also a place to be. We have a Community Nonprofit, provide a space for people to come away from where they live, away from where they may be not accepted as a Cannabis consumer, and also to talk to the other medical patients there and learn from others how they might improve their Cannabis use.
Kirk: No, it's good to update on what's happening with the Buyers Club. So that $6.6 million that still hasn't been called to the bench yet is still hovering over you?
Owen Smith: It's actually got cut to three million.
Kirk: Congratulations, I guess.
Owen Smith: Shuffling through this process, our lawyers have helped to, to guess reduce the bill by half by essentially the latest we got back from the province was that they wanted to maintain the fines against the board of directors, but not personally against Ted. So yeah, we're still waiting on that process to proceed. So recently, another club on the Sunshine Coast had a hearing with the Community Safety Unit, is what we're talking about, those who raid the clubs that aren't licensed. And the Sunshine Coast Club lost their arguments. So that was a little bit of a, felt like a bit of back step back, but we've always been really, like Ted, leading the way, so I always had a very strong understanding of constitutional law and Canadian legal process. And we do have amazing lawyers with Kirk Tousaw and Jack Lloyd.
Kirk: What did the Sunshine Club, what was the point of legal that they lost on, do you know?
Owen Smith: Well, I know it's called like the Sweet Shop and I understand my understanding is that they're representing themselves which might have run into some you know some issues legally it is very complicated system to navigate. So we do pay our lawyers monthly. We're constantly fundraising to do that and it seems to be an essential part of operating in these conditions
Kirk: Well, I think you'd have to have a lawyer on retainer with the business you're in. I mean, technically you're the only brick and mortar medical dispensary in British Columbia, uh, in, in Canada.
Owen Smith: Well, it's hard to say that for sure these days, but there's a lot of a lot of shops opening on First Nations land.
Kirk: Right.
Owen Smith: I know at least some of the folks who I've talked to there are serving medical and high dose edibles, essentially doing the same thing that we're doing. But they're outside of the regulations.
Kirk: Yeah.
Owen Smith: Also have arguments parallel to ours for access for their own communities to medicines which are very beneficial for some of the issues that they're facing.
Kirk: I had an opportunity to visit some of the West Coast First Nation shops and my god man, some of those edibles, a thousand milligrams, those are some big time edibles.
Owen Smith: That's right. Yeah, we we do 500 milligrams and ties become very popular, especially for people like who we serve, people who have serious need, who maybe are going through some withdrawals from some small other very serious medication. And there are various circumstances where high dose edibles become important.
Kirk: So your book, your book takes us back to 1998, like back when the first, when the first Supreme Court cases were heard.
Owen Smith: What brings you back to where I began, which was coming to Canada as an immigrant.
Kirk: Okay.
Owen Smith: In the mid-90s. And just at that very time that I was being planted out here, the first compassion clubs were too. That was like the BC Compassion Society, and then TED and the UVics in Victoria. The pioneers. It covers some of this. I like to do a bit of a recap of the social history of Cannabis legalization, so that people can almost like feel like they've experienced it. Like I give insights into some of the hidden working, so things that people just wouldn't get from any news articles. Things that I got from being on the floor of your boots on the ground, delivering our newspaper, for instance, The Cannabis Digest. We used to go to all of the Cannabis shops around us, lower mainland and Vancouver Island delivering, and we develop relationships with all of these businesses, some of them advertising. I'm not sure if this podcast was in the Cannabis Digest.
Kirk: I don't think so. I mean, you're talking about we started our podcast in 2017. I you're talking about before before legalization of Rec Cannabis. And according to Canada, everyone seems to forget that medicinal Cannabis was legalized what? 2001
Owen Smith: Yeah, right. The story of Cannabis legalization in Canada has been one of patients and community groups taking the issue to court for medical necessity, largely people with seizures, people looking after other people with serious illnesses, getting favorable court rulings and the government having to respond, being forced to create the program, being force to adjust and amend the program to make it more accessible in all the different ways. And if you're looking at that history, it's very clear that historically here in Canada, we've been dealing with opposition to legalization, opposition to Cannabis in general. And yeah.
Kirk: I think the biggest problem in Canada is that the federal government was told by the courts that Cannabis is medicine. And unfortunately, in Canada, provinces manage the medical side of things. So when the federal governments said, oh, you have medicine, the provinces just said, yeah, well, we don't need to pay attention to that. That's a federal program. So the provincial programs just ignored it. I often get on my pedestal and say the province has picked up on the fact that Cannabis was an issue in 2017 when Trudeau was threatening to make it legal, but Cannabis is seen as a substance of misuse, not as a medicine. And that's the disconnect, I think, between the medical and the rec side. And now, didn't I read someplace that the federal government is maybe suggesting that people get their medical Cannabis from rec stores now? Isn't that someplace I read in small print somewhere?
Owen Smith: I was hearing the sort of suggestion put out that, do we really need medical? Would we prefer to have just the recreational shops? And from my perspective, in the context that we're talking about, like developing and popularizing the idea of having Cannabis available, it is through a medicinal framework that we've always been doing that. I see it as somebody who works in the media, who's had a newspaper and... working for a long time in this area. These are the stories people want to hear. You just don't make popular stories, having large companies asking for tax relief. That's something which we get alongside stories of large companies laying off thousands of Canadian workers. That sort of thing, from my perspective, is killing the momentum of the Cannabis movement. What we created through working with individuals and elevating their experience helps illuminate, helps to really illustrate the qualities that Cannabis can offer society. And I think that's where the focus is best. It's best left. And if the government would prefer that we did not talk about medical and they prefer that, we just had a recreational scheme. To me, it seems like it's control a matter of controlling the story, controlling the frame and keeping Cannabis from growing any more than it already has, which we know that it has to because it is an important plant. It has a lot of good qualities that help people in serious need. It really has to become more available. And I look at the global framing of this as well, the global stories with Thailand deciding after seeing what happens with unfettered legal growth for recreational Cannabis, they decided to go back to a medical framework, do something that's a bit more healthy for their country. Also Germany, having recently said, we would like to re-review this in a medical community-oriented social club model. Those perspectives. The focus is much more similar to what we're doing at the Victoria Cannabis Buyers Club than what the government has been doing with their regulations. I could go on about this because the federal system in Canada was brought in by the conservative government before Trudeau, back in the MMPR, and they were very explicit in what they were doing. bringing in a few large companies and then delaying to create a bottleneck that these companies then would dominate the market and that would be easier to control. Easier to manage than having tons of these little companies all over and And those companies have all spent tons of money. For the most part now they they are become foreign owned. One example here on Vancouver Island is Tilray, which started in Nanaimo with privateer holdings and then was sold off to Aphria. Aphria is headquartered in New York and so the ownership and control of the companies is now not even Canadian. So it raises certain concerns as to what sort of pressure what sort of political perspectives do the owners of those companies have here in Canada? Would it be better if the owners and the perspectives of the companies were Canadian and that perhaps would lead to a more localized consideration? I mean it's not
Trevor: I think that segues nicely and Kirk and I couldn't agree more. As a pharmacist, when I see a 70-year-old come into the pharmacy, they do not want nothing against the bud tenders, but they have no interest in going to a local 22-year old bud tender and ask about what Cannabis would be the best for their arthritis. So yes, a more medical system is absolutely necessary, but what you're talking about with Tilray, I think... segues nicely into one of your other projects which was 420 Elbows Up.
Owen Smith: I got the shirt on.
Trevor: Not for sale!
Owen Smith: Yeah, there's a beaver on it too. Canada is not for sale, but our Cannabis is. So yeah, we have achieved legalization here in Canada and that's a social accomplishment. And we've been able to sell this Cannabis. And so we should control the development of our movement.
Trevor: I'll tell us more about the 420 Elbows Up website and the people you're... What were you trying to do? You know, is it kind of like when people go to a Facebook page and look up, you know, what type of pasta should I buy that's made in Canada? Is that the kind of idea, what are you trying to do withg that?
Owen Smith: Thanks, Trevor. The 420elbowsup.ca is now live, and they're currently in sort of a sign-up phase. So getting companies in Canada to volunteer information about their ownership structures, where they're headquartered, how much is Canadian-owned, trying to get that volunteered from them. And then consumers can go to the site currently, but I'll reorient it once I have enough people, make it a bit more user-friendly. but consumers will be able to go and search by product type or province and presumably then be able to find the brands that have signed up that indicate they are Canadian owned and then they can make a choice of their own whether or not they want to go with a company who's 100% Canadian owned or if they'd be happy with a country which is 50% Canadian owned but manufactures products in Canada. So kind of like what you see at the grocery store or the liquor store right now with the little tags, give people an opportunity to make a choice if the money that they're putting down is gonna stay in Canada or how much of it is gonna to stay.
Kirk: To clarify, to clarify what you're talking about companies like Cannabis doesn't cross international borders, but paraphernalia crosses crosses borders. So I imagine pipes for recreational people and grow lights for for growers. That's all going to affect. So do you know, can you speak to that? Are there many Canadian companies that are involved with the paraphernalia side of the Cannabis industry?
Owen Smith: Well, my concern was more about like, like the governance part and like the mass of paychecks being paid out at the top level, um, and how that differs from the math that the amount of money the companies have been losing. Let's consider concerning that, but there's also the supply chain stuff. Um, what, what parts of what you need to grow Cannabis or maintain your Cannabis processor or equipment, all this sort of stuff. There was an article that came out yesterday that mentioned a company, I put it up on LinkedIn, that mentioned the company that has already seen a great benefit, a Canadian company that's getting contacted now by companies across the country who are looking to avoid the tariff costs and work within Canada for their supply chain. What's the company called? Green Tank.
Kirk: We'll make a link, we'll make sure there's a link on our webpage with that.
Owen Smith: It says that Canadian brands are coming to them now because of patriotism and they get a great service from their fellow Canadians.
Kirk: So I've noticed that you do have t-shirts for sale on that page. It's a self-regulated. So, I mean, we, as we, as Reefer Medness, we enrolled in it to let people know we are a small Canadian company that's trying to, I guess we're right now, we're the only media people on your page, I can see. And you can sort on your age by region, by company name, and by, Yeah, you got filters. It's cool. How many companies are listed there now?
Owen Smith: I think there's about 30 but I recently talked to BC Craft Farmers Co-op who represent a large number of BC companies and we're collaborating on an event for 420 coming up in Victoria and so I'm going to I'm gonna work with them to sign up a bunch more BC small craft farmers and hopefully that will start to get the ball rolling. People see this as a real opportunity to differentiate themselves from others and align themselves with the Elbows Up Movement. Here's another one that I got.
Kirk: Yeah, yeah.
Owen Smith: So these stickers can go onto the, put them wherever, scan them with your phone and you're brought to the site. So it's quick and easy way to access that list. When, um, and I've talked to a few retailers in Victoria who were just like, wow, that sounds great. Uh, we'd love it. As far as retailers reacting to the tariffs and this, I've only heard of a couple who have built their own in-house system for this, where they have done that work themselves. I imagine lots of them don't have the resources to do that, and so this could be a way to help them with that. And I do see it as a way that boosts the smaller and medium producers who are locally owned and operating, but struggling to compete. with the mega giant companies that can out-cost them on things.
Kirk: Yeah, the Cannabis industry is is jurisdictional. So I mean, a Saskatchewan, I think Saskatchewan is one of the few places where a rec shop can actually buy directly from growers. Most other jurisdictions, they have to go through a government clearinghouse, don't they? So it's very difficult to have a what am I looking for a farm, a farm gate. It's very difficult.
Owen Smith: In BC, we have farm gate program, um, but the government, uh, maintained their 15% markup.
Kirk: Its the money,.
Owen Smith: Even when they had said, we won't, we will let you do it all yourself. You still pay us that 15%. You, you still have to, um warehouse, transport, admin, all of that stuff. But that's on you.
Kirk: Well, but that's probably similar to the craft brewing or the craft liquor stuff in B.C. because I'm sure the government still, this is decades ago, but back in the day when I was looking at opening up a craft brewery, they were taxing the intake, they're taxing the output. I think there's three layers of taxes at one point. This was in Alberta, I don't know about other jurisdictions. But I imagine with the craft Cannabis, they got to do the same thing, right? I mean, you're going to grow it on your farm. We got to tax it before it hits the stall.
Owen Smith: Yeah, we know the taxes are high, but my understanding is that this particular additional 15% is not something other industries deal with.
Kirk: Okay.
Owen Smith: It seems as though it's set up for a fight, like if you want to reduce taxes, if you want to change any part of the rules, even small ones, you're going to have to fight for it.
Kirk: Yeah, well, that's what's happened in the Cannabis industry is the people that told the government to knock it off and let us let us access our medicine, right?
Owen Smith: That's right. Yeah. And I feel that we have that leverage with politicians in their communities that could be utilized. But you know, the regulation, the federal regulation that restricts testimonials, for instance, is something which I don't fully understand why it is why we are not allowed people to share their own personal stories about Cannabis. But why can't you speak from your own perspective. If you qualify it as thus, everybody is does experience Cannabis differently. And that's an important point to share around. Having less education, less availability for people to learn, leaving people up to the internet. To find out this is not it's not really very humane. Feel like having people to just speak with like a pharmacist, or somebody who is very educated in medicine is invaluable. At this point, it is invaluable
Trevor: I just, in case people missed it, I think you made an important point there about testimonials. So just in case, people are unfamiliar. If I walked into a Cannabis shop or Victoria Cannabis Buyers Club, that means that if I say, you know, I'm looking for something to help my, I'll pick a disease, I am looking for something help my Crohn's disease. and the person selling it, that person behind the counter, the person there, are they not allowed to say, you know, I used this strain and it helped my Crohn's disease? Is that sort of how it's how it legally is supposed to happen?
Owen Smith: My understanding is that it's correct. They're only allowed to indicate the price and the availability of the product. They're not to speak about it otherwise. Although, speaking to bud tenders in Victoria, they do it because how can you not? Half the people come in, I just wanna know which one helped me sleep.
Kirk: That's that's the experience we've had. I do road stories every summer when I go and take the van out for a road trip. I go into rec stops shops and find out what the new issue is of the of the moment. And a lot of it has been, you know, you've got a product that's called Sleepezze, you know CBNs and CBDs. And someone walks in, so they want something for sleep. Well, hey, it says Sleepezzes. And I've given it to other customers who have benefited from it.. So budtenders, what I'm hearing from them is that they're allowed to speak from their own experiences, but not medicinally.
Owen Smith: Yeah, like, regarding that particular piece of the law, it would be something to look up and verify because you don't want to get a fine from an inspector, secret shopper or something. And you don t want to give people any bad advice, that's for sure.
Kirk: Have you guys got a nurse practitioner at the buyers club now? Have you got a prescriber there yet working with you?
Owen Smith: No. We work with external prescribers only, yeah, nobody there has that qualification. Well, we all, and the members especially, have a lot of experience, like 10, 15, 20 years of experience. Most of them even longer than that. And so there's a lot that they can share in and around how to safely consume Cannabis.
Kirk: You know, Owen, medical, as a nurse, I get very frustrated because I've said this often, you know, the federal government manages the medical program, the provinces, manage doctors, nurses and the colleges of those professions. And there's that disconnect. What what I have found is happening is that the provincial governments prepared for Cannabis as a substance of misuse opposed to medicine. And they keep saying, we've learned from our experiences with alcohol. We've learned, from our experience with selling cigarettes, all that learning we're going to apply to Cannabis. And again, the disconnect is Cannabis is not liquor. Cannabis is not smoking. It's something different. And no matter how much research that suggests that the Pigouvian tax, what is it, Trevor, you can help me with.
Trevor: Pigouvian. That's when we had our economist on, our Pigouvian tax
Kirk: that, you know, Cannabis is going to cost society something, like we know that there's a deficit for alcohol of $6 billion. Well, actually, my calculations, the research I've done, Cannabis actually puts $2 billion back into society. So it doesn't cost society anything from a perspective of a substance of misuse. There's very, very little cost to society. So this 15% tax you're talking about, more than likely, they're saying this is to go to you know, for all the substance misuse of Cannabis, where when it's not actually there. So, you know going back to your book, it's great that you're getting the research and attaching the research to it because I'm really tired with governments making laws over stigmatization and ignorance.
Owen Smith: Indeed. I mean, the perspective on the culture and persuasion aspect of transforming society, transforming the perspective, on this, it seems to go very deep. It takes a lot to get somebody are out of a mindset that has been with them for a long time. And it's supported largely still in by institutions in society. I mean, can't go to a hospital, you find a lot of people very anti Cannabis there. And like it's a bit of a battleground for anybody who wants to consume Cannabis to navigate hospitals. It's content, it continues to be culturally not recognized. And that makes you wonder, I mean we do have alcohol and tobacco and those have been put up on the pedestal these are the ones you can you can take none of the other ones which include psychedelics and other substances which they are more, I can tell you from my experience, they're a lot more fun and they offer a lot more insight, more reflective. Alcohol for me was very dulling, got me in a lot of trouble. I don't know why that would be the substance our society would choose to champion as a culture. To me it seems we're involved in a historical process and it's very political and that we a lot of work to do in order to transform why society approaches their free time, maybe their medicine, and maybe their like intoxication experiences too. Cannabis can fill those voids with the least amount of harm. the safer option. I always liked that from when Colorado was legalizing this, they'd always say the safer than alcohol because yeah there may still be issues with it that we should talk about and protect ourselves from, be responsible adults about but really this is a smart choice and it's taking a really long time to do it. These are all hurdles but my book and our work really, it really accentuates this point, like, how is it that we keep this thing illegal from adults, from adults to consume, and yet there's children and the elderly who without this wouldn't be able to function. It feels like there's a real cognitive dissonance in society, where we have some people on one side and other people on the other. We need to bridge that. I think podcasts and books and things like this are important for that reason.
Kirk: Yeah, no, of course, we're all sitting here with like minds. I mean, how many times I've gone to music festivals and people are wandering around with their alcohol being complete jerks and and disruptive. And we celebrate it. And, you know, we give we give away gifts to children. They can have a little fanny pack that says Palm Beach or Palm Bay on it. And but yet we're not allowed to give a child a Cannabis leaf because we're promoting Cannabis. It's all it's all backwards. And I don't get it either. You know, the longer the longer Trevor and I have done this podcast, you know, Trevor, the card carrying conservative guy that basically is now seeing Cannabis more as medicine that I am, I'm starting to be starting to see some of the downsides of Cannabis a little bit, but What's the harm in Cannabis? Like you're not gonna get cardiovascular collapse. You're not going to get respiratory collapse. You're going to find yourself face down in a mud puddle. It's not happening with Cannabis, right? But tell me more about your book, man. So you started-
Owen Smith: You got me thinking right now, kind of where I finshed my book off, which is something which is in my face daily. The VCBC is right in downtown Victoria, two blocks short blocks from the open air drug market of Victoria. We're surrounded by churches on both sides. And on the steps of the churches, for the last you know, I've been working with uh the group for about a year and a half there that's been consistently uh new people on the steps of those churches passed out with the glass long stem glass pipes you might have seen um people smoking fentanyl and other potent pain relievers, potent substances. There's an organization two blocks in the other direction called Solid and they provide Cannabis for free to people struggling with opioid addiction. This group is monitored by the University of Victoria and they've been operating for a number of years and they have had an incredible benefit to those people who they help. We get, we are in that intersection as well, uh, Cannabis, uh as a pain reliever, Cannabis as a medicine, something which has less harms for people, you know, all kinds of people out in the street for all kinds of reasons. And there's a whole lot of them. They're really unwell, like really disabled. Um, they're just physically unwell and they can't manage their lives because like helping, helping a guy down the street to the food bank. His knees all buckled, like, why don't you help your knee? He's hungry, has nowhere to live, people in great distress down there. And Cannabis is a safer option and should be available. If it was like we wanted it to be with legalization, it would be very inexpensive and available to those who really need it. The situation we have now is a continuation of prohibition, largely because of the capture. the market that companies can keep prices high you know and of course the illicit market competes and drives them down but this is because people need it needs to be available and these prices that they're trying to maintain really aren't sustainable it feels like to me the the goal always I think Daniel Larson was one of the better people that coining these things, but like, you know, it's like tomatoes, like we want it to be something which is on that level of accessibility in terms of price. Because it's agricultural product, it could be grown at scale, especially when you talk about oils for medicine, topical products doesn't have to be glistening buds and sending out just need to be harvesting the medicine from those and making them available. Yeah, it's a bind, it feels like, in some ways.
Kirk: It's a weed that grows everywhere. Manitoba is soon to get our four. The NDP government has, I think it's supposed to happen this spring. They've actually, I think, it's past third reading and I think its actually law now, but it has not been announced yet. Yeah, yeah. So we're going to get our four. I mean, even that even that is ridiculous, you know, to get your four because you may have four, four mothers, you know, so that just that just shows ignorance. You know, sir, we've kept we've catches Trevor, is there any questions you want to ask Owen? No. Owen, is there anything else about your book about Elbowsup about Buyers Club? Like now you guys you guys are I'm trying to remember is it Quadra street or Blanchard.
Owen Smith: It's Quadra.
Kirk: Okay, and you're just up from the Victoria Police Department, aren't you? Just like a stone throw away.
Owen Smith: yeah that's right if you continue down the road four or five blocks is the police department.
Kirk: Yeah yeah.
Owen Smith: It's it's nice right now the trees are blooming we've got roses out front planted in the little garden
Kirk: Yeah, enough of that, enough for that. We still have snow. You guys out in Lotus land, I think the cherry blossoms are just done, aren't they?
Owen Smith: They're yeah, they're blooming. Yeah
Kirk: I did interrupt you, again, tell us more about the buyers club, any updates?
Owen Smith: Well, it's always good to drop in because things can happen all of a sudden. where it's a long, slow process, but yet that does hit these marks. So, yeah, we'll check in again at the next step. I'm hoping to have this book up for release by 420. Work on it today. And the t-shirt I'm wearing can be found at the 420elbowsup.ca. I'll be putting up some more designs, maybe some these stickers where we sent out this sort of thing, hoping that that doesn't go on forever. But everything that I'm saying it seems to not have any pause on it. Yeah, it's a bit of a reaction to that, really, this Elbows Up campaign is really a reaction to this political environment. When I saw that emerge, you know, sometimes disturbances in the status quo can be opportunities, new ways to come together. And I definitely heard that a lot from like the standing prime ministers, hearing that a like Unified Canada. The politicians are really calling it out, so why not do that with Cannabis?
Kirk: I completely agree, man. We'll have your LinkedIn page. You're really active on LinkedIn. I like going to your page and we'll have you webpages linked into our webpage. And I'm always got an eye on Victoria. I've got relatives, I grew up in Victoria. So I will always have my eye on the Buyers Club. And yeah, we'll definitely talk to you again.
Owen Smith: But there's one more part, I guess we could mention. I've been looking at the cover. Yeah. You got the weed leaf around it. You have a circle of mushrooms. So psychedelics have been part of my journey since I was a younger man. And I feel like they've helped me as well. Psychedelics right now seem to be following along the course that Cannabis took with a bit of a social movement in Vancouver. We have one in Victoria too, that's selling psychedelics in the formats, the similar formats to what we used chocolate, gummies, this sort of thing to make it a little bit more accessible.
Kirk: I was, I was in Haida Gwaii last summer, that was it already last summer and going through British Columbia. And first thing I said to Trevor, there's mushrooms everywhere. It's like, it's like it's, like circa 2010 Cannabis on the West coast. I mean, magic mushrooms everywhere it's so it's. And the other thing that I put, this isn't a magic mushroom podcast, but magic Mushrooms is actually less dangerous than Cannabis.
Owen Smith: There's concerns with both. There's ways of managing them that are better. So I'm volunteering right now with MAPS (Canada) [sic], the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies. I use my graphic design wizardry to make presentations based on scientific studies and reports from scientists about the psychedelic therapy movement and the development of that. So if you go to MAPS (Canada) [sic] social media pages, you'll start to see some of the presentations that I've been making, beautiful visual presentations that break down the data of some of these studies talking about psychedelic therapy, Cannabis, and this sort of thing, which is really great. I really love working with MAPS (Canada) [sic].
Kirk: Do you have your own wiki page yet? I didn't even check.
Owen Smith: but I need to do that.
Kirk: I don't think you're allowed to give yourself a wiki page. I think someone else does it, but yeah, I mean, you're obviously gonna be a mover and shaker and we'll be part of the Canadian Encyclopedia as we go forward, man. Thank you, sir. Thank you for your time. It's always a pleasure. And I will definitely drop into the Buyers Club next time I'm in Victoria.
Owen Smith: Great. Good to see you.
Kirk: So what do you think of talking to Owen there? He, it was nice to catch up with him.
Trevor: Absolutely. Yeah, no, like you said, when you're alluding to his future wiki page seems to be have his fingers in a whole lot of everything, you know, literally from the Cannabis lawsuits, court cases that had a big deal with getting Cannabis Legal in Canada all the way to the current current where he's worried and interested in you Canadian Cannabis companies and things I didn't think of like we'll pick on Tilray you know Tilray being talked about being a Canadian company but now really under US ownership so you know how like everything else people are wondering about in Canada right now how Canadian is that if you if you have you know if your local McDonald's is owned by the US but you know staffed by Canadians and using Canadian beef how Canadian is it? I still don't have a good answer for that, but you know, interesting that he's brought that into into Cannabis.
Kirk: Yeah, I mean, as a rec, rec market versus medical market, and it's still funny that Cannabis sort of walks between those, that line on the line of medical versus recreation. But I guess for the recreational users that are listening to our podcast, I guess what we're trying to do is encourage you to consider how you buy. So I mean I'm always one buy local. you know, always try to find the closest Cannabis that was grown as close to the resale store as possible, opposed to, you know what we learned a couple years ago, how Cannabis can go across the country just to get packaged. I wonder if that's still happening. It's been a while since we've investigated the rec market.
Trevor: I assume yes. Again, we're both sort of talking out of our ear on this one, but we do and more importantly, I think if that is important to you, I think it would be very difficult for a consumer to know, because you know, what we have found out through talking to one of our local, you know different crafts, Cannabis people, but it sort of really came into focus with me when we're talking with Eric Greening, Greencraft Cannabis is, you know, at the beginning, and I don't know if this has changed yet to actually catch up with Eric at some point, the beginning of what they were selling wasn't Greencraft Cannabis that would end up in the Dauphin store. They were selling Cannabis in bulk to a bigger, picking on Aphria. So let's say it was Aphria, Aphria buys a bundle of Greencraft Cannabis and then sells it to other people under some Aphria brand. So it would be, I think extraordinarily difficult for your average consumer if they go into a rec store to have any idea how far their Cannabis travel. But to a point you made earlier, as far as we know, the Cannabis, the actual Cannabis, I don't think can come from anywhere other than in Canada legally in Canada right now.
Kirk: Yeah, that's my understanding, Cannabis cannot cross borders, paraphernalia does, but like Owen said though, the issue becomes, are you buying from a Canadian company or not? And that's the thing, how do you ensure that your money is going to a Canadian company.
Trevor: Yeah. And another thing that he mentioned that I'm sure has come up, but I'd forgot, how about I'd forgotten about was, and again, I, I has been mentioned. I'm a capitalist. I think people should make money, but is having four-ish large Canadian companies, did that help or hurt the consumer? Because is that keeping the prices artificially inflated? Owen said, like as if you compared them to tomatoes, should the Cannabis be cheaper? Would it be cheaper if it was a bunch of little companies? And we didn't get into it with Owen, but just worth mentioning. anyone involved in Canada, what we mentioned a little bit is taxes. The amount of tax your average consumer pays on their Cannabis is astronomical. And even whether you like or hate the Cannabis companies, the Cannabis company's bottom line would be way better if you, the consumer, didn't have to pay so much in tax too. So as usual, when talking with Owen, there was a lot going on there.
Kirk: Yeah, yeah, he's a very busy guy. And we've, I've written about this in our Blog page, essentially how, how the cost of Cannabis to society is minimal compared to the cost of alcohol to society. Yet we're still paying more taxes on Cannabis with this assumption that it's a misused substance opposed to being medicine. And Owen, Owen Smith and Ted Smith, I mean, they're all about Cannabis being medicine, right? It's not about Cannabis being Rec. I mean, he's talking about the area of town that they're situated in. I know the area very well. My sister-in-law lives very nearby to that area. I know, I know area. So there are lots of people who are houseless and who are, you know, dealing with some issues with misuse of substances and Cannabis. I mean we've done episodes on this. Cannabis is a harm reduction agent. So if we could give people Cannabis opposed to other access to other more harmful drugs such as fentanyl that society would be a better place now of course this is coming from advocates of Cannabis i'm sure other people you're replacing one drug with another however the answer is yes but from a harm reduction perspective so Cannabis is a harm-reduction agent is so much better for society than fentanyls
Trevor: And people like in the harm reduction, because it just came up in the hockey dressing room for like, I think the last skate of the year. Uh, this is not an ad for zonics, but in Dauphin right now, a tiny little nicotine package is the most popular thing on earth. I can't believe how many people buy this to help them reduce smoking. And I kind of forget how many around here use chewing tobacco. So reduce chew and reduce, uh, smoking. They buy these little nicotin packages that you stuff in your lips. and extraordinarily popular. But of course it came up in the dressing room was, is this less harmful than chewing tobacco? Is this less than smoking cigarettes? And the answer is yes, absolutely. Now, same thing I said in the dress room. Do I want a 15 year old who has never smoked and never used chew to suddenly start shoving Zonic in the lip? Absolutely not. I'm not saying Zonic is harm free, but it is a harm reduction from chewing tobacco or cigarettes. We can argue, lots of people can argue if Cannabis is completely harm free, but it's certainly less harmful than super strong opioids like fentanyl. So it, and we've had whole episodes, so not to rehash the whole thing, but harm reduction, Cannabis just kind of makes sense.
Kirk: So Owen, Owen Smith, lovely to catch up with him. He's a very active guy on LinkedIn. Anything else to say?
Trevor: No, that was great. Thanks, Owen. We really appreciate the chat. Looking forward to the book and the things you will be doing down the road with 420elbowsup.ca. So, no, that was great and learned a lot.
Kirk: I'm Kirk Nyquist, I'm the registered nurse and we are Reefer Medness The Podcast found at reefermed.ca.
Trevor: I'm Trevor Shewfelt, I'm the pharmacist. This was another good chat. And you know, some point down the road, maybe eventually we'll introduce ourselves at the beginning, but you know at this point probably not.
Kirk: Yeah, one thing to update the viewers on is that we're going to try a little experiment and we're not going to include music and it going forward. And there's a couple of reasons for that. One is our statistics suggest you're not listening to it. And so and like people are listening to about 70% of our podcasts, which means that they're not probably listening to the songs. So we're gonna and also YouTube we're now streaming to YouTube And YouTube will put on caveats if we put music on the podcast. So this is without music. And it's another good one.
Trevor: That's another good one.