Episode Transcript

Rene: Welcome back to Reefer Medness. I'm Rene back in the studio. This episode is part two of an interview that Trevor had with Seann Poli. And he's one of the founders of JANrx and the reason he got into the business that he's in is because of his love of the science of cannabis. And you can hear all of that in E-175 Part 1 and here's the second part of that interview and then Trevor and Kirk's observations about the conversation with Seann Poli.

The Voice: It's Reefer Madness, the podcast with Trevor and Kirk.

Trevor:  It seems lately Kirk and I have been talking to people and about people more on the full spectrum end of things, like having more acidic cannabinoids in there, you know, the stuff that's still there before you heat it and you know there is definitely proponents out there saying you know that's kind of the magic missing part if it's too refined, you know we're missing the acidic cannabinoids. Are you? And I'm not saying we have to necessarily promote one company over another, but have you been finding some companies are doing a good job of the full spectrum, and I guess to the point you brought up a good full spectrum, lots of acidic cannabinoids and still palatable, or has there been some that are doing better than others?

Seann Poli:  To be completely honest with you. Yes. However, the founder of that company recently passed away from a heart attack. To be complete honest with, and so we're very disappointed. We took all the inventory that we could. That being said, we have a new partner that we can create our own formulations with, which we will be doing with acidic cannabinoids, as well as the non-acidic cannabinoids as well. So, other than that, Trevor, it's not that easy to find formulations that are not de-carbed.

Trevor:  Okay, nope, fair enough. Like I said, that just every other conversation lately that Kirk and I do seem to be people who are more interested in the acidic end of things and you know, how much your typical patient is missing if they're getting, like you said, just a CBD isolate and how that's, there's no entourage effect in that and there's terpenes and there's no so you know it's wondering how what you guys are running into

Seann Poli:  full spectrum is something that we what we really want to get involved in. We'll just have to have patience with people on the taste profile. Adding another flavor to a full spectrum really is just masking something that's still there. However, once they understand that it's better for you, ideally they're going to get past that taste profile and just suck it up.

Trevor:  Okay fair enough um earlier on you were saying that and i don't know how much you can tell us now but you've got some interesting other products or formulations or ways to get the cannabis into people sort of coming on stream lately and any of those you want to talk about

Seann Poli:  Well, yeah, so one product, for example, would be a CBG, CBD, CBC oil. It comes in regular oil as well as quick absorption. I call that rocket fuel. All non-psychoactive, of course, with those cannabinoids. And I liken it to a shot of espresso with an extra strength ibuprofen without the jitters because of You know, the profit of each cannabinoid, right?

Trevor:  You've got me sold. A clip we keep playing because we just like what she said. We had a young lady last year call CBG a bubble bath for her brain and we just kind of like how that sounds. But I like the espresso without the jitters too. So tell me a little bit more about that one.

Seann Poli:  Well I mean you know from the anti-inflammatory properties of D and C, C being very highly anti-inflammatory but just occurs in smaller amounts in the plant. So you'll find those to be smaller in the products but still it's very effective and then you get the brain acuity from the CBG so when you put those together that's why I call it rocket fuel. It's amazing. What our intentions will be later on is to take that profile and add some acidic molecules into that as well. Again, with flower strains, there are not that, you can't find that in very high quantity like CBD or CBG kind of thing. So it's gonna be probably adding more CBC isolate into a formulation, but we could take a full spectrum formulation, just add other compounds to it. Celeste is making other holistic type products as well that are handmade. We can make those in our GPP facility and add cannabinoids and apply to Health Canada for a new cannabis product and sell those on our shelf as well. So we'll be starting that probably well early this summer. Yeah, and we're very excited about that as well because those are very unique products. We've had great feedback from Celeste's private clients and they will, some will focus on pain relief. And others will focus on hormonal balance, which I have not seen in the cannabis market.

Trevor:  No, we have definitely talked to people, usually female people, who have talked about cannabis helping with menopausal symptoms and we had an early interview and they're actually talking about cannabis as a female sexual aid. So we've definitely had people talk about hormones and cannabis but a specific product for it. No, I don't think I've seen that either.

Seann Poli:  Yeah so basically she's developed topicals that use other natural ingredients for hormone balance and that will be adding CBD into that so stay tuned we'll have more information on that as well.

Trevor:  No that is that is very cool um and just there's a million questions but I've only got you for you know the 30-ish minutes. Did I miss let's go to did I miss anything was there anything you wish we were talking about or any veterans things or anything that you're doing that you wished I'd talk about that we should you know make sure we get in here before I run out of time with video.

Seann Poli:  You know we love being a cannabis resource. We're open to questions from anybody anytime. The website is J-A-N-R-X dot C-A. We ship nationwide and we'd just love to hear from you.

Trevor:  I think that is a great place to end, Seann, with two N's. It's been fantastic meeting you. JanRx sounds like a great company. We love what you've been doing for veterans and like you said, the general public. So keep up the good work and we will keep in touch.

Seann Poli:  You betcha look forward to hearing it.

Trevor:  Kirk, what did you think of my chat with Seann?

Kirk:  Well, as I was listening to his story, you know, and you made the comment in your discussion with him that you had, it seemed like you had a little bit of a revelation that he's doing pharmacy work. And as, and I was, I was listening to this as I was doing some stuff around the house and I actually stopped and smiled because I can't think of how many times I've said that nurses are also losing competencies. I mean, because health professions seem to be ignoring, is that the word? Ignoring cannabis as medicine?

Trevor:  Sure.

Kirk:  So other, so the industry is creating Is creating new new unregulated health professionals to fill the gap. I mean, we've got Cannabis Coaches now, which I think is fantastic, but frustrates me all to hell because nurses should be coaching because nurses have a better understanding of global health, pathophysiology of the body. Nurses have so much more foundational knowledge and skill and judgment to be helping people with their medications. But because the nursing profession seems to be ignoring cannabis science... Um the industry is created. So i i can't think in in the 170 episodes that we've done have we've stumbled into this where you've had a revelation that pharmacies are losing competencies

Trevor:  No, like we've had some other people who are doing, you know, we had the group who were, you know, literally being consultants in rec stores, we've had people who were cannabis pharmacists. But yeah, and this is not disrespect to Seann or anything he's doing. The the role needs to be filled. But Yeah, when he was talking about, you know, I'm not saying it's favorite part of my job, but helping Patients navigate insurance companies, which is basically what Department of Veterans Affairs is, you know, that's a big part of what I do. You know, calling them up a month later saying, hey, how did this strain, this capsule, this topical work for you? That's what pharmacists are supposed to do. Someone coming in saying, you know I don't know anything about my medication, in this case cannabis, can you tell me a little bit about it? That's what pharmacists do, you know, And I mean this in a good way. You know, it is a role that should be filled. And that's what Seann is doing at a, at JANrx, which was again, I obviously biased. I think the pharmacy role is important. I'm glad someone's doing it a little frustrated. It isn't actual pharmacists, but you know, I guess we have to take the winds where we can that someone is filling the pharmacy roll that isn't someone with a white coat like me.

Kirk:  Yeah, yeah, no, that's what I got out of this story that you brought, is just the frustration I'm having. In regards to this story, it's very similar to other episodes we've had, we did an episode of 120, Canadian Licensed Medical Cannabis Company, which was a medical dispensary, Tantus Health, and basically JANrx is a medical cannabis dispensary, correct? So, this is sort of like falls into that category?

Trevor:  Well, kind of. They're there. And Seann, send us angry emails if I got this wrong. And so they're not an actual they don't actually grow. And they don't have any actual stuff in a warehouse. They're they're li a virtual middleman. Is the way I that's how I'm wrapping my brain around it, you know. They have prescribers on board. So, you know, they have nurse practitioners, I think a psychiatrist, a pain specialist, maybe some others, so you can contact them. You can get a prescription or medical document for your cannabis that gets sent to JANrx. JANrx then basically finds someone who's, you know they are independent, so they don't have to go just one company. They can search all of Canada. Find the appropriate product for you and then get it mailed to you and check in with you a month or so down the road and see if it worked or not, did you like it, did you hate the taste, did whatever. Kirk, taste and full spectrum. I thought you'd like that part. I thought that was cool that Seann finds that he has to balance full spectrum, We had a lot of things lately about how good full spectrum is for you versus people hate the taste of full spectrum. So any thoughts on on taste versus efficacy?

Kirk:  Well, no, I think we've discussed that in past episodes, but I did cruise through his webpage and he's selling products through other LPs. He's got his gummies, which actually look very flavorful. I'm looking here, he's got Glenn's ice cream THC gummies. He's Got Glenn's strawberry watermelon THC Gummies. He sells infused pre-rolls. So I went through his webpage. It looks like, I'm not sure if there's a recreational side. It doesn't look like there is.

Trevor:  No, no, he said that, you know, not that you can't basically buy the same product in a rec store, but they are focused 100% medical.

Kirk:  Yeah, yeah, it's almost like Catalog. You go onto his JANrx and he will help you find a prescriber. He'll help you understand the product you're using. Now, did he say, I didn't hear in the interview, did he said that he would do the audit like a pharmacist does or would that be the prescribers responsibility?

Trevor:  He helps so again it sounded very similar to what a pharmacist does like if you were having trouble. We'll pick on Blue Cross because they annoy me every day if you're having trouble getting Blue Cross to cover your cholesterol pill. Chances are the first person you come to is your pharmacist. I'll end up calling Blue Cross seeing what's missing if it's some documentation that I have in the pharmacy I'll send it to them, but half the time it said no It's that's a part that the prescriber has to do so I'll Send it to the prescriber and say please fill out form x and send it to blue cross so um and it sounds like Seann's doing very similar things you know he'll fill out what he can he'll help the the vet usually in this case fill out the best they can but if something has to be done by the prescriber well then he'll forward it to the prescriber so again reminded me remarkably of my my day to day of arguing with insurance companies um yeah the only thing worse than arguing with insurance companies lately is arguing with the candidate revenue agency about taxes, but you know, that's a different episode for a different story. Kirk, for the people who didn't see the video version of this, in the nicest way, describe what Seann was wearing, because it's actually kind of important for the story.

Kirk:  Yeah, I listened to the audio version and then I went on the video version as I was doing some maintenance on our website and yeah, he sort of, I think he must be recording with his phone because he has a long, long screen, vertical opposed to horizontal screen And he's wearing what I would call a beat-up old... Country fest hat and I think he was wearing plaids and he was leaning into it casually. It was almost like you guys were sitting at a tall table bar and just chatting with each other. He looked like he was just leaning into a table.

Trevor:  Yeah and I regret I turned off the recording already but after the interview we were just chatting and I didn't bring it up. Suddenly it came to what he was wearing. He said, yeah, did you like my outfit? It's fine. I said, yep. So for years he was in finance and so he had to wear a suit and tie. I've got my tie on right now but you know now that he's you know running his own cannabis business I can wear whatever I want. So he had the cowboy hat the plaid. He you know he looked like he enjoyed what he threw on in that morning and You know? I guess that's the bonus about being in the slightly more casual cannabis business than in finance.

Kirk:  I wonder if he had his shit-kicking boots on.

Trevor:  I don't know. He didn't point his phone down at his boots while half-tipped. Sean, the public needs to know what kind of boots were you wearing during the interview. We'll tell everybody.

Kirk:  Yeah, you look like he would be comfortable at a Corb Lund concert...

Trevor:  Absolutely.

Kirk:  Alright, is there anything else?

Trevor:  I really enjoyed that chat with Seann. Full disclosure, I think I really will take him up on the offer to, I got to say the combination rocket fuel, ibuprofen, espresso without jitters. I'm really curious. So I think, I literally will try to buy some of that from him and see how it feels, so. If when I do and if when I try it out one day, I will, I will report back on how much I enjoyed CBG, CBD, CBC combo.

Kirk:  Yeah. Yeah.

Trevor:  Yeah. Again, not, not promoting cannabis use because as a pharmacist, I don't do that, but it sounded really cool.

Kirk:  Alright, man, um,.

Trevor:  It was another good one. I we didn't introduce ourselves at the beginning. So we better do it now I'm Trevor Shewfelt. I'm the pharmacist.

Kirk:  We keep forgetting to do this. I'm Kirk Nyquist, I'm the registered nurse. We are Reefer Medness - The podcast founded all of the podcast platforms. And you know, people, if you like us, please tell a friend. We often say this meta suites do not promote us on social media. We're on LinkedIn. Trevor is doing some great work with AI and getting us on LinkedIn, and we're getting lots of exposure there. But tell people give us a like let's pump us up. Let's get a scene by others. We've been told by those that listen to us that they like us and we have some very dedicated downloads every week, every Tuesday. So tell a friend, help us promote this.

Trevor:  Cannabis is social. Pass us along. I promise not to say that every episode. It was just fun this time.

Kirk:  Puff, puff, pass. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. All right, man. We'll see you on the other side.

Trevor: Okay, talk to everyone later.