Episode Transcript

Trevor: Kirk, we're back.

Kirk: Hey how's it going, we are back to recording Road Stories.

Trevor: Yep, we're wrapping up some road stories from fairly far apart. We've got Sheena at Green Mountain and then Lyrin all the way back in Winnipeg.

Kirk: Yeah, actually, the second story is not actually connected to the April road trip, sorry about that.

Trevor: But it was a budtender and it works well.

Kirk: Yeah, and we're meeting two budtenders, but I've got to tell you something, these two budtenders could not be more diverse in their demographic and the area in which they work. There's a common thread though, but I'm not going to talk about the common thread until we get to the end of the two stories, okay, because I want to bring it up, I want to see people hear the common threads. So these are two very diverse people, but you know what, Trevor, I think we need to introduce ourselves. Because we keep forgetting to do that.

Trevor: We should do that. My name is Trevor Shewfelt. I'm the pharmacist.

Kirk: I am Kirk Nyquist. I'm the Registered Nurse and we are Reefer Medness The Podcast and this is Episode or part three of a series of Road Stories that I've put together from a trip I took in April and like I said another trip I had in Winnipeg after that trip. So, Budtenders. So, okay. So here I am with two stories with a common thread. I want the listeners to hear the thread at the end. So I'm not going to talk about what brings these two people together. But Trevor, I've brought two very diverse people from different demographics, working in completely different environments.

Trevor: Okay, so should we start with Sheena?

Kirk: Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay. Let's start with Sheena. So here I am. I'm quite excited to talk about this story because this story relates to another Road Story I took to the to Haida Gwaii when I went into an aboriginal shop in Haida Gwaii. This is another aboriginal shop. Okay, so I'm going down the highway towards the coast. So I'm going westward on a BC highway #3 Crowsnet Pass and I just passed Keremeos and I am heading towards Princeton. And I am on the highway and I something in my memory told me that there was a cannabis store someplace on this highway. I couldn't remember but I'm I'm driving away in Van Hoot and all of a sudden the corner of my eye I see this green multicolored rainbow Airstream trailer on the side of the road. On the other side, and I'm going and it and it clicks It goes I think that's I think. That's the place. I want to go.

Trevor: That might be the place. There's a sign.

There's a sign. There is a sign. So I stopped and again I'm on a bloody highway two-lane BC highway in Van Hoot. Going about 80 kilometers an hour and and I stopped I pull over and I make a U-turn and I am in Mountain Green Mountain High Road Dispensary and I'm sure anybody that's been on this part of the Crowsnest Pass knows this building because it really is stark and in the middle of nowhere there will be pictures on reefermed.ca. And I recommend everyone to go to our multi-learning base webpage. But this is an incredible story Trevor. Um, I walk in. To a dispensary that's First Nations owned, and the lady is rolling reefer. She's got, there's bud everywhere, you're in this cramped little airstream, I think it's an airstream, an older trailer. And she's rolling reefer and I you know I introduced myself will you tell me a story and so she this is her story now there I there are two recordings of her so we're going to blend them together and hear her story and then as you come out of it I want I want to talk about

Trevor: Okay, let's listen to Sheena.

Sheena Dadson: Hello, I'm Sheena Dadson and I got into selling cannabis on the reserve by being introduced to another lady who was selling cannabis at Skaaha in Penticton. Cynthia opened her own store, which is Green Mountain High Road, which was where we're at.

Kirk: So this is Green Mountain High Road, this is what this is called?

Sheena Dadson: This is what it is called.

Okay, Green Mountain high road cannabis smoke shop. Yeah. Okay.

Sheena Dadson Cool. It's all over the trailer too, if you can... Okay. With the funky...

Kirk: Okay, and I can take pictures later?

Sheena Dadson: Of course.

Kirk: Fantastic, okay.

Sheena Dadson Um, it was mainly I was buying moon rock joints and moon rock bud from Cynthia and her husband Dion for my cancer. To help me sleep and eat because I was having an issue with them.

Kirk: Okay, so you were diagnosed with cancer and were you taking traditional Western cancer therapies?

Sheena Dadson Yes, I took chemo and radiation and I have the surgery to become cancer-free.

Kirk: Okay, so and how did you use cannabis?

Sheena Dadson To help myself eat, sleep and eat, or I just wouldn't. I would just drink fluids, which isn't good.

Kirk: Fluids are good, fluids are good!

Sheena Dadson You lose a lot of weight doing that sort of stuff, so now I'm trying to gain all that weight back. It's been five years, knock on wood.

Kirk: Five years cancer-free?

Sheena Dadson: Yes.

Kirk: Congratulations. That's fantastic.

Sheena Dadson So now I'm just working on a non-tuberculosis microbiologic disease. I'll help you off the antibiotics for that one. That was a two year stent.

Kirk: Yeah, so you're taking TB meds?

Sheena Dadson: Yeah.

Kirk: OK. OK,Are you First Nations yourself?

Sheena Dadson: No, I'm not.

Kirk: OK.

Sheena Dadson No, I'm not. I just became really good friends with the owners.

Kirk: OK.

Sheena Dadson: But they weren't working. They didn't have their own store at the time. It was before. And then they got their own story. And then I convinced Cynthia and Dion that.

Kirk: This store is hard to get to. In the sense where people know where it is like tourists don't stop here right.

Sheena Dadson: All the time. We're the first one coming through because everyone going to Penticton, Osoyoos, Kelowna. You've got to pass us.

Kirk: I came out so I didn't see you till last minute. Yeah. So I did a U-turn on the highway to come here. So okay. Very cool. Now, um, that's a cool story. Thank you. Do you mind if I ask you some more questions about the shop?

Sheena Dadson: Sure.

Kirk: I'm standing in front of um, spaghetti jars I guess we'd call them.

Sheena Dadson: Yup.

Sheena Dadson: Long, lean spaghetti jars and they're full of flour, non-packaged flour. Yes. So, explain that to me. How does that happen?

Sheena Dadson I did get big bags of it delivered to me and it's graded whether it be an A grade which is the lowest.

Kirk: Okay, A grade is lowest.

Sheena Dadson Where the quad A is the more potency, stronger.

Kirk: So it's measured by the THC, that's what you... So is it like top shelf? It doesn't go like top-shelf is quality bud. It's just, you're giving it 4A because of it's got THC in it.

Sheena Dadson: The THC in that.

Kirk: And what's the strain of that? What's the cultivar?

Sheena Dadson This one is a sativa, and this one is hybrid.

Kirk: Am I allowed to smell it and look at it or just so she's opening the jar for me and like it's a long spaghetti jar there is there is kief all along the sides of the inside of the jar oh man that smells amazing oh that smells it that smells and this is this

Sheena Dadson That's sativa.

Kirk: That's the sativa and and and this is grown where?

Sheena Dadson Up here in the interior.

Kirk: Oh, man.

Sheena Dadson And that one's a hybrid, and this is an indica.

Kirk: This is amazing this is and they're such nice little buds hey they're really just can i touch them sure they're just oh goodness.

Sheena Dadson Little bricks.

Kirk: Little bricks? No kidding and the crystals you can see the crystals in that and the red hairs that's lovely and. wow. I smell limonene in this one.

Sheena Dadson Yes, the sativa usually does. Here's our other sativa, which is a Triple.

Kirk: So I've got three spaghetti jars wide open here, cannabis in it, big buds. Look at the size of these buds. And they've trimmed these down. There are no fan leaves on this.

Sheena Dadson Some people have machines to do their trimming and then other people do it by hand.

Kirk: Oh man, you know this is the way cannabis should be sold.

Sheena Dadson Yes, definitely.

Kirk: So how much do you sell this for? Like, what do you...

Sheena Dadson Our prices are right here.

Kirk: Okay, so you've got it so but priceless you got your a's. So what does A represent. CBDs or like how's that work?

Sheena Dadson I'm not sure exactly how that's going to work.

Kirk: Can you show me an A? Just one A?

Sheena Dadson I don't have any.

Kirk: Okay, so what's a double A then?

Sheena Dadson Double do we have a double down here? That's a quad.

Kirk: That's the triple. And it's by THC measurement, that's it. It's nothing, but you don't have percentages written anywhere.

Sheena Dadson No.

Kirk: By the growers, okay So it's so it's fifteen dollars for an eighth. It's eighty dollars for announced for a so triple quad A is a hundred and fifty bucks. No

Sheena Dadson 120.

Kirk: Hundred and twenty dollars an ounce for um for a quad that's those those

Sheena Dadson $100 per

Kirk: For a triple? A triple.

Sheena Dadson Our single A and our double A, we don't do these price this weight. We do the half and the ounces.

Kirk: So it's all all standardized pricing by weight and grade and the grade is by the grower, I guess

Sheena Dadson Yes, I'm guessing yes. Okay. Sometimes we do our own grading just by looking at it because there's no markings on the bag. Okay They'll have an abbreviation like This one

Kirk: So P.A. Just means.

Sheena Dadson PA-T, so you look that up on your phone, PA-t strain, and it'll tell you whether it's Indica, Sativa hybrid, how much Sativa, how much.

Kirk: So Ghost Train Haze. Okay, so there is some names to it. Dairy Queen H, hybrid. This is Peach Rings, and this is an Indica hybrid. Yeah. And this is a, and it's Runts? Runts, yeah. Wow. This is, this is, this is amazing. Like you don't get this kind of cannabis experience anywhere else, eh? Just First Nations store.

Sheena Dadson No, you go into a government story, you can't do this.

Kirk: No, no, there's no excise taxes on any of this.

Sheena Dadson And I hate to say it, but the government store marijuana looks like it's been around for 10 years and it's all burnt and gross and brown and if you can even get into their containers.

Kirk: Yeah, well. Yeah, they're not child proof, they are senior proof.

Sheena Dadson A girlfriend of mine, it took her a month to get into hers.

Kirk: That's very true. So you have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine strains of flower sitting here.

Sheena Dadson And I do have a couple strains behind the counter that aren't out yet because you don't want to do that.

Kirk: So here's a question. Oh, yeah, of course, because there's not a lot of security here

Sheena Dadson There's no security here.

Kirk: No, that's never been a problem.

Sheena Dadson No, we've been robbed twice

Kirk: Okay.

Sheena Dadson Both times, we're by people that work for us.

Kirk: What! How do you get away with that?

Sheena Dadson The guy that delivers our firewood, he came in one evening and broke in one night because it's excuse my language it is darker than... out here at night.

Kirk: Yeah. Yeah, I was camping out the other this last night. The stars are gorgeous

Sheena Dadson The darkness here is totally different compared to the cities.

Kirk: So you're also selling edibles, and there's no excise tax in the edibles either.

Sheena Dadson Nothing in store to taxed.

Kirk: So there's no federal tax or provincial tax?

Sheena Dadson None.

Kirk: And you've been visited by the RCMP...

Sheena Dadson I've had the RCs in here a few times because of people that have worked for us that have caused problems.

Kirk: So they leave you alone?

Sheena Dadson: Yeah, they don't bug us.

Kirk: And the vapes are made, so this is all made.

Sheena Dadson These are Don Crisco's.

Kirk: Okay.

Sheena Dadson These are the 2,500 puffs and Halo. Halo's 30. These are 30. these are 45

Kirk: You have you have, hold on you have testers, but that's that's not that's nicotine vapes, right?

Sheena Dadson: Yes.

Kirk: Okay. Yeah. Yeah, okay. No, I know. I'm not interested in nicotine Vapes Okay, so

Sheena Dadson These are all vapes, so there's even more.

Kirk: And you're selling seeds as well.

Sheena Dadson Yes, those are Sativa seeds, they're Hawaiian.

Kirk: Maui Wowi seeds or?

Sheena Dadson Yup they're 10 bucks for an envelope of them

Kirk: Have they been feminized?

Sheena Dadson I believe yes, according to the girl that brings them in.

Kirk: Wow and that some so this these are all the same seeds. Maui waui. Yes, Maui Waui

Sheena Dadson I've been trying to run into her to see if she can grab me some indica seeds too.

Kirk: So this is Maui Wowi seeds for 10 bucks. God, I think I might just have 10 bucks, I think i'll buy some seeds for me. What else can you tell me about this store?

Sheena Dadson Oh, I could tell you lots about the store, but it's it. We have a lot of regulars. We even have people that come up from the coast just to buy smokes. A guy came up two days ago for smokes. McDonald's. And we sell McDonald's cigarettes to Carton for $60. Okay. He bought $1,500 worth of tobacco from us. Jeez. And went back to Vancouver.

Kirk: Okay, what is your opinion of 420? Do you think we should still have 420 and celebrate 420.

Sheena Dadson Yes. I don't think it hurts anymore. All the other different parties, excuses or whatever you want to call it and have all these other little parties that they do. I don't see why one day it wouldn't hurt.

Kirk: Yeah? So what is 420 celebrating? What's it communicating by doing 420?

Sheena Dadson I think it's opening the doors, inviting people to come and check it out. We usually have on 420, everything in the store is on sale. You get deals.

Kirk: Okay, so you had 420 deals.

Sheena Dadson Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Kirk: Did you go to a 420 celebration? I guess you worked full-time. I have. You did? I did.

Sheena Dadson When it was in Vancouver.

Kirk: So you didn't start using cannabis because of the cancer, or is that what you started?

Sheena Dadson No, I was smoking way before.

Kirk: As a kid? Yeah. So what's your relationship with cannabis?

Sheena Dadson Pain and I have insomnia.

Kirk: So you smoke different strains for different things?

Sheena Dadson Indica mainly. I do smoke hybrid if it's an indica dominant. Okay, sativa will give me a migraine. And blueberry strains will give me because you're they're usually a sativa Okay, they will give you a headache my serious migraine, okay, which is I never

Kirk: So cannabis gives you a migraine.

Sheena Dadson: Sativa, yes.

Kirk: Sativa does, interesting, interesting. And how do you, do you smoke it by flower? Or do you pipe it? I smoke it my flower and just like that. Oh, so through a reefer? Yeah. Cool. What do you think, man?

Trevor: Good, now first, super important journalistic question. You ready?

Kirk: Yeah.

Did you buy those seeds?

Kirk: I did. I want to talk about those seeds. I do. But what I want to talk, what I wanna talk about is how, in this dispensary, cannabis is there. You walk in, overwhelming smell of cannabis, there is spaghetti jars of cannabis on the shelf. I'm allowed to smell it, touch it, feel it. Amazing. The price of that cannabis, $120 an ounce, which is on the low end of what cannabis costs in Canada. I did a quick Google check and it's basically a hundred and eighty to two hundred and sixty dollars for Craft cannabis an ounce So no and plus tax. So this is inexpensive craft cannabis that is right in front of you.

Trevor: Now, so can you just, I'll jump in and tell us what you know or don't know. So this is on reserve, reserve owned. So what, what can tell me about what, you know, that you can do on an on-reserve store that you, can't do in downtown Dauphin, if you have a cannabis store.

Kirk: Well, the fact that the cannabis is literally sitting in spaghetti jars and you can literally take the cannabis off the shelf, put it onto the counter, start smelling it, start touching it.

Trevor: So does that mean provincial laws don't apply there?

Kirk: Correct, correct. These are these are federal reserves and the laws don't apply. And Lorraine mentions that in her story in the last episode how in British Columbia, I guess all across Canada, there are special rules, different rules for First Nations cannabis. But it's man, it's right there. Okay, let's talk about the seeds. So these are supposed to be Maui Waui sativa seeds, according to the purchase. Well, I've cultivated four of the ten seeds that I got and right now those seeds were planted about seven weeks ago. And they are bushes, Trevor. They are indica, broad leaf indica leaves. Like the leaves are as big as two of my hands and broad, which suggests to me they're indica and the plant is growing like a bush. So to me, I believe that indicates an indica. So I don't know what I bought. So here's an example. Of buying from a shop that doesn't follow the rules, you may not be getting what you're advertised.

Trevor: Well Yeah, but it can happen at a store that does follow the rules. I'm just more interested like you've been saying from a consumer point of view, let's ignore the provincial rules from a second, but you know if you go into a High-end wine store or cheese store or chocolate store. The product will be out there. You can touch it and smell it and talk about it and you can do that in it appears from what we've been seeing at an on reserve store but at the various provincial stores and the various provinces, you've been across all of Western Canada now. I assume you don't see that anywhere, right?

Kirk: You're giving away the punchline. Let's not go there yet.

Trevor: Alright, sorry.

Kirk: But you're correct. There's no other places that you can really do this except for on-reserve stores in Canada, the way the Cannabis Act is written. Okay, let's move into my next fella here. Now, this is a conversation, Trevor, that blew me out of the water and I sort of mentioned it at the end of the discussion because I learned something here that was new to me. It's not new to me, but it changed my thinking about cannabis. So I don't want to give it away. I want the listeners to have a conversation, listen to the conversation here, but I want to make one stark observation when I talked about the demographics, right? Our first guest was Sheena, a lady of my age in the middle of stinking nowhere British Columbia. And I love British Columbia, you know, supernatural, but really on the middle of a highway, with no other visitors around her or businesses around her and now we jump into the middle of Winnipeg. We are in the exchange districts on King Street and for anybody that's been to Winnipeg this is an iconic area of Winnipeg. It's one of the most beautiful places in Canada for iconic older buildings, and I meet this 21-year-old man that talks to me about his experiences with cannabis. I walked out of this store and I was bouncing so let's listen.

Trevor: Okay, let's listen to Lyrin

Lyrin Morissette: I'm Lyren Morissette. I work at Fiddler's Green here.

Kirk: At the exchange district.

Lyrin Morissette: Yeah, and I'm just here to talk a little bit.

Kirk: Yeah, yeah, just go ahead.

Lyrin Morissette: So it's not an incredibly popular form of consuming cannabis, but it's my personal favorite. And it's dry herb vaping.

Kirk: Dried herb vaping?

Lyrin Morissette: Yes. Okay. It's, there's so many benefits to it. It's like I said, how I choose to consume my cannabis. It is essentially, think of it like a little oven in your pocket, and you put those buds in the oven, and instead of actually burning them, and getting that carbon release, you're just purely getting the terpenes and the THC, kind of like if you were to inhale the vapor of putting a bud in an oven. It's very natural, it's so good on your lungs, it gives you a very different high, Like, it's very head-high as opposed to... Uh most bud.

Kirk: What temperature do you like burning it at.

Lyrin Morissette: I like to start at around 350 okay as the bud gets a bit more toasted i'll go to 420

Kirk: Does it change your, does it change high as you go through it.

Lyrin Morissette: I find that it does, yes. It is very interesting, especially with like, because it's bud and not like a concentrate, you're getting all those minor cannabinoids in there. It's very, very fun.

Kirk: Have you ever heard of the nozzr?

Lyrin Morissette: I have not

Kirk: We have a story called the Nozzr and basically it was invented by a respiratory therapist and you put it in your nostrils and you inhale your herb vape. I like it.

Lyrin Morissette: That's crazy.

Kirk: I'm also a herd vapor. And using the Nozzr, it changes everything because the terpenes go now. And it goes directly to the brain, bypasses, bypasses well, it goes to the lungs, but it hits the brain very quickly.

Lyrin Morissette: Oh, sorry.

Kirk: Yeah, yeah. sorry man.

Lyrin Morissette: It's just my coffee.

Kirk: Oh, it's your coffee. Okay.

Other Voice; Thank you, brother, and have a good day.

Kirk: So how long have you been a bud tender?

Lyrin Morissette: About six months.

Kirk: Six months so you are new...

Lyrin Morissette: I'm very, very recent to it and I'm a lot younger I feel than a lot of people in the cannabis industry because I'm only 21. So I'm kind of getting in early.

Kirk: We got you serving safe all that.

Lyrin Morissette: Yes, yes. And I just feel that there's like, part of why I wanted to work here at Fiddlers is because there's such a focus on the community and the culture of cannabis usage. It's like obviously medical cannabis is very important, but when you're buying for other than medical reasons, there's a lot of culture and a lot community that you can build up from places like dispensary. I think that that's one of the best uses for government subsidized weed, you know, it's a way for us to connect legally and I just found that to find that so invaluable and that's why I like working here because I feel like I get a lot more of the personal experiences that I may have missed out on by being a younger person who didn't buy illegally in the 90s.

Kirk: Right, okay.

Lyrin Morissette: So I never got that experience of, for example, someone dealing you back when it was illegal, they wouldn't have a menu, they would have this, it wouldn't that, they would say, hey man, you know what I've tried recently? It's this new Northern Lights train. It's beautiful, it's been helping with this, it's a nice lethargic, very calming, couch-locking, yada yada, yadda. You know, all of that sounds great, man. You know it's personal, it's about community. And the way we do it here at Fiddler's is very focused on that community aspect and I just love that.

Kirk: Cool. And that's sort of the owners have said to you, you want, okay, so you have a lot of returning customers.

Lyrin Morissette: Oh, definitely. Yeah, we're so community focused like you may notice we with our menus We just have like little TVs because the main way we want to sell to you is just by talking to you. Just by making that personal connection and trying to revive that personal touch that marijuana has always had

Kirk: Yeah, I'm interested in the anecdote you made about you have come of age with legalization. So you have never experienced a illegal pot.

Lyrin Morissette: Exactly.

Kirk: No, I haven't thought about it that way because I've had a relationship, this has been 50 years, so my relationship with pot comes from the stigma of being illegal.

Lyrin Morissette: Yes. Yeah

Kirk: So, what do you think about stigma then? What is, in your mind, what is the stigma of cannabis being that you've never known it illegal? What's the stigma?

Lyrin Morissette: It's it's very interesting because my sister who is late 20s she just started smoking before legalization, so she has a bit more experience with buying illegally and so I connected with her on that a little bit just to get that other perspective and I find even just from like being online more and more people my age of this younger generation who only started smoking marijuana after it's been legalized There's, like you were saying about the Stigma, there's a lot less of it, like I could have, like I definitely don't know the numbers, but I remember hearing a paper about, in Canada, more young people are actually choosing marijuana over alcohol.

Kirk: Yes, that is new.

Lyrin Morissette: And I find that amazing, like I find it so much less harmful personally, you know, like I can't be more happy about that. And yeah, just getting rid of the stigma because it's, it's obviously, it is a mind-altering substance so you have to be safe with it, but at the same time it comes from the earth and it connects us with the earth and connects us to each other and that's a beautiful thing and I love that more and more people are accepting it.

Kirk: You know man, I never thought, that's a cool story. I think that's one of the best budtender stories I've ever heard. No, I'm serious, I've done this for seven years. cool.

Lyrin Morissette: And I honestly, I would owe that to Fiddler's Green because if I worked at a different place where someone comes in, I say, look at the book, pick what you want, move on. I would never have learned how to talk about cannabis in a way that I can because I'm around people who care about it.

Kirk: Hey, before we get into it, did you notice the one thing that made this different than the than the Green Mountain how the coffee was delivered?

Trevor: Like you said, you said trailer in the middle of nowhere versus literal downtown Winnipeg and just talk a little bit more about the exchange in Winnipeg. It's got so many iconic older style biss that many, many movies and TV shows have shot there just for the architecture, so this is downtown Winnapeg, mid-century buildings, you know, it could be Chicago gangsters or it's a beautiful part of the city, but yeah, Literally downtown, so. Have your coffee delivered, not that bad.

Kirk: Yeah, you can get your coffee delivered. So, okay, so tell you what, buddy, I'm gonna just throw it out there. Do you think the audience has captured what I think is the common theme here?

Trevor: Well, you do mention stigma a little bit.

Kirk: Yeah, in the conversations. Well, I mentioned it with Lyrin, mostly.

Trevor: Yeah. Uh, so yeah, and Laren, um, he's, you know, I don't think I'm giving anything away. He's the same age as my son. So he, you know has not ever tried to buy cannabis when it's been illegal. So, you, know his whole cannabis purchasing life has been legal cannabis, which is, you're right. You kind of forget about that, but a little bit wild to think about, you know on the one hand, they talk about, you now, these kids, you know, literally all of their high school was during COVID lockdowns and online school and that kind of thing, which is one thing that they'll talk about for the rest of their life. The second thing is they didn't buy any cannabis from that dude on the corner, that sketchy dude on corner.

Kirk: Yeah, yeah. No understanding of what illegal weed was. But how the stories link is, what I find incredible here is that in the last few months, I've been working on mindful cannabis consumption workshops and trying to find ways, because I really believe right now the most important thing in the cannabis industry is to teach people about mindfully consuming cannabis. It's sort of like drinking responsibly with the alcohol industry. And because what's happening is when you look at population health numbers and these numbers come from Health Canada, Trevor. People in Canada, since legalization, every demographic in Canada is consuming more cannabis. Lyrin demographic, that demographic, the 16 to 24-year-olds, and this is Health Canada numbers, right, 16 to the 24-years-old, they're moving towards vaporized cannabis and isolates. They're looking for the THC high, and they're consuming more cannabis than they are alcohol. And I believe it's time that we need to teach this generation and and the other demographics about cannabis and now how I link the Green High Green Mountain High High Road Dispensary is that there's a store where you can walk in touch, feel, and smell the cannabis and make decisions on what cannabis you are buying and and and you know you want you want a high THC, low THC. They've got it for you there, and then you can discuss and understand your intent for consuming the cannabis and you can mindfully enjoy the cannabis. My concern with the younger generation is how the rec market, and we've talked about this in other episodes, how the rec market has turned to the high THC. And we touched upon that in the conversation we had in Diamond Valley in the last episode about how the rec market is moving to high THC whereas the medicinal market tends to like more cannabinoids and less THC. In the sense of teaching people to consume mindfully, this is the generation. Because to be honest with you, this also the generation, again from a population health, and not that I'm going to ask the pharmacist to give away a lot here, but I'm sure you've got lots of prescriptions issued to this generation for anti-anxiety drugs.

Trevor: We do. Yep. That's I don't think that's a secret for to anybody who has any 20-somethings in in their life.

Kirk: Yeah, this is a huge concern for me as a nurse, how we have... placed our children on anti-anxiety drugs and that's a different rant and different rabbit hole, but when you talk about high THC, it creates anxiety, man. So if you are a young person who's consuming your cannabis via vape isolates, get off the high THC. It's going to make you more anxious and then it's probably going to interact with the antidepressants you're taking. So this is where my concern is. This is where it dawned on me that this new generation needs to learn how to consume cannabis mindfully, because that's where they're going. I don't think we need to focus on the fear factor. Cannabis is...

Trevor: Well, and here's my hope, and maybe I'm over, over. So it's really good, the stuff, obviously off camera, I've heard about some of your mind, but I'm gonna put it back to when I was late teens, early twenties, the whole idea in drinking alcohol was the highest amount of alcohol possible, right? That's what you bought. There was some terrible beer called Molson X. Nah, it wasn't that. Anyway, oh, maximum dry, maximum dry. So it had the most amount of alcohol in a bottle of beer. That was its, and so we bought that. Tasted awful. You know, that was the time of my life when, you know, some of us went to the U.S. to bring back Everclear, which is basically nearly pure alcohol, and we'd put that in stuff. So we could get the most of alcohol in our drink at one time to get the drunkest, the fastest, for the cheapest. And let me tell you, I'm probably, maybe I like, unlike other people of my age in their 20s, we consumed too much too fast and that's not part of a good time. That's, you know, that's puking in the bathroom before the social started. I'm hoping that that's sort of where we're at in the cannabis, the rec cannabis zone. You know, right now we're, the big push is get the most THC possible so the get the highest, the fastest for the cheapest. Which there's always going to be a market for that, but if things like your course and some other people we know like I think people could enjoy their cannabis more if they steer clear of just the highest amount of THC. And if there is now a market for not just the most THC, the fastest, you know, things could change. So there's just my maybe naive, maybe hopeful spin on where the.

Kirk: No, it's a good spin, because I want to add to that concept you've raised about high alcohol. And we're talking about my generation, your generation. I mean, I'm a late baby boomer. You are an X, Generation X, right? So it was a good one. We, because of our behavior, the early Xers in the generation, you know, I mean my generation was one for the road, you now the car can get its way home when it comes to alcohol. But in the last 30 years there's been a huge educational movement on drinking responsibly coming from the industry as well as government. Cannabis, on the other hand, I think we've got the same thing that's needed because we've got a generation that is consuming cannabis more than alcohol. So I think it's time that we start teaching the new generation to consume cannabis mindfully and find your perfect blitz. And don't just, if you're an anxious person, don't be smoking THC isolates. Move on to vaporized flower. So anything like that. So that's mindful consumptions. But that's, you know, we're getting into rabbit holes here. But this is one of the reasons why I like doing these Road Stories, Trevor, is that I like going out and hearing how people are consuming cannabis because, you know to be quite frank, I grow my own. I'm pretty cloistered when it comes to cannabis, buying cannabis recreationally. I just do not buy cannabis recreationly. I go in an talk to people, I really don't know the cost, the price, you know, reading a label. I mean, we've done courses on it. I know how to read a label, but it's nice to get out and just find out what's going on outside my little dark basement that I consume, you know a living, so. Anyways...

Trevor: Yeah, no, it has been another good batch of Road Stories, so on this one, thanks again to Sheena and Lyrin, two opposites, two opposite ends of Western Canada for some two very different stories. We enjoyed both.

Kirk: Yeah, anyway, so Reefer Medness The Podcast. I'm Kirk Nyquist. I am the registered nurse and this...

Trevor: I'm Trevor Shewfelt. I'm the pharmacist.

Kirk: Yeah, so I've cleared out a shelf and I guess now it's time to start finding new stories.

Trevor: We will do that, but yeah, hopefully people enjoyed your trip across Western Canada and if you haven't done so lately, tell a friend about ReeferMed.ca or finding us on the socials on at Reefer Medness. It really helps if you tell a friend, hey, I listened to a podcast by these, you know, crazy guys out of Dauphin and they talked about cannabis and some of what they said made sense. Tell a friend and that helps us.

Kirk: Everything we say makes sense. Please, we've said this over and over again, social media just doesn't work for us. There is, Meta doesn't promote us, so it's got to be word of mouth. And there's a lot of cannabis programs out there. I listened to some of them. Reefer Medness The Podcast. I think we probably have the broadest stories out there, so if you like what you hear, rank us on your platforms, Spotify or iTunes or whatever, we're on all the platforms, Blubrry, etc, etc. So yeah, Reefer Medness the podcast found at reefermed.ca Talk to you later, Trevor.

Speaker 3 Another good one And we'll talk to everybody later.

Kirk: Yeah, see you on the other side, dude.