Episode Transcript

Danielle: My full name is Danielle Jackson. and most people know me as MizD ok but lately in the last few years they've been calling me Doppra so I guess that's who I am. Well I think partly because I've been around for a long time so I'm one of those old time consumers. You know I'm a consumer now for over four decades. A consumer of cannabis cannabis. A  Cannabis Enthusiast.

Kirk: So what makes you Doppra.

Danielle: Well I think it's partly to do with the work that I've been doing in the industry I've been working in the industry for the last 15 years. Great. Yes I'm considered more of an educator. I like to think of myself as an eduatainer

Kirk: And you were involved with the cannabis movie Compassion Club.

Danielle: Well I worked with all kinds of I you know I'm self-employed but I work with all kinds of people and organizations really I think. Partly the Doppra thing comes from it. I've been kind of one of those innovators and pioneers in the education field. So I created something in 2004 called the Canna-therapy concept. And actually one of the reasons I'm here in Nanaimo , beautiful Nanaimo is because I raised here in 1977 is when I smoke my first Joint.  I developed a CannaTherapy playbook. Again it's all about a personal guide to therapeutic cannabis use. So I think. One of the best things about my role I suppose in the industry community is that. I'm what they would call a bridge gapper. OK. So you know I bridge a lot of gaps whether they are intergenerational young and older. Whether it's you know medicinal or recreational I don't really look at it like that. In my own experience, I was a consumer of cannabis for 22 years. Just what you would consider recreationally right. You know utilizing it as a survival tool and. You know enjoying it. And then in 1999 I got this crazy illness called cluster headache. And so I began to look at cannabis from more medical perspective. And so what I discovered was not. Really. There wasn't really any difference. The only difference was in the intention with which I was using the cannabis as the cannabis stayed the same. And so that was really important because that's always been one of the distinctions in our in our community. You know you use it medicinally and you use it recreationally. And so I started to just look at the plant itself. And realize that was therapeutic in its very nature. So that's what made me create the cannabis therapy concept because you know. I don't know about you but my experience with cannabis. Was one of the worst of my life. You know I didn't know what I was doing. I was with a lot of people I didn't really know what they were doing. And as young girls you know we were just smoking because it seemed like a good thing to do. And we didn't know what we did and I understand now that I overconsumed but I didn't know at the time. And literally I thought I was going to die so horrible. But you know the challenge of it was that through the years because of the lies of prohibition. We've only been able to learn about cannabis use by trial and error. Right. And if we're lucky you know someone who's coming before us and is able to help guide us but if we're not lucky we have to just kind of use and hope for the best right.

So, I opened up a business called Sacred Space which holistic kind of metaphysical gathering place I'm a licensed hypnotherapist by trade so I had my practice in there and we had like a yoga studio and stuff like that. So it was all about energy healing and whatnot intuitive development if you will. And so. Because I've always been kind of open about my cannabis use I've never been shameful as a consumer. People kind of had access to me. Also they started coming around and they talked. And they knew I was very ill. But yet here I was running a business and thriving. So there was a lot of curiosity about that. At the same time just before that I remarried again to the love of my life. And he was thinking he was a non-consumer and he didn't know anything about cannabis except for whatever he learned through the lies of prohibition. Right. So he began to ask me questions about my own cannabis use questions I had never been asked before and never really thought about. And the first question was Why do I use cannabis. And. What do I get out of it. And so. What I discovered through that whole process of trying to find a way to explain to a non consumer about cannabis use. You know we have our own industry speak in our own community speak in language and so it's. It was challenging to find different vocabulary. That was the first step was finding a little bit different vocabulary. So you know. People in general public could understand. And so one of those things might be you know I remember him asked me one time. What does it feel like to be high. And I'm thinking well how do I explain that to someone that's never done that. I've never even seen him drink alcohol excessively so you know how do I explain that. So I thought about it quite a bit and I came up with. You know. You know when you're on a swing and you're and you're swinging and you lean back and you close your eyes you know that loss of control but you know you're in control because you're hanging on to the straps right. So. Just those kinds of feelings that just really made me look at my own. And so I created this kind of five step simple free method. That people could look at in order to utilize for like safe practices in their approach to using cannabis. And then also what to do if you overconsume. How to help with that. And what I discovered over 15 years was by arming people and empowering them with that information about what to do if things go sideways you start to feel a little paranoid or whatever. That would alleviate that from happening because they were no longer afraid of. If they went through your process. I think to. Understand what they can do right you know drink some water you know. Take off layers of clothing cool the body temperature down some people can sniff Pepper. Some people you know the best thing the revolutionary thing is CBD. Yeah yeah yeah. And what's ironic about is that they've legalized the flower about the CBD is still illegal you know. OK so just another issue that the government is sorting out. So. I think. That's Dopprah.

Anne Marie Cannawrite Interview

Anne-Marie:  Sure. So my name is Anne-Marie Fischer. I own a company called Canadawrite so I've been a cannabis writer for about three years now and my background is in education so I have a Master of Education so I very much bring that into my approach to writing the book with Danielle. So I've been doing it for about three years. I noticed about three years ago that there was a significant gap in accurate reliable Cannabis information as it was starting legalize across America or maybe California and that area Colorado so that where I started.  So yes it's legalization I've been working with a lot of Canadian brands a lot of Canadian lifestyle publications education organizations to create content promote cannabis really with the idea of safe consumption educating people for the general public to the cannacurious to seasoned consumers because it really isn't. You know there's so much to know about cannabis.

Kirk:  So somebody you want to read your writing. What is your byline.

Anne-Marie:  Sure. I am at cannawrite.net You can also find socials that I @cannawrite. My name is Anne-marie Fisher I am a cannabis writer for cannawrite.  Mostly online about 90 percent online but I've been able to get my myself and a few magazines Emerald magazine as well as. lifestyle magazine which is a recent publication. So I do have to hand the number of cannabis pots cannabis journalism pockets.

Kirk:  What are the top 5 cannabis stories right now about you that you think every Canadian should know. Give me a headline. 5 headlines.

Anne-Marie:  Headlines OK. Who's winning in the cannabis market. The grey or the black or legal market. Black grey legal plus the silver market as well. So the black market is probably is you know there's a scuzzy Dark Side of cannabis maybe that you don't necessarily see anymore or want to see any more grey market is the very fully functional Cannabis Market that we have in places like here BC where you see where you can go to many cannabis dispensary and get not legal cannabis but high quality craft cannabis. Then there's emerging legal market of course that are being regulated by Health Canada. So silver market silver market is kind of a nice way to explain. Or the nicer way the beautiful way to explain the grey market because the green market is extremely strong. Here in Canada especially here in B.C. So it's not gray it silver so it's something.

Kirk:  So whats the second headline

Anne-Marie:  second headline of the second half. Oh my goodness. Well the cannabis this market shortage continue to prevail. So I don't think we're going to see anything improve for that it could last up to five years. As far as the legal market goes is that supply demand right. Why is that. There's certainly demand but the supply wasn't ready for it. So I think before legalization they predicted that would be 30. That actual supply would be 30 to 60 percent of demand and they think blow their socks off as far as what actually happened that Canada's third quarter stats and what how many Canadians have been smoking there. I did see it even it said 25 percent. I think that's Stats Canada. That's a very low before our country gets 4.5 million users just like that. I don't know what it was that would really interesting. Yeah ok.

Kirk:  Third headline

Anne-Marie:  Cannabis cannabis moves from medical to recreational to therapeutic. So yes so a lot of interesting. You removed from medical the legal now. So so therapeutic is different than medical so yes a lot of us are kind of changing the rhetoric and the language around cannabis use a lot of us don't like to draw a line in the sand between recreational or medicinal and we all recognize that we are using cannabis for some therapeutic reason where it's whether it's stress really just to feel normal that's why I use cannabis just to feel my baseline best. Thing. And so yeah I do kind of movement his move is coming out towards therapeutic use and MizD a lot of us in the cannabis community are starting to really embrace that therapeutic. Yeah.

Kanata Earth Marlene Line Interview

Marlene So, Kanata Earth is a Canadian Indigenous owned Cannabis Company that was incorporated in 2017 founded by Blaine Favel and Terry Line and it is a research company with a strong focus on science and innovation.

Marlene:  OK.  Thank you. Thanks for having us today. My name is Marlene Line and I am Director of Lab and Analytics at Kanata Earth.

Selina:  And I am Selina Eckersall and I'm the Director of Marketing and Communications at Kanata Earth

Marlene:  So I come from a pharmaceutical background so I am newer to Kanata Earth. I joined Kanata Earth about five months ago and coming from the pharmaceutical background it's interesting you see all the work in terms of research from everything from research to marketing to analytics to sales. There's a very broad range of opportunities in the pharmaceutical industry and I saw a very tight link to that in the cannabis industry. My brother actually was the one that sort of piqued my interest and this and that he is also a founder of Kanata Earth with Blaine. His name is Terry Line and he began his career in the cannabis industry over four years ago and so you know obviously we're very tight as siblings and always interested to hear what he was doing and learning more and more about that and I thought well it seems like it's exciting an exciting industry that I think has the potential to do a lot of great things medically for people and so that was sort of always my interested side of things. And when this opportunity came about to work at Kanata Earth I thought why not. How often do you get to join a startup company that is entering into an area and field that is just really sort of in its infancy and the opportunities that potentially could bring in the future was very intriguing to me. So yeah that's how I got into it myself.

Selina:  And I am Selina Eckersall, So I'm in director of marketing and communications, So I started working with Kanata Earth I guess in the summer of 2017 and prior to that -- also via Terry -- I was working on just doing a little bit of consulting my background is in marketing I had some startup chops in tech I worked for Wattpad in Toronto for a couple of years. So, I helped people with branding and pitch decks and that kind of thing early on and started working with Kanata Earth just after we had submitted our application and just kind of got more and more entrenched and now have been along for the roller coaster for the last couple of years. It's been a wild ride. And I am also a fan of cannabis myself.  I have rheumatoid arthritis and find both CBD and THC to be tremendously helpful.

Trevor:  Oh ,so you so Selina. You do have sort of a personal we'll call it patient in on the cannabis. So you've got personal stakes in this.

Selina:  Yes, I have an auto immune disease and even though I don't like to refer to it like that because I take ownership of it I've been feeling really amazing lately and you know just make exercise healthy eating and cannabis. Part of me regiment and it really helps.

Marlene:  All the testing is actually done in the Saskatchewan Research Council which is located on the property of the University of Saskatchewan, and really they are able to test everything that is required from Health Canada so any licensed producer or processor needs to have their products tested to sell it in Canada and Health Canada has stated certain requirements that the product needs to pass and Saskatchewan Research Council is able to do all of that testing everything that Health Canada is requiring. In addition to some other tests as well.

Trevor:  OK. And so that kind of makes sense when we have sort of we'll call it raw flower so you know they'll need to know things like the amount of THC and CBD in a product. What sort of other things are you testing for. You testing for like how much pesticide or any mold or what other sort of test. Do you know that the SRC is doing for Health Canada Accreditation?

Marlene:  Yes. So Health Canada really requires some testing for potency, trace metals, heavy metals. They do microbial analysis. They do testing on myco-toxins and apo-toxins as well as 76 different pesticides that they test for, so these limits are set by Health Canada and SRC is able to do the testing to ensure that the product is safe for people. And as well as doesn't go outside of the range in which it is allowable within or which is allowable for Health Canada. They also do some testing with regards to the cannabinoid profile, terpene profile. They can do testing about the loss on drying, or water activity, bud density all sorts of things and those things really are super important to growers to ensure that they are producing a product which is what they are looking for.  Yeah. So when they're looking to produce a product with a consistent profile or specific profile that they're looking. Sorry that was. That was not the best way to explain it. But.

Trevor:  No no. That makes sense. So if I was a licensed producer and I am pretty sure my latest strain has you know 10 percent THC and 5 percent CBD I might not have the capability in house to test that or I might want to double check to make sure that I'm those are the amounts of cannabinoids I have or to see what the terpene profile of my latest strain is. So I would send it to some someone like you guys and you guys would say yep you're your cannabinoid profile is in line with what you think or Nope your way out to lunch. That kind of the idea.

Marlene:  That is exactly the idea. So yeah, they have they have set very high standards so SRC is an accredited lab and they. Which is really important I think in this whole area of testing to have a lab that is essentially procedures of Saskatchewan Research Council. So their accreditation, they have a certain standard which they follow and they for numerous testing procedures and I don't have the knowledge and background around how they validate all of this but from my learnings from SRC it is an extensive process that they go through to ensure the level of accuracy in testing with all of these so it takes months and months to create and validate these tests and they have worked extremely hard to do that to ensure that they are providing really quality accurate testing for the industry.

Trevor:  So it sounds like you guys are you guys are the business brains like they're they're really good scientists there. But they don't have the you know the business background or the maybe the staff and resources to sort of manage the going out finding the business dealing with invoices and that sort of thing and that's where you guys come in.

Marlene:  Yeah that's where we come in for sure with specific to the cannabis sector. So our SRC is it is a huge lab. They do lots of other testing Uranium testing water testing all sorts of things but specific to cannabis, we are kind of the door into that. So, they have they are a lab with over 60 years of experience and analysis services and over 10 years of experience in cannabis testing, but they have really furthered and upped their game in terms of the tests that are required from Health Canada. So, they've been really focused on that where we are coming in and essentially bringing those services to LP's across Canada.

Marlene:  Sure so we are an Indigenous owned Canadian corporation one of our founders is Blaine Favel and he's quite a notable Canadian businessman. He's very connected in Ottawa at various levels of government. He's a Harvard graduate former chief and grand chief as well as the former chancellor at the University of Saskatchewan. So we're incredibly lucky to have him as one of our founders.  And so he is also a Plains Cree Native Indian.

Trevor:  And is there any sort of push on having more Indigenous people in the company or to having any of the the scientific benefits of the training benefits going towards any of the local communities.

Marlene:  For sure. Our mandate is to support Indigenous communities wherever possible.

Trevor:  No that's fantastic. And as a science nerd I think in anybody we can encourage it into the sciences and in whatever field and whatever their background is only helps all of us more more science nerds out there the better.

Marlene Yeah. And if anyone you know if they're LP or processors out there that are looking to have their product tested they can email us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. With that we are happy to send out a transparent price list so we don't kind of hide that fact. Yeah. So yeah. So sorry. They can email us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. We're happy to send out a price list. The people are just curious. I know a lot of LP have a great experience and relationships with various labs at the moment but if they're ever looking to shop around we're happy to send them a list on what we offer and think they'll find our prices relatively competitive or very competitive. We're happy to send containers if people are looking for their product to be tested. We'll ship we can ship them containers for them to put their flower or oil in and send that off to Saskatchewan Research Council but we're happy to help them out. Kind of step by step the very simple process that will make sure that it is smooth then seamless for individual and at the end of it of course they get their certificate of analysis which is required by Health Canada and that will be emailed to them after the testing has been completed.