Displaying episodes by topic: cannabis promotion

The Canadian Medical Cannabis Program has been available for more than two decades, yet the process of obtaining cannabis as medicine remains very cumbersome. In comparison, Recreational Cannabis, seen as a substance of misuse, is easy to acquire. When people express an interest in trying cannabis as a medicine to their health care team, many health practitioners simply direct their patients toward the Rec market knowing (or maybe not) the restrictions the Cannabis Act places on budtenders. Budtenders cannot discuss health conditions with customers. While many health professionals continue to ignore the highly regulated medicinal cannabis system, a group of entrepreneurs calling themselves Cannabis Coaches, are filling the need. In this episode we learn how certified Cannabis Coach Terese Bowors started a small business educating people about medicinal cannabis. We come to understand how a group of non-regulated health educators are developing their own Standards of Practice.

VanHoot is now traveling the roads of northern British Columbia. While Michelle is off filling their cupboards and cooler, Kirk and River explore the resale cannabis market in those small communities they visit. Kirk records some of the discussions collecting cannabis stories to better understand cannabis from the budtenders’ perspective.  In this episode, we learn: how cannabis is marketed day-to-day, is a part time job for busy people, and is also positively affecting smaller community.  At one point Kirk sniffs resale cannabis from Mason Jars envisioning the future farmgate access.  When you listen to a Road Story episode, you are transported into the continuing adventures of VanHoot and its occupants.

Once again, Kirk is on the road collecting stories, and never knowing where a story will take him. This road trip is in British Columbia where infused pre-rolls are the hottest summer blitz. Join Kirk and his dog River as they collect stories from cannabis stores, a vape shop, and while standing in a parking lot. We learn how bud tenders gain knowledge of cannabis: being an exit drug, assisting pregnant women, curing cancer, or just chilling at a town council meeting. You just never know what a Road Story will teach you about cannabis use.

Ben Cameransi – Mingowood Pharmacal, LLC - Dr. Benjamin Cameransi, MD, DABA is a Board-Certified Anesthesiologist, with a entensive background in pain management. He has started four BioTech Companies. He was involved in the development of Ryanodex™, a treatment for Malignant Hyperthermia. But wait, there’s more… Acidic cannabinoids aren’t very stable when they are extracted and purified. Dr. Camersani’s team at Mingowood Pharmacal has a way to fix that.

Taz Turner - CordovaCann Corp - Taz has the top three attributes we look for in a guest. He knows where Manitoba is located. He’s a finance guy who spoke intelligently during his Capital Markets Panel. He is fun to chat to at a breakfast information session. Taz tells us how it is surprisingly difficult to get investment into the cannabis space in 2024. But, numbers and valuation guys like him (who also speak cannabis) are slowly convincing others that opportunities abound.

Melissa Moore - Professor, Cannabis Horticulture & Biology, SUNY Niagra Community College. Melissa Moore developed some of her horticultural chops in Northern California, but now passes on her knowledge in Buffalo, NY. She was very helpful getting pics of Trevor during his Capital Markets Panel and then she sparked some intense Aspergillus discussions. Professor Moore tells us why cleanliness is next to godliness in your grow room and, hear why Kirk is frothing at the mouth to pick her brain about how to grow plants better.

So many fantastic Canna-people to meet and talk to at CannMed 24! Here are the first batch of clips we got!

Ariane Williams & Megan Mbengue – Trusted Canna Nurse - There were so many nurses at CannMed 24! Our slightly biased co-host Kirk was ecstatic. He thinks more nurses makes every conference and everything else better! Ariane is the Director of Patient Services and “The Kind Nurse”. She’ll listen to your needs as a patient and guide you to personalized care. Megan is the Founder and CEO. She is a Social Media Content Queen with all things cannabis and runs the back end of Trusted Canna Nurse.

Jeff Smith -Professor, Strategic Partnership and Outreach Specialist at the Institute of Cannabis Research - Colorado State University Pueblo. The ICR is like the NIH (National Institutes of Health) of cannabis research in Colorado. The ICR funds research related to cannabis such as clinical research, biotechnologies, and economic development associated with cannabis in Colorado. Once the research is done, they publicly disseminate the results.

Clay W. Moore - Drug Discovery Scientist at Rare Earth Genomics. We first met Clay at CannMed 23. He is now a PhD student at Texas A&M. Clay needs bigger goals in life, because he is only trying to cure cancer with hemp extracts. He is also a part of Rare Earth Genomics (REG). REG wants to be your Swiss Army knife of hemp research projects. We talk to Clay about how REG could help Kirk with his potential Hemp-Crete dreams

“Be the change you want to see in the world.” 

Apparently, that isn’t really a Mahatma Gandhi quote. But it is a great sentiment. How we are teaching people about cannabis isn't great or sometimes it isn't happening at all. But, you can be part of the change and help shape the future!  Listen to Lisa Bishop PharmD, a Professor and Pharmacist at School of Pharmacy, Memorial University of Newfoundland, and Daniel Bear PhD, is the Director, Humber College Centre for Social Innovation, a Drugs Policy Researcher, and a Cannabis Policy Consultant, discuss a survey their team has developed. Along with their team, they’ve actually developed two surveys. And you really need to take at least one. Are you over 18 and have used or thought of using cannabis? They have a survey for you. Are you a pharmacist? They have a survey for you. Why should you take one of their surveys? Because they are going to use the info from these surveys to help pharmacists do a better job of teaching people about cannabis!

FYI - the actual quote is:

“We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do.” – Mahatma Gandhi

Ryan Kocot was the in-house legal counsel and director of compliance for a multinational cannabis company. He now has his own practice in California, Massachusetts and New York. He helps operators scale into multiple States, do joint ventures, trademark, and other intellectual property license agreements.  Listen as Trevor and Ryan discuss the weird and counter-intuitive land of multi-states operations, trade marks when cannabis products aren't federally legal, and how Trevor's pipe dream of being a cannabis gummy mogul is way more complicated than he thought.

We've got another amazing group of attendees from CannMed 23!

One evening they said dinner was on Lanai Beach. In Manitoba, if you are at a conference and someone says dinner is on Lanai Beach, then Lanai Beach is the name of a room. But in Florida, they actually meant dinner was on a beach. That sounds like a lovely idea, unless it is over 30 C and there is no shade. Thankfully, I brought a ball cap for my bald head and I met Dr. Joe Thompson also looking for some shade beside a pole. Dr. Thompson trained as a pediatrician, but now is the President & CEO of the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement. They have a program where they are going to analyze the data of people who got medical cannabis in Arkansas and see what happened to Health Outcomes. You want to hear about how that study will be done.

Dr. Leah Johnson Pharm D is a pharmacist and we met her in the Poster Hallway. Her Poster was about palliative care patients in California. Her group believes that if patients have access to cannabinoid medicine during palliative care, that will promote a better quality of life for the patients. Dr. Leah helps patients with their cannabis therapy and is a Cannabis Speaker and Educator across the US. She is on the Executive of the Pharmacist Cannabis Coalition of California (PCCC).

I met Akeem during the opening reception of CannMed 23. I didn't know anyone at the conference yet, so thankfully, he came up to me, read my name tag and introduced himself. Soon we discovered we were both from Canada, and we laughed over the fact the sliders were taken away too quickly. He told me he was nervous about a main stage talk he was giving. Now I understand why. He was giving a very technical, science heavy talk to a room full of cannabis doctors and researchers. But he killed it during his talk. He even handled challenges from the audience. I got to collect some audio from Akeem right after his talk. He’s from Mississauga. He’s a huge basketball fan. He has a nephew who Uncle Akeem really wants to become the next Lebron James. But for our story, Akeem is a Canadian lawyer turned hemp farmer turned CEO of the BioTech company Canurta Inc. His talk was about cannaflavins and their potential to treat glioblastoma, a common and aggressive form of brain cancer.

Bruce Mackler was involved with Prairie Plant Systems in Flin Flon when all “legal” Canadian Government Cannabis was grown in a mine in 2000. That became Cannimed in Saskatoon. And that got bought out by Aurora. Former lawyer that fought cases against the FDA. Former immunologist. His company, Ethicann, is developing a sublingual tablet for Multiple Sclerosis as a competitor to Stativex.

Ahmed Labied – Morocco - At the opening reception of CannMed 23, there were all these people with green t-shirts that said Morocco. Trevor introduced himself and was told he had to talk to Ahmed Labied. Ahmed explained that in August 2023 there should be the first legal crop of cannabis coming off the field in Morocco and that they’re organizing a cannabis conference in Morocco in November 2023.

Texas A&M - Everything is bigger in Texas. These tall gentlemen from Texas A&M are all about hemp. Russell Jessup is an Associate Professor Texas A&M. Clayton Moore is a Student Researcher at Texas A&M in AgriLife Soil & Crop Sciences. David Baltensperger is a Professor and the Head of Soil & Crop Sciences at Texas A&M. Listen to hear what Texas A&M has been doing with hemp.

Cathie Hiegel - Hear Cathie’s winding road from cytotechnologist to writing the textbook, “A Microscopic View of Medicinal Cannabis”. It really is a very well referenced, easy to read text on Cannabis.

Markus Roggen - Our Germany, American, Canadian chemist. Markus runs Delic labs at UBC in Vancouver, BC. Although it really has nothing to do with the high-powered chemistry his company does every day, Markus is a little obsessed with cannabis names. He found that every year when he gets new students, he has to re-explain cannabis nomenclature. He wondered if he could develop a new classification system for cannabis. Long time cannabis aficionados may hate this, but the rest of us might really like it.

Kieley is in the lead as our most interviewed guest. Kirk still teases Trevor how he blushed back on E34 when Trevor and Kieley talked about cannabis and sexual dysfunction. We talked to her on the Craft Cannabis Panel on E63 and during our trip to Calgary Hemfest in E78. Today we catch up with this cannabis entrepreneur and force of nature. The company she founded, Parkland Flower, is winning awards and she is pursuing new ventures with Hyde Advisory and Investments. Come listen to the evolution of a entrepreneur and where Kieley thinks the cannabis space is headed!

On July 23, 1983 at an altitude of 41,000 feet, Air Canada Flight 143 travelling between Montreal and Edmonton ran out of fuel because of confusion between metric and imperial measurements. However, the crew of the Boeing 767 successfully landed the passenger jet in Manitoba’s Interlake in what is now known as the Gimli Glider. That intrepid flight crew applied their years of training and experience to an unprecedented situation to become heroes. Much like when a PhD with international training in biochemistry, genetics and pharmaceutical manufacturing successfully glides into the cannabis space. Meet Dr. Brent Guppy and BioScision Pharma. This wide-ranging conversation covers sexing plants, topicals with microbial contamination, testing cannabis for heavy metals and our new favorite word to try to say five times fast “nanoemulsions”. Did we mention BioScision’s retail line, Hwy 59 Cannabis, has a vape cart named after the famous unpowered Boeing 767 that landed in a certain Icelandic town?

We had a plan. Back in March 2020, Kirk and Trevor were going to host an event that served cannabis infused food in a restaurant in Dauphin. Then, the world shut down with the pandemic. As we're coming out of the pandemic, we thought we'd revive the plan, but the Manitoba Government gave us a hard no. Now we're talking to Nathan Mison, from Diplomat Consulting, for a brief history of cannabis legalization in Canada, what regulations are different in which provinces and maybe a way to resurrect our dream to throw a cannabis consumption event, properly.

Imagine an affordable home that will not burn or grow mould, while it also cleans the air within. Christina Goodvin, a self-described “Envelop and Building Science Engineer”, gathers locally sourced materials to build fire resistant homes that interact with the environments we live in. She uses hempcrete. Her hydrothermal designs will manage the indoor humidity, inhibit the transmission of bacteria, viruses, and fungi all at comparable prices to the construction costs of a conventional home. Kirk and Trevor marvel at how one small business uses cannabis to make our world a better place.

Join Kirk and Trevor as they reach from the shelf to bring three stories to you. the first two stories come from Nanaimo when Kirk was visiting a pop-up safe injection site; a tent actually set up in the mayor ‘s Parking lot. We meet Danielle Jackson known as Miz D or Dopprah (https://twitter.com/mycannatherapy) as she speaks to her form of cannabis infotainment. Our second story, outside the same tent, is with Anne-Marie Fischer from cannawrite (https://www.instagram.com/cannawrite/?hl=en) who speaks to cannabis headlines. Trevor brings the third story from the laboratory as Kanata Earth (https://www.kanataearth.com/) explains how they collaborate with the Saskatchewan Research Council to help the industry analyze their cannabis .

What do you think of when you hear, "Discretion, discovery, and delight"?  That phrase is what our Marketing Guru, Bridget Hoffer co-founder of Marigold Marketing and PR, thinks customers are looking for in a Cannabis retailer.  Our business management consultant, Karen Debroni - Principal at Debroni and Associates, says education is key for people getting into the Cannabis Space.  Kirk and Trevor talk to these Boss Ladies about how they got into the Cannabis Space and why it is attracting so many female entrepreneurs.  Then they shamelessly pick the brains of these Cannabis Business Experts for pearls on running and marketing a podcast.  Hey, where were Kirk and Trevor going to get better caliber coaching for free?  You should listen and learn something from the Boss Ladies too.

Crystal Ball time!  What will cannabis stores in Manitoba look like?  Kirk goes south to Fort Collins, Colorado and visits a dispensary there.  What does a legal cannabis store look like?  How do the staff interact with customers?  Is it a nice inviting place or a seedy, run down, scary place?  I think you need to have a listen!