The Real Dirt with Chip Baker

Is Oklahoma to blame for the crashing cannabis industry? Ft. Jessica Baker

Thu, 04 Aug 2022 12:30:43 +0000

Anybody who is operating in the legal cannabis industry is likely feeling the strain of a seemingly shrinking market. Despite the massive growth of the national cannabis industry thanks to legalization in multiple states, the increased production of cannabis is tanking prices.

Cultivators and business owners are beginning to wonder if the industry is still profitable for small operators.

Jessica Baker owns and operates Clone City in Oklahoma City. She provides high quality clones to cultivations across the state, and has definitely noticed the industry beginning to shrink there.

Oklahoma has been the red-headed step child of the cannabis industry since it legalized medical cannabis in 2018. What started as a highly unrestricted industry that exploded into the largest cannabis market in the country in just two years, has turned into an industry that is rapidly shrinking.

Oklahoma has been, you know, an interesting market to say the least when we first got there, you know, three plus years ago, it was a very immature market in terms of the knowledge surrounding cannabis was pretty limited to you know, the little bit of, of knowledge that people have gained over the years from, you know, the private market, which is always amazing, but the strain names and things like that really weren’t, hadn’t quite hit Oklahoma yet. But now, you know, it is pretty much you’re hearing the same things as you’re here in Colorado and California in terms of growth techniques, terminology, and cultivars that are now popular in Oklahoma. So I feel like I’ve really seen that change and people get really enthusiastic about cannabis.

According to Jessica, the Oklahoma cannabis market has evolved to more or less replicate the Colorado and California cannabis industries, despite only being available to medical patients. However with easy access to a patient card and no cap on cannabis business licenses until very recently, the Oklahoma cannabis market quickly saw the consequences.

An oversupply of cannabis has led to the price per pound tanking across the country. While Oklahoma has been getting a lot of attention recently for the state’s efforts to restrict future licensing and regulate the industry more strictly, it is by no means the only state with the issue.

Many blamed Oklahoma when the industry began tanking following the COVID pandemic. However the criticism typically fails to account for the pandemic and the impacts that had on the industry as a whole.

With restricted trade and major impacts to the supply chain, inputs needed to cultivate cannabis at a commercial scale went up in price, if they were available at all. Without raising their prices to match their costs, many cannabis businesses began operating at a loss just to stay competitive with larger commercial competitors.

I think it has dropped nationally, because there’s just so much cannabis being grown and a lot of states that never were legally allowed to grow before. And I think with metric or not, I think there are still ways that people are probably putting that on the private market, even though they’re meant for the public market. But I think there’s just a glut and cannabis.

Overproduction is not an issue exclusive to Oklahoma. Oregon’s legal cannabis industry faced serious issues early on due to similar regulation. A lack of restrictions on who could grow cannabis led to a massive oversupply of cannabis, which dropped the price per pound drastically.

The state eventually passed a law that would allow the export of Oregon cannabis to neighbor states. However no neighbor states have passed a similar law yet, making it irrelevant. Eventually the market consolidated as grow operations could no longer afford the overhead costs with such a low profit.

It isn’t just overproduction impacting the current cannabis market either. Inflation, high gas prices and multiple other factors that impact individuals has resulted in less people purchasing cannabis recreationally.

If gas is $5 a gallon, and you have to make a choice between buying your eighth or ounce for the week, or continue to put gas in your car to get to work and everywhere else you’re going, then you may have to sacrifice by spending less on cannabis.

For example, Colorado has seen a 30%+ decrease in cannabis sales since July 2020, the peak of the pandemic. While at the time many people had more disposable income thanks to stimulus checks and saving from staying inside, that has changed drastically.

When looking at the industry as a whole, it is hard to conclude that Oklahoma is solely to blame. Just about every legal cannabis market in the country has seen a drastic drop in price per pound.

As consumer purchases decrease, so does distributor purchases. With growers sitting on a massive stock of cannabis product from 2021 thinking the pandemic boost would last, there is an oversupply of product sitting in storage.

The longer it sits, the less it is worth.

I mean, people have already gone out of business, and it’s just the nature of business. 100% of all businesses don’t survive in any industry. So especially in a boom and bust scenario, and with the banking issues we have and the tax issues. You know, it’s not simple.

Listen to the latest episode of The Real Dirt with Chip Baker to hear more about how the Oklahoma cannabis market has been impacted along with analyses of other state markets, and what it all means for the future of the industry!

Transcript:

Chip

This is Chip Baker with The Real Dirt podcast. We’re back again. Wow. It’s been a long time since we put out an episode. But we got a lot of important things going on in the cannabis industry and we felt like this was the perfect time to get back into it.

You know, today it is July 10 2022. I’m in Denver, Colorado. We’ve been spending time all over the country, but primarily in Oklahoma this past year. And it seems that the state of the cannabis union is really in flux right now. You know, with the economy with inflation. With post COVID You know, structure of business and in life, the cannabis industry is really taking a turn. Today I have Jessica Baker as my guest. Jessica owns and operates a series of cannabis businesses in Oklahoma. Welcome, Jessica.

Jessica

Thank you for having me on the show, Chip. Always a pleasure to talk to you by cannabis and cannabis business.

Chip

Just to introduce yourself a little bit. I know you’ve been on the show before. And many people know you as my wife, but you are a incredible entrepreneur and educator. And let’s just talk about Jessica for one song moment. Okay, great.

Jessica

Thank you for the introduction. I am your wife gladly. But I’m also an acupuncturist for the last 15 years and a Western herbalist for the last, you know, two decades plus, so I have well versed in, you know, Chinese medicine and Western herbalism. And also I own several cannabis businesses. I’ve been growing medical cannabis since 1997. Back in the good old days, and so probably grown a lot of different ways. Not every way. But I’ve definitely dabbled in growing in multiple different modalities. And I own a clone nursery in Oklahoma City, as well as cultivation and processing facility. And so we’re kind of do a little bit of everything. And yeah, I love cannabis. And I love your show. Well, thanks, Jessica. And you know, I really appreciate all the women weed warriors out there, you know, this industry is is filled with dudes and dudes often try to dominate, uh, you know, whatever we’re involved with. That’s just the dude power. But, you know, we know so many women, cultivators, women, extractors, women, business owners, and the you know, I get to see it throughout the industry. I see. Maybe you call it discrimination against women business owners, just as we see it in the rest of society. But man, you know, if if the women that you know, in the cannabis industry, I guarantee you, they’re working twice as hard as the dude right next to them. And if you have a problem, you should go like maybe chat with the women that you know, in the cannabis industry and see how they feel about what’s going on. Because often they do have a different perspective than our dude oriented industry.

Bro science.

Chip

It is bro science. But yeah, we’re here today to talk about the cannabis industry. Boy, it is in a tailspin. Every aspect of the cannabis industry from the manufacturers and the suppliers of all the equipment, transportation, all the cultivators, the distributors, the the grocery stores, the dispensaries, like everybody is really filling this economic depression right now. Jessica, how has it been an Oklahoma what’s going on there?

Jessica

Oklahoma has been, you know, an interesting market to say the least when we first got there, you know, three plus years ago, it was a very immature market in terms of the knowledge surrounding cannabis was pretty limited to you know, the little bit of, of knowledge that people have gained over the years from, you know, the private market, which is always amazing, but the strain names and things like that really weren’t, hadn’t quite hit Oklahoma yet. But now, you know, it is pretty much you’re hearing the same things as you’re here in Colorado and California in terms of growth techniques, terminology, and cultivars that are now popular in Oklahoma. So I feel like I’ve really seen that change and people get really enthusiastic about cannabis. And so you know, the last year we’ve definitely seen especially at the clone nursery, a lot of the big cultivators aren’t buying clones, like they have been the two years previously. A lot of people that were maybe larger Cole debaters came in and bought less clones, because their facilities that were 1020 30,000 square feet, they, maybe they didn’t have the knowledge to pull off that large of a grow at the very beginning. So they were like, Hey, I’m going to scale back, learn a little bit more about it. And then I can always scale up again in the future. And then I know people who, unfortunately, you know, maybe they had a 401k They took out or some early retirement or some other personal investment to invest in cannabis, and it didn’t work out for them. And now they are cultivating anymore, either their want to sell their licence, or they are just kind of letting it stay dormant for a little bit.

Chip

Tell us about like, what you feel about the number of cultivators that in Oklahoma that are cultivating this year, or number of businesses that maybe have like gone out of business or just aren’t operating?

Jessica

Well, I only know a handful of those, but I can say it’s all across the board, from dispensaries to processors to cultivators, I’ve heard a little bit from all of those sectors, saying that they’re they’re taking a break, or that they just downright are going back to their job at the, you know, do an oil rigging or we know whatever it is, I don’t think that’s the proper terminology. But you know, they’ve just decided they’re gonna go back to what they were doing before, right, or what they never stopped doing, you know, and they were doing cannabis on the side. And so, yeah, it has been significant. I know that, you know, where we’ve heard stories about when metric came into, into law at the end of May, that a lot of people never signed up for metric that actually had a licence. And so maybe they were going to do that later. Or maybe they just decided, well, I’m out now that there’s more regulation and work to be done to you know, how to leave or business

Chip

To catch up on in Oklahoma. They’ve had a series, one, if you don’t know really was a free for all until recently on getting licenced and started cultivation in Oklahoma. But in the past couple of months, we’ve had a series of things going on between changes in the law, moratoriums and the licences requirements for metric tiered licencing. And it has reduced the number of people in the industry, right? Some people just didn’t want to deal with it, or they were barely making any enough revenue to support their hobby, so to speak.

Jessica

Yeah. And like, oh, MMA, the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana marijuana advisory or stands for something like that. We’ve had a couple of inspections. Now it took it took a couple years or more, but we finally have been starting to get inspected. And our inspectors are telling us that, you know, they’re going to places that are not operational. So a lot of places still have a licence, but they’re not operating.

Chip

And we haven’t touched on to the elephant in the room, but it is about the decrease in price.

Jessica

Oh, 100%. It has to do with also the decrease in profit margins for people. Right.

Chip

Right. Right. Yeah. You know, it’s not just Oklahoma, across the country, people are having these, you know, this, this decrease in cost per pound cost per gramme from the wholesaler to the distributors to the manufacturers. Everybody has their theory on why you think this is. And some people say it’s just simply supply and demand. I believe it goes a little bit deeper than that. But why do you think the national price of cannabis has gone? So it has dropped so much? And why do you think it’s dropped so much in Oklahoma?

Jessica

I think it has dropped nationally, because there’s just so much cannabis being grown and a lot of states that never were legally allowed to grow before. And I think with metric or not, I think there are still ways that people are probably putting that on the private market, even though they’re meant for the public market. But I think there’s just a glut and cannabis. I know people regulated market, the regulated market, right. So I know that there’s a glut of you know, cannabis in Oklahoma, and Colorado and California. And in Oregon production, overproduction. People still are sitting on hundreds or 1000s of pounds from last year. And now they’re like, growing again this year. So there’s going to be even more on the market.

Chip

Do you think this is overproduction in the regulated market or the illicit market?

Jessica

Probably both both. But yeah, I would say both.

Chip

Yeah, farmers mostly have one. You know, one business plan and we talked about this many times on The Real Dirt is prices down, grow more, prices up, grow more. And that’s really what’s going on and you know, there was just such this huge decrease increase in demand for cannabis products, you know, 2020 2021 And it’s a fact unemployed people consume more wheat, right? They unemployed people smoke more weed. Right? So, you know, all those people have gone back to work right now we’re at the lowest unemployment rate, you know, the country’s one of the lowest the country’s ever seen like everybody’s back at work, but the economy is not so great.

Jessica

And if gas is $5 a gallon, and you have to make a choice between buying your Eight for the week or your ounce for the week, or continue to put gas in your car to get, you know, to work and everywhere else you’re going, then you may have to sacrifice by spending less on cannabis

Chip

Or many people walk. Many people don’t have that option. Yeah, how many people unfortunately, transportation options, but you know, that recreation is one of the first things to go. And you know, they say that, like the vice industries are recession proof, but it’s just not true. As as we see it now, if people just don’t have the money to spend on it, you know, and cannabis isn’t like coffee, or alcohol, right? People really need that coffee and alcohol. And most people can just like do without we, they might want it. But they can do it out do without it. And it’s similar to the cleaning business we were talking about this earlier, is, you know, one of the first ways that farmers can cut their costs is by not buying clones. And you know, one of the one of the things that I see, you know, farmers use clone nurseries for is when they can’t fill up their fields, they can’t fill up their rooms, and they come to clone nurseries often in an emergency situation. Absolutely. I see that. And they say, you know, oh, my clones died or

Jessica

Yeah exactly my clones died, or I bought clones apartment out or

Chip

and it’s often because they need to fill up that room. Yeah, but many people are shutting down lights, they’re shutting down greenhouses.

Jessica

Their rooms are getting smaller. They had, you know, eight rooms and a 20,000 square foot facility and they’re gonna run two of them. Right? That’s where they started their own moms. Right and took clones, right, you know, but most of them still come back saying my clones didn’t work out. I need more. You know, we can all we always need more, you know? Not always but

Chip

Yeah, totally. But no, we we know several people who have shut down parts of their business, you know, and aren’t cultivating any longer because they can buy cannabis cheaper or as cheap as they can produce it. And so now in their dispensaries instead of buying a built making in house, they’re buying it on the market.

Jessica

Yes. Yep. I see all of that.

Chip

What about this overproduction that’s been going on in Oklahoma.

Jessica

So you know, the overproduction in Oklahoma is twofold. One, and just to be frank, it’s okay. To be frank, a little bit about the overproduction of Oklahoma, is that a lot of the cannabis just isn’t really that great. So you have inexperienced growers growing outdoor in a really harsh environment. Yeah, or a greenhouse or greenhouses, you know, in harsh environments. And so it’s kind of sub quality weed. And so that’s one reason why the price is so low,

Chip

because when the market is flooded with whatever it is, the price does drop, but it drops that lowest common denominator with the quality of the weed being

Jessica

exactly and I think a lot of people, outdoor growers and greenhouse and even indoor, they know that they’re just growing for extraction, and that their quality is only going to be extraction material anyway. And so there’s this large volume of only things that they know will only go to the extractor, so the quality doesn’t have to be there,

Chip

right but then somehow that extractable quality weed still ends up in the flower market. Oh, absolutely. Right, because there’s just 1000s and 1000s of pounds. Do you have an estimate of how much nobody even knows how much wheat was grown in Oklahoma?

Jessica

I can’t even try to guess but I mean hundreds of 1000s of pounds million. I don’t even know what 2 million so I think that’s part of it. And then I also think that

Chip

Hey right now, if people are listening to this, we’re definitely getting some responses about how Oklahoma was fucking up the market for everybody else. But that’s

Jessica

just not true because California and Oregon have waived for cannabis and Oklahoma even has because there’s more people and it’s better quality and it’s still going for super cheap. And that has nothing to do with Oklahoma’s outdoor and non regulating the amount of plants you can grow.

Chip

Yeah, so you know talking to people around the country we still see the most cannabis both regulated and you know A private market cannabis is coming from California and Oregon.

Jessica

I mean, California, of course.

Chip

Right. It’s just pot the seed over there. Yes. You just put it in the ground and it grows great. It’s not like that anyplace else in the country. Absolutely. So we got in Oklahoma, we’ve got an overproduction issue, we’ve got inflation issue. And we kind of have a regulatory issue that’s occurred here, too.

Jessica

But you know, the other thing we have is the fact that a lot of people with no knowledge or history of being in cannabis, or business, or business thought that it would be easy money to get into cannabis. And then three years later, they’re realising that’s not actually true. And so I think that’s a large part of it too.

Chip

Getting rich quick since 86.

Jessica

Yeah, I mean, I love you know, it is what it is. But I think

Chip

that also because, at least at Oklahoma, it’s not get rich quick, is it? No,

Jessica

it’s absolutely not, you may have some couple of great harvests and think you made some money. But, you know, you never know.

Chip

You know, few people can do this number, where they like, enter the market, get a bunch of weed, make a bunch of profit, and leave and exit the in and out hot potato business strategy, right people that just doesn’t work for No, absolutely. There’s this just dream. And what happens for most people is they put all of their retirement. All right, exactly. 101 K, you know, their friends, money, their grandparents, whatever, whatever investment, they use it, right, because they’re inexperienced, they may love weed, they may have grown wheat all of their life, they may grow great weed, but none of that matters in commercial sales, commercial production. You know, when the price drops so low, you have to know how to grow that cannabis as inexpensive as possible, but still remain the highest quality,

Jessica

Absolutely absolute, but most people, especially with how low the prices are right now, even for indoor and a lot of places. It’s really, you have to know how much it actually cost you to grow per pound, to make sure you’re not actually losing money on every pound that you sell.

Chip

Yeah, absolutely. In many people, you know, there’s this struggle because people so many people think that like you’re reducing quality and blah, blah, blah, but but so much of it is just organising the space, time and materials, right and people, right, and if you can organise space time materials and people like you will, like have the most efficient operation that you have that you can get a no matter what technique you’re growing under. But when you’re able to do that, then you will reduce your you know, your cost of good your overhaul cost. In hey, let’s talk about that. Jessica, what do you think the breakeven cost of production for farmers should be your needs to be for, for people to continue to stay in the industry or cultivators?

Jessica

I mean, that’s hard to say if you are just talking about you’re growing for extraction, and Oklahoma pounds for extraction go for about 50 bucks a piece. So if you’re growing cannabis for under $50, and then you know and that’s your entire cost of labour and you know,

Chip

You’re gonna grow it for extraction in Oklahoma,

Jessica

then you better be growing it for $25 or $5 of have me just hard to

Chip

do right because of the manual labour associated with harvest mostly manual labour associated with planning till the irrigation can be put together what but what about indoor?

Jessica

I mean, indoor again, I’ve seen the indoor for as low as $500 in Oklahoma, and these you know, I don’t know if they’re truly selling indoor if they’re just calling it indoor, it’s hard to say. But I’ve seen what they call indoor that does not look that great.

Chip

We see this throughout Oklahoma, and we’re unsure if it’s just, you know, nice greenhouse operations, poor operators indoors. Yeah, I don’t know. Yeah, we don’t quite know.

Jessica

But I know I’ve seen it. You know, I’ve even seen $350 pounds of indoor with somebody that claims they have a 50,000 square foot facility.

Chip

We have seen those prices in Colorado to hurt them. I don’t think that’s the average price. But those are the lows. What do you think people in Oklahoma or? I’ve heard you sing for the like, how much does it cost to produce it? That’s what I’m asking.

Jessica

I mean, I honestly don’t know for people because I don’t know. So you have to Yeah, okay, you know, because I don’t know what they owe on the building they’re growing in are they paying back investors every month for part of this grow? Or if it’s, you know, they own the building

Chip

for $500. Then like, you know, like you got to indoor specifically, they’re either liquid needing to get rid of round is how much it’s gonna cost, right? Yeah. Like if you’re the one of the best operators in the country, you got all your shit together, you might be at 250 pound indoors, and some people can do it even cheaper. And that’s trimmed all your cost of production in the bag. Yeah, most people it’s not that much money. It’s 450. It’s 750. It’s, it could be $1,000 For some people, and it doesn’t matter how great the weed is.

Jessica

I mean, I’m still hearing some rumour. There’s a couple growers in Oklahoma claiming they’re still getting 2000 and door lb, I have yet to see that. I’m sure that exists. I get but the emails I get, they’re not selling for that much. 50.

Chip

So there’s the other thing we talked about, about pricing throughout the country, too. And now what’s even worse, is these emails and texts, often I feel like you’re just driving the price down. And so much of it’s fictional, right? There’s nobody that has the operation that needs 1000 pounds a day or you know, it’s just fictional in order to drive the price down or to manipulate the market or just people fucking around.

Jessica

Well, and these brokers don’t even get me started on like, how they lowball and then still try to get the same price because at one they in Oklahoma, none of them had a licence to be doing that anyway.

Chip

Yeah, they you know, they shouldn’t be called brokers. They should be Hey, pardon me, all brokers out there. They’re really nice and honest, dudes. They shouldn’t be called brokers. They should be called hustlers.

Jessica

Yeah. Well, we always tell the middleman and we really never liked unless they were helpful and actually, like, not just trying to rip off the growers.

Chip

Well, you know, what I’ve seen between old days in these days, and distributors and brokers is old days, it was like a set like, Hey, I’m gonna get $50 or $100 a pound.

Jessica

Now they want as much as the grower made.

Chip

Yeah, exactly and they’re just trying to lowball the grower to get that price down so much. And then the bad part is, it’s usually not even their money. So it’s often this like, you know, fucked up deal where they’re truly middleman, someone else has the money. Right? And, you know, they’re like,

Jessica

they’re acting like they have some inside knowledge into the weed space.

Chip

They should be connection and they should be paid for that connection. Don’t get me wrong, but like, I don’t know, if you want a sustainable business and you really wanted to clean up like, you know, having a reasonable brokerage fee. You know, I mean, hell, what a, you know, like,

Jessica

but you can’t be trying to make $200-300 a pound you’re buying for $500 or $400. Well, not only that,

Chip

but like your seeds right now. I know. But hey, man, you’re gonna go they’re gonna go out of business right now. Or your your profit definitely is gonna change.

Jessica

Yeah, absolutely. As it should. Because I mean, once again, the farmers are always the ones who take the hit.

Chip

Yeah, let’s talk price structure. That’s a great way to do it. Alright, so we’ve been taught cost to production, but like farmer sells the pound for 500 bucks. Let’s just say $500. He sells it to a dispensary direct. Right? dispensary sells $100 ounces. They make $1,600. dispensary sells $75 ounces. Right. They’re making 12 hundred bucks.

Jessica

But then 40% of that goes to the tax man because of you know, the

Chip

well 40% of the profit. So not 40% of the sale. Right. Right

Jessica

or 40% ofthat profit goes to the taxpayer. Well, that goes to the feds. And then if you’re in Oklahoma City, 15.5% of that immediately goes to

Chip

passed on though it’s usually not out the door pricing on what I’m talking about. Sometimes it

Jessica

In Oklahoma they really like out the door pricing

Chip

Yeah, but this just is just not the standard, you know. And so basically what I’m saying you’re buying it for 500 bucks, you’re selling it for 1600 bucks, you’re making $1,100 profit and then 40% of that should go to the man which is about 400 and something dollars. So like, now you just made the six $700 on a $500 lb there’s still quite a bit of money going on with dispensaries.

Jessica

Absolutely. But I mean, especially in Oklahoma, man, you’re seeing three ounces for 150 bucks and unit Yeah, but that’s greenhouse or outdoor we No, I’m just saying that like, I’m not seeing the high priced in Oklahoma. I don’t see as much of the high price than you used to. So I do think in some respect, those profit margins may not be as high but I’m sure they’re still high for a lot of places.

Chip

Sure, sure. And then a lot of those places are produced a lot of you know, if you’re producing the cannabis and you’re selling it, that’s the best deal you got going if you can grow it cheap enough? Yeah. Right? If you can grow it for 500 bucks or $700 a pound inside, and then resell it for that that’s decent money. That’s really good, good money. But I guess my point is this is that restaurants, farmers, entrepreneurs throughout the world operate on 10 and 12%. Net profit. And it just takes a skilled business person to operate in that manner. And you’re still making money, as the dispensaries right at these at these low prices, you have to get the customers come in to buy it.

Jessica

And you have to have the staff, of course.

Chip

You have to have the staff and in all of that, but there’s still money to be made out there. And if you’re in the cannabis industry, and you’re like, oh, man, I can produce $170 $190 pounds in a greenhouse. And I can sell them for 350 or $500. But you’re making good money.

Jessica

Yeah, there’s still no doubt about that. It may not be the profit margin you think you should be getting? Or do you use to begin entitled to be or you feel entitled to be getting.

Chip

Right. But it is the sky is not falling? There? Will many people go out of business in Oklahoma?

Jessica

Well, of course. I mean, people have already gone out of business, and it’s just the nature of business, not 100% of all businesses don’t survive in any industry. So especially in a boom and bust scenario, especially in a boom and bust. Yep. Especially with the banking issues we have and the tax issues. You know, it’s not simple.

Chip

Well, you know, one interesting thing from my perspective is, you know, we operate hydroponic stores and, you know, potting soil manufacturing is, you know, how bad the manufacturers are and how much the prices have risen on our side. Inflation is truly shit. You know, in all of your cannabis, grow equipment, at Cultivate Colorado, Cultivate OKC you know, we operate an online shop there, cultivateokc.com cultivatecolorado.com. People from all over the country in the world buy products from us. And you know, we have seen, they’re still we still understand there’s the demand there. And even though we have a decrease in business in our retail shops in Colorado, and in Oklahoma, we’re still on an up three year average last year was a banner year for us. But we’ve been able to like still do pretty good and you know, we we made may operate a little bit differently than other people, but many of the stores that are you know, because we’ve been around for such a long time and many of the other stores including like, grow generation and you know, some of the other like smaller stores that either are just oversized or underdeveloped they’re they’re having a struggle hanging on to this industry. But you know, we have a really well established business Kobe, Colorado you know, we expect to weather this storm, you know, you know, well you know, we’re definitely talking to our customers you know, we’re offering the best prices we can we know everyone’s struggling you know, we see new products come out all the time. This past couple of years. We haven’t seen any new products come out

Jessica

There’s a couple new products that have come out.

Chip

I guess you’re right, I do have some products coming out. Yeah, growers our potting soil company if you’re not familiar with us, we make potting soil in and outside Denver, Colorado, some of the highest quality potting soil in the world made from cocoa fibre. We’re coming out with two new products right now that we’re actually using, you’ve been using you’ve been a prototyping our organic cocoa for a moment.

Jessica

Absolutely great cocoa

Chip

…so we’re coming out with a organic cocoa and a 7030. And we’ve actually put these off for a moment that are coming out with them right now at really great great prices because everybody’s having a hard time right now.

Jessica

Well it’s also you know, just thinking post COVID and everything going on with not only inflation, but it is a supply chain issues. So really noticing that there are things and all of our grocery stores and markets that we noticed just isn’t there anymore because of supply chain.

Chip

Oh yeah, it’s it has been hard we have we have bought more cocoa fibre than we thought we were going to use. We’ve really tried to get the biggest deals from our competitors coming from our suppliers, the best deals so we could, you know, be able to like me Eat this market because…

Jessica

Well I don’t even have it in stock when you need it struggling

Chip

to manufacture is you’re struggling to get materials. But yeah, so we got a 7030 Cocoa fibre coming out. We’ve got a organic cocoa fibre coming out right now. Call us at cultivate Colorado, look us up at growers grown on Instagram, cultivate Colorado on Instagram, and Facebook. And, you know, follow your progress there. If you’re in the Colorado area, we’re offering incredible prices to you right now on this product. So give us a call if you’re in Oklahoma or Michigan or anywhere in the country, if you’re a grower, or if you’re a grocery store, you know, drop us a line at growers cocoa or it goes big Colorado. We’d love to help it out. How do people getting get in touch with you and your organisation?

Jessica

In my organisation if you’re a commercial grower in Oklahoma, and you want clones, you know you can reach us at You can go to our website, which is clone dash city.com on Instagram, we’re at the clone city and also clone nursery. You know, because you gotta have more than one and then you can always just Google clone City, Oklahoma, and we come up oh my gosh, probably around 50 These days we really expanded our our mom rooms and got some great Oh, there are Yeah, we plant a bunch of seeds we select for specific finos and then we grow them at least two different ways in Oklahoma and then we put them out on the market so so we know they’re actually going to survive in greenhouses and outdoor yields

Chip

Great speaking to you today, Jessica. You know, I fortunately I get to get your wisdom on Cannabis industry all the time. Is there anything you’d like to say to fellow business?

Jessica

I always have things I want to say.

Chip

Women Business Owners or just cannabis business owners in general.

Jessica

I’m gonna say cannabis owners and business owners in general even if you’re not in the cannabis space yet and you’re just thinking of any business endeavour. It is a long game it there is no shortcuts. Like I said you may do well successfully at first and then that’s when your hurdles start. But don’t think this is an easy like I’m in and out and I’m gonna just it is a long game and enjoy it Have fun, please honour and respect the plants and your employees and your business contacts, the earth, all of it. But definitely it is not it is not a short game. It’s a long game. So be patient. Take deep breaths, connect with the other people in your industry community and don’t feel entitled to anything because we’re not

Chip

Hey, and I just want to say to you listeners. We love you all, keep the plant in your heart and just keep going you know times may be tough but just roll the biggest joint you can and fire it up.

Jessica

We’re about to!

Chip

This has been The Real Dirt!

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Got a grow problem? There’s a consultant for that! At least that’s what it seems like these days. As the cannabis industry grows and the consulting market becomes more saturated, it has become easier to pick out the fake consultants and find the real experts. But the problem still remains; most of these experts only excel in one area. Whether its pest management, cultivation techniques, extraction technology, banking or security, it’s extremely rare to find a consultant with experience in all of the above. That’s why Jim Gerencser came up with Greener Consulting Group, a cannabis consulting firm with a team of consultants with dedicated areas of expertise. Traditionally, a consultant operates alone in a contractor capacity. But Greener Group has evolved the cannabis consultant, and turned it into a team that can solve any problem in-house. In Part One of this two-part episode, Chip and Jim dive into the real dirt of cannabis consulting and how dirty the industry really gets. Plus, hear about which states are doing regulation right and which got it completely wrong, and what the future holds for medical and legal cannabis states in the aftermath of COVID and plenty of classic ganja talk between a couple stoners. Roll up another one, sit back or get back in the grow, and enjoy this episode of The Real Dirt with Chip Baker!

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John came out of the motorcycle and action sports world. He worked for 15 years at Harley-Davidson and Austrian sport motorcycle maker KTM. During that time John worked closely with Red Bull back in early 2000 when energy drinks were just entering the market. John drank tons of energy drinks back in the day, fueling personal adventures on land, in the water and in the sky. You just couldn't pack enough hours in the day to do it all. Then in 2006 John met his Brazilian, vegetarian wife and set out on a more sustainable path. Part of that included becoming a vegetarian and also giving up energy drinks. The new go-to for energy was coffee, and John drank it morning, noon and evenings. However the energy caused side effects like nervousness and affected his sleep - he always felt like he was stealing from his longevity and future health for energy today. After experiencing the health benefits of CBD several years ago, and on a mission for find healthy energy that he could take any time, any where, John started ZOHKO in 2018. He pulled together scientists and doctors to create ZOHKO Energy which is on the cusp of creating a new energy category. ZOHKO Energy combines CBD with 8 power packed ingredients to boost energy, mood, motivation and focus all while the adaptogens strengthen immunity and help fight stress.

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A Conversation with an Average Medical Cannabis User

Tue, 28 Apr 2020 20:26:17 +0000

The use of cannabis as medicine has not been rigorously tested due to production and governmental restrictions, resulting in limited clinical research to define the safety and efficacy of using cannabis to treat diseases. Preliminary evidence suggests that cannabis can reduce nausea and vomiting during chemotherapy, improve appetite in people with HIV/AIDS, reduces chronic pain and muscle spasms, and treats severe forms of epilepsy.

In today’s episode, Chip’s good friend, Greg Davidson, an average medical cannabis user, shares his insights and experiences on cannabis. He and Chip have smoked out many times “recreationally”.

In 1984 Greg was paralyzed in an automobile accident, and has used medical cannabis almost continuously since to control the spasms in his legs. And just about two years ago, he was diagnosed with bladder cancer and used medical cannabis and CBD to beat cancer.

Stay tune on Greg’s life-changing experience together with the help of his canna-friends who supported him from developing programs to solving growing problems.

There’s nothing like the feeling of a doctor walking in and saying you’ve got cancer. – Greg Davidson

Download The Episode Companion For This Episode

Some Topics We Discussed Include

0:31 – Finding new friends in cannabis
5:17 – Salad joint kinda guy
9:18 – Proposition 64
24:01 – Greg’s first encounter with cannabis
41:42 –Average medical cannabis consumer
43:23 –Message for the regulators, commercial growers, extractors
56:49 –Weather problems

People Mentioned / Resources

Connect with Chip Baker

Transcript

Chip Baker: Once again, you have reached The Real Dirt. In today’s dirt have my good buddy, Greg Davidson. Hey you say Greg.

Greg Davidson: Hey, Chip, how are you doing? Hey listeners of The Real Dirt.

Finding New Friends in Cannabis

Chip Baker: Real Dirty-ans, Greg’s one of my oldest and best friends. I, he, and his wife Elaine, are dear people to us. And the interesting thing about Greg is, in many ways, you’re average medical marijuana patient. He grows a little weed, he smokes a lot of weed, goes to the grow store, goes to the dispensary, he buys vape pens, and I feel like you’re just real average consumer, right? You may be smoke a little bit more average, but I mean you use medical marijuana and medical cannabis. So that’s why I wanted to have you on the show. Plus, we always have really good conversations when we’re on the phone anyway. So you’re a good conversationalist.

Greg Davidson: I love rubbing with each other.

Chip Baker: Yeah, it’s always fun. Yeah. Greg, I met you must have been 2004?

Greg Davidson: Ah, no, I was going to say three. So three or four.

Chip Baker: It was pre, Santa Cruz, for me?

Greg Davidson: You were up in Willow. You were actually the first time I met you, you were a self-proclaimed dirty hippie, and you had pitched attempts at early.

Chip Baker: Oh, okay. It was at one of the cannabis worlds.

Greg Davidson: I actually met you when I was trimming. That’s when I was an itinerant termer.

Chip Baker: Oh, trimmer. Yeah. I was camping out of Charlie’s funny. Well, we met through cannabis world or something. Right, which was an online group. We’ve talked about this in the past. And it was set up as part of a seed bay. So you could talk to breeders and growers about buying cannabis seeds, and then you could go buy them online at this seed auction site.

Greg Davidson: Yeah, it was up a loose affiliation of growers, breeders, kind people and as many of us as could a met once or twice a year up in Northern California.

Chip Baker: You and Charlie were some of my first internet friends, you, Charlie and Shanti Baba Mr. Nice Seeds were awesome offers internet friends.

Greg Davidson: Yeah, back in the day. I can I tell the listeners, my first impression of Chip was I knew that we had a different cat on our hands. Chip had all of his weed and mason jars. Chip was the very first guy to have his weed and make some dirt, that back when we all let it dry out in ziplock bags, and I was like, wow, this guy hightech cuz he’s got mason jars.

Chip Baker: Oh man years probably still smoking Mexican weed back then.

Greg Davidson: No we’re getting from–

Chip Baker: Yeah, no first names!

Greg Davidson: Oh yeah.

Chip Baker: Now he is your medical cannabis supplier, right?

Greg Davidson: Ah, yeah, exactly. I trained him for medical cannabis, that’s how it works.

Chip Baker: Right. So man what puts, what are you smoking on today?

Greg Davidson: I just– Well, I saw that you sched to your part of [inaudible] in progress. I snuck outside real quick and booked to join a gelato. And then I’ve got a couple of canns here. And in my left hand, I’ve got some tandy. In my right hand here, I’ve got what they call Chi up, punch. This is a Rog garden, live resin and I’ve talked about live resin before–

Chip Baker: Yeah, totally love it.

Greg Davidson: Yeah, the taste is right on. What are you smoking?

Salad Joint Kinda Guy

Chip Baker: Man you know I’ve been kind of bored with our weed lately but right now, I’ve been working on a salad that I like, which is a Mimosa and Gilz Nilz. Right. Gilz Nilz is a Swamp Boys Seed and yeah, man. We really like this weed. I mean, I didn’t think I was it– I don’t know, it doesn’t have like, to me like this drawing smell or appearance. It looks good. Don’t get me wrong and it smells great. But like I was totally proved wrong by this weed, Greg. Right.

I immediately saw it, and I was like, oh man, commercial producer. And because it gets big, it grows easy. It doesn’t have any problems. And then like it has an older look because it is Georgia pine and cross the wide. So it’s an older plant, a place or something that they’re not telling us what the Georgia Pine is. Swamp Boys Seeds, actually get them on here and talk about it but they– so I liked smoking this weed, right it’s great outdoor, great greenhouse weed. And we mix that with the Mimosa, which you know, it has a citrus kush you know, taste so yeah I blend them.

Greg Davidson: [inaudible] you’ve been a salad joint kinda guy.

Chip Baker: Yeah, like salads for sure. Yeah, you know, salads are such a good way to, like, tell potential genetic combinations to– right. Something that like could be there or might be there. But yeah, like pure joints too. I’m just kind of bored with our weed right now.

Greg Davidson: I remember back in the day when we were smoking a lot of arcade a train wreck, to get, we would get tired of that creosote taste and you’d mix in a little of that lavender. Oh, that was a nice salad.

Chip Baker: That is a good fond memory, you know, we planted some of those train wreck back crosses, we had, T three, T fours. Just recently, we’ve got a great fino that’s a train wreck, you know, that not carbon copy, but like really, really close. So, yeah, we’re excited for that this show this outdoor season.

Greg Davidson: Alright, so now that we know both know what we’re smoking, mysterious back to. When we first met–

Chip Baker: Yeah, okay.

I’ve been using medical marijuana for the spasms in my legs associated with my paralysis. – Greg Davidson

Greg Davidson: I really liked you right off, back then you were just off your activist days down in Georgia. And that impressed me that impressed me. I really liked that about you. But yeah, at that point, I’ve been using medical marijuana for the spasms in my legs associated with my paralysis, and it’s really, back then your doctors would always ask, you know, are there be forms to fill out? And of course, I was always, no because you didn’t want your doctors to know. If you had a medical condition, you didn’t want your doctors to know. But this is before 1996. So at that point, I’ve been using it for 12 years medicinally.

Preposition 64

Then 96 came along, and it kind of loosened up, got a little bit better. And has gradually, you know, you followed the legislation as close as anybody it’s gotten a little bit better, but it’s still not right. I’m conflicted about proposition 64 pretty much removed the whole medical marijuana scene. I mean, I don’t need to go to the dispensaries rather than the vape cartridges. But I’ve noticed that there’s maybe one place left that will ask if you’ve got a medical card, and I think they’d give some break on the tax maybe. But that’s about it; there’s no compassion and the compassionate care act anymore. It’s all about money.

All the places are really good about either a disabled person or veteran discount, which I’m both– which is nice because they’re pretty much wiped out– your discount pretty much wipes out the excise tax that they’re charging. And the other thing that I really and I talked to Jessica about this is proposition 64 just exploded the one use single-use plastic market so we can just choke this planet even faster on plastic. I mean everything, yeah it just it’s really bad used to be able to go into a dispensary. They break out one of those big extra big mason jars and a set of tongs, and you could pull a bud out, you couldn’t touch them, but you could pull a bud out you could look around, and there’d be nice looking buds in there. Now everything is packaged in a– got my props ready here, Chip. Now we’re making a glass jar or plastic jar like this? You can’t see through it. So you can’t see what you’re getting. And of course, because of the size of the jar, everything is just mids. I wonder– and you know some people might know the answer to this. What happened? Yeah, I know you know some people. What happened to the big buds? Where’d they go?

Chip Baker: What happened to the big buds? Where did they go? I feel a song coming on here. What happened to the big buds, where did they go–

Greg Davidson: Now I go to my dispensary. All I get is bids, Oh show there we’ve just wrote a song.

Chip Baker: Yeah, you used to be my dealer had big buds, the dispensary is getting nothing but meds.

Greg Davidson: What happened? What happened to these top cool? Where’d they go?

Chip Baker: Man, okay, I’ll tell you this dude, is in California and the rest of the country. Yeah, everybody’s buying grams and [inaudible]

right? And the board, the dispensary, or the buyer should have a consistent nugget size in a sack of weed as opposed to like trophy nuggets how we all used to have. Yeah, right. And people talk all the weed used to be better, the weed used to be better, you know, and it’s like, well, man back when like, we all had trophy nuggets, back when that was a thing because you know, the pounds would have small to large nuggets and it was a different story.

Here in Oklahoma and kind of in Colorado a little bit, they shove everything in the bag, right? And Colorado is changing a bit, but here it’s still everything goes in the bag, big nugget, the small nugget, but they’re often cut up dude. [inaudible] are often cut up. It’s better for everybody if they’re– because of the packaging and you know the way people buy it. Because it’s not like potatoes we go and buy this potato that potato three potato four potato you know, and each [inaudible] is bigger, different size, and then you weigh it all and it’s like oh, that’s point nine three pounds, and you pay six bucks or whatever. Right? And we’ve talked about this for a long time too. You know is I would like to go into a dispensary and just buy nugget, buy it by the nugget, buy the gram just like– that 4.6-gram nugget and that 2.8-gram nugget.

Greg Davidson: Right.

Chip Baker: Commercial, commercialism.

Greg Davidson: I’ve had a– and they’ll talk to, you know the bud tenders and, and even the owners of the dispensary will talk to you and tell you that they get and this is just amazing to me. They have people come in every day,

Chip Baker: Every day. Yeah. At Jessica’s dispensary Baker’s Medical. We got people that come in every day about an eighth. Every day and buy two joints every day.

Greg Davidson: Yeah, why not save up your money and come in once a week and buy an ounce I don’t get it.

Chip Baker: Oh, I mean, Well, I’ll tell you what, that’s going to happen more and more in the social interaction. It is definitely going to change. So the people that used to show up and buy an eighth a day–

Greg Davidson: We have this thing at the local grocery store; he mixes a compost tea every week. And then on Sunday, people who are customers can come in and get through their two gallons of compost tea for free and it always turns into a circle out in the back have three or four joints going around, and we call it church

Chip Baker: Church, teachers.

Greg Davidson: In the past couple of weeks, church has been canceled. And on the last week of it everybody got their own joints we didn’t have to ask to join around. This episode’s been forwarded well I’m in the county, I’m in California we’re under stay at home orders.

Chip Baker: So yeah, weird. I see you’ve got your orange jumpsuit on there. [inaudible] log lot now.

Greg Davidson: We got a safety orange in case things go wild.

Chip Baker: Yeah, man.

Greg Davidson: I’ve got enough weed in the freezer from I had a really good year this year. We’re because of Proposition 64. We’re finally able to blow it up in the backyard and with Chip’s help, I gotta say with Chip’s help through a couple of rough patches. I turned out a really nice crop this year.

Chip Baker: Awesome, man.

Greg Davidson: I went out right before the lockdown and bought eight packs of rolling papers, looking at me like I was crazy after accident papers and notes.

Chip Baker: I’ve got a couple cases my shits gonna happen. Now we’re trying to stay really positive doing it all taking it as seriously as we should regardless of like how we might feel about the whole scenario and you know, it is definitely a good time like just take a second back man, you know, actually dude, I’ve been doing podcasts left and right literally I’ve had two others today. I’ve got two tomorrow at three yesterday at a webinar yesterday and then all the rest of the stuff that we decided we wanted to do. But yeah, man, we’re just kicking it down the road and just staying home. You know, this is my new home studio here at the ranch.

Greg Davidson: Yeah. Pretty fancy.

Chip Baker: And I– were just sitting back starting a big garden. Taking care of all of our business. It’s amazing how much work that you can do from a home office and I’ve been home office in for a long time. And I know you do, too. You guys have worked at home for years. But when you use this tool like Zoom, like what we’re using right now or Google Hangouts or, man, it changes everything. Yeah. Man, I think it’s really good time to like, be with your family, and talk to some friends here and there. And, yeah, I enjoy one another’s company.

I think it’s really good time to like, be with your family, and talk to some friends here and there. And, yeah, I enjoy one another’s company. – Chip Baker

Greg Davidson: I wanted to be on The Real Dirt since you started it. Yeah–

Chip Baker: Man. We’re on. We’re on today. Well, hey, you know what, I think this is a perfect time to take a break. We’ll sit back we’ll roll up a joint. We’ll have a little break and we’ll come back and we’ll talk about medical cannabis. Right. This is Chip with The Real Dirt, Chip and Greg.

Greg Davidson: Thanks.

Chip Baker: Hey, this is Chip from The Real Dirt, today is like March 25th 2020. And if you’re like most of the country, while you’re kind of concerned about what’s going on in the world. Well, hey, don’t be alarmed. The Real Dirt is a safe place to gather and listen and enjoy this episode and others if you’re interested in more episodes of The Real Dirt, download them at therealdirt.com or on iTunes. Subscribe and listen to all the episodes that we have there. Some are better than others, but I tell you what, there’s something great in every single one. So if you’re sitting back bored just downloads more episodes of The Real Dirt, therealdirt.com.

Chip Baker: So you want those vape pens huh?

Greg Davidson: I do.

Chip Baker: Yeah, the vaping crisis didn’t scare you none man?

Greg Davidson: As long as you’re buying tested, that’s the good thing about 64. That’s one of the good things about 64. Got a little can’t see this but there’s a there’s a sticker right here that is mandated by the state of California to go on these larger dinos right? So no I never had it and with the weather changing I’m able to get outside and get back to smoking flower. In fact we’ve got another prop for y’all here. This is what I do when I’m locked out. Can’t get out these are all joints that are rolled here and see so– time comes and I can just boom out the door.

Chip Baker: Oh, that should go-bag.

Greg Davidson: Yeah. That’s my go-bag.

Chip Baker: Let me see a picture that go-bag again. That was great! That’s awesome. You’ll have to take a picture that send it to me. Yeah, look for Greg Davidson’s go-bag.

Greg Davidson: My go-bag.

Chip Baker: That’s great.

Greg Davidson: I learned from you that you don’t want to have a shortage of [inaudible] No, because, you know, you’ll be cruising along. Life’s cool, and then you get like a paper cut. And you can’t roll– I hate that. Oh, God.

Chip Baker: Fortunately, my wife is pretty good roller.

Greg Davidson: Yeah, she’s decent.

Chip Baker: She’s decent. She’s not great like me.

Greg Davidson: You are so far too much credit. I’ve smoked some of the pregnant guppies that you rolled,

Chip Baker: Hey, sometimes it’s just function, you know.

Greg Davidson: So anyway, we’re gonna try and steer this back–

Greg’s First Encounter with Cannabis

Chip Baker: Oh, this that’s right. This isn’t just like a play conversation. Hey listen Greg, I want to have you on to talk about medical cannabis. When did you get– tell me your cannabis story, when you got first involved with medical cannabis?

Greg Davidson: Oh, man first time I got involved with medical cannabis is first time I got high.

Chip Baker: Well i mean it’s really two different things. I think you’re in medical cannabis user, how did you– Okay, here we go. What was the lightbulb moment when you realize weed was medicine?

Greg Davidson: Ah, okay. February or March of 1985 when I gotten out of the hospital after my back injury. So I first realized cannabis was medicine was in February or March of 1985 after I’d been released from the hospital, and I was living with my dad and stepmom in Sacramento. And had finally gotten to where I was comfortable going out of the house, going out and getting some fresh air, getting some exercise started getting back in touch with old friends and got a sack from one of them. And was being Mr. Sly going out in the garage and rolling up a quick one to take on my exercise journey. Yeah, let me think of like 26 years old, and my dad busts me I get busted by my dad right? And he’s like, you know, you can just roll that up in the house and take it with you. So obviously wasn’t us [inaudible]

Chip Baker: Your mom and dad are like, Just go out there and tell him he can do it in the house?

Greg Davidson: Tell him he can do it in the house. Exactly. So I was smoking, not with the idea of cannabis as medicine. But I noticed that when I would smoke, my the spasms in my legs would really calm down. And I noticed that the more I smoked, the more the spasms in my legs would lead up. Then I thought, you know, maybe I don’t need to take all these liver-killing medicines that the doctors have prescribed for me if I can replace it with what at the time was medicine [inaudible] So I was a medical marijuana patient when you were still running around in three corner pants.

Chip Baker: Dude I was playing weed in 1985.

Greg Davidson: Okay, all right, but you get my point. You get my point. It’s been a long time–

Chip Baker: I was just out of diapers.

Greg Davidson: So I thought, you know, I had to keep it from my doctors back then.

Chip Baker: Right? You can keep are [inaudible]–

Greg Davidson: Yeah, it was a robot–

Chip Baker: You were in the VA at that time. I mean, you were going to VA hospitals–

Greg Davidson: [inaudible] State University of California system. Which has hospitals in various campuses around the state.

Chip Baker: Some may have understood, but you know, it’s not something–

Greg Davidson: I went through different doctors and I know that my first doctor would have been like, good for you, you know, and then he moved on and the next doctor would have been I’m calling the police said oh you just get a vibe, you get a vibe from people. And then I had a doctor for a long long time that I think she heard listen to anything that I said anyway, but I don’t think that she would have been up or down about it.

So then we’re gonna we’re gonna jump forward a long, long time and I got bladder cancer in 2018 was diagnosed with bladder cancer in like February of 2018. And, man, there’s nothing like the feeling of a doctor walking in and saying you’ve got cancer. But at the same time, he was really good doctor and I realized right then in his office that I was gonna beat it. Underneath this shirt, I’ve got a whole slew of tattoos and I think that they– one of them’s the chemical symbol for THC and one’s a chemical symbol for CBD and the doctor is always key on those right away and you know when you know what that is like–

Chip Baker: This guy’s for real.

Greg Davidson: I think they know not to ask their questions anymore. But the guy said to me, amongst other things, he said if you use marijuana, he said use more. He says if you don’t use it now start, and if you do use it, use more.

Chip Baker: I like this guy–

Greg Davidson: So that’s how the just fast forward thing. That’s how the attitude amongst the doctors in the UC system changed over the years. We have mutual friend in Colorado, who does real high grade CBD oil. I got tons of that from him. And talk to Jessica and you about how I developed the three legged stool for my recovery. And it was Western medicine which involves surgery and chemotherapy combined with some other various medicines.

The second leg of the stool was Eastern medicine and a big shout out to Jessica Baker. She was my rock. Right there. She developed a program for me of herbs, proprietary herbs that came from a place in Berkeley. She started; there’s my wife Elaine that made the Reishi mushroom tea and the Chaga root tea that tasted just horrible. And I had a friend can I give a shout out to a friend back in Matthew no last names–

Chip Baker: Matthew no last names

Greg Davidson: You know who you are? He’s a healer, he’s a chiropractor and a Chaga root hunter. It turned out– duty he goes out and he any harvest chaga roots and send me. So that was my– they know each other. So that was my second leg of the stool, and then the third leg of the stool was all about cannabis it’s all about cannabis, man. I smoked —

Chip Baker: Propping up on weed.

Greg Davidson: I smoked, I ate, I use drops. I use poultice I think I used everything except those [inaudible] shouldn’t go–

Chip Baker: Oh, man, you know when you really got to get up in there right?

Greg Davidson: Any [inaudible] method that you could? And I really think that those three things Western medicine, Eastern medicine and then the power of medical marijuana.

Chip Baker: So now you can bring it up to anyone. You can talk about that you use medical marijuana to anyone now.

Greg Davidson: Yeah, right. In fact this past year when I knew that I was going to grow big. I went around to all the neighbors and I you know, fest up tonight. A year–

Chip Baker: For the past you were nervous about it.

I went from door to door at around the neighbors and told them I’m gonna be growing. – Greg Davidson

Greg Davidson: I was I’d be very careful. Although we have really good neighbors and we’ve known them for a long time. You know you don’t want to offend anybody. You don’t know their feelings about it. And so I went from door to door at around the neighbors and told them I’m gonna be growing. And I said, and they were all fine with it. They were all great with it. And I said, by the way, did you know that I’d been growing outlaw style for years, none of them had a clue. So yeah, I was able to grow my own medicine this year, and the state makes it really easy. There’s real good nursery that has high quality clones. Chip knows who I’m talking about. I used a nutrient line that was a lot harder than it needed to be. But I think it was worth it and I grew and grew in one [inaudible]–

Chip Baker: Oregon zone nectar the gods that are what she is right?

Greg Davidson: Yeah. Nectar for the gods. Yeah, it was like an 11 [inaudible]

Chip Baker: Great product, too complicated for–

Greg Davidson: Yeah, I had to contact you a couple of times and say, why am I giving my plants carbon?

Chip Baker: There’s only instruction just follow it.

Greg Davidson: Yeah.

Chip Baker: Now they got a good product, man. You know, it’s they do have 14 pieces to the puzzle though.

Greg Davidson: I turned out some really, really nice medical marijuana and I’m sad I mean if the you know if this is a zombie apocalypse, man I’m good, I got jars sealed up out there. Do you remember the legendary APK we call it All their Point Kush?

Chip Baker: I do remember it but but I was never that– I wasn’t that into that one, but it just never crossed my path the same way as it did you guys, I remember it?

Greg Davidson: I broke out a jar that has been sealed up for 15 years.

Chip Baker: No way! Holy shit.

Greg Davidson: And I smoked it with our mutual friend

Chip Baker: In the freezer, had you forgotten about it or purposely it was back there?

Greg Davidson: I totally knew and I knew at some– I was gonna smoke with our friend and own the seed bank. Can I give him a shout out?

Chip Baker: Absolutely.

Greg Davidson: Oh man. Oh cool!

Chip Baker: Who’s our friend? That into seed bank?

Greg Davidson: My best friend–

Chip Baker: Oh Sha, 707 Seeds yeah totally got some of his 707 kush going on down here in the 405–

Greg Davidson: So he and I’ve been friends for a long time. He actually got me the cutting of that all good point kush. So I broke it open, roll the joint smok it with him, and then told him what it was, and showed him the jar. It was it had lost a little bit of he used to have a really nice spicy smell. Now just kind of had a flat smell, but as far as taste and getting you high, it had lost nothing, and it been in my freezer for 15 years.

Chip Baker: Well that’s awesome. We smoke some a Fletcher’s Malawi and oh five haze recently though, that we had, it was in the back of the frigerator for 18 months maybe more. And it lost his color a little bit. Didn’t have an initial smell but you broke it open and there was a smell and it smoked just fine.

Greg Davidson: Have you sealed it and then put it in–

Chip Baker: Just in a jar, dried, right? tight. I am putting the one cooler.

Greg Davidson: Buy yourselves a vacuum sealer. Good.

Chip Baker: So I’ve got a vacuum sealer, there’s just you know, like, we got too much weed. We just put this in here.

Greg Davidson: And we don’t have– That was a funny experience. So that’s what I did with this year’s model. I have a nice mix of SFV OGs, Chip knows I’m one of those fuel oil, kind of guys. And then with Jessica’s help, I was able to develop the terpene profile.

Chip Baker: Yeah, what’s your what’s your ter[inaudible]?

Greg Davidson: Man, I got to have the limonene,a little of that. You know what works out strain wise for me and money because it’s one I’ve always loved is Sour Diesel. And then the– anything like that [inaudible] the real dank OG. My favorite OG is Tahoe OG, I couldn’t find that but it I grew some really nice SFV OG. And my garden star was a replacement plant. I had a Venom OG, that was not working. And I sent my boy Chip a picture of it. And he says pull it up. It was pretty late in the season, but I was able to get the same nursery. Some [inaudible] And man–

Chip Baker: The great. Yeah.

Greg Davidson: It was great. It was super easy to grow. Super easy to trim and just chunky rock hard buds that taste of you can taste the cookie influence but also, you can get that limonene but, man, I wish we could get a hold of some genius. Remember?

Chip Baker: Oh, you know what we actually just planted a seed run of the Apollo 11, I think looking for that genius fino and man I think we came close. I think we came close man. I think you’d be impressed. Yeah some my favorite weed genius. Oh my god. Just great.

Greg Davidson: Yeah.

Chip Baker: It’s great. So man, let me ask you a couple medical marijuana questions.

Greg Davidson: All right, yo.

Average Medical Cannabis Consumer

Chip Baker: You are an average consumer, if you could say anything to the dispensaries what it was. If you have all the dispensaries in the country listening to you because you very well could. What do you want to tell them?

Greg Davidson: Wow!

Chip Baker: As an average medical cannabis consumer.

Greg Davidson: This is going to sound harsh.

Chip Baker: It’s good criticism–

Greg Davidson: [inaudible] with the bait and switch. Yeah, it’s bad problem, too bad problem. No show.

Bait and switch work this way, and they put a bud into a clear lucite jar that has a magnifying glass built into the lid. And the bud is just dank. Yeah, frosty. Perfect, you can tell it’s got a perfect mixture to it. So you buy an eight of that, and you bring it home, and it’s not even the same weed. It’s sad but true and one a would-be, man we’ve got to cut down on the plastic.

Chip Baker: How is it works? Have to cut down the plastic.

Greg Davidson: Yeah, yeah.

Message for the Regulators, Commercial Growers, Extractors

Chip Baker: I was gonna ask you what you would say to the legislators if they were listening to this and the regulators because they are they’re out there, man.

Greg Davidson: Oh, that’s easy one, I don’t even have to think on that one, legalize it.

Chip Baker: Well, one of the things is less plastic. You just told me that.

Greg Davidson: Yeah, definitely require less plastic. I get what you’re trying to do. But people are responsible, patients are responsible enough and you know, I hesitate to use the word patient anymore. Let’s just say users, users are reliable enough that you can put it in a paper bag and staple it closed. You know, we don’t need everything that we’re buying in one plastic or glass jar. And then put it inside of I meant to have one of those ready, but you know what? single black ziplock–

Chip Baker: Exit container, a secure exit container.

Greg Davidson: Thank you. I knew they had a name. The exit container, what can you do with those afterward?

Chip Baker: Now, the waste is tremendous.

Greg Davidson: Yeah. And now our recycling, our recycling won’t accept that kind of stuff.

Chip Baker: All right. So dispensary owners legislation, what do you want to say to the commercial growers, the people that are growing this stuff?

Greg Davidson: Learn how to cure your cannabis properly. Man, I hate to keep banging in your drum, because your heads are not going to fit in the studio. But Chip taught me more good cannabis gets ruined and the curing process that any other point. It’s not easy to grow great weed, but it’s not super hard. You can trim it. You can dry it and you know the merits of wet trimming versus dry trimming. I mean I’m a dry trimmer, I always have been.

But then there’s that last step that brings out to taste brings out the flavor profile. And that’s curing, so you growers out there, I know you’re trying to get your product to market as fast as you can you know you’ve gone through all the hoops I know what they all are and then you want to get your product to the dispensary. But take a little bit extra time and give it a nice cure. Chip told me in Colorado, and I didn’t know this Colorado is a super dry state super hard to dry and get a proper cure. So here in California where we’ve got the proper climate court do it. Next question, please?

Chip Baker: Next question. All right, well, extractors there’s the next thing. As a medical cannabis consumer, what do you have to say to the extractors? Because this is perfect information for all of these guys, what is my average consumer?

Greg Davidson: I see a drop off in the wax and resin and that kind of product and a better job being done with these things. And I know it’s hard. Not everybody can do it, but if you can do it, think about becoming a live resin extractor. Adjust the flavor, you don’t have to add terpenes back end because they’re there. So ask me long question Chip so I can hit this, waving it around like–

Chip Baker: Man now I think those are I got what I want and really you know, the grower the extractor, the distributor, the legislator, I mean we you know talk about, how you can talk about it now. You snuck talk about it you talk to your neighbors about it you know make how regulations actually really made you feel better about it. And there’s– we’ve both talked about this though there’s it, man it’s harder to get great, great product.

Greg Davidson: Yeah it really is — It’s easy to get good extracts.

Chip Baker: Yes, it’s so easy for somebody to make an SOP of an extract. It’s really easy to be like, Oh, if you treat this weed this way and you put in a recipe with growing ganjas not exactly the same every time.

Greg Davidson: It’s so hard to do it right. To do it right is– one thing you told me a Chip seems to have enjoyed smoking my cannabis over the years.

Chip Baker: I’ve smoked as much of Greg’s weed as I can.

Greg Davidson: Quite a bit I gotta say, which is quite a bit. One thing you always said and I appreciated you saying this was because of my situation, I’m able to be with my plants every day and give them love and that makes up for a lot of things.

Chip Baker: Oh yeah, absolutely you don’t need a bunch of care to grow weed. I mean of course no I love it don’t get me wrong, but it doesn’t take much. As long as you got a pot, and some soil and a little bit of fertilizer, and some seed or a clone like water, right?

Greg Davidson: There are so many seed companies out there now. Like Fletcher’s just turn it out some crazy good stuff.

Chip Baker: I mean, he’s hands down one of the top breeders in the world. I’m proud to know him call him, bro.

Greg Davidson: Me too. I knew him.

Chip Baker: I knew him when he was like 15 [inaudible] to be it as the parties we were at.

Greg Davidson: Right, you’d look over there and you’d be like, Who’s that kid?

Chip Baker: I never can tell how old anybody–

Greg Davidson: Where did he get that crazy good weed sitting in front of.

Chip Baker: Yeah, man. He’s got he’s got a fucking $60,000 car too, so he must be 21. Right? He wouldn’t even old enough to drive. Somebody else drove him–

Greg Davidson: We know a lot of characters back in our day, Eddie, remember Eddie.

Chip Baker: Yeah. He just came up yesterday in conversation Eddie Lap. I’d love to get Eddie Lap on the show, man. Oh, my God. He’s got some of the best stories ever.

Greg Davidson: Yeah, I said, we had a friend that this is going back to our CWGA days. That had a party for all of us at the end of the year. And that’s where I met Jessica, for the first time I was walking, for you were there, and there was this girl just tearing up foosball table and you said, that’s Jessica. And since the four of us my wife Elaine, Chip and Jessica and I have been become really good friends, we’ve got some great stories. Chip eating pecan pie with chopsticks. Still makes us laugh. We’d been up there for the weekend, and all the silverware was gone. But there was still and Chip showed us his chopsticks.

Chip Baker: I got mad chopsticks– you know, that’s an off the grid living on the road item like their chopsticks. That’s how I’ve got such a good usage of them [inaudible] off the grid, use chopsticks–

Greg Davidson: And the rest of us did not go without entertainment.

Chip Baker: Good time. Good times. Oh, so, man, what kind of weed you’re looking to plant this next year?

Greg Davidson: You know I’m interested in doing some Affies. I listened to your show about affies and I did put in a lot of time last year and I don’t want to put in as much time this year. So you’ve kind of sold me your show kind of sold me on doing some feminized Affies. In fact, we meet we need to talk about seed source.

Chip Baker: Man, I tell you, you need to contact Caleb over CSI, man. He’s got all the genetic that perfect for short, slow growers. A lot of that purple and that stuff you know, this basis of a lot of his crosses in the past and then he’s got some straight Afghanistan and yeah, I think he’s a great person to talk to you. Great.

Greg Davidson: Cool. Well at some point is going to pass and we want to be able to go on some day trips, maybe some overnight trips, this coming year, when–

Chip Baker: What will less solve your problem? What was your, you had to water them?

Greg Davidson: Well, I can just like count backward from a certain date and know when to plant them, instead of going getting some clones and worrying from I’ve got a lot of the infrastructure and now I’m looking at my pots that are out there.

Chip Baker: What keeps you being home so much? Is it because they need to be watered?

Greg Davidson: Yeah, they need to be watered and then mix it up nutrients so there’s no way I’m going to use the same new track and

Chip Baker: I can solve all those problems for you. Yeah.

Greg Davidson: Okay, yeah.

Chip Baker: Your problems are simply solved. One is use some sort of pre-mixed organic nutrient or make your own that you add to the soil that you’re using. There’s coming recipes we could talk about, and then put in a simple drip system that just comes off your water hose and it’s just water. You occasionally want to feed it with something, then make up some jugs and nutrients and feed your plants.

Greg Davidson: That was my– this year because we’re prone to some really, where I live is at the upper end of the San Joaquin beginning–

Chip Baker: Do you know exactly how much your plants are drinking with water I bet

Greg Davidson: Oh, and there was a point where the ones in the half wind girls where they were getting 10 gallons of water a day. We had a freakish–

Chip Baker: Simple drip system. We can make all that happen.

Greg Davidson: Yeah, we had a freakish heatwave that we see temperatures in the hundred and teams. Day after day. And it was–

Chip Baker: We had that here last year too. Yeah.

Greg Davidson: Yeah, I know you have 90–

Chip Baker: It was 91 degrees here yesterday.

Wheather Problems

Greg Davidson: I know you weather problems. You got a late start and I saw your post today about bugs.

Chip Baker: Have to be honest [inaudible]

Greg Davidson: Here, cabbage loopers. I guess I need to put some cabbage in, because they have a problem with cabbage looper bugs.

Chip Baker: Yeah, a companion planting can help you guys for sure. And you know, there are some simple pheromone boxes to draw the bugs there, the cabbage loopers they’re actually, I believe they live in the soil. They come out the soil, right. So you could like [inaudible] somehow–

Greg Davidson: I think the bug that you– the worm that you posted today, that might have been a cabbage looper. They come on a small white mark like maybe the size of a nickel you’ll see these white mods flying around your grow. And then a few days later, the classic sign a few brown leaves on the outside and you don’t pull on them. And the whole top of the bud comes off.

Chip Baker: Yeah, right. They’re ugly, there’s a few different versions we have down here. We’ve got the tomato hookworm, we’ve got the quote-unquote, garden worm. But they’re they’re fairly large. Yeah, you can burn the ground, and it burns off any of those. Any of them that are in the ground over the winter.

Greg Davidson: Yeah.

Chip Baker: Right. And then pheromone boxes attract the moths. So then they catch the moths in the pheromone boxes instead of on your buds. Then you gotta pick that shit out and look for it daily.

Greg Davidson: But it’s something that you know, I wish more people, I don’t want to put the dispensaries out of business that’s not m– But I’d like to see more people growing their own. I’d like to see more people at the grow stores– Every grow store owner that I’ve ever known is willing to just talk with you for as long as it takes you know–

Chip Baker: We’re good at that

Greg Davidson: Yeah, they are, all you guys. I mean Chip our friendship goes so deep that I can call him with a quote-unquote emergency in the crop and he’ll get back to me within six hours and has solved everyone.

Chip Baker: You’re my six hour list.

Greg Davidson: Six hour call back. But yeah, it is something that I would like to see the legislators who are listening to your show and may come in the future I’d like to see them work towards a uniform thing. Because even here in California it’s not very uniformed. You know, it changes from town to town.

Chip Baker: [inaudible] Oklahoma State law. Right state laws so the individual countless cities can’t manipulate it quite as much as other places like California. Well, Greg, I have appreciated this little conversation we had, man. To me it felt like almost any other phone call we’ve had.

Greg Davidson: It’s gone a little longer than our usual phone call.

Chip Baker: Maybe a little bit. We talk about 40 minutes, I think. But yeah, thanks for having me having me on your show.

Greg Davidson: Thanks for having me on your show.

Chip Baker: Thanks for having me on your show. This has been another fine, no wasted hour of your time by listening to The Real Dirt. My name is Chip Baker and this has been The Real Dirt.

Subscribe & Review

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Cannabis Marketing Tips from a Public Relations Expert

Tue, 28 Apr 2020 19:51:56 +0000

Lisa Buyer is an entrepreneur, author, wife, mom, digital junkie, and certified yoga instructor. She is the founder/CEO of The Buyer Group, a social PR agency, and the author of Social PR Secrets in its 4th edition with a foreword by Guy Kawasaki.

Digital Detox Secrets is now turned podcast of Lisa’s most famous book. The pocket guide is a series of tips, interviews and insights that have been curated by top industry experts.

In this segment, Lisa shares her expertise in public relations, how to help create space, and balance in business digital life. Plus, she also provides a fresh and honest approach to face the challenges by other entrepreneurs when it comes to marketing their brands. Listen to this new episode and learn how Lisa helps brands crack the code with digital PR!

My favorite word is optimization, and we make sure that all the content that we write from a PR and journalistic standpoint is optimized with keywords that journalists and also your audience will be searching for. – Lisa Buyer

Download The Episode Companion For This Episode

Some Topics We Discussed Include

1:28 – The Buyer Group
4:16 – Associated Press
15:06 – Participating in bigger PR
17:39 – Native content
26:46 – Common misconception about PR
33:27 – Where to find them

People Mentioned / Resources

Connect with Lisa Buyer

Connect with Chip Baker

Transcript

Chip Baker: Hey, this is Chip from The Real Dirt. Once again, we are going to have an excellent conversation on my favorite subject, ganja. That’s right. And today, I kind of have an unconventional guest, my good friend Lisa Buyer, and I know I say many of these people are my good friends, but Lisa is a good friend of mine. And Lisa is not involved directly in the cannabis industry. She’s kind of like me; she services cannabis people. Lisa runs the buyer group, which is a PR group. She is also the author of Social PR Secrets and Digital Detox Secrets. Welcome, Lisa.

Lisa Buyer: Hi, Chip. Thank you so much for having me.

Chip Baker: Yeah, man. I was so glad when you reached out and booked the time to be on the podcast. We always have such great conversations. And, you know, like, what does Lisa want to talk to me about on The Real Dirt? right, and today we’re going to talk about marketing and PR in the cannabis industry. And more specifically about an article that me and my wife Jessica just had written and put on the associated press. Maybe we can explain that and get get all into that. So, Lisa, tell me tell me a little bit about The Buyer Group. Tell me what you guys do.

The Buyer Group

Lisa Buyer: Yeah. So The Buyer Group is named after my last name is Lisa Buyer and so nobody can really believe that– especially when you go to make a major purchase like a car–

Chip Baker: Baker, right, same boat–

Lisa Buyer: So The Buyer Group is a social PR agency, and how are we different than most public relations agencies is we integrate social media and search marketing into the PR strategy. So I was an early adopter of taking traditional PR and just kind of turning it upside down and integrating digital, I thought everybody would be in the same kind of pace as I was when you know, Google first came out. And we could leverage things like optimization, and then Facebook came out. And from a business standpoint, you can get exposure through your social network. But I was wrong.

And still today, 10 years later, a lot of PR agencies most are, you know, still focusing on traditional, there’s nothing wrong with traditional and a great example of traditional PR is what happened with you and how you got the coverage in Associated Press. And that the way it used to be was you pitch the journalists, you get the story and you get exposure to your audience. So what you got is like a home run in the PR world, but what we do is we then take into the PR world, social and search. That’s what our agency does, and that’s how we’re different.

Chip Baker: So, back, you know, one of the things I’m really interested in is the organic or organic traffic and organic movement and stuff like this. I mean, I have tried to because in the cannabis industry we can’t pay for advertising the same way you have some mini cannabis clients. I can’t necessarily go to facebook or instagram and pay to have my advertisements put in for the real dirt for Cultivate Colorado for Cultivate OKC, for Growers Soil, even those are all ancillary businesses of mine that don’t involve cannabis at all. Right? It’s hard for us, right?

Okay, let’s back it up a little bit. And I’m going to ask my question. So for those of we’ve alluded to this a little bit, you can look this up on our website, you’ll see that there was an AP article written about kind of people moving to Oklahoma or this kind of the state of the the cannabis economy around the country? How would– Tell us how the AP works? You know this better than these? What is the AP? What is the Associated Press?

Associated Press

Lisa Buyer: Yeah, so the Associated Press is basically a network of other media outlets. So there are basically the top tier when the Associated Press write something, it gets syndicated, nationally, whoever picks it up that’s for the Associated Press, so it might appear in the Orlando Sentinel where I live or Miami Herald or Associated Press’ associated publications. So to get something in the AP or into let’s just say there’s other syndicated types of outlets that you could get into but the AP is like a home run. So, to get that–

Chip Baker: In the movies, they call it like on the wire right?

Lisa Buyer: Yeah, and what’s interesting about this how you were sourced in that article is that you can see, and this is the big mistake when it comes to public relations is that the story wasn’t necessarily a feature on your company. They featured you in their story, their angle was about your areas becoming a hotbed and why and right.

Chip Baker: Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Lisa Buyer: Yeah. And so that’s the thing with public relations is that you want to be sourced in an article and but to have the idea that somebody has got it and it happens to have like, just a complete profile is like an add on your company is kind of a misconception and it’s not the right expectation to have with editorial like coverage like what you and your wife back for your business. That’s it’s awesome and takes a long time to get something like in the–

Chip Baker: We tried this over and over again, you’re professional, you get to do this, but like, oh, for a couple of years, we sent out letters to everybody like, Hey, we can talk about this subject, this subject, this subject, if you need an expert on anything cannabis, if you have a question and literally nobody, right would call us back. And then just never know where this guy shows up. Right. And, you know, he’s fascinated by all of the information because, I mean, you know, we’ve had numerous conversations about it. I have a high level understanding of cannabis. And you can ask me, pretty much any question. I will give you a background detailed story that you’d never even knew existed because I am fascinated with every aspect of cannabis and involved with every aspect to write. I have my finger on the pulse.

So I was always just surprised that nobody wanted to talk to me. As I read all of these articles that were reproduced all over the country, all over the world, I’m like, this is just crap. I can’t believe that they’re saying this or they’re interviewing this person, you know, and it was almost just like they stumbled upon us. Right? A little bit. And, you know, like, oh, as soon as the guy, Sean Murphy came and started talking to us he doesn’t know anything about weed, he maybe has consumed it or something in the past, I can’t speak for him. But he was truly fascinated by the conversation. And we had like, two, three hours for the interview.

And unfortunately, the story that came out was totally different from the kind of interviews we had. Yeah, right. It was, I don’t know. They just broke they found the best thing they thought could sound great quote from me, about my landlord going on vacation, which means I thought I probably had other bit great quotes, but they like that one for some reason. Right? So you do this professionally? How do you get that media person to like say the things you want them to say about you, just like you were saying, it’s not a feature on yourself, but it’s you just featured in their story.

Lisa Buyer: Yeah. Well, I mean, one way is the clients we work with, we recommend doing at least one newsworthy press release a month. And that’s just something that you can distribute as a pain distribution on the wire. So that gets put out in Google News. And then then journalists subscribe to certain categories. So you know, there’s a category for CBD and cannabis. So anything that any news that comes out, they subscribe to it, they kind of scan it and at least you’re staying in front of them as an expert source. They might not think that your news is news for them, for their audience. But what we try to do it as a journalistic style.

So we make sure that what we’re reporting on, and what we’re announcing, on behalf of our clients is newsworthy, and has a trending angle that might be trending for, you know, maybe it’s Black Friday depending on the, or if it’s CBD day, or something like that, or cannabis month tying in something newsworthy. But staying in front of a very curated list of journalists that are reporting on, basically, stories that would be relevant to your audience to your brand’s audience. So it doesn’t have to be a big list, it could be 10 or 15 of your top, top journalists that you know, are covering your angles, and then the pay distribution takes care of the masses. So it gets you on Google News. And we, my favorite word is optimization, so we make sure that all the content that we write from a PR standpoint, journalistic standpoint is optimized with keywords that journalists and also your audience will be searching for.

So I’m sure that AP article is in Google, Index and Google, it’s very high authority source. So it’s going to outrank anything. And you know, when it comes to organic traffic, so you’re talking about organic, which is PR would be considered organic. And then there’s the paid side advertising side. So that would be Google Ads. That would be you know, Facebook ads, that would be, you know, traditional ads. It used to be PR and advertising where like church and state like that you didn’t really cross over.

Today is it’s more blended. So we do pay campaigns for the clients that we can, but it used to be like, we’re just 100% organic, and we’re trying to get our clients in the news. Third-Party credibility is the best type of credibility; it’s considered like eight times more valuable than paid; anything paid that you could do. So even if you could do paid, you still want to do PR because it helps in your SEO, it helps in your credibility, it helps on public perception. So you want to get to those audiences through those third party outlets, whether it be the journalist or it might be through something that would be in a TV or podcasts or anything like that.

Chip Baker: So the title of the article on in Jessica was called something like, People Move to the Bible Belt to Avoid High Cannabis Taxes, or something like that, right. And I don’t think we said any of those things in any of the handbook, and you know, but that was the hot topic, bible, belt, cannabis and taxes. Right. And, and that’s why it really went everywhere. I think. I mean, you went everywhere. New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, like it went everywhere.

Lisa Buyer: It might be It picked up again like, they resyndicate things, and it does really well. So there’s a chance you’re gonna still see the pickups coming,

Chip Baker: But we’ve already seen like, you know, the added benefit of it, we’ve gotten multiple phone calls, we’ve done some pretty good business immediately afterwards. Like it was really great for us, you know, the, the credibility that you’re just quoted in something like that. I know, it’s odd, because I don’t see it as–guy like Sean Murphy, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t see it as the best article and I’m sure it was edited out of his hands. You know, it doesn’t really scratch the surface about what’s going on the cannabis industry in economy. But because of all that, I’ve had two other different like, pretty, you know, big podcasts people call me up with hundreds of thousands of listeners wanting to talk to me about exactly.

Lisa Buyer: Exactly. So that is the perfect example of momentum that takes place when you get one, and it doesn’t even mean you got a home run, okay, you got a home run with this AP. But let’s just [inaudible] in getting home run, let’s just say it’s first base and you were podcast that was very niche and go for it. Let’s just eat that–

Chip Baker: Like The Real Dirt podcast.

Lisa Buyer: Yeah. And let’s just say you or you got picked up in, you know, maybe it’s just a local paper, that is typically the path. Typically you don’t come out of the gates getting a home run, but if you do, right. But typically the path is you start local, you start on small niche types of publications or outlets. Then somebody from New York Times or USA Today that’s covering that beat hears that and it’s like, Hey, this is one of my expert sources I’m going to use for this story or this is an angle I came up with, with a Google search. They see your press release, and you know, talking about you just expanded to, you know, this area and this, here’s why, you know, you can be your brand journalist, which is fine actually, right now, by having this podcast, you’re your brand journalist. But you know, so this is an example, podcasting is a great example of you can have your show, and create and control the message, or you can also pitch to be a guest on somebody else’s podcast. And that is, either one of those is considered, you know, what I consider as public relations and third party credibility and you’re controlling your message when you have your show.

Chip Baker: Now, most people consider public PR is it’s they don’t realize how much is behind the scenes of it. Right, and some people even think that it’s unfair, the way that the situation’s manipulated but you know, it’s just the system that we that we are all working in. Right you have some like, hacks for the cannabis industry on how they can participate in this bigger PR industry that we seem to be restricted from?

Restrictions for Cannabis Industry to Participate in Bigger PR

Lisa Buyer: Yeah, well, I mean, whatever size company you are, you could be just starting out, you could be doing this just for your personal brand. Public Relations is accessible to any budget, any brand. And you don’t have a budget for it, you can do it in house, if you have the budget for it, you can outsource. But what I would tell anybody is, you know, focus first on your PR, create your list, you could create a list right now of your top five, doing a Google search of like, who’s covering your brand, who’s covering your industry and where and just start out really small and very focused.

Public Relations is accessible to any budget, any brand. – Lisa Buyer

The beauty with public relations and doing your own even if you start writing a blog and write an article once a week or twice a month and that article, then you send it out to the different journalists. You could do that on your own. And then we’ll eventually, you know, start following them on social media. Create a Twitter list for the journalists that you’re following. These are some of the things we do for our clients. But you can also do it on your own. So when you can’t advertise, it stinks because you can’t put that layer on top of public relations, like a lot of other brands and industries can do. But it doesn’t mean it doesn’t do anything like doing some sort of PR. In some sort of what we’re talking about right now when it comes to PR is media outreach and try. The goal that we’re talking about right now media outreach, with the goal being to get picked up by a publication, I can’t remember, did the AP article have a link back to any of your sites your domains?

When you can’t advertise, it stinks because you can’t put that layer on top of public relations. – Lisa Buyer

Chip Baker: No, it didn’t. It did mention you know, The Real Dirt podcast and we got significant amount of traffic over that and did not however mentioned Cultivate Colorado or Cultivate Oklahoma City. Yeah, didn’t really mentioned my– and I tried to I tried every time I spoke, I was like cultivatecolorado.com.

Lisa Buyer: Yeah. Well, I mean, if you could go back with the AP might have a little bit of pushback. But whenever we get articles for our clients we always ask for a link back because that’s gonna help get you like super high quality referring traffic back to your site and also helps in SEO. So coverage that you get will help you and if you get a link in SEO if you don’t, I mean, you see the result of the AP [inaudible] link, right.

Native Content

Chip Baker: Yeah, absolutely. It was great. You know, we have, so let’s talk about one of my favorite subjects native content, which is content that you create yourself that is supposed to mimic or look like news stories. And this is mostly what I’ve done, but none of it really has been as successful, right? Or, I mean, people read some of them, but how do you crossover from that, you know, to make that native content appeal and look like it’s real?

Lisa Buyer : Well, I mean, one is I have, you know, I could take a look at it, but I’m coming at it with a journalist type of approach. So, you know, here’s what I tell everybody on my staff is that we’re, we’re not marketing. We’re not talking like a marketer. We’re not trying to sell something.

Chip Baker: Right.

Lisa Buyer: If it doesn’t sound like a title, like a headline, you would see in the Wall Street Journal or USA Today; then it doesn’t have like a hook leading angle, if it’s a truly newsworthy then it gets the attention of our audience.

If it doesn’t sound like a title, like a headline, you would see in the Wall Street Journal or USA Today; then, it doesn’t have like a hook leading angle. – Lisa Buyer

Chip Baker: That’s great advice because so many so many times it turns into a sales letter of some sort, right that really is great advice is to make it news worthy, even if it is native style content.

Lisa Buyer: Yeah. Another tip is to include relevant data, those statistics, reports, surveys, even if it’s your own data, that’s another everybody is looking for some sort of like a number or figure turning in an infographic making it super visual, adding an image or adding a video to what you’re doing. You know, people are would rather watch a video, they’re getting lazy, they don’t want to [inaudible]. So creating a YouTube channel and making content that is going to be how to type of content or there’s so many different ways you can slice it or dice it.

Speaking of organic and the reason why we call The Buyer Group, a social PR agency and not just a PR agency, is because we take Social Media and leverage it into the strategy. And so it used to be kind of like dialing for dollars, like we would have all the journalists that were pitching, we would have their number, and we would call them and Hey, did you get my press release? Whether it was mailed or emailed like back in the day, and just think about it, like, who has a landline? How do you look up somebody’s mobile number? Journalists are operating off their mobile smartphones. There, they don’t have a listed number. So, you know, an email. I mean, even the AP writer, I would be interested to see like what email he used because even they use [inaudible]

Chip Baker: I believe Twitter is how we really got like Kevin contact with the guy.

Lisa Buyer: Exactly. Yeah. So the new media relations today is reaching out through Twitter, reaching out through DMS on LinkedIn and cultivating relationships through social media because that is the new type of the new media relations. So we’re very hyper focused on your Twitter,your social media network, whatever network that your audience is on.

So making sure that it’s optimized making sure that you have a Twitter list following, let’s just say certain reporters or making sure that you’re following and interacting with like, forgiving. So, you know, this guy, Sean, before he actually came out with a story and you were talking to him, if you were following him on Twitter, and like sharing some of his stories that he was coming out with, he’s gonna be like, they’re trying to get, you know, make a name for themselves, too. From a personal branding standpoint, all these reporters the more exposure they get, then somebody else wants to hire them, right?

Chip Baker: Yeah, though, some of the best advice I’ve had about contacting reporters is to make sure that you’re tell them that you’re trying to help them that it’s a service you’re providing to them for free that you don’t want any glory. And eventually like you’re helping hand it’ll lead to a positive benefit for you. Haven’t quite worked for me, but maybe it was Sean. I mean, me and Sean had great conversations, you know, and I am truly disappointed at the awful news coverage and media and facts about cannabis. I hope he does call me in in the future. You know, ask for some clarifications on some this and that.

Lisa Buyer: Yeah, I mean, I would cultivate that keep going with that relationship for sure. And that, [inaudible] maybe he knows somebody that’s writing a story for another time move on angle that [inaudible] you as a source. So I would definitely send them an email or however you guys are communicating. Hey, great story. Thank you so much for thinking of me if you know any of your colleagues that are writing and need an expert in cannabis, please, if you could refer me I would be greatly appreciated. Is there anything I can do for you?

Chip Baker: Absolutely. And big thing I believe in business and in life is making friends.

Lisa Buyer: Yes.

Chip Baker: If you can be friends with people that you do business with, then man, you’re in the best of circumstances. It’s also I think the number one way to gain customer loyalty and develop like real customer relationships is man, be friendly, be friends with everybody, and then they want to talk to you.

Lisa Buyer: It’s true. I mean, the new funnel, the new marketing funnel, is when somebody becomes a customer, does that mean that Oh, you’re on to the next prospect, like you really need to nurture your customers.

Chip Baker: Lifetime value for sure.

Lisa Buyer: Exactly. And public relations doesn’t necessarily have to mean getting exposure and third party credibility for your prospects. It’s also for your customers to be Hey, I know this brand or I know these people that are being quoted it makes them feel like wow, I made the right choice. It just helps solidify the relationship with your customers. When they see that you’re getting exposure, getting quoted as an expert source, or your product is getting listed as top 10 blah, blah, blah. Like a thing.

Chip Baker: Yeah, as silly as it sounds. When I started all this, Michael Lovitch and Hollis Carter, they suggested I do The Real Dirt. And one of the first things Hollis said was, are you comfortable being the guy? And I’m like, Well, what do you mean the guy? It was like, man, there’s gonna be could be a lot of attention. I think you’re going to kill this. Are you really comfortable with it? And absolutely, right. Like, I want to tell, the cannabis story.

I want to talk to my customers. I want them to come up to me and say, hey, but many people they don’t want that. And they’re embarrassed about sales or it’s hard for them. You know, to put their neck out a little bit and see if their fail is or they’re scared of failure, and we’ve got 70-80 episodes of The Real Dirt and wow, I guarantee you, they’re not all great.

But it doesn’t matter. You do have to like, stick your neck out a bit if you want to be seen. You got to ask people; you got to say, Hey, this is me, this is what I’m doing, hey, we’re here, in whatever manner. And many people, that’s their number. One problem that they have in their business is they’ve got a great idea. They’ve got a great business, they’ve got a great product, they’ve got great sales– but don’t want to tell people they’re doing it.

You do have to like, stick your neck out a bit if you want to be seen. – Chip Baker

Lisa Buyer: Yeah. And that’s why sometimes you need help you need, an agency or you need somebody to be like, this is actually news, what you’re doing. Did you know that what you’re doing right now? As newsworthy and you know, some of our clients really, that’s newsworthy, people are going to be interested in that I’m like, yeah, that’s actually like a very good angle. And that’s something that we should write about. And then so you need to get out of your own way sometimes and let other people see things differently come in and help you come up with the newsworthy angles and help you come up with the quotes and come up with something that might be right in front of you, but you just don’t see it.

Chip Baker: You know, your business is probably similar to mine. When people come in to you for the first time, they probably have some common misconceptions about what to do did cannabis people or customers in general have a are there’s some common misconceptions about PR that you could talk about?

Common Misconceptions About PR

Lisa Buyer: Sure. Well, I mean, not just cannabis. I’ll just start just common most common misconception about public relations is that it is not a short play, it is a long play, it is a long term commitment. It’s something that you never stop doing. So yeah, maybe you can’t afford to have an agency doing it for you at first, but you move into that, or maybe working with an agency, you need to pivot for whatever. And but you don’t stop, you go to plan B, a PR, and you’re always doing it. So the biggest problem, you know, misconception is somebody like, Oh, we really want to do PR, we want to try it out for three months, and we want to see what happens after three months. So that’s mistake number one, don’t even there’s no reason to just try it out. Just don’t even do it. Because after three months, and then you just stop because you’re not really sure what’s happening. It takes a while–

Chip Baker: Nothing may happen in three months.

Lisa Buyer: Yeah. And so it just has to be a long term commitment has to be a long play. And it doesn’t have to be, breaking the bank type of thing. There’s a book that I recommend called Free PR that was co written by a Cameron Herold that you could pick up and that’s like a do it yourself type of thing. Anybody could do it, you don’t need a degree in public relations. I’m not trying to minimize what you need to —

Chip Baker: The access is there now, anybody really can do it. If they like get on Twitter, get on Facebook, get on Instagram, get on LinkedIn, you can do it.

Lisa Buyer: You can do it. And you know, just like you’re doing your podcast, you’re consistent. You have your episodes that come out on the days that they come out, every week or every month. PR is the same way. So that’s why I said earlier, we recommend to our clients, it’s part of our program, one press release a month is going out consistently to Google News and journalists. Unlike advertising, this is another misconception.

Unlike advertising, where you’re controlling that the visual, you’re controlling the message, you’re controlling the call to action, you’re going to see immediate gratification for most advertisers from Google ads and Facebook ads, you will see traffic you’ll see some sort of a conversion happening. With public relations, it’s not that type of KPI. You can’t, it’s not a fair KPI to say okay, for every dollar I spend in PR, I need to see an ROI that same month and products off the shelf. Like it’s just you have that mentality. Let’s just not even talk. Okay?

Chip Baker: Yeah. Now, because it is not something that you will see return on investment immediately, you’ll have like spikes of it, you know.

Lisa Buyer: It’s there. It’s not black and white like it is with advertising. So if you spend three months on PR and you stopped so what happened behind the scenes is you’re in front of a bunch of journalists that you wouldn’t have been in front. They might happen in six months. If you stop because of what you didn’t get in the first three months then you’re gonna be like, Oh, I wish I would have kept going because this all could be this momentum. You know, could all be going but no, maybe you’ll get something once, who knows there’s there’s no way to really predict.

Chip Baker: Yeah, absolutely you just got to keep at it, man and also count those little victories because we’ve had quite a few little victories over time but nothing big like this no home run. But you know the cumulative impact of it all really does help when people ask me about something I’m like, oh go to my Instagram and they look at it and like, Oh, you got 17,000 followers. Oh, you’ve made 3000 posts, it adds this legitimacy to it and the same way with Facebook posts and you know, because social media is our free PR. That’s our free PR.

Lisa Buyer: It’s definitely Free PR you can do it your house, you could buy a book to show you how to do it. Like I said earlier, my favorite word is optimization. Use strategic hashtags to get more exposure to get that Instagram post is to get more in front of like your audience. There’s also hashtags that you can use or tags that you can use to get a journalist attention. So by tagging it like hashtag news or hashtag cannabis news or get into that stream. And so journalists are following hashtags there. They are following keywords through Google alerts and a variety of different sources that they use to follow like what’s happening in industry, but they also follow hashtags. So just keep that in mind. I know we’re kind of running out of time, but I just want to cover two other ways.

Chip Baker: Yeah,Let’s do it. Keep it up. Keep it up!

Lisa Buyer: Yeah. So influencer marketing is one. So using other people that are influential, so the media would be– We put the media under the category of influencers right there, one for influencers. So then, there might be two or three other types of influencers, that you can have in your– as part of your strategy to help get the word out and help maybe publish things on their Instagram and tag you and things like that. So that’s one and then the second is so podcasts like, obviously you can be a host or you can be a guest. But you can also sponsor podcasts. So that’s one way to kind of get around the getting exposure. We’re not on it. You’re not hosting it, but you’re sponsoring an episode or sponsoring a certain part of the of the podcast.

Chip Baker: Yeah, we do sponsorship here at The Real Dirt. So if anyone’s ever interested in a sponsorship program, please ask us here at The Real Dirt you can contact Travis with therealdirt.com. Shameless. This has been such a great conversation today. So half of my listeners are in the cannabis business. Half of those people you work directly in the cannabis business.

This has been a really great episode and it’s really made me think about how much you know cannabis people need this other resources. That they don’t have this other encouragement that they don’t have. It’s often hard to find real, legitimate and professional people like yourself that will shoot people straight forward and not just say, Oh, yeah, yeah, I’m gonna take your money, Oh, I’m gonna take your money. And you know, that’s a the industry is kind of plagued with that. But I really thank you for joining me today, if people want to reach you, how do they reach you?

Where to Find Them

Lisa Buyer: Well, you can go to thebuyergroup.com and that’s my website for the social PR agency. You can also go on Amazon, you can buy my book called Social PR Secrets and the whole book is basically about optimization and how to get free organic traffic and using PR and social media and SEO.

Chip Baker: Actually I can’t believe I haven’t read your book yet. I will order it today.

Lisa Buyer: It’s extremely actionable. So you don’t have to read the whole book to get something out of it. You can be like, oh, all I need is to read the Facebook for PR chapter. The foreword was written by Guy Kawasaki, which I’m super proud of. So reach out to The Buyer Group or an Instagram Lisa Buyer.

Chip Baker: Awesome, Lisa. Well, thank you for joining us and listeners, thank you for joining us on another episode of The Real Dirt. Thanks again Lisa.

Lisa Buyer: Thank you!

Subscribe & Review

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The Evolution of the International Cannabis Industry

Tue, 17 Dec 2019 15:16:23 +0000

The US cannabis industry has been on the forefront of cannabis developments for the last decade, but the rest of the world if finally starting to catch up. In this week's episode of The Real Dirt, Chip hangs with Ted Mateo of Georgia Atlas and Gunter Herd of Orenda Pharms to talk about developments in the international cannabis industry and what it could mean for the US. Plus, it wouldn't be The Real Dirt without some serious grow talk! Dive into vertical grow costs, lighting set ups, managing an operation efficiently and more from some serious pros who are building the industry on an international scale. Sit back or get into the grow, but either way roll up a fatty and enjoy this week's episode of The Real Dirt Podcast!

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Grower to Grower with Little Hill Cultivators

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Living Soil and Organic Inputs: Understanding Your Environmental Impact

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Autoflower Cannabis: The future of home growing featuring Chef Anna with The Pot

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Hemp Laws Explained with Vicente Sederberg LLC

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Inside The Alabama Hemp Industry

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Connecting to Your Cannabis: Tony Don’t Smoke OG

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Getting Cannabis Industry Jobs: Industry Employment Guide

Tue, 20 Nov 2018 11:20:08 +0000

It seems like a new state is legalizing cannabis every few months! And you know what the means...a ton of cannabis industry jobs! But if you don't know where to look, how to apply, and what the requirements are where you're looking, you'll fall behind the competition. In this week's episode of The Real Dirt, Chip talks about some of the biggest legal states and how to get a job in each market. He also sits down with The Real Dirt Content Manager Travis Crane. Travis left his life in rural Pennsylvania to pursue a career in the legal industry in Colorado, and has plenty of experience to share with other likeminded ganjapreneurs. Tune into this week's episode and be sure to download the Industry Employment Guide for every state's requirements at TheRealDirt.com!

The New Taxonomy of Cannabis

Tue, 13 Nov 2018 11:20:59 +0000

The taxonomy of cannabis is changing. That is, the definition of what makes cannabis cannabis is changing. What we know as indica and sativa is not the full truth. It's been diluted a lot through pop culture and a lack of scientific information regarding the origins of cannabis and how it has been bred through the generations. In this week's episode of The Real Dirt, Chip sits down with Jessica Baker to talk about the new science coming out about the origins of cannabis. It turns out, that cannabis on the dispensary shelf at your local dispensary is much more complex than just indica, sativa or hybrid.

Is Hemp Constitutional in Colorado? Harvest Special Pt. 5

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Seed Breeding: luck or skill?

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Maintaining Cannabis Quality: Tony Don’t Smoke OG Ep. 107

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Cannabis Culture and Community: Harvest Special Pt. 4

Tue, 16 Oct 2018 10:00:09 +0000

Another harvest has arrived, and will soon have passed. It always helps me remember the beauty of cannabis culture and the community it has built. This week's Harvest Special is more of a conversation between Chip and you, as he dives into what makes our culture great, some of the issues our community faces, and of course, more trim tips! So roll one up and get into the dirt of harvest with The Real Dirt.

Croptober Problems: Harvest Special Pt. 3

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Curing Cannabis: Harvest Special Pt. 2

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Harvesting Cannabis: Harvest Special Pt. 1

Tue, 25 Sep 2018 10:00:15 +0000

Every grower looks forward to harvesting cannabis that they have been growing for months. Well, harvest season is here and it's time to get to work! While the real stuff comes in October, preparation is key. In Part One of The Real Dirt Harvest Special, Chip talks trimming, and how important it is to get a good team of trimmers, or make sure to do a good job yourself. Grab your scissors, roll one up, and get to trimming with The Real Dirt!

The Science of Isolating Terpenes

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Smokin’ on Sativa: Tony Don’t Smoke OG Ep. 105

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Sativa strains get a bad rap, man. It's not because all sativas are bad, or people just like other varieties that much more. It's that nobody is getting a good, well-grown sativa anymore! The new industry is bringing in some great cannabis, but also some not-so-great cannabis. IN this episode of Toy Don't Smoke OG, Tony and Chip are joined by Colin from The Werc Shop to talk cannabis quality, why sativas have the reputation they do, and more. Toke up and tune in!

Grow Management and Lambs Bread

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CSI Humboldt: Breeding top shelf feminized seeds

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Tony Don’t Smoke OG Ep. 101

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60 Nuggets Explained: how to know your cannabis

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The Science of Smoke

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The European Hemp Exchange

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Wonderland Nursery with Kevin Jodrey

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Little Hill Cultivators Revisited

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Organic Humboldt Cannabis

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The Future of the Hemp Industry

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Mike Leago is the President and Founder of the International Hemp Exchange, a digital platform to connect the supply chain of the hemp industry. Their services extend beyond our digital platform and include consulting, contract manufacturing, sourcing, strategic planning, investments, and retail products within the hemp and CBD space (and much, much more!). Listen to his predictions for the future of the hemp industry on this week's episode of The Real Dirt Podcast.

The State of the Cannabis Union Pt 2

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From Growing Cannabis to Cannabis Consulting

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Cannabis Seeds Genetics with Mr Soul

Fri, 20 Apr 2018 23:00:22 +0000

While studying Nuclear Engineering at a college in Upstate NY, Mr. Soul also learned to grow marijuana in a spare room of my apartment. After sending a letter to the Super Sativa Seed Club in Amsterdam, he became the sole distributor of their seeds in the United States. Now, he is one of the most world-renowned cannabis cultivators in the industry. Now he runs Brothers Grimm Seeds, known for breeding strains such as Cinderella 99 and Apollo 13.

How to Grow Weed Better with Josh Haupt

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Where has Legal Marijuana Landed Colorado?

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Andrew Livingston is Director of Economics and Research at Vicente Sederberg, LLC. He has been involved with the legal cannabis industry since the Amendment 64 movement back in 2012, and his love for the plant and how people use it led him into a full time career. He shares his thoughts on cannabis use throughout the country, effectiveness of current laws and where he sees the future of the industry going.

Navigating Marijuana Laws with Christian Sederberg

Fri, 23 Mar 2018 23:00:31 +0000

Times have changed. As the cannabis industry continues to grow, so does the need for cannabis related legal services, only now the focus is on keeping businesses compliant, not keeping them out of jail. Chip sits down with Christian Sederberg of Vicente Sederberg, LLC. a marijuana law firm that helps cannabis businesses stay compliant and keep up with the ever-changing laws and regulations of the legal cannabis industry.

I Heart Jane: The Amazon of Cannabis

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Interpreting Terpenes and Marijuana Strains

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Max Montrose started the Trichome Institute, a program which teaches cannabis brands, budtenders and consumers alike how to analyze their cannabis. He also invented 'Interpening', the process of interpreting terpenes to determine if strains really match their descriptions and features. Listen to how he got his start in the cannabis industry on this week's episode of The Real Dirt Podcast!

Heather Moore from Earl’s Leadville

Sat, 03 Mar 2018 00:00:23 +0000

High up over 10,000 feet in Leadville, Colorado, Heather Moore grows some of the best cannabis in the state. From a front desk worker at a dispensary to the unofficial grow manager for Earl's in Leadville, Heather has become one of the few female growers providing top notch cannabis to the recreational industry. Listen to her chat with Chip about growing at over 10,000 feet and how she got her start in the industry.

Craft Cannabis with Dave Perkins

Mon, 26 Feb 2018 18:05:03 +0000

Phishin' For Weed

Mon, 18 Sep 2017 18:32:53 +0000

The Healing Power of Cannabis, Ayahuasca & Plant Medicine

Fri, 01 Sep 2017 17:55:16 +0000

Chip and Jessica Baker recorded this episode in the Amazonian jungles of Peru at Refugio Altiplano, an Ayahuasca Retreat. Jessica Baker is a world-renowned herbalist, acupuncturist, aromatherapist and educator. Jessica has taught at the Arcata Massage Collective, The Colorado School of Clinical Herbalism and is an Assistant Supervising Practitioner at the Colorado School of Traditional Chinese Medicine. She is also on the faculty of the Holistic Cannabis Academy and is a Cornerstone Business Leader at Women Grow. Jessica first got into cannabis as an act of revenge (on a boy), but her cannabis activism really began in college when she became involved with the University of Georgia's, Cannabis Action Network. This is also where she first met Chip Baker. Chip and Jessica discuss their rebellious pro-cannabis college escapades, the historic significance of plant medicine, the healing power of cannabis, their personal ayahuasca revelations and more on this episode of The Real Dirt.

Inside the Medical Cannabis Industry in Puerto Rico

Sun, 27 Aug 2017 18:14:45 +0000

Andy Sack is the Director of Cultivation for PRICH BIO TECH in Puerto Rico. But, his journey to island life started at Kind Love in Denver, Colorado in 2012. While Andy was working for Kind Love, they won medical dispensary of the year in 2015 from Cannabis Business Awards, Best Flower 2016 from Westword, best flower at a dispensary 2016, Cannabis Business Awards and more. About a year ago, he was offered an opportunity in Puerto Rico. After he got out there, he realized the legal medical cannabis scene there was extremely different than Colorado. The majority of the medical cannabis patients are women over the age of 60 who are using cannabis as an alternative to pharmaceutical options. Also, the governor passed a law that restricts flower sales to only terminally ill patients. Basically, despite the fact that Puerto Rico is super bankrupt, they’re actually regressing their cannabis laws. PRICH BIO TECH holds the most licenses for any cultivation facility in the state. Formerly a pharmaceutical manufacturer, they currently have a 420,000 square foot grow. Most other facilities are still waiting for their licenses because of state disorganization and political turmoil. Additionally, even if those licenses were properly distributed, there isn't not enough patients because the government is stalling distribution of medical cards. As Andy stated, “There's mass confusion in the industry here in Puerto Rico in this moment. It's kind of a hot mess.” Stay tuned for more on what’s happening with medical cannabis legalization in Puerto Rico, behind the scenes of a 420,000 square foot grow, seeds, strains, genetics and more on this episode of The Real Dirt with Chip Baker.

Publicly Traded Cannabis Companies and Industry Acquisitions

Sat, 19 Aug 2017 20:47:50 +0000

Brett Roper is CEO of Medicine Man Technologies Inc., one of the country’s leading cannabis brand development and consulting companies. Since April 2014, when he and Andy Williams established the company, they have consulted more than 27 companies in securing licenses and operating cannabis cultivation facilities. What makes Medicine Man Technologies extremely unique is that they are a publicly traded cannabis company. As a “penny stock” they only release shares of their company as part of a qualified plan, an acquisition or contract for services. As Brett stated, “We like to see people that work with us – for investor relations and public relations – have the same incentive that we have in growing our stocks value.” In June of this year, Medicine Man Technologies made headlines for acquiring Denver Consulting Group LLC, Pono Publications (Three a Light) and Success Nutrients. Listen in as Chip Baker and Brett Roper talk about what it means to be a publicly traded cannabis company, the future of cannabis company acquisitions, investments and more on this episode of The Real Dirt with Chip Baker.

Vertical Grows & Women in Cannabis

Sat, 12 Aug 2017 15:15:03 +0000

Jamie Madsen is the head grower for Mother & Clone, a new sublingual and genetics brand in Commerce City, Colorado. She turned a horticulture degree into an opportunity with Mother & Clone designing a vertical grow and producing sublingual products. One of the unique aspects about sublinguals is that they kick in within 60 seconds and the dosage is consistent and accurate. Because the dosage is also lower (2.5 mg) than most edibles, it is safe for new consumers to start small and see how they feel. Mother & Clone expects to have their operation in full swing next month. Listen in as Jamie and Chip talk about the historical relevance of vertical growing methods, sublingual products, and need for more women in the cannabis industry, on this new episode of The Real Dirt with Chip Baker.

How Americanna Makes Infused Edibles

Fri, 04 Aug 2017 18:07:17 +0000

Austin Sims is the Cultivation Manager for Americanna, an infused edibles company based in Boulder, Colorado. Americanna is known for using organic methods to grow their own plants. By extracting the whole plant, they make a distillate (using even the flower) which is then infused into their proprietary candy. This extraction process, conducted by extraction scientists, means that the terpenes are stripped off leaving a THC level in the high 80s and low 90s. Using their own whole plant extracts also ensures that the quality and consistency of their edibles is second to none. Download this episode where Austin and Chip discuss the extraction process, how to make infused cannabis products, Americanna's new vape pen, and Austin's day to day work as a grow manager.

How To Start a Cannabis Nutrient Company

Fri, 28 Jul 2017 21:51:47 +0000

When Heavy 16 founder, Bryce Patterson was five years old, he started thinking about making his own nutrients. His dad was an "amateur horticulturalist" with a rose garden, hanging baskets and a pristine lawn. As a kid, Bryce's dad used to take him to a boutique garden center to buy specialty fertilizers. Fast forward a couple of decades. Bryce went to college for horticulture, worked in nurseries, continued growing "everything," tested different fertilizers, elements and dosages. He still wasn't satisfied with the nutrients and fertilizers on the market. As he said, "...I knew I could do better. I had my mentors, my science approach to actual plant health and doing it the right way. And that's how it all kind of began with Heavy 16." Almost eight years later, Heavy 16 nutrients is a national industry leader and a staple in most commercial cannabis grow operations. They've developed a full line of premier boutique nutrients and they're known for having the best professional-grade liquid fertilizers on the market. Bryce describes Heavy 16 as "all the best Dutch-style, mixed wit the best American soil science." Unlike a lot of other product lines, Heavy 16 provides a significant diversity of food to the plant. As Bryce said, when it comes to foliar spraying "it's all about getting as much nutrition into the plan that you can..." In other words, if you're spraying your crop, you can get all the benefits with one pass of the sprayer - a complete series of nutrients and micro nutrients. You can get the Heavy 16 recipes and feed cards here. Listen in as Chip, Bryce and James discuss the "broscience" and misinformation surrounding the applied science and technology side of the cannabis industry; the good, bad and ugly of being a leading national brand and the future of cannabis nutrients.