 The second cover story we did for ARKVU, which was in 2013, doubled the membership of ARKVU and people were just flooding into the space and that was 2013. So we were really coming from the sense of patient advocacy and now I'm a three time cancer survivor and so I come to this as an activist and an advocate. This is a political initiative that we've been working on since January with two top lobbyists in the Beltway. One's a Republican, one's a Democrat. We've taken it on both sides of the aisle and it's not just about cannabis, it's about this gender inequality of capital resources as well. So that's just one example of many. You have to have those 60 labs at the table to say here's our pain touch points, here's what we see that needs to happen, the cost is too high, the equipment's too high, our time turnaround is too slow. We have to address all these things so that we can have a robust market and a safe supply chain to the consumer. So we have a big black market problem still and it's affecting everyone's opinion about the safety of consumer products. However, as a cancer survivor and as a big community of people that have used cannabis for their wellness during their treatments, we know that lab-tested, compliant retail dispensaries, especially here in California, we know the responsible actors and we know the responsible brands as patients and we continue to be loyal to those brands because we know that they have done their due diligence in their years and millions of dollars of product development. I know someone's opinion may contradict yours. Where's my friend Allen? It's all about your perspective. Who are we and what is the nature of this reality? What's up, everyone? Welcome to Simulation. I'm your host, Allen Sokian. We are on site at the New West Summit, the Cannabis Tech Conference. We are now going to be speaking with Gail Rogers. Hi, Gail. Hi. How are you? Thank you so much for coming on our show. We're standing up. It's at the end of the day. It is, it is. It's the end of the day. I'm so excited. We've done both on a great job today. Yeah, thank you. I'm so pumped. I'm so pumped for our conversation too. You know, it was named Influence of the Year in 2018 by industry power women. She's also a national international expert in trusted media source since 2009 in the cannabis industry with 20 plus years in music and film as well as activist and in advocacy work. I'm so excited to talk. There's so much stuff here in the bio. All right, you know, let's start things off by asking you, you know, who are you? What do you represent and why is it important for other people to care? Wow. Well, the big stuff. The big stuff. And I like the big stuff. So I have been in the cannabis space for 11 years. I was recruited by a tech HR recruiter to Harborside and Steve D'Angelo and then the steep hill laboratories and Arcview and work with other brands like the farm in Boulder. So I've had a I had a real pick of the litter out of the gate. Got lucky. But there wasn't no one doing what I did in 2009, which was marketing through media relations, through book deals and TV and film. Nobody had that experience. I was a, at the time, a twice cancer survivor. I am now a three-time cancer survivor. So Steve and I were a perfect fit for patient advocacy at the time. We really were a great team. And it was messaging out to the national media in a way that we were breaking stigma. I was literally writing glossaries for the Wall Street Journal on the cannabis industry to the health and science reporters, to the Discovery Channel when we were trying to sell weed wars through Chuck Ravenman on that show, who produced that show for the Discovery Channel. That was 2010. It was early. We were making glossaries. I was making glossaries because, you know, I'd watch the evening news. I'm a news junkie. Always have been. Always will be. And people using the word pot and weed and Mary Jane. Nobody was using cannabis. Nobody was using medical compassionate. Nobody was using the terms that we use now. So patient advocacy was another one. Yeah, patient advocacy. It was caregivers. They didn't know what it meant. They weren't taking the time. So we went through health and science reporters first as a strategy. Then when ARCV started to roll, we went through the finance system because we didn't have banking. Cash management was a big problem. And we needed to address these issues head on to really solid journalists who had a peak of an interest. Maybe had written about it long ago or had a little mention in a column. So alongside my wizard assistant, Erica Glenn, we picked through all these big media databases to find the writers, the real journalists that we thought would get it. That was very key. And you had to parse for journalists that you thought would get it. Yes, because it wasn't like just take me through the assignment desk. That wasn't going to work. We had to identify the journalists that was going to get it. So I think that helped us create a larger lens and broad breaststroke because I had a knack and also experience of working with big time media through film studios and music studios and knew that that was not going to work. But I also leveraged that. I also called my buddies in music and film said, I'm doing this now. Who on the staff you think are going to dig this, right? So it was kind of like really drilling down on the right journalists. It was very important to make that difference. And there were storytellers, the communicators. And because I worked with big feature films, it was all story arc, story arc, story arc, story arc, no fluff. So we were extremely successful. So I was first in my field to actually do that work. And had Steve do some media training with some professional actors, I will not name. But also, he was also so such a natural. And after a while, I've worked with a lot of thought leaders in a lot of different fields. And after really about the first month or two, I could sense that he was the real deal that just needed to sharpen his toolbox. And we were really a great team in crafting these messages and practicing and body language and tonality. And yes, I asked him to cut the braids off and get a Richard Branson kind of look. And he said, no, don't ask me again. But I had to ask one. So that became my kind of first to market, first CNN piece, first TV show, first New York Times cover story, first Fortune magazine cover story. And then we were soaring. I mean, we had literally hundreds of international and national journalists through Harperside. And then the second cover story we did for ArcView, which was in 2013, doubled the membership of ArcView. And people were just flooding into the space. And that was 2013. So we were really coming from the sense of patient advocacy. And now I'm a three time cancer survivor. And so I come to this as an activist and an advocate. But I'm also I have a very sharp toolkit with me to I have a knack. I'm still a source. I talk to the networks all the time, not for any particular clients, because I'm focusing on Treehouse Global Ventures, which I'll talk about in a second. But because I became a trusted source, what you know, this faith pin thing, I got hit up super. And I had to really work hard with CBS News for a couple of stories that were incorrectly reported. Some of this work in media relations are marketing through media as you police the media. And if they report something really wrong, you you just very politely correct them. I have done corrections in every major daily and every network in the country, just and they appreciate it. It's this story arc you were you you subliminally made it gangsta by just using this language, you know. Oh, you know, you're right. I mean, it was just very subtle stuff like that. Yeah. So, you know, fast forward into this one right before right before we get there, just I'm just following what you're describing. It's this, you know, this like this wave that's coming with this emerging cannabis market. And you're here helping make sure that the stories are actually getting communicated in the way that is educational in the way that's authentic in the way that communicates valuable experiences of health and wellness being augmented by cannabis and finding the right distribution channels, journalists, you know, TV series, all these different kinds of mediums. But I also had, you know, 20 plus experience doing this for sometimes very difficult subject matters and feature films or sometimes music recordings that weren't quite so popular, but had a very meaningful message at the time. So, and also I did a lot of advocacy work and publicity in social justice causes, like music literacy and also missing children. So I did some very hard news cases as well. And I pride myself as a New Orleans girl that I have so much serendipity in my life. I was born in New Orleans and I have a knack of being at the right place at the right time and having the right toolkit. It's just been a blessing. And I think there's a reason for that because I'm from New Orleans. I believe in everything. And so I think that this next generation of my life, this mark I want to make came to fruition when with other women investors at Arcview that became friends and mentors in the financial systems to me, my co-founders of Treehouse, Lindy Snyder and Lori Ferrara, we all just looked at each other about two years ago and said, you know, there's no fun for women and minorities. There's all these big funds that have all these different focuses, but women traditionally get less than 2% of any capital resources and women of color and people of color get less than 0.5% of access to the 1% of wealth. It's really a political cultural black hole. Okay, so as this emerging market takes off and there's people investing and making money that all this wealth that's created by these new advances that happen by far the vast majority that's going to men and also people that are white. Correct. Okay. And then it's been it's so interesting again and again that comes up that internet was one that was supposed to do this blockchain and decentralization technology supposed to do this cannabis and psychedelics again supposed to do this. And now our numbers are slipping. Women and minorities, I mean, we're doing great at 2015, 2015, 2016. And then at the end of 2016, with all these M&As coming from Canada and a lot of merge and a lot of multi-state operators, I'm trying not to talk in acronyms because I've been hearing it all day, is that I believe that, you know, somehow that larger money and finance system came in and quickly and people were very excited. Oh my goodness, there's some of these huge acquisitions. And somehow in 2016, 2017, 2018, women and minorities weren't part of that picture. Although I will say it's now coming back up a little bit. I just met with a couple of women CEOs in New York last week that are, you know, running multi-state operations and they're doing great, but they have to fight for the women in their C-suite and on their board. And and they came from tech or they came from cosmetics or they came from, you know, big retail, big box retail. So they're very experienced people. And I realize that. This is the, is this the main vision and it's the main, it's the mission and the purpose to focus the lens on the lack of capital resources and how the lack of access to any capital resources, any kind of funding whatsoever in that top 1%. The billions and billions of dollars, by the way, that have not hit us yet, that is institutional and VC. They're not here yet. Family offices here, hedge funds here, private equity funds like Treehouse Global Ventures here. But that big, big top line, billions and billions of dollars, I have a friend that works at a huge institution that manages $330 billion of wealth management globally. And that space has not touched the space. And so they are watching and they're looking. So I think even though we have a lot of market disruption right now, there's a lot of money that's not here yet. As the federal regulatory platform gets more clear, which it will, whether it's this administration or the next, it will get clearer. FDA is coming. HIPAA compliance is coming. We know that. So we feel that the market conditions are a little dicey right now. But look at what's happening in like the Midwest. Look what's happening in Arkansas, Missouri and Oklahoma. They're soaring these new adopting states, smaller states, regional markets. There's going to be some really great brand management because those people are Midwestern. They're going to roll up their sleeves, go back to traditional marketing and branding and put their firm's stake in the brown for their brand. So I feel like the Southeast and the Midwest has been a little bit ignored with the new adoption. And I think there's a lot of investment opportunity there. So yes, I know the stock market has been very volatile because of over evaluation, over projections, over not meeting performers, not doing the touch points of milestones required as you get your trenches if you've got a $3 to $5 million drop, whatever it is. But I still am optimistic and I still think this is early. And this is what happened in the Silicon Valley, exactly this rock and roll. So Treehouse was formed to make this mark, this message, this purpose. And I feel I have a big part of that for my nieces and nephews and my daughter, frankly. I'm doing it really for them. It's the next generation wealth opportunity. And I came up bootstrapped with everything and made my way and did very, very well. But those, my nieces and nephews and daughter and friends, they graduated in 2008. They couldn't find a job for two years. So they had part-time jobs, four part-time jobs. I mean it was rough on them because they were sold that get that Ivy League education and go to college and it's going to add to your value. And they graduated with all their, this debt and they couldn't find a job for two years. So, and they came up also after the 9-11 environment. So they choose their brands and they choose their loyalty on mission and values. And it's only going to continue in that direction. And it's only going to continue in that direction. So the companies that we're looking at, we will, we'll reach our first cap in probably a month and we'll deploy our first investment by the end of the year. That's pretty fast because we just started in May. So, so because we have so much support because we, we struck a chord here. So I think that, and I'm bringing all those nieces and nephews and my daughter and her friends on the, they're on the watch list. You know, watch this. You're going to learn from it. This is how you build an industry. This is how you build the brick and mortar. You roll up your sleeves. You do traditional marketing, strategy and tactics. I asked a company the other day who was another fund that I am helping advise for a one year to 18 month marketing and sales strategy. And she said, what do I need that for? And I said, well, how are you going to demonstrate? You've asked for several million dollars. Well, the market's changing so fast. How can I write that? I said, I get it, but we want to know how you will implement. How are you getting from A to Z? Your projections are 30% more every quarter. New industry does that in any market environment. And it's certainly not in this political environment. So go back and look at your projections, go back and look at your evaluation and write that marketing and sales strategy in this market temperature, in this disruptive temperature. And tell me how you're going to get there. Because she was evaluated at $15 million and it just didn't make any sense. The stepping stones, the real touch points and the pain points. I want to know what you know about your competitors, about what they did wrong, what they did right, and how are you going to get to these kinds of projections. And so write it so I can see that you have that part together. That's future authoring your business towards success. There's another really key component that we must hit on here in the short bit of time we have. And it's just that this industry, along with all these other ones that we listed earlier, that's an emerging market right now. And you give these big funds of $100 plus billion dollar size funds. The question is about how to democratize and distribute the benefits, the fruits of these emerging markets like cannabis. What would you say? Obviously with what you're doing at Treehouse, you know, bringing in the perspective for people that are not white for women. This is huge. And so is this one of the many diverse ways to do so? And how do we make inclusive stakeholders in the cannabis industry so that other people that are that typically don't see the benefits of massive emerging markets like this actually do finally. Well, that's why we also aren't going to invest not only here but globally in other technologies and things that actually won't probably have anything to do with the cannabis industry. We want to bring in talent and innovation that might aid a few, five years from now, a very robust cannabis industry. And these people don't want to touch the plant. They don't want to have anything to do with it. But they are coming from big tech companies and they are seeing that there is a big black hole. We think we have the technology platforms and the data systems in this industry. We do not in my opinion. You don't definitely not Google or Alibaba scale. Not Nielsen, not SoundScan, not, you know, not measurements of consumer data like we did in film where we knew the 12 to 14 year old, what he ate, what he watched, what he wore, what he listened to. We knew everything about that movie consumer at that age. So I think it's really important to note that the data companies that are kind of three to five years in I think, they're doing a good job but they're far from what Nielsen and SoundScan can tell us about consumer behaviors. So all that technology needs to be innovated for our particular industry and the security of patient data because we only have 11 adult youth states, right? The rest are medically compassionate and it's predicted by lobbyists and others that particularly the Southeast will remain medical compassionate, that they will never go adult youth. And so we need to, you know, maybe we have half and half, half medical compassionate, half adult youth. So we'll see what happens in November. There's a lot more onboarding states in November, a lot of initiatives on the November ballot this year and next. But I think that all of that 30,000 foot view is important to remember as an investor and as somebody that is smart, educated, and cares about an industry that is really about, in my view, health and wellness and a life choice. It's not for everybody. I always tell everyone that. Cannabis is not for everyone. It's not just for the sick. It's not just for the stoner. Nothing's for everyone. Maybe air or water, you know. I keep telling people it's like, you know, it may not be for you but I'm telling you even three years ago nobody would sit by me at dinner. Now everybody wants to sit by me at dinner. You know, they didn't even want to talk out loud about it. I'd go back home in Louisiana and I was raised in Florida. My dad was a NASA guy and nobody wanted to talk out loud about it. Now they do. Now they feel comfortable. So that shifted in the last three or four years, which is great. I wonder what specific protocols are going to be most crucial whether it be on the combinatoric potentials of businesses that are made or of the regulations that are pieced together across different countries and what are the best ways to make the benefits democratized and to make it inclusive? That's going to take some federal regulatory work. We are working with some lobbyists in the Beltway on an initiative to start to train the communications officers of the hundred women in Congress and the House and the Senate. That's a start for messaging because they're not even talking about it correctly. Kamala Harris is not even talking about it correctly. None of the candidates are talking about it correctly. You're going to make a glossary. You're going to give them your glossary. I'm going to redo the glossary for the political temperature that we're in and try to teach their communications officers how to teach them how to talk about it. Well, this is a political initiative that we've been working on since January with two top lobbyists in the Beltway. One's a Republican, one's a Democrat. We've taken it on both sides of the aisle and it's not just about cannabis. It's about this gender inequality of capital resources as well. We couldn't just do cannabis. We tried and they said that's not going to work. Here's the other thing. Because of the political environment, one of the very important senators said to one of these lobbyists, this is great. I think this will work. I think you're addressing some gender pay equity issues, wellness and lifestyle, some health regulatory compliance issues. We're talking about having a stake at the table when they start to form these regulations with the CDC and the FDA and the DEA. We want to be at the table. They said, but you know what? Here's the honest to God truth. This is not at the top of everybody's list. We have so many issues to address in this country. You need to make it more important in the health and wellness message in the gender pay equity message. Now that the banking thing has passed the house, someone said on the investment panel. Is that the safe fact? It's the safe fact. So you want to marry the health and wellness with the gender equity stuff and then that will make it more prominent on people's radars. It has to have more robust messaging for both sides of the aisle to care. We have to tell them why they should care and then we have to educate them how to care and then how to talk about it. And then what would you propose within that the gender equity and the cannabis? What would you want to happen on a regulatory level from there? And what would be your ideal scenario? Oh, that's a hard question because it's a very complex question. You know, certainly there has to be some national, federal, lab testing regulatory platform. I know that there's actually some French Canadians that have talked to 60 labs across the country and they want to help form that regulation with all those stakeholders that are on the front lines of testing. So that's just one example of many. You have to have those 60 labs at the table to say, here's our pain touch points. Here's what we see that needs to happen. The cost is too high, the equipment's too high, our time turnaround is too slow. I mean, we have to address all these things so that we can have a robust market and a safe supply chain to the consumer. And with the vaping crisis, and that's got a big question mark because we do know for a fact, as Leafley has reported and others, that a lot of those cartridges were exact copies from China of dual and other devices. And so we know that, for a fact, we know that three of those deaths for a fact were because of counterfeit cartridges. And so it's actually a good thing that's happened because that could have been a huge consumer health crisis had they not started to put on the brakes. And then there was a story about these kids in Minnesota that had like a million dollars worth of fake cartridges underneath their bed. And it was like, what, how did that happen? And they all came from China or Thailand or Indonesia. So, you know, and they're selling them for five bucks when they're 30 dollars in a legal compliant dispensary because the kids were just really into this. So we have a big black market problem still. And it's affecting everyone's opinion about the safety of consumer products. However, as a, you know, cancer survivor and as a big community of people that have used cannabis for their wellness during their treatments, we know that lab-tested compliant retail dispensaries, especially here in California, we know the responsible actors and we know the responsible brands as patients. And we continue to be loyal to those brands because we know that they have done their due diligence in their years and millions of dollars of product development. This specific thing just constantly fascinates me. Indigenous people have been for the longest time just living on the land and in being one with the different fruits of that land. And then there's this whole idea of, well, when you're trying to distribute it to millions of people, it has to go through all of these regulatory frameworks for safety. And then there's that dichotomy between those two things, like if someone's, you know, distributing to them and their, like, three neighbors in the woods, something that they're growing. Well, look what happened to the cannabis. There was a big dichotomy between things like that. There is a big dichotomy. But look, Emerald Triangle, perfect example. 80% of that product that was grown in Mendocino and Humboldt Connys left the state for 30 years. 80%. Look this up. This is a fact. Yeah, those numbers are massive. Massive. Yeah. But do people get sick? Were there deaths? You know, were there... It's so hard to track, of course. And the standard, like you said, of lab testing things that millions of people are consuming is, that's critical. Otherwise, there will be big issues that happen. Yeah, that's something that's... I'm very interested in all the different aspects that you listed of the different... Because I wonder, the good, a decent question would be, would you say that the same thing would be repeated in Latin America and Africa and Europe and Asia? They wouldn't have it to treat safety for their consumers as well. So this has to come from what I think is not just pharmaceutical, because that's so expensive. I actually think that this is going to come from food safety and more like natural food products and nutraceuticals. I think that might be the path. FDA approved for like a nutritional style, like when you intake this cannabis. Like vitamin D or turmeric. You know, a lot of our extractors and the extracting machines came from ag extraction and essential oil extraction. So when you think about the nutraceutical and natural foods industry, remember the FDA organic certification only happened in the 70s. And by the way, Maria Rodale, who's on our board at Treehouse, grandfather, started that process, Rodale Publishing, Men's Health, Prevention Magazine, etc., etc. Her grandfather started that process, as I understand it, and her father finished it, helped the FDA, devised the criteria for organic certification. So I see that coming and she's on our board and she's just wonderful. She's all about hemp and sustainability and lifestyle and she sold the family publishing company, so she's in publishing recovery. So she's learning about the cannabis industry and she's teaching us about all the natural foods and nutraceuticals and lifestyle choices. It's called the Low House Market, Lifestyle and Organic Natural Foods Association. And this is a huge billion-billion-dollar industry in this country now. And the millennials are following that path. Look at what happened to Beyond Meat. Look what happened to Vegan. Look what happened to Gluten Free. These are all wellness lifestyle choices we can get in that line. Nutraceuticals. Interesting. Yeah, okay let's wrap. Last question is what do you think is the most beautiful thing in the world? Oh gosh. Right now it's my house. I haven't seen it two weeks. We live on eight acres in the Tahoe National Forest on a ridge. It's a very beautifully managed forest and it's like living in a park. And I sit on that porch and that is my zen. I just sit on my porch swing and just I'm so happy that I live in a small little cultural town with lots of arts benefits and good restaurants and lots of culture. And I just feel extremely fortunate. I love that. You know, thank you so much for joining us on the show. You're welcome. I can't wait to see it. I hope I wasn't a blabbermouth. You're good. You're good to one moment. Let's close the show. Thank you so much for tuning in everyone. We greatly appreciate it. We'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below on the episode. Let us know what you're thinking. Thank you. Check out all the links in the bio below to Ginael's work, also to Treehouse Ventures. Check that out. And also check out the links in the bio to New West Summit as well. Check those out. And also support the artists, the entrepreneurs, the leaders in your communities that you believe and support them. You can support Simulation. Our links are below as well. And go and build the future everyone. Manifest your dreams into the world. Thank you so much for tuning in and we will see you soon. Peace.