 It is Chinese New Year and so tell me news of that planted of many resources which wandered far and wide the ancient plant of food, fuel, fiber cultivated for millennia. As we venture through the past 10,000 years we will explore and discover the plant from which cannabis derives. The many uses of the plant, hemp, cannabis, ashes, cannabis and religion, cannabis and medicine, cannabis and dear old Uncle Sam. And so our Odyssey begins today. Not far along the go and far away. It is current and in progress. So today we will meet one of the researchers, experts and all the above Martin Lee. And he is, I'm gonna read this. High Times, he was named by High Times as one of the 100 most influential people in campus. Wow. That's what they said. Wonderful and we're lucky to have it. Don't you think? Lee is also co-founder of the media research group Fair, Fair and Accuracy in Reporting and is the author of Acid Dreams, the Social History of LSD, the CIA, the 60s and beyond. Wow. That was my first book. That was your first book. You've done a few others. Yes. Okay, let's see. Rolling Stones. You appear in Rolling Stones, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Nation, Harper's, Daily Beast, Mother Jones and many others. Wow. Well, welcome. It's great to be back in Hawaiians. Wonderful to be on your show. It is wonderful. We met you last year at the Cannabis Festival and you were giving a lecture and we spent maybe that much time with you and you were leaving so we couldn't get you back into the studio. I was absolutely delighted when Wendy said you would be here. So, welcome. And again, Kong He For Joy. That's a Chinese New Year, which is the red. Well, this is actually the third year in a row now. I'm coming back in February. It's for the big cannabis expo that's happening and it's very exciting. It's really, each year it gets better and better. We're looking forward to it this year, which will be at the Blaisdale Expo Center, from what I understand, big conference hall. So, it's great. Yes. And like you said, every year it gets bigger and bigger and people come from all over. Last year I met people from Norway and Australia and Hawaii is a good place to come to for a conference. Especially in the winter. Yes. Exactly. And I'm hearing now this year of quite a few folks that I hadn't expected to see here. It will be here. So, I'm looking forward to connecting with old friends and this growing family. One of the amazing things about cannabis, it's kind of like a community building botanical. And I think that's one of its great aspects as a healing plant. It really brings people together and provides community. I think in terms of health issues and struggles that people have, community is very important. It is. When I first, we were doing, of course, programs that we were campaigning for 20 years on medical aid and dying. And my daughter, who was a hospice nurse, she said, Mom, you know, if you could use cannabis at the end of life, there wouldn't be the struggle. It wouldn't be the patient then is more comfortable. They are alert. They are aware. There's no fear of the end. Most people don't mind dying. They just don't want to suffer. And she said, you really have to take a look at what cannabis could be at the end of life. I think it's true. It's not a theoretical thing. We hear this for people. I hear this for my friends as their parents are going through that passage at the end of their life. The cannabis products really, really help. And we're talking about people who had nothing to do with cannabis, the whole life. And they might not even know what they've been giving that little dropper into the top. But it really helps ease the distress. Well, what happened after that, and I knew nothing, absolutely nothing about cannabis, except of course, all the nasty, all the nasty things that people have been saying, and the gateway drug and all these things. They still say these things. So that's when we started this show. As I said, this is a 10,000 year odyssey, and we are here to discover. So that's what the show has been about, the learning. And I felt that our audience was learning as much as I was. So we have talked to like Wendy, all of the quote experts, the people that are knowledgeable, the people that do talk about the end of life and how it eases. And it's been a real learning for me. You know, even the experts, for them also, it's a process of discovery. Because, you know, this plant, as you've pointed out, it's been an ally of humankind for going back 10,000 years, really. And we were cut off from our relationship with the plant because of prohibition. So we've had to kind of relearn how to relate to this plant. How do we make the best use of it for healing for other things? So it is a continual process of discovery. It's not like the experts know it all and are teaching us. It's that we're learning it together and sharing information that's been very much part of the medical marijuana experience or medical cannabis experience, as we prefer to say. Well, just as a tidbit, Hawaii was the first state to actually by law, change the name from marijuana to cannabis. Oh, I didn't know that. See, that's good. Because marijuana is a derogatory term. So they changed the name by law, had to reprint all the documents and everything. And they are moving toward reciprocity. And by that, you mean people from patients from other states can avail themselves of remedies at dispensaries. And that's good, because not every state does that. Some do some don't. I think that's a positive thing. So the law passed, but now to get the health department to work out the kinks is always forever. So tell me about you. Now, you are the one of the most influential people in cannabis. I love that phrase. Well, you know, I didn't choose that phrase, but I'm not going to accept that you can live with my focus these days is with Project CBD. Okay, there was an organization, it's an educational platform. It's formed about 10 years ago. And we were instrumental in Northern California, and introducing CBD, which is very hot now, yes, into the medical marijuana community in California. And at that time, we're talking 2009 2010, very few people knew about CBD as compared to TAC, the part that gets you high. And the medical marijuana experience up until then, our medical cannabis experience, really wasn't that it was simply about getting high. But that's really all that people had were varieties of cannabis and products that were strong on TAC, but people didn't know about CBD. It wasn't part of the experience. So for various reasons, we're in a position to know about CBD and to ultimately to help introduce it and get it going in California. And it's spread from there. So let's talk about the plant. Okay, you have this cannabis plant. And somehow you extract the CBD, and leave the THC from the plant in the plant. Well, it's a many step process. Yeah. So but you separate is where I'm going with that you separate the two. So that now you set your CBD without the THC. It could be done that way, or it could be done to end up that way. Although I think actually it's best in terms of Oh, to have it together, you know, and so really what I'm in the plant itself, the flower tops, the sticky resin is flower tops. That's where the action is. That's where the medicine is. That's where the CBD, the THC, the other components of the plant that are biologically active, that has an effect on human neurology, psychology, physiology. So when we talk about extracting oil from the cannabis plant, or the hemp plant, and hemp is a form of cannabis, really focusing on the the resin is flower tops, and then maybe some of the leaves as well that has the trichomes, which is the mushroom shaped modules, you might call it that where the where the resin is present. And once you extract that, and there's various ways you can extract the oil from the plant. Then you can you take that oil, which could be sort of a crude product, you might say, and then you might want to refine it, or productize it, make it into different kinds of products or make it into an oil that could be put in different products. Depending on the plant that you start with, that will determine what you're getting and how much CBD or THC or maybe both. If you want a pure CBD product, you'll have to go through extra steps with very sophisticated equipment to separate the CBD from the other parts. That's happening a lot these days. And sometimes that's helpful for people. But what we see is generally speaking, it's much more effective to work with the whole plant or a product derived from the whole plant than just one part of it. And CBD is really an astonishing astonishing molecule. It's very versatile. But it's not the only ball game. And I say that as the director of Project CBD, it's important to emphasize that. So what is CBD? What does that mean? The word? Cannabidiol, it stands for the compound in cannabis called cannabidiol. There's THC tetrahydrocannabinol, CBD cannabidiol. And there's many other components of the plant. But those are the main two in terms of what we refer to as cannabinoids, these unique compounds. So the cannabinoid somehow works with the cannabinoids in our body, is that? Yes, it does. You know, one of the way CBD works in many ways. And when you ingest it, it does many different things. It's what's called by scientists a promiscuous compound, because it literally works in over 60 different ways in the body that in the brain that scientists have thus far been named, or at least up until 2017, I'm sure since then they've discovered 20 more ways. But one of the ways it works, interestingly enough, is when you ingest it, it makes our own cannabinoids, our natural endocannabinoids endogenous from within cannabinoids, it boosts the levels of them in our brain and our body. And that has a therapeutic effect, it has a neuroprotective effect, it has a very positive effect in many ways. So when you take CBD, you're actually boosting your own body. So it wakes up your yeah, and that's just one of the things. But that's, that's an important part of it, I think. And, and it's nice because it's it's really, it really uses what's in us already to move us in the direction we need to go to so we are healing ourselves. Yeah, essentially that way. Now it does other things as well. That's one of the aspects. So so that I, when we started this project, which was a year and a half ago, almost two years, started this show. And there were a few people here and a few people there that had their own brand, you know, now you go to Whole Foods and there's everywhere. There's somebody selling everywhere. It we're in the midst of an explosion around CBD because it's not psychoactive like THC. It's not intoxicating. Although it does alter mood. It can, if you're depressed, it can relieve depression. So it is, it is psychoactive in that way, but not like THC is making you high, giving you that sort of mellow, swimmy headed feeling that you experienced when you, when you smoke a joint or something like that. CBD is different. But because it's not psychoactive and because there's been a huge consumer interest, and also because it's forced the government to change its policy. Now we have because of the farm bill passed in December of 2018, it's legal to grow hemp again in the United States. And therefore, what's in the hemp plant, the CBD and other things that are also legal, somewhat, it gets a little tricky. Well, listen, we need to take a break and we'll be back in 60 seconds. And then let's talk about the farm bill and what that means. Okay, sounds good. We'll be right back. Aloha, and welcome to At the Crossroads. I'm your host, Keisha King. You can catch me every Wednesday, alive at five. I'll see you there. Hello, my name is Andrew Lanning. I'm the host of Security Matters Hawaii airing every Wednesday here on Think Tech Hawaii live from the studios. I'll bring you guests, I'll bring you information about the things in security that matter to keeping you safe, your co workers safe, your family safe, to keep our community safe. We want to teach you about those things in our industry that, you know, may be a little outside of your experience. So please join me because Security Matters, Aloha. And we're back. And we are spending a fabulous, fabulous time with Martin Lee, who is one of the 100 most influential people in cannabis. So what else to do but have one of the most influential people tell us about cannabis. And just before the break, we started talking about the farm bill. And what that means to growing hemp? Well, just stepping back for a moment, you know, hemp illogically has been illegal to grow in the United States, unlike the rest of the international community where you can grow hemp in Canada and Europe and China all over the place for, and hemp is an amazing plant from which you can make many, many different products. It's absurd, ridiculous counterproductive to that plan to be illegal. But it's really CBD and the rediscovery of CBD and the excitement around it, more than any other single factor that's responsible for the fact that hemp is now legal to grow in the United States, because there's so much enthusiasm about CBD that it really forced the federal government to change. So now we have the farm bill, which has made it legal to grow hemp, meaning cannabis with less than 0.3% THC. That's an artificial distinction, but that's what it is legally now. That doesn't have a scientific basis, but that's what it is. So, okay, we'll take it. Now you can grow hemp. But you know, while it's a tremendous step forward, it doesn't really solve the basic problem. The basic problem is called the Control Substances Act, which has made cannabis illegal. So I compare the farm bill to almost like a software patch for bad software, you know, when they create a software program, but it isn't, is a glitch, then they create a patch for it. So the farm bill is the patch to address the problems with the Control Substances Act, the problem being they made hemp illegal. Well, that's not the only problem. The problem is cannabis, the rest of it is illegal. And unless you legalize the full plant, you're going to have a lot of problems still with. I think it's great that the farm bill exists. I think it's great that we can grow hemp. But when it comes to actually enforcing this law, it's going to be very weird. What happens if you have 0.5% THC in your plant, because it was in the different position, the sun or the shade or something, you know, the plant responds to the environment. It's going to be really strange to see how the government can actually regulate and enforce this. I was going to say, who determines, you know, if if your plant has 0.5 more, how would it, what is the good luck on that one? Are they going to know the difference? No, I guess they'll need another software patch to correct that problem. But it's, let's say it's a huge step forward that shouldn't be you know, speaking of the feds, cannabis is a schedule what one still is. But opiates are not. Well, not only that, but THC is schedule three as a pharmaceutical called Marinal CBD is now schedule five, which is almost virtually like you don't even have to schedule it. Nothing else in the plant is illegal. So why is it why is the plant illegal? It's a complete contradiction. In fact, you can kind of make a joke. Well, let's let's take the legal CBD from our and all the excuse me, the THC from our all illegal CBD and all the different terpenes that are all legal, put them all together. It's almost like you can recreate the cannabis plant. And that would be all legal, except the plant is still illegal. Okay, now what is it that Coca Cola and all of them are doing with it? They are creating. You know, when I heard that Coca Cola was interested in in including CBD and some of its products, I didn't know whether to, you know, take a victory lap or to cry. And I think it's more the latter because I don't want to go off on a tangent here, but Coca Cola has not made a great contribution to the planet's health or human health. Probably talk about diabetes and, you know, so talking about putting a little bit of CBD in one of their products. Well, that might help sell their products, but frankly, I don't think I'll do much for anybody. And of course, for those of us old enough to know the word Coca Cola comes from Coke. That's right. That was their original drink was Coke. And I read a great article that said that they made this drink, and they gave it to the workers in the field at lunchtime so that they felt good enough to go back to work and, you know, yeah, I don't know if that's true, but it's a good story. Probably is. In fact, very early on, I noticed that people working in the field, if they were smoking cannabis, like they do in Jamaica, they actually were better workers, they had more energy. Yeah. And so this idea that cannabis makes people lazy or unmotivated. Again, that's one of the myths, one of the part of the disinformation promoted. Again, let's just off the track. In Hawaii, the dispensaries were had to be so far, I don't know how many feet, miles or whatever, from a school and a library. Okay. However, if you walk from any school, you can walk to Foodland Safeway, and they are selling alcohol and cigarettes. So what's, no child is going to go into a dispensary to buy anything. What, none of that. They wouldn't be allowed, of course, they wouldn't be allowed it. No, but no child is just going to walk through the door. It's part of the hypocrisy and the legacy of refurb madness and prohibition. And that's rooted in racism. We know that historically. And the continuation of cannabis prohibition to me is like the Confederate statue that still stands in certain states. It's there. It's an ugly testament for this legacy. And that's what marijuana prohibition is. It's a relic of racism. It's not rational. If you had a policy that was geared toward promoting public health, one should have easy access to good safe regulated cannabis products used responsibly. So we need access and education. That's part of what you're showing us. That's part of what Project CBD does, focusing on education. But we don't have that. Instead we have this. It's kind of like a hangover from from the refurbanness era is refurbanness light. It's still with us. But things are changing and we are in the midst of a major pro-cannabis cultural shift in our culture as evidenced by now the legal status. But now the project. What do you call this now? Project CBD. Project CBD. Tell us exactly what is Project CBD and how we can participate. Well Project CBD first and foremost is an educational website. It's not commercial. It's a well-trafficked website now. We have several hundred thousand visitors each month and it focuses on providing unbiased information not geared towards selling a product about cannabis therapeutics. How to use cannabis therapeutically. CBD is a very very important part of that but it's not the whole story. And we've we're hearing from people that the most success they have for dealing with the variety of ailments is when CBD and THC are combined as part of a whole plant matrix. But again how do you use that? You know now it's not just as simple as smoking a joint anymore. You know that's the old way. That's the old way. When medical cannabis first started in California in 1996 at least legally that's what it was about. Smoking a joint, eating a brownie. Now we have these very high potency oils. We didn't have that 20 years ago. Now we have mixtures of CBD and THC. CBD wasn't part of that before. Well how much should you have of each? What's appropriate for each individual or each condition? These are things that we're all learning as we go along and we are learning some very important things that are helping people. So we focus on practical information that can help people integrate cannabis therapeutics in their life. But it's also an astonishing story scientifically that it's always new information we're learning every day about the science of therapeutic cannabis. So we try to talk about, report what the scientists are discovering, but to talk about it in a language that a non scientist can understand. That was our original mission to take what the scientists were saying, make it understandable. But now we're also reporting back to the scientists what people are learning on the ground in states like California and Washington and Colorado and now Hawaii too. It has a medical marijuana cannabis program. Yeah, because we do have the medical use of cannabis. This little booklet of course is free and it is available. I think you can go online to the drug policy forum and get it. Or you can come visit us, all of us, at the Cannabis Festival Expo this weekend. The promise is to be a really good event. Yes. So you can come and buy a book, get an autographed book and tell us while we're talking about this. What is your website so people can go to the project? Project CBD, CatboyDog projectcbd.org. There's a lot of information there that again is presented in a way we hope it's very accessible, very useful to people. And we also have the usual Facebook and Instagram and all the things that all the social media platforms that people are involved with these days. So they can come and meet you this weekend. That's Friday, Saturday and Sunday, is it? Yeah, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. And Cheech and Chong will be there. You can't have a cannabis expo without Cheech and Chong. That will be a good laugh. And laughter is healing. And so I do want you to come and meet all of us. There'll be so many people there. And so again we'll see you this weekend. Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure and we'll see you Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the Blaisdale and Loha. Thank you, Joyce. I love it.