 I mean looking at it from a public safety standpoint and like the regulator is having to make sure that the public is safe and making sure that you know this state of California is being responsible for this massive billion dollar industry that's how they felt it was best to regulate it right so to bifurcate it into these like these uh slices if you will and then really have oversight over each individual section so they are able to really track the entire production line from seed all the way up to consumer so those extra little things that I'm adding essentially give me extra points yeah so then that way it's not just okay we have a security company it's fine to check the box it's really being thoughtful about how you can be efficient or mindful or a good community leader but in a way that's presented to a municipality. Cannabis businesses or at least a lot of them in northern California are upheld to the standard where we have to give back it's like part of the business it's part of our agreement with the city that we have to give a percentage of our profits or donate a certain amount of time to the communities so that's something that cannabis companies are a care to that are are great and other and really other companies should be held to that same standard. What regulation has done is basically forced this almost impossible standard on growers to not use like harmful pesticides and have all of these nasty things toxins that used to be regularly found in cannabis. If you took raspberries from Whole Foods and put it under the same microscope and held it to the same standard as cannabis it would not pass but knowing that our industry now has developed methods of growing at match production scale that can pass our super strict testing regulations that's a huge win and that was a win because of government and that was a win because of the regulators. Children like especially three-year-olds their face glitter their eyes twinkle because they don't understand stress they don't understand time they don't understand deadlines and they're they just sparkle and it is the most beautiful hopeful happy thing in the world. Someone's opinion may contradict yours. Where's my friend Alan? 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 Alan Sokian. We are on site at the beautiful New West Summit the Cannabis Tech Conference. We are now going to be speaking with Salwa Ibrahim. Hi. Hi Alan. Nice to meet you. Thanks so much for coming on the show. I really appreciate it. I'm very excited for this. You too. Super pumped. Salwa's background super interesting has been a pioneer in the California cannabis industry opened and operated numerous dispensaries and cultivation extraction facilities totaling over 50 million in sales annually through multiple states. Yes. Oh my goodness. Okay so and also the first Kansas dispensary to do an IPO. That's correct. Bloom. Plant touching. Yep. Yeah okay so let's talk about this. What have you been up to? This is obviously really hard to know how to do this with the regulatory frameworks that are constantly changing. So yeah how have you been handling that and what are you up to now making things maybe a little bit more efficient in those processes? Teach us about this process. Well it's funny from a certain standpoint I'm lucky because I've been doing it for so long. I got in the industry in 2008 and back then reading the regulations was pretty simple because there really weren't any and so following the rules was presented in its own set of challenges but when working with the city of Oakland and then what ended up being the state of California and just forming those regulations I got I kind of had a rolling start. So you know back in those days you got a dispensary permit. Well that was the only permit type of permit that existed so it allowed you to do everything under that license so you were able to cultivate, extract, essentially distribute, there was a myriad of different platitudes that you gained with that one permit. So in that sense I learned a lot of the industry just because of the lack of regulations and I happened to have a dispensary permit and then once California came on in Prop 64 past and they started having all these different types of license categories you know we just did our due diligence and like watched the process and became involved once you know regulations wouldn't necessarily suit any cannabis business and kind of helped reform to make them more viable. Whoa so interesting so like the codes get updated over time and then that directly affects all of the different components of the industry in in different ways and it's important that they make the processes less frictionful, more friction less and more able to be efficient and creative and do the medicinal benefits and the textile benefits and all these other things. That's correct. Yeah the regulations as it stands today definitely has a process like everything's bifurcated so like for instance you can you have a distribution license but you can't move it without a transport license and once it's sent out of transport license then you go into retail then you need a retail license and so on and so forth so. A license at every? Practically yeah and then there's a lot of procedures especially for extraction and for and for edible making for instance like those are several different licenses so to make your edibles like the oils that go into your edibles and depending on your process that could be one to two different types of license and then to infuse your edibles as a different license and then to package your edibles as a different license and then to move your edibles to retail as a different license. This seems extremely bureaucratic at the same time although it's for safety as well of course but it seems heavily bureaucratic in a sense making it I guess difficult for something that used to be just growing growing out of the ground and us to be able to leverage for whatever purposes we wanted now is. Yeah I mean there's definitely I mean looking at it from a public safety standpoint and like the regulator is having to make sure that the public is safe and making sure that you know this state of California is being responsible for this massive billion dollar industry that's how they felt it was best to regulate it right so to bifurcate it into these like these slices if you will and then really have oversight over each individual each individual section so they are able to really track the entire production line from seed all the way up to consumer so from that standpoint I understand it from the public safety standpoint and to be quite honest with you at that time when Prop 64 passed the industry was asking for that like we wanted to be taxed we wanted to be regulated because we wanted to understand where we stood so we can talk to investors we can get additional banking and funding and and invest in our businesses without having the risk that the city would shut you down or you wouldn't be able to get your whatever like expand your business so in that sense it was kind of it was it was the middle ground yes yes okay so both opening up more for venture investment and financial contribution to actually happen to accelerate put some fuel into the fire of the industry but also not make it overly bureaucratic where it's hard to actually like if you need a license for every single one of these tiny little steps it can make it maybe a little bit more complicated overly complicated so it's interesting to see how then those the most optimal code gets written in like different countries have different codes and so do you do you feel like where was the which which market did it that I blew my PO so bloom rolled up to tear tech on the OTC QX OTC QX that's correct so it's the closest you could get to the NASDAQ without being on the NASDAQ but it's oh it's over the counter essentially penny stocks which a lot of the market has is living on that exchange because NASDAQ has these requirements that quite frankly like nobody can really qualify for okay and obviously everyone's waiting for banking reform interesting okay so then what what OTC QX what makes them able to like IPO cannabis stuff but you know like what is written in their codes that enables that on that particular exchange yeah I wish I knew the details to be able to articulate it to your audience but unfortunately I'm that's I'm an operator I'm a cannabis girl that everything I do know about IPOs and the stock market and taking your company public I I basically learned by living through it yeah so just being forced to take these take the knowledge from the attorneys as I was going through my deal but my understanding of the OTC is is kind of like buy it at your own risk type of investments like in the sense that like you know they're not like you could buy a lot of different types of companies stock on that exchange yeah but once you move over to the NASDAQ there's so many different requirements that qualify a company to be on there you have to be trading at a certain dollar price a certain volume you have to abide by certain regulations and these much stricter standards to be on that exchange and it's all kind of about safety in that sense is you take your risk like you said on a like an OTC QX versus like a NASDAQ interesting then maybe that is the combinatorics the little permutations that can be run as you have maybe like a state like Colorado or Washington or California that have their own little different regulations packages that people have to follow and then we see what is the best and people get to like move with their feet into the ones that they want to well I think that it's interesting because obviously like the state of California when they were starting to put their process together they went and looked at Colorado Nevada there's a I've seen a lot of the the process and the procedures and security measures and things like that cookie-cuttered over from Nevada and they went out and they kind of did their research in their homework of like what worked what didn't work and this is what they came up with now I don't necessarily think that this state of California is unwilling to amend I think that we can work together as an industry and as a regulatory body to work together to amend the policies to actually make sense for the business and make sense for for all of just making it more efficient an example that I have is we just did so Highland Events was the first company to basically buy I'm sorry sell cannabis at a major mainstream music festival that wasn't that's correct outside lands that wasn't on a county fairground and so that was a very intricate process getting all of the brands is product in and being able to sell it however there is this one law in our policy that says that I need to have all of the staff who's going to be working at the event their names and their shifts planned 72 hours before the event and then submitted to the state right and I can't add names so come Friday everyone's like oh like they're everyone's grinding but Saturday people don't show up on time they don't show up at all I'm short staffed I asked to infill can't add more staff so there's these like little there's these little policies that I think are easy to change and that were that I believe the state would be willing to hear us and listen to why they don't necessarily work and we would work with them to alleviate any of their concerns but it just some of them don't necessarily make sense in practice yeah this one is really interesting like so many of us have been to the bigger festivals and to have like little cannabis experiences at those festivals is really important for people to safely and also in a very curated way be able to experience their their augmented states that they want to partake in at these cool events and so like when you say something like Saturday someone might not be showing up that I had a register 72 hours beforehand like to me it seems like okay well we can create an such a process of such efficacy where you can literally even within a government even within a regulation where you can just submit something as simple as a license you know of this person and an ID and then just for that to be immediately and put it scanned vetted whatnot and then just to give you that simple check mark back here's their ID for the event and whatnot like this we our processes have a little bit of ways to go but I yeah I like I like where you're like you've you're how do you do that like if you did say something like that where do you even go in like this to deal with the state like an augmenting process or like when you were talking about all of the another thing you were just mentioning was this copy and paste from different states like part of that also we've been talking about in the valley for a while has just been companies just copy and pasting their like data standards or whatever from different companies are taking the the incorporation standards and it just what it does is it also just makes everything homogenous and if rather than trying new creative combinations that could potentially work yeah so what are your thoughts about stuff like that I mean as far as like sorry my thoughts on specifically like copy and pasting policy or you mean like how do you change okay yeah let's do both of those exactly okay so I would say that in order for anybody to like have changed the best way to do it is particularly in cannabis because that's still an example I have but like the way we've been successful is by working with your local government first so for us when we went to with outside lands using that as the example we would work with the city of San Francisco and be like oh look this is where we were short staffed this one day and this could have been way more efficient and we would have been out on time a blah blah blah can we have your support on trying to mend this one thing and then you get their buy-in and then when they're having conversations with you know the regulatory body in San Francisco I'm sorry in the state of California obviously like their opinion means a lot to the state so they can help advocate for the same thing that you're advocating for because it's efficient and it makes more sense and it's again about public safety and if you're short staffed at an event like that that's not okay right so who is the person within San Francisco that you would talk to that would then talk to the state level Marissa so she was she basically is the the head of the office of cannabis okay so so most municipalities head of the office of cannabis exactly so most municipalities either have their own cannabis department right now or in Oakland for instance it goes through the city administrator's office so if it's an event you might do city administrator's office depending on what body regulates what portion of the business that you're trying it could be special activities if it's a retail if it's you know so on and so forth so having having buy-in from your local government to then help advocate from that side now on the other side you want to advocate for yourself so there's two ways that question before you have to advocate yourself where would the sit so then the city rep talks to at the state level who do they work with at the state level usually do we know so for in this particular instance of it it would be basically the the Bureau of Cannabis Control so the Bureau of Cannabis Control that's usually like a border represented yeah so Lori Ajax runs the Bureau and Alexis Podesta they basically are run everything cannabis in the state of California interesting so the San Francisco or the LA reps work with these the state yeah reps and then they then amend the codes which then make it easier for you to do the things like they they could so what we would end up doing it's usually not that easy and it usually takes a very long time and it the best approach is to hit it from multiple sides so that's just you've got one side there right other side so the other side is you have to advocate for yourself and there's basically two ways of doing that one the state holds a lot of meetings where they want to hear from the public they want to hear from the businesses they want to know what works and what doesn't work attend the meetings join like go talk email like inquire that participation is absolutely key so participating then if you have the means to do so having a lobbyist or somebody that's in Sacramento that's there basically full time to be able to like to advocate for these changes you got the money because that's a lobby full time lobbies expensive full time lobbies very expensive and and if some people can do and some people can't like for the amendments that I would like to see changed they help everyone across the board I can't just be like oh only Highland gets this one you know it's if we advocate for these simple changes they're the benefit of the entire industry and all of the different companies therefore could be crowdfunded then for multiple parties into that a lobby correct so so could be and then you have to be very organized to do that or you can find people who have like-minded interests so just using this as an example we have emerald cup we have high times we have all of these other chalice we have all of these other main huge festivals that would benefit from a purchase of this amendment just to use it as an example yeah yeah cool cool and then also like the the Coachella's and a lot of blues is always other places as well when they also want to get their own cannabis experience is happening there they'll also benefit from it I like this I like this I like this a lot like kind of like pooling in time money resources into updating the codes that then get just the benefits get distributed democratized to the masses exactly and then if you if your companies can't afford a lobbyist like leaning on them and their lobbying team and their legal team and then just showing them they're like hey you know I'm not sure if you ran into this issue how do you account for it or whatever and then maybe they maybe it's not an issue for them and they can teach you something that is is beneficial that you don't you don't have to face that issue again you know let's let's do an interesting thought experiment here with we're talking about like this copy and paste issue that sometimes happens where everyone just becomes homogenized in the way that they do something and it kind of it can inhibit creativity from actually happening if you were to maybe like let's say press reset and be able to like play in Salwa land and you know we all we will all have our designer worlds yeah in our virtual augmented experiences and it'll be very interesting in the future let's say okay take us to Salwa land you have this magic wand you get to set the frameworks for how even just the small community could get to you know experience or a town let's say or however much size within again scales matter here but how would you see things being frictionless but safe and efficient what kind of pieces would you put together to let you know like free market forces go at play but also safely yeah it's hard it's that's a tough one to answer I mean if I had a magic wand I would just like make everybody play nice and like we don't need a lot of oversight because we just don't need it but early on nice playing nice there's people not playing nice no I just mean in in in business it's like everybody does what they say they're going to do and so you don't need contracts and whatever this is in la la land right that's what we're talking about and in to bring it sort of more into reality one proposition 19 came before proposition 64 and proposition 19 basically proposed that the government's the state of california give local control to each different city and county to create their own laws and their own processes which becomes a little difficult when you are planning an event or doing something in a different county and because you have a whole different set of laws and to abide by which is happening now but ultimately what that would have done is is allow cities to create their own different license types so for instance the city of oakland could just have one edible license type and that's it and it takes you from end to end for edibles or extraction and you can have any type of volatile solvent or whatever solvent list extraction methods I think just simplifying the processes will just open up naturally the ability for other people to get in and compete yeah but yeah and what would an ideal like simplified process look like to you ideal simplified process gosh I've been in cannabis for so long it's never been simple it's I mean at least from my standpoint like I responded to my first RFP when I was like 24 25 years old RFP again yeah so a request for proposal so typically how these how a lot of licenses work there's there's two types of licenses that you can get now I'm gonna shift over to retail let's just do use retail there's ones like the city of San Francisco where they're kind of land use-based so it's more about the real estate and the community and making sure you're in a good neighborhood and your neighbors aren't mad that you're there and you're not in your school not exactly you have to be a certain about a thousand feet from a school or anything that caters to children all these different things and it's it's not as competitive as something like oakland where when oakland was first doing their processes it was they'd release a request for proposals called an RFP and it's basically like a book report in school where you have to like respond to all of these questions and you put it together in a report and then they grade them and based on the ranking and how everybody scores against each other then they allocate a certain amount of licenses like to the top tier book reports on how you would operate your dispenser exactly I've competed in municipality that made you do multiple rfps so for instance they'll like they'll release the first one the top three top five get invited to do the second one you get another rfp have to respond in the second one and then you have to do a public hearing and you have to do a public like presentation and hold community meetings and then you get your license and then maybe gets filters for more of the cream of the crop right exactly exactly but you know I kind of like that process a little bit more I've done well in that process I don't think that I would have I just for some reason like that works really well with me I'm a competitive person and I use that as like drive to to take it on and plus with the deadlines it kind of forces you to be on a specific track versus a land use one it's like the landlord and maybe and sometimes and it just becomes it could become a very expensive drawn out thing but yeah so I've always ended up competing for all of my permits on a local level yeah well what an interesting way to also potentially filter for some of the best proposals like ideas for like well what could maybe some of the best things that you propose and some of the best things the other teams have been proposing across different counties and cities states etc could those best ideas be added into the ideal style of running yeah definitely I think after a while I think in the beginning because when you compete in a process like that your application becomes public record and people can request it right so after a handful of these went out a lot of the competitors requested everybody's information and then so you go to the next town and you're like wait a minute they use that that's mine I mean but there's that sense that yes it's it's kind of like the best of I think where it gets interesting as far as innovation is concerned is more on when you're grading and when they're grading these applications that are typically grading them on a curve they have no idea what the a is until every they've read through everybody's thing but what that forces you to do is to really take your time and try to like capture all of the thoughts and all of the benefits to the community in each particular section so for instance with security let's high level so security you're like okay this is my security plan this is what standard this is what the state wants this is what the community wants whatever but how do I make this even better okay I will offer up any data to the police department if if they ever need it or I will have access to them that they can just log in and see our exterior cameras or I will hold community meetings on security once a month for the the neighbors to come in and see if and and report anything or just be able to share their concerns so those extra little things that I'm adding essentially give me extra points yeah so then that way it's not just okay we have a security company it's fine check the box it's really being thoughtful about how you can be efficient or mindful or a good community leader but in a way that's presented to a municipality I like that yeah efficient mindful good community leader rather than just checking the box I think that's it's a really actually beautiful ethic that can maybe also be brought to other industries that are growing so one one thing that I would say is that so in cannabis and this is where we're unique is particularly in northern california it would stem from the medical cannabis movement right which always had a layer of compassion so the first rfps that came out always had a community benefits section and portion of it because we were expected to give a certain amount to people who couldn't afford it people who were truly sick people who are truly needy and so the rfp reflected that they're like okay well what are you going to do for these people but the first rfps that came out also got cookie-cuttered on a lot of different municipalities so cannabis businesses or at least a lot of them in northern california are upheld to the standard where we have to give back it's like part of the business it's part of our agreement with the city that we have to give a percentage of river profits or donate a certain amount of time to the communities so that's something that cannabis companies are adhered to that are are great and other and really other companies should be held to that same standard yeah that you reside in a community that has other people living in businesses in it and how do you become a good community member and with good morals and ethics and and yeah and share the fruits especially of like high tech like those are some big fruits that could be better shared also inclusive stakeholder all different types of cool stuff it also seems like going from like the indigenous days of just like having crops and versus like now having governments that regulate the way that I use that which just seems like a massively different like lifestyle just a human like with their land and their different crops and farms I mean I advocate for people to be able to grow their own cannabis like people should have the right to grow their own cannabis for themselves and in their family period like I'm a big believer and proponent of that so in that sense I feel like you can still stay connected to the plant however just to go on the flip side what regulation has done is basically forced this almost impossible standard on growers to not use like harmful pesticides and have all of these nasty things toxins that used to be regularly found in cannabis and because of regulation we now like most all of the all of the cannabis they all pass they don't have any of these yucky things in them anymore so it's kind of nice in the sense that if you took raspberries from Whole Foods and put it under the same microscope and held it to the same standards as cannabis it would not pass but knowing that our industry now has developed methods of growing at match production scale that can pass our super strict testing regulations that's a huge win and that was a win because of government and that was a win because of the regulators whoa yeah that's such an interesting way to view it it's like when can regulation actually increase the safety of something that millions of people are actually using around the world yeah when it first kicked in I heard so many growers may like it will never happen we can't do this we have to use these things I guess you don't you know yeah yeah that's yeah that that's kind of stuff's really interesting I like that point a lot okay two quick questions that we ask our guests on the way out are we in a simulation oh my gosh I bet you know what I think I am I really do think I am because my whatever thing I'm in right now it's like I don't know I maybe it's manifesting or maybe it's just really like the law of attraction but the simulation I'm in right now it's like I am just any energy to anytime put the severe amount of energy towards something and ends up happening and I kind of dig it but it's also a little weird I'm like oh this is probably a simulation yes okay and then what do you think is the most beautiful thing in the world my daughter she's so cute tell us why shoot her like children like especially three year olds their face glitter their eyes twinkle because they don't understand stress they don't understand time they don't understand deadlines and they're they just sparkle and it is the most beautiful hopeful happy thing in the world and they got mama nurturing them and they don't gotta do the the bills for rent and food and no no not yet everything's just happy and mama play with me like okay we adults I want to just recruit people hey play with me like adults and like start like playing with little like discs or dancing I mean that's when we all have the most fun I mean that's why we started Highland events right like for me I love partying and I love to get people together and I love to like host things I like the fanfare of it all but then I also love cannabis so it was just perfect yeah so this has been such a fun conversation thank you thank you thank you really appreciate it really we really appreciate thanks everyone for tuning in we would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below on the episode let us know what you're thinking also check out the links in the bio below to Salwa's work also check out the links in the bio below to new west summit support the artists the entrepreneurs the organizations the leaders around your communities that you believe in you can support simulation as well our links are in the bio below and go and build the future everyone manifest your dreams into the world we love you very much thank you for tuning in we'll see you soon peace it's a wrap good job good job um proud of us that was rocking awesome I know I was really good that was super fun learning from you that was