 I'm Michael Miller, Cannabis Editor for the LA Weekly and Associate Publisher and here at the Green Market Summit hosted by the Green Market Report. And today we have the honor and privilege of interviewing a number of retired athletes, care of athletes for care, the preeminent advocacy organization for health and wellness of retired athletes and one of the greatest advocacy organizations in the non-profit space associated with the benefits of cannabis, CBD and health and wellness. Today I'm thrilled to be with Riley Coat, one of my hockey heroes from the day and Riley is going to tell us a little bit about his personal journey, his personal journey through the sport, transitioning out of the sport and what he's doing today. Pleasure to see you Riley. Yeah, thanks for having me. Good to see you as well. It's a pleasure man. So what is going on with you these days? Oh man, a lot of traveling. Yeah, I've been all over the map just along with the athletes for care program, education and I don't want to have to drive CBD brand as well, it's keeping me on the move so it's been fun. You found a good CBD brand to help you out? Absolutely, yeah. That's exactly what this mission kind of paid for me, it was providing sustainable alternatives to the traditional protocols of medicine. I think the cat's out of the bag that we've been systematically and fundamentally misled when it comes to managing chronic pain and inflammation, anxiety and sleep and there's clearly better alternatives for that and I think the cannabis and hemp plant have proven to be a solution for those types of symptoms. No question, well thanks to folks like yourselves. Let's press the rewind button a little bit. Back to the day, how many years did you play in the league? I played eight years of professional hockey and four with the Philadelphia Flyers, retired in 2010 at the age of 28, laundry list of physical injuries, I was a fighter, you know, banger grinder and I had my fair share of concussions through the fights and it kind of pushed me into the space of self-discovery and healing and really… Spiritually too, I think. Really spiritually, absolutely, yeah, that's a big, big part of it, you know. I think what I've learned from sports is that it's very egocentric and you're so worried about yourself and this identity of an athlete in this case and you know when that's over you have to redesign yourself, reinvent yourself and find yourself in a sense. So there was a sense of ego death but also, you know, really finding myself outside of the game of hockey and then really finding my own personal health. Sure. Let's talk a little bit about the recovery process and the healing process when you were in the league. Clearly the NHL had a strict policy with respect to any form of cannabis. I imagine that cannabis was still used by athletes quietly or wink, wink to get through their injuries but the biggest problem as I understand is being pushed consistently, narcotics or opiates to maintain your physical strength and to get you back on the ice. Is that an accurate representation? That is very accurate, yeah. For me personally, I think I've been blessed. I was introduced to cannabis at a young age and have had a relationship with it for some time, you know, through my junior hockey career and then into my pro hockey career in all leagues including the NHL. NHL was the only league that I had got tested for THC but nonetheless it was a real strong ally of mine in the midst of, you know, the toxic, you know, pharmaceuticals that were kind of dealt out through the locker room. So I think I had an advantage because I had a relationship with cannabis previous to being introduced to this world of pharmaceuticals which I hadn't been introduced to before I turned pro. So using cannabis, especially when I turned pro, it really started to speak to me. I really started to understand what it was doing especially when I turned pro I started fighting, fighting for a living and that's when I really started to identify with the therapeutic and medicinal benefits that the cannabis plant was giving me, just calming the nervous system, managing the anxiety night before a fight in the game and then helping me sleep. So that was when I really started to understand that there was something more than what had been told, you know, fast forward to when I was with the flyers, we were getting tested three or four times a year and I was still using cannabis on a regular basis. It was one of those things that I had kind of understood the drug testing that they really weren't penalizing people that were getting tested for THC, talking to other teammates and opponents and friends in the league. It was one of those things that it was risk versus reward. So I just ran the risk just knowing that I potentially could get slammed for this but I knew how it was helping me cope with the daily grind of life, let alone the daily grind of professional sports. So luckily enough, I didn't ever have the substance abuse program call me up and throw me in there but it certainly helped. But the challenge for me when I made the NHL was traveling via plane and that's when I started kind of leaving my cannabis products behind and started to just kind of adapt this, well, the traditional way of managing the recovery process and that was with anti-inflammatories and Ambien and that whole bit. So that's when I really started to really understand how cannabis was affecting me in a positive way and how these pharmaceutical drugs were really impacting me in a negative way. They were trying to accomplish the same thing but one is a spirit-driven plant and the other one is spiritless medicine that really has a lot of side effects. For me it was very obvious. I think for people that hadn't consumed cannabis previous it was hard for them to understand. So when I retired I guess I had an advantage if you would call it that where I already knew how I was feeling between the two of them and I knew which direction I wanted to go and I just made a choice and that was the beginning of my path and the space. And what came first, the idea to launch a product line or your advocacy? Did a light bulb go off for you? What in you Riley said? I've learned but I also want to help and teach other people. Yeah, the advocacy and education were way before the product line. I retired in 2010, 2011 I started a non-profit called the Hemp Heels Foundation really focusing on nutrition, the hemp nutrition, the digestibility of the hemp seed, the nutritional profile and then bleeding into the industrial applications and then I started to understand these non-psychotropic cannabinoids like CBD. So the first five, six years even before Athletes for Care was formed was just strictly pounding the pavement, talking about cannabis and all its forms and how it can help not just public health but environmental and economic health as well. And then eventually my advocacy efforts led to really the foundation and platform of the sports world and started meeting these other athletes, different sports that had similar stories, similar experiences with cannabis in one way, shape or form and the circuit continued and then we made it official and created an organization called Athletes for Care to really hone in on specifically the athlete creating a support system, offering alternative medicines but not selfishly just for athletes, using that platform to magnify this public health crisis that we've created in the West here specifically but also to engage in research initiatives for the general public. The common man has the exact same symptoms as the athlete. Pain is pain, inflammation is inflammation and the list goes on. So it's just really using that, I say the powerful position of the athlete and the platform of the athlete to really bring this message home. You're terrific and so you're in a period of advocacy, you're retired. What's the light bulb moment where you say, I want to do my own thing. I'm looking for things that will help me and I think I can do it better than what's out there. Well I think it was 2013 when I started to be introduced to actual CBD products when I started actually experimenting and it's been since then that I've actually been using them but it was then, I guess when 2014 came around when that previous Farm Bill had been signed into law where I went state by state, I saw this market really starting to form itself and I wasn't sure if I needed to get into it right now or at that moment I kind of positioned myself to kind of explore and see where this was going. So the idea was planted in say 2013, 2014 in that range. I didn't actually launch our product line until last year. There's a lot of education advocacy. There's really a lot of vetting, whether farmers or processors and I really want to stand behind a quality product and set that standard of not just selling out to Joe Blow's white label solution and that was really part of it too, was just navigating the real players and the imposters so but it's always been there for a long time. It's just manifest in the last year and a bit. So tell us a little bit about the product itself. Absolutely, so a company is called Body Check Wellness and we're a wellness company really focusing in on hemp extract and fused hemp capsules and topicals. We wanted to separate ourselves a little bit, not just being a CBD oil company so we do obviously really take pride in that portion of it but being progressive and being honest that Mother Nature offers more than just the hemp and cannabis plant as a healing tool. So as we know Mother Nature has given us an array of different healing herbs, roots and plants to increase our wellness and longevity and we wanted to really separate ourselves with entering the fungi kingdom. So one of our products is somewhat unique. I would think it's a full spectrum hemp capsule infused with the six different mushrooms all clinically proven for brain health, clarity, focus, endurance, immunity. So really tapping into that world knowing that the mushroom kingdom is essentially, I say untapped, it's just like cannabis I guess it's misunderstood and there's a lot of connection between the two if you want to look at the nutritional element of mushrooms and comparing it to the hemp plant and then getting into the medicinal side and getting into the industrial applications and economics. So mushrooms are very, very powerful as you read about them and learn about them and they're ancient as ancient as the cannabis plant. So just wanted to really focus on the brain, brain health. In my previous life I was a fighter, I said earlier and I've been punched in the face many of times so just really trying to... You can't tell your nose is perfect. Oh, perfect for this angle and then you put it in the light and it shows its true colors. Movie star Tom Cruise looks. Right, I've got a couple of different angles here. But yeah, really focusing on brain health. I'm obsessed with the brain, the concussion issue, the CTE. The US government holds a patent on cannabinoids as neuroprotectants and antioxidants so once you understand that and make some connections it makes a lot of sense for me, not just from an inflammatory standpoint but from a brain health standpoint to really focus in on that and create a product that supports that. This is one of the first products I've seen that combines both mushrooms and byproducts of the hemp plant. What was the catalyst for that? Do you have sort of a botanical background? Were you working with a team that made that suggestion or source, had some either anecdotal or some type of evidential data that the two of those combined would have a beneficial effect? Well, I think when I hopped on my journey of personal growth and spiritual development, I started taking a few classes through American Institute of Holistic Theology, started learning about just plant medicine in general, a little bit of Ayurvedic medicine and Chinese medicine and the mushroom is sacred. It's been around since the start of time. I think previous to plants, the fungi kingdom is kind of mastered this world so there's a ton of information and research on these different types of mushrooms for years so I was introduced to this information at the same time. I was introduced to these different elements of the cannabis and hemp plant. So I always had in the back of my mind, I was equally obsessed with the mushroom kingdom, then I was the plant kingdom and specifically the hemp and cannabis plant so when it was time to create a product, I had it in the back of my mind that I wanted to do that and I seen the products that were in the marketplace and there were a lot of the same exact things. It was just white labeling, just standard oil and we do have full spectrum oils and isolates and that which should work wonderful but this I just wanted to separate ourselves and have kind of a brain formula and just attack the market with something a little bit unique but it's always been a passion of mine. I love mushrooms equally as much as I do hemp and cannabis and I think the next big play is psilocybin in that world so we're getting there. Sure. What are the values that an athlete brings to the launch of a new business as an entrepreneur? I think the biggest thing is work ethic. They've got to drive their discipline if they're kept in their lane and they really do want to use their platform to do better. I think what I've learned is that these guys just need to be thrown in their lane, a lot of energy they have but when you're playing pro sports or any sport for that matter, everything is very regimented from the schedule they hand you at the start of the season, the daily schedule for video practice workouts, telling you what to wear, what to eat, everything is regimented for you so I think when you're on your own there's a little bit of a distracted behavior and I think athletes all have these unique qualities of work ethic and attitude and teamwork and it's powerful qualities but if it's not harnessed in the right direction it can get lost. So I think once I had this definitive purpose it was easy for me to take all these skills that I had honed for years and just being a pro and really started focusing those efforts on a specific product line that was outside of sports but nonetheless was able to use those as a powerful vehicle to help grow the brand. You're terrific. Let's talk for a minute about Athletes for Care. In addition to being an advocacy organization for health and wellness, tell me a little bit more about the multiple areas that Athletes for Care is interested in, the nature of folks that are involved and how our viewers can get involved and support the organization. Sure, Athletes for Care is a few layers now. Originally it started out as a support system for say retiring or retired players. We saw a lot of guys struggling with pain issues, identity crisis, substance abuse, and a lot of this stemmed off when they transitioned out of the game. They were dealing with pain and suffering with unsustainable resources, again the traditional medicines that we were talking about. So there's a lot of struggle, a lot of darkness there. So as that began to roll out, that's still part of what we do is helping these guys, offering education and introducing these guys to alternatives. Not just hemp and cannabis, there's many other alternatives as well, but that seems to be a primary focus of ours because it's very real and it works almost immediately. So just helping these guys fill their toolbox up with sustainable tools. And then it evolved into opportunity. As we know, the cannabis and hemp space has, there's a lot of opportunity and we're in the space of healing and helping others. So you talk about the ego death we talked about earlier and giving these guys a new definitive purpose, giving back and helping people in their communities and abroad. So that element, business opportunities, whether it was investment opportunity or job opportunities, job placement. And then just the research component, obviously we need some real tangible research to validate all these anecdotal stories we're all sharing. That component is not just again selfishly for the athletes. That's the research we want to get out to the general public because as we know, we all need this. We all need this and so there's a few arms, but the cannabis and hemp portion of it again are just the small pieces to the overall conversation of wellness. So we really talk about mindfulness in the sense of meditation and yoga and these mindful practices that help create healthier minds and people. Because as we know, it's not just one tool that's gonna help us. It's a series of tools and behaviors and I think going back to your last comment about athletes and to the product line space, they also have the same disciplines to take care of themselves and care for themselves. Unfortunately, their whole pro career and actually the whole careers in general have essentially been misled. So they've been accustomed to these unsustainable ways of managing themselves because it's a business of getting back on the field or back on the ice. It's not about longevity and it's not about sustainability. So if you can reprogram their minds with this discipline of how to take care of themselves, a lot of these guys have it in them to do that. It's just again, when you're in the business of sports, it's nothing to do with health, wellness and longevity. It's just about serving your position on the ice for that team in that moment and you're very replaceable. So you don't think like that at the time because you're so set on living out your dream and playing for the team and that whole bit. But once it's over, it's like, you really have to reevaluate the things that you were taught and how am I gonna make it in the real world now and with the stuff I've learned. Sure, final question Riley, which I imagine you think about often. Your sport, the NHL, if you look into the ice crystal ball and where you think the educational transition will be when there is an opening to accept the new world of the health and wellness benefits of the cannabis plant, how do you see that playing out with the league of the sport that you dedicated so much of your life to? I'd like to think the NHL is probably the most progressive when it comes to the major sports leagues. I don't always say that because the NHL Alumni Association signed a deal with Canopy Growth and they invested $20 million to study CBD in the brain that concussions and brain health for 100 retired players at least to start with. So at least they're proactive in that regards where that data is supposed to essentially push the Players Association to say, hey, we got some tangible data here and this is how it's helping our players which will ultimately move on to the NHL as an organization itself. So I'd like to think being in Canada with their say the progressive laws even though it's kind of fake legalization, nonetheless it is progress if you could call it that. It's on the radar for all these teams in the NHL so I'd like to think that the next year or two at the very least see them stop testing for THC. I think until the US federal government changes their stance, the complicated part is that border because they can't really endorse it because then all of a sudden it's like, well, now we're telling our players to travel with this and it's complicated but it's progressive compared to NFL even though they're using the cannabis and hem play as a bargaining chip for their collective bargaining agreement at least in the NHL world. There's some research going on so I think that's a start for sure. I'm keep pounding at home. I mean, I do my best to get in front of these guys. I've been in front of the original six alumni and just planting seeds. There's a lot of these old guys that really don't have a clue. They're hearing buzz words but there's still a lot of unknowns and misinformation around it so the more information we get out there, more education, even if it's not through the NHL itself or NHL alumni itself, it's one-on-one just helping guys out individually. It's really what it's all about because it's word of mouth because this stuff really does work and help one guy help another and help another. He helps another and it's contagious. It is contagious. So what I'm hearing is that we'll see a body check wellness and an athlete's for care commercial and the Stanley Cup playoffs well before the Super Bowl. Oh, I would love to see that. It'd be an absolute dream. I'd love to see it too. Well, Riley, thank you so much for coming today. You're a pleasure. You're an icon and you're someone that people my age and my young son at 15 can look up to. Thank you for everything you do to push the ethics of the values of this plant and of basic human rights of revolving around compassion and the benefits for everybody. And thank you athletes for caring everything you do for that organization to providing advocacy and education. Really pleasure to be with you today and thank you for all you do. Thank you. I appreciate it. It's very nice.