 Good evening, and thank you for joining us here at the Mechanics Institute at 57 Post Street in San Francisco. I'm Laura Shepherd, Director of Events, and we're very pleased to welcome you to our program, Think and Drink, which is an ongoing series that happens every Wednesday, first Wednesday of the month, and our topic today is the Future of Cannabis, which is moderated by Walter Thompson of Hoodline with an esteemed panel. But first, I'd like to find out if any of you are new to the Mechanics Institute, who's new? Who's never been here before? Wonderful, welcome. I'd like to invite you to come on Wednesday at noon for a tour of our institute. The librarians will show you our vast library collection, and also show you our international chess room, which is right down the hallway, and tell you about our history, founded in 1854. We offer author events and different kinds of panels and programs like this one tonight, as well as writer's group and different classes and courses, and of course the chess room has ongoing tournaments and workshops for chess. So please join us, consider becoming a member, and just be part of our ever-growing cultural family here at the Mechanics Institute. So now I'd like to pass over the microphone to Walter Thompson. Thanks very much. Can you all hear me? It's my first question. No. Okay. Well, let's work on that. Hello? Hello? Okay. That's closer. Oh, jeez. All right. Okay. Can we hear me? Excellent. So first off, thanks very much for being here this evening. I'm glad to have a very esteemed panel discussion for this topic. We're talking about the future of cannabis, and joining us on the end, we're starting with Amanda Conley. She's a partner at Brandon Branch LLP and founding treasurer of the National Cannabis Bar Association. Amanda has a diversified practice focused on intellectual property and legal issues in emerging technologies and in the cannabis industry. She's represented many companies, including software and hardware companies, cannabis-infused edible producers, startups focusing on technology, cannabis, home design, education and gaming, and a major grocery store chain. Next to Amanda, we have Nina Parks, who is a first and foremost an artist and then a social entrepreneur, San Francisco native, or California native? San Francisco. Very good. Born in a fascination with the concept of justice and a passion to defend the right for a person to grow and express themselves. Her early childhood, I'm sorry, early adulthood led her to become a case manager and community organizer who strongly believes in the ability to use our collective imagination and logic to build a better tomorrow. She now owns Mirage Medicinal, her family's holistic cannabis lifestyle brand, a delivery service here in San Francisco. Next to Nina, we have former Oakland Mayor Gene Kwan, who served as Oakland's first woman and first Asian-American mayor, and also is a 35-year resident of the city, previously served neighborhoods and families for eight years in the city council, 12 years in the school board, and she's been a lifelong fighter for civil rights, economic and environmental justice, education and youth, and neighborhood advocacy. Currently, Kwan and her husband, Floyd Hume, are a physician, are partnering with the apothecarium to open a medicinal marijuana dispensary in the outer sunset in San Francisco. We'll talk about that a little bit, too. And finally next to me is Andrea Unsworth, who's the founder of Stash Twist, a delivery only dispensary in the Bay Area. She's also the co-founder of Supernova Women, an organization that educates and promotes the advancement of individuals and businesses owned by people of color in the cannabis industry. She's currently a financial analyst at Green Rush Consulting, helping investors navigate the fast-moving and highly complex cannabis industry, and fostering the development of entrepreneurs who are building businesses. So thanks very much for our panel. So diving in. Pardon me, I'm a little warm, I'm sure I'll cool off here, but anyway. I think it's some general facts and kind of figures here, basically. But I wanted to ask a couple of questions of the audience to kind of get the reading of the room. How many of you have smoked marijuana ever? Just show of hands. All right. So how many of you have smoked pot in the last five years? All right. How many of you have cannabis recommendations? More of you should have, though. I'm sorry. And by that I mean a recommendation from a doctor that you took to a dispensary to, okay. And my final question is, how many of you smelled marijuana on your way here this evening? Okay. It's a pretty hip crowd. So the numbers indicate in California that we have, you know, we have quite a bit of people who use it medicinally and recreationally. Probably about 19.4 people of every 10,000 have a recommendation to smoke marijuana. The New England Journal of Medicine, eight out of 10 doctors in 2015 approved the use of medicinal marijuana. And last year, voters in California approved Prop 64, which legalizes possession of up to one ounce and six plants, do I have that correct? Great. So it seems as though marijuana is no longer the guilty secret it used to be in the show pan, certainly. So looking into like diving in, if you could kind of each kind of sum up for us, how did you get into the cannabis industry starting at the end? Sure. Can you hear me okay? Yes? All right. Great. Thanks. So I'm an attorney that I primarily work with cannabis clients and I do intellectual property work for those companies. And I came into this space very fortuitously. I was at a large firm here in the city. I moved to a smaller boutique IP firm in Berkeley, and that firm was starting to do some work in the cannabis space. They had a lot of wine clients, excuse me, and it lent itself pretty easily to help cannabis clients in other highly regulated industries with their trademark and intellectual property needs. And so when I started, they said, you know, if you want to become the foremost expert in cannabis trademarks, we can do that for you. And I was like, I absolutely want that. That sounds amazing. I hadn't thought about this field, but it merges two things I love, trademark law and cannabis, and I get to enjoy this. So I jumped head first into the industry. I went to the first National Cannabis Industry Association conference that I attended. It was actually four years ago this week because most of us just came from a NCIA, National Cannabis Industry Association conference over in Oakland. And I was immediately just sort of in love with the industry, the community, the excitement, the energy, and the fact that when I walk into a room and say I'm a lawyer, people get excited instead of turned off, which is usually the response that I get. So I was like, I found a home. I really want to stay here. And so the firm that I was working for was not as excited as I was, I think, about working in the cannabis industry, although they are keeping a toe in. But my colleague and I there actually decided to launch our own firm a little over two years ago called Brandon Branch, and that's where we are now serving almost exclusively cannabis clients. And around the time that we started that firm, we also started the local chapter of an organization called Women Grow, which is not just for women cultivators. It's for women entrepreneurs in this space. And actually Andrea took over running that for us for a bit as well. And so that was a really exciting opportunity to get involved with a different side of things than just providing legal services. So it's been about three years for me in the industry and it's a wonderful place. I love it. I love the people. I love the work. That's how I got here. Nina. That's awesome. We're lucky to have you in our industry, really. All right, so I'm Nina Parks. I grew up here in San Francisco. How I got involved in the cannabis industry was that my brother was arrested in New York for cannabis, for cannabis charge. And he did a year at Rikers Island. So I had a choice. As a former case manager, I have done a lot of work with young people that were incarcerated at YGC here in San Francisco. I've done a lot of diversion programs here in San Francisco, like by after-school programming, job readiness, food pantry, all these other things. So in working in that field and having to coach young people through being institutionalized or having to meet up against this system and still become productive members of their community and also have to deal with all the mental health blocks that happen with people that meet up against that experience in this institution, I was definitely afraid for my brother's mental health because Rikers is ugly and it sucks. So having that choice, I was like, you know what? I know how to get things up and running and I can. I love weed. I love it. I was born on 420. I really feel like this is a life calling more than anything. So I told my brother, I will take over your paperwork for this business that he wanted to roll out and it was kind of like if we want, we can talk about like the true history of the cannabis industry at a point probably 10 years from now. Anyways, lawyer joke, anyhow. But I took over the business. It's a lifestyle brand. It's a wellness lifestyle brand because we don't think that this is either medicinal nor recreational. We definitely believe in it as a wellness aid. And I got the delivery service up and running because we didn't have enough money anymore due to lawyer fees and all sorts of other things to start a dispensary. So here we are with a delivery service and my brother has been out for a year now. I've been running Mirage medicinal for three. I also, because we're in a very interesting time and I'm sure we'll talk about it too, I co-founded with Andrea Unsworth, Supernova Women. So we've been doing a lot of educational seminars making all this information that's like at NCIA and other places available for people of color at no cost to low cost, depending on what people are willing to give. We definitely encourage people providing financial support to a community that they want to get information from. And also I do a lot of state-wide coalition building in regards to delivery services because up until Tuesday we didn't have any language for non-storefront dispensaries. So fingers crossed and within the budget trailer bill tomorrow it might get approved and we can go ahead and start regulating delivery services. But that's me in the industry in that shell. Excellent. Mayor Quinn. I'm not, I'm an owner. I will maybe be an owner. My husband's actually the one for me walking in like, couldn't drop him out. I'm the one who's gotten me more into this. But I was one of the first local legislators to actually build out local legislation. Oklahoma was one of the first cities to actually tap and regulate medical marijuana. You can't hear me? Hello? Oh, that's as much louder. Okay, I'm sorry. Can you turn the volume down a little bit? Okay. So Oakland was one of the first cities that actually wrote a local ordinance. The state ordinance was around for a long time and we thought they would give us more direction. They never did. The feds were sending contradictory things. But my experience with marijuana other than being a teenager at Berkeley was mostly through working with the community. And what really moved me to write the local legislations and many of you know my husband's a doctor. He was the doctor for the men's clinic before AIDS had a name. And so before the cocktail was developed and most people were dying painfully. He was prescribing marijuana to help people keep their appetite up, particularly when the cocktail was developed and probably the medical marijuana saved many lives because it muted the pain and provided them with the appetite and the ability to face the HIV epidemic at that time. Then later after being medical director at Highland, he was the medical director for over 60s and had to deal with a lot of end stage patients. And that's actually where I came in. We were talking about friends of ours whose mother was dying. And these are pretty middle class African Americans. And I said, so where are you gonna send them for marijuana? And I said, and how do you know it's not gonna be contaminated? Because at that time there was a lot of PCP and other things being put into cheaper marijuana. And I really realized that we needed to have regulated and tested and safe sources of medical marijuana if you really cared about the medical revolution. And then recently he's been dealing with disabled people. And we all know the opioid epidemic kills about 30,000 plus. And so he uses marijuana to get people off of opiate addiction, et cetera. So it sort of fall through his career, my interest. And when I wrote this, I'll just say these two things. When I wrote this, I didn't realize that I would end up being really defending the decriminalization of lower level sales because too many young black men in the state in this country have gone to jail for very small marijuana sales. And had a little public debate with President Obama in the early days at the White House. But he forgave me. And then later really have been working and testifying at other cities to say that actually crime has gone down at every medical marijuana dispensary that we've opened. There's no proof that we're gonna corrupt children, et cetera. So I ended up being sort of an expert witness at the state legislature and at different city councils over the time. So that's really where I came in. But we didn't expect anything. Well, like I never let my husband get involved in the industry because I wrote the legislation and implemented the whole process in Oakland. But when he was interested here because of the huge gap in the Asian community, I've been very supportive of that. And we certainly didn't expect to run into a right wing, co-funded religious group. But that's where we are. Hi, my name is Andrea Unsworth. Can you hear me okay? So I am a California native. I moved here about 2008. And I have a finance background, have an MBA. And so my initial entrance into the industry was actually as I was writing some research when I was working for Moody's Financial Services and working with investors who were curious about what was gonna happen in Colorado and Washington, which were the states that I covered. What was gonna happen to the bonds? Because we're, you know, is this backed by marijuana money and what happens and what does that mean? And no one really wanted to talk about it or touch it in terms of the financial papers, right? So wrote a couple of pieces first about Colorado and then Washington that were picked up. And in the meantime, I had kind of reached a peak at my position. I also had two toddlers who were going into daycare, which is really expensive. And I thought if I was ever going to start my own business and have an opportunity, this seemed like a great way because I was already starting to make contacts just from doing some research. So being in Oakland, I partnered up actually with my father. He is a vet who was on opioids. He was taking Vicodin eight pills a day for 15 years. He moved up here three and a half years ago to help me out with my toddlers. And I said, dad, if there's one thing I have to do, it's get you off Vicodin. So I gave him two weeks of some, we kind of started with all THC and one-to-one CBD to THC so that it was alleviating the pain, but it was also helping with the depression that was coming with being on Vicodin for 15 years because there's all these other side effects that people don't talk about, realizing that you're gonna be stuck to this pill for the rest of your life if you just wanna get up and walk around. So anyway, fast forward, we became partners. He was working as a security guard for a big high rise in San Francisco at the time, working 3 a.m. to 9 a.m. as a 64-year-old man. He never saw his grandkids, he never saw me. Now we're working side-by-side, 50-50. He's got a much better life. He gets off at 3 p.m., he picks up the kids. It's, I mean, lifestyle, it's priceless. It's priceless, even if we make nothing more than living what it costs to live, the lifestyle and the culture and the people that we are with, being able to spend every single day with my father, it's priceless. So that's why I'm in it, that's why I stay in it. I also have family who have suffered from the war on drugs directly and indirectly. I am very passionate about it from that aspect and then being able to also operate my business and employ other folks with it. It seems like a perfect combination of all of those things and what else could I ask for? Thanks for all that. I'm kind of wondering though, so you're all relatively reasoned to the industry, but if you're comfortable saying so, you can kind of go down the line and indicate how old you are the first time you tried cannabis, starting with Andrea. The first time, I was one of those straight A, straight lay students. I also, alcoholism ran in my family, so I was really afraid of addiction. I actually did drink a bit when I was in college, more than I like to admit. I actually kind of wish I had discovered marijuana earlier, to be honest, waking up after alcohol is much different than waking up after getting a little high. So, but went through business school without using cannabis actually and I didn't kind of rediscover it until really life just kind of took its hold on me. I lost a child very young and so lost a job and kind of seeing the pieces and was like, what am I gonna do just for the day to day? And so that was a way to kind of start healing without, yeah. I'm sorry, would you repeat the question? How old were you when you had your first cannabis experience? See, my high school teacher's dead now, but my favorite Berkeley graduate drama teacher in my school let us have a bit of his joint when we did summer theater. So that would be 16. Nina? Yeah, first time I tried cannabis, I was 16 years old, did not stick. I like took a bong rip, threw up in front of my friend's driveway and I was like, I'm never doing this again. Then I was in Amsterdam when I was 21 and that was a whole different experience. Being able to actually walk into a cafe, select my tea, select my bud, have a nice tea setup and they had all the provisions that you needed to roll on the table. It felt so chic, you know? So I was like, I can do this, you know? And yeah, since then it's been a different kind of relationship, so yeah. I have a similar experience to Andre as I was a straight eight student, very nervous about doing anything wrong, didn't touch anything till college. I tried drinking because people were drinking around me, that seemed okay, but some people were smoking pot and that was trouble I didn't want to deal with. And then after college, someone convinced me to try it. It didn't do anything the first time and then I think just as I started graduate school before I went to law school, I then really got into it because I moved to Colorado, probably. And then I loved it and I was like, oh my gosh, this makes me thoughtful and interesting and we can dig into these ideas and so I just had this really, you know, grad student-like relationship to it and then I would see teenagers consuming and being like, why are you doing my intellectual drug? You know, it's very different and now I've come to understand it can be so many things to so many people but it took me a while to get there. I just want to make very clear, I'm very straight overall too. I haven't probably smoked since Berkeley and being quite frankly a schoolboy member and whatever. And you know, when you're the first Asian and you're a minority, you have to walk an extra straight line so I have not smoked since Berkeley. I want to make that very clear to my right wing constituents. No one's judging anyone here. But it's funny because it seems as though based on your own experiences that there is still, we can acknowledge there's still a stigma around marijuana in some extent, medical or recreational otherwise. We all kind of agree with that. So what do you think would, and this is a question for the entire panel, what would change that? What would get rid of that stigma that would make it as mainstream as you know, an old fashioned or a beer? Well, I definitely, it starts with even something as small as you'll notice that we're using the word cannabis, right? A lot tonight even in our title because even the word marijuana, how it came about and how it's been used for over 30 years and what the connotations are around that. Even little things like that can mean things to people using the word like pot, using weed. We don't really, in our everyday, we pretty much stick to cannabis. That's kind of the preferred wording today. So even starting with things like that and then I know maybe my colleagues have some other ideas as to how we move forward with that. Well, can I answer that actually? Cause like, so for example, if you walk into a bill, if a person walked into a dispensary, they might find a variety of marijuana called green crack. Mm-hmm, they might, yeah. Which is, there's weird dichotomies, there's weird paradox and that you're there for something that's wellness oriented, medicinal in nature and it's being marketed as something that's kind of illicit and not healthy. So like, so how much of that is the industry's responsibility versus consumers? I think, go ahead, finish. I definitely think that will continue to be, in some ways it was about, it was popularity. It's just like Instagram and everything else, it's about getting attention and getting, making a play like that. So I think that will always exist. I do remember that vendors would even come to me and say that this is green crack but I'm calling it XYZ and because they knew that consumers were turned off by the name at that time. So, they were definitely real. I think there are gonna be two roads. Clearly, ever since my husband's been on TV and people think I'm selling pot, a lot of my very middle class friends and particularly the activists because we go on these long marches against Trump all the time now, people are saying, you know, I've been using it because of my hip, because of my knee, et cetera, et cetera and also along the Gen X, I know that they don't smoke so much, they actually love the edibles. So, because I once stood at the spot to carry and sort of interviewed people as they were coming through because I just wanted to know what the market is. And it's clear among some people, among the Gen X, particularly the VATS, et cetera, that they've used it instead of drinking. They've used it to not become alcoholics anymore. They've used it in general. And so, you know, this whole new generation is using it the way, I guess, our mothers use Valium or other kinds of things to try to get through life. And there's that one rule. But the other thing that's happening is there's a revolution finally happening in the medical marijuana field. And I know some people are cynical, and they, oh, that's just an excuse so that people can smoke pot legally and that's probably true. But the medical, when the American College of Physicians and the California Medical Association starts giving courses on how to prescribe, you know, they're finally realizing that actually there are a growing number of illnesses that it's probably irreplaceable. Anything from migraine headaches to chronic pain, right? Because the opiate epidemic people are turning to that. And so, for a long time, doctors haven't really been prescribing it, not looking at the literature. I was very surprised that my husband told me how many of his colleagues actually didn't prescribe it even though they could prescribe it and didn't know how to prescribe that. Well, that changed in January and February when the College of Physicians basically said, hey, these 18 diseases looks like it has a real impact on it and that they're trying to unlock the federal restrictions on Schedule I drug so we could do research and find out more. But probably what's really gonna do the revolution in terms of medical marijuana is China's poise with 100 of the 300 patents for medical cannabis prescriptions. They're poised to be ready to go. So even though it's illegal and a lot of people use it in China, but it's not official and I wouldn't use it as a foreigner, but it really has been part of people's prescriptions for about 4,000 years. I was surprised when my acupuncturist told me that he actually put marijuana seeds in his little potions because apparently that's not restricted, never was restricted. So he puts it in for menstrual and different kinds of women's issues and it has been for decades, right? So it's going to be this two levels. So it's gonna be among the youth, it's gonna be one thing and then doctors actually prescribing it and now that you can have it dose control and without the high, that's gonna be a huge growing market and that's what you have to worry about the pharmaceutical company is taking it over. Yeah, that is an issue. Yeah. Yes, they're poised to do something for sure. Take it over. We're trying for that not to happen. So let's see. The question exactly was how can we get rid of the stigma? Okay. Partially I think is allowing for consumption spaces, right? So allowing for event centers, allowing for cafes or yoga studios or whoever it is that wants to be able to have a collective cannabis experience, right? Or have a social cannabis experience like allowing people to actually have that and licensing it or permitting it. I know Oakland have the measure Z club so that was a good start and being able to allow people to just be human in their use versus asking them. Not interrupt, sorry. So for the audience might not know, can you explain what a measure Z club is? I think, Gene Kwan can probably explain it better. Yeah. I actually don't know if they've licensed any clubs yet. No? No. No. Okay, right. And the difference is it's a big debate. It's a big debate here in San Francisco with the people getting ready for 2018 is whether or not you're gonna allow onsite usage or whether people just have taken home like any other product or whatever. So it's not clear. We'll see who gets a new eight application as to whether or not there will be any clubs right now there are no clubs. Got it. Thanks for that. I want to get back to you. The measure Z thing. Right. So is it basically, my understanding is it's more like kind of a speak easy? Yeah, kind of like a speak easy thing. They can't, so there's no, yeah, social club. There's no like cannabis sales. It's not supposed to be like a dispensary. They can't take money for anything. It's just like come through, BYE, OB, you know, snacks are included actually. Most of the time, it's just nice. Just good. But part of the issue of just saying that people can go to the dispensary, purchase their cannabis and then take it home with them, is that a lot of people live in apartments, right? That is, they're at risk of being able to lose their apartments if they are in a section eight housing like complex. It is not okay for people that live in section eight to smoke marijuana so they are at risk of also losing it even if they were a medical cannabis patient. So having social settings to allow people to interact, it gets rid of the stigma because we can actually build with each other and figure out what our community actually looks like versus telling people that they have to go hide and be in their dark basements or in an alleyway, that doesn't feel good so that will continue the stigma unless we figure out what does the social interaction between people that like you said, you can go get an old fashioned or you can go ahead and get a wonderful artisanal margarita somewhere, right? But what happens to cannabis in an adult use market? So that's one of my, one of my many ideas. Yes. Yeah, I've seen a lot of parallels in this industry since I got involved between the LGBT movement and then the movement for sort of legalization and recognition as a legitimate industry and what that makes me think of in regards to this question is, I agree with you completely, there are these two tracks we're seeing both get very strengthened and that's how the stigma is gonna be broken down and I hope that that is true and that we allow for a diversity of experiences and uses within cannabis just as we do within the LGBT community and the thing I think about there is so, you know, a great way to get people like from Wisconsin where I'm from on board with cannabis is to talk about children have seizures, right? And this medicinal use, I mean, who would not want that? Right, I mean, it's not controversial, we can all support that. But we need to accept cannabis for what it is, especially given that we accept alcohol for what it is, not just if it's medical and serving children so I think about like gay pride parades and people say, well, why do they do that? Why do they get so flamboyant? Most of my gay friends aren't like that anyway. It's because we're supposed to be accepting of this whole rainbow of people and maybe it's a stretched metaphor but I kind of think that we need to have this acceptance within all of the different ways that we consume and enjoy cannabis, whether you're doing bong hits of green crack or you're using CBD topicals or tinctures or something for your child who has seizures. You know, I think there, I hope that we can see the stigma fall away on multiple levels just as it becomes a lot more public and the awareness helps. I think it starts on the medical side but I hope it gets a lot bigger. So my observation reaction to that would be how much of it is cultural, I suppose, within the industry itself? And my example would be, I went to a cannabis expo in Santa Rosa a few years ago at a fairgrounds and it had a very festival carnival atmosphere. It was very much geared towards young men. There were, I can't remember the last expo I went to where there were bikini women like in stiletto heels walking around. Like that was kind of a new thing as far as medicine to me. So how much of this is, again, is the industry kind of like perpetuating these stereotypes versus people like you who are trying to open things up? Yeah, you know, as a woman in the industry and in any industry really like we are subject to man brain, no offense to you guys but it's what imagines the world and then has like the backing to go do it. So we're like subjected to these very uncomfortable like cannabis experiences, at least for me because I'm just like, is that cemetery? Did you like sweat or something like that? Anyway, but like we have other things like yoga events that we actually, I do two of them a month where we actually have like a facilitated experience with people using cannabis and then a really like thoughtful yoga stretching session that also is in tune with astrology and the moon. They're called mirage moon yoga events. And then there's other people that do like paint nights. So they have like a paint by number kind of thing where it's a guided paint experience and then like you can smoke or like a dinner where they pair like the terpenes, terpenes are the essential oils that they find in cannabis. You also find them in many other essential oils that you have like lemon, like there's lemonine and like a bit of care for lean, right? Which is like pepper, right? All these other things, but they actually pair the terpenes and the bud with the food that comes out. So it's actually kind of like a wine experience. So it is, I mean, it's on us as creators of the industry to provide other community kind of experiences. And then it's up to the greater community at large to either be accepting or create legislation or vote for legislation that allows us to do that. And I will say, I've been very pleased to see groups like Supernova and Women Grow take people to task for the kinds of exploitation and sort of inappropriate imagery and things that you're talking about. I do think that the cannabis industry suffers from a lot of problems, the war on drugs and the historical disproportionate effects on people of color obviously continue and we still have white people running most of the companies in cannabis today. It is a problem. Nevertheless, we are a more liberal, socially aware bunch on the whole. And I think there is, I'm optimistic that I've seen this and that it's gonna be increasing, that there is a lot more recognition that we need to do things right from the start. We're building a huge industry. We need to recognize the importance of diversity from the start and that includes not marginalizing people by turning them into objects and things like that. So I do think, yes, there is a form of accountability that's required for us to sort of make the culture fit in with today's culture at least and the sort of standards that we expect and I'm optimistic it's happening. And in fact, you know in Oakland, under the next application process, they're gonna have eight new licenses and half of them, you can't use race, but half of them have to be owned by people who live in the neighborhood, which is pretty much because even though we're a very diverse city and the neighborhoods are changing very rapidly, it will mean in several of those neighborhoods, people of color, which color I'm not sure, because we're changing pretty quickly and they also tried to give extra points for people who may have actually been harmed by the whole war on drugs, the people who had been incarcerated. So it's an interesting experiment. We'll see if it gets challenged legally, but it is clearly, when Floyd and I were looking at what was happening, we couldn't find any other places that are owned by Asians or partially owned by Asians as our application would be, which is sort of interesting given that the Asian community is probably 40% of the population in the city and it's not just cultural because of what the right-wing religious groups are saying. It is clearly, I think, opportunity, maybe stigma, but it's gonna be, at least for a short period of time, worth a lot of money, so almost everybody's looking at it and so the question is will there be equal opportunity for particularly all these young black women here to become big players and because they've been, you're really sort of, these two young ladies are sort of in at the ground level in terms of expanding how you can get medical and other kinds of marijuana maybe in the future and so they should have a role and the question is whether or not there will be those economic opportunities and then everyone's gonna be challenged at the pharmaceutical company besides the coming, like a lot of people predict it within eight years, particularly after it's moved from schedule one that the pharmaceutical companies are just poised to come in really big. Andrea, you wanted to jump in? I was just gonna add that it is also really amazing considering this is a female plant that there are so many women that are running this industry. I mean, we talked about women grow, there are just some powerhouse phenomenal women that are doing amazing things. I would say probably definitely half of my vendors that are on my shelf are women-owned companies, local, Oakland moms who are growing small batch, local just to get some income on the side, they can't go to a large brick and mortar because they don't make enough, they don't generate 30 pounds, but they love what they do and they put love into it and if I can give them 5, 10,000 to help them out, that's huge for them. So that's also A, the importance of delivery which a lot of delivery services are run by women and B, the importance to further down the supply chain, the growers, the women who are growers, the women who are making edibles, the women who are making topicals, women who are making all kinds of products and then we're able to take that in onto our shelves, our smaller shelves, but we're small but mighty. So I think that's another important aspect in trying to battle those stigmas as well is seeing powerful women owning their businesses, not just working for a cannabis company. Yeah. That's great. By the way, I had no idea that any of you knew each other when I invited you. Oh, no, really? Yeah. I was like, we have a good industry, we have a very good community. Yeah. Speaking about delivery services, I know that that's a large part of not everyone who wants to go to a dispensary, not everyone can go to a dispensary. So Express is a percentage estimating. How much of the local Bay Area market is delivery versus dispensaries? My, I think when we look at the numbers based on taxes, again, it's reported, not everyone reports. We were somewhere around 40 to 45%. So it is a very large piece of the industry, definitely. And it's a spectrum of folks who are ordering, right? I think what's interesting is the most prototypical stereotype of what you might think of a cannabis user, which to be honest, I don't even know what that maybe looks like anymore. But we're all over the spectrum. I've got folks we keep anonymity, but folks who are like, I've got to speak in front of the California Supreme Court tomorrow. I get really nervous. I've got anxiety. I need CBD. I'm like, okay, we'll get you that. And they're like, but it's also my birthday on Saturday. So I want something with a little, little something else for afterwards. So we're like, okay, we'll get you that. It's all over, all over the map. One of the first women that I helped, I had a private party and I just kind of launched it for 20 friends. Everyone bring a friend. This is what I'm doing. This was three years ago. And this woman brought her mom and she said, you know, you gave me these little blueberries covered in chocolate that have five milligrams of THC. She said, I'm a cancer patient. I wake up every morning and I can't take my meds. I have no appetite. I'm depressed. She said that five milligrams. I wake up every morning looking forward to it. And not only is it helping with my depression and my appetite, it changes the entire rest of my day. I want to be with my family. I want to be up. I want to be continuing to go throughout the day, five milligrams a piece, a little chocolate covered blueberry, and it's changing her entire life. So that right there, once, you know, that combined with my father coming off of Vicodin, it was a no-brainer to go forward. It was more about how to make it happen rather than should I make it happen. I bet you if there's a pole, the blueberries would come right up on top for women. It's easy to dose control. I want to say one of the things you have to be cautious about, though, is like in our battle in the sunset, people say, oh, well, you can just get delivered because you're saying the sunset's like one neighborhood where just the apothecary alone has 4,000 patients and they have to come all the way to market and they say, oh, well, it can be just delivered. I think what my husband would say is that particularly in the beginning when you're controlling your dosages, just like any other medication, everybody reacts differently and maybe because there are so many great home differences, people really sometimes need to experiment with different kinds of dosages, different kinds of plants. The more and more I'm learning about this, clearly some plants are better than other, depending on what you have. And so some kind of combination between delivery and maybe a place where you have a wide variety and then of course, I don't want to make this an ad, but my husband's probably the only doctor on call for a medical cannabis dispensary, right? So if they have an actual medical issue, they'll call him, he's on call and then he'll give some suggestions on what they should do and he'll come in for consultation. I think as we move towards it becoming more broadly used, that's nexus between what product, the dose control and the doctor is gonna come actually more critical. So that's something that we're gonna have to evolve and develop. Nina, do you have a, is there a, what is your typical, I probably can't answer the question, is there a typical delivery patient for Mirage? I mean, what do you? There is no typical delivery patient. Like when we formed the brand, we thought of like a brand demographic that we were trying to hit, but like when it comes to people who actually utilize the service, it's a, I can't even, I couldn't even tell you, like throughout the day, it's like the business, you know, the entrepreneur that, you know, is like working at a cafe and it has to do some coding or something and then you have another person that's like a music producer and like it's a cross board that just throughout the day there's no, like yeah, there's no particular archetype for us. And a follow-up question for you and Andrea would be, how do people find you? I mean, I know you can do some marketing and there's social media and stuff, but how do you put yourself out there and how do you compete as a dispensary or as a delivery? I think initially a lot of us went on to weed maps to start with and then we're like, dude, this cost is so great. Like it took a chunk out of my marketing budget, you know, it's like a kind of like yelp for cannabis. Yeah, it's like yelp for cannabis. So it's like a listing and it just, you know, anyways. So we started off there, it's kind of like when a lot of people first rolled out their delivery services, when you got on weed maps, you like opened your doors. It was like the same thing. But after a while I was like, word of mouth works really well, like referrals, like, you know, giving incentives to patients in order to bring their friends to utilize their service as well. And then like I started getting a lot of press coverage so that helps a lot. Weedekit, Weisland, Weedekit, like that one. Although that one's kind of awkward because it's all people from like, Arkansas and Nebraska and I'm like, I really can't do anything for you guys. But when you come here, I got you. Yeah, I would definitely say, given the regulatory environment, you know, we are very deliberate in where we advertise and how we have limited places where we can in the first place. And the ones that are, they, a lot of them are price gouge. So, you know, they know that they're the only place, the back page of XYZ newspaper and that spot may be locked up for five or 10 years. So, also in terms of our business model, you know, we want to scale at a certain level. We want to grow pretty slowly, to be honest, just because of the environment that we're in. I mean, two days ago, we didn't even exist. We're halfway there. So we don't know what tomorrow brings. And given that environment, we've chosen to do a lot of the word of mouth, a lot of private events. But also, unlike a dispensary, we're less focused on getting numbers through the door. We're more focused on keeping the customers, the patients that we have happy and getting them to order more, to be honest. As they start to get educated about products and they go, oh, that will work for sleep and that will work for when I'm awake and that will work for my pain. Oh, and then I'm gonna get, you know, a way to, to medicate different ways, different times. And so then you go from, you know, walking into a dispensary, buying a quick eighth off the counter and sitting down in the, you know, privacy of your own home. We get orders at 2 a.m. where folks are like, I know you're not open, but this is the only time I could view your menu, deliver it tomorrow. I've been shopping for the last 45 minutes. Here's my cart and it's $285. So it's very different than the walk-in, walk-out. You know, I gotta get my car out of the parking lot before it gets towed. That's what we're going for. And so we're also curating these boxes with information inside of them. You know, yoga poses. If I notice that you're ordering a lot of indica, you've got trouble sleep. I might put, you know, I might throw some stuff in there that will help you with that or help you with anxiety and say, did you know that this yoga pose legs up against the wall is really, really good for digestion and anxiety and things like that. So trying to really build a relationship with our patients. And that's hard if you grow too big and too fast. So I know there was a lot in that answer to it. Actually, in the time, we've got some time remaining about 15, 12 minutes or so. I wanted to kind of shift to the future. Well, we're on the immediate future of Prop 64 as far as last, last November, Californians voted to approve recreational marijuana. So do you want to be in the recreational business or do you only want to be in the medical kind of this business? What does this mean to you personally as far as the change for your business? Starting with you Andrea. I want to not have to decide. I want to be able to help people medicate. If it's medicinal in the morning because you've got a migraine and it's recreational at 8 p.m. because you're going out with friends and you have social anxiety and you just want to be out having a good time. I want to help you all day long. And I don't think that I should have to chop you into little blocks and really decide, is it truly, truly a migraine or you just stressed out from life. And what is that medical or is that recreational? It's more about wellness and I think that that is self-determined. I think we're all adults and we should be educated about the options. If you choose that marijuana is not for you, make that an educated decision because you read up and you've just found that there are no options for you. So having that option just to be educated that has barriers. Just to get information to be able to find out do I want to try this or not. Even that has barriers. So again, creating safe space, having talks like this and things like that I think open those barriers that we can just learn and figure out where we want to go with it as patients and as business owners. I think I have to go back to the two different roads. On one hand I think you're going to get very sophisticated cannabis concoctions that are for specific diseases and illnesses, et cetera. On the other hand, anxiety and all these things are pretty borderline. Like I said, Valium, a cocktail, a joint and now a blueberry. People will do different things to kick back and relax. And who's to say that's not medicinal too. And then quite frankly with the painkillers, et cetera. But so I think there's always going to be a difference in the road to retail. The San Francisco Commission seems to be leaning to let people who currently have medical also do recreational, which I think makes sense because they're well established. They have a track record that will allow you to go and they can be in neighborhoods where they already have a reputation and people can feel safe. We're at the mega center of your most fearful, most miseducated people with a lot of Chinese immigrants being literally lied to to say that it's still illegal, that it's poisonous, that people die from overdoses of marijuana. That would never get over in any other part of the community, but because of these new immigrants because this lock that some of the right-wing churches have, they are people who truly believe that and are very fearful. And they're just a lot of seniors who just don't know and their knowledge is 20 years old and even though selling them to Google is not gonna work. They're not on the internet, they don't read. So you've got a lot of that kind of fear going on. So I think that you're gonna have that more detailed, more specific medical marijuana for particular illnesses. On the other hand, you're gonna have this very wide use but it's not gonna be that wide. I was just spoke at the Capitol weekly forum. There are clearly some counties that aren't gonna license any. I mean, right now Marin County, some of the Apothecarians, best customers are people who come in from Marin County, right? And they decided not to have a single dispenser. I actually think that's a problem. People shouldn't be forced to come. Once you know, I guess you get your prescription then that's business for you. But I think people need to have to come in and then the current law, they have to come in, they have to register at a dispensary and they have to have a relationship and maybe that will change over time but there will be some counties that will not allow any at all and there are gonna be some counties like Monterey County. I sat at a table with Monterey County people. They're leaning towards a few dispensaries, right? And nothing like in San Francisco where you already have 39. So it's not gonna be the same all over the state. I think it's a great opportunity for you delivery people, for those counties who are basically gonna have either very few or none at all because it's still a political issue, unfortunately. And so I think you can't say what's gonna happen in general. You can only say city by city, county by county. Again, yes, I agree. There are two tracks, right? There are the medicinal, which often has to have higher dosages of THC. The edibles can potentially be dangerous for people that are not used to having that much consumption, like a thousand milligram, not keep a row of barb. But I mean, for some people I do have patients that are in true recovery from stage four cancer and they need that to be able to even get themselves up in the morning. So I don't think that they should be denied that. I don't think that just having the option of 10 milligrams or five milligrams as like the serving size is good for everybody. It's not a one size fits all solution for people. I do think that the lower dosage is great for the new market that's gonna emerge. I don't think people should have the option like as their first experience to like dive straight into a thousand milligram edible. This definitely has that I'm gonna die feeling, but you're not gonna die. Just drink some lemon water, activated charcoal, take a nap. That's what they'll do for you if you go to the hospital anyways. So save yourself a trip. And prepare for a good one. But again, I do think that it's a wellness thing. I think wellness across boards is what we have to talk about even in the realm of like drinking. Issue, like it could be an issue if it's like way too overboard and that you don't have any restraint in your consumption. However, it could be great at the end of the day. You're like, oh my God, I wanna be able to just sit and relax, kick back a beer, right? That's okay and socially acceptable. So how smoking a joint, just to like bring down all your nerves from your day is not acceptable. And also wellness space. Maybe at that point you can actually eat because you've been so anxious from your day that you need something to induce your appetite. I don't think that it's fair to even call it recreational. It irritates me because it says that it allows us to build a culture around misuse. So it always irritated me that it was gonna be recreational. We started using adult use because then it has like the connotation that people need to be responsible for how they choose to consume. However, I like to use the term wellness because I think that we can look at it at a very wider perspective. So wellness is where it's at for me. Actually, can I ask you a question about your, so as I understand it, the state is considering some new restrictions on existing products, things like dosage limits, things like packaging. Can you speak to some of that Amanda as far as like some of these proposed? One of the other things that I noticed and I wrote about this for Hoodline is that the state's having hearings around the state to get public comments. But I noticed that the hearings were, there's one in Los Angeles, there's one in Eureka and there's nothing in between and I'm kind of thinking... Sacramento San Jose. Yeah, Sacramento San Jose and Santa Rosa. And then you could submit comments online. Actually, yesterday was the deadline to submit comments. So I hope we all got that in. Can you give an overview of the changes? Yes, absolutely. I'll give an overview of some of them. So I have, because I have more of a niche practice, I don't focus on all compliance issues for cannabis but I definitely have some thoughts on these prohibited products and some of the dosage issues that Nina's talking about. So we've seen proposed regulations come in that would implement MCRSA, the Medical Cannabis Regulatory or Regulation and Safety Act. And so these are the detailed guidance that we'll explain to you how to interpret the statutory language that we passed at the end of 2015 now. And they've come from a few different agencies. There's a new agency created called the Bureau of Marijuana Control. Yeah, it keeps changing names. MCR. Yeah, whatever it is now. And then the, we also have the California Department of Public Health issued some regulations and the Department of Food and Agriculture as well. So I'm gonna focus here a bit on the California Department of Public Health regulations which affect all manufactured products. So edibles, topicals, and anything that is concentrated. So when you take a cannabis down to it, concentrate it into a stronger form that people can then use to get higher but also can use to get a more sort of pure potent version even in small doses. There are some benefits to that. So these products are in particular edibles are something that everyone is in every state that we've seen this regulation come out. People are very stressed about they're stressed about children getting access to edibles. And our state is apparently very stressed about contamination and having some kind of, what am I trying to say? Like something going wrong with the food. Having some problem in your manufacturing process that results in a edible that is unsafe for consumption separate and apart from the fact that it has cannabis in it. So we find, these regulations have a lot of standard operating procedures they lay out that all the companies have to abide by. That's fine, that's understandable. The companies in this space have long ago developed their own SOPs that they are following closely. But then after that, the regulations go on to prohibit a bunch of products. The only basis for which is that they don't really trust us to manufacture them properly. One of the main things is they are prohibiting, they're proposing to prohibit, these are proposed regulations. Anything that requires refrigeration. Which is a lot right now. They're also proposing to prohibit anything that includes caffeine as an additive. We're not totally sure what that means. The partner product to the blueberries we've all heard about is, Kiva also makes these chocolate covered espresso beans. They're incredibly popular, they're delicious. They're also between three and five milligrams per bean. They may not be allowed. In fact, the blueberries may not be allowed because fresh fruit and vegetables are prohibited. So we're finding that the prohibitions go well beyond any concern that we've seen stated in the support of the proposed regs or anything that really makes sense in light of all the other guidelines and the fact that we have a mechanism for licensing manufacturers of food and other products in this state and throughout the country. So we'll see, a lot of the feedback that we heard at these public hearings was about not only is this incredibly frustrating that you're banning huge sections of the existing market, but you're forcing us to rely on preservatives on unhealthy ingredients in a place where we really value health and with a product that is a wellness product, a health product. And these are the medical regulations. They're basically forcing us to use pretty unhealthy ingredients to produce medical products for patients. And in line with that, as Nina was saying, we're seeing some concerns around the dosage limitations. I think we all expected at least a 200 milligram dosage, but probably much higher limit for medical. And then in the adult use or the recreational side, a 100 milligram limit, like we've seen in Colorado and other states. Instead, we've seen a proposed 100 milligram limit for medical, which is a problem because, as Nina said, I know it sounds probably crazy to some of you, but some people really do need 1,000 milligrams a day or even more than that in order to feel better and to get the relief that they need. If those people have to eat 10 candy bars made out of, not even dairy, but some preservative ingredients to get that, then they're really counteracting the health benefits, obviously, of the cannabis. So we're really, I'm really optimistic that the regulators have heard our feedback. And I guess we'll see. Did you wanna jump in on that or? No, I think Amanda did agree. Nope, sorry. Thanks. So I think my last question for this part of the panel would be, it's been 21 years since Prop 215 passed that legalized medical marijuana in California. And some people said, I remember back, it was shortly after movie California in 1996, I remember people back then were saying that this is just a backdoor attempt to legalize recreational marijuana. So looking back over 21 years, I wanted to get your opinion from each of you as far as was 215 a backdoor attempt to legalize marijuana and does it matter? It does not matter. And I mean, looking at the folks who were involved back then when it was even more dangerous than it is now exponentially, I mean, we're talking about patients who were really, really trying to get some protection even more so than now. I mean, now we've got business partners and lobbyists who are representing very specific interests that are not necessarily a patient. So I would say that in 1996, I would feel less so about that statement than maybe even something that came out now because I feel like there were a few business interests that have been around since 96 and have been around, had had, we don't wanna, you like to use the word monopolies, but have had an opportunity to be the only existing kind of their industry in a place for 21 years with no competition, so define that as you will. But alongside those folks though, it was all patients, hardcore patients, really fighting for patients, right? So I would, I think I would argue with that statement. Well, a lot of this knew that a lot of the people who would get medical cannabis prescriptions were gonna use it somewhat recreation, but as I said before, compared to alcohol, compared to the opiates, marijuana, medical marijuana is almost has no impact on people's well-being except for young people, brain development. So young people shouldn't be smoking that much that early. But it's clear to me that we're still socially restrained, because even though it's been legal for 21 years supposedly, I have to be honest that as a former Skid Board member and City Council member, the reason I mostly supported it because I wanted to decriminalize it. I'm tired of seeing so many young people go to jail disproportionately versus other ethnicities and it being the core of really dangerous gangs and it's no accident that the murder rate in Oakland went down about the same time that we basically legalized the dispensaries and pretty much wiped out the competition for some of the street gangs. I didn't know for a short period of time they would switch cell phones, but I mean no good deed goes unpunished. But the reality is that there's this whole underground economy and the social stigma that is unequal. And so today we still have a lot of that stigma, a lot of my black middle class friends really have to be condensed to even try it, for medical reasons of people we know who have migraine headaches or who have very painful diseases because of the huge stigma and for older people it's gonna take time and it's really gonna take those more Kaiser doctors prescribing it, which they're starting to do. They can't give it to you, they can't sell it and they can't write a prescription, but they can tell you this is what you need to try and that's happening more and more. A lot of what Floyd does is gives tours to doctors and medical practitioners and I think you're gonna have a lot of Asian practitioners who are already sort of under the ground using some forms of the seeds, et cetera, who in combination with the acupuncture are gonna be using it a bit more and more, but the reality is the social stigma is still very, very strong. It'll probably take us another generation where people treat it the way it should be treated as another option, but it does allow this amazing discussion on really, do you think alcohol is better? It's like when we were trying to get our, when we were trying to get our license out people say, oh, you're gonna have criminals and prostitutes hang out down. You should go take a look at the current stores, there's no crime and because we have security guards and cameras it's gonna be the safest place in your neighborhood. On the other hand, that liquor store in the next corner is where all the teenagers hang out and where you have a lot more crime and it's just like it makes people think, we really have to think and now with the opioid epidemic it's really touching a lot of Americans. Floyd sees so many workers who started out with bad injuries and now they're maybe physically healed but they can't go back to work because they're addicts. And so as people are more honest about that and have more discussions, I think that's gonna help with the stigma immensely and when more doctors, not just maybe 20% of doctors but when 80% of doctors start prescribing it or feel comfortable prescribing it, that with older people is gonna be a real change because it's a Jewish mother or a Chinese mother, they all want their sons to be doctors and they're gonna obey their doctors. Nina, I wanna change up the question for you actually. Last question for you is, how do you feel about going up against venture capitalist backed entrepreneurs who have really deep pockets? Yeah, it's kind of like David versus Goliath kind of thing. Good thing David won, so I'm okay. It's a good metaphor for what we're doing. It is, I mean it's difficult but then again, like I grew up in San Francisco in the Mission District and surrounding neighborhoods and it's always been hard so I don't really see the difference much. It's either that we take the risk and we try to win and get some kind of financial foothold for ourselves to try to build legacy wealth and all of that or we just like stay a victim of our circumstance and like don't win so I don't really see it being an issue. I really feel like it's gonna be fine. The world's on fire around me but it's fine. And likewise for you, my last question for you would be, do you think the window is opening or closing for cannabis entrepreneurship? Just because it's definitely opening up economically but for people like people on this panel is the window opening or is the window closing at this point? I think the window is still opening but as California moves into a more regulated market and people are competing for licenses and some people are unable to get licenses, we're gonna see a lot of folks merging, we're gonna see a lot of bigger companies acquiring smaller companies. I think there is gonna be a lot of change but I think right now is still a really good time to get involved. I think that getting a foothold, getting your name out there, developing a strong brand in this industry right now at least either sets you up to be successful on your own and be one of those who's acquiring the smaller companies or to be a good target of acquisition. So I don't think the door is closed but I think we have to be realistic about what smaller companies can accomplish in the face of these large industries and interests. Can I add to that really quickly? Really quickly because I wear two hats because I work with clients as well working on the investor side. So I have clients for instance in other states who are applying for licenses where for instance the bare minimum is having a million and a half in the bank and you have to show where it's sourced from not from cultivation. So you can imagine who's being ex-nate out of even attempting to apply for that. So as I'm working 50, 60 hours a week to meet these deadlines because these are competitive applications, the whole state might say, we're having six dispensaries, right? I mean imagine if California said we're having eight dispensaries in all of California. It's crazy. Mexico, San Francisco even said that. It's great. Yeah, this is great, I don't know. So looking at it from that lens, emotionally I feel a certain way. I maybe be looking for, might be looking for funding at some point if we even exist. It's a struggle every day. And on the other side, on Tuesday I wake up and it's like, oh, we wanna do a permit over there. What's it gonna cost? Six million? Here, here's seven, just put a little extra on it so that we, you know what I mean? It's a very different conversation and they don't use cannabis. They're not, they haven't been to California. They don't, it's a pure business play. It's a pure investment play. So also to speak to that question that you asked Amanda in terms of opportunity being creative because I tell a lot of these people, well don't come out to California and be the five millionth dispensary. If you've got cash, we need real estate. It's what we really need. We've got a ton of businesses who, you just became a cannabis friendly landlord. Oh my gosh, that'd be huge. You have 20 people signed up right now who are trying to fill out their application and the one blank space is where are you gonna be? Because they can't find a landlord who will say yes to them. So if you've got two million dollars and we've got land, you can add a little buffer to that. You can do what you need to do, have security and you will have very happy, very loyal tenants who will love you and probably pay rent in advance. Who knows? And always in cash. In terms of opportunity, it's again, it's getting creative is what I tell investors and how you're going to spend your money if you wanna be a part of the industry. Thank you very much. Thank you all for a fantastic conversation. I really appreciate being here. Thank you. Thank you. We're gonna open things up for you. Thank you. And now, the Q and A portion of our discussion. Okay, we're gonna open up questions to the audience. So please keep your question to a real short question so we can get around to everybody. Thank you guys very much. I appreciate your comments around the social, the medical. Testing one, two. Sorry, can you hear me? Yes. I appreciate your comments around the social, the medical, the political components of the industry. Took a lot of notes, so thank you. We just started speaking about the business and economic aspects of the industry. My question is kind of related to that side. The other components of side, if you had a chunk of change in your pocket, maybe short of a million dollars, where would you look at investing and where do you guys see the most upside from a financial component? Yeah. I definitely, what I see is a lot of hardworking folks who have built brands in this industry for years. They just haven't been above ground. So I would say the partnering is going to be crucial. Those folks need business expertise. Those folks need a little bit of cash. Folks that are looking for 100,000, 200,000 that wanna pay it back within a year. I've got a ton of those people who just need a little bit, because maybe they're trying to expand their brand from here to Los Angeles, which could double their market because Los Angeles is huge. So these folks have been hardworking for years. Instead of trying to reinvent something or establish a brand, partnering up with folks who have already been doing it that are looking for a little bit of expertise because quite frankly, these are growers. These are folks who have just been doing it who don't have, they may not have tech expertise. They may not have the best website. They may need some marketing help. So those are the kind of talent that we can bring or offer that may be just as valuable as money or of course, money as well. I think there are a lot of folks who are at that stage right now looking to pitch, learning how to pitch. I get folks all the time, they're like, what's a pitch book? How can I, how many slides go into presentation? So folks are definitely outlooking and I would say just keep partnering and going to events to network. Are there cannabis accelerators? Yes. There are. There are. Amanda, you wanna speak to me? Sure, there are several. There is an accelerator in Oakland called Gateway. And it's like, they're on their third cohort and they may actually be taking applications right now for their third cohort. There is an excellent accelerator called the Hood incubator that focuses on supporting people of color who are working in the industry. There's an incubator called Canopy. There's a canopy here in, I think it's in Berkeley actually. There's one in San Diego, there's one in Boulder. There may even be others that I'm not thinking of. Similar incubator, you know, each one has its own terms. Are there others that I'm missing? I mean, ArcView, but they're sort of fed from Canopy. I think those are the main ones. I would not at all be surprised to see several more, especially niche incubators, maybe one focused on women. I don't know why we haven't started that yet. Something like that cropping up, but yes, we do. We have a strong network, especially around here, of incubators supporting entrepreneurs. Yeah. I think when I was in Sacramento, what really struck me is that a lot of the counties are afraid that people won't come above ground and pay taxes. And one of the things that I know is that, even though being a small business in Oakland, and I tried to cut the bureaucracy, but it's a lot more than a lot of people, no matter, we're not even talking cannabis businesses, when people move from small sort of cottage industry to becoming actual business and paying business taxes, the whole bureaucracy is sort of overwhelming. So I could see people coming in and offering expertise, not only marketing, but just basically above-the-ground business bureaucracy and patience to do that, that people can bring more than money. They can also bring expertise. And I actually think that a lot of people are gonna have to regionally develop co-ops, et cetera, because a lot of the scale, that if they're gonna survive with the new bureaucracy, in every county will be different, right? And they're gonna have to, I think, collaborate. What I'm excited listening to these women is that there are a lot of Kiva-type projects where small businesses could join together. I think that what I learned to appreciate by listening to different stories is the kind of products, particularly among edibles, and which ones make it and don't make it, the quality of it, the reliability of it, the constancy of the dosage, and that's something that's learned. But it's also something I don't ever see Fitzer doing, making that really good bittersweet chocolate blueberry on a local level in an area where we buy local. I can see a lot in developing a cottage industry where I would, just like I buy stuff directly from third world countries that are bought directly from the producers, my coffee beans, I can see the same thing that people would buy, products that are made on a local basis that are fresh, that help a network of women or minorities or our local community and industry and keeping the dollars in. I mean, I've run a long-term, I ran a long-term shop Oakland campaign, and this is just another version of that, and we brought millions of dollars, of tax dollars back into the city, and I think we could do this in California to support local businesses and prepare for the onslaught of bigger corporations. Question here. My question has to do with the federal government and Colorado and Washington and California, what do we see on that political horizon? Yeah. Well, I don't know. As far as like the fed thing, they got a lot of things that they got to figure out, obviously, but at least on the California level, there was an assembly bill that was drafted or at least proposed by Joan Sawyer, who's down in South L.A. There was also, I think, Scott Wiener also worked on helping to write the language for the bill as well. It did pass assembly, which is that this local law enforcement cannot use any financial dollars in aiding any federal investigation of people that are trying to do above board marijuana businesses. So at least from our state level, we've been trying to find ways, like they've been trying to find ways for us to be safe and continue to work autonomously, versus being subjected to whatever cookie scheme federal government has right now. Yeah. So right now there are two memos in place that were issued under the Obama administration, the DOJ under the Obama administration, that sort of de-prioritize enforcement of state legal cannabis businesses, assuming that you comply with certain standards that they've laid out, mostly they have to do with keeping cannabis away from children and keeping it from being trafficked into other states. So that's been a real problem for California until recently because we haven't had the kind of detailed guidance that you needed in place to say you were complying with a local regime. So now we do. We're in a little better position, but now we have a new administration in place. So there are these two memos, and then there's a writer-tune appropriations bill in Congress that have really been protecting the industry, and that writer-tune appropriations bill defunds federal enforcement of state legal cannabis businesses. Yesterday, Jeff Sessions sent a letter to Congress suggesting to them that they get rid of that writer to the appropriations bill. So we will see if they take his recommendation. He also has full jurisdiction to repeal or replace those memos that we're using. I personally am optimistic that we're not gonna see a wholesale gutting of markets in Washington, Oregon, California, Colorado, anywhere that's big enough because it's too much money, too much tax income, and too many jobs that would be lost if these markets went away. So figures crossed. It's also worth noting, I think, that didn't Sessions in his request, he also wanted the bill to go after patients as well. Isn't that correct? I believe that's correct. Yeah, he's a quite a guy that Sessions. Hi, so I'm a resident of the Sunset, so here comes the inevitable question about the medical dispensary that you want to cite in the 32nd in New York if I remember correctly. I just wanna ask you, how, obviously, if there's going to be a dispensary somewhere, it has to be somewhere. So how do you think about where you want to cite some place, and how do you think residents should think about the desirability or not of having a medical dispensary? Well, first of all, you know, the apothecary had located the site way before we joined in. The reason I even learned about it and how I involved my husband is that I was testifying for the Lombard site, which was a granted by applying commission, but then appealed by a pretty wealthy Russian Hill neighbors. So we went to appeal, and they asked me to come and testify because Oakland had, because we were the first really local ordinance, we have really good local data that basically says crime actually goes down, and that teenagers won't hang around it because we have cameras that can go 100 feet, and we have security guards. So not only will the little kids not be able, like the church is telling people, the little kids are not gonna be able to get in without a patient card, et cetera, they're not even gonna get in within 50 feet. So I was testifying to that, and then they said, you know, we were gonna open a place in the sunset where you'd be interested, and we looked at it, and so I'll speak for my husband, you can ask more of him. We wanted, the sunset has no, the whole area pretty much on the other side of Gary from the mission all the way to the border has only one dispensary. So you've got this huge population in the city, you have an over-concentration San Francisco on Market Street and the mission, and when I wrote my ordinance, I actually wrote it that had to be in different neighborhoods. We didn't want a high concentration, we wanted equal access for the patients, right? Because I was still really actually looking at it as a patient thing that people shouldn't have to come all the way to downtown Oakland quite frankly. We didn't want the concentration because we had all these tourist teenagers taking Barton from the suburbs like checking out the pot scene, right? And we dispersed it into neighborhoods. So then for my husband is that we know from our own friends as doctors is that people are very slow on prescribing it. And that doctors aren't trained, and particularly a lot of the older doctors period of any ethnicity are so conservative, particularly minority doctors, because minority doctors can frankly get picked on as minorities, right? I had to help defend harborside, which is not minority as one of the biggest dispensers in the country. And so I wouldn't count on Jeff's sessions because it made no sense. I mean, I've had heart to heart Washington, DC discussions in the White House about what was happening with harborside, but the harborside became sort of a national symbol and there was a fight within the feds as to whether to take them on or not take them on. See, you can't, just like the rest of the world in government, it's not sort of consistent. You're gonna have outliers and you can't trust that we won't have a problem, particularly if session survives and doesn't enforce the quit. So the main thing is that we realize is that there were 4,000 patients just of the apothecary and now there are 38 other cannabis. So I'm assuming there's at least 10,000 patients in the sunset. And the closest way, so my aunt, who was trying to get to use it for chronic pain, she'd have to take a bus for over an hour to get to the closest dispensary, right? We figured out on Geary, if she went to the apothecary or she had to go to the mission. So it's really unequal access, and particularly in the beginning where my husband feels strongly that people need to sort of test out different versions until they get what works for them. And even then patients change their needs and whatever. So people should have the ability to within their neighborhood drop by, talk to people and get a sense of what they need. So we decided to do that. And after the right wing, the Pacific Justice Institute ambushed him at a meeting. We'd been having meetings of little merchant groups. So this little merchant group usually had 12 people showed up. They busted 50 people and shouted them down, took over the meeting and wouldn't let them speak. After that it became a much bigger issue for us as we found out who they were because you can't, in San Francisco of all places you're gonna let people shout people down and not even talk about the benefits of it and particularly hold an Asian population hostage. That's what I sort of feel like. They've spread so much fear, walking door to door within a thousand feet of the store. I've had a lot of elderly women saying, oh no, it's poisonous mare. How can you do this? It's illegal. And they actually believe this because they don't get much media. They don't Google on the internet. They only read Chinese papers or maybe programs. And so what I worry about is that when these ladies actually need it, they're not gonna use it until we get their doctors to be very clear about it. So my husband and I have been fighting for equal access for healthcare our entire lives. So we sort of picked this, but once we realized it was gonna be a battle, we picked it. I can take the heat, your mare used to think getting hate mail, et cetera. But whether it was health access that my husband's formed so that people couldn't dump public patients or creating Chinese speaking clinics, we basically would like to have one dispenser in Oakland where the staff speaks Chinese and may even know something about Chinese medicine so that we can coordinate. In San Francisco, I'm sorry. So in short, they brought the care and picked it for the need. They had 4,000 patients un-served. We picked it for the fight because we figured it has to be fought somewhere. There has to be the dialogue somewhere. Even though my reputation may be beaten up a little bit more, it's worth the fight. When we fought for civil rights, some of our elders didn't like it either. And to me, this is basically a medical health access issue. And can I jump in on that as far as that sector, the city not having any dispensaries? It's, one, it's kind of interesting because some of the best weed comes from the sunset. Like Sunset Sherbert is delicious. It's delicious. And yeah, and like the Sunset District actually has a history of the city of like developing and cultivating some of the best and most innovative strains that are on the market, like cookies and other things. So the fact that it doesn't even have a dispensary is kind of baffling to me. One thing though, so Sunset also has reputation for a number of house fires because of... Yes. Well. And I'm not like, but it's a problem because the industry is unregulated, right? So they're forced underground. That's what I'm saying. Illegal electrical connections that cause fires. In any case, it's another Sunset thing. But also because it's a, because there hasn't been allowed so they are pushed underground. If they're given an outlet, like there'll be a whole lot less fires. The other thing is, is that you said 22nd in Noriega, is that where it is? There's like, how many? 30th. 30th, okay. There's like, at least in the 20s, there's like tons of bars up there. Yes. And liquor stores. And liquor stores that probably provide a lot more issues than a dispensary is going to cause. And they have a lot of boba and snack places that will definitely benefit from people having dispensary, you know. So I can see it being very good for the local economy in that area. That's my two cents. I have a very simple question. What are the gross volume of sales in the cannabis in the state of California? I think last year for medical, it was like 6.4 billion. Yeah. About 6 billion, right. That's what I heard in Sacramento. Yeah, $6 billion just for medical, which is actually bigger than all the other recreational markets. So yeah. And that's just medical. That is legal sales. Yeah, legal. Taxable sales. It's about what's reported more so than, because folks are not reporting their sales. So if you're looking specifically for reported sales, you can look at the BOE because they would have a local permit. That's where your resellers permit would go. So if you pay your local taxes, the BOE would have statistics. But again, how good are those statistics? It's folks that feel insulated enough, they have their stuff in order to report what they're actually selling. John Cheng has a working group that's trying to not once go and say what. Not have to go through the double blind procedures. I don't even understand them anymore, but I had to help set them up after somebody. Harborside paid their first taxes with $15,000 in cash at one of our offices. We said, okay, this is not gonna work. And so they're trying to develop a way that, and I know Oakland has this sort of very intricate way of banking, but instead of reinventing the wheel in every county and every city, John Cheng has signed a developer process at the state level where the banking can be much more transparent and people don't have to hide their money in the basement or whatever, and they don't have to pay in cash. Oakland's trying to set up a public bank, I think also, right? That would actually for the local industry. They've been talking about this public bank forever. I don't know if it's the current mayor's priority though. And if you're just interested in data generally, there's an, sorry, can anyone, can you hear me? Okay, if you're just interested in data generally, there is an investor network called ArcView Group, A-R-C-V-I-E-W Group, and they put out an annual report that has a lot of data about California and other states and other aspects of the industry. You can get a summary of it for free. I'm sure if you Google it, you'll find it, or you can pay for the full version, and that has an awful lot of information. My question to the back. Thank you. What are your thoughts on the proposed mandatory distribution center that is being right now talked about at local city levels? I think it's problematic, especially for small businesses and also for people that have already been self-distributing. I know that it is a huge talk in Sacramento. It's like probably even more so than labs and labs definitely need to have a lot more conversation around it, but definitely the mandatory distribution. I think it's an issue for small businesses. It's not viable for people that are producing maybe like two pounds or three pounds of product or something versus someone that is having like 30 pounds and needs to get it all over the place. There should be a spectrum. I agree, there's like, I think one of the proposals that they're talking about is that there's gonna be an independent inspector that goes in and they test and then they make sure that everything is up to code and then the people can self-distribute versus everything having to go through a mandatory distribution center. It's supposed to be regulated as of right now through the state, Department of Public Health, I think. Yeah. Question to the back. In Oakland, it's part of the fee. We've had inspectors from the beginning so we're waiting to see what the state will do and they don't test every product all the time. They just spot check. Thanks so much guys, fascinating panel. I'm curious what each of you thinks is the, or some of the biggest points of friction right now in the supply chain or in the customer or patient life cycle that well-funded private enterprise could fix. What are the opportunities out there? You mentioned real estate for dispensaries. That's a really interesting one that I haven't heard of before. What do you guys think are the biggest opportunities that are on tap right now? Definitely labs. There has to be some investment in the labs. The equipment, making sure that they have the proper equipment to ensure that we get the same standardized testing across boards because you can send flowers to one lab and get one result and you can send flowers to another lab and get a completely different result. There's no standardization at all and then once they do, it's gonna be like really, really high in fees to anybody that's producing. As of right now, cause there's no investment in no conversation and ridiculous regulation. So yeah, I would say that. Question here. I'm just wondering, sorry if I missed this before, but you're talking about the new recreational dispensaries. So does that, so that the existing medical dispensaries are they gonna have to be absorbed or can they stand alone and continue as they are now? So we're not sure how this is going to shake out. So to be clear, there are no recreational sales happening yet. It is lawful to give away a certain amount of cannabis, but you can't sell it. The proposed trailer bill would collapse the medical and adult use markets and it looks like that's going through. There's a lot to be figured out if that happens. The way that it works in Colorado is you can have them on the same site, but in different sides of the building sometimes in the small dispensaries, it's literally you walk in and they're like, look to the left, it's medical. Look to the right, it's recreational. Really? So it's hard to say for sure how ours will shake out. I think California is going to make an effort to protect existing medical dispensaries, whether that be in their form or just giving them priority in terms of shifting into the new market. That's my best guess. I don't know if someone else has. Yeah. A question in the front. Thank you. My daughter is a vile ethicist and she determines the ethics of, in her case, neonatal. No, I'm wondering if you were aware of any ethicists who deal with the ethical issues of the legalization of marijuana, the regulation of marijuana. I don't think I am aware of anyone weighing in on that. I mean, we have a lot of policy advocacy side folks who are making stronger arguments for the economic, social justice, fairness arguments we've kind of put forth tonight. No, I don't think I have. Do you have? The closest I can think of would be the Cannabis Nurses Association, which kind of touches on it with using, as a pregnant mother, talking about that in some conversation. That's kind of the closest that I've seen. They do have a full website. They're a great organization that talks about a myriad of things in terms of dosage and all that good stuff, but particularly that is one thing that comes up for a lot of women is having THC in your body while you are carrying a child. Yeah, and understandably there hasn't been much research on this. The research we have is sort of unclear. We've seen it go both ways. And so yeah, that's a good point. That is the main area I've seen it. I think we're just pretty frustrated because of the Schedule 1 restrictions that we cannot do as much research as we want. We have to almost get exceptions case by case, study by study. And so that's a big push both nationally and other places. It's why some states are trying to get around it by having their own state rules and then requiring insurance companies to provide it to its patients. I think Maine just introduced a bill that would require anybody who ensures people in Maine to include cannabis medications because of the great opoid disaster that's happening and the deaths from overdoses from the opioid medicines. There is a doctor's group too, but they've more just been promoting what the American College of Physicians has been saying and not things on restrictions and dosage yet. But it's only a matter of time because more and more doctors are gonna be pressured by their patients. As you know, if my network is any indicator if like people are coming up to me at Demonshire and say, oh yeah, I've been using it for a while and then asking me for advice and wanting to know where they could get their prescription. I mean, it's a social phenomenon. It's gonna be broader and broader and there's gonna be a lot of pressure on medical groups to start talking about dosage in a more systematic way. Just a quick question here. 29 states and the District of Columbia have some more. Yes, I think that's, so I can't even keep up. It's every day, it's feels like, yeah, it's wonderful. Yeah, it's like just growing. I'm curious, there have been several mentions about how dispensaries are pretty safe compared to say bars and liquor stores because of the heavy security. I assume that heavy security is there because of all the cash, is that right? Or is there some other reason and what'll happen once they start taking credit cards and so on and the banking problems are solved? Now the security is gonna be required by regulations. So even once. So it's not there because of the cash, there's another reason. Right, it's also required a cultivation site, some kind of like live stream, CCTV, 24 hours, even places where you wouldn't even have cash just for the actual product itself. So they're just written into the regs. Security will continue. Typically right now you're seeing it because it's a bargain that they're striking. Either the dispensary owner just wants it there because of cash and product on site or because it's like look neighborhood, this is the bargain we're striking, we're gonna keep things safer. But yeah, soon when the regulations are implemented it's gonna be required anyway so the cash credit card switch won't affect that. I have a quick question. In the examiner today, one of the articles is Mayor Lee proposes 2018 cannabis tax balance measure. Any comments on that? I don't think I had a chance to read that. Yeah, I definitely didn't have a chance to review that today. We've been at a conference all day. I'm like, thank you for telling me. Thank you, yes. I think there's gonna be an issue. State cities like Oakland have already been charging quite a lot because for a while the state wasn't passing it so we were like, I can tell you just my first year we got $2 million in revenues which is for Oakland in the middle of the recession big and I think it's closer to 10 million now. And so, but again, what I heard in Sacramento is that people are saying and now the state wants a huge chunk. So the cities have a huge chunk and the state, we have to be worried about pricing our cities out of the market particularly. And then there's the question, do you also tax the growing as well as the sales and there's a huge debates over that and different jurisdictions are treating it differently? And Oakland, we keep going back and forth so I don't even remember where we were at the last discussion. So that is a problem. You don't want the cannabis to be out of sort of to sky high particularly on the medicinal side but it's hard to divide that now. All right. Already to the consumer once recreational rolls out it's gonna be a 24% tax to the consumer just based on their excise tax and then the regular sales tax. So hopefully they don't do too much or else it's going to be a problem across boards. This will be our last question. Hopefully not best for last but the pressure's on. So we're new to this industry and we've been going through traditional measures to get in front of business owners and get in front of dispensaries. And what we find that the biggest challenge for the legacy members of the industry is not necessarily the resources but the resourcefulness for many reasons. Whether it's anxiety that the feds are going after them whether it's lack of business acumen, et cetera. And so we're seeing that the newer entrepreneurs are the ones that are able to break leeway in this industry and so my question for you folks is what inefficiencies do you think can be addressed specifically from your dispensary or from your delivery service? How are businesses getting a hold of you folks? Is it the ones that actually cold call you? Are the ones? Or how are you getting in front of them? At least for me it's based on personal relationship. Definitely I find people that participate in several different trade organizations such as Cal Growers or most of Cal Growers. Or come to the industry mixers and events that we have and prove that they're actually a part of our community and not just someone that's just trying to be a carpet bagger and like putting it in go, you know? That's kind of how I feel like are you gonna be around? Can we do collaborative things? Are you someone that will help us do local events, et cetera? Cause we're still building a community out here and for me it's like if I see you often I would probably carry your product as well but if it's just like a cold call I'm like, this is the delivery line. Send me an email with test results. You know, it's kind of how it goes. Sorry. That's true for all good businesses. Thanks. Have a chew, Jerry. Yeah, it's totally relationship-based. I think, you know, I've worn quite a few hats in this industry, women grow, stash, twist, super women, supernova women. You're a super woman. Yeah, super woman. And so networking, network is everything. I remember like finalizing all my paperwork with my lawyer back in 2014. I was like, I've got all my ducks in a row, everything's checked and I look over at him and I was like, now where do I buy it? I was like, I'm supposed to be opening this delivery to get the medicine to the people and I was like, I have no idea where I would buy a pound of lead from. I was literally starting with, you know, gonna ask a friend. So it's definitely that kind of, you have to know someone. It's still in that a little bit. And people are open. I mean, it's not hard to get to know people. You just have to be genuine in it and come to the events like this and like the Cal Growers Association and California Cannabis Industry Association and supernova women and all of these things, they're happening constantly. We cannot keep up with the events. So surely, you know, getting to a few of them and getting to know folks. And I find that the relationship thing is true for client acquisition for me as well. It's people in this space still, they need like three touch points before they feel comfortable working with you. Often when clients come to us, it's I heard from so-and-so and so-and-so and also my other lawyer that we should work with you. And so now we finally believe it's true. You know, and that's fine, but that's what it takes in this industry. Yeah, it's true. Yeah. Thank you all again for a wonderful conversation. I really appreciate the time. And thank you all for coming. I really appreciate that too. Thank you. That's a great question. Thank you. Thank you, Walter, Thompson, and our wonderful panel. Come back again on Thursday, June 29th for our next program, which is The Future of the City. Thank you for joining us.