 over minor interactions to do with marijuana possession. And there's a disparity between how people of color are treated when they're possessing it versus any other race. And there's also in Colorado, it's been legalized and there are thriving businesses in California and there is to see while corporations are making so much money, millions and millions of dollars worth of money off of selling legalizing marijuana, communities of color are still suffering and in jail and incarcerated because of it. So I think that's such a tragedy and it speaks volumes about the racial institution that is our criminal justice system. So I think free legalizing marijuana, which is medicinal, which is actually proven to help cancer patients with chemotherapy, people with depression should be legalized. It would help a ton of people. I feel like when it was criminalized, it was because of very racist reasons. The logging industry didn't like that hemp is so cheap and they lobbied to criminalize it. And also because people from communities of color were seen smoking marijuana, those who were racist saw it as this drug that only people of color do. And various reasons for corporations being against it and pharmaceuticals being against it and also because there was this racial aspect of it, it was criminalized. And I think we are living in the 21st century where there's enough science to show that this is good for people that we really need to legalize it and it would benefit everybody if we did that we should do that. And also we should, once we legalize it, we need to free everybody who went into the criminal justice system, went into the private prison system because of this. So that's my take on it. And I hope that everybody supports legalizing marijuana. And I hear it here. I'm going to push our governor to pass a law to legalize it. So I'm studying statistics for quantitative modeling. Right now we're going to talk about cannabis and filibub. So when it comes down to cannabis, I feel like it doesn't necessarily affect community in any way. I mean, people do try to sit and think about it. But I don't personally believe in that. I believe there is race, state, race, or same-sex violence in every community because you don't see black people in white communities and you see white people committing crimes in black communities. So that's what affects that. And when it comes down to it, if it does become legal, we would have way less incarcerated youth than we have today. A lot of us, the cops, we patrol our bad neighborhoods. They look like black people look like they would sell weed which is like that, you know, the self stops these groups from having a successful life. When you get incarcerated, a lot of your rights are taken away. Even after you come out, it's really hard to become integrated in society once again. And I feel like it's very wrong to take away this their right to a successful life just because of some of these. And I also want to say that there's a lot of, there's a lot of boys that are coming out and being put in that. And I find today that can help us to get our youth in our community. And yeah, we still have the police going outside stopping people from wrongfully searching and racially pop out. And I feel like that's very wrong, especially for candidates. And if you look into the history, you'll know that this war of drugs started with the Nixon campaign, that's what you call it. And it was just like, it was, he said to himself years later that he said he started just to stop the coming together and, what do you call it? The coming together and the something of black communities and leftist communities and the hippies who were against war and who wanted to smoke. So that was their way of bringing down our communities and our systems just because they have to also smoke. So I feel like that kind of is so, people show up like, wow, we did this, only to stop certain communities from prospering. So maybe we shouldn't keep it up today in society. But yeah, we do. And people still have this push thing against him to tell me that it's very wrong in my view. This is what it's like. Yeah. My name is Mian, and I'm a student here. I've been here before. Yeah, so we just think about it. Oh, cannabis. What is this cannabis? There's this discussion. There's these negative connotations. There's medical usage. We hear they have a discussion about cannabis. Thanks for coming. Just thanks for coming out and giving us your time. A lot of us work very, very hard to bring this kind of talk and conversation to school. And it's something that's needed. We have institutions all around that are studying cannabis and it's different things that affect us in the community. One of the things that affected or was a drug that was targeted inside of the minority community. So we just have a overall general discussion to touch on that, the municipal usage of it, and what is it to bump a lot of the myths? Sometimes when it comes to people of color or minorities that there's a negative connotation about it. So we want to just debunk that myth too about it because actually now it's a new industry and it's going to be booming. And where are we or where are you that can be a part of something lucrative. So we're going to have that conversation. All right, so my name is Joe. Sorry again. My name is Joe Scothers. I'm part of a science major alum. I graduated last year. And yeah, good talk. So one of the causes of it is to make sure that you guys finish your degree and that if you need help, I'm not going to cheat for you, but I'll help give you that push that you need. All right? So with that being said, you know what that was about, right? Just nervous. Some shuffling papers. Let me put it down. All right. So the next segment of this we would like to talk about Megapristology in general, right? So this is a special part of a program where we highlight students, faculty, just Megaprist College community people who are doing amazing things outside of the college and outside of their work place, right? So this video was produced by Joel Steeleberg, which is me. So I didn't know as a producer until now. So we're essentially going to highlight students, community members that contribute greatly to the college in any form or fashion. And the reason why we decided to highlight that, there are a lot of people who walk around doing amazing things. Business oriented, entrepreneurship and their job is bad and their normal day jobs, activities, student life. So we want to highlight that and maybe that can inspire other students or other people to do the same. Okay? So we'd like to put this video on and it's a little scratchy, but so good. All right? So this is my family of college. While I was working at Megaprist College, I did a fashion show. I did a fashion show. I was a fashion model. I was a model for food, I did changing mecca publications. Then you made it to where I wanted to make it and, you know, kind of like fell back from there and then from there the fashion business on the other side as far as... You run a business called Canberra is and they would go back there to do a PhD as a form of treatment and my inspiration with that was more on the oncology sector and on the patients kind of deal with the life care. I was saying, honey, when it's a production and they were independent. So I was like, that's something that I want to do as far as give my own voice as well as have my fellow peers and just give them the right tools to be able to be successful. When I did oncology, social work I ended up working in the life care and a lot of out of care referrals were made and it was like that. I was asked, I got to the kind of whole end of the patients that were in the end of life and a lot of treatments are now favorable for them. But now one therapy services kind of helped them take on day by day and kind of still live, you know, a life of quality. And so I felt the need to create services now that this is a medication for individuals who have the symptoms and they can really get it at pharmacies that they need a certain services to kind of help them on how to monitor their mood, how to monitor, you know, their daily activities and daily living. And so that's where kind of the business that we have came from. So really I worked like for a long time, 10 years. So one day I was like When I get off work, I usually give them like 12, 12, 10. Then you know, once I get off, I'll try to basically I'll sit down and meet a few guys around with the work on projects. Well, you know, try to knock out what it'll be in between, you know, 12 and like four o'clock. And initially my day starts at four o'clock, you know, take care of the kids and pull them on until basically it's time to go to work. Can you tell me some of the struggles that you have to overcome while maintaining your clothing line? Well, one of the struggles is having a job, nine to five, and then still trying to maintain this vision that you have, you know, because you hear, well, I'm here, you know, eight, nine hours out of the day and you still have to put you're all into the clothing line. So that's one of the struggles and also another struggle is being patient because you just don't make a profit like that. Your clothing line just doesn't blow up out of nowhere. So, you know, you still have to put so much time effort and patience into it. Some people have this perception that, you know, you have a business and it's got to be too great every day. It's not. So you have to make sure you're getting into something that you love. As I said, this doesn't feel like extra work for me because I enjoyed it and I wrote something. So make sure that is a part of it. But you have to stay with it. You have to be persistent. You have to be consistent. And it won't take you places. So we're a startup and so right now, we're running for this law and services. So we have a we have a new curriculum specifically for patients who are using marijuana as a form of services. And we really want to just kind of open up the dialogue and for the agents to start learning how to self-track certain kind of behaviors or kind of movements so that they can start talking about how it is to be in this medication because it's new for the doctors who are prescribing it for the pharmacists that are providing it and for the patients who are taking it. So you're really the patient is really the person who's making the less indicator of pain but if they're supposed to be taking this medication they might want to learn certainly is how to titrate it. Like are you having that day because maybe I'm not even with your son and you need your feeling pain just a little bit heavier. Is it more anxiety-based? Are you feeling a lot of pain perhaps you need a little further referral maybe you need to speak to pain management maybe you need a higher level of service. So it's really right now to provide a lot of information on how to get certified for certain patients where to go, how to access it and then we're hoping to start venting out the moment we get there to start a new way to start a new individual care and have the services for other patients to be attached to and also in custody. Well to keep myself inspired I look at my artists and look at how hard they push them because when they're independent it's a lot harder because we don't have the necessary back and forth financial funds and things like that so for my artists we all don't work hard so we put together a lot of money we can to come up with our projects and so basically I see how hard they work because they can easily sign with somebody else you know what I'm saying and get advanced but they choose instead to work with me so that's why I need to cry a lot harder One of the things we do is Instagram another thing that helps us out in our live is actually groundwork so we do HPC tours where we go to Howard University these are all homecoming so we go to Howard University Dell State University A&T the less cultural so what we do is every homecoming season we're selling product and we're making connections and networking with thousands of people at these different events there are some bumps and bruises quite a few setbacks that was kind of harmful to us but you know we sustained and we're still going Thank you so much everyone Hanson University if you yourself are a hidden gem please feel free to contact our in-house producer Joel Struthers at www.jolestruthers.com At this time I would like to bring to the stage a keen clergy to continue on with the program thank you I'm a student here at Mecca Eversood and we got two more hidden gems that are actually doing great things in the cannabis industry and we would love to get up here and they're going to come and tell you about what they're doing so those two people are Vicky Clement and Arlette Eliza come on up I came here to Mecca Eversood as a non-traditional student my background is actually engineering for over a decade and I stepped into the cannabis industry by half of sans canada something that was out of my control I have family members who suffer from different ailments and the use of cannabis has really ameliorated their health instead of using big pharma products we've taken into consideration using cannabis-created products and the quality of life that they have is just amazing I came here to the big pharma kind of medication that was being given to them initially so that spurred me a very big calling kind of into that moment and so I'm one of the founders I'm a co-founder of Canareas not two ends re-ends of Canareas and you can find out about us at Canareas.com and basically what we do is different patients enhancing their quality care and also educating them because not everyone that is stepping into the space is familiar with cannabis and the effects of cannabis and how to manage their ailments with cannabis so we walk them through that we also provide safety planning because even though cannabis is a miracle drug and it's very great you also have to have a safety plan no matter what with any drug you don't know that and a lot of people don't think about that so our foundation really focuses on that we also assist people who want to receive a certificate in New York City for medical cannabis it walks you through it because even though it is needed now as a medication there are a bit of complications in getting certified so we assist you if you're a candidate certified for that our lead Alexis is the other hidden gem sadly she's unavailable to come but she is a licensed nurse practitioner and her goal is for you to open a cannabis clinic that works primarily with people who are receiving this kind of medication and you can find her business card always at Canarexics so that's all I think by introducing some of these opportunities is the entrepreneurial society I am the president and one of the founders of the Entrepreneurship Society we started it a while back because a bunch of business plan competitions came around and we got to traveling stuff and a lot of things is when you're starting up a business it's just you an idea and whatever money you got in your pocket and you're like oh I got to do this so what we wanted to do was provide a platform where people can come in learn the things that they're missing on because a lot of us are majors in business but we want a business we want to start something we want to create something that lasts long we want to create a platform for you guys to come in incubate your ideas and come out and probably be one of these hidden gems or the next Fortune 500 company you really want it to house kind of nurture your ideas from the idea stage to the big stage so if you have any ideas after here you can contact us Mike McCrump is one of our advisors you can contact him and we actually have our creative website where we kind of display all the mega efforts and campus entrepreneurs and we kind of like put it on the website and like give your own website and everything like that so we try to do this for free now so hop on board and stuff like that and we also have great people that assist us with everything so this is leading great to my next segue which one of our people who helped us with this is none other than the CFO of HW he's also an entrepreneur on campus and he has done great things to help people he's always available ready to help you Masatomo Sakura come on up Masatomo Satayuri I come from Japan he got just a little bit wrong but it's basically the same thing I'm not the CFO but the same thing more or less of Egemity which is a finance related New York City and so that's my day job but my other responsibility is to be an entrepreneur resident here at Mechner what that means is as an entrepreneur there's so many different things that you want to deal with and you have to figure out if there's a real market you have to figure out your business model you have to figure out how to get employees you have to figure out legal stuff so I'm here to help you help guide you through that process so I can basically do two things for you I can sit down and talk through your whatever you want to talk about in your stage of your company or your idea the other thing I can do is I know a bunch of resources that I can offer you will get you to the next stage to the next stage and before you know it you're doing an IPO and you're worth building so that's what I'm here for so thank you very much on my company so you can just email me and I'm happy to set up a session with you so as you see we're working working working working working for you guys and just take advantage of some of the opportunities that are presented here and you should also look at this as a network network is extremely important in every area with the size with the business and that's how you form amazing relationships with people and actually that's how things get done that's the progress we've got a network and of course we've got an amazing body here and that's under great leadership and one of the leaders of our school of institution is Mr. Dr. Dr. Volsa Lazy Brokhoz and he actually sent me a couple of conferences money from this department so if you know that you can include us so why don't I get to the research room so let me know I just want to tell you and how romantic this is for this school here as we are doing this it's always important for us to be at the table if you're not at the table where things are safe then things will be safe for you you always have to be proactive and so when Dr. Krohn came to me with this idea about who thinks they can this conference here I said what? Can I miss? Yeah you can and then I reflected too I live in New Jersey and New Jersey is about to pass an institution on my own and so I heard on the news the universities already discussing curriculum so I said that's a very great idea why can't we always be proactive to start talking about curriculum around marijuana so that when Thomas students leave they will find employment in this industry I'm sure the business of marijuana have looked at it in Colorado where it's legalized is multi billion dollar business so why can't we start having foundations around placing our young folks into that business in the station and regulations you know all sorts of things around that so by sitting back and doing money and money will float out of the coming it's not the best way to make that happen so I'm very very happy that we have yet to be able to have this here today I told him that I would come in here he likes to be around he's a great supporter and I'm very proud of him and I just want to say to you that I would like to thank you very very much for the invitation that he brings to the school I want to thank you for what you are doing on this and I want to thank the faculty and the faculty and those who are supporting this you know because it's only within a part of the competition that you will be able to start the level if you wait for others to make this chance for you our students are here benefiting from this because eventually we are the ones who are the ones the benefit from this business it's a very very big business all the way and doing the kind of work that we want to start doing will keep us in that front and we want all of you to succeed and of course when you get back up you don't forget us if you are in that business I think you want to go the multi-billion dollar money I wish I would like to thank you of course we are the perfect time because we have a business of time so once again thank you very much and this next time give me my good music too because I will dance with the music but I'm but I'm but I'm but I'm but I'm but I'm really I hope we can get a lot from the student and that's what it takes you need an institution we have support from faculty and administration and that helps with the process and help the students to thrive and be better persons of themselves right so we definitely want to acknowledge Dr. O'Reek and he actually took this time out of a long day of playing being billions of meetings that he has every day to give work and we'd like to appreciate that also I can tell you I am a tutor I'm a mentor and out of that work I'm going to be there to help allow us to do this task now as it was for Andre so Andre can you come up for a second he's part of the DMI he's the last director and he has like the kindest part in the world and he's really for the students like really so disable a bit about the program thank you Joe appreciate this thank you well first of all thank you guys for being here you know I wanted to be here to support and like Joel said I'm the director of the male development empowerment center what we do here on campus is we offer support to all the students academically we offer social and emotional programming in addition to that we offer mentorship which is very important as you guys know without a mentor you know someone who could point you in the right direction often times our students get lost so I take that to heart very important job in terms of academic support like Prova Susane don't let someone make a decision for you especially your professors so one thing you want to do is ensure that you get into good grades and we obviously point you in the right direction as far as this whole program with cannabis you know whatever you believe you know the bus is arriving and pretty much in our neighborhood we have arrived to the point where we're on the cusp of this thing becoming legal so why not put ourselves in a position where we can take advantage of something an opportunity that's going to be offered to us so this is why I'm here today you know I hope you guys definitely take into account take notes see how you can become the next perhaps billionaire millionaire possibly but you know just the effects of it the young lady was stating that a lot of she deals with end of life which for me it was big because sometimes we think that this is just a recreational drug but some people out there in communities really need this to ease their pain and perhaps help them transition into the next phase of whatever the next life is so thank you guys for being here thank you Joel for putting this together and talking from and I appreciate you guys my name is Vaughan Davis and I am an owner of Canada's license in Colorado I specialize in manufacturing so I do supply chain management I produce products I formulate them I give them to the market and I have to figure out how to sell them in the market so I am an owner of a Canada's license I am a beauty thing everyone Shanita Penny as we mentioned I am the president of the minority cannabis business association but I am also a business owner and entrepreneur in this space my primary business is budding solutions for UT cannabis business consulting firm I am a partner in a 60,000 square foot growth and processing operation in Pennsylvania as well as a partner in California cannabis business as well so I am not only an advocate but a business owner in the state my background is in supply chain management so it is exciting to hear people talk in such a sophisticated way about this industry 10 years ago what was pretty much said Canada sells itself I don't need a marketer I don't need to understand supply chain and that is not the reality anymore it is a real opportunity my name is Colleen Hughes I am the director of community development and education for Sativa Medical which is one of New York's 10 licensed registered organizations we have a dispensary on Flatbush Avenue by Barclay Center I am an employee of a huge company and my background was in the wine business and then I left the wine business to do have my own consulting company I wanted to try entrepreneurship and use my skills that I had acquired in the wine business to help other wine companies and then when I found out New York was going to be passing medical marijuana I made that my mission to get into the space I started networking at all of the New York City networking events around the Canada space and essentially being the door down at two different companies so I worked for two of the licensed owners in New York to leverage my skills and abilities to help navigate this new space in a way that would benefit not just people who needed it medically but help further the legalization efforts and to help develop communities and make sure that everyone had a chance to participate in the legal market I think this plant belongs to everyone and everyone deserves a shot at making their living with the plant respect Hello my name is Paul Saunders and there are a lot of women involved in Canada space I've seen three to two women taking over this industry in class My name is Paul Saunders I'm from Brooklyn, New York I'm the co-founder of Nez Branch a lifestyle cannabis company based out of Colorado we sell concentrated products like vape pens as well as pre-rolls and consumer goods My background is in marketing and branding I went to Hampton University I'm actually my professor Dr. Rowe I'm a study professor and I came from Canada and this is a great connection but I started out in I've always been a serial entrepreneur first I started in music and then I got into marketing from Audrey Reynolds and several companies and I went into spirit companies as well as other companies so I've been in the same business for a long time so I'm at this Applied Bats of cannabis which is an amazing marketplace and I saw some really cool concepts that I wanted to further develop in the space My name is Dave Lankers with the Johnson I am an entrepreneur and I'm a storyteller so why am I here is because I think that like many people I had a preconceived notion of what the cannabis business was like with being a drug dealer and had a stigma on it and I have obligations as a media owner to tell the story, diverse stories of the cannabis business not just as a drug use and that's why I'm here so I'm like I'm not into the marijuana or the cannabis or the weed business I'm here to tell your stories and tell your stories so if you want an audience knows there are other ways to do this I'm like you know what wow this is just about the plan there's so many more ways to make money and there's so much wider open space so I'm here thank you so much so we're going to repeat the first question side effect of THC I'm just joking so the first question is how do you maneuver a business that works in the area in the gray area of legal and not legal i.e. federally illegal and state legal how do you collect money and how do you avoid being shut down compliance is key so you have to understand the parameters set by the state program being compliant on the state level is the only thing that protects you from the federal government interfering now the comb demo which was introduced under the Obama administration allowed for no budget for the DEA to touch states where they had a legal program be that medical that was specific to medical programs so we're at a point now where we're fighting daily in federal prohibition because the conflict between federal and state has kept the folks that look like us out of the industry for the most part and so it's important that you again fully understand what the program in your state allows operate in a compliant manner and in terms of money there are more banks today than ever that will actually provide services to cannabis businesses it is not full banking access like you think about access to checks credit and things like that because of federal systems you basically don't have access to it and so for my clients and my companies we spend about $4,000 a month for a second account that really is glorified money laundering so I work I'm an owner in Colorado which as we know what was the first day to a recreational so we have in Colorado established a lot of resources and networks when it comes to banking just last year in December my bank account with Expo which is a cannabis banking company was shut down so my money was frozen for about 45 days being that it's cannabis and you're mostly cash operations sometimes you can handle it sometimes you can so in that process my employees got paid late certain things that you wouldn't happen in other industries did happen in my company what I will say though is that we have thought in Colorado to get people to understand that we have to be able not only that but majority of the companies in Colorado are going for print so they pay by check anyway so as we know you normally buy cannabis with cash well when I sell my products since Benzry's wholesale they pay me check so I have to have a bank if I don't have a bank I can't sell them cannabis which is very odd in a time like this so now there are about 10 different banks in Colorado their private banks they specialize in cannabis so they allow you to have that debit card they allow you to be able to write checks account for people they will pay a whole whole thing like she didn't mention it is very costly I think in Colorado though because a lot more people are bringing their private funds into the state business partners April he actually has ownership into a bank so I am able to see it from a different perspective on how cannabis banking operates cannabis banking is held by us so if you have a lot of money and you want to help people bank you are able to go into that type of business culture it is different but it is possible so to answer your question how do we comply in state we bank in state we don't bank federal we don't go to bank America we don't go to banks like Wells Fargo the common ones we go into private banks that are far away in Colorado you have to drive 2 hours to go drop your money so that is another job we hire money droppers so we hire people that 2 hours to or Colorado Springs or Fort Collins to drop our finances Colorado is definitely doing a really good job with their private banking systems that allow for insurance investment into those I said a great job answering that question I am not sure I could contribute much more than that except for emphasizing the compliance angle is that the regulatory environment that it is the rule of law you have to comply with everything and the regulatory bodies will come and audit and check and make sure that you are complying with everything that you submitted and said you were going to do with your security plan and all of the compliance from seed to sale we are cash only dispensary there is an app called CanPay we don't have that in Colorado it is kind of like Venmo for cannabis which is so interesting but similarly we have to also use local banks we can't use any federally funded banks so there is those challenges and of course in my area with education and community development I try to work with strategic partnerships with universities and other partners to help further this pace the federal prohibition on cannabis causes a real road block when it comes to being able to do the studies to get the science to convince the lawmakers to get out of the way so I think the federal prohibition is still one of our I think all of our targets are set on changing that time so that we can get the data out and studies can be conducted in schools and hospitals without fear of getting federal funding to be pulled so I think that's another thing our elected officials really need of real education and benefits of cannabis and that's all of the things that have made it illegal are based on irrational ignorance and fear and propaganda so I think we're all here and I appreciate everyone coming to this because everyone that's here is going to play a part in helping to change the minds of our elected officials and we all have to work together on that so we actually have a bank America account but that's the model that we chose when we created the company we started to be a grant in cannabis space and licensed our grant and pretty much picked the best in class partners that package out goods and we essentially sell licensing so that's how we kind of went around we don't actually only have license to grow those process but we own the brand we license our IP which gives us our work around to be able to use the federal banking system since we're a branding and marketing licensing company so that we don't touch the pen at all but that's the model which everyone has their own model but of course you have to know how to grow cannabis so in this period let's say that for the best people that's what I knew so that's how we started the banking system and it's worked for us so far we've had many issues with banking we pay our employees for their checks we have healthcare insurance, we have coverage so just like any occupation we have the similar benefits that go to any hospital so we were pretty stable in that regard yeah I don't know if that's what you said we used to have way more job opportunities you know he doesn't test the plan at all and he's in the business someone carries your money that's a job so hope you don't take those those types of things that you don't have to test the plan to make money thank you so much for that I do want to say that while the panelists were speaking I was so enlightened I think we all kind of, or I'll speak for myself we all have this image of as these states are being you know these like marijuana is legal we think of like these crunchy people just walking around like high I guess but this is a multi-layered opportunity for everyone to get involved and that is such an essential part of community engagement and community revitalization when people think of the word gentrification they think of all of these people that don't belong to a community coming in and taking over it that's not what gentrification is gentrification is the capacity for a community to be developed up to a standard and the way to do that is to introduce creative new ideals to bring jobs to bring ideas that can help to grow a community and this is it, this is the Futureing House though we have the same question so this is what we got thank you so second question is what cannabis topics do you think would be essential to be taught in a curriculum cannabis or business in cannabis I think that everything that we're learning today is transferable is applicable to this industry and so whether you're studying finance supply chain management having some subject matter expertise in cannabis will allow you to transition into the industry doing what you already do leveraging a skill set that you already have my background is in supply chain management and so for years I moved everything from motorcycle parts to beer and so when I think about all of the things I did for any of those companies that I worked for really you see the value years ago they see it now and so if you just think about the fact that this is an industry that requires every single professional service that every other industry does everybody has a lane and I think that it's more important that university and school colleges just wrap their arms around cannabis this event is exactly what needs to happen in every campus I'll just share with you I wore this t-shirt today it says my HBCU changed my life and they're struggling with my university my HBCU in helping them understand that we are behind that we can't talk about cannabis employing more people than any other industry by 2022 if we aren't in the classroom preparing to stop and so when schools are trying to protect their students from cannabis they're doing the students in our communities a huge disservice and so to see the staff, the faculty the students embracing this industry and this opportunity and being proactive because I can tell you what's happening in New York is going to happen very quickly okay and if you she mentioned the 10 operators here in New York there aren't minority players in the medical cabinet space but we are ensuring that there will be minority ownership as it relates to this yes, science, botany, engineering, all of the things that we're already working on we just need to bring cannabis into the mix great Joe Souther is a professional party dispensary and he's finance he's a boss in CBD water that question would be an opportunity I would say the privilege to sit in on a minority it's like a minority cannabis conference in Colorado and a lot of a lot of minorities brought up the fact that they were highly skilled in areas such as accounting such as you know culinary things like marketing sales production just capability to just work period a lot of them felt like they did not get the pig wasn't there you know when you're entering into this industry a lot of people automatically think I'm going to hit this jackpot you know I'm going to go in I'm going to be an accountant I'm going to make three figures a year or I'm going to go in I'm going to do sales I'm going to make 100,000 coming out of the door that doesn't happen that way and so it turns a lot of people off when you go into an industry with set expectations and they don't meet your expectations sometimes you'll just walk away and go and do nothing else a lot of people are not willing to take the time and understand the knowledge of the cannabis side related to their position and it and I can say this because I'm 23 years old I've been in this industry since I could since I was 21 I didn't come in the industry as a blood tender I didn't come in the industry as a driver I came in strictly wanting to be an owner so I set my standards I set those standards I'm understanding the sacrifices I was coming with that first I'm 23 you know I'm a woman and I'm black you know I'm working against me I'm black and I brush it so I do work with a lot of different cultures and my ownership and in that case I felt even more pushback from children black young girls you know I still did not let that stop me so if you want to get into this industry you can't have pre-noted expectations of money you have to get in because this is something that you really really have a passion for to get tested just like any other job I sold insurance for years and I came into work every day and I wanted to shake the table and that hasn't changed on my way here I got a call that my production team messed up in order that still makes me want to shake the table I was broke for a long time working in this industry I was being honest you know it took me two and a half years to get to where I am it was about my passion and food science my passion in supply chain management my passion in formulating and bringing grants to the market had to be a lot more powerful than my willingness to want to be rich you know on this audience and there's nothing that can stop you except for you know thinking that this industry doesn't require you know more understanding and more sacrifices because it does it's just now coming out of prohibition it's just now and even in Canada I believe that they did make it federally legal but you're not allowed celebrities are not allowed to release celebrity strains so there's no with Khalifa Kush or you know there's no you're not allowed to brand like that the federal government and pharmaceutical industry owns most of that branding so in this time right now with cannabis still being federally illegal in the United States my biggest advice on changing your career into a candidate well check being a accountant regular accountant to a CPA and cannabis my biggest advice is get your head in the game get your feet in the field and learn there's no book there's no instruction manual the only thing I can do is give you my tennis shoes and say run and see what it feels like but there is not one and my biggest challenge was people telling me that you know you don't need education and cannabis you just can get in you can just do it how you've been doing and I wish someone would have been real with me and just would have been like you're gonna make sacrifices you're gonna be broke a little bit you're gonna make investments that you don't like you're gonna make investments that you like and ultimately it's gonna get you to your goal so my advice is if you are in a specific career just get in the field you don't have to do it and just see where it takes you because the knowledge is we don't know it all up here today it's a growing experience so just get your feet in the field that's really well that's all I can say I think as far as what curriculum you could offer I think this is a good question about that I think it's really imperative that learning institutions can partner with some of the industry companies in each state to develop those curriculums so that people who are interested in getting in the space can apply whatever skills and passions that they have as the thing it's like don't get into cannabis because it's the cool, sexy thing get into what it is that is sexy to you and what you're passionate about because it's always going to translate into that industry you do need a fundamental understanding of the endocannabinoid system that schools need to be able to start teaching that the biology and physiology behind the actual system in our body that processes cannabinoids which are found in the plant I think a lot of people are confused about what THC is and what CBD is and I think having an understanding of how the plant reacts in the human body how it changes sick people and improves the quality of life there's a lot of those things that people need to understand which is built upon that knowledge and I think partnerships with learning institutions and hospitals is the right way to go in the industry because the cannabis industry we have the potential in working together on developing the cannabis industry to show our country and all of the broken systems that have failed us along the way how to do it the right way and I think that this is a huge learning opportunity for our country to learn how we can come together and change the conversations surrounding all the other systems that have been broken for such a long time I think that the I think in terms of curriculum cannabis there's a whole entire legal system right I think of the spirit of the sugar liquor and beer so for instance I feel liquor is being really recreational right but cannabis is recreational, wellness, medical and then you have pet products so literally you have all these industries that are impacted and can be impacted by cannabis so if you think of the spirit of the industry as being one-dimensional cannabis is multi-dimensional so the ecosystem needs doctors lawyers, scientists, engineers logistics any occupation or any career path that you decide to choose you can apply that to cannabis so I think what also is a good point that a partner with facilities or cannabis partners in your curriculum or this happens in terms of dialogue or having an industry level course where there can be some type of correspondence or facilities like yours or processes or manufacturing or growth facilities and educational environment could be very positive and huge so I think if it starts with taking the first step of just having open dialogues this is the coursework of the curriculum let me bring in these players talk to the students and give them the opportunity to enter into cannabis space I entered about three years ago but I saw my path into cannabis was basically through branding I went into dispensary in Colorado and I saw that nothing appealed to me like the packaging of branding I didn't see something that identified with me so my background is really just creating an affinity of products to people lips to mouth and these types of affinity I would say activation but literally I built brand strategies to make sure that you drink that product or make sure that you engage with that brand and I just see a correlation in the cannabis space and I wanted to create that and that's why I created these brands and put them into the marketplace and now goes to grow nationally internationally with branding and take the product to multiple states and platforms on the curriculum side I think that some fundamentals you mentioned is not a huge quick scheme so it's not going to be a multibillionaire over 90 so I think it's kind of like cannabis 101 so what states are legal and what type of legality what other supply chain steps you have to take to get it from plant to consumer I think also biology side of it right so it's understanding it's not just about I'm going to go smoke this thing or experience it's high or inferior it has medical benefits to the body historical medical benefits cultural medical benefits indigenous people people African descent know a lot about this plant so like understanding culturally where the plant came from and why it existed and why it was made illegal by the US government and understanding capitalism and that this is society we live in you have to understand what that means first what is the capitalist, why, what is it illegal and why is it now made illegal now and get off the thought of you know the front of it or the money of it is the why it's become a product that can be sold to people and get tax revenue from to benefit the government even though it's illegal like that's the curriculum needs to be understood, the why that's what I think is really quick oh sorry something to add would be a history class in regards to like you mentioned why was Canada illegal it was totally illegal in Margaret before 1937 and one gentleman was the first head of the BEA which was Harry Essender that this is a noted fact he hated blacks, Mexicans and jazz music and that's pretty much the reason why Canada became a legal environment it's completely made up so all the propaganda you've heard and you've seen and regret and what your parents have been told or what you've heard is completely untrue so just do your own research look for yourself, check it out but history would be great can I add one more thing too I agree a thousand percent about telling the right story but also interpreting the regulations would be a great class to have it's really hard to read the rights and there is like 250 pages and it's all legalese it doesn't make sense to most people unless you're an attorney and you know you need to be able to understand the difference between BEA and SHAL when it's written in legal means that you know BEA means they're not going to do it SHAL means it's happening but the regulations and the compliance because that's the fundamentals of success is making sure that you're compliant with the law so you can't get in trouble and you can just perceive it in that framework you have to really understand what it says and I know in New York the Department of Health website has all the regulations on there there is, I think there is like a summary that you can kind of lean some information on but you know it's really like reading before bed alright, thank you there's a lot of seniors and a longstanding kind of like oh my god, you're about to have a week or maybe long but um we're going to introduce the next question you guys are doing an amazing job can we please give our panelists a round of applause for you providing like a perfect segue into the next question so New York City is only medically legal, however soon it will follow recreational legalization so what states should we look at for business protocols in recreational cannabis and it's actually a two-parter so what steps can small businesses do now in preparation for NYC recreational legalization so that the recreational business sector isn't overtaken by larger companies and small businesses didn't have a chance very yeah so who can we look at to understand like a model for protocol for years everyone ran for Colorado that was the model we're in such a better place now the first states that come to mind for me are going to be Massachusetts and I'm going to leave Massachusetts because they are focused on ensuring equity in this industry their adult youth legalization included a social equity program and they identified four categories and so they identified the entry level position the person who wants to come in and work for a cannabis company they also identified an entrepreneurial track so you're already an entrepreneur or a small business owner and you want to get into this space you're going to need a little left hand holding that we can't leave behind the folks that were caught up in the drug war and so we're going to prioritize folks that have been incarcerated for cannabis who have a relative who has been incarcerated for cannabis and then finally we're looking at economic empowerment a category for economic empowerment that says that below a certain amount of years you have a personal net worth below this threshold and so we want to ensure that there's a lane in this industry when I look at the state of California it is it's a wild wild west that's what it is and so folks are struggling there they implemented a social equity program with no funding they implemented a social equity program that did not do with the state of Massachusetts in terms of qualifying you before giving you this license and so in California it's supposed to benefit the people that I just mentioned but the only people that are truly benefiting from it are big cannabis companies that don't need a head start okay so these programs have become credit scores and exploited look to the state of Massachusetts but even still look at what is going right look at what opportunities exist and start to help them seem of course correct moving the state in the state in terms of small business owners getting ready think about the things that you're doing if you're a bakery if you are a if you own real estate commercial property that's one of the real obstacles for getting involved in this industry is that you typically when you're applying for cannabis business life you have to show control of a property sometimes in the year it takes to get up and running and actually generating some revenue most people can't withstand you know in a running through their cash before they can ever get their doors open and so as a small business owner I will be looking around and I will be a building team because there is no one man showing can't do there is not even a person that can come into this space to get a license we have to be collective in how we approach getting into this industry we've never done it before success and there are other communities and cultures that do it and do it well when you think about beauty stores right they're typically not owned by us they come into our communities and they want our money but they're not reinvesting so think about what you're doing in your neighborhood already build a team around you that can be an amazing competitor when you're going after those license access question am I able to just like ask a little question to you guys there's a lot of you guys in the audience can I just like ask you guys what what you guys would be interested in doing as cannabis is that okay can anyone shout it out legal okay research development cultivation transportation investment stop in culinary in culinary okay okay what did you say oh it's going policy so law maybe right I like it everything that you guys just mentioned it revolves in what I call vertical integration so the biggest thing about looking at recreational states and what they're doing right as you mentioned you can't do it alone that's number one there are Colorado with us being the first state to go recreational we did not do what Massachusetts did we did not okay we just didn't they weren't looking out for minorities everyone knows Colorado is going to a huge rejuvenation process you get in where you get in and you fit in where you fit in that's how that's Colorado's model now do I agree with it completely no what I will say is that we have started we do have a lot of minority programs that are in the process right now forming have the privilege of working with Ashley right now who is the head of the minority she's kind of heading the minority program she's not one of us but she's doing a great job what I will say follow up on that it's the truth I've been working with her a lot to give her to understand the difference between medical and recreational employment medical and recreational opportunities because they're two separate different licenses for one so a medical license is under one number and a rec license is under another so for example I have four facilities that I operated two of my facilities are met and recreational the third is just rec and the fourth is just medical basically what that gives me the opportunity to do is fight in both lanes if the federal government wants to come in tomorrow I'm saying I don't want recreational canvas anywhere we still have medical so recreational involves a lot of employment it brings in more employment so in my opinion just because I've seen the success that Colorado has had for recreational I would look at that state now as far as policies and looking out for our people no, that would be enough so there is not one state that has a completely right there's not California has been medical for the longest and like she mentioned you don't know if it's walking in or a dispensary with a license or not so there's really no state that should want to honestly like do say I would say take a little bit from each one and what they're doing correct and just apply to you guys the process but when recreational comes it comes and when it comes it comes with a lot more laws and procedures for example, I'm a food scientist my job is to know how to make products shelf stable the same products that you guys buy at Walmart that are on the shelf the spaghetti sauces and the orange juice and stuff like that my job is to take a recipe and make sure that it can sit on that shelf for a year or longer so people can buy it so when you're talking about recreational the health department is a little bit more strict on your edibles so if you don't have people who are educated on food science then you're not going to have any edibles on your shelf and your dispensaries when California went recreational my friend is actually the ordering manager of Med-Man which is one of the biggest medical dispensary chains recreational dispensary chains in California as soon as California went recreational there was over 30 brands that dropped from Med-Man yesterday when you went to Med-Man their entire shelf was full of products the next day you go in there's like three products on the shelf and you're like what the heck is going on well you went breakfast, that's what happens and when you went breakfast it required you to do things that you weren't prepared for one follow health department codes one, the fire department is going to get a lot more strict on your extraction operations what, it's wax, it's shatters it's oil that you need to even make a product so if your mips are not compliant if your mips are not prepared for recreational then you're not going to survive so the key to understanding recreational is to understand what comes with it it's not just this beautiful situation that happens that everyone now can use cannabis it involves a lot of it shakes up the entire engine so as a medical patient if you have epilepsy and you go into the dispensary and all of a sudden your state is recreational but the product that you supplies no longer is you know passing a code then what are you going to do what do you do as a patient what do I do as a business owner so RAP comes with more than just it comes with a lot of things the main thing that it comes with is it shakes up the state so child resistant packaging is one thing that a lot of medical people do a lot of medical owners don't have to practice when you go RAP you have to have child resistant packaging it has to be okay there's a lot of things that maneuver over that people don't follow right now so you have to be willing to understand the recreational law in other states and then maneuver that through what you guys are doing one thing I will say is that the medical programs are very highly regulated unlike what happened in California for decades they had a medical program that essentially if you knew how to grow cannabis and you had patients you were involved in the medical market there weren't real life using and regulatory requirements so it wasn't even just going RAP that turns California upside down it was the introduction of regulation across our board that really flipped those California operators on their heads but I certainly agree that we have to protect our medical programs when we are going RAP because those patients are who got us here patients are the reason why we've been able to sit here in this forum and have this discussion they sacrifice everything and fought for legalization sometimes from their death bed and now it's a privilege and an honor and it's our duty to not only protect that industry but to then open this thing up for folks that aren't critically ill introducing cannabis as a wellness tool is something that is going to be a game changer for our community when you start to think about the fact that we are going to consume cannabinoids we're going to feed our endocannabinoids system a system that has been starved for decades due to prohibition when him grew wild and the animals that we ate and the produce that we ate filled with CBD we were at our health we had the cancers and the diseases that are prevalent today so when we start to think about recreation and adult use cannabis it's great, it's amazing what we have to protect our medical programs and ensure that the regulations are smart that they don't drive out business owners but they do protect consumers I think a lot of people in the audience may have a brother or uncle or a father or someone that has negatively affected by cannabis by a different name industry so it needs to level the fear so I wanted to throw it out to you like people don't know where to start it's not legal we don't know it's a lot of terminology and they want to get started they know that it could be profitable what would you say is the first step they should take on that road in New York State look in the mirror and tell your story every single person that I come in contact with on a daily basis I'm talking about cannabis whether I'm talking about policy whether I'm talking about it from a consumer standpoint whether I'm talking about a business opportunity you have to be willing to be vocal I for several months actually two years tried to have one foot in corporate America and the other foot in this industry it was not possible because I needed to be able to advocate for not only an industry that was accessible to our people but I also needed to go talk about the fact that people are locked up people are still locked up if they're not locked up they have a record you know the reason expungement is so important to me is because I was into my 30s well into my career successful and in charge of cannabis possession in the state of Virginia they have like the endowments they're like and I was a criminal in their eyes because I had an out to this plan on my personal I also had the connectivity to the DA I had the connectivity to you know say hey see what happened to me within a couple of hours I knew this was not going to be an issue for me when I showed up in court it waved me around metal detector I'm like nah I'm here to see the judge metal detector they thought I was a lawyer and I know a lot of other people that looked like me that did not have that experience that were not able to get student loans and go to school can't lease an apartment still have to check the box there are real issues this is not just hey I'm going to get to this and handle some make some money you know start some business no we have to fight every single day to ensure that every person who wants access to this plan access to the economic you know opportunities or just a clean slate and the ability to conduct themselves and be productive citizens it's important that you figure out what you're passionate about as it relates to this industry because you will be fighting every single day the people that love you are not going to understand it people that you thought you know I remember so many people just saying why are you doing this I'm doing this because it is so once in a lifetime opportunity for me to change my family's legacy and the trajectory and the legacy generation of wealth for my family so again this the plan presents an opportunity for us to clear people's records and give them another chance of like even if they don't want to get into the industry they just want to live so you have to be able to have those sub-conversations with your mother, your grandmother your aunts are going to ask you why are you doing this you have to be able to explain that this is a this is a medicine, this is a plan so get educated understand your why be passionate about that and you really need to go out and be the face of it so many of us are missing out on this opportunity because we aren't in those rooms when a guy comes in and says hey I got $5 million I'm going to go after one of these licenses so it's almost like the Facebook thing right? a bunch of guys got together in a dorm room and now they're really there that's just not happening for us and so we have this opportunity today you have to be passionate you have to know what your value is and bring to the industry and again just be willing to fight for it the programs that I've been developing for Satiba because they're a multi-state operator I've seen I've been picked up for having cannabis also and had to go talk to the judge and that was fun and I've seen my black and brown friends be treated completely differently than I was in the system and I think that's disgusting and so what I try to do in some of the other contracts that I've worked on in the casino business and now in cannabis is the community development component and leveraging large corporations to give back to the community and one of the programs that I've been putting forth in our company and I've been talking about this with like the drug policy alliance and minorities from iPhone, AR and all of the other players in the game in New York so that we can come together on this to agree that these programs should be the responsibility of the multi-state operators when people come out of prison that they're treated with respect and there's legal services that will help seal their records or expunge their records states are different some don't expunge they seal New York as a state they will seal your records provide some re-entry services therapy to help heal the broken homes and the post-traumatic stress that all of the communities have faced because of the drug war once people have had an opportunity to heal and are ready to learn then the multi-state operators who are forced into vertical integration because the way the laws are written here in New York created a very high barrier to entry you need $30 million to have a business in New York right now so none of us can do that that's why I'm an employee of the company but I'm smart and I know that we can fix this and we can kind of work together so what I propose is after we get the healing is done and people are ready to learn we put them to the growth facilities and we do an orientation a seed-to-sale sort of orientation of what it's like to work in a multi-state operator or a large company and then also what are the available career paths and ancillary companies if you want to be an entrepreneur then what are the different things just like being in the line business you need to make those oak barrels with the wine in you're not making wine but you're providing a service and necessity for the wine industry similarly with cannabis there's so many different things and everyone wants to touch the plant it's so sexy because it's been a legal process for a long time you don't have to touch the plant to make money in the space so learning what those opportunities are and having the resources provided you've been awarded these licenses I think is very important and then working with developing GE programs, scholarship programs if you go through the seed-to-sale program and you decide hey I want to learn how to extract the oil in order to make edibles or to make my own baseline but you get inspired and you want to get your chemistry degree because you just learned how to extract oil from a plant then guess what you deserve to get a scholarship because you are in prison for doing this so guess what thank you thank you for making this time thank you again we would like to give the audience the opportunity for any questions if that's appropriate you guys are okay with that so you're going to have one mic on one side of the aisle and another mic on the other side of the aisle please keep the questions short and sweet for the rest of the time this is a very passionate discussion so we're going to give everybody a chance to ask their questions we're going to form a line if we want to limit it to at least one question we can good afternoon everybody we just want to thank you guys for giving us this information thank you guys so much since we have one more question so your background is in food science so did that background help you much or was it more so on your own learning and your own trauma against your business or did the school component have like a major effect or did it really do you understand the question was it a lot of groundwork for your homework so just so you know I was enrolled in middle school for possession of marijuana my middle school my father went to prison when I was four years old for drug conspiracy he's gone 16 years in my life he was one of the first people to have been wiretapped in the United States so my father went to prison due to post-traumatic stress disorder and depression so I started using cannabis in middle school I got expelled for it I moved to Georgia where I even seen oh no don't smoke weed here bro bro so I moved from Georgia I did my four years in high school and then I moved to California that's when I started to see the uprising of cannabis when I was about 18-19 I then moved back home to Colorado and I got I then went into just business development so my motivation to get into the industry was personal, it was spiritual it was on a completely different mentality than a lot of people that I know but now that I do include science it comes into play it helps me but I did not get into the industry because I knew food science because I knew how to make spoil and water because my family has suffered and I suffered a little bit in middle school but other than that that's really why I got into the industry so my background and what I wanted to do helped mold what God already knew I wanted to do you know what I'm saying when I have to talk about that it's why I got into the industry it's a little personal my trade just helped that's really what it was but I did get more into my trade than I ever thought I did, I did more research day and night, numerous hours just researching it just took a lot of groundwork and motivation and passion to be honest with you my name is Dezo my company is called Butterville 420 Arms I'm a master grower I'm in four states from Brooklyn so you know what that challenge was like and we teach people how to grow because when I just left DC moving back to New York hoping that this would get a little quicker in April it didn't happen but in DC it's like you're 21 years old and you're going to buy an equal cannabis there's no place to buy it which is kind of weird, I don't know that because so they urge you to grow and everybody should want to learn how to grow because that's where we come from the growing market my family we are not they're not coming up that they don't know can answer that cannabis, if we aren't in just cannabis as early as three four years old we never have problems with some of the diseases and some of the problems we grow up with but she was happy because we don't start to ingest it until we act in adolescent ages but if you are and understand how the system passed away from stage 4 stage 4 can stage 4 cancels and two years ago after that me and Department of Health was like sensitive oil and things are going to help grow up with CBD but see the problem is the government is putting CBD as a legal thing that we should do in this act but they don't even want you to grow a CBD plant even if they make you leave to oppose them family family family family family family family family family family family family family family family family family family family family Hello, and good evening. My name is with one word of the Brooklyn Cannabis Collective, a non-profit educational-based organization out of Bethan, Southside. I have a question for you guys, if anyone could answer this. Is there any real legitimate conversation about the African American community about organized money, our organized money? Last year, $9.6 million was raised in an IPO under the Tulsa Real Estate Fund. Is there any legitimate talks now going on about us getting together and actually raising capital because private equity firms, venture capital firms and other individuals with large capital assets are actually engulfing the industry and taking over significant market share? So there are, hey what's up, thanks for starting that organization. So personally we've raised a significant amount of money for our company, mostly due to my network. So yeah, I was going to say that, we've raised a significant amount of money to my personal networks. There are companies that are raising, there are a couple of them, Viola out of Colorado in California, Manhattan, a couple of celebrities and sports athletes. So in terms of the conversation about these funds, yes, that's very important, especially when we talk about social equity plays that she mentioned earlier in the evening. So yeah, it should be pooled on money, it should be within stocks. In terms of the way I see it is, man, there's a lot of people that do want to invest in cannabis. Like for instance, I didn't have any problems finding investors, just based off of track record, talking to people and networking and understanding how, you know, the way I saw the world working. So our company has been already owned and we sell this to everyone, but essentially it's about putting the right players in place and we do want to create these funds. There are a lot of high network individuals in our minorities that are definitely interested in this space. We have to educate them and let them know that their returns are going to be met. They'll be able to see some profit and have a solid business plan and structure in place where we'll see their investment come to fruition. So yeah, it definitely does exist. There are some big funds out there and there's some major players that are really financing some really solid operations. So it does exist, but in New York City, I don't think we know all these players, but these players, a lot of them are on West Coast and the East Coast as well, but we're definitely in the game, but our story is I'm told that's one of the reasons why you're here as well is to tell our story. I want to tell you, please do that. Please organize in your community. Make it in Brooklyn-wide. Don't limit it and make sure you can ask, what is everyone's specialty in here? When you organize to do this crowdfunding to raise your capital, find out who are the finance people, who are the people who want to grow, who are the people who want to process, who are the people who want to dispense and organize that way so you have the seed to sale vertical integration even if it's broken up in different components and then you can pool all your money together to get someone else to help with that, but you have to organize, you have to communicate and you have to find out who's talented in what areas and just make a business plan like that and go after it. But you can do that. You should. Thank you. The Minority Business Association is also working on addressing this. The minority investors are coming to us, they're working on a program to facilitate deal flow and there will be two sides of it. There will be the side of the folks that want to invest $1,000, $5,000, but then there will also be that side for the accredited investor who's coming in and ready to put up $250,000 a million. So we are going to address the needs of these wealthy minorities as well as the businesses that need money and would like to be funded by our dollars. So it's one of the most exciting projects that I'm working on this year with the MCBA because what we do know is that we can go in and affect policy. Let's look at it like this. The state of New York, the state of Florida, a few people got together in a room and said, let's create a program that will allow just us to get in. And in Florida, it was six people. In New York, it was a handful of workers in New York, but what we're going back and doing on the policy side of things to address that will not be effective if we don't create funds specifically to grow minority businesses. Those social equity programs that we're talking about, great, sound good, needs money. So the agencies need money, the businesses need money. There's going to be an opportunity for us to partner with industry, but we also have cannabis tax revenue, and we need to dedicate some of that to funding these businesses, and so you'll see us talking about that quite a bit, and we've got some amazing legislators at the federal level and at the state level here in New York that are working to address this. On May 23rd, the Drug Policy Alliance is going to have three shuttle buses to Albany for Lobby Day. This is an opportunity for you to participate in the process and go talk to your elected officials. Drug Policy Alliance, Minorities for Medical Marijuana, Start Smart, New York. These are all organizations you should be very familiar with. If you're not, please go look them up, sign up for their newsletters, go to the events because they host events in minority communities looking for the same people who are trying to make it in the industry and there's more resources available because they're industry-specific. So Drug Policy Alliance, Minorities for Medical Marijuana, Start Smart, New York, May 23rd, Lobby Day, clear your calendar, go to Albany, talk to those people. Thank you. My name is Michelle Phillips. I'm an attorney. I'm coming into the industry as a compliance and regulatory attorney because there's no women or any kind of color in the industry that looks like me as of today. In regards to creating a team, how many of you guys know of a water attorney? A what? A water attorney. So when you start thinking about cultivation and becoming a farmer, one thing you need to know is you cannot use better water. That's number one. Number two, you need a commercial real estate attorney because even if you have a commercial space and that you build out, you need to have provision in your commercial contract. If there's a school built 108 yards or a church, your lease is going to be terminated. Number three, in the state of New York, you need to understand the Dram Law. The Dram Law applies to alcohol. It's also going to apply to dispensary when it comes to recreational use. That's a liability. As an attorney, ethically, we cannot advise you because there's a great area. We cannot advise you to engage in criminal enterprise and that is the sale of marijuana because it's still scheduled. So if you're going to come into the industry, be diligent, be proactive, do your due diligence. Your team should consider a trademark attorney, a patent attorney. You're going to have to deal with FTC, FDIC, FDA. New York is so heavily regulated that by the time you're done with your due diligence, you may not want to be in the industry. That's number four. In regards to building your team, when it comes to the license and the application, you have to disclose to everyone. So if you have someone on your team that has a prior conviction, you need to start getting that case that those convictions sealed in the state of New York and you can only seal three misdemeanor or federal states and they cannot be federal. So if you have someone on your team and it has to be ten years older, it cannot be federal, it can't be out of state, and it cannot be anyone with a valid felony or sex crime. So in regards to your due diligence, I sleep this, I eat this, coming into the industry. My first actual trial was for EDI. People need to understand that if you're stopped with EDI driving under the parent marijuana, do not take the agreement to the blood test. First of all, THC cannot determine the level of other parent. They can determine that in your system, but as we all know, it takes 60 days for THC to get out of your system. I was able to get a quiddle. I beat up the prosecutors, you know, toxicologists because it's in the state. It's in the state of the network. I thought they were speaking in intoxication. Excuse me, do you have a business card? I didn't even know what I was just saying. It's very important. I applaud the panel, but as people of color, I grew up on Eastern Park Lane between under home Washington. I was there when they had the black mark and went all the way shops was there. Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me, I'm so sorry, but we want to be educated by the panelists. We would love to invite you at another time. Right now, let's hear from the panelists. So we need questions instead of, um... If you want information, you can find her after the panel for now. You know? Because we have a group that want to do this. All right? So I would like to get the information. And the lady that left, she should have been okay. Because... You know, the last stop I would even know if I would get into this room. I've been in another jail over this for more than 50 years, you know what I'm saying? So we don't want to do mistakes. We want to do the right thing. And I love all of you, you know, believe me. I just want to know how educated you are, all right? I love you, all right? Hello, all. So I want to just take the time to tell you guys thank you for all the information you shared today. And I'm really going to ask a question. So first, I, you know, I think there is a gap, right? And the gap is really when I think about how you think young adults in this space. So I'm really just trying to understand, one, the role of your organization, your institution, and really kind of providing internships. Because so much of the stuff that you guys spoke about was really this hands-on learning process. So even thinking of the student care event there, and I'm like an adjunct professor here, so I'm even thinking about, well, how do I have these conversations with the young people who come to my class from a real loud, right? So what's the role of kind of working with these anchor institutions in the community and really these learning institutions and providing like internships to really get a hands-on experience as to what's happening in all the different sectors of the field? Yeah, I'll start first. So this conversation was really a thought starter, really. A thought starter in engaging the university on cannabis. So there definitely needs to be more follow-ups, more panels that are specific. And literally like more time, days, weeks needs to be dedicated towards the industry because it's so many layers to it. So this really serves as a thought starter to get the conversation flowing. It's exciting because there's a lot of compassion about it and it just goes to show that we need to have this conversation take place more frequently. So we can get some more understanding. New York City and New York... Well, New York State is a very complicated place and has a wide group of people that really need to talk to many aspects of the plan. So the goal of this panel is to bring people in from different aspects of the industry and give a general understanding of what we see in the legal markets and what happens when it comes to New York. So let's give some insight and give a pretty much a quick note to the possibility of New York City and what's happening. So I'll start with that. And very specifically, I know you spoke about having... We have these 10 institutions in New York City currently that are in this space. So really thinking about those spaces. And as New York City is doing a lot of work on justice reform, especially pride, you are 16 or 17-year-olds. So what I'm seeing is that's the field that I come from. I'm seeing that there is a connection for the reasons why young people were going. We're being incarcerated. But then also trying to plan out these really interesting kind of career pathways for them. And really kind of speaking on like, this is your strength. This is the space that you're coming from. So how do we make this a career for you? And I think that's the real gap that I'm really just trying to understand outside of like, this space in my everyday work. Well, the Minority Cannabis Business Association is a trade organization. We are focused on the communities that were devastated by the war on drugs. And so our membership are, you know, life with operators, some of these multi-state operators. We have amazing partnerships and we would not be able to do the policy work, provide the educational and networking opportunities without industry partners. And so what's important for me now is to connect with educators. For you to say, hey, I teach, I teach finance or accounting. Could you send me a cannabis CPA? Because here's what everybody knows how to balance, you know, a P&L or how to make business decisions based on that. But what you also have to know, and cannabis is bad, if I'm going after a license, if I'm going on a business plan for a cannabis or a plan touching cannabis business, I need the accountant in the room, day one, to tell me how to lay out this facility so that I can protect myself from the issues related to taxing or taxation, right? 280D is a very real issue for the cannabis industry and that's a whole other conversation. But there are very real issues that are going to need to be solved and the folks that are in these classrooms are the ones that are going to do that. If you are a food scientist or you're teaching biology, you know, say, hey, I would like for someone from your company to come into the classroom and talk to my students. I applaud you for not turning those kids the way they come into the classroom loud. Right? Because that's what turns them off. That's what sends them out there. So you say, hey, there's a real opportunity. You're obviously a passionate about this. Now, let me polish you up. Let me polish you up. Let me position you to leverage that. When I was able to really reverse myself in this industry, those sacrifices that you mentioned do not feel like sacrifices. I remember sitting in client meetings and wanting to scream because I'm working so hard and these people don't care about me and the work I'm doing won't impact anybody in any real way except making these people rich. So when I marry my passion with my skills, I'm living my best life literally. That's my purpose. I think also, I have to remember, there's still consequence. I think that a generation of that, right? So it's still not okay yet so it's about preparation. You can make a wrong move now, right? Because you think it's going to be illegal. You're like, you know what, whatever I'm going to do this, it's not licensed to go out and just publicly smoke because you may not have a chance when it does arrive for you to do it. So I think it's that part right there, the generation of life. It's not just fun. We're talking business up here. We're not talking fun. So if you just want to have fun, that's something different in the cannabis business. I think that's really important these things are just two different things. My name is Shamar Thompson. I'm an accounting major. And I'd like to say I'm a part of the ethics community of Medgar Evers. That's kind of a joke. I'm really interested in the ethics part of the cannabis industry. We can all agree that cannabis is strongly policed but not necessarily regulated in the sense that access to it isn't seen as difficult. And so my question is, for the full legalization and regulation of cannabis, simply create another instance of a pseudo-controlled substance that's easily criminalized like alcohol. That's very well much possible unless you legislate otherwise. Right now you're in the basic cannabis like in liquor first, when the prohibition on liquor first ended. You have liquor companies that we all still drink until today. I can able to deal. You probably want to help me out. That started in the prohibition process and they're still here. But when you walk into a liquor store, you have your top brands and then you also have the... There's so much liquor. I mean, NSE is not the only company. You know what I'm saying? Soraka's not the only block up. There's so much... There's so much that you can offer but that is the risk. But that's business. It's just business across the board. You have to have... The government has to feel like they have controlled something. At full time, that's something that we can't change unless we move to another country. But this... You know, we are in America and we have to deal with... when things go legal, they do form other things around it and still make money off of it. From a like. DUI, which you just mentioned, all across the board, but that's the openness of it. You know, I call it the... The fun part. It's the part where you are in business and hopefully, like she mentioned, people to protect the government from doing things like that. For example, in Colorado, I did a marketing photo shoot by the Great Sand News. I did not know that it was got old property. I'm an owner. So I got a federal fine or had to be a federal case in Colorado on cannabis with no legal rights. Okay? Do you know what it feels like to have a badge on your chest and then, you know, be in the back of the police car because for candidates, you're in Colorado? Like, if I can't be in Colorado, smoke weed work, and I go, that's either hell. But I didn't... It's an excuse from anything. No matter how illegal it is, you still have to call laws around certain things. So I am a witness to being criminalized in an industry that's legal. But I was able to take that case. So what I will say is that it's not that bad. You know, don't let the fear of like, oh, if cannabis does go fully legal, what does that mean for us? If cannabis stays illegal, I mean, you're almost trying to ask questions that only God can answer. So in my opinion, you get in, educate yourself. Look up other countries like Israel. Look up other countries like South Africa. Look up other countries and laws that they have in Canada and Amsterdam. I mean, travel. You know, a group of you guys can easily start a cannabis travel club and you guys choose to go to states that are legal and you do research and development in those states. So put together a thought. When you're in a place with minimum light, you know, you have to be willing to bring more light to this situation. So you guys are in New York and I did a little bit of research on the criminalization, especially at my wedding that I am in. And it sucks that I can't take my legal law in Colorado and land them here with me and be like, okay, everybody stay. You guys don't have to go through this no more. You guys don't have to, you know, sit in a room like this and be like, you know, how do I get an image? It's so criminalized here. How do I do it? You have to go outside of your comfort zones sometimes to be able to bring understanding back to your people form. So by me choosing to work in a partnership of, I mean, only minority women, I didn't do that to be in a sexy cannabis room. I didn't do that to say oh, I smoke lean on the cannabis owner. I did that so I can truly understand how people outside of our race think about business and money. And I have got that understanding. So what I will say to you as my brother is you have to be willing to get outside of your comfort zone. Travel outside of the water before those two places that are doing what you want to do and then bring that knowledge back to you. That's the only way you can solve the issue of her question. Where is the the I'm sorry it just slipped my mind where you can the internship. So for example what I do for 420 I had a minority 420 tour at my facility where nothing but minorities were able to come and tour at my four facilities and ask me as many questions as they wanted to ask me about what they wanted to do. After I did the tour I gave all the opportunities to do an internship out of the 30 of us that did the tour only 5 of them came back. So my question within me back is when you do have people who are willing to put their life on the line to make sure that we can make opportunities are you guys going to be receptive to them in a way of understanding and actually listening to listen not listen to reply we didn't we're not putting our life on the line to come out of the line you guys that's the point so you also have to be willing to step out of your own balance because this industry is a football I call it football and I've never said football is a good girl but if I could add to what football felt like it would be the cannabis industry as a full contact sport you are tackled every day you gotta be willing to get up you still want to make a touchdown and not only that but you gotta tackle like people don't look like you so that even feels worse but most of us would run away blame it on racism blame it on segregation let's just do it because it's as complete how many times a day do we have to do that how many times a day does this this color of our skin come into play on opportunities every day so yeah it's frustrating but you do put yourself in a position to give these people opportunities and they decline them because they're not willing to step out of their own comfort zones so get out of New York go and explore other places that are doing what you guys want to do because in Colorado I am seen come up that I have I ever have and it is a very humbling experience to witness I mean the owner of a romantic history one of the biggest suspicions in Colorado City is owned by two black guys and a Jew and you know what those two black guys did they kicked the Jew out of being able to make any type of business decision but they still get his money so I've seen my people do things that I've watched other people say we can't do not only that but I have done just like in business camps for two months, three months you guys were really really serious about this this is something that you really really really want to do if you guys are in college and you guys get some breaks spend two to three months if you're really serious and even the lawyer of the lady that got a chance to talk who said a lot of beneficial things but that does change state to state so if you're in New York but you want to go on a business in Florida or you want to go on a business in Colorado or California, those lawyer calls aren't going to apply to those states everywhere is different I've worked with lawyers in New York this by the way is my first time in New York and I've worked with lawyers here before and I have never touched any pig around here so that just shows you the variety that does exist in this industry I live in Colorado I work with lawyers in New York I work with hundreds of people in Florida I live in Colorado I have brand and website developers in California, Atlanta and Louisiana so nothing stops Indian I mean let me tell you how many people I've hired on indeed.com that I now pay five to six grand a month these people have applied to me from New York saying hey I'm moving to move to Colorado this is my rent mate I'm not telling you guys to leave this state but what I am doing is I'm saying you have to you have your responsible to bring life back to this state so just like all of us came from other places just like Paul mentioned to come and bring life to you know the cannabis industry now that we've brought that life to you guys on what's really going on it's now your responsibility just like it's ours to go through the same things it's just passing along information so please don't like don't think there's one way to do something there's a million ways to get rich but if you don't want to step out of your comfort zone you're going to limit ways your own ways and it's good ultimately what I've experienced is self fault you know you have to take accountability you have to do things yourself you can't use your skin color you can't put that in the universe and I wish my power and I'm sorry I'm taking up some time right now but I just wish one thing I do wish is I wish that we would understand our power from a spiritual and a mental standpoint and I wish that we would stop using this and being so scared of our own skin it's like the main question everybody asks is a black person and it's almost like what you're a human and you breathe this is one second of me put yourself in that position piss them off piss them off that's what we've been doing for years and we are good actors so continue to piss them off if I had any advice it would be to piss them off thank you thank you thank you all so high so this is the first series of Tom Horns and baby contact I don't know when I'm going to finish my adjustment all of it but I'm going to be getting inspired so I have two questions one, do you have women, your staff owner I'm a chemist here faculty I like this she can't go anywhere this is good in terms of curriculum development which we have started looking at my question is with respect to the analysis so there are lots of products that the medical dispensary the recreational products and distributes distributes a solid range of products different concentrations of CBDs different concentrations of TCs my question is where do you do that analysis to ensure consistency do you do that in-house do you have a lab filter to do that in-house and if so so when you think about analysis you're going to want to do this analysis at a few different points and so as a producer as a cultivator you are absolutely testing product before we send it out to what is the state lab today but will be opened up to private labs in the future so another opportunity in here for the scientists most that have EFs that is that is where we need to be preparing just across the bridge, New Jersey doing the same thing moving away from depending on the state lab to do testing and so they're going to open up licensing for independent testing facilities those are the kinds of jobs and career not only just career jobs but entrepreneurial endeavors that we need to prepare the folks in this room for I know we have minority owned labs that do other types of work in the space being able to go to them to say hey have you thought about cannabis and marrying them up to the cannabis expert to creating a revenue stream for an existing lab internal operations there's typically someone hired to do that work I know in Maryland again we test everything before we go and spin the money to have it tested outside essentially in New York the organizations that have the licenses some do their independent testing in their own facility before they send it to the state lab which is run by the Department of Health there's a huge backlog so it takes a really long time I think they are going to be opening that up to other labs to be able to participate and do the analysis but one of the things I have proposed to FOMO's office was to start an internship program through the SUNY schools to have a pipeline of you know in and sorry so they can go through the state schools and have county labs so that all of the businesses on the county level would be able to go and have an affordable place to have their products tested because not everyone can afford an HPLC or know how to operate one so it's important that you test at every stage you're testing the flower, you're testing the extract you're testing the potency across the board and the future is really testing the spread of cannabinoids and evaluating those benefits and finding what ailments that spread of specific cannabinoids treats and so looking into the specific effects of cannabinoids and terpenes is really smart all right we got a special question for special someone all right this poll is saying this moment good evening my name is Molly Sones and I'm a graduate of Reagan and the Scottish and I'm very proud to see what it is now to what it was before so I am glad that I have the opportunity just to say a couple words I really appreciate everyone who came here today because my mouth is open and I'm going to California where they are so he doesn't know that yet this is what the plan is I'm going to design I'm still working for somebody else and work for my science because at this university, Meg Evers College Dr. Betty Schman taught me science and how to do it and I can never stop working so I really want to say this most few words because she left a legacy inside of me that I can see and imagine how things oh how it was and everything you don't have to tell me this I can tell you so I just want to say that and I want to wish each and every one of you good luck alright keep smiling the road is not for the strip but those who enjoy it thank you so much so in the interest of time because we are way over time we're going to continue to have this conversation on campus and we're going to continue with the questions offline out of respect for everyone that still does have questions we'll have a few moments in the lobby to get those out also I encourage you all to visit the MDAC, male development and empowerment center to continue the conversation as well as the entrepreneurial clubs many of these institutions on campus are open spaces where we can come and express ourselves and its center free so at this time I just want to give a huge round of applause I think everybody should be up and applauding our wow deep role did you believe what we just saw absolutely fascinating I am just so proud wow yeah so deep role lets just give a real big shoutout to some of our students students give yourselves a big be a shoutout of MDs Joe up its okay this is different man these kids are so good Can we say thank you to the production team? Yes, yes, yes. Can we say thank you to the production team? The production team, soon it will start coming up. We want to take a photo. We want to take a photo, so the production team, you guys, come on up. Yeah, oh yeah. Want to hand out these plants, plants to the panelists? Yep. No, I apologize. Vanessa, David, Baha, David, our standing presentation. We're going to talk about... And I'm going to call that okay. Davon. Yes, Chris. Oh my gosh. Sinita Penny. You guys want to stand up. Colleen Hugh. Thank you. Yeah, and while they're doing that, that's actually... And Mr. Paul Spencer. That's actually the laptop cannabis steering key serve coming up. You can hang them on the wall and you can whack your enemies over the head. Hey, folks, can we also give a good word for the Chrome Heights, the Chrome Union Events Production Group? Can we ask them to come up to the Chrome Union Production? If you're here, just come on up. We're here. Okay, very good. Hey, where's Professor Bamboo? Is he here? Can we ask him to come up? He's already here. He's already here. I just want to make note on the last couple pages of your program. We have thirty-seven major average colleges, student businesses, and... I think some of them can. Well, I think not. So, do you know if you have any words or wisdom? I mean, this panel was just great. This panel was awesome. I heard about passion. I heard about vision. I heard about accountability. I heard about responsibility. And for those of you who are in school, bring the best that you can be wherever you are. I heard that you don't have to touch the plant. I don't have to touch the plant. I will touch it for you. Don't worry about that. You know, can I see buttermilk420.com? I can. You guys gotta type it up so we can post it. There's nothing to stop you. Sometimes you can. That's what you got in the crowd. All right, folks. You really make a smile. You really make a smile. And again, thank you. Thank you. Thank you to the panelists. We really, really appreciate it. This education that you guys provided for me where it was thought this afternoon. Thank you. You can't smile. You can't smile. It's okay. Say 420. Say buttermilk. That's it. Did we get it? All right, colleagues, one more. While you guys hold out, let's just also real say thank you to this really, really wonderful audience. I mean, I thought the question at the end was really, really super. You know, young man, that showed real care audition. If I might say that myself. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. He's got to be a two-year man. You just need to be appropriate for that kind of question you guys were asking. How was the program? It was real good.