 Jim Belushi has done so many things. He's an actor, he's a dancer, he's a movie star, but now he's a farmer. He has a farm in Oregon and it's a cannabis farm. So Jim, you've kind of been in the cannabis industry for a while as an advocate. You've certainly been active in speaking about the plant. What prompted you to decide to get into the farming business because you had to have known by being on the fringe of the cannabis industry that the farming is really, really tough? Well, it actually happened the other way. I got into the farming industry and then got into the cannabis business through that. And it is very tough. The industry has its own challenges, but farming. Farming, I am Elmer Fudd and Bill Murray in Caddyshack. I'm chasing gophers, digger squirrels, russet mites, aphids. I see a grasshopper and I just like panic. They're gonna eat my plants. Farming is a whole different thing and I am in this from seed to soil to dispensary to patient. So I'm experiencing all of that. And along with that are conventions where I speak and I've been in the business now for about four or five years, but it all came by accident. I just happened to be in the best growing section in Oregon in the banana belt. And I bought a little place on the river and the farm came up behind me and I bought that and I was like, what am I gonna grow? And cannabis became legal that year and I went, oh, new agriculture, let's just grow cannabis. And then these ladies, these female plants have led me to where I believe I'm supposed to be right here talking to you. Well, it's a beautiful farm. I've seen it on the show on your new Discovery Channel show which I watched the other night and it was hilarious. That's the thing. It was entertaining and for being someone like me who has been very familiar with the farms and the cultivation, I thought it was a very realistic example of what happens when you're dealing with these plants. Well, it's not a stoner show. No. It's not a show about people getting stoned and the humor is real humor. It's based on the relationships that I have. It's based on my learning curve because I'm a damn idiot. But as the episode's like tonight's episode is really great because Danny Hackeridge's in it, we're the blues brothers in it and then we go to Columbia in search for the Santa Marta Gold. So it's an exotic travel. It's called growing Belushi and it's not just about growing cannabis, it's about growing the business. It's about my growth in my family and mainly it's about me growing up and understanding the traumas that have happened in my life like losing my brother. Because I think the collapse of family is the number two fear in a person's life. And trauma collapses families. Whether it's losing a sibling, losing a father, a severe illness, epilepsy, Alzheimer's, whether it's divorce, losing a job and we all need medicine to help us through it and the most readily available medicine is alcohol and Xanax and Ambien and the list goes on. And I think cannabis helps, doesn't cure but it helps manage the screaming inside of us that we all carry. So how bad did you feel when you ruined those Captain Jack plants? Because you left the lights on and burned them. Well, you know, I'm a little, I'm a little full of myself. That was very real, right? Yes, most of them give me full of themselves from time to time and a little arrogant, know you know and I sprayed these damn plants with neem and I left the lights on and my daughter called who I I adore I drop everything when she calls me she calls me on FaceTime and I get to see her beautiful face and talk to her and I just walked out of the room and I left the lights on and burned all the plants. Oh my God. Your manager was so mad at you. Stupid, but real. All those events that happened in this show are real things that happen on the farm and some of those things we recreated because it's like you know well remember when you burned the plants I don't want to film that. I don't want to show the world that. So it's a real journey. Well and I think what was interesting from a business point of view is that those plants from what I understood were kind of spoken for and that there were you know there was somebody at the end of that supply chain. Stop it right now. Stop it right now. Stop shaming me. You are shaming me. But I'm leading into that you have a deal with grassroots and you know your product is in demand and so now it's not just you know a passion project or or hey I want to go play farmer. This is this is a real business now with somebody at the end of that supply chain saying you know where's my where's my stuff. Yeah it is a real business and like I said the last four years have been like oh well it's been like a kind of bachelor's of science in it right now my master's thesis is this growing Belushi this TV show and now I'm moving to grassroots which is you know Mitch Khan is one of the beautiful men in our industry that we see eye to eye on the deeper mission and we're opening up in Illinois September 3rd with the Blues Brothers brand because branding is isn't just a pretty box branding has to have some emotion and context to the Blues Brothers Blues Brothers is about music about mischievousness which is the fun and a mission from God so it's a perfect brand for cannabis because it has all three of those anyway I'm so happy about grassroots yeah I mean Illinois has turned out to be an amazing market has been pretty impressive for all those that are involved and to your point you know Blues Brothers is definitely associated with Illinois and especially with Chicago so I think that's a great fit I also think that you know what you're bringing with this brand is and and I think the show shows that is this authenticity and this credibility that some of the celebrity brands that have been out there I feel like you know people are just signing their name to the product and maybe smoking a couple of joints ago yeah yeah this is good you're clearly clearly involved from beginning to end in the oh no no I make sure the the soil you know I have enough curl I did it for the water the drain and it gets 64 degree temperature in order for the micronutrients to go into the roots in order for the THC to hit the water as I prune the water leaves in order for the air I keep the humidity right at 65 I keep the pH that I come right out of the river it's like having Fiji water or air have water feeding these girls but that pH has got to be a perfect 64 65 every time I'm in the detail work of the trimming no no no no no no I'm a grower and so when I work with grass roots I'm not going here's my name give me some money I'm like I'm in the grow with their grower and we're talking about all these elements that out of the details of a beautiful beautiful medical healing plant and like I said Mitch Connors do it okay so another thing that you're involved with is the last prisoner project and I feel like most people in the cannabis industry know this project it's an effort to help free people that are still in prison for marijuana cannabis offenses which is mind-boggling right now tell us 40,000 40,000 people are incarcerated for cannabis right now in the United States while we're out there making a profit you know selling I'm literally in the Ford Explorer with my cousin loaded up with cannabis driving the dispensaries legally and these guys are in jail I mean Michael Thompson is he had arrested for three pounds of cannabis 24 years ago he's been jailed 24 years sentenced to 40 to 60 years and right now he's 65 years old completely collapsed his family and he's got COVID and he's in the hospital but Steve D'Angelo who's headiness and Mary Bailey tell me that the state's attorney of Michigan is on it and they're working on releasing him yeah absolutely well I think Steve D'Angelo has done an amazing job certainly spearheading this this campaign and bringing it to a lot of our attention and keeping it you know at the top of the list and making sure that we understand the debt that some of these people have paid while we're able to you know walk around you know free as a bird so thank you for the work you're doing with that and I hope that we can you know have some progress on helping these people in and getting them out yeah yeah well thank you thanks for your support in that thank you