FM Talk 1065 Podcasts
Sweet Home Cannabama 8-5-24 Brian Dombrowski, plant-based policy
It's time for "Sweet Home Canabema," a show that'll answer all your questions, provide accurate information, and dispel the myths of cannabis, and have your specific questions answered by emailing jennifer@canabema.com. Or text or call 3430106. And now, for all things cannabis in Alabama, here's your host, Jennifer Booser. Welcome to the show, everybody. I'm your host, Jennifer Booser, owner and founder of Canabema in downtown Mobile. We're located at 558 St. Francis Street in downtown. Our phone number is 251-255-5155, and our website is www.canabema.com. And you can find us on social media. We have a new "Sweet Home Canabema" clips page. And hang on, just a second, we're getting some interference here, I'm so sorry. Yes, so we have a new page, "Sweet Home Canabema" clips, where we're going to be uploading clips with some really juicy information from each show. If you don't have time to watch the whole show, you can at least get an idea of what we do. So, yeah, we just sent out a bunch of requests for people to follow that page. Unfortunately, Facebook hates me, and I am struggling to even keep a personal page, so we're trying to do this and stay alive long enough to really reach the people. So we appreciate anybody who wants to go and follow us on "Sweet Home Canabema" as well as "Sweet Home Canabema" clips. And maybe we can keep at least one page going at all times. Real quick, a little local housekeeping, we have an Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission meeting this Thursday on the 8th at 1 p.m. I'm not promising anything yet, but Marty Shelper from the Alabama Cannabis Coalition and I are going to try to livestream it through this platform and actually be able to comment on the meeting as it happens and take people's questions. So we hope that if we can make that happen, you'll join us for that. And that will be Thursday, August the 8th at 1 p.m. and you can find us on "Sweet Home Canabema" page live during that meeting. And so I want to go ahead and get into our guests for tonight. We have a dynamic guest who, this guy knows everybody and everything going on in both cannabis and hemp. And so I want to welcome the show. Our guest, Brian Dombrowski, he is a cannabis and hemp strategist and advisor with 20 years experience in the regulated market. Brian, welcome to the show. Thank you so much, Jennifer, thank you for having me on. Well, welcome to the show, you know, I have talked to you. We've been sort of put together in some weird groups and calls, but never got to actually talk until this last week. So I'm really excited to have you on the show and I really appreciate your time. And I want to just go ahead and ask you, tell us a little bit about who you are and how you got into this place, into cannabis. Yeah, yes, it's very interesting because I don't have the normal background. I'm 51 years old, grew up on the southwest side of Chicago. Can you hear me okay? I'm trying to hear you, sorry. I can hear you, but barely. Okay, grew up on the southwest side of Chicago. Very much. Look, I was an altar boy. I was in a deer bear when I was a kid and I was hitting it. Yep. It was, you know, it's incredible that it, what was put in on my plate and how, how I thought about this, this plant, you know, my, my hippie aunt would come over and I would reenact that this is your brain. This is your brain on drugs commercial with the eggs, you know, so, you know, so it's just, it wasn't on my radar and then right out of high school into the military. So I did the, the Navy for four years and then right out of the military in the big box retail. So back in 2002, I was with Walmart running a district for them and they moved me out to Northern California. And again, I was already 30 years old, this, this plant was not on my radar. Right. Yeah. So I hired some people that work in my stores and they happen to be third and fourth generation growers. Wow. So they introduced me to this, to this plant and I did not believe them at all. You know, I can relate to that. Yeah. The first time they talked to me about it, I was like, okay, everybody can go back to work now and I'm, I'm going to go ahead and drug test everyone tomorrow. Right. Because that's the mentality that I had at the time. Right. Well, you went from one big like government body to a sort of a similar, you know, the man's situation where you had all these rules and regulations and all these things. And you were kind of like the guy carrying those out. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I was the one implementing the drug testing and, and all of that stuff. And you were probably a school hall monitor at some point in life too, because I know I was and we, we all read the same person. I was a goody two shoes. I was like, oh my gosh, you guys, let's do something bad while I was drinking at, at 20. And someone handed me a blunt and whoa, yeah, I stayed a goody two shoes for two decades after that. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not going to say I was a goody two shoes and, you know, I had a very interesting upbringing. My PTSD does not come from military. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. Well, yeah, I think I'm picking up what you're putting down there. Yeah. So, so here I landed in Northern California in 2002 and got introduced to this plant. Didn't, didn't believe it at all. Right. But these guys really took the time to, to explain to me how it was medicine. And I got to see firsthand somebody going, you know, having a seizure and they gave them oil and it stopped. Wow. Yeah. And again, I was like, no, you guys are, you know, this is your stage in this, like, like nice try. Right. Well, yeah, after about six months of them really taking the time and educating me, um, I lost Walmart and jumped into this with both feet. Wow. That's the power of education. I know for me was similar. Someone suggested just CBD to me and I was like, Oh, no, I'm in recovery. That's what you can't do that. And, and look what I would have passed up. Where would I even be right now? You know, if I hadn't been willing to hear someone out and she was very convincing because of the information, not because of how great she felt, but because she could explain it to me at least enough for me to go, okay, maybe, and because of who she was to me, you know, just like you said, those guys wore you down and you got to know them. I probably, I'm assuming you saw their passion and that it never wavered and, and how dedicated they were. And that's amazing story because I, that's why I'm here. I know that's why you're here. Information education is the only way to get through to anybody. Yeah. No, the 100% right. And they did. They took the time and educated me. And they didn't educate me in a, you know, here's a, here's a joint smoke it kind of way. Right. They, these guys educated me in a way where, where it was like, here's how you rent out a house and you grow medicine in every room and you pay a guy to sleep on the couch. Right. And you get that medicine into the, you know, hands with a patient. Right. Yeah, the guy on my couch, on the couch is always my favorite guy on the couch is everybody's favorite in stoner man. We've all been the guy on the couch at least once. Yeah. I mean, figured anyway. Yeah. And it was just, it was amazing. Like they, they really, they, like I said, they introduced me to this industry. They convinced me, um, so for I've been very blessed, I've gotten to work in, I did my own dispensary and cultivation center under prop 215, but I've gotten to work in over a dozen different states, you know, and open up over 200 of these businesses. Um, and that's incredible. I've opened about five and whoa, I'm still just exhausted. It is, but you know, it's the best feeling to see a client actually get their doors open and yes, and get going. It is. It is. So up until about four years ago, it was all cannabis, you know, the marijuana side of it, marijuana, marijuana, marijuana, right, what I knew, Northern California, right. Um, you know, so I was, you know, that it was bred into me. And then I moved to Texas about four or five years ago. They were, they were about to allow more applications for the medical program here. Um, within a week of me landing in, in Texas, they pulled the rug out from underneath everybody. And I was going to say, I didn't know Texas had a medical program, that's news to me. Yeah. Um, yeah, and it does. It does. Today we have three licensed medical providers, only two of them are operational. Three in Texas, that's the largest state in the country. There's a, you can only get, um, edibles, like gummies and things, and stuff, right, honestly. So let me back up to, I landed here. I, you know, they pulled that rug out from underneath me. I had clients in a dozen different states and nothing in Texas. Yeah. And I decided, I decided, you know, what, what is this tempting? And oh my God, it was like 20 years ago when I got introduced to Canada, like the marijuana fire, it lit your fire all over again, didn't it? It did. And it's, you know, it's amazing what Texas has been able to do with the hemp program here. Yeah. Um, it is, you know, it is, it is social equity. It is everything that the marijuana side should have in this state. Exactly. We got to go to a break in just a second, but when we come back, Brian, I want to start talking about a specific state. We've got some friends in Missouri that are in trouble. When we come back from the break, we're going to go through what the heck is happening in Missouri? Why is it happening? How is it happening? And could it happen to the rest of us? Stay with us for Sweet Home, Canabema. Welcome back to Sweet Home, Canabema. All the information you want about cannabis, here's your host, Jennifer Buser. Welcome back tonight. We are talking to Brian Dabrowski. He is a cannabis and hemp strategist and advisor with 20 years experience in the regulated market. Brian, you just told us who you are and how you got there. Uh, let's talk about Missouri. I, I've been on this WhatsApp chat with several people. Some of them I know very well, brands I carry in my store. So this affects me. You know, some of these guys are the best guys I know in this industry. Their products are the best I've ever had. Um, I've seen some of the donations coming in, uh, from different companies like Home Town Hero and Melafellow and there's a bunch more and I'm sorry I don't have it in front of me, but, you know, my, I was just referring to my friends at Pinnacle, uh, Kevin and Mike Dunson, my rep over at Pinnacle, these guys mean everything to me. And of course I know lots of people in Missouri have been doing business, uh, for all of this time because of the farm bill and now, uh, their governor seems to have lost his mind. Um, so let's talk about Missouri first, give us a rundown on what just happened with their governor last week and then we'll get into what's happened over the weekend. Yeah, you know, this is Missouri, welcome to the war, Missouri, like I, I, I feel horrible. Um, and this is like, you're not the first, you're not the middle-ass, this is the way this, this game works. Right. Um, the governor, you know, I, I haven't dug into who, you know, followed the money, that's always the thing. Right. It's interesting because our industry went from handing Manilla envelopes to chief, you know, police chiefs to making political donations. Right. You know, what you want. And yeah, the, the governor just signed an executive order to basically kill the industry. Right. We're definitely going to fight back and not, not sit on our hands on this one. Um, but they've done it in Alabama, they've done it in Maryland, they've done it, you know, state-by-state. Right. The states are, you know, somebody, some lobbyist gets in the ear of one of these politicians and things that don't, moving in that direction. Well, there's a lot of interesting dynamics going on because this guy's on his way out of office. This happened right before an election. He happened to get some fat donations just before this. And what this, this, it's an executive order. So this didn't involve legislation. It didn't involve anybody but the governor's office, right? And maybe the attorney general, I believe that's, yeah, governor Mike Parson banned the sale of intoxicating hemp products impacting Missouri's hemp industry. The targeted products are Delta A, THC, Delta 10, HHC, THCO, THCP, and THCV. The reasoning cited child protection due to reports showing unregulated hemp products were linked to 41% of cannabis related poisonings. But this article I'm drawing from, it hasn't even been printed yet. One of the guys from the Missouri hemp organization sent it to the group. And what's interesting is 41% of cannabis related poisoning calls came from hemp products. But where did the other 60% come from? Hmm. The question. The medical side, the recreational side, the illegal side, not from hemp. You know, I think that's an interesting point because no, you know, no one's going, well, where did the other 60% come from, you know, and it's only Missouri owned businesses with liquor licenses are affected, not online or out of state sales. And the timing and donations of the marijuana industry suggest financial motive over child safety. This is just like what happened in Alabama, what's continuing to happen in the next session we've already been warned that they run this terrible bill that will decimate small businesses up the, up the flagpole under the banner of let's save the children. And every word of the bill has nothing to do with helping children and there's no public safety. And yet they will not take any of our suggestions of let's create a law, let's regulate ourselves. Just like we heard Nick Patrick say about the fact that they offered suggested legislation, you know, 21 and older to enter the building, you know, the child, child packaging not being allowed. And that stuff we're all very willing to do in every state and nationally. And yet these things get ignored and they just create these bands. I mean, we've been using these products for five, some, I've been in business six years, some of y'all been around a lot longer than that selling hemp products because I know before the farm bill, you could sell it if it was based on the European grown CBD, I think. So we've been doing this for a long time and now all of a sudden it's public enemy number one, but let's all praise the medical marijuana associations in every state. I make it make sense. Yeah, I wish I could make it make sense. You know, you, we have one program that is federally illegal, you know, state runs federal illegal. Right. We have another program that is federally legal, but we don't want to put the regulations into that program. And it really, you know, look, I have my foot on both sides of the fence, right. Like I have my, my marijuana projects. I have my hemp projects there is going to come a day where this imaginary sign is going to come down. And quite honestly, I think the easiest path is through the farm bill and the hemp side. Yeah. Well, we basically, you know, like you said, we basically already have legal cannabis, federally legal cannabis. You know, Marty and I discussed this too. They legalized cannabis as it's all the same plant in 2018 they, and we, and it was as a free market where anyone could get in who could qualify for their license. I still don't have a license. I am not a state. I'm not required to have a retailer's license. I asked the state to create one so that people in gas stations and sea stores, whatever that means, uh, could not get on that list because they don't know what they're selling and all that good stuff. But the free market argument means that anybody should be able to sell it. Right. Well, yeah. And I, you know, I like the free market, but that is, you know, that competition. That's where this world should be. Right. That free market, you get, we definitely need age gating, like that is of course, nobody, nobody needs to make gummy shaped like teddy bears. Right. Like there are definitely things that that has been asking for for years now. Right. Um, that is very slow to roll out. Um, but you know, our regulators have a decision to make. Do you want to keep in this state by state and keep showing the corruption or do you want to do this as a government program federally legal, right, um, you know, and we'll, the writing will be on the wall when we get the next bundle. Um, you know, the next bundle will hopefully take the whole out of everyone's mouth. Right. Oh my gosh. You know, loopholes right up there with wild, wild west for me. It makes me want to punch people in the throat when I hear it, especially thrown at me as a negative thing. I am so sick of those terms because what, what we don't want to be is the wild, wild west. Yeah. Well, and it's a defense mechanism. I mean, you, you have to understand, like I said, I have my foot on both sides. And I have these, these marijuana projects that millions of dollars went into these, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars went into the security system, um, you know, all these regulations, these systems that go into it are just expensive. And now somebody down the street can do it for 10%. Right. That, that, I mean, I can understand how that would be upsetting. I can understand how difficult it would be to go, you know what, forget this fight with the federal government. I'm just going to transfer over to hemp. And I know a lot of people did go from legal cannabis to our federally illegal cannabis state legal cannabis to the federally legal hemp business. Um, a lot of people I know did that, you know, and so they got into a, a, a situation where they could now ship and sell to all 50 states instead of just within their one state. And you know, you, obviously that's the better situation. You know, like I said, my products, some of my best products come from Missouri, you know, and they have all those HHC, THC letters on them. And I don't want to give those up. You know, my customers, when I, if I run out, they get upset, you know, they are, they rely on them. I've been with Pinnacle for probably almost most of my six years, you know, and there are other brands like that I've been with for almost the whole time we've been in business. And, and so this, this affects me on that level, but it also affects me because I happen to live in a state where my attorney general, you know, we, we want people to understand what's going on, but we don't want to give our own state governments any ideas. I actually wrestled with that on the way to do this show. Like, am I just giving them the keys to the kingdom to say, Hey, look at Missouri, you know, it's like a double edged sword. I need the people that listen to this show to understand that we have to do something, that this is being done in your faces, your, your, your freedoms, your rights, the products you've been used to for the last five, six years, they're being taken. And for what, you know, and, and, and, and these people's lives, you know, Kevin and his wife, Jessica, their company matters because they have families that work for them. They create income. They create community involvement. I've seen what they do and, and Pinnacle is a huge brand. And they are in this community, you know, do or die and, and we've got to come alongside our friends. Yeah, 100%. And those folks that are on the middle one side, they need to get it different on the website. Right. I mean, why not? Why not? Why not? Just add it to what you do. Yeah. That way your, your, your ability to sell to 50 states can offset whatever expense you have. And, and at least you could get a stinking check in account. That's about all you get, but, but at least you can get one and you could take credit cards like a normal business, you know, I mean, so I know that they are trying to raise money in order to hire lawyers. They're talking about how to fight this. What is it that we can do? I know we've had the QR code up. If anybody noticed the, the Missouri hemp association QR code we've put up on the stream so that if you're looking for a place to donate to help out, if you're a brand or a farm or a farm bill, I know that lots of my colleagues from the national industrial hemp coalition are watching. And people all over Alabama and the Southeast are watching. If you are in this business, you needs a serious, even if you don't use these brands, these brands, these guys are the best, you know, and they're in the same situation that we could be. And we come back from the break, let's get into the farm bill and all the federal shenanigans with Brian Damerowski, we'll be right back with Sweet Home, Alabama. Welcome back to Sweet Home, Alabama. Now with all the information you want about cannabis, here's your host, Jennifer Buser. Welcome back, everybody. Tonight we're talking to our good friend, Brian Dabrowski, who is in cannabis and hemp. You are a strategist and advisor with 20 years experience, starting in North California, and then you got into hemp. After you moved to Texas, we've been getting to know you and talking about our friends in Missouri. So Brian, let's talk about, well, this next part is so word soup, it's not even funny. The farm bill, Mary Miller, and the appropriations bill amendments, let's talk about that, you know, the farm bill isn't, isn't going to be passed this year again. Let's start with that. Maybe why do you think that we're still going to be waiting another whole year to pass a new farm bill? Yeah, we probably will be waiting another whole year for a farm bill. And I will, because they don't know what they want to do, yeah, we have these people that are going back and forth and making these decisions for us. And they really don't have clarity on what they want to do. I will say, you know, on this, I got a whole new respect for Mary Miller when she did what she did. Really? Oh, my God. It was the most horrible thing I've ever seen. But for her to just do, like, she literally just slid that in. Yeah. Okay. I now understand what you mean by that. I'm like, really? Like, yeah, like, oh, my God, that she just took it to a whole nother level. Yeah. I don't care what you think here it is. She slid into home like there was heat on her back. Oh, yeah. 100%. Yeah. So, yeah, whole new respect for her, like, she just, she just did it. She just didn't care what anybody thought. Right. She just used it for the wrong reasons. We need her on our side if she's that sneaky. Yeah. She made a name for herself again. We all know it by heart, and I had never heard of Mary Miller before a few weeks ago, so she sure did that. Yeah. She did. But I will say, you know, they're already having meetings. They're already talking about other amendments that are going to be, you know, going to replace that. I think, you know, like I said, I have respect for her, but she did, like, that was no joke, that was too early, and, and I think they played, you know, she played her card way too early to get anything really done. Right. She didn't have anything else to kind of follow with. I agree that that kind of came out of nowhere, but then she did give us too much time to complain about it. I think, hopefully, by now, one of our skills collectively is complaining and really loud because we do it all the time. We have to, and, and, and hopefully because of the associations that we have that we're all part of when we come together, you know, hopefully that is a resounding voice instead of, you know, little mosquitoes in your ear, and, and obviously we're getting somewhere because after all that, these other representatives and senators came along with new amendments. I mean, I've got all the numbers here, what they're called. Some of them take a paragraph just to name the bill. And so they've tried to slip in another, another sneaky is slipping in something identical to her amendment into an appropriations bill, which from what I understand, and correct me if I'm wrong, is a spending bill that both sides really want to pass. Is that, is that accurate? Yeah, that that's my understanding on it, but, you know, here's the, the nuts and bolts of it is we are just upon, like, they really don't care that much about us. We are upon interesting. And hopefully the powers that be will, will, you know, put in the right one. Like I said, to take that word, we pull out of everyone's mouth because they knew what they were doing when they signed the farm bill. Well, they had to have been, I mean, you know, surely, because it appears on the surface that they don't really read much. And it sounds to someone who does have a good insight into reality here that they don't, they're not concerned with what is, they're concerned with a narrative, and it's ever-changing, and it's ever-evolving, and none of it ever makes any sense. And I think it's insulting every time I hear something like this. It's just so insulting to the American people. To those of us who are breaking our backs for, to uphold the small businesses of America after half of us got knocked off the block, you know, it's, it's very frustrating to me that they continuously insult our intelligence, but that's kind of par for the course now. And I can't wait for November to be over with, quite frankly, it's, oh, yeah, it's interesting. I will say, you know, to circle back to, to, to what's going on in Missouri right now, you've got the connections for everybody to be able to reach out and make donations and stuff like that. Yes. I just want to bring it back to that. I want people to understand that these fights in these different states, it may not seem like they, they are going to impact you at all. But when something like this happens in a state, you can guarantee that every other governor is looking at how this goes. Oh, yeah. And if it was that easy and, and we allow that to happen, then you're going to see it happen in other states. So right, you know, when it comes to just like the Alabama thing with girl, I was waiting for you to finish to bring that up to say just like what happened with borrow help. Yeah. That, that, that health department went after them. And it would not have gone. There are other state health departments that were waiting in line, jumping at the bid. That's right. We were not making that part up. People were waiting and watching. Just like I said, I, I want to bring this to light for my friends in Missouri. But it also opens up the chance that my own governor and my own AG hear about this, you know, and decide, Oh, that's a good idea. People just create an executive order. And the way things are done here in Alabama, they don't give us a voice. We get to vote on nothing. And it would be 10 times harder. And yes, this, what you're saying about donating and not thinking that this applies to you is exactly like borrow hemp, borrow hemp was left in the cold except for a handful of businesses. I know one in particular to, in particular, pinnacle and hometown hero, again, one, the ones that have already donated in Missouri were the only companies donated in a large way to her situation. We did everything we could. I'm a little shop. We donated our 420 sales and our 420 proceeds. And it was a whole $800. But let me tell you, blood, sweat and tears. And I have spent hours on the phone with Stacy crying with her like, why won't people help you? I don't understand. But the same thing applies to Missouri and if the Alabama Health Department had gotten away with what they were doing, bullying, borrow, none of us would be doing business the way we have been right now today. It would be over for us. And I take that very personally. So we, yeah, I mean, I don't care who you are. If you sell these products in your store, there is an obligation, you know? You know, Kevin's not, Kevin's probably going to laugh when I send my donation in, but at least I tried, you know, and, and every, if everybody, if every mom and pop shop, if every farm, a hundred bucks for a thousand businesses, that's a hundred thousand dollars. You know, it's not that hard. Don't you agree? Sorry. I got them a little soapbox there. No, I want 110% agree and that is like, look at that, I just wanted to reiterate the fact that that that is, it may seem like it's just a singular fight, but it's not. No. Folks know what they're doing. They know what they're setting up. You know, this hemp versus marijuana thing, all of these different things. We have got to come to a place where this is one plant, right together to start pushing our regulators to do the right thing for this plant and for the people. So, yeah, that is, you know, all eyes are on, on that state right now. Right. Because Missouri, just like Alabama Health Department, Missouri, at least the governor, wants to be the first in the domino chain. You know, they're starting a chain reaction that could be catastrophic, however, how we handle it and how we, how we sort of proceed in helping our friends and getting this fixed will determine the rest of our futures. Because just like the Alabama Health Department, if they had won, we would all be done. And then every other health department, y'all would be all crying. Why didn't somebody tell us? Why didn't, and borrow hemp begged, I begged, we all did. And so we cannot let this happen to Missouri because it will happen, whatever state you're in right now, it will happen in your state. And they're trying to accomplish this on a federal level too, which is why we wanted to get into both these issues. When it comes down to it, it seems to be corporate money and the, I guess, illegal, federally illegal marijuana businesses that are only legal in certain states have amassed enough money to now come back and turn their backs on us. You know, a lot of us in hemp helped pass those bills. A lot of us in hemp sat back and said, "Well, we can't move forward, we're going to support you moving forward." And so it's a slap in the face to everybody who knows somebody in that situation. And I imagine for you, it's a unique place to be because you do have a foot in both worlds. Yeah, it is, it's very, it's very unique place to be. And I will say, you know, I do not work with corporate cannabis, but that's what I consider those big, there's not, well, there's multi-state operators out there that are still mom and pop. Right. But those corporate cannabis players, I'm not a big believer in. And I will say everyone else who's in the, in the marijuana markets, those corporate cannabis players will come for you next. Yes. Right now they're spending all this money lobbying, trying to kill the hemp side. But the next step is to do, just like they did in Illinois, where the medical, medical can only be sold in those original medical licensed places. Right. And all the new adult use folks cannot carry the storms of medicine. They cannot give the tax breaks to them, to the, to the patients when they walk into their doors. They have to send them to one of the originals. So yeah, that's the next step is for those big corporate cannabis players to take away yours. Right. So you just put on both sides of the fence and play nice with the hemp side. Well, it's, it's like anything, I think it's like anything else. The cannabis plant is an individual medicine. It's an individual experience because we are individuals. So corporate cannabis is an oxymoron, you know, it's just the same as what take to and call me in the morning. It's the same mentality. Everything's the same. Everything is, you know, nothing is, is specific for people's needs. What we're able to do in the hemp side right now is phenomenal. It's fantastic. Medical dispensaries aren't even carrying CBD products a lot of times. They're discounting whole parts of the plant that are so valuable and so nutritious for the body and let alone medicinal and, and just concentrating on that THC. And I, I just after all these years of us showing how so many other parts of the plant are just as valuable, why this is still the focus, you know, you can't even say it's medicine if you're not allowed to use all of it. And if you're limiting what conditions can be treated, that's another thing. When we come back from the break, we're going to talk a little bit more with Brian. Stay with us. Welcome back to Sweet Home, Canabema. Now with all the information you want about cannabis, here's your host, Jennifer Buser. Welcome back to the show. Everybody, we're talking tonight with Brian Dobrowski, Brian, I don't not know why. Every time I go to say your name, I trip up, I am so sorry. I've been called worse. Well, you know, I'm trying, I'm just so tongue tied over here. It's not the easiest name, it's, it's not as easy as Buser. Well, okay, so let me ask you this, um, in Missouri with this executive order, are they able to get like a, a TRO like in Alabama? Were they able to get any kind of temporary measure to be able to stay in business? I know this thing goes into effect September 1st. Is that sort of where we're at trying to stop that or do you have any idea, any insight into that? I know all this just happened. Yeah. It all just happened. I haven't dug in very much. I don't even know if what he did he was able to do. Well, I, yeah, cause I read something, I think I tried to send it to you earlier this said, it may not even be legal what he did. Yeah. And that they needed that the hemp businesses in Missouri needed to hire lawyers. I'm assuming that's what some of this fundraising is for when they mentioned having to hire lawyers because they're going to have to legally pursue this and no small business. Take it from me. Once you realize you need to sue someone, you're already in a really bad position and then you're looking at a hundred K minimum price tag, right? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Well, so what are they, do you happen to have any recommendations for alternatives? Just say tomorrow, I'm not allowed to sell half of these products. What are people doing for alternatives or are they? Well, yeah, here's the thing with, with on the hemp side, you don't have to be in that state. Like there, there are, you can open a business in another state. That's true. And it's directly to those customers. So let's be realistic in these states where the wall, you know, where, where the sky falls. You bring your, bring your business to Texas, bring your business to North Carolina, bring your business to Alabama, bring your business to a state where you can still ship directly to your customer's doors. Right. I actually had someone suggest that to me, when we were looking at the borrow hemp situation, staring down the barrel, some, it was suggested to me that I open up a business in a super free state where hemp is sold freely and nobody's cracking down on it and dropship from that state. Yeah, it's, you know, that is a possibility for, for, for, you know, I, I wrap up a bunch of projects in Maryland. The Maryland, you know, the, you talked to Nicholas about it. Yes. Twice. Yes, we did. Like the, the social equity applicants in Maryland, that was not a social equity round. That was, you know, they were garbage. Right. So Nick got that, that, hemp is still alive and well in Maryland. Right. Open yourself in hemp as a Maryland, if you're waiting for that, you know, those, those marijuana businesses to come up our, you can, you can pick a state, you can open a business there and you can ship directly to your neighbors in the state that, you know, you can't operate it. Right. That's 30, 40, maybe 50 miles from Mississippi or Florida. I'm right here down at the bottom. I could go either way, both legal states and Florida's about to go wreck. So, so unfortunately that's what, you know, you had a Virginia, Virginia was coming on board with their hemp and they were doing really well. And you know, then the world ended and everybody moved into other states, but guess what? They're still shipping their products right to patients during in Virginia. Right. And that's another thing. Our, our Missouri consumers going to still be able to order products online and have them shipped to their homes. So this really only impacts the businesses because if the consumers, that's like here, if you could ban nicotine vapes, people are going to order them. They're going to order them. They're going to order them by the case. And then their kids will have access to 50 of them at one time to hand out to their friends. How does this make sense? Yeah. Exactly. I will say, you know, like over 20 years in this industry and honestly, the only thing I think I'm an expert at is pivoting companies because these rules and regulations, they change so fast in these countries, they have to know, you know, they got to, they got to be ready for whatever is thrown their way. So right now, if you're in, you know, if you have to deal with what's going on in Missouri right now, look at bringing your business out of state and still servicing your customers. That's what I would say. Right. Right. Yeah. I know we talked to Tom was a loose key with natural and he makes our gummies. And he was under the Florida ban and looking at having to shut down his facility and fire all his employees and all that and lose all that money he had invested to open a business in Tampa because Florida was so open. And then they just clamped it down and thankfully they were able to overcome that. But before we end up running out of time, I do want to ask you, what do we need to be doing? Who do we need to call email contact? What do we need to be saying? And how do we, how do we, the average store owner like me or the average consumer that wants to be able to have access to their, to their medicine as they already have and into the future? What do we need to be doing? What's the best collective effort? We need to be educating people on what this plant actually is. On the hand side, look, 20 years ago, when I first got involved, we were doing a really good job of educating people on what marijuana was. Are you had to? Yes. So that's what we need to do on the hand side is we need to educate people on people don't even realize that THDA is what this plant grows. Right. Right. Like that is, the delta nine doesn't come into play until, you know, towards the end. And I will tell you, I pulled a bunch of COAs from some, some medical marijuana license, state licensed companies, their COAs only show one to 3% delta nine. That's right. In their product. Right. So that education on what, you know, what this plant actually is. What it is. And what it isn't. Yes. It produces THDA, all these other things, you know, the CBN, you know, the CBN is better than melatonin. Absolutely. The education on this stuff is what we need to do now, you know, that, and it's like I said, 20 years ago, did a really good job on the marijuana sites. We really, you know, educated people on, on what marijuana was. Right. Now they just need to be re-educated that hemp is the same thing. Well, 20 years ago, we couldn't extract what we can extract now. We did not have names for some of these things. We did not fully understand. I mean, 20 years is a long time. We have learned a whole lot. And so there is continuing education that needs to happen. That's what we try to do here. That's what we try to do in the store. I agree that I like to work with companies that that is their focus. I do think that education is the only way to true freedom. And I agree with you 100% on that. Yeah. It's all about education. And I'll tell you a quick story. You know, a long time, 24 years ago, I worked with a farm in Northern California and they had a pig farm and they fed all of their scraps to their pigs. And it was the best bacon I have ever had. I've seen a show where they did that. Yeah. And now we know that it's because when you feed pigs, you know, if they lean off of their mother quicker, their fat is layered in better. And all our children. They're healthier. Yeah. So education, education. Right. Anything with a vertebra can be basically live on cannabis. It's a superfood. We've got to stop thinking of it as a narcotic. It's a superfood. Thank you so much, Brian. We're out of time for tonight. We're welcome to come on the show anytime. You're always such a wealth of information. You guys can follow Brian on LinkedIn, on Facebook, on Instagram, and you can follow us here at Sweet Home, Canada, on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube. And I just got a page on LinkedIn. Everybody kept bugging me to do it. So I went ahead and did it. So you can find us in all those places as well. And as usual, you can listen to us here every Monday night at seven o'clock central on the radio, across the Gulf Coast, as well as the live stream video. And give us some feedback, guys. We want to know how we're doing with the video. I know we have, we're working out some kinks and some bugs, but we really want to be able to bring you the latest information and education, not only to Alabama, but to the rest of the country. We're in this with our friends, to our friends in Missouri. We're with you. We hear you. We see you. We're going to do everything we can. I know Brian feels the same way. And we want you to hang in there because we know our turn is going to be next. And we appreciate everything you're doing. We'll see you next week on Sweet Home, Alabama. Have a good night. [MUSIC]