FM Talk 1065 Podcasts
Sweet Home Cannabama 8-26-24 President, Kentucky Hemp Farmers Association, Martin Smith
(upbeat music) - 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 are located at 558 St. Francis Street in Downtown. Our telephone number is 251-255-5155. You can find us at canabema.com. And then you can find us on Facebook and Instagram under Sweet Home Canabema. We broadcast live every Monday night. Right here on the radio, we are America's only cannabis radio show, in case I never said that before. Pretty confident now that I've checked it a bunch of times and can't find anybody else to prove me a liar. To the best of my knowledge, we are the only radio show about cannabis in America. So, but we're here every Monday night at seven o'clock central. And we are live streaming, of course, on social media as well. So, yeah, let's get this show on the road. We have some current events. Nothing too much going on this past week. As far as legislation goes, no bombs dropped. Everybody had favorable outcomes, actually. And I just wanna let everybody know, Labor Day weekend is coming up. And we're gonna have a Labor Day weekend sale event. We haven't even decided on all the sales, but I'm gonna post the details on these pages on Wednesday. We're gonna do some free gifts with purchase. We're gonna do some buy one, get one items. And maybe even some early bird sales hours, where if you come in in the first couple hours of the day, those people will get a special discount. So, that will be Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. And we are gonna be open on Labor Day. Regular hours, 10 to seven. For all the people who were last minute, we opened on 4th of July this week. I mean, this year, thinking, oh, a few people will trickle in and we really had a pretty busy day. So, we will be open for Labor Day. And so, we wanna see your pretty faces. I think the ladies from the station are buying the new root beer in six packs. It's quite the hit. We can't keep the drinks in stock. One thing before we get started, I've heard something profound and I just thought it was worth repeating. When I was watching Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s speech about suspending his campaign and all that, I was listening. And the one thing that he said over and over in different interviews is the most profitable thing in America is a sick child. And I think it's refreshing to finally hear someone who is in a higher up government position actually admit that because we all know it. And I've been saying it for a long time. Every one of my industry does. But it's true. You are not a patient. You are a customer. And no one is making any money if they tell you to change your diet and walk 30 minutes a day and go home and be well. So I think that the most profitable thing in America as a sick child is a sick statement but it is very, very true. Pray for our nation. So let's go ahead and get into our topic tonight. I want to introduce our guest. Tonight our guest is the president of the Kentucky Hemp Farmers Association. Martin Smith is a pioneering agricultural entrepreneur and advocate with deep expertise in industrial hemp cultivation and CBD oil extraction. As the founder of the international pharmaceutical extracts LLC Martin has been instrumental in helping farmers transition from traditional crops like tobacco to industrial hemp all while championing legislative changes to support the industry. Martin continues to lead efforts that make a significant impact on the agricultural and cannabis sectors. Martin, welcome to the show. - Well, thank you. It's been a great introduction. You've really well. - Well, thank you. - Well, look at that say next. Well, no, thank you for having me. And so it's good to hear, like you said, I want to reflect back on your profound statement about, I mean, a Kennedy, Kennedy's have been well known for their love for country, their love for the worker, their love for what's right. - Right, civil rights too. They were big on civil rights to human rights. - Well, when you say they, it's a family. - Right. - American family that we all resonate with is several gave their lives with the ultimate sacrifice. - That's right. - So it's a family. And the family's the most, in my opinion, the most powerful unit for guidance, you know, how do we have, you got it. And I need answers, I call my dad. - Right, exactly. - And when I find the answers on my own as a man, I find them from what my dad taught me. - Right. Oh, I'm 46 and I still want advice from my mom. And I wish my dad were alive to give me advice or to come kick some butt when I need any butt kicked. - Well, let's go, let's get to know you, Martin. Tell us who you are and how you ended up in hemp in cannabis. - All right, well, I'm a Arkansan. As you say, I'm a Razorback fan. I'm an Arkanan and I'm, you know, I'm in Kentucky. So that's one of the biggest robberies and basketball, none of your basketball, but fan butt. - No, but you might have heard the phrase rolled tight at time or two in every sport. (laughs) - What do you say? - Well, anyway, I grew up in Arkansas in the Ozark Mountains, a little place called Shirley Arkansas. Graduated with 13 kids. - Wow. - Yeah, I was on the bus for about an hour and a half, one way just to get to school. That's how dense the population is. My family are, my dad's family. He and their family are Native American. My great-grandmother's full-blood Apache. And so they traveled with the fruit harvest, the vegetable harvest, that was my family's background. And a lot of that has to do, a lot of what they, you know, culturally taught us and was how to live off the land because we lived in such a dense population. And so living off the land was something that brought not only a physical nutrition, but a mental nutrition to my person and I come to realize that early on, hunting and gathering was a daily routine, whether it be a root or a bark or a berry or, you know, whatever it took for us to survive in those places. And most people don't ever leave those places when they, you know, grow up there because it's kind of just a culture where you're a part of what is and because you're a part of what is, it's a part of who you are. - Right. - And it happens all over the world, but this place, you know, Ozark Mountains, pretty, you know, it's a real good people. And like I said, we just learned how to live off the land. And my dad and my mom and my dad and my aunt and my grandmother were all the wise folks with plant medicine. - Right. - And, you know, how to make polishes and how to make eggs and zam. And so when we needed something, when we found something, we always preserved it for when we needed something. - Right. - So we'd be tapping hunting maybe or squirrel hunting in the spring and come across, you know, an elderberry bush is fixing the bloom and go, okay, we gotta remember where that was at for when it's fall cut and you can hunt elderberry or we'd always find a place where mushrooms were that were of a certain, you know, whether it be-- - Yes. (laughing) - A sheep's head, a, you know, so I just grew up in all of that as a backdrop to what made me who I am today and what I do today. And so I graduated high school, joined the military, became a quartermaster, served aboard a USS Kincaid spruce-class destroyer out of San Diego and really just got towed into from the mountains right in the boot camp and you could just imagine-- - Wow! - building. - Yeah, you know, I had no cultural, I never really got on Blacktop to do two things I went on Blacktop for, Blacktop to go to school and Blacktop to go to church. - Wow. - So really, right. So in the world wasn't connected, you know, where I come from, you know, at all. - Right, that's just country. That's way out in the country. - I guess, I think in Kentucky, don't they call them Hollers? - Hollers, we got a few Hollers where I come from too and that's why I get along with Kentucky and so well. We got that awareness about what a Holler is and trying to use a new time still and, you know, what mash is and-- - Right, I always say my mother's side of the family in North Louisiana, my dad's side of the family in New Orleans, I definitely thought that groceries grew in the grocery store 'cause there was no, mom, I do remember my mama growing tomatoes one time but I was just a total concrete kid, you know? And so that is so foreign to me and it's so fascinating that people even now still live that rural and I know it to be true because I've met so many people through being in this industry myself that there's so many people that come from that farming background and it's generation after generation and it's an incredible thing that people still do and I know corporate America has really tried to eliminate the American farm family and so it's good to see that some people are still sticking it out, you know? We gotta eat and the way food is now, we don't know who to trust. When we come back from the break, we're gonna talk some more with Martin Smith and stay with us. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - 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, you're listening to Sweet Home, Canabema, right here on FM Talk, 1065 every Monday night at 7 p.m. Central and right here on social media streaming live. We're talking tonight with Martin Smith, who is the president of the Kentucky Hemp Farmers Association. Martin, we were getting to know a little bit about who you are. Now tell us what you do. - Okay, yeah, I saw our company United Global Co-opertunity who is the holding company for international pharmaceutical and extract that's pharmaceutical with an F. - Right. - So what we do is we work on innovative technologies and associated to bringing new commodities to the U.S. We've got a few commodities we brought out of Africa that Ford and Toyota here in Kentucky are using and we're working with producers here in Kentucky to integrate those crops. How I got my background in that was working in our pastures for about 12 years and when I moved to Kentucky, I took them to search that in 2002 during the tobacco buyout, tobacco settlement. And so what that was is they were basically phasing Kentucky farmers out of growing the commodity. And so in doing that, they were charging a tax that was being charged to the smokers who, you know, that monies would go back and be part of helping them to come along. So in my church was the state workers and as well as the tobacco farmers. And so I got to hear both sides of how legislation was being passed, what was being displayed. And at that time we were, you know, looking at doing a building project for 30 years and the tobacco farmers were losing their settlement, you mean their tobacco base, and which was a good amount of income for them and they were using that for tithing and for those who possibly would be right. So once they were losing it, it was really putting a struggle on our ability to fulfill that mission that we had had. And so I got into looking for new commodities. And so. - Oopsie. (laughing) - Literally from the pulpit. - Oh, wow. (laughing) - Yeah. - That's great. - You know, challenged with, you know, the word of God, it says he created this for the healing of the nations. - Yes. - And you know, when he created it, there were no nations. You know, there were, it was created in the, if you read the Bible story, it was created for a man to have. And so I was challenged by that while also looking at, you know, my background in plant medicine are, you know, plants that we use for, I always say plant nutrition instead of medicine. - Right, right. We believe medicine is food. Food is medicine. - Nutrition is medicine. - Yes. - You look at the inner city and you look at how the lack of nutrition has created a, really a, a place where, if people could get a balance in their nutrition, I think we would have a much greater opportunity to solve a lot of our social issues and things. - Well, especially because your gut health being your second brain and directly affecting your mental health. And that's how we deal with each other, how we process information, how we handle trauma and stress or joy and good things. And that's definitely a problem. - Well, I'll, I'll put it like this. I showed you this drink that I'm drinking right here, right? I think that beautiful. It's a, it is made that I wouldn't gather those today. And here they are, I gather these ingredients. This is a soup, I don't know if you can see that. Sue Mack, and this is elderberry. And I gather, and I gather mimosa blossoms earlier in the spring. And I'd make a key out of that. And mimosa blossoms are, are good for just your mood altering. I mean, it literally puts you, like, right now I am feeling very relaxed, not simply because the mimosa just puts that relaxation on you, but how many people know that? - Well, and that's not a mimosa with champagne and orange juice, right? Some people, some people, you've got to tell them. (chuckles) - I think it's great, mimosa treats. So that has a, has a pink blossom on it. It is very, very good for, and what I'm, my point to that is, is how many mimosa treats that you think we've driven by, you know, and complaining about the mental health and some areas, talking to, you know, so my interest when the Lord challenged me to do something with these tobacco farmers and then challenged me in this cannabis space with the endocannabinoid system which God created. - Right. - And so inside of that endocannabinoid system is, is homeostasis because when God created us, he said we were, it was good. - Right. - What that means is, is that it completes his will. And so when that endocannabinoid system, you know, I did all my research that I had been working on, I started working on incarcerated veterans who were dealing with PTSD because I couldn't imagine for myself someone who suffers from having a collision at sea and dealing with, you know, the loss of a, actually my mentor in the Navy aboard our vessel. And so dealing with all of that and understanding that I wasn't, you know, you know, we all know when my dad said it best when I came home from the Navy, he said, you're not the same. - Right. - And he knew what that was because he knew in me when I was in my balance before I left. - Right. - And so. - He knew you as God made you 'cause he raised you. - George, George, that's why the daddy, that's why daddy's in my office is so important. - That's right. - That's what I started earlier with, you know, just thinking about anyway, so for myself, it was more on the lines of getting plant medicine, of Avenue, and cannabis was the buzz. At the time I was working on another commodity that Fortin Toyota used in here in Kentucky. And I was working on that commodity and wasn't even thinking about cannabis, but once the Lord impressed on me that, you know, this is his plant and he created it and he said it was good and he told me, Martin, find the good in it. And that's what he kept saying to me over and over and over. - Wow. Wow. - I'm a good. - Teach people well, and I know what you're saying. I can't articulate it exactly the same, but I know what you're saying because God gave me the name "Cannabama" and this vision and put a fire in my belly I had never experienced before and it was so new to me, but I knew that the only way that I could do that is by teaching people what it is and what it isn't and how wrong we are and teach them, if I could teach them scientifically make sense of what it even is and then how it works that I could show people that this isn't what anybody ever thought it was, none of us, you know, and there's so much value in that and I believe that if the church and the recovery community would let me teach them, let me show them that same thing, let you show them that same, find the good in it. Like you said, I think it would change a lot more people's lives. - Yeah, I've had, I've had, I mean, this is the CBB revolution, I call it, all the other, in a day, the hemp farmer, people who's pushing hemp didn't like CBB in its notion because it was taken away from what they felt like was the industrialization potential body. - And you could, I mean, that's fair because that's all anybody talks about is CBB or THC. Not a lot of people talking about hemp fiber, that's part of the reason for the show is to expose people in Mobile, Alabama and the Gulf Coast region and this state to people like you who are doing something, you know, that's, here's this same old devil's lettuce, but now we're, you know, wait, he's a pastor, you know, like, wait a minute, maybe there's something else to this that I don't understand. - We just, we sure did give him a whole lot of credit, old devil. - Yeah. (laughing) - I should do it less, you're right. No, that is not the first time I've heard that. My sister-in-law always says, "Don't advertise for the enemy." (laughing) - Get on, man. Oh, I don't, I don't, I have no visions of what he is because in the end, he ain't gonna be in God's vision and especially place I'll be, right? I wanna be where he sees, where he's seeing me and seeing what I'm doing and that's what's really, that's how I got out of the pulpit and into writing legislation and, and, you know, I'm an oath taker, so I, you know, I took the oath to serve my country. I'll pass my chance right here, you know? - I think that, I think that the pulpit isn't the right place to teach the plant. I think because of modern church and the way things, the smoke and the, the lights and the way people are so sort of just tired of the traditional American church and the way it's kind of fallen to the wayside. I don't think that the pulpit is the place for us, for people like us who are believers, who also advocate for the plant and use the plant and we're trying to bridge those two things. I think that you leaving the pulpit and going out into, you know, boots on the ground where you were with those farmers and your legislators and bringing sort of that pulpit to them, you know, and bringing, 'cause this is a hard thing. You know, we've got the whole world against us and people don't understand it. And it's been really, really hard. I'm sure it is there, same as it is here. And you have to have a certain depth of faith and some hope, you know, to even be able to get out of bed in the morning, you know? And people, people sense that. - I've had so much fun representing myself as a citizen advocate, as somebody who has a testimony, who has, you know, the Bible says in the end days that our testimony is gonna be, you know why? Because it's gonna be the only proof, you know? - That's right. I have mine. (laughing) - Oh, wrong. - That is, yeah. - In a veteran and a pastor, it opened the doors for somebody to believe that I wasn't trying to fortify a position that they were uncomfortable with. - That's right. You come from two very conservative, very strict and rigid portions of society, the church and the military. So I imagine that did give you some legitimacy when speaking to people because of just who you were when those titles, you know, and I think that that helps. I mean, I don't have any of that. I just have this show. And apparently because nobody else wants to do one, that kind of makes me a little bit unique. So it does give me the opportunity to speak to people and be in situations like you. Like, I would have never met you and I've had the best time getting to know you. When we come back from the break, we're gonna talk more with Martin Smith about THC. Stay with us. (upbeat music) - Welcome back to Sweet Home, Canavama. Now with all the information you want about cannabis, here's your host, Jennifer Buser. - Welcome back everybody. You're listening to Sweet Home, Canavama, right here on FM Talk 1065, every Monday night at seven. We are talking tonight with Martin Smith. Martin is the president of the Kentucky Hemp Farmers Association. And Martin, we have two topics and I'm gonna let you decide. (laughs) I wanna hear what your, you did a presentation about the percent of THC allowable in the plant and the definition of industrial hemp. So your presentation strongly advocates for increasing the allowable THC limit in industrial hemp to 1%. We all know it's 0.3% by dry weight. Can you explain how making it 1% could impact small farmers and the overall industry? - Yeah, for real. So I started that initiative back in 2018, I believe it was, and wrote a bill here in Kentucky asking for our state to rate elevated in order to couple things, protect our farmers from regulatory damages associated to having too much THC in their commodity. - Right. - And to so increase the potential elevation of CBD. So we would get past this threshold we have with about eight to nine to 12% CBD in our yields. - Right. - So when you think that you gotta think about it like corn. When we go out in our fields and we pull an ear corn to see what our yield's gonna be, we're counting the amount of rings, the kernels that are in a ring. In order to determine how much yield is gonna be on our field, whether it be 14 or 18 or 21. - Right. - And that ear, you know, that tells us what our yield's gonna be for that year. - Wow. - So if you're using that same philosophy and you add a 1% threshold to the THC threshold, that gives us a better yield on our crop and we get more for it. And we'll put us in a advantage in the industry for being able to have a greater yield per acre. - Right. - And if you're looking at CBD hemp and you're growing it outdoors, there's about 250 hours of labor in every one acre if you do it right. - Wow. - Yeah, so I mean, that's a lot of hours in one acre. And if you get the yield up like that, that is definitely a value added to our farmers and our producers as well as it allows less biomass to have to be run. So now your input costs for processing goes way down. And, you know, 'cause your yield's gonna be up in your flour material. - Right. - And then when you get more flour from less plants. - Yeah, right. And then you make another, you know, then you have, you make another product out of it so your regulation, this is where we're working on and need, and have been working on trying to get the FDA to move on labeling and regulations on labeling so that, you know, we can convince our legislature that that layer of protection, consumer protection, is valid from the, you know, 'cause we're already making content rates in extract. - Right, right, what difference does it make if it's an abundance after you squeeze the juice out versus being on the plant and you can get more, you know, there's more, there's more everything. There's more fiber, there's more core and there's more seeds, right? If they're allowed to grow the plant longer, I mean, this is a triple the threshold. - Right. - Okay. - So it also puts a lot of, keeps the pressure off our genetics that we have based on stress variables. So if you have a drought year or if you have a straight line of winds or you have a little, you know, scenario with hail or something of this nature, the stress value of that will not raise, you know, elevate the threshold. So we could do that, but it really only did that because I was trying to really push the conversation to the benefits of doing it. And so, but really, if you really go back to where the definition of the 0.3 threshold comes from, these departments of agriculture are forced by the DEA back in the day to comply with the flower, measuring the flower. So where the 0.3 threshold comes from page 408 of the International Association of Plant Taxology in 1976 research paper done. And that research paper concluded that in order to equally test the male plant and the female plant, right? If I, how does the current, how do you currently test the male plant? If I just grow a whole acre of nothing but males, how do you test that plant with the protocols that are there? So that's where the question was. And so they answered that by a 0.3 threshold of the young, vigorous leaves of the maturing hemp plant. That's how the testing is supposed to have went down. And if they'd have done that-- - The leaves and not the flowers? - The leaves and not the flower. That's where the 0.3 comes from. - So how are we testing flower then? - Because the DEA associated testing of cannabis to just the flower and not-- - Right. - Because they can't grasp this concept. We keep beating our heads over it. It's more than just smokeable flower. It's 50,000 things, you know. I mean, they can't wrap their brains around that. I don't understand that. It's common knowledge. - It's just what's happened in time and you have to accept time. - What is the significance of the 0.3? Do you know, is that number some special number that it means something? Or is it completely just arbitrary? - It's an arbitrary number, but it comes from the value that the estimate would be in the industrial plant in its industrial utilization, the four prohibition. And so they are looking at what would you find if you were to go into a traditional hemp plant. It would have, if you tested the male plant and the female plant, could you have to have a protocol for both? - Right. - That's both, 'cause it's hemp. And remember, hemp is not a thing. It's a legal term. - Right. - It's just a descriptor. It's a descriptor based on that arbitrary percentage. - Right, and marijuana is not a thing. - No, it's a slur. - It's a legal term. - Right. - And so in doing that, while I was elevating the point, or the 1% is because I wanted to bring the mindset to the process that we can call hemp, let's just do what we said we were gonna do. And we're going to test the younger sleeves of the maturing hemp plant in order to determine for its arbitrary factors that it would have a 0.3% value of THC. But if you do that, our hemp will be running somewhere around 3%. - Right. - THC. - Right. - It creates 3% THC with a value. Out of hemp, remember it's just a term. Out of a big term that gives us enough THC to supply the medical markets if that's the only limitation we want to produce him. What I like to see, right. So that is, you know, why I chose to build that foundation with the legislatures. And, you know, I got Rand Paul. He also introduced in the Congress the 1% bill. I think he's done it twice now. - Right. - So that's, you know, that's why because I believe that we need to set a threshold, a plant for plant medicine. And if we can do it through extraction and do it through this process here, we can then, you know, identify what's medicine and what's nutrition. - Right. - And CBD is a factor of two. It's nutrition because your body is producing it and therefore you're putting the nutrition of production. - Right, yeah. So just replenishing what your body's already used up that it made, just like every other thing. - Right, so my role in setting this up is the next evolution is our discussion, most likely pandering to this space. And that is, how do we get the FDA to do something that is gonna be beneficial to the nutritional factors of what cannabinoids bring to the equation? And so my next evolution of this discussion is to bring it into the ingredient status, like nicotine, caffeine, sugar. Give us the that, let us have a labeled value of what the nutritional values of these cannabinoids are for supplemental nutrition. - Yeah. - So that's the evolution, the building blocks that I've been working on to establish, you know, how do we get to this place where we're being tied to nutrition. - Yeah. - Plant nutrition. And what I mean, what I say by being kind to it, I mean, it's there trying to be kind to us. - Right. - And we're being, we're being, you know, mentally lazy, you know. - Right. - And in our pursuit to really find what is a value here. - Let me ask you this before we end up in another break. Being able to raise that percentage to 1% is going to have a huge financial impact on these farmers, right? Because if you're at three times a smaller risk of bidding your crops burned, then insurance will be easier to get, right? And loans, because they know there's this tiny threshold. And if you go over a tiny bit, they're gonna burn the whole field and no one wants to insure that. And, you know, and no one wants to give you loans on that. Is that correct? Nobody wants a liability risk of putting a C in the ground. That's gonna bring them a phone on each other. - Well, that's true too. The farmers would probably be shy because that is true. I mean, you hope that if that were to happen, all they do is burn your fields, you know? And they don't also put you in federal prison for 10 years. And I think that even that is silly. If someone's gone to the trouble of getting a license and they know the state can come and check on them anytime and they've gone over by a fraction, those people should not be charged as if they're growing weed in somebody's backyard in the shed. You know, that's not the same thing. - You put 250 hours of labor into an acre of something. And because it went over a one-tenth, two-tenth, three-tenths, four-tenths. - There should be an allowable use, maybe not for consumable products, even though they can extract whatever they want out of it and make it as potent or not as they want. But maybe at least be able to use those crops for fiber and hempcrete and things like that would, instead of losing the whole crop, just not allow them to extract from it for consumable reasons, but still be able to use that commodity part, you know? - Yeah, not extracted. And let the label be the requirement. - Right. - Where we put consumer protections, is that the label? And if it's not what the label is, now that's where you have a real grievance. - Right. - The farmer's putting a seed in the ground, an environment could change it. You know, there's so much of things that can affect it. - Right, and we're talking most of this hemp is being grown outdoors, correct, not indoor. - Right. - Yeah, so there's all those factors you're right. Okay, so in just a moment, we're gonna have to take a break, but in just a moment, we're gonna come right back with Martin Smith and talk about the concept of inherent sovereignty. Stay with us, we'll be right back. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Welcome back to Sweet Home, Canada. Now with all the information you want about cannabis, here's your host, Jennifer Buser. - Welcome back everybody. We're talking tonight on Sweet Home, Canada, with Martin Smith, he is the president of the Kentucky Hemp Farmers Association. Martin, we were just talking about your quest to have the THC limit in industrial hemp be raised to 1%. And before we move on to this other topic, is there anything else you want to make sure that you got to say about that? - You broke up there, what was the end of the question? - I would just say, and is there anything that you would like to make sure that you got to say about that before we move on to inherent sovereignty? - Yeah, I just, one thing I would add to that is the term circumventing the intent of Congress. And what that means is, is that when you bypass the intent of Congress in order to implement regulation, when you're like, for example, in this specific place where they said, they've got the arbitrary number of 0.3%, PH by drive, wait, we had to argue at that point, I had to argue salt, isomers, salt of isomers, acids, they were all weighing in on all of that, that was weighing in on that 0.3. And we worked with the University of Kentucky and we worked with the Mitch McConnell to get those things excluded from that weight. All of that, that's just a super mind nude. I mean, we had to go back to Congress and ask them to support us to get those firms off the schedule, off the scale and just get the THC molecule by itself. - Right. Well, and we're talking about such a small amount, like this is trace, at best trace amounts that we're haggling over. And the difference between 0.3 and 1% is negligible compared to the other 99, right? I mean, this is insane, microscopic amounts of chemicals we're arguing over, right? - Right, there's no value to extracting THC out of it. Even if you smoked it, there's no value, no matter what format you use to get that THC molecule out of a 0.3% material, there's no value to extracting the THC period out of it. - Right. - It's the 13th and 10th of Congress by only checking, only weighing the THC from the female bud, 10 inches of the bud, is circumventing the intent of Congress because the 0.3 arbitrary number came from the young adult leaves, maturing the leaves of the-- - Right, not the flowers, yeah. That's crazy. That's crazy. - That's very circumventing the intent of Congress is what you would argue if you were to bring this as an argument to your local, whoever your regulatory compliance is. - Right, the Ag Department or whatever here in Alabama. Do you think that it would be a good idea to separate consumable hemp and the industrial application hemp like food and fiber and all of that and kind of have different testing standards? 'Cause I know that was one of the things that kind of was being discussed for the Farm Bill is let's test the consumable for the amount of THC but who cares how much the fiber plants have? It's never gonna be crazy. You're never gonna smoke it. And what does it matter if we're not even making a consumable product? And it's like if you use the fiber and process it down into a shirt eventually, will the shirt make me high? I mean, these are the crazy questions. Will I test positive for THC wearing a hemp shirt? It's like people do not understand how tiny an amount we're talking about. - Well, it's the same thing that when you started this conversation with RFK, it's the same thing. When we talk about toxins in our food, it's the same thing. All of these elements that we're unaware of, the value of or the damage that's being done, the wisdom being where it is and all of these other delegations and human mental capacities and the mental element of man and those type of things. - And we're too busy trying to keep up with whatever's in popular on the algorithm every day to even question what our food is made of, what it's been exposed to, what we're even taking from our doctors. We don't care, we're trying to busy being entertained and looking for instant gratification everywhere we go and no one sees the forest for the trees and it's really scary. - Think what you said earlier about a major politician like the Kennedy name, and he runs, I mean, he gave a good run for president and I think he's one of the most prejudicial speaking individual people. - Well, he's the only one talking about anything really important. - So with that, my hope comes from, I was just no hillbilly coming off the farm and I knew a few things about plants and a lot of things about nutrition and how to provide for my family and how to look after people who I care for. - Right, and give back to your community. That's what, I mean, it goes hand in hand. - Right, so I think we're further down the road than maybe we sometimes, it's hard to look over our chin, you know? - Right. - You know, it's hard to look over our chin, but I think we're further along. I think pushing this ingredient aspect of these cannabinoids and saying, "Look, we need, this is a nutritional--" - Right, let's look at them individually and not wipe out the whole plant because of one thing people are afraid of. - Yeah, yeah, so, but that's, you know, that's my pathway to my work is trying to get all plants, you know, nutrition on a label. I mean, the sumac, elderberry, emosatory, ought to be something everybody has. Actually, I went outside and picked it on my way home. - Right, or be able to barter with your neighbors to trade for what you do have. - Real quick, Martin, you've mentioned that this inherent sovereignty and local resolutions are key to gaining necessary protections for the hemp industry. Explain that, explain inherent sovereignty. - Yeah, so inherent sovereignty, meaning that you inherited, when you got here, there were plants here, there were nutrition, so in the Bill of Rights, it literally says that we are all endowed by our Creator. That endowment is what you're inheriting. - Right. - So, that's where the inheritance, part of inheritance, is the things that are here in fortifying the human experience prior to you, or prior to government, or prior to, you know, human existence, and that's why we all equally endowed to them. - Right. - And so, inherent sovereignty is you recognizing that you have sovereignty, and you have the ability to communicate, and that's where, I think, resolutions to your local government, because you know Bill, who's the judge exact, because you went to Sunday school with him, and so there's a level of, you know my mom, you know my aunt, you know, love our county, we love our community. And so, that is why I say that's the best place to start these dialogues, and it's a very effective place. Sovereignty, I mean, your individual sovereignty is what gives you everything you have to not be property of the government, should I stand to have not be property of the government, and having the ability to articulate the inheritance that you have in this space, using your sovereignty locally to discuss these things, not only that your sovereignty, nor is it not only your inheritance, it's that person across the table that you know that has the power to help you communicate to the legislature, and so what I started off with the resolution is to teach everybody in our industry how to get the best results, and I wrote a resolution up that basically asked the county judge exact, and those that are in charge of the county to sign on to a resolution to ask our legislature to elevate the definition of industrial hemp from 1% for all the reasons that we've discussed here today. - Martin, I hate to catch you off. We're about to go. I would love for people to know where they can follow you. Where can they find you? If they want more information, get in touch with you, help support, or collaborate in other states, where can they find you? - Yeah, they can find me. On my Facebook page is the best place to find me. I'm not out there kind of guy. I'm really knuckles on the ground every day, so. - Yeah. - I mean, on my Facebook page is that Martin Smith. I'm wearing a cowboy hat like this. - Yeah. And you can see that Kentucky Hemp Association on there. Thank you so much, Martin, for being on the show tonight. I appreciate your input and what we've learned here tonight. We'll see you guys next week and every Monday night right here on "Sweet Home, Alabama." Good night. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)