Pete 0:00
This is hempire Thank you again for joining us. Once again. I’m Pete birnberg. I’m here with Nick DeFrancesco. And we’re about to talk some pretty special prominent the industry academies Would you say there, Nick?

Nick 0:11
I do. I do.

Pete 0:12
So when we got on, we have the great and powerful Jen Bernstein.

Nick 0:18
I love it. I love it. And again, that’s why I was excited to do this today. We got a lot to talk about with Jen. I mean, let’s just dive right into it. Obviously. You led the direction of High Times for over a decade. You handle the meetings, you brought a lot of great editorials. I mean, you ran the whole show. But the most important thing that you know, I thought that was kind of cool would put most people probably dreamed of is of course, you were the judge for the High Times Cannabis Cup, the High Times medical cannabis cups, basically what Playboy is to adult entertainment. If anyone doesn’t know High Times has actually been around since 1974. So has a lot of it’s got a lot of nostalgia, of course, it’s got a lot of lineage in cannabis, really being the first magazine to ever bring beautiful pictures, editorials, great information, I guess is what National Lampoon’s was to comedy. Basically, you were there for about a decade. Why do you think High Times have survived all this time to stay as important in the industry as it has?

Jen 1:25
Hi, guys. Yeah, it’s been, you know, High Times has been around since 1974. There’s such tremendous staying power with a brand that really started at all. And it all comes down to the love of the plant and really respecting this gorgeous female plant. You know, you mentioned Playboy, and you know how sexy that is. And you know, high times really has that I believe that same same power. We have, or High Times has, you know, the High Times center fold, they really, you know, respect the plant and put it out there for everybody to see. And yes, we glorify druggie this, and we glorify the cannabis plant, and this is, you know, the message that has been the same since the beginning. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

Nick 2:26
Yeah, what I thought was cool is something that you did is you also brought in the cannabusiness Cow column, right? You also brought in things that talked about, not just the fact that we’re glorifying the plant, right, but also the business opportunities, the business aspects of it, the legalization, the editorials, not just, you know, again, that we’re talking about a product that’s just about glorifying a plant, but really what’s going on behind the scenes?

Jen 2:55
Yeah, that’s correct. I mean, cannabis is now business. And before, you know, there was the illicit market, but legacy market. And what I saw happening during my tenure there at High Times was that this was a real business that was coming in the first thing that I started was the pot job report, right? The fact that you could now have a job in the cannabis industry. And this was a report of mind and I relied on data from New Frontier research and seeing where the market was going. And I saw that, you know, some people prefer edibles in the edible market was going to take off. So what could I do to kind of like, look into my magic eight ball, and, you know, see what was coming. So in that pot job report, I would write, you know, if you’re a chef, you know, you can start creating edibles, if you love to bake, you know, think about new recipes. And so it’s like, you can take any skill that you have, and transfer it to the cannabis industry. You know, we have a need for marketing. We have a need for press and media and writers and, you know, what about doctors and nurses? I mean, there’s just, there’s no with the birth of an industry. We need everybody. But I remember writing those first job reports like there weren’t jobs available. wasn’t an industry yet. And so then, you know, we started thinking about cannabis business and I was like, Oh, cannabusiness We’re gonna make that a word. So I started the business column. And you know, at high times I set the style guy like Bong Water, one word or two very important decisions.

Pete 5:00
some arguments, you know they are.

Jen 5:04
Right? Um, so I mean, it was, it’s a great time to be alive now was an even better time, you know, back then, because what we were getting to do was a lot of people say, Oh, you never want to be the first step, right? You never want to be the first one out of the gate. But High Times was the first one out of the gate. Right? And so with that, we had so many Oh, we were the first to do that. We were the first to do this. And luckily enough, I you know, got to be one of the first to do a lot of those things.

Nick 5:39
One of the things that you were definitely first in which I think is amazing, is getting on to Sirius XM called reefer radio. I mean, you gotta tell me how that happened. Because you’re talking about a huge I mean, everybody’s watching unless I’m sorry, everyone’s listening to Sirius XM. I mean, still do of course, huge. Howard’s on there, everything else. But at the time, there wasn’t podcasts from all over. This was really the publication where everybody was going to through a radio and commercial free to get their word out there. And I mean, you had, you know, Snoop Dogg on Tommy Chung, jet black, but how did you get interested in hosting it first of all, and how did you pitch it to XM? I mean, of course, it’s cannabis, you know, a dirty word as usual. How did that all come up?

Jen 6:28
Um, well, I am a avid music fan. I go, I’ve seen 225 Fish shows 200 Most shows. You know, if there’s a Music Music Festival, I’ve been there. And you know, when blogs were just starting, I had the first blog on relicts.com. And you can follow me on NYC, Jim gal on Twitter. And that’s kind of like I kind of feel like I’m the Crossroads or the cross section of, you know, the jam band scene and cannabis media, right. So my friend Ari at Pinkerton over at Sirius XM, he was programming the jam on channel. So I would go on and I think one year we hosted the Bonnaroo breakdown, which was, you know, reporting, you know, from Bonnaroo, or, you know, talking about what’s going on there. And that kind of segwayed into when you know, High Times as monthly every May we would do the strain report. So, you know, ghost train haze comes out that says Scott, reach over at rare dankness and, you know, this is one of the first strains that’s hitting over 30% thc. And Danny Danko. Nico, Escondido and I are all saying, oh, there’s no way right? That THC can go worse than the tri comb head bursts at 27%. There’s no way we found, you know, it was possible, right? So the more research we have about the clamping force, so yeah, so Ari reached out to me and I was doing these reports. And it wasn’t long after that we caught the ears of a guy named Rory Belkin, who actually does the kids channels. Funny.

Pete 8:34
Well, generally early, you got to get him early, right.

Jen 8:39
And so that was even, like, more taboo, I thought, um, because at the very highest, you know, hierarchy of SSM. They’re very conservative. And we wanted to do like a test run. So Rory came to me and said, you know, let’s, let’s do we’ll do a four show, you know, kind of trial run, we’re going to pitch it as, you know, channel 420. Like, does your dial go that high? And, yeah, it was great. I mean, you know, High Times has an archive of everyone. And it was just really great to pull some of those, you know, old interviews and run some new ones. And, you know, start creating what we felt could be, you know, the first of its kind.

Nick 9:35
Were they hesitant about it, though? I mean, were they were they kind of like I don’t know, I mean, just even now to this day about advertising and things we talk about. It’s crazy, right? I mean, how they still want to silence you know, obviously we have cannabis radio, we have all these podcasts. We have all the stuff that we talked about a lot more publications of cannabis but being the first anybody that you that really stuck out under your like, they were like you did an interview. And it was either crazy or just the fact of like, Wow, I can’t believe they’re on the show or any something special that happened that you can remember on that.

Jen 10:14
Right? Oh, well, I mean, I remember we were it was very tame though. That’s the thing because we had to keep it. Like, we couldn’t go like falls out, you know, right. Okay. Okay, really. We’re treading lightly super censored. Yeah. So, you know, we were doing I was doing like characters. I was doing like Wendy Ouida kit. I would put our put on this voice. And I would say, Hey, I’m Wendy we to kit and we’re gonna, we’re dedicated like, to the left hand side, or don’t move the bowl and all the greens. So we, you know, we were the ones creating the content really, and great, because we got to be creative. But I remember then two people from the station. Christina Palumbo, who was a huge champion of our work. And she went to the cup to the Oregon State Fair, I think it was or the Colorado State it was something. Yeah, and I’m not even sure if they had we there. I mean, this is what I’m saying. We were still so ahead of our

Nick 11:42
dog on. So you know, there was weed somewhere, right? I mean, makes it a thing where plenty of

Jen 11:49
weed your, your vaping like under the desk?

Pete 11:58
See all the smoke coming from the bottom think it’s the electricity? Well,

Jen 12:03
you open the door to the studio, and you’re just kind of like, oh, you know, they know that.

Nick 12:10
I mean, even the new video that he just put out with Eminem. And he talks about how Eminem goes into the studio from such a long time it goes up. I know, I’m back because I’m with Snoop. And the whole studio is filled with smoke. So um, no, I just would have been cool. I mean, obviously Tommy Chong, Jet Black everybody else. You know, it’s just again, it’s kind of the funny were very popular, people would still not say anything in public about cannabis, and was the first time to get out there. And, you know, I wanted to bring something back to going back to high time just for a second education and things like that, you know, you’re talking about obviously etiquettes, smoking, things like that. Is that something that you think that they should have had more about, even in such a view, like high times where a little more education about, you know, maybe the medical benefits or not just about the plant and go out glorifying it or about the cannabinoids or the content? Because there’s so many people we have on there, like, wish I had something that I would have known how to dose correctly, or what medical benefits that would have helped me. Do you think that would have been something that High Times could have benefited from or what we’re trying to do now where so many people, there’s so much cannabis out there, just not that much education?

Jen 13:24
Well, I think High Times always led the way in terms of education. We had a quarterly public quarterly publication, that was medical marijuana. And in order to not bore our core readership, you know, month after month with the same education, we were forwarding the education. We were the first ones to put I remember our cover line meeting. We were putting a Borge if you know what that is. It was a bong and a blowtorch. And it was the first rig for dabs. And I remember sitting in a cover line meeting and saying, What are we going to say about this thing? We’re putting, you know, a live flame, you know, it’s a torch and it looks like, you know, we’re the crackheads of cannabis. And what are we going to say about this? And I came up with, you know, dabs, you know, the future of pot. And, you know, were we creating an environment where we could educate? Yeah, because, you know, we’re telling people how to clean these things. With the vape pen reviews, which I lead, I would get 100 vape pens, and I would get 30 people to help me test all of these baits, ends, and this was, you know, before there was puff cup, right, calling Puffco and calling Roger on the phone and saying, Hey, Roger buckle your seatbelt. He’s like why I was like your life’s about to change. I was like, you just won the bait pen review for high like we made Pepco into a multimillion dollar company overnight. Right? So you want to talk about education. You know, Roger originally was using, you know, metal in the vape pens. Right? And we, I would have frank conversations with Roger about, you know, when you’re burning these things, you know, there’s toxins being released, and then we switch to ceramic bowls. So did we really need to be educating, you know, all the time about, you know, why, you know, ceramic is better than, say, a metal nail or a titanium nail or, you know, heating up at 400 plus degrees, you know, is going to kill your terpene profile. And, you know, we were educating ourselves because we were, we we were the ones you know, directing the industry,

Nick 16:16
I just think that it’s a trusted source of any kind right now, when there’s so much information out there is so important, like, Yes, something as simple as a ceramic, you know, bowl versus a metal bowl or something else. But, you know, the new products that are coming out or either ways, I mean, all of it is education, all of its important, and I think it legitimizes what we’re doing a little bit more than just saying, Oh, we’re smoking weed, and we’re having fun. And this is what it is. I feel like little things like this as long as well as medical education as well. It just legitimizes it. And that’s really what we’re all trying to do, right. The industry has grown from the fact of we couldn’t talk about cannabis to standards that were put on it and censorship to now how do we get this out there to the public, that’s a little bit better than what’s happening right now. Or helping people in a positive way. It’s not just for fun, because we know it’s for fun, we all love it. But also the the other benefits as well. So we love what you’ve done with again, a lot of these different things in being the innovator and really at the forefront of all of this. I mean obviously you’re working on a lot of new things as well. You’re at Cincy magazine now. The show was it live by the way, when you were on the podcast for us, XM? Or is it delayed? Was it a was a recording? Or was it live?

Jen 17:42
Video was not even really a thing. I mean, I I’m a selfie taker. I love to shoot video, I think vine, do you remember vine? Of course second clip or four? Yeah. I mean, that’s that was you know, social media at the time we were doing vines. So with everything, there’s an evolution and you know, just just continuing to create that and now with that evolution, my own personal evolution has landed me now at Scentsy. I’ve got a six and a half year old daughter I left high times when she was one. I continue to freelance for like northeast leaf and cannabis now and all of the other cannabis magazines. I started the women’s Cannabis Club in New York City. During the time that I left and in between, you know, now to Sensi, and, you know, Sensi is really the grown up version I feel of High Times. And since he’s different in that they aren’t glorifying the plant and they aren’t showing people smoking and they aren’t really like it’s not in your face. And what I appreciate about cannabis lifestyle is what Sensi is bringing to the table. And that, you know, we’re producing content for our readership that could be new, could be legacy could be, you know, just mildly interested. But what our content does is it really attracts, you know, a readership who is interested in the lifestyle around cannabis. So I just got in the mail puff COEs a proxy, I’m totally stoked to try that out. You know, is it for everybody? No. by, you know, is there a way to display are all your cannabis pieces or is there a way to represent cannabis lifestyles? So it does hit so many different people. And that’s where we’re at with cannabis media is being able to reach the public. Knowing that there are so many types of weed smokers or, you know,

Nick 20:18
consumers, and CBD, you know, again, that’s our market. So we talk a lot more on the hemp side as well with THC combinations, specialty formulas. So there is such a different, like you said, there’s, there’s a big industry here, it’s not just cannabis in marijuana, it’s everything and being educated. I like you saying that it was a big, it’s a grown up version of high times because we all know that it needed that right as we’ve grown, something needed to grow as well. And it’s not just that you were getting cannabis. I mean, you’ve been in the, you know, the Village Voice, Good Housekeeping Us Weekly. You even worked for Trump magazine during the Celebrity Apprentice days. So yeah, I would love to know how it was working at Trump Plaza. Of course, being from the northeast, we all know Trump very well, before and after presidency. So but, but I noticed there’s a lot of great things and but you know, one of the things that people don’t really talk about what we’ve noticed, it was magazines and print had been in a decline about 20%. Now, versus digital media companies, because they’re buying the brand names, and they’re digitizing them, how to cannabis magazines, like sensing High Times, and all these different ones avoid being in that decline?

Jen 21:35
Well, I think one of the best ways that you can avoid, you know, being in the decline is just knowing that there’s always going to be again,

Nick 21:47
yeah, yes, go ahead. Absolutely.

Jen 21:51
One of the ways that we can show that we’re not in a decline, right, I think we’re a reflection of the overall industry, right. So California not doing so great brands don’t have money to invest in cannabis publishing, and advertising. And that’s our bread and butter in media is advertising, whether you’re getting eyeballs digitally or in print, but something that I really value is, you know, is print and being able to hold a magazine and to see, right and to flip through. And

Nick 22:30
how can you give that up. I mean, digital is great, but it’s not the same.

Pete 22:35
I mean, you can’t get seeds out of it.

Jen 22:40
You know, like you want, you know, since he creates such beautiful covers that you want this on your coffee table, you want to display this, and I want our content to be able to reflect that quality alongside these brands that need to get to the eyeballs of consumers. And so what I feel is is that yet print could be in a decline, but there’s always going to be a need for magazines, and it’s just going to become a luxury product right? Not everybody gets to be in Cincy magazine, not everybody gets to be on the cover. And it’s the same with high times or any other magazine but we’ve got you know, I’m working my first issue for Scentsy is the Fall issue is going to be ready for mjbizcon in November, and I want everybody at mjbizcon walking around with this magazine, and for the CEOs to be flipping through and being like, whoa, here I am. And we’re talking about the future of cannabis where we’re going. And we’re also talking about where we’ve been, right. What are the lessons that we’re learning? How can we improve? How can we continue to change the stigma that surrounds cannabis. And that’s my mission, right. And so with Scentsy, and this growing up and evolving with cannabis, that’s how we do it. We’re changing the stigma by showing that this is 100% acceptable. It’s here to stay. And this is where we are.

Nick 24:20
I love it. I was looking through it today. Actually, the episode The new cover in Florida is Deray good friends of ours as well. And have you ever been surprised or which notable person who has been subscribed to how at times are sensing? Well, I know you can’t give names or anything but is there anybody that’s ever you know, that has been a big follower that you were maybe shocked about or even we could be sensing now could be High Times could be both. There’s got to be some high profile people that didn’t want to know about cannabis or but silently is ascribing

Jen 25:03
Well, I remember when Martha Stewart was getting in on the game. And that was a big surprise to me, right? For Snoop guts.

Nick 25:14
Because, you know, if they were Oh, yeah, there was

Pete 25:19
at the same dealer.

Jen 25:24
And, you know, it’s always surprising to me, I believe the women, right, who are stepping out because, you know, we’re the moms. We are the deciders in the family, and I still feel vulnerable. Well. I mean, there’s plenty of responsible dads who consume cannabis. But you know, I think women, you know, we’re still battling that, you know, equality thing. And we have a long way to go. I would even say, you know, in the cannabis space, yes. You know, women lead the way in this new industry. Like, it used to be 37% of women hold leadership positions that dropped to like 27. But in terms of like, people who are following along, and I got a great follow the other day on Twitter by Katie Turner. And, you know, she is, you know, on TV every day, and her husband is on, you know, CBS Sunday Morning. So it was just really interesting to me that you know, she’s a big I mean, these people are watching.

Nick 26:44
I love that. I mean, obviously a huge name.

Jen 26:48
Another woman immediate today, Jean Chatzky, who is you know, one of the ways women can really empower themselves is to plan their financial futures and Jean Chatzky is all about financial planning. And she’s on CNN every day. And yeah, yeah, so I’m, I’m really always thrilled by you know, women in media who support one another, right? And I find that it can be a very inclusive type of community. And that’s what it’s all

Nick 27:28
about. But again, it’s almost kind of like, you hate to say it like this. But is it kind of like coming out of the closet? For some people? It really is. It’s talking about the fact of their use of cannabis. They’re, you know, they’re okay with saying, Yeah, I smoked marijuana. I use CBD. I think that this is a great therapy.

Jen 27:52
Yeah, I think it should be smart women smoke weed. I mean,

Nick 27:57
there’s so many

Jen 27:59
platforms, smart women smoke weed or consume cannabis. Smart Women consume cannabis. You know, it’s good for us. Right? It helps with stress. It relaxes us. It can be an aphrodisiac for me, it helps with my IBD. When I’m in a flare up, the number one way that I can heal myself is through cannabis. And you know, my mother who was like, you’re gonna work where? You know, and people were like, are you going to put your name on the masthead? And I was like, Yes, this is who I am. This is what I’m proud of. I’m not going to have a gnome de plume, like, you know, but telling my mom that she should be taking CBD every day, that it’s so benign, and so good for you that it’s going to end up in our multivitamins, probably in 10 to 15 years. So I want to know, why isn’t Johnson and Johnson creating no more tears? baby wash with CBD in it?

Nick 29:06
I love that. That’s an amazing point

Jen 29:09
for your billion dollar idea there. But do I want my baby to be bathed in CBD? Yeah, I do. It’s a huge moisturizer. And it like I said, it’s as benign as anything else that’s going to be found in our multivitamin. And I

Nick 29:31
think that’s what you said smart women and smart people. Instead of using all these things that are giving you side effects, contraindications drug on drug interactions, how about you something that doesn’t do any of those things that helps with everything you just mentioned, without all the negatives that you always hear. Obviously, that’s what we pride ourselves on. That’s what we do here appear well, and we try to bring these specialized formulas to the, to the to the public and, and kind of for the narrative of education, which Let’s talk about that about how everybody is having to continue to keep fighting this negative press that the mainstream media outlets tell the world. I mean, I want to read you something, something from a hit piece from Spectre last year, they will big doe wants its customers to love its products and use them as often as possible. So what does it do? It makes a lot of different various varieties to maintain interest. Still, no one saw the sheer volume of choice coming. People still use the smoke marijuana now they vape it, eat it, slather themselves with it, and even shove it up their acids. Because frankly, why not? What’s the most important thing that we can do to get the real story about cannabis out there without giving the bigger media companies a win? I mean, that’s the that’s the thing. I mean, we’re really fighting people that aren’t completely on the other side, maybe even like Big Pharma because they don’t like it. They don’t like that there’s an alternative to what they’re pushing, and their billion dollar agenda. So what do you say to that? And how do we continue to fight this negative mainstream? Since you are a big public head in this in this space?

Jen 31:11
Well, I think, you know, once we hit the mainstream, and look, we’re there. We have to continue just as you’re saying that education, but number one is testing. The fact that here in Maine, where I am right now, they test for the recreational market, they test the cannabis but they don’t require it for medical. Okay, so here you have patients who are using this as a medicine and it’s not being tested. And then here you have the rec market, and they’re putting those guidelines on the wreck. So overall, you know, as an industry just do better. We need testing, we need to reschedule cannabis, as the government should know, we have to be able to study and research the plan. We need. We need federal legalization to be able to really, you know, it’s not just the decriminalizing, it’s the rescheduling. It’s like it shouldn’t even be.

Nick 32:19
Come on. I mean, heroin, it’s next to heroin. I mean, let’s stop it now. I mean, this is crazy.

Jen 32:27
Benefits. Schedule One says no medicinal benefits. So how can you contradict yourself? Alright, so testing is number one.

Nick 32:35
They do that all the time. But the truth is, you’re exactly right. I mean, for people that don’t know, I mean, you know, you’re scheduled one, obviously addictive, no medical benefits, those are the two, harmful, you know, these are the three most important, but the two are the most important of making it a scheduled one. And when you’re going to say when a connotation. Now again, maybe back in the day, they looked at marijuana like home, but never heard somebody said marijuana and heroin in the same sentence, no matter what time period it was, even though hemp was founded 4000 years ago, BC, but I’m just saying don’t use a marijuana use a metal, heroin. Come on. They’re not even in the same. But yes, they are when it comes to scheduled one narcotics in the United States. So what are we doing here, people, this is why we’ve got to get educated. This is why we have people on like this, we’re trying to for the narrative to let you know, there is a lot of medical benefits, there’s a lot of education needs to be done. But we still have so much more fighting to be done. Now, speaking of that, legalization, the regularization, for example, like on our on our boxes, and everything we do, I was the first one to come up with in the CBD market, to have CLAS posted on a QR code right on a box for everybody to just use their phone and see what’s in a product and what’s not. You can find that at all at pure well.com. Of course, we don’t have any of our products. But you can see that we make sure that we want to have that regulation. What are you getting it all the pesticides, all the heavy metals, all the things that you talked about in the medical marijuana that needs to be done is being done in the hemp market, at least on our standards, and I will make sure of that. And that’s the things that need to be done. I mean, people are like, Ethan came on our show last week and he talked about I love to go to a dispensary instead of a dealer because it’s tested. Now he is talking about medical marijuana. And he’s talking about that there in Boston. So why is it state by state it different? Why are the public of recreational like you just said the masses, getting the regulations and the people that have cancer and abundance of other medical reasons that they’ve got a medical card for? And then they don’t get testing? I mean, come on. This is crazy. I don’t know if it’s necessarily just federal All regulation, because as you can see, putting a lot of new issues on state by state regulations right now, we won’t get into all that. But it should be a state by state thing. I think that every state should be on the same page, maybe it shouldn’t be federal, maybe we can get something done quicker going state by state and making this holding them more accountable on a basis instead of trying to make this great federal law, which is going to take forever, when we can do something local, a lot quicker. So maybe that’s another thing that we could think about.

Jen 35:35
Yeah, I, you know, I live in New York State, I, you know, half of my time is here in Maine. And so as I’m watching New York state come, you know, online and on board. You know, I’m very aware of the challenges that other states have had, and I’m, you know, thinking to myself, just listening to you talk, okay, if this is, you know, a state by state thing, are the states that are legal talking to each other. And I know that, you know, New York took a tour of Colorado, but you know, who’s talking to California right now, you know, all I should be on California, and watching as it fails, the California market has failed. And across the board, now, cannabis sales, you know, across the country are down. And I want to know, New York, you know, what are you doing to ensure that our state and our industry is stepping out on the right foot, and we have a great bill, you know, really, with helping minority businesses achieve success, and being the first to get the licenses and supporting you not just, you know, people of color, but women and other minorities, right. So we have a really great plan in place. And on paper, it looks amazing. But once you start thinking about, you know, the taxes and what we’re going to be taxed at and, you know, what is testing going to be? I don’t know, but is, you know, has anybody from New York State contacted me and wants to know, oh, they haven’t. But they, but they should, and, you know, maybe it is me going to them and just saying, hey, look, I’m a resource here. I’m happy to help in any way as we grow, what will be the largest market for cannabis in New York City?

Nick 37:41
You know, it was funny. I know you were talking about California. And you’re right. Are they are people speaking to each other? I mean, let’s be honest. Are we working as a team? Are we working individually? In your were you anywhere and your job and your your schools in your family? If there’s no communication and new teamwork, you’re never going to grow? Right? More heads, the better, of course, and I think you’re right. And, you know, I know, the Sacramento Bee reported California Governor Newsom, and the state lawmakers are poised to eliminate tax on marijuana growers. So that’s something that they are definitely trying to do. Because, like you said, I mean, to me, I mean, a lot of our farms will in Colorado, I have two farms in Colorado, one in Colorado and California. I do feel like Colorado does it a little bit better. And they have like they’re like the Oh geez. Of the of the space of a for hemp and marijuana. But I do know that something like this and you know, we’re not going to be taxing the marijuana growers. Some of the cannabis industry say that the tax cut doesn’t go far enough with the industry advocates arguing that they were just shut out of the process. So something like that. Do you think that that will be voted on by state lawmakers later this summer and the cannabis cultivation tax paid by growers would be sent to zero while they exercise tax now, we always say that tax getting from cannabis, for example, in Colorado and things like that, where they were helping the school systems, they were helping the streets, you know, the roadways, they were buildings, I mean, anything that the state needed to raise extra income for cannabis sales and tax we’re doing it with but this will be shifted from distribution to retailers. So we’ll remain at 15% for the next three years for the people paying for cannabis. But the the burden the tax burden or will not be from the actual manufacturers and how do you feel about something like that?

Jen 39:50
On one hand, I feel like it’s too little too late. Right. I know growers right now who are struggling. We’re heading into a recession Um, it’s not looking great. I mean, I know businesses who are just not growing this year, I know growers who aren’t growing, you know, at $800 a pound, it’s just not worth it. And, you know, this is an industry that cannot be reactionary. We knew we need to be forward thinking. So that’s why I’m, like, so adamant about New York state being like, Come on, let’s get with the program. Yes, it’ll help the growers. But still, if, you know, it used to be the American dream, it was all of our dream that, you know, cannabis would be legal, and that we wouldn’t be criminalized for loving this plant for loving this medicine for helping and healing ourselves. And we wanted to bring that cannabis to the masses. But why now go above board? It’s, I mean, it’s just, there’s still plenty of reasons, you know, don’t get me wrong, you know, and for all our brothers and sisters who have helped us get to this place, and have been incarcerated. And, um, you know, I don’t want to roll back the clock on that at all. But, you know, instead of being reactionary, we really need to be more more forward thinking. And, you know, we keep saying, oh, you know, if it’s legalized, then these businesses will be able to write off, you know, basic tax expenses, right? We haven’t done enough to want people to go above board and actually, like, you know, become a business and get back into this again, you know, it’s going in the opposite direction. So what can the government be doing to incentivize business? Because as we all know, cannabis is a huge driver of jobs. Right? I would write that.

Nick 42:01
Absolutely. Absolutely. There’s a huge job market now because of cannabis. I mean, in all different sizes, all the all the normal things you were talking about, like oak chefs and things like that, yeah. But editorials, business lawmakers, politicians, lawyers, I mean, just marketing’s I mean everything.

Jen 42:23
Creator, so why not incentivize his people to create cannabis businesses, create the innovation create the space that allows for this creativity, so we can have more people like Roger and puff co creating, you know,

Nick 42:42
don’t forget pure well.

Jen 42:45
Pure Well, I mean, this is what I’m saying. And you know, cannabis radio in general, we need all of it to be able to get the messages out there and to have these open dialogues and discussions of what works and what doesn’t.

Nick 43:01
Absolutely, I agree. And again, I don’t know if you want to tell us a little bit about Scentsy real quick just where they can go sensi.com It’s s ensimag.com. We’re really excited to what you’re going to be bringing to Cincy magazine, hopefully, maybe a little article on pure well, we don’t know we’ll have to talk about it. But and this is why we do this guys. And I say this guys and girls every day when we’re doing these podcasts, we have the people we have on for a reason. If there’s any way we can make the show better. If there’s any question that I could have asked Jen, that you would love for me to do. And to really get our voices out there. Please click Like Subscribe rate. Tell your friend, let us know comment, give us a review. We’re doing this for you. We’re doing this for the cannabis industry. We’re doing this to educate and to help everybody else out there to understand how to legalize this in an additional way but also just to make your experience your lifestyle better however you use cannabis. You could also email the producer Brasco, B R A s CO at cannabis radio.com. He’s always looking for suggestions and things that we could do to make this show better and we appreciate you coming on Jan. We really do. I love to talk to you a couple minutes after the show. But I don’t know Peter, I don’t think you should take us out.

Pete 44:34
I mean you kind of did it already for us. But we do. Thank you again for your time Jen and we do want everybody to you know find us on Spotify, Apple, Amazon I Heart Radio wherever we do like to get your podcasts there. Don’t forget to drop us a like and review subscribe and we appreciate your time everybody remember get out there and get educated on what hemp and cannabis can do for you.