About Cannabis Legalization News
With over 36k subscribers on YouTube & over 150k downloads on audio episodes – Cannabis Legalization News (CLN) is the #1 cannabis news & policy podcast on the internet. Journalist Miggy420 and cannabis business lawyer Tom Howard, rehash the week’s news in cannabis legalization. Join us each week for the news round up, and maybe have your cannabis company interviewed regarding its legal issues faced. There are also episode regarding developments on legalization in the cannabis industry.
Full Interview with Cannabis Legalization News
Tom Howard: tom@collateralbase.com
Miguel “Miggy420” Santiago: 420binary@gmail.com
Lauryn [00:00:10] What’s up, everyone? It is 2 p.m. on a Wednesday afternoon. Thanks for tuning in to Cannabis Legalization News where we explain marijuana laws so you can change them. Today, we’re joined by Stephanie Magurno of THC Production out in Vegas. We’re going to get into cannabis extracts and infusions. But first, we do have to cover a little bit of cannabis legalization news. So, Tom and Maggie, what’s going on in the news this week?
Tom [00:00:30] Busy week. Busy week. I just got an email 20 minutes ago from NORML and they say that the House Rules Committee has advanced the Marijuana Opportunity and Reinvestment and Expungement Act, H.R. 3884, which removes marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act and harmonizes the federal law with the state laws that like Illinois or like Washington state.
Miggy [00:00:55] Yeah, but this is just all semantics, right? Because it won’t matter until…
[00:01:00] It’s the theater of politics. And so it’s a committee. And so it gets out of one committee, now it’s got another committee, and then there’s going to be a full House floor vote up or down. And then, if you like that, don’t forget to hit the likes and subscribe to Cannabis Legalization News because we’ll go live after the vote or during the vote and we’ll try to see who we can get on because this is just a link. Like if you you’re watching this right now or listening listeners, our listeners can participate as easily. But the viewers then, you know, it’s just a link that we send out and it’s provided somebody has the Internet, they could come on here and we could ask them stuff. So we’re going to try to reach out to our former guests. But man, that’s awesome. And it could be real like today. It could be tomorrow, maybe Friday.
Miggy [00:01:45] And it sounds great. But I just like to remind people to keep your eye on Georgia. I mean, like like if you’re in Georgia, if you know someone in Georgia, you still have five days to register to vote. And if you’re 17 by the 5th of January, you can still register to vote now.
Tom [00:01:58] Yeah. And then the other thing about Georgia is this could be a lot of mail in ballots because supposed to be in January. So COVID should still be out there. Now, I hear that it’s going to be like 20 or 25 million doses of the vaccine in December and then like another 20 or 25 million in January. But it’s January 5th. So if they can vote now, I hope they are. And then what’s going to happen in there’s more act vote because it’s symbolic because the Senate’s not going to vote for it. But what if the Senate was controlled by Democrats?
Miggy [00:02:27] Oh, my God, that would just be a new America. That’s what I’m talking about on. There would be so much ongoing. I mean I mean, it would still be BS, but it would be less.
Tom [00:02:41] They would not be the sun master anymore. But it would be very interesting to see. That’s that’s that’s all pie in the sky BS. Let’s talk about something that really happened this week, the U.N. U.N. vote. The U.N. vote was huge, man. And this was really for a while to the U.N. approves W.H.O. recommendation to reschedule cannabis in a historic vote. Now, this has to do with the United Nations Commissions on Narcotic Drugs, a treaty that goes back to 1961, the single convention on Narcotic Drugs, and it was in a schedule four. And schedule four is different than how we do it in America with a Schedule 1. Schedule 4 was like the bad one with heroin and whatnot. And so they they voted on removing it from that. So that’s really awesome.
Miggy [00:03:32] Now I think is going to be huge nationally, right? This is the reason why other countries started doing the same thing that we’re doing, making cannabis illegal in their country.
Tom [00:03:42] We exported it. Yes, it was. It was after World War II, the United States was feeling itself. And it’s like, I’m going to go ban this marijuana plant everywhere.
Miggy [00:03:52] And if you don’t do it, you’re not going to get any of our love.
Tom [00:03:57] By love, I mean the money.
Miggy [00:03:59] But on top of that, you know what other country decriminalized it or unscheduled it was Thailand. That’s awesome.
Tom [00:04:07] Thailand removes cannabis from narcotics list. Well, I remember we were talking backstage in the green room. I used to live in Korea for a year. You’ve been to Korea, it sounds like, because of the Navy. And don’t you remember hearing those stories that if you really wanted to have some weird, crazy fun to go down to Thailand because they have way more lax drug laws. And so people would go down to Thailand and lose their shit. They would do drugs like if you wanted to do drugs like you do. Is there like a quintessential would you do last week? Drugs! That would be your trip to Thailand.
Miggy [00:04:47] For the most part. But, you know, I’ve been to Thailand. And the other thing that island is known for, unfortunately, is their sex tourism, like some fucked up shit.
Tom [00:04:58] Ya it wasn’t just the drugs. They were also really lax on that. It was like weird. But they also have beautiful beaches, I hear. I’m not saying anything. You know, if you’re into that kind of drugs and weird sex stuff, Thailand’s there. But I hear they have great beaches as well.
Miggy [00:05:16] Oh, no, it was gorgeous, dude. I mean, for like 50 bucks, we live like kings of fucking jet skiing, and it had a little mound of beer cans around us, like a castle. I mean, we’re broke sailors living large, but throw some weed in that bitch. Oh, my God. I want to go to tomorrow.
Tom [00:05:31] Oh, man. Thailand’s also where they have that form of kickboxing, which was hilarious because I guess I did that when I was in Korea and they were the people that taught it. They would usually go down to Thailand to practice for so many times during the year, and you would see the fights that they would have and the records for the Thai fighters. You could always tell because it would be like 285 and 64 because they like they lived at the gym. They were just so poor that that’s that’s what they did. They got taken in by a kickboxing gym and then they helped around the house or helped run the family business.
Miggy [00:06:05] Well, it’s also a technique, because when we used to pull in Thailand, they’d always warn, like, don’t get drunk and step in the ring. Like, because, you know, the American ego, oh, I’ve got this four-foot fucker…
Tom [00:06:14] I’m going to show this little guy who’s boss and he will kill you. He will kill you. It’s true story. Yeah, I remember, like, trying to fight this guy who’s fast as hell, and it’s like suddenly his foot would be kicking me, and it was like, how did it get there so quick? Boggled the mind. And then that doesn’t have anything to do with Cannabis Legalization News. Except it was an anecdote. And Thailand has legalized cannabis or taken steps there to what else was going on in the news this week? we talked about the U.N. We talked about the MORE Act. Thailand.
Miggy [00:06:47] Oh, Tyson!
Tom [00:06:52] Speaking of boxing. Mike Tyson. Mike Tyson fought over the weekend. And did you see the fight? I didn’t pay the 50 bucks. I know a lot of people did. And you made a lot of money for charity, but like, oh, you’re traveling. That’s right. And I just I wasn’t gonna pay 50 bucks to watch boxing. And so I heard that he looked good, and it was a draw.
Miggy [00:07:14] Oh, I didn’t hear the results, but I just saw at the end result, like, “Of course I smoke. That’s what I do.”
Tom [00:07:20] I’m glad that we actually got Miggy to do the impersonation of Mike Tyson so that he could explain that he’d smoked weed before. And then, of course, after he boxed. And it appears that it might be a performance enhancing drug if you’re in your fifties and trying to have a boxing match.
Miggy [00:07:36] But according to the Boston Herald, CBD is not a performance “dehancing” drug because they said CBD doesn’t matter when it comes to driving.
Tom [00:07:44] Why would CBD matter when it came to driving?
Miggy [00:07:49] I just think if you’re more chill. Yeah, let’s. Let’s road rage. Let’s do this.
Tom [00:07:54] Right? Right. Yeah. Actually, I could see it upside to it. You know, you’re not going to be freaked out and paranoid. You can be like, all right, well. Moving on. I mean, you’ll be fine.
Miggy [00:08:04] I’d like to add in my personal study I did this past week when taking my boy to Minnesota that THC doesn’t impair as well either. This is the personal experience that I’m still studying and I work on a doctorate later for a way to read and improve.
Tom [00:08:18] You have to see if you can confirm your hypothesis that it’s okay and so like so far, how many of these tests have you performed?
Miggy [00:08:25] Oh, shit. In a ten-year span?
Tom [00:08:28] Oh, yeah, what’s your sample size? we can get epistemological or something on this, right. Or no epidemiological now over the ten years. Would you say that you’ve done it a hundred times?
Miggy [00:08:37] Oh, more than that, my friend.
Tom [00:08:39] Okay, so you’re still fine?
Miggy [00:08:42] Yeah, yeah.
Tom [00:08:45] Just saying. But these are the fun things that we get to do here on Cannabis Legalization News. Get a little nerdy about it and and then talk about various aspects of the cannabis industry.
Miggy [00:08:57] Well, speaking about nerdy, I mean, our guest is infusing. That’s about as nerdy as it gets.
Tom [00:09:05] Yes. I mean, the cannabis plant is complex and the technologies they use to do the extraction, they aren’t all, well, some are quite old. But then what is quite old? Decades? Not old.
Lauryn [00:09:17] Let’s bring Stephanie on. Hey Stephanie, thank you so much for joining us today.
Stephanie [00:09:21] Thank you for having me. It’s great to be here.
Lauryn [00:09:23] Can you tell us a little bit about what you’re doing at THC Production?
Stephanie [00:09:26] Absolutely. We’re a really unique cannabis extraction company in Nevada. And what makes us unique is our innovative products. There are a lot of companies producing great cannabis extracts in the state, but we do things that are catering to different niches that other people ignore or reject. So for example, we produce some vegan and sugar-free edibles for people with dietary restrictions.
We have the first line ratio tinctures in the state. So that would be things like different ratios of CBD and THC, each designed to have specific effects as well as the first CBN-rich product in the state and a whole line of wellness tinctures that combine the essential oils from cannabis with essential oils from other plants to enhance the effect for things like respiratory function and digestive function. We also partnered with the oldest and most award winning craft brewery in the state of Nevada, Great Basin Brewing Company, to do the very first line of hops-infused vape cartridges in the state. So that’s just a very brief overview of what makes us a little bit unique.
Tom [00:10:41] Now, how much science is involved in all that?
Stephanie [00:10:46] Well, there’s science in many different levels. Number one, there’s the extraction. I mean, if you go into our our lab where we do the extraction, it looks like a bunch of erector sets. I mean, there’s a CO2 extraction machine. There are rotary main evaporators there all kinds of crazy distillation, glass tubes and equipment took together for both distilling terpenes as well as distilling cannabis. Distillation is the most advanced refinement that people do with cannabis. So you pull everything out of the cannabis oil. That is not cannabinoids and that is definitely scientific. You know, you have to deal with boiling points. You have to deal with the vacuum pressure. You have to learn exactly at what points to be changing gears and changing glass receptacles, etc. And even the refinement of it, you know, as we’ve gone, we’ve gotten better and better by trial and learning and applying new methods as well as input from other people. So there’s a lot of science.
Tom [00:12:03] And then it sounded like when you were describing all this science, a lot of infrastructure, you said like an erector set. So your overhead, if you would describe your overhead in terms of expensive to quite affordable, would it be expensive?
Stephanie [00:12:21] In terms of the startup cost? Yes, there’s a high barrier to entry into cannabis. It requires a tremendous amount of capital. So it’s not like, oh, I’m going to start a consulting business or even I’m going to start a restaurant. It’s much less expensive to start a restaurant than it is to start a cannabis company. And we’re a small company even, you know, one of our competitors. They sold their company, Evergreen Organics, and they sold it a few years back and they had close to $14 million in liabilities on their balance sheet because of the cost of starting up and how much it can be. We’re a smaller company. That’s not what it took to start ours, but it’s still you know, it’s in excess of $1,000,000.
Tom [00:13:06] Yes. And I and I just thank you for you know, that. And I hope that our our listeners and our viewers, because a lot of them want to get into the industry. And and I’m always like, okay, let’s really talk numbers here because you want to start this where you’re going to make these cookies or these types of things. That means that you need this type of infusion license or you want to grow and create these extractions and these distillates. It’s very often it’s own license type, but here in Illinois, it’s just kind of smooshed in with the growers. And so you have to look at the type of operation that they’re trying to open up and do it compliantly and then do it correctly in the right way. It’s not a cheap endeavor.
Stephanie [00:13:46] No. And then there’s to 280E, which I know you’ve discussed. So, you know, it’s very, very possible in this industry to lose money over the course of a year, but have to pay income taxes as though you made money because you’re not allowed to deduct sales expenses. So if you pay sales commission to a sales rep for selling your product, you’re not allowed to deduct the cost of bookkeeping or accounting. You’re not allowed to deduct office supplies for your operations manager.
I mean, there’s so many costs and you can’t deduct the cost of delivering the product to your customers or the cost of cash collection. We’re largely cash industry. And so rather than have our, you know, 93-pound sales rep go pick up money, we have an armed guard that goes and collects the cash for us and brings it to us. So all of those kinds of expenses, you don’t get to write them off as expenses. You have to pay income tax on those expenses unlike any other business.
Tom [00:14:49] Right! And I’ll see that when we do it, because Josh and I are launching a pitch deck things so like, well, we’ll make a pitch deck for a team and we like to break that out, be like, Now, guys, this is the money that you think you see. Don’t forget to include this. And so we’ll have our backs broken out from COGS and that can really just eat the profits of the dispensary or other because yours is science. And so because it’s a lot of that science, you have to make that product. So at least a lot of those costs can be recouped so that the growers can very often they have an easier time getting around this. But yes, what we need in the MORE Act which evidently is coming up, I mean, let’s talk about some some help.
Why doesn’t the federal government have to disgorge all this money they’ve taken over the past few years, talk about getting the industry involved then. Be like, hey, we paid you, now we want it back. You know, it’s going to start reinvesting and and fixing the war. The harms of the war on drugs, to be honest I mean, that is a lead weight around the industry. And the only reason it’s there is because it is.
Miggy [00:16:03] But are you talking like reparations, though?
Tom [00:16:06] It’s a tax over-payment. Have it declared being a tax over-payment because if you know you’re taking the money, these states are legalizing it and then we’re still getting just taxed through the guilts because you’re not allowed to deduct any of the carry on expense, the advertising, the sales commissions, all that stuff.
Stephanie [00:16:27] Correct. You know, when when you think about it, the federal government almost has a financial disincentive to get rid of to 280E because they’re going to make a lot more money continuing the status quo than repealing that, honestly.
Tom [00:16:42] But if that’s that’s what the MORE Act does, it removes that from the CSA. And so if marijuana is going to be removed from the CSA and then there’s policies in the more act that says, let’s fix the damage that we’ve done substantially over the decades, well, some of the damage is quite easy to calculate because the IRS has the records and it would be very nice if all that money is returned.
Stephanie [00:17:06] Yes.
Tom [00:17:07] Well, why couldn’t they put that in legislatively?
Stephanie [00:17:09] They could. But I doubt they will.
Tom [00:17:12] Well it’s not going to pass yet, you see. It’s not going to as yet. It’s going to pass the Congress. It’s going to hit a brick wall in the Senate. Georgia’s super important in January. Then the industry could be like, wait a minute, what if we do put that in there? Okay. And then they start paying off their their their elected officials while they make campaign contributions to their elected officials. And then maybe then it would actually pass.
Stephanie [00:17:37] Possibly. I mean, money talks. The only way that even state legalization measures have gotten through is because of treating it like a like a business endeavor where there’s a lot of money and consultants and all kinds of people who’ve been brought in to make sure it happens. So, yes, if you put money behind it, there is a possibility.
You know, you talked about social equity and the injustices and things. And it reminds me one of the things that’s highly unusual about our company is that we are everyone who works with us is female, a person of color, or somebody who’s over 55. And that is extraordinarily unusual in the cannabis extraction sphere. We didn’t set it up that way. It’s not that we said, “Oh, sorry, you’re 54, you can’t work for us” or anything like that. It just so happened. In fact, we have the only head of extraction that is a female in the state of Nevada, probably one of very few in the country. So that’s something that we embrace. You know, we don’t look at someone and say, well, oh, you’re not the typical cannabro, so we’re not going to hire you, man. You know, but we we allow chances for all kinds of different people to be part of this and to contribute.
Miggy [00:19:00] It’s funny you say about the female-owned extraction facility. Washington State Health Labs has a female only female own extraction facility, and they’re great. And yeah, they’re working with, I think, terpenes and some other cannabis group or whatever, but always putting out good information. Stephanie why extraction? Why did you choose to go with the extraction? Will not be a gardener, say or whatever else?
Stephanie [00:19:23] Actually, it just was happenstance. There is a growth in North Las Vegas that had an extraction license that they had not built out. So they somehow got connected with the person who is now the managing member of the company. His name is Rick. And they had gotten connected with him and they said, listen, we’ve got this extraction license. We’re growers. We don’t know anything about extraction. We don’t want to invest any more money. How about you put up the money and the and the expertise and you partner with us and build this out. And so Rick and I were actually partners in a different company, different industries in a startup company. And I helped him look at the opportunity and helped him start the company.
I continued, you know, in my other my other business. And then about nine months later, he came to me and and asked me to to join the company. So first I did that as the controller part time and then took over the operations. So I’ve been running the company for the last three years and it wasn’t something I planned it. It just kind of happened. All of it just kind of happened. But I’m so glad it did because it’s such a unique industry to be part of.
You know, when I when I got involved with the company was only medical. And frankly, I thought “medical marijuana”, that’s code for “I want to get high”, which I was totally okay with. But that being said, very quickly, when you get into this industry, you learn that the medical marijuana is no joke. That there’s very real benefits for people struggling with all kinds of illnesses. So definitely something that we’re passionate about.
Tom [00:21:08] And that’s fascinating. And this is like a recurrent theme when we have a lot of these conversations. Well, you said, yeah, it was code for you want to get high and then you actually start learning about the medical aspects of this plant and you find out there’s a whole endocannabinoid system and then you get upset that it’s like, wait, I remember when I was a kid, this is your circulatory system. It’s your nervous system. Nobody ever, ever mentioned the endocannabinoid system.
And so if you had that knowledge, I think we would have well, the laws would not have been what they are, but we didn’t know it until like the early nineties. And so it’s it’s one of those and it’s it just it blows a lot of people’s minds. And I think the people that are growing up now are spoiled, you know, and there’s like, oh, of course we do that.
Miggy [00:21:58] If you look at the the transition of legalization, right. I mean, first AIDS epidemic and cancer patients were the ones proving that, hey, this helps us then. You know, even early in my activism online, when you and I met Tom, you know, people seem to come to you when you say, hey, this is you’re not a wrong person. When you say, I’ve legalized weed now people coming out of woodworks, then they reach out to you, say, hey, me too. I had this one gentleman in Louisiana. He was in a wheelchair. I think he suffered from M.S. But he showed me he’s like, hey, man, thanks. I appreciate you. Look, this is what it does for me. He smoked it. He stood up out of the chair and, you know, for like six months, I still was like, I don’t know. I don’t know if this is like no shit medicine because like you said, it’s that party. We’re still trying to get through our heads, like, okay, it’s feel-good. It’s wellness. What’s wrong with feeling good and well? Why are we so in our heads like this can’t be medicine? This can’t make you feel better?
Tom [00:23:00] I don’t know man, I don’t know. But Stephanie, how is it being one of the few women representing the industry? What are some of the things that you think other women that are trying to get in the industry? And like you said, you just kind of fell into this position of leadership. What’s some advice you would give to those other female entrepreneurs out there?
Stephanie [00:23:22] Hmm. Wow. That’s a great question. Really, I’ve been fortunate in my life that, you know, I grew up in the eighties and even though the propaganda of the eighties and the you know, this is your brain on drugs with the cracked egg and they just say no. And, you know, thank you, Nancy Reagan. So it’s tough. But but that being said, you know, having grown up in that era and, you know, having come from a, quote unquote, middle income, you know, family, I had a lot more opportunities as a female than people who grew up in either more economically depressed communities or people who grew up in an earlier era. So it’s never even occurred to me that being a female would ever be a problem in business, if that makes any sense. And it hasn’t been.
But really, and this relates to the advice portion you asked what advice I would give is that if you are if you’ve got a lot to bring to the table, then it’s not going to matter what you look like. It’s not going to matter what your gender is, what your age is in this industry particularly. That’s not true in all industries, don’t get me wrong. And there’s definitely a glass ceiling. You can look at who’s the CEO of Fortune 500 companies, etc.. But in cannabis, I find that it is a more diverse and open-minded space in that regard. So this is a great industry for women to get into and in advance. And so it’s it’s really just about being confident in what you can bring to the table and making sure that you put it out there.
Miggy [00:25:19] Well, like we said on the radio show, you can choose your career like you took your normal day job and just transition it over a little week. And the only thing you’re doing now is adding more paperwork to your layers of BS.
Stephanie [00:25:31] Yes. And you know, the everyone in our company, half of our team doesn’t actually use THC and the other half does. We’ve got a mix of old school stoners, you know, recovered cancer patients, people who are a little trepidatious about even drinking alcohol, let alone getting high. So like a whole mix. But all of us use cannabinoids in some form or fashion, and all of us are very, very passionate about what we’re doing. And that has led to you know, somebody was touring our facility a week or two ago and they said, you know, most companies, ever since recreation went into effect, they’ve just shifted everything to the recreational market and they just ignore the medical market. And I appreciate the fact that your company doesn’t. And what she was speaking to isn’t simply that, oh, yes, we have some medical chocolate bars that only people with a medical card can buy, but that we’re producing.
Tom [00:26:35] Enough to have a higher degree of THC. And that’s it. It’s just like, oh, they could get even higher. Yeah.
Stephanie [00:26:42] Yes, exactly. But she was speaking to our tincture line because, you know, frankly, if somebody wants to just have a good time, they’re probably not going to grab a tincture. They’re going to get joints. They’re going to dab their, you know, something more maybe an edible, just like have a piece of chocolate.
People who are using tinctures, they’re using it because they have a problem usually. And so the fact that we have this whole product line, that is a huge portion of our of our inventory that is really geared towards people that have an issue that they need to solve. And that’s important to us. And we’re going to be continuing to roll out even more because that is important. And then, you know, starting the radio show just really providing a lot of cannabis education to people. So it’s really part of our mission statement almost to, you know, make products that not only make people feel good, you know, on the on a recreational level, but that make people feel good on a health and wellness level.
Miggy [00:27:44] Well, I’ll just say I love that you mentioned the endocannabinoid system. Right. And most of her employees are not flower smokers or whatever. But you learn to walk in the store hungry, smoking weed, everybody. Some people like edibles. Some people will just put a little bit of concentrate, RSO or whatever.
Tom [00:27:58] CBD. I like to include I like it’s the plant, you know. And so when you and I like I was looking at your website and you have ratio tinctures. You mentioned that. Oh, the one thing that I really wanted to find out is how do you protect tincture anyway? Is it tincture? Is a tincture? Is it what’s the appropriate pronunciation of this?
Stephanie [00:28:20] We call it tincture.
Tom [00:28:22] Tincture.
Stephanie [00:28:22] And most people in our state do I don’t know, maybe in Illinois they call it something different than tincture.
Tom [00:28:29] It’s one of those words that you always like it just read before, and then suddenly people are saying it and then it’s like, well, what is it, tincture? I don’t know. You know, you put it on your tongue and it usually is cannabis. And I’m like Oh, okay, interesting”. But I like how you have the whole plant aspect of it. So there is a lot of CBD and so CBD is health and wellness and beneficial as a plant. Applications are just ridiculous.
And so I just think, yeah, in the future it’s going to be fairly common for everybody to be using some form of cannabis, not necessarily for inebriation like they would for an alcohol, but for some form of like health and wellness rejuvenation. So that’s really interesting that you’re is that part of your marketing strategy then, you know, just turning it into trends more because you’re coming at the plant from a more holistic medicinal side? And then from that, what are the products that you’re seeing for 2021 that you think are going to be popular?
Stephanie [00:29:27] Well, there’s a difference between market trends and where we’re going and why. I mean, right now, flower is king, certainly in Nevada. The growers can’t grow enough fast enough to meet the market demand. Flower has just become dominant even normally. It’s, you know, 50% of the market in many states. It’s become much more than that over the last few months. So there’s one market trend and another market trend in Nevada is actually products like tinctures are reducing market share, but some edibles are gaining market share.
Vapes have gone up and down. You know, of course, when there was a whole long scare with the black market vapes being sold with products that weren’t good for you and it was causing people to end up in the hospital. So there was a reduction in vape usage for a while and has recovered somewhat. So there’s all kinds of different trends going on.
But our strategy and how it relates to the market trends are all about what’s unique and all about catering to smaller market segments. So we’re like a craft brewery in that way. You know, we’re we’re not Michelob or Budweiser. We are like the Great Basin Brewing Company is for beer in our state. We’re a craft cannabis operation. And so all the new products that we’re releasing are things that no one else is doing or that they’re we’ve gotten customer requests for. So two things that are coming out right now or that just came out, I can’t believe no one’s done the peanut butter chocolate bar in the state, but no one’s done a peanut butter milk chocolate bar. So we just did it. And it’s delicious. Like, I just want to eat this all day long.
Tom [00:31:21] So how dangerous of a proposition is that? Because I made these cookies over the weekend and I think I nailed it. But like, you know, the goal was to try to make a cookie about ten milligrams because then you could eat cookies and now you’re like two and deep two quickly. So how did you get it with a chocolate bar?
Stephanie [00:31:38] Well, it’s ten milligrams per serving because that’s the, you know, state regulated limits. But really, it’s funny because this very thing, the fact that it tastes so good, you want to eat more. Inspired us to make single serve little “Bitez” we call them that are the size of you know like a Ghirardelli chocolate score. They’re a full treat. So you get your ten milligrams, but you get a much bigger amount of chocolate so that you feel satisfied.
Tom [00:32:06] Microdose 5mg ones because then you could eat another one, so only five milligrams.
Stephanie [00:32:14] We do have some micro dose products, so our most popular product right now is our chocolate covered almonds. We introduced that within the last year and it has just taken off like hotcakes. The chocolate-covered almonds, we have chocolate covered blueberries, chocolate covered espresso beans. So our espresso beans are five milligrams each. So that allows for a micro dose.
But you asked about 2021 and in big new things, the biggest thing actually is our Soul D’licious Infused partnership. You guys got to audio meet Ben, the founder of Soul D’licious, and he’s had a seasoning company for 15 years selling at farmers’ markets, local grocery stores, and he makes his own spice blends. So it’s not like, Oh, go buy cinnamon or Oh, go buy garlic. He has a vegetable seasoning and you put a fire rub, a lemon pepper garlic, blackened rosemary, all purpose, all these different blends. And we’re infusing them and they will be hitting store shelves in about two weeks from now. And it is the first product of its kind in Nevada. And everyone we’ve talked to from people that run cannabis magazines to people that run dispensaries have said this is going to be awesome because you can make anything an edible, you can make your steak an edible. A baked potato.
Tom [00:33:42] But think about it like the totally with the baked potato and stuff like that. But steak, if it’s an infusion and then a grill is fire grill, so it’s like a thousand degrees or something, right? They want her off because it’s a rub. So be on that top layer. But like, you know, if you braised it or something, so like it didn’t, it didn’t evaporate that smoke point.
Miggy [00:34:04] Full disclaimer Tom’s a vegetarian just saying.
Stephanie [00:34:11] In the vegetarian too. So in fact, our seasoning blends that we’re starting with are not vegetarian, but we have approvals for three or four more blends and one of them is vegetarian because I said, nope, “we’ve got to have a vegetarian seasoning blend Ben”, so that’ll be the lemon pepper garlic.
Tom [00:34:30] Thank you Stephanie, I appreciate that.
[00:34:32] You’re welcome. And, you know, I’ve actually what you’ve just talked about, I’ve asked our chemist to look into because our head of extraction is the master’s level chemist. She used to teach distillation at UNLV, not of cannabis. Obviously, they don’t love it yet, but. But, yeah, so she’s a chemist. And I said, you know, look into this because even though heat will convert cannabinoids, there’s also the time factor. So if you put something in a 500 degree oven for 10 minutes, the amount of loss that you would experience is very minimal.
For example, when you make gummies, the liquid is very hot to get it to melt, right? And so you’re putting it in this vat or a pot that’s several hundred degrees and you’re adding the cannabis to it, yet the cannabinoids don’t all just disappear. So there’s a time factor that also is involved. So I’ve asked her to look into this more so we can give users a guideline for, you know, don’t put this in a very, really, really hot thing for more than X period of time. So it’s not as it’s not instant.
But that being said, you can make, you know, jicama slices, apple slices. You can add it to your to your baked beans or your burrito, you know, after it’s made, if you like. And so this is great because there’s no sugar in it. Most of the edibles are sweet on the market. And then this allows you to have a full sized treat because you can eat the whole burrito. You don’t have to eat just a tiny piece of the burrito.
Tom [00:36:09] And you can also you could also titrate the dose. Yes. Seasoning in, but less seasoning in.
Stephanie [00:36:17] Yeah. Yes. Because our seasoning is homogenous. Every product in Nevada that is an edible has to undergo homogeneity. Testing the. So, for example, if you make a chocolate bar, they want to make sure that all ten pieces have the same dose in them. And we have to individually bag every dose of seasoning and put a little THC symbol on so we can’t have just a jar of spices that you pour on. It has to be individually bagged.
Tom [00:36:46] We’ve gotten to the regulatory compliance segment of the show, awesome thumbs up drives for regulatory compliance, but thank you Stephanie. Yes, you’re bagging the individual seasonings and then what happens?
Stephanie [00:37:01] So before we bag it, the cannabis is already infused in the seasoning. So that means that we didn’t just add some THC after we bagged it. So you have no idea like where it is if you’re going to get it, if you only for half know it’s throughout. So that means that you can use half the package and get five milligrams if you want. So it is really good for micro-dosing.
Miggy [00:37:22] So the package itself is the serving?
Stephanie [00:37:24] Yes.
Miggy [00:37:25] It’s very dope. Exactly the type of extractions that you’d be doing. Like I have friends that are industry and they get into biology or terpenes and then, like, solventless and solvent. And like, you know, I know it’s a big deal to have an extraction and be able to dissolve it in water. Are you what kind of extraction are you doing?
Stephanie [00:37:52] So there are four main types of extraction in cannabis. One is solventless, that is no chemicals. Then there’s carbon dioxide, CO2, it’s 70% of the air we breathe. It’s also used to extract cannabis. Ethanol alcohol. So obviously we drink alcohol. But the the alcohol used to extract cannabis is, you know, 90% to 100% pure. Then there’s hydrocarbons, things like butane, propane, heptane, etc. We actually do three of the four. The one we don’t do is hydrocarbons. And that is for two reasons. One is that we’re on the second floor and any piece of equipment that we put in, we have to bring up the stairs. We when put our CO2 extraction machine and we had to cut a hole in the roof. There’s some physical limitations and you have to put like a bomb shelter in your lab when you have hydrocarbon there. Just the weight limits, the site we couldn’t do it.
So the second reason we don’t do hydrocarbons is that we are a little bit concerned about the leftovers. So when you use ethanol or you use hydrocarbons to extract cannabis, there’s some leftover ethanol or leftover hydrocarbons in the product. And you do what’s called a purge. There’s sciencey stuff you do to try to pull that out and to the greatest extent possible. And alcohol, although probably like not super awesome to be inhaling it. At least we drink alcohol. You know, no one’s drinking lighter fluid or if there are, they shouldn’t be.
Tom [00:39:34] Propane, hexane, yeah. All the other type of hydrocarbons that, you know, they’re lighter fluid, they’re gas, you know.
Stephanie [00:39:40] Yeah. So, you know, it’s, it’s really important when you’re using those kinds of products, just check the levels of at least in Nevada, it’s all listed on the lab report, the levels of residual chemicals left. But the people love hydrocarbon extracts because not only is it very cost effective, but they love the flavor. So I would never fault somebody for doing it as long as they’re doing a very good purge on it. So that being said, when we started out, we were solventless only by necessity. We didn’t have a CO2 machine yet. And and so we started out we were the first company in the state to do old school hash. So temple balls, bubble hash, rosin.
Tom [00:40:26] And you did mention that you were doing the the solventless extraction. So fascinating. Is there a high-end hash scene in Nevada?
Stephanie [00:40:40] They’re starting to be a harsh scene in Nevada. We were, you know, four years ahead of the curve, which is why we were pushing to get the solvent extract as well, because there wasn’t enough market demand. And we knew that from the get go it was brand new. So, you know, you know, it’s fine to be six months ahead of the curve or you’re ahead of the curve, but four or five years you can’t run your business on that. So we diversified. But there’s a growing market for solventless extracts in Nevada. And the thing about solventless extracts is that even though they’re amazing, they’re more expensive because you get a lower yield. So if you take a pound of let’s just say flower and you put it through a solventless extract, you might get 10%. If you put that pound of flour through butane extract, you might get 30% yield. So therefore, just that alone gives you an idea that the price per unit is going to be higher for the solventless.
Tom [00:41:39] So that’s before the manpower cost. Isn’t solventless, isn’t that usually more difficult to make as well?
Stephanie [00:41:47] Yes, it is. It’s more labor intensive. And because it’s done by hand, even when you use machines, there’s still a lot of human labor that has to go into it. So, you know, there’s, for example, washing machines use a washing machine instead of a bucket and a paddle, and you put your cannabis in that washing machine and you run a little spin cycle. Well, then you drain it and it goes into a bucket stack with mesh bags and you got to scoop the hash out. And if it’s not ready, you put it back in the machine. If it’s ready, you put it on a tray, then you’ve got a freeze dry it. Then you’ve got to take it to like a cheese grater once it’s dry. I mean, and then you’re going to squish it into rosin.
Tom [00:42:30] Then you got to weight it into little grams eventually after waiting a little gram. And then maybe you put like a little a little symbol on it or something to have like a little imprint that you can make that’s like your logo with like, oh, it’s our hash.
Stephanie [00:42:42] No, we don’t do that, but we do our packaging. Our EPC, we have two in-house brands, EPC, Experience Premium Cannabis and OMG THC. EPC is our solventless brand and all the packaging is eco friendly. So our hash packaging and our rosin packaging you can actually planted in the ground and it will grow wildflowers, whereas our tincture packaging is all biodegradable or it won’t grow wildflowers, but it’s even the glue on the labels is biodegradable or recyclable. So that’s part of our environmental commitment, and so that’s how we put our mark on it.
Tom [00:43:17] So your environmental commitment, was that a part of your plan and your application? Did you have that environmental commitment from day one or how did that arise?
Stephanie [00:43:27] No, it’s not part of our application. It was just part of the bent that we, those of us had who were starting the company. Our original extractors and our managing member and myself. So we said, yeah, let’s, let’s do that. And we’ve continued that so our EPC brand is good for you and good for the planet. That’s the that’s the slogan that we have for it.
Tom [00:43:49] That’s nice. I like that. And then that’s an aspect of the industry that I see often is this type of beneficial aspect. So people are going to buy your brand because it’s going to then continue to benefit them even after it’s not waste, it’s what did you say? It grows wildflowers?
Stephanie [00:44:07] Yeah, you could plant it in your garden. So yeah, and our OMG THC brand, that’s our solvent extract brand. So that’s where we use our CO2 extraction and we do some bucket tech ethanol extraction. So CO2 is very clean, but it has the lowest yields. So the extracts tend to be more expensive. That’s why the industry has gone away from CO2. So 5, 10 years ago, CO2 was the thing. But then quickly, ethanol and hydrocarbons overtook it for the cost savings and the greater yields that are provided. So the CO2, like I said, it’s very clean. That’s one of its advantages.
The other advantages that CO2 equipment is excellent for extracting terpenes. So you can really preserve those natural flavor compounds that are in the plant. And it’s not just flavor, but as you know, that that impacts how the cannabis affects you. That’s really what makes something a Sativa or an Indica.
Tom [00:45:12] Right. Yes, correct. We’ve she’s done it with one everybody. She’s just exploring the difference between a Sativa and an Indica. It really is just the terpene profile. And what do they call that? Things were like the morphology of the plant. So, like, you know, sometimes the plant has oh.
Stephanie [00:45:31] Oh, a short.
Tom [00:45:32] Sometimes it’s short, sometimes it’s got the wide leaves. All those types of things, all those genetic diversities. That’s really the difference between the Sativa and the Indica. It’s still all the same plant. It’s still all the same THC. But some of them, like the Indicas, they might have more Myrcene or they might have more Linalool all which I’m not all that pronounced. And so that’s really the difference. And one of them makes you more upbeat because they’re just more invigorating turbines. I’ve heard that, and I’ve never watched anybody operate a carbon dioxide extractor, but I heard they do a certain pass first for the terpenes and then they’ll come through and do another pass for the THC or the cannabinoids. Can you explain that?
Stephanie [00:46:18] Yeah, it has to do with different settings. So with the CO2 machine there, you’re dealing with temperature and you’re dealing with pressure. So you have to have certain pressure and temperature settings that are optimal for extracting terpenes and then certain pressure and temperature settings that are optimal for extracting cannabinoids. So that is why you can’t run them simultaneously. They have, you know, if you do one, when you do a terpene extraction, you’re not really getting cannabinoids out of the mix and vice versa. Does that make sense?
Tom [00:46:52] No, no, absolutely. But I just don’t understand how they actually do that through the machine. I know that they have different vapor points and so, like they would get the terpenes out of temperature A, and then the cannabinoids come out of temperature B. But I’ve never seen anybody operate one of these machines. I mean, I can I’ve operated an ethanol extraction to extract just as like a home, you know, the magical butter machine device that you can buy. It’s a very crude one, but that’s what it is. You know, you could use an oil. Do you use any like oils for your extractions or infusions, or no?
Stephanie [00:47:27] No. So we don’t do the canna butters and things like that. So OMG THC, our brand, every package on it, we have some extracts under OMG THC, but that’s where our edible line is. Every package says “damn delicious”. And let’s face it, if you’re using cannabutter, it’s not going to be damn delicious. It’s going to taste like weed. So instead we take a distillate and infuse it into our actual product that we’re making.
Gummies, chocolate, etc. But we believe strongly in the power of full spectrum extracts which are different than distillates. Distillates, you’ve taken everything out of that oil that is not a cannabinoid and pretty much taking everything out of that oil that’s not THC. But spectrum extracts have all the cannabinoids and the terpenes and the phytocannabinoids and flavonoids found in the original plant. You remove the chlorophyl, you’ve removed the waxes and the fat. And so it’s a much more holistic, much more holistic product.
The problem with full spectrum extracts is twofold. One, when they’re concentrates, they’re darker and people assume that that means that darker is bad. That’s like saying, Oh, that whole wheat bread is brown instead of white. It’s dirty, it’s not good when in fact the opposite is true and full spectrum extracts are the same way. But the market education isn’t there yet. And not enough people know that just because it’s dark doesn’t mean it’s bad.
In fact, it may mean it’s better. So that’s one issue in terms of the concentrates. And the other issue is that it’s not going to taste good. So we’re actually thinking about doing a third brand. You asked for what we’re going to do next year and our trends or something by making a third brand centered around full spectrum extracts. And we might do more of those cannabis infused oils and stuff. It’s not going to taste as good, but the effects are going to be mind blowing.
Tom [00:49:23] Well, I mean, you can try to see if you’re able to do some type of flavor preservation at the terpene-specific level. But that could be extremely difficult. Or it might be it might be like jumping the shark. Now, you said you do use ethanol extraction, though, right?
Stephanie [00:49:39] Yeah. Bucket tech, old school. You know, the kind of thing you go on future 4200 and learn to do at home. But yeah, so we do some rudimentary ethanol extraction, not, you know, mass scale with 100,000, $150,000 ethanol extractor. But we do use, you know, different temperatures and etc. in the process. And we do that very specifically for one particular product line, which is our Afghani hash. So we have solventless bubble hash, which I described, you know, using washing machines to cleave off the tricomb heads of the plant, which is where all the little sacks of goodies are that people want to get. But with with the Afghani hash, it’s different.
So in Afghanistan, one of the ways that they make hash is to take kief for sift and then they’ll add water or tea and work it to become taffy-like almost. But if we added water or tea to cannabis, it would encourage microbial growth and it would fail lab testing. So we don’t do that. Instead, we took our own spin. We took the kief for the sift, and then we made a full spectrum ethanol extract. So it’s the full spectrum oil, and we mixed it with that kief until it had the taffy-like consistency. So that’s our own take, our own spin on the Afghani hash. And so that’s the product line for which we use the ethanol extracts.
Tom [00:51:10] Oh, man, that sounds delicious. So if I was in Nevada, how much would a gram of that that hash cost?
Stephanie [00:51:19] It depends on which dispensary you go to. Dispensaries have a markup of anywhere from 2.2 to 3. So what I mean is if they buy something for $10, they’re going to sell it for anywhere from 22 to $30. It depends on the dispensary. And then there’s the 18% sales tax or recreational tax. So, you know, you at the places that have some of the lower markups, you might be sent back $40 plus tax for a half gram.
Tom [00:51:54] Okay.
Lauryn [00:51:57] Stephanie, thank you so much for joining us today. Where can we go to find and follow what you guys got going on at THC Production?
Stephanie [00:52:05] You can go to www.THCProduction.com and that will give you links to our brands, our new product lines, our partnerships, our social media, etc.
Lauryn [00:52:15] Awesome. And I think Tom and Miggy were on your show. Can you tell us a little bit about that? We go.
Stephanie [00:52:20] Absolutely. So, Ben, the owner of Soul D’licious Seasoning and I co-host a radio show each week and it is on 91.5 FM Jazz & More, KUNV in Las Vegas. It airs 7:30am on Saturdays in the morning. It’s actually the most popular show on the station. And we also posted on YouTube following the following the airing on the radio. And we have a condensed version that goes on the radio because it’s only 30 minutes, and then the YouTube version has the full interview. So we have different segments in it.
So, yes, Tom and Miggy were great guests on the show, very entertaining and interesting. I think our listeners are going to love it. So if you’re not in Vegas, you can actually go to TuneIn or you can go to the KUNV 91.5 website and live stream it. It’s audio only, it’s not video, but you can listen to it and then you can also if you’re if you’re not up at 7:30 a.m. on a Saturday Vegas time, which is Pacific Time, you can go to the Soul D’licious Infused YouTube channel and watch that.
And we planned to air it this Saturday. But unfortunately, Ben had a family emergency right after we finished our interview with Tom and Miggy. And so we couldn’t record the rest of the show. So we will be doing that next week. And Tom and Miggy will be on the show on the 12th of December. So that’s when you should look for it on TuneIn. And then around the 14th, at 420, it’ll drop on YouTube.
Lauryn [00:54:02] Awesome! Thanks for tuning in, everyone. Makes you like to subscribe to keep up with all Cannabis Legalization News. We’ll see you on Sunday. Thanks, Stephanie.
Stephanie [00:54:11] Thanks so much.
About OMG THC
We’re homegrown in Las Vegas, Nevada. We embrace niches others in the Cannabis market ignore or reject. Vegan? Diabetic? Old-school hash connoisseur? Looking for a specific ratio of CBD and THC in your products? You got it! We’ve got you covered!
Additionally, we care about quality and the effects our products have on people’s lives & health. OMG THC use only CO2 and ethanol extraction methods. We NEVER use butane or other petrochemicals to extract our oils. We want our products to be easy on the body and safe for our team to make.
Our products are simple and they are great. From the cannabis oils, we use to the packaging and the varieties of our products. Finally, and best of all, our edibles are damn delicious! In other words, if we wouldn’t want to eat them, we aren’t going to sell them to anyone else.
For Adult Use Only
OMG THC products are intended for use by and available to adults 21+ and over. Keep our products out of reach of children and pets. Be smart. Be Vigilant. Finally, enjoy our products responsibly and keep everyone safe.
As always, feel free to Contact OMG THC with any questions or comments you might have. We’re here for you and we’re responsive to your needs. If you’d like to locate OMG THC products, check out our dispensaries list. You can also find out more about OMG THC on Leafly.
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