Retrospect
Retrospect
The Past And Present Of Medical Marijuana | Retrospect Ep.156
In this week’s episode we discussed Medical Marijuana. Since there are a few official dispensaries opening up around us, we decided to start the conversation for us. We did a ton of research and touched on a lot of the pros and cons, as well as some misconceptions about it. We all feel as though this was a really great conversation, and we’re curious to hear what you all think.
Our Links:
Retrospect
Keywords
podcast anniversary, new listeners, diverse locations, medical marijuana, legalization debate, CBD benefits, THC effects, chronic pain, PTSD treatment, hemp history, environmental impact, cannabis market growth, generational opinions, drug regulation, public perception
Speakers
Jason (42%), Stoney (33%), Ian (25%),
Ian
Ian, welcome to the retrospect podcast, a show where people come together from different walks of life and discuss a topic from their generation's perspective. My name is Ian, and as always, I'm joined by Stoney,
Stoney
hello
Ian
and Jason,
Jason
hello. Everyone
Ian
almost fumbled the intro there for a second. This is episode 156 if you can believe it.
Jason
You know time flies by when you having fun, right?
Ian
It's crazy how long this podcast has gone on for to think about it. We're
Stoney
right at what are we a month short? No, no, we're a month over three years. That's
Ian
wild, dude. That's three years in a month because
Stoney
we started in August, yeah, and this is September, so we're actually almost a month and a half, almost two months through unbelievable
Jason
that this much time has passed, and I've been with you guys now for what? Two years,
Ian
the majority of it more.
Jason
Has it been more October?
Stoney
Yeah, started last week of October, two years ago, which,
Ian
I think at this point, you have been with us longer than you haven't been, yeah, I'm not mistaken. Yeah, actually, technically,
Stoney
he was a listener before. So lamp, I like,
Jason
I say that one thing, just
Ian
a little bit you're like, Well, I was like, that's what I meant, like, as, like, a host, co host, you know, you know, shareholder of this podcast, you know, like
Stoney
I was at a place today, I was having some testing done, okay, and I had multiple tests done, and I'm talking to the lady at the front office. And the last time I was there, she said she was going to start listening. And I said, Wow. Okay, so I hooked her up with the show, and she loved it so much. She says, Well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna share it with my husband. He goes already listen to those. And I'm like, That's great. Yes. And I sent Jason a text today, and in our hosting site, you can kind of look at new cities, yeah, and it'll show you some of the new cities. And I sent him the new cities, thinking he would pick one out as a friend of ours, because a friend of ours and his wife started listening, yeah, and it's just really fantastic some of the new cities that are popping up. But I want to give a shout out to Sam and his wife in Aurora, Colorado. Wow. Thank you for starting to listen, what
Jason
were some of those cities? Stoney?
Stoney
One of them was somewhere in Florida, wasn't it?
Jason
Well, it's, I mean, what you'd sent,
Stoney
oh, look at this one, Delray Beach, Florida, okay, Melbourne, Victoria, I
Jason
think that's in, that's in Australia, Australia,
Ian
Melbourne,
Stoney
yeah, wow. I mean, what is that? How you say that top one Jason paulies, island in South Carolina.
Jason
That's, I'm saying, how diverse locations. I mean, South Carolina, you've got Colorado, then you've got Florida, then you've got Australia. I mean,
Stoney
and then just look at the just, I guess they picked the ones the health food industry we did, got two of them. One of them was the possibility of time travel, and the one in Australia was the Emerald Tablets of Thoth. Yeah,
Jason
that was a hard episode. That was, that was deep, you almost need, what's his name on? Uh oh, gosh, yeah, it was at Billy Carson, or, yeah, that that would be able to really kind of dive into that kind of stuff. But it
Stoney
was fun, but hard. But you know what? That gives us experience going forward, some good stuff and research, and especially when we go video, and we can throw up graphs and all kind of other stuff you want to
Ian
know a little bit of statistics on the other podcast, like the cities that that one's in the top one for that one is Los Angeles, California, uh, Austin, Texas and Washington, Virginia, which I'm like, I never would have guessed for that show, that that's like, so again, talking about, like, diverse populations, even for the other show, You know, it's so, yeah, so different, which is
Jason
interesting. Look, that's, that's great for us. I mean, just, I'm just excited that we're, you know, we're increasing our, you know, our, our footprint. I guess the best, the best term I can use of who's listening to us, and who knows how that might spawn additional listeners, yeah, you know. So you guys
Stoney
share it now to say, Yeah, you know, we were talking pre show, or did I say that on this show? I was talking to some I said that, didn't I? Oh, here comes my brain damage. And the lady was going to share it with her husband, yeah, bam, already listened to him.
Jason
That's crazy the show. And I kind of really, kind of go back we were talking about, you know, when I came on the show and and I was a listener prior to joining you all. But, you know, it's a tribute to you, Ian in your creativity. But really, for whatever reason, just. Captured me was the little jingle.
Ian
Oh, really, yes, you mentioned that
Jason
is something. Was like, it was just something about it that kind of, it was like, Wow. I don't know why it affects me the way it did, but it did
Ian
there. There's a, not only is it, I don't say science, there is a real method to the madness of not only like, picking colors and and the way things sound, but also, like, I'm such a sucker for music, music, I mean, I've, I've have rambled ad nauseam about music on this podcast, specifically about, like, the feeling it invokes all that kind of stuff. And so when I was thinking about this show and and the kind of the vibe and the and the kind of atmosphere, like, I was looking at songs that were like, that had that kind of like, it has a little bit of, like a retro feel it has, I was like, for a show called retrospect, what if we do something kind of feels a little bit of a throwback, a little bit, but it's something new and electronic or whatever anyway. So stumbling across that track, I was like, I like the way this one makes me feel. And it's cool to hear from other people.
Stoney
We do hear a lot from other people.
Jason
Oh my gosh, there's something about that song that was like, I just like, I was excited about listening to what was forthcoming, and so judge. Credit to you Ian, and thank you for what
Stoney
is the top city outside of America? And what's fun about this is this is one of the top 10 cities that listens to retrospect, what is the top city outside of America that listens to us? Didn't
Ian
we? It wasn't Germany on that list.
Stoney
Germany's on the list, but it's not the top one. What's the top one? I have no idea. Singapore. Really Singapore. Singapore is the top outside of the continental United States city that listens to us.
Jason
That's unbelievable that we would reach all the way to Singapore. Yeah,
Stoney
German there.
Ian
It's actually number two, right now, that's incredible. Germany's never been put in a 3/3 place, yeah? What
Stoney
is this? Grow, how you say that? Grow? Hey, let me see. Look where my mom is. Jason, how you say that?
Jason
Groningen, gronigan, I guess that's, that's, if I'm saying it right, but, I mean, that's great, I mean, but I mean, for for us to be listened to in these faraway places, it's just, it's exciting and, well, we're
Stoney
in or more than 50 countries, yeah, and almost 900 cities. For,
Jason
you know, for a podcast that is started from scratch. And, I mean, we give, us give y'all credit. I mean, y'all started this. And obviously what we're doing is is resonating with with some people, and they seem to, we seem to have a very a core audience of people who are looking forward to each episode as it drops. So that's good.
Stoney
And look, y'all share it. Help us out, get the word out, especially now as we're getting ready to go into the video arena. Yes, I think we're all kind of excited about right, although I think Jason said he was going to do one show in his underwear or something. What was that, Jason, is that? What you said? Yeah, I
Jason
think I said something like that. I got business
Ian
already on, Bob,
Stoney
there you go. That's what it was going
Jason
to force me to actually, you know, because I'm very, you know, very kind of sensitive about how people perceive me. And I'm a firm believer that I think when you're dressed nice, it does have, it exudes a sense of professionalism. And I think it exudes so you're
Stoney
you're gonna care. Ian's gonna be the hipster? Yeah, I'll have to be the one that doesn't give a shit. There we go. I just won't give a shit. We
Ian
can do that spectrum of more casual to less casual. That's
Jason
right, exactly. Interesting.
Stoney
Isn't that crazy about Singapore, though? Yeah, I kind of I like that. I didn't get somebody's listening to us, by the way, in Singapore, right?
Ian
That's cool. Well,
Jason
what's I kind of want to preface before we talk, you know, we what our topic is today, right? And kind of what led me to come up with this that I thought would be pretty good, I had left my house last week to come to the studio to record the episode we recorded last last week, and I got caught in a bunch of traffic on a road that I normally do not have much problems getting through with no problem, right? Very quickly. Well, you know, by the time I get to the point. That I'm getting ready to kind of break free. I look over to my left and I see a brand new and I've always wondered what this building was going to be, because I've seen this building be under renovation for quite some time. Well, it
Stoney
was, and was going to be a big X ray facility, and somehow that never panned out.
Jason
I think my understanding is, I think at one time, it was a it was a doctor's office, it was a physical therapy office, if I'm not mistaken, but neither here nor there, I look over brand new there's people everywhere. There's cars parked on the side of the road, on the interstate ramps. There's tow trucks hauling cars off there. The parking lot is full. I mean, it looks like, it looks like a fair when there is going or something, music going on, and lo and behold, on the building, I see medical marijuana dispensary,
and I went, you've got to be kidding me, really, this is what this building was turned was gonna be. So it was people everywhere. So this got me thinking that I know the whole medical marijuana thing has really been in the news a lot, yeah, and there's a an increasing acceptance of the use of marijuana, as well as other, yeah, substances that are considered illegal by the United States Code.
Stoney
Well, I'm gonna touch on why it's illegal. Well,
Jason
right now it's still marijuana, still a schedule one,
Ian
which is kind of ridiculous drug. So way beyond ridiculous. Yeah.
Jason
So it's, it's, that's just where we're at. But there's, there's a lot of states that have just have kind of gone the medical marijuana route. And so I thought this would be a great episode to talk about, because a lot of people are talking about it, and obviously there's a lot of businesses out there that are starting to take advantage of the changing landscape and the new laws that have been passed to deliver this product to people that need it. So this is our episode. You know,
Stoney
hemp cannabis has been around a long time. One of the first recorded is in China in 2737 BC, it was used for ailments like malaria, gout, rheumatism and poor memory. And I thought that was kind of interesting, because one of the combative things that people have used against marijuana is that it affects the memory, which I'll get into later, has been debunked
Jason
so well. I do believe that there is, there are plenty of studies that I think, and this is where I am not a a believer in recreational use of marijuana simply because I do believe it's a gateway drug, and why has
Stoney
been debunked too. Though
Jason
I don't think that's necessarily been debunked. I
Ian
think that I scientifically, you're right, but at the same time, the correlation doesn't lend an I
Jason
think there are, there are some issues with and the thing about, when you, when you talk about, you know, the potential side effects of of something, yeah, you know, you're looking at when they, when they make these studies, they're taking A group of people, and, of course, everybody's body chemistry is different, and everybody reacts to certain sting, certain things differently than other people, whereas maybe some people may develop some addictive issues with marijuana. Let's go that route, or they may, or they may or may not. But I mean, so the Institute
Stoney
of Medicine found no conclusive evidence that marijuana use leads to the use of other illicit drugs. In fact, most people who try marijuana do not move on to other substances. In 2010 A study published found that social factors such as environment peer influence and access to drugs had far more significant predictions of transitioning to harder drugs than marijuana itself. So maybe it's lifestyle, maybe it's environment that leads to those other things more so than just a. And where now it's becoming more medicinal. Right, back in the 70s, it was just a drug and well, that
Jason
that was the highest factor that was recorded, highest usage. If you look at the studies that those late that late 70s, early 80s, that's
Stoney
also when heroin was coming in big time, because it was being pushed out by the government and things like that in certain communities. It so it's environment. I think it's environment more than it is actually, well,
Jason
it could be, I mean, that could be. There's always an environmental factor with all this stuff. Sure, there just, is, there is, I just, I mean, and look, topped the, you know, upfront, I'm not necessarily opposed to, I wish, if only marijuana could be just simply consumed and not you got to smell it, because I think it's horrible with the stench, Lord, I catch it sometimes, just on the street, a car passes by and, you know, yeah, they're smoking a joint. I mean, it's, it's, it's prevalent. It's one thing different than a regular cigarette. But, you know, I when it comes to the medical I've always been in favor of the medical use of any sort of naturally occurring substance that can be used to help people, you know, because I do believe nature provides a cure for everything, for everything. I totally the same, what you could, you say same with mushrooms? You could all of those different things to me, under the proper, under proper can kind of environmental conditions, I don't, I'm not opposed to any of that. I really, I'm not, and
Ian
that's what, and that's what I was saying a second ago about the whole marijuana not having the right correlation of it all. Like, now that it's becoming more medical, you're right. I think we're tiptoeing further away from it being a gateway. But again, even in, like, whenever I was a teenager, like, there was no such thing as legal, legalized marijuana, right? So, like, again, like, so the the way to get that, I never partook in it, but the way that people would get marijuana was in those like the what you just read off that paper, about being atmosphere, About being all that kind of stuff, and that's what the problem is, is because it's considered a schedule one well,
Jason
as of last year, the surveys are basically 70% of all US adults now believe that marijuana should be legalized.
Stoney
And you know what the biggest group of that coming into it is? You're gonna think it's the young, it's older people, it's the boomers, my age group, who are hurting, who see the horrible effects of the opioids, who want more of a more simple, less side effect, addictive thing than the opioids they're looking at cannabis. To do that. Who is the biggest opponent of marijuana in recent history?
Jason
I have no idea.
Stoney
JD, Rockefeller.
Ian
I haven't really been a big supporter of marijuana.
Stoney
I still said that before I've heard you say that the I
Ian
will say just to so that way, everyone's on the same page here schedule one drugs or substances and chemicals that are defined as drugs with no current accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse. Examples of other schedule ones are heroin, LSD, ecstasy, meth and peyote. Think about, I do. I do agree that I don't think marijuana should be considered schedule one, because that's putting it in. It's lumping. And it was the
Stoney
thing. And this is the direction I'm going in, and I'm going to kind of force this issue. JD, Rockefeller was the biggest opponent. Opponent to it for two reasons. One, what else does hemp do?
Ian
Well, I again, are we talking about him? Are we talking about like smoking? Have
Stoney
to kind of look at it in both. Because in the early 1900s when he started fighting against it, he was doing two things. But. Petroleum. And he started the big pharmacist. Okay, so this was a natural thing that could do two things. You can use it for fuel and and it grew faster, and you didn't have to do fossil fuels and oil, which was his biggest thing. But he also wanted the oil and the petroleum based chemicals in our our food sources and things are and now our farm, all of our medicines are petroleum based, and that's why he put so much money into having hemp and marijuana made illegal and put into a schedule one format. Instead of just something lesser, he made it as evil as evil can be. I
Ian
think that, I think that understand where people came from again, you know, a couple of decades ago, not probably having full understanding of it all, but now that I think we have better grasp on what I think marijuana and also, like, you know, THC and all the other CBD stuff that's like, part of all that I can understand that there are probably some medical benefits for it. The kind of the hard part that I have a hard time like, getting behind is, like, is the idea that someone cannot be addicted to marijuana. Like, I understand that, and I think, again, scientifically, you're right. There's no probably addictive benefits, but I do think that people form habits and that and will get stuck on the sensation that's, that's,
Jason
that's why my problem with that's why I kind of walk a somewhat of a tight rope with this issue, because while I think there's certain people that are experiencing severe medical issues where conventional medicine is is sometimes even worse, yeah, to me, the idea of allowing someone to consume marijuana in a way that helps them, how anybody could be against that? I don't know. I personally believe when you talk about schedule one, but peyote, I mean that that's that was used by the ancient Americans for their religious ceremonies. And I think in in I even believe there is exemptions for those cultures that peyote has been a part of their religious belief structure for centuries. Yeah, that they can, they can still use it, you know, the the old, you know, I remember talking to a friend of mine. She had a farm, and they constantly running off the kids that were picking the mushrooms off of the cow patties. So it's, you know, I think you got to be careful with it now, like, stuff like, you know, LSD, oh yeah, you know. Like, I said, that's a man made. There
Ian
are some horrible in that category. That
Jason
is, some of that stuff you got to be careful with. But just, kind of, just to kind of give some people some some perspective on how merit medical marijuana use has increased in in 2009 they had, I'm looking at some stats, and 16 point 8 million individuals use marijuana. And then, of course, from oh nine to the latest stats in 2022 it's 42 point 3 million. Wow. It's a massive increase. Well,
Stoney
you gotta think about how fast it is. It didn't become somewhat legal until 96 in California, when medicinal marijuana saw a major breakthrough with Proposition 215 it was the first state to legally be able to purchase medicinal marijuana. In 2001 Canada actually became the first country to adopt a system for legal medicinal use of marijuana. But in 2012 Colorado and Washington were the first states to legalize recreational marijuana.
Jason
And I'm tell you what, if I've talked to some, some of the stats of that was a mistake. They should have never, ever done that.
Stoney
Now, 2021 35 US states have legalized medicinal marijuana, and other countries, including Germany, Italy and Australia, have also adopted medicinal cannabis programs, and by 2023 of course, 2024 is not over. Global medicinal marijuana market has reached over $13 billion with expectations for continued growth, yep. Well, see now that's why the government's happy, because they can tax it. Of course,
Jason
I said I'm looking in right now, in what's the website, statistical? I believe it's called statistical. A they said, estimated medical marijuana retail sales in us in 2023 was 11 point 1 billion. They say, projected US medical and recreational marijuana consumer market in 2024 was 37 point 3 billion. And the number of cannabis businesses in the US as of, and this is 2017 was 28,000 now you know that's probably going up since then. So they have some interesting things here. The average price per ounce of high quality marijuana in the US as of November of 2022 was $318.74 My God, they also got, they also got a statistic here, average high quality marijuana price per gram in New Orleans. Wow. As of March of 2024 was $100 Wow.
Ian
They got it down to the location. Yeah, location and time frame, that's average.
Stoney
What they say about business, what's the most important thing? Location, okay, average
Jason
item price of cannabis products in California. 2018 to 2019 was $30.90
Stoney
Well, it's products, gummies, vapes, etc, etc.
Jason
And look, I mean, you're talking about percentages of people that kind of want to legalize this, or kind of make it a little bit more mainstream. They said the number of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans that support the legalization of medical marijuana in 2021 was at 82%
Ian
and the thing is, like, I know that I I haven't been in in the sphere, like talking about it a lot, but I know there are, there Are people that I know firsthand that don't like smoking marijuana, but they will take, like a THC,
Jason
a gummy bear or brownie or cookie, or because I think it has
Ian
the, if I'm not mistaken, it has the the like soothing effects of it all, without like the high feeling, apparently, which I can understand, again, for the medical side of it, I'm I understand there are people that I have known firsthand that would this is just, how do I say this? This is just like, an outside perspective on this situation. This person had, like, chronic pain and would smoke marijuana to, like, soothe the pain, but like, it also kind of has, like, ruined their life in a way, because, like, it has made them personally, I've seen them before and after, and it's very much like it has an effect on that person. That's like, it's causing them to not
Jason
anything that that that takes away from what your human body, yeah, is meant to work. It's not meant to work with all all this extra stuff coming in, we've kind of, I mean, you have to understand drug use, a lot of it. Drug use a lot of it. I mean, was, was primarily used in religious services, right? The idea, the way we think of recreational drug use. It's just not, it's kind of a misnomer, the way we kind of view it today, the way it was viewed way back in the day. So, you know, I mean, as I said, I that's why I'm very, I'm glad that there's, there's an avenue now for medical marijuana. I'm not against. I believe it's a to me, it's a VI if it's a way to give people comfort and to help them have no problem. But it needs to be done in a more controlled manner, at least in my view, that I'm discussing this with my doctor, right? And we've kind of gone through all these different treatment methods, and my doctor says, You know what? Maybe medical marijuana might help you with this. I
Stoney
think that's where you're at now, all right, where these dispensaries are. You have to have a prescription from your doctor, yeah, and then you go and get it done. But you mentioned chronic pain, and that's pretty much the number one reason that someone does it cancer treatment and symptom management, but Post Traumatic Stress is the third main reason that, again, that's coming from a lot of the military people and things like that. And I. It, it, it relieves symptoms like flashbacks, hyper vigilance, anxiety and nightmares to help in the PTS arena, yeah, and I think that's that's pretty good and and studies show that it's really helping these
Ian
people. And that's why like, and this is what I was meaning before, about like, if there is a way that you can make it a little more, how would you say it, like, regulated in a way and like, and it is approved by the doctor, I'm okay with them. Like that, where it's like, your you and your doctor have talked about it, and there is a way to, like, subtract all the other stuff, the high element, or whatever. But it gets to that. It gets to that root that you're talking about that fixes those symptoms. Like, I don't have any problem against that, but like, for me, the people in my life, and, like I said, this may just be an outdated worldview from, you know, before the past few years of development in the THC industry, I was witnessing people that were smoking marijuana, and it was becoming a crutch. They weren't, quote, unquote, addicted, but they were addicted to the relief that it gave them addicted, and that's what I'm saying, but, and that's they would smoke it and then, and they would feel better, and then they would, they
Jason
would, they and then once it wore off, then they start feeling bad, right? And it was,
Ian
and it perpetuated the cycle of them not going to the doctor, and them just smoking more weed, which I think, in turn, chilled them out, calmed them down, and then didn't what I saw this is not what this person would say, but I saw them not have initiative anymore. They were always kind of relaxed. They were always in this, like this, like, high mindset, or whatever, to kind of relieve their pain that they had. And they would go to work, they'd come home, and they just, like, keep the cycle going. But I was like, like, I there was no drive. It was just this. And whereas I saw that in that person before, and that was why, when I saw it firsthand, I was like, I've seen a cold people that have gone through that sort of change. That's why, for me, as an outsider, I was like, you may say you're not addicted. You may say there's not this, this problem. You're not You're not dependent on it. You could quit anytime you want, but like, it looks like this drug is kind of ruining your life, and you're just kind of like, oh, but it makes me feel good. I'm like, but have you gone to the doctor and like, like, what, like, what is the root of your problem? It seems like you're masking with
Jason
drugs. That, to me, is where the fine line right, right with using marijuana, right? Because it can become a crutch for some people. Of course, right? It can be, and I feel like that's with
Stoney
anything you're right with alcohol, that's one disorders. That's even cigarettes, yeah,
Ian
people. But, you know, I think even, like you said, alcohol, I think there is regulations. There are some things that I think, you know, we went through a period in history, but was all banned, and that was not the way to go. And I feel like now I, if I'm not mistaken, I feel like right now, and these, like these past five,
Stoney
you know, back during Prohibition, you could get a medical prescription alcohol. I know,
Ian
I know, but like, but I think in these past like five or 10 years, there's been a lot of development in, like, in THC products, whether it be like, I said, vapes or gummies, or whatever that I think is,
Stoney
I think it's just fascinating point. What it helps anxiety disorders, epilepsy and seizures, multiple sclerosis. It helps that in muscle spasticity, glaucoma, when I got glaucoma, got glaucoma, I was all excited. I'm like, Oh, wow. I'm gonna get the medicinal marijuana. Now I'ma move to Colorado. But then they put the world's smallest human implants in my eyes, and so I don't need it anymore. I'm kind of sleeping disorders. It helps with sleeping disorders, but you see, I can see where, like, what you're talking about there, you would need to do it all day, right? Mike, if you have a sleeping disorder, you get it prescribed to where you take three gummies before you go exactly
Ian
right, and again it
Stoney
but then that leads to a it can lead to abuse someone you know, and again, is a great thing on Parkinson's too. There's some huge studies coming out with motor skills and improved overall quality of life for Parkinson's patients. Interesting.
Ian
I would, and I was talking about specifically, like I said, the smoking of marijuana. I'm not sure if, again, I don't have any my own personal anecdotal evidence to to say that, like the THC gummies and like that kind of stuff, the more modern rendition of it has that same effect. Like I do believe that I know some people that take gummies that help them go to sleep at night, and they seem to be functioning just fine. And that's so again, like, I think we're getting to a point in history now where, like, I think it's becoming more widely accepted because it, like it's attacking that these, these issues, these chronic problems, these whatever you want to these disorders, whatever they are. Yeah, without, you know, kind of having that, like, life altering effect of like, it also kind of, you know,
Jason
I've heard that marijuana, it kind of falls in line with what you're saying. The biggest drawback to it, it kind of robs people of ambition. It kind of, kind of puts you in neutral. Yeah, so
Stoney
what's, what's the expression? What's the difference between a drunk and a pothead? I don't know a trunk will blow right through that red light in a car, but a pothead will sit there and wait for the stop sign. That's
Jason
I'm saying, but from a that's I'm saying, but you're talking about John Rockefeller, and you're talking about just employers.
Ian
Oh yeah,
Jason
you know, if do you want someone who's brain, whose brain is attle with marijuana working for you? Because chill is not, not really showing any fire, not doing anything, I can understand how that could be a problem on a large scale. Oh, yeah,
Stoney
okay, but you see, there's you got to look at it a couple of ways, and I'm going to share some personal experience now. No, I did not try marijuana, but when I was coming out of private sector Protective Services, I took over the management of a construction company in another state, and it was a road construction crew. And as I went over on the job, and they were telling me that I've probably got the best bulldozer operator in the state working on this job. Now, at the time, I could blue top with a bulldozer and a motor patrol. So I was, I'm a good dozer hand too. And so I go out there, and I look at what this dozer is doing, and bam, bam. He is digging ruts. He is digging six, seven inch ruts in the road. And I go to the foreman, and I said, Okay, what's the bull? I was told this was the best dozer hand in the state of Florida. Is this why we're behind on this job? Is this why I was brought in? Because I was brought in as a hammer that's I was leaving that world. One of the Italian guys that I knew said, Hey, go fix this for me. And so they said, Well, no, there may be a problem. So I said, you need to go talk to him, and you need to get this corrected. So I go back, in about an hour, bam, he's still digging ruts. So I go back to the foreman. I call him into the general Foreman's and I say, Okay, what's going on? And they said, Look, Mr. Stoney, we're sorry. We didn't know how you feel about this thing here, but there's a situation. And I says, Okay, tell me what the situation is. Well, he didn't smoke his weed this morning because we didn't know how you felt about this kind of stuff. And I said, Wait, what? Yeah. They said, Look, every morning and every lunchtime, he go, gets a couple of hits, and it calms him down, and he's good. And at the point in time, I didn't give a I said, Okay, whatever you got to do. You get him right, right. So they said, You go take a break. You go drive off. You go do what you got to do. And within about 20 minutes, he stopped digging ruts. And after about 40 minutes, you could have played marbles on his dirt. He was so good, but that was his thing. He had to get his little hit in, and he was fine. And he had to do that twice a day. He had to do it before he came to work, and he would sneak off at lunch and go do it again. And he was probably one of the best dozer hands I'd ever seen in my life. So it does help people, right? I do believe that, but it's got to be right. And but I wonder on a lot of times, if these people weren't already predisposed to having a lackluster life, okay, how much ambition did this cat actually have before? Did he talk a game, or did he play the game? Right? And so that's kind of what I have to, you know, think about on this kind of stuff too, because I saw firsthand. It helps people
Ian
just to clarify something. I may have been misrepresenting something. And I want to just say it here, because I going to be honest, I don't think I knew the difference until I looked this up. Is that out of the two, CBD and THC CBD is the stuff I think is incorporated with, like, the medical benefits, and it doesn't have any of the psychoactive effects, whereas THC has that high effect, the psychoactives kind of, I think I was saying THC whenever I was meaning the other so I'm wanted to clarify that is that THC is The more stuff I'm talking about in weed that like gives you that like psychoactive
Jason
Exactly. Well, according to the CDC, and it's I'm looking at some stuff here that I pulled, they say recent research estimated that approximately three in 10 people who use cannabis have a cannabis use disorder. So that's kind of talking about what you're talking about, people who become the crutch. Yeah, cannabis use directly affects parts of the brain responsible for memory, learning, attention, decision making, coordination, emotion and reaction time. So that's how that kind of relaxed feel that you see people get when they they smoke weed,
Stoney
but that's been proven to be a very short term thing. That's not a long term thing. That's the same thing. Is if you're drinking alcohol, that's the same thing. If you're doing other things, you have a short term memory problem. You have a short term reaction problem. But just like the same exact thing, if you're on your cell phone, driving your car, you're going to have the same reaction as
Jason
I said this, the studies are showing that infants, children and teens, who still have a developing brain are especially susceptible to adverse effects of cannabis, long term or frequent cannabis use has been linked to increased risk of psychosis or schizophrenia in some user. So it kind of goes back from seeing everybody's body chemistry is different. So you can have the person that smokes weed can do his job and just life goes on and you got this some prairie could be right next to him that does the same thing, and they just go off the deep end. You
Stoney
also have to look at it in another realm too. Is it actually the weed that's doing that, or is it somebody who spent a lifetime worried and looking over their shoulder, because I'm doing something that makes me feel good that the government has deemed as now illegal. And every time I go out of the house, I have to look over my shoulder, or every time I talk to somebody, is it actually the cannabis doing it, or is it the lifestyle doing that to them? If
Ian
I was to guess it probably, I mean, it's probably both and, like, I think the drug itself, especially if you're, like, I said, we're you're talking about smoking it in this context is probably not making it any having a psychoactive effect is probably not helping the fact that it's paranoia you're talking about. But I think that, like, also, like, I think you're right in the I'm not a doctor by any means, but like you're talking about having the same effect that like alcohol does, where, like, if you, if you were to consistently drink alcohol, it not only does it have like health issues, but like you're going to constantly be in this state of, you know, awareness and motor skills and all that kind of stuff. And I probably, I would feel like that in this regard, in the same sort of thing as, if you're like, if you stay in a constant high of marijuana, it probably has the same effects as that does, where it just never really fully flushes out of your system. But if you want, every now and then, you could probably have some you're fine. But,
Stoney
yeah, but a lot of these symptoms that Jason is talking about the studies even a Canada city center for Addiction and Mental Health found out that 10 to 20% of adolescents who use marijuana could experience temporary cognitive deficits, but these effects tend to dissipate when marijuana use ceases, but you're also talking about adolescents who don't need these crazy chemicals going through their body right when your brain is developing and your rest of your body is again,
Ian
the same thing could be said about alcohol as well. It's like, if you're over the age of you know, probably, or at least for men, you know, 2425 and your brain is developed at its capacity, you could probably, you know. But whereas, if you're super young, having alcohol, could probably have, like, a very severe effect,
Stoney
it's like, well, that's one of the myths. Marijuana use always leads to psychosis, right? And that's kind of been busted the excessive use of high THC, Canna cannabis in susceptible individuals, again, now you're already putting something into this individual that is not the drug. They're already susceptible now you're putting that may increase the risk of
Jason
let's see. That's the problem, though,
Stoney
it's so, that's so it's not the actual drug, it's the person well.
Jason
But the thing is, that's what I'm saying. The drug reacts differently in different people, because everybody's body chemistry is different, just like any type of mental and mental chemistry. So that's the problem is, and that's the challenge with it when it comes to this, if you legalize this, so you're not only the people who normally can do this drug and kind of function in society. Now you're making it available to people who's just gonna even make it even more difficult, more difficult to function in society. Let's
Ian
say, I think in this discussion, let's say that, hypothetically, this person has, like, a susceptibility to psychosis, and they could live a long and like mental. Healthy life, but the fact that they have wheat probably shortens that, I think, is what, sure, is what we're talking about in this regard. Same thing as alcohol. You're right, 100%
Stoney
Yeah, you know. And that's why I'm saying it's alcohol. This person may be predisposed to this, and if they don't drink a drop of alcohol or gambling about that, yeah? Well, I
Jason
mean, you could say the same about cigarettes, absolutely, yeah, you know, it's all a poison you're putting into your body. I mean, that that's, that's, and that's the struggle with this.
Ian
And to clarify, I feel like now, like I said, I think we're getting to a point now where we're getting to, like, the medical side of cannabis, where it's like, there is this whole CBD, like, again, for me, it feels like it's been the past. You know, five to 10 years is why I've seen this like explosion, because I think there's been more acceptance, there's been more study, there's been a lot of stuff going on. And I think it's super cool to see that like we're getting, that we're kind of, we're separating it from, for me, in my mind, we're separating it from the like, the drug of the past, like weed, especially for me, growing up in the late 90s, early 2000s like, you know, there were so many, like, anti weed campaigns and like, all that kind of stuff. Same thing with alcohol and everything you can imagine. So like, for me now to, like, divorce it from like this, you know, psychoactive drug of its past, I think is a good thing, in a way, where it's like, now you're separating the two things, of like, there's this, like smoking of weed that like can cause all these things, but there is like this, like medical benefit side of it, that like is being, like, really researched and like, refined into so well. I
Jason
mean, think about there have been public campaigns against drug use. I mean, I remember that during with Nancy Reagan, you know, just say no and you know, so, you know, in we talked about it earlier, about how it seems to be the heaviest use group, or people that are 55 and older, which is crazy, which is, and I think about it, that was a generation of people That was, that was before the don't say Yeah, before all these movements started to kind of curtail the use of drugs. You could say the same thing about mad, oh yeah. With with drinking, the views on booze changed also to a degree. So I think younger people still in the back of their mind have these influences of say, no to drugs. Drugs are bad, whereas older people when they were growing up didn't really hear about that. They really did. There was no organized campaign, matter of fact, at one time. I mean, you think about, look at the old campaigns for cigarettes. Oh yeah. Think about how that was done. I mean, it was, yeah, we want you to smoke.
Stoney
Everybody had a cigarette. It was on TV. It was in every movie. It was, you know,
Jason
but, you know, I was looking at, you know, some, just some breakdowns of,
Stoney
Can I throw something out right quick for you, because we're right in this in 2017 a study the frontiers in Psychology found no significant link between long term cannabis use and reduced motivation. The study indicates that users productivity is far more influenced by individual personal traits and environmental factors than marijuana itself, because that's the myth marijuana causes a move, a motivational syndrome or laziness. Hey, you know, okay,
Jason
lazy, you're gonna be lazy no matter what's gonna make even more lazy. You
Stoney
know, on a short term level, right? You know, excessive recreational use may provide temporary reduction in motivation. There is no evidence supporting a long term, irreversible a move, a motivational syndrome resulting from moderate or medicinal cannabis use. The stereotype of the lazy, unmotivated cannabis user is largely a cultural myth. Interesting. But again, it comes to the point I think person, the person, yes, but that's with gambling, alcohol, you know, 100% yeah, that's all vices. But this is what, this is where I think Jason's going. We've been beat up for so many years, against drugs, against our you know, it's just what people are brought up. Well,
Jason
I just, I thought this was interesting. They said just some, just interesting breakdown of the use of marijuana. You know, males are nearly twice as likely to use cannabis as females, which that would make sense. Black Americans use cannabis at a higher rate, the highest rate among major ethnic ethnic groups at 10.7% followed by whites at a four, 8.4 Hispanics at 7.2 use is also more common among lower income Americans. And those without college degrees. Now, I'd like to throw in a little caveat with that, because the rich people are probably the ones that are using drugs. Are probably snorting cocaine, right? Yeah, absolutely. That's probably where a lot of that's coming from. So they're getting drugs in a different way, but because, I mean, drugs are everywhere, across all socioeconomic groups. People use various if it's not marijuana, what's the number two? What do you think is the number two most abused drug outside of marijuana? Because marijuana right now sits at I was looking at a number here. It's cannabis is the most popular illicit drug in the United States in terms of past month usage rates, right? Heroin trailed only by what heroin? Nope, really, I
Stoney
want to
Ian
say fentanyl, but I think that's probably out of date prescription
Jason
type drugs used for non medical purposes, pain such as pain relievers, 3.8 million tranquilizers, 1.9 million in stimulants. So there you go, fentanyl and by prohibited drugs such as cocaine, hallucinogens and heroin, last
Ian
dude. So I will say like that, yeah, let's
Stoney
see that study in the 70s.
Jason
Well, for whatever reason, it did reach a height in the 70s. But Well,
Ian
I think a lot of at least in my mind, like, even as, like, a whenever I was in high school, I had a bunch of friends that were like, Yeah, I'd try this. I'd try that. But, like, even in like, my struggles, people were like, I will never try heroin. Because, like that, even even then that was like, I think even still today, from people, is that everyone, everyone talks about the fact they're like, because it's always, it's like, the drug, at least from what I've heard, and what I know of it is like, it's that, like, once you start, you can't stop, kind of thing, or that's what people say. But fun
Stoney
fact for that is, the addiction to electronics has been classified exactly as the same as a heroin addiction, with all the same if you're
Jason
affecting stimuli in the brain, it's the same thing, whether you doing it via electronics or you're doing it via
Ian
but one is definitely cleaner and prettier, you know, like instead of you know, you you know, your your skin's, you know, all modeled and you know things are not physically you're not you're deteriorating pretty poorly on heroin, whereas with electronics, it's a lot more easier to swallow and go, Oh, it's not an addiction. You're like, yeah. I mean, it is, though,
Stoney
you know, one of the fun things I like about this show, especially from the accident and everything else, is the research that we do on the show here. And while I was researching this, I came to find out how many of the founding fathers, oh, yeah, were hemp farmers.
Ian
I heard about that as well. That's
Jason
interesting. Okay, can you tell us? Yes,
Stoney
the first President of the United States and commander of chi, Commander in Chief of the American Revolutionary War. George Washington actively grew hemp in his Mount Vernon Estate. He saw it as an exceedingly profitable and important for making rope and sales, particularly for the new American Navy. Wow. Thomas Jefferson, third president, he was reported saying hemp is the first necessity to wealth and protection of the country. Oh, well. James Madison, the fourth president, he also cultivated the crop. Benjamin Franklin was a huge partaker and grower of the crop. Wow. And a lot of people don't realize this, that the Declaration of Independence is written on hemp paper. Interesting. And John Adams, who was the second president, lawyer and political philosopher, promoted the use of hemp as a resource for making sales rigging for ships, which were crucial for the American economy and national defense. So our country was started on tobacco, yep,
Ian
oh yeah, tobacco
Stoney
and stuff. I mean, you know, in 18th and 19th centuries, hemp was a vital crop. Oh, yeah,
Jason
a lot of things. There
Stoney
is a there is a sweater made in the revolutionary time that looks brand new today, made out of hemp yarn. Yeah, you know, textiles, paper sales from merchant ships in the Navy, the founding fathers and. Encouraged its cultivation. I mean, they were like, hey, this, we can make money on this. We can do a lot. It was a strategic resource when America was founded, helping us achieve self sufficiency, especially during the colonial period, when we were depending on so many imports from Britain, right? And we were having a problem doing it, you know. So, you know, I know that today's conversation kind of is centered around the cannabis for its psychoactive, psychoactive properties, but the Founding Fathers saw it primarily as an agricultural commodity with huge potential in the industrial realm, right? You know, I just think that was fascinating to kind of run into some of the stuff on my research that I was doing. And it's
Ian
interesting, I mean, like, that's, that's cool to hear, because it's all it's also, it's interesting for me because it shows how the regulation and the like and the kind of demonization of of a product can can shift over the years of something that is so and
Stoney
that's why I wanted to bring it up. Because, like I said, in the late 18 and early 1900s it was demonized, but it helped found this country. It helped win the war. Yep. Well,
Jason
a lot of people, when you tell them about this drug, mean, there's a reason why a lot of these drugs, including marijuana, elite, became
Stoney
illegal, yeah, because JD Rockefeller wanted them illegal. Well, I
Jason
mean, I wouldn't say JD Rockefeller wanted, you know, heroin or cocaine or, you know, when you know, we all know cocaine was in the original Coca Cola formula. But you know, people saw the devastating effects of some of these, of what it did to people. I
Stoney
agree in some of those instances, but Rockefeller and some other people saw the devastating effects that it would be on the medicinal, the pharmaceutical and the petroleum industries. Because when you look at hemp based plastics versus patrol, petroleum based plastics, hemp wins hand down. When you look at hemp bio fuel versus petroleum fuel, hemp wins hands down. It beats it.
Jason
What do you mean? It beats it?
Stoney
In sustainability, okay, plastics, petroleum based plastics, can take between 450 to 1000 years to decompose. If a biodegradable hemp plastic, can take as little as three to six months under the conditions to decompose. So when you look at it, just in how much the carbon emissions and things like that to make these things, it comes down. Even BMW has started making hemp based plastics in its cars to help reduce vehicle weight and improve fuel efficiency. I mean, this has taken off. It's It's like we talk about on the show, everything has a pendulum. Well, it's, it's swinging back in the other way. You know, petroleum is a finite resource formed over a million years ago, and once it's depleted, we can't make any more. But hemp biofuel can be harvested annually. You can grow an acre and do so many more things. Acre of hemp, if I can remember the statistic, and please forgive me if I'm wrong, but an acre of hemp produces 25% more oxygen than an acre of a forest. Really? Wow. So, I mean, think about that. And so not only are you producing more oxygen for the atmosphere, I think you can grow three to four crops a year in that same acre using hemp, instead of taking decades or 100 years to grow enough wood to do whatever you're going to do with your paper and everything else, or get it to where it can actually actively produce oxygen and take CO
Ian
so interesting.
Stoney
But I mean, just think if we wanted to stop cutting trees down for paper. Yeah, about that one, just right there.
Jason
No, well, that's, I mean, like, as is it. It's a naturally occurring crop. It's been, do we have any winded marijuana or cannabis? Where did it come from? Do we have anything on that.
Stoney
Well, I know the Chinese used cannabis, the Indian India, not Indians. I know our Native American Indians used it, but I think they brought it across the Great Barrier, straight Berry and straight
Ian
paleo botanical studies, a test. That cannabis was already present around 11,700 years ago in Central Asia, near the Altai Mountains, southeast. So
Jason
it originally it, you know, Asia is like a rich area when it comes to herbs and stuff like that, when you look at just herbs in general. Yeah, a lot of them come from Asia. That's just a very rich area where they came from. So obviously, if that's the case, then our ancestors, that would have been the ancestors of the Native Americans came from, supposedly came from that area. So it would make sense that they carried with them some of the, you know, some of those plants.
Stoney
Oh, I did have the statistic. Ian, I'm sorry, oxygen produce production. One acre of hemp can produce 25% more oxygen than an acre of a forest. The significant difference is hemp's fast growth cycle. It also can absorb CO two from the atmosphere faster than the trees growing one acre of hemp for a single season, which could be four to five months, can sequester up to 1.63 tons of CO two from the atmosphere. In comparison, a forest could typically require decades to provide similar levels of oxygen production due to the slower growth rates, right?
Ian
That's interesting.
Jason
Well, I was looking at this, this article, I pulled out of the Journal of cannabis research, and this was dated in September of 2020 they surveyed 61,379, patients that were included in this study. They said the average age of patients was 45.5 54.8% were male and the majority were Caucasian, 87.5% female patients were significantly older than males, 47 compared to 44 Most patients reported cannabis experience prior to seeking medical certification, that was 66% the top three mutually exclusive primary medical conditions reported were unspecified, chronic pain at 38.8% anxiety At 13.5% and post traumatic stress disorder at 8.4% the number of comorbid conditions reported was 2.7 of which anxiety was the most common. Females reported significantly more core more comorbidity, comorbid conditions than males 3.1 compared to 2.3 this study highlighted the range and number of conditions for which patients in the US seek medical cannabis. Rigorous clinical trials investigate the use of medical cannabis to treat pain, conditions, anxiety, insomnia, depression, PTSD, it would benefit a large number of patients, many of whom whose medical cannabis treat multiple conditions. So you know, do y'all know what state has the most medical marijuana dispensaries? Either
Stoney
Colorado, Washington or California, Oklahoma?
Jason
2000 this was 2021 so it's not that long ago. 2306 in Colorado was next at 825
Stoney
Wow, 2000 2000
Jason
after Cal after Colorado, California at 774, Oregon at 756, Michigan at 484, Washington at 476, Florida, 361 Massachusetts, 198 Alaska, 160 Missouri, 136 Arizona, 130 Pennsylvania, 129 and New Mexico at 13. You
Stoney
know that that's interesting Oklahoma, and what's, what's that new series The Tulsa King, and one of the first businesses he takes over was a marijuana medicinal plus, well, I
Ian
don't I see why? 2000
Stoney
that's like on every corner, yes, because like that,
Jason
that's the number of cannabis dispensary. I take this back, let me, let me clarify. Okay, cannabis dispensary licenses in the US by state, so it's licenses, so people who are licensed. Dollars to do this business. Oklahoma's way,
Ian
a large margin above Colorado.
Stoney
I mean, just, and I knew Colorado was gonna be right, but,
Ian
but that color has, he said 800 and something
Stoney
more than double. See, I would see California would have 10,000 Yeah.
Jason
No, crazy. Not licenses Louisiana, but
Stoney
now I wonder if you can have a license and 10 storefronts,
Ian
right? But still, that's what I'm saying before about, you know, if the if second place is 800 I mean, like, Why does Oklahoma have 2000 and something that's crazy, there's like, a, do they, does it? Do they grow it? There? Is there? Like, a, I don't know? Like, there's got to be a correlation for something. You know what I mean? Like, like, what is I don't know? Or do you have to have a license to own a run a storefront or something? Or, I don't know, who knows? Interesting.
Stoney
Did you know that hemp is considered a carbon negative crop, interesting because it sequesters more CO two than it emits during its growth and processing. For every ton of hemp produced, it can absorb, like I said, 163 tons of CO Yeah.
Jason
Well, this is between 2021 and 2026 the cannabis market in Arizona is expected to grow by around 580% while the cannabis market in Illinois is expected to grow by some 426% in the same period. Why? So the the trajectory shows, you know, these states are probably kind of be, be up there.
Ian
So is there something that's going on in those states that are causing them to doesn't say, okay,
Jason
it doesn't say just says, select US state with the highest projected cannabis market growth. So there's something unique about these two states that they pick.
Ian
I wonder if it's like laws being passed or like restrictions being let up. You know what I mean? Yeah,
Jason
because they have Arizona, Illinois, then New Mexico, Connecticut, Vermont, New York and Michigan. Wow. So whereas Arizona is predicting, you know, projecting a 580% Michigan is projecting 159%
Ian
that's crazy. So, I mean, you know, almost, almost 600% growth, that's, that's crazy.
Jason
But, you know, I mean, just my own, my own view. I mean, I am very much being a Gen Xer was very much influenced by the anti drugs movement that occurred in with the election of Ronald Reagan and with Nancy and this pushback pride because of the high reported drug usage among high school seniors in 1976 right? I mean, it was like one in eight or were utilizing marijuana on a regular basis. And then, of course, I think all things kind of go cyclical, you know, you'll have it rise and else, and there's a backlash. I mean, you think about what, what motivated the the the prohibition, oh yeah, it was bunch of women that basically was tired of seeing their husbands come home drunk all the time, you know. And these were religious women. And you have in certain, in certain, in certain religious beliefs, that that drinking is wrong, right, anything that that changes me is not of the creators, not of God. This is not the way your body's meant to work. So, yeah, I mean, I can understand how, and, you know, I have a feeling what's going to happen. I we're now in a trajectory for drug used to be going up. You could kind of see it, yeah, and eventually you're gonna have a backlash against it, once it gets so permeated, and then people start seeing the effects of allowing just open up this, take away the stigma, yeah, just smoke as much dope as you want, you know, as long as you ain't hurting anybody. I mean, we're starting to see that in Colorado. There are the lot of people over there. So that was a mistake in doing that. Because what did it do that wasn't the native born population pushing for that. It was all the people that were moving from California over there they were pushing that,
Stoney
you know, you say that in just I lived on the western slope of Colorado, and when I lived there, the interstate 70 coming in from California, when you crossed the state lines, there was big billboards, and on the billboards facing west. It said, if you're from California and you intent on staying more than three days, turn around and go home. That is no joke. They had billboards telling the California people to go back home. Now it's full of California people,
Jason
and they've unfortunately destroyed that. They've destroyed that. Destroyed that state that was such a beautiful state at one time, and it's just turned into this, you know, and that's, that's my problem with drugs. And the minute you kind of let the genie out the bottle, it's hard to put it back, because then all of a sudden it develops a constituency. They go out and hire lobbyists. They it's, it's it. And then obviously, money gets involved with it. And it's just, you know, the same argument was made with gambling. Think about it. Oh, yeah. But then the people say, once you open up that, you open up Pandora's box with that, you can't put it back. It's done, you know. So I think that, you know, as I said, I know people who smoke marijuana. I've never smoked marijuana in my life. Matter of fact, I've never really smoked a cigarette. I'm very paranoid about what I put my body, yeah, and I'm not, and I'm not really, not really a drinker either. I've
Ian
said this before, but so I'm in the same camp, but more so for me, it's like, I don't like the I don't like the sensation of, like, like not having full control of my body, or, like, not having, like, all my faculties. I don't like that sensation, right? So for me, like, the the so I never really partaken in drugs, or if I've been around it, I never liked the sensation it gave me. But I will say, like, I have been more okay with drinking if I'm in a safe place, like, like I'm at home, I can, I can drink, and I'm usually pretty fine. I never will get inebriated out in public. That's just not I don't like that again, that the kind of, uh, I like having full control over my faculties, especially if I'm in like, a public place like that. But like I said, in my older age, I have, you know, been able to partake in whiskey and maybe some wine and stuff like that. And that's kind of where, that's about it for me. But people like I said, nowadays there are these, like these CBD oils and things or whatever they give people that the security of all the health benefits without all of the all the nasty stuff. And I'm like, Hey, as long as it's legal or you got some sort of, like, and you're doing it, you know, using appropriate, using appropriate, I like everything else, yes. So that's why. So whenever we talked about, like, at the top of this conversation, when I was saying, I have, like, a kind of a, I kind of go both ways for marijuana. Is because, like I said, we're in a day and age now where I think there are benefits and there are products that you can get and you can use it responsibly, and, hey, more power to you if you're if you're a consenting adult that has, yes, all
Stoney
your stuff, that's the thing. Free country, consenting adult, as long as you don't hurt somebody. The
Ian
hard part for me is when we start talking about the smoking of marijuana and the whole drug, the the sphere around drugs and cities and and all the kind of nastiness that comes along with that. And, like you said, the paranoia of like, because then, you know, the poor law enforcement and getting involved with drug stuff and and always leads to something more and all that stuff. That's the stuff I'm talking about when it's hard, when you and it's hard, because, like I said before, earlier in the episode, a little while ago, is like, I like the fact that we're divorcing marijuana from, like, this medical benefit side and, like, it's dirty past as a drug. This is what it feels like in my mind. Because I feel like there is this, like, at least for me. And you know, you Jason talked about the fact being raised in a time where it was kind of being really demonized. There's a lot of campaigns, even for myself, there's a lot of campaigns I was witnessed or privy to that were like, marijuana is bad and all that kind of stuff. Like I and I know the history that it's had and the the context that it's brought up in all that stuff. And I like the fact that, like, so So for me, that's why I'm saying I'm saying. I'm in this kind of middle space from like, I'm okay with it in its context of, like, this health benefits and this, like, if you're doing it responsibly, but in this other camp is where I get kind of, like, I don't want to just say, like, yeah, all marijuana is great when I'm like, I really think we should be able to, like, we should, right?
Jason
You just open the door and just, you know, kind of stop that,
Ian
as with everything, especially on this podcast, I feel like I'm somewhere in the middle of why I'm in this gray area of like, I feel like there is some restrictions on that aspect of it, because I do think that it can be harmful, and like we talked about in certain individuals, I think it
Stoney
can be that's what's so great about this Yes, podcast is we, we all parent. We have three different views, but we can still talk about it and converse about it and educate. And when we were had our pre show, when we were talking before the show, yeah, we recognized that Jason has been almost here two years with us, me and you been doing this three years. Yeah. Did anybody think we would be having discussions about marijuana and stuff like that going
Ian
into this, especially last week's episode as well, was very politically heavy. There's a lot of stuff going on with that, and it's I kind of had a suspicion that we would probably be talking about some of the stuff as the show progressed and as we get more comfortable, and especially we have an audience that you know, likes those sort of things, or it can engage with those. I figured at one point in time we'll probably get there.
Stoney
Well, we're there. Hello, we're there.
Ian
If you would have told me probably two, three years ago that we were talking about miracle medical marijuana and assassination attempts on the former president, I'd be like, Nah, that's not true. There's no way. And here we are. Here we are. So anyways, yeah,
Jason
they say liberal, younger, less religious, are the most supportive about the legalization of marijuana, makes sense, and the groups that are most opposed to it are regular churchgoers and political conservatives.
Ian
Interesting, no, I'm
Stoney
sorry. I'm a church goer and a political conservative, but,
Jason
well, they, there's, there's, there's some statistics on it's just simply the majority, if you pull the people generally, if I kind of fit into this, then probably my and again, ideas are and that kind of goes back to a little bit of the idea that God made my body not to be, not to have things put into it to and I think that's where that comes from.
Stoney
You know, you're right. And now there's a huge study that came out and says you should not be giving your children Rice Krispies. No, I'm serious. Did you know why? No, because now every time I move, I snap, crackle and pop,
Ian
stop it, get out. I thought you're gonna say something about carcinogens or something,
Stoney
but it's serious. Everything within reason, I think, is important, and we need to remember that everything within reason, the time you watch on TV, everything can be bad, right? Everything has benefits and everything has negatives, and we just need to be responsible in what we do with that. And then there's going to be some people that do it responsibly, right, and there's going to be some people that are going to take advantage of it and misuse it, right?
Ian
And in that study that you're talking about, I wonder how that question was posed Yes, because I was saying especially, and to who, right, right, right? Because I feel like, especially, like I said, if that question was posed to me about the smoking of marijuana, I would say I'm not super good about it. But if we're talking about it from, like, the like, I said, the the the more regulated portion of it, the the medical side of things, like all that kind of stuff, and it's all in this, like, safe this, like, safe space that, you know, is monitored and is responsible, like I said, even though I may lean more on that, like I am a church going more conservative, man, you know, I, like I said, if it was supposed, how do you feel about smoking weed? I probably would have been no thank you. Like, I don't, think that's good, but I do believe that it probably is benefits that we can move in that direction for. So I'm just curious about that as well, about how that is all framed. You know?
Jason
Well, I'm looking at, I'm looking at a site called earthmed, and they have a The title is generational opinions about weed. There you go. And they said the silent generation, Those born between the mid 20s and the mid 40s, unsurprisingly, had some of the most strict opinions about recreational marijuana, though that is just a testament to the time they lived in. Back in the late 30s, the use and possession of marijuana was federally outlawed, I believe, was outlawed in 37 in the United States, the baby boomers, um, that's Stoney, yep, uh, baby boomers retain the opinions of their parents born between the mid 40s and the mid 60s. This generation gets a lot of flack for being highly anti weed, but things aren't as clear cut as they seem. As
Stoney
we're starting to crack, snap, crackle and pop. Now, over 50%
Jason
of baby boomers believe that marijuana should be legal for recreational use, and about 90% at least, believe that cannabis should be legal for medical use. Like generations before then there are countries, there are countless baby boomers that embrace weed culture when things weren't so cut and dry. Now they're celebrating the New Age of legalization and taking and talking up with their kids and even grandkids, Generation X. X, which is me born between the mid 60s and the early 80s, a majority of Gen X is in favor of marijuana legalization. Like all of the generations, the younger members of this generation are slightly more in favor of full legalization than their older members, which makes sense, but not so much as millennials. Since Gen X is almost entirely in their 40s and 50s. Now they have had a tremendous amount of purchasing power. This monetary influence will likely continue to impact the growth and or decline of we culture shaping the way for America's youth, millennials born between the early 80s and the mid 90s, millennials were predominantly in favor of marijuana legalization and recreational use. 70% of adults age 18 to 29 say that marijuana should be legal for recreational and medical use. In fact, a recent poll found that over 50% of millennials claim to have tried marijuana at least once. Wow. So says most of the negative stigmas associated with cannabis have been lost on this generation, and many millennials are continuing to consume weed well into adulthood. In fact, many of their favorite movie stars and athletes who smoke weed are quite outspoken about the plant, so they're also highly tech savvy, and kind of goes on with that. So while cigarettes are on decline, millennials are instead spending time with marijuana and vapes, which that makes sense because we've been cigarettes have been kind of downplayed because of the health benefits, and they said Generation Z, they have spent most of their lives with the impression that marijuana isn't as bad as their peers may have been led to believe. Born from the late 90s, the early 2010s this generation of young adults is witnessing a shift in we culture firsthand, and they talk about going into, you know, states are now legalizing it said over 70% of adults under the age of 30 believe that cannabis should be legalized for recreational use and over 90% for medical use.
Stoney
That sounds about right. Well, you know, millennials and Gen Z are more likely to be have either used cannabis themselves or no friends and family that have used it from, you know, firsthand experience who benefited from it. They there was a study done that found that nearly 50% of millennials have tried marijuana compared to less than 20% of the silent generation. So that's a huge jump, when you think about that, from those
Jason
and this is a surprising fact. What's even more surprising is, according to the article from cannabis business times 63% of Gen Z marijuana users are saying that they use cannabis more than they consume alcohol.
Ian
Oh, wow, yeah, that makes sense.
Stoney
So your cannabis may have some positive benefits, whereas alcohol has none. Well, unless you're trying to look, you know, at a potential spouse, and she's ugly and you need to make her look a little bit better. That
Jason
makes sense to me. Because, I mean, as I said, you know, as a my views shaped by the don't just say no to drugs. This is your brain on drugs. Remember the crackling of the egg? I remember that frying, you know, and all that. So you know, my opinions on drug use, or have been very much shaped by the negative, but I've always been open to the idea that if done properly in a medical in a medical kind of situation, that I think that's the way to do this. Because I do believe allowing people who are sick to be able to utilize whatever options to give them some degree of comfort and to help them. So the idea you just got to keep pushing pills down people's throats. I'm against that. So I'm very much of utilizing the full spectrum of what the world provides to provide comfort for for those that are in pain, and, you know, yeah, in those situations. So
Stoney
there we go. Love it. Cool stuff. This is a fun conversation.
Jason
This is a good one.
Ian
Yeah, I enjoyed it was a lot of statistics and facts that were in
Jason
this. Yeah, so Well, hey, hopefully our audience will enjoy it. You
Ian
let us know, if you do, there are many places where you can let us know we've talked about it before. We have an email address get offended together@gmail.com where you can send those responses there. But also. If you listen on Spotify, or if you listen on YouTube as well, we have comment sections there underneath the episodes where you can send us comments there. I'm not sure if there's a comment section on Apple. I have to I know Apple's not one of our big listeners, so I'm not sure if there's comments there, but I try and check all the different places that I can. So let us know what you think, feeling that there are some opinions about this topic in particular, so feel free to let us know how you feel about it.
Stoney
As we've seen, medicinal marijuana and hemp offer not only a potential lifeline for those with chronic conditions, but also serve as a sustainable solution for industries looking to reduce their environmental impact with deep roots in American history and a promising future in modern medicine and agriculture, cannabis is helping shape a more resilient and healthy world. Thank you for joining us in this eye opening discussion, and remember staying informed is the first step toward understanding these evolving topics. And
Ian
until next week, thank you so much for listening. Much for listening. Bye.
Jason
Goodbye, everyone. God bless.
Stoney
Thanks for joining us today. You're the best. Peace.