Speaker 1: Yo, what's going on? Everybody?
Speaker 2: Welcome to a new episode of My Canicass. I'm canad
Speaker 2: Dave and I'm Gving.
Speaker 1: I hope you like that.
Speaker 2: Intro to that video, we have the CEO and founder
Speaker 2: Ryan Basore on from Redemption Cannabis and thank you for
Speaker 2: joining us today.
Speaker 1: Ryan, it's a pleasure to have you on.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me. Guys.
Speaker 2: Hey, I'm excited to dive into your story, dive into
Speaker 2: your brand and everything about Redemption, your guys' foundation and
Speaker 2: possibly becoming an MSO or you ready are an MSO,
Speaker 2: but talking about the process of it.
Speaker 1: But before we jump into all that, let's jump.
Speaker 2: Into brief overview of your journey and what got you
Speaker 2: into cannabis and starting Redemption.
Speaker 1: Ryan.
Speaker 3: I'll give you the short version.
Speaker 4: But I grew up in a small little town outside
Speaker 4: of Lansing called Dansville.
Speaker 3: It was related to everybody grew up on a farm.
Speaker 4: And I was about eleven. I fell off a tractor
Speaker 4: in the middle of winter and I threw my hips
Speaker 4: out real bad and after about six months, we have
Speaker 4: a lot of problems.
Speaker 3: I got prescribed three flex arols a day.
Speaker 4: As an eleven year old, and I was that stuff,
Speaker 4: and I was twelve, almost thirteen, I discovered week and
Speaker 4: I did you know, it did everything the flexer I
Speaker 4: was supposed to do with those side effects, so, you know,
Speaker 4: being related to everybody mean in sports, being in academics,
Speaker 4: I had to hide my.
Speaker 3: Weed usage all throughout high school. It was just a
Speaker 3: weird thing.
Speaker 4: So I quickly became I knew it was medicine, and
Speaker 4: I quickly became suspect to the government on that aspect.
Speaker 4: I was considered quite a conspiracy theorist back then. But
Speaker 4: fast forward to two thousand and eight. You know, we
Speaker 4: passed the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act and I quickly became
Speaker 4: of the states first patients and caregivers. In two thousand
Speaker 4: and nine due to my you know, my back issues,
Speaker 4: and I was still in the you know, finance industry
Speaker 4: at the time doing well. Was high every day, enjoying it,
Speaker 4: and they provoned and learned to grow in a couple
Speaker 4: of basements in Lancing. But it was early twenty ten
Speaker 4: that I decided to kind of relieve all that behind
Speaker 4: and go completely in. This is what I was going
Speaker 4: to do the rest of my life. Like I love business,
Speaker 4: I love weed, and this.
Speaker 3: Was it like it was?
Speaker 4: It was?
Speaker 3: It was awesome. So I helped up the second dispensary
Speaker 3: in Lansing.
Speaker 4: It was Bay seventh twenty ten, Capital City Caregivers.
Speaker 3: It was the first one on Michigan. Have and Danny Tubno.
Speaker 4: At the first one Hydro World, and then at the
Speaker 4: same time we set up three caregiver girls in Okamus, Michigan.
Speaker 4: And it was with some business associates I knew and
Speaker 4: some family members and at the time we got the
Speaker 4: state police, the local police, ridda township, Eam County Prosecutor
Speaker 4: Dunnings all the sign off on it being legal, and
Speaker 4: then we had a couple of attorneys drawn up and
Speaker 4: we were off and running that summer in twenty ten.
Speaker 3: It was pretty pretty amazing summer in Lansing.
Speaker 4: That's when Lansterdam was born, and a lot of great
Speaker 4: memories from that. But at that same time I had started.
Speaker 4: I got invited into a group called Cannabis Patients United,
Speaker 4: and I started lobbying at the state level. I was
Speaker 4: in going the Grand Homes work group in twenty ten,
Speaker 4: and that's when I met people like Rick Thompson, Jamie Lowell,
Speaker 4: Tim Beck.
Speaker 3: That's when we all kind of.
Speaker 4: Got going there and a lot of the other chuck
Speaker 4: ring and then then we started the Michigan Association Passion
Speaker 4: Centers later that year, and I went around the state
Speaker 4: and recruited dispensary owners.
Speaker 3: Who had, you know, the balls to open up in
Speaker 3: little pockets of the state, and we all kind of
Speaker 3: worn together.
Speaker 4: But it was it was December first, twenty ten. I
Speaker 4: got raided at the Caregiver Grow by the state police
Speaker 4: that that had approved it, but then got rided by
Speaker 4: the ATF, the DA, the FBI, and the National Guard.
Speaker 1: So the military National Guard came in.
Speaker 4: A grand home called in the National Guard Legal Caregiver Grows.
Speaker 3: It was just fourteen years ago.
Speaker 5: It was pretty wild, like the National Guard, but.
Speaker 4: It is I tell you, I go around and talked
Speaker 4: to bud tenders at different stores and tell them stories,
Speaker 4: and you know, they some of the younger kids don't
Speaker 4: remember what it was like when we wasn't legal, you know.
Speaker 4: And now there's a gym and the apartments in the
Speaker 4: restaurant where we got raided, so it's.
Speaker 3: All all gone to.
Speaker 4: But you know, that was before the robot aquirement and
Speaker 4: that passed in twenty fourteen, which defunded the DA to
Speaker 4: a dollar in legal states. That's what protects us now,
Speaker 4: So I was outraged. I continued to grow at the
Speaker 4: house and we kept the dispensary open and followed by
Speaker 4: blackhawks every day for about two years.
Speaker 3: And family did.
Speaker 4: I got pulled over about eight times, I counted off
Speaker 4: the record, shaken down and had some chitnuk over over
Speaker 4: over my house at times for thirty minutes, just working
Speaker 4: with me.
Speaker 3: And uh, you know, we just kept going and eventually.
Speaker 4: Eventually the United State Western District Attorney hadn't been appointed yet.
Speaker 4: Obama's guy was being held up at the time by
Speaker 4: the Republicans, and in twelve he finally got approved. And
Speaker 4: his name is Pat Miles Junior, and a federal attorney
Speaker 4: who was I thought we'd be you know. We called
Speaker 4: him up and said, hey, he's gonna let us go
Speaker 4: with the law school and Obama come on Obama and
Speaker 4: Holder on TV in two thousand and eight said he
Speaker 4: wasn't going to rate anybody, so he told him no,
Speaker 4: this is a high profile case. And then that next
Speaker 4: day I got raided. Were really bad at my house
Speaker 4: for the final time, so I was down in the
Speaker 4: basement I had eat a bunch of edibles. I remember
Speaker 4: watching Michigan State Bass about some friends coming home and
Speaker 4: open up the door and red dots all over my body.
Speaker 3: There's a couple of times that's happened, and that was it.
Speaker 4: They uh stress, Yeah, And about three weeks later, we
Speaker 4: got indicted, seven of us, including my now brother in
Speaker 4: law and father in law, and uh, you know, I
Speaker 4: was about to fight it.
Speaker 3: I didn't understand how the federal court system worked.
Speaker 4: And percent of the people that get indicted in the
Speaker 4: Western District of Michigan get are guilty.
Speaker 3: They'll they'll punish you.
Speaker 4: You need to have millions and millions of dollars to
Speaker 4: even think about fighting it. They can, they can throw
Speaker 4: everything at yourself. I was the last person to plead guilty.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 4: They were coming at me with a deal I could.
Speaker 4: If I did plead guilty that week, I was going
Speaker 4: to get four years. But if I if I didn't
Speaker 4: plead guilty, they get I get five to ten. And
Speaker 4: they were going to indict my now wife too, who
Speaker 4: had helped us on some stuff.
Speaker 5: So well, I would saying, what does your wife have
Speaker 5: to do it?
Speaker 4: Well, she was in somehow he went to come and
Speaker 4: helps here and there. My father in law, he got
Speaker 4: indicted and he literally was just hanging out sweeping, sweeping up.
Speaker 5: Well, that's crazy. They were just trying to get everyone involved.
Speaker 1: They were just it was wild times back then.
Speaker 5: I mean sounds like when Dave got like not obviously
Speaker 5: not similar, but when Dave got raided, he was just
Speaker 5: managing a dispo and they just assumed because he was
Speaker 5: there every day, he must be making all this money.
Speaker 5: So they just raided everyone left, right, they took it.
Speaker 5: They raided his house too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't have the National Guard, by the FBI,
Speaker 2: the DEA.
Speaker 1: I had all the letter boys at the HESSE.
Speaker 5: I just I don't really even imagine.
Speaker 2: I got raided on July tenth, twenty fifteen. I was
Speaker 2: working at Advanced Medical Supply on Shelby Township. I was
Speaker 2: toltal was illegal operation. Obviously, nothing at the time was legal, right.
Speaker 2: It was mostly just for the caregivers. And I was
Speaker 2: lied to by the ownership and I was just a
Speaker 2: bud tender, painting my way to get through college. And
Speaker 2: like Gruvey said that, they had my name up and
Speaker 2: next to the owners and they came a man like
Speaker 2: you said, guns a blazing, like I'm sixteen to the face.
Speaker 2: I was literally but tending an older lady and they
Speaker 2: like pretty much put her to the ground and it
Speaker 2: was like and I was like I'm done, and then
Speaker 2: can coff. I was on the New all that ship,
Speaker 2: So like, I get what you're saying.
Speaker 1: I didn't.
Speaker 2: God, you didn't finish because you ended up going to jail.
Speaker 2: I would like to talk about that as well too.
Speaker 2: I didn't. I didn't have that.
Speaker 5: It was just crazy when you hear when when you
Speaker 5: said the red dots on you, it just reminded me
Speaker 5: of like guns of blazing, like they're just pointing guns
Speaker 5: at these people growing weed. That's insane, Like they're just
Speaker 5: assuming you're this like cartel drug dealer when you're just
Speaker 5: like a family man growing some weed. So that I
Speaker 5: just that's that's crazy to me. Yes, you went to jail.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they knew I was a kid. I went the
Speaker 4: ice store that was on the SWAT team. They all knew,
Speaker 4: they knew I was. I was good natured country country
Speaker 4: boy at the time. Whatever when they come and that
Speaker 4: those are their tactics.
Speaker 5: You know that's crazy man.
Speaker 4: Yeah, But I see I went down there and you
Speaker 4: and uh I did two and a half years is.
Speaker 4: I did the behavior modification program. It's called art app.
Speaker 4: It's pretty intense. So I was in there with like
Speaker 4: I can I ca tell people it's like a survivor
Speaker 4: meets real real world meets bad Girls Club all in one.
Speaker 3: And uh, you know, I.
Speaker 5: Got no fun. No might make good TV, but it
Speaker 5: sounded horrible.
Speaker 4: There was the US Senator in my there was pins,
Speaker 4: there was everybody in between, guys that around American greed
Speaker 4: and you name it. Some of the biggest comments in
Speaker 4: the world too that you find out and you know,
Speaker 4: there was a plenty of stories of that, but.
Speaker 5: Man, that's crazy. You went through all that, you know,
Speaker 5: and now look where the industry is.
Speaker 3: You know, yeah, people.
Speaker 5: Got that guy got busted with like a thousand pounds.
Speaker 5: I got like a misdemeanor.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's been a lot of that.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 5: You're just like, I'm sure you looking back, You're just
Speaker 5: like what the you.
Speaker 4: Know, like, well, I think about it now, like what
Speaker 4: the numbers that we do you know legally, and it's
Speaker 4: just like it's wild.
Speaker 3: But you know, I went into it. It was going
Speaker 3: to happen.
Speaker 4: I knew it was going to happen, so I just
Speaker 4: looked at it kind of like as a crucible moment
Speaker 4: in my life. I could complain and you know, and
Speaker 4: feel sorry for myself. But I went in there and
Speaker 4: I've read book after book after book. I lost seventy
Speaker 4: five pounds I was in. I was an incredible shape,
Speaker 4: and you know, just now, just discipline for two and
Speaker 4: a half years. Every day I did exactly what I said
Speaker 4: I was going to do.
Speaker 5: Your story in Redemption, like that is a beautiful name
Speaker 5: because of your story is such a redemptive from where
Speaker 5: you It's not where you've come from. Now that I've
Speaker 5: heard your story, it's just so crazy to see how
Speaker 5: far you've come with your braind and everything. In Redemption
Speaker 5: is a beautiful name for that, because I cannot. I
Speaker 5: guess one thing I have to ask going through something
Speaker 5: so traumatic, how did it? Like, Yeah, how do do
Speaker 5: you think it's affected your perspective of like going into
Speaker 5: this industry? Like like, I mean, how did it affect you?
Speaker 5: Because I obviously affect your perspective, but like, how do
Speaker 5: you think this experience affected you?
Speaker 4: You know, Well, I went in and I, like I said,
Speaker 4: I looked at it as like when I was in prison,
Speaker 4: I was studying I've always loved I loved business. I
Speaker 4: was studying branding, market like everything in there. I was like,
Speaker 4: I'm going to get out, and I just couldn't be
Speaker 4: for not you know. I was like, all right, I'm
Speaker 4: going to have this. I kind of could foresee the
Speaker 4: future like where we're at today, Like and I'm going
Speaker 4: to have this thing that that you know, it's it's
Speaker 4: it's it's unique and it really happened. It's authentic, and
Speaker 4: you know, how do I deal with it? So I
Speaker 4: never blamed anybody. It was about six months in there
Speaker 4: I stopped being bitter and let it all go and
Speaker 4: just said, all right, let's let's get after it.
Speaker 3: Let's get going. And I got out fifteen.
Speaker 4: And uh halfway house in Camma Zoo a bit home
Speaker 4: confinement at my parents because i'd land contract with my homes.
Speaker 4: But I taught myself to build websites in there by
Speaker 4: reading books about it, and I was working like selling
Speaker 4: apps and like I got a bunch of clients right
Speaker 4: when I got out that were marijuana dispensaries, that were
Speaker 4: open law firms, you know, just hustling, really hustling legally,
Speaker 4: you know, and same clean and then one of my
Speaker 4: clients and I got right back into my legal lives
Speaker 4: on the first the first run when we had twenty sixteen,
Speaker 4: we ended up having enough signatures, but it was too late,
Speaker 4: and I did all the marketing and helped them with
Speaker 4: the website, so I was involved behind the scenes. And
Speaker 4: then on seventeen January twenty seventeen janu I got my approbation.
Speaker 4: I was supposed to do eight years and they only
Speaker 4: made me do one. And I got a little bit
Speaker 4: of apology from the judge. That was part of it
Speaker 4: when I got sentenced.
Speaker 5: Was that law changes with it, because like everything coming
Speaker 5: in twenty eighteen was just you had a good judge.
Speaker 5: I'm just more curious, good lawyer.
Speaker 4: I had an expensive Yeah, lawyers pretty dam between the
Speaker 4: two of us, we probably about a half a million dollars,
Speaker 4: you know, just just to get not even make it
Speaker 4: take it to trial. And that's why, you know, we
Speaker 4: put guilty at the same time. And it really like
Speaker 4: but yeah.
Speaker 5: They man, I just I can't that's a mind going. Sorry.
Speaker 4: They gave me eight years, and the prosecutor was pissed.
Speaker 4: I was only getting pods. The judge when I went
Speaker 4: to She's like, hey, come back out, don't get in
Speaker 4: any trouble, and I like off early and she kept
Speaker 4: her words. So but right when that happened, you know,
Speaker 4: I was we had passed them in f l A.
Speaker 4: I'm a felon. I can't legislature passed it. I can't
Speaker 4: be a part of it. When I was hustling, I
Speaker 4: started a company and we were opting in municipalities with
Speaker 4: a new law, and then I was kind of going
Speaker 4: in the around the back and locking up properties and
Speaker 4: flipping them. Uh, you know, dispensaries before, So.
Speaker 3: You know, just hustling away.
Speaker 4: You know this times, especially a couple of those, you know,
Speaker 4: nobody knew they were going to be dispensaries, so you
Speaker 4: play that game.
Speaker 3: So I learned a lot about real estate that way.
Speaker 3: But I was doing a lot.
Speaker 4: Of consulting also for big cannabis companies coming into Michigan,
Speaker 4: and most of them aren't here anymore because it's it's
Speaker 4: a tough you know, part of the toughest market in the country.
Speaker 5: Yeah, there was some turnover, man, there's definitely some turning brands.
Speaker 5: I believe it.
Speaker 4: And so in seventeen, something pretty crazy, like you know,
Speaker 4: everything's going good. Prop one is going to happen, and
Speaker 4: my league guys combining forces with the Marijuana Policy Project.
Speaker 4: You know, we're gonna get it done. We're going to
Speaker 4: get it passed. We got the whole money behind us.
Speaker 4: And then I found out that Pat Miles Junior, the
Speaker 4: guy who indicted me and my family that came in
Speaker 4: with Obama's guide, he when Trump, uh, when Trump got elected,
Speaker 4: he was out and uh, and then you know he
Speaker 4: was gonna he was basically picked.
Speaker 3: To be the next attorney general in Michigan.
Speaker 4: So he had the National Party, the State Democratic Party
Speaker 4: had the U A W.
Speaker 3: I mean, it was supposed to be uh a done deal.
Speaker 3: And I kind of freaked out because I knew, like,
Speaker 3: this is going to be our attorney general.
Speaker 4: And I still had a lot of a lot of
Speaker 4: kind of maybe get back, maybe a little bit of
Speaker 4: avenge left in me. I wanted to get so Davia meet.
Speaker 3: And you know, he was against weed and we were
Speaker 3: about to legalize that for the industry.
Speaker 4: But Dana and NSSA called me right when she she
Speaker 4: announced she was running a met her in Panera on
Speaker 4: Brighton for about three hours, and she convinced me, and she's,
Speaker 4: you know, it's going to make my case kind of
Speaker 4: like the whole you know, paid focal point one of
Speaker 4: them of the primary, of the Democratic primary. So I
Speaker 4: was in and I quickly got involved and raised a
Speaker 4: lot of money and you know, like pretty soon there
Speaker 4: it's like m Live articles, you know, the Michigan Public Radio.
Speaker 4: They were all talking about the Democratic grace and Danid
Speaker 4: was climbing quick. She's very charismatic and brilliant and went
Speaker 4: around the state and had a good plan, but you know,
Speaker 4: like it was getting pretty wild there.
Speaker 3: I even got a call from someone inside the party said.
Speaker 4: That, hey, if if he wins, you got to leave
Speaker 4: the state.
Speaker 3: Like they're there, they're they're coming after it. So I
Speaker 3: got stressed.
Speaker 4: Probably I started drinking a little too much at that point. Yeah,
Speaker 4: So I was you know, that was you know, that
Speaker 4: was at the end of eighteen and Bill shooting had
Speaker 4: been terrorizing us for years and uh yeah, and it
Speaker 4: was it was all at the same time. So the
Speaker 4: Democratic primary was in April of twenty eighteen, and it
Speaker 4: was in Cobo, and we went down there. It was
Speaker 4: a snowstorm. It was supposed wasn't supposed to be. But
Speaker 4: it was like a freaking like I don't know, college
Speaker 4: football SEC game. It was raucous, like people we were
Speaker 4: doing and screaming, and then uh, you know, uh, Dana
Speaker 4: came out. I was up front, data came out. She
Speaker 4: hugged me, said we won. And then Pat Mount Jr.
Speaker 4: Had to give his concession speech and I and I
Speaker 4: stood right there on the stairways and after he gave.
Speaker 3: It, had to come right down and had blocked them
Speaker 3: and basically said what's up. And he got.
Speaker 4: On the stage and celebrated and and then so that
Speaker 4: was awesome. And then uh and then you know, we
Speaker 4: we uh helped her raise more money and she ended
Speaker 4: up winning.
Speaker 3: We prop one past shooting was gone, and uh, you know,
Speaker 3: we were we off.
Speaker 4: You know, it was that I was actually the head
Speaker 4: of her on a transition team, so we helped.
Speaker 3: We analyzed all the cases.
Speaker 4: I got a bunch of lawyers, We analyzed all the
Speaker 4: cases that shooting were prosecuting at the.
Speaker 3: Time under the medic Marijua Act. And we did a
Speaker 3: lot of good with that.
Speaker 5: So that was cool, man, And then not the threats
Speaker 5: and everything else. After the threat very it.
Speaker 3: Was like walking into a new world.
Speaker 4: Like Dan was elected, I'm no longer being chased legal
Speaker 4: legal shooting is gone, and now I'm like friends.
Speaker 5: With the a g you know, mind blowing like fulls
Speaker 5: like full you know, it's damn it was.
Speaker 3: It was pretty wild.
Speaker 4: And you know, my part of problem was, you know,
Speaker 4: a lot of my friends are on the writing committee,
Speaker 4: was you know, make sure that marijuana felons are allowed,
Speaker 4: and then we get kind of celebrated and discounts. So
Speaker 4: so at that time it was a little longer, but
Speaker 4: I might as well get into it.
Speaker 3: And at the time, my good friend Robin Schneider, we've
Speaker 3: been I met her.
Speaker 4: I opened up Capal City Caregivers intent, she opened up
Speaker 4: cap the City Compassion Club, you know, and we started
Speaker 4: working together on a lot of stuff and at the legislature,
Speaker 4: and she had been with a National Patient and NPR
Speaker 4: and she's like, we got to start a you know,
Speaker 4: the association because there's you know, there's about five ten
Speaker 4: big companies at times, the MCMA trying to get it
Speaker 4: to where.
Speaker 3: We were going to get knocked out when this law passed,
Speaker 3: and you can do.
Speaker 4: It in lane Duck and you know, so we formed
Speaker 4: and that was right there at the end of beginning
Speaker 4: of nineteen when they cut off the caregiver supply into
Speaker 4: the dispensaries and you Lancy was about to run out
Speaker 4: of weed.
Speaker 3: Prices were about to go up to six seven eight
Speaker 3: dousand pound.
Speaker 4: The trust conference at the at the at the capitol
Speaker 4: and talked about it, and you know, like I think
Speaker 4: different about Michigan when people come in from out of
Speaker 4: state hire all these big lobbying firms.
Speaker 3: They didn't have like the base there, like we do
Speaker 3: not even know our politicians. We have to get elected
Speaker 3: like they were involved.
Speaker 4: So we were able to get get it turned.
Speaker 3: That down for the caregivers.
Speaker 4: And I was the business development director and recruited a
Speaker 4: lot of people for the mc m i CA to join.
Speaker 4: You know, it's a group of the board members mostly
Speaker 4: all all former caregivers rather than the former carriers. A
Speaker 4: lot of the people that advocated and made it legal
Speaker 4: are are now part.
Speaker 3: Of the State Trade Association. So it's a lot different
Speaker 3: than than other states.
Speaker 4: But at that time, Gauge Cannabis was one of my
Speaker 4: clients and they were like, hey, Ryan, we got a
Speaker 4: social equity grant.
Speaker 3: You got a business idea. I'm like, yeah, I was
Speaker 3: about ready to start a.
Speaker 4: Brand, and they're like, well but in the app and
Speaker 4: I got it and gave me fifty thousand dollars and
Speaker 4: I started the brand. And when I started it, it was
Speaker 4: just me. Had a card table with no skirt, my
Speaker 4: first vendor day, just passing out joints, talking about you know,
Speaker 4: talking about it was literally just me. And I launched
Speaker 4: some like eleven stores, you know, people I knew for
Speaker 4: a long long time and came up with they had
Speaker 4: gotten stores and nice, you know.
Speaker 2: And uh, did you launch twenty eighteen or did you
Speaker 2: launch like twenty When did a redemption of two thousand
Speaker 2: nine is established?
Speaker 1: But when did you guys hit metric?
Speaker 3: June first?
Speaker 4: Twenty twenty June first?
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: My problem was my first packaging order was from a
Speaker 4: factory in Wuhan, right before.
Speaker 5: You got that virus.
Speaker 1: O G.
Speaker 4: I'll get all this stuff from America now, So I
Speaker 4: learned that lesson to me.
Speaker 5: It's fun. He had no ship, horrible timing.
Speaker 4: I had found three growers, so I was the real
Speaker 4: first white label, uh, you know, flower brand in Michigan.
Speaker 4: Besides cookies, and you know, they gave me the playbook.
Speaker 4: They were they were in business with Gauge, and they
Speaker 4: treated me really well and uh and and helped me
Speaker 4: with like how to set it up and made sense.
Speaker 4: And you know, I got one of they Kevin Pipers,
Speaker 4: from two candidates who had.
Speaker 3: Known and uh Tom Bella from who's now with Real Waves.
Speaker 4: And then Drew Driver from Driven Grow And in twenty
Speaker 4: ten when I was recruiting, he had opened the first
Speaker 4: dispensary and gave her in ten and now he's been
Speaker 4: a caregiver so quickly got going and uh, you know,
Speaker 4: five four years later, we're in uh, you know, about
Speaker 4: two hundred and fifty stores, Driven and growing myself. There's
Speaker 4: a lot of I guess will were spoting around and
Speaker 4: on what's going on. Three years ago, Driven about thirty
Speaker 4: percent of the brand, and they gave me a lot
Speaker 4: of firepower to uh.
Speaker 3: You know grow it.
Speaker 4: I needed it. I didn't. I've got no capital to
Speaker 4: start besides the grant I got from Gage, you know.
Speaker 4: And they now had money to spend more on marketing
Speaker 4: and invest and do you know different things. And past
Speaker 4: June first, we merged together one hundred percent so now
Speaker 4: we're we're one company, and you know, we've got a
Speaker 4: Drew started up in glared with a five hundred Class
Speaker 4: A grow and he's never taken a dime out of
Speaker 4: the company. And now we got fifty thousand square foot indoor,
Speaker 4: twenty acre outdoor and uh, you know, a big packaging
Speaker 4: and processing. It's all been done from from hard work.
Speaker 5: And really know when did that merger happen?
Speaker 3: June first this year?
Speaker 5: I'm sorry, you just said that. I just missed it
Speaker 5: forgot when you said that, But again, I sorry.
Speaker 4: And then you know, Yeah, so that's kind of the
Speaker 4: story where we're you know, we're there, and you know, i'd.
Speaker 3: Love to talk about talk about the foundation work we're doing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly what I was about to jump Intoyeah,
Speaker 2: I want to know when the Redemption Foundation started and
Speaker 2: uh it's impact so far with what's going on with it.
Speaker 2: Did it start at the same time as Redemption? Was
Speaker 2: this after twenty twenty was at.
Speaker 3: The same time? That was the deal?
Speaker 4: It was always so I'd always raised a lot of
Speaker 4: money for realization for lawyers, for families that got hit
Speaker 4: with CPS and kids taken away. We were always always
Speaker 4: raising money always, you know, since it started that we
Speaker 4: were always trying to help people. And I was like,
Speaker 4: if I have an actual business that's putting in revenue
Speaker 4: every month, it can count on you know, we can
Speaker 4: turn this into something. So learned a lot from the beginning.
Speaker 4: It's a ten percent of my revenue, which is my
Speaker 4: licensing fees go to go to the foundation. So that's
Speaker 4: you know, that's ten percent. It's it's not profits, it's
Speaker 4: it's actual off the top. So you know, we've done
Speaker 4: a lot of things in the last four years. We
Speaker 4: we U and right now we focus on two things.
Speaker 4: So we have our good for my good friend who
Speaker 4: have been buddies with them in business with here off
Speaker 4: and on and work with us Rick Thompson.
Speaker 3: We do the Rick Thompson Memorial Gram.
Speaker 4: It's a community Access gram. And you know, we do
Speaker 4: things like Force Detroit reentry programs.
Speaker 3: We do.
Speaker 4: Job training, We've done holiday drives, we've done kids that
Speaker 4: have been recently was atlancing small talk of charity that
Speaker 4: kids who it's actually abused if therapy and a lot
Speaker 4: of those from when they're been taken away.
Speaker 5: A lot of good men.
Speaker 4: Marijuana and they're in foster and foster parents, and you know,
Speaker 4: we we've helped legal cases for advocates and me just
Speaker 4: in families that you know, a lot of families that
Speaker 4: are in trouble. And then I also started back about
Speaker 4: two and a half years, you know, the Great Les
Speaker 4: Expungement Network, which I'm no longer the president and anymore.
Speaker 4: So we've done a lot of grants to them the
Speaker 4: fund of that for the first first couple of years, so.
Speaker 5: A lot of you did a lot of grant you're
Speaker 5: giving back.
Speaker 1: They help him back. Like that's phenomenal work.
Speaker 5: And I do want to say, you know, rest in peace,
Speaker 5: Rick Thompson. You know, he's a great guy. And actually
Speaker 5: how we kind of heard about redemption and heard about yours,
Speaker 5: like you know, you're through the grapevine.
Speaker 2: You know what we saw working uh Bendor days celebrity
Speaker 2: appearances is what.
Speaker 3: Is a good dude man?
Speaker 5: Rick Thompson just wanted to say that because like, you know,
Speaker 5: love what did there, because he was a great person
Speaker 5: and anyone who met him just you could see his
Speaker 5: passion in cannabis and you know, pretty much through association,
Speaker 5: like when we got into this industry, like trying to
Speaker 5: be in the Canvas World. You know, Rick and Jamie
Speaker 5: were some of our first people, So I just want
Speaker 5: to They're great people, bad respect from it, and I
Speaker 5: want to go back real quick.
Speaker 1: You were saying.
Speaker 2: You guys do certain like hu, yes so much, but
Speaker 2: like is there It sounded like people could like if
Speaker 2: we and Groovy wanted to come to something that you
Speaker 2: guys are doing, like is that available for the public
Speaker 2: or you have to be invited? Only trying to think
Speaker 2: like not charity work, but like I'm trying to think of.
Speaker 3: Someone wants to fundraisers. We we we recently had a
Speaker 3: jail and bell and.
Speaker 4: Something, you know, we'd be more welcome and invited to
Speaker 4: come to it. I think we're not really doing a
Speaker 4: lot as much anymore. We have one at the end
Speaker 4: of this year that we're not going to. Uh it's
Speaker 4: just for people that have been and I'll get into
Speaker 4: a second. People that have been donating to our Commissarior
Speaker 4: program and some of our major donors like Green Stem,
Speaker 4: Drank the Fields, True North and kind of just like
Speaker 4: come have a good time, like we don't. You know,
Speaker 4: times are tough out there. We're not not looking to
Speaker 4: raise any of that, and you know, and then you
Speaker 4: know the other thing. You know, we are, well, we
Speaker 4: having our fourth annual. We're gonna have a little later
Speaker 4: this year, but we have a Cannabis Skins Back telethon
Speaker 4: raised one to thirty grand. It's a two hour podcast,
Speaker 4: and you know that might be something for you guys
Speaker 4: to be cool for you guys to participate in this year.
Speaker 4: Of course we've normally raised a bunch of money, but
Speaker 4: like I said, we're what I give the foundation a
Speaker 4: month is more than double covers all our bills. So
Speaker 4: like the cool thing is when anybody donates the Renunctional Foundation,
Speaker 4: one hundred percent of it goes to whatever it's going to.
Speaker 3: We don't we have very overhead.
Speaker 5: I just know how much you do for the community. Man,
Speaker 5: with like all the like between all these funds like
Speaker 5: your foundation and Redemption, and how much you're having impact
Speaker 5: on different communities, but yet all kind of branch from
Speaker 5: the same tree, you know what I mean. I think
Speaker 5: that's very cool because you're you're thinking very community based
Speaker 5: and not just you know the things that the cams
Speaker 5: industry or the cannabis can you know, affect Otherwise, like
Speaker 5: when you brought up the kids stuff, I mean, the
Speaker 5: I just thought that was like such like so like
Speaker 5: not out of the box, but I like I didn't
Speaker 5: even think about that and people having to deal with
Speaker 5: those type of visues. I mean, I know that has
Speaker 5: to happen, but like because of you know, things with
Speaker 5: the camps industry, and I just thought that was really
Speaker 5: really awesome what you're doing with the community.
Speaker 4: Man, it's really like you go ahead and experience it.
Speaker 4: If I'm going to be having success, and you know,
Speaker 4: I don't feel right, you know, not not doing it
Speaker 4: that way. And that's that's the second the second thing
Speaker 4: that we do do the grand but the second thing
Speaker 4: is is born out of what my experiences. It's our
Speaker 4: commissary program. So when I was a federal prison, you know,
Speaker 4: three hundred dollars a month is the max you can
Speaker 4: spend doing that you're balling out. And I was lucky
Speaker 4: enough to have.
Speaker 3: A great support system. I always spent three hundred dollars.
Speaker 4: But my first job in prison was was cleaning disgusting
Speaker 4: bathrooms and showers, you know, disgusting, and I made fourteen
Speaker 4: bucks a month doing that, and then by the end
Speaker 4: of it, I was working at the law library, a
Speaker 4: cush John making thirty one bucks a month, but like
Speaker 4: telephone minutes cost fifty cents a minute, you know, emails
Speaker 4: are twenty five cents a minute. Stamps or stamps, and
Speaker 4: then you know, like the cafeteria I was at literally
Speaker 4: sitting on the packaging not for human consumption, really, you know,
Speaker 4: and that's.
Speaker 5: Crazy, and they're paying these inhumane wages, but they're like,
Speaker 5: we're going to charge you exactly what everyone else pays on.
Speaker 4: It's pretty nut. Thet I in charge of the kitchen
Speaker 4: would get a bonus if he did spend the whole
Speaker 4: food budget, so he would just it was horrible.
Speaker 5: Like you're just getting the cheapest crap on perfect for
Speaker 5: myself and save that money and give myself so in
Speaker 5: stead a grade C B if you're eating d you.
Speaker 3: Know, it was it was It was not a motivation
Speaker 3: is a.
Speaker 5: Jerk, but commentary sounds huge.
Speaker 3: The prison, yeah, we started it back shooting about a
Speaker 3: year ago almost and it was when at the time
Speaker 3: Nature's Relief came and Joe Jenga, who's not with Franklin Fields,
Speaker 3: I'll put it together with me.
Speaker 4: He did federal prison time, and you know, like, hey,
Speaker 4: like we got this bio mass and like what do
Speaker 4: you want to do. I'm like, I wanted to put
Speaker 4: money on com on prisoner's books, like they're still on
Speaker 4: cannabis because I know, like those guys and girls feel
Speaker 4: like they're being forgotten. They're seeing what we're doing out
Speaker 4: here and it has a huge impact. One hundred bucks
Speaker 4: in a month is a huge deal when you're in there.
Speaker 5: Anything fourteen dollars a month you can make.
Speaker 3: That's like years.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know what I mean, Like that's them just
Speaker 5: like like I mean, you know, obviously not they're dealing
Speaker 5: with ship and then that's the big thing that you're
Speaker 5: that you're also highlighting how wrong it is too that
Speaker 5: these people are still in prison.
Speaker 1: Okay type of stuff.
Speaker 5: You know, So you know, you're you're bringing attention to
Speaker 5: it as well. You're helping these people out, So that's
Speaker 5: really cool.
Speaker 1: How much how much do you guys donat in commentsary funds?
Speaker 1: Like that month.
Speaker 4: We started the last October and we're between five thousand
Speaker 4: and sixteen thousand a month, so.
Speaker 5: Oh wow, damn yeah yeah no true North.
Speaker 3: Uh twenty five cents of every district gummy bag the.
Speaker 5: Clause giving me the pause because you deserve it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, please get they're a double double louder.
Speaker 5: Even louder in the back, standing.
Speaker 4: Up Frank as a commentary as a commentsary, just cart
Speaker 4: that they're doing it, giving a quarter of each. And
Speaker 4: then we've got Pleasantries just did a series of old
Speaker 4: school strains and they give a dollar from each eight
Speaker 4: sould to the Commissary. So we've got trying to all
Speaker 4: it goes across the country and we're trying to and
Speaker 4: gets getting funded by other brands in the Michigan license market.
Speaker 4: So it's not us, it's you know, it's really a
Speaker 4: form of all of us working together and uh you know,
Speaker 4: you know, and lifting it up. And the cool thing
Speaker 4: is like, as we want to talk about going in
Speaker 4: other states, we're in Maryland right now.
Speaker 3: A ten percent of that licenseing fiece, you know that
Speaker 3: that stays in Maryland.
Speaker 4: So we get to give Rick Thompson Memorial grands from
Speaker 4: Maryland to groups like us that are doing the work
Speaker 4: on the ground. But the Commissary affects the whole country,
Speaker 4: everyone in Puerto Rico, you know, So we hope to
Speaker 4: get on your brands of other states to help out
Speaker 4: on that as well.
Speaker 1: It's just truly amazing what you guys are doing.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it sounds like you guys are going to have
Speaker 5: a good next year too, So I can't wait to
Speaker 5: jump into what we're gonna talk about in the future
Speaker 5: a bit here, but I mean one, yeah, he going
Speaker 5: before we go back, go back to.
Speaker 1: The Redemption Fund though, real quick.
Speaker 2: I was curious what impacts has the foundation made so
Speaker 2: far as a nonprofit organization. Is there certain stuff you
Speaker 2: guys do or different charities you guys donate to with
Speaker 2: the funds or.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it's like Michael Thompson Clement, like some
Speaker 4: of the one's off Small Talk, the Lansing based one
Speaker 4: with the kids Mission Green. His name's Walden Angelos. He
Speaker 4: did fifty yeah, fifty five years for three ounces and
Speaker 4: a gun planned it on him and he got he
Speaker 4: did thirteen and Obama let him out harden them and
Speaker 4: he's helped a lot of people get out of there
Speaker 4: the prison. He works with both who left him the
Speaker 4: right up up there and he's helping me right now
Speaker 4: with a pardon as well. But we've given money to him,
Speaker 4: We've been money to uh Michael Thompson Clemency Project. You know,
Speaker 4: I was telling it when Michael got out playing.
Speaker 1: We talked about about what he was going through. That
Speaker 1: was ridiculous. Yeah, and to him, I didn't know. I
Speaker 1: didn't realize. You guys helped out with that too. That's
Speaker 1: you guys.
Speaker 2: Props everywhere. You guys are literally everywhere. It continued to
Speaker 2: mean to cut you off, right.
Speaker 3: No, So that's a great force. Detroit.
Speaker 4: Our friend Najava, there's re entry down down in the
Speaker 4: Detroit area. We've given it to individual families, We've done it.
Speaker 4: We gave a big grant like two or three years
Speaker 4: running to sons and daughters for the holiday, driving about
Speaker 4: twenty to thirty k each year, giving kids, you know,
Speaker 4: a Christmas, a real Christmas and medical supplies.
Speaker 3: In Maryland. We just did our first donation. It was
Speaker 3: with Bernards Black.
Speaker 4: We we right got about four thousand different school supplies
Speaker 4: and gave them away in Baltimore in some inner city
Speaker 4: schools that need some help and you know, just getting
Speaker 4: just getting going there. So it's really you know, all
Speaker 4: types of grants, it's whatever makes sense, but we really
Speaker 4: like to give it to people that are you know,
Speaker 4: are working really hard, putting in the time. But like
Speaker 4: you know, we're five thousand dollars needs a huge, huge
Speaker 4: deal to them. You know, now thing nonprofit that gets
Speaker 4: all kinds of money is used to grant since that's
Speaker 4: overly bloated.
Speaker 3: You know, there's there's a lot of people out there
Speaker 3: doing the work and you can find them.
Speaker 4: I love that.
Speaker 1: Do you guys see any challenges within the cannabis industry
Speaker 1: for the Redemption Fund at all or with being a
Speaker 1: nonprofit in the cannabis space.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's the five o' one C three depending
Speaker 4: on how the businesses that are donating or set up.
Speaker 4: I'm not their accountant, uh, you know, like it is.
Speaker 4: It is a legal tax right off, depending on who's
Speaker 4: writing the.
Speaker 3: Check for them.
Speaker 4: Uh. You know. The real the real challenge is being
Speaker 4: in the market like Michigan and expecting these businesses that
Speaker 4: are trying to survive with the real tight margins and
Speaker 4: all the kind of the the tomfoolery or whatever that's
Speaker 4: going on, you know behind the scenes, with a lot
Speaker 4: of people cheating.
Speaker 3: To be able to give us money.
Speaker 4: So that's why you know, we try to offer them
Speaker 4: ROI on it too, like they do it because it's right,
Speaker 4: But we also want, you know, people to know they're
Speaker 4: doing it, and they should buy those products because they
Speaker 4: are doing it. It is directly going to help help
Speaker 4: people that are affected. There's no floff and so you know,
Speaker 4: you know there's there's there's it's not paying a salary,
Speaker 4: it's not doing any of that. So the challenge is
Speaker 4: really the market. And that's why you know, we're real
Speaker 4: lean right now, and you know we're doing fine. And
Speaker 4: you know that's why I like the licensing fees that
Speaker 4: I collect in the ten percent that I give it,
Speaker 4: you know, covers covers our expenses. So things do get tough,
Speaker 4: you know, we're still helping people, and you know, these
Speaker 4: things get better and we expand we'll be able to
Speaker 4: help a lot more people.
Speaker 5: That's really cool, man.
Speaker 4: No, I like that. I like that.
Speaker 2: And talking about redemption, Well, would you guys have any
Speaker 2: what's you guys' current plans for twenty twenty five new genetics?
Speaker 1: You guys going to the New States? What's your lot?
Speaker 3: A lot of plans.
Speaker 4: Feel real busy, Yeah, waking up at four thirty every
Speaker 4: morning and starting my day at five to get on
Speaker 4: top of it. But we we work with our friends
Speaker 4: and Altam. They're in Oklahoma, they're from They came up
Speaker 4: in nine uh from Columbus, became caregivers and uh great growers.
Speaker 4: Uh you probably had some of their strains. But they're
Speaker 4: in Oklahoma a great place to breed because it's five
Speaker 4: thousand dollars for a license unlimited plant count and they're
Speaker 4: actually limited. Yeah, but it's it's half the licenses have
Speaker 4: gone out of business in the last year there. But
Speaker 4: they're they're doing good. They're good operations to go great flowers.
Speaker 4: So then we get you know, that's that's that's a
Speaker 4: spot for genetics for us. You know that that we
Speaker 4: look to as far as a breeder, uh, you know,
Speaker 4: and get their seeds and different things like that. But
Speaker 4: so like we got we just launched three new strains,
Speaker 4: like right now, we've had Mafia Funeral, which is kind
Speaker 4: of compound genetics from the top strains in the state.
Speaker 3: Year after year they've.
Speaker 4: Read that way, you know, Candy mout which I know
Speaker 4: you guys got a little bit that's Mob Stopps and Mafia.
Speaker 3: Funeral and they're not. And then we got just.
Speaker 4: Three new ones at stanky Languages, GMO and Garlic Brass,
Speaker 4: which I hope you guys get a ahead of it.
Speaker 3: It finishes in sixty three days instead of eighty. You
Speaker 3: know in the eighties.
Speaker 5: Face we are, we are. I'm sorry sorry you said
Speaker 5: GMO and and I and garlic, so you said double
Speaker 5: the garlic. So sorry, I guess I was showing you
Speaker 5: ready watering.
Speaker 3: It's our top, it's our best one. We're on this
Speaker 3: Candy Mom, mop Stoppers and Mafia Funeral.
Speaker 1: So Mafia like a candy So is this by compound
Speaker 1: genetics as well?
Speaker 3: Too?
Speaker 4: No, this is like that was their make so Amino Hunter,
Speaker 4: it's Mafia cut which has been amazing. And then the
Speaker 4: rest of it, so the candy office, theres uh. And
Speaker 4: then we've got a lemon Charry Diesel which is a
Speaker 4: strong smelling fruity uh classic sativa. And then we've got
Speaker 4: a good fellow which is Mafia Funeral by Donkey Butter.
Speaker 4: It's a Donkey Butter cut that you know.
Speaker 3: Dave Zanner, he's.
Speaker 4: Also down in Oklahoma. He was the first grower at
Speaker 4: to North. It was a caregiver cut of the Doncy biter.
Speaker 4: That's won a lot of oards down there. So a
Speaker 4: lot of new stuff. We got more more coming. Uh,
Speaker 4: it's important you know, we we like to get a
Speaker 4: lot of genetics and uh, we like to have him unique.
Speaker 3: It's important, you know. We got to be coming with
Speaker 3: new stuff every year. So there's that. But then on
Speaker 3: another note, we.
Speaker 4: You know, we got about a year and a half ago,
Speaker 4: I started getting getting calls from from True Leaf and uh,
Speaker 4: they're like, hey, you know, we want to We're really
Speaker 4: interested in your brand.
Speaker 3: He's a guy and I know that we got hired.
Speaker 4: So had a wholesale who came from the caregiver market
Speaker 4: in Ohio and kind of the other, the the other,
Speaker 4: the gray market or whatever you want to call it,
Speaker 4: and uh, you know he was a big fan of
Speaker 4: the brand, and you know, it was it was. It
Speaker 4: was pretty interesting because you know, three or four years ago,
Speaker 4: a big company wouldn't be interested in in a brand
Speaker 4: like mine.
Speaker 3: You know, it's just just starting and completely bootstrap. But
Speaker 3: they were, they were all about it.
Speaker 4: They wanted some you know, like some some authentic brands
Speaker 4: and and you know things you know, and and also
Speaker 4: some social social impact sou For me, looking at the future,
Speaker 4: I always have been and kind of planned it out
Speaker 4: like this is the area that we're in. Whether whether
Speaker 4: people like it or not. It's it's the merging of
Speaker 4: the old school with with with the corporate animals, and
Speaker 4: you can fight it and hate it and yell about it,
Speaker 4: or you can you know, be around.
Speaker 5: It's legal, like people talking against metric where it's like yeah,
Speaker 5: but like it's kind of has to go that way.
Speaker 5: You can't just have this like gray area forever like.
Speaker 1: Well fast and then like you don't want to go
Speaker 1: through what Ryan went through.
Speaker 2: That's what I've gone through over thousands of other people
Speaker 2: have gone through, because like that does have lasting effects.
Speaker 2: I don't know how it's affected you later on in life,
Speaker 2: Like I still have my little PTSD moments here and
Speaker 2: there if like a cop comes behind me sometimes like
Speaker 2: my brain just triggers.
Speaker 1: I don't even know.
Speaker 2: But like it has to go throughute where we're going,
Speaker 2: we're going to have legal eventually. I really hope the
Speaker 2: states just decriminalize it because I'd be honestly the best
Speaker 2: I think, and then have the states go from there.
Speaker 2: But like moving into different markets and having being I legal,
Speaker 2: it needs to be everyone needs to have access to
Speaker 2: the plant.
Speaker 1: No one should not be able to smoke it, grow it,
Speaker 1: eat it anything.
Speaker 4: Sorry, yeah you know exactly. I mean, it's if you
Speaker 4: study history, which I do, there's one way that it's
Speaker 4: going to go. And you know, I understand people are
Speaker 4: pissed that. You know, then you know, I get two
Speaker 4: thousand and three thousand for bows anymore. But you know, like, hey,
Speaker 4: we had a good run. I had a good time.
Speaker 4: You know, there's some good years there after I was out.
Speaker 4: But like it's you can you can fight it. Like
Speaker 4: you said, you're not going to stop.
Speaker 5: It, so yeah, well yeah, you sure you might make
Speaker 5: more per pound. But it's like you know, people getting
Speaker 5: his creed fear, the yeah, the things you went through,
Speaker 5: like you know, like and like sure what he went
Speaker 5: through was a crazy story, but then to add what
Speaker 5: you went through going to prison and going through that
Speaker 5: whole speriods, Like it's just like I, well, I haven't
Speaker 5: gone through something like that. So hearing and watching him
Speaker 5: have the PTSD, I can only imagine what you went
Speaker 5: through and had to face. So you going through redemption
Speaker 5: and kind of like showing all that love to like
Speaker 5: you know, to spread it in the community. It just
Speaker 5: it's it's very powerful, man.
Speaker 3: Like it's a really cool.
Speaker 5: Story to go from one thing another because some people could,
Speaker 5: you know, as you said, the first six months when
Speaker 5: you're in prisonery bitter. Some people could really take that
Speaker 5: hate and run with that for the rest of their life,
Speaker 5: you know.
Speaker 4: So then they went the way I look at they went, right,
Speaker 4: that's that's the way it is. I've seen the the
Speaker 4: age on the street at a brewery. I didn't have
Speaker 4: any emotional responses, is what it is. And I be
Speaker 4: honest with you, I'm kind of gun said and gone
Speaker 4: past a lot of things, but like it's it's this
Speaker 4: is just the way the way that it's that it's
Speaker 4: going to go. And I want to do this the
Speaker 4: rest of my life. So like I'm with you fifteen
Speaker 4: years just to bring my head up against so well
Speaker 4: and ye know and complain and say I don't like it.
Speaker 4: So you know, we launched we use and you know,
Speaker 4: you know it's it's it's it's a lot of their genetics,
Speaker 4: but it's we have some good stuff. But like we're
Speaker 4: in Maryland, we want to go in the states that are.
Speaker 4: You know, I would never go into a Michigan right
Speaker 4: now if I was coming from outside. I don't have
Speaker 4: the money in Michigan you need from out of state,
Speaker 4: you've but I have hundreds of thousands of dollars or
Speaker 4: even more than that because it's so tough.
Speaker 3: But you know, Maryland has eighteen license gross we're going.
Speaker 4: To be you know, and and right now we've launched,
Speaker 4: we're there and we're selling about one hundred and fifty
Speaker 4: two hundred pounds a month.
Speaker 3: You know, the pounds are a.
Speaker 4: Lot higher there, they're twenty six hundred. And you know,
Speaker 4: it's just a licensing agreement. But we take what we
Speaker 4: learned in Michigan. In Michigan, right now, we concentrate. Like
Speaker 4: when we when we work with a store, it's our
Speaker 4: job to make sure that it sells off the shelves.
Speaker 3: It's not that it's not their job, like we do
Speaker 3: certain things. Is it's all about velocity.
Speaker 4: What are we going to do, How do we bring
Speaker 4: people in, how we train the bud tenders, how do
Speaker 4: we get them involved? So like it's you know, we
Speaker 4: took what we've learned in Michigan and take it for granted,
Speaker 4: and then executing it in Maryland. And then we're gonna
Speaker 4: be launching in Pennsylvania in twenty one stores in middle
Speaker 4: of December. Same deal in Pennsylvania In my opinion, I'm
Speaker 4: there to be one point eight billion dollar medical market
Speaker 4: this year. They're gonna go wreck probably next year it's
Speaker 4: a five billion dollar state. We know what's happened in Michigan.
Speaker 4: You can predict the future on supplying to man and
Speaker 4: you know, like so we're going there, and then it's
Speaker 4: February and March, I'll be in medical in West Virginia,
Speaker 4: which was where I was in federal prison.
Speaker 3: So that's when we're going to kind of announce it.
Speaker 4: Now more intown and you know, kind of kind of
Speaker 4: let the country know what we're doing after some success
Speaker 4: in it.
Speaker 5: Sounds like you've looked a lot of places. Is Michigan
Speaker 5: probably like one of the most expensive, if not the
Speaker 5: most expensive state to go into, like from.
Speaker 4: They want to make it. It's the toughest market. It's
Speaker 4: the toughest market in the country in my opinion. I
Speaker 4: mean people come in and just get spit. Uh you know,
Speaker 4: I watched it from many They don't understand the dynamics,
Speaker 4: the politics, the culture.
Speaker 3: I'd say, you know, at the retail game in Michigan
Speaker 3: is just throat.
Speaker 4: You know people you know those people been doing you know, retail,
Speaker 4: their whole lives are born, you know, growing up in
Speaker 4: retail stores, a running a lot of the stories in Michigan.
Speaker 4: It's it's tough. So it's not like going into Illinois.
Speaker 4: You know, we're going to be going into Arizona. Possibly
Speaker 4: we're gonna deal with the top grower out there. It's
Speaker 4: not done yet. And then Ohiolander goes to get to Florida.
Speaker 4: Prop three passes and and go there. So that's that's
Speaker 4: the dreams. That's the game plan laid out and two
Speaker 4: two and a half year plan and you know, made
Speaker 4: it this far, I'm gonna go for it. Uh. It's
Speaker 4: learning that a step of the way and staying organized
Speaker 4: and you know, yeah, and take the Foundation to every
Speaker 4: state as we're doing.
Speaker 3: So that's playing in the next twelve years.
Speaker 4: I like that.
Speaker 2: I've been glad that you're gonna take the Foundation with you.
Speaker 2: You're probably gonna take the commissary program as well with
Speaker 2: you into each state.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: See, I think that's great because you're coming in the state,
Speaker 2: you're coming in, you're providing quality product, and then you're
Speaker 2: also going to be you're giving back into that state
Speaker 2: and any.
Speaker 5: And also a lot of these brands I think especially
Speaker 5: coming to Michigan with like not a lot of soul.
Speaker 5: You know, here's our fancy packaging. We're just gonna white
Speaker 5: label some weed. And like, I feel like you got
Speaker 5: like some soul, Like you know, you have purpose, like
Speaker 5: branding with purpose purpose branding right, like kind of going
Speaker 5: hand in hand. And I think that's why you've stayed
Speaker 5: stayd tried and trude and like. And I think that's
Speaker 5: the natural evolution for brands is to grow wherever that
Speaker 5: tree goes. Right Once you're playing your roots and the
Speaker 5: roots are healthy, like meaning you have your state and
Speaker 5: you have this all created like throwing out, surely keep growing.
Speaker 5: So that's really cool.
Speaker 4: Appreciate it.
Speaker 1: I do want to jump ip anywhere from that, but
Speaker 1: I don't know. Sorry to me cut you off.
Speaker 2: I wanted to jump into this question because we were
Speaker 2: talking about it right before. We're talking about products. How
Speaker 2: do you see consumers preferences changing and how is Redemption
Speaker 2: cannabis responding to these shifts? And I think that goes
Speaker 2: with the one product you were showing us, like you're
Speaker 2: talking about Yeah, I got it, I got it right here.
Speaker 3: So this is our ten pack.
Speaker 4: It's a it's a new Port Box refurnished basically the
Speaker 4: cell a fane. It's uh, it's ten point seven joints.
Speaker 4: It's a quarter all rolled up and uh, you know
Speaker 4: we we sell a lot of those every months, a
Speaker 4: lot of them. I mean it's all flower. We take
Speaker 4: our bets and seeds, grind it up. All the age
Speaker 4: and pluses are in the bags, and you know, that's
Speaker 4: we've hit it with that. We were the first ones
Speaker 4: in the state, I do believe, or one of the
Speaker 4: first with the twenty eight pack joints.
Speaker 3: We uh, we called it a border bundle.
Speaker 4: We sell a lot of in the up. We've been
Speaker 4: at the up right when the store is open because
Speaker 4: obviously people travel.
Speaker 5: By popping man people.
Speaker 3: We're heavy up.
Speaker 4: There, and we're heaving on the southwestern border, most of
Speaker 4: the border towns. So like we called it the border
Speaker 4: bundle there. I thought it was funny and they said cool.
Speaker 4: So yeah, so we saw most of our joints. Yeah,
Speaker 4: most of our joint ten packs of twenty eight packs,
Speaker 4: so you know, learning, learning that people that's what they want,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 5: Like I stopped kind of here too, you know with cigarettes,
Speaker 5: you know, yeah, on the go here they are boom
Speaker 5: boom out.
Speaker 4: Always always dreamed of being, you know, as a pacing
Speaker 4: as a kid going into a store and buying a
Speaker 4: pack of joint cigarette. So there's a lot of people
Speaker 4: with that dream. You know.
Speaker 3: We're one of the things we do take pride in
Speaker 3: where the straights specific are.
Speaker 4: So we've been making strange specific ourselves since two thousand, man,
Speaker 4: and you know that that was real important We made
Speaker 4: it and I watched I watched people get off early
Speaker 4: on and H see see this. Little girls stopped her
Speaker 4: seizures with it and have it. When I saw that
Speaker 4: that was in twenty ten, Spencer, I was like, this
Speaker 4: is this is for real?
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, and something's so crazy.
Speaker 4: It's important for to be strains specific because if you
Speaker 4: got a bubble bath rso and it helps somebody and
Speaker 4: it works for their elements and now it's repeatable, so
Speaker 4: they're getting same turfy s, flavonoids, canabinoids every time. You know,
Speaker 4: a lot of brands you just don't.
Speaker 2: Know what you seen that now I'm thinking about strains
Speaker 2: specific are so I don't know what market I can
Speaker 2: see anything. And every time I got of ourselves just alright,
Speaker 2: So yeah, a bunch of stuff made into it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so we got five strings, six strains will continue
Speaker 4: at where I mean, it's not a huge market in Michigan,
Speaker 4: but we're top top two hours.
Speaker 3: Overrand in the state.
Speaker 4: You are like half grams one one yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: I'm a big fan of the It.
Speaker 5: May not be like the high selling part of the market,
Speaker 5: but again it stands for how good of like what
Speaker 5: you're doing with your brand.
Speaker 1: It's good.
Speaker 5: It's it's caring about the people who use the product,
Speaker 5: not just the money, you know. I mean, so it's,
Speaker 5: as I said, I really appreciate that because of course
Speaker 5: sounds like you're you know, you're making your sales, you
Speaker 5: know how to make your sales with this product, and
Speaker 5: they but you're like this products just good, you know.
Speaker 5: Like that's the thing about RS. I don't never look
Speaker 5: at it like a money making product, you know, but
Speaker 5: it definitely does a lot of good.
Speaker 4: So we got to we give away kits, regard them
Speaker 4: cancer kits or opiate kicks, because I've seen so many
Speaker 4: people get off of opiates from in the last fifteen
Speaker 4: years from it. But you know, we give away a
Speaker 4: lot of those to the stores we work with when
Speaker 4: when they have a customer coming in or buy, you know,
Speaker 4: buy their limit and oursl come back and buy their
Speaker 4: limit again. They're like, hey, what's going on? You know,
Speaker 4: you know, and then we try to help them out
Speaker 4: and it's kind of stay shoot her every that way
Speaker 4: as well. You know, we're all former character rich for
Speaker 4: for many many, many many years. So yeah, try to
Speaker 4: keep keep keep the medicine in it. But also you know,
Speaker 4: I think all weeds medicinal. Like you know, like if
Speaker 4: smoking a joint it makes you smile and have fun.
Speaker 4: You know how many how many medicines, you know, how
Speaker 4: many pills are out there that try to do that.
Speaker 4: So you know, I still take that way smile and
Speaker 4: having a good time in cannabis.
Speaker 1: And the nice on the candy mop that was.
Speaker 2: A good smooth It was like a garlic fruit almost
Speaker 2: to me, it was kind of tasting like but I.
Speaker 1: Don't know, do you guys grow all indoor outdoor?
Speaker 2: I want to get a couple of growing questions and
Speaker 2: then like one or two and then like I think
Speaker 2: almost always always I always got questions on the grow
Speaker 2: because I I.
Speaker 4: All our indoor flower is uh, it's all under a flower.
Speaker 4: You grow about fifteen sixteen hundred pounds a month is
Speaker 4: what we're going down. And then we have twenty acres
Speaker 4: of outdoor and that we just had a great harvest.
Speaker 4: Like many people dibits. Our fifth year doing it, we
Speaker 4: learned a lot.
Speaker 1: Was it a good year for outdoors?
Speaker 3: Outdoors great?
Speaker 4: I heard it was. Yeah, if you made it through
Speaker 4: like that first part of the heavy rains and you
Speaker 4: had good you know, filtration in your solo and or
Speaker 4: however you were growing, if you made it through that.
Speaker 3: And it was incredible because it's staying warmer later.
Speaker 1: Now look at it today, it's it's different eight degrees
Speaker 1: two days before.
Speaker 5: Make up.
Speaker 4: It's uh so we so we'll uh you know, I
Speaker 4: think we did about one hundred thousand pounds of fresh frozen.
Speaker 4: We got it on the freezers and then I'll go
Speaker 4: to life resident. Uh you know we sell five tens
Speaker 4: on one gram and uh yeah, so we got do
Speaker 4: you do.
Speaker 5: Other collaborations or products besides flower because I've mainly seen
Speaker 5: redemption just on flour, so I just curious with them.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the r and so one grand live rethum have
Speaker 4: five ton cards one hundred percent live resume.
Speaker 3: We've never cut it. Uh uh they're all in ones.
Speaker 4: We do a little side brand turn and burn with
Speaker 4: some cured we call it break dust and some cured wax.
Speaker 4: It's you know, it's cheap, but it gets gets you
Speaker 4: where you need to be, gets you high. We use
Speaker 4: the whole plant and uh, we don't do anything with distilate,
Speaker 4: so that's where they are so and the cured comes in, uh,
Speaker 4: you know, in order or to get rid of it.
Speaker 3: We don't like to play in the distillate market. When
Speaker 3: you know the distillate market is you can't you know,
Speaker 3: you can't afford to do it yourself in Michigan. It's
Speaker 3: all coming in from out of state.
Speaker 5: You're going to compete with people who are using using.
Speaker 4: Version. That's really that's really crashed the rest of the
Speaker 4: market because people this year did fresh rolls and whether
Speaker 4: they're going to sell it as as as flour, which
Speaker 4: will be some nice outdoor fly this year.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna say, I'm gonna keep an eye out because
Speaker 5: I don't think i've seen the strains specific RSO or
Speaker 5: the concentrates. I'll keep my eyes up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the RSL strengths specific is very unique.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we've got five strengths and can go on the website.
Speaker 4: We got the store locator. Probably our lowest market is
Speaker 4: is Southeast Michigan as far as where we're at, We're
Speaker 4: heavy everywhere else everywhere else, but we are about stores
Speaker 4: over that side.
Speaker 5: Nice website. By the way, I'm showing off the website
Speaker 5: and I just want to look at this.
Speaker 4: I love it.
Speaker 5: You got the mission we did. There's a video that
Speaker 5: obviously we played beforehand. You can check it out on
Speaker 5: YouTube and boom, right here is the store locator.
Speaker 1: I think that's sweet.
Speaker 2: Actually, that's how I found your guys' product today with
Speaker 2: the candy mout Before I was like, I was like
Speaker 2: looking at we mass, I'm like, this is ridiculous.
Speaker 1: So I just went to you guys. I g hit
Speaker 1: your profile link and I was.
Speaker 2: Like, oh ship store locator easy, Like it's when I
Speaker 2: found my area.
Speaker 1: Boom, Like I love that.
Speaker 2: Think what place you should have it if you're looking
Speaker 2: for a brand, because I think you don't miss one
Speaker 2: spelling or want it letter. It doesn't showcase on the map,
Speaker 2: so you will not show that brand. So it's like
Speaker 2: having that when you go into the not every brand
Speaker 2: is a website store located sometimes that's a little huge.
Speaker 4: That's nice, Yeah, keeping it updated. And in Michigan, we're
Speaker 4: now to the point where a lot of the stores
Speaker 4: we're in, we're not in a lot of new stores
Speaker 4: where we've got a lot of longtime partners and we
Speaker 4: concentrate with them, so you know, it's just more consistent,
Speaker 4: it's easier to keep the map up.
Speaker 5: And we hear nightmares with people getting ripped off too.
Speaker 5: Like once you find people that you do good business
Speaker 5: with and make good products and have good collaboration, it's like,
Speaker 5: all right, let's just be loyal and let's make this
Speaker 5: money and like do good business. Like, let's not screw
Speaker 5: each other. There's too much like illegal dist of it
Speaker 5: or too many people just screwing people over payments.
Speaker 3: And have that conversations about every day. We looked at it.
Speaker 3: You know, we needed to increase set.
Speaker 4: I was over the summer and uh, you know, we
Speaker 4: did pick up some news stores, but we really looked
Speaker 4: at how do we become the number.
Speaker 6: One brand and the stories that we're at. So we
Speaker 6: just really focused on becoming a better brand and and
Speaker 6: and and and better better, having better story support and
Speaker 6: a lot of the stories we're we're in their number
Speaker 6: one we're other number one brand, so you know that's
Speaker 6: that's the goal. Or we have them their top products
Speaker 6: and it's uh, it's worked out. We don't have an
Speaker 6: accounts receivable problem at all. But we're really strict about it.
Speaker 6: It wasn't my partners.
Speaker 4: If it was up to me, I mean, yeah, I
Speaker 4: would have been selling everybody in trouble partner. No.
Speaker 5: I mean that's what it takes. Sometimes. You got to
Speaker 5: have those multiple perspectives to make good business. And that's
Speaker 5: why it sounds like you have a good team, you know.
Speaker 5: And you know when I watched that video and it
Speaker 5: talks about you know, hand picking your team. You know
Speaker 5: that is a powerful thing, right you that.
Speaker 1: You don't want to strive together and some good pros
Speaker 1: bounce out good partners.
Speaker 5: It's just hard to find a good teams. And when
Speaker 5: you do, it's like we're going to stick together.
Speaker 3: You know, some really bad partners.
Speaker 4: I could tell some stories and you know, and to
Speaker 4: kind of get pick myself back up a couple of times,
Speaker 4: and you.
Speaker 5: Know, also think about business and money like that. They
Speaker 5: get those type of people just in it for like
Speaker 5: nothing but that in themselves and don't do anything and
Speaker 5: screw people over over some bucks.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it always always comes back down the road, always
Speaker 3: does well.
Speaker 1: I think we're coming towards the end.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I guess the only thing I did want to
Speaker 5: ask because we did really before. I just want to
Speaker 5: clarify because I probably missed it. You know, we smoked
Speaker 5: that candy mob, So there's that. But I took a
Speaker 5: couple of dabs of our club between some of our
Speaker 5: partners shout out. But when we were talking about MSL,
Speaker 5: where where are you guys going first? Because we talked
Speaker 5: about a bunch of states really quick, I just want
Speaker 5: to like kind of see like what is you Where
Speaker 5: were you going first?
Speaker 4: Currently we're in Oklahoma, but it's just the new panos
Speaker 4: that come out are altim are in our bags, so
Speaker 4: it's they handle it and you know, it's more of
Speaker 4: a to not explain. And then we are in Maryland
Speaker 4: operating right now. We'll be launching in Pennsylvania in December,
Speaker 4: West Virginia in February, in March, Arizona next fall.
Speaker 5: You know, So you're going to all those places. So
Speaker 5: when you brought them up earlier, I thought these were
Speaker 5: just places you were looking at and you were for
Speaker 5: sure Oklahoma, you were going to all those places. So
Speaker 5: this is why I wanted to reiterate, because I got
Speaker 5: a little off because I thought we were just talking
Speaker 5: about Oklahoma and then the rest of the places you
Speaker 5: were looking. That's why I asked him, like, oh, it
Speaker 5: sounds like you're looking at a lot of places. You're
Speaker 5: going to those places. Damn, damn. So that sounds like
Speaker 5: I mean your pulling. I mean, damn. So that does
Speaker 5: affect your team. So the team just comes with you.
Speaker 5: Everyone just gets more work. You know, how does that work?
Speaker 3: You know, we've got a Maryland employee. Now he's great.
Speaker 3: And then but then also you know.
Speaker 4: Uh, you know, I hired one my buddy always wanted
Speaker 4: to work together, Mark Paserdi. He helped me open capacity caregivers.
Speaker 4: I help him open Oma medicine. And he's, uh, he's
Speaker 4: he's leading the charge to open up the new states.
Speaker 4: And uh, you know it's all in Pennsylvania. We're in
Speaker 4: launch first. And then you know, we've already got twenty
Speaker 4: one stores. We didn't have to go out and knock
Speaker 4: on the doors. You know, the hard part to get in,
Speaker 4: you know, that's part of going in It's part of
Speaker 4: the strategy because I'm a little guy. I don't have
Speaker 4: millions of dollars to go across the country. The cap
Speaker 4: X on what we're doing is super low, you know,
Speaker 4: and then uh, West Virginia those deals are all done,
Speaker 4: Arizona is going to be pretty close, and then Ohio
Speaker 4: is pretty much done, and then uh, you know that
Speaker 4: the Grand Daddy and mall is Florida is where I
Speaker 4: want to be, especially after Prop three. So that's that's
Speaker 4: the plan. It's a it's a licensing agreement. And you know,
Speaker 4: like I said, low cap X. I've never uh like,
Speaker 4: from the minute I started the company, I had to
Speaker 4: make money because it's support myself and they want to
Speaker 4: be hustling, you know, on the side doing whatever real
Speaker 4: stay and who knows that I've done a lot of
Speaker 4: a lot of a lot of different things that came
Speaker 4: up with some ideas to make money here and there
Speaker 4: out of necessity.
Speaker 3: If no one wants to hire a.
Speaker 5: Follow you know, when you were hustling, man, you were
Speaker 5: out here hustling. I mean it paid off. And that's
Speaker 5: what I'm saying, like, and I'm sorry I missed that
Speaker 5: before I thought you were looking at all these states.
Speaker 5: The fact that you're going to them is like is
Speaker 5: awesome and taking that foundation everywhere.
Speaker 2: Is just is just mind being do they get the
Speaker 2: same products in all these states too? So like do
Speaker 2: you can be able to do like staying strange specific
Speaker 2: are so the ten pack of cigarette like.
Speaker 4: Or it depends is we're learning the different markets. So
Speaker 4: Maryland we've got ounces eights joints ten packs launched December six,
Speaker 4: but they have like an extra case arm because the
Speaker 4: answer child, it's a little bit goo here, but it's
Speaker 4: still cool. Pennsylvania is a is a no joint stay.
Speaker 1: But you know, so you sell O just medically right
Speaker 1: there currently okay.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but it'll be you know what we're doing big
Speaker 4: big and big there is I have have shape, you know.
Speaker 4: So actually we're doing quarters and it's their quarters are
Speaker 4: the number one cellars.
Speaker 5: It makes it you're kind of going to market and
Speaker 5: see what's working there.
Speaker 4: See what our partners a lot. We have a couple
Speaker 4: of greenhouse allocated to us in Maryland, so we're going
Speaker 4: to be launching the live resident all homes and buy
Speaker 4: ten cards and then each market's a little bit different,
Speaker 4: but it's you know, going in there with r s
Speaker 4: ops and then working with them and just building this
Speaker 4: out for the communication because you know, working with a giant,
Speaker 4: giant company.
Speaker 3: It's been it's been. It's been good.
Speaker 4: It's been you know, all this has been a good
Speaker 4: learning experience.
Speaker 5: You know, especially trying to keep that redemption culture spread
Speaker 5: throughout each one and taking on new team members and
Speaker 5: I'm sure that's spring challenges and I'm sure you brought
Speaker 5: your team with you, you.
Speaker 4: Know it is. The cool thing is it's going to
Speaker 4: make us that much that are in Michigan. We're gonna
Speaker 4: behind another marketing person that we're here, an analytics person
Speaker 4: for the whole country, but they're also going to be
Speaker 4: in Michigan doing the work.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: So it's been Yeah, it's been.
Speaker 4: So the farther way go out, the better, the better
Speaker 4: that will that will be in in in Michigan as well.
Speaker 4: So it's uh you know. And then like I said,
Speaker 4: the foundation percent of the license piece that we get
Speaker 4: in those states, all that's all ready the foundation but
Speaker 4: of a state in those states where we're gonna find
Speaker 4: Gebric Thompson grants to uh to groups that are doing
Speaker 4: the work in all those states.
Speaker 3: So you know, Mayland's got Baltimore.
Speaker 4: There's a lot of a lot of a lot of
Speaker 4: stuff going on in Baltimore, a lot of history there
Speaker 4: that you know, they definitely need some redemption and a
Speaker 4: lot of people doing great work.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 4: Pennsylvania's got Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, it's you know, it's it's there's
Speaker 4: a lot of big cities that a lot of stuff's
Speaker 4: happened and you know, and great people doing doing.
Speaker 3: Their work there. So yeah, we're just gonna spread.
Speaker 4: We go into those states and stay humble, you know,
Speaker 4: where we feel like we're it's an honor for us
Speaker 4: to be there. It's an honor for them to take
Speaker 4: us in. And what we've done here is from day
Speaker 4: one is we always try to work with the butt tenders,
Speaker 4: educate about what we're doing, what we're really doing, about
Speaker 4: the products, and you know, and make sure they get
Speaker 4: our shirts or sweatshirts, they get free samples and went
Speaker 4: over with the butt tenders and you know, that works
Speaker 4: working really well in Maryland. And that's just we're just
Speaker 4: gonna rent and repeat that because uh, you know, you know,
Speaker 4: I don't have we don't have one million to three
Speaker 4: million dollars to put a big ad campaign like a
Speaker 4: junior a wild or something like that, or it's dizzy,
Speaker 4: We don't.
Speaker 1: Small roots? Is that grassroots?
Speaker 2: So the you continue to build and to bring in
Speaker 2: your whole story good grass Yeah, yeah, and you bring
Speaker 2: everything with you to these markets. One last question, can
Speaker 2: you do you have a fund if you want to
Speaker 2: donate to the Redemption Fund?
Speaker 4: Is there?
Speaker 1: Is there a link on the website.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's on the website, but it's also to our
Speaker 4: foundation website. It's the Redemption Foundation dot org.
Speaker 1: Cool, thank you.
Speaker 2: I want I want to put that out there. I
Speaker 2: don't think I asked about it earlier, and I want
Speaker 2: to make sure everyone listening. If you do want to,
Speaker 2: there's a fun foundation.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I think we just have a few more things before
Speaker 5: we get out of here. I just have one last
Speaker 5: question on Redemption just because this is just what I'm
Speaker 5: just curious what you'd say, is there, what's what excites
Speaker 5: you most about the future because you have so much
Speaker 5: going on, and I guess I'm just curious from all
Speaker 5: the things you have going on, is or anything that's
Speaker 5: like makes you the most? Like one a pumped to
Speaker 5: get out of bed at four thirty in the morning.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I tried.
Speaker 4: Uh it still is not lost on me. Like every
Speaker 4: day I wake up and I kind of can't believe
Speaker 4: that I get to do this. I've been I've been
Speaker 4: extremely I guess I I had to learn a lot
Speaker 4: of humility. I did real well before I got into cannabis,
Speaker 4: and I came out of prison at thirty seven and
Speaker 4: I was dead broke, you know, not a good feeling.
Speaker 4: So like I look back to that, look at the
Speaker 4: people that were helping, the letters that we get, and
Speaker 4: then you know, like I said that, I love weed
Speaker 4: and I love business, and I get a chance, you know,
Speaker 4: uh economic theory, like to watch the cannabis industry from
Speaker 4: you know, nine and before to what it is today
Speaker 4: and have a little influence on it even and then
Speaker 4: try to predict it and and you know, just the
Speaker 4: idea of building this.
Speaker 3: I'm not a good senor.
Speaker 4: I can't draw anything like that, but I'm pretty creative
Speaker 4: when it comes to, you know, coming up with these
Speaker 4: ideas with the brand and how do we execute it.
Speaker 4: So I feel like I was I was put here
Speaker 4: to do this, I'm going to do it, and uh,
Speaker 4: you know, I uh, I get up every day and
Speaker 4: people now ask me what my hobbies are, and I'm.
Speaker 3: Like, I don't know. I don't know what's on your purpose.
Speaker 3: I know this used to be.
Speaker 4: I mean now it's this they got you got a family,
Speaker 4: and we talked before I got a boy. It's about
Speaker 4: turning three tomorrow and I got another boy on the way.
Speaker 4: I'm beginning of January and you know, I'm an old dad,
Speaker 4: forty eight New Year's Eve, so I'm kind of getting
Speaker 4: to live and live like the dream that I wanted
Speaker 4: to live that I you know, thought a lot about
Speaker 4: when I was in prison and what eggs and it's
Speaker 4: just ever going to happen. So now just waking up
Speaker 4: you knowing that with a lot of gratitude and you know,
Speaker 4: and being thankful that you get to do this every day.
Speaker 4: It's kind of what excites me. And then eventually, uh,
Speaker 4: you know, you know I would have taken nap here
Speaker 4: and there.
Speaker 5: I guess that's the new hobby, he says, going into
Speaker 5: his second child. We'll see.
Speaker 1: That's a great man.
Speaker 5: Well, we do have one last question you have to ask.
Speaker 5: It can't question. It's just a fun question. Thank you,
Speaker 5: And then before we do that, I guess I should
Speaker 5: do as one more thing. Is there anyone you want
Speaker 5: to say shout outs to anyone on the team specifically
Speaker 5: you want to shout out, shout out anyone. I don't
Speaker 5: know there's any shoutouts.
Speaker 3: They had to shout out to the whole Redemption team.
Speaker 4: We're small, like Redemption actually cannabis team right now, we
Speaker 4: just have seven employees. People think we're a big company.
Speaker 5: Seven people, seven employees.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but we have driven there's one hundred employees to
Speaker 4: grow in the processor. But like actual brand, we're lancing.
Speaker 4: You know, it's we like the team, you know, Brady, Pattie, Kyle, Bratt,
Speaker 4: Mark and Bruce and myself, and everyone's doing more work,
Speaker 4: double the work than I think most people are doing
Speaker 4: at their jobs in cannabis right now. But we're efficient.
Speaker 4: We like to work together. And then the foundation. I
Speaker 4: got a great board that donates a lot of their time.
Speaker 4: Jessica Jackson, Katie Lynch, Rachel Pell, Mark Passerini who also
Speaker 4: works for Redemption. Now myself, there's five of us, and uh,
Speaker 4: you know, you know that. And and then just you
Speaker 4: know all the old all the old friends out there
Speaker 4: that are always sending me nice, nice notes and happy
Speaker 4: for the effort and the success. That's I always appreciate it.
Speaker 4: And now I'm just gonna keep doing this no matter what.
Speaker 4: But I give give thanks to Michigan, and you know
Speaker 4: it is it's it's a really tough market. But the
Speaker 4: way I look at it, if it wasn't if we
Speaker 4: would have just had the ten ten players or twenty
Speaker 4: when I got to do it, there's a lot of
Speaker 4: a lot a lot of.
Speaker 3: The people in the market in Michigan, ex caregivers.
Speaker 4: I know, I go around the license.
Speaker 3: We had a chance. That's all we wanted. We wanted
Speaker 3: a chance.
Speaker 5: Chang story is motivating. You know, your story is motivating
Speaker 5: to people. There's a lot of people like you, similar
Speaker 5: stories might well you know similar obviously went through tribulations
Speaker 5: and like you know, it's just you have a powerful story.
Speaker 5: So thanks for coming on sharing it with our community.
Speaker 5: Appreciate that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I appreciate you.
Speaker 5: Now, Dave, go ahead, you can ask you the final question.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so final question we asked pretty much every guest
Speaker 2: that we have, we have to and it would be
Speaker 2: so you prefer smoking joints?
Speaker 1: You or you dabber? How do you smoke?
Speaker 4: What's your preference smoke joints?
Speaker 1: Perfect.
Speaker 4: I smoke a lot of joints, but I was I
Speaker 4: was smoking about ten a day, and then uh, I
Speaker 4: kind of had some science issues, and then I got better,
Speaker 4: and I'm right back up to about five or six
Speaker 4: a day.
Speaker 3: I'm in the house. This is over. I'm going outside
Speaker 3: smoking a joint. I got a puff, go, That's why
Speaker 3: got it.
Speaker 5: Ryan's daily a lotment.
Speaker 4: It's uh, not as much as before, but yeah, man,
Speaker 4: I love smoking flower and I've got.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, I feel that I feel like after rolling so
Speaker 2: many joints for a while. But say, all right, you're
Speaker 2: grinding up some of your bug, you're grinding up some
Speaker 2: candy mob and you pop out the grinder and all
Speaker 2: of a sudden, the gangs of genie comes out, and uh,
Speaker 2: he's like, I'll grant you one wish you can change
Speaker 2: anything within the industry.
Speaker 1: What would you wish for all right now?
Speaker 4: I wish for the level of playing field, level playing field.
Speaker 4: You know, we followed the rules. We fought hard to
Speaker 4: have a chance to do this. We fought really hard.
Speaker 4: I always wanted to see this as an industry where
Speaker 4: you don't go to jail and you know what, it's
Speaker 4: going to be fifty hundred years. That's what I'd like
Speaker 4: to see because there's a lot then get people out
Speaker 4: there busting their butt, follow the rules, and I put
Speaker 4: you in a disadvantage of Michigan right now.
Speaker 1: I love that you were real quick with the answer
Speaker 1: to like, we didn't even bring this up, so that
Speaker 1: was like real quick.
Speaker 4: I really I know.
Speaker 1: That was great. Again, thank you Ryan for coming on.
Speaker 2: I really appreciate you telling us our story from how
Speaker 2: what got you started in the cannabis, talking about getting
Speaker 2: out of prison, working with Dana Nasslow the Attorney General,
Speaker 2: great things with the Foundation, Foundation, every everything that you've done,
Speaker 2: and then the expansion of what you have going on
Speaker 2: and Redemption. It's been great getting all this and I
Speaker 2: think we're definitely over an hour, So thank you for
Speaker 2: staying longer with us on this.
Speaker 1: Really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: I think it would be a very slightful episode, Like
Speaker 2: Groovy said, I mean a lot of people went through
Speaker 2: it and probably vision getting in the market eventually.
Speaker 1: So seeing seeing you do all that, you.
Speaker 5: Just overcome a lot, and you know, I think it's
Speaker 5: motivating story when someone sees a story that someone overcame
Speaker 5: something like who doesn't like an underdog story? Who doesn't
Speaker 5: love a story of redemption?
Speaker 3: Right? Thank you?
Speaker 5: I mean, and I like pun intended, you know what
Speaker 5: I mean, But I mean, how many? How many movies?
Speaker 5: Is underdog story? And you're like.
Speaker 4: Like, you know what I mean?
Speaker 5: So you know it's probably why you get those messages
Speaker 5: because like you know, people want, people want to see
Speaker 5: you succeed when you've been through some bullshit.
Speaker 1: So thank you for taking time out of your night.
Speaker 1: We appreciate it.
Speaker 2: And on that note, I got to give a shout
Speaker 2: to our partners real quick. Thank you to Old School Organics, Kinship,
Speaker 2: Cannoby Extracts, High Drink High nine.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you and helping making this. I'll go around.
Speaker 5: So yeah, we got some great partners you know, and
Speaker 5: helping to keep building is we keep building and keep
Speaker 5: moving forward, you know, like always hope for the bigger future, right,
Speaker 5: got to keep planning.
Speaker 1: Continue evolving.
Speaker 2: You guys have again, thank you Ryan for coming on
Speaker 2: and as always groovy, we're here to advocate, educate and
Speaker 2: inspire the next time y'all.
Speaker 1: Peace