*Content Warning: Drug use and sexually explicit topics*

Transcribed by: Caitlin Carr

Zoe: Everyone welcome to the third season of lemonade! I'm super excited to be back, we are starting off the season strong with our 420 episode as you might have guessed my name is Zoe I'm the CEO and founder of Necessary Behavior and I'm back again with London and today for this episode only we have a very special guest Emma! it's also true!

Emma: Hello! This episode only makes it sounds like im not gonna be invited back..

Zoe: If you do well…<laughs>

London: I feel like Zoes not gonna be invited back after this

Zoe That's also true laugh, see this is why we need bethany cuz otherwise this eefing podcast is gonna take four years to finish 

London: Yes wheres the outline 

Emma: Yeah im looking at it, im ready

Zoe: Today we're going to talk about the Cannabis industry experience within that industry will get into a little bit of products and our favorite And then we'll end up talking about.. we'll talk about laws helping or hurting usually hurting as we all know um the Cannabis industry and consumption of cannabis around the United States and by around the United States its California and Maryland so y’know dont get too crazy <laughs> 

London: <Laughs> thats around, thats across, you got your <inaudible> west coast, we got it..

Zoe: Do you need anything else..?

London: The middle doesnt matter, I swear to God, I dont know what’s going on in the middle so…

Zoe: I grew up there and i dont even know.

London: Exactly! 

Zoe: <Laugus> Um starting of with the cannibus industry, uhh emma tell us a little bit more about your background working in cannibus.

Emma: Where to begin, it became legal in 2017 here in California, 2018 is when I started in the industry so almost as soon as it was possible to legally work in the industry I started delivering  Cannibus for Eaze uh here in California and have since worked in a few different roles with different companies.

Zoe: Nice, did you grow up in California?

Emma: I did I’m from the Bay Area originally but I've been in Los Angeles for almost 5 years, and I went to school in Connecticut for 4 years, paid way to much for my weed.

London: What are some of your favorite parts of your job in the  the industry?

Emma: Uhh my favorite, favorite part is probably smoking weed uhh…

London: Do you smoke at work? 

Emma: Actually I dont usually, uh depend, depends, but I think just the general attitude towards cannabis and towards weed then just like the normalcy of it in the industry is one of my favorite things and so y’know that just ties, just like oh smoking weed is my favorite but its just like its not taboo there and you can just be like super open about it and that I really love it makes for a special Community to have like a lot of Stoners that come together and work hard and kind of like go against the stoner stereotype. 

Zoe: I like that, I like that, um, I know over here you've actually… so Emma and I are friends I don't know if I ever said that yet..

Emma: Woah!

Zoe:  I know mind boggling! 

Emma: I didnt argee to that…

Zoe: Now the, now the whole world knows <laughs>, um but there has been a couple times where you've invited me out to different marketing events where brands are giving some of their products out, I find that really fun, primarily just because you usually end up with quite a bit of weed and then you get to talk to the people and like about their products and I always thought that was pretty neat. 

Emma: For sure for sure. Yeah we have a lot of cool events in the industry it's uh very restrictive in terms of like what kind of events you can have, so people have to get creative and uh yeah you get to meet a lot of brand that have either been in the industry for a while or like new on the market and often times you will get products not every time so don't get your hopes up but your probably at least walk away with a sticker ot a lanyard. 

Zoe: Which is still cool, I would say.

Emma: It.. I mean yeah until you have too many lanyards to know what to do with. Because Cannibus is still federally illegal there are a lot of restrictions, um at least..there in every states but  especially California there's so many laws about how to do things and so a lot of working in the Cannabis industry is sort of finding loopholes or ways to operate within the parameters of the government gives, which is not easy and it does force a lot of creativity kinda like how to reach your target market without breaking the rules or getting banned on instagram 

Zoe: Oh yeah! 

London: Mmm, yeah thats a bad one. I saw a petition actually this week going around for people to sign about like instagram changing their Terms and Service so that more people can post cannibus related content because its get legal in place so, I dont know, so if you can post alcohol and other things you should be able to post weed

Emma: Absolutely, please send me that. It is frustrating because y’know in california we consider weed to be legal but instagram doesn't and it make it hard to create content for a brand or a store or even just like your personal instagram.

Zoe: Um one of the things that I also kind of just branching off all of that, what are some of your least favorite parts of your job at the industry?

Emma: I would say the restrictions are definitely one of the challenging bit and its also the laws are everchanging and growing as we establish this industry in California so trynna keep up to date witht that can be really tricky and also y’know having it being legal is a beautiful thing but its also brought in people that are here for the money and don't necessarily have a background or passion for cannabis and they just wanna capitalism from, it so there's a lot of that to put up with and then there's a disconnect between that corporate side and the retail side um which I’ve seen becuave I’ve worked in both in corporate and retail cannabis and it was very hard for me to <inaudible> from one to the other.

Zoe: Do you think of the people that you have worked with in higher positions are people who care about the products or who are just there for like the cash?

Emma: I'm trying to think of someone that's there because they care about the products and I can't so…<laughs>

Zoe :That answers!

Emma: I hope that answers your question. <chuckle> and thats people that I've worked for or work directly with but I've met plenty of people that are in higher roles that care about it but I think the key is like finding the balance of that or at least like.. hearing about cannabis and someone that I've worked for in the past like they wanted to take the culture out of the Cannabis industry and so much of what the industry is is it's culture and it's really just kind of like making it such a corporate washed out thing

Zoe: Did you comment on the diversity that you have seen within the field do you find that it's there's like a lack of diversity?

Emma: Yeah unfortunately the corporate side is a lot of white people so um  in order to operate a business you have to spend a lot of money on licenses and all these like different legal things and the biggest challenge is that there's no federal access to Capital so you can't get loans from the government and so that is a big barrier in the industry and one of the things California has done is start a social Equity program with legalization that gives licenses and helps people that have been negatively affected by Canada's prohibition that gives them access to resources that would help them build a business in the legal space 

Zoe: You know I never thought about the whole like fundraising aspect of things that makes a lot of sense but it wasn't something that would have ever crossed my mind. 

Emma: Mmm, well luckly disadvantage that prohibition has put on quite a few people specifically people of color and so they launched this Equity program with legalization to try to counteract that, it's just not necessarily as effective as they intended which is unfortunate.

Zoe: Um, so we're going  leave the serious information for just a moment and jump into products.

*Interlude*

Zoe: Commercial break of you will. Um, going back to our tride and true question, our intro question whats everyone smoking today? 

London: Um that is a great question I have this joint, I rolled this joint, I didn't look at the bag I'm not going to lie, um I did not look at the bag at all.

Emma: That's Ok. 

London: But y'know what it was a good joint and it did its job. I wish I had another.  

Emma: Y’know what that's what matters.

London: Emma what are you smoking? 

Emma: I currenly have a Cail heights disposable 

London: Ooh!

Emma: Um I have their live resined um, pretty good!

Zoe: I was going to smoke a Calil heights but I <inaudible> because I just got a disposable for free from my good friend Emma who may or may not be in this podcast. Um may not be… <laughs> um who uhh decided to take some photos of me around for promotional material. Um and so I put them in my bud and she took photos of me 

London: In your Butt?

Zoe: In my butt, right in my pocket.

London: Oh, I dont know why I keep think about only fans…

Emma: Were actually exploring a new way of getting high where you inhaling through your penis. 

Zoe: <laugh>That’s, that's later, Um so I have a Helivated, it is from Seattle and I dont know anything about it.  I dont even know what color it is- er, i know what color it is. <laugh> I’m so high right now I can't see color. <laughs> Oh My..

London: You dont see color Zoe?!

Zoe: Oh My, I actually, <Laugh> Yeah I’m one of those white people. 

Emma: Y’know I've been meaning to talk to you about that Zoe.

Zoe: <laugh> I dont see any color. Pink disposable stick Helivated. That's is all. Yeah. Um pretty good. Um I ok I have I have what I’m smoking, I am smoking the Helivated passion fruit disposable. It's so good it's so tasty!

Emma: Let me hit that!

London: Absolutely not

Zoe: Um So getting back into brand and all of that and who we support where were going, uh what products, well yeah let's start with this, what is your preferred method of getting high?

Emma: Ooh thats a tricky question it's situational

London: It really is always going to say it depends on the situation but like if it's just to get as high as possible it's going to be a bong every time 

Emma: I support that 

London: Yeah like that's a good vibe but on a regular occasion like given the space time, uh a J. We one a good joint.

Emma: Do you roll all your own joints or do you get pre-rolls?

London: I technically I think it's technically rolling but I do get the cones so I don't have to actually roll, roll them with expertise but I do not I don't know they are very convenient but um no they just throw the house weed in there, the random weed, the whatever we unless you're getting a specific pack but you know if you're just getting a general and I'm like I don't want your house weed, but that you for the pre-roll. 

Emma: Right. I do love pre-roll just for the convenience factor. I used to roll joints many years ago then Irolled blunts. Here the thing, I'll buy a pre-roll for like on the go, but if I wanna like explore a strain, or like, y’know really get the taste of something, and like pay attention to like how this flower affects me, bond rips are defentely the way to go. 

Zoe: <inaudible>

Emma: Yeah so idk everyones always talking about oh this weed has this, this weed has that so eventually I was like alright I gotta start knowing the weeds and the best way to get a sense of that , I find is is through a bong rip. 

Zoe: I think disposables and carts are my favorite just because they don't smell and so you can kinda hit them whenever.

London: Zoe your a liar, um that’s no ones favorite but um I do love the convenience I love it for when I don't wanna stink, that's why I've been buying more cards but like I don't know how they're your favorite they're so I hate them they just fuck with my throat so bad like when i smoe anything else I’m fine but when it comes to a cart it will kill me everu single time but I will go in the bathroom and I will suck on the shit like not tommorroe every single time, I don’t care, I always feel like a sixteen year old teenager who goes in like between class but like sometimes you just gotta, y’know, work is stressfull. 

Emma: I just got a cbd cart for the first time and its one to one CBD and THC and or like I love it because I can just be hitting it without getting too high but I love the act of just like hitting something I can't really smoke a joint in my apartment like I hurt my back a couple weeks ago and my CBD, helps me out. 

Zoe; Yeah for sure I have this mint one thats so good.

Emma:  One thing that no one has mentioned: edibles. 

Zoe: Oh F! 

Emma: How do we feel about these?  

London:  I feel like edibles are just like.. Everyone has their edible experience.. <laughs> I feel like everyone has that like one experiences. <laughs> 

Emma: Um are we round and tell our edible experiences?<laughs> 

London: OK I think Zoe you got first. 

Zoe: What!? Me? Ok ok so I feel like I dont have as prolific of a story but I grew up with people who had prolific story…. I didn't grow up with them like my friends whle growing up at very prolific stories and so I was always very cautious that being said I… I've been really into like the Wild brand gummies there's just so good and there's one that I like really like  right now that's I think it's like a CBD TBC blend which is something I've been getting really into I think it's the apple one, so good and then I also the pomegranate I think the apple is like straight THC think the pomegranate is the blend but the apple one is sour and I think that's really cool because I love sour candy, um and there not overly weed tasting their very, like their just a normal little gummy and I think that's really cool, so I would say those are my favorites. I haven't had deeply profound experience. um I will say we did go to an event once that’s was very cool they had Jones soda but it, it was Mary Jones soda and I think by far that has to be probably my favorite, I will say i did get uncomfortable high that night but it was because I drank and entire jones soda with 10 milligrams and then smoked, and then smoked on top of that, and then smoked probably half the joint taking photos. 

Emma: And you were in a building full of weed smoke. 

Zoe: So that's that I would say I would say that's the closes but that was whatever I just went to sleep because I was like, this is too much for me, Im too high. 

London: That's what I love about weed it’s when it’s too much you can just go to sleep every single time and it's like not even an issue. Like just go to sleep.

Zoe: Exactly, yeah yeah exactly exactly. Um what are your prolific edible stories?  

London: I feel like mine it just happened so early on I think this was maybe I don't know I feel like this was probably my first experience with Edibles and I had stolen them from. my from my family friend. He made some homemade edible which is the issue thats where the issue comes in and i had no clue about anything that had to do with milligrams or taking it slow and low and you know doing the thing so I had like a whole bag of cookies..

Emma: Oh no! 

Zoe: Oh no! 

London: And this was the first time I was ever that high, I was high the next day, I had finals, I had finals, I had a music final, I had a performance. it was awful, everything was awful. I was high as fuck. Someone tried to have like  a really emotional deep conversation with me about our relationship and Im like damn im high as fuck right now becuase I’m like- 

Zoe: <laughs>

London: Like yeah I feel like, I feel like that was the first time but I’m still gonna, like I still love a good edible. My favorite thing now to do I have when I’m on a smoking break but I don't generally like… go to them on like a regular day just cuz I want to feel my high immediately, I don’t wanna have to wait for it, like I want it now 

Zoe: True yeah, yeah that wait sucks 

Emma: Yeah they last much longer that its  its harder better to make like a window of time 

London: Mmh, schedule it around your day. I like to have it in the evening if I do have edibles when I'm done with everything I can just be high off my ass and if I get gummines I’ll get like a peach gummy so I can put it in like a green tea and make like a peach green tea with my gummies by melting them in their and then around the holidays I would get my chocolate gummies and put them in my hot chocolate  and I'd be high off my- I was high off my ass at every holiday event because of that trick so um, if you guys need tips for like getting through-  and whenever I’m sick I definitely put like gummies in my tea and I’m like even of my throat hurts and I can’t smoke, imma still get high. 

Zoe: I support. Um that reminds me I kinda in a similar vain I love drinking weed!  

London: Yea its so good! 

Zoe: So cool right?!  I-  we had one from can I think at the beach once, and it was like so good its was kinda like a soda-y type thing,  like blue raspberry favor but it was so good and just a nice bubbly drink on the beach,  high as balls. But I definitely I might, I might take you up on your peach tea type situation because that sounds delicious 

London: I- just start dropping gummies and stuff, that's all i gotta tell you.  

Emma: I also have a next day high experience and had to babysit the pastors kid.. But that is not my edible experience that I am sharing today. My is from  420, my sophomore year of high school i had smoked before but i was doing it wrong so on 420 I bought some cookies from a friend and i thought i maybe getting high before so i was expecting super lowkey like an adrenaline high and i had one of the cookies as i was skateboard to crew practice, like boat rowing and all of a sudden i was in a boat. I was in a boat and my coach was yelling, “are you listening to me!?” and I just like turn my head, I  was all red like, “what” so i dont know if you guys know anything about crew but it’s- there are like 8 people- 9 people in the boat rowing and 8 of them are rowing, the 2 people at the back are in charge of steering so they’ll take like extra strokes or like extra- y’know whatever to steer the boat. I happen to be in the position that day which I never was so that meant like paying extra attention and the other girl, the only other fucking stoner on the team was in the other position that had to steer and we were just glazed out of our minds 

London: <laughs> I love that for you.

Emma: Yeah that's my edible story. 

Zoe: So we're going to transition into something a little bit more important some might argue that our favorite smokeables, drinkables, Edibles we're going to talk a little bit about what laws have California have put into place and how they are affects california in particular and then London is going to talk about Maryland and what things look like. 

London: And then we'll have covered the whole U.S. Yeah, all the places 

Zoe: Everything. Um yes so both of our documents I think, both of our documents are gonna  be linked in the shownotes so if you’d like to learn a little bit more, um  that will be there for you but I'm just going to go over some kind of like main key points so the average sentence of marijuana only offenses is approximately 5 and 1/2 months, which is still a lot- 

Emma: Just like enough to really disrupt your life, like of you have kids, or you have to pay rent, you have a job like, 145 days is just gonna throw all of that off. 

Zoe: Yeah for sure for sure and that's from 2014 for marijuana only. In 2010 it was on average 183 days so only like a month more so it's not like things have really been drastically reduced which I think is very interesting to see. I think I'll go through like all  of the- the racial makeup of California residents versus persons in jail for marijuana only offenses. The study was also from 2014 um, so 39% of the population is Latino and 35% are jailed Statewide for marijuana only um, 39% of the population is white and 31% of the jailed population is white uh,  a 6% of the population of California is black and 24% of the population jailed for marijuana is black- 

Emma: Math ain’t mathing. 

Zoe: I know exactly, and then other races, minorities are 17% of the population and 13% of the jailed population so it's pretty even for every group except for black residents which I would love to say that, that surprises me but it just genuinely does not.

Emma: I just want to mention since we're talking about different races in California and how the  government um refers to out beloved cannabis, all government documents, and all those things call it marijuana, but we are moving pass that in cannabis culture to call it cannabis becuase marijuana is a term that was used fear mongering against the wacky tobacky, the devils lettuce back at the beginning of prohibition um and just inherently anti-Mexican. So y’know they villainize marijuana associated it with foreigners with Mexicans that Americans just love so dearly and so we wanna move past that and leave that term behind but the government is still using it.

Zoe: For sure. Um London how about your path of the United states?

London: Well over here on the entire other half, I'm gonna start with- well now there is medical uh cannabis legalization in Maryland. We just voted for it so in June or July, I dont know one of those two, but um, prior to that in 2010 Maryland spend 106 million dollars enforces marijuana possession laws that same year, Maryland had the 5th highest cannibus possession arrest rate in the US and was the 3rd highest state in the US who had- who spend money on the arrest for marijuana possesion.Yes so that's where all my money is going if you wanted to know. How awful. So rate of black arrest compared to white arrest for marijuana in 2014 the year it was decriminalized there were 80000 thousand arrest black arrest for every 30000 arrest for white people. We dont love to see it, we dont love to see it. So black people were 2.1 time more likely to be arrest for marijuana possion than white people. 

Zoe: Damn 

London: I know I know, I know, and now to purchase marijuana full THC everything legally not just CBD you have to have a medical cannabis card, and- there not hard to get but you have to pay for it so that’s one barrier and, this by year Maryland medical cannabis commision retail statistics in 2021 it was projected that they would make- 

Zoe: Oh my goodness!

London: 600 million, yes in 2021 the projected statics were 600 million and in 2020 the project retail sales was over 400 million dollars. Now from what I have seen over here, yes it has be legalized but I have heard on outcry from current participates in the cannabis industry, the illegal cannabis industry because they know cannabis but the will not be included now that it is recreationally legalized and we see that over there in California yall? It's about to come right on here, there are not coing to include my people in the cause. So what do we need to do? Stand up and fight. <laugh> Why am I rallying?!

Zoe: <laughs> I’m here for it!

Emma: I hate that I'm laughing becuase I love it. <Laughs>

London: But no its serious. I thought I would mention that like, yes I saw that people who are- yeah there not in the legal industry and now that it’s recreational legalized, its gonna hurt them and hurt like one of their primary easy of making money and I would like to remind people at the end of the day that they are also business people, just because it's easier for others to participate in the legal job market, some people its easy for to participate in it and others it's not as easy. So people find a way to make money and run businesses otherwise. America’s cold cold hard country to live in. Like a lot of people aren't see the corporate side so it's good that Emma got to bring that and show people, like, this is really what's happening and then from the outsider point of view, from, people who aren't on the legal job market like and the corporate field, they are also relevant in this conversation so I think that's important to note. 

Zoe: For sure. Especially because of these brands are just riding on the backs of people who have been doing this for so long and it's like you guys just got to walts right at the right fucking moment but like don't forget who built your goddamn client help first!

Emma: If your starting a business from scratch and your hiring people, consider who your hiring. There backgrounds, diversity, and like there's so much to learn from these legacy operators that like your really putting yourself- 

Zoe: A grave disservice!

London: <laughs> A great dsservice!

Emma: Yeah, your doing a disservice to- no, that's, that's good, that's great. Your doing yourself a disservice. If you dont include like legacy operators people that know the plan that's the thing is like-, people might think they know business but you don't know thew plan, like these people who have been cultivating it for decades like there's so much to be learned from that and so much expertise that you can’t discount like that knowledge.

Zoe: For sure. Also I’m a big fan of reparation within the space too, I think especially when states have such bad fucking histories, like that’s one thing that at least with Maryland, and I’m sure with many many other states, California too, also just the United states um now like you spend so much money throwing black peole in jail- and like where’s that money going now that you're not spending as much there probably into your fucking white congressman's pocket like I don't know it's just very disheartening. 

London: I'm excited to see that people are getting their records expunged but like definitely reparations is a step even further because thinking about the time, money, that people both lost because they were in jail so they- you know you're in captivity and then two you literally have to oay your own legal bills and to remind people, this is a non-violent crime, we dont want money to be spend on this anyway but, if it's going to be spent on it why is so much being spent on non-violent crimes, it's just an excuse to arrest black people but anyway.

Emma: I worked for a company that own 4 retail stores and as we were approaching Black History Month, I wanted to do something, we- we do something every holiday, so like thanksgiving, huge day, Christmas, great New years, valentines day like its marketing you always are doing something for the holiday, and like not that black history month is a holiday but it’s something on our calendar, where we acknowledge something, and while it's not a marketing ploy it’s a great way to feature black brands so that what I wanted to do and it's also just like kinda goes in like in line with social equity like what can we do to lift black people up in this industry, you know share their products get more people to know  them so i made some signage for our retail store that said :Black History Month at insert retail store name here, shop these brands this month you know lets empower people. Featured a number of brands, um ultimately my signage never made it to the stores and I kept asking my boss was like “Hey have we gotten that approved yet? Are we doing this like is there any materials I can give you to you know make this happen or you know to get it approved and every time she texted the person that made these decisions, they straight up ignored her. They would respond to other stuff in the text chain. Straight up ingored everything that we said about doing something for Black History Month and nothing came of it and then got laid off 6 days into Black History Month. Yeah not only was it an extremely disappointing process um for me, I learned about sort of where the industry stands with black own brands. 

Zoe: Buy black weed! Buy black weed!

London: Buy my weed. Um I’m here to promote my business.

Zoe: Buy London's weed!

London: Um buy my weed um you can find me at Londonsweed.org, thank you. Don't tell anyone. <laughs>

Zoe; This is a secret for subscribers only buylondonsweed.gov 

London: Yes it’s a dot gov 

Zoe: Special promo code: I love my <inaudible> 

London: Even though its April, its still black history month so if you send in a picture in to prove that your black  you get 50% off. Yup.

Zoe: Yup. So yeah, check on your local state and federal laws makers, president included, and see if their actually doing anything, and if they are, make sure its good and if they not, well it's not that surprising. But hopely we can, we can, make them feel bad about all the harm that they can causing currently and they will actually finally do something So That's my goal of mine, and thank you Emmna for joining us today. Uh is there any social media platform that people can find you on that you’d like to share?

Emma: Follow me on instagram at emmaschlix yeah so follow me, read the scriptures..

London: scriptures? Yes. 

Emma: Just kidding I was trynna make like a follow me, I’m Jesus joke.

London: The scriptures? Cult? Im down, I mean I’m not down, I’m down to observe from a far, whatever you got going on, go off. Happy 420, stay high and stay horny. Peace out 

Zoe: We’ll see you later! Get high on our behave. Thanks for joining us, we’ll catch you later after we catch out breath!