Howie:

Good morning. Hopefully this is Cody Bass from Tahoe Wellness Center. Yes.

Cody:

Oh, this is me, Howie. Good morning. Toke Talk Tuesday back again.

Howie:

Optimistic. Tuesday is now it’s official now folks, every time it’s just filler for the first couple hours and then when Cody calls in, it officially launches the Tuesday up here. That’s what I think.

Cody:

That’s definitely, it’s the official start of my week. Forget Monday.

Howie:

It does, man. And you know what I got to say? It was kind of fun seeing you this past Sunday over at the Beach Retreat for the 11th annual Bloody Mary competition. That was fun, man

Cody:

Such a great event. It’s cool to just see all the restaurants come out and I love that it’s people’s choice and such a beautiful setting. So yeah, such a great day. Mike and the team, they really put together a good event, man.

Howie:

Did a great Job. Yep. In fact, it’s funny because I must’ve taken pictures. There were a lot of folks that were visiting a nice couple from Alaska, from Anchorage. It was their first time in Tahoe, first time at the Bloody Mary competition, and it was kind of cool just seeing the expression on their faces going, that’s what it looks like, man, that’s a pretty big body of water. I go, yeah, you guys, but you could see Russia from your house. So it was like, and I love the Tahoe heartbeat. They’ve got a great tent there and all the different people who contributed and all the great bartenders. Man, there were some killer, some killer. Bloody Mary’s

Cody:

yeah, definitely. Even the ones that are made out of green Tomatoes, there’s definitely some different recipes and super cool. Yeah, great event. Good to see. And it’s cool too, because it’s not just from restaurants in Tahoe, there’s some restaurants. No, it’s all over Virginia City and from all over. So yeah, super good day.

Howie:

And there was one, they didn’t do that great, but they were from San Francisco. I think it was the first time up here for the event, but first time you’ll get the hang of it after a while. But Whiskey Dicks had a great one, the beach retreat, and I love Buckaroos from Gardnerville. God, those guys are awesome, man. Some great, great. And it was just a brand new one. It’s going to be a brand new restaurant called Retta or something like that. It’s going to be opening in November at Lower Kingsbury.

Cody:

Yeah, yeah, that’s right. Bruta, which bru. You know what? I really liked those guys because they were the only ones that used steel reusable cups, which hopefully as we go further and we’ll do more events especially like that where you’re giving out little samples, if we can get to these reusable cups, it’d be much better. But either way, it’s such a great event and such a cool event. But Bruce, I believe they’re opening up right by you in the old Sierra.

Howie:

Yes, right down here, man. They said they’re shooting for Thursday and they had a great drink. It was in a boot like this glass boot man, and it was, anyway, kudos for everyone who was a part of it. Here’s what I want to see. I want to see a tahoe wellness center tent with your merchandise there, and then take it one step further and come up with a Bloody Mary cannabis drink. That would be two highs at once right there.

Cody:

Yeah, right. That’d be great. Well, one day maybe, I mean at this point they don’t really ever let us mix the alcohol and the cannabis, but there will be a day and there is a need. Honestly, it really relates back more to wine and the infusion that cannabis and wine can come together with, which is really an amazing thing because it gets cannabis into your blood quicker than really almost any other way. Melissa Etheridge actually was somebody that was very big into some of the first, well, I would say she’s the first one that came out publicly that she had taken a vineyard of hers and started to make cannabis infused wines. And it’s such a great, there’s a lot of benefits that I feel like we don’t even fully grasp yet because the research hasn’t taken place, but it is, the flavors of it come together really.

They pair very well. And of course the effect is going to be much different than your normal glass of wine. But yeah, cannabis and alcohol, there will be a day. One of the things that when we get into having consumption, we’re going to be able to offer infused mocktails is what I’ll call ’em because they won’t have any type of alcohol in it, but we’ll be able to infuse it with cocktail, handshake it and prepare it there for you for consumption. Same thing with infused coffee. So yeah, some of these infusions are going to be really cool and that’s where they lead themselves to kind of like an event like there where you could have a different contest based on different drinks. And so yeah, there’s going to be some exciting things to come. I mean, our city I’m hoping will also look at having, or I should say permitting cannabis events like many of the cities have done, even in Golden Gate Park last weekend, they had outside lands and they do something called Grasslands, which is more or less like an open cannabis market at the venue or in Golden Gate Park. And so it’s legal in state law. We got to get the city to create a part of the ordinance where they’ll authorize events and then yeah, we could have all sorts of creative events.

Howie:

How about this? How about a Virgin Bloody Mary with all the cool ingredients and everything minus the alcohol, but you add the cannabis in that Virgin Bloody Mary concoction. I would easily be consuming those in a heartbeat.

Cody:

Yes, definitely. No, I think that that’s a great idea. I mean honestly too, anytime that you can take an edible and make it actually healthy, what you’re consuming is nutritional is so much better. We have a lot of people sick and if they can get something nutritional in their body as they’re also getting medicated, then it’s a double whammy. It helps them get nutrition and get the medicine they need. And so a Bloody Mary with no alcohol is super nutritional. Yeah, I would think so. If you have the cannabis in it, it’d be great. I think you’re always onto something, Howie. I

Howie:

Think it’d be a nice alternative too, because man, I had to hydrate like crazy after Sunday and it’s a good thing to, the signal was down for a while, that’s why I didn’t come in yesterday. Although they got it done pretty quickly halfway through my show. But man, I needed that extra day just to decompress and get more fluids in me. But I think a virgin Bloody Mary that that would be awesome with cannabis. Yeah.

Cody:

No, I seriously think you’re on the stuffs in there, hall man. Play with that.

Howie:

Okay, here’s the other thing too. This morning I sent an email to the press secretary’s publicist about, because Biden’s going to be up here Friday. Well you already know this Friday through Thursday. But sent him an invitation if he wants to be on the radio show. And is there any chance I didn’t want to mention in the email, I didn’t want to overload it, just say, Hey, the show’s number one, I had to lie a little bit and then I wanted to say, well, you’re up here. You should check out some of the fine things that Tahoe has to offer. Of course, you have to go out to Emerald Bay, but why not stop by T W C while you’re up here,

Cody:

Man, ally, if you can make that happen, that would be all time. The Biden administration has signaled that, well, they actually directed the Health and Human Services director to bring back a policy to the White House to make recommendations to allow for cannabis to not be federally interfered. And we’ve already got that in budget appropriations through the house in the Senate. However, we’ve never got the White House or any real policy at the federal level. So what the President and the White House have the authority through executive action is to deschedule or reschedule cannabis so that they could easily move the scheduling from Schedule one to Schedule three, let’s say, or would be better. Schedule four would be better, three at least. We would not be dealing with the insane tax liabilities that we deal with, but there’s a lot of unknowns. So anyways, getting the president into an actual dispensary, I would say that no US President has ever been into a dispensary.

And to get him into one of the country’s oldest dispensaries, man, that would be remarkable. And honestly, one of the things back, this is way back in 2017, I would say, just after the adult use law passed, we actually had a panel discussion at Beach Retreat, and it was back when Chief Eller was here, and actually Devin Middlebrook organized it. This is way before either one of us were on council and he got the chief of the Department of Cannabis Control from California to come and it was awesome. So we did this pizza treat and it was pretty funny. I’m sitting on the panel and it comes to me and I start talking about the benefits of adult use cannabis and how much it blends with the things that we do in Tahoe like skiing and snowboarding and boating. And I’m like, how much safer it is for somebody to take the lift and smoke a joint on the lift rather than go to the sky deck and have a shot of whiskey after taking a run.

The joint is such a better alternative. And Chief Eller almost popped his lid. You’re telling people a smoke in public and that’s still going to be illegal. He was so bad. Well, the chief of the cannabis control, which is really who I wanted to connect with, couldn’t believe what a fricking just complete a-hole. The guy was. So she comes up to after me and says, I cannot believe that’s who you have to deal with. And I’m like, tell me about it. But anyways, what ends up happening is I say, Hey, my dispensary is literally 150 feet from here. Will you please make a trip? Come walk through our dispensary? And she did. And honestly, it was right when they were drafting regulations and because we had cultivation on site, we had onsite consumption, we manufactured and we did all of that under one roof. And I really was able to speak to her about how important it is to have a business license that is for small mom and pop operations that already do everything. So anyways, long story short, it was super effective. And if we could get the president through, man, that would be a million times more effective. So keep on it. Howie. No,

Howie:

I’ll, I’m going to send a secondary email and see what I get back. Hey, I was going to say, I’ve been to a couple of those meetings with the Beat retreat on Beach Retreat on the second floor where you were zooming. I remember when they did the first one and when Colorado was the first state, they had that representative on the cannabis, and then you were on that panel, and I think they had the chief of police on there. And I think there was a couple of representatives from Barton Hospital as well too. Each one gave their opinion on it and everything. But I do remember that one with the chief of police. I thought for sure I was going to see Oppenheimer two erected over the Beach Retreat Road. It was like, wow.

Cody:

Right. Oh man. Back in the day at the time, one of the things I wanted to bring to the show today, which is pretty cool, there was a new study that just came out of the International Journal of Drug Policy, which is actually major researchers out of big universities. But what it’s showing is that they’ve done research over the past decade in states that have legalized cannabis and found that insurance policies and premiums in those states have dramatically come down compared to states that have not legalized medical cannabis. And it goes into the reasons that they’re finding. And a lot of it is the reduction of prescription drug use when medical cannabis is an alternative is dramatically lowering the prescription insurance premium cost in these states. And the study goes on to find that the opioid impacts in the states with medical cannabis has dramatically been reduced.

And so pretty cool stuff because as I’ve talked about before, we’re finally starting to see some of the research where universities have been authorized for the first time since 1973. And before that, we really didn’t do any type of research because the drug had been illegal since 1938, the Controlled Substance Act in 73, which is what deemed it to have no medicinal or research value. But regardless, this is just some of the stuff that science and research is going to start to bring forward. And it’s a great thing because it helps to show the benefits that cannabis is actually going to provide to every state and nation throughout the world as we continue to legalize and bring it forward. So that’s cool stuff, man. And so much more cool research to come out of this over the next, I would say over the next decade or more, we’re just going to see a ton of new data and research that supports what we’ve always known. But in science, that’s how you get people that really only look to science and research, which is a smart way to go about it. But again, all that research coming forward is just going to help the change and it’s a great day.

Howie:

And it’s got to be kind of fulfilling too, to be on the cutting edge, not only when all this you hear about the latest and everything because you’re always on top of all that stuff, but to be at the cutting edge right there at the retail level to be able to have something to go right away, much has been given the green light when you’re waiting to get approval for whatever agency or what source.

Cody:

Yeah, no, most, I mean, it is, it’s great to see the change happen and kind of unfold over Tahoe Wellness. We’ve been there for almost 15 years, but yeah, in the last five years alone, I mean, there has been such a dramatic change. And the more cool thing is the more that people understand it, accept it and begin to use it, the consumption rate just continues to rise. And so yeah, we’re incredibly excited about the future of what’s to come.

Howie:

Oh, cool. Well man, I wish we need to do a talk show where we could just chat and open the phone lines and that kind of thing. That’d be fun to just do an hour. A whole hour would be awesome.

Cody:

Let’s do it. I’m all about it. I’m

Howie:

All about it. That’d be really cool, man. Do you have to head off to another city council meeting or is that

Cody:

We got the day off finally, which is good. So no, we don’t have city council. It’s only every other Tuesday, next week’s our budget workshop. So it’s full on council meeting, but busy week, got all sorts of meetings and yeah, so never stops.

Howie:

Alright man. Well I’m going to go ahead and send another email to the White House and just as a second.

Cody:

Alright, nice reminder, follow mind that Tahoe Wellness piece. Alright.

Howie:

Okay. Definitely man. I have him tune into and

Cody:

Then we’ve got up north who’s one of our best flower cultivators in the state, and they are going to be in store on Sunday from 11, lemme make sure I got that right. No, from one to four. One to four. The Sunday the 20th, 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM come meet the growers. They know all about the different strains. And again, up north is one of the best flower producers in the state. So cool guys to meet and come see us Sunday noon to four.

Howie:

Wow. And Biden will still be here?

Cody:

Biden will still be here, yeah, that’s right.

Howie:

Okay, man. Hey, as always Cody, it’s a slice chatting with you, man. It really is.

Cody:

Yeah, you too, Howie. Always great. Good start to the week.

Howie:

Yeah man. We have a great Tuesday and beyond and we’ll chat next week, my man.

Cody:

Oh, right, right on. Have a good one. Thanks.