Latest / Bite Me The Show About Edibles / The Incredible Story of the Nectarball Documentary with Patty Mooney & Mark Schulze

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The Incredible Story of the Nectarball Documentary with Patty Mooney & Mark Schulze · Bite Me The Show About Edibles

• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: What happens when you take a love of food, a passion for culture, and a deep knowledge of cannabis and you toss them all into one bowl?
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: You get Vipey, the podcast that explores the intersection of food, culture, and cannabis and helps cooks make great edibles at home.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, a certified gangier, TCI certified cannabis educator, and I believe your kitchen is the best dispensary you'll ever have.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: And together we'll explore stories and science and the sheer joy of making safe, effective, and unforgettable edibles at home.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: So preheat your oven and get ready today for a great episode.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: For episode 324, I had the opportunity to sit down with filmmakers Patty Mooney and Mark Schultz.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now, these two have been in the filmmaking space for a very long time, and they have also been advocating for cannabis for just as long.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: And they made a documentary called Nectar Ball, which is our focus today, this film that they've put together based on the idea of living a high quality life.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it all started at the Emerald Cup.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: And throughout the years, they had the opportunity to interview all kinds of cannabis OGs and luminaries, the names that we know and trust in the cannabis space.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: This documentary was a labor of love.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: It took them several years and a whole pile of money to put together.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: And they're here today to talk about that process, share their story, and some of the things that they learned along the way.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: So without further ado, please enjoy this conversation with Patty and Mark.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so we're actually we're live now, and I am joined today by Patty and Mark, who are the filmmakers behind Nectar Ball.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm really excited to have you both here today to tell the listeners of Byte Me a little bit more about yourselves in this documentary that you took seven years to produce.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe you can just start out by introducing yourselves to the listeners of Bite Me and tell us a little bit about your own cannabis journey and what brought you to doing this documentary in the first place.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_03: Pat, you want to start, ladies first?
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Patty Mooney, and I'm a co-producer and editor of Nectar Ball, The Story of Cannabis, along with a few other cannabis-related films.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_02: And well, cannabis isn't our only focus.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_02: We've been producing films since 1982 together via our company, Crystal Pyramid Productions, and our other company that distributed our tapes at the time, VHS tapes, new and unique videos.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_02: And how the idea came for cannabis, the cannabis, uh Nectarball, the story of cannabis film, I'll I'll leave that to Mark.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_03: I am Mark Schultz, uh producer and director of photography.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_03: I did you know the filming around the world for Nectarball the Story of Cannabis.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_03: Uh since this is the DVD, but and we did interviews with Tommy Chong and John Sally and Raphael Michulin before he passed away and nurse Heather and uh Ed Rosenthal and you name it, Gigo Betty.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_03: This great people from all over the world, uh, South Africa, South America.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, of course, uh the Emerald Cup was kind of where we got our started in 2016.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_03: I went up there, uh, Tim Blake's little Emerald Cup up at Santa Rosa, and went to the history section.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_03: I gravitated there, met a lot of OG uh cannabis, you know, affectionados, connoisseurs, growers like myself.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_03: And I started uh back when I was a kid, like 15 years old, when I first started tripod and uh got my first little bud that I got from my aunt in 1972 before I even smoked it.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_03: Uh I didn't really even smoke until 74.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_03: Pot and growing it back in 74.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_03: And um anyway, they in 2016 went to the Emerald Cup and met all these wonderful people and told them about my collection of old buds, the necktie ball collection, and they said, Wow, that's that's amazing.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_03: I don't think any I've never heard of anybody that's got that.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_03: And so we I did a little filming then in 2016, and then said, told Patty, we got to go back in 2017 and bring our green screen and our you know bigger professional equipment, uh, big uh you know, professional equipment we use for Crystal Pyramid to do our corporate clients videos.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_03: And we said, let's let's uh take this up there, big green screen, lighting, sound, everything, and interview all these illuminaries up there because they're such fantastic people.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_03: I said they're all gathered together at one place.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_03: So Tim Blake gave us a little room in the back, uh, and we we set everything up and uh made it as soundproof as we could, and just started pulling people in from you know Swan Me Select and his wife and uh Growers from the Humboldt Five, and Patty can tell you all these people because she ended up having to transcribe 165 interviews over six years of traveling the world, uh getting all these interviews.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_03: And so we just started in 2017 filming for it, and then went all the way until about 2023.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_03: She was editing.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, we still gathered a few interviews and things like Amsterdam and uh so we were from Europe, South America.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_03: The last place we did was South Africa, uh Cape Town area, Namibia, all these places, and they had some legalized dispensary type social clips too.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_03: So all that put together, and it was wonderful people.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_03: We do no narration.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, Patty took all those transcripts and and spent about a year and a half editing this after she got the pearls of about 65 of 165.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_03: So we we did all things another thing with people that didn't make the cut.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_03: Patty added up a bunch of what we call Canon Minutes.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_03: We put that on Citizen Green TV, citizengreen.tv, Steve Peterson, and those people.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_03: So they've got the Canon minutes along with uh you can see it also redcoraluniverse.com and of course our website, nectarball.com.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_03: And uh that's kind of how we started and got into the movie, and then we we made a she Pat made a short 10-minute one called Fighting Cancer with Cannabis.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_03: That one we put in San Francisco Festival and then put that out um on a few a few shows.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_03: People I'm now buying that's only 10 minutes, so it wasn't really you know, it's not like something Amazon Prime wanted, whereas they wanted Niger Boyle, the story of cannabis, which is an 83 or 82-minute documentary.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and again, we don't do narration of the experts and the pros and the nurses and the scientists and the growers and all the other OG people talk and and tell us.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_03: And then we did an offshoot of 12 black cannabis visionaries with John Sally, and um we did a few more interviews at uh MJ BizCon where we uh just released that one that was 2025.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_03: However, we uh took that down off of many sites other than Red Coral Universe because it's only 38 minutes, because we wanted to uh uh make a 60-minute version because it would be easier to distribute worldwide that way, uh 60 minute.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_03: So we have to get some more footage, so that'll probably be coming out in 2026 or re-released as a longer version, and that's pretty much our journey of cannabis-centric documentaries and as Pat would say, films, even though we hope but he shoots film anymore.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_03: But we we our our background is in educational uh document and documentaries, uh shows that we used to release in VHS starting in 1985 with um Common Sense Self-Defense for Women and uh Pants and Massage for Relaxation video, and then we did one called California Big Hunks, which is a crazy fun one that was like before Chippendale's, no nudity, but the six sexy stripper guys, California Big Hunks stripped down, and that's also out there in the market.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_03: If you look for California Big Hunks, that was a fun one in '85.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_03: And uh a few others we did, um, and then a bunch of mountain biking videos, the ultimate mountain biking video followed before that that the great mountain biking video, and then uh full cycle world odyssey.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_03: We went around the world on our mountain bikes, kind of like Endless Summer on Mountain Bikes, and that one just got picked up by a bunch of places too, including Amazon Prime.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, so we you know, we're doing okay, but you know, we you don't make a documentary, by the way, as Patty will tell you too, to make any money.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_03: It's uh we probably put in a quarter of a million at making the film.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and we've probably seen a few hundred dollars so far, but we we really want it to be seen by people, so hopefully your viewers will check it out because it's as you can you you could attest seeing it yourself, how good a documentary it is, and and how it can help the world be a better place with cannabis in it.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it sounds I did have the opportunity to watch the film myself, and it was great.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: And it sounds like it took you all over the world while you while you're producing this this documentary, and as you mentioned already, seven years it took to put this movie out.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Were there any big misconceptions that you had going into the project that completely changed by the end?
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_02: One of the things that that struck me was just a quote by uh a cultivator named Matt Gress that he had gone into uh the can med and seen a uh presenter who said, You can eat the herb that's in a plastic baggie in your pocket right now and get benefits just from eating the plant.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_02: And another grower, Sunshine, Sarah Seda, said one of the most uh um like amazing things you can do is juice it.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_02: And so the plant itself, as you know, you have your focus on edibles, contains so many cannabinoids in its raw state.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_02: So we always thought it had to be fired up to get good.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um, no, the whole plant and the male plant has benefits too.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, this plant is meant for us, right?
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: That is pretty interesting that you mentioned that because people really don't talk about consuming THCA or CBDA, which is or the other plant compounds before they're decarboxy.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: We're always setting it on fire or baking it in the oven.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: So that's that's pretty interesting.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: A good thing to point out because I I'm growing some plants right now and I've decided I'm gonna try some juicing of those leaves once I harvest and stuff.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: So that is that is very insightful.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: Now you two have been together.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: You two have been together for 43 years, and you describe yourselves as experts in high quality living.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: How did creating this documentary shift your personal relationship with cannabis?
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_03: Hmm.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_03: Good question.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_03: I I'd I'd say I'd start not bad.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_03: You jump in anytime.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I I mean, I always say like love is all there is.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, period.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_03: Just the you know, you're on this planet for a short period of time, and like in the movie The Notebook, you know, you you if you could uh uh put yourself in the right place and you meet the love of your life.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_03: And in my case, I made my wish out of my little crystal, and I go, hey, uh, you know, uh, I want to meet my soulmate on before Valentine's Day, nine months before, and then all of a sudden, poof, you know, on Valentine's Day, she's I'm filming for the World Hunger Project at a little theater called the La Paloma here in Ansenidas, near San Diego.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_03: And there she was, one of this, one of the actors, singers.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_03: And uh I fell madly in love just like just on site.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_03: They say, Fall your site, you see someone, and you but I didn't want her to freak her out, say something like that.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_03: So I invited her out to dinner and and we you know hung out.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_03: She had a bunch of boyfriends, but we ended up being together since like Valentine's Day in 1982.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so love is there, and and that's the most important thing.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_03: And then teaming up to do things afterwards and decide like, well, what do you want to do?
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_03: And high quality life is is is trying to live every day.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, like almost like if it's you could be your last.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, we none of us know.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_03: You get hit by a lot of lightning or meteor, but not likely.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_03: So if you're gonna live, you might as well make every day count.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_03: Um and you know, eat right, exercise, have fun, go out in nature a lot.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_03: Those are all things that we do to live a high quality life.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_03: Like later today, we're gonna be on a mountain bike ride with a few friends nearby here, and just you know, get up back out in nature.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_03: We try to go out in nature at least twice a week, if not if you count our backyard, which is on a can over a canyon, then we are in nature every day.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_03: I go out gardening, like you've got my little plants, and just try to, you know, it's it's it's such a beautiful plant, and that's uh the first one I grew when I was a little kid.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't want to kill, and that's how I found out that they turned into buds, happened to be a female one.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_03: I don't want to kill it, it just gets better and better, it seems.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_03: What is this sticky stuff?
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_03: And that's where I came up with the name nectar ball, because there's these little they started turning little balls and they're sticky, and that's sticky.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_03: What is that?
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_03: It's turn you know, TFC resin capsules on the tricombs.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know, that's words, but I read all the books I could get on cannabis after that.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_03: And then when I was going to school at UCSD and then move up a huge crop out in the mountains, you know, then it got busted the second year because uh in San Diego there's there's no place to hide your buds.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, like this is this was a picture from 1979 uh of the buds, and as you can see in the background, there's no trees.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_03: This is kind of on focus.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know if it the camera should focus on this, but it's um but anyway, the the there it goes.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_03: In the background, you can't you don't see it.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_03: It's all this mountains like this one, and that's me, you know, there in the mountains.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_03: There's no trees, you can't hide your pot.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_03: So we got busted.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_03: But anyway, that's right after that.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_03: I met Patty and we've been together since uh having a great time.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_03: Pat, you chime in any role.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_03: We don't have kids, by the way.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_03: That's another makes it easier for us.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: I guess that's our films.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_03: Our films are our children, it's our art form, it's our way of giving back to the world, leaving the world a better place with us in it, as opposed to some of the stuff going on right nowadays with a lot of people.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_02: So the high quality life for me is um it's a double entendre, right?
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_02: High.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_02: It's nice to be high because you your perspective of the world is kind of like you're you have a wider, higher perspective of it, and it's not you're not like so diminished as to be depressed or lost, you're part of it, you're part of it all.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_02: So um, when we went into our mode of talking to people and learning while we were filming this project, we learned about how uh you it's not there are so many more delivery systems of the plant than just smoking it.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_02: You can eat it, you can spread it on your skin, you can take little drops, tinctures.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_02: So Mark started making some tinctures and balms because with our mountain biking career over the last, well, since 1986, we've been mountain biking together.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, you get your aches and pains.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_02: It's an inherently very dangerous sport.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_02: You crash a couple times here and there.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_03: You're working that jackhammer going over rocks.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_02: So my shoulders are really worked, and so I use the balm on that.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_02: I take the tinctures every night.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_02: He makes he makes the sleepy blend and helps me sleep through the night.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_02: No, no more insomnia, no more pain at night that keeps me awake.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_02: So it's, I mean, I I hesitate to use the word miraculous, but like I said before, this plant is made for humans, the cannabinoids, the cannabinoid receptors we have in our bodies.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_02: That's another thing we learned about the endocannabinoid system that most doctors have no clue about because it can't be taught in medical school, because it's been on this horrible list as a negative drug.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_02: Insane, insane.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_02: Why would we chop off our own nose despite our face?
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, and also um I made pet well before I did the tinctures and whatnot, I'd make brownies, of course.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_03: Everybody's not classic brownie mix with cart box-wise pot and everything, and so she take a little square because it's pretty powerful.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_03: You do it right with it, you know, and uh with the right amount in the oils, and uh gave some to our friends, and they everybody seems to love it.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_03: Like, you know, Margaret, you can obviously talk and you do about consuming edibles in a tasty way.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I'm sure we we can all learn from you tastier ways to do it too.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know I I love that you brought up the topicals as well, because I feel like any aging adult, and I put myself in this category, I mean, I don't know if I could survive the day without my topicals as well.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, it's such a gentle and approachable way to get into cannabis.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I maybe hesitate to use the word miraculous as well, because it doesn't necessarily help all the physical ailments that we have, but for those that find relief through topicals, it really is miraculous, honestly.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm really glad that you brought that up.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_03: Now in the process of the the the nectar bomb, we made some of that, and my soccer players like love putting on their knees, that's old soccer players over 60s, you know.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_03: So these guys are over the 40s, they're going, hey man, this is great for my knees.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so yeah, yeah.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: No, any of those knees and joints, it's uh topicals are pretty uh a must-have in anybody's arsenal of medical help.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: But now for the documentary, you interviewed, as you already mentioned, over 165 cannabis luminaries, but you're only able to feature about 52 in the final cut.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: So, what kinds of stories or perspectives didn't make it in and why?
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: And now it does sound like when you were talking in the beginning, Mark, that you are going to be releasing some of these interviews that didn't make it, but was there anything in particular why they didn't make it into the original documentary?
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_03: I want to let Patty answer that, but I will say before that that um uh because it was mainly her decision based on the transcripts and what the flow, you know, from history, from the past, the present to the future, you know, and and want to make sure we gave a voice to everybody, including farmers, which have never gotten a voice in any other movies per se, usually that I know of at least.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, so we we did all that, and um, and also if we can get funding, because it's it's all been self-funded, you know, from from work that we've done for uh other people and and groups and corporations, of which we took those profits and put them into making this movie, you know, it's a labor of love, passion project is what they often call.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_03: And uh we thought we could do a series.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_03: So there's you know, we even did one, we've even got Paris got one, but we're having some problems with the legal legalities uh for and Ed Rosenthal, because he's got a great story, obviously.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_03: Ed Rosenthal versus the feds, um, and and and the the uh 12 black cannabis visionaries and uh fighting cancer with cannabis.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_03: So we could actually, you know, there's we have a I we have ideas for like another 10-part series, but we'd have to get money together to get that because we can't do it all by ourselves this next time we're we're getting too old and and it's a lot of work and it burns you out if you don't have a little help.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_03: So, Patty, you go ahead now.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_03: You can answer that wonderful question about why are some people on the cutting room floor at this point in time?
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_02: Well, just based on duplicate material, and so I would choose the person who had the most succinct and elegant way of saying it.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um if there were people who kind of um om, that's why I made it, then um so basically that was it.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_02: And and then I always had in mind that certain people spoke about certain things like um their time in jail, and so I wanted to preserve that for a video on its own about the incarceration of people, farmers, the the domestic terrorism that was imposed by our own government, helicopters dropping out of the sky, dropping people out of the sky to terrorize farmers.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_02: This is like, oh, your tomato plants.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_02: We're gonna arrest you over to because cannabis is like a tomato plant.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_02: And um the fact that we're not that is still going on, people are still incarcerated over a plant that is we have to get them out, and we have to really wrestle with this topic because this plant is our birthright.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_03: Part of our history.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_03: Sorry, go ahead, Mark.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, it's a part of the history of America, and even uh Dan Hare, I mean, you know, he showed a ten dollar bill from the 30s where it shows guys growing hemp on the back of the bill, right?
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_03: That was part of our thing, you know.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_03: Not to mention constitution and sales for the ships that brought the pilgrims here in the first place.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah, that's in our DNA.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_03: It was Jefferson, Washington.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_03: We start with those quotes in the movie.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_03: You know, it's an important hemp and all that was it.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_03: And canvas they they used they used the flour as well as the uh hemp.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, yeah, hemp is uh it's a real loss that we haven't been able to go back to that era where we've used hemp for so many things because it would be so much more environmentally friendly to for what we're doing today.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: But uh we'll get there slowly if it's made out of hemp, I think out of Canada.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, great, yeah.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, stuff on there.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's a fantastic material.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: I have sneakers made out of hemp as well, which I love.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: And you're starting to see more products coming out made with hemp, but uh, it would be nice to see a lot more.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: But back to the people that you're interviewing, were there any interviews that were a little too controversial or legally sensitive to include in the documentary?
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_03: I don't think so per se, because I kind of like the way Patty structured the timeline on the edit, and you know, try to keep everything tight and great, and the best people and on the topics, and the experts and scientists, and doctors, and nurses, especially the nurses, uh the cannabis nurses network, nurse Heather, Ken Silver, her husband, wonderful person, has said, hey, look at whether you know it or not, consuming cannabis is healthy for you.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_03: It's gonna have medicinal benefits.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_03: So, you know, those quotes I mean, we we're learning along the way too.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I mean, I I was been growing since I was a kid, but I learned all kinds of things that I I I didn't know a whole lot of stuff about terpenes and stuff.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_03: I just agree with because I like to smell them.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_03: When I first grew the first plants I did, they were very uh they were all stativa and they smelled like pine trees.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_03: That was the terpene.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_03: And then later I got some Afghanistan hash plant seeds in '76.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_03: So I grew some in 77 or 78, and or yeah, so maybe 78.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_03: So it was just amazing.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, wow, this stuff is it's incredible.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it just smelled like a skunk, and one leaf could cover your head where the sativa ones were thin, and and and this is the original before it all got hybridized like nowadays.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_03: So it's big leaf smelled just like a skunk, and I'm like, Wow, did it knock you out on your butt?
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_03: You know, a whole different high as that was in the indica than those, and that was Pier one, too.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_03: Um, after that, the people saw you can't grow those together.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_03: They'll never you can't crossbreed.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_03: And I found out you could.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't do it on purpose, it just happened.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_03: So then the all the plants started becoming a little taller and thinner, and not the big leaf that you cover your head, and the smell started blending, and you know.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_03: So nowadays I get I would say that I don't know, they have thousands of names of stuff back in the days when we were doing it.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_03: Be one or two varieties of something coming out, you know, South America generally for California.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_03: I can talk to you more about that because that's part of the Nekiball collection.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_03: All these old buds I've got, and including like a tie stick from 1978, that impresses people, you know.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_03: So that's kind of fun.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_03: And then, you know, Colombian gold, and that's that's even got the seeds in it.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_03: That bud's special, so yeah, but we could talk about that later.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_02: Anyway, I do have one note about that.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_02: When we first started to interview people, it was well, Mark um had a camera with him in 2016 at the Emerald Cup, and then we brought the full gear extravaganza in 2017.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_02: And there is a big issue about trust.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, people opening their hearts and and spilling their secrets about cannabis because it's it's been dangerous for so long to talk about it even.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, trust us as fellow OGs.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think anybody who wasn't familiar or knew had a relationship with cannabis would be able to pull this off.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we they respected the fact that I I I knew about it, but I could show them pictures of actual buds.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_03: They said they still exist.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah, with seats.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my god, never heard say if you heard it.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_03: Nope, never heard of it.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_03: So they like even Penske's like he wants to look, he wanted to look me up before he did the interview.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_03: He wanted to check me out to make sure next day we came back because we came back in 2018 too at the Emerald Cup and did interviews again.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_03: And a little shout-outs to Tim Blake and his Emerald Cup at the time.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_03: But uh people they they yeah, they responded well, and they said, Oh, yeah, you're you're the real deal, so well, ask me anything you want.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_03: Because again, it's still pretty illegal back, even seven, 16, 17, and 8, 2018.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_03: Those yeah, medically okay, and we were in California, but you know, like you said, people were getting life sentences for a single seed in Texas, you know, right, which is crazy.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: So the the trust factor is pretty huge.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's an interesting thing that you bring up because people had to trust you that you would safeguard their stories and present present them in an honest way.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, they depending on where they were from or where they were living, they could definitely be taking a risk by doing that.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: But that also helps break the stigma as well, doesn't it?
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: When people are able to open up and say, hey, even if you know you're not a famous person, this is me and I use cannabis because one thing I've learned from doing this podcast is people from all walks of life use cannabis, whether it's just topicals or whether they're smoking a joint every night or whether they're wake and baking or whatever.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, yeah, people from all walks of life are using cannabis.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: So it's uh it's important to share these stories, I think, so that those who are still in the shadows, or maybe even just considering cannabis, have role models of other people who are doing it.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, they haven't succumbed to the reefer madness that uh we are all told would happen if we're gonna do that.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_03: That was that was you know the funniest thing that a lot of famous people.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, back when I was 20, um, I met Chich and Chong at a concert in Vegas, and they uh they knew my aunt was in the committee, which was a told them about that.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_03: And they got a lot of their earlier funny stuff on the records from the committee, like Herbie and Ralph, the dog, you know, all the skits, a bunch of them, not all of them, of course.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_03: And they invited me to the uh La Jolla Comedy Club when they came and I was 20.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_03: They said, as long as you don't drink alcohol, so I don't care.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_03: I smoke pop.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_03: So we'd get high afterwards, they never get high before.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_03: They did their very professional, and we party, and I got to know Chi Chinjong that way.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_03: So I was 20 and Tommy was 40.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_03: And flash forward, Pat and I went up to LA to interview him when I was 60 and he was 80.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_03: Uh that's cool.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_03: Now I'm 66, almost 67.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_03: So, you know, that that was kind of a neat, you know, 40 years later, suddenly, and these guys were always putting themselves out there before anybody.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, obviously, teaching children are famous stoners, and they and Tommy had to do time for it.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_03: Stupid bomb crap.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_03: You know, give me a break, you know.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, he's a little ball across the state line.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_03: He took the hit, so his his kids didn't have to suffer or anybody else.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_03: And uh what a wonderful guy.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_03: Those guys always used to go to prisons and help convicts, you know, with comedy.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_03: You know, they donated their time and back.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_03: the day before their movies came out.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_03: Once their movies came out, it became really difficult.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: They got real I'm sure they I'm sure they got pretty busy after that.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: But that's pretty cool that you're able to see them perform like in a comedy like at a comedy theater back in the day like before they were before they were famous.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah well they were famous but they're you know we could hang out afterwards and smoke a joint and nobody bothered us right yeah they weren't they weren't uh famous after doing their movies famous I guess yeah that was big that was a big step now they're filling up you know huge theaters as opposed to the little comedy club and don't forget to mention uh that they use your uh plants to model their plants yeah I had a I had a I had a plant or I had a couple plants I showed them some black and white pictures of this this particular plant actually this is in 1978 and I teach called it the plant that ate Chicago and I took a black and white picture it's that I don't have here that was lower and it looked huge like it was looming you know because all the leaves were hanging down and and uh I showed them the I gave them a bunch of black and whites that they were able to use for their Chichin Chan's next movie which was the second movie in their installment and they put them all in the pool and they're all made out of plastic they weren't real but they used um pictures that I gave them to show them because I had these Sensomia plants and not a lot of people back in those days saw that or knew about that and the pot quality started getting better and of course in Humboldt I I've got like some Humboldt from 1979 that that was you know some some sensey that was great because that that's where all the good shit was coming from a little bit of Mauiwae too you know a couple other places but most of the stuff coming out of Mexico had a lot of seeds in it and had been crushed you know like the the like I said the Columbian gold or the the the tie stick that came in and there's um Columbian gold then you can I don't know the camera can even see it but there you go and it uh it has a couple seeds in it but that was from 1978 but it was all crushed you know it was like squished yeah like in like in the brickweed that you were doing yeah exactly so that that that's what that happened and yeah and uh the uh it's it's it's you know it was and because of that I think like with Bob Marley's to do that too where he bury it a little bit it it it increased it turned to THC to C B D or can the cannabinoids got real stony so your pot got stonier yeah they it tends to degrade a little bit into something that'll make you more couch locked yeah I didn't like that so much I like like the higher high but that was what it was like back in those days you know you you got what you got you there was no dispensaries or a choice and now there's too many goddamn scary boy scout girl scout whatever cookies and yeah like I get the idea but but you know it's it seems very similar I mean I I have a hard time knowing I mean I see the differences and I could taste them obviously you know as a connoisseur um and I I use these uh little glass pipe pets like you know to smoke with so I could do just a little bit dosing yeah as opposed to smoking a part of a joint or a whole joint you know so uh I think that's that's a better way to connoisseur um but there's like too many varieties of things to choose from nowadays I don't know you know yeah we've gone to from the opposite end of the spectrum I mean back in the day like you're saying you had brickweed and that was like it or you go to now and you walk into a dispensary and there's a hundred different types of cannabis dried flour cannabis that you can choose from and uh I mean I'm not gonna complain too much about that but it is nice to have the choice but yeah yeah it can be a little overwhelming.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now when you started filming in 2017 um which of your cannabis which of your cannabis interviewees like made predictions that have completely missed the mark because the film came you started filming in 2017 and it came out in 2024 Patty I mean I like because when I when I saw that question I thought to myself well some some people like talking about you know how it can well the South African they were using it for building materials.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_03: I know in Ecuador we interviewed the museum curator there at the cannabis museum is the and it was not Ecuador it was um uh uh uh Ushawaya uh Uruguay Uruguay the first country to utilize cannabis yes and he was talking about all these you know things it can be made from and sure enough yeah they they make plastic parts for cars but it hasn't been embraced as much as as I think they or we hoped it would be as far as for things other than just getting high and and whatnot and it you know for building and uh fuel I think it's still not there.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_03: And I think also a lot of people say well the stigma will be less and no there's still stigma.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_03: We still need to get the word out we still need to help people see documentaries like Negative World Story Canvas so that they can you know show their parents and say or other people that vote so we could get these bills passed and it descheduled back in the early 1979 through 81 we would have a smoking on campus at my at UCSD and I just we'd give out hundreds of joints and everybody we did it right we put posters out say come after the watermelon drop you know at exactly this time you know on this day and we put the posters out that day and it said don't legalize decriminalize that's what we always thought I mean was that palm tree is that tomato plant legal or illegal no why is this so we need to it still needs to be these schedule a lot of people predicted it would by now it would be you know illegal all across the world or at least in the United States so in that case some people missed the mark and the prediction of how long it's going to take is still taking time and as you know even recently people say oh yeah the new administration is is is going to help make it legal no they they're just making up all kinds of other excuses and lying to us and it's still schedule one and and the the could take years more so so people have missed the mark on on that number one from my perspective.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_03: Patty what do you think anything that came to come to mind to you yes like people like Steve D'Angelo would say they wouldn't make these bold predictions.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_02: They would say we're at a crossroads where it's up to us to make a decision on which way to go and nobody really had any idea of what humanity was willing to do in regards to the cannabis plant.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_02: One issue is the banking issue and we were told that a lot of the growers would have to have cash stuffed in storage rooms because they couldn't put it in a bank and and and it's an unsa and they can't have guns to protect themselves and so it's it was a very and I think it still is a a very negative situation for people involved in the industry.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_02: It's very unsafe.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah banking just needs to change I think they're starting to a little I don't know if I've been hearing stuff I've had friends and relatives that have been trying to get that worked out with the banking thing and it's still kind of yeah that that banking thing is such a it's so frustrating because at the federal level that they say well because it's not legal federally they won't um you know banking isn't really an option which I guess is a decision the banks are making but even for myself as a partner in Canada I often have through banking partners have run into issues because a lot of things like Stripe for instance are US based and then they're like oh you have cannabis in the name of something you must be selling it or whatever.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then every few months I feel like I have to my account gets suspended and I have to argue with them and appeal and be like I've I have an audio podcast that's educational.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: I don't sell weed or anything but like because of those laws in the states it affects people elsewhere as well because so many of those uh partners that you use to produce a show like bike relies on platforms that are US based and so I'd really love to see that change too.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah yeah but I'm sure also shadow band I mean sure you you and us all of us we can't seem to get the word out about the documentaries that I said look we're not selling we're not selling our tinctures or nectar bomb or anything but you know someday maybe but until then it's just t-shirts or a hat or selling a DVD or in your case podcasts and you know broadcast we put it it's out there on Amazon Prime why why in the heck can't they you know why why can't we say just because the word cannabis is in there we can't advertise it you know yeah they want our money they'll take our money and then say oh yeah but then they sure will they limit how many people actually get to see it.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_03: So that's it's like you're not getting your full value.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah it's still a pretty frustrating space to operate in because of some of those pretty strict limitations around scheduling in the states and banking the banking system and the rest of it any good news like did have there been any developments in the cannabis space that surprised you or any of your your experts that you interviewed Patty's thinking I can see yeah I can see the turning but it's also a little uh telling that you're like nothing comes to mind immediately there's I mean getting it on more plat getting our show on more platforms that that that's that's that's happening but go ahead when we when our show first uh when we were filming it I think it was around 2018 and we videotaped nurse emac and and we were so impressed by by her knowledge and her brilliance and she came from the pharmaceutical industry she was uh a representative for for the pharmaceutical and you know anthem okay um medical and we asked her to speak at our local San Carlos that's where we live in San Diego group at the local library and and she did and the library was packed packed with mostly seniors because that's the segment who can really use it and they really wanted to learn and I thought that was eye-opening.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_02: I thought this is great and that was my focus when I was editing is for the main mainly the elders and the seniors who are in pain and and need a balm for their shoulders and their aches and pain.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's that's the one glimmer of hope is that when we were in Texas we I mean not tech we weren't in Texas we were in Ecuador with some people from Texas and New York and one of the ladies was an older woman in her early 80s and she complained about arthritis and I said why don't you try some of this and I it was a it was a little container of cannabis that we had been able to obtain in the park from a vendor amazing so it's sad you know it's got eucalyptus and all the good stuff in it but said on the jar cannabis used it and it was an immediate spontaneous relief for her and and I know that she didn't vote for Kamala right but it's the inroads you make with people and to try and open their minds about the benefits of this plant.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_03: Well especially since they've been taught their whole lives when they were that at that age that it was you know the devil and reefer madness and marijuana assassin youth crap.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_03: So they um for them to start waking up like a friend's mother that's what again in the 80s 70s late 80s early 80s whatever she said first time she ever got some sleep from somewhere in Necker bomb she just put it on some of her she said she hadn't had sleep like that for eight years and I'm like wow so her son you know so these that's our our little our little anecdotal tests and we're seeing that yeah and people say that you know and a lot a lot of medicinal abilities in helping people sleep you know then there's that's CBD stuff and then that's all out there but it that doesn't work as well as if you don't have a little THC mixed in there.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_03: You get the full spectrum get the then it helps your endocannibinoid system much much better as you know as a cook you can use the whole plant.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_03: So some of these things are a little you know there's a lot of of course con artists out there using trying to miracle this and that and then they're only using C B D and it may not even be that real or who knows what they're using.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_00: How do you bring that up because I used to work at a dispensary uh a few years ago we were the first legal dispensary in my town and some of my favorite customers I've mentioned this numerous times on the show but my favorite customers were often the seniors that would come in because they asked the best questions.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_00: They were really curious and they listened to what you had to say and they were so grateful for the help that you gave them.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so and they were having to overcome all this stigma just by walking through the doors of that dispensary.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_00: But several times some of these folks would come in and show me a bottle and be like this is what I need and it would be like something they'd bought off the internet that was basically a super expensive bottle of hemp oil that you could buy at like any grocery store because it was just like your hemp seeds made into an oil which was like you know it's good for you but it's not it's not cannabinois.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like yeah and I just thought of all like so many scams out there and I just felt so bad for these folks but they are like honestly so curious and want to learn more about this plant and they fall into two categories I find some seniors are like really interested and want to know more and want to you know live better through the benefits of cannabis and some of them are just like nope not interested not don't want to talk to me about it.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_00: So it really it really depends.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_00: But if you have a friend that's been using topicals or cannabis in some form that's been super helpful you know solely it's that word of mouth that really you know spreads the word and yeah.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_03: If it did if it didn't work the the the even the stuff that's minimal you know quality for expensive price if it didn't work people wouldn't be buying it and talking about it and using it.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_03: So we'd know that and in your case you had high quality products so that when these people tried those they were like wow this is way better it's like Rick Simpson built in ours yeah you know so people like wow this is a this this you know whether you make it yourself which we do because I I can trust the quality of my organic gardening and don't much like three or four plants or you know I might get a couple out whatever and I can make enough medicine that I could share with my friends and relatives that can use it.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_03: But some people are still like you said scared of using it uh especially if they're older or if they're if they're having problems uh like me I had I had three friends with that horrible glioplastoma brain tuber whatever the one that kills everyone but five percent or within five years.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_03: Wow and and we had three friends um of the three friends two used cannabis products in addition to doing the same all three of them did Western medicine and had surgeries and and did chemo and all that stuff that they do for cancer but two of them used cannabis in addition and the one that didn't passed away within about a couple years ago and the other two are still alive.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_03: So that's anecdotal I'm not saying it's a cure or anything but it that definitely helped some people survive and live longer.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know you know I wouldn't say they're necessarily cancer free because I think it's a pretty bad one but they're doing better than the people that didn't use cannabis so there's some some benefits.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_03: I mean I mean some people are so you know cancer ridden no matter what they do it's not gonna help.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah yeah well again that goes back to the idea that it's not a it's not miraculous it's not gonna cure everything but if it's something that you can add to your toolbox to help with whatever other tools you're using to overcome something then why not?
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yep just like in our documentary and Patty will test this little granny's granny um what was she would be giving out uh uh pot brownies to the AIDS victims to help them yes brownie brownie mary yeah yeah yeah I'm thinking granny mary who walks well was it was against was against politics money in politics but anyway that was granny d yeah granny d but anyway go ahead Patty yeah so uh people who those are the true heroes people like uh Brownie Mary and Dennis Perone and people who put and Ed Rosenthal people who put themselves up and even in the line of fire at the time because that was a tough place to be at the time um espousing can uh marijuana cannabis which is putting yourself in the headlights of the government to go after you and prosecute you and put you in jail um there's a lot of great groups out there uh you know last prisoner project 40 tons a lot of people trying to get everybody out there's there's still people believe it or not that are in there even though Joe Biden pardoned a lot and I think he trumped it a couple but you know you you've got to get these people out it's ridiculous if they're in jail still for a couple joints or even if they were caught you know selling a couple ounces or whatever you know that's still ridiculous again it's a plant for God's sake and let's get these people out anyway.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah yeah no it's very true.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm switching gears just a little bit I'm very curious because your film did focus quite a bit on the American cannabis experience but obviously you spoke to people all over the world and were there any international perspectives that you found that were worth emulating in the US or yeah just different approaches.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah we still don't have uh we still don't have lounges though yet so I'm you know that that's coming um we're gonna uh we did have one guy that uh we interviewed uh uh in San Diego uh who was a doctor uh scientist I shouldn't was helping formulate uh and and get the most out of out of the plants and he said he's going to Canada because he can't study it here in universities in America so easily so he was gonna go to Canada so it was a brain drain going to Canada right after you guys legalized uh cannabis so we saw that happening that's interesting um yeah was there was there anything else because I'm personally kind of I don't have experience with them myself but I'm curious about like the school clubs that you see in other parts of Europe so that we're yeah that was pretty cool you know we didn't interview all the guys there but they had the but they had is a the cannabis lounge and the um uh dispensary all in one but they would the lounges would have like a lot of games a lot of people came to socialize and then they'd go in the back buy a little product come bring break back and some of them they had dab rigs you could borrow you know where's the set where's is uh there's one here in San Diego called Sessions Bay first cannabis lounge opens San Diego area only because on indigenous land let's say yeah but but they it's here and they have a dispensary downstairs and then different lounge areas all around the place you know um and then do some entertainment and otherwise people just sit around and have they get food from a restaurant down below if people want to eat and some of it's cannabis inspired and the drinks are cannabis infused not non-alcoholic you know it's like like one guy said yeah you can you you what do you go in you go in a dispensary or you go into a lounge you know everybody's chill and everybody gets along and you get you can have discussions and arguments but no one gets in a fight whereas you go into a regular bar people are fighting all the time you know and and stuff so it's very very chill so of all the you know I I like the ones in South Africa were kind of the coolest uh I I I found uh because they were you know like they weren't trying to like okay you got to rent this bong or just dab rig or whatever I remember trying dab first time in our emo cup and six and I'm like oh my god this patty too in the next year it's like wow this stuff is super why would anybody do that like twice to make them into like one joint you know it's like too too much.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_00: No I'm the same with you.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_00: I find as I get older my tolerance also decreases so you should be higher cheek date.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah well along the way well we visited Paris as well and we were looking for some kind of a cannabis connection there it was not to be found although when we were wearing our hats we there were quite a few people who said how much they liked our hats.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_02: And well maybe we were the connection but we weren't yeah but I mean the the the people of the the world want and need it and yet it's being stifled still by oligarchs because they don't want people to wake up yeah very very true I there is probably something behind that because they don't want their people to be too aware lest we come together and resist.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_03: So question authority right question authority what yeah we saw what just happened with Jimmy Kimmel when people a massive protest and now he's back on the air after his little suspension and so that was freedom of the press and uh the whole the whole the whole thing is they same thing with you know anything that wakes people up like mushrooms LSD uh yeah the the newer you know ones people uh it's just everything back in the day um you know this was you when you're awake you tend to question you know and and protest if something bad is happening whereas they keep you asleep you'd be a nice compliant human being that doesn't question authority and they get you to let the corporations ruin our planet you know and exploit it and you know there's a lot of people crossing borders because there's now eight billion people for God's sake you guys there's eight billion plus people and how can that not make an effect when you were born there was probably two or three billion people that's it look how much it and the first billion it took till 1864 or something like that.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_03: So it's just exponential nobody don't you can't comprehend it so therefore you don't see it and all you see is the after why are all these people coming you know into Canada and America and all they're trying to get off they're trying to just be stay alive the human species it's like any other life form selfish and by inheriting it has to eat food means to if it has to fight for the food because they don't have enough or they have to go somewhere and risk their lives to go to get the food they gotta go.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know I mean that's just the way it is there's just too many people number one yeah that's why we didn't have kids part of the reason I should say right now I have did either of you I don't remember from the documentary but did did either of you spend any time in Germany I guess Germany legalized after the film was out but yeah because I'm curious about their their grow clubs that they have because they don't have like a retail system at all at this point uh even though they've been legal for just over a year now and but I am curious about their their grow clubs because I just feel like it's such a natural way to build community around the plant instead of it being super commercialized and just wondering if you had any experience with that.
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_03: Well Amsterdam would be the closest um and we went around other parts of Holland too and uh you know did that kind of stuff um so we we found that to be very interesting that uh they had both the clubs but then where you bought the pot you had to it was had to be separate you know like like you can't and then you had to go buy a pipe somewhere else you know and I thought man that these guys are like wow your pipe has to be a big hit because the cheapest pipe you can buy next door is like two euros and I'm like yeah you can sell these for half a third of that price or you know or less but um yeah it's and it was illegal to grow there it's illegal to grow there so one of our uh interviewees said yeah so it's supposed to magically appear at the back door of the dispensaries somehow yeah yeah it's an odd little thing of their system over there that I'm it's worked for a long time but it's kind of it is odd.
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah this needs to be more like Germany in that sense but then uh like I've been to Germany several times but not not uh since they've legalized cannabis that in Canada and a few other countries we'd love to if we got to do a series and we'd like to do a lot more interviews and and and you know maybe come up and see you and and get some people interviewed up in your neck of the woods and you know your your luminaries up there cannabis luminaries.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah yeah absolutely now just I want to be mindful of your time because we've been talking for a little bit but tell people can you tell people where they can find Nectarball out there in the world I will link to everything in the show notes as well so that they can find it pretty easily hopefully some you guys can take a look at the one minute trailer at nectarball.com also you can see a three minute video Pat put together about my collection the Nectarball collection itself it's it's all free and then I would encourage you to sign up for Patty's free substack newsletter what are you calling it these days even though it's canvas related and also about love stories.
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_03: Real life love stories uh that's her Substack uh newsletter again all this is free it's just our way of sharing with the world um ways to help the world be able to play both with cannabis one other thing I want I wanted to ask about is you've referenced this nectar ball collection a few times how so you have from what I understand a collection of buds from various stages of your career in cannabis how do you preserve them not well enough until I was I back in the day when I first got my 1972 little bud I was like I don't know 14 or 13 and a half 14 and uh I put in the curad basket bag in a little lunch not even they didn't even have seal nails in it was just a little plastic lunch bag and uh that that got kind of beat up pretty good.
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_03: I think I got a picture of it a couple pictures of it um you know so like I think that might be well here it is this is that this is the Acapulca Gold from 1972 if it'll focus again and so not particularly good looking that's like the you know lids or junk we used to get but there was on a little package with with um on a spear at the time so uh I didn't I it's it's in seal meals you know now it's you know little seal and so that's the Humboldt you know the black Afghanistan hash plant from 1978.
• 59:06
  SPEAKER_03: All my greatest tips are from the 70s right late 70s and and then early 80s I got some nice stuff then but uh people like Robert Clark and other geneticists were very interested in it I had Robert Clark over at the house I showed him the collection and only a few handful of people have ever seen it and they they loved the um loved it and they wanted little pieces of it for DNA extraction so that they could help figure out the land race history and stuff the project they were in but turns out that project fell apart and was not good.
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_03: People are trying to bad guys are trying to steal the DNA just like the the woman at the Emerald Cup I went to at the history section said yeah she was in charge of the Dakota seed bank and people like Monsanto were sending spies to try and see the steal the corn and squash seed old genetics.
• 59:55
  SPEAKER_03: So the genetics on this is very very very um special I tried giving the whole collection to the Smithsonian at one time back in the 80s but because it's federally illegal you know can't even ship it across state lines so I can't couldn't do that and then put it in safety deposit box or whatever.
• 1:00:13
  SPEAKER_03: But so it it's not kept you know like it should be frozen supposed but at this point it's it's mummies the DNA is still there still viable so people can do that if they want I don't think the seeds are but maybe I thought it would be interesting to try and pop those seeds see what happens I've talked to Ed Rosenthal thinks I can and there's a couple people that said that they popped some old seeds from the early 70s even maybe even 60s um but you know I don't I I I I talked to a couple people they say that and that their their collections of seeds are worth hundreds of millions because it's that rare right because those land races haven't been polluted supposedly during Operation Greensweep the the government dumped a bunch of hemp pollen over there and screwed up the land races up in Humboldt in the triangle.
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know if that's good or not but but whatever you know uh the land races now um aren't as pure as they used to now everything's crossed contaminated with uh indica stativa uh who knows what some hemp Rudella whatever um I'm yeah most most stuff is hybrid at this point these days but and there's some advantages to that but it is nice you know well we move the nice oh well but like I said Panama Red I had a little Panama Red from 78 that Swami goes man that was my favorite because I used to laugh so hard on that so there's you know some of that stuff's lost to the in in nowadays but um uh yeah you know if they can resurrect it like I say in the the movie The Legend of 420 which I was in but I didn't show my face uh I showed the collection there and and I said if it's maybe it's like you know Jurassic Park and they can resurrect the DNA and make these old land races come back alive.
• 1:01:58
  SPEAKER_03: So I I know it's possible but whether someone wants to spend the money to do that or not.
• 1:02:03
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm willing to you know anybody scientist wise that wants a piece of this they are welcome to it and you know free of charge um you know help the world be a better place with cannabis in it again same thing with our movies and if people want to go to nectarball.com it'll point them out otherwise our Nectar Ball destroyed cannabis is on Amazon Prime uh uh red coral and universe dot com uh the cannabis and fighting cancer with cannabis uh is on uh citizengreen.tv uh binge uh tv dot com is also a place you can see a lot all our movies including our mountain biking ones and and uh how to shows and pretty much everything other than the short films everything generally I have on is everything also available on Vimeo because that's where I watch the Nectar Ball documentary.
• 1:03:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah that's if you go to nectarball.com uh we charge 420 that helps us try and get some of our money back we'd appreciate that or if you want to buy the DVD it's 1888 for you those of you out there that have a DVD player yeah you know what the those these things are making a resurgence these days things like DVD players and CD players vitals like pretty popular I think people are just can you believe it I've heard about that yeah yeah yeah but I was just asking because not everybody has Amazon Prime but you can always just go on and rent it for 420 which is pretty very reasonable a lot less than going to your movie theater and watch it over on video commercial free too that yes so so yeah so you know if you want to help us out go to nectarball.com look under my name here yeah um would really really help it really it would help out and uh we're gonna try and come out with some more merchandise here soon too like uh hat here that was pretty popular people love it because you can got little sparkles in there so it looks like crystals but the woman that makes those it's kind of hard to get those made and it's not cheap especially to get a hemp hat.
• 1:04:06
  SPEAKER_03: So we're trying to figure out a way of doing that otherwise it'd be like 50 bucks just to make the hat but anyway and then um one other thing that I was going to mention is that my latest focus has been on editing a full feature documentary called North American Journey and I've been implementing AI tools for that including uh the creation of music americana music and it's in little segments so back in 1986 Mark and I when we were young and cute took off on a nationwide adventure up the coast through Canada Alaska back through Canada again winding down and around all the national parks and uh we went the peak of the journey is Denali and also a uh grizzly bear attack in the Yukon so I have sent this off to a few film festivals and it's one best feature in two of them and it has been selected in two others so oh very cool something there's a return the the AI helps make that old VHS footage because that's all we had in those days VHS in 1986 camcorder you know not wasn't even a camcorder was that they have a backpack with a can the deck and then the camera's small and we went we backpacked with it you know with the grizzly bears and everything all around that's terrifying the grizzly bears yeah that was a do or dark and uh and Pat wrote all the lyrics in the music and then the AI does the music I'm like wow this is good stuff and then she also you know does her lyrics and poems and then she you hear us talking just like we did when we're out there hey well look at that let's go climb that or let's go do this or look at that waterfall or you know and so it's a pretty it's just two innocent 20 somethings having a good time traveling North America and then all the way down to Key West Florida and back across back to San Diego.
• 1:06:19
  SPEAKER_03: So 25,000 miles in nine months took we didn't just forget what day or week it was or what where we were sometimes but we forgot what year it was at one point.
• 1:06:29
  SPEAKER_02: What year is this yeah it takes vacation then it takes you back to a time 1986 when we met a lot of interesting people not everybody had the same political beliefs no but we still got along and it shows what's possible now you can still enjoy the company of other people whether you agree with them or not and eat share a meal.
• 1:06:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah and bite bite me yes I agree and you know what I think that's a beautiful place to end because one thing that cannabis is wonderful is it does help connect people but just that reminder also that food can bring people together.
• 1:07:08
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't matter if you have different you know beliefs about politics or whatever we can still all get along so with that I just want to thank you so much for your time today.
• 1:07:17
  SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate it and listeners do check out Nectar Ball their documentary and it sounds like you have a lot of other fun projects coming up as well so I'll link to all those in the show notes.
• 1:07:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I just wanted to say thank you once again for your time today.
• 1:07:30
  SPEAKER_03: Well thank you to Nectar Ball is a great place but also newunique.com so that's another great www thing but you you did great Margaret thank you so much for having us on with you it was a pleasure absolutely friends I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I enjoyed having it.
• 1:07:48
  SPEAKER_00: I will of course link everything that we talked about in the show notes including the link to where you can check out the documentary for yourself.
• 1:07:55
  SPEAKER_00: As we mentioned in the show you can support these artists with only$4.20 by checking out the documentary on Vimeo and we need more independent filmmaking like this in the world.
• 1:08:07
  SPEAKER_00: Especially when it comes to advocating for cannabis because there's still so much stigma surrounding it to this day.
• 1:08:13
  SPEAKER_00: Sharing is caring if you know somebody who would be interested in this documentary in this conversation please share with them the episode right now.
• 1:08:21
  SPEAKER_00: And as always my friend I am so grateful that you're here supporting the podcast and listening each and every week.
• 1:08:27
  SPEAKER_00: So until next time my friends I'm your host Margaret stay hi