A Close Shave with The Beard Bros - Branding Bud Live Episode 33
THE SUMMARY
Join co-hosts David Paleschuck and Adriana Hemans for an insightful conversation as we uncover the inspiring stories and advocacy of The Beard Bros. in their fight for justice and equal access to cannabis.
THE CO-HOSTS
David Paleschuck, Adriana Hemans
THE SPECIAL GUEST
Bill & Jeff Levers, The Beard Bros.
THE TRANSCRIPT
DAVID PALESCHUCK
Welcome to Branding Bud Live, the live stream that’s 100% THC and 0% WTF. Every week we speak with business people about the business of cannabis. I’m David Paleschuck, founder of Branding Bud Consulting Group and author of the first book on cannabis branding. I’m joined by my co-host Adriana Hemans, a Marketing executive with over 8 years in the cannabis space. Hi Adriana!
ADRIANA HEMANS
Hi David. Thank you for that intro. I’m so excited to co-host the show with you. We’re bringing amazing guests from across the cannabis ecosystem to share their perspectives. My favorite thing about Branding Bud Live is that we focus on building community - and we encourage audience participation. It’s not just about us talking, it’s about all of us building something together. So feel free to drop your questions and/or opinions in the chat, and we’ll share them too.
DAVID PALESCHUCK
We’re here to build community, educate and entertain … so let’s jump into today’s show, “A Close Shave With The Beard Bros”. Today, we’ll be chatting with real-life brothers, cannabis activists and cultivators, Bill & Jeff Levers. Some of the topics we’ll cover in the show today are:
What are the most pressing issues for patients, and prisoners' rights, relative to cannabis?
What role does the black market play in the overall trajectory of the legal industry?
How do we best engage with officials and organizations to advocate for cannabis?
I’m super excited to chat with Bill & Jeff today.
ADRIANA HEMANS
Me too!
(Acknowledges the audience.)
DAVID PALESCHUCK
Let’s welcome, Jeff & Bill Levers.
ADRIANA HEMANS
Hi Bill & Jeff. Let’s start off with Bill … age before beauty … Tell us about yourselves. Can you share with us the story behind the Beard Bros and your journey into cannabis advocacy?
BILL LEVERS
Well, the journey to advocacy started back in the 80s on the East Coast. With cultivation of cannabis, which everybody knows was highly, highly illegal on the east coast in the 80s, and 90s. But that's where our our beginnings in cannabis started. Fast forward to 2010, we moved to the west coast with a brief stop in Denver for about a year. And that is kind of where our advocacy really got started, was when we were arrived in Southern California, we were looking to make connections in the cannabis industry coming from the East Coast, we ran into people that were doing advocacy, Orange County normal comes to mind is one of the first organizations we got involved with. And through people like Sherry Sicard. There we got involved with veterans advocacy, or prisoner advocacy, through sharing and people like Stephanie Landa with freedom grill. Shortly after that, we got involved with veteran advocacy through people such as Santa Cruz, veterans Alliance and the weed for Warriors project that were early on. And it just became something that we were very, very passionate about, and felt that it was a group, several groups of people that were being left behind as cannabis continue to move forward. So as we build our brand out in Los Angeles, through the teens, it was just something that became part of what we did advocating for prisoners and veterans and also promoting it so that other people would come on and help advocate for veterans and prisoners.
JEFF LEVERS
Appreciate you having us on.
DAVID PALESCHUCK
Jeff, what inspired you to connect the issues of veteran's rights, patient's rights, and prisoner's rights in the context of cannabis?
JEFF LEVERS
Yeah, it's, it's kind of always come natural to you, I think Bill and I have a little different perspective on things that a lot of people do are able to step outside of our own place within the industry and recognize that there's aspects that we all need to be involved in. And we all need to be passionate about. The veterans, the patients, the prisoners, that's kind of where we've gravitated towards. And I would actually go all the way back to our childhood, our mom was always involved in Meals on Wheels, on on other volunteer organizations, our dad was always looking to help other groups and do volunteer work. So it was instilled in us early on that you you needed to speak up for those that could not speak or were not represented well enough. And I think once we got a platform to do that, we look to uplift in that scenario. A little bit of it also was necessity that the California licensing situation in the late teens kind of kept us from our path of cultivating and it was a way to provide value and remain relevant without products going out in the fashion that we had prior to that. And it's kind of morphed into, it's a beast of its own. And, and we've gathered the reputation that you say as kind of anchors and, and people that everybody looks to, to speak on the larger issues within the industry. And it's something we don't take lightly.
ADRIANA HEMANS
Bill, how has the corporatization of the cannabis industry affected the accessibility, quality, and affordability of cannabis for patients and consumers?
BILL LEVERS
Well, the corporatization or the or the mainstream legalization of cannabis. You know, the idea behind it, we feel was to get access to people right. For years that had been something that was taboo. When it wasn't out in the open, the problem with that is the execution of it is what's not working out correctly, right? Everybody wants access. Everybody wants products at a fair price. The problem is right now with the corporatization of it, you have states that are giving out limited licenses. So it limits the amount of people that are even able to get involved, the amount of money to get into it has become has become obscene. Right? California had promised us that all the small and medium guys were gonna get a five year start, that didn't happen. So I feel like what we're seeing is it's somewhat of a bait and switch. And a lot of times, you know, they promise you a lot of things, letting the people who had started this industry, that people that were on a smaller scale that risked their their lives and their livelihood to make this an actual mainstream market are now being left behind.
DAVID PALESCHUCK
So the Go ahead, yeah, Jeff, tell us how you’ve used your voice and platform to raise awareness and advocacy in relation to cannabis.
JEFF LEVERS
I was just gonna say, I think the ironic part of that is that as as cannabis becomes more corporate and and you have to adhere to those things, it seemingly is the legacy people, the people that came from the culture, the people that care about this, have compassion, have passion for their work, are the ones that are able to be agile and pivot, and stay alive. And it's a lot of the people that have come in from other industries, thinking they could apply those business tactics to cannabis and it's just going to be a magic wand and, and they're going to have a multimillion dollar or a billion dollar business. I think it's, it's kind of blown up in their face a little bit. They thought, Oh, if we take all of these stoners who've been outlaws who've been rebels and make them adhere to all of these things, we're gonna cause them all to go under, and we're gonna we're gonna take over for them and it actually hasn't happened that way. It's, it's kind of the one nice thing I see about it is the resilience and all the people who were doing it without any support from anybody outside of their own network for so long that going back to that model doesn't doesn't bother them, whereas people that are used to taking in investor capital and and looking to bring on C suite people and put these large projections on an industry that hasn't established itself yet. It's been to their detriment and all of us who are used to staying lean and you don't expand until you have the money to do so. And, and all of those different tactics that we were used to to stay under the radar, but still be successful, have come to bear.
ADRIANA HEMANS
According to the ATF, if you “use marijuana” you are “prohibited from shipping, transporting, receiving, or possessing firearms or ammunition.”
ADRIANA HEMANS
Audience: It’s your turn to shine!
DAVID PALESCHUCK
Asks Jeff & Bill for their answers.
ADRIANA HEMANS
A recent warning issued by the St. Paul office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF). It said that due to federal laws, people who use marijuana or take marijuana edibles are “still federally defined as an ‘unlawful user’ of a controlled substance” and are “prohibited from shipping, transporting, receiving, or possessing firearms or ammunition.”
DAVID PALESCHUCK
Bill, are there any specific legislative changes, policy reforms or general issues you are more focused on now?
BILL LEVERS
It is incredibly ironic that outlaw mentality is actually what is helping a lot of people continue to survive that not wastefulness. You know, the, the fact that you understand you can't expand until you're able to expand?
DAVID PALESCHUCK
Yeah, it's true. You know, Jeff, you just spoke about resiliency a moment ago. You were cultivators originally, and now and correct me if I'm wrong now. You're really media people and have a platform in the space. That's pretty resilient, that you're able to go from from cultivating all the way through to basically media cannabis media. Could you talk a little bit about that?
JEFF LEVERS
It was it was kind of somewhat out of necessity, we, we were la indoor cultivators and independent cultivators at that and the way LA's license structure was set up for cultivation, you had to be attached to a property or measure m, pre Ico dispensary to carry through with a cultivation license. So like a lot of the outdoor farmers in the triangle, that from January, December 31, of 17, to January 1 of 18, we went from legal doing business to illegal and rather than try to run the fence on that we shut down our cultivation operations. And we had garnered somewhat of a reputation at that point, as Bill mentioned, from providing people with information about the LA licensing scene that we ourselves were trying to navigate. And we realized, you know, as we have this platform, we can start to expand and we can start to cover things. And we're going to cover them from a inside perspective, where it's not a writer who's having to reach out to a company to find out why they're doing something. We're doing those same things ourselves day to day in our own business. So we have a different understanding. And I think that's, that's the unique thing that we found is that we're we're promoting from within the industry, and not only educating the people within the industry, but with the new people coming in. No, it's a trusted source. It's not, it's not being paid to put out those stories. We're actually reporting on what's going on in California, and it's expanded out now into the rest of the US and hopefully soon in the rest of the world.
ADRIANA HEMANS
Bill, last week we had Steve Bloom on from celebstoner.com and we were chatting about the role celebrity brands play in the cannabis space. What’s your take on take that? Do you think celebrity brands are taking away from the legacy cultivators as they compete for awareness and shelf space?
BILL LEVERS
Yeah, we've we first, we got into prisoner rights, like we, like I talked about earlier with Orange County normal and people like Sherry Sicard. And that was just supporting them and what they were doing and a lot of those early on groups, it was simply a matter of sending them money on their books. A lot of people don't realize that when you're in jail, things like, you know, average toothpaste, and deodorant are things you have to buy. Like you don't even get those type of things. You get whatever subpar product they bought for you to use. But even things like as simple as ketchup, or mayonnaise or mustard for that horrible food they serve you. So we always sympathize and empathize. Because we've both been arrested for cannabis before with people that were in jail for that. And then just the egregious nature of, you know, somebody who got 10s or 2020 plus years for a nonviolent cannabis offense just just stood out as something that we could not, not talk about. Like that has to be talked about. Along the veterans rights. We started working originally with people like Santa Cruz, veterans Alliance and weed for Warriors. through doing that work and promoting those, those those groups and asking other people like ourselves, brands and cultivators and things like that, to help those same groups. We've even helped some of the founders of new groups, our friend Colin started a group called veterans walk and talk. And he reached out to us mentioning the fact that he had seen us helping other veterans groups told us what his idea was, how he wanted to help veterans and how it was different than the other groups and asked us if we would support and of course, we did. So we immediately got in there and got him products, so that he could he could advance his group.
JEFF LEVERS
To add to that, I think the two overarching themes that we have with what we're doing is is normalization of cannabis. And keeping the proper intent behind the plan. The patient's rights to me spawned out of the fact that we wouldn't be sitting here with the industry, the community, the culture, however you want to describe it without the AIDS patients in San Francisco and Los Angeles that pushed initiatives forward in the late 90s. And realize that cannabis could be a driving force behind that. And as I mentioned earlier, our parents were a big influence on that another person that it actually it's two days past the anniversary of him passing six years ago, one of our main mentors out here in California was Mickey Martin. If you have never heard of him, check out weed activist. I don't know if it's weed activist.org or.com At this point, but he has been screaming from the mountaintops since back in the early 2000s, about how this is just about a plant and some freedom. And all of this over regulation is unnecessary. And he really turned out to be a teller of the future. And he got involved with the prisoners rights. He used to do a Christmas drive every year that he would get people like ourselves and other brands to step up and donate money. And as Bill said, during the year, they would put money on people's books, but at Christmas, he would literally go to prisoners and get their children to give him their wish list for Christmas. And he wouldn't do everything in his power to get that wish list filled out for them. So and if you're the man in prison, or the woman in prison and your child feels like their holiday is what it would be like if you were there, like the impact and we've talked with some of these prisoners that we donated on back in 1314 15, who are now out like KorVia and Cooper and Luke scar Mazo and other guys like that and and to hear the impact that that had on them back then and how it it lifted them up and then you see them paying it forward. Now jumping back in to help the prisoners that are still behind. It's all about seeing the proper intent and then paying that forward to others. And I think that us having that platform has allowed a lot more people to come by Find us and focus on a particular aspect of this, or a particular niche or one of these categories and, and really be effective. And that's, that's what's fulfilling to us.
BILL LEVERS
Yeah, one of the first things we met core vein for the first time out of jail, the first thing he said to us is thank you for, for helping my children get presents when I was in jail.
DAVID PALESCHUCK
Bill, let’s jump into the black market & traditional markets. Glasshouse Farms is being sued by Catalyst – a California retailer – for selling through “burner distros” into the black market as well as other states – both avoiding taxes and underselling & undermining the legal market. What are your thoughts on this?
BILL LEVERS
Yeah, I mean, what what we've recognized that the states that are getting up and then failing, very disappointed with California, California really should have been the example for the rest of the world on how to correctly regulate cannabis. However, the overtaxation and the overregulation, combined with local control is what is destroying every single market there is right now, in our opinion. So it goes along with the theme of the normalization of cannabis, right? It doesn't need to be over regulated. We don't need to pay for everybody's tax deficit, right. We don't need to build all the libraries, we don't need to fix all the potholes. We don't need to throw millions of dollars into general police funds, we should actually be trying to prop up this industry through smart legislation and through being able to to form the right legislation from within the industry that would allow it to thrive. So our our real focus is on those three main things in my opinion. You know, the over taxation over regulation, and local controls are killer. I mean, most people don't realize that California everybody everybody who doesn't live in California thinks that it there's weed everywhere. And in reality 66% of the landmass and California is actually has banned cannabis, retail sales and most times manufacturing.
DAVID PALESCHUCK
ADRIANA HEMANS
Asks Jeff & Bill for their answers.
December 6th, 2012 Washington became the first state of being legal to sell recreational cannabis. Four days later, Colorado joined.
ADRIANA HEMANS
Let’s talk about the recent ATF letter and the contradiction between state and federal cannabis laws. To bring everyone up to speed, let me read this brief paragraph:
The ATF recently issued a warning to Minnesotans that people who use marijuana cannot legally own firearms, despite a new state law legalizing recreational use. This letter reinforces the draconian law that cannabis remains a Schedule I controlled substance under current federal law alongside other drugs like LSD and heroin. As a result, the ATF has maintained its policy that marijuana users are not allowed to possess or buy firearms and ammunition.
The warning was issued by the St. Paul office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF). It said that due to federal laws, people who use marijuana or take marijuana edibles are “still federally defined as an ‘unlawful user’ of a controlled substance” and are “prohibited from shipping, transporting, receiving, or possessing firearms or ammunition.”
What are your thoughts, Bill?
BILL LEVERS
I would say it's kind of a trick question. Because technically, if you already own a gun and you had a license, they would have no way of knowing that. Where this comes into play, in my opinion is because it's a federally federally regulated thing, the guns and cannabis is still a schedule one drug, it literally just falls underneath the fact that you would be using an illicit drug while in possession of a firearm. The trick comes into is if you go purchase a new firearm, there is a box you have to check claiming that you are not using illicit drugs. So that's where it comes into comes into play that you could be if you if it's proved that you were using cannabis at the time you check that box. You have hypothetically broken the law. There are some states that have put in regulations to try to protect secondary admin rights. I think Oklahoma is the one that comes to mind. They actually wrote that into their cannabis policies. Most states, just overlook it. And then we just fall back to a federal regulation.
DAVID PALESCHUCK
Jeff, what’s your take on this?
JEFF LEVERS
And that's carried forward today with groups like 40 tons who, when Anthony, the CEO of 40 times is on a panel, he usually, sometimes I think it's planned. Sometimes it's coincidental, he gets phone calls from prisoners in jail, puts them on speakerphone to an entire conference room full of people, to let them know the impact that their story has had on these people. So to keep that connection, and it's the same thing, it's it's these people that have been left behind the veterans are the same thing. Our country and the pharmaceutical entries, industry has just left the veterans behind and put them into worse situations than they were in with combat, and cannabis. And now psychedelics are proving to be much more effective, much safer methods for them to get the healing from the trauma that they need. So that's that's where our overarching theme always comes from. And and all of these things spawned from it and and it brings the right people into our sphere, once they recognize that's what we're looking to do.
ADRIANA HEMANS
With all the contradiction, taxation, and regulation that we in the cannabis industry deal with on a daily basis, what is the #1 issue – in your opinion – we should be looking to solve?
JEFF LEVERS
I have similar thoughts to it and to Bill and what they really are doing is putting you in a situation of choosing which law do you want to break? Because if you don't feel it should be a schedule one drug, but it still is. That's a, that's a law that you would you need to adhere to. But the other one is, if you don't check the box, you're now lying on a federal form. And that's the positive is I haven't seen them come after anybody claiming they lied on a federal form and trying to charge them with a federal felony with it. But I know that they could. And I see Michelle just put a comment up about it being a big issue in Florida. And I can't think of her name now. But the Agricultural Commissioner, that's now doing some running for governor has been the one petitioning the Supreme Court, for them, for cannabis users to have their Second Amendment rights like everybody else in the country.
DAVID PALESCHUCK
Jeff & Bill, thank you so very much for your time and insights today. We really appreciate. Where can people find you?
ADRIANA HEMANS
Yeah, same here. Thank you, Bill & Jeff.
DAVID PALESCHUCK
That’s our show for today. We’ll be back again next Thursday, June 29th when we’ll be chatting about "Cannabis Brands & Consumer Behavior" with Michael Rosenfeld, Sr. Client Partner at Weedmaps.
ADRIANA HEMANS
We just dropped a link in the chat for next week’s episode. Hit that button to register so you don’t miss it. If you miss us in the meantime, you can re-watch today’s episode, or any of our previous episodes, on our LinkedIn page, Branding Bud Live – or – on our YouTube channel.
Link To Episode #34 "Cannabis Brands & Consumer Behavior" with Michael Rosenfeld, Sr. Client Partner at WeedMaps.
https://www.linkedin.com/video/event/urn:li:ugcPost:7076604001873526784/
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ADRIANA HEMANS
Thanks for joining everyone. Please follow us!
DAVID PALESCHUCK
Thank you everybody. We'll see you next week. And don't forget to check out cannabis is best kept secret at www.brandingbud.com. Until then!
ADRIANA HEMANS
Bye
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