Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Life Podcast. I hope everybody's having a beautiful day. Hope the sun is shining, shining, shining. Hope the birds are singing. Hope the wind is at your back. I got a banger for you guys today. It's going to be mind-blowing. I want everyone to welcome Micah Anderson. So aloha, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome back to this true life podcast where we dive deep with trailblazers and game changers shaping the future. Today, we're lighting up a conversation with a true pioneer at the intersection of cannabis entrepreneurship and cutting edge innovation. Micah Anderson is the founder and CEO of Leaf Brands, a visionary force behind one of the most sophisticated cannabis extraction facilities in North America. He holds every cannabis license type, making him a master navigator of one of the most complex industries in the world. Under his leadership, Leaf has assembled a world-class executive team, built powerful distribution networks, and secured both private equity and institutional debt to fuel the company's growth. But Micah isn't just shaping markets, he's shaping policy. Recognized at both the federal and state levels as a key opinion leader, he regularly advises government officials and takes the stage at conferences to share his insights. And if that weren't enough, he's a big-time Bitcoin believer, exploring the frontiers of finance just as boldly as he reshapes cannabis. From green rush to digital gold, today we're diving into the mind of a serial entrepreneur who thrives where innovation meets disruption. So buckle up, everybody. This is going to be a ride. Micah, welcome to the show. How are you? I'm good. Thanks for having me, George. I got to update a couple of things in that, but yeah, it's all correct. I love it, man. I'm so stoked you're here, man. I've been wanting to do this podcast for a while and maybe I fleshed out a little bit of a background right there, but where do you want to start this at here? Maybe you can give us just a little bit more background of where you are now and how you kind of got there. Yeah. So as a company, you mean? Yeah, exactly. Geographically. Yeah, so as a company, where are we at today? So Leaf Brands is a publicly traded company. We're listed in Canada. We're a California-based company, soon to be taking our first step out of California into New York. And at the heart of our business, I'd say we're an extraction company. We're one of the larger extraction companies in the state of California. We are... not new to cultivation by way of like, I've been cultivating my whole life, but the company is new to it. So we've got one of the largest cannabis farms in America now at this point in Santa Barbara County, which is being planted next week. Took us about four years to get through the permitting process. We brought that on just because of the size of our extraction business. So the whole thing's purpose for extraction. And our company, we focus on powering many of the larger brands in the state of California, as well as the larger retail footprints. So if you've got ten, twenty, fifty doors and you want to supply a vape line internally with concentrate products, we would be one of the companies you would reach out to. It's amazing to think how far cannabis has come since the underground day when I was buying dime bag from Chewy. It's interesting to think about all that progress. You've been on the inside for a long time. Let me start off with this. I got a great question coming in right off the bat. It says, cannabis has long been a symbol of both counterculture and healing. As someone who shaped the industry from the inside, do you see cannabis as a plant that's transforming society or is society transforming cannabis? That's a good question. I think I go back and forth on that, on which one I believe is happening. I think my hope is, I'll start there, I guess, that the plant canvas would be the one that changes society. And I think it still absolutely has the potential to do so. But I do think that Sometimes I feel like we're losing that battle, you know, and that it's, I don't know. But let me, I guess to focus on the good side of that, what I mean by that, my hope is I think that one of the things when we started Leaf that I was like intrigued about or I thought was like, oh, this could be a good thing. You know, like I think anytime... I think anytime government gets involved with industries, it doesn't necessarily work out very well. And I think that cannabis, the early days of cannabis, I thought proposition two, fifteen was a beautiful structure and it worked. It wasn't perfect, but it worked in a lot of ways in California. And so I was a part of all of that. And then a part of transitioning into Prop. Sixty four, which is we're at today, and I wanted to stay in the industry and so converted everything that I had going on into the new structure that we're in now, which is where why Leap Brands is here today. The one thing that I could point to that I thought was a beneficial thing to the world was the pesticide screening that came in the regulation of Prop. sixty four. And so I don't think that the industry has done a great job yet with that. But I feel like food, agriculture, water, medicine has been contaminated for many, many years. And I think that cannabis has a real unique opportunity to shed light on that. And so that's where I'm hopeful. You know, I think that I don't know how far down the rabbit hole we want to go here on this, but like just I think that cannabis has a couple of different elements to it, too. You've got the recreational side of it. You also have the medicinal side of it. And I think that those I think that the recreational side is obviously because of monetary reasons exploded more so than the medical side of it. And I wish that that was maybe less weighted in one way or the other. I don't know if I'm answering the question, but I think that my hope is that it does. I think pesticides is a great way for us to utilize the plant and the regulations that we all have to adhere to to help benefit the larger agricultural industry at large, even pharma, water, just the cleanliness around pesticides and metals. And yeah, I mean, we've been in this position to where we've tested millions of pounds of cannabis at this point over the past decade. And we've definitely seen that throughout the state of California, we have a serious problem. And it's coming from food, it's coming from alcohol, whether it's from the vineyards where people are spraying these toxic pesticides and they're drifting onto operate cannabis operations that are trying their best to be clean and use best practices and they're still struggling passing test results so I think that uh that's one way I hope that the plant can help and then I also think just from a a holistic way of like getting people to just think differently about life and like uh living healthier lifestyles not gravitating towards Western medicine or alcohol. I think that that's one of the things that I like about the industry and what brought me to it at a pretty young age. I'm kind of libertarian in my mindset to where I feel like government should stay as small as possible and out of our ways. And I think that there's something about the cannabis industry that was born in that as well. So I hope that the industry is able to not lose that. Leaf is doing this corporate thing now compared to where I personally was once at, and I'm actually, I'm enjoying it. It's been a learning experience for me, but I hope that Leaf can kind of maintain a bit of that culture side of where cannabis came from in this new kind of public market corporate path that we're on right now. I think it's important for our company and I think it's important for the industry. That's a great answer. And it kind of pulls back the curtain on some of the reasons why there's so much friction. I can only imagine that big vineyards like I live up in wine country right now. And I can only imagine the people that are using pesticides to cure for their plants do not want in any way, shape or form to be limited in those pesticides, you know, so they're, they're probably on one side, kicking money to a different politician who's voting for them. Can you like this? Is that happened? Or what are some other things behind the scenes that are really kind of blocking this legislation? Yeah, well, I definitely think that, you know, vineyards or even other ag industries, they definitely don't want a large cannabis farm next door to them for those reasons, you know. And I don't think it's like I don't want to say that, hey, these guys are bad and we're good. That's not necessarily what I'm saying. I think that the problem is more systemic than that. And like. for since the forties and fifties, we made a mistake in adopting the thought process around agriculture in general, that like you have to use these types of products, which were at one point in time, waste products from making some other type of product. And they figured out how to commercialize them, put them into the ag industry. And with that pesticides, different types of pesticides. So I think it's more of like getting, farmers in general on board with like, hey, you don't have to use this stuff. There's other things that we can all be using even at scale. So it's a lot of education I think needs to take place. But to answer your question directly, Yeah, there's been, especially in Santa Barbara County, there's been battles almost between the wine industry and the cannabis industry. And I think at the end of the day, the wine guys are like, hey, we don't want you guys next door because we don't want the liability. If we ruin your crop and you guys were to sue us, like that's a problem for our business. And, you know, so for selfish reasons, it's not wanted. Yeah, it really shows the intricate balance of economy and partnership and money when it comes down to it on some level. There's another interesting relationship that I'm curious about, sort of the underground and then the commercial side of it. It seems to me like there's so many players that pretty much everybody understands not everybody, but a large portion of people started in the underground and then certain people make it, whether it's through sheer wheel guts or whatever it is. Do you, is there a divide in your opinion between like the underground and then like the commercial side of it? Maybe expand on that a little bit. What do you mean by divide? It just seems like a lot of people that are a lot smaller get really upset at the guys that are kind of crushing it on the big level. There seems to be a divide there. I'm just kind of reading between the lines, but I see a lot of small guys go out of business and maybe they're making excuses. Maybe they have legitimate reasons why it's happening, but I mean, as someone who's where you are, you started on the underground. You've been in the game for a long time. You've built something incredible that is somehow flourishing against all odds. And I'm just curious to get your perspective. Yeah, I think it's a fair point. I think that... I don't want to answer this. You're welcome. I won't be politically correct. I'm just trying to think of my honest answer. I have a lot of friends that are still... Me too. On the traditional side, you know, and God bless them. They're still at it. I don't hold. I see the traditional side is still being part of our industry. And I think that people that like to jump on board and bash that side don't truly understand the industry. They're only looking at it through their their lens. And I think that what we need to figure out is how as how do we how do we. bring that and fold that into the legal industry. Because the illicit side is, I don't know how many times larger, but it's much, much larger than the legal side. And I think that that's what we should be focused on is how do we get these guys? Because there's good operators. I mean, the product on the illicit side and sometimes is better than the product on the licensed side. That's just a fact. And it's because some of these operators, they do care about the plant. They do care about the cleanliness of it and everything that everybody else cares about. have decided to not go through the red tape. Cause it's not, it is not easy. Like the, the license side is freaking hard. And I mean, the, the, the barriers to entry is brutal and it doesn't seem to be getting any easier either. Sorry, my cat is trying to jump on the table. Um, so, um, do I think that there's a, a, think yeah sure it exists you know you've got people that are not in the um license side that maybe wanted to be in the license side or they were in the license side and they they gave it a go and like for whatever reason didn't make it and they're disgruntled about it and um it's easy to point fingers I think sometimes like oh it's these guys's fault or it's their fault and they're the corporate monsters I don't think that the quote unquote corporate monsters even exist in our industry yet I really don't I think that that's coming um but it hasn't gotten here yet I think you've got you know with bad actors and there's um some toxic money that's entered into the space but like um so I don't know if I'm answering your question but yeah it exists it's unfortunate I've seen a lot of really good people that took a stab at the license side and didn't make it for whatever reason I think that, but scaling a, and I cannot really, I'll speak to California just because that's what I know the best, scaling a licensed cannabis company in California is extremely challenging. And you've got to be able to raise money and make hard decisions and, you know, like that's one of the things I'm proud of our team. A lot of the people that founded Leaf and started the company were, they're just like me. They're just legacy operators that like didn't want to quit. And we've all kind of like, It's mandatory reading. So we have a book club and we're literally teaching ourselves as we go. So for the past decade, I've gotten this like college education and business that I don't think you could get in college. And a lot of it was self-taught, you know, not just for me, but for everyone in our company. So we pass out these books and we say, hey, quarterly, we're going to read these things. This is what we're going to focus on. But everything from Raising money to corporate structure, to tax strategy, building culture with an organization, teams, building relationships, all of that stuff wasn't necessarily a part of the legacy system. You didn't have to know all that stuff, and now you do. And if you're not focusing on that stuff, I think that you're going to have a real hard go at it. It's a great answer. I'm always so... It stokes me to get to hear the way in which people have used plant medicine, be it cannabis or psychedelics. For me, it's usually mushrooms. But somehow the relationship between those really help you forge a path forward that is beyond learning. It's experience. Just the relationship with that plant is experiential. Depending on what you're using, it fundamentally, for me, changes the story I tell myself about my life. That's an incredible education, just having a plant ally or using cannabis or using mushrooms on some level. I'm really stoked to hear that. Maybe you could talk a little bit about the relationship that you have, like your personal relationship with cannabis. Yeah. Like I said, I think that cannabis in the very beginning when I was young, like represented like this sense of freedom and liberty for me. And then as I got a little bit older, I started cultivating it more spending more time with like my hands in the soil and working with the plant like on the cultivation side was a huge learning experience for me and um it got me to think differently just about what I put in my body from food the way you know my lifestyle working out all the time And all of that came from the plant. There's these similarities to cultivating plants and cultivating you as an individual or a child that are very, very similar. You're growing plants, you need to start that plant off. It needs to be as healthy as possible before you put it into the ground and make sure that it's not root bound and all these different things, because that's gonna set up the success all the way to harvest. And if you screw up the very front part end of it, you're gonna screw up a lot of years. And I think that the same thing applies to humans as well. That's one of the things that I've kind of tripped out on sometimes. And yeah, on the psychedelic side, I totally agree with you. I think that like anyone that's ever had like a, whether it's mushrooms, ayahuasca, or one of these other experiences, it's like, yeah, my own personal experience with it has been a very eyeopening thing for me. Ayahuasca specifically, one of the things that I feel like I've learned by doing it a handful of times is that my whole life I've been very business-minded or entrepreneur since I was a little kid. And it was one of the things that I didn't necessarily like about my personality almost. And one of my partners, Kelly, I remember having this conversation with him at one of his farms up in Mendocino. And I was telling him, man, I wanted I really wanted at the time it was DMT. I really wanted to try DMT just because of the things that I heard about, because I want to think differently about this. I don't want to always be so focused on everything's business, business, business. And I want to have this more, I don't know, empathetic way of looking at at things. And it wasn't until I did ayahuasca that I kind of like. real I don't know I'm struggling on what I'm trying to say but I walked out of the experience thinking differently than what I thought I was going to get out of it and it basically kind of taught me that it's okay to be the way that I am just add in these few other ways like you know the empathy and the other things that you're looking the way that you I personally look at certain things you know it just gave me a an alternative way of looking at it I guess is maybe the way to put it so um Yeah, so both from the cannabis side or psychedelic side, I think that people that don't use them or have never experienced them, it's unfortunate. I can't remember which politician said it, but someone, maybe it was Graham Hancock. if he talked about how he felt that politicians should have to do like five ayahuasca experience experiences before they were able to sit in office I freaking completely agree with that I think that it gives you a completely different way of looking at the world your you know fellow humans and uh so anyways I love it. No, it's, it's a beautiful answer. I love it. I, I see that pattern in so many people and just speaking from my own experience, it's, you really get to see a side of yourself that you've never seen before. If you're willing to surrender, you know, it's, it's, it's like not how much are you willing to do? It's like, how much are you willing to let go? How much are you willing to let go of the old George or the old Micah so that you can become the best version of George or Micah? It's, It's transcending on so many levels. I got another question coming in here for you. It says, in building leaf brands, you've turned a once illicit industry into a legitimate enterprise. What does it take to walk that razor's edge between rebellion and regulation? What does it take to walk the razor's edge between rebellion? It takes discipline. And like, yeah, no one... Knowing where the, it's a practice that honestly, you know, it's like, you got to practice it. It's because it's like, I can, I still have the, I carry the pirate flag deep in my soul that I'm not able to fly sometimes. So yeah, discipline in a more of a serious answer though. I think that like, There's all these rules and regulations and things that you do. You have to adhere to them and you need to build a team around yourself and the organization that can help support that. So making sure that you've got a good person on the compliance side, always staying up to the latest and greatest and whatever the rules are. And that's one of the things that's challenging for me is that they change the rules so fast and so often. It's like, man, I can't, you know, like it's hard to keep up with it. So, and it's also expensive. You gotta be able to like, afford it and and spend the time the energy and have the discipline to make sure that you are reviewing these rules and regulations and then not not lose the reason why you you got into this in the first place though in all of that because otherwise you can just get so caught up in the minutia of the the what's the word corporatocracy is that is that even a word um in all of it that it can kill the culture. The reason why you're here in the first place, and then you end up being this shell of an organization that once brought you into this industry. So I guess that's how I look at it. That's how I kind of balance the two. I want LEAF to be compliant. I want us to be successful in adhering to the rules and all the rest. And this past year, I'll say that I've spent more time getting involved and actually being in the room when these decisions are being made. You know, you kind of read off my resume. don't know where you pulled that from but um uh that I'm I get involved with more the trade associations and showing up in sacramento and like trying to be a part of the solution versus just about the problem like oh this sucks they're ruining this industry okay sure but what are you doing about it and I think that that goes beyond just our industry too it's like um don't complain um if you're not in the room trying to be a positive impact to the industry so spending more of my time doing that I'm actually enjoying it which is weird to say because I can't stand I can see how screwed it up it is once you spend a little bit of time in sacramento but someone's we need to show up the people that care about this industry and have been doing it for a long time have to show up to this stuff otherwise the wrong people are going to be making the rules and they're going to set the industry in a worse trajectory than it already is It's a great answer. You know, I noticed you got some incredible new additions to the team with Jesse Redman and you're just surrounded by really incredible people. Can you help, like maybe there's some other entrepreneurs listening to this or just people in general, but what do you look for when you're building a team and what's that process like? Just surround yourself with people that are smarter than you, you know, and that align with your core values and the company's core values. Jesse's a great example of that. Smart guy, Wall Street background, got into cannabis for the right reasons, has stuck with it, has got his teeth kicked in, speaks eloquently, and really helps me with seeing the angle at which he looks at the industry especially from a public market perspective I need that because that's not a skill set that I have so it's good to have him around the table in these conversations um surround yourself with people that are not yes men jesse's not a yes man you know like he's not even two months into it and he's already going I don't like that you know here's the reason why I don't like it here you know which is good doesn't mean that you know you just don't want a bunch of people that or on the team that just nod the head, you know, every time you talk and, and tell you you're smart, um, that doesn't do you any, that doesn't, doesn't help anybody. So, cause I'm, I'm not, so yeah, people that are starting companies, if you're an entrepreneur, that's one thing I would say is like, have enough, uh, humility to, to, to put smarter people on the team, um, than yourself you know and just make that make that a focus and a goal at all times imagine that jesse redmond chiming in great show so far guys love micah's perspective what a brilliant time to chime in right there jesse you're awesome jesse we love you man well you said micah you said he got into it for the right reasons and that hints at a set of right reasons to get into something can you maybe flesh those out like what are the right reasons I think I mean you got to have passion for something everyone's got to have some sort of a why like why are you involved with this a lot of times people get involved with it for medical reasons like I'm pretty sure and jesse sorry if I botched this but I think jesse got into the cannabis industry because he was looking for a medical solution to an ailment that I believe his dad was having of discovered the industry and then you know he's a capitalist at heart or at least I think he is um where you know he sees he's like hey this could be an industry that I can not only be passionate about it's doing something good for humanity but there's also a way to make money here and then he got involved in the industry he ran a retail store so he's got like direct operational experience And I consider that, that's not the only reason that makes it the right reason, but I think that whether it's cannabis or anything, if you're solely there just because you wanna make money, I think that the chances of that company surviving in the long term are lower than they would be if there was like a real passion and a why behind why that company is there. Yeah, I think that's sage advice. It's interesting that we bring up the medical issue of it. On a personal level, like my wife has stage three cancer, and we recently talked to a few people about RSO. I know you guys are a huge extraction facility down there, and maybe we could shift gears and talk a little bit about RSO and how it can help. My wife has used different tinctures and stuff. It helps her sleep at night, and it frustrates me beyond belief to hear people talking about it. There's no medicinal value, but what are your thoughts on RSO and helping people with these different extracts? It's unfortunate that, you know, the fact that this, this plant is still a schedule one narcotic has put the plant and the industry in this position to where we haven't been able to do a lot of like real medical research, like real true studies. And, and when you do do some of them, they're, they're very expensive to do and hard to do. You got to find someone with the right licensing and you get sign offs and all this stuff. So it's, most the cannabis industry isn't in a position where they can afford to do it and the money's on the recreational side so from a business standpoint that's where they focus their energy and so I think that um whether it's rso or tinctures or gummies or you know topicals I think that there's a very strong anecdotal it's like it's it's common sense I think and like common knowledge that this stuff works and it has uh people have cured themselves from all kinds of ailments using cannabis um yeah I think it's unfortunate though that like most of the industry is not focused on that at all that kind of gets pushed off to the wayside um there should be more of an emphasis on it but I also understand why companies even like like ourselves I would love to do real research programs and launch products that are are more catered to the medical side but from a financial business standpoint it's hard to do because you're like man you could go you could go broke doing it in the process so hopefully that changes with rescheduling um and uh but you know and then also from a personal standpoint I'm a big believer in just whether it's plant medicines or diets drinking water and working out touching grass and eating meat whatever whatever it is I think all of that is better for you than putting Oxycontin or one of these other things into your body. And we've seen just how detrimental that is to society, you know? And I hope that cannabis fixes that. I think that it gives another, it gives people an alternative and us as an industry should spend more time focusing on that and educating people and marketing that. But man, the powers that be do their best to suppress that. Yeah, I see it too. And I'd imagine it comes with the same sort of friction that we spoke about earlier about cannabis and different industries having problems with it. I would imagine from the research that I have done, it seems to cut into the profit margin of like a lot of – whether it's alcohol, tobacco, even big pharma and stuff. I could see why they would push back and be like, hey, this is a no-go. This is unsafe. If you can just keep it buried for so long, it doesn't have the sunlight to grow. Is that too far-fetched? No, I think that's spot on. I think – If you're a big industry and you have another industry that's coming in and eating your market share, you're going to find ways to push back against that, even if they're inaccurate. I think with the economy going the direction it's going and people feeling the pressure of inflation, people are looking at it and they open up their wall and they're like, I got fifty dollars in here. What am I going to go spend that money on? Is it going to be for my vice type products is it going to be alcohol is it going to be a thc and even when they walk into a dispensary they're making decisions based on the amount of money and the purchasing power of that money as they walk into a store so yeah if you're a big corporation and you're noticing that that fifty dollars isn't being spent on your industry anymore and like percentage wise it's like man it's going over to to uh cannabis or people that are just making the decision to be sober, they're going to start writing hit pieces and do their best to suppress real information. And that's one of the unfortunate parts of business. Yeah, I think you're uniquely qualified in a lot of ways. And the question that comes to mind for me right now is what can psychedelics learn from cannabis? Like we're seeing sort of like a quasi-legalization, like in Oregon and Denver, but they're going through some of the same processes. Can you speak a little bit about what psychedelics can learn from what cannabis has been through? I would... focus on the medical side and don't try and push it into the recreational bucket. You know, like just for making money. I don't think psychedelics is meant for that anyways. I think that it's okay to make money off of it and therapies and all of that, but I wouldn't, let's just take mushrooms. I wouldn't, I don't think that eating a ton of mushrooms is necessarily a recreational experience. I know it's fun at times. I mean, trust me, I know it's fun. I don't think it's something that you do every day. Like cannabis is different in that way where it's like, you know, I smoke almost nightly just to help go to sleep. And, but I don't eat mushrooms all the time. And I don't, you know, that's like a, an annual event for me if I'm gonna like do that. Uh, and so I guess to answer your question, what's something that they could learn from the cannabis industry, the cannabis industry went hard on the recreational side of cannabis. And I think that. psychedelic as a medicine and as an industry should try and stay more on the medical side do real research and don't try and go push it into the because I think that just from the legislative side you're going to get so much pushback if that's the direction that the industry tries to take it you're not going to get anywhere but I think like you know you look at texas I saw there was an interesting interview with um it's not Rick Rubin, that's the, it's not Rick, what's the guy's name? He was the governor of Texas and he was talking to Rogan. Rick Perry. Rick Perry, thank you. Yeah, so Rick Perry and another gentleman were on there and they're having this discussion around bringing ibogaine in as a therapeutic in Texas. And this is coming from the governor of Texas who doesn't like any drugs. And That to me kind of speaks to, I guess what I'm trying to say. I think that if we go the medical route and you open it up as a medical industry and create centers where people can go in for real therapy, you're going to get guys like Rick Perry that are like, yeah, I'm for that. I can see that this is, you know, there's evidence here. I know someone who had whatever the element was and it helped them dramatically. And therefore, I'm going to help push this along and we'll get this through written into law. But I think that if the psychedelic industry pushes it the other way and they're like, no, I want to just be able to blow this out on every street corner like Kratom and all this other stuff. I don't think it's going to go anywhere. So. Yeah, it's a great take. Thank you for that. I you know it. When we bring up Rick Perry and Rogan, what comes to mind for me is how many veterans are being helped. I got a great friend, Diego Ugalde, who started a company called Warrior Side. And it's basically TED Talks for special forces combat and how they've used plant medicines to overcome it. Actually, it's going to be in San Diego on March twenty ninth. So anybody listening within the sound of my voice, do yourself a huge favor. Check out Diego Ugalde. Buy some tickets. I think they've got a few left. But it's amazing to see how so many of the veterans have played part, not only in cannabis, but in psychedelics and sort of helping push the boundaries of that stigma further back. What are your thoughts on that? Yeah, I think it's, I know another guy, this guy, Jason Gardner, he was a Navy SEAL sniper, I think at like the very highest levels. He worked underneath a guy here in San Diego named Jocko Willink, who's like a jujitsu guy and has a podcast and Navy SEAL guy. He's on Rogan's podcast a lot as well. Anyways, I've gotten to know Jason and same thing, he's used Ibogaine and other psychedelic therapies to help him. And I think, you know, listening to his stories it's it's it's profound it's it's it's uh I definitely think it works and I think that um anyone in the military or anything in life people and people have like all kinds of different things that they're trying to work through and negative stories you know things experiences that they've had in their life and I I definitely think that um it's worth at least giving it a real look with an open mind to see if it's something that can help Yeah, I agree. All right, who we got? We got Clint Kiles coming in here. He says, you hold every cannabis license type, period, a feat in itself. Do you see these licenses as keys to unlocking opportunity or as shackles that keep innovation in check? Yeah, and we should update that because it's not – at one point in time, I probably did have every single license type. Not anymore. I've divested myself of a handful of them. Yeah. Maybe that kind of halfway answers your question. I think if you want to participate in the legal cannabis industry, you got to have some sort of license unless you're a brand. If you're a brand, there are like legal loopholes that you can kind of get through where you do a licensing agreement with someone like Leaf to leverage their license. And then you're able to act as like a marketing agency and then sell your products into market. A lot of brands uh, do that nowadays. And I think that's a good, smart asset lightweight. I do think that cannabis licenses are a, um, depreciating asset. It costs a lot of money to get them up and operational and, um, not all of them, but a lot of them end up sliding backwards, um, in terms of value. And, uh, you know, if you're on the public public side, as we are, you know, a lot of these public companies, you look around, there's a lot of people taking write downs on these assets all the time. um negatively uh impacting their balance sheet so I think that there there's a pro and con to them I think if you're if you're going to go the license route and you're going to buy one make sure you get it at a good deal um be smart about it don't overpay don't pull a medman and pay seventy million dollars for a license that makes zero cents um so I think it's a it's a Pro and con, way to look at it. Yeah, licenses can be a positive thing and they can be a necessity, you gotta have one. but they can also be a negative thing if you overpay for them, if you buy them in the wrong area, or you buy them in a state or a municipality that starts off with a few of them, so they're a scarce resource, and then all of a sudden they become not scarce because they decide to issue a hundred more licenses, like do your homework and look into that before making that decision. Yeah, that's great advice. Shout out to Leiter. What's up, Leiter? Thank you for always being here, man. You're an incredible human being. He says, I think encountering ibogaine in the addiction treatment setting could be deeply meaningful if the consciousness around it adapts to the healing mechanism. That's a great point. Thank you, Leiter, for chiming in right there. One more. They're stacking up on me over here, Micah. The cannabis industry has deep roots in underground culture. As the market becomes more corporate, how do you preserve the soul of the plant while scaling a business? Thank you, Desiree. That's a good question. I think about that one often, honestly, because that's what we're doing. So we're about to plant this plant. massive farm in Santa Barbara. Like, like it's crazy how big it is. And, you know, it doesn't escape me or, um, that, you know, at one point in time, like I want small farms and the people that have been around the small farming community to survive and thrive and be successful. I have to balance my personal thoughts to what I think Leaf needs as a company to be able to get the amount of material that we need that's pesticide free to scale the business and all those types of things. How do we preserve that? Like even amongst my employees, our shareholders, I think about that all the time where it's like, and I think the honest answer is I just, I talk about it a lot. You know, like I'm very open about it. And I talk about it when I have meetings with our managers or company meetings once or twice a year, preserving the culture. And everyone knows where I stand on this. It's very important to me that like, we need to preserve the cannabis culture. and not get caught up with just like we got to just make money money money money money you know money is yeah you got to make money the company has to be successful and I think that if we preserve that culture do the right thing kind of you know maintain our north star and don't really like give up on the core value side of who we are as a company and and and um that the money side, we're going to be a successful company. I believe that. And I think that there's nothing wrong with that. I think that there's nothing wrong with wanting to make money. But I do think that it's important that you don't forget where you came from. Don't forget about all the people that have kind of paid the way and put in the hard work and done jail time and all these various things to get the industry to where it is today. So that's the way I look at it. I love the way you look at it. It's a beautiful way to do it. Being an industry leader in this particular arena, you guys are kind of setting the culture. I've seen you sitting next to Max Keiser, and I see you down in all these places, and you're surrounded by cool people that we've already spoken about. Is there any – have you given any thought to like having like the same way Google has Google Talks, like maybe like Leaf Talks, bringing in some people from the community and just sharing experiences and stuff like that? I really love what you guys are doing and I wish it was opened up for other people to come and visit and see. What are your thoughts? Yeah, it's a good idea. If Jesse is still listening, maybe put that on your to-do list. I think it's a, I think it's a good idea. And I think that there's a, there's so many cool stories in the industry that I know up in Mendocino and Humboldt that have really been doing this forever. You know, people that are in their seventies and eighties and they, they've truly seen it all. There's some really cool stories that would be cool to capture on film. And, you know, we're at this point now where you're not getting in trouble for it anymore. So you don't have to like, I, the story is the way that you had to before, but, um, I don't know, I don't do a lot of podcasts, you know? So, and I get like, I don't know, gun shy or nervous when I'm doing them. I don't know if I'd be the right guy to lead that charge, like during the interviews and whatnot, Yeah, I have, you know, this industry and the company has definitely landed me in a few positions, Max Keiser being one of them, which was real for me, um, where I've been able to talk to some cool people and, uh, and get advice from people that like, I really respect. And, uh, back to that whole, you know, back to just listen to people and surround your people with, with people that are better than you on as much as you possibly can. So it's not a bad idea though. Maybe we'll do something on the ranch. That'd be cool. We have this very, very cool, unique setup. on the ranch and we can bring in people. One of the things I do want to do back to being a part of the solution is I want to start hosting these trade association get togethers on the ranch where people get together and spend a couple of days really thinking through how to structure the industry and how to go back to the state to ask for things. I think one of the problems that we have is that The state dissected this industry and put it into a bunch of different license types. And what happened was we all started in fighting with each other. It's the distributor's fault. It's the manufacturer's fault. It's the cultivators are getting their deal. Everyone's looking at it from their own angle. And I think that we got to figure out a way not to fight with each other. unify what it is that we're looking for and then go together because that's what other industries do. And that's what I've kind of learned this past year, listening to some of the policymakers in Sacramento is like the canvas industry is so fragmented. I'll take a meeting with this trade association and a day later, I'll take one with another one. And you guys are literally saying the exact opposite thing. So there he goes. I love it. I love it. Get with me on that, Jesse. I got some other ideas to run by you. So another aspect of it. I got to get this one off the top of my head. Is Max Keiser and Michael Saylor Satoshi? No. Okay, I had to ask. I don't think so. No. I don't think so. I mean, I think if... If Sailor was Satoshi, he would have gotten involved with it, obviously, much, much earlier. Unless you believe that he came in later as all part of the show, you know? I don't think so. My take on Satoshi, you didn't ask me, but I'm going to share it. Please. What I hope it is, I don't think it's an individual. I think it's probably a group of individuals, very, very small people that were fed up with the Federal Reserve System and the way that centralized banking works. And they thought up a way of how do we, in this new digital age, create a system that truly puts the power of money back into the hands of people? And that's what my hope is, because that's what it is. If like if you really study Bitcoin and it takes a long time to study it, it's not easy. It's a it's a I missed it for years. I mean, man, I could have gotten involved with it back when it was probably sub one hundred dollars. And I kept writing it off because I thought it was the opposite of what it was. I thought it was a digital way of enslaving people, you know, and like Uh, getting rid of using paper currency and being involved in the cannabis industry for as long as I have, it's like, I can see that there's a benefit and I understand why centralized banking eventually would want to get rid of paper currency and allowing people to use money and digitize it. So, um, that's what I think Satoshi is or was, maybe it was one person. And he just was like, I'm going to give this to the world. And it took fifteen years to well, not that long, but it took a handful of years to really catch wind. And now it's caught wind. I mean, now it's crazy. I mean, you get the president and all these nation states adopting it and all the rest. So now I think Max is a guy that understood sound money and did his homework early. Someone brought it to him and said, you're a sound money gold guy, which is what Max was for years. That's when I listened to him forever and bought gold through his company and off of his recommendation, listening to him for years. And I think that he understood sound money. He understood what scarcity was around money and saw what it was going to become and got involved with it. Yeah, it's a great take. I'm fascinated by it. What was El Salvador like when you went down there? You've seen a country transform. When I look at the pictures or I read the articles, I see so much rapid transformation and rapid innovation. What was your experience down there like? yeah, I went down there specifically for a Bitcoin conference. So, um, my, I guess my time was limited and what I was able to go see was limited, but I'll say this. I grew up surfing my whole life. I've traveled all over South America and, and El Salvador was always the country that was like the no, no, like don't go to El Salvador. It's too dangerous. Um, and, uh, I didn't pick up on any of that. I mean, like, it seems like the country, Bukele's gone in there and like, one-eighty'd the thing and put, you know, all these gangsters are essentially running all these major cities from what you know, you talk to the local people, that's what their take was. And that's like been completely, you know, exterminated. It's not there anymore. The one thing I would say that I was a little kind of surprised by. So El Salvador is, I think the first country to adopt Bitcoin as like currency or money. And they've been purchasing, purchasing quite a bit of it. I thought I was gonna be able to purchase anything with Bitcoin just off of my phone. You know, that I didn't see a lot of that, but there's definitely, there's a Bitcoin adoption. They're trying to educate. the population in El Salvador on what Bitcoin is and how it's a way to preserve wealth and to get people to start investing into Bitcoin. So it's a beautiful country. We made our way over to a beach called Bitcoin Beach. They had like this after party there. And there's a very good wave out in front of it. All the hotels, all the food was good. So, yeah, I mean, I would I'd go back for sure. And Max lives on a golf course. There's a private golf club club. And since the country has gone the way that it's gone with Bitcoin, there's a ton of interest, international interest from investors. And so I met Max. all kinds of people from real estate developers to tech companies bitcoin companies that now all live down there full time and um it seems like it's pretty it's exploding there's a lot of development a lot of construction going on so yeah it was cool It sounds amazing. I was always curious about it. And you're the only person I know that's really been down there to kind of shake hands and talk to people. So I wanted to get it. But it brings up another question to mind, which when we talk about the illicit drug trade, and we talked about El Salvador, what percentage? Where's the month? Do you think that there's a big connection between maybe South America and the illicit farms that are happening here in California? No, well, I think it exists, but do I think it exists the way that the news says it does? No, I really don't. I think that it's a blown out story for political reasons. What am I trying to say? If you look at the cannabis industry, whether it's the black market or the white market, right? the price per pound will put either side out of business if it goes so low that either side can't survive. Right. And I think that that's where we're at in California is that it's gotten so low that the incentive for like these massive black market farms to exist, it's, it's not, it's, it's not there the way that they, the news makes it sound as if like, there's just prolific acres and acres and acres everywhere. And I don't know, maybe I'm missing something. I'm a pilot. I fly all over the state. I've been up and down the state of California hundreds of times. For fifteen years, I flew from San Diego to Mendocino or Humboldt, back and forth and back and forth for work. I've seen nothing but an industry slowly be eradicated over that time period where when I first got my pilot's license, I was just blown away. And then it kind of got like even more so like leading into Prop. Sixty four. And then ever since then, there's just nothing but empty, empty gardens and fields all over the state of California. So they exist yeah sure there's still an illicit market is it as big as um they make it out to be on the news no it is not in my opinion and is it ran by like this dark element of like the cartel deep from within the jungle in south america I don't think so at two hundred fifty dollars a pound I'd like to think that those guys have like other things that they're working on where they're making more money but um yeah that's kind of my take I think that just this might come off not politically correct but I don't care just because people are mexican working in a field doesn't mean that there's some cartel operation and I think like that's what the news says sometimes and it's yeah that's a great take uh lidar comes back and he says is bitcoin priming us for a centralized digital currency I think that maybe you touched up on that when you were first beginning bitcoin it may have been one of your fears but what's your what's your take on is bitcoin priming us for a centralized digital currency I hope not know that that's my concern with the the digital currencies and you know just full transparency for anyone listening I'm not I'm I'm not an expert I'm not like a long time bitcoiner that's been a part of like I'm new to it And I'm, I'm a believer in it. But that would be my concern. And that's what I'm not for. I don't want to centralize digitalized currency that, you know, you get into, like, the government really having the power to shut you off. If they don't like your social media posts, if you haven't paid your taxes, if there's anything about your life that you don't like, none of us want that when we need to fight back against that as, as much as we possibly can. Does Bitcoin pave the way to it? I think that the way that the Bitcoin network works, the answer is no. Could governments write laws to create centralized digitalized currencies like their version of Bitcoin? Yeah, sure. Every other coin that's been invented outside of Bitcoin, in essence, is a man-made thing controlled by a board with its own set of rules. And governments could take that and then take it a step further and write laws that make either Bitcoin illegal or force you to use their centralized digitalized currency no different than the Fed forces us to use the dollar. Could that happen? Let's hope not, but maybe. Yeah, it's a great question. It's it's so interesting to see all these digital currencies come up. Can we expect to see a leaf coin come out in the future? No. No. Well, look, no. My answer is no. But what I think is interesting and I'm I'm not going to go too far into this because I honestly I'd be over my skis and I'd be I'm not educated on it. But the lightning network is interesting. There's a company called Tether, which is basically tokenized the dollar. And so and there's I was listening to this really, really interesting conversation yesterday about it. There's a guy named Preston Pish that I met at a Bitcoin conference not very long ago, just happened to meet this guy in the bar and bullshitted with him for a while and then found out that he's got like one of the biggest Bitcoin conferences out there. This guy's smart, and he was talking about how Tether and the Lightning Network have a way to basically tokenize stock shares. So like Leaf as a public company could end up tokenizing our shares in a way that our shareholders were able to take self custody of them in a very, very easy way and transfer them to one of one another easily. Whereas like being a cannabis company and having shares it's problematic sometimes for, for shareholders, because there's this thing called a DRS that you gotta go through to get your shares transferred into your account. You gotta find a company that is willing to hold those shares for you. And sometimes because they're cannabis, they will, sometimes they won't. I think if you were to tokenize, um, shares from what they, the way that they were explaining it, it would eliminate, um, and make it eliminate that issue and make it a lot easier for self-custody their own shares whether that's a Microsoft Tesla Leaf whatever company it is that's interesting that's something that I could see like I could see that being a cool new technology that people could benefit from but is Leaf going to mine Bitcoin create a Leaf coin no we're not we're not doing that It's classic. It's so exciting to see the future where like that would cut out so many middlemen to be able to tokenize it like that. But ultimately, that's what everyone's fighting against. Like all those middlemen are like, well, you're not going to cut me out. You know who I am. You're going to cut me out of this thing. Yeah. Let's see. Who do we got coming in here? We got this one is coming to us from Kevin. He says entrepreneurship is often painted as a pursuit of freedom. Yet the process demands structure, discipline and sacrifice. How do you balance personal freedom with the responsibilities of leadership? How do I balance personal freedom with the responsibilities of being a leader? I spend a lot more time working on leadership than I do on personal things. I guess just to answer it kind of directly, it's like, so on the personal side, I try my very best to make sure that I'm big into time blocking. So I wake up early, I straight into the gym, I try and I'm walking out of the gym by six-thirty, then I spend an hour to, sorry, thirty minutes to forty-five minutes reading, that's a big part of my daily structure. And all of that is from my personal headspace. It's so that I have a bit of reprieve from what happens at seven o'clock, which is then you get into the workday and it's just like a barrage of chaos at times. And it can be fatiguing and totally stressful. And I think that if you don't have a way to off-gas that, that stress, you will fatigue and, and, and burn out eventually. So on the leadership side, I think leadership is, is, is it's like a muscle. It's a skillset that some people have, they're born with more of it than others, but like, you still have to work it out and exercise that muscle and like learn new techniques and listen to other people that are better than it than you to get better at it. when I think of like, and even getting older too, I think helps in leadership, you know, gives you like just an older, wiser way of looking at things, um, sometimes versus being young and just like, you know, eager or like, it's easy to just jump in and judge or fly off the handle, um, in certain situations. And as I definitely feel like as I've gotten older, I've gotten better. Um, I'm not a fly off the handle type person, so I don't, luckily for my employees, they don't have to deal with that. But, um, Yeah, you just get better at it. So I don't know if I'm answering the question, but I do think that it's an important, it's an important question. And anyone that's in business should be spending a lot of their time. If you're an entrepreneur and you're in a leadership position, it's something that you need to like constantly work at. Um, I mentioned, uh, the gentleman that I've become kind of friendly with this guy, Jason, he works for a company called Echelon Front, which is, um, a leadership training program basically for, uh, um, CEOs and COOs and different types. And so, um, that's how I met him. This guy, Jocko here in San Diego is the one who puts it on. And so I go to that once a year and I try and, um, get tuned up here and there from different people to help me. Have a good board, people that are in leadership positions that you can bounce ideas off of. And I've never experienced this. Have you? What have you done in these things? And then, yeah, I feel like I'm ranting on the question. Hopefully I answered it. No, it's knowledge, man. I think a lot of people are curious to figure out these ideas of leadership. Obviously, Kevin was, I am, and there's a lot of people out there that are chasing dreams. And I think that when they hear you talk or maybe they look into Leaf or they look into some things that you're doing, they're like, hey, here's a guy who's found a way to translate vision into reality. So I think it's important. Maybe we can just stay on that for a minute. Can you share with us maybe a time, like what do you do, Micah, when shit hits the fan and you're like, jeez, I don't know if I should have even fucking done this. You know, like what do you do? What is your process like when you find yourself up against the wall? I, one of the things that I feel like I've learned in the past few years, I feel like I've gotten better at it is I don't immediately react to anything. I try and if there, if there's, unless it's something that's like, I have to immediately like step in and do something. Okay. That's different. But there's so many different curve balls and fires and issues that arise. And Not being so reactionary to them is a bit of a hack. Take a day, two days, three days before responding to it and really think about whatever it is and what the right decision is and weighing into account all the different factors. That's one thing that I do. like I said, I work out, I work out a lot. I do jujitsu a lot. And it's like, I'm not doing it because I'm trying to get into shape. It's literally the, it's, it's a release valve for me, um, on stress. So like running, reading books, working out, um, jujitsu, like gives you this moment of time to, um, clearly think through things when you're not being like, when you're not sitting there focusing on work per se or whatever the thing, you know, the, whatever the issue is and, And I think just getting comfortable with chaos, that's another thing. It's like, you gotta just get accepted that this is gonna be hard and every day you're gonna get hit with some new challenge. And if you think that entrepreneurship and leadership is anything but that, you shouldn't be an entrepreneur. You should be an intrapreneur, because there's plenty of, the world needs that just as much as we need entrepreneurs as well. So I think making that decision, a couple of kids here in La Jolla asked me the other day, they were talking about this business idea and their question was, how do we know when to start? Like, we don't even know where to start at all in this idea that they have. And I'm like, I just, even for cannabis, like it starts by starting, you know, stupid, but it's like, you literally just start and you figure it out as you go. And that's exactly, that's, that's leaf. That's, that's what we did. I had no freaking idea how to do. So I had to do it. I had to do it. I had to do it. I had to do it. I had to do it. I had to do it. I had no idea how to do any of the other stuff. Building team. I had never done it before. and and nor nor had my partners and and uh yeah I'm blown away I look at these guys now and I'm like this guy gary that works for us he's uh runs our extraction facility he's not even the same human being he's the stuff he does now compared to where he was when he started and I'd say that for a lot of the guys on our team too so Yeah, you just got to start and you got to accept that every day is going to be chaos and that's part of being an entrepreneur. That's part of that. And with that, you get the freedom of being an entrepreneur. And it's like this invaluable thing. It's like being a parent. Being a parent is the hardest, most challenging thing that you will ever do in your life. And it is also the most rewarding thing that you will ever do in your life. It's literally the purpose of life. And so if you kind of have that mentality about, about running a business, that's how you can kind of get through the daily chaotic, as Jocko calls them, their shirt tugs. Every day you get these shirt tugs. And if you pay attention to every single one of them, all you're going to be doing is just trying to cater to whoever's tugging on your shirt. And you need to learn how to manage that and don't get distracted by the shirt tugs. Man, it's a brilliant answer. We've got one coming in here on policy. This is coming. You've advised government officials on cannabis policy. What's more difficult, shifting the public narrative or convincing policymakers to see beyond decades of stigma? Read that one more time. What's more difficult, shifting the public narrative or convincing policymakers to see beyond decades of stigma? Hmm. I think the latter convincing policymakers, there's so many outside influences that you're not even privy to when you're going in and you feel like you're presenting a common sense solution to a problem. And you're like, why, why don't these guys get it? Like, why don't they just see that? Like the obvious solution is to just do this. They're behind the scenes hit with so many other things that are going on and like the lobbyist efforts that are going on on both sides. And so convincing policymakers, I think is like the very, very challenging because it's not, ninety percent of the problem isn't necessarily convincing them that your your solution is accurate and and sound it's getting through all the other bullshit behind the scenes to get what whatever it is that you want done and I I feel like I'm saying that not very intelligently but Hopefully you get my point. It's like, that's what's hard. It's like getting these policy things across the finish line when there's a hundred other outside influences that are beyond your control, undermining or throwing headwinds at what you're trying to do. Yeah, it makes total sense to me. I could see how, you know, it's like the old argument between complicated and complex. Like a complicated problem is something you can fix, but a complex problem doesn't really have a defined answer. There's all these undefined variables. And when you're dealing with a politician, lobby makers, Lord knows what sort of complexities is happening up there. Here's another one that's along the same vein. Policy shapes culture as much as culture shapes policy. Do you believe legal frameworks can ever truly affect the complexity of cannabis and its role in human history? That's a deep one. Yeah. I don't know if I'm smart enough to answer that. You totally are. Say it one more time. So policy shapes culture as much as culture shapes policy. Do you believe legal frameworks can ever truly reflect the complexity of cannabis and its role in human history? Do I believe that legal frameworks can ever... Reflect the complexity of the cannabis industry? Reflect the complexity of the cannabis industry? I honestly don't know if I'm smart enough. I think that maybe I'll just go off on a tangent. Yeah, do it. Do I think that legal frameworks, I think that in any industry, whether it's cannabis or otherwise, I think that people need to be careful about how much government intervention they want. And I'm not an anarchist in the way I'm thinking about this. I definitely think that there's a role for government. I think that there's a role for law enforcement. But I think that we need to be very careful about how we structure that and how much involvement we have in the legal framework of just industry in general. And so I think that... Too much of it or too much of it put into place by people that don't understand the industry can be a bad thing and detrimental to both the culture, to the operational efficiency of the industry, and can become quite toxic to business in general. And I don't know if I'm answering your question. I apologize if I'm not. But that's one of the ways that I look at it. I try and think about, you know, I wish that for our industry, that government would be as small as possible. I think that we've way overregulated this plant and like demonized it in a way that by putting it around a fence with barbed wire on it, and we're continuously still treating it that way. And if that's the way you look at it, and that's the way you structure the laws, that's the type of energy you're going to get out of the plant. And I think that that's what we're seeing for the industry. So maybe ask him if I answered his question. But yeah, that was a deep question. It was. Here's a follow-up along the same vein. And it says, Cesar, thank you. He says, you've built one of the most sophisticated extraction facilities in North America. Do you view technology as a tool to enhance the plant or does it risk sterilizing the natural magic of cannabis? I think that we need to be careful on what we define innovation and technology as. So I think that if you're this is my personal belief and you know, others might disagree, but that's okay. What I don't want to see happen to the cannabis plant is for it to be, uh, modified, genetically modified, I think that people will define that as innovation. And I think that that's a mistake. I think that if we were to go that direction, that would be a huge mistake. And we're going to end up with some sort of synthesized version of what our industry once was to where we're like, not even cultivating plants anymore it's just people are making this these products in a lab and I think that we should definitely fight against that and so when I think of innovation and technology I hope that it doesn't go that way that said us being an extraction company um the way I do think where innovation and technology is super super important to us and the industry is always working on ways of um getting more efficient in what we're doing, extraction practices that become better, genetic development through breeding programs that are constantly targeting cannabinoids that you're looking for. And that takes years, you know, years and a lot of experience to do that. And I think that that's one of the things LEAF is focused on. So we do have a program, a breeding program that we're working on Just so, you know, once we have a couple hundred acres of cannabis in cultivation, we will be planting in blocks specific to certain extraction lines to help with yields. And we know which plants work better through the hydrocarbon line versus the solvent line versus the ethanol line. And then I think that there's harvesting techniques, mechanizing certain things to get more efficient, get a stronger return on investment and keep your costs down. That's the way I think of innovation. But like. what I would like I said in the beginning I just what I don't want to see the industry do is get to the point to where we're using crisper technology or or genetically modifying the plant just because we you know the the same way that that that ag has done that and that's a whole nother conversation you know um but um yeah that's my my personal thoughts around it I love it. Especially since you guys are putting up such a ginormous farm. That is a gargantuan farm you guys are putting together. How do you maintain the soil and just the environment and the ecology on a project that big? Let nature do its thing. Don't use synthetic newts. We farm organically and we plant cover crops and rotate that's, these are all the things that we're going to be doing is rotate certain things that we've had a hundred and something cattle on, on the, on the farm now. So on the off season, those cattle will be walking all over the field and shitting and pissing and doing what, you know, mother nature does. And so help promote that as much as possible and, and don't use, um, uh, chemicals and synthetic fertilizers that undermine, undermine that process. Yeah, I'm so stoked to see you guys breaking ground on that. And I can't wait to follow along and just watch the story unfold. I think it's beautiful. In both cannabis and Bitcoin, there's this tension between preserving legacy and embracing the future. How do you navigate that paradox? I want to make sure I understand the question. The paradox between Bitcoin and cannabis... I think what Cesar's saying is preserving legacy and embracing the future, be it in Bitcoin or in cannabis. Yeah. I think when it comes to preserving the legacy, it's just like... like we discussed earlier in the conversation, it's just like not losing sight of where we came from, staying true to our core values and the things that like originally attracted us to the cannabis plant and to this industry. As we shift into like a more, Digitized age like Bitcoin is this new technology. Right. And so it's like the difference of like, do you want to drive a Tesla or do you want to drive a nineteen eighty two Chevy? You know, and it's like people are going to be on either side of that fence. Right. I think me personally on the car side, I'm going with Chevy. But I think that Bitcoin. Jamie warm is the guy that I brought onto the company to help us with this Bitcoin strategy. And one of the things that he always says is that cannabis needs Bitcoin. And I think what he means by that, and I think he's correct is that cannabis needs This industry has been so beaten down since legalization has happened, and so many people are going under. Our assets are declining in value. We're unable to raise capital the same way that other industries are able to raise capital. We're unable to use banks. We're marginalized. Operation Chokepoint, and then Bitcoin was like both industries have kind of been through the same struggles and hurdles. And I think that Bitcoin gives, if it's utilized correctly, gives the cannabis industry a way to offset a lot of the undermining that we go through and a way to preserve the integrity and the strength of our balance sheet. And there's been a lot of public companies that have already gone this way. Leaf, as we go down this road, would be the first cannabis company to do it. But I strongly believe that if we go this direction and we're proved right, which I believe that we will be, other cannabis companies will follow suit. I've already had a bunch of other companies reach out to me to like have me explain to me they're interested. They're looking at the same set of headwinds and issues that we're looking at. And so, I think that Bitcoin has a way to preserve not only Leaf but the cannabis industry by driving excitement into the industry, by giving us a better way of transacting with each other. If I want to send you five hundred thousand dollars on Sunday at one o'clock, George, I can do that. No one can stop me. And it cost me ten cents to do it. if I want to do that through a banking system if you've gone through the right you know hurdles and I've gone through the right hurdles we're both paying a percentage to do that transaction if they even allow for it to go through and you know you do thirty forty fifty million dollars a year you add up all these additional fees it's a big expense um and uh I think bitcoin solves a lot of that so I think that, yeah, I think what he's asking or like the general question is you've got this legacy industry that is coming from something that is organic, a plant, an agricultural industry and a product that is there to help humanity. I also see Bitcoin as a digital way of helping humanity. I think that and I think it's super interesting. We do a lot of reading on this and thinking on it like there's a lot of. correlation and parallels between the two industries that are very complimentary. That's what Max and I kind of talked about a bit in El Salvador. I think some of the other, just a couple other things that are interesting about Bitcoin when I think of the strategy is that since we've gone out this, I think I'm in a leadership position and I'm responsible for a hundred plus employees, right. That I, I really do care about. I say this all the time to my employees. I want everyone to make money both on a micro level and on a macro level. And so we're trying to utilize Bitcoin as a way to educate employees that, you know, make close to minimum wage. And it's like, how does this person offset inflation and the impact of negative economies and bubbles and bursts and all these different things. And there's, a way, in my opinion, a way where they can five, ten dollars a week invest into something that if they look at that and they start to expand their time horizon, they look in five years, ten years down the road, they're going to be in a much stronger financial position by doing so. And I think that you can take that and apply that to our business as well and to the industry. And so although cannabis at the moment is facing headwinds at the federal level and through banking and raising money, all these different things that are going on I think that bitcoin provides us an opportunity to offset that and it's not rocket science that's what's beautiful about it it's not a distraction from our business we're not like we talked about earlier in the conversation I'm not creating a coin I'm not mining I'm not doing anything I'm literally figuring out a way to buy bitcoin and put it on the balance sheet that's it that's the whole strategy it's it's uh one of those like be the dumbest guy in the room that's it's not that hard and um so That's how I see it. I think that Bitcoin strengthens our company. It preserves the legacy aspect of our business. And I think it honestly puts our shareholders in the best position possible to make money being investors in our company. I love it. I can't help but look at the Kennedy paper in the background. I think I have some old five and ten dollar bills that are actually U.S. bills instead of U.S. Treasury bills. It's interesting to think that Kennedy, you know, was doing a lot with money before he met his end. And then I just look right up above it and I see the World Trade Center. Like, how have those two particular instances influenced your ideas about government and money and anything else you want to pull on there? Oh, man. They're up behind you. What am I going to do? Not talk about them? You're around me like this freaking CEO is a quack. Brilliant. Brilliant. I started, this is one of the things I do. I collect newspapers of like events and things. events in history that are fascinating to me and so that's what those are those are original vintage newspapers and uh I've got them kind of all over the place in my office in my house and for all different topics different things that I think are interesting so Uh, yeah, the Kennedy one's interesting, you know, like we keep being told that we're going to get a whole bunch of new information through the, uh, this new administration. Right. We'll see. I don't know. I'm, I'm, I'm still, I'm not holding my breath on it, but, um, yeah, as far as monetary stuff goes, yeah. When Kennedy was in office, one of the things that they were trying to, uh, get him to do was to depeg the dollar from silver. Nixon had already done it, I believe in nineteen seventy one and took us off the gold standard. And I'm someone can correct me on this if I'm wrong that's been a long time since I've read all of it but I think that we were still on the silver standard and that was one of the things that they wanted kennedy to do amongst other things and he pushed back against it and was assassinated and shortly after that we ended up in the wars that he didn't want to go to and then they put his face on the last what I believe was the last minted silver coin ever minted was with Kennedy's face on it was the the silver dollar. And that was in nineteen sixty four. Yeah, so so interesting. I'll go ahead. I was just going to say, if past relevant behavior is the best predictor of future behavior, it seems like we're right back in it again. When I start looking at the psychedelic revolution and I see it spilling out of the medical container, I see psychedelic science coming up and people talking about buying school buses and driving them down there and We just talked about the Kennedy. Now we have Bitcoin. It's interesting to think about how patterns emerge. Maybe you could talk a little bit about patterns that you see that may or may not be similar to now versus the sixties or just patterns in your own life that you pay attention to. Yeah, that's another good question. I was just reading something. There's this book. Where is it? I'm reading it right now. It's a great book. You guys should all read it. It's called The Big Print. don't see it it's not within arms arms distance but it's talking about these eighty year cycles that we go through um and man it's escaping me what what the cycle's called but it's essentially talking about what you're talking about how you know every eighty to a hundred years we go through these uh cycles where like you know same thing in fashion or whatever it is one one minute it's one thing's in fashion, ten years later it comes back around and you're like, oh, I remember when that was popular last time. But yeah, I think with what's going on with the world right now, there's definitely a push and a movement right now that I'm seeing where people are waking up to, on the economic side, on what sound money is. There's a lot of people that sound like Ron Paul or... nowadays where this guy was out there kind of preaching this stuff, you know, forty years ago by himself. And and so it'll be interesting to see what happens here with the Fed, with what happens with Bitcoin. And, you know, that's one of things I'm excited about for Leaf. Honestly, it's like it is it's it's taxing being in an industry that is constantly being hit with headwinds. You know, when you're trying your frickin hardest, you know, you got a bad ass team. on everyone's rowing in the same direction and you're doing the best of your ability, you're doing everything right. And you're still like, why do I feel like I'm not getting hit? And anyone that's listening, I'm sure that you guys can relate to that in your personal lives, right? what is it about what's going on right now where I can't seem to feel like I'm getting ahead I feel like there's always this sense of like stress and fatigue um and I can't necessarily put my finger on what it is but I think that like most people that I talk to my friends my family everyone kind of has that right now and it's been going on for a while and I personally am a believer that the problem is at the very crux the root of the issue is our money I think that our money has been, we have cancer in our money and it has metastasized globally and all of these different industries and societal decision making and things that we're going through right now really has to do with unsound money. And I think that LEAF embarking on the direction that we're going right now, I think it's right decision for our company for a bunch of different reasons but I also think that government's starting to adopt bitcoin it's hopefully a way to take a departure away from centralized banking which I think a lot of this is where a lot of these issues are coming from so Um, and back to, I guess, bring it back to your question on the cyclical nature of that. You know, the fed was, the law was passed in. So we're what, a hundred and twenty ish years, uh, into that. And so I guess, you know, if you look at cycles and if this, these, uh, cycles that a lot of, uh, economists and people a lot smarter than myself talk about, we're in that timeframe, you know, a hundred years, it's been a hundred and twenty, and I think it's definitely time for something to change. I love it. There's another book that echoes a lot of this, and it's called The Fourth Turning. And it talks a lot about every hundred years, there's this giant war, there's these problems. But it's also incredibly insightful in talking about the role of different generations, like Generation X is this bridge between boomers and millennials. And we have this interesting knowledge where you know we're like the last feral children on some level so we need to take what's good from the boomers and pass it down but it's just it's fascinating to talk about cycles and patterns because they're everywhere you spoke about it earlier when you were getting your hands dirty and in the soil and understanding the relationship between plants and how that's been able to help you foster relationships with people and I don't know, I zook out on patterns and cycles, man. They're everywhere. And I feel like it's a language that if people pay attention to, you can really make huge changes in your life, man. What are some patterns that you have noticed in yourself since you've started working with LEAF and building this team and moving out of state? I think that, well, I think the one that you just mentioned is one that I could definitely look at, you know, working with plants and learning plants how to grow plants definitely is something that I've taken into being a parent and like the, the same thought process around like, how do you raise kids and also then take it a step further with the company. It's like taking that same kind of thought process into like, how do you grow employees? How do you grow culture? How do you, you know, it's the same, it's the same thought process, the same pattern, same thing, just I'm doing it with a, in a different context. Um, Other patterns that I notice in my life, yeah, I don't know. I don't know what else I would say to that one other than, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. Sorry. Not at all. It's beautiful. I see that pattern there. And I think it also talks and it opens a segue into from building your first plant to building a company to building a team. And now you're expanding into New York. What does that look like? Is it a different world in New York that you guys are moving into? Are there a lot of the same things? What can you tell us about the expansion of Leaf into a multi-state corporation? Yeah. That's I guess another, another pattern. Um, yeah, it's exciting for us. Um, for sure. You know, we spent ten years so far in this legal cannabis world in California. And I kind of say this every time I talk about it, it's like, man, I feel like we've learned so much and we've made all these mistakes and we've learned from those mistakes and are finally at a point to where I feel like it's time for us to move into a new market. And so, um, For a number of different reasons, I like the idea of New York. New York's been culturally, whether people realize this or not, even through the legacy days, New York has always been a client of California. And I think that New York ends up being this massive market. It's always had a big cannabis culture to it, the same way that California has. I mean, it's a massive consumption market. So I think it ends up being this very, very big market. They're fans of concentrates, which is what we do. And so for us, what that looks like is we're purchasing a set of licenses that allow for us to do the same thing that we do in California. We're going to partner with a lot of that. We have a lot of farming relationships that were here in California that have moved out to New York to participate in the industry out there. So leveraging those relationships ahead of time so we know where our supply chain is coming from. And then utilizing a lot of the old equipment that we've, uh, uh, accumulated in California over the last decade, we shipped out a lot of the stuff that we had and are in the process of plumbing that all together. And I was told this morning that, um, actually, I don't get, this is where the pirate side of me that I was talking about the compliance side of it. I get a little confused on, am I allowed to say that or not? We're very close to being good to go in New York, I guess, is, um, a simple, simpler way of saying that. And hopefully I'm not breaking any laws by saying that. But, you know, and then so we're just we're replicating what we do in California. So we're going to work with the same set of clients, the same set of extraction methods. We're going to send some of our managers in California and elevate these guys and And I love it because it's like some of these guys have been with us for years. They've become professionals since they went from legacy operators to professional operators. And now it's time for them to go. They can take on running their own facility. And so we'll send out one or two of these guys from California and they're going to train up a new team. And rinse and repeat. And I think if it goes well, which I'm confident it will, then we will start looking at the next market to do the same thing in in twenty six and start going around planting the flag and all these different markets until the feds finally say, all right, fuck it. You guys are allowed to do it. You know, that's what we're waiting on. I love it, man. It's such an inspiring story, especially with so much regulation. There's been a lot of negativity out there. When I see what you guys are doing, man, I'm like the biggest fanboy. Here you are in a climate that's not very conducive to growth, and you're like... Fuck it. We're going to grow anyway. Watch this. And I think that that just speaks to the heart and soul of America. So many of us are like, we're going to do it. And there's nothing you can do to stop us. You could try, but this is good. We have a great team we're going to build, man. It's so inspiring. And I know lots of my listeners are feeling the same way. Is the feeling the same from starting the company and then moving into a new district? Or is it like a little bit of a different feeling? Or how does that feeling feel for you? Yeah. It's a little different. It's a milestone. That's the way I look at it. It's going to be this celebratory milestone thing of like, okay, cool. We did it. Starting the company is special. It's a special set of years that's just full of excitement and challenges. Once you're in it and then you're like, the thing's going now and the motor's running. That's kind of the way I feel about it now. It's a different... And I'm not trying to belittle it because it is exciting to do. And it's like, wow, look at this. We're now moving into all these other states. But they're different. They're different in the way that I view them. And that's one of the things, honestly, I think that is like back to what we were talking about, like what I was trying to get out of psychedelics was like not being so business, Mike, being able to take a moment to recognize that like, okay, cool. We did something amazing. We accomplished something. I'm I typically like, it's the second we hit the milestone, I'm like onto the next it's what, and, and that's one of the things that I don't think, I think it's okay for you as an individual, be that way but I don't think it's fair to the the team that you have to to expect them to be that way or to not take a moment and say guys you guys it's because of all the hard work that you guys have put in here that we've been able to do this and you should all take a moment to pat yourself on the back that's one thing that I've definitely worked on getting better at because I I personally and I've always just been like on to the next thing you know like um so I view them a little differently. I'm definitely excited about it. I don't want, like I said, I'm not trying to belittle it. I know it's a big deal, but I definitely, I'm also looking at like once federal legalization happens, then what are we going to be doing there? And I can't wait to see Leaf Labs in Germany and Australia and all these other countries that are going to, that's what I really am excited about. I'm trying to build this, you know, very focused extraction company that I really believe could be punched out in all areas of that adopt cannabis. I think that it can be a global thing and that's what I want to see happen. That's the goal. I love it, man. I think you're well on the way. It's cool to get to see the passion behind it. I think a lot of people are thirsty to see sort of American exceptionalism. I know there's exceptionalism everywhere, but you know what I mean? On some level, I think it's It's a heartwarming story and an inspirational story for people to see. If you believe in something and you work hard enough, you can get there. You can at least begin moving in that way. And that is what I want to bring to not only my audience, but my family, myself, my coworkers, my friends. It's like, look, we can. No one can tell us to stop. And I see that in you and in Leaf and in so much of the team there. This one's coming from Ben from Colorado. He says, what's the most profound lesson cannabis has taught you, not as a product, but as a teacher in your life's journey? The most profound lesson. I don't know if this is this answer. I'm going to use this as my answer. I don't know if it'll go over well or if not. I think that one of the things that I've experienced over all the years, and I got this freaking cat named Beans that keeps jumping up here, so let me kick Beans out of here. One of the things that I've learned about cannabis that has kind of stuck with me, a lifelong lesson, is that cannabis represents freedom, it represents an alternative to Western medicine. And, and I know that cannabis isn't the only thing that does that. I think that there's other things, um, in this world that also represent that. And I think that one of the lessons that I've learned, I've been in trouble for this. I've gone to jail over this industry and, and, um, I, what, what am I trying to say? Yeah. people need to be careful about how much government inclusion that we have in an industry. And I think one of the things that cannabis has taught me was that you need to be mindful of that. And that just because a system or a set of laws is telling you that what you're doing is wrong, doesn't necessarily think that that's the truth. And I, that's one of the things I talk about with my kid. I think that like, if you were to take, um, uh, know the early days of cannabis the way that the laws were written it's like you're being told that what you're doing is wrong and that you're a drug dealer and that um this plant is the worst thing that's ever happened to humanity and I just staunchly insult today staunchly don't believe that to be the case and so going through the the being arrested and all these various things I think that um that Yeah, working with the plant, working within the industry, we need to be careful about the way that we structure these laws. And just because someone tells you that you're doing something wrong doesn't mean that that's the case. And if you truly believe that what you're doing is right and it's bringing light and positivity to the world, do it. And don't second guess yourself on it. And so fast forward to where I am now. I've been doing this since I was fourteen. I'm forty six years old now. And I look back on it and I can't tell you how many times I've been told that I was a drug dealer or doing something that I shouldn't have been doing. And now I think that not only me, but just the company and the industry has been proven that we were right. And that mindset and that way of looking at it was wrong. Man, that's so powerful. It's amazing to think that you've gone to jail over this. That's crazy. Yeah, and I want to be clear because I've got some friends that have actually gone to jail. Right. I've been to jail a few times for it, never for a long period of time. But, yeah, it is. It's crazy. Over a freaking plant. And no, nothing more than that. Just a bad set of laws and, you know, a corrupt – set of uh law enforcement officials mendocino county running around taking advantage of asset forfeiture and other laws yeah is that is that still a thing like I know a while back like asset forfeiture was just like cops rolling up on people oh what is that twenty grand thanks you know is that still is that something that still happens today Yeah. Yeah. Asset forfeiture is one that we got to reverse. That's a that's a flipped upside down law that has been severely abused and it's been going on for a long time. I can't remember who put that in motion. I want to say it was Clinton in like eighty one or eighty two. But essentially, you know, if you don't know what asset forfeiture is, it basically is a law that was Um, unconstitutionally written so that the burden of proof is on you to prove that what you're doing or what you have, um, wasn't gained through illegal means. So in the context of cannabis, right? So they come onto your farm, you've got a car. uh a boat uh whatever you know a generator they seize everything your bank accounts if they could seize your your land I mean every single thing that is associated with you they seize it through this law called asset forfeiture and they basically then put you into this kangaroo kangaroo court system that forces you to prove that what you that you received all of these things um through means that you receive them through legal means and you didn't get them because of doing illegal activity and and it's gone horribly wrong you've got people that get pulled over all the time and if you have a thousand bucks in your pocket the cop will take it and say I believe that you got this through illegal activity show up in court and prove to me that you didn't that's that's what asset forfeiture does yeah so it still goes on to the to what extent I don't know there was a super interesting article I remember reading in san francisco times I believe it was And this was about a decade ago where there were, it was an asset forfeiture article or an article on asset forfeiture and talking about California and the size of the amount of money that was seized in each one of these counties in California. So LA County being number one, and it was like, hundreds of millions of dollars. And then the number two county was Mendocino County, which is wild. And the article is basically saying, how is this possible? You've got LA County that's got millions and millions of people in it. And I'm making the number up, but it seized a hundred million dollars worth of assets. And then you've got Mendocino County that had a population of eighty five thousand and it's and it sees ninety million like just shyly just right below L.A. County. And the whole thing was from the cannabis industry. It was because the district attorney that came in at the time came in and just absolutely went ham with that law and used that to the county's benefit and seized everything that wasn't stapled or glued to the ground. So yeah, it still goes on, not just in our industry either, but it, you know, that that's a poorly written law that we got to get rid of. It's mind blowing to think, I can't imagine having a farm, having your, your, your dream up and running and someone just comes in and is like, gone, taking this. It's gotta be devastating to everybody. You know, it's, it's mind blowing. Yeah. Yeah, it happened all the time. I mean, from two thousand five to two thousand and fifteen was when it went berserk. Yeah. Where they just really started going from farm to farm to farm. It was like you could all of a sudden tell that they've weaponized this law against the industry as a way to eradicate it. They're like, we're done with it. We don't want this industry anymore. And so how are we going to get rid of them? Because technically, you're not really breaking the law. As long as you had your two-fifteen medical paperwork together and you're playing by the rules, you weren't breaking the law. So they had to go at the industry in another way, similar to what they did in San Diego with dispensaries. And even in LA, it's like they couldn't legally shut down these Prop. two-fifteen dispensaries because legally they weren't doing anything wrong. So if it made it to court, a judge would look at it and be like, I don't know what you want me to do with this. They're not breaking the law. So what they started doing was going after the landlords of these buildings and throwing these crazy penalties or saying that they would seize their real estate through asset forfeiture. And that's how they were able to get rid of everybody. Wow. Yeah. Man, it's mind-blowing to me. I got, here we go. Who's coming in over here? This one is coming. This one says, entrepreneurs often talk about building something bigger than themselves. Do you see Leaf Brands as a legacy to leave behind or as a living organism that evolves beyond its creator? Yeah, I'd like the latter. I'd like to see the latter. You know, I mean, my job... Being a public company, my job is to ensure that the company is successful and that the investors make money. I don't think that there's anything wrong with that. That's what I'm working on. That said, I think that there's a way for us to build something that is strong enough and well thought out enough to where you can swap me out, you know, like, and bring in someone else that, you know, understands the industry and they take it from, that's my goal. I mean, I, I want to set this thing up in a way to where, you know, I can eventually go spend more time with my kid and, and read more books, you know, and, and, and not be just grinding every single day. So. Um, that's the goal. I think that if I could choose one or the other, I'd like to set it up to where it becomes a larger company and is strong enough on its own to survive. And it continues to just keep marching along. That said, you know, with where the cannabis industry right now is right now, it's like, there's a lot of consolidation that's happening and that needs to happen. It needs to continue to happen. And, um, if LEAF was to be in a situation to where we were rolled into a bigger strategic portfolio of companies later down the road. I don't think LEAF's prepared for that now, but I think that it just depends on which way a lot of the rules go here over the next handful of years with rescheduling, safer banking, federal legalization. A lot of that determines kind of, I think, the direction and the decision-making process surrounding that yeah it's an amazing it's such an amazing story micah I'm so thrilled to get to hang out with you today and talk to you and I feel like we just kind of scratched the surface even coming up on this two hour mark but man are we we haven't even got the bigfoot or yeah like I I got I got a few more questions you okay on time for maybe a few more yeah let's go okay okay If you could change one thing about how society perceives cannabis, not just legally, but culturally, what would it be? I think that I would, if I could change one thing, I would like to have more of an emphasis on the medical side of the industry and cannabis. that's like a much higher level, like man, globally, if I could wave a magic wand, it'd be like, Hey, let's, let's get people to really focus and use cannabis medicinally as well as recreationally. I think that that's one thing. I think if I was to take it down to ten thousand feet versus thirty thousand feet, I would say the industry's got to get off of this whole potency thing. I think like that's one. I don't know where we went wrong on that one, but it's just such a dumb thing that the industry is and the consumers have jumped on. So for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, we have to test our products before it goes to market. In that testing process, the lab comes back and tells you what the potency is of your product, THC potency. And it's just focused on THC. It doesn't take into account all of the other terpenes and other cannabinoids that make that strain or that product special. I think that that's one thing we went wrong somewhere. And that's one thing that I would say we should figure out how to change that. You think that comes with marketing? When I look at wineries, no one cares about the alcohol content in wine. They care about where was this grown at? I can taste the oak in there. How does it make me feel? How do we bridge that gap between potency and all the terpenes and all the other effects on there? What are your thoughts on that? Yeah, I think it's education. I think you just need, you need the brands to be preaching that message as well. It's only to their benefit too, because you know, a lot of products don't make it to market or don't start to sell well for solely because they didn't have the right potency, you know, and it's stupid and the product could be a fricking fire. It could be amazing. And. and it doesn't make it to market. People pass on it. And it's, so it's unfortunate. So I think a lot of it is education you need. And I, and I do, I see this more, I see more groups talking about, there's a group here in California called echo. Now that's like a, self-policing certification process that's like focused on pesticides, metals and microbials. And they're basically they're taking a step beyond what California is saying is the standard is. I think that some of the leadership over there are saying the same thing that I'm saying. I see some of the leadership around some of the larger retail groups are all saying the same thing. And it's weird because like the people that are actually the operators in the industry and a lot of the bigger companies We're all saying the same thing. We realize we're like, I don't know where we went wrong on this, but this is a mistake. We need to we need to fix this. I think it's just a matter of. Education and educating consumers at the retail level as they come in and just, you know, like, hey, just so you know, just because the thing says thirty percent on it, this one over here at twenty one percent is better than, you know, and and here's the reason why. Yeah. Yeah. What about trends? You have this incredible extraction facility, and you have this huge farm. It seems to me that on some level, you would be able to see, okay, we got this many gummies going out. We have this much extracts going out. Is there a trend in the younger generation that uses cannabis differently? Does anybody smoke a joint anymore? Yeah. Yeah, they do. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And I don't want to see that go away, even though I'm in the concentrate business. I think that there's a... But no, there are trends. I think California, for the most part, is kind of split down the middle. Um, fifty, fifty, you got flower sales. A lot of California is made up of indoor sales. Um, it's one of the things I was incorrect on when I originally was like kind of predicting the future in the early days of our, of our business, I thought sun grown would be the way California would go. And, and clearly I was wrong on that. Um, still makes up a big portion of the market. Um, but when it comes to flower sales in California, indoor flowers seems to be the dominant. product that people go after. In other markets though, like New York, Jessie has actually posted something the other day that showed that concentrates are actually larger than the flower sales in New York. And I know that that's the case in a couple other markets as well. yeah those are the trends that we look at trying to figure out you know it's not the only deciding factor like do we go into a market based on do they like concentrates or not but it is something that we do look at and I think that concentrates are gaining traction for sure edibles beverages especially um vapes continue to gain market share so um seems to be the direction that it's going I love it. It's interesting, especially beverages. When I was growing up, I'm almost fifty, and so growing up, your twenty-first birthday, people go to Vegas, you go out, you get hammered, drink all these drinks or whatever. I'm beginning to see a world where instead of people going out and getting a I don't know, like a nice mixed drink, like they can order a cannabis product and like it changes the entire landscape of the event or it changes the landscape of the experience because it's a total different sort of state of awareness. What are your thoughts on that? I think that that's that's absolutely true. I think that. especially with younger people, I'm definitely not, they're just people that I know, not necessarily this isn't, I'm not pulling this from like a statistic that I saw, but people that I know, kids that are in their like early twenties are drinking a lot less, a lot less than I did when I was a kid and are either consuming cannabis micro dosing mushrooms or staying sober completely. And I think that all three of those things are a great alternative to alcohol. I think alcohol is I drink alcohol, so I don't want to be a hypocrite, but like I don't think it's a great thing for society at the macro level. So I think that that's one of the things that's beautiful about the cannabis industry. And I think you've got you can see it in the sales numbers. Alcohol is losing market share in a lot of these different markets that they're in that cannabis has come into. And so, yeah, I personally think that that's a good thing. You got less fights, less death, a lot more happiness, you know, for sure. So I think it's a good thing. And I think that we as an industry need to continue to promote that and find ways to get our message out because the alcohol industry and other industries do an amazing job of getting their message out and undermining ours. I love it. I found that smoking cannabis either helps me surf really good or makes me catch no waves at all. Why do you think that is? What is the relationship between smoking a little bit and surfing epically on the right left or the right right? There's a beautiful relationship there. Am I right? Yes. Yeah. My answer to that is you got too high because that's what happens. Yeah. If I smoke a little, it's the best. If I smoke too much, I sit out there and think. Totally. Yeah. What's the best place to surf in South America that you've been to? South America? Costa Rica is very good. Panama is very good. I went to Panama about a year ago to surf. I haven't really gotten like the waves that I went to. It's not like I got them as good as they can get, you know, like surfing. That's one of the things that's interesting about surfing is that you can go to the best wave in the world. And if you show up on the wrong day, it sucks. You know, it's not like waves always the same. It totally depends on the oceans and swells and all the rest. So, um, yeah, I thought Costa Rica is cool. And there's a couple waves in Panama that are like for, I think that are pretty dang amazing, very slabby kind of like hollow type waves. Nice. Yeah. It's, it's such an incredible sport and I think it, it shares so much with nature. The same reason I love cannabis or mushrooms. Like I love the ocean. You sit out there and you're just, you're almost in this altered state of awareness. It's psychedelic in itself. And it's the things you can think of and just be surrounded by it or be in it, man. It's, it's mind blowing. Yeah. Yeah. Especially traveling to these other countries to go surfing. You can get that same experience here at home in California too, but there is something very special about, especially going to warm water spots, you know, tropical places. I love Fiji for surfing. I think Fiji is unbelievable. I love Indonesia as well. If you're a surfer and you haven't been to Indonesia, that's gotta be on your bucket list. Yeah. It's like the Mecca over there and Hawaii too. Like Hawaii is phenomenal. Like there's every place is always breaking over there. It's amazing to be out there. And Micah, this conversation has exceeded all my expectations, man. I'm super stoked to get to hear about so much of the passion and, and just get to hear about your story and, and, There's so much cool information in there on entrepreneurship and leadership and relationships and ecology. I'm super stoked on what you guys are building. I just want to turn it back to you for a few minutes where you can maybe fill people in on where they can find you, what you have coming up, and what you're excited about. Yeah. You can find us on… We're on X, LinkedIn. Our website is leafbrands.com, leaf with two E's. Um, we're a public company. So if you want to take a look at our public company, um, that side of the business, um, we're traded under lef.cn, um, on the CSC and then we're, um, I've got a cat coming in, uh, on the OTC market. We're L E E E F. And, um, you know, we're in California at the moment. Um, Farms in Santa Barbara, our extraction facilities in Willits. If you're an investor and you ever want to come by, shoot us a message. We're pretty open about letting people come in and seeing the majority of what we're working on. And, uh, you know, I'm not big personally on social media. I'm on X, but it's not like a big focus of my life. So Jesse does a lot of the, the, um, social media stuff. And, um, yeah, I guess off of this conversation, thank you very much for having me. This has been interesting. I like the conversation conversation. It's less like, uh, I don't know, free flowing, I guess it was good. So, um, But if anyone's got follow-up questions and they want to know more about our business, just shoot us a message. ir.leafca.com. And that's it, man. We're planting this farm and we're going to move to New York this year. And so maybe, you know, let us get that done and then we can circle back and have another conversation. Yeah, I would love that, man. Let's have multiple conversations. And to everybody within the sound of my voice, again, if you're in the San Diego area, check out the Warrior Side Project at the House of Blues. It's going to be an incredible set of talks. Micah, Leif, Jesse, everybody in the chat, thank you so much for hanging out with us today. Micah, hang on briefly afterwards, but to everyone else, I hope you have a beautiful day. That's all we got. Blow up.