Ben Larson: 0:05

Hey everybody, welcome to episode 53 of High Spirits. I'm Ben Larson and with me, as always, is my smarter half, enric Grabstein. It's Thursday, august, august, august 1st, 2024. And we're going to dive into Kamala today and figure out what she means for cannabis and talk about all the excitement on the Democratic side. The internet has been a buzz and I'm sure you're curious about what it all means for our little world. But before we get there, anna Rae, you've been watching the Olympics.

AnnaRae Grabsein: 0:43

I have been totally watching the Olympics. I'm so glad you asked me that I didn't know we'd get to talk about the Olympics.

Ben Larson: 0:49

We've been obsessed. I mean for us to order a month-long subscription and it will only be a month of Peacock. This is what it took. So good job, nbc, of locking down the Olympics. But yeah, we've been watching it every day and kind of indoctrinating the kids like this is their first Olympics of consciousness. So we're we're kind of like diving in.

AnnaRae Grabsein: 1:10

It's. It's really exciting because, as we've been talking about the election and changes in cannabis policy, like so I'm bringing it all back to that. Of course, there there's this new definition of what what pride in America can be, and I think that at election season we start to think about that and that pride doesn't belong to one party or another, and the Olympics are just that. It's so fun to see the diversity of the American athletes and the exceptionalism of all these athletes from around world just doing these really cool things and pushing their bodies to the limit and, um, yeah, it's been really inspiring for me. Uh, last night we watched the men's gymnastics finals and we watched some really cool kind of off the wall horse events where the horses were running through the water and jumping over tables, and I just loved it. And who I haven't seen yet, and maybe you have seen, is a Sha'Carri Richardson, who is a really a runner that was taken out of the Olympics because of testing positive for cannabis in the past.

AnnaRae Grabsein: 2:21

And it has just become like a total icon, kind of getting chills thinking about her. She's so cool, um. So yeah, I don't know, have you seen her yet?

Ben Larson: 2:30

I haven't seen her I haven't seen her yet, but I'm enjoying, like all the characters this time. Like I feel like I don't know. I don't know if it's the olympics or if it's just the stage of like social media and people being out there, but I feel like there's so many cool like just narratives going on right now.

AnnaRae Grabsein: 2:45

It's like the multiverse of of the olympics yeah, and snoop was there um at the opening ceremonies and there was a whole explosion of the olympic torch being a joint.

Ben Larson: 2:57

Uh, yes, I was going to say snoop dog being the, the mascot for the us, is just the best thing in the world. He has this pin. It looks like a USA pin but he's like blowing smoke rings and it's the Olympic rings. I was like I need one of those pins.

AnnaRae Grabsein: 3:13

I am so here for Snoop, and I think that our whole movement is getting to be platformed through him, because, while he also has this prominent role in the Olympics, he's been making some big business moves too. He just opened a dispensary in Los Angeles called I don't know if you could say it's Sweet or Swead, it's S-W-E-D, it's Smokeweed Every Day. And then he opened another outlet of the same shop in Amsterdam during this Olympic extravaganza.

AnnaRae Grabsein: 3:45

So Snoop's making big moves and he's not shying away from cannabis and it's not making the network shy away from him, so it seems like a really good sign for all of us.

Ben Larson: 3:55

Yeah, but to your point, with all the activity that's going on with the new presidential candidate and the Olympics happening, all at the same time, feeling prideful about the U? S right now and and getting excited teaching the kids the USA chant, which is a lot of fun, but, yeah, excited to kind of dive into the politics of it today.

AnnaRae Grabsein: 4:21

Yeah it's, it's perfect timing. I think having the Olympics happen at this really critical point in the election is kind of poetic and perfect, and we've seen Beyonce come out for Vice President Harris in a very forward way, but it's been sort of like we also saw Megan Thee Stallion.

AnnaRae Grabsein: 4:47

So yeah, I mean, who doesn't love Beyonce? But we've had a big shift in the presidential election. I mean, everybody who's listening knows, but it's been about two weeks now since Vice President Harris officially became a candidate for president and people are excited. There are all kinds of funny memes all over the internet, but there haven't been too many discussions and news coverage specifically about what this might mean for Canada. So we want to. That's why we're here, high spirit today, right?

Ben Larson: 5:21

That's right. That's right, let's do it.

AnnaRae Grabsein: 5:23

Should we introduce our guest?

Ben Larson: 5:24

Let's go yeah.

AnnaRae Grabsein: 5:26

So really excited to welcome Jason Ortiz, who's the Director of Strategic Initiatives for the Last Prisoner Project, to the podcast today. Jason has turned an early arrest in his life for cannabis into a lifelong commitment for cannabis justiceacy. He helped found the Minority Cannabis Business Association. He also was crucial in drafting the cannabis legislation in Connecticut. He was previously the executive director of Students for Sensible Drug Policy, one of my favorite organizations in drug policy reform. He's got a whole bunch of other cool stuff that he's done, but really let's just bring him on and hear from him. So, jason, thank you so much for joining us. You're welcome.

Jason Ortiz: 6:10

Thank you, excited to be here. It's a wonderful day in cannabis policy.

AnnaRae Grabsein: 6:15

I'm glad you think so. I can't wait to hear why.

Ben Larson: 6:19

Yeah, jason. Last time I saw you we were in Minnesota together at the Cannabis Regulators Association Conference. Anna Rae was also there. We hung on for a couple extra days. There was a Hemp Beverage Alliance Conference that followed it up. We'll get into all of that. But how are things in your world?

Jason Ortiz: 6:40

I mean things are really interesting. I'm here in London, Connecticut, and I'm coming up. Actually, today is my, my one year anniversary with the Last Prisoner Project.

Jason Ortiz: 6:48

So it's been a wild first year here and so, like definitely, I started out really thinking about how we were going to do a lot of policy work and it turned into a bit more national organizing work and really looking at the national level and federal space and so I'm really excited of the work we've done over the last year and, as you mentioned, like with the shakeup in the presidential election, very optimistic of what policy could look like, moving forward both at the federal level when it comes to pardons and expungements, but also Congress right, like we have, for the first time, pro-legalization candidate at the top of the ticket, and so that's a historic day for all of us. We should be very proud that we got one of our people there.

Ben Larson: 7:25

We should jump into that, because I live a fair amount of time on LinkedIn and you know I can rationalize how we might feel that she's a cannabis positive candidate, but there's a lot of people that still hang on to her old days as a DA, where she didn't support or actually spoke out against Prop 19 and didn't support Prop 64 and may have even put people in jail for weed. So where are we with Kamala? Do we need to be worried about that? Should we be out there telling these people come on, people change. Has she indeed changed from your perspective?

Jason Ortiz: 8:04

She's definitely changed and that's why I think it's important to validate that some of the concerns from the past are valid. Right, like she was the attorney general, she was a prosecutor and those roles are law enforcement roles, right. And so in that space she definitely did prosecute cannabis cases when she was a prosecutor in Oakland, and so that was in the mid 2000s, and so during that time there was roughly 50 cases. I think it was over about a seven year period that folks did go to jail for cannabis under her watch, right. But then when she moved on to Attorney General, the Attorney General does not oversee cannabis cases unless it is quite ginormous and to the point where the whole state gets involved. But she was not directly impacting cannabis cases as Attorney General, which is where a lot of the sort of like thousands of folks were arrested in California, which claim comes from, because she didn't cover the entire state of California, which is a massive state it's 10 times bigger than Connecticut is as a state at minimum and so over that space there was, you know, pretty high numbers. But to be clear, the attorney general wasn't the one like making political choices to incarcerate folks. It's the legislature that really sets what is legal and illegal, and so it is a bit unfair to kind of put that on her.

Jason Ortiz: 9:15

And when it comes to the endorsement pieces, you know I've always been frustrated with the lack of law enforcement support on legalization. Legalization does help people that are in law enforcement have safer, happier, longer lives, but they're almost two of T. Every single one of them will always oppose any legalization measure, no matter the details. It's the same thing with the DEA. The DEA will never say they support legalization, just never Right. You even have the National Office of Drug Control Policy cannot by law put out supportive information about cannabis. They can only show the risks. So there are structural problems with why someone like a district attorney or attorney general will never support legalization.

Jason Ortiz: 9:55

That being said, she then moved on from being a attorney general to become a senator, and a senator does propose legislation. And in her role as senator she proposed the Moore Act, the Moore Act and authored the Moore Act. But she didn't just sign on. She was one of the chief authors of the Moore Act, which was actually the first comprehensive legalization bill to ever pass either chamber of Congress. So it has passed the House twice the first one was in 2019, I believe and in that she very clearly evolved. And I think making sure that we allow for folks that were previously not with us to be able to join us is the entire points of persuasion what we're doing is going to help them Like.

Jason Ortiz: 10:35

As a Latino, I've had to talk to a lot of Catholic Puerto Ricans, right and different, folks that are very against drug policy, friends, family, right, and 20 years ago those conversations looked very different. Right, like I was seen as much more of an outcast, a pariah. What I was doing was wrong, right, and they really were worried about me going into this field. But thanks to the work of organizers, folks in the industry right, folks that have advocated for criminal justice reform, we have persuaded the country that legalization is the better way to move forward, and so I think there's a lot of progress there that we should look to as a victory for our work, not something that we want to shame somebody from a long time ago, I can even put my grandma as an example, right, she lives in Puerto Rico that's where my family is from and she was very concerned and upset with me for the work I was choosing to do.

Jason Ortiz: 11:29

Like Jason, why are you talking about drugs all the time? Right, but 20 years later, she's seen the conversation happen on the federal level. She's seen the medical cannabis industry open up in Puerto Rico and her neighbor started to take medical cannabis. And so, after I, you know, was doing my work, it was somebody very close to her that said you know, this really helps me. And so I'm not going to go back to my grandma and say, but you were wrong in 1983 about this. Like, how dare you support cannabis legalization? I'm going to say thank you and I'm glad you're here now, like, let's talk about what this is all about.

Jason Ortiz: 12:00

And so I think oftentimes, when we have success and we broaden our movement and the tent of the movement grows, the folks that were there previously can be a bit protective over that space.

Jason Ortiz: 12:11

Right, because now there's going to be folks that haven't had all the conversations. We have to talk about criminal justice again, we have to explain equity again, but that is what winning looks like, right, like when our issue becomes mainstream enough, where we'll talk a little bit later. Presidential candidates are putting it in their campaign stump speeches and in their materials. That is a victory and we should all be very proud of the work we did to get to the point where a presidential candidate is now pushing cannabis legalization as a primary talking point. And welcome all the moderates, all the middle road Democrats, and also we're going to have to find space to welcome Republicans into the fold in order to actually get legalization over the finish line. And I think that's going to be the next tense conversation for all my progressive homies that I've been trying to start this conversation that we need 10 Republican votes in the Senate to get anything passed, and so there's just no getting to full legalization without bipartisan support.

AnnaRae Grabsein: 13:03

So, jason, I really love that you are highlighting and leaning into this concept that people get to really transition their opinions over time. And if you look at the course of the last 20 years of Kamala's record, there's been a massive public shift in perspectives and ideas on cannabis in that time. And when she didn't support Prop 19 in California, which was an early legalization measure, that was crushing for me. You know that was early in my time as an entrepreneur in California and much of my dreams of being able to start a business and have that business grow and be successful were really challenged when legalization didn't push forward. And I'm with you.

AnnaRae Grabsein: 13:51

I see how her positions have changed and it gives me a lot of hope that if she does win this election and gets to build a new administration, that that administration will be more reflective of today's public opinion. I'm curious I know that you have a lot of time spent on criminal justice reform and I'm wondering what you think about her focus and policy in terms of where she sits in the spectrum of like. Is she all in for criminal justice? Is she going to be good for business, kind of what? What is her real true policy perspective on on what's most important to her when it comes to cannabis.

Jason Ortiz: 14:36

It's clearly the criminal justice side, right, I think you know she was a prosecutor and attorney general and so most of that work is on the criminal justice side, so it's where she has the most experience and understanding. And, for example, she had the round table where she brought in Fat Joe and a number of other folks and shout out to Chris Goldstein of Normal, who was in the room to represent the consumer advocates, and in that space, right, she was talking about legalization.

Jason Ortiz: 14:58

She even talked about broader criminal justice reforms in that space, and so she leans into that conversation quite a bit. I think we are less clear what it means for her. As far as the business side of things go. She does not seem to be antagonistic to it and you know she is a senator, was a senator from California right that has one of the biggest cannabis markets in the world, right, and she has explicitly said, like we should, should legalize.

Jason Ortiz: 15:26

I think where we don't know exactly is how restrictive, how fast the industry might come up, right the more act. Actually, specifically when it first got introduced, was a bit problematic on the business side, right, and it actually caused a ton of tension within the Minority Cannabis Business Association because when the MORAG first passed, what was first introduced, it had no business details. Right, it was all criminal justice reform and of course, as MCBA we're like you know you can't do that. You can't have social justice without economic justice. And that was our main rallying cry was that, as we do legalization, you can't just leave the money part out of this right. Communities are economically disenfranchised through the war on drugs. This is going to be a big part of what we're doing.

Jason Ortiz: 16:10

And at the last minute to get it passed, they mushed a bunch of tobacco policy into the Moore Act and it created a nightmare because tobacco had a felony exclusion. So if you had a felony on your record you couldn't get a tobacco license. So that meant all of the equity owners that have a criminal history would instantly be disqualified from a federal license, and it created all kinds of chaos, and so, as MCBA, we got folks to say on the record that that wasn't the intent of what we were doing, and so I do think this is the opportunity to really start to engage with the administration, engage with Vice President Harris, of what we think it would be the best, most advantageous way to move on this. I do think, however, she's not somebody that it seems to me would block a lot of progress right. I don't think she would stop safe banking from passing, for example. Right, and so I think, at minimum, like Biden maybe would right, and so I do think that, at minimum, she's not antagonistic to the industry, definitely focuses on criminal justice reform.

Jason Ortiz: 17:12

But to me that is a tremendous opportunity If our candidate is all in on CJ and doesn't have as many held opinions on the business side. For the business side to educate everyone or know what they want.

Ben Larson: 17:20

I'm confident on the criminal justice side, especially now that she's black Right.

Jason Ortiz: 17:24

Is she? Is she, though? I mean, someone could look into that.

Ben Larson: 17:28

Anyone that doesn't know. So I don't get roasted. That was a wild interview.

Jason Ortiz: 17:33

Trump said that right the.

Ben Larson: 17:35

National Association of Black Journalists on stage.

Jason Ortiz: 17:39

And I do have to say to the counterpoint, being fair and balanced, the hemp bill and the Farm Act did pass under our previous president, right, and there was a significant number of pardons that actually let people out of prison under our previous president as well, right. That being said, he's someone that says he thinks drug dealers should get the death penalty. So, as is usual, it's a bit of you know all over the place on the policy side of things, but I do want to make sure that we give credit where credit is due, that one of the biggest, most sweeping changes that happened to cannabis policy, that being the farm bill and the part of the farm bill, was under a trump presence yeah, totally well, let's let's kind of address that then, because there was a there was a marijuana moment article that came out, uh, yesterday and it says the Democratic Party prematurely claims Biden has reclassified marijuana and ended the failed approach to cannabis.

Ben Larson: 18:32

And I'm like I don't think we're anywhere close to ending the failed approach to cannabis, but we also haven't reclassified marijuana. So what did we do over the last three and a half years?

Jason Ortiz: 18:44

Oh well, I think we have dramatically shifted the conversation right, but I think both the movement and the industry, to be honest, when we're talking about the last three and a half years, safe banking took up a tremendous amount of time and effort. That did not get over the finish line right, and so I disagreed with that strategy from the beginning. I actually thought talking about comprehensive legalization would be more likely to move. And then you add safe banking to a comprehensive bill than the smaller part. But I do think and I take responsibility for this too that the advocacy community kind of just like dropped the ball, left it to the industry, was like, yeah, we need to take a break. All right, like we're really tired. It's been exhausting, covid's been wild and we've lost a lot of time. And so we also let off the pressure on Congress and the president to continue to make good on their promises. President Biden literally said we need to decriminalize cannabis. Everybody out records expunged and with the Last Prisoner Project, when I was actually with the Institute for Sensual Drug Policy, we protested in front of the White House in 2002, where we repeated his words back and had a huge megaphone speaker, or we blasted those words at the White House, and so it was unequivocal what their promises were right. But we have clearly lost momentum where we went from passing the MORE Act before COVID twice to now say banking can't even get over a committee vote. So we lost a lot of momentum there, and I do think this opportunity with the switch at the top of the ticket, provides an opportunity for us to get back engaged.

Jason Ortiz: 20:13

Part of the reason that we organized the 420 Unity Day of Action that happened this past April was to recenter the conversation on full legalization. That is what the public supports. Over roughly 80% of the conversation on full legalization, right, that is what the public supports. Over 80, roughly 80% of the public supports full legalization. They do not care about safe banking. Like sorry, it's my energy folks, I know it's really important. I love y'all, I hope it passes.

Jason Ortiz: 20:34

The public does not care about safe banking, right, and by shifting away from where the public interest was, we lost the interest of Congress, and so I do think that's where we came back with the 420 Unity Week of Action.

Jason Ortiz: 20:45

That came out of this left-right alliance convening that we were happening, and so we formed this coalition. It was actually a tripartisan coalition, where the progressive groups from the Marijuana Justice Coalition, your drug policy alliances, your normals, your ACLUs, and then some of the more conservative folks, folks that are leaning on the right, because libertarians are the ones we call conservatives right, but the folks on the right your Reason Foundation, law Enforcement Action, partnership, those kind of organizations and the members of the industry National Cannabis Industry Association, mcba, et cetera came together to fight for full legalization, and it was the one thing that really impacts and supports all of our efforts is full legalization right and the release of cannabis prisoners, and so, by having a very simple, broadly supported rallying cry, we were able to bring everybody together, have hundreds of people come together to lobby. We hit like 90 percent of the offices that day.

AnnaRae Grabsein: 21:39

And we had.

Jason Ortiz: 21:39

Rosario Dawson came out. Ilhan Omar was a speaker at our rally. We had a big vigil in front of the White House that got picked up by all kinds of press outlets. We had a press conference on Capitol.

Jason Ortiz: 21:49

Hill that had senators and congresspeople involved, and so it's just very clear that, coming from a place of comprehensive reform, there's been an injustice that has happened and there's still people sitting in prison as other folks are making millions resonated. The details of what those legalization bills look like were less important to folks at this point right, we just knew we needed to reinvigorate the movement, re-center the conversation on full legalization and build some relationships across the aisle and across the industry so that in 2025, no matter who wins, the movement is stronger, and I think we accomplished that.

AnnaRae Grabsein: 22:20

Well, so you said that you lost Congress at some point in all of this, and I agree that the focus on safe is a focus on what industry needs and is such a niche issue that the general public doesn't feel like it means anything to them. And so I hear you. We had a really great conversation with Hirsch Jane, probably like three or four months ago, about kind of the red wave of cannabis policy reform at the state level and how many Republican-leaning states are starting to really reform their state-level cannabis laws. I, I just I wonder people have talked about that, that cannabis can be a bipartisan issue, but it seems like, over and over, um, that is not how it's unfolding at the federal level, and I, and how do we really get Congress there? We know that we need some level of bipartisanship in order, and so if the Republicans win, is it still possible for cannabis reform? What do you think about Congress and bipartisan?

AnnaRae Grabsein: 23:47

Yeah, I mean it's always possible, right?

Jason Ortiz: 23:50

We just have to organize more effectively.

AnnaRae Grabsein: 23:53

But I think there's a lot of ways that we can go about it.

Jason Ortiz: 23:56

One of the things we did at the 420 Unity Day was we were encouraging folks to sign on to any legalization bill that resonated with their values. And there is a Republican-led legalization bill called the States Reform Act and that was introduced by Nancy Mace, who's a Republican from South Carolina, and now there was, most recently, an expungement bill that was put forward. That also was a Democrat from Louisiana and I believe it is a Republican from North Dakota as the co-sponsors of those bills, and so there's a few different ways we can go about it. You can get smaller right and try to find where maybe somebody isn't there, like we want to have dispensaries tomorrow, but they support decriminalizing or maybe even defelonizing cannabis, right. So it's one thing to say there's no penalty. It's another thing to say we don't want any penalties that are more than five years right, because we have people sitting in prison that got arrested in the 90s. Edwin Ruiz, for example, who's one of the last Prisoner Project constituents, got 40 years in the 90s and has spent 26 years in prison at this point, and so he still has 14 more years to go. So his is an example of somebody, one that we need everyone to help us pressure President Biden to pardon Edwin Ruiz and get him out of prison, but that is an egregious offense, that you don't have to legalize cannabis and no, he shouldn't be spending 40 years in prison, for it was essentially a trafficking charge.

Jason Ortiz: 25:11

And so for the folks on the right, figuring out where there is comfortability right, not just assuming you're either for 1000% equity programs or you're against us.

Jason Ortiz: 25:22

We also need to change how we talk about cannabis, and I think this is for progressive folks. One of the hardest things for them to shift right is we cannot go to the Republican Party and ask for a bill that has a lot of equity in it. You can talk about freedom and liberty, right, and it is the same outcome, but it is a different language. And it's really important that if you're trying to persuade someone to join your team, that you talk to them in the language that they understand and language that feels comfortable for them and value systems that they agree with. And I think sometimes we think on the left. If we just yell loud enough that people will then eventually understand they're wrong and come tell us how great we are Right. That's not how this is going to go. We need a Republican led bill that's written in a Republican language, that has the pieces that the folks on the right really agree with.

Jason Ortiz: 26:09

Gun rights is something that folks on the left almost exclusively refuse to engage in contagion, but it's something that the folks on the right really do agree with and folks are often denied their ability to own a firearm because they have a medical card or they have a, you know, cannabis charge on their record, and that is something that, when we're talking about safe and that's where the safe plus idea came out after a little while was the gram act and the hope act, the gram act would establish rights to the second amendment, even though you're a cannabis user. The hope act, which was by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, was about expungements on a national level, and then you had SAFE, so you had your progressive your conservative and your industry package ready to go, and I still think that's a good idea.

Jason Ortiz: 26:47

I still think we should move that and hopefully that would move. But that was an example of we have to bring in something that they care about to make all of this work, and I think that's going to be most important. That being said, we do have to find some champions in Congress, and so that's where, whoever wins and loses in November, the congressional folks are going to be really important, because we're losing both Barbara Lee and Earl Blumenauer as Congress people who were the co-chairs of the Cannabis Caucus, and so there's going to be a whole new generation of Congress folks that are going to come to this issue on cannabis with new leadership, new political establishments already engaged the other angle of this, I think too.

AnnaRae Grabsein: 27:25

so it's got to change our language.

Jason Ortiz: 27:26

We're going to have to find some new champions and probably younger Republicans. But also we now have a number of red states that have adult use Ohio, for example, right so potentially Florida, right coming up next, and there are some others, right, even you know, minnesota has, you know, and Missouri. So the Republicans that represent adult use states are our target right, like those are going to be the folks of like this is happening in your neighborhood, like where you live there's adult use, cannabis, and being able to find two like one, three, I don't know of these folks that could come around with us I think is possible, and then they're safe enough politically of like they're just following what their state's rights chose, right, that, like this state voted to do this and I'm going to honor the will of my constituents and we're going to make sure that they're not prosecuted federally for something that's legal stateside, I think is a safe enough approach for some of these folks that they may be able to come around.

Jason Ortiz: 28:21

That being said, you know JD Vance was one of these folks that was like kind of amenable to the industry, who is now coming out rather less amenable to the industry, and so you know it can be tough working with those Republicans that are at a federal level but don't use state. But we at least have targets. We know the states we're talking about, we know the people that we have to persuade and we have to find the right messengers to persuade them. I think is the last piece right and really finding folks from the faith community, folks in the law enforcement community.

Jason Ortiz: 28:49

So shout out to Diane Goldstein of Law Enforcement Action Partnership, because she is really doing like the hardest work on the planet to organize law enforcement in support of repealing prohibition, and so we do have the tools and the capacity to do this, and that's why I'm very excited for these elections to happen, so I can know exactly who we're targeting and then we can make sure we're out there day one of this congressional, of this Congress coming up to say 80% of the public is with us. We need y'all to be with us too, and that's going to be the work for the movement in 2025.

Ben Larson: 29:21

So, jason, I have a relatively high level of confidence in the ability to kind of push people over on the concept of legalization. But my last stint on the Hill for the last lobby days, it became very apparent that criminal justice reform was actually probably the biggest hurdle. And you know, we know, that, like the Moore Act and whatever the left is going to push, is going to be have a significant criminal justice reform component. And so I guess from your perspective, when interacting with some of these younger Republicans, does there seem to be a little bit more receptivity to this concept than, say, the older guard, where it's just a non-starter in those conversations.

Jason Ortiz: 30:08

Yeah, oh, absolutely, and I would use the sort of prohibitionist bellwether, kevin Sabet, as a really good example. Right, and so Kevin Sabet is somebody that works. He organizes smart, safe marijuana, something, something.

Jason Ortiz: 30:23

I don't know exactly what it is but I was recently after the Maryland pardons happened, where I was there with Governor Moore when he pardoned 175,000 cannabis charges, and the next day I was doing a number of interviews and Kevin Sabet came on an interview right after I was on the same show and said I agree with Jason, we should not be locking people up. I just don't want to see big cannabis come over here and start acting like big tobacco. Maybe we can work together to make that happen. Kevin Sabet said that like to me afterwards. So they have, I believe, in a lot of ways given up on the idea that locking people up for cannabis is a politically appropriate line to take at this point. They tend to say it's not about the criminal justice, it's about the business and our kids, and even JD Vance specifically said something like that, right when he's like I don't know if we should lock people up for dime bags, but I don't want to see it on the street, but there's a big difference between locking people up and letting people out.

Jason Ortiz: 31:14

Oh, for sure yeah that's definitely. Well, no-transcript legislatively, but it gets a bit complicated. Every state is totally different how they handle that part of it.

Jason Ortiz: 31:50

But President Biden right now has the opportunity to really make this a non-issue in a lot of ways by using his current executive authority to release the 3,000 federal prisoners that are currently in federal prison, and he can do that on his legacy right as somebody that created the situation.

Jason Ortiz: 32:08

It is 1,000% true that Edwin Ruiz's sentence came out of the crime bill that President Biden pushed as a senator, and so he can take the pressure off of Kamala Vice President Harris to have to address a lot of these issues by letting these folks out of prison right now, and that would make a huge impact as far as how the criminal justice conversation goes. But, generally speaking, it's pressure on the executive branches or if there's a pardon board or some other space. That is really about letting people out, the decriminalization and structuring how society is going to look in the future, because that's really what Congress is doing right. They're structuring how our reality is going to look in the future, piece by piece. That I think can happen a bit separately, Although we, of course, our goals are combined right, and so, as Last Prisoner Project, we're always focused on making sure everybody gets out of prison as soon as possible, and so, as Last Prisoner Project, we're always focused on making sure everybody gets out of prison as soon as possible.

AnnaRae Grabsein: 33:02

That being said, we'll never get to the last prisoner until we stop putting Fair enough. So, taking it back to Kamala and the election, ben mentioned the Marijuana Moment article from the DNC. Basically, that bullet points marijuana policy reform, along with a lot of other exciting accomplishments that the Biden-Harris administration have taken credit for over the last three and a half years in office, and my analysis of this is that they would not be trying to celebrate their accomplishments in marijuana policy reform if they didn't think that it was meaningful to voters. And at the same time, you were mentioning that JD Vance is coming out with some sort of prohibitionist anti-perspectives. Do we have data on if cannabis is an issue that actually will sway voters? We know that there are people that have positions on cannabis, but when they go to the polls, is that what is driving their vote? Ben's raising his hand. Jason, what do you think?

Jason Ortiz: 34:14

Go ahead Ben.

Ben Larson: 34:14

No, I'm just raising my hand as it will sway my vote.

Jason Ortiz: 34:17

No, I'm just raising my hand as it will sway my vote. No-transcript might say this or that, right, and so I don't think we'll ever truly know in the hierarchy of needs, right, like, what percent of these different policies impact folks. Unfortunately, 99% of the people that are going to vote are not going to vote based on policy at all, and on both sides of the equation, right, and so we were often looked like well, why did they vote for this candidate or another? The answer is usually because I grew up in a household that was Democrat, right, or because this particular person feels offensive to me for these particular things, right, it's not a policy conversation. It is much more of a team sport aspect of it than I think we want to admit, unfortunately, in that I'm on my team, I want my team to win. Whoever they put in as the backup quarterback that's my guy now right, they don't go back and say, well, you know, like, if they have a little bit of different policy, so now I'm going to switch to Republican, right, that is almost never happens, and so it becomes a much more about turnout and whether or not one team or another can actually turn out the people that support them, rather than you're going to switch people's opinions based on a policy.

Jason Ortiz: 35:53

That being said, there are.

Jason Ortiz: 35:54

You know, these elections are won or lost by one percentage point, and so there will be independents, right, that are not politically tied, that do vote on cannabis and the thing with that.

Jason Ortiz: 36:04

It definitely comes from all parts of the spectrum of like you're going to take an analysis of, say, the 10% of independent voters that are looking at the details, right, cannabis reform is going to be a issue for a lot of them, but almost never the top issue for a lot of folks, and that's always been our struggle in drug policy.

Jason Ortiz: 36:22

People agree with us, but it's not a priority, and so I do think that's where folks, if you were to ask somebody, would you support a candidate that supports legalization? They would say yes. You ask them, did you vote based on legalization? They would say no, right. And so how you make it more of a priority is about the movement, increasing urgency about the issue, right, increasing public interest in the issue. There's lots of different ways you can do that, but I think you're never going to get a quantitative answer for how many people voted based on weed, because politics is just too complicated and too, you know, tied to how we grew up and where we live, and a lot of bigger beliefs than like any one particular policy. That makes sense.

Jason Ortiz: 37:02

And then, lastly, I'll say, the best way to get folks out to vote is to show that we have a common enemy and make them really scared of that enemy.

Jason Ortiz: 37:09

And that has worked for thousands of years and a lot of folks will vote based on that and you can see our politics reflecting that right. And that's where it can be a real struggle to say, well, you should vote on cannabis, and they both sides feel like if the other person is going to lose, the planet will literally burn to the ground. So we just doesn't get into the space of like high priority there. But you know, it is upon us to figure out how we can relate to all these folks, that we can relate cannabis and drug policy reform back to the things that they care about, back to their values, and really it's about doing our best to get our people in positions to run for office and then helping them win once they do is going to be more likely to result in legislative change, I think, than you know. Getting folks to vote on the issue because we already have public support right like that that's already a thing we don't need to move on that now what're?

Jason Ortiz: 37:58

missing is real leaders as champions, and so that's going to be. The tough part is when folks like Ben or Anna, when y'all are ready to run for office, and then the movement can get behind you and then we push you in. There.

Jason Ortiz: 38:09

You're able to help us in lots of other issues, and so I think that's another thing that I want to put out there that hopefully Kamala's, you know rise here is if you support cannabis policy and you have economic development ideas, you have criminal justice reform ideas right. The equity policies do a lot of things also, things like community investment that make you a very well-liked person in the community if you're able to do that effectively right. These are ways to build a political portfolio so that we can get champions in there, and I think that's how we're going to get this over the hill. So we actually sort of left some of our own folks to Congress.

Ben Larson: 38:39

Well, I don't think I'm quite ready for VP run, but there are some candidates that have been identified as top candidates for VP and when I look at it.

Ben Larson: 38:50

You know I start and I'll try to take everyone on this journey. But welcome to my brain. It's like I started thinking about like the bipartisan nature of politics and the plant, and when I look at the top four list, that seems to be bubbling up. We have Josh Shapiro from Pennsylvania and we have Mark Kelly from Arizona, both pro cannabis, yeah, pushing for a healthy, legal cannabis markets, markets um. The next two on the list are are roy cooper from from north carolina and andy basheer from from kentucky, both very hemp oriented markets. In fact, cannabis is not allowed but hemp is, and so that kind of brings up whatever that means, yeah that kind of brings up the hemp versus cannabis conversation and the seeming like political divide that is existing there.

Ben Larson: 39:42

It's like you have left Democrat cannabis and then you have right conservative hemp and many of us in the middle that think it's all one plant and it's absurd that we're extracting THC from a 0.3% THC plant. But that's not what this episode is about?

Jason Ortiz: 40:02

This episode is about politics.

Ben Larson: 40:03

And I guess I'm going to leave it kind of open-ended the direction you want to take it but what's your perspective on this kind of left versus right, hemp versus cannabis and how it plays into this political system that we're in right now?

Jason Ortiz: 40:19

Sure, I'll give a little history of how I think we got here right, and so we remember, you know, california and Colorado were the folks that went first and, generally speaking, the ballot measure states are in bluer areas, right, and so, because we were using ballot measures to really get the job done, it made it where the Northeast, with Massachusetts being the main ballot measure states, it kind of kicked things off.

Jason Ortiz: 40:42

And then you had California, colorado, that we started in very blue states with legalization, and so that created a particular type of legalization right where we're doing adult use, there's, generally speaking, restrictive licensing markets, although not all states went that way and there was a huge conversation on criminal justice reform and actually investing in undoing the harms caused by the war on drugs, right.

Jason Ortiz: 41:05

So we talked about equity policies, we were talking about community investment, and that's when we started to see equity become a really a national force, and it was, you know, washington, oregon, california Sorry, it was Oregon and Colorado that went first, right, yeah, right and so. But that set it up where that was one framing for legalization and we started to have the intense detail conversations about the details in that context, right, which are very blue leaning, which are very racial justice reform leaning justice reform leaning and I myself as someone that founded the Minority Cannabis Business Association we leveraged our respect and rapport with black and brown legislatures in different states to say we're not going to do legalization unless there's racial justice included. And the black and brown organizers started to say we're not. We're going to block legalization bills unless our people get what we need to get, as any special interest group does for whatever bill that comes up and it was successful.

AnnaRae Grabsein: 41:59

You saw it in.

Jason Ortiz: 41:59

Illinois there was, you know, equity policies put into place. Massachusetts, connecticut, right. We had all these different fights about the details, but it more or less we were able to win the battle. That being said, the details of equity programs is a podcast for another day and I have a lot of issues with how it rolled out, but we saw that was how it went.

Jason Ortiz: 42:19

The South didn't entertain legalization at all, so they didn't really have to look at these details and most of the Midwest wasn't really moving for a very long time.

Jason Ortiz: 42:25

Then comes 2018, the farm bill happens and now, all of a sudden, this distinction between marijuana and hemp comes out and now there's no need to have a legislative process. In the, in the south and in the midwest, folks are just now allowed to sell things right, and so your farmers that were already struggling were like yeah, I love to sell seeds and seedlings and like anything that's 0.03 right is now legal, and so clones and seeds became legal, de facto right, and it starts to get this wild west situation, where that created a situation where you didn't have to engage with the legislature almost at all Right. The legislators did start to try to reel things in, but the Midwest and the South don't move a lot of legislation so it's hard to even stop something Right If they're not really really really interested in stopping it really really really interested in stopping it, and these massive states like texas, like north carolina right, were able to provide economic opportunity for their folks.

Jason Ortiz: 43:23

And so the folks that were in business in the south were republicans right like, without a doubt, even mitch mcconnell. Right like that. The farm bill happened under mitch mcconnell's watch too.

Jason Ortiz: 43:33

He is someone that is very anti-legalization but he let the biggest sweeping change ever happen under his watch, and so it just became very clear that the farmer-oriented we're just going to like hands-off approach with the farm bill opened up this wild world of hemp-derived cannabinoids and I have lots of friends that are in this space too, right? And so where there was no legalization, everybody jumped on that bandwagon because it was the only option available to them, right? So if you're saying there is no legal process whatsoever, we have no licensing process whatsoever, but you can do this other thing in cannabis, and that's totally legal and you can ship it to all 50 states, of course people are going to move into that. So the adult use states had already their own way of moving on things, and they had very protective markets. Or, for example, in connecticut, they moved hemorrhoid cannabinoids into the dispensaries, and so there was a lot of smaller businesses that went out of business, because all the cbd shops went out of business, right where? Now in minnesota, though, you can get a thc beverage in a liquor store, right? And so where we were once the places that we had progress ended up being the places that were the most controlled.

Jason Ortiz: 44:42

So when the hemp bill passed, there was no room for hemp-derived cannabinoids to move where all the places that didn't have adult use. There wasn't that industry to block those folks from moving, and it created, in a lot of ways, a wild west right when it comes to hemp-derived cannabinoids. That proliferated in the places that were most oppressed, which was the red states. And so now we're in this very odd space where the more progressive states have a more controlled environment. They're antagonistic to hemp and they also rightfully say that the hemp-derived cannabinoids did not have to wrestle with the criminal justice provisions at all, right, or the history of the war on drugs at all. And we're going to have to go back to those states and figure out how to make sure that we do address those things.

Jason Ortiz: 45:22

So it's really fascinating how we got here. That being said, it is all based on really unscientific nonsense, and so, like we are headed for some kind of collision with all of this, because there's no way the current way that the industry is developing is sustainable, right, we're going to end up at war with each other. We already are right. People are already fighting different things. You can see the situation in florida with the different ways the hemp derived folks versus the adult use folks are funneling money back and forth for and against right. Ron desantis was reaching out to the hemp folks to try to get him on his side, which is a wild you know.

Jason Ortiz: 45:56

That's a good example right of like how bizarre the politics have gotten with cannabis. But he was trying to court the hemp industry to stop the adult use bill ballot measure.

Jason Ortiz: 46:07

And so we're in this really strange situation where justice by geography is a very real thing where you could be in Texas, and it is a felony to have a big pen, but you can drive to Trinidad, colorado, where it's some of the most you know loose cannabis purchase. You know situations, you know that exist, and so where you're born is going to determine your opportunities and whether you're going to be going to jail or not. But also, like you have no, it's like like a checkerboard almost right, like you have no idea when you're driving from state to state, like what the details really are. Right, because even places like minnesota, for example, you can't just have like full flour, but you can have edibles and beverages based on how their laws worked out, and so you can get you know beverages based on how their laws worked out, and so you can get you know THC wine or THC beverages on the tap in a liquor store. But if you're selling an ounce outside the liquor store, that's still a felony.

AnnaRae Grabsein: 47:04

You bring up a really interesting point about criminalization in states like Texas that don't have legal cannabis, because there's also a bubbling of people who are getting arrested and then getting charged and then are saying, no, that was a hemp product, that's legal.

AnnaRae Grabsein: 47:25

And then testing happening and coming back and saying, oh, that has a really high concentration of THC, and the complexity of how the non-linear and complex nature of the way that cannabis and hemp policies are kind of bubbling to the surface on a criminal justice side is just disheartening. It's complicated, it is a mess. Complicated. It is a mess, yeah, as it as it relates to to movement of policy in in a state like Texas, they only change the, the legislature only changes laws every two years. It's like so and for like two months and that and and so yeah, I mean I know we're so far off here in terms of Kamala and what's going on, but I think Ben's point about these VP candidates coming from hemp states versus cannabis states and what they mean.

AnnaRae Grabsein: 48:27

My hope is that everybody is bringing their experience and understanding of what they have at home and also what's happening in all these states, and that everyone who's at the table is going to continue to evolve, as we've seen with this candidate, and that whoever it is that's in any of these roles is going to be open to helping to untangle the complexity that the cannabis industry and the cannabis movement is faced with right now. There's a lot of change ahead, that's for sure, and it's exciting to hear about the way that you guys are surgically going after it. And it's really great to hear about going after cannabis allies from places like Ohio and Florida and things like that. Like, that is the strategy that we need and and I I want this to be a bipartisan issue so that I can have hope that, no matter who ends up there, they are going to be our, our friend.

AnnaRae Grabsein: 49:26

And on the freedom point, which you were talking about with words earlier, just to circle it back and to this candidate, Kamala is using freedom as one of the key words in her campaign and is playing Beyonce's freedom at rallies. It's awesome, it's been. I mean, God, it's like can we just vote for Beyonce? Could she be the VP? Is that an option?

Jason Ortiz: 49:53

Her and Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift is VP.

AnnaRae Grabsein: 49:59

They both sound good.

Jason Ortiz: 50:01

So, yeah, this has been so sad I'll take jay-z as the first man you know.

AnnaRae Grabsein: 50:06

Maybe he can be our champion, ben do you want to ask jason one more thing? I know that you do, so.

Ben Larson: 50:10

Why don't you take it our last question, then we'll move to last call yeah, I'm gonna give him a crystal ball question, taking it back to cannabis and hemp and the fact that it is creating so much complexity in so many aspects. Not just cannabis Well, it is cannabis but, like criminal justice reform and all that, do you imagine the conversation converging at the federal level as a part of, say, the next administration, and do we get to attempt to simplify the conversation?

Jason Ortiz: 50:43

Yes, it will be a conversation at the federal level. It's going to get more complicated before it gets simple. That being said, we're in a chaotic situation right now, and that is an opportunity to bring order and stability to both the industry and the movement, because it's so much of a hot mess at the federal level, it is very clear that it's not going to be working very much longer. Where there's not, some sort of bad situation will happen, and that's the urgency we need to push something through Congress, right, and so I do think now is the opportune time to be talking about legalization, where there is this tension between the different states, and we do need to have some consistency across the states that those that can come forward with a legitimate and amicable solution to the problem will be welcome to the conversation.

Jason Ortiz: 51:30

Right, like, two of the VP candidates you mentioned come from legal adult use states and, as you're saying, north Carolina, although Roy Cooper's out of the running now. He took himself out. But, that being said, there are folks that are and even JD Vance, right Like these are folks that are coming from situations where it's already legal and have to have had these conversations already. That's new. We haven't been in that situation very often right, because even you know Biden and Obama was before any adult.

Jason Ortiz: 51:55

U States had happened. So my crystal ball is this is going to be a very prominent issue, especially in the next Congress and figure out how we're going to move forward, because we have to resolve these issues the fastest, most effective way. Personally, for me, right is that, like it is one plan. Right. Like we are unscientific in our distinctions around THC percentages. Right, the idea you were mentioning earlier of folks saying, well, this is just like hemp, the THCA loophole is wild. On a criminal justice side of things, right, if you get pulled over and get called, you say like oh no, I haven't decarboxylated yet, so therefore it's not illegal right and like what does the police officer or the court?

Jason Ortiz: 52:30

say to that right, like. It's just this very strange situation where, like they might be legally technically correct, right, they're like it says, no amount of thc, right, like therefore, x, y and z. So I think that complication is the first thing that needs to get resolved and that, like this, is just not scientifically appropriate and that then has these massive ripple effects for what it means for criminal justice we as the industry as the movement, have the actual solutions to how to do this.

Jason Ortiz: 52:58

I think that is our like golden goose is that we actually can answer this question. If I sat down with the unity coalition, we could solve the problem and, being the folks that can solve a massive national, you know, confrontational problem in a way that is coming from a bipartisan way, it can be spoken in three or four or five different types of languages. However, if we have to say it in law enforcement, we can do that. If we have to say it in racial justice, we can do that, and it's really on us to take advantage of the opportunity no-transcript, and I think history would say yes, we can, we absolutely can.

Jason Ortiz: 53:43

We have before and we will continue to do it and that's why I'm really excited to see the results that came out of the 420 space.

Jason Ortiz: 53:49

And just on this, my crystal ball is next 420, we're going to bring another massive mobilization of folks to DC. It'll be the beginning of this Congress really talking about this issue and we're going to make sure that we hit again every single congressperson in Congress to talk about the different ways to address this, to find those champions that are willing to introduce real serious legislation from Republican and Democrat framings. And that's where the people can help right when we go to DC and show this is something that we want and something that we care about, that see and show this is something that we want and something that we care about. That's when congressional leaders rise up, that's when advocates can get their legislation introduced and that's when we can really start to play at the serious level that is necessary and that's the challenge for us now. Get engaged right now but come together and say at the beginning of next year this is important. This is really creating some really absurd and painful legal situations across the country.

Jason Ortiz: 54:38

And we want to address this while also increasing tax revenue and keeping people out of prison.

Ben Larson: 54:42

Yeah, Sign me up.

Jason Ortiz: 54:43

That's a 420 event I can get behind. Yeah exactly and it's welcoming to all. Right, Like we don't tell them you have to have any particular politics going into it other than you support the full legalization of cannabis and the release of cannabis business.

AnnaRae Grabsein: 54:56

Awesome, this has been great. I think that we, hopefully, are filling a niche of a new part of this conversation around the election and I hope to have more of these conversations. Think about other important candidates as they surface. So, jason, thank you so much, and it's come to our last call, and this is our ending of the show and we give you an opportunity to make a last impression on our audience. So, jason, what's your last call?

Jason Ortiz: 55:24

So I just want to say thank you all so much for having me and thank you for supporting the Last.

AnnaRae Grabsein: 55:28

Prisoner Project. So folks know lastprisonerprojectorg.

Jason Ortiz: 55:31

We work to get folks out of prison. We're in there for cannabis charges and I think one of the things I want to ask everyone to do between now and the end of the year is actually to pressure President Biden to use his executive authority to release the 3,000 federal cannabis prisoners that are currently in federal prison. He is not running for office anymore. This is his last opportunity to really correct his history, and there are people from across the country. Many of the folks currently incarcerated are white folks from the South that are Republicans, and there's plenty of Latinos. There's actually a significant amount of Latinos that are currently incarcerated and he has the opportunity, with his sole executive authority, to release folks that are currently incarcerated from his laws. I think we can all band together on that.

Jason Ortiz: 56:12

Separate from Kamala and the other folks that are running, the current president has a lot that he can do and our situation, no matter where you come from, he's the current president. We can pressure him to do it and I think if we can get that to happen before the end of the year, it sets the stage for the conversation in 2025 in such a powerful way that I implore all members of the cannabis community industry, left right, hemp, adult use everybody. Let's get our prisoners home. Let's actually see families reunited. That should never have been disrupted to begin with. We can build around that. We can build relationships and friendships around that kind of work. So I invite everyone to help join us at the Last Prisoner Project and then definitely we'll see everybody in DC next year or 20 to really turn it up to the next level.

Ben Larson: 56:53

Boom, that was excellent. Yeah, up to the next level. Boom, turn it, that was excellent. Yeah, the job is not done just because you handed it over exactly got work to do. Buddy jason, thank you so much. I appreciate you bringing the energy and that's such an incredible handle on on the topic. Uh, looking forward to the next time we get to talk to you absolutely I'll see you in the streets, all right.

Ben Larson: 57:15

Have a great weekend, man. Anna Rae. Wow, that was great, and I just want to revisit the musical selection. Beyonce's Freedom is great, but if you don't know John Batiste's Freedom, it's one of my favorite anthems right now, so maybe we can get that on one of her upcoming campaign trails.

AnnaRae Grabsein: 57:35

We can start playing Freedom here if you want. I'm good. No one can argue with freedom.

Ben Larson: 57:43

Freedom. Alright, folks, what did you think Incredibly informative, Thank you, thank you. Thank you, Jason. That was awesome. Thank you for the comments, for the likes, the subscribes, all the things. Thank you to our teams at Wolfmeyer and Virtosa. Really love you guys. Can't wait to see a lot of my team that's coming into town next week. It's going to be an incredible, incredible week. I can't believe it's August already. Don't forget to share this. Tell your family, your friends, all the people, all the things. We're getting more and more viewers every week and we are loving it. Other than that, stay curious folks, Stay informed and keep your spirits high Until next time. That's the show.