Ben Larson: 0:06

Hey everybody, welcome to High Spirits. It's episode 69. I'm Ben Larson and with me, as always, is Anna Rae Grabstein. We're recording Thursday, november 21st 2024. 1994? I think not. I'm back. I'm getting warmed back up. Give me a minute. Got a lot of news to cover today.

Ben Larson: 0:28

We just heard that Matt Gaetz is actually withdrawing from the race. But beside that, some news out of Minnesota with equity licenses, Agrify stock going crazy with GTI's acquisition of Senorita and some other things at the federal level. But before we get there, Anna Rae, you haven't been swept away in a river yet. How are you doing with this atmospheric river that we're experiencing?

AnnaRae Grabstein: 0:52

Yeah, if, no matter where you are in the world, you might be hearing about the bomb cyclone that's hitting Northern California, and it certainly is very terrifying sounding. Bomb cyclone sounds crazy and it is. Um, it has not stopped raining for at least like 36 hours straight, and it is the type of rain that goes sideways. It is just a lot with a lot of wind. But my internet's working and I'm here today, so I'm keeping driving for the win.

Ben Larson: 1:22

There you go.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 1:23

Yeah, it's been pretty wild. Definitely, definitely, keep anticipating the power will go out, but it hasn't yet. That's good.

Ben Larson: 1:33

You think Elon Musk is gonna make a run for Attorney General?

AnnaRae Grabstein: 1:37

I think you have a lawyer to be eligible for that job, but we could be changing. Is Matt Gaetz a lawyer?

Ben Larson: 1:43

Oh, my God, that's terrifying.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 1:48

Yeah, and you got back from a trip to the Carolinas, right, you've been all over the place.

Ben Larson: 1:53

I have been all over the place, it feels good to be home. I went to North Carolina, south Carolina, and immersed myself in red state weed. It was just a phenomenal trip. I got to visit some major distributors down there, shout out to Southern Crown Partners, also some brands like High Rise, and just got to see just how much the Carolinas are loving THC beverages. Literally, dreams come true Walking through a distribution floor, this facility. It was one of their facilities. I think they have like eight. They had a 15,000 square foot refrigerator. My facility is 10,000 square feet. It was just wild to see.

Ben Larson: 2:35

But you'd be in aisles of beverage and there'd be pallets of Budweiser or Bud Light and right next to it is a pallet of THC beverages and they're just being put on this. Like half mile of automated conveyor belt gets to the end and then stacked up in a pallet, all mixed, twisted tea, truly Vita, coco, essential water and then half of it being THC beverages and they're like, oh, that one's going off to Total Wine. And then you go to Total Wine and they have like an entire aisle filled with these things and I don't know. I'm just so fired up about it. It's, it's, it's crazy being here in california, where you just have this totally embattled state that seems to hate thc, and you go to a conservative state, so to speak, and it's just everywhere.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 3:23

So are you seeing brands that are consistent across all these different markets, or are you seeing that there's certain brands that are showing up? In certain markets and not in others.

Ben Larson: 3:33

Yeah, it's interesting. You know, there's definitely the mainstays that you see all across the place, but every market, every store tends to have like their favorites and then there's always like kind of new ones starting to emerge. When I was there, you know, I saw some massive buildouts for companies like high rise Also nowadays, who recently launched their they're ready to drink 12 ounce beverages. You know had some pretty significant buildouts on on end caps and in some of the liquor stores. One of the liquor stores in South Carolina is called Bottles, in those like kind of prime real estate areas where they widen the aisle in the middle and then they have some like angular kind of mini shelves going on. They loaded that up with the THC beverages with like signs hanging from the ceiling and they said that that footprint, which is about 10% of the square footage of the store, was doing more sales than their entire craft beer section.

Ben Larson: 4:28

And so everyone's fired up the retailers, the distributors, the brands. They're just getting started. I think they had sold 5,000 cases over the last couple months, but they're so excited about them I'm like how big do you anticipate this getting? And they said in two to three years we expect to be 10 to 15% of our revenue. Massive and that's huge. I mean alcohol is real big, you know. It's a $1.6 trillion global marketplace. The US makes up for a lot of that and if we can get 10 to 20% of it as a category, that's beyond my wildest dreams.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 5:04

If we can get 10 to 20% of it as a category. That's beyond my wildest dreams. Also in cannabis, which is where we both started in this journey, the way that product reach is a retail shelf has been very dependent on bud tender and buyer preferences. How are you seeing in THC beverage that products are being chosen to be on retail shelves?

Ben Larson: 5:26

Brand and flavor. Pretty much it has to be a very well put together brand with proper labeling and just like all the proper sizing. I've seen weird like nutrition panels that you could tell were just too small and probably were not aligned with some guidelines that are out there. I'm not an expert when it comes to how to label a product. I'm sure there's like some FDA guidelines, small and probably we're not aligned with some guidelines that are out there. I'm not. I'm not an expert when it comes to how to label a product. I'm sure there's like some fda guidelines, but yeah, it's like it has to be a professional package, uh, and so we're seeing a lot of like digital printing on the cans now or offset printing. Um, instead of you know the shrink wraps which are very common, for you know the the scale that the cannabis side of the business is at, and then it has to just taste great I love there's not a potency race happening the way there has been in in cannabis flower, of buying based on the highest potency.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 6:16

Instead, people are actually looking for consistency and professionalism in finished goods. It's really really well, it's.

Ben Larson: 6:24

It's also an economic play from you know, it's just a little bit more sophisticated goods. It's really, really well, it's. It's also an economic play from you know, it's just a little bit more sophisticated, right? It's like if you sell a four pack of five milligram drinks, the person that purchases that will probably come back and purchase it again sooner compared to if it were 10 milligram drinks, right, theoretically. Um, although there we did go into some stores there were 10 milligram, five milligrams.

Ben Larson: 6:47

Uh, a lady who looked well to do, you know, the classic soccer mom that everyone's targeting came right in, came right for a singular product. You know, amongst all the others that were on the shelves, probably like 100 different SKUs grabbed this one. I stopped her, was like, asked her like why are you purchasing that? And she said because it's hard and it's strong. I was like oh, okay, noted. So I think in what we hear from sell-through in Minnesota, people definitely gravitate towards the top, the 10 milligram drinks compared to the 5. But that might shift over time. Also, policy will come into play. But yeah, I'm here for it. Either way, drink what you want to drink.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 7:27

Nice. Well, we're going to talk about more, more about beverage and a little bit when we talk about agrify and senior Rita, let's let's talk about Minnesota for a minute.

Ben Larson: 7:37

Yeah, I saw you post about it. It sounds, uh, sounds like a classic cannabis shenanigans going on again.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 7:43

I got gotta tell you, Ben, I'm in a rage. I am in a rage. I went to Minnesota, we went to Minnesota together in the summer and I have been so hopeful about this market and they just really flubbed here. They flubbed big time and I did. I posted on LinkedIn. People can go see. But what has happened after I posted? I have been getting tons of messages, DMs and emails from folks that are affected by what happened. So I can go through what that is.

Ben Larson: 8:13

Yeah, so just for context, there was an open application for an equity lottery and so they wanted to prioritize equity licenses, licensees and they received something like 1800 applications, right?

AnnaRae Grabstein: 8:28

Yeah, so the only groups that were eligible to apply to be in the lottery were social equity verified businesses or applicants, and so people went through a very robust qualification process to become social equity verified and then, once you were verified, you could apply to enter the lottery, and there were a bunch of requirements like different plans and entity documents, along with hefty fees that were as high as $10,000, but usually in the $2,500 or $5,000, depending on what type of application you were trying to submit. Then there was a process where your application was supposed to just be verified, that it checked all of the boxes and then you would be entered into a lottery. So, yes, they received 1,800 of those applications in various categories.

Ben Larson: 9:20

If we assume $5,000, that's $9 million in revenue to the state.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 9:26

Yeah.

Ben Larson: 9:26

That's wild.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 9:27

Yep and they denied 1,200, two-thirds of the applicants over the course of the last couple days for the lottery.

Ben Larson: 9:38

So they essentially just snatched like $6 million. They said thank you very much. Yeah, so don't come again.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 9:44

And these are people that they already qualified as being disproportionately harmed in some way by the war on drugs, or who have had struggling farms or are veterans of US service all types of qualifications. They did have a pretty broad umbrella of inclusivity.

Ben Larson: 10:03

Is this Minnesota residents, or is it broader than that?

AnnaRae Grabstein: 10:09

No, and this was one of the things that, to me, actually signaled that Minnesota was learning from other states and that when Minnesota created their social equity qualifiers, they did not require the applicant live in Minnesota no-transcript the legal challenges that people had and they did not require applicants to be from Minnesota.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 10:54

So there were applicants from all over the place. I've heard from folks that have lived in Minnesota for 20 years and had cannabis felonies that they were in prison for. I've heard from social equity applicants in Oakland. I've heard from social equity applicants from the state of Washington, from all over the country, that were denied as part of this process. And not only were they denied, but the state is saying that there is no opportunity to appeal. That's allowed in the law. And what is even more frustrating about this process is that within the context of the application process, they had a deficiency notification that they told people that if there was a problem with your application, you would be issued a deficiency notice and then you would have 10 days to respond to the deficiency and fix your application. And they sent out deficiency notices in October to 300 applicants, and so if you were one of the groups of people that didn't receive a deficiency notice, you figured that you were probably good right.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 12:02

Because they weren't giving you an opportunity to cure a mistake that you might have made, which is a fair process, especially in light of their prioritizing only equity applicants being allowed. You'd think that they would want to create a successful outcome for as many folks getting into the lottery as possible, but instead a number of people 1200 groups, two thirds most who did not receive those deficiency notifications, were just denied for fails that were unexplained, and it's just really a bummer for many reasons, and so here's a few of the reasons. One of those reasons is that this was going to be the precursor to a lottery, which would mean that the Minnesota adult use market would launch, and now, most likely, there are going to be lawsuits. Someone is going to file a temporary restraining order and cause the whole program and the issuance of licenses to take longer. I don't know who that group is, yet A lot of people are asking me.

Ben Larson: 13:06

I know about 1200 people that could be.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 13:08

Yeah, and a quote from somebody who reached out to me and I'm going to keep them anonymous. But they said hopefully someone or a group of applicants can file a joint TRO. I'm sure most applicants, like us, were hoping to put that money towards standing up operations. Now the Office of Cannabis Management is forcing people to spend limited funds on litigation, which compounds the injustice.

Ben Larson: 13:34

And now the state has $9 million to fight that lawsuit. Yeah, Thanks guys.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 13:38

The state has $9 million that they took from equity applicants and I hope that I'm going to wake up from this sick nightmare and find out that Minnesota has come to their senses and that if they see deficiency in these applications, that they're going to let people cure them.

Ben Larson: 13:54

Not to sound like a hemp bro, but for as long as you're engaged in the regulated cannabis space, you're not going to wake up from the nightmare.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 14:00

You're right. You're right. So I am keeping a list of folks who have reached out to me and if there are lawyers that are working on this that want to reach out, I'm happy to share the groups that have talked to me and see what we can do to get justice for these folks. I think that people knew that this was a lottery and so they realized that they were taking a chance, but they thought that they would at least get a fair chance if they qualified with their application to be a part of the lottery. So this has been a big surprise and a big disappointment. So, yeah, now Minnesota's adult use market is going to be on hold and a lot of folks that have big dreams are not getting an opportunity to even have their ball put into the mix into the mix with the lottery it's just so ridiculous.

Ben Larson: 14:46

Like there's cannabis agencies just can't get out of their own way. You know, it's like we see this just again and again and again, every state that tries to roll out a regulated program and, unfortunately for minnesota, like they already have medical, they already have a low-dose hemp, and and now they're they're fumbling the last piece of the puzzle. Yeah, I mean, $5,000 is a lot of money for a lot of these applicants.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 15:12

Oh yeah, and there has not been clarity. There has been some interviews with the interim director of the OCM, briner, I think Charlene Briner. Please respond to my LinkedIn and email messages I've sent you. Charlene, and her quotes have been about weeding out predatory business relationships and zone flooding. And neither zone flooding nor predatory business relationships seem to be what I'm hearing from applicants and and there was nothing in the law or the application process that outlined a process by which anyone was going to be making judgments about about these business structures or zone flooding, whatever that is. So what a mess.

Ben Larson: 16:06

Charlene was actually on my panel when we were in Canara and was supposed to come to the breakfast the following morning but unfortunately had to step away.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 16:14

Call me Charlene, okay.

Ben Larson: 16:16

All right, well, anything to lift our spirits, that was. That felt like days of old, just lamenting on unregulated cannabis.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 16:24

It is. It is tiring, but we can move on to something more optimistic.

Ben Larson: 16:28

Okay, yeah, yeah, what do you have?

AnnaRae Grabstein: 16:30

There is good news, but it still isn't. Hemp beverage, which seems to be where the brightness is these days. If you're talking THC, senorita, gti and Agrify, oh my.

Ben Larson: 16:45

Oh my yeah, seniorita gti and agrify.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 16:47

oh my um, oh my yeah agrify released a press release this morning that they have raised close to 26 million in a private stock sale that is on the back of agrify, also announcing that they're working to close an acquisition of Senorita, a THC beverage from Double or Nothing LLC, in an all-stock transaction. So this is great news for the sector. What do you think? You know these guys, the Senorita team, right?

Ben Larson: 17:18

Yeah, frankly, I was kind of shocked by it. The owners of Senorita are two very experienced beverage folks. I started to kind of read into a little bit. It's like they wouldn't do a deal unless it really made sense to them and they thought it was really going to help the company, because Charles and Joel both have massive access to distribution through their long standing business in wine. So I imagine that they're probably talking directly to Ben and that there is a big master plan going on here. So I think it's a big deal. Ben Kovler just continues to prove that he's playing 4D chess with everyone and, you know, while all the MSOs are struggling to find profitability, he's actually putting his money to work and doing these complex deals, these complex deals, and I think this does show that we can expect GTI to be a major player in in the hemp beverage space in the not too distant future.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 18:19

Yeah, this Agrifia is now the first focused public vehicle for for hemp to go and to win. And we've talked a little bit about Tilray and some others, but this is real business. Acupun, this is a team that has built and scaled in cannabis. Built and scaled in wine. This is the type of business that I want to bet on. I believe that.

Ben Larson: 18:41

You and a lot of other people. Their stock has gone nuts over the last two weeks.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 19:09

OMG, the stock.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 19:10

Yeah, so when the deal was announced the stock was, I think, a little bit sub $5. And it would have meant that the deal for the Seniorita team was worth about $2.6 million in the all stock deal and as of this morning it was closer to 25 million. So you're right, I think that most likely the double or nothing team from senior Rita. They saw and see the upside potential in a public vehicle and now it's just about pulling off what's ahead and it sounds like from the track record that Joel and Charles and Ben bring that this is like bright, sunny future here that become a part of this effort and we'll see if they decide to build those brands or to buy those brands or a combination.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 19:49

I think that within hemp beverage there's so many different categories to touch on. It's not just hemp beverage. There is the cocktail category that Senorita is leaning into, there are seltzers, there are traditional sodas, there are beer imitations, there is cold brew coffee. It's like there are so many different places to land and I think that they have a huge, huge opportunity to build a diversified brand portfolio that serves all kinds of unique customers here also just like thinking about what this means for the political conversations that are going on at the various state and federal levels.

Ben Larson: 20:29

You know this is another ally that is starting to kind of bridge the gap. I know in the texas conversation, you know a lot of people are wondering. It's like who's going to be pressing on which side to get texas going to a certain direction. People postulated that GTI was going to be trying to shut down the hemp market in Texas and make sure that regulated cannabis had a fighting chance, and that might still be true, but it probably won't include beverage. So, yeah, really interesting to think about the direction that takes, and that seems to be where a lot of conversations are going these days.

Ben Larson: 21:05

I participated in a brand summit this past Sunday, of which I don't think I can give too many of the details. I think it's just a lot to get both sides talking the hemp and the cannabis side and realize that we're probably stronger together and that we need to be finding a path forward that is beneficial for both the regulated cannabis side and the hemp business, and so it'll be interesting to see where all these conversations go. But you know, I do think people are starting to realize that, from a political level, people see hemp, people see cannabis and, at the end of the day, we're talking about cannabinoids and we need to figure out a structure that works for everyone and that seems to be beverage absolutely.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 21:46

I'm glad to hear that some it's like that are taking place, I guess. Back to one more point I wanted to make about this this nasdaq public vehicle that agrify is leaning into. You know, cure leaf, largest global cannabis company, um in the world, has gotten into the hemp-derived space, but they remain a Canadian public listed company. So it's strategically a different path that Ben Kovler and GTI have taken by using a separate vehicle, separate vehicle, and I also predict that we're going to see more of that, that there are probably a lot of companies that are looking for the right shell in nasdaq to uh to plug hemp let's say we got to find a bunch of old, uh defunct, mining companies.

Ben Larson: 22:44

It sounds like something that's what the old, the old canadian deals were in in the early days yeah well, it's all going to mean nothing if we don't get some support, uh, or movement, or lack of movement.

Ben Larson: 22:57

I guess in the in the farm bill and we've been seeing some, some movement there from from the perspective of the senate uh, there's a new draft out that is not putting too much detail into the hemp conversation. There was a new definition which kind of broadened the definition of THC, so the 0.3% would then now apply to total THC, not just Delta 9, but THCA, delta 8, all these kinds kind of things, and so that might severely restrict what qualifies as as hemp. It also delineates between industrial hemp and then hemp destined for cannabinoid extraction. We we could pontificate on what this actually, how this actually impacts the category, but I don't even know if that's worth doing because, like, I don't know if we're going to see this actually get settled on for a year, and so it feels kind of like we're going to be stuck in status quo until this conversation richens. What do you think?

AnnaRae Grabstein: 23:55

I agree with the status quo.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 23:58

I think that the new language that came out shows me that the Mary Miller Amendment isn't a done deal, and that is very positive.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 24:10

It means that there will continue to be a discussion about how hemp is represented in the Farm Bill and that we can have conversations about the language, and that there are some advocates to be thinking about ways to make sure that hemp is not fully banned and that prohibition is not the path that all folks want to take in Congress. That said, the new language is put up by Democrats. We're about to be having a Republican majority across the board. I don't think that the farm bill is going to be moving between now and the new administration coming to be. So the question is do we just push forward and extend the farm bill further? And I think that pontificating if that's going to happen is more reasonable, and I think you're right that it probably will happen, which is positive in some ways, because it means that status quo for the companies that are playing in the space can remain, but it also continues to leave up for debate what's happening next.

Ben Larson: 25:14

So it's buying everybody some time yeah, but the way I'm reading this, if this language did get through, did go through, um, that it would probably largely eliminate this THCA flower marketplace. Yes, for sure. And then what's left to kind of remain ambiguous, I guess, is how do you define the end products that are people consuming? It seems like beverage, for instance, by definition, would still be following a similar definition, but again ambiguous at best.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 25:47

Ambiguous at best, leaving some opportunities for the market and making some big changes to some of the stuff that already we're seeing states work to prohibit, mostly in the inhalable category, it seems, would definitely not fly with this new definition.

Ben Larson: 26:02

Yeah, well, very good, it's been crazy lately. It's trying to track the direction everything's going, I think. I mean, I think that's how Trump likes to rule is keep everyone on their toes and confused from a solely cannabis focus. It's been really interesting to see the different appointees over the last few weeks. You know we mentioned Matt Gaetz, kind of withdrawing, but he was very pro-cannabis leading up to his appointment of AG. But we'll see who the next one is. You know, obviously we talked about RFK in the past. Dr Oz was appointed to the head of Medicare and Medicaid. He's very pro-cannabis. I'm not going to talk about all the other crazy doctor stuff that he does or not doctor stuff. What kind of doctor is he? Do we even know? Is he a chiropractor?

AnnaRae Grabstein: 26:52

I think he was a surgeon of some kind. Yeah, I don't know.

Ben Larson: 26:58

Yeah, and that wasn't a dig on chiropractors. I actually go see my chiropractor in 30 minutes, so yeah, I love chiropractors. Sorry.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 27:05

All these appointments and it's this pontificating. It's the like that we don't have a crystal ball for what's coming. We need to be ready to respond when things do create opportunities. Even if somebody is pro-cannabis, it doesn't mean that it's at the top of their priority list, and that's really.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 27:23

I think what we're up against here is not a lot of understanding about what the priorities of the new administration are going to be.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 27:31

Whether or not they're pro-policy change is one thing, but if they're going to be moving it forward and in front of other things that they also want of which there is many. So that's what we're trying to figure out, and once people are actually in the seats and the administration has shifted and we're not just talking about what the transition team will look like, but we're talking about people that are now in their jobs I think that we'll have a much better eye on it. We are starting to see, though I think it was the US Cannabis Council announced a new lobbyist that has a longstanding relationship and has been a part of the Republican kind of political machine for many different past administrations, and there has been predominantly Democratic-leaning lobbyists working on cannabis in DC, and so my guess- well, interestingly enough, I think a number of the the outgoing Congress people had a meeting with with the U S cannabis council or the U S cannabis round table.

Ben Larson: 28:38

Oh, that's a different one the national camp is a different group you think I would know, but it's too hard to keep track of all these people. You know the we too hard to keep track of all these people. You know we have the retiring cannabis supporters in Congress that are, you know, again on their way out and hopefully meeting with the cannabis side is a good sign of telling us what we need to do to make happen. But I know there's not a whole lot of trust in the USCC or the US Cannabis Roundtable from the broader cannabis industry. Sure Well, shifting the conversation a little bit, cc, or or the us, uh, cannabis roundtable, yeah, from the broader cannabis industry.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 29:06

So sure, well, shifting, shifting the conversation a little bit. If you are a part of our audience, you probably like to follow cannabis news, as my guess. So you might have noticed this week that a new paywall has appeared at one of the most important and key kind of cannabis news resources, which is the Green Market Report, founded by Deborah Borshart. Green Market Report was Deborah's business and was acquired by Crane Media a couple years ago, which is a national media group that's based out of Chicago, and not much changed after that acquisition in terms of the way that the Green Market Report showed up, in terms of their daily newsletters, their coverage. If anything, they seem to have some expanded resources after that. From my perspective, debra is a really great journalist. They have some other great journalists on their team, like John Troyer, who's been covering the industry for over a decade, and this week, if you clicked to learn more, to read any of their headlines, you encountered a paywall of $49 a year.

Ben Larson: 30:16

Oh, that's not too bad.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 30:17

Not too bad. What do you think about this, Ben?

Ben Larson: 30:20

It's like $4 a month. That's fine. I mean, have I? Have I paid it yet? No, but I think I would, I'd be willing to pay that. I think that's a totally acceptable rate for what seems like a cannabis focus on biased perspective.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 30:40

I'm going to be signing up. I haven't yet.

Ben Larson: 30:43

Yeah, and I like Debra. I agree, it's, it's. She's always been a high integrity operator. You know it's funny, it's uh. You know? Another news source that I often find myself clicking through to they're really good at targeting me on on social media is new york times. Um, I refuse to pay uh for for that one, because of how just they pretend to be liberal but they're anti-cannabis. I just can't wrap my head around it. So I refuse. Every time. I pay the New York Times every month I subscribe.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 31:16

I also subscribe to my local Sonoma County newspaper, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, but I don't subscribe to any cannabis news yet, and when I was in Southern California last week I met Alex Halpern of Weed Week who was encouraging me to subscribe there, and I probably should, and I think I'll be subscribing to Green Market Report. I think that the niche news sources, be it local news or a cannabis-focused news source, are critical pieces of news and information infrastructure that individuals need to support if we want to keep having access to this information and um, yep, fair enough, I I did, I don't know.

Ben Larson: 32:00

I don't know if I'm actually I'm going to check this I don't know if I'm actually subscribed or if I just contributed when jeremy was first launching cultivated. Um, I remember writing check for that. Our other well, these are more newsletters now that I'm thinking there's like highly capitalized newsletter that I love. Politico does some great stuff and I don't think I've ever hit a paywall with Politico.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 32:22

Yeah, and we have to make choices as consumers. We can't pay for every media source, or some people can, and if you can, then you probably should. I also subscribe. I think I pay npr or my local, my local public broadcasting station. I think there are lots of opportunities as consumers for us to support the information that we want to make sure sticks around and do you donate to wikipedia when they do their drives?

AnnaRae Grabstein: 32:49

my, my husband, does every year, every year. I give him a hard time about it. He, he's a real sucker. He's like he's the guy that if you send him an email asking for something like a donation, he feels like he has to say yes. I'm like no, no, no, these are just marketing emails, you don't need to say yes, but Wikipedia has got him. He donates every year to Wikipedia. What?

Ben Larson: 33:13

a good hearted man yeah.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 33:15

You're lucky to have him, I'm lucky to have him on so many levels, he probably will never hear this. But yeah, thank you, Justin, Cool. Well. So yeah, I think in the end, people let's all go support Green Market Report and show them that we're ready to pay for our cannabis news. I think that will be important. I'm going to sign up today, once we get off this podcast.

Ben Larson: 33:37

Awesome. Well, we are getting close to that time. I want to mix things up a little bit, yeah, as we round up the top of the show here, I want to see what your last call is. Yeah, I'm going to make you do it. My want to see what your last call is, yeah.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 33:50

I'm gonna, I'm gonna make you do it my last call. You should have warned me that you wanted me to make a last call.

Ben Larson: 33:58

I know, but I just thought of it, so I'm no one's listening to this, so I'm just kind of we're doing our weekly catch up.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 34:01

I know my last call. I think I want to. I want to lean into the the excitement about agrify and just say that for today, I think that I predict that there is a lot of eyes on a nasdaq listed company going all in on hemp beverage and there's going to be more. So that's a big prediction and that I'm just. I'm just feeling inspired by it and I'm feeling like there's there's hope within a very frustrating sector performance across the board in cannabis and I'm just grateful that there are deals and growth in fun spots in our space. So that's, I think, my last call for today.

Ben Larson: 34:47

I love that. I'll pivot off of that and just amplify what I was saying towards the beginning of the shows. We all need to broaden our scope of cannabis. If you're on the hemp side, understanding how much regulated cannabis has helped progress the conversation around intoxicating hemp. If you're on the cannabis side, the opportunity that hemp has created for broader access to the consumer and that, if we want to accelerate broader acceptance and legalization, that both sides coming together to make that happen is how we get it done. We're trying to get that done in California. We're trying to get it done at the federal level.

Ben Larson: 35:24

If hemp and cannabis don't do it in a broader sense, the beverage folk are certainly going to try to make it happen for themselves. Because, like I said when I'm traveling to Austin, tennessee, south Carolina, north Carolina, a lot of red states notably, but there's some blue states in there too. It's everywhere. And the retailers and the distributors and the people with a lot more money than hemp and cannabis combined have a vested interest in this. And so you know we need to come together and and and make sure that we're helping build a category for the future that we have some control over and that other players aren't just going to do it the way that they want it done there, we know all right.

Ben Larson: 36:05

Yeah, there we have it. Okay. All right, folks, another cannabis business news round up a week of just myself and anna ray. We're gearing up for a big run into the end of the year thanksgivings next week, we have mj bizcon, after that I'll be down at bevnet in la the following week and then hopefully, things start to calm down. But we're starting to gear up for 2025, starting to align new guests. If you want to be on the show or you know someone who should be on the show, something that we should talk about, a topic that we should dive into, please let us know. Leave comments to us on LinkedIn. Make sure that you like, subscribe, just do all the things Really help us promote it. Please, if you're still listening, stop and subscribe and like in all the places that you can find us Apple, spotify, linkedin, youtube but until then sorry, I just brain farted.

Ben Larson: 36:54

That's a wrap, folks. That's a wrap. Stay curious, stay informed. Most importantly, keep your spirits high. All right, we'll talk to you soon. Bye, get me out of here.