Welcome From Canada

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome, welcome. I am Jay Rosenthal from the shores of Lake Ontario in Canada with the whole with the leader of the free world who now resides in Canada as well. We also have legal wheat here, so everybody is welcome to come. And one other thing before we really get going. The president likes to say that the U.S. doesn't need anything from Canada, but I would say that Boris Jordan does not agree with that because he really wants to buy Aurora, and that is Canadian. So F you, everybody. That's it. That's it. So this week in Canada Live. That is Jeremy Burke, two over from me, and in the middle is Anna Ray Grabstein. We are going to start the show with a special guest.

Rachel Bell And The New Yorker

SPEAKER_01 0:42

I'm going to bring her on now. She is known as the here, I'll show you. She's known as the curator of high art. Rachel Bell. Welcome. Thank you. Hi guys. Rachel, you this is you, the New Yorker. This week. We're happy to have you on because you, both because you're in the New Yorker, but also because you are more than just cannabis famous, you're famous. And we're glad to have you. First, do you know, like, how did this come to be? Because it is it's very high profile, and you are high profile. But talk a little bit about what it's like to be in the New Yorker.

SPEAKER_04 1:17

It was obviously it's not something I was 11 years old wishing would happen because I didn't know what the New Yorker was yet, but it is like uh a lifelong dream, I would say. We had been working with our great PR team, Trailblaze, at Gotham, which uniquely I'm like the director of content and engagement at Gotham. So I feel like that kind of doesn't always get fully understood that like I'm on staff at Gotham and I do this as a part of it. But yeah, they connected us with Sheila, the journalist who wrote it, and on um beautiful March day, she shadowed me while I filmed at the Guggenheim. And I think that's also an underappreciated thing about it. This interview happened in March, and I was like every day of my life waiting for it to come out. It took several months.

SPEAKER_02 2:04

That's the speed of a mainstream media compared to cultivated. So we'll give that a plug.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

I want to show a little bit of sort of this is your Instagram page, and like you literally have it's called High I'm High, and you do things mostly around New York City. Hi. Yes. In following you for some time, not only is your dog like obviously super cute, but I found a favorite. My favorite is when you went to the Knicks game, which I thought was awesome. Any favorite things you've done while you've been high in and around New York?

SPEAKER_04 2:35

I mean the Knicks game. The Knicks game was definitely electric and amazing. That that was just to be fair, like I probably could say that was really a lifelong dream. I never thought I would have be able to see an NBA game so close, like without wearing my glasses. Like I could see like that some of them had cupping bruises on their backs. That was a level of detail I never expected to have. The dog show was crazy, that was extremely overstimulating and also amazing. I got to touch like a hundred different kinds of dogs. I feel like it's really helped me appreciate New York. People are always suggesting that I do different episodes out of state and stuff, but obviously, because the cannabis is New York State legal, I have to stay in New York State. And it's really made me like appreciate all that the state has to offer, which is a really nice thing.

SPEAKER_02 3:23

What are you doing? How did you stoner cliches? Sorry, go ahead. Yeah, yeah.

AnnaRae Grabstein 3:26

I'm curious of what you think about stoner cliches. I love that. I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 3:31

I think I get a lot of the comments that I get most often are how are your eyes not red? And 20 milligrams, try 200. So there is a lot of like stoner cultural pressure, I think, in making the show. And it's almost a little sadistic of someone to suggest that I take 200 milligrams of THC, but I don't know. I think for me, not to pigeonhole myself, but I come across as a normal girl, woman, person doing living a normal life and just using cannabis from Gotham to enhance my day-to-day experiences. And I think that's important. There's something of value in stoner cliche content and culture, but I think that what I'm trying to do is get the can of curious people to understand that it can change the way you enjoy a museum, it can change the way you enjoy the fall leaves changing colors and enhance your life in a non-scary way.

SPEAKER_02 4:32

I'm down with that. Rachel, how did you get the original idea? I love it exactly to what you said. It's not the Stoner cliche. I'm a man in my 30s. I think ripping a bomb in front of a Bob Marley poster isn't exactly my speed anymore, although it once was.

SPEAKER_04 4:47

Been there.

SPEAKER_02 4:47

Exactly. Been there, done that. How did you get the original idea to do this? And how did you figure out it was working? Were you getting traction early and mock a stone? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:57

I, Joanne,

Building I’m High At Gotham

SPEAKER_04 4:58

our intrepid founder, God Lover, hired me at Gotham in January 2023 before we opened any stores, which shout out. Not enough founders recognized the need for content building before they actually start. And I had never worked in cannabis. I had worked in tech and startups and social apps. And so I really quickly understood that I cannot post a picture of a nug on the Instagram. Like, how am I supposed to draw attention to these new drops without getting our account taken down? And so Joanne, we had been talking about doing some man on the street content, and Joanne got me a press pass to freeze in I think May of that year, right before the store opened. And I went with a cameraman and an heirloom vape in my pocket, and I kind of just came up with it on the spot. And the the thinking was I can't show you the product, but I can show you the high. And I am the easiest to direct and easiest to schedule with talent available.

SPEAKER_01 5:56

Yes. Very little booking. There's not a booker involved.

SPEAKER_04 5:59

And I can also direct myself telepathically. There's no verbal communication required.

SPEAKER_01 6:04

I want to, yes, Anne, you talked about the importance of content, certainly for a retail store, likely for brands as well. But I but like how do you not to get all ROI on it, but how how is the ROI measured? Is it views? Is it clicks? Is it people coming to the store asking for the product? Is it people recognizing you? Is it all of those things or none of those things?

SPEAKER_04 6:23

Yeah, I think all of those things. I think this is a really strong top-of-funnel brand awareness value, but there's also true conversion to it. There have been times where we've run, chopped up some episodes and run them as paid to experiment with that. We all of our store managers send end of the day, end-of-day reports at the end of each day with what happened in the store. And sometimes it'll be like so-and-so came in especially because they love the blank episode of I I'm High and they asked for whatever Rachel smoked in it. So we're definitely seeing it convert to foot traffic. I think we are exploring some merch for instances like that, so that when people come in, it's not just we sell them the one pre-roll that I tried, but we also have the opportunity to give them something so they can really rep the show. Yeah, and I think we're seeing a lot of value for cannabis brands also in elevating the success of different brands that are operating in New York, where it's like we have now this sort of marketing vehicle within our marketing department where we can shine a light on all these new operators, new products who might not have access to marketing budget, but we have this viral lever that we can pull to launch their products.

AnnaRae Grabstein 7:35

Yeah. You you brought up the initial idea of being a part of not being able to show the buds on Instagram. And I think it's an interesting call out to just marketing restrictions broadly in cannabis. And as someone that's building content

What Converts Views Into Foot Traffic

AnnaRae Grabstein 7:50

for a cannabis company, I'm curious what you would like it to look like. How you hope a future of content marketing in cannabis might unfold.

SPEAKER_04 8:01

I think that we got lucky slash I was smart in establishing a branded series during the time that we did. I think that it was right at the time when you were early, we would be early to it. I would love to see more storytelling in cannabis marketing. I'm biased because I just love that. I'm very narrative driven. But I think that is the way to do it without having to show the product. I think that is, and from my perspective, creativity thrives in restrictions. So for me, like when you have all these guardrails, it's fun to try and create something that fits within that shape, right? But I think that there's so much, there's so many stories to tell, and people have more of an attention span than you think. I think everyone thinks they have to have a flashy visual in the first half second of an Instagram reel, and the music drops in. But people are more curious than we give them credit for. And the watch through rate on these three-minute videos is a lot higher than you would think.

SPEAKER_02 9:00

At my old job, we used to call it the cheese pull at Business Insider. Any any video had to have a mozzarella cheese pulling out in the big space. So yeah, I like avoiding the cheese pull.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

What what do you just mentioned the sort of three-minute video, which is pretty long? Talk talk a little bit about the analytics and the watch-through rates and what you've learned. Has anything surprised you about what actually does work? Or are there things that you think would absolutely work that actually just flop?

SPEAKER_04 9:27

So originally for the first, I don't know, six or seven episodes, I just was editing it myself, which in retrospect is absolutely crazy. I do not have the time to be doing that. But it's impossible for me to be impartial about what I think is funny that I am personally saying, and what so it's so nice that now I have a cameraman who is also the editor and can be unbiased about when I'm funny in a way that I can't. And also our marketing team, our marketing leads review the episodes and give notes. It's great. But I have found not in a shock jock kind of way, but in an episode where I say something that to me is just off the cuff a joke. I'll give an example. I did a volunteer shift with the Billion Oyster Project, which is they're refilling the Hudson River with oysters because they're natural water filters. It was really amazing. I loved filming that episode, but I wore this hat, this very ridiculous hat, and it's gigantic and it has clouds on it. It's a sun hat. It prevents me from getting sunburned. And in the episode, I said, I know you guys are all desperate to know more information about my hat, but I will not be sharing it at this time. I'm joking. Everyone who asked about the hat in the comments, I explained it to them. But that really riled people up. People got really there was a post on a subreddit where someone was trying to identify it, and people in the comments were mad for gatekeeping my hat. So um, you know, it's things yes, I was being called a gatekeeper, even though I was telling everyone where it was from. So it surprised me things like that. And sometimes the moment that I think is the funniest in an episode, there will be very few comments addressing it, and something that I thought was like a throwaway joke everyone will really like. So it's really great that I don't edit it myself because I cannot be biased about my own humor, unbiased.

AnnaRae Grabstein 11:21

I I loved the high maintenance series that HBO put out, and I'm sure that was something that that you referenced and watched, especially filming in New York. And I've always wondered what happened to the guy. He's fallen off. And if there's some way that you can find him and bring him onto your show, it would be Ben Sinclair. I think he's around, but very quiet these days.

SPEAKER_04 11:44

I think he does a Substack actually. I only know this because I I read something about it recently. Yeah, he's somewhat active on Substack, so it would be fun to have a cameo in.

SPEAKER_02 11:59

I think he's he's sober now. I think. Oh yeah, is what happened. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 12:05

Well, something that I'm really excited about for Gotham's content future is that we're working on more series, and uh part of that is driven by the fact that everyone wants to get M High. I get a lot of requests to appear, and I the ideal situation is uh get a request to film at your place or to do an activity at your place. But everybody wants to co-star, and we've experimented with the co-hosting format. It's really hard, it's already hard to edit down to three minutes when it's just me. So I'm really excited for us to start launching these other series that will become established so that when people want to do that, I have other stuff that I can plug them into because we've got a really strong network of interesting New Yorkers who shop with us and want to do stuff with us. So I'm excited to have a more robust programming to get people involved in.

SPEAKER_01 12:53

Rachel Bell, I really appreciate the time. Congratulations on the story and the work that you do and the success of it. And we hope to have you back. And then we'd like to follow you around when you're high. That's all I that's like sounds creepy when I say that, but it is what it is.

SPEAKER_04 13:07

Well, if you're watching this at home, you can follow Gotham.ny on Instagram to see our episodes every other Saturday.

SPEAKER_01 13:14

Every other Saturday, is that right? You're doing two two a month. Yikes. Yeah. It's a lot. Good for you. Thank you. Well, thank you so much for being here, and we will connect with you likely in a couple months in New York City. Cool. See ya then. Nice to meet you. Thanks, Rachel. Thank you. That is not all the news. Well, that's none of the news, actually, but it was great to talk to Rachel for sure. And now we got to get to newsy

DEA Rescheduling Hearing Key Moments

SPEAKER_01 13:38

news. And there were 2,500 pages of testimony in the rescheduling hearing. Jeremy, you read them all 2500 words. All 2500 pages.

SPEAKER_02 13:47

Claude did. I don't get paid enough to read them all.

SPEAKER_01 13:49

Claude reads fast, eh?

SPEAKER_02 13:51

Claude works pretty damn quickly. What do you want to know, Jay?

SPEAKER_01 13:56

I want to know. You wrote about what you know. I want to know outside of the things you wrote, what struck you, aside from the length of it. Anna Ray, I'm gonna ask you the same question, so get ready.

SPEAKER_02 14:04

Yeah, a couple things struck me. One is how careful the DEA lawyers were throughout the whole thing. And there's two parts to that answer, right? One is that in their opening statement, which is 26 pages down, so that's it's a 2,500-page transcript, in their opening statement, the DEA, the head attorney from the DEA, said, this is not about legalization, it's about regulation. But that is a line in the sand about what this hearing is about and what the DEA is doing. The second interesting piece is how careful the DEA was and how surgical they were to not create a track record that could be fought on appeal. They really didn't cross-examine the witnesses very much. They wanted to prove two things, like we've written and cultivated one, that there is medical use for cannabis, and two, that it is more safe than other schedule one drugs. Anything the witnesses said that wasn't in the scope of that was not asked about by the DEA lawyers. They were surgical in the way they asked their questions. But all that being said, I my sense is that the anti-rescheduling side did have a number of odd and frankly ridiculous things they did and said, but they landed some hits. And I think it's important that the industry rectifies with that. Particularly the Yale Dr. D Pact DeSouza, his testimony about the link between cannabis use and psychosis was relatively strong, and stronger than I've seen reported in the press, stronger than I've seen other papers written about. So that's something that is gonna come up and they will have to rectify with. There was other ridiculous things. One of the most was one person that, you know, brought all these images and submitted them as testimony, and they were like, 'Reddit described images of toddlers holding bongs. And the judge was like, How do you know this is real?' And she was like, I don't. And so it was patently ridiculous. So that can be thrown out, but Dr. D'Souza's testimony was relatively strong. And I think that's something that is going to come up on appeal.

SPEAKER_01 15:57

Anna Ray, your thoughts.

AnnaRae Grabstein 15:59

So I should say I also didn't read the full 2,500 pages, but I have kept up on all of the summaries. And and then I have actually asked Claude for some clarification as I've reviewed some of this information and dove into it. And I think that the biggest takeaway for me that is that Jeremy didn't say is that if I've tried to put myself in the judge's shoes of like, all right, what does the judge likely think here? And and I think that this medical argument was clear. I think that the DEA proved your case. Uh that's really what my takeaway is that if they set out to show a medical use, they did. So that would be if I was a betting person of how this goes or what happens next, I think that that the judge is going to choose the DEA's perspective here. And that whatever happens next is gonna be resting on that.

SPEAKER_02 16:54

Yeah. And just to the question that we're like totally agree, NRA, just to the question we're getting on YouTube and some emails I got and comments and social media, this hearing, excuse me, was about Schedule three, right? And schedule three is not legalization, and that's very important. The DEA is not defending recreational use of marijuana. They're defending that very narrowly defined two-part test. And schedule three drugs are still medical drugs, right? And so it still does bring up a host of questions. Now, look, on balance, the testimony was clear, the evidence is clear, the judge is probably going to recommend rescheduling. But the hearing is about sort of medical use, right? They are trying to fulfill the two-part CAMU test. And it it's I don't really have an answer to that question. Was adult use the medical cannabis considered different of the same category? Because it's all considered schedule three. And schedule three drugs are prescribed. And so it's a bizarre situation. I don't really know, I don't think anyone really knows. A lot of people have a lot of ideas and prognostications of what really happens next if they do make it schedule three. It's a bizarre position for state licensed retailers to be in.

SPEAKER_01 18:00

I would just, yes. I would say, and we've talked about that last week, and it is, I think, Jeremy, you said on Twitter, like there's gonna be a lot to unpack when this thing comes down. The one thing that I that is not directly related to the testimony, but is related to the

The Media War Around Cannabis Reform

SPEAKER_01 18:15

timing. And this is a broader, this is the SAM folks on this. Like clearly they were focused on the hearing, but they have a broader game plan that they are executing right now, which in Main Street media on the left and the right and the in the center, that this is a bad idea. And we've seen it in the New York Times. Jeremy, you've written extensively about this. We've seen it in some, and certainly in conservative media, we see it on Twitter. There is a broad-based effort to not only discredit and fight what is about to happen on rescheduling, assuming it happens, but also broaden the conversation is it a good idea anyway? Right? Like this is I think the industry is very focused on this hearing. What's that? Like the Massachusetts repeal effort. Exactly. That's expensive, but even more behind the scenes PR and public affairs around the country. This is a full-scale effort on the anti-legalization front. And I think the cannabis industry is focused on this hearing, and the anti-folks are broadened it much further and frankly better. And they're everywhere, and a lot of it you can't necessarily see, but it is effective because I think the conversation has shifted a bit and not in the positive way in the broader context.

SPEAKER_02 19:25

It's it's a testament. Like I'm loath to give the anti-cannabis reform side their flowers. It's a testament to their communication strategy in the industry. I've had a lot of back and forth about this. The industry is not doing itself a lot of favors, right? They're focused on the economic aspects of it. They're focused on 280e reform, which is basically a balance sheet impact and not a public health impact or not a social justice impact, right? And that provides an opening for people who were going to be anti-cannabis anyways. Now they can sell the story to the mainstream media that these are the big suits, the guys are trying to be billionaires, et cetera, et cetera. Like that's frankly a very sexy story for journalists to write. And it's a lot easier to criticize cannabis legalization when it's led by publicly traded companies versus social justice movements of five or six years ago, right? You would be hard-pressed for a journalist to investigate why street level activists are pro-cannabis legalization, but it's a very easy thing to pitch your editor on that there's these big companies trying to foist high potency products on America's youth. Uh and it's a real, it's a really good PR strategy. And it's look, I'm not saying they're right. There's a lot of holes you can poke in their data. They use broad observational studies to say these are causative effects. They are not. It's something the industry is gonna have to reckon with. And obviously, because they know we'll get this comment, like obviously, legislative action is the right path ahead. Congress should pass a law to do this. That's a much more stable basis, but we are not there yet. And this is the process we have, and we should all be in the industry itself very clear-eyed about how the opposition is communicating to the press right now.

SPEAKER_01 21:09

Yes. And it's not as it's not the industry is way less organized, in some ways, less funded, less coordinated, much more focused on their businesses and staying alive. Like all these things you can argue. I think it's gonna be I don't think the path is clear or easy ahead. Is that fair? I don't know. No, but I think it's entirely for the other thing. I think there's often a thought that, you know, the opposition is the opposition, but the public is with us, right? I think relying on the public to help get this over the line is the public can be fickle, I guess is my point.

AnnaRae Grabstein 21:47

Well, it's interesting the difference between the polls and public opinion and these big stories. And I think that speaks more to what gets the attention in the room. And I have spent Throughout my cannabis career, a lot of time in local city council meetings or state opportunities to give feedback about things. And often somebody comes and takes all the oxygen out of the room with a very strong anti-cannabis opinion. And then we'll get lots of news coverage, but they represent a tiny fraction of public opinion. It's just that it's a great story. It's a great way to people are looking for is when something terrible happens, that creates the headline. When a bunch of normal things happen, there's no headline. I was trying to pitch a story to a reporter not too long ago, and the response was, I can see why this has business impact or this is interesting to you, but has anyone died yet? Has anyone shut their business yet? Has anyone lost their home? And the answer was no. And I was like, call me back when someone loses their house, and then maybe we can cover the story.

SPEAKER_01 22:59

Great.

AnnaRae Grabstein 22:59

And so I think that this is an example of what is fueling the headlines as well. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 23:05

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 23:07

I want to move on because we're now 25 minutes into the show, and I want to get to my favorite segment without talking

Curaleaf’s Bid For Aurora

SPEAKER_01 23:13

about other things. But quickly before we get to winners and losers, Cure Leaf and Aurora spent the week going back and forth with each other. This is a those who don't know, although if you watch the show, you probably do know CureLif is launching a bid to take over Aurora. They've been back and forth all week. I will, I think we'll continue to see this both directly and indirectly with some proxies, not like proxies of people speaking for the company or making their case. This it is a big deal on its sort of business sense, but it also seems like uh an inflection point for the industry. But I want you to speak to that, Anna Ray, and then Jeremy. Big companies trying to take over other big companies seems like an interesting time for the industry.

AnnaRae Grabstein 23:56

There hasn't been much that's happened this week that has felt very different from what was happening last week. That's dual. I think that there's a lot of MA activity going on and deals getting announced that that are happening. So this is just more indicative of what we know Boris Jordan is trying to do, which is create the largest cannabis company in the world. He already has the largest cannabis company in the world, but he wants it to be this much bigger with a larger scope, with access to more GMP cultivation. But there's a bunch of other deals that are happening as well. And that those are actually happening. They're not just fighting them out in public. And so this is just one of those kind of fun examples of the messy stuff that happens in public companies that we're getting to watch this and we're getting to sit here and talk about it. But but it's all the other stuff that's happening behind the scenes that I find more interesting.

SPEAKER_01 24:44

So you're just saying we're voyeurs in this.

SPEAKER_02 24:50

Yeah, I will say I I am a journalist. I worked at a business tabloid for a long time. I love proxy fights and I love how bitter and personal they can get. And so I'm popping my popcorn and watching this. I think something that that I've written about that is a little under discussed in the Aurora cure leaf battle is that this is really pure leaf, it's a bear hug, right? And if anyone watched Success in season one, you know what a bear hug is. There's Cure Leaf is trying to make Aurora shareholders an offer they cannot refuse. Basically, companies have a fiduciary responsibility to increase their bottom line, and this would increase their bottom line. Now, I think the question remains: does it get done at $4 a share? Probably not, but is all this public posturing to move that bid up to six or seven dollars a share? Does it get done then? Don't quote me on it, but maybe.

SPEAKER_01 25:37

And one thing that I'll I'll end this sort of part of this the show with where we started it. I want to see if Aurora pulls the Canada card on this and goes to the federal government here and say, you kibosh this approach to us because we are Canadian and this is a Canada US battle. Because that would play very well right now in Canada, coming from this side of the border. Anything that's that's like baiting Donald Trump to get involved. That's what an idea. It's Aurora, you could take my words and take it directly to the prime minister's office. But I that has not happened yet, surely, and I think that's probably not gonna happen. But if it did, that would be an interesting sort of turn of events, especially with Forrest Jordan's connections and I don't know, friendship with the current president, but certainly support for the president.

AnnaRae Grabstein 26:24

So are you predicting Mark Carney gets involved and lets lets and Donald know that we don't need you up here in Canada? We're good.

SPEAKER_01 26:33

I would be I'd be more than shocked if the Prime Minister has said anything about it. I would be less shocked if Aurora tried to play that card in some way.

SPEAKER_02 26:40

Dougie might.

SPEAKER_01 26:42

Yeah. Any event, it would be an interesting layer on top of this story if that factored in. I also don't know, and I'm sure someone does, the relative nature of or who holds who the shareholders are in Aurora, US versus Canadian, but that'll be interesting to see as well. All right.

Winners And Losers Of The Week

SPEAKER_01 27:01

Everybody ready? Everybody got their winners and losers ready because it's time for winners and losers of the week. Anna Ray, you are first.

AnnaRae Grabstein 27:15

I've got a bunch this week. The first winner that I want to call out is our very own Jeremy Burke, who's right here with us, because I feel that this week in particular, you have been dropping some really awesome stories. I've been reading them and thinking, well, this is not a bot. This is not AI. This is someone that's actually thinking about what the heck is going on and is giving me a unique perspective on the news. So I want to thank you for it and just call you out as a winner today.

SPEAKER_02 27:43

Uh really fine. Thank you. I usually get hate mail, so I really appreciate that.

AnnaRae Grabstein 27:48

Absolutely. You're dropping some great stuff and you're taking on the New York Times. It's not nothing for someone to do that. Cool.

unknown 27:55

Thank you.

AnnaRae Grabstein 27:56

Some other winners is more on the deal side. We've got a big announcement. Jars Cannabis and Sonoran Roots in Arizona just did a deal that's going to create the largest retail footprint in the state of Arizona. So winner for the companies, not sure, might be a loser for the consumers. Who knows? I have all kinds of opinions about large retail groups and what that does for consumers overall. But Arizona is an interesting one to watch. Another deal that is that finally got completed was the Kiva Sales and Service and Pedal Fast Merger. So those are some more winners. And then on the loser side, I just this week, and I maybe people have known for longer, but I didn't notice there was a receivership listing for a group of dispensaries in Northern California and San Francisco and Oakland called Urbana, which is a great group. It's my dad's favorite dispensary, you guys. So I'm not sure where he's gonna be going or where his yeah, I guess he could maybe buy one. So yeah, sorry to Urbana for ending up in receivership. They've got two consumption lounges in the Bay Area.

SPEAKER_01 29:03

Jeremy, winners, losers.

SPEAKER_02 29:05

One one fun winner is, and I'm loath to give any credit to the Ford family. I'm an Ontario boy at heart, not very conservative in my politics, but Dougie Ford, his comments to Donald Trump, I think, are amazing. One thing he said is he has a lot of real estate on his ass, and Donald Trump can kiss his ass. And that was the funniest thing I've ever heard a politician say. My real winner of the week is the DEA lawyers. Again, another thing I never thought I would say. I have a lot of lawyers in my family. My mother is one, I'm married to one, and everyone in the arguments, but I do have a lot of admiration for how lawyers carefully construct their arguments and ask their questions. I think about it in my writing a lot, how I speak and how I say things. And I thought the DEA attorneys, when I was reading the transcript, were very surgical in how they did things, and I thought that was just a pretty cool thing to see. Professionals being competent and doing what they do and doing it.

SPEAKER_01 29:59

Wow. Doug Ford and lawyers. That's a big week for you, Jared. Although, if you really want to listen to a Ford say ridiculous say things that will make you laugh, I would refer you to his now past brother Rob Ford, who is the crack smoking mayor of Toronto.

SPEAKER_02 30:14

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 30:14

Had two really inappropriate things to say.

SPEAKER_02 30:16

Who might have paved the way for Donald Trump in a in an interesting way. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:21

There's something to that. Okay. I have I'm looking down to Florida where a grand jury, I don't know if they indicted, but certainly found that the DeSantis administration funneled millions of dollars to the no on legalization campaign, in addition to a whole bunch of other things, which gives me my winner, which I am all much more loath to acknowledge this fella. But it is it shows the circular firing squad that is the Republican Party in Florida because Matt Gates has entered the conversation again. And he, I guess, hates DeSantis and likes Weed, but I think this is less more about DeSantis. And he's been everywhere on this. And if you don't already, I can't believe I'm gonna say this. Follow Matt Gates on Twitter. Ugh. But you will be you will be able to follow exactly what is happening in Florida because it is quite a circular firing squad there. And it also wraps into also check out Gen Saki's breakdown of what it all means. She's a winner this week as well. As always, she's like my hero, Gen Saki. Something you guys don't know about me. We'll dive into that later. But we'll also be back next week, which is the day before Labor Day. So have a good weekend this week. Anna Ray and Jeremy, thanks very much for your time.

SPEAKER_00 31:31

And Rachel Bell, thank you for joining us early on the show. Check her out high on Instagram and YouTube. Everybody have a good day of weekend. Bye y'all.