i everybody wears water and welcome to strange bedfellows along here with my guest host scott writer of the new jersey cana business association and we're here to talk about all things cannabis in new jersey scott thanks for coming out really appreciate it what do you think about what happened last night i don't know wow i'd say it's a historic victory i mean there's a lot of great things going on in new jersey in general i think from a cannabis industry perspective you know the film murphy victory is  to be very positive you know we're going to see things that people have been looking for right so people have been looking for an expansion of medical people been looking for civil justice reform and people been looking for an industry to be created for both jobs entrepreneurship and expansion  other areas so it was a historic victory to say the least you know i've been sitting here trying to sum what last night's victory really meant and to me it was the culmination of a few years of hard work you know it was definitely and one of the highest honors to be able to participate in getting that legalized being that as a country we are now at twenty two veteran suicides a day and so  s d was added to the new jersey medical marijuana program as a qualifying condition and then naturally seen the state make evolution right into the adult use you know it was a responsibility to make that natural evolution with the state i think and it was it's guys like ken wall ski from the coalition of medical marijuana guys like yourself who have led this effort for many many years and now we're starting to see the more states have come online on the medical cannabis side right we're seeing very positive things happen we're seeing opioid every duck session not just the use but the overdoses and we're seeing also in lots of these places that you know cannabis has become the off ramp to opioid abuse and addiction you know the natural progression where you know once we've come to understand the science behind behind the plant people get more comfortable in the out you side because they kind of  this as you know it's you know sure it's a medication and sure it's an alternative to not just opioids but the alcohol you know it's a healthier way to either medicaid or recreate and i think that you know having you know starting out in california in hundred ninety s all way up to today you know we've been we now have studies to look back on we have you know analysis to look back on we also have other countries own research the israelis the canadians the germans you know they've all been doing significant research into we're discovering that yeah it's a drug and we certainly there's things we need to be concerned about certainly don't teenage use and certainly people shouldn't smoke and drive and things like that but the end of day it's significantly healthier than alcohol even i like him where we are as a state more so what we're you know facilitating is a cultural shift yeah and how we view cannabis right to include just the words that we use you  know stead of marijuana you know we all know that's not that's right that's not a socially acceptable word right we'll call it work it is that's and it's like the same thing with the washington redskins right it's it's it's a common it's common i mean it's been but it does it still makes it a bad worker protect it particularly when you look at its roots but we're also talking about the catching up of the research because i stated you know israel they've been doing this for fifty years right and we've so as a country we are a little late to this conversation very late and so on purpose yes and it would that was by design right and so a good friend of ours marvin washington once said we are the most organized truth against an organized a lot and that is it's very good i'm very good at it you know you know you think about how hard it's been right i mean this is hard right so just cannabis in our medicine cabinets we had cannabis you know chemist oil we used clothing we made rope you know we had all different types of products are being used by cannabis and then of course we you know i want you too far into the history of this but you know there are major powers of play th it was the timber industry the newspaper industry the chemical industry then fast forward today yes some of those guys are still players but now it's a pharmaceutical industry here trying to keep this down so the cannabis world has had major major billion dollar companies in conglomerates trying to stifle it and they've used their friends in washington to perpetuate that you know when in one thousand nine hundred sixty nine when the original campus prohibition law was found to be unconstitutional so we switched from an unconstitutional law and then richard nixon is in and that's when he started the war on drugs writing so that's when when the controlled substance act was passed and that's where we really started to see that this war on drugs take place and they this will be added but you know at the end of the day what it really came down to is that the nixon administration was going after war protesters and they're going after civil rights protesters and so you're hippies and you're black panther as you know you would typically see cannabis being used in those environments and so hey this is a method for us to infiltrate these two different groups and you know for the for the for the next administration's gain so they went in and that's what they were doing because they felt that the communists were coming and they're going infiltrate these different groups and we could start to spy on them if we use cannabis as a method to get in those doors there are science behind it there was never anything that said you know that this is that this there is no medical background that says this is should be a schedule one and you know that and you know that when you make canada i'm sorry when you make cocaine crack cocaine is a schedule two yeah so basically all meth is a schedule two yes i think crack heroin heroin is schedule one ok it's credit cocaine in crystal meth yes have greater medical values are a lot less addictive according to the federal government think cannabis which we all know not to be true sold and therefore when you look at the involvement of veterans and i'm being useful tools you know the hundred percent of the general populace the general public tends to lean more towards the word of a veteran than a politician right these days considering the political racial e like it's candy and that is real just like we're at twenty two veterans suicides day right that is real and half that number is the be enough veterans to still do in them you know it averages out to five a veterans organizations are out there fighting for their members for the yeah there it is they are they have they're testifying before congress to putting the press conference together and issuing white papers they know that membership needs access to common sense medication they know that returning vets who have significant injuries or p t s d need something other than oxy contin every time you have an issue every time you sneeze here's another pillow you know these guys become these troops these warriors who are fighting for us overseas and who have come back in are criminals now and they're trying to get access to cannabis in the views of the view of the federal government and that is a crime in and of itself mind you all of this happening in the midst of an opioid abuse and addiction there's a lot of people that die from a drug overdose that don't get reported because the corner didn't have the sophistication to have it the police you know the person that died as a result overdoses there was something else involved in those numbers are actually different there they're reduced numbers or not act all the way through today there are more people to die in one year of overdose from opioids and then we have done all these wars and all these troops are asking for just a commonsense opportunity but the federal government will not allow it and that to me is outrageous there are people like senator cory booker others at the federal level republicans and democrats mind you this has become more and more bipartisan issue which is one of the things you and i keep talking about and it's mind that common ground on issues we don't have a similar political background but yet one this subject we absolutely agree on oh yeah absolutely agree and i think that's what makes this so important and imperative for us well we remember getting the call to be a part of the rollout of sort of cory booker's marijuana just as we format and what that what the marijuana justice reform act is it basically diskette jools cannabis all together takes a completely off from a social economic impact or social justice and pat you know we have a lot of people there in jail for very minor small offenses yes we were talking college kids we're talking parents we're talking and the thing is is that when you look at the way a lot of these people end up in jail the impact isn't just on him it's on their families then that kid's parents lose their public housing and then therefore it's not just him that's going to jail but now mom and dad and little brother got a good dad to leave the the public housing here to see it's this is again the whole oxymoronic right part of it all right and i think when you look at the involvement of veterans you know what we're saying is number one before anyone gets out of the military at least in the army were educated on this stuff right now once a veteran once a soldier leaves active duty and goes into the general public and returns and becomes a veteran citizen you know and now you're in the hands of the v a who is not really updated on what where we are when it you may want to try this i can recommend it but you may want to try and there's there's efforts afoot to change it to allow that to happen and it always comes down to the same problem we have senior leadership whether it's the trump administration the the bush administration going all the way back in there for some reason even though they know the science even though we've had people in in the previous administration that were positive towards particularly on the civil justice side you know to loosen the rules up a little bit but always seems to come back to big pharma and the f d a because you know you cannot you know the v a cannot say with certainty that there's medical value with cannabis why because the f d a didn't say so every doctor there every nurse there every medical professional in that building in every patient can tell you with absolute certainty the there's medical value but because the f d a did not say so it can't be true ye s that to me without the f d a saying so why does the f d a hold back on doing research allowing some research to occur they allow some level i can't say if you know there is some level of research going on but here's the here's a fun fact about some of these things is awful actually there's a company called insights and s y s and they are a manufacture offense and all the deadly as it is it is significantly more harmful than all kill prince and michael jackson's yes and he and so forth so this incites this company called insights based in arizona spent five hundred thousand dollars last year to defeat arizona's public referendum to legalize cannabis insights the manufacturer fenton all spend five hundred thousand dollars to defeat a legalization effort why did they do it because they have our public health in mind did they do it because they felt that this for the it's pretty good of the kids or do they do it because they know in every state that is legalized cannabis that the profit margins are the profit value on these opioid manufacturers go down it goes down every time it shrinks on average twenty five percent of comprehensive medical marijuana programs are seeing a drop in the number of opioid abuse and addiction incidents and right there are also seen a number of drop they're seen a drop in the number of scripts being written by doctors right for opioids so it's like over fifty eight thousand right and so we passed that with veterans right you know such as myself and reza storm and desert shield right and so when you look at these when you look at these numbers and you say ok wait a minute cannabis is a schedule one which has zero medicinal value as you just said but yet you have a new jersey medical marijuana program right you know so and along those lines another interesting thing that happened recently is that there was an appellate court in new jersey that directed new jersey to go look at your schedule want to get the contents how can you how can you have a law how can you have a law that declares  christie you have signed on two occasions you know adding additional including what you lead with the p t s d you know adding these other conditions to it therefore you recognize that some level there's a medical value but we don't think christie doesn't it's very dangerous if you if you use the same methodology for and as similar questions of the opioid abuse or have you ever tried to napel yes i'm going to say that you probably have a greater likelihood of you having used bull in the past we should ban red bull i mean it's the methodology is so off base but it supports their conclude yeah and their conclusion is very simple you know we have our friends over here and big pharma big pharma has been bribing us lots and lots of money over the years let's make sure that we don't offend our friends in big pharma so while there's an opioid campaign going on and honestly you know all my criticisms aside at the very important campaign we need to bring greater awareness to what ever your motivation is all bets are right that's why he put his hands in the in the father's face at the yeah i told not to brag but it got enough attention so i was in the state assembly at the time i was in the state assembly at the time and i met with the mom you know we're both cry and you know there's one of those stories where you're really nice as a politician you know who am i to come between a daughter and a mother and a doctor on how you going to treat that child who am i did to do that so absolutely the doctor says ok the science is there please please please answered these conditions so governor christie probably guess what he wanted to do did it because he just had to do it you liked it lee but it was like the p t s d adding that condition it's not something he led that effort it wasn't his idea it was a reluctance but you know but at least he got there a little bit further and again similar to the opiate program but it's that same story over and over again cannabis is a gateway to opioids it's never been proven i mean my friend you know this to be true we have we've had an opioid epidemic we're dealing with a right now we've had thank you and i told him i said sir you and i may be generals in two different armies but at some point we're going to have to talk and i got the pin he used to sign the bill it really i got that's much over you know that's cool but the thing is that his refusal is indicative of the way big pharma what prefer our our current policy our current leaders to react to certain things when you talk about cannabis in the state of new jersey you know you're messing with some old money because these pharmaceutical companies have been here for generations and we talk about cannabis in new jersey you also messing with some law all money because alcohol industry has been here for generations and we've already we're seeing the numbers come about him while you have the n f l pushing back on cannabis when you have this is t b i this is traumatic brain injury this is you have c t e go annoy right and and over and over every sunday we see this happen and we even know of some athletes right who will tell you martha washington eugene  say enough is enough you know what i think come next year come come come come yesterday and next next spring particularly in the state of new jersey because now with due to voting i agree well you know i'm very hopeful with  murphy victory that we're going to see you know a legalization occur but it's like you said you know there are the n f l is pushing back the n f l players association back even harder and you know we're seeing we're those issues will smith movie the will smith movie so we're seeing less kids get into the junior programs less kids go into high school programs going off to college and so forth so we're starting to see the effects of this is the n f l players association it's groups like and they're the one th their they're out there you know representing their members just like the american legion is representing their members right you know we got athletes we got veterans we got these groups out there and yet when there's a group so a group of athletes for care so athletes for care like we've partnered jersey can a business association recently partnered with athletes for care and we're doing educational things we want to make sure the public is aware because like you said cannabis you know there's all different types of cannabis out there and it really coming down to education right athletes for care are out there groups like the american legion are out there and they're talking about in a very public way on how individuals so now you take the athletes the professional athletes out and you take the soldiers in the troops out and now you're just talking about johnny down the street you're talking about other people that are that are having injuries and it's that education that where we get that access and where access is important you know i have a lot of conversations with people who you know they share the concerns about you know how if we legalize cannabis right you know if we legalize cannabis you know we're going to have you know kids are going to get hooked on drugs you know traffic fatalities are going to go through the roof you know all these awful things writing so you know so i get that a lot and i can appreciate it as a parent just as a citizen right we don't want more people on the roads you know doing bad things and so forth so but it's it's interesting when you have these conversations you know the united states department health and human services or federal government they do a survey every year on and thinking of substances so it's not just cannabis or coke or whatever it's it's it's nicotine it's it's caffeine it's also heroin it is also prescription drugs it is also cannabis is also a whole host of colorado drops in washington we're seeing this actually happen and it's because the education is because of education that we're going to get through all these things and get people more comfortable with it and it also is a public health initiative to talk to the young people there you know young people in amsterdam don't really partake in cannabis they don't think it's one it's not even counterculture so what's the point it's right there you know and number two is just not their thing right and i'm like i remember when i first started figuring this out you know talking with people because you go so many times in that make it mean making friends and you just talk to the young people it's a friendly place to bed it is it's great you know it's the first country ever been to who got it right you  here traditionally when you get off where you just take a drink with that you know we're going to take a break and we'll be back in just a little while