Pot Brothers at Law: KNOW YOUR RIGHTS

Mark: Hi, I'm Mark. Together with my big brother Craig, we are known as the Pot Brothers at Law, California attorneys handling all areas of cannabis business licensing and regulations, as well as all areas of criminal defense. Most importantly, we teach people 25 simple words to use when engaging law enforcement and to simply shut the [ __ ] up when cops ask questions.

Kyle: Well, everybody, we're here with another exciting episode of Grow Weed at Home. We are at the MJ BizCon, on Equity Row, produced by 40 Ton Productions. I just have to mention, Equity Row is a callout to all the people who have suffered through the illegality of cannabis. You know, they're all around us—

Craig: People who were truly damaged by the war on drugs. 

Kyle: And you guys are right on the front lines of that.

Craig: Yes.

Kyle: So right here, we've got Mark and Craig, known as the Pot Brothers at Law. And if you don't know, I think you probably do know—they're very famous for their just shut the [ __ ] up advice. My first question to either of you is, why did that become your bold statement? And what is so important about shutting the [ __ ] up?

Mark: The reason we started doing what we're doing was because of my brother’s son, my nephew Jay. He was part of West Coast Cure and ended up catching a couple of felonies. We had always told him, from his younger days, shut the [ __ ] up. If something happens—cops pull you over—you shut the [ __ ] up. He was operating in that medical gray area where you could still get arrested in California. But if you were doing it right with a cooperative, we could get the case dismissed.

Kyle: Right, they might just steal your equipment 

Mark: Under the immunity defense— And keep the money—they wouldn’t give that back— But that's the reason we started doing it—because we wanted to protect our family and our son. And he was the one who then said, "You guys got to get on Instagram." And they were like, what? This is like in 2000, whenever Instagram started or whatever it was. And we were like, you know, we're on—

Kyle: Oh, it started before us.

Mark: Oh yeah.

Craig: Oh yeah.

Mark: Oh yeah. And we're like, "You know, what are we going to do?" I'm like, "Teach people what you teach me." And so

Mark: Nobody gives free advice. Attorneys always want to charge you 500 bucks. You want advice, sign up. We give you advice. And my son—we were always—we started from the ground up. I mean, literally on the ground in the black market, and we just—we knew everybody. We talked to everybody.

Mark: The reason—hold on—the reason that—to go to your second point of the question—was to protect and preserve all of your rights, remedies, and defenses if you have to go fight a criminal case or if you're going to bring a civil case for violation of your rights. When you stick to the 25 words that we talk about and shut the [ __ ] up, now if something happens, it's going to be much easier for us to prove that they violated your rights, that you have a solid defense.

Mark: You haven't incriminated yourself or said something—a lot of innocent people get arrested for things because they're just saying [ __ ]—they think, "Oh, it's okay, you know, I'm not doing anything, you can search my car." But they don't remember, "My friend a week ago dropped an eightball in the car.", you know? We've seen it all in—you know—30 plus years.

Kyle: Personally, I let a cop search my car once 'cause I was speeding. He found a roach stuck to a piece of bubble gum in the back of my ashtray that weighed two T of a gram with the paper on it. It was my second offense in New Jersey. I already had a conditional discharge. I did 10 days in jail for unjust cannabis arrests for a roach that probably wasn’t even any weed in it—it was probably just paper.

Mark: If you didn’t consent—

Craig: That’s a perfect example. If you didn’t consent—and we tell people—no, you’re right. Peacefully assert your right. Um, do it, you know, respectfully, and a lot of law enforcement appreciate that, believe it or not. We get DMs from a lot of law enforcement thanking us for keeping them safe because we preach disengagement, not engagement. Right, ’cause if you engage and get the wrong law enforcement officer—’cause we’re people, gotta be—we’re not anti-law enforcement. We’re anti-bad law enforcement. We’re anti-bad guys, right? So, you don’t know who you’re going to get. A lot of officers appreciate it—"Okay, here’s your ticket, go on your way." Other ones will beat you up and down, browbeat you, and you have to be tough, and you stick to the script. And you don’t say anything that’s going to help them [ __ ] you.

Kyle: Here’s a question off script. So, have you guys noticed lately, especially on Instagram and YouTube, a lot of people are coming up with ways to antagonize the police purposefully?

Mark: You’re referring to, like, auditors, right?

Kyle: What I’m talking about is these guys that—they’ll go stand out in front of the police station and start filming until somebody comes out and checks them, and they say, "I know my rights, you can’t do nothing, I’m not allowed to." Or, you know, they got these police checkpoints, the ICE checkpoints more than 20 miles away from the border, and the guy’s like, "I’m not opening my window." And I’m just—you’ve seen these things, right? I’m just curious if you feel like your business of telling people to stand up for their rights has had any influence on kind of that.

Craig: We have very close friends who have a couple of those different kind of sites of First Amendment auditors, and we make sure people understand, don’t do what these guys do. They’re professional at this. And I think it’s a great service, that even though it’s kind of antagonistic to go there, but these guys—bad cops—these guys have to learn the law. They don’t even know it. They’re law enforcement, and they just—they don’t know. It’s, I mean—so I think they’re doing an invaluable service, but people have to know don’t engage unless you really know your [ __ ].

Mark: Well, and they’re also willing to get cuffed and go in and arrested, and then ultimately get the case dismissed because they knew their rights and they asserted them, and they didn’t incriminate themselves.

Kyle: The bad thing about this is that there are people out there that are doing this with the specific intent of creating a lawsuit—a monetary lawsuit. They go out there hoping they can find somebody to violate their rights so they can get money out of it.

Mark: Yeah, that we wouldn’t suggest.

Kyle: Well, you know, obviously cannabis laws have been evolving ever since I’ve been around, ever since you’ve been around, but really in the last 10 years, maybe even just the last five years. Talk a little bit about the evolution of cannabis laws and how they’re getting better—or not.

Craig: Well, we like to make sure everybody understands cannabis is not legal. Okay? Everybody hears legalization in this state, legalization in that state. It’s either medical or it’s recreational, quote-unquote, because there’s no such thing to me as recreation. You’re medicating no matter what.

Kyle: All cannabis use is medicinal whether you recognize it or not.

Craig: Correct. And the problem is the states—every single one of them as far as I’m concerned—[ __ ] regulations are overregulated, overtaxed. If you want to get rid of—we’ll call it—the illegal market, it’s not going to happen. They’re coming after licensed people who are trying to do their best, spending millions of dollars, making, you know, margins of 1%. Instead of old days—it was 100% margins, now it’s 1%. And if you do anything slightly outside of the regulations—you don’t have the camera working because it’s on back order—they come in, do an inspection, camera’s not working, million-dollar fine.

Craig: Like, who—you just fined one of my clients a million and a half dollars. But the illegal grow—the street grow—was fined 250. That’s an illegal grow that got fined 250. And the legal guy who’s trying—trying their hardest—just the regulations are overburdensome, unnecessary. 

Kyle: How did we get here? 

Craig: Because the politicians—it’s the goddamn politicians who—the only way they could justify getting on the bandwagon—money. This is going to make us tax money. This is going to make us tax money. That’s the only way they were able to get on board. That’s my opinion. Not because it was good for the people, not because it shouldn’t have been illegal—it’s because we can make money off it, and that’s what the whole thing goes around.

Kyle: So, you ever think you can see into the future? How does this—how does this come out? How does it—how does this happen?

Mark: Let me—my pessimistic attitude—because I became an attorney in 1996 in California. Prop 215 was enacted that same year. I went right into criminal defense representing patients who—it was being misused, mismanaged—they was getting arrested when they shouldn’t. And so, but when that happened in California, they said, “Oh, wow, California did it. Five years, we’ll see federal legalization.” That didn’t happen. Then what was it? 2012? Colorado before California becomes adult use.

Craig: The higher level is— who didn’t inhale. We have Obama. Trump said leave it to the states. Our current president could have done it, and still, they’re not doing it. 

Kyle: Look. [ __ ] [ __ ] up. Hypocrisy exists everywhere. To me, there is a core issue, and it poisons everything. And that is that cannabis is the very first and only ever socially acceptable drug. Now, when I say drug, I mean a drug, meaning it has medicinal value—not like alcohol or nicotine, or—you know—those are drugs. A medicine. It has medicinal value. And people just don’t seem to be able to wrap their heads around the fact that you have a recreational drug.

Craig: It’s—it’s the worst misnomer ever, ever applied to anything because it’s not recreational. I have been medicating for 45 freaking years. Turned 63 today. That’s probably over 45 years I’ve been medicated. And I didn’t know it was medication. I just knew I was a type A high personality that, you know, I’m always, you know, I got—

Kyle: If you’re like me, you thought, “Hey, it’s way better this than Coke. It’s way better than being an alcoholic. It’s way better than—” Of course, we did. But that’s how we found out. That’s how we found out, you know. You can’t exist on that—you can’t exist on that other stuff.

Craig: I mean, the whole federal process is like—it just—it goes beyond me of who’s going to finally step up and just do it. Wait, wait, wait, wait. How many states that we have it either medical or recreationally legal? How many states? And yet, the federal government is still—one, “We got to do study. We got to do this.” We got—like, really? How many more excuses can you come up with? You know, it’s—I don’t know. I mean, I hope someone gets the balls enough to go. I hope T has the balls enough. Leave it to the states. States’ rights. If you’re going to be a conservative right-wing cons—or what—not even right-wing—just a conservative—states’ rights. But only for what you want. Not states’ rights for what I want. Leave it to the states. States are already doing it. It’s such a dichotomy of illegal but legal here. It’s just absolutely absurd.

Mark: Well, there’s limits. If you have too much, you’re still going to jail potentially. Now, here, I got a question for you. Okay, if they say, “Okay, tomorrow we’re descheduling—done, over, it’s no longer illegal”—how many tens of thousands of people are in jail for these non-violent cannabis crimes who now—oh, now they need to be released. Where are they going to go? Where are they going to release all these people? Where are they going to get jobs?

Kyle: Is there any other time in history that you know of where something was previously illegal, it was then made not—you know, it was made legal, and you had thousands of people in jail for it?

Craig: I don’t think ever.

Kyle: You know, because that’s the thing. People say, “Oh, but when they did it, it was illegal.” 

Mark: But it never should have been.

Kyle: There you go.

Craig: It never should have been. And the wrong people are running the government. I’ve said that for years. Unfortunately, the wrong people are running the government. We tell people you need to start at a city level if you really want to get involved, and you start there. Because, like, in California still—two-thirds—only two-thirds of 480-something [ __ ] cities allow cannabis. A third—

Mark: I have the solution to the same question I asked. Deschedule it. Don’t make it a [ __ ] show of all these overregulations, you know, like if before—treat it like alcohol. Then everybody gets released, and they get released into businesses—cannabis businesses that can then thrive and job.

Craig: There’s no reason on God’s green earth—no pun intended—that it costs a million to set up a dispensary. But you need to get—I mean, I do all the applications and business in the office. He does all the criminal defense. I do the regulatory compliance application process, and people come in, and the barriers to getting into the business—it’s like, hey, you know, if you came to me before Prop 64, 25 grand, you got a lawyer for a year, we set you up, and you’re good to go. Now [ __ ] our fees minuscule—you have quar—M half mil just to get—just to think about getting started. And it’s not necessary. We used to open dispensaries back in the day for nothing.

Kyle: You know, I often thought that legalization should be—they should just legalize it for a couple of years without any restrictions. Do some goddamn studies. See what the harmful impact on the neighborhood is— Because it’s been—it’s been—your father and your grandfather grew up with marijuana in their neighborhoods. It’s been around forever—on every college campus and every high school. And where’s—where’s the drama? Where’s the harm?

Craig: I mean, we’ve been to so many functions over the years. Alcohol involved—fight. Weed involved— I’ve seen people at events line up for my son’s stuff in the rain, 100 people deep, talking to everybody. There’s better—never—I don’t see a ruckus next to people.

Kyle: You know what? Let’s lighten this up a little bit. Let’s lighten this up a little bit. So, you guys have handled lots of cases—high profile, low profile. Which one of you—you can tell me—what was one of your favorite, most unique cases?

Craig: Well, from a licensing standpoint, ’cause that’s what I do—I had a client, and they didn’t tell me certain things. So, in California, if you take a loan from somebody, you have to file a paper that you have a financial interest holder. So I don’t know, a year or two into representing them, I helped them buy the business, which—the merger and acquisition—is a whole other area that we specialize in that you got to be super careful in how you handle. And I didn’t think they made the best deal. They had a landlord that had an expiring lease in a couple of years, and I said, "Dude, this guy’s going to have you over [ __ ] by the balls 'cause you can’t move your license to another premise. You got to do a whole new thing. So if you don’t lock up a new lease now, you’re going to be [ __ ]."

Craig: They didn’t do it. They didn’t listen to me. So that was number one. Number two is I get told about a year or two into representing them that they didn’t want to tell me, but "We took a half a million dollars from some guy." And they signed a goddamn new operating agreement I didn’t know about. And I’m like, "When did you do this? You’re supposed to tell the state that you got money." "No, it’s okay. The guy—we dubbed them El Choo—that’s how we dubbed the money that they got."

Craig: Okay, probably was something like that. And we’re like, "What? He gave you how much? There’s no agreement, there’s no asset purchase agreement, there’s no membership purchased interest agreement with an LLC." And before I know it, they’re starting to contact me, and I’m like, "I don’t know who you are." "We gave them money. We signed a deal." I said, "No, I don’t know about it." Ultimately, they sued, and the client walked away from the license after spending millions of dollars.

Kyle: The moral of the story— 

Mark: Tell your lawyer everything! 

Kyle: Look, if you’ve got a body buried, maybe you don’t want to tell them that. But other than that.

Craig: Tell your lawyer everything, especially when you get a license. It’s got to be—every state is similar. We only practice in California. It’s cheap—it’s not—it’s expensive. It’s not cheap. You’re spending a lot of money. You want to safeguard. So you want to make sure you have the right representation to make sure you’re safeguarding all your—

Mark: Well, I do all the criminal defense. So, a case that comes to mind—it goes back to don’t consent to searches. I get a guy. He’s on—this is really sad, too—he was on felony probation for non-violent cannabis crime. Felony probation. He was two weeks from getting off felony probation. He’s in a car that he bought—used car that he bought two years before. He gets pulled over 'cause his, uh, the light—the light that illuminates the license plate—was out. That’s a big one. Make sure that’s working. They’ll pull you over for that. They look for it. So, he gets pulled over, and the, uh, officer says, "You know, it smells like a little pot in here." He’s like, "I don’t—I don’t have anything, you know." "Well, can I search it?" "Go ahead, search." They rip the car apart. They find a bullet. Ammunition. [ __ ]. You already know. In the crack, wherever, yeah. And he’s like, "I don’t—I—that’s not mine, you know." Too bad.

Craig: Lay down for it. And it really wasn’t his. Someone had—it was someone to make a necklace for—it was like an antique bullet or something. Didn’t matter.

Mark: Yeah, it was crazy. They dropped it in the car. Didn’t know it was there. 

Craig: Don’t consent to searches, no matter what you think!

Mark: Fight the search. Had he said, "I don’t consent," we could have probably proved it was an illegal search, gotten that evidence thrown out—case closed. But we couldn’t do that. He had to take the felon in possession of ammunition. It’s a felony. So, he had his felony probation got extended another, like, two years. He went to jail for like 30 days. I mean, it was ridiculous. But it all stemmed back to—don’t consent to searches 'cause you just don’t know, and then your attorney has no way to fight the search.

Kyle: What’s dawning on me is, I can see you guys back home in your practice, and I can see—you got a lot—you know, you help a lot of people, so there’s a lot of self-satisfaction. But then you get these ones where you just go, "What the [ __ ] did I tell you?"

Mark: Well, we made these stickers with the script on them because people were calling us, "Hey, I got busted. I got pulled over. I’ve been following you guys, but I got scared. I forgot. I—they intimidated me. I didn’t know what to say." So, we made these. You put it where the oil change reminder goes, so it’s right there in your face, and you only say those 25 words.

Kyle: Another off-script question. What do you think about—you know, me, I get pulled over for—I don’t know—for any—anything, I guess. It doesn’t matter. Why not these guys that say, "I don’t answer questions"? Is that legal?

Mark: Yes.

Craig: "I’m not discussing my day." Second line, "I’m not discussing my day."

Kyle: What about if I just—I don’t answer qu—do I do differ—what? He can ask for my license, and I have to present it, okay. But I don’t have to say anything? And he can say, "Where are you coming from?" I can say, "I don’t answer questions."

Craig: It’s the same thing. "I don’t answer questions." "I’m not discussing my day." We came up with, "I’m not discussing my day," as the most polite way to engage with law enforcement as opposed to, "[ __ ] you, I’m not telling you, none of your business, dude." Instead of that, you know. Like, "I don’t answer questions" is valid. I mean, that’s a good backup. But our thing was, "I’m not discussing my day. Sorry." 

Kyle: So, federal legalization has been on everybody's lips now for quite some time. Like you mentioned earlier, you know, we thought it was going to happen a while back. Maybe it'll happen in the future. What are—each of you—give me what your impressions are on that and if there's anything that us as a community can do to bring this forward.

Craig: Flood your representatives at the federal level. We actually became friends with an old—he's no longer in Congress—Congressman Dana Rohrabacher. Very much of a Libertarian, right, states’ rights, stay out of our business. And he's like, "The only thing that works is calling me, emailing me, ‘We’re going to vote your ass out. We’re not going to vote for you. This is the issue we want you to hit.’" And if enough people did that to all the representatives—"We’re not going to vote for you. We’re going to vote for somebody else"—that’s all they understand.

Kyle: Which is unfortunate.

Craig: It is, and that’s the only way.

Kyle: What for Americans do?

Craig: No, no, it seems—it's like, do it.

Kyle: Would rather—if you gave them the opportunity to go up there and yell at them, they'd sign up for that.

Kyle: But write a letter?

Mark: Well, and there’s easy ways to do it. There’s NORML, Americans for Safe Access. 

Craig: You can go to NORML, put in your zip code, and it has pre-written letters to your Congressman or representative. Click, you know, it’s so easy to do, and you can just click, click, click and just do it every freaking day. Have everybody involved—everybody you know. That’s the only way it’s going to change.

Kyle: Oh man. Well, so you’ve both built a pretty incredible platform blending legal education and advocacy. You know, what are you guys’ plans for the future?

Craig: You know, it’s interesting you bring that up. We’re actually going to be rolling out a subscription service—very, very inexpensive monthly subscription service—that will give people access to us on a limited basis. I’ll tell you why, because it’s going to be pretty cheap, but it gives people an opportunity to see content that no one else can see. And, but the biggest thing is they can call us. We can get a 10-minute call, ask a few simple questions—"What should I do right now in the short term?"—$9.95 a month. You know, it’s not like you have to go pay $600 to go get a consult. Hey, if it needs something more, we work on a discounted thing to do something further. But it’s like—

Kyle: What law Cameo—

Mark: You know what, that’s fun.

Craig: Cameo hit us up in the very beginning, and we were—we looked at it—I don’t want to say what I said, but we— Maybe should have done it. Man, $20, $20 a day, maybe it’s not so bad. But no—

Kyle: Maybe it’s your own platform though. Maybe you bring in other lawyers with other specialties, and you create a kind of low-cost law Cameo.

Mark: That’s not a bad idea.

Craig: That’s actually still coming up with the process of what we’re going to offer and how to package it. But that’s really what we have on the horizon as far as what Pot Brothers at Law are doing to help the community get more educated and more engagement and, you know, learn more.

Mark: The other thing we’re doing is diving into that market. Like in California, we released our Shut the [ __ ] Up pre-roll, which is very—uh—$5 pre-roll.

Kyle: That’s cool.

Mark: Yeah, we got some THCa products, CBD rubs, and creams.

Craig: In the states where it’s not going south.

Mark: Correct, correct. THCa—things going south—we just put a whole bunch of those cream products in Kyle Turley’s Super Hemp Store in Tennessee. Tennessee, so we’ve got those products now coming out. We were really pushed back in the beginning, like, "We’re not—we’re not H, we’re not P, what do we sell? We’re helping people, we’re educating, we don’t want to sell products." But we—the interest is there. People kept saying, "You guys should come out with this, that, and the other." Nearly 10 years on since we started doing this, we thought, "Okay, you know what? We give the good information, the good education, now let’s put out some really good products that people can trust and afford and use." And so, we’re doing that too.

Kyle: Well, let’s bring this all back home to the home grower, you know. Do you have any advice for these people who are—they’re not growing for money; they’re growing for themselves?

Craig: Be as careful as humanly possible. Don’t have it visible to anybody. Shut the [ __ ] up if anyone comes around for that too. Have it locked up in a—whatever you’re growing it in—just don’t have it visible. I mean, I don’t know what more you can do other than just, you know, hide it as best you can. I mean, that’s all you can do. It’s ridiculous. You can’t grow your own in these states. It’s just—it’s still mind-boggling to me. But it is what it is.

Kyle: A lot of things make no sense.

Craig: It doesn’t. It does—I mean, everybody should be able to grow if you can. Well, I tried it once. It didn’t work out so well. It’s better for me to get from someone else. You know, I’ve seen other small grows. I mean, I’ve seen it. To me, when people come to me, ’cause I do all the business, it’s like, "You sure you want to grow? Right? You better love growing. You better love it." Because I went through it with people, and if you’re not an expert—you, flies, and this, and that—what do you use?

Kyle: Are there any people who come to you as, like, potential clients, that they tell you all their—and by the time they’re done with you, they say, "You know what? I changed my mind."

Craig: Well, no. You know why? I’ll tell you why. This is what you get from my concept: If you want to get into the business—free business consults, free criminal consults. Me, ever since Prop 64 passed—and you got to have money to get into it—we charge a fee. Not a huge amount, but for a business consult, there’s a fee. And he always gets mad at me 'cause here’s what we tell people, "Turn and run." Dude, I am not going to help you without your no Blinder. It’s [ __ ]. It’s hard, it’s expensive, it takes a long time—unless you buy something, which I recommend now. There’s fire sales on [ __ ] in California.

Kyle: So why do people do it? Because they love it. 

Craig: No. Now, at the end of the day, if you buy it right, somebody—people—I have people buying facilities that were built for $5 million. 

Kyle: You could [ __ ] up a candy, you can [ __ ] up a hardware store, you know. No doubt you can [ __ ] up a grow сultivation. 

Craig: Grow is the hardest. I mean, I tell people that—that’s the hardest—unless you love it and you have an expert. I think you’re an idiot if you do it. You want to do it, I’m on board, you know. Whatever you want to do, I’m here for you, but I’m telling you this: anything outside of growing, if you run the business the right way, you can hang in there and make it through this period. But don’t think it’s going to be easy. You really want to be in—there’s great opportunities. And right now, there’s great opportunities, I think, across the country—we only do California—of purchasing licenses that put in $4–5 million for $250 grand. Just dropping storefronts. Even you can get them cheap. Deliveries—you can get them cheap. Cost 200 grand to do one from scratch. Takes a year and a half. You can buy one—you know, you have the right lawyers on both sides, you can do it in 3 months. I’ve done deals in 3 months. I’ve done deals that take [ __ ] a year 'cause the other side has a firm that they’re paying a million dollars an hour. And I do a flat fee. Whether it takes an hour or 20 hours, I make the same money.

Kyle: So, are we in the midst of a gold rush? Or is it happening yet?

Craig: No.

Kyle: Is it going to happen? Or is it passed?

Craig: I don’t think it’s ever—I don’t think the gold rush is ever going to happen like it did when there were no regulations. Right? It’s gone. The days of driving a Maybach are now—you’re getting the Hyundai. The margins aren’t there. The states are making it too difficult. People are getting fined for stupid [ __ ] that’s almost impossible to [ __ ] keep track of with all the regulations and [ __ ] that, to me, are just—most of them are just unnecessary. Just totally unnecessary.

Kyle: Gold rush or not, how about making millions? Do you think that there will be a Renaissance for craft cannabis?

Craig: I think so. I think so. I think it’s important. You know, there’s people making it mass, right? And—and you like the joints we have in California. We sourced a really good grower. It’s pure green weed. And these $5 out-the-door pre-rolls—which most of the other ones—I won’t even say any names—you open them up, it’s brown, it’s [ __ ], it stems, it’s [ __ ]. Ours—pure green, not infused. It’s not the top of the line, but it’s five bucks out the door. So, you know, you have to have that. That’s not craft. But then you have people who only want organically grown. You’re going to pay more for the organically grown. Then you have people who aren’t doing it organically, but hopefully doing it the right way. Then you have the whole cluster [ __ ] of the state’s, you know, testing [ __ ]. It’s so [ __ ] up, ass-backwards. The whole testing thing—California just [ __ ] the whole system.

Kyle: Is there even a legitimate lab standard for testing cannabis?

Craig: No. No. Seriously.

Kyle: Or is there not?

Craig: There really isn’t. All the licensed labs that you have to go to—you can’t pick where you go, right? You have to go to them, right? They all have different settings in their [ __ ], and it’s, you know— And the fact that manufacturers and brands—a lot of them, not just a few, there’s some big names out there that are getting pinched because they’re big names—they’re not alone. Where they test it at the grower level before they buy it—state-licensed lab—they get it all. They test it again once they get it to make sure there’s no switcheroo—state-licensed lab—all good, R&D. Now comes time for the state-mandated—when it gets to district, then it’s mandated. So that’s what it actually has to be tested.

Craig: All these companies don’t have to test it at the grower level or at the R&D. They don’t have to. It’s not part of the rules. A lot of places do—a lot of my clients do—so they’re tested at three [ __ ] times. State-licensed labs. The one that they have to do—they come in, they do a chain of custody on the product in a blocked-off quarantine area. They come in special [ __ ], take randomizer, and they do random things. And they take it, and they test it. Comes back clean. Then you get the state contacting a brand or a manufacturer, "Recall—it’s got this in it."

Craig: Wait a minute. This isn’t even on the [ __ ] list. Okay, or this one’s on the list, but where’s the test? Where’s every single one in California? Every single rec—not one test has been provided to that manufacturer. Not one. No chain of custody. Where did this [ __ ] come from that you tested, that you say you tested? Did it come from a trap shop? You don’t know if it’s a trap shop, really, that was—or where did it go? Where’s the chain of custody? And what lab tested it? Let’s see the results. Not one. Not one recall. Any. And then—if you don't bow to them—they shut you off a metric and you're [ __ ]. Once you're shut out of metric, you can't smoo anything. They got you by the ball, and it's just ass-backwards. And then you have people coming in saying, you know, there’s things that the state doesn’t require to be tested. So, if you—and I just had an argument with somebody about this—if you want organic weed where someone doesn’t use any kind of anything, it’s good for you, right? That should be available. A lot of people can’t afford, right? So, there’s stuff that people use—whatever they use.

Craig: Do you want flies on it? Do you want this on it? I’m not a chemist; I don’t do that stuff. But if it’s done the right way, it passes testing. You take it to another lab—they might, outside of the licensed labs, they might test it for something that the state doesn’t require. But then it’s going to get blasted that you got the [ __ ] in there that might be, you know, banned somewhere else. But the state has a list that—I’m assuming—scientists came up with that said this shouldn’t be in there. Or, if it is, it has to be in this level. And that right now is hurting the industry really bad because people are hearing these things. And then people are making up different categories, like of—of what should be in things, like made up. So, we’re going to get this one without this. ’Cause it’s like—someone argued with me today about what you should test for. I’m like, "But that’s not on the licenses." They’re going to start testing for 20 other things—things that the state doesn’t test for. 

Kyle: Like you’re putting them in the middle of the consumer and the state, and they’re almost giving ammunition to the state.

Mark: Correct.

Craig: Oh yeah. Well, you’re giving ammunition to—but the state doesn’t test for these things that other people are having things tested and coming up with things that aren’t tested for. And then the brands are getting [ __ ], and the manufacturers who tested it three times—state-licensed lab—everything clean. And then you get pressed—this and that—it’s just, you know, it’s—I mean—the funny part is— You tell me—I get [ __ ] for this all the time—I’ve been smoking weed 45 years, and not until what, a couple years ago, did I ever smoke tested weed. God knows what the [ __ ] we smoked. And this is such a layperson thing—I get in trouble for this, but I don’t care. The weed kills whatever the [ __ ] is on it. I have been smoking—proba—you heard of paraquat back in the day? I—I had to have smoked paraquat weed back in the [ __ ] ’80s.

Kyle: Back in the days in Central Park, they used to have a day where the helicopter would come over Sheep’s Meadow and drop joints down on the crowd.

Mark: God knows what.

Mark: God knows where it came from, what they had on them. 

Craig: Nobody died. 

Kyle: Some guy would come in out of nowhere with a helicopter and drop weed on the crowd.

Mark: Oh yeah.

Craig: So that’s my—but it’s—that’s really hurting the—this whole system is just—the government not coming to us.

Mark: Overreach.

Craig: Not coming to me and you. "How’s the best way to regulate this?" That’s what they should have done, and they didn’t.

Kyle: Yeah. It’s just—it really is so much. 

Craig: Now they have, you know, 300 pages of regulations. Like every other business is like—are you kidding me? I had to read this [ __ ], and it’s like—who sat down and wrote this? Who put this—

Mark: How hard can we make it?

Kyle: Yeah. When we used to go in—it’s kind of the opposite of any other industry.

Craig: Cannabis testing scandals. Is business—

Kyle: I wonder if it’s just straight-up jealousy. You know, the blowback that—like back in the day, everybody used to complain because electricians were able to charge you four times the amount because they knew you had to grow. That was jealousy. Or, you know, it was okay. Or they rented you a place, and the landlord would charge you three times because of jealousy because—you know—or sometimes because they knew they could. Greed.

Craig: It was greed. It was more than anything.

Kyle: There’s something in there—in the stream—about, "This is just too easy for you." You know, it’s just too easy. Like you’re just going to move in next to my strawberry farm, where I’ve been growing strawberries for 20 years, and—and you’re going to grow this crop, and you think you’re going to make a million dollars? [ __ ] you.

Mark: We’re not going to keep it agricultural.

Craig: Well, I think that’s the issue too. All the big money, the big business, the big pharma, big alcohol—they don’t want it. Now they’re going to start getting into it, and I think as the light bulb goes off, I think that’s when it’s federally going to happen—as the big boys. But then when that happens, it’s going to get—I mean, I don’t even want to know when it gets federally legal. If they’re going to just legalize and leave it to the states, which is what they should do, or we’re going to Federal it. We’re going to have our own regulations, and we’re going to have another set, like a department—like right now you have the city first.

Kyle: Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Cannabis.

Craig: ’Cause right now, you got to get your city permit before you get your state permit. Then you’re going to need a federal permit. Then they’re going to have a federal tax. All we’re going to do is just re-energize the illegal market.

Kyle: Well, you know, you guys—you’re doing God’s work, honestly. I mean, you’re—you’re—there is nobody more maligned on this [ __ ] Earth than [ __ ] cannabis people.

Craig: And then—and then, you know, it’s funny too—this whole shut the [ __ ] up thing really just—we didn’t really start to come up with that. It—it was a progression. The first couple times I heard it, I laughed out loud. But the biggest reason we started the page was my son saying, "People need this free advice you’ve given me all these years." And two—breaking the stigma of stoners. We’re attorneys. That’s why for years—

Mark: First attorneys smoking ever. 

Craig: And we probably still do, for the most part. But unfortunately, we had to make a choice about a year ago. He would give the tip; I stood behind him smoking a joint in my suit, in my shirt, whatever the [ __ ]. I didn’t care. We’re lawyers. We smoke [ __ ]. You don’t like it? Don’t hire me. I’ll beat that guy’s ass anyways from the big firm who thinks they’ve now jumped into the cannabis business.

Mark: We were losing followers on social media. We had about 500,000—close to 500,000—which we had amassed over, like, an eight-year period, right? And like everybody on Instagram, followers were being lost. We found a social media guy—they became our social media managers—and he said, "You’re doing it wrong with—with the—" "You’re violating all these terms and conditions. You can’t smoke. You can’t say [ __ ]. You got to—" And so, he said, "You need to delete your 3,000-plus videos, and we’re going to do—compliant social media. No more smoking. I’m going to bleep out words." But then, because of the algorithm and what we do and teach, we can’t say the word rights. That gets flagged. Cannabis—we don’t say. Cops—

Craig: Look at our [ __ ]. You’ll notice now, when you look at it, you’ll notice all the bleeps.

Mark: So, since last year, we went from—from 500,000 to over a million on Instagram because I gave in and said I’d rather get the word out to more people than my—I don’t want to say we. I don’t want to say ego, but—

Craig: Good decision. Help more people.

Kyle: Right. More people.

Craig: We had people mad at us, but it actually started with breaking the stigma as much as anything else. Of—you can be an absolute professional, successful person, and smoke weed.

Mark: And they’re all out there in the green closet, afraid to come out and say, "Hey, I’m a doctor. I smoke. I’m a—you know."

Kyle: Well, you guys—I think, like, for me—you open up the dictionary, and if there was a definition for "break the stigma," that’s you guys. So, I want to thank you guys. Is there anything else you want to mention before I close the show?

Mark: Well, let’s do the script so everybody knows the 25-word script.

Craig: Though I’m going to shamelessly—these right here—we were actually asked to make these, believe it or not. They go on where your windshield is, where your oil change goes. It’s the last 25 words you ever say—you ever say to the police. And you go to pbalpeallmerch.com. There you go. So let’s do this.

Mark: All right, so this is it. This is our—what we call—the review. 

Craig: Words you ever say to the police. 

Mark: All right, so I’m the cop, and I’m pulling you over, and I say, "Hey, where are you going? So, where are you going? 

Craig: Why’d you pull me over?"

Mark: "You’re speeding. Why are you speeding? Why are you speeding? Where you got to go?"

Craig: "I’m not discussing my day."

Mark: "It smells like cannabis in here. It smells like pot. You smoking? Are you drunk? Are you high? Do you have guns in the car? You have weapons?"

Craig: "Am I being detained or am I free to go?"

Mark: "Oh, you have—you’re being detained. Get out of the car."

Craig: I take my keys out of the car. I get out of the car. I roll my window. Get out of the car. Lock my door. Shut it. Stand on the curb and tell him, "I invoke the Fifth."

Mark: "Oh, you know your Fifth Amendment right. Good for you. If you just tell me if you have a little weed, I don’t care. Just tell me where it is. Will you tell me where it is?"

Craig: This is where you shut the [ __ ] up. Now, one more issue that we found—it’s hard to add to our 25-word script. But after you invoke the Fifth, this is very, very, very important: when you invoke the script—when you invoke, "I shut the [ __ ] up," and you invoke the Fifth—if they keep asking you questions and you just break, you’re screwed. They can use anything you say or do when they keep asking questions.

Craig: "I want my lawyer present." That way, after you say that, and they keep hammering you—most of them will stop. Most of them know—they know—they know. Once you ask for the lawyer—that’s why you look at all these TV shows where they hammer in interrogation rooms. They don’t say [ __ ]. They can hammer them all day long. "I want a lawyer." [ __ ]. We got to stop. So, if they do that—"I want my lawyer present." And then, if they keep hammering you and you break, whatever you say, then we can get it thrown out based on—you have already said, "I want my lawyer," and they weren’t supposed to keep talking to you.

Mark: And never consent to searches.

Kyle: Genius advice. Mark and Craig, pleasure. Thank you for coming on.

Mark: Appreciate it.

Kyle: And we appreciate you. Keep watching Grow Weed at Home with Kyle Kushman.