Put away your notions of what should have happened with cannabis at the federal level in 2022 and jump into the realities of what really did happen, because cannabis legalization is not a moment; it’s a process. Saphira Galoob, Executive Director of the National Cannabis Roundtable and Principal & CEO of The Liaison Group, joined Vangst’s CEO & Founder, Karson Humiston, on this week’s episode of Proud to Work in Cannabis, to talk through the recent history of cannabis legislation, touching on topics such as the SAFE Banking Act, the Cole Memorandum, and 280E. Produce By PodConx Karson Humiston - https://www.linkedin.com/in/karson-humiston-64572b97/ Vangst - https://vangst.com/
Put away your notions of what should have happened with cannabis at the federal level in 2022 and jump into the realities of what really did happen, because cannabis legalization is not a moment; it’s a process.
Saphira Galoob, Executive Director of the National Cannabis Roundtable and Principal & CEO of The Liaison Group, joined Vangst’s CEO & Founder, Karson Humiston, on this week’s episode of Proud to Work in Cannabis, to talk through the recent history of cannabis legislation, touching on topics such as the SAFE Banking Act, the Cole Memorandum, and 280E.
Karson Humiston - https://www.linkedin.com/in/karson-humiston-64572b97/
Vangst - https://vangst.com/
[00:00:00]
Saphira Galoob: Good afternoon. My name is Sfi Galou and I'm the executive director of the National Cannabis Roundtable, and I'm proud to work in cannabis because this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to impact the health, lives and livelihood of people and patients.
Karson Humiston: Hey everybody, and thanks for tuning in to The Proud to Work in Cannabis Podcast. I'm your host, Carson Humiston, the founder of Angst, and today we have a very, very exciting episode. Sophia and I have been trying to get this podcast on the books for actually like probably a year. And it's in a way, Sophia, I feel like it worked out that we didn't get to connect until this January because so much has happened, including in December.
So I can't wait for this conversation. Sophia, welcome to the podcast. How are you today?
Saphira Galoob: I am fantastic and I'm honored to be here. I, I've watched you [00:01:00] over the months with this company and in this industry where resilience and creativity and perseverance are the most important characteristics of anyone. And you have, you have demonstrated that at, at the highest level. And I'm really, really excited to join your.
Karson Humiston: Well, I appreciate the compliment right back at you. And speaking of persistence and resilience, end of end of 2022, December, a lot of us thought safe banking was going to pass. In your eyes was 2022 a failure from a, legislative standpoint.
Saphira Galoob: Well, I appreciate that question and it's actually the right question to start with and it's a fair question. We ended the year with high expectations that we would see safe banking finally passed into law. I mean, it came out of. I think, I think we characterize sometimes I actually have to count more than once, seven, eight times, depending on how you measure coming out of [00:02:00] the house.
We had, 200, well, actually we had 103 Republicans the last time we took a vote. Nine Republican co-sponsors easily the support to get over the finish line and because of a, when I call it 11th hour , 59 minute and 59 seconds, kind of late, late game ends of the. Kind of being kind of released out of the omnibus.
We were not included. And for many people that is considered to be, a failure, so to speak, and yep, that you word failure. I absolutely do not think it was a failure. We were not successful in being included in the final iteration of the bill. We had hoped to be included and frankly, we expected to be.
But what are the takeaways? And I think that's the most important thing that I would love to address if I can share with your audience, who I'm presuming are also proud to work in cannabis or, or who are cannabis, curious to work [00:03:00] in cannabis. And maybe I could talk about like why I, why I was optimistic about the way we ended the year, or at least the way they were starting this next.
Karson Humiston: I think that would be great. And we're gonna bounce around a little bit before we get into why you don't see it as a failure, and we kind of look ahead. Could you just give the overview on 2022 with Safe Banking? Right. When we were down in DC in the spring, we thought safe banking was pretty close.
And then we sort of went through the summer and the fall. So for people that aren't following it super closely, can you give the high level on 2022 and, and particularly safe banking,
Saphira Galoob: Yeah, absolutely. So, for listeners, I'd like to take you to take off every ounce of sense of logic on why you think lawmakers should support safe banking. Take out every sense of rational on the importance of having, business services for more than 36 state sanctioned businesses, take, take away all of that.
It should have happened. And now let's talk about the [00:04:00] way DC works. And, safe banking is a piece of legislation that's been in play since around 2013 actually. But the issue of, its trajectory, we'll call it its trajectory in 2022, had to do with a vehicle, a legislative vehicle, and. What is notable in the Senate because as I mentioned in my intro remarks that we actually were successful in coming outta the house.
It really was in the Senate where we had never had a hearing in senate, senate banking, the Senate Banking Committee, and we had, we really were struggling with a vehicle, and we were struggling with a vehicle for two reasons. The first is that I, I don't even remember the last time that the Senate banking.
Committee actually passed. They call it a piece of standalone legislation. Most frequently because of the limited amount of time and just the difficulty in getting legislation through legislation has to travel in a pack or on a vehicle, or imagine a train, and the train doesn't leave the station with one car.
It leaves the station with many cars. and so say banking would've been one of [00:05:00] those cars. And so we were looking for a series of trains to leave the station. And so the vehicle, that's what we call the vehicle, was really what we were waiting for was the right vehicle in the right time. People probably heard people talk about the National Defense Authorization Act, which is the piece of legislation that, that funds the Pentagon and National Defense.
That was a vehicle, the appropriations for the spending bill, or some people know it as the omni. Was another vehicle.
Karson Humiston: Sophia, one question, I probably sound like I don't know what I'm talking about here because I kind of don't. So you said that there's really never standalone legislation that passes that, and that's true. Like across the board, not just in cannabis.
Saphira Galoob: Well it's, that's a very good question. It de, it depends. It depends. But in the banking committee in particular, there are very few examples of narrowly tailored. And, and, and safe banking. It's just, a handful of pages long, like less than 10 pages long. And it's just because of how difficult it's, so normally you [00:06:00] put different pieces of legislation together and that's kind of how you, in theory, more judiciously move through the process.
Karson Humiston: Got it. Okay. So you were waiting for the right vehicle. Multiple trains leaving the station, hopefully including ours. So I'll, I'll let you pick back
Saphira Galoob: Correct. So that was one issue. And, and, and I wanna talk about what, where we got caught up in the end. But the other way to think about last year is that there was a natural dynamic where leader Chuck Schumer, majority leader of the Senate, promised to introduce a comprehensive piece of cannabis legalization.
And so there's this dynamic in Washington on cannabis. Around individuals for whom the main thrust of legalization is a criminal justice decriminalization and reparative justice. Motive, motivation, and then there are folks who want that to happen, but acknowledge and, and that, that there's a kind of a pacing and prioritization, we'll call it an incrementalism, so that, that we're not quite there with [00:07:00] comprehensive legalization because we don't have enough supporters.
Again, remember your logic hat. Take it off. We don't have enough supporters in Congress to actually get comprehensive legalization, but we do have enough supporters to get incremental reform or financial services reform, or in this case, say banking. And so what happened last year is that leader Schumer did not introduce.
His version of comprehensive reform until much, much later in the year. And, and so we'd already lost like eight months off the clock by the time he introduced his bill, knowing, I mean, he didn't have the votes. And now we are in a situation where we're kind of left with four months on the clock. There was an election.
That took time off the clock against us. And then there are the, these other kind of required activities that had to take place for which say, banking kind of felt farther back in the line of importance in Washington. And so those two dynamics really impacted our ability to make, to make her way forward.
And ultimately, We had to kind of ride on [00:08:00] another legislative vehicle. We had to look at the viability of doing that because moving as a standalone at the very, very end, we no longer had time on the, on the legislative calendar for that. So that, that's kind of the overview of, , what we experienced last year.
, I will just say that I. The, the reason that Safe Banking didn't pass was because the minority leader, Mitch McConnell and majority leader Chuck Schumer, couldn't come to an agreement on Schumer wanting it to prioritize it. McConnell really not caring if it ended up in the bill and Schumer not kind of making it his one, two, or three priority because we as can.
Sit, at the mercy of other legislative things that are legislatively important in Washington. And we sit at the mercy of lawmakers who have a lot more other priorities for , constituents as well as running the country. And so we're always trying to find our [00:09:00] way forward or our way, through that very difficult maze, and at the very, very end, this came down to Mitch McConnell not caring whether or not we were included and Leader Schumer not prioritizing, us, our inclusion such that he was willing to either give more to Mitch McConnell or allow less of his other priorities to be included into the bill.
And that's really what happened.
Karson Humiston: And as much as it's disappointing as it didn't go through, one, one positive that I am have thought about a bit over the holiday break was that in previous years we weren't even making it to the to the party. Right. Cannabis wasn't even at the party. It seems like we're at the party.
Saphira Galoob: I am so glad that, you're, you're running a company and trying to keep, keep afloat in this really volatile business environment and you were able to see we were absolutely at the party. And not only that, we were the most talked about policy at the party. every single day. I mean, I would wake up in the [00:10:00] morning Carson and read my dailies Axios, Politico Punch Bull.
And every single day cannabis banking is included in, where we are. Are we in, are we out? Are we, so, and I can tell you, having worked on this specific issue since November the seventh, 2016, That is how long I've been working on safe banking in Congress. That, that we've never had that much air time and that, that's important.
That's important to acknowledge. And so I can transition actually to say that is some, know, some of the takeaways or the reason last year was not a failure. Is that, and I'll talk about some non congressional things. But the first regarding safe banking is we really forced our kind of our conversation to find out how broad of a package will members of Congress tolerate.
So, for example, people were talking about Safe Plus, at the very, very end in, in order for us to get the full 10 votes of the Republicans, which are.
Karson Humiston: Required.
Saphira Galoob: in in the Senate you need [00:11:00] 60 votes. It's not 50, it is not a broad package. It was, we were calling it skinny, safe, .
Karson Humiston: , remember when we were in DC in April and we had. The breakfast, who, who was the leader that we listened to at the breakfast? What
Saphira Galoob: was Senate. I'm so glad you remember. That was Senator Steve Danes, and he was the leading Republican. He's actually , the Senate Republican sponsor on say banking.
Karson Humiston: And, and, and, and I remember what he said. It really kind of stood out to me as I'm learning about how Washington works. He said it's like if you're hiking up a mountain and you keep on adding rocks into the backpack on the way up, you have a much lesser chance of getting to the top of the mountain.
And so he was saying, we, if I remember correctly, we, we need to stop putting. Rocks and the backpack. And if someone that does a lot of hiking, that resignated with me like, yeah, no more, no more rocks. Let's just get to the top of the mountain and then we can try to go do another mountain get, or we can get a backpack and train or, I, I don't know what the analogy there is, but could you just kind of explain that to people like [00:12:00] how the safe banging plus we try to put all these more things in the backpack and maybe people don't have the appetite for that yet.
Saphira Galoob: right. Well, and, and so if you look at the, the nine Republicans who were co-sponsoring safe the other thing that, that , Senator Danes said that day, he says, re Senate Republican support of safe. And I remember specifically he said, is tenuous at best, meaning they're barely there with safe.
So if you look at each of those nine members and remember, each of those nine are gonna be really important since you need to add up to 60, right? Each of those members, if you make any adjustment based on what is included in state banking, you lose one. And if you lose one, you don't get to 60
Karson Humiston: You lose it all.
He also said to us, essentially, if you brought up just general legalization, most people would completely walk in the Senate and he said that to us and [00:13:00] we were, and a bunch of us kind of looked around at each other like, all right, let's just start with safe banking.
Skinny
Saphira Galoob: Well, and and I'll tell you, that's the other thing he said is he, he was talking about Republicans, but we don't have. , all of the Democratic caucus sign legalization. And, and so that's why I say, legalization is not a moment, it's a process, and it's a process that has a sequencing of certain priorities that if you put 'em in the right order, you can let one.
Success. . Lend to another success because this is not like a one bite at the Apple piece. , we are in this for the next decade at least,
Karson Humiston: at least next, next decade. I mean you, you mentioned how you started in November of 2016. We started angst in May of 2016 and. I don't think probably you or me knew [00:14:00] what we were signing up for when we got, actually, maybe you knew, maybe you knew more
Saphira Galoob: No. No,
Karson Humiston: when, I was signing up for this.
, but at this point, when I think about, and I make decisions at banks, I mean, I, I'm really, truly operating under the assumption that it, it's a decade potentially before that moment happens and Right.
Saphira Galoob: The harmonization or the reconciliation between federal and state law because we are operating in a state sanctioned environment. And frankly, even with the rescinding of the coal memorandum, and by the way, if you were listening to this podcast and you do not know what the coal memorandum is, type it up. Read it, learn it. Cause it was the most important piece of policy regarding the deference of state legal cannabis that we saw. And it's, I believe it's the impetus of why we have our state program. But, I, I, yeah, you're right. And, and I, I don't mean to say that, oh, we're not gonna get de scheduling because that's not the case.
It just means that there's a lot of things that need to line up, a lot of things that have to happen. And there are a lot of things outside of our control. I mean, I'm sure everybody on this [00:15:00] podcast. Was with, watching with either their baited breath discussed or a combination of the two when we were trying to get a, a speaker in the house, representatives, because by the way, if we don't have a speaker, we
Karson Humiston: , my fiance was on Twitter and he was laughing and I was like, what are you laughing at? And he showed me videos, la last Friday or whatever after vote number 14. And I mean, if that doesn't kind of show people that if we can't get a speaker, so anyway, getting, getting back on track. So. Alright, so we've been working, you've been working on this. 2016 this year we got to the party. We were the most talked about person at the party. Where do we go from from
Saphira Galoob: Well, and I do wanna talk about, there's two other things that happened last year that I think are
Karson Humiston: oh, good.
Saphira Galoob: because that's actually gonna inform what I'm gonna say this year. So, The other two things that happened is we actually did get a standalone piece of legislation on research signed into law.
Biden signed it, it was, it was actually Senator Grassley from Iowa and Senator Feinstein from [00:16:00] California. Very narrowly tailored piece of research. But it, it is important because it begins to, again, loosen the kind of the framework towards normality and, and frankly it, it is, it codifies what I call a preference of, this, this industry is, is in play.
So a preference of this industry bring in play and the research is, is, is crucial for that. But the other thing that that happened, of course, was President Biden's announcement. Towards the examination of cannabis on Schedule One, and that process is 100% in progress. It starts with the health and Human services and the F D A who will be doing a scientific analysis.
They will make a recommendation to dea. Who will then use another kind of set of standards to evaluate a scheduling recommendation. And you know that the, the fact that since 1971, when the first, when the Controlled Substances Act was first enacted, [00:17:00] this is the most meaningful kind declaration by the administration to very seriously and intentionally
to look to change the course of how our country looks at cannabis as a constituent. , we could definitely, probably do an entire other podcast in explaining on what that means and what the implications are. But
Karson Humiston: . We should.
Saphira Galoob: Yeah. Cuz that, that's very confusing for folks and, and what are the implications and what Congress's role is and all of that.
So, so we should, but especially once we get a little bit more, we actually had a really interesting call with the FDA this week, so I have some insight in the fact that they're working, but it's gonna be a very scientific very technical analysis.
Karson Humiston: Sophia, we'll do it from the, the new podcast van that I was telling you about. I'll bring, I'll bring it to dc Are we doing, are we doing lobby days?
Saphira Galoob: We are. We are in April because we have to do cross fish and cannabis again with Congressman Troy Carter
Karson Humiston: We absolutely do, and maybe this would be a good moment. Speaking of the organization, why don't you tell us a little bit about N C R and how you started it [00:18:00] and Right. Potentially we're exclusive in terms of who we let in, but maybe there's a business owner listening that we would, we would consider. So why
Saphira Galoob: Yeah. Absolutely. So the National Cannabis Roundtable, so if you go to national cannabis roundtable.org org, , you'll see our, our organization. We are trade association, but we are kind of hyper targeted and focused and only do federal cannabis reform. . So other trade associations kind of have other missions around, broad base of membership in the states.
Some of them do events and, and, and trade shows. We, we are 100% focused. On federal reform, and I'm a lawyer. My policy director's a lawyer. And our third kind of subject matter expert more than a decade on the hill comes from comms and strategy. So three full-time individuals, very, very senior in the industry, but also in our careers on working on cannabis reform.
We are made up of kind of around. More than a dozen between, [00:19:00] 15 to 18 companies depending on kind of how we count. And the way we've operated is that everybody who is anybody actually can submit to participate in ncr. But in order to actually work with our board and be a member on our board, , every other member has to unanimously approve your participation.
And what that means for us, as Carson, is it's a very collaborative group. We have some of the biggest companies to the smallest cannabis companies. We have minority owned businesses, and Multi-state operators. We have auxiliary or what I call dependent services. And so we're really, we really represent every aspect of the supply chain.
And so the business decisions are made from that perspective. It's not just big or small, west Coast, east coast. It's really a kind of a combination of the way this industry is evolving. So that's in.
Karson Humiston: Yeah. And, and it's grown quite a bit and we have a great group of folks and I think it's been, we Vans is, is is lucky enough to be part of it and it's been great for us.
Saphira Galoob: We were [00:20:00] preparing for a podcast. I was talking about disruptive thinkers. And I think, having your, your specific leadership in NCR is so important because you represent the d n A of the industry, which is the, the, the employment population. I mean, every, whenever people talk about cannabis and DC they talk about jobs.
I mean, they, they definitely, there's a criminal justice, but on the economic side, The piece of it that Republicans and Democrats can both agree with is jobs. And you're the heartbeat of the jobs for the industry. You understand the candidates, you understand the plight of companies, you understand the restrictions and the costs.
We were talking about that in terms of getting people credentialed. And so if you don't start at your core, which is the jobs, which is where you come from, you don't really have an industry that's sustainable.
Karson Humiston: And, and that's what we talked about a lot on like when we were. For, for people listening, Sophia organized an awesome lobbying days. I think that's what we called it, right? Lobbying
Saphira Galoob: Correct. Or fly in, but yeah, definitely a lobbying day.
Karson Humiston: fly. Yeah, the fly [00:21:00] in. And it was really cool. All the board members on N C R I was one of them, got to go around and meet with various members of Congress and actually in, in our instance, It wasn't staffers like the folks themselves showed up, so it was cool.
We, we got to meet with a bunch of awesome people, like, I think eight, eight meetings. So it was cool. And I, I'll tell you the number one question that actually came up that we talked about was jobs. People were super interested because that's a story everybody can tell, right? If we say there's 35,000 full-time employees in Colorado, They're all, their cannabis pays above minimum wage in the state.
I brought, remember we brought the printed out salary guide and we showed, so I think that for people listening, if you can show your local politicians how. Cannabis is impacting you, right? The job that you're working, the compensation that you've been able to make as a result of cannabis, the business that you've been able to start, I did think that really rung true.
So, I mean, b b, before we jump into [00:22:00] 2022, while we're on this topic, for somebody listening that wants to help get safe banking passed, help bring cannabis awareness to their politicians, what, what should somebody do if they're not
Saphira Galoob: I am so glad you asked that question. I, I mean that actually even more than 2022, because this is actually where we will see a difference. If you own a cannabis business, join your Chamber of Commerce. Join your local Kiwanis, join your, join Your Lions Club, sponsor a little league team. If you work in cannabis, be anywhere you can convey to your community.
the importance of the cannabis employment in that community is crucial. We have not done a great job. In an industry of kind of synthesizing our, our presence in a, in a, in a community with other businesses. So we need to do better with the Chamber of Commerces. We need to do better with kinda local business leaders and, and let them know what, how important.
[00:23:00] Good jobs are for industry. And, and I think the other thing that's important is, I'd like for you, anybody this listening to this podcast is, is talk to law enforcement as well. Law enforcement. We, if you talk to individual law law enforcement folks that are like, yes, regulated cannabis is safer for communities.
Having more jobs for more people is safer for communities. It's important for, for the communities in which your audience and our industry employees are serving to be more vocal and more proud of their role in the cannabis community and kind of demanding that cannabis is a, as a, as such a, rigorously regulated industry, that we get our due for that because there are a lot kind of substances that are regulated far less and are far more dangerous to communities and do much less for the communities than cannabis.
And we are not at all given I think the recognition that, that it industry deserves and demands.
Karson Humiston: and, and we're gonna work on a proud to work in cannabis video, and I feel like we should bring it to the fly in where we take different clips of people at various companies [00:24:00] saying, I'm so-and-so, and I'm proud to work in cannabis because here's what my job is. I'm so-and-so like people saying, I'm a cultivator, I'm an accountant, I'm an, I'm a botanist.
I am a retail store manager. I'm an engineer. I think that that would be super powerful and I, that's how like an i, one idea that banks has. But I think every business, to your point, has something special about their business that they can just take a little bit of effort and make it the, the marketing push to say, look what our business does.
Look at how it's impacting the community. Look at how awesome this is for our community. This is changing lives. And I think if everybody just did, spent 1% of their year. You would end up with a, with a massive result.
Saphira Galoob: The proud to work in cannabis local campaign. That would be hugely helpful because Ima I'm from Ardmore, Oklahoma. Yes. Oklahoma. The, wild, wild west of cannabis in the middle of the country. But I mean, if, if, if when I went home Yeah, you saw dispensaries, but if the messaging wasn't, I mean, yeah, we've got dispensaries [00:25:00] everywhere, but the proud to work in cannabis.
Karson Humiston: Yeah.
Saphira Galoob: every street corner like , that's a game changer. That is a
Karson Humiston: Kelsey, Kelsey Applebaum, our, our VP of partnerships, came up with the proud to work in cannabis. So I know at some point she'll listen to this podcast. So, you heard it from severe. We need that on every single corner in America where there's a cannabis business. Proud to work in
Saphira Galoob: Well, Kelsey, I'm gonna say to you, I'm a French speaker, Chapo. Which means you tip your hat to say, congratulations. That was an outstanding, outstanding contribution to industry.
Karson Humiston: And I think you, you've met, you met Kelsey at the the , Vegas event. She came to
Saphira Galoob: Oh, yes, I do remember Kelsey. Good? Yeah. Good.
Karson Humiston: , all right. Let's go to 2023. We're now in
Saphira Galoob: Yes.
Karson Humiston: What do you see on the horizon? What do you, what are your predictions for this year? What's going down? What's, what's next?
Where do we go from here?
Saphira Galoob: Yeah. So you know, this is where understanding the inner workings of DC is gonna be really, really important. So a couple of things are gonna happen. The [00:26:00] first is we are gonna start in the Senate and we're going to take Senate banking Chairman Shred Brown at his word. During the conversations about safe banking last year, he acknowledged the importance of safe banking, get a, getting a hearing in senate banking, which it's never had before, and going through what we call regular order.
So we in the industry would like to force kind of this, I'm gonna say force the hand, encourage the hand, so to speak, that safe banking actually gets a hearing in senate banking and goes to the floor for a vote. So that's really, really important to say no more big vehicle. Leader Schumer. We don't want the same insanity of every time we've tried this before, let us have a vote.
We deserve a vote, just give us a vote. And so you're gonna see campaigns give us a vote around that. So that's one thing that's gonna happen. The other thing is we're gonna see a renewal. Renewal of, I think a lot of level the playing field. Legislation introduced the Climb Act, which is the [00:27:00] capital Lending investment in marijuana businesses, the Climb Act because people in your audience may not know, but us cannabis companies don't have access to US exchanges, but foreign cannabis companies do.
So a non-US company can come and list on our senior exchanges, nas, NASDAQ, and N Y S C. Se and they can take the money they get from the US investor, not pay taxes here, by the way, export it back to their country and produce jobs and create taxable, basically taxation , for that community, , it's the most unAmerican thing we can do.
And so the Clima Act is key on that. The other thing we're gonna do is we're gonna be talking about a more measured way to think about legal. Up until this point, we really have been looking at Descheduling as the predicate for legalization. Meaning can't have a legalization bill unless first and foremost you just schedule on day one.
And it's not that we won't ultimately arrive at Descheduling, but remember when I said we don't really have the votes for legalization. [00:28:00] There are ways to get lawmakers to better understand the importa. Of codifying or making an certain and kind of firm, we'll call it, in, in, in, in federal law that the states, the state programs should stay intact and they shouldn't be disrupted.
That the federal government should defer to the states, to set up the licensing programs and to oversee and enforce those programs. And so some laws around that, of course two a d e, is gonna be really, really, really important. That's a more complicated nuance. We can actually talk about that in the next podcast.
But that goes in the whole
level of the playing field, Concept of
the measured approach towards legal.
Karson Humiston: Wow. So it sounds like we've got a busy, another busy year ahead.
Saphira Galoob: Well, I will tell you it's on January the fourth. I already had two pieces of
legislation drafted, three memos. I had 16 meetings set up. Like
I
was
Karson Humiston: no surprise.
Saphira Galoob: let's go. Come on, I'm ready to rock
and
Karson Humiston: roll. [00:29:00] We're ready to rock and roll. Well, Sophia, I think , we're coming to the end here. But any, any, anything else that you wanted to share with the listeners about your predictions for 2023? Anything else you want them to know or do?
The great thing about anybody listening to this podcast is that regardless of the business, you could have two businesses that are competing with each other. We all have the same goals, particularly from a legislative perspective. And so everybody listening right now, I think more so than in any other industry wants this and wants to do what they can, so.
So any final words for everybody?
Saphira Galoob: Yeah, I, I would say to the extent you can just stay in. Just keep your head about water and keep kicking. I used the word measured, approached in, in, in Washington, and you and I discussed Carson, I think right before the new year that getting really measured in your business. I mean, whether people are managing cash or managing resources to getting incredibly nimble and hyper-focused and targeted [00:30:00] on doing what you do well.
I need everyone to stay alive. Really, the business is to stay alive. And so that's really going to be where we're going to see are, are the resilience of our industry and the resilience of our stakeholders. And that's where we're going to find that we are an industry that has not just a future, but has a stake and a voice at the table
so that Congress will continue to talk, talk about us, and begin to listen to
us. And I think
that's where I see us.
Karson Humiston: I love that. it's it, it, it's so funny when you say like, to stay alive and just like keep your head above water. I was having a call with one of our investors yesterday, and so it was the ninth and he was like, We the year.
And I said to him, it's January 9th. We can't be talking about make it through the year. But it's true. I mean, it's, I don't think anybody is sitting here you know, January 10th saying this year's gonna be a breeze for the cannabis industry. Everybody's. Get rich and make a lot of money, and we're gonna see legislation at, you know, on, on firing from all [00:31:00] cylinders. I mean, it's not that year.
And so being lean, doubling down, staying in it, we didn't come this far just to come this far. You know, I'm constantly reminding myself and our team of. . Think about when we had one employee, two employees. We were making our first placement, our second placement, filling our first gig worker, launching version of our platform, raising that first round.
I mean, like, we've done so much. We've made it this far. We, this industry has made it this far right from, you know, Colorado and Oregon, Washington, Alaska, California, Maine. Each one of these things, we did not come this far just to come this far and we gotta all stay in it and stay alive. So Sophia, I'm so excited for 2023 with you.
We got a lot of work to do. It's gonna be great. So thank you for all that you do for this industry. We would not make it without you. You are the driving force on January 4th with 17 meetings lined up, pieces of legislation written. This industry would not be making it without you. So thank you for all you do, and thank you for joining us today.
Saphira Galoob: Thank you, Carson. I look forward to all that we [00:32:00] have to accomplish together.
Karson Humiston: opportunity.