Locked In with Ian Bick - Inside a Weed Cultivator’s Multi-Million Dollar Underground Empire | Ian Pederson

Episode Date: April 27, 2025

Ian Pederson gives an inside look into the underground world of large-scale weed cultivation, the risks involved, and the ultimate consequences. #WeedCultivation #CannabisEmpire #UndergroundBusiness #DrugLaws #TrueCrime #PrisonTime #LawEnforcement #HighRisk Connect With Ian Pederson: Website: http://www.sourcecbdhemp.com/ Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ Presented by Tyson 2.0 & Wooooo Energy: https://tyson20.com/ https://woooooenergy.com/ Buy Merch: https://convictclothing.net/collections/convict-clothing-x-ian-bick Timestamps: 00:00:00 Origins of the Name Ian 00:06:15 First Day of School with a Scar 00:12:19 Finding Passion and Value in Creative Work 00:18:21 Journey into the World of Psychedelics and Hustle 00:24:36 Learning Street Smarts and Business Savvy 00:30:20 Creative Hustles in Sedona 00:36:11 Discovering a Passion for Cannabis Cultivation 00:42:23 Understanding Feminized Cannabis Seeds 00:48:20 Navigating the Challenges of Illegal Partnerships 00:54:08 Navigating Legal and Illegal Entrepreneurship 01:00:10 Under Surveillance: Drug Investigation Unfolds 01:06:07 Caught in Legal Limbo: Navigating New Laws and Defiance 01:12:19 Turning Legal: From Illegal Operations to Caregiver Company 01:17:23 The Journey from Drug Use to Cannabis Advocacy 01:23:21 Divine Timing in Business Success 01:29:10 The Importance of Self-Value and Personal Growth Powered by: Just Media House : https://www.justmediahouse.com/ Creative direction, design, assets, support by FWRD: https://www.fwrd.co Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's built to help you find and own a home. With agents who close twice as many deals, when you find the one, you've got a real shot at getting it. Get started at Redfin.com. Own the dream. Ian, welcome to Lockett. our first Ian on the show. Wow. Ian and Ian, that's awesome. But two really solid Ian's from what I'm telling.

Or I can see over here from meeting you earlier, brother. Thank you. But you're named after a James Bond character and I'm not. Well, close enough, yeah, the writer of James Bond, Ian Fleming, who was noted to be in, he was a former British military and then an MI5 and went on to write the, illustrious James Bond films. My father loved. Love James Bond. And so, yeah, that's where I got my name at. Yeah, that's what I used to watch whenever I'd stay home from school sick. It was James Bond all day. Okay, the classics. Yeah. Yeah, I was saying that I was watching the most recent ones, but they're more like action. And so even though I love the Daniel Craig character from like Layer Cake, you ever watched that movie? That's where anybody likes Daniel Craig or the guy that carries that, the new James Bond character,

layer cake from Guy Ritchie films. Yeah, sick. First saw Daniel Craig in that movie when he was with Liv Schreiber, is his name, or Leve Striver, Levi Striver, about the World War II when they rescued a bunch of people, a bunch of the Jews from Nazi Germany

through the woods. Oh, okay, no, I'm not familiar. I think that was before he was cast in James Bond around the same time. Oh, really? Okay, yeah, I'm not familiar. I tend to have not watched a lot of film more busy with what I've been up to, but yeah. Yeah.

Oh, we'll plug in what you've been doing now at the top of this episode, do your business. Well, let's see here. So we've got a few different businesses, but one that we've been doing and just hitting our 10-year mark with is source CBD. And, of course, one of the, fortunately, one of the pioneers in CBD, as I was saying earlier, left psychoactive and went into non-psychoactive, celebrating 25, 26 years in cannabis.

That's awesome. So, yeah, it's been a interesting road. and something I'm extremely grateful for being introduced to the plant, although not without its peril. But it's legal now, too. But it's legal now too. So it sounds like I was a little ahead of the curve there, you know. Yeah, and we're about to find out all about that. Yeah, well, we'll see.

So you flew in from Arizona today. Is that where you grew up? Arizona, yeah. Born in California, lived there for a year. San Bernardino area. Fontana. that's where my dad, my mom would meet. Dad was kind of an old school biker

and ended up wanting to leave what he called a cesspool at the time of Southern California. So moved to Phoenix, and that's where I grew up until I was seven years old. What did your parents do for work? Dad was, all that I ever knew him doing was being a mechanic, not just a mechanic, but an automatic transmission specialist. So he would rebuild the automatic transmissions.

So like a lot of mechanics that you see like on, like you see Chip Fuchs rebuild a car and, you know, you've ever seen those shows where those guys, you know, rebuild cars and they take a car and rebuild for somebody. They'll do all the work themselves, but they'll typically farm out the transmission work to somebody that knows what they're doing because it's kind of a specialty trade. They build transmission for drag cars, race cars, real specialty vintage cars, things like that. What about your mom? My mom was, and as far as I knew my whole life, worked in the medical field hospitals. Not like a nurse, but more administrative, office manager. Got into accounting and billing and then ran offices for doctors.

So, like, I grew up sleeping under the desks of my mom's in her office in an orthopedic surgeon's. office or something like that. And that was kind of what I knew growing up. Really good childhood. And parents were and still are solved. My mom's passed away. But my father and mother really, really just were an amazing parents. I didn't have any of the trials and tribulations that a lot of kids had grown up. I think they had a lot of the trials and tribulations for me and decided not to pass that baggage on, you know. What about siblings? One brother. I was talking to you about him earlier.

Love him to death. He's four years older than me. Let's just say he's made every mistake ahead of me so that I didn't have to. I like to learn from others. You know. It's good to have that. Yeah, I really am grateful for him. But yeah, it's, yeah, anyways, really grateful for my brother. Love to see him when he comes home. How would people describe you as a kid growing up? That's interesting. So a lot of my memories. even though I have some early memories start when I was five years old. So I think, and that's a really good question for you to ask. So when I was five years old, I was walking outside to go and feed our pit bull. Actually, you know, I don't think I was going to feed.

I think I was just going out to see him. And it was on my birthday. And mom's making my cake inside. So I walk out back and just turned around and mauls me. And this is my brother's pit bull, but it came from honestly a lineage of dogs that were fighting dogs. As I mentioned, my dad kind of like old school biker back in the day. Clean cut like me, but like an old school biker is kind of the people who rolled with. And so they used to raise pit bulls like a community thing.

You probably see that like New York dudes walking dogs in the city or something. Yeah, yeah. And yeah, so the dog just mauled me. So as you can see, I have this huge scar. Oh, that's what that's from. Yeah, so yeah, 253 stitches. And those kind of things will, at least for me, it really would shape like how people would look at me, as you say.

Like how people would look at me. So I was incredibly small and I had a big ass scar on my face. That was me walking into the first day of school. And walking in late because I had gotten attacked just on my birthday, which would have been August 29th, and school, as you know, starts like right then. So I'm, you know, because I was thinking about this, you know, I'm realizing walking into school the first day

and people just immediately looking at you differently. And I can remember actually sitting down for the first day at lunch and walked into like the school little cafeteria. And it was weird because like, you know, you walk in. And it's like you just get that feeling, you know, like people aren't really looking at you because they're like not really looking at you, but they are, you know? And I don't know if you were seeing that scene like Forrest Gump's like like, you can't see it here.

You know what I mean? You don't really, they're not saying it, but you're kind of getting that feeling. It's like my first day in prison. Yeah, okay, there you go, yeah. It's like wander over and there's this little girl and I'll never, this is actually interesting. I'll never forget it to this day. I'm glad I could show the story about her. Little girl, she was so burned up.

It was like a girl that had survived, like a really bad fire. And she just had little bits of hair and like just, I mean, she was really, really, you know, 98% of her body was burned. And I just remember going over and sitting down and just sitting with her. You know, we just kind of sat our lunch, like sat and ate our lunch quietly. Yeah, it was an interesting experience. I didn't see her again at school though, you know. But so how people looked at me, yeah, the small kid, you know, picked on a lot.

I'm going to be straight about that, you know. That was like something honestly like when you're the small kid and you have a big scar on your face, you're pretty much, you know, fodder for the wolves in public school. So people always looked at me as a nice kid. But if we were playing football, it would be like, I'm out there. I'm open. I'm open. you know historically you know what I'm saying because when people I don't know when you're small people

think you can't do anything like you know I don't know I don't know if you grew up like you know like I grew up bullied yeah yeah you grew up bullied like you said you're like chubby kid with like yeah you said chubby and like glasses and it's like yeah but these were great things because it made me the watcher so I would sit and watch all the kids and I would sit and watch the way that kids interacted and see what they did and what they didn't do and I was a little more quiet but an introvert an extroverted. As you can see, I'm like totally extroverted, but much of an introvert. I like to read, things like that. So I was much into reading and that was a big thing for me as a kid. So, yeah. So I guess that's how kids looked at me.

Yeah, I think I'm like that too. Like I could do a podcast, talk to someone, but I'm not the person that goes up to someone I don't know and says hello and has a conversation with them. Yeah, if there's a reason I suppose to connect with somebody, that's where I'm most going to. Otherwise, yeah. What's your opinion on pit bulls now? I have my, our second pit bull, we had one that just passed away. But the female temperament, if anybody's out there listening, obviously, the female temperament of the pit bulls, because even after that, friends and I had raised pit bulls and really, I mean, we just had them recently in my kids. And I can tell you a really cool story about a female pit bull. When I had my son, Aesop, the more rough that he would get with her, the more docile she would become. And that's the female temperament.

whereas the boys are more rambunctious is the word. I'm glad I asked that question because I think it's good that people get to hear that even though you had a negative experience with one, you're still continuing to have pit bulls in your life. Oh, I love them. Yeah. Just circumstances, there were certain circumstances why the dog did bite me. Not just, it was, you know, 110 plus degrees conditioned heat in the summer outside on the chain for one of the first times. in the dog

in heat next door, female pit. And not a female pit, but a female dog. So when I came up to the dog from behind it, when I had its face and its bowl, I was told that that's why it reacted.

And it just turned around, hit me like a ton of bricks. And then before it probably knew what it was doing and had stopped, because it didn't just like continue to maw me. They'd have ripped my face open. And, you know, so.

When you're in high school, what was your plans, goals, aspirations in life, if you had any at the time? I was just like any other kid into sports a little bit plans, aspirations, hopes I wanted to be something.

I wanted to become something. I do remember that. I remember feeling like I just, I want to do something different, but living in a small town of Cottonwood, where I grew up at, because we moved from Phoenix to Cottonwood when I was seven.

So that's where I spent my life growing up. Yeah, I wanted more. You know, But when I was in high school, the most, you know, you start to think about your life in the future and you start to look around you at maybe successful people, you know, and depending on how big your pond is, you can see different people's aspirations. And for me, the most successful person I knew was one of my dad's friends who, like, worked for the city or like the telephone company. Like there wasn't any levels of like real like success, you know. And I wanted to do something cool. I was like, wow, I want to do something deep.

You know, I just felt like that. But, you know, for many years, I would just follow passions like music and follow internally things that I like to do, art, music, culture, which I felt like I was just, you know, kind of waxing and waning for many years. always working and hustles along with that that's where we talk about the hustles you know um but um yeah always wanting to do something uh something more profound and uh that would that would come later that would come later but with the passions by following passions things that I really enjoy doing I really love doing um I find that those those are the most important things if if one works on themselves in just following their creative passions like you did. Like this is something you enjoy doing.

We talked earlier, you love this creative aspect. You know, you love podcasting. I think if you didn't love it, you wouldn't be doing it or be successful at it. Because there's so many things somebody could be successful at. I mean, that's like without a doubt. But that's where the spark is. And I think a lot of people miss that. I wanted to be successful, but you have.

have to be able to offer some level of significant value to be successful. Like you're offering a value to an audience. You have people on here that hopefully add some value to your audience or tell fun stories or you know, you're doing something creative that you're passionate about. You're excelling at it constantly. And that's something that is, can be used in anything you're doing. You know, if you're involved in any type of passion, there, and especially in this day and age with being able to reach an audience and connect with people, you have gold in your pocket. You have, you know, that true, you know, opportunity to not just cultivate that,

but then find something within yourself. And that's the most, like, valuable part on the way to taking anything that, like, you really love, a passion is uncovering the best parts of yourself and building. building yourself along the way. You know, like, where did you start with your first podcast? You know, it's very small. Now you've got, you walk me around all the studio. You've got three, four different spots.

You've got this whole cool jail spot that you created. You're doing skits, you know, like I see this niche, you know, and so many different people, and compared to different things that I've seen over time, but where people are able to create their own, like, Blue Ocean with it. You know, I don't know if you ever heard this book, Blue Ocean Strategy, but it's a really cool book. it talks about the idea of red oceans and blue oceans where shark lives in red oceans basically and they try to constantly extract value from the same model and that means that they're

constantly trying to blood in the water you know what I'm saying you know in the shark man talking right but in the blue ocean you create these blue oceans of a value right we're talking about value earlier you know that you're able to able to excel in because you're creating a unique part of that sector. You're not just in that sector. You're not just in that, you know, you're creating, you're clearly creating something. So that's, I think that was a big part of my ability, is what we're talking about earlier, you know, to take that want and, and that need to do something better and great and unique more than like the regular, No offense.

You know, people that are doing just, you know, regular gigs in life. I admire. And I love their passion for like, you know, if you've got kids and you're raising them, there's like a famous thing from Dela. So I love it's like, my dad hates driving a bus, but he loves having six kids. You know, and it's like that's, that is something so powerful as well, you know. But for myself, I really wanted to do something. Just, you know, you get one life.

let's do something cool, you know, or something fun or something that you're passionate about. So that's where my passions led me with cannabis. And that's kind of, I guess, while we're here, part of, well, part of my arc and story of while we're here. Yeah, I think the value aspect is so interesting in my field because I've been able to create something that, one, the audience gets value from the guests, but two, the guest gets value from the audience because the platform's big enough. or it could also just be therapeutic for the guests themselves.

Oh, for sure. Yeah, no, it's an ecosystem. And I think for people like myself that are out there sharing some of their stories that are interesting, connecting with your audience that are into, you know, that kind of like true crime, you know, people coming up. So, you know, I think the, some of the threads, you know, self-made men, you know, people, that's what I like, you know, about, I like about hustlers as self-made men. You know, like anybody that can take and do something that they are passionate about and parlay that into some success and they're doing it on their own terms. That's like that is gold. That's whatever. That is not the American dream or any dream, you know.

So yeah. Were you getting into any trouble or using drugs or alcohol at all in high school? Yeah. So I did start smoking weed till I was like 16. and my parents drank like pretty consistently. You know, that was they like to drink, right? And so alcohol wasn't something that I was interested in. You know, beer, a lot of my friends, you know, partying, things like that.

She just didn't like taste of beer. So it wasn't for me. And I'd, for whatever reason I was, I wouldn't even have like my real first drink, even though I'd gotten drunk like with a, you know, a girl or my friend, like maybe once or twice in the history leading up to us 24. I don't think I had my first drink until it was in a club after they closed a rave parties and stopped giving out permits and you had to go to clubs to hear underground acts or the music I wanted to hear you'd have to go, you know, to a club. So that's when I had would actually start drinking. So yeah, wasn't really using your drugs. I started with psychedelics a little bit though, got introduced to acid and probably around the same time.

And a lot of my friends started getting into hard drugs. Fortunately, as you can see, as you offer me a Red Bull earlier, I've got enough energy as it is. I need to smoke just to chill. So I'd be staying up with my friends who were all developing drug habits. The father always said everything in moderation, son, and stay away from the chemicals if you can. So psychedelics, cool. That's where I started dealing a little bit with acid, you know, in high school. But nothing serious.

Just doing that and starting to deal a little bit of weed. That was when I first. I think it was probably 16 when I got my first pound. Point Ray's Farmstead Cheese is helping you celebrate life's big moments with award-winning California-made artisan cheese. Whether you're honoring a graduate or shopping for the dad who has everything, we've created collections that make gifting easy and delicious. We have great options for any budget, and we ship nationwide.

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You know, how many I can get this pound for, you know, $5,50, $600 on the front. And what can I break it down into? I can more than double it. So I like that hustle. In the area where I live at, right off of, if you're to draw it on a map, there's a route that's I-17. It comes out of Phoenix and out of Tucson, which essentially is coming out of Douglas and out of Mexico. So in our area, there's pounds. Like, instead of getting, like, some kids out here probably were getting grams or sacks.

Does that sound about right? It was grams. Grams, right? Occasionally, a guy would have a pound, but that was like, you wouldn't know. For sure. So, like, as, you know, kids were buying it more, instead of buying grams, you're buying ounces or QPs or, in that case, pounds and breaking it down. So that was like, because, you know, you got all the, all that Mexican brickweed coming in. And, yeah, there's, it's, it's just these little towns are not only layovers, but also staging points for,

where other distribution points will go because the point where I live is just at an intersection of these two major interstates where I-17 goes up to I-40 and I-40 is basically the root that would take you out to out this way. It's the major route that you would take. So there is a huge interdiction task force that over the last, you know, 25 years has grown and grown and grown. It's a pretty, it's pretty prolific. It's probably one of the major three routes. I would say 35% of all the traffic that comes in, like comes in through that area. So that's where it's awash with a lot of these different things coming in from Mexico. And sadly enough, a wash with a lot of terrible things that are coming in from Mexico right now. So do you think that if you grew up in a different

state, you wouldn't have the same life experience that you would come to get? Yeah, not at all. I almost call it living. It's almost like living in a border town. We're not. obviously not on the border. We're four hours away, five hours away from the Douglas, which is basically the main right when you cross in two from Mexico. So yeah, so for me, in a lot of kids, so a lot of kids that I know would end up getting in trouble in myself, you know, for little bits of cannabis or a lot on the way up.

With your dad being that biker type personality, did he know what you were up to? Yeah, so my dad smoked and, you know, I'd find weed in the drawer. I remember when I was a kid, I found weed in the drawer when I was like a young kid and I just couldn't believe it. Oh, you know. But yeah, he knew what I was up to, but he'd just always tell me, don't fuck up. You know, I mean, he was like a completely straight lace looking shirt tucked in, clean haircut just like me. but he essentially was a biker and, you know, rolled a stretch springer back in the day before any people, anybody did. So he had, he was a rebel and he knew what I was doing and, you know, he just wanted me to do the best that I could.

He knew that I was eventually going to get into some sort of, you know, shit. Yeah. Did you end up going off to college? So that's the thing. I remember distinctly sitting, that's funny. You asked that question. I remember distinctly sitting in my class. in high school and they announced the SATs.

Anybody wants to anybody would like to take the SATs going off to school. And I was probably, by the time I was a senior, I worked my way up to maybe a B student. I actually started trying because by the time I was in sixth grade, I was disinterested in school because it was so easy for me. I had no interest in it. I just was that type of person, you know, always reading at a higher level than I would, you know, doing math at a higher level. you know, public school is definitely not meant to create great humans.

And so for me, yeah, so for me, the, I'm losing my train, I'm sorry. College. Oh, yeah, college. Yeah, so for me, that wasn't happening. The SATs were not going to happen. My father wasn't going to pay for me to go ASU. ASU was a really, like that was a school, Arizona State University. So did not go off to college.

But, you know, it's funny. The University of Hard Knocks, all my friends went off to college and got degrees. And somehow, after many years, I would end up starting flourishing companies and they would all likely, and no offense, but not be using their degrees. You know, and a few of them would love to come and work for, you know, a lot of them were actually trying to come into the industry that I had risked so many years to get into and then started doing legally. It really is crazy how similar our paths are. Like I never took the SACs or went off to college. Only difference is I went to prison. Yeah, no, for sure.

And you probably got a really good education there as well because reading people. So my, you know, quote unquote street education was something that would give me the ability to not get taken advantage of in regular business. because there's a lot of things that people would do in regular business where they would try to just turn you over right away like just try to and you would you'd be able to either read somebody see their intentions not be just be smart enough to not give too much trust there's these different factors that you would probably

fundamentals that you learn being in prison that would definitely help you was ASU just as big of a party school as it is now like that's what it's known for Manzanita, I remember being down there. It was definitely a party school. I didn't, obviously, I didn't go there, but I had friends that were going there, so I got to hang out there, which was really cool.

That was one of the dorms, Manzanita at the time down there. Yeah, it was definitely you've got the, it's kind of a different scene, you know, not like, you know, you've got the probably the fraternity scene. And so it wasn't involved in that. I was involved in what, you know, the underground, if anybody would, You're pointing this is a rave scene, but it was more the underground party scene. And so that's like what was going in the late 90s. And that's why I was down in Tempe.

And that's why I would have been down there hanging out with, you know, ravered chicks or something or in Manzina or my friends down there. What was your parents' reaction? I didn't know college. They didn't expect me to go to college. They expected me to do something, I think, but they had no. They expected internally. Like, I expect he'll do something great. or he'll do something cool.

But because my brother had also made so many mistakes ahead of me, they were all so lofty. They weren't sure. You know, because when you raise one child ahead and then he makes a bunch of mistakes, you're not sure how the second one's going to go. And if that pivotal time, you know, they were probably certainly questioning. And I was doing some things certainly, you know, driving a 77 Cadillac that looked like Nate Dogs,

Cadillac and regulate Midnight Blue with a white vinyl top white leather interior. you know, hanging out with a friend that was like a former gang member from California that had moved to our school. And so I was all into the kind of like pre-raved party, underground party scene and then hanging out with a bunch of Latinos dudes. You know what I mean? Like that hanging out and doing that kind of thing. Do you know where you got the entrepreneurial mindset from? You know, it's funny. I remember I was talking to a friend a while back, a friend of mine, Alan.

He said, man, I always knew you're going to do it. And I was like, really? He said, yeah, you're always the man with the plan. And so I don't think it's an entrepreneurial mindset as much is when you're all standing around in a group of people, right? And everybody's trying to formulate and they kind of have an idea what they want to do, but they're not really sure. Through my high school, I started to become more respected as a person and have self-respect, you know, for myself, you know. And the reason I did that is because as I grew up, I stopped caring about what other people thought, you know, and you kind of have to. You know, did you grow a thick skin or you kind of wanted to like please people?

I didn't learn that until very recently. Like I let everything affect me. And I think the hardest moment was seeing all the articles written about me negatively, small town, you know, all the comments, newspaper articles, Facebook comments. it wasn't until I think I built the success of this that I've really changed my mentality about that. Yeah. So you're feeling more secure about yourself and where you're at in your life.

I would say more so than ever because what is someone going to say now? I mean, I rebuilt my life after going through a horrible experience and I'm doing the right thing and helping others and trying to fix the past. So what could you say about me at this point, you know? Sure. Yeah, so for me, there was a point

where I just had to stop caring of what people thought about me because, like, people growing up, like would call me scarface. If you ever wanted, like just, I remember this one kid in particular, but if you ever just, if you ever wanted to just try to get under my skin, of which it was impossible to call me scarface or something like that, you know, because, you know, it's an easy, you know, thing. So, um, for me, I just had to stop carrying at pretty, like a pretty young age.

And just continue to just try and do whatever my thing, you know. So by the time I was in high school, I was more confident about what I was doing and just didn't really care, you know. So that helped, I think, the ability to where when we're all sitting around in, you know, an area, you know, and there's a plan to be had, I would likely be like, well, why don't we try this and let's put this together and, hey, you can do this and we can do this. And the next thing, you know, it's like rock soup. We're all putting together a plan, you know, and I would, I've noticed that's been kind of a

thread for me where I've been able to see an opportunity, whether it was just, hey, we need to get to the party back in the day or something or, you know, trying to get to a certain location or doing something. Two, we need to get something done. And then people would kind of, you know, like a default leader, not, you know what I'm saying? And so that would, those, that's how and part of the hustling thing. Like I'd see an opportunity to be like, oh, we should do this. You know, we, oh, we can get this asset for, you know, $2 a hit or something.

you know, and we can get it to Alaska for $25 a hit. You know, a new market, like something different, like kind of out of the box, you know, but I can work with my friend to do this. We can all put this together and let's all put in our money together. But nobody would have thought of that, you know, because in the front's like, oh, well, what's asking? Go, well, it goes for $25 a hit up there, you know. And he's just sitting there telling me this and he doesn't realize that we're sitting

there with sheets in our hand that I can get, you know, for, you know, or something like that. So the ability to turn something into nothing. That's the thing, the rock suit mentality. You know, like if anybody is out there has not read that, you know, or you didn't grow up with the Rock Soup book, you know. Walk us through those years after high school. Kind of like while everyone's at college, what you're doing. Yeah, so I don't want to say waxing and waning, but just enjoying my creative passion.

So always working typically in restaurants because that's in the area where I live now in Sedona, where everybody would work at. You'd drive from our little blue-collar town. You'd either do construction or you'd work in the restaurants or the resorts. Because, you know, it's a tourist town, right? So I was working in those areas doing front of the house. And then later on I'd do back of the house. And the whole time I was hustling. You know, I'd end up getting into, like, you know, I'd pick up packs here and there

and then I'd break them down and just do little hustles, you know. always with weed. But then over time, always doing something I was passionate about. So music was a big passion for me. DJ producing music. I was producing music started in the late 90s, which I still do and have come back to produce today.

I have some stuff in that. I have a little ass cap, I get a little check and have some stuff on IMDB with some groups that I produced before. But always pursuing passions, music, and then always pursuing other passions. Like, again, as a chef, that was something that I really, really enjoyed. So becoming a chef in 2001 was when I first apprenticed. And so, yeah, so just waxing and waning, enjoying myself, heavily involved in the music scene,

and then producing events. That's like where I started DJing and then producing events. Did those early years with the drugs in high school, did that lead you into the music scene? Or is it just because of what was going on in the world with music that you got interested in? You know, it's interesting.

I think it was vice versa. I think the music really, you know, the music was a trigger for, yeah, was a real trigger for that. And, you know, the underground party scene, you know, you obviously first start out and going to the underground parties, you know how it goes. But for me, I felt more of a love for the music. And that was the big trigger for me.

Like, I wanted to get behind the scenes and start doing either the production. Well, then I thought I would be on the stage, but then many years later, I ended up producing the events, you know. But I always picture myself doing that. So did you see dollar signs kind of go off in your mind when you saw the music aspect? Well, back in the day, you could throw rave parties and you can make a lot of money. I heard about the count rooms and some of the parts. that had happened, you know, 8,000 heads at 20 bucks a piece. And this is all cash parties in a former tractor warehouse that they rented for, you know,

five grand. Insurance, you know, for a million dollars, insurance was like $250 for the night back then. So they were making money hand over fist. So yeah, I could see that. But for me, money wasn't like a big driver for, it's funny. Like money has always been on the back end. and then something that I'm passionate about has always been on the front end.

That's what's really driven the success. Like I had a friend and business partner who was an amazing musician, violinist, and we worked together and we created music. And he taught me so much about video editing and all of this stuff. Like he's the one that inspired me to get a computer to really start doing this creative aspect

because I was in design and graffiti. Like that was my roots, you know, for... But the... The passion driving towards the money, that's like, that's been just a big thread for me. Because I wasn't, I was really more focused on that. And if you wanted to bring up money back in the day, I'd be like, oh, you know, I like making money from, you know, I like flipping packs and I like making money. But, yeah, still 50-50. There's like the younger, me kind of hustler, the telling my friend, I'm going to be a millionaire by the time I'm 30.

I got a call from my friend, my friend Nick. And he said, man, you know, you remember telling me you were going to be a millionaire by the time? you're 30. I was like, I say that, you know, I thought that was funny. And it only took me until I was 40 and I had done it six times over. So I guess I gave that that era or that error to my friends, you know, like my other friend, kind of the man with the plan. They, you know, they kind of looked at me like that. But I just like it was more, I was just more motivated. You know, I just motivated to do something. Let's create something. Let's build something. Let's make something or let's make some money.

But drugs isn't really like a creative type of business in a way. No, you can be creative with it. When you start cultivating it, you can. That's where I really, my passion started with the plant. So in like 2001, 9-11 happened and I had some seeds coming from Amsterdam that didn't make it for six months. And when they finally did, I started cultivating. And that was a big spark for me on. being able to create something, being able to have a symbiotic relationship with something with a plant.

Because like if you don't have a real relationship with a plant, you were tried to grow a plant? No. It's like having a pet or something. You really have to, you have to work on it. Oh, like any type of plant, not just weed. Oh, yeah, any type of plant. Yeah, I always gave up on it. It would just die.

Oh, yeah. Like sunflowers. Yeah, okay. Yeah, so they do take, uh, um, Yeah, they take some work. So there's a symbiotic relationship that you have to, at least that I have had with plants. And that was part of my success as well. Instead of just trying to be like, oh, I'm going to grow this plant and pimp it out and see how much money I can make from it.

And because of that, even though I wanted to make money, of course, I ended up finding more success with it because I found it more of an art form where I wanted to create the best cannabis that you could get your hands on at the time in 2001. If you could find a pound of blueberry F1 hybrid, Dutch passion, you know, you were, it was something you probably weren't going to come across in Arizona. You know, maybe up in the northwest. You could find something like that. So, yeah, so for me, it was about following my passions, then the money, you know. And then somehow it just, and again, and I'll explain later how the passion again unfolded and took me from psychoactive into non-psychoactive.

So did your business mindset bring you to the cultivating aspect? Because most people I talk to, they never really even think of that. They're just, okay, let me pick up from a supplier. Yeah. Boom. Ryan Reynolds here for MintMobil. I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same premium wireless for $15 a month plan that I've been enjoying.

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That's growth therapy.com slash book now. Growtherapy.com slash book now. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan. Boom, boom, I got it. I'll flip it. I make the money. Sure. Yeah, and you can do that. But in Arizona at the time, it's very hard to even find kind, but it extremely hard to find kind, but tons of pounds of Mexican wheat, but it's really hard to find. So my inspiration was like, I want to be able to have the opportunity to create something that nobody has and offered at the best price that I can and work with a select few people to be able to get that

off. What was the mind space around cultivating and marijuana in general? Oh, the mind space. Well, the thoughts around it and government-wise, law enforcement was. Oh, God. Okay. So we set up a spot in an area where one wouldn't normally think it would be in a beautiful area next to a golf course.

And the mindset was if you get caught, you're looking at 10 years, zero-tolerant state. If you get this off, you're looking at on a small level, 30K a month in 2001, you know, when you're 20, 22 years old, you know. So the mindset is business. You want to be successful. And that's where like from a kid you're playing around to now you're doing something serious and you really don't want to get caught, the stakes are high. And so you don't want to fuck up. So, so yeah, that's the mindset. Zero friends and nobody comes over. You've got a grow house. And at the time, it's funny because, you know, you can just go to the Spencer and you get this now. But at the time, you know, you've got a grow house and you can't let anybody know where you live. In A, you don't want to get robbed.

B, you don't want to get ratted on. C, you just can't tell your friends because you just don't want anybody knowing about it. You can't have a girlfriend likely. You know, you can't, you can't risk certain things typically that, uh, that you can risk when you're just picking up pounds and doing that, that, I guess that normal thing, you know. Where do you get your knowledge from? Like, where to get the seeds from, how to even grow at all of that? Uh, I read a book by Ed Rosenthal. He had a famous article in a high times magazine called Ask Ed for many years. He's like a, kind of like an, you know, editor. He was, I guess, yeah. And, uh, and, uh, and, uh, and, uh, and, uh, marijuana growers, the indoor marijuana growers hand guide.

And he talks about how to cultivate it and many different ways to cultivate it. But he also talks about some of the things I just talked about, about the secrecy levels surrounding it and about how to be successful, taking the proper precautions to be successful. And so, yeah, that book and then read every article I could get my hands on. I mean, I'm talking like anything I get my hands on, soak up the knowledge on. And luckily, early, probably two years in, because it took about two years before I was really successful with it, even with the good strains that I had, to be able to find a system that I could repeat and that I could use that I would use for almost 20 years, that I could set up 10,000 square foot cultivation on and use that same system and have a solid product. I could even train people on that system. I would go and set up houses and train people on that system to be able to use this exact system.

So, yeah, so just studying anything I get my hands on. How much would seeds cost to ship it back then? So at the time, you could order them through a distribution company, Dutch Passion Seeds out of Amsterdam, Sensey Seed Bank, were all being shipped through a guy by the name of Mark Emery. He lived in Canada. So you could get them, they would come from Amsterdam to Canada. And then Mark Emery, who he ended up doing five years down here, they actually ended up extraditing him, which is a rare case where they extradited somebody from what I'm familiar with,

for importing any product into the United States. But yeah, so Mark Emery, the seeds, and they would get shipped over in a seedy case, 325 for feminized seeds. And these are some of the first feminized seeds at the time where you could get a guarantee, within about 98% a guaranteed feminineized seed. $325. Yeah, for 10 seeds. Yep.

And two of the seeds survived out of the 10 seeds that we had. One of them was the genes were just terrible. And then one, we had to actually over a period of like six months to a year in selecting the, essentially selecting the clones. It's like pheno hunting is what we call it. But essentially, you know, you take, you know, 50 clones. off the plant and then you select out the best clones after you flowered them to see what type of what type of the genome it's leaning towards you know is it leaning more towards the afghani side in this case a blueberry or is it leaning more towards like the purple tie sativa side you know on

on the strain or something like that can you walk us through the whole process from like when you get the seeds to how much it actually converts to when you do the full grow yeah and reproduct from it yeah for sure so um i could do it kind of per light because that's a good breakdown uh per 1,000 watt light because typically grows. And now, again, these standards, if anybody's listening, have doubled right now. So anything I'm saying has doubled right now with the current lighting technology. But basically, you could pull a pound per light per 1,000 watts, which is about 448 grams, 456, some people say, with the actual weight, but street ounces are 28 grams and you get 16 ounces and a pound. And even if you go to the dispensary, that's the way it is. I was on a podcast before

and somebody's like, oh, a true pound is this and that. A pound is 448. It's 4.4.8. It's 4. 412-quarter-pound, 412 gram quarter pounds, which consists of each quarter-pound for 28-gram ounces. And if you go to dispensary, you get grams, you get those an ounces. And that's how it's sold today. Some people were, I just really want to get that for one last podcast I want to. So you take that, and that pound is going to yield you about $4,000 to $4,800. Now, that's if you're wholesaling it, depending on who you're getting it to at the time. $1,200 a quarter pound.

Okay. So go ahead. It's all you yourself doing this? Yeah, so me and a partner at the time, self-contained room, room about this big. That's all it is. It just says big? Four. Yeah, you could put six one-thous in here and really hit it, but you could just easily just put four one-thousand-watt lights in here.

And, yeah, actually off of each one, you're looking at probably. probably you're looking at $25,000 every 30 days. If you have two of these rooms, you can cycle the rooms. So you're just flipping back and forth, you know. And you can do 25 grand. You could do easily six pounds. And even at the rate, well, with the prices now, but at that cost, you know, and at that time. And you've got another little tiny room where you have your clones.

So you've got basically a mother plant. You've got your clones. And you've got a cycle. So you're running. a continuous cycle of vegetation. And on that, you're also running, if you can run in flip rooms, you're running multiple rooms at a time

because the harvest cycle is typically 60 days. People can grow 70 days, 75, you know, if you're growing more of a sativa or even up to 100 day sativa. But mostly people grow plants that are harvested on 60 to 65 day cycle because that's going to keep you on your two-month flips, you know, so you're easily just back and forth.

Because over, you know, over time on 70, 80 days cycle, you're going to lose 10, 20 days. If you really look at numbers over time, like if you're running a 10,000 square foot cultivation, at extra 1020 days is going to equate to hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue that you're going to be losing by not be able to flip every 60 to 65 days. What were the first early mistakes you made if you made any at all? Oh, for sure, man. First early mistakes. Well, the funny thing that happened is we ordered the seeds in 9-11 happened.

So we ordered the seeds in August and 9-11. and 9-11 happened, you know, September, you know. So this, there was no mail coming in. All the international mail, they shut everything down. There was this huge backlog. So we actually didn't get our seats. That was one of the huge mistakes we made. We hadn't had our siege yet and we're already in the house.

So now we're scrambling, you know, so we end up growing some swag, which taught us a good lesson but sucked. But it showed us that you could take. grow larger plants instead of growing smaller plants and trying to cycle them faster and take on less risk too because anything over 100 plants, 99 plants is federal and you're looking at minimums on that, you know?

So you want to definitely understand the risk tolerance of what you're doing. Sorry back to your question. About what was the question? I just lost my train of thought. Oh, okay, no, I sometimes veer, forgive me. But yeah, with the... Oh, mistakes you made.

Oh, yeah, I don't think. Yeah, so that was the first mistake I made. Fortunately, as you can, well, as you can see by me being able to be here to this day, I didn't make many mistakes. And that's a good thing. The first, let's talk about, oh, God, I'm trying to think about mistakes I made. Yeah. Possibly choosing a partner.

Possibly choosing a partner could be a mistake, you know. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, so had a partner and ended up having a partner. having a falling out with that partner. Had a girlfriend at the time and that partner decided to try to fall in love with that girl of which it wasn't going to happen because even, you know, she was out of his league, but he didn't know that. And it ended up putting some friction in a relationship and the house ended up getting

shut down. Yeah. So I think that was probably one of my early mistakes is partnerships. I've stayed away from partnerships. If you want to do something, especially something illegal, you want to do it on your own. Well, the best crimes to commit are when it's just you. Yeah, yeah. And your audience is probably, yeah, probably understands that.

Yeah. So what happened when your house got shut down? What happens to the product, all that? Yeah, so I came home one day and he just basically pulled all the product. I came home one day and he was, we're 30 days away from a huge harvest and he's pulling all of the plants and killed all the genetics. So that put me in a spot where I didn't have done. of genetics for a few years, like literally to, you know, to get those genetics again were a challenge by them, Mark had already been arrested. He was serving five years down here in a federal penitentiary,

so. And he didn't want to flip on you? Oh, oh, no, this was not Mark. This was the guy that I got in the seats from, Mark Emery. Oh, yeah, this, he was an international seed distributor. He didn't want to throw you under the bus. He fortunately didn't give his list. Yeah, he didn't give the list. And they were sent to a peel box. Okay. So you had precautions. Yeah, there you go.

Yeah. So, yeah, let's talk about the mistakes I didn't make. I think that's more important for your audience. Yeah. Mistakes I didn't make is I dealt with only two people that were twins. And they were good people and they were solid. Mistakes I didn't make because I didn't go out. Mistakes I didn't make is I didn't talk about what I was doing.

Mistakes I didn't make as I didn't ever take any product out of the house. Mistakes I didn't make is if I smoked in the house, I flushed my roaches. One day I would get raided many, many years later. And the narcotics detective claimed that they got the warrant from finding roaches in my trash. It's impossible. Even to this, not to this day, but to the day of illegality 15 years ago before I became legal. And you could actually, before it became legal cannabis, I would never throw a roach in a trash can. because if you do that, they can get a search warrant.

And if you're doing anything illegal. So I knew right away the guy was lying, you know. But anyways, you know, go to the growth store and throw something over your license plate. You drive all the way down to, you know, Phoenix. I drive 100 miles away at the growth store, which is the closest growth store. And I'll put a piece of paper as I pull into the complex on the other side. I'll put a piece of paper over my license plate and drive in just in case. Because, you know, they may be somebody case.

Why wouldn't you be casing? the location of the growth store and just getting licensed plates is sea of green you know obviously people aren't going there for tomatoes like a garden center it is not a garden center a hydroponic store where you're specifically going to get cultivation gear sea of green the brand i'll plug them you know back in the day i don't uh they're still around but um yeah so yeah the precautions you want to take um and don't talk on the phone you know don't talk on the phone don't um that's like one of the biggest mistakes because, you know, again, later on I would get raided. We'll talk about that later, but I get raided and you can go back many, many years. You can go back. I saw the same

phone number. You know, I've had the same phone number for many years, but even on the burner, never talk, you know. And yeah, just keep any of your, the best, the best tip that I can give anybody out there that's thinking about any illegal activity, you're going to love this one. This is the best tip. Is find something legal to do. Find a passion that you love and explore that. Build yourself out. Upgrade yourself, as the kids say, you know. Because you can go out, I'm staying in Manhattan right now.

You can go out and you can start a hot dog stand. And if you want to hustle hard enough, there's a space on the corner for you to do it. And you can stack it. And what I learned in drug dealing is I can take my money and I can double it. Okay. for all you thinking about drug dealing out there. And I'm not, if you're going to do it, don't talk on the phone. Don't tell anybody follow the rules, you know.

But the main thing is, is you can take that and double it. Well, I get on my markup, I get four and a half times. I've gotten 20x markup on some of my products. Minus taxes, I'm still killing it, you know. That is, that's the way to really come up. because I've seen stacks, you know, doing illegal activity. But legal money, that's putting your money to work. Because you can have a hustle and you could have, like,

I'd always have a great connection or something will be happening. And it would go for a little while. And then because guess what? It's illegal. It's going to stop. There's your supply chain. So learn business. If you want to be a businessman and be a hustler, learn some bit.

Learn about supply chain. Well, learn that your supply chain is probably going to get shut down if you're doing something illegal you know um you got to have a and b suppliers and all that so like for me uh i didn't see the money i would see you know i'd see tens of thousands in illegal money i'd see millions in legal money from following a passion doing something illegal because by the time i had been cultivating for 2001 to 2011 12 Dispensary model became legal in Arizona finally, and I had people seeking me out as a talented cultivator

to be able to set up large state license cultivations and to be able to launch state license dispensaries. And that is tens of thousands at X number of pounds went from that to millions at thousands of pounds, you know, and doing it legally. So and being able to still, still do something I'm passionate about. And unfortunately, everybody can't follow that model because right now it's, you know,

that model's been explored. But the one model you can follow is by being passionate about something, finding something that you really love to do and exploring that part of yourself and finding a blue ocean to live in, you know? How much would you say during those years of it doing it illegally? Did you say that you grew and made from that? In pounds? Well, I think in respect to.

The IRS and respect to those that, well, there's a great saying, those that know don't tell and those that tell don't know. But I will allude to the fact that if a person goes out and picks up 20 pounds at 1,500, they can flip it all day for 3,000 on the front of somebody and they could do that easily monthly if they have a system or a system of delivery come from California to Arizona. That's a lot of money. Own it all. Pay off your home, travel for life, drive a Ferrari. In celebration of the world premiere of the Monopoly Big Board Buckslot machine by Aristocrat Gaming, Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is giving one person

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You can go see the game live Don't just dream about the trip Book it with Price Line Download the Price Line app or visit Price Line Actual prices may vary. Limited time offer. For somebody that's making $13 an hour as a chef, you know, and just getting his family off. And the only reason he's getting back into it is because he needs some money because he's getting his family off. You know what I'm saying?

Just had a son maybe. You know, this isn't a unique experience, anybody out there. But over the time, over the time of illegal and legal, hundreds of thousands. if not millions. Of pounds. Of dollars. The illegal, we can't exactly speak to that. But I can tell you that moving forward out of everything and then the legal and the M's,

10,000 square foot facility. I'll show you some pictures after, you know. Yeah. How do you find buyers and how would you move the product without anyone ever following you back or moving it safely? Okay. So I did. Obviously, you know, and again, anybody that's going to do it, it's not if but when and how bad, you're going to get touched. And so after, say, from the time that I was 16 up until the time that I was 30, 29, 30 years old, I would be doing my thing.

but by the time I was 30, and I don't want to stray from your question, by the time I was 30, I had more of the mentality of I want to do something serious and I need to be serious about it. So I don't want to make the mistakes as we get back to those mistakes. So how would I do it? Working with the select few people that you trust. And even then they could talk. Fortunately, they didn't.

But again, if you're doing anything, if anybody's moving, you know, 20 to 30 pounds a month of chronic in a small area, in a small set of towns. I don't know how small your towns are, the universities. People, for whatever reason, like to talk and will, word will get out. And those people start to see you in certain places, you know. Fortunately, for me at the time, I tried to take precautions. I went, there was the younger me who addressed the part and looked the part. You know, I looked like the guy.

They'd pull me over and I'd look. look like I probably had weed on me. But then there was the dressing in the complete opposite. Ralph Lauren's sweater with a fake pair of glasses. Look like Malcolm X's white cousin, you know, with the horn rims, you know. Briefcase with a pound in it. Going to a business because I'm dealing at this time. I'm dealing with people that are adults.

You know, I'm not dealing with kids and we're not in the streets or anything like that. You know, so even when I was under surveillance for three months, They couldn't really put it together. They could never catch me doing anything hand to hand. And that's, I think, what saved me. Because maybe I wouldn't say, hey, me, me in the parking lot of here and we're going to flip this real quick. I would make sure that if anybody was watching because you just assume, assume somebody's watching, assume the person that you're dealing with may be wired up.

So whatever you're talking about can't be said. You know, you're not trying to say, hey, I bring the pack for you, blah, blah, blah. How much is it? You just say you got that word. Okay, here's this. I'll get you then. You already know what it is. Is that three?

Okay, boom. You know, and it's like minimizing exposure, you know, is like that's huge for me. Like if you take all the unknown integers out of something, then you have more success rate, right? The unknown integers mean the factors. You know, you take all those, you know, take many factors out of something as you can to be successful. So that was another way that I would be successful. So for those three months, nobody could say. see what I was doing. Now eventually you might end up on a list where somebody gets pinched and then

you end up on a list. I'm not going to go into that because that somebody that has to do with somebody that's passed away now and I'm not going to speak on that because it's disrespectful. We'll talk about dead like that. But with that being said, somebody, if you want to know what happened, a friend of mine who I was dealing with one of the four people that I was working with, A small circle ended up getting arrested. He ended up getting pinched with a pound. He didn't talk, but I had delivered to his house at one point in time. Now they didn't see it because the way I parked my car and pulled in.

You didn't even see me put anything in. You couldn't see if I got out of the car with anything. Unfortunately, you couldn't because just across the street, they were running surveillance in a house where they had set up and they'd been renting for a period of time. They were running. Oddly enough, this is how you catch a cold sometimes. they're running surveillance on the house next door

to my friend's house for a completely separate drug investigation for a meth investigation they're running this investigation completely separate well my friend's dealing weed next door right kind bud chronic and my friend doughboy and

the snitch who I grew up with this kid he goes into the house next door and then he goes in he buys some drugs from this house, then he buys some weed from the house next door, which is the house that I'm supplying. So they're watching both of the houses.

So now they're running an investigation on his house. He mentions him passing to his neighbor that I went to school with. Oh, who you get in the chronic from? Oh, Ian, you know. So somehow the snitch finds out about it. They're running the investigation. They got my plate. That's what they got.

That's how it started. I haven't gotten to discovery yet, but I'm considering going back getting it just out of curiosity after telling this story. So they get my plate and then that's how I essentially became under investigation. And how many years into your business was this? Oh, that wasn't until 2011. That would have been the three months leading up until January 29th. So you had a 10-year run essentially? 2011.

Yeah, yeah, pretty much. I mean, since 16, I've been dealing. You know what I'm saying? But yeah, like of doing, since I had had my operation, my first kind about operation, yeah, I would probably celebrate me about a decade. So how do you end up beating that investigation? Okay. So I'll have to tell you how it all ended up unraveling.

So they're on me for three months. One day, the day after my daughter's birthday, we just celebrated her birthday, bouncy house out front and everything. And I'm getting ready to go to work the next day. and it got my studio and I'm listening to music and dog's barking. I go out front, open the door, and there's this investigation unit, four or five of them standing right there. And they're standing there with a battering around.

It's just standing there. And we both look at each other and I just immediately shut the door and lock it. Hilarious. Sheriff's Department, Pam, going to bust it down if you don't open it up. I'm like, accept my fate. Open the door. Boom, they come in, push me to the side, grab me, put me a handcuffs, and immediately start sweeping the house.

Set me down. They're like, where is it? Where is everything? Well, if you're like me, you don't keep your weight at your house. You might keep your personal, but you definitely don't keep your way to your house. You don't keep it where your kids live. You can keep it somewhere else, you know, again, you know, hint, hint. You can keep it where nobody's going to run.

an investigation. You can keep it, you know, somewhere else, but don't keep it where you live. With that being said, they sent me down, but they catch me, and this is what sucks. They sit me down and catch me with an ounce of hash. Well, like 26 grams. At the time, hash is our narcotics still. And here's the timing. 2011. That, so we're January 29, 2011, legalization has been voted in November, as you know, November, but the ballot has been voted in November of 2010 finally after three years of Arizona trying to get on the ballot again and again to vote it for medical. So that's the situation that I'm in and I'm caught. But I'm not caught with weight. So they set me down in my daughter's room and they're trying to flex on me.

They're like, okay. So what's up with the hash? We just wanted to know about the hash. And so right then I knew who had ratted on me because I was only dealing with one person. So first of all, so that check, just check that one off right there. I know who ratted me out, okay?

I know I ended up later, ended up on a list and then I was under investigation, but I know who specifically ratted me out. It was a friend of the guy, doughboy, that I've been dealing with. He said he had put me together with him. He said he wants to pick some up. Well, it turns out the guy works at the bar

and the guy's a snitch, you know. a guy I knew from school as well, but would become a long-time snitch and it's still a snitch and people don't even know it, you know. So, sent me down and he's like, okay, so what are we going to do with this hash? And I'm just like, you know,

I don't know, you know, what are going to do about this hash? And he's like, well, you know, this is a narcotic. And so at the time in Arizona, if he had more than, it was either 7 grams or 9 grams of any narcotic, two and a half minimum, just mandatory minimum sentencing, and that's it. And they created it for methamphetamine

and for heroin. heroin laws because we had a huge meth scourge. And so like people were dealing meth and that was a good amount, right? So they ended up setting it up. So they're trying to essentially charge me with this hash under this narcotic law. And so this is where it gets interesting. He's like, okay, so what are what we're going to do about this hash? And I'm like, well, you know, I've got this medical condition at the time and I still do.

I have shingles. That was one big part that helped me to go and like research and understand that the medical benefit. the medical benefits of cannabis for pain instead of people taking pills like cannabis, you would have no idea, you know, or what they're trying to prescribe you. So sets me down and he's like, I don't know what we're going to do about this. And I'm just like, look, you know, I've got this medical condition and, you know, have you ever seen the 25th hour? No.

So I've got this medical condition and, you know, I know it was just loaded in, you know, and it's going to be legal soon. And, you know, and you can see this guy is just getting like more deflated as, as we're going. But I've still, I mean, I'm caught with, you know, what he can essentially charge me with a felony. And, you know, what he's convinced is two and a half years. So he's trying to flex on me. He's like, so what can you tell me? And I'm like, well, I don't know.

I don't know. What can I tell you? He's like, well, you know, and his friends like, give us some names. Give us some names. And I'm like, you know, so I play along. Because I don't like, if you know, if you know, if you know, the situation, the best thing you could do is just play dumb, right? I'm sure you've been in, you know, some situation. The dumber you play, or the more ignorant you play, the better position you're in,

you know, so I just like, I didn't know. He's like, well, what do you mean? You know, he's like, oh, you just give us some names. I'm like, oh, I don't, I don't got any names. So we'll give us, anybody. And I'm like, I don't, like, if you follow me, you've been following me, he's like, we've been under investigation for the last three months. Well, if you've been following me for the last three months. You know that I don't go anywhere. You know, I don't have any friends. I don't have any bad people. Well, well, you know, give us some bad people. I'm like, I definitely don't know any bad people. Like, you know what I mean? Like I get kind better from the kindest dudes that if I lost a 20 pack, if I lost the 18 that were still sitting somewhere that they were looking for that I'd

just gotten in, it would be okay. They wouldn't come after me. They wouldn't threaten my family. You know what I'm saying? I'd be cut off or I'd have to show. them that I could make that bag. But it's not the type of people I deal with, nor was still. Now, out here you could be dealing with some people. You know what I mean? You lose some packs. And I know a guy who was a Lucchese, a legitimate Loucazi, that took some packs from his family,

family, you know, living in Arizona, an exile. And yeah, that's a different story, you know. They'll come looking for you. You know, so anyways, I'm just like, I can't help you. you know, what can I do? You know, so he's kind of deflated at the time. And he's like, well, I don't know. I just let you go to work.

And I'm like, let me go to work. I've just gotten rated. You got me with 28 grams of hash. Now in Arizona, it's a zero tolerant state. I don't care if the laws are just voted in or not, you know, like. So let me go to work. Yeah, I'll let you go. I'll let you go up to grapes because they've been following me.

They know I work as a chef, right? I'm like, damn. He's like, I'll tell you what. You call me tomorrow. and tell me if you want to cooperate. I'm looking. I'm like, holy shit, you're going to let me go right now. You're going to let me call you tomorrow and tell you if I want to cooperate.

Listen very close to that sentence, okay? Sure. Stuck up my hand. And he's looking at my hand because I've stuck out my hand pretty quick. Like, you know, like that's a fucking deal. You just told me that? He sticks out his hand kind of reluctantly and we shake hand. But I'm a man of my word.

I am a man of my word. So I got up the next morning, and I might have, you know, a significant amount of cash put away where I could call a lawyer who was the 20-year prosecuting attorney on narcotics in our town who had started his own defense firm. You know, at 8 in the morning I started, and by 10 o'clock I was on my lawyer and we were on the phone by 1030 and I'm a man of my word. I called him at 1030 and I told him, Officer Blank, I told you I call you at 1030, and I'm a man of my word. And this is my lawyer, blank, blank, and he has something to say to you. My lawyer got on and said, Ian Peterson does not wish to cooperate with you. And fortunately, and this is how it plays out, fortunately because we're on the cusp of becoming legal. and this is actually, it is actually funny.

I should go into the story. So he comes back and, and he says, okay, so we're going to, they're going to charge you with the felony. Do you want to cooperate? And I'm like, I don't want to cooperate. So, because they always ask you, they, you know, they have to ask you if you want to or not. So now I don't want to cooperate. I said, come on. Like, this is, this is going to go to a plea bargain.

I mean, like, I don't think that they're going to, they're going to hit me off for, you know, two and a half years on this. But, you know, whatever he says. So then the. guy comes back and the, uh, the agent who's leading the investigation is like, okay, well, we think this is going to be a felon. I've talked to my boss and we're going to go ahead and charge him. So he's going to have to do a self-surrender. So getting set to do myself surrender. Go and, um, call the bond company because I'm ready to get arrested, do myself surrender, which is kind of cool. You know, like over just getting arrested and your ass ran down to county, being able to set up, you know,

your own arrest. So I'm supposed to get arrested, but then I end up getting a call the next day. I'm supposed to set it up the next day, but then I end up getting a call from the lawyer. And he says the officer wants to do it, but he can't do it because it's Valentine's Day by now, right? It's like February 14th. You know, it's already gone a few weeks, you know, through everything. We're getting ready to do my self-srender. And he's like, I can't do the, I can't do it tomorrow because I got a date.

So it gets pushed back another day, which is hilarious. The next day, I'm supposed to go surrender. So the lawyer calls me again. He's like, you sure you want to do this? And I'm like, yes. So I realize later on, they're buddies. Like, you know, no offense to, you know, they work together, you know, like these guys aren't your friends. You might be paying them, but they've been working together for years.

You know, they see each other every day. And so you ask me again, I'm like, no, like I'm good, you know. So I got to go meet at six in the morning. I got to go meet down at the county facility because you got to meet but early. and I want to get down there early so I can see the judge so I can get out, right? Because I don't want to stay.

I'm not trying to stay the night as I told you really. You know what I mean? My thing, you know? So I end up going down there and I'm waiting and I'm waiting and I'm waiting. And I'm like, what the fuck? So I call it my lawyer and I'm like, what's going on?

And he's like, Ian, didn't you get the message? And I'm like, what? He's like, didn't you get the message? They said they're not going to press any charges. You'll get a civil summons in the mail in the next year. And I'm like, what? He's like, he didn't. So I get on my burner.

The dude had called me on my burner. I get on the phone and it said, yeah, we don't need to meet tomorrow. We're not going to go through with it. So I just pushed it off. So over a few weeks of me saying, no, no, no, no, no, no, which is, you know, in some cases, I could turn into months or years, you know, for people. If you ever have a case, just delay, delay, delay. No, no, no.

Because they're always going to give you what they want to give you. You can always go for something better, you know. And I think that by the skin of my teeth and by the grace of God, that I was able to get out at the very end of illegality right when the legal business started. And I remember seeing that officer, I had to go to the county facility for something. And I saw that officer like two weeks later that the narcotics officer led the investigation on me. He was very hard at my ass fucking. Anyways, and he respected me for not flipping.

When I shook his hand, I could see. You know, I shook his hand. He looked at me, gave me the. than not. And he said, you know, but he did say, he said, you didn't say anything. He said it was weird. It was like, you just, you just, you didn't say anything. And I was like, oh, I was scared, you know, because my dad was told me, just shut the fuck up, you know, so I didn't say it, right? But I told him, and I remember clearly telling him, I said, I've turned over a new leaf. And I had, I had just gotten my new caregiver situation and I was starting my new medical marijuana

AZ caregivers where I was going to start working with actual patients and people that needed the medicine. And so I started working with people with one guy, Daniel Tillman. He had an operable brain tumor. He had seizures all the time. And I was supplying him with cannabis. So I immediately flipped it, went legal, started the first caregiver company before they had set the legislation. So November, you vote in and they don't set the legislation until March, right? You know, in any state that's kind of like they give the cities and the municipalities like three months to get their shit together. Like, oh, you get to write the laws on where they can smoke and where they can't, where you can have dispensaries in commercial or C1 or C2 or this is where you can have retail or you can have open

consumption or you can't. You know what I mean? Like where they said all the regulations. So they by that time, I had already set up business and shop and was cultivating it again, had money. I was stacked all right. Took my wife and got married in Vegas and went and disappeared to some beautiful three acre property on this river in Cornville. And I started cultivating again, but was doing it legally with my limit. With my care. I immediately had five patients. I could grow up. And At that point in time, I could grow over 50 plants. So I'm banging out, you know. And then I'm doing it legally.

And then working with the dispensary would come like within a year. Next thing you know, I'm setting up the largest state license cultivation in northern Arizona at the time, 10,000 square feet. Redoing a dispensary, you know, like rebranding the dispensary because I was into design and all that. So I've kind of like, they basically got like handing me the keys to this. thing because I could prove and show that I had been doing what everybody wanted at that time, which was highly illegal for years. So that was the following my passion arc that led to something that became incredibly valuable, which I ended up setting up a cultivation for the professor of anthropology at UVA, who was a state legislator for 60 years, full on skull and bones.

You know what I mean? But yeah, the guy entrusted me to set this operation up in a partnership, and that was my first launch. That was where I first got into High Times. That was 2014, was my first in the 40-year anniversary of High Times. And then from that, it just exploded. And yeah, and then I went to non-psychoactive with working with children. Did you use your illegal base of operations for your legal operations? Was it the same location?

Okay. So I had to show an illegal operation because they just, they hadn't it I had to show I mean it was it was gray area I had to show a gray area operation to the person that would partner with me for this 10,000 square foot operation where I would later be sitting down with the chief commander of the SWAT team the entire police department the head of the city the chief engineer the fire department all working with them to set up myself to set up this state license cultivation so within one year within literally almost a year or two, a year and a half, I went from completely illegal and illegitimate

to working with the city to launch in our town. Why did you never get into any other drugs? I don't like the idea. Well, first of all, my brother led a path of just, my brother, he led the path ahead of me. He got into a lot of drugs, you know, and my friends around me got into drugs. I just don't think I had, okay, I wasn't into downers, so I didn't like pills. And I wasn't into meth or uppers because I'm already, as you can see by this podcast, I've already smoked before. I typically take 40 to 50 milligrams of edibles before I'll do an education.

Like before I go and speak to 50 or 100 physicians doing an education about neurological disorders. I get knocked out after 10 milligrams. I've been bed. You know, it'll center me enough where I'm, you know. Wow. Yeah. So, yeah, so, but forgetful too sometimes. You're just excited. Yeah, there you go.

But yeah, yeah, definitely. So, yeah, so I just never really, I enjoyed psychedelics early because of the experience and for the fact that it offered a journey inwards and really helped. I don't know if you've ever had an experience of psychedelics. It's become all the rage lately. Whatever. Microdosing of mushrooms. I mean, people on Silicon Valley. I mean, it's a, you know, a lot of your, most of your tech.

entrepreneurs and even Steve Jobs, most of these people have done psychedelics. And for whatever reason, it seems to have triggered some sort of creative part or internal part of them. And myself, you know, that's helped them. But otherwise, no, drugs aren't my thing. I like to smoke a lot of weed and I still do. You know, that's my thing. I'm a heavy cannabis consumer. What does your wife think about your past?

Wow. So my wife was there during the raid. She had gotten picked up when she had just left the house the day after my birth, my daughter's birthday to go shopping to pick up a Barbie at Walmart. And so I didn't know, but she was down the road in handcuffs with my, not with my daughter in hand, but like she was in handcuffs and they had my daughter. And they were driving her back. And so she knew the whole time that I was doing something. She didn't know exactly what. but with that being said I remember telling her because she asked she was getting concerned because we were making a lot of money and we were doing really good at the time and she just said you know I'm kind of concerned you know and I just said look babe you know you know see me out here with a born to lose tattoo on my chest

knocking over liquor stores you know I'm I'm doing this in a way that I believe I can be successful I'm working with just a few people but again as I said before that was my belief at the time anytime you can get stitched up, anything can happen, you know. But I'm fortunate to have left the game and left that 15 years ago without ever having to snitch, without ever having to go to prison, without ever making a significant amount of money

like I did and getting on drugs, living a moderate life, which sounds boring. But yeah, I feel like I did it to the best of my ability. and was able to parlay it into a legitimate success, which was something I'm grateful for because a lot of people, you know, hundreds of thousands, you know, like you said, you wouldn't think about cultivating. Hundreds of thousands have tried. Tens of thousands have been successful.

Thousands have made it to trying to get into state license suspensaries. Hundreds have actually been able to stay in the industry over the years of people like myself that have come in the industry over the years because they all got washed out and bought out or kicked out. You know what I'm saying? I could think of 10 to 20 people in the industry that I know to this day on a national level. And people like burner with cookies that have turned their industry into, you know, and their love and their passion into a billion-dollar brand.

Someone was just telling me about that brand on the show recently. Yeah, it was very careful at cultivating that brand and turned down a lot of money for it, but was smart enough to do a partnership deal and keep his manufacturing. and bring his partner in for manufacturing, which was a really smart deal. But with that being said, very few have been able to parlay that like myself into breaking eight figures, you know,

like myself, I've done over $10 million in legal business. And I'm talking of my own products that I created for children and for people neurologic disorders and people for end-of-life causes and people neuropathic issues and pain, you know, like that's, all of that knowledge that I'm grateful for put me in position to do this and I wouldn't have had I not follow my passion for the plant and really like researching the plant and understanding the plant physiology and the how that translates on a physiological level so coming from being a weed cultivator with no high school diploma to giving accredited medical lectures to PhDs and Physiological. that can get continuing education credits for watching you speak and educating physicians across

the country, as I was saying, doing 23, 26 states a year before COVID. It's interesting to see the genesis because so many people have paid the price along the way. And I'm really have to say that I'm one of the few people that are incredibly, and it has to say I'm incredibly grateful to have made it through that, the carnage, you know, of not having to go to prison. And a lot of people pay the price for where I am today, you know. And I got to definitely think a lot of those people, you know. And I think a big theme in your story, which goes alongside with some of the biggest innovators and business entrepreneurial type things in the world is timing.

I mean, you got out at the perfect time when they passed the law. Like you got jammed up at that time, you know. Yeah, you even roll with them and everything. You know, timing. And I've learned you either roll with them or you get rolled over. I mean, I think about if we were talking about TikTok earlier with the band and everything, if you started a pot, if I started this now and didn't start two years ago, I wouldn't be able to build what I've been able to build now. Sure.

Yeah, divine timing. And I think, again, that has to do with passion. The universe is interesting like that. You know, the universe will offer divine timing, especially if you're looking to build yourself. And I like to say, like, if you're looking to live at the highest version of yourself, if you're really striving towards that, the universe is going to offer you something real special, man. I've had that divine timing with little things. Like when I first started CBD News, it was a, it's a news platform we have. And I was doing some interviews.

I was like three years ago. I had an opportunity very early on when I first started to interview. interview exhibit, you know, or meet people I just, that were in line with what I was doing and that would help. So yeah, so yeah, timing is incredibly, had you try to come into cannabis now, it's, it's incredibly commercialized and all of the investors have had it for 10 years. Yeah. The licenses, everything's overblown.

They'll, like me, finding my niche in non-psychoactive, that's where I was able to, that's where I was able to make millions of dollars, was when I found a passion for a little girl, that had basically missing part of her brain. It was something called anencephaly where a child is born without part of their brain or their skull cap. And that child was having 12 to 14 seizures a day. And I was working in cannabis in psychoactive, but she couldn't have psychoactive. She needed other cannabinoids from the plant. And I was able to, over a period of three months, optimize something for her and cure her seat, well, not cure, 98% seizure free to this day.

Little girls celebrating her 11th birthday. It should be 11 this year. and that was the spark and not even that was even something that I was trying to do for money it was we just need to help this girl my wife was friends with her out of that came an entire company because I was like wow we just did that and the other people that are doing it right now aren't doing that you know they're kind of faking the funk in the industry with some product that isn't you know legit but I come from the industry and I've been doing this and I see what's yeah I see this big gaping hole right so we were able to from that spark and that spark again, like the passion, like build something to where accidentally, and I left psychoactive, and I went into a non-psicoactive. And I was able to scale from a state level, which was huge for me, you know, 10,000 square foot facility, you know, hundreds of pounds cycles to tens of thousands of units being sold a month, millions of dollars in revenue, having, you know, a stack like this to, oh, all of a sudden,

you're getting a home in a place where you've always looked up to buying, you know, and leaving, you know, that blue collar lifestyle behind, you know, because you followed your passion. So yeah, man, I'm incredibly grateful for timing and divine timing. What's the biggest lesson you want people to take away from here in your story today? A couple of lessons. If I can impart a few lessons, this would be great. Buy or a way. There's a few that really help me. I'd say there's probably four or five. the first one is know yourself and that's Julius C that comes from the writings of Julius Caesar

know thyself if you can learn yourself you can learn your faults learn what's great about you learn any of your natural abilities and work on them but learn to self-audit learn to learn to realize your grasp and your reach and what's different you know learn to realize that

if you search within yourself deeply and find knowledge from other people, you'll likely be able to get a better understanding yourself. But you really need to learn who you are. You know, your weakness is if everybody wants to make money. Everyone wants to make millions of dollars like I have, right? Well, that's great. But if you don't know who you are and you make a bunch of money,

you are fucked. And the reason is because you're going to make those mistakes. You're going to maybe become an alcoholic because you don't know that you don't have self-control. you know, or maybe you're going to get, um, involved in a situation, um, you know, with, with, uh, with women or, you know, you're going to get, uh, kind of involved with the pleasures of life because when you can have anything, what will you have? Like, when you could have anything, what will you have? And you probably thought about this, you know, in your cell,

you could have anything, what will you have? What won't you have? Right. And, um, because you can have anything. Like, I remember nights, I'd be, be successfully celebrating, you know, another big win and champagne and I'm like man like I it's nice to celebrate with champagne but like you shouldn't you that's not what it's about you know so know yourself take the journey within right that is a big part um if you can uncover that that value that's going to really really be a big part um and realize that no one has a keys to your kingdom you know everybody wants to like i've had people and i've had people to work with me and like they just wanted to attach them to what I'm doing.

And that's great because, you know, you can find success in working with other successful people, but you have to realize that no one will be able to help you unlock the ability and success that you can find within yourself like you can. Nobody is going to give you this magic key to become the great person. Oh, man, if I could just, you know, you know, this person is going to tell me, you know, the idea is, you know, be your own guru. You know, try to find those answers from within. Just follow the paths of great men, study, read books.

I mean, I can think of, you know, a ton of different books that I've read that have helped me to get a better understanding for myself. The laws of men and human nature, you know, the 48 laws of power. That's an amazing, just a quick, just look it up on YouTube. It's a cool little cartoon. It's like Cliff Notes, you know, for Machiavelli and for a lot of these different, the universal laws of men. It's basically laid out. But yeah, no one has the keys of your kingdom. Learn how to offer value.

Everybody wants money. Everybody wants something, but you've got to be able to offer value. Everybody wants value, right? You want, you know, but you've got to be able to offer the value. And that's the important thing. And I remember a friend of mine many years ago really sparked that in me as like uncovering value. And if you can uncover value. So like when I come to somebody, I'm like, what value can I offer this person in a business venture?

you know, that's like a huge part of success because everybody will come to a successful person and say, help me with this, right? I'm trying to get this off or I'm trying to do this. The smartest people come to somebody successful and say, this is what I can do for you. And that's all anybody wants to hear. What can you do for, what value can you add?

And if you can learn to add value, you're going to get all the value in the world. Those are probably some of the biggest fundamentals to success. And patience. Again, and everybody's in a rush. 30 years old, I was still a DJ making $13 an hour. And yes, I did, you know, stray with one of my passions.

It was illegal at the time. But I think, again, divine timing. But I pushed that for 10 years. And by 2016, 17, like, the scale was like, pretty quickly. And it can happen like that. If you can add it up, if you can add the numbers, it can go pretty quickly. You know, you can start out with a business doing $60,000 in the next year, you can be doing $777,000. And the next year you can be doing $2 million. And the year after that, you can be doing more than two, you know, you start to kind of peek out in certain business models,

you know, there's always a sweet spot. That's another thing about business models. There's always a sweet spot. Find a sweet spot in business. You know, don't try to scale too big. Don't think you have to take something so big. Like I had an opportunity to take the company. public. 20 million dollar valuation on our company at the time. This is the cannabis boom. 2018, 19. You know, we're pulling down two million a year. You're getting a 10x valuation on your company all day. Company wants to take us public. Had I allowed the company to take us public, I'd be sitting on shares of a penny stock. I'd own a fraction of my company. I'd be completely diluted, all on the hikes of something that could be big. So, you know, I've always been,

you know, I come from a small town. I'm pretty, you know, I'd take two to make four and four makes eight. I took $800 from our first investment to CBD and turned that into over eight figures, straight up. No investment, no shareholders, me, myself, my wife. You said how big is our thing? It's myself, my wife. We had at the height of our company, we've had six employees. Right now, we have two to four part-time employees. Wow. You know, so incredibly streamlined, like I said, out of a very small building too. It's not this big, beautiful 5,000 square foot building. It's like 660 square foot, we'll pull 2 million out of, you know, and we'll do it. And we'll do it. it and we'll do it and keep it eternal.

You know, so anyways, those are some things. But yeah, build yourself. That is the one thing if I could hit home to the audience. You know, you're never going to get any value out of life if you can't offer it. Everybody wants to be an influencer, but what are you influencing, you know, find out what you can influence on, you know, learn how to carve some wood. Learn how to be a great mechanic. Learn how to be a chef, you know, but learn something, you know, and do it well, do

it to the best of your ability. Or a weed cultivator. Or a weed cultivator. I did, you know, do it to the best of your ability. You know, fortunately, I've been called the Walter White of cannabis. So that's great. Well, Ian, thank you so much for sitting down with me today, man. It's been an absolute pleasure. Ian, I'm really grateful. Thank you. Thank you so much for hosting me today, man. It's great to connect with you and to talk earlier. I look forward to speaking with you in the future. Yeah. Maybe I'll have you hopefully come on a show that I've created called

Forward Momentum. I'd love to. Yeah, right on. Yeah, just check it out Forward Momentum with Ian Peterson. And it's just business lessons. Everything we talked about today, my arc. And, the lessons I've learned along the way. And for anybody that, you know, thinks they can't be a blue collar kid that had one pair of shoes for a year that, you know, came from an incredibly humble family, you know, can't be successful,

but also do that by looking in the mirror, being able to look in the mirror at the end of the day like you, you know, creating your own success and being able to do that and be content by knowing that you've done that on your own and that you haven't heard anybody along the way, you know, you've done nothing but offer value. Absolutely.

Thanks again. Thank you.