TrueLife - Otha Smith III - “Current Laws around Cannabis are like a Vegetarian at a Barbeque, Confusing”

Episode Date: July 10, 2023

One on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US🚨🚨Curious about the future of psychedelics? Imagine if Alan Watts started a secret society with Ram Dass and Hunter S. Thompson… now open the door. Use Promocode TRUELIFE for Get 25% off monthly or 30% off the annual plan For the first yearhttps://www.district216.com/https://tetragramapp.com/Tetragram is a SaaS platform positioned to be the "Yelp" of Cannabis by empowering cannabis and CBD consumers with the ability to Track, Rate, and Share their personal experiences with cannabis with others.In addition, Tetragram providesDispensaries, Cultivators/Brands, and Medical Professionals with the ability to advertise, connect and engage directly with consumers and leverage our consumer outcome data to understand the impact of cannabis and CBD products.Otha was born in Lothian, Md located in beautiful Southern Anne Arundel County. An entrepreneur at an early age, he started his first business, Aggressive Detailing LLC, while still in high school. Aggressive Detailing grew to provide on-site detailing services to residential and commercial customers and created long term contractual agreements with car dealerships and Marina’s throughout Maryland, DC and Virginia area. While growing this business, He graduated from Bowie State University with a degree in Business Marketing. After the recession in 2008, Otha closed Aggressive Detailing and secured an Outside Sales position at Constellation Energy, selling solar to residential and commercial customers. During his 5 year tenure, he achieved President’s Club 4 out 5 years and was promoted to team leader. In his spare time he enjoys running 5k and 8k races, biking through various trails in MD and VA, and watching Mobster movies with family and friends.As a medical patient, Otha found it extremely important to keep track of the cannabis products he purchased. After trying so many products he quickly realized he couldn’t remember how each product made him feel which led him to find a better solution for cannabis patients. One on One Video call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_USCheck out our YouTube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPzfOaFtA1hF8UhnuvOQnTgKcIYPI9Ni9&si=Jgg9ATGwzhzdmjkg

Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scars my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark, fumbling, fear. Hears through ruins maze, lights my war cry, born from the blaze.

The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Serafini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Ladies gentlemen, welcome back to True Life podcast. I hope everybody's day is going beautiful. It's Monday. We're starting the week off and a way in which I think everybody can look forward to something. And I got a great guest for you today, a great show, the one and only Oath Smith, the third CEO founder of Tetragram.

He's an amazing individual with a really cool story. He's also a creator and entrepreneur. He's created this new app that in my way is kind of giving people back their power to decide for themselves. The app's called Tetragram. Tetragram is an S-A-A-S platform positioned to be the Yelp of Cannabis by empowering cannabis users and the industry and CBD consumers with the ability to track, rate, and share their personal experiences with cannabis and with others. In addition, Tetragram provides dispensaries, cultivators, and brands and medical professionals with the ability to advertise, connect, and engage directly with consumers and leverage our

consumer outcome data to understand the impact of cannabis and CBD products. Otha, thanks for being here today, man. How are you feeling? I'm feeling great, man. I love your energy. This is awesome. Thanks for having me. Yeah, hey, the pleasure's all mine.

Shout out to Haley out there. You know, thanks for setting everything up. Absolutely. Shout to Haley big time. Yeah, man. She's crushing it out there. She's inspiration to a lot of people. Sisters and psychedelics, check out Haley.

She's over there. Magic, Michael. Woo! I was just telling Otha about you. Prepare to get stoked on this. My friend Doma in the chat right now. So, you know what? Tetragram.

Why don't you just give people a basic foundation of, before we get into what it is, man, you got to give me a little bit of back. story on why this thing came to be. Yeah, no doubt, man. So, you know, I've always been a fan of cannabis, right? Like, ever since I was like 15, I grew up in a part of a Southern Maryland that was like notorious for growing cannabis. Like, you know, I had a friend that I went to high school with who actually dropped out of high school to follow the Grateful Dead, you know, so like. I know that guy. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I was a really interesting people. We love plant-based

medicine. We love, you know, expanding our minds. And so, you know, always been a fan of the plant. But unfortunately, it was in 2006 when I was in a traumatic car accident. I was driving home, you know, had three friends in the car. And this is when I was running my first company, which was aggressive detailing. So, you know, we were detailing cars, boats, got to planes. I mean, anything that had an engine. And so at that time, you know, it was the early days. So I was working 12, you know, always open, never close. And my friends and I were driving home from D.C., which is about an hour away from where I was living at that time.

And they were all knocked out in the car. And so what happened? I fell asleep at the wheel. About five minutes from my house, I fell asleep at the wheel. I woke up and I just saw my car just going like full throttle and about the smash into the back of this vehicle. Yeah, dude. So I swerve, overcorrected.

And when I overcorrected, I hit a guardrail and was ejected about 30 feet out of the car, pronounced dead on the scene. So I got a beautiful scar here. And actually, I had my haircuts. You can see that. Oh, man. Yeah. So it's open up. Yeah, it's pretty gnarly, man.

So, you know, I get out of, I have that car accident. Luckily for me, a good friend of mine was going to school at John Hopkins to become a doctor, which she is today. So shout out to Janelle. She definitely saved my life. We didn't get married if everyone's asking. She was there and saved my life. And yeah, after getting out of the hospital, I was this prescribed a nasty cocktail opioids, man.

You know, you name it, I tried it. And prior to getting in that car accident, I mean, I could literally count on like one hand how many times I use like a prescription pill for anything. You know, always been a very holistic person. I mean, even today I've been exercising as fitness as part of my life. I run three miles every day. So all that being said, once I got released from the hospital,

they're like, well, here are your drugs for the rest of your life. And I'm just like, this is not the way I want to go. I mean, we all, I mean, we see it play out every day on the news. So I'm dying of a fentanyl overdose. So this overdose. And I didn't want to live that life, but I did for about three years. There was some dark days in my life. And I was just like enough of this shit.

and put everything back into cannabis, man. And so, you know, still, you know, the legacy market at that time. But, you know, once cannabis started to become legal in Colorado, I remember flying out there and celebrating 420 with them. And I was like, this is the industry I want to be at, you know. Came back home years later. And Maryland finally legalized their program. And it was a dispensary like five minutes down the street from my house.

So I was like, let's go check it out. So walked into the dispensary and literally had this dead WTF moment. You know, like I start talking to people. I start learning hearing about turpene, start learning about cannabinoids. And I hear people talk about an endocannabinoid system. I'm just like, what the hell is all this, you know? I see products outside of flour. I mean, I've never seen cannabis until it became legal except flour.

somebody putting it into brownies or something. So that's when I had this aha moment. I was like, if I'm having this overwhelming experience and I've been around this plan for ever since I was 15 and now I'm 40, I can only imagine how someone who

has never tried cannabis or hasn't tried it since the 70s or 80s, how they must feel when they walk into a dispensary and they're just, you know, have a sea of products. There's a Walmart selection in there. And then, you know, we're telling them that this is medicine, this is what you should use, you shouldn't use bills, but we can't

give them any guidance to help them figure out what's going to work best for them. So that essentially was a light bulb effect. I was like, all right, so I started to see dispensaries selling paperback journals or giving them away for free. And I ran into some people that had like these ridiculous Excel spreadsheets of like all these products they tried. And I was like, okay, I see the need, and I see the data play because there's just no data in this industry to help us along. So that's the aha moment for Tetagram. I was like, everything is done on our phone these days. Why can't we create something that gives people the ability to essentially, you know, journal or diary their experiences with cannabis? And that's, that was the, that was day one. And

I look back of that and like, damn, that was 2013. Where is the time gone? It flies by. So 2013 is when it first started, we started working on that. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, 2013 is when I had the initial idea and just wanted to build it. And then it took me about two, two and a half years to find my now business partners. So it's been a journey, my man.

Yeah. Well, all things, anything worth having is worth fighting for. If you look at the relationships in your life, if you look at the things you have, it takes time to build. and it's easy to get frustrated and lose your way. But it's those people who find that the light, who find the path, but beyond that,

have the motivation to keep walking down that path when shit's thrown at them or when they fall or where they trip and everyone surrounds them, like, that'll never work. You're like, yeah, yeah, I think it will. I'm going to keep going for it. And that's what I see in what you do,

I'm inspired by it. I love it. Appreciate it. Yeah, man. And I can see in the interviews you do, and I can see more than that when people check out the app, Tetrogram, everybody listen to this,

you should go check it out. Because it does a few things that, like it does a lot of the things that we need. And a few that I was just thinking about them recently is that, you know, the medical cannabis industry is evolving rapidly. Like it's moving faster than, you know,

any other sort of industry. It's almost like the arms trade in a way because you've got the laws coming up. You know, you've got these industries coming up. You've got the bank, the federal, the state. That's like this arms race. Yeah, right? And it fits because there's legalization, regulatory framework, safety, patient access, quality, distribution, licensing, taxing.

It's like all the same things. And that's what makes it such an exciting environment to be in and also a very powerful environment to be. And another thing that I really am fascinated about is that what your app does to me, in my opinion, is that it democratizes medicine in a way that makes it accessible. for everybody. And it doesn't care about how much money you make. It doesn't care about your race,

your gender, what you're doing the better. It doesn't care about any of that. It's just like, here's the product. And not only are we measuring it in a way that is, it's got the T's and Cs,

but we're also giving you the subjective understanding of everybody who's ever tried it. And that's like you're creating this method where you have science and subjectivity together. I kind of ramble. I know that's a mouthful,

but maybe you can talk a little bit about the T's and Cs about the app. I'm like, what's going on there? Yeah, I mean, you know, one of the words I always like to use, it's really been played out a lot by other industries and people, but like empowerment or, you know, enrichment. And, you know, that's really what I wanted to do with Tetragram is give people the ability to empower themselves, you know,

as they travel down this road to figure out which cannabis product, which consumption method, which turpines, which cannabinoids are going to work best for me. I mean, just saying that alone is a mouthful, right? Yeah, totally, man. And so, you know, one of the things that I always say about cannabis is that it's probably the most communal plant in the world. I mean, anytime you talk to someone before the cannabis industry became legit or when it was still legacy, people loved like, hey, try my bud or look what I just had. Or, you know, I just got this. You know, we didn't have really a lot of names back then other than like kind bud and mids or Reggie.

you know, the same thing happened, right? Like, people wanted to share their experiences. People always like, here, smoke this. And so I really wanted, I knew that was going to be an important piece in the tetragram, because, you know, outside of giving people the ability to say, okay, I bought this product, these are the turpines and cannabis noise, which you refer to beautifully as the T's and Cs, because that's really what I look to do with Tetragram is to educate people beyond a strain name.

because, you know, a strain name called Chernobyl or Green Crack, you know, is it going to really help that 50-year-old who is looking at this from a cannabis perspective, you know, a medical perspective, excuse me. So, you know, we have to get away from the sensationalizing of these strain names and really, like, dive into, you know, turpines, which is what gives cannabis this unique flavor and feeling when you have that body high or that mind high. And the same with these various cannabis noise.

that help with inflammation. So that's one of the things I really wanted to incorporate in the app is like, yeah, you can tell us what the product name is. But we really want you to figure out where are those T's and Cs that that product consists of. And then more importantly, where did you buy the product? Because a lot of times you can buy a product for one dispensary, go five miles down the road, can't find that same product. And when people find a product, they like, they want to know where they can get it again.

But then more importantly is, you know, how did you consider? that product, which is so critical. You know, if you think about it, like when people say, oh, I had a negative experience with cannabis, I'll never try it again. Chances are they took too much, right? It was an edible. Yeah, absolutely, man. So, you know, we give people that ability to do that.

But one of the things I always stress to is that tetragram is HIPAA compliance. So, you know, our slogan has always been built for patients by patients. So we understand the importance of protecting someone's personal information or data. And we knew that was going to be huge. But I say all that to say like then, you know, that person can take that product and say, hey, I'm using this product to help with my anxiety or I'm using it to help me just chill out. Like whether it's recreational or adult use or medical, you know, both people utilize the application. Of course, me, I'm always saying that anyone that uses cannabis is a patient at the end of the day.

You're using it to treat something. You just don't know it. But then they can share that information anonymously, which is what I spoke to, about the community that we develop in Tetragram. So again, does really want to empower individuals so that they could look back at their journal and Tetragram? And be like, wow, so this product that consisted of this

is what gave me an X result, which I really like, you know? Yeah. And we're going to double down on that. We're version two in so many ways, you know, really fostering the ability for people to communicate directly with each other, communicate directly with their doctor and so forth. So we got a, you know, the future is bright.

This industry, the cannabis industry, has relied on transactional data for so long from point of sale systems. But that doesn't tell the full story, right? Like it doesn't tell me why did that customer make that purchase? And better yet, why didn't they come back to make another one? Something went wrong or something happened. You know, really addressing the intent behind cannabis use is what we're doing from the data that we collect anonymously on the back end. Yeah, it's such a game changer because you're right. For so long, people have relied on like, you know, the different strain names. And just because I grow a strain in Hawaii, it doesn't mean if you grow that same strain in Florida, it's going to be anywhere near the same, right? It can have a whole different content of different, of different, there's a lot of different moving parts that go into creating the flower or the cannabinoids in there or a lot of different things that can happen in there. Oh, yeah. Right?

Yeah, but you hit it right on the head. Like that's one of the issues in this industry is that, you know, there might be 300 people saying they got a strain called Bubba Cush. Right. But all 300 of those strains are going to be inherently different. And by the way, some of it's not going to be Bubba Cush, right? So, you know, that's really what we look through on cover because the industry has done consumers a disservice, in my opinion, which is, you know, these MSOs, these multi-state operators and even some of the independent ones who don't. really give a shit about the real beauty of this plant they just want to try to get rich quick. You know, they've taken advantage of people's ignorance when it comes to not knowing enough

about turpenees or cannabis and only knowing about, you know, TAC content. So they've used that as the narrative to drive sales. But, you know, one of the things that's been refreshing to see is that consumers are getting smarter every day. And it's for people like you who are, you know, having these podcasts where I can jump on here. Haley can jump on here and say, that TAC is not the only thing you should be looking at. In fact, it's probably the last thing you should be looking at when you're looking at cannabis products. Yeah.

So this drives a point home. You said something in a previous interview that I wrote down. I was like, that's fucking right on the money. The consumer that is going, it's the consumer that is going to change the retail experience. And like, if I started thinking about that, like maybe you can, maybe you, I got some things I can think about it, but maybe you can unpack that a little bit. Yeah, no doubt. So kind of like what I was touching on.

Like when a consumer goes into a dispensary, you know, I just get so excited inside when I hear someone say, hey, I don't care about TAC. Tell me what the turpines are. Tell me what the cannabis noise in this product are. And, you know, they got to provide that information. And if they can't provide it, then it's like, all right, that customer is not going to feel comfortable making a purchase of that dispensary. And so they're going to change this whole retail model that exists today. It's going to be more, it's going to circle back to the medical approach of cannabis, which is the reason I got into this industry. The reason why a majority of people who are putting their life savings into this industry because we believe in it as a medicine.

And we need to drive that change. But it happens at the customer level by arming them with information so that they push back on the retail arms and saying, this isn't good enough. We want to know more. We demand more, which is, you know, when it comes into play with like, lab results. I'm gathering COA information on products. I mean, I just think it's fucking ridiculous that, you know, this is something that we're putting into our bodies. It's labeled as medicine, but yet I can't figure out what the ingredients are. Are you kidding me? Like, if I go, like, if I, you and I were, you know, if I was hanging out on the beach with you in Hawaii, anytime,

which I've got to get there. You know, I'd be like, hey, man, I'm going to cook us of some food for us. I'm go to the store. You tell me different food allergies you have. I go to the store, but I'm not able to read like the nutritional facts. You know, I could potentially get you sick. And that's, that's the environment we're living in in cannabis, but the consumer is driving that change. And it's beautiful to see. Yeah, it is. It speaks volumes of a maturing relationship. You know, all of us have probably fell in love early in life and realized it's more of a codependency than love. You know what I mean? But the same thing that happens in that type of childers relationship, has probably been our immature relationship with the substances we take.

If we're just taking a substance based on, hey, my cousin Bobby said this Maui, wow, he's awesome. Like, yeah, maybe. But let's dive down deep and find out what is awesome about it. Okay, it's got this level of turps. It's got this level of this. It was grown in this soil. Now all of a sudden, you can get a full picture.

It's like, oh, I want to meet the girl's mom before I start dating her. You know what I'm saying? I want to see what I'm getting here. You know what I mean? I want to see what she's going to look like 20, 30 years for that. Right. And ladies check out the dad. You know, I'm right down the middle.

The ladies check out the dad. See what you're going to get in life. But it speaks volumes up to me of our maturing relationship with substances. And I think that that is the industry getting older, getting wiser. You know, and I'm curious, is it possible for a, for like a dispensary to have like a spectrometer or have something back there that measures that kind of stuff? How do we, how do they, how does a dispensary? get that information on their packages. The COA information we're talking about.

Yeah, right? So that's another headache in this industry. It is definitely the biggest headache for us as a tech company because, you know, our main focus is to gather that information. Right. Since cannabis isn't legal at the federal level, there's no standardization. And, you know, which means that there's no standardization when it comes to testing. So, you know, there might be.

five testing labs in one state and each one of those testing labs in that state can do something a little bit different. You know, there's also the issue where there's no real oversight on these testing labs so that, you know, you're hearing about how some of these testing labs are taking brown paper bag money in order to inflate TAC numbers because they know that's what the cultivator wants in order to push the product. Yeah. So there's a real issue there.

And it's just, it's unfortunately probably only going to take federal legal. before we clean it up. But, you know, that lack of standardization on the testing side directly plays into the lack of standardization when it comes to the product labels. So like here in Maryland, I never thought I'd say this, but Maryland really got it right. Like, you know, they got it right. I mean, it took them, God knows, a lot longer than other states to go legit from a medical perspective.

But they got it right in the sense that they understood that, you know, these teas and sees, these turkeys and cannabinoids are part of the overall picture of cannabis being a medicine. So legislatively, they made it so that each product has to have those T's and Cs on the product label itself, which is awesome. Pennsylvania is like that, but, you know, I can go, you know, four more hours up to like New York and it's considered proprietary information. Ain't that some shit? I could go Massachusetts and it's like, oh, well, they don't, the cultivators, the brands, they don't have to do it unless they want to pay an extra $25, $30 to do so, which you know, you know, business as well as I do it. They don't have to or not going to. Right. Exactly.

But you're starting to see a lot of, a lot of brands that are forward thinking and like, listen, we need to be as transparent about our product as possible because, I mean, you know and everyone claims they got the best fucking weed, but it's like, well, what makes it the best? You tell me. Right. Not because you said so, but did the consumer, have you got like 100,000 people who told you it was the best? And if you think it's the best to make that information transparent so we can see it. So, you know, you have a couple of brands that are being more transparent and they're getting a lot of wins by doing so. Yeah, if someone asked me what weed is the best, I would just pull up the tetragram at me like, well, let's check it out.

Let's look at the information we got right here. Let's see what the people say. Yeah. You know what I mean? And that's another aspect of it I love. You know, I would be a total dick if I didn't talk about one of the greatest labs that I know of. and that's Magic Micro, Domo Nunzio's lab. While he's focusing on mushrooms right now,

he's got this thing called the Cult of Our Cup. And he has people from around the world send in their products. And all of them have the coolest names. Oh, hey, this one's super blue, man. So what? Does I don't fucking care what color it is? Let me strip it out and tell you what's in here. Okay, oh, and not only that, but this particular alkaloid is going to mesh with this one.

Oh, all of a sudden, you know, just because it's a blue meanie, doesn't mean it's that good. But what it does mean is that the first flush of this particular one won the cup because it has X amount of alkaloids in it. And when you start stripping back the fancy window dressing and realizing, hey, here's the thing that is interacting with the problem that I have, this is the one for me. Then you can start making real informed decisions.

And I think that what Tetragram is doing is it's providing that moving the window dressing away and saying, here it is it is. is here's bare bones stripped down here's here's opinions of the community here is the ingredients here's where it's being sold and it's all for free man like i love the fact that you guys are providing a service for people it's almost like the old school phone book where you could go and look up anything you want on there you know what i mean no 100% that's that's actually another really good now man keep them coming um i might use that in one of my sales pitches but let me know man i'm coming with you yeah yeah 100 but yeah exactly right it's like peeling back

back the layers of the onion and saying this is cannabis in this true form. It's skeleton without any clothes on. Yep. And is this the appropriate outfit for you or not, right? And that's what we need to get to because, you know, one of the things I've learned over my journey in cannabis is that, you know, everyone has their own endocannabinoid system, which is the reason why we've always scratched our heads at why are me and my buddy smoking this same product. We both have the same kind of like body mask, but he's like super fucked up and I'm not. or he's like crazy energetic and wants to go around to 5K and I just want to chill out. You know, so the more data that we gather in general is going to help us to shape this industry to really understand so that, you know, as we move forward in the industry,

it's not about, you know, what the TAC content is, what the name of this product is, but it's more so driving the experience based upon two things in my opinion. And one is consumers want to search based upon a certain effect. Like, do you want to feel relaxed? Do you want to feel creative? All right, what are those T's and Cs that are going to make that happen? Or consumers want to shop based upon a certain condition that they're looking to a treat, whether that be really heavy in the medical of fibromyalgia or some form of cancer or just, you know, I got social anxiety.

I'm hanging out with some friends. What is it going to be appropriate for me? But ultimately, all this data that we capture, again, anonymously is what we provide back to the industry to really empower them. So if you look at it from a dispensary's perspective, you know, one of the first things I did when I left corporate America was get a job at a dispensary. And that was intimidating in the early days. And I mean, because it's like people are coming in there and they're looking at you like, help me. Like help me. I'm a veteran.

I have PTSD like Haley talks about. I live right outside of Washington, D.C., so we see a huge influx of people who are veterans or in the service. At some capacity, they're like, the VA wants to give me drugs and make me a zombie. Not really feeling that? I want to try cannabis. What do you have? What do you recommend? And it's like, shit, you hate to give them a bad recommendation, but at the end of day, you really just don't know.

So, you know, think about it through that lens. And it's like, okay, what if, you know, tetagram was available so that, All right, Otha, you suffer from PTSD. Well, 400,000 or whatever that number is, 400 people have used this product and found a lot of benefit with it. That's huge. That's huge. And then you look at it from like a brand's perspective. Like brands get their hand slab saying that this product is good for insomnia.

This product is good for anxiety. But they don't have any data to back that up. I mean, I won't name names, but I've had conversations with some of the biggest edible manufacturers. And I'm like, you guys are crushing it. Give me some data. Like, what are people buying these products for? What do they like about it? They don't have a clue, man.

And that's scary. And then you look at it also from the medical side, which is, again, you know, where I've always positioned tetragram is we have these doctors who, you know, gone against the grain in terms of like their colleagues saying, well, you know, that's the devil's lettuce. And why would you want to start recommending cannabis? We need to be using pharmacology and pills. And they, you know, they follow their hearts and their passion and said, no, I don't, I've seen what me prescribing prescription pills does the people long term. I mean, it'll get me started there.

But it's like, I don't even know how some people can live with themselves prescribing pills unless it's ultimately needed. Like, we should put plant-based medicine first and make prescription pills opiate like a last resort. But I say all that to say that, you know, they're hungry for data. That's the way they're trained in school is to look at data. look at outcomes associated with various drugs in order to make the proper recommendation, and they don't have that ability here until we create a tetagram. So, you know, I feel like we're just touching on every aspect of the industry. And, you know, my ultimate goal is to, you know, be locked aside on with the customers

who are driving the retail experience to change in the industry. And we're doing it from the data side. From the data side, from the ground up, you know, there's a famous quote that I think it was Eugene Debs, who was like a famous leader, like a union guy. And he said, it's very difficult to get a man to understand something when his paycheck is dependent on him not understanding it. And when we start looking at people that are offering pills as like, hey, look at all this data. Nah, man, I can't see what you're saying. Of course not, because you're getting a giant check every single month.

Just put on the blindfold, hand me the money, and you get the pills, man. It's no different than the brown bag for certification. It's just a higher level. You know what I mean? Yep. But as I imagine moving forward, man, you know, I love to imagine the future because that's the best way you can create it. And I'm hopeful that, you know, maybe in the future, have you thought about some of the trends that I could potentially see is that when you have that much data, you can begin to see forms shape up throughout the nation or throughout areas. Like, what if you look at the data and you're like, man, it looks like everyone in Maryland is a little bit depressed over here.

all of a sudden the data that you have is but a paragraph in a larger story. You know what I mean? Hey, why is everybody in California so like anxiety written? Like, oh shit, all of a sudden, this data that you have, you can begin compiling it and now it can feed into a bigger sort of model. Like what if there was like a 23 in me or something along the lines where people could take their genetic data and then feed it into tetragram? And now all of a sudden, hey, I got the BRC2A gene.

No wonder this is really hitting me over here. But I really think that the future you guys have set up for yourself, which is data compliant. It's safe. It's private. It's free. But I think that the data you're collecting is really going to help out people understand their medical conditions, not just for cannabis, but for their whole body, the whole holistic approach, man.

What do you think? No, 100%. I mean, you touched on something that we have great strategic relationships with, which is the DNA. So, yeah, I was like, man, you've been. You've been in my circle? I am now. No doubt, no doubt.

But, yeah, 100%. I want to give a major shout out to Tarissa Jackson. So, you know, her and the crew over there at WeD Code. That's exactly what they do is they provide. And Travisa Jackson is a veteran. So, you know, she has that going for her as well. So, you know, she's really focused on veterans too. But with We decode, that's essentially what they do.

Because, I mean, face, Like cannabis is personalized medicine. Right. Agreed. You know what I mean? Personalized medicine. And, you know, we can tap into the DNA, which is what Teresa is doing over there and then saying, hey, well, Otha looks like, you know, these certain genome markers work really well with

these certain cannabis noise and these certain turpines and then starting to make product recommendations based upon that analysis. And then I go to the store, get that recommendation based upon my DNA sequencing, make those purchases utilize that product and then log those experiences in tetragramma. Now we have a really powerful ecosystem where we can really assist that patient. And then we take it a step further and start to dump in the AI so that the AI says, well, you rated these last four products working really well for your anxiety based upon those T's and Cs that that product consists of.

Oh, and by the way, these are some dispensary partners that are within a 20 mile radius for you. have X products that could be beneficial for you. That's the way I see this moving forward. And then not only that, like, you know, people are happy to continue to use some prescription pills or opioids. You know, cannabis can still be an adjunct therapy where, you know, we really want to understand, like, how does cannabis co-mingle with certain, certain drugs, right? Right. So, you know, there's just, it's a great time to be alive. It is, man. It is. But, but that's what? That's where we're going is personalized medicine as far as we can take it.

Well, and I think that there's other avenues. If you're a young PhD student and you're looking to get published or write some ideas, you should probably contact Otha and Theresa. What was her name? Teresa Jackson. Teresa Jackson. I think that there are some papers that could be published on the relationship between personalized medicine and cannabis and DNA. And I think that once you start having these papers on top of all that,

you've got a whole other industry right here that is back to, back to the idea of democratizing our health, back to the idea of us having the responsibility and the courage to take responsibility for our own health. And once you start getting into it, whether you're looking at the DNA, whether you're writing a journal and understanding how this strain allows you to feel, which tetragram is great for, it really allows you to write down your information, your subjective results, all the, everything in there. So you can have your own personalized journal that you could take to a doctor. But I, I really love this idea of people becoming responsible for their own health.

And I think that tetragram is providing that for them. Yeah, I mean, let's face it, there's nothing new what we're doing here. I mean, you know, if I was obese and I wanted to lose weight, my nutritionist is probably going to recommend some type of app that log all the food, my food intake, you know, and she's probably going to recommend here she's probably going to recommend some fitness app so I can keep track of my workouts. Right. And so, you know, what we're doing is nothing new.

It's just, it's just so desperately needed in this space because we're talking about something that is medicine. Right. And we're talking about something that is just completely unregulated, you know, at the federal level. So it's kind of, I mean, it's still the Wild West right now. Is that part like a little nerve-wracking to know that on some level, it's not, you know, on some level that it's against the law federally.

So does that kind of put you in like an uncomfortable spot at times? Not really. I mean, it gives me a lot of upward momentum if the way I think about it because, you know, when it's one of the reasons why, you know, again, we build tetragram is because, you know, I know that state regulators, federal regulators, they want to see things in black and white. And so, you know, it gives me the momentum and the, yeah, the momentum and the drive to this say, all right, well, we'll go out there and get the data from consumers. to show you it in black and white.

And there should be no reason why cannabis should be a Schedule 1 drug. And that's a whole other conversation. But, you know, like that's, it's just another way to drive the value of cannabis. Like, you know, we're starting to have conversations with state regulators now. And they're, because right now they're blind in a way. Like they're gathering data from seed to sell so they know exactly how much cannabis has been sold, you know, what product and blah, blah, blah. But I'm talking to these state regulators.

I was like, wouldn't you love to know, like, what the intent behind these cannabis purchases are? Because that would be, you know, completely dismay your thought that people are just out here getting high. I mean, no, people aren't out here just getting high. They're getting high and saying we're using it for this. We're using it for that. So you can really open up that lens broader, which is our ultimate goal. Yeah, in some ways that speaks volumes of our culture where, look, we just, we don't care about what's causing it. We just want to solve the symptoms of it.

want to mask the symptoms. We don't really care about that. It's such the wrong way to do it. Like that's the problem we have with addiction, right? Like someone is addicted to something because they have a giant hole in their life that's killing them. And so all of a sudden they're on this medical model where you're an addict. You have to have this. Now you can't have it and they fall into this hole. And it just seems like that particular idea about addiction and solving symptoms instead of finding the intent of why things are happening. It seems to be a problem, right yeah i mean that's you know uh one of the things we built in the version too is you know we allow people to see their certain their trend um their history if you will as they're long in

their experiences in the can of in the in the tetagram so it's like both of why were you using more cannabis doing the month of may as opposed to the month of august or so forth what was going on in your life what what were you experiencing like you talked about earlier outside of cannabis just in real world um that's made you consume more that made you more anxious, that made this region of the country more anxious. Like, what is going on there? So there's so many things that we can open up this through the lens of consumption. So it's exciting. It's really exciting. It is. Like, let's say that I find myself in the month of May consuming a particular strain

that was used for anxiety in my, in my particular environment. Would there be something on tetragram that's like, hey, man, maybe you should be talking to a therapist. Maybe you should take this meditation app right here. Hey, this is, this seems to go well with this thing over here. Is that integrated in there at all? No, but that's something worth thinking about. Like, I'm, I set on the board of Lee 411, so big shout out to them as well. Yeah.

Catherine Golden is the CEO at the realm over there. And Lee 411, for those who don't know, is a 24-7 cannabis nurse hotline. And so, you know, you can, and they get, I mean, it's, crazy six 800 calls a month and people can call them regarding you know specific questions they may have about product or you know it could be a situation where a person consumed too much and they're just want to be talked down on what can they do to reverse this effect um and so that's something i want to integrate into tetragram at some point is because if you go through version two and you start rating your product one of the questions we now ask you was you know did it meet

your health goal. And if they say no, I want to give that consumer the ability to say, well, would you like to contact the nurse right away? And then they can say yes. And then their phone will start ringing. So it was just another way to provide more tools to people that can, you know, help them figure it out. Yeah. And then it provides, theoretically, it could, it could provide people with the information they need for, for whatever avenue they want to explore. You know, when it comes to data, I know that you guys, it's, safe, it's free, and you're not tracking anyone's personal data. But is there a paradox?

Do you know where one strain comes from? I know it's not strain dependent, but can you tell, how do you tell if, like, what's happening in Maryland is the same thing that's happening in New York? Is there a way to tell if it's the same terp count or is that, does that make sense? Can you track where the product is moving from? I mean, that's our ultimate goal. And that's what I was talking about, which is, it's really tough for us to do. but we will get there, whether it be through us is banging down the door,

the consumer continue to bang down the door asking for it, or we get some standardization at some point. Right. Yeah, I mean, that's any reversion to any cultivator brand that we work with, we're going to request that we get that COA information, you know, regardless if they're in multiple states because, you know, products grown in one state could be completely different than products grown in the other state, even though you're having the same you're following the same guidelines the same process to create that product

you know just difference in humidity given what region you live in can alter uh you know the product and so that's how that's really what we want to get to is like oh so like for example uh x y and z cultivator in Maine also has a cultivation facility in Maryland they're growing in exact exact same strains but why are they different and that's what we want to understand. Yeah there's a lot of It's kind of like wine, right? Like, you know, Bordeaux wine is Bordeaux for a reason because it's born, is grown in that region.

And you have champagne that is, if it's going to be classified as real champagne, it has to be grown in champagne. So it's just, it's just that play that we really need to understand in cannabis, you know. Yeah, it's a great, the wine industry is a great model for it. You know, I don't understand why. And maybe you can, but, you know, the same way Sonoma County is. synonymous with wine tasting. Maybe that there should be parts of Oregon that are synonymous with cannabis tasting, you know?

And do you ever, sometimes when I look at the psychedelic industry right now, I know that the emphasis is on health because that's where the money is, but there's so much more that goes to it. Do you ever think sometimes in the cannabis industry that it's just leaning too heavy on the fragility of the human people, like on the health aspect of it? Because there's a lot of other avenues too, right? Yeah, totally, totally. I think we're doing, I think we're doing it, we're not doing enough right here to really talk about the health aspects of cannabis. But yeah, it's such a utilitary, a utiliary plant that it could be using this so many ways.

I mean, it's such a utility, whether it could be not just cannabis consumption, but even this, you know, the fiber of these cannabis plants can be used in textiles. I mean, you know, way back in the day, like you were required by law to grow hemp, you know. So it's just, you know, there's so many applications for cannabis outside of just like medicinal use could be used to create products. I mean, the possibility is endless. But, you know, mushroom psychedelics is something that we really have a good focus and a strong interest in as well. We've had so many people say, hey, I love tetagram. It gives me an ability to document my cannabis use. but, you know, I use mushrooms too, and it's kind of the same game where, you know,

I talk to so many people on the mushroom side, and it's the same problem where there's thousands of different varieties of mushrooms. Right. And what those mushrooms are consisting of is slightly less complex than cannabis, where you have like 200 plus different cannabis and so forth. But, you know, the same thing plays out, and I'm a big fan of mushrooms too. So I'd love to try it. Yeah, man.

Yeah. You know, there's an, I've been talking to some people on that psychedelic front, too, and I know that, and I'm excited for, and I, I push for the, the ways in which we can alleviate mental health symptoms and trauma with psychedelics or with cannabis. But I really think there's an avenue that could be more lucrative. And that's the avenue of optimization. Because the people, that need help mentally, whether it's through psychedelics or cannabis, it seems to me a lot of the people that really, really need the help are the people that don't really have a lot of money. But the people that do have money are people that have a little disposable income. Those people would rather be optimized. And it just has a way better ring to it. Like, hey, you know what? I am going to use, I'm going to layer five ounces of this.

you know, albino penis envy with this one and a half grams of white widow, and then I'm going to go run 10 miles and see how fast I do it. You know what I mean? I'm going to work with Otha Smith, who's a coach in not only these particular substances, but he's also like a strength training coach. And here's the Otha Smith third protocol. It's this, this, and this. And I think that on some level, like, that's what we're moving towards,

because that's exciting to me, and I do see people coming for help, but I think that there's cinders where you could, and I think in a way tetragram is always doing this, if you are combining the ideas of meditation, combining the ideas of diet, combining the ideas of an edible, and then you layer in another psychedelic, I think that you can really blow past a maximum weight

or blow past any sort of resistance zone, because now you have the ability to be in a different heightened state of awareness. And when you do that, you can really blow past any goals, man. What's your take on optimization and layering? No, I know. I mean, 100%. I mean, you're starting to see a lot of people understand the benefits of microdosing, you know?

Yes. And, you know, you don't want to go too overboard. You don't want to go too low. You want to find that sweet spot for you. And that's where that's what you're talking about. Optimal dose is microdosing. Like, how do I tie that in perfectly that I can still be medicated but also be functional and active?

life. And you know, you're starting to see a lot of companies that are making microdose products. Like this is only 2.5. You have, when you look at it from like a flower perspective, there's like dog walkers, which are like 0.25 gram joints or 0.5 joints. So 100%. I mean, you know, again, that's one of the reasons why I created tetragram because I wanted to stop prescription pill use, but I knew I had to have something to substitute it to get me throughout the day. And dialing that in to finding that optimal amount is so key, but it's it's painful. It's a process. And so I think you're exactly right. I definitely think that's where the industry is headed because, I mean, let's face it, cannabis is not cheap. We did a research survey with the

College of New Jersey and found that the average household income was like 75K and up. And I see the same thing happening with psilocybin where, you know, you're starting to see these psychotherapist and they're charging like $2,000 for a session. I'm just like, how does the person, the average person have the ability to afford that, you know? I know so I know mushrooms don't cost that much. So where's this all this extra overhead cost go, you know? Yeah. So it'll be interesting to see how it shakes out, but, you know, access is something that everyone needs to be privileged to, which is why, you know, I think the word recreational should be abolished from the can't, the can't,

cannabis industry because it kind of, it kind of downgrades the medicinal aspect and just the power of this beautiful plant. Adult you should be the way that we talk about it, what we're talking about, like, you know, access 21 and up and that recreation. Yeah, I like that idea. You know, here's our friend Domo coming over here, and he's speaking about apps. He says, we have a, we have shared an open source ELN system with our public COA. SOPs and experiments and in testing data for fungi. App to accompany it like this may be good for our more.

Yeah. Don't know, this is exactly it. Like, right? Like that's kind of what you're saying. Like here's all the info. We're putting it all out here. And there's, you're just laying it bare, right?

Yeah. I mean, you know, Elon Moss is many things. But one thing I do appreciate about the guy is that, you know, when he was developing Tesla, he made that,

that, that IT, that development work completely access, accessible to anyone. It was open source data because he knew that he was going to continue to charge on, you know, creating electric vehicles. But by putting that data out there, putting that blueprint out there, and look how it did to the entire industry, the industry as a whole. Now every car manufacturer has an electric line. And whether you like it or not, a lot of that credit is due to Elon Moss.

So, you know, Magic Micro 100%, man, like I love what you're doing. I'd love to connect with you because, you know, making that information public is, you know, at the bare minimum of consumers, God-given right. Yeah. So, you know, it's a weird thing of how out, and I'm sure you've been through this before, man. Like, we come up in our lives and we struggle and we fight and then we make it somewhere and things kind of change a little bit, man. Like, you have a beautiful thing that you got going on here, man.

What happens when Pfizer comes to you and is like, Otha, I need you to do. to come in this back room. See this pile of money over here? It's all yours. He's got to sign this thing, though, man. You ready for that moment? I don't know, man. To be completely honest with you.

I really don't know. Like, I've been having people, some really good friends in mind out of lawyers that work with like the FDA or the Federal Trade Commission. And they're just like, so funny story. So the Baltimore and Cannabis Science Conference, right?

Right. You know, it was exactly where we need to be because we're providing this data to the industry, science base, and all that. And I had this woman come up to me and she was like, tell me about tetagram. So I told her about it. And then she was just like, the government's going to take your data. The government's going to take your company. I'm telling you. I'm telling you the government's coming for you one day. And that was probably two years ago. And sure, shit, I talked to a good friend of mine who was a really high profile lawyer. And she's like, you need to be prepared for this. And I'm just like, well, damn. that woman was right. You know, I don't know, man.

I'll just wait when I get the knock at the door and see it, but it's not going to be one of those things where I'm just going to sell out to them and be like, all right, now you can take this dad-ins and make synthetic cannabis. Like, that shit ain't happening. I love it, man. I love it. You know, that brings up another point, too, in, you know, is there a space on Tetragram? You know, it would be really valuable information that it was like,

If you did any of these particular strains are you on? And I don't even know if this is legal. But like some interesting data would be like, did this help you get off opiates? Were you on pills before taking this? What's your relationship to that? And I don't know what the rules are on that. But that would be incredible information to have. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm trying to think. I think we asked, yeah, we did ask a select number of questions when we did that research project with the College of New Jersey. And that's one of the things that I really want to sleeve in a tetragram at some point is allow people to say, these are what prescription pills I'm on now. Yes. You know, and then see you how their cannabis use is working.

And then that's a lot of really valuable data to that consumer to say, all right, so yeah, if I take this much of cannabis, I could completely not take Xanax anymore. Or if I, you know, whatever the case. But seeing that relationship is very powerful. And it's something we definitely want to explore. I mean, even, you know, we've had talks about, you know, wearable devices so that, you know, we can have people be understanding of their biometric information. So like, oh, when I consume this product, you know, my heart rate is this. My blood pressure is that.

You know, I just think there's so much, so much runway that I want to do. I just need more time in a day and more money. Yeah, I hear you there. You know, it's, I think it breaks down another, you know, another false. ceiling is that we have to have these clinical trials in order to get things past the FDA. But it seems to me what's emerging in the world of psychedelics and cannabis is this idea that we can democratize the clinical trials. Like if you have a wide enough base of people and they're using a product and then they're giving you the information back, while you've changed

the set and setting, you're still getting measurable data. And at that level and that much data coming in. I think you can find incredible connections that you wouldn't find in a clinical setting. And in a way, that is the biggest problem for medicine and drug prices, theoretically, is the clinical trial on how much it costs. But if people are using this product on their own and they're freely giving this information, that's a game changer too. Yeah, I mean, you took the words out of my mouth when people, like, sometimes we'll get some people, some of them I'll say they're haters, but, you know, some of them are researchers. And I get it. Like, they come from the world where everything is clinical, control,

you know, the whole nine. And I get that aspect of it. And I appreciate it too. But to your point, like you said, like once we get enough data at the mass level, then it's like, how can you refute this information? And, you know, furthermore, you know, when people are in their own setting, their own comfort zone, you know, the drugs have a totally different interaction than when they're in a controlled environment. And so there's a lot of missed out opportunities in data that's not collected when it is in this clinical trial setting as opposed to, you know, someone being in the comfort of their home, consuming these products and then providing feedback that, you know, when they don't feel like they're, you know, under a microscope all the time. It's a completely

different outcome. Yeah, there's a, I can't think of who published this study. My friend Cole Butler will probably scold me for not knowing the author. My apologies for on the author. But there's that famous rat study where like, hey, man, these rats in a cage and oppressed a bar for cocaine and it killed itself. You know what they don't measure? They don't measure the fact the thing was in a cage, man. They did another one with the rats where they had a bar for Coke and a bar for food, but they made that cage like an awesome park where they had tons of rats in there and stuff to do. And that rat never went and OD on the Coke, man. It just had lived a healthy life. So the environment in which we are grading or understanding or testing people, you got to test the

environment, man. It's not just that substance. It's not just the drug. It's everything around you. Because when you consume something, you fundamentally change the way you see the environment, man. So I think it's even a better way to democratize the way in which we're getting data is almost better than a clinical trial. You don't have these harsh, you know, put the blinders on and run around the track sort of methodologies. You have a clear-eyed open view. Yeah, there's more variables. I get it. But we're not measuring all the variables in a clinical testing either.

That's a bunch of who we, man. Right? No, exactly right. I mean, 100%. I mean, you know, when people are in an environment where there's other attributes so that they're not just focused on that one thing that they're tasked to do, you're going to get a different outcome. You know, that analogy with the mice is perfect because it's like,

there was cocaine there. He couldn't, the rat couldn't do anything else. It's like, let's just keep going, you know? Yeah. But if they're in an environment where there's other things that they can focus on and, you know, pay attention to, I'm sure that would have been the case. You know, it begs the question. Like, when they did that study, were they trying to find cages where we'll just kill ourselves and do a bunch of Coke? You know what I mean? It's almost like,

this is the perfect spot. Yeah, that's exactly what we were doing. Yeah. And so that's the thing, too, is like people got to pay attention to the motives behind these clinical studies. Yeah. Thank you. You know, sometimes these clinical studies aren't designed to get, like, I've seen some of these clinical studies that they're not designed to bring to the surface the benefits of cannabis. They're really like, oh, are you addicted to cannabis? Call us.

That's not a study that's really trying to find the benefits of cannabis. We're trying to find a negative attributes, which good luck because there aren't any. Yeah. That's classic, man. We're coming up on an hour, man. I got to tell you, you know,

I'm always incredibly impressed when I get get to have a conversation and it just, it goes down very interesting roads that I never thought it would go down, man. This is really fun. And I'm super stoked on Tetragram. I'm super stoked on cool people inventing ways to translate their vision into reality. And that reality becomes something awesome for everybody, man. So you and your entire team, man, I just want to, I don't have a hat, but if I did, I'd take

it off to you. Man, I really appreciate it. It means a lot because, you know, I tell people, people thought I was absolutely bad shit crazy to do what I'm doing. People are never going to journal their experiences. People don't care about the outcomes of product. I'm just like, yeah, okay. But whenever someone, you know, shits on your dream or shits on your ideas because,

you know, it's their own security, insecurity that they're projecting on you. Because they can't see that, they can't see themselves doing it. So they're like, why would you be able to do it? But yeah, it's been one hell of a ride, but, you know, you can't give up. You know, it's like getting up to bat every day. You might get hit by the ball. You might strike out, but you got to get up to bat every day. What would you tell, like, a younger version of yourself?

Like, let's say there's a young George or young Otha watching this, man, and they have an idea. And, like, maybe they're an environment where, you know, it's not a very conducive environment to creativity, man. Like, what advice would you give a younger version of us? The biggest thing I would tell people, entrepreneurs or just in general, is the team that you start with, if you do start with a team, might not be the team that you finish with. And that's perfectly okay.

You know, some, there are people that come into your life for a season, but they're not there to be there for eternity. You know, I started with, you know, I had two business partners, but there were other people that were business partners in Tetragram, but, you know, they deliver value to a certain extent. And then it was this time to move on. So that was hard for me to digest initially. but then, you know, I just got to keep, you know, I got to stay motivated because this is my baby. This is my dream. And, you know, people will come to you that will help you. It's just, you know, staying dedicated and staying motivated to push forward regardless of what is thrown in front of you.

So that's what I would say is regardless of who you've started with, they don't finish with you, it's okay. You just keep going. Man, I love it. I love the idea of overcoming adversity and embracing. you know, embracing the uncertainty because that's where, that's where it's at, man. That's where the juice is at. Yeah. I mean, you know, no one is, there's no way you can experience pleasure unless you've had pain

because you don't know what it is. Yeah. You know, you don't know what glory is until you've gone through the pain. So, you know, nothing is made easy or else everyone will fucking do it. That's true, man. So what's that, when is, when can we expect 2.0, man? Is that is that going to be next year, the year after that, six months? What do you got to talk about that?

I'm looking to drop this sucker in like sometime in August, man. My birthday is August 9th, so we can get dropping on August 9th. That would be ideal. But yeah, it's time to get it out. I've actually had my tech investor. Shout out to Eric Middleton with one rivet. It was like, Otha, we're searching for perfection here, it seems like. I'm like, I know Eric, we're going to get it out of the door.

So, you know, the time is now. And right now we're just, you know, finding small little bugs. I mean, every day we're getting closer. So, you know, how technology is. It's never finished. But, yeah, August is my goal. All right. Perfect, man.

Before I let you go, you know, I always like to ask people, you know, where, what do you got coming up? Where can people find you? And is there anybody else that was part of this journey that we didn't mention yet? Yeah. Best place to find me is on Instagram at the. a tetagram app. So you have to spell that completely out because that platform has shadow band us. You know how it is in this industry.

So the tetragram app is how you can find me. I'm really big on LinkedIn. I keep a browser up all day, all night. So you feel free to ping me there at Otha Smith. So those are the best ways to connect with me or on Facebook at a tetagram app as well. Fantastic. Otha, incredible conversation, man. I hope everybody that is,

that found this conversation worthwhile, will take a moment to download the app, play with it, check it out, and then give your feedback to Otha and his team over there. It's really a great app, and I think that you're really forward-thinking, and I love the idea of democratizing

and taking responsibility for our own health, man. So that's all we got for today. My friend, hang on one second. I'm going to hang up with the people, but I wanted to chat with you real briefly. Ladies and gentlemen, Aloha. I hope you have a beautiful Monday. Tetra Grant.

Check it out. Peace.