044. The Implications of Marijuana Rescheduling for Firefighters [Part 1]

In May of 2024, the DEA rescheduled cannabis from a Schedule I substance to a Schedule III substance. This ruling sent waves of excitement throughout the fire service, but many unknowns still remain. In this episode, Jon from Rescue 1 CBD joins TJ to discuss the impact of rescheduling cannabis. They explore the complexities and ongoing challenges this change brings. including the need for extensive research and policy adjustments.

Jon shares his insights on the future of marijuana use among firefighters, while addressing misconceptions and potential legal implications.

The conversation also covers the broader effects of this rescheduling on pharmaceuticals and insurance, and highlights the importance of continuous advocacy and education within the fire service.

00:00 DEA Reschedules Marijuana: Initial Reactions

01:15 Introducing Jon from Rescue on CBD

02:06 Jon's Journey into CBD and Fire Service

02:34 Understanding the Rescheduling Impact

08:00 Pharmaceutical Trials and Marijuana

12:59 Challenges for Big Pharma and Insurance

20:37 Legal and Workplace Implications

28:42 State-Level Legal Battles and Discrimination

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Transcript

TJ: About what, like two weeks ago, maybe three weeks ago, word came down that the DEA was rescheduling marijuana from a Schedule 1, which includes the big names like heroin, quaaludes, and so on and so forth, to a Schedule 3 drug, which sent these cheers of joy throughout the whole fire service community, because all of us who have been advocating for that green medicine immediately thought, hell yeah.

You know, take out a rolling paper, start, start rolling up that joint. And then I was like, wait a second, when it comes to any sort of substance dealing with the fire service, nothing is ever going to be simple because we like to hyper complicate things.

And that's when I reached out to you to try to understand. What the ramifications are and we had a quick conversation which opened my eyes to the fact that there is going to be a lot of work still to be done, but that the effects the ripples go well beyond our ability to partake in this and still be safe for the job, which is something that we advocate for those of you just joining us.

This is my buddy, John from Rescue on CBD. He was a guest in episode 21, where we talked about being a resilient firefighter and how CBD can help us. In our path to healing and growth and to become better firefighters without becoming addicted to opioids and ending up, you know, doing immoral things on a street corner for some heroin. And as the smart man that he is and the driven businessman and the good fireman that he is, he knows his shit. So today we are going to pick his brain about as many things as we can dealing with this rescheduling of marijuana from a schedule one to a schedule three and how hopefully they're going to benefit us in the fire service.

John, thank you so much for joining me. I'm as always pumped to talk with you. Why don't you give us a quick intro of who you are, what you do and how you ended up. Becoming basically the drug expert. I'm the Colombian and somehow you are the

Jon: Uh, some things in life just aren't fair. Um, thanks man. I, I, I love coming on here and, and, um, the first time we spoke, uh, that was the most popular post and podcast episode and things that we had on rescue one. And, and so, uh, I always appreciate it. Um, Yeah, the, the time that I've been running Rescue One, I've, I've seen a pretty significant change in the fire service in the acceptance of CBD, um, hemp research, and now with marijuana.

Um, you know, we always had like the Pittsburgh Local One thing where they had marijuana for a while. Then FDNY, Chicago Fire started jumping on. But this is something different. It's at a federal level. And. When you and I spoke about it originally, you know, I know we went back and forth It's uh, it's really, I'll say this, to sum the whole thing up right up front, it's really really interesting.

I also, at the same time, I don't think it's that as big of a deal as some people think, you know.

TJ: Taking the wind out of my sails from the get go, huh? Okay, what Let's go back. do you do? What makes you this Why do I

Jon: I don't know, why do you? So, um, I, uh, I, when I, I started Rescue One, um, four years ago, and since then, I've, I've, even before that, I, I was diving deep into the CBD industry when I, when I worked for another CBD company and then started one. Not for firefighters. And that had THC in it, full spectrum CBD with THC in it.

And, uh, I started learning how things were made. Um, I got super interested in production and manufacturing and totally nerding out on lab stuff without any background in chemistry. I just really, really, really was interested by it. So I started speaking to people and understanding how these things worked.

Um, and I got very infatuated with the idea of coming up with a zero THC. CBD product for firefighters. Well, that can only be done with a shit ton of oversight, uh, meticulous lab work, and done by people with a lot of letters after their name that I don't have. So, I had to kind of talk with people, um, and work with people who are much, much, much smarter than me, and pick their brain constantly.

Um, all the way up to trying to speak to researchers, um, at places like Johns Hopkins Cannabis Science Lab, the University of Maryland, um, Arcadia University in Philly. I've talked to and currently am working with, with research, uh, some of those prominent forensic scientists as far as urinalysis and, and uh, cannabinoids in, in the country, arguably the world.

Um, this doesn't make me an expert, but I do try to stay on top of my shit. And I'm constantly, um, reading. research and trying to put it into practice. So rescue one is actually without giving anything away in the middle of a really big research study. That's going to be through the university of Maryland and university of Arcadia.

So we're like actively participating in this stuff. Cannabinoids aren't as understood as they should be. And we're trying our best to, um, make it that way, especially for the fire service. So when this stuff came out, you know, you and I had spoke because you were like, all right, So we rolling this thing up or what's happening?

Like, does this, does this pave the way? Is this the, is this the yellow brick road for us? Or is, you know, what, what's the deal? Um, so I think that's why, uh, it, it, it should be talked about on this podcast because even like me keeping my finger on the balls constantly, literally reading about it every single day, seven days a week for years now, I still don't even know a hundred percent what it's going to mean, which probably means that.

fire service in general ain't exactly going to be changing policy to let people do this stuff anytime soon. But we can go into exactly why that is. Uh, but yeah, that's, that's, that's the gist of it.

TJ: that's one of the things that I really admire about you. You're talking about keeping your finger on the pulse and doing your ridiculous amounts of research, which I can personally attest to because I've seen you, I've seen you do that work. But as time a good fireman, you're able to bring it back to our world to a way that's understood.

And I think that's been that that's one of the reasons that I feel rescue one is the leader when it comes to this stuff in the fire service. Because you have that perspective, you have that ability to bring it down to the rank and file. This is what it means. From what I see, With the understanding that a lot of shit might still be up in the air, but hey, this is the science behind it.

This is how I do things. Ultimately, what does it mean? You're not going to pop when you use our products. And I feel that's how you've built that authority. So you know, yeah, I am hyping you up. And, you know, kind of, kind of weird, but I guess I got to pay you for all those

Jon: I appreciate

it. Yeah. 

TJ: But, uh, it's, um, better person to talk about this than you because you'll get to a point that you'll say I don't fucking know what this means. And if we get there, then then we get there. But we have a couple of notes, things that we're going to cover. Shall we start with the three phases for pharmaceuticals?

I think that's what involves the study that he said we're gonna, you know, put like 200 people on 

Jon: That's basically how I described it. Well, you know, the, we, we have to go back and talk about what making it schedule three does for pharma first. So. Before a drug can become a drug, you know, in a pharmaceutical company, it has to be, um, scheduled so that it has medicinal use. For example, ketamine is schedule 3.

Now it's in there with marijuana. So ketamine is in the same thing as marijuana. It has medicinal use. It can be prescribed. Um, that doesn't mean that it is a actual prescription. Like acetaminophen is a drug. It doesn't actually become, um, prescribed or a drug or over the counter or whatever until, you know, Pfizer made it or whoever the hell makes it made it into a drug.

To do that, you have to have trials. You've got to try this shit out and make sure that first of all, it's, um, not going to kill anybody. Then second of all, how it works in the human body. And then the third, Trial the third phase of that that trial is human studies Does it work for the one specific thing that you're saying it works for those are three phases that you have to go through For the FDA to have it approved when it says FDA approved medication That's what you have to go through and you have to prove it each way and it costs millions of dollars and takes years to do so Like the really really popular Um, drug Ozempic or Wegovy, that was a one, it was pretty crazy.

But the, the third phase, the clinical trial was one year. Um, it was like 1900 people and it was done, I think in 2018 or something like that. And it's 2024 right now. Um, I'm sorry, it's like 2022, 2024 right now. So, but before that, I mean, they started researching that stuff years before it just takes time for it to go through those phases.

to prove that it's safe to understand how it works in the body and get it out there. So like they can't, like the, the reference I made was like, you know, using it for marijuana, it being schedule one, it's up there with heroin. It would be like them saying, we're going to inject a bunch of heroin into people and see how it works in the human body.

And, uh, like prove the safety profile, you know, this isn't that, this is, you know, why would you put marijuana in the same schedule as that? So it's, I think ultimately it's such a huge step and important for them. important thing for the federal government to say this isn't the same thing as marijuana.

Let's move it down. Let's put it into a different schedule. But unfortunately it is still in that area where it's not over the counter. It's in the same thing as ketamine, the same schedule as ketamine and steroids. Um, which is a weird category to be in because you're like, where, like, those are very, you know, for those of you that have used marijuana, I.

People don't believe me and I'll still say this even though people don't believe me. I've never used THC products at all You know, they'll they'll say like

TJ: You prude.

Jon: They'll still say the very very different effects between you know, what marijuana is and the things in that category. So Could could a drug company make it a prescription medication?

It's possible Um, that's that's a conversation that we could have but uh, it's I have my thoughts and feelings on that.

TJ: So what I'm gathering from this is that while yes, it is a victory. And that we were able to take away a little bit of that stigma, almost being able to finally say like, timeout, this is not going to turn you into a fiend. You're not going to be, like I said, doing hate, committing heinous crimes so you can get your next fix. We're at that schedule three. It's still needs to be prescribed. And we still have a ton of research to do before I can walk over to CVS and be like, Hey, give me my little 

Jon: Yeah, that's basically it. Um, because at what, what a good way to think about it is if you make it schedule three, you're depending on a pharmaceutical company to undertake to shoulder the burden of the research, to fund it and to hopefully get it approved by insurance companies for the thing that they're asking you to.

When I say thing, I'm talking about an indication. So if they were to. Pharmaceutical company could apply to the FDA to say, I want to use this for pain. And then you get the, that would be okay. Well, three phases. First, first of all, prove that it's safe. Second of all, I'm sorry. First of all, prove that it's safe.

Second of all, prove that how it works in the body. And third, show me that THC works better than a placebo. And that'll, then they'll, they'll let them make it a medication, but it still has to get improved by insurance.

TJ: Do you think anybody in Big Pharma is going to take that leap? I can only imagine the size of the, like, the chunk of business out there for it. Like that is a slice of pie for the taking that if I were Big Pharma having billions and billions, I would want to try to snatch that up before somebody else

Jon: Again, I'm an amateur. I'm not a lawyer. I'm not a pharmacist and I'm, I'm somewhat of a businessman, but I'm small pharma. Thank you. I'm not big pharma. I'm small pharma. Um, that's really fucking funny. We should, I'm going to make sure, dude, I'm making sure to say small pharma. Damn it, TJ. Um, so

rescue one CBD, small pharma.

So, uh, no, here's, here's what I think. Um, if you're going to do that, you have to solve a problem. So, they're gonna either fill a void that's not being addressed right now, or they're gonna take business away from another, another drug. Could they take business away from fentanyl? I don't know. But, that's what, that's where the incentive would have to be.

They have to make their money back, and they're gonna spend, and it, A not insignificant amount of money. They're going to spend millions on, on research. How are they going to make it back? Well, they either have to, they have to find an issue that's going to be behind it. So are they going to do, are they going to fill a void?

Either, maybe it's not pain, maybe it's anxiety. They could, you know, might be more successful going after anxiety. Which THC has a, it's arguable whether it helps anxiety in a lot of people. Um, but, The point I'm getting at is like, either you're going to fill a void or you're going to take business away from, from, from someone else.

Like you're going to do it better. And if you're going to do that, it has to be approved by insurance. If it's going to be improved by insurance, I don't even know if insurance would approve it, man. Like, you know, they're going to say, how much do you want? How much? And this is what they're, this is what I think they're thinking.

An insurance company is going to ask Pfizer. They're going to go, okay, you have this pill. Um, you know, we'll call it Mary Jane. It's called Mary Jane now. And it's, it's Delta 9 Tetrahydrocannabinol. It's just THC. Uh, so Mary Jane, you're gonna, you're gonna charge people, how much? How much, how much do you wanna make this for?

And they're gonna, honestly, no bullshit, um, it's gonna be about 75, a year. That's what it's gonna be. Um, so, and the reason I say that is because the, we have a, we have a comparable. The Medication Epidiolex, it's just CBD and cherry flavoring. That's it. And it comes in a couple thousand milligrams. And they charge insurance companies 75, 000 a year for that.

Because that's what other seizure medications go for. And they have to make back the millions they spent on the research for this. Millions. Over like 15 years it took them to make that shit. So, Yeah, you got to charge people 75, 000 a year because they know we're going to sell this to X amount of people.

You know, they, they have the formula. So going to do that and they're going to make their money back and they go to insurance companies saying, okay, we want to charge 50 a year for this. Insurance companies are going to go, people are going to just get this for like 20 bucks on the street. You know, they're going to grow it

or they're going to you know, and they just think to themselves.

Are we going to get undercut if we start trying to do this by basically Anybody and everybody in the states or in the black market because it's very successful and what happened in california and colorado with the high tax rate, um chased dispensaries out, especially since they're a cash business because You know, it makes it tough.

Um Um Because everyone else said, all right, do I want to spend 40 bucks on a joint at this dispensary? Or can I just get it from my dealer way, way cheaper? And it's similar or better quality. You know, it's not like these guys are growing it, you know, in shitty areas now. Like it's a full operation in the black market.

It's hydroponics. It's, you know, lab grown, they have proper scientists doing it. So the NACE, it's not like an, it's not like a nascent industry and they're going to treat it like that as an insurance company. So I don't know, man, without getting too much into the business, I just think. It's quite possible that, um, no.

company is going to jump on that because they, they don't have a guaranteed return. If Pfizer is going to drop millions of bucks on something, they're probably going to drop it on something that has a really, really, really big market. Um, they're already like a fortune 100 or probably even a fortune 50 company, fortune 25 company.

They ain't going to like say, Oh man, let's try to go after this one little niche market over here for pain and maybe take some Business away from like fentanyl makers or I don't know, you know, you know what I'm saying?

TJ: Yeah, and also if I'm selling something like a fentanyl, if I'm Pfizer, and I'm selling something that has those addictive qualities, this is maybe my, my conspiracy theory side, but like, I don't know. A, it's already there. It's already being marketed. It's already bringing in revenue. Why would I want to do something that I have to start from the ground up and that is not going to have the addictive qualities that's going to keep those customers coming back.

That I'm kind of mixing both, you know, my, my tinfoil hat, but also my business hat, but it makes 100 percent sense that no company is going to want to start from scratch. If they can just improve whatever product lines they have.

Jon: that's

TJ: What's a return, a tiny market, a 

Jon: they called the innovators dilemma. So they you know, you're going up market They're gonna keep going to bigger and bigger and bigger stuff. They're gonna totally overlook anything That's smaller, which CBD even exists because Charlotte's web has the bigger market They're trying to go like crazy with it.

And I'm just aiming at firefighters. They don't want to look at firefighters. It's down market. They, they, there's only 1 million firefighters about in the country. 1. 2, no big deal. And then, um, you know, you got shit 60 or 70 percent of them more now is our volunteer. Um, how many of them are really trying to buy it?

So like, it's just ignored. And I wonder if that's the case now. The bigger question here is, is that good or bad for the fire service? If an insurance company and pharma ignores it, is that good or bad for us? If, if what we're trying to do is get U. S. firefighters to be able to use marijuana prescription or otherwise, um, then would, would it, would it speed up if, if a pharmaceutical company accepts it or ignores it?

If they accept it, it'll take it. years because of the three phases of research and FDA approval and blah, blah, blah. If they ignore it, um, that could create other opportunities. It could allow, um, right now you don't need legalization to be able to use it federally. There are departments that allow it. So the question I would have is, um, would it, would it, Create the optics from other departments.

I would basically allow them to say, Hey, let's revisit this thing. It's not in the same category as heroin. Maybe city hall is in a skeptical, um, little shit like that. So one misconception I have to address is the drug free workplace act. This is something that every department, do you want to talk about that now?

Is that good? Okay.

TJ: Yeah, 

Jon: All right. So the, the DWFA. The drug, the drug free DFW, a drug free workplace act, um, says like, all right, if you test positive, you can't get a grant, you know, or if you allow illegal drugs on duty, you can't get a grant. Everybody thinks that that says you can't allow drugs at all, which is funny, but it's the same thing with alcohol.

It's the drug free workplace act. Also, Underlines alcohol. It doesn't say you can't use alcohol at home It says you can't be drunk at work And because of that they can't tell you what you can and can't do at home They just say you can't do it in the workplace. It's the drug free workplace act not the drug free home place act So it is a misconception and this isn't my opinion.

Um, The article is from lexipol. You guys should google it. It's a really interesting read, but it's a former fire chief who became a lawyer You and a lawyer who specializes in cannabis that wrote this article and they basically tear that argument apart and they'll say you can't withhold federal funding over this and it's even arguable whether the dot um can um can can you know you get into a accident and workers comp says okay well you have to do a drug screening or whatever that whole dot rule it's arguable whether that can uphold um because of being able to use THC at home.

And the DLT recently as of last year changed their drug testing. So they went to an oral swab to test for cannabinoids instead of your analysis because of the inconsistency, because you can't tell when you took it. There's no proof that you're, you're actually intoxicated at that moment. All that's to say, um, that it's murky, but if, Moving from Schedule 1 to Schedule 3 doesn't necessarily mean you'll be able to use marijuana right now.

It might mean that your chief or your mayor or policy writers can say, This isn't, you know, the federal illegality is still kind of murky, but it looks like we're moving in this direction. Can we, can we revisit this? You know, maybe six months ago you would have told them, Hey, the, um, the DFWA says we can't, uh, That's a misconception.

That would be like, get out of my office. I don't want to hear it now. You could say it's actually a misconception. They go, okay, maybe, maybe we need to look more into this. So in that respect, yeah, we could make some headway, but on a federal level, um, I don't know. Yeah,

TJ: So what I'm hearing is that while this looks amazing on paper, it is not that knight in shining armor that we expected to come in and save us. We still have a lot of work to do in the trenches in. Speaking with our elected officials and dealing with our unions and talking to management and the fire chief, continuing the trend of explaining the benefits and explaining how all of these different pieces can fit together with our current general orders and our rules and laws and everything, right?

Jon: My opinion.

TJ: Because I think, we, we thought, you know, again, everybody was pumped, like, holy shit, we've been waiting for that rescheduling for so long, and you know, it's like, yay, we cheer, we, you know, we're holding the joint in letters, like, does anybody actually know what this means, or like, are we still doing illegal shit?

Jon: uh, the DEA said it's not as bad as heroin. That's basically all that happened and Yeah, and it's again. It's a good thing. But what it does do is it opens up the door for research Um, it opens up the door for farms to you know be able to um Have insurance on their crops to have they couldn't deduct anything if they bought a tractor to harvest marijuana They couldn't deduct it on their taxes.

It's just simple shit like that. So those two things could have second and third order effects for years to come. That would have like a really, really positive impact, but it just ain't gonna do anything right now. Even honestly, man, even if they put it to schedule, uh, schedule five, right? Put it, put it in the same thing as Tylenol.

That means it's over the counter, but that's what I always ask over the counter, what over the counter medicine. Yeah, it's drugs, it's a medication, and that means that pharma has to get in and do its thing. There's a difference between deschedule and reschedule. Reschedule is removing it down the schedule list.

Deschedule means it's not considered a drug at all. You take it off, and it's considered the same thing as a supplement. That's like, magnesium.

TJ: FDA, because you don't have to, because it's descheduled.

Jon: they're like, Hold on a second. And I think we could agree on this, like, while I would love to just have it really accessible right now, this is the complicated part. So you take it off the scheduling completely. DEA doesn't regulate shit on it at all. It's basically regulated by the FDA.

Quote unquote regulated. Where they can slap you with a fine if you make any, um, you know, um, if you make any claims of what it can do medically. But it's sold next to oregano oil and You know, um, like magnesium and CVS and, uh, valerian, you know, like all those things, but none of those things get you high.

So you have this, this thing that will create an intoxicative effect. Um, and it's not regulated by anybody anywhere. So that's why they landed at three. They weren't comfortable with it going down to one because if it went down to one, then I think insurance companies would be like, We don't have to cover this.

I'm sorry. Five. Yeah. Thank you, brother. Yeah. Correct on that. That's it. Didn't schedule one is the worst one schedule five is the easiest one. So if they dropped it all the way down, you know, and it's the same thing as, as Tylenol, then I think you would have it really easily accessible. But what's the difference.

Tylenol is just in a different aisle, but it's still purchased without a prescription. So. Yeah, this is why a lot of people don't really know what's going on with it, because it is, the ball is in like multiple courts. It could, pharma could say, hey, we're going to use this for something that there are no drugs for.

You know, like an unknown unknown, black swan. They're going to be like, you know, I'll put this in fireman terms. Viagra wasn't originally a dick pill medication. It was actually an antihypertensive and they just found this really interesting side effect. You know, they had to reschedule, they're not rescheduled.

They had to reapply for a different indication. They'd say, Hey, uh, aside from bringing your blood pressure down, all these guys are getting erections. Let's go and try to get, uh, indicated for that. So. They had no idea that that was going to, it was what it was going to be used for. Maybe, you know, marijuana helps with, um, some, some organ or some function or something that that's extremely beneficial.

And, um, you know, it could take away business from the cholesterol industry. You know, it could take away business from like the diabetes industry. They'd jump all over it. Um, I think, I don't think we're there yet.

TJ: But we're not there yet.

Jon: years and years of research.

TJ: Damn, I'm gonna have to go flush my weed down the toilet, bro. Yeah, obviously. Uh, you have a note here that says, doesn't allow drug testing to be considered 

Jon: Super interesting. there, I want to bring up FDNY. Um, in New York, there have been a couple of cases. The most prominent one was probably in the city of Buffalo. Uh, this, this captain got fired for failing a drug test, even though he had a prescription for marijuana, medical marijuana guard. Um, He got fired, he went to court, it took him a couple of years.

He won everything, got back pay, got his rank reinstilled, and Buffalo was forced to change their policy. Because, in the state of New York, you're allowed to use marijuana recreationally. So, when the department said, I know any citizen in New York is allowed to use marijuana, but we're going to restrict this one group of people based on X, you know, their profession, that they can't do it.

That's textbook discrimination. And it immediately, um, upended a lot of other things and set into motion, uh, the attorney general basically ordering the fire chief for the city of New York to stop. testing for marijuana, uh, immediate, effective immediately. And it was a frenzy. I know guys that work for FTNY and I was texting them the night it happened.

I'm sorry, the morning after it happened, because they got a, they got an email the night before saying, you're going to see a memo come out tomorrow morning. Uh, we have no idea what's going on. We don't know what's going to happen with discipline if somebody shows up high, but just effective immediately.

We're not testing for, for marijuana anymore. And it threw everything, everybody into a frenzy. They're like, can chauffeurs do it? Am I allowed to be high, like, you know, the night before work? Um, what are we testing for if we're not tested? You know, it was like all this shit we don't know. So, other states started doing this.

Uh, New Jersey started doing this. They started allowing cops in New Jersey to use marijuana. Um, based on this discrimination clause. And, apparently, like, the cops, The police chiefs in New Jersey lost their shit, and they, they, they appealed the, the Attorney General for the state, and they said, this is unacceptable.

You can't allow people who hold guns to be, uh, to, to use THC. And the Attorney General, I'm paraphrasing, but just said, oh, and they mentioned their collective bargaining agreement. They said, union contract says they, they can't do it. And in, in a very nice way, he said, I don't care. You know, he just said, this state, This is state law in the Attorney General, um, and it's been appealed at the Supreme Court and lost.

Like, this is precedent that's already been set. You can't do anything about it. So I don't care what your union contract says, this is done. Um,

TJ: Because if we abstract it out, at the core, it's discrimination, it is taking a subset of the population, restricting their ability to do x based on a trait y and fill in the blanks, use your variables, whatever, you can't do THC because you're a cop, you can't do THC because like you are taking these populations and saying, do it.

And 

Jon: Yeah. And, you know, what's interesting, so I, I spoke, um, with an attorney about this, uh, which, you know, if anybody's listening to this and they're thinking about policy in their state or they're trying to go down that route. Talk to a lawyer, not, not us, but you know, the, the interesting thing was when I spoke to a lawyer in Florida about this, they're like, that wouldn't work in Florida.

The precedent, I guess, is different here and the way our law is written. Um, it's, it's weird. So Florida first responder doesn't have that protection and in, for whatever reason, and the law in the state of New York and New Jersey, they do. Now, because of that, Florida, is there's a bill as of last October.

It's been on the floor for almost a year that specifically protects first responders. The same thing Virginia just did. Virginia just passed that law that said first responders are protected and they're allowed to use marijuana despite what their employer has for a rule. They I don't know if it's copied and pasted.

Exactly. I haven't read the entire Virginia bill, but I read the description of it and I did open the bill up and the Florida one's pretty damn similar. So, um, The idea would be if, if a state starts to allow marijuana, whether it's federally legal or not, you could have an employer say, I don't care what you say, this is a condition of employment, so fight me, you know, come at me, what are you going to do about it?

This outlines at the state level saying you can't do that, that's illegal, for that, for that reason, discrimination. So, um, ultimately, I mean, it comes down state to state as of now. And I would even be curious after it becomes federally legal if you'll still see those fights break out in places like, um, Iowa, um, somebody mentioned Indiana, you know, um, allowing first responders to use it or not trying to fight it because you're going to have, you're going to have elected officials at the top of each state going, okay, I didn't want marijuana in the first place, but now it's legal.

Um, So we're going to make sure that our first responders can't use it so that, you know, they're not showing up to work intoxicated, um, which is a very superficial way to look at it. Cause we could be doing that right now with every other medication that we're prescribed and alcohol. So it's kind of, kind of ironic. We are doing the damn thing, bruh.

Send it.

TJ: We're doing it. All right. Um, well, I had a good way to start this,

Jon: But instead we're going to do it this way.

TJ: of course I blacked out. So we're going to do this. No, I, um, I'm tired of being like, Oh, welcome back to this podcast episode. I think there's got to be, we're going to experiment with the new hook. So. About what, like two weeks ago, maybe three weeks ago, word came down that the DEA was rescheduling marijuana from a Schedule 1, which includes the big names like heroin, quaaludes, and so on and so forth, to a Schedule 3 drug, which sent these cheers of joy throughout the whole fire service community, because all of us who have been advocating for that green medicine immediately thought, hell yeah.

You know, take out a rolling paper, start, start rolling up that joint. And then I was like, wait a second, there's gotta be more, nothing in this world, especially when it comes to any sort of substance dealing with the fire service, nothing is ever going to be simple because we like to hyper complicate things.

And that's when I reached out to you to try to understand. What the ramifications are and we had a quick conversation which opened my eyes to the fact that there is going to be a lot of work still to be done, but that the effects the ripples go well beyond our ability to partake in this and still be safe for the job, which is something that we advocate for those of you just joining us.

This is my buddy, John from Rescue on CBD. He was a guest in episode 21, where we talked about being a resilient firefighter and how CBD can help us. In our path to healing and growth and to become better firefighters without becoming addicted to opioids and ending up, you know, doing immoral things on a street corner for some heroin. And as the smart man that he is and the driven businessman and the good fireman that he is, he knows his shit. So today we are going to pick his brain about as many things as we can dealing with this rescheduling of marijuana from a schedule one to a schedule three and how hopefully they're going to benefit us in the fire service.

John, thank you so much for joining me. I'm as always pumped to talk with you. Why don't you give us a quick intro of who you are, what you do and how you ended up. Becoming basically the drug expert. I'm the Colombian and somehow you are the

Jon: Uh, some things in life just aren't fair. Um, thanks man. I, I, I love coming on here and, and, um, the first time we spoke, uh, that was the most popular post and podcast episode and things that we had on rescue one. And, and so, uh, I always appreciate it. Um, Yeah, the, the time that I've been running Rescue One, I've, I've seen a pretty significant change in the fire service in the acceptance of CBD, um, hemp research, and now with marijuana.

Um, you know, we always had like the Pittsburgh Local One thing where they had marijuana for a while. Then FDNY, Chicago Fire started jumping on. But this is something different. It's at a federal level. And. When you and I spoke about it originally, you know, I know we went back and forth It's uh, it's really, I'll say this, to sum the whole thing up right up front, it's really really interesting.

I also, at the same time, I don't think it's that as big of a deal as some people think, you know.

TJ: Taking the wind out of my sails from the get go, huh? Okay, what Let's go back. do you do? What makes you this Why do I

Jon: I don't know, why do you? So, um, I, uh, I, when I, I started Rescue One, um, four years ago, and since then, I've, I've, even before that, I, I was diving deep into the CBD industry when I, when I worked for another CBD company and then started one. Not for firefighters. And that had THC in it, full spectrum CBD with THC in it.

And, uh, I started learning how things were made. Um, I got super interested in production and manufacturing and totally nerding out on lab stuff without any background in chemistry. I just really, really, really was interested by it. So I started speaking to people and understanding how these things worked.

Um, and I got very infatuated with the idea of coming up with a zero THC. CBD product for firefighters. Well, that can only be done with a shit ton of oversight, uh, meticulous lab work, and done by people with a lot of letters after their name that I don't have. So, I had to kind of talk with people, um, and work with people who are much, much, much smarter than me, and pick their brain constantly.

Um, all the way up to trying to speak to researchers, um, at places like Johns Hopkins Cannabis Science Lab, the University of Maryland, um, Arcadia University in Philly. I've talked to and currently am working with, with research, uh, some of those prominent forensic scientists as far as urinalysis and, and uh, cannabinoids in, in the country, arguably the world.

Um, this doesn't make me an expert, but I do try to stay on top of my shit. And I'm constantly, um, reading. research and trying to put it into practice. So rescue one is actually without giving anything away in the middle of a really big research study. That's going to be through the university of Maryland and university of Arcadia.

So we're like actively participating in this stuff. Cannabinoids aren't as understood as they should be. And we're trying our best to, um, make it that way, especially for the fire service. So when this stuff came out, you know, you and I had spoke because you were like, all right, So we rolling this thing up or what's happening?

Like, does this, does this pave the way? Is this the, is this the yellow brick road for us? Or is, you know, what, what's the deal? Um, so I think that's why, uh, it, it, it should be talked about on this podcast because even like me keeping my finger on the balls constantly, literally reading about it every single day, seven days a week for years now, I still don't even know a hundred percent what it's going to mean, which probably means that.

fire service in general ain't exactly going to be changing policy to let people do this stuff anytime soon. But we can go into exactly why that is. Uh, but yeah, that's, that's, that's the gist of it.

TJ: that's one of the things that I really admire about you. You're talking about keeping your finger on the pulse and doing your ridiculous amounts of research, which I can personally attest to because I've seen you, I've seen you do that work. But as time a good fireman, you're able to bring it back to our world to a way that's understood.

And I think that's been that that's one of the reasons that I feel rescue one is the leader when it comes to this stuff in the fire service. Because you have that perspective, you have that ability to bring it down to the rank and file. This is what it means. From what I see, With the understanding that a lot of shit might still be up in the air, but hey, this is the science behind it.

This is how I do things. Ultimately, what does it mean? You're not going to pop when you use our products. And I feel that's how you've built that authority. So you know, yeah, I am hyping you up. And, you know, kind of, kind of weird, but I guess I got to pay you for all those

Jon: I appreciate it. Yeah.

TJ: But, uh, it's, um, better person to talk about this than you because you'll get to a point that you'll say I don't fucking know what this means. And if we get there, then then we get there. But we have a couple of notes, things that we're going to cover. Shall we start with the three phases for pharmaceuticals?

I think that's what involves the study that he said we're gonna, you know, put like 200 people on 

Jon: That's basically how I described it. Well, you know, the, we, we have to go back and talk about what making it schedule three does for pharma first. So. Before a drug can become a drug, you know, in a pharmaceutical company, it has to be, um, scheduled so that it has medicinal use. For example, ketamine is schedule 3.

Now it's in there with marijuana. So ketamine is in the same thing as marijuana. It has medicinal use. It can be prescribed. Um, that doesn't mean that it is a actual prescription. Like acetaminophen is a drug. It doesn't actually become, um, prescribed or a drug or over the counter or whatever until, you know, Pfizer made it or whoever the hell makes it made it into a drug.

To do that, you have to have trials. You've got to try this shit out and make sure that first of all, it's, um, not going to kill anybody. Then second of all, how it works in the human body. And then the third, Trial the third phase of that that trial is human studies Does it work for the one specific thing that you're saying it works for those are three phases that you have to go through For the FDA to have it approved when it says FDA approved medication That's what you have to go through and you have to prove it each way and it costs millions of dollars and takes years to do so Like the really really popular Um, drug Ozempic or Wegovy, that was a one, it was pretty crazy.

But the, the third phase, the clinical trial was one year. Um, it was like 1900 people and it was done, I think in 2018 or something like that. And it's 2024 right now. Um, I'm sorry, it's like 2022, 2024 right now. So, but before that, I mean, they started researching that stuff years before it just takes time for it to go through those phases.

to prove that it's safe to understand how it works in the body and get it out there. So like they can't, like the, the reference I made was like, you know, using it for marijuana, it being schedule one, it's up there with heroin. It would be like them saying, we're going to inject a bunch of heroin into people and see how it works in the human body.

And, uh, like prove the safety profile, you know, this isn't that, this is, you know, why would you put marijuana in the same schedule as that? So it's, I think ultimately it's such a huge step and important for them. important thing for the federal government to say this isn't the same thing as marijuana.

Let's move it down. Let's put it into a different schedule. But unfortunately it is still in that area where it's not over the counter. It's in the same thing as ketamine, the same schedule as ketamine and steroids. Um, which is a weird category to be in because you're like, where, like, those are very, you know, for those of you that have used marijuana, I.

People don't believe me and I'll still say this even though people don't believe me. I've never used THC products at all You know, they'll they'll say like

TJ: You prude.

Jon: They'll still say the very very different effects between you know, what marijuana is and the things in that category. So Could could a drug company make it a prescription medication?

It's possible Um, that's that's a conversation that we could have but uh, it's I have my thoughts and feelings on that.

TJ: So what I'm gathering from this is that while yes, it is a victory. And that we were able to take away a little bit of that stigma, almost being able to finally say like, timeout, this is not going to turn you into a fiend. You're not going to be, like I said, doing hate, committing heinous crimes so you can get your next fix. We're at that schedule three. It's still needs to be prescribed. And we still have a ton of research to do before I can walk over to CVS and be like, Hey, give me my little

Jon: Yeah, that's basically it. Um, because at what, what a good way to think about it is if you make it schedule three, you're depending on a pharmaceutical company to undertake to shoulder the burden of the research, to fund it and to hopefully get it approved by insurance companies for the thing that they're asking you to.

When I say thing, I'm talking about an indication. So if they were to. Pharmaceutical company could apply to the FDA to say, I want to use this for pain. And then you get the, that would be okay. Well, three phases. First, first of all, prove that it's safe. Second of all, I'm sorry. First of all, prove that it's safe.

Second of all, prove that how it works in the body. And third, show me that THC works better than a placebo. And that'll, then they'll, they'll let them make it a medication, but it still has to get improved by insurance.

TJ: Do you think anybody in Big Pharma is going to take that leap? I can only imagine the size of the, like, the chunk of business out there for it. Like that is a slice of pie for the taking that if I were Big Pharma having billions and billions, I would want to try to snatch that up before somebody else

Jon: Again, I'm an amateur. I'm not a lawyer. I'm not a pharmacist and I'm, I'm somewhat of a businessman, but I'm small pharma. Thank you. I'm not big pharma. I'm small pharma. Um, that's really fucking funny. We should, I'm going to make sure, dude, I'm making sure to say small pharma. Damn it, TJ. Um, so rescue one CBD, small pharma.

So, uh, no, here's, here's what I think. Um, if you're going to do that, you have to solve a problem. So, they're gonna either fill a void that's not being addressed right now, or they're gonna take business away from another, another drug. Could they take business away from fentanyl? I don't know. But, that's what, that's where the incentive would have to be.

They have to make their money back, and they're gonna spend, and it, A not insignificant amount of money. They're going to spend millions on, on research. How are they going to make it back? Well, they either have to, they have to find an issue that's going to be behind it. So are they going to do, are they going to fill a void?

Either, maybe it's not pain, maybe it's anxiety. They could, you know, might be more successful going after anxiety. Which THC has a, it's arguable whether it helps anxiety in a lot of people. Um, but, The point I'm getting at is like, either you're going to fill a void or you're going to take business away from, from, from someone else.

Like you're going to do it better. And if you're going to do that, it has to be approved by insurance. If it's going to be improved by insurance, I don't even know if insurance would approve it, man. Like, you know, they're going to say, how much do you want? How much? And this is what they're, this is what I think they're thinking.

An insurance company is going to ask Pfizer. They're going to go, okay, you have this pill. Um, you know, we'll call it Mary Jane. It's called Mary Jane now. And it's, it's Delta 9 Tetrahydrocannabinol. It's just THC. Uh, so Mary Jane, you're gonna, you're gonna charge people, how much? How much, how much do you wanna make this for?

And they're gonna, honestly, no bullshit, um, it's gonna be about 75, a year. That's what it's gonna be. Um, so, and the reason I say that is because the, we have a, we have a comparable. The Medication Epidiolex, it's just CBD and cherry flavoring. That's it. And it comes in a couple thousand milligrams. And they charge insurance companies 75, 000 a year for that.

Because that's what other seizure medications go for. And they have to make back the millions they spent on the research for this. Millions. Over like 15 years it took them to make that shit. So, Yeah, you got to charge people 75, 000 a year because they know we're going to sell this to X amount of people.

You know, they, they have the formula. So going to do that and they're going to make their money back and they go to insurance companies saying, okay, we want to charge 50 a year for this. Insurance companies are going to go, people are going to just get this for like 20 bucks on the street. You know, they're going to grow it or they're going to, you know, and they just think to themselves.

Are we going to get undercut if we start trying to do this by basically Anybody and everybody in the states or in the black market because it's very successful and what happened in california and colorado with the high tax rate, um chased dispensaries out, especially since they're a cash business because You know, it makes it tough.

Um Um Because everyone else said, all right, do I want to spend 40 bucks on a joint at this dispensary? Or can I just get it from my dealer way, way cheaper? And it's similar or better quality. You know, it's not like these guys are growing it, you know, in shitty areas now. Like it's a full operation in the black market.

It's hydroponics. It's, you know, lab grown, they have proper scientists doing it. So the NACE, it's not like an, it's not like a nascent industry and they're going to treat it like that as an insurance company. So I don't know, man, without getting too much into the business, I just think. It's quite possible that, um, no.

company is going to jump on that because they, they don't have a guaranteed return. If Pfizer is going to drop millions of bucks on something, they're probably going to drop it on something that has a really, really, really big market. Um, they're already like a fortune 100 or probably even a fortune 50 company, fortune 25 company.

They ain't going to like say, Oh man, let's try to go after this one little niche market over here for pain and maybe take some Business away from like fentanyl makers or I don't know, you know, you know what I'm saying?

TJ: Yeah, and also if I'm selling something like a fentanyl, if I'm Pfizer, and I'm selling something that has those addictive qualities, this is maybe my, my conspiracy theory side, but like, I don't know. A, it's already there. It's already being marketed. It's already bringing in revenue. Why would I want to do something that I have to start from the ground up and that is not going to have the addictive qualities that's going to keep those customers coming back.

That I'm kind of mixing both, you know, my, my tinfoil hat, but also my business hat, but it makes 100 percent sense that no company is going to want to start from scratch. If they can just improve whatever product lines they have.

Jon: that's

TJ: What's a return, a tiny market, a

Jon: they called the innovators dilemma. So they you know, you're going up market They're gonna keep going to bigger and bigger and bigger stuff. They're gonna totally overlook anything That's smaller, which CBD even exists because Charlotte's web has the bigger market They're trying to go like crazy with it.

And I'm just aiming at firefighters. They don't want to look at firefighters. It's down market. They, they, there's only 1 million firefighters about in the country. 1. 2, no big deal. And then, um, you know, you got shit 60 or 70 percent of them more now is our volunteer. Um, how many of them are really trying to buy it?

So like, it's just ignored. And I wonder if that's the case now. The bigger question here is, is that good or bad for the fire service? If an insurance company and pharma ignores it, is that good or bad for us? If, if what we're trying to do is get U. S. firefighters to be able to use marijuana prescription or otherwise, um, then would, would it, would it speed up if, if a pharmaceutical company accepts it or ignores it?

If they accept it, it'll take it. years because of the three phases of research and FDA approval and blah, blah, blah. If they ignore it, um, that could create other opportunities. It could allow, um, right now you don't need legalization to be able to use it federally. There are departments that allow it. So the question I would have is, um, would it, would it, Create the optics from other departments.

I would basically allow them to say, Hey, let's revisit this thing. It's not in the same category as heroin. Maybe city hall is in a skeptical, um, little shit like that. So one misconception I have to address is the drug free workplace act. This is something that every department, do you want to talk about that now?

Is that good? Okay.

TJ: Yeah, 

Jon: All right. So the, the DWFA. The drug, the drug free DFW, a drug free workplace act, um, says like, all right, if you test positive, you can't get a grant, you know, or if you allow illegal drugs on duty, you can't get a grant. Everybody thinks that that says you can't allow drugs at all, which is funny, but it's the same thing with alcohol.

It's the drug free workplace act. Also, Underlines alcohol. It doesn't say you can't use alcohol at home It says you can't be drunk at work And because of that they can't tell you what you can and can't do at home They just say you can't do it in the workplace. It's the drug free workplace act not the drug free home place act So it is a misconception and this isn't my opinion.

Um, The article is from lexipol. You guys should google it. It's a really interesting read, but it's a former fire chief who became a lawyer You and a lawyer who specializes in cannabis that wrote this article and they basically tear that argument apart and they'll say you can't withhold federal funding over this and it's even arguable whether the dot um can um can can you know you get into a accident and workers comp says okay well you have to do a drug screening or whatever that whole dot rule it's arguable whether that can uphold um because of being able to use THC at home.

And the DLT recently as of last year changed their drug testing. So they went to an oral swab to test for cannabinoids instead of your analysis because of the inconsistency, because you can't tell when you took it. There's no proof that you're, you're actually intoxicated at that moment. All that's to say, um, that it's murky, but if, Moving from Schedule 1 to Schedule 3 doesn't necessarily mean you'll be able to use marijuana right now.

It might mean that your chief or your mayor or policy writers can say, This isn't, you know, the federal illegality is still kind of murky, but it looks like we're moving in this direction. Can we, can we revisit this? You know, maybe six months ago you would have told them, Hey, the, um, the DFWA says we can't, uh, That's a misconception.

That would be like, get out of my office. I don't want to hear it now. You could say it's actually a misconception. They go, okay, maybe, maybe we need to look more into this. So in that respect, yeah, we could make some headway, but on a federal level, um, I don't know. Yeah,

TJ: So what I'm hearing is that while this looks amazing on paper, it is not that knight in shining armor that we expected to come in and save us. We still have a lot of work to do in the trenches in. Speaking with our elected officials and dealing with our unions and talking to management and the fire chief, continuing the trend of explaining the benefits and explaining how all of these different pieces can fit together with our current general orders and our rules and laws and everything, right?

Jon: My opinion.

TJ: Because I think, we, we thought, you know, again, everybody was pumped, like, holy shit, we've been waiting for that rescheduling for so long, and you know, it's like, yay, we cheer, we, you know, we're holding the joint in letters, like, does anybody actually know what this means, or like, are we still doing illegal shit?

Jon: uh, the DEA said it's not as bad as heroin. That's basically all that happened and Yeah, and it's again. It's a good thing. But what it does do is it opens up the door for research Um, it opens up the door for farms to you know be able to um Have insurance on their crops to have they couldn't deduct anything if they bought a tractor to harvest marijuana They couldn't deduct it on their taxes.

It's just simple shit like that. So those two things could have second and third order effects for years to come. That would have like a really, really positive impact, but it just ain't gonna do anything right now. Even honestly, man, even if they put it to schedule, uh, schedule five, right? Put it, put it in the same thing as Tylenol.

That means it's over the counter, but that's what I always ask over the counter, what over the counter medicine. Yeah, it's drugs, it's a medication, and that means that pharma has to get in and do its thing. There's a difference between deschedule and reschedule. Reschedule is removing it down the schedule list.

Deschedule means it's not considered a drug at all. You take it off, and it's considered the same thing as a supplement. That's like, magnesium.

TJ: FDA, because you don't have to, because it's descheduled.

Jon: they're like, Hold on a second. And I think we could agree on this, like, while I would love to just have it really accessible right now, this is the complicated part. So you take it off the scheduling completely. DEA doesn't regulate shit on it at all. It's basically regulated by the FDA.

Quote unquote regulated. Where they can slap you with a fine if you make any, um, you know, um, if you make any claims of what it can do medically. But it's sold next to oregano oil and You know, um, like magnesium and CVS and, uh, valerian, you know, like all those things, but none of those things get you high.

So you have this, this thing that will create an intoxicative effect. Um, and it's not regulated by anybody anywhere. So that's why they landed at three. They weren't comfortable with it going down to one because if it went down to one, then I think insurance companies would be like, We don't have to cover this.

I'm sorry. Five. Yeah. Thank you, brother. Yeah. Correct on that. That's it. Didn't schedule one is the worst one schedule five is the easiest one. So if they dropped it all the way down, you know, and it's the same thing as, as Tylenol, then I think you would have it really easily accessible. But what's the difference.

Tylenol is just in a different aisle, but it's still purchased without a prescription. So. Yeah, this is why a lot of people don't really know what's going on with it, because it is, the ball is in like multiple courts. It could, pharma could say, hey, we're going to use this for something that there are no drugs for.

You know, like an unknown unknown, black swan. They're going to be like, you know, I'll put this in fireman terms. Viagra wasn't originally a dick pill medication. It was actually an antihypertensive and they just found this really interesting side effect. You know, they had to reschedule, they're not rescheduled.

They had to reapply for a different indication. They'd say, Hey, uh, aside from bringing your blood pressure down, all these guys are getting erections. Let's go and try to get, uh, indicated for that. So. They had no idea that that was going to, it was what it was going to be used for. Maybe, you know, marijuana helps with, um, some, some organ or some function or something that that's extremely beneficial.

And, um, you know, it could take away business from the cholesterol industry. You know, it could take away business from like the diabetes industry. They'd jump all over it. Um, I think, I don't think we're there yet.

TJ: But we're not there yet.

Jon: years and years of research.

TJ: Damn, I'm gonna have to go flush my weed down the toilet, bro. Yeah, obviously. Uh, you have a note here that says, doesn't allow drug testing to be considered

Jon: Super interesting.

there, I want to bring up FDNY. Um, in New York, there have been a couple of cases. The most prominent one was probably in the city of Buffalo. Uh, this, this captain got fired for failing a drug test, even though he had a prescription for marijuana, medical marijuana guard. Um, He got fired, he went to court, it took him a couple of years.

He won everything, got back pay, got his rank reinstilled, and Buffalo was forced to change their policy. Because, in the state of New York, you're allowed to use marijuana recreationally. So, when the department said, I know any citizen in New York is allowed to use marijuana, but we're going to restrict this one group of people based on X, you know, their profession, that they can't do it.

That's textbook discrimination. And it immediately, um, upended a lot of other things and set into motion, uh, the attorney general basically ordering the fire chief for the city of New York to stop. testing for marijuana, uh, immediate, effective immediately. And it was a frenzy. I know guys that work for FTNY and I was texting them the night it happened.

I'm sorry, the morning after it happened, because they got a, they got an email the night before saying, you're going to see a memo come out tomorrow morning. Uh, we have no idea what's going on. We don't know what's going to happen with discipline if somebody shows up high, but just effective immediately.

We're not testing for, for marijuana anymore. And it threw everything, everybody into a frenzy. They're like, can chauffeurs do it? Am I allowed to be high, like, you know, the night before work? Um, what are we testing for if we're not tested? You know, it was like all this shit we don't know. So, other states started doing this.

Uh, New Jersey started doing this. They started allowing cops in New Jersey to use marijuana. Um, based on this discrimination clause. And, apparently, like, the cops, The police chiefs in New Jersey lost their shit, and they, they, they appealed the, the Attorney General for the state, and they said, this is unacceptable.

You can't allow people who hold guns to be, uh, to, to use THC. And the Attorney General, I'm paraphrasing, but just said, oh, and they mentioned their collective bargaining agreement. They said, union contract says they, they can't do it. And in, in a very nice way, he said, I don't care. You know, he just said, this state, This is state law in the Attorney General, um, and it's been appealed at the Supreme Court and lost.

Like, this is precedent that's already been set. You can't do anything about it. So I don't care what your union contract says, this is done. Um,

TJ: Because if we abstract it out, at the core, it's discrimination, it is taking a subset of the population, restricting their ability to do x based on a trait y and fill in the blanks, use your variables, whatever, you can't do THC because you're a cop, you can't do THC because like you are taking these populations and saying, do it.

And

Jon: Yeah. And, you know, what's interesting, so I, I spoke, um, with an attorney about this, uh, which, you know, if anybody's listening to this and they're thinking about policy in their state or they're trying to go down that route. Talk to a lawyer, not, not us, but you know, the, the interesting thing was when I spoke to a lawyer in Florida about this, they're like, that wouldn't work in Florida.

The precedent, I guess, is different here and the way our law is written. Um, it's, it's weird. So Florida first responder doesn't have that protection and in, for whatever reason, and the law in the state of New York and New Jersey, they do. Now, because of that, Florida, is there's a bill as of last October.

It's been on the floor for almost a year that specifically protects first responders. The same thing Virginia just did. Virginia just passed that law that said first responders are protected and they're allowed to use marijuana despite what their employer has for a rule. They I don't know if it's copied and pasted.

Exactly. I haven't read the entire Virginia bill, but I read the description of it and I did open the bill up and the Florida one's pretty damn similar. So, um, The idea would be if, if a state starts to allow marijuana, whether it's federally legal or not, you could have an employer say, I don't care what you say, this is a condition of employment, so fight me, you know, come at me, what are you going to do about it?

This outlines at the state level saying you can't do that, that's illegal, for that, for that reason, discrimination. So, um, ultimately, I mean, it comes down state to state as of now. And I would even be curious after it becomes federally legal if you'll still see those fights break out in places like, um, Iowa, um, somebody mentioned Indiana, you know, um, allowing first responders to use it or not trying to fight it because you're going to have, you're going to have elected officials at the top of each state going, okay, I didn't want marijuana in the first place, but now it's legal.

Um, So we're going to make sure that our first responders can't use it so that, you know, they're not showing up to work intoxicated, um, which is a very superficial way to look at it. Cause we could be doing that right now with every other medication that we're prescribed and alcohol. So it's kind of, kind of ironic.

TJ: Not the like landslide victory that

Jon: Not really. Um, but it's not nothing, you know, it's a good start, right?

TJ: Okay. So Let me pick your brain a little bit more I am joe schmo working in west podunk fire department. I have a collective bargaining agreement I have a union fairly strong we get along with management We are going to try to push To be able to use Marijuana our state allows it It gets recreational What do I do?

Jon: Well, um, so the, There's, there's a couple of things that would happen. You can try to have open communication with your department and ask, Is this going to get me in trouble? Um, some people don't even want to do that because it puts them on the radar. And if it puts them on the radar, then they're worried, like, are they going to just start drug testing me?

Are they going to try to come after me? Black sheep dying, baby. Um, if, if you, um, if you want to go the very, very aggressive route, which is kind of what happened in Buffalo, There are people that would say, look, I know that I want to take a principled stance on this. I'm going to use this. And if they try to fire me, I'm going to fight them.

And then it starts the cascade that changes everything. Uh, or ignore it. I mean, you know, the, the, the issue with the issue with medical marijuana is everyone thinks it's an actual prescription, but it's not. It's a recommendation from a doctor. It's a loophole. The DEA does not allow, uh, well they used to not allow, like schedule one, uh, marijuana and, um, as a prescription because there is no FDA approved medication for marijuana.

Like, what are you prescribing? You know, it's a plant. So it basically just says this piece of paper says that Joe Schmo is not going to get arrested. for carrying marijuana in this state because the state allowed this doctor to write this and set up a system so that he can evaluate somebody, say that the marijuana is indicated, that he's going to oversee their use, and they have to pay for that right, that license.

The doctor has to pay for a license to be able to do that and the patient has to pay for that prescription yearly. They also won't let you renew your concealed weapons permit if you have that. So, Um, from what I understand, again, not a lawyer, but I've read that, uh, so there are stipulations. So like, because it's kind of a loophole and it really isn't a prescription, all these people that the argument, the argument that firemen make where they, where they say, Hey, how are you going to stop me from getting a prescription from my doctor?

It's not a prescription. That's how, you know, so it's a hard one. But the, the issue would be if it's recreationally legal in your state and you are prohibited from using it, especially if, if it's, um, prescribed. So if it's not recreational in your state and it's only medicinal, it might not be discrimination.

You know, it depends on, depends on what, um, precedent was set in your state or, you know, what laws are in place. But I think it would be even easier if, if it, uh, if it was recreational and you had that prescription. So. I hate saying the answer is it depends, but I mean, it's just, there's, there's so many places that, that have these really strict rules and there's so many places that kind of don't now, you know, like, um, there are departments in Oregon and in California that went to the oral oral fluid test years ago, where you come in and you do a, uh, you go in for random drug testing.

They just swab your cheek. And they're like, Hey, This says that you might have had marijuana in the last 24 hours. Let's draw your blood and they draw blood and They'll send it off and they'd be like, it's a really really tiny amount man. There's no there's no way you're high right now Or they send like a field sobriety officer to your to your station and they do like a like a they're trained I don't know what that test is Everyone jokes are like they put Cheetos in front of you and you do cheer

TJ: I was gonna say, they catch me with my hand in a Doritos bag.

Jon: Uh, so, uh, you know, there's other ways to do it, but if you think about all the shit that people have to write for a policy to be able to do that, they just don't, they don't want to have to deal with that. There's no breathalyzer.

TJ: Yet.

Jon: Like I said, I've talked to a lot of really smart people, and I'm like, how far away are we from this? And they're like, we're not close. I'm like, okay, because I brought up, there's one, I think it's called, like, the, uh, It's a badger, it's a, it's a breathalyzer, it's, um, Ayo, it might be. Anything's a sex toy if you're brave enough.

Um, that's, that's the cold open right there. Cut that clip and open with that shit. Um, God, you can tell I'm about to go on vacation. I'm just like, just let it all

TJ: You are done.

Jon: So, You know, uh, yeah, that thing is off a little bit. Um, it's not as accurate. So, same thing, man. It's like, until we have a whole consensus from the scientific community.

And there are, listen, there are people that want it, man. If somebody can come up with a THC breathalyzer, you will, you're gonna, your grandkids are not gonna have to work. Like, you're gonna be fine, you know.

TJ: Absolute fact. So, wow, we, um, somehow ended

Jon: Sex

TJ: delving into the

Jon: That's where it always goes.

TJ: But, um, Fucking firemen are firemen everywhere. Regardless of what they're talking about, where they are, it always ends up being something highly inappropriate. But the TLDR, the too long didn't read, for the audience. Hey, we got marijuana.

I say we, the DEA rescheduled marijuana from schedule one to schedule three. Give me the quick synopsis. What the fuck does it mean to us? Boom.

Jon: We have more leverage to talk to our chiefs and to communicate that this stuff isn't, you know, the devil's lettuce anymore. But it does not mean that you're allowed to use it. It doesn't mean CVS next year. You could have a potential for a pharmaceutical company to make it, but it's years away. That's ultimately what it is.

You

TJ: not lawyers. We are definitely, I mean, you're a role model. I'm definitely not. So we're definitely not advocating that you go out and try to. make a grand stand without doing your due diligence. And if you're like that, that man in Buffalo fighting the system, go forth. But we are not telling you to, Hey, it got rescheduled.

Roll up that joint. Show up, you know, with your Dogg T shirt and tell the chief to eat a bag of dicks. Don't do that.

Jon: can do it, just don't say we, don't say we

TJ: Don't lose this awesome. I mean, people TJ told you to do it. Yeah, probably. They'll believe that one. So, okay. Status quo pretty much. Marijuana might be in, might be out, but we have the alternative. Talk to me

Jon: This is where I wonder what the future holds for CBD, um, because the initial, the initial impression is if THC becomes legal, why do I need to use CBD anymore? Uh, there's two reasons. Sleep and inflammation. THC doesn't help with either of those. The first one, sleep. Man. I, I wish I had like a pre recorded message that I could just play to people.

The older they are, the harder it is to have this conversation. Either because of my age or because they just, they, they have personal experience and they don't want to believe me. Um, they're rooted in their biases, but when I tell them THC is not good for sleep, they think I'm an idiot. And they're like, okay, I don't know what you've used, Junior, but back in my day, I I used to knock the fuck out and I'm like, back in your day, marijuana is 40 percent CBD.

So you didn't know this, but you were actually using a lot of CBD. All these guys, these old timers that use THC now, or they use marijuana, they're like, whoa, this stuff is like crazy stronger. Like, you know what that is? They bred marijuana for years to have less CBD and more THC. This is why you do not extract CBD from marijuana, You would need kilograms, kilograms, and kilograms of flour just to make one kilogram of CBD isolate.

It just ain't there. So, for sleep, um, CBD improves REM sleep overall. It does that in a few ways. Turning off parts of your brain that are talking too loud. And it reduces your body temperature, which are both really important for sleep. Reducing anxiety is good for sleep. And these things are all shown in a lot of different studies.

And then inflammation. THC just does not reduce inflammation. CBD does. So, those two things alone are going to, um, take the cake. What happens, and you know, um, our buddy Sean O'Leary from Pittsburgh, you know, when they first got THC, everyone started using it, like, recreationally. Uh, as well as, you know, for a lot of symptoms of stress and PTSD, Pittsburgh sees some shit.

And, and they have, um, a lot of drugs, you know, and, uh, so they're trying to, like, reduce that. And they did successfully. Their numbers are amazing. But then over time, like Sean told me, I don't use pure THC anymore. He's like, if I want to get good sleep, I have to mix a lot of CBD in with it. It's actually a majority CBD and a small amount of THC.

Um, combine that with the fact, if I really had to blow your mind, that, uh, CBD tends to, The jury's still out, but it looks like it may inhibit some of the THC use. So the reason people might be getting good sleep when they take that combo is actually because the THC relaxes them, but it does not, um, create as much of a high or inhibit your REM like, like it would have if CBD wasn't there.

So CBD acts as that little, uh, I guess, filter, you know, it acts like as a wall to help that, that, to blunt those negative effects. And, uh, especially chronic use of, of THC, it, it just screws up your REM. Um, so, with, with that, I mean, that's, that is why we are the alternative. Is CBD good for pain? Not necessarily.

It's, it's better for inflammation. So if your pain is from inflammation, it's good. But there's where THC really has an edge on CBD. And, uh, you know, along with, like, some of the, the benefits, um, for relaxation and, you know, just like immediate effect, uh, that THC has. So that, that is, that is why we are an alternative, um, to THC.

It's really with those other, those other things that the real reason I think people want THC to be legal is not necessarily because they want to smoke. They want to, you know, use a gummy and get high or whatever. If you've ever been into a dispensary and seen the options that they have and the education and the quality that they have.

That's where people want to, to, to go to be able to ask a question and to say like, hey, I don't want to feel high, but I need something to cut down on my Oxycontin use, my Fentanyl use, or whatever. So, what do you got? By the way, I work during the day. You know? Perfect. Come over here. You know? Or they'll say, hey, I just want to be high.

This is recreational for me. I'm not, I'm, I don't want to buy booze at all anymore. I'm done drinking. I just want to, I just want to be intoxicated from marijuana. When I get home from work and, and have a drink, instead of doing that, I want, but I want to, you know, I want to buzz. Perfect. Come this way. So, that to me is where it, where it's at.

And, uh, if they went down to that level with it, um, I think, you know, people would still have a, have a need for CBD quite a bit. And, um, They just don't know it yet because the education on that isn't there. Everyone thinks that CBD is from marijuana, you know, it's I was just Listening to a somebody sent me one of these videos.

You ever heard of z dog the doctor he does like parody videos You're gonna see a post I make them I don't know how this is gonna go man, but i'm tearing this guy apart for like 21 minutes

TJ: Fucking do it.

Jon: talking about cbd and I feel really uncomfortable uh, honestly Um, trying to correct a doctor, but he's just flat out wrong on so many things and I bring a shit ton of data and studies that conflict exactly what he's saying, but, um, you know, I guess where I'm going with that is just the education really, I don't know, there's not a lot of people speaking up for the, for the compound CBD and they, they, he was one of them saying like, well, yeah, you know, marijuana, like, Dude They've never extracted CBD from marijuana in in the six years this industry has been around.

We just don't do it It's not profitable. It doesn't make any sense The lack of understanding with that is very very present. So You know as an alternative very good but only for really specific things

TJ: I can definitely attest to the sleeping part of it. quieting those voices in the head. The kind of like, lowering the volume button. And I swear by it because it takes a while to

Jon: Hmm

TJ: the CBD in your body. Especially given the job of firefighters. Especially given the stresses of the job and the strains and everything that we go through.

And once you kind of reach that, that like cruising altitude of like, Hey, I've been doing consistently for a few days. It'll, it doesn't knock me out. But maybe at most 20 minutes after taking it like I brush my teeth, take my little My full dropper and 10, 15 minutes. Sometimes I don't even get to open Reddit to fucking waste some time before I go to bed.

It is just like lay in bed and sit there and just kind of like breathe and listen to the fan. And. It doesn't make me crash. It doesn't, it's not like melatonin where suddenly my whole body feels just heavy. And most importantly, there's no nightmares. I am prone to like heinous night terrors. And when I used to take melatonin, dude, like. The Hat Lady would come out of the wall in the middle of the night and scare the fuck out of me type night terrorists. And the worst part is sometimes like taking it at home and then going to work, those night terrorists would follow me. So I scared the ever living shit out of my shift mates. Hilarious, but haven't experienced that.

Haven't had a single night terrorist since I started using the um, the out of service formula. And um, But also the important part that that I want to reiterate that you mentioned is that the education isn't there. And that's why I feel it's so important to always give you the platform and always have you talk about this stuff.

It's because that first episode 21, when you came on to talk about CBD, I had multiple people reach out. Being like, Hey buddy, you're putting a bullseye on your back for the department. Like you're going to find yourself at headquarters. You're peddling drugs, which if you've known me at some point at any point in my career, I've always been the type that I'm like, I don't want to say like, I don't care, but I'm like, no, I'm just going to say it.

And whatever the fuck happens happens just because I don't have, you know, it's not a crusade. I, I live in that chaos. Like I love it. I thrive in it. And that was kind of my reaction. Like, Okay, like so I'll end up at headquarters and then I'll preach CBD to them. I don't give a shit. But it's that sort of it's that fear.

It is that terror of like, Oh, you're talking about a three letter word that's kind of similar to to THC. Like, Oh my god, like, you're gonna get fired. We can't do this. No, it's it's it all comes down to finding those experts finding the people who have been the trailblazers in this field, and understanding the Where the benefits lie for us and just running with it.

It, the fear has no fear with no information has no room in the fire service and the fear mongering that we've had done to us for generations. Has to go. And it's up to us to do it now. And it's up to us to use these platforms.

Jon: that's what I'm trying to do. And I can't do it without people like you cause, um, it's hard getting, um, the word out organically and unless people talk about it and invite me on and stuff, it, it just, it won't. So I appreciate it. And thank you.

TJ: So give me a quick rundown of the line of rescue on CBD products. I can probably do it on my own, but I mean, yeah, I think I have one of the first cause your topical is now it's, it's not the roll on, is it?

Jon: Yep.

TJ: Oh, you're still roll on. Okay. But there's, okay. Tell me about the topical. Cause that's a newest. I have one of the

Jon: um, It's 500mg of CBD with arnica, menthol, and, um, we put in there, we tried to make it completely natural, um, ingredients. There are a couple at the very bottom that are, um, like binders, um, and stabilizers. So that all this stuff is homogenous, like properly mixed in there. But if you look at the back of the ingredients, it's CBD, arnica, menthol.

menthol and a shitload of essential oils that that are there to um to give a cooling effect um, and then the heating effect is from like capsicum, so Yeah, it gets If you put it on and then get you get in your gear. It'll heat up Like you'll feel it. Um Yeah,

TJ: I've kept, um, what's the other one, tiger balm in business for many years with a variety of shoulder issues. And then, you know, my pillows and my shirts and everything starts getting stained orange. Uh, And, you know, you smell like a fucking old person. I haven't had that at all with the topical.

It's that, you know, it's that nice little like, warm,

Jon: the idea That's the idea. But also, we wanted it to smell good. Um, so, I've screwed with this formula for years. This is the final one that we landed on and I was totally a mad scientist with it. So I was like, putting it on myself. And, uh, I thought there was something wrong with it when I went, I'm sorry, I thought there was something wrong with my foot.

Cause I had foot surgery, I put it on my ankle and I'm running around in gear. And, um, this is like hours, hours, hours. I put it on in the morning and this is like in the afternoon. I was like working out. And I put it on, uh, and I'm in my gear and I'm going up and down the tower. And I'm like, dude, my foot is like really warm.

I'm like thinking, did I, it doesn't hurt. Like it feels good. I just, I don't know what it is. And then I realized, uh, that it kept happening after I put it on. That stuff on so the cooling happens really right away um that lasts for 20 or 30 minutes, but um the capsicum stays on your skin for Hours hours this was like eight or nine hours after and it's consistently for me I've had other firefighters telling the same thing Like if they put this on and get in gear when they start moving around and they get blood flow It'll warm up keep them loose.

So it uh, it's it's a it's a favorite of chiropractors, too Um, so that's our topical. Um You know, the one that you mentioned earlier was our out of service formula, uh, for sleep. And then that's like a 2, 000 milligram bottle. Then we have a 1, 000 milligram bottle. Um, and it comes in unflavored, lemon, and mint.

And, uh, yeah. Uh,

TJ: Lemon's my favorite.

Jon: I actually like lemon more than mint. Um, but people, mint is way more popular. Um, I think it's just more familiar, I guess.

TJ: It's cause they don't know any

Jon: We say,

TJ: Also like when, I was gonna say when, you know, like when you go to a McDonald's and you just take your cup and you fill it with every single type of soda, that's what I do with the lemon and the

Jon: Oh, really? That sounds weird. I haven't tried that.

TJ: It did. I mean, I did it a couple of times just to see if I could get the ratios,

Jon: Well, so

TJ: not, um,

Jon: we flavor our, uh, our lemon and mint with terpenes. So I didn't get like lemon flavoring, um, or like anything artificial. It's an extract of limonene that makes the lemon flavor. Um, same thing with mint. So, you know, you can get, um, combinations of, uh, pinene, which is from pinene, you know, and limonene is actually from lemons, even though it sounds like limes.

But these, these flavor profiles are from cannabis plants. Um, we didn't get them from cannabis plants. We extracted them from things like, like, um, Limonene is from, like I said, lemons. If we wanted, uh, the sleep formula, like terpenes that are from cannabis, like mercine, we'd get it from mangoes. It's pretty cool technology that you can extract mangoes, mangoes and hops.

You can get mercine from, and it's got like a sedative feeling to it. So, um, Like I said, straight up mad scientist stuff where we're just trying to get the optimal amount of terpenes in there from plants other than cannabis to keep that distance from THC. So the, the flavor profile of them is extremely natural, but it's also extremely natural.

It either is or it isn't, but it's, it's natural, but it's also, um, It's, it's, uh, it adds to those, to those effects that you get from cannabis, like inflammation and mood. Um, because it is more of a broad, what they call a broad spectrum product where you don't just have the CBD molecule. You have other stuff too.

TJ: So the terpenes, I thought that was the game changer for the out of sleep formula. I didn't realize that it dealt also with the flavor, right?

Jon: Terpenes are a. It's actually what turpentine is made of, and turpentine is a bunch of terpenes. Um, and so if you think about what turpentine looks like, if you concentrated terpenes down, that's what it, that's what it looks like. It's like this really thick, viscous, like oily, nasty looking fatty thing.

And it's got a, uh, um, it's what gives plants their, their smell, but they also happen to have this, um, this effect on, you know, things like your mood, inflammation, or. Um, you're, you're like feeling sedated, just depends on what terpene you're talking about. So like Mercine is a very, um, prominent one in our sleep formula.

That's my favorite terpene for making you feel tired. Um, and so we took that, and that's like the, the most prominent one in our sleep formula, um, along with Limonene, and those two kind of chill you out. So. but they do happen to give a flavor. I wasn't, I didn't know how the sleep formula was going to taste.

I just went and did my research and tried to get as many terpenes that make you feel tired as I could and portion them out of there. And then when we made it, it ended up tasting like lavender. So that's, that's the flavor. It was just, I didn't, I didn't make it like that. The universe did, you know, it's just the way those terpenes just naturally come out.

But yeah, so it is a little bit of a flavor profile and smell, but it really, it's, it's the effect and that, uh, that's the big difference between our out of service and our standard 1000 milligram bottle or what we call our daytime formula. So the nighttime formula has a shitload of terpenes that make you feel tired.

The daytime formula doesn't have those tired terpenes in there. They just have, um, flavor terpenes.

TJ: Yeah. I had the, the daytime formula, my locker at the firehouse, never any issues with it. And it I was kind of baiting, waiting to see what chief would walk by and be like, the fuck is this? No, nobody ever bit. But, um, from a functional point of view, didn't impede any of my abilities didn't impair me didn't do anything.

And the way that I explain it to people is that after using it, right, after building that level in, in the body, I would catch myself being like, hang on, this situation would have stressed me out or given me anxiety a while ago. And somehow I'm just rolling with it. So it's not a quick, like hit you effect.

It's you look in the rear view and you go, Oh shit,

Jon: Right. Yeah. And there's some research that shows as little as 32 milligrams isn't, is enough to reduce anxiety in humans. So that's why we have that thousand milligram bottles, 33 milligrams for serving. So that's like the floor of it. Um, the 2000 milligram bottle, you'll get double that, you get 66 milligrams for serving.

So, um, we kind of cover all the bases there.

TJ: So you've got to get ready for vacation. What's in the future for

Jon: of it. I'm really excited to talk about some

TJ: you can, that you can share.

Jon: um, The next thing's coming up are, um, we're, we're going to start getting into more places. Um, we are getting into distribution a little bit more with like some, uh, chiropractors and working more with like, um, uh, like storefronts like that, which is, which is great for getting the word out.

Um, but also, you know, the, on a, on a smaller level, I'm, um, I'm bringing in people, other firefighters that I've loved and respected for a long time and, uh, that are really, really passionate about this. And for the first time, like I have a team of people, that's all firefighters and that are just, they're going to drive this thing forward with me.

Um, I'm hoping by the end of the year, maybe I'll come on, maybe I'll break the news on your podcast. Maybe I'll be able to keep the promise when we, uh, we're working on some research right now. And I don't want to talk about it, but it's going to be. Pretty awesome. Yeah, I think it's going to be a

TJ: It's gonna be huge. 

Jon: And when, when, when it finishes up, like, uh, we'll talk about the results on here. Um, if I, if I do it right, I might be able to present it at FDIC next year. Uh, if they'll let me, I don't know. It's not up to me. Um, those two things. Yeah. And not on the business side, I'm really excited to go back on the shift and You know at the end of the year the beginning of next year my fire chief was saying I can come out of admin So if you guys don't know i'm a I'm an admin nerd I wanted to wait, uh till the end of the show to say that so that you guys would actually listen to the whole thing otherwise, you probably just turn it off, but I do work in admin as a captain and uh, so i'm Um as soon as uh spot opens up, which could be at the end of the year Um, my fire chief will let me go back to a firehouse, which would be Awesome, I'm only halfway through my career, so I don't want to spend the rest of it in admin, you know, I want to be out there.

TJ: RIP to your sleep

Jon: uh, it's been over a year, I will say, that, you know, having a regular schedule is good for my circadian rhythm, but, Hey man, uh, juice is worth the squeeze, I love the job, so I really, um, for me it's okay, that's why I take out of service. Shameless plug, buddy. Shhhhaaame. That's what I take out of service.

You know, like, I do it at work all the time, and guys are like, bitching about their sleep. Like, I just can't. I'm like, wow, gee, if only you knew somebody that could help. You know, I'm like, fucking staring at them. But it's also frustrating for me, cause I'm like, Yeah, how many times you guys hear me talk about this?

You know, like, y'all, you drive me nuts.

TJ: No, no. It's like, it's so funny because it's the clo, the people closest to us are always the last one.

Jon: Yep, I know.

TJ: Like 

Jon: That's alright. Yeah.

TJ: like, almost 10 years for people at my firehouse to start getting my leather work. I'm outfitting entire other battalions. Like, different departments all throughout the country, and they're like, Uh, I guess, I guess, can you make me a shield?

But, can I like, uh, get a discount, and like, get it done ASAP? I'm

Jon: Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. Sure. Absolutely. No. What else can I do for you? Yeah.

TJ: Right. Where can we find more about

Jon: uh, rescue1cbd. com. That's with the number one. And then our Instagram, uh, rescue1cbd. Again, with the number one. We try to post a lot of stuff on there. Um, you know, we collaborate. We, TJ and I are going to start doing Instagram Lives.

So you guys could follow us. Check that out. Uh, I think we have really good conversation and that's kind of exclusive. That's going to be just there. It's a really good format for that. Uh, we also have a podcast and we put it on our YouTube channel. So anywhere you listen to podcasts, you can listen to the rescue one podcast.

It's a little bit more long form of how we get into stuff, uh, whether it's production, whether it's research, um, just bigger topics. So Instagram is kind of cool. Cause you can get it like in the TLDR version and then the YouTube and podcast, you're like, dude. So, any one of those?

TJ: Yeah, and it's, it's important because that gives, you've always been, Extremely open about it, how you do things and why you do things. And we'd go back to where we talked about being able to talk to the fire chiefs and explain the benefits of THC CBD. It really helps when it's not some, you know, fly by night operation or some like super top secret G 14 double classified kind of shit.

This is it. This is how we make it. This is how we do it.

Jon: Yeah, man. Um, so, that's the, uh, that's the crux of it all is we want to just be as open as possible. So we are.

TJ: my brother. Thank you so much. As always, I appreciate your time. And, um, Hoping that you have

Jon: Thanks, man. Yeah, we'll, we'll, uh, we'll talk soon.