Our Experience @ The Cannabis LAB Conference #CLAB2024 #VOTEYESON3 #FREETHEPLANT | Biz To Biz Podcast
16 Oct 2024 · 29 min
In this informal Biz‑to‑Biz podcast episode, hosts Justin and a guest (referred to as Speaker B/Brody) give a rapid‑fire rundown of their day at the Cannabis LAB Conference in South Florida. They describe the venue, the high cost of food, and the sparse consumer presence. The conversation jumps among cannabis‑related products (Storz & Bickel Mighty vaporizer, grinders, Stash Logics containers, new strains from Alien Labs/Connected), advocacy groups (NORML, Freedom Grow, Jewish Cannabis Association), and a heartbreaking case of a Pennsylvania medical‑cannabis patient, Mark Vogel, serving a 14‑year sentence. They also note a documentary on Netflix about a Miami race‑car driver. The hosts then shift to a massive Listeria recall affecting 10 million lb of ready‑to‑eat meat and eggs, contextualizing the scale in semi‑truck loads and linking it to recent Florida hurricane impacts. The dialogue moves to tech news: WordPress’s takeover of the Advanced Custom Fields plugin, concerns about open‑source community norms, and broader branding disputes (WooCommerce, WP Engine). Finally, they touch on Elon Musk’s recent controversies, a comment from “Mr. Wonderful” about Musk running government, and a brief call‑to‑action to vote “Yes on 3” in the upcoming Florida recreational‑cannabis referendum. The episode ends with casual sign‑offs and shout‑outs to industry contacts.
Chapters
You are now watching the Biz to Biz podcast with Allen and Justin. Yo, what's up everybody? It's Justin live from B2B Vault, the Biz to Biz podcast sponsored by Nationwide Payment Systems, hosted by this guy, the Willie Nelson of payment processing himself, Allen Kopelman. What's up, Brody?
We had a busy day today. Yeah, down to the Diplomat Hotel.
Yeah, traffic was surprisingly nice.
It was very light. I was like, holy shit, I didn't I didn't think we were— you know, the parking was—
the parking was ridiculous. Ended up on the 5th floor, but I literally did not expect to be there before 11. But you know, hey, we got there. Shout out to the traffic gods of South Florida for a lot. And well, the weather was nice, so people, you know, know how to drive when it doesn't rain.
Yeah, so we went and visited the Cannabis Lab Conference Lawyers in Business.
What does the LAB stand for? I don't know. Lawyers, Accountants in Business, I think so.
Well, so it's all about— was a conference all about the cannabis industry, was for people in the industry, for consumers, although I didn't see a lot of consumers there.
And, uh, no, that wasn't for consumers at all.
Anybody could have, but it wasn't aimed at No, no, it wasn't aimed at consumers, but anybody could have showed up to go to the, to cannabis.
Yeah, to the lab.
There was, um, a lot of booths there, so we went around to the different booths. If you're watching on video, you can see a lot of the stuff on the table. Yeah, obviously the big discussion— Justin's wearing the shirt, we have— I have on the hat, Yes on 3, which is the big vote in, uh, Florida coming up.
For recreational cannabis, recreational, adult use recreational cannabis, right?
Which, whatever the hell that means.
Well, because now, I mean, adults, you're 18, can you use cannabis? No, you got to be 21.
21 for cannabis?
Okay, I think, right?
I guess it's what it is.
I don't know, I couldn't even tell you.
Yeah, they don't know.
Well, I don't know, it's 21 plus, bro. It's just like they, they treat it just like alcohol.
Well, I think it should be 18, but that's beside the point.
So 18, not with weed. I don't agree.
Okay, not—
I don't think so.
Then it should be 21.
Yeah, 21 for sure. But yeah, man, this thing was pretty cool. I think, uh, I wish there were more people. It could have been, you know, but I don't know, we didn't go yesterday either, so I guess there yesterday was a little bit busier. But you know, but still, I mean, I just wish that more people would, uh would have attended. It would have been cool to network with some more businesses, but we did have a— as you can see, in the short amount of time we were there, we did have, uh, meet a lot of people.
Yeah, we met a lot of people. There was a lot of different things going on there, people selling cannabis-related, uh, products. There was a—
I forgot that woman's name. I, I'm so— I, I am terrible with names.
What were these things called?
They're called the Mighty. That's my vaporizer. So Storz and Bickel is a company that, that makes cannabis-consuming products, vaporizers. It's a— they say it's a better way to, you know, smoke because it takes out all the tar. You don't get any of the tar. You're just getting all pure oil, I guess you would say. I don't really know. But yeah, I love my Mighty. It is a pain in the ass to clean. I will say that.
But yeah, and they gave us a cool little grinder and another little thing that holds the filters.
Yeah, and bro, uh, from Connected, he looked out, gave us a, a tray and a nice grinder.
And a grinder. Thank you. Shout out for that.
I can't— yeah, I forgot his name, but Damian over at King Solomon, uh, what is it? You know, this is, this is for if you're ready to grow some, uh, some marijuana. I, I mean, I don't know what we're going to do with that, but you know, we'll, uh, definitely, uh, figure that out when the time comes.
When the time comes.
Okay. This other thing, there's Stash Logics. I don't know, they weren't there, so, but it was on someone's table, so I grabbed it.
New stash, little—
you can put your, your juice your doobs. My mom would call it a doobie. You put your doobie in there.
It reminds me of Adam Sandler. It does.
It almost looks like Saturday Night Live. It looks like lip balm though too, right?
Yeah, from the Saturday Night Live skit. They had like that little store and he was like with a Rastafarian hair. Oh yeah.
Oh, what do you do?
Whatever you want to call it.
Rastafarian.
Rastafarian hair and whatever. They would pick up a box and go, oh, what is that for? And he'd go, Oh, you put your weed in it.
I do. I can't, that part I remember. I don't remember if it was Adam Sandler or whatever.
Or Rob Schneider. Yeah. I think they were both in this movie.
They gave us a cool lighter.
Yep, that was cool.
That kind of resembles the Famu from a distance, but it's actually an alien on a surfboard. Oh, that's cool. And a wave crashing over him. Doesn't it look like Famu from a distance, right? That's what I thought it was the whole time I was looking at it on the table. I'm like, yo, let me get one of them Famu lighters. And he was like, nah, that's not a Famu lighter.
And Ricky Williams, former Miami Dolphins.
Heisman. I really wish he was there, man. I was—
I would have been cool.
He was there yesterday. I was a little salty. I wish he was there today. That would have been cool. We met the guys from the Freedom Grow. They got a documentary on Netflix that's very interesting with Allen Hollingsworth. He was actually at the event. Cool guy. Yeah, he was cool.
But they were talking about there's a guy, Mark Vogel, and he's 14 years, he's in a Russian prison for cannabis. I never even heard about this guy. Brittany Griner got arrested, you know, and they moved heaven and earth to get her out of there. And this guy's been a, he was a Pennsylvania cannabis patient and now he's serving a 14-year sentence for possessing legally purchased Pennsylvania medical cannabis. He's been overlooked for several high-profile prisoner swaps, and people, they're trying to bring him home. And they had a petition to sign to send to Joe Biden, and they're trying to get this guy out of— I mean, I don't even know, we've never heard of this guy.
That's sad.
How have we never heard about this guy? I mean, it's just You know, the guy's a husband, a father, a teacher.
14 years for a bag of trees, man. Jeez Louise, Papa Cheese.
And it's pretty sad. We'll post some information about it.
Yeah, watch this documentary though. It's important for the culture too, for sure.
And there was also about a race— there was another guy that was a race car driver, right?
Well, that's who the documentary's about.
Oh, so it's about the race car driver.
Yeah, he's a legend. He's from Miami, bro.
Yeah, I'm going to have to check it out, dude.
You know who this is.
I know who it is.
As soon as you see it, you're gonna be like, holy shit, I remember that. Yeah, he was like, he was an IndyCar. Or is that Formula One?
Formula One. I don't know. And then they did give out some coupons, so we'll ask this for—
I didn't get any of these.
Oh, you didn't get that? From Ricky Williams, they gave, uh—
where do you have to go to get one of these though?
I don't know, I'm gonna have to check that out. Okay, so you can get some nice gifts. Another company, MUV, they gave out, I don't know what all this is, but they gave a coupon first that you can go into a cannabis dispensary.
And Connected dropped some, well, Alien Labs and Connected dropped some new strains at True Leaf. The Permanent Marker, he highly, he was very adamant that you should try.
I've had it.
No, sorry.
No, I'm an old man.
I, man, I am really an old head, dude, like when it comes to this.
I mean, I would partake in this when they make it recreational. I just don't want it where it makes you hungry because I don't want to get the munchies and then eat a bunch of like a pizza, whole pizza.
Then you're going to want a sativa.
Okay, I'll have to get this sativa.
Sativa is the— it wakes you up, gets you energized, makes you want to go exercise, walk Wow.
Now nobody was at this booth, but I thought it was interesting being that I'm Jewish. The International Cannabis Association. And I guess they're educating people about cannabis and you can get involved. They're a nonprofit. We saw a couple of other— the, the guys who want to get the people out of jail, they're a nonprofit. And there was another lady there. What was that nonprofit called?
Norm.
Norm. Normal. Normal, but not spelled normal. N-O-R-M-L. Of course, that shit's been around since the '60s. Apparently the lady was like, yeah, I don't encourage membership. I don't want to file a tax return, a long tax return.
But I highly suggest donating to NORML. They've been around fighting. I wrote a letter when I was whatever, but yeah, man, anyway. Shout out to Normal. Shout out to the Freedom Grow organization. And what is this, the Jewish—
Jewish Cannabis Association?
So what do they do though?
Um, apparently they weren't at the booth, right? No, they don't sell cannabis, they don't grow cannabis. You could start a chapter. So I guess if Jewish people want to learn about cannabis—
so it's like a cult, like a group of Jewish people who want to support Cannabis, right?
I guess that's what it is. They have kosher food at their events in case you get the munchies. And doesn't say that.
Let me see this, man.
Consumption is allowed at the events.
Started— its founder is Raphael McCollum.
McCollum.
McCollum. Cannabis works, no doubt about it. It works essentially in every disease that has been investigated the endogenous cannabinoid system is involved.
It's about education, educating people instead of abusing opioids, alcohol, you know, things like that. And you could— it's located in Boca Raton. Surprised they weren't there. And we saw some people there from like a cannabis testing lab, people that help people build dispensaries. Um, storage for dispensaries, you know. I was actually surprised nobody was there that had like a humidor for cannabis. Cannabis humidor.
So they're basically—
they're—
what their mission is, is to get people off of opioids, right? Shout out to these guys.
Yeah, and educate people.
Well, yeah, yeah, because it's a way better option and taking painkillers and other, you know, stuff for depression, etc.
Right.
It's just better. But yeah, man, that was cool. It was cool. I wish there was more people that saw it. But, you know, it's one of the— just like how we said, like, 2 years ago, that would have been in a Giants conference hall, right? And it would have looked like shit. At least they put it in a smaller space, right? Put it together. It was put together pretty— dude, did you tell them how much of the food cost?
No, it was crazy. Like, the breakfast was like, what, $30?
So I was just, you know, we got a coupon for $25, right? So they had bacon, egg, and cheese. They had some feta turkey bacon shit, and then they had a egg and cheese, bro. That was $15, right?
And the water was like $5, $8.
That's crazy for a bottle of water. Uh, the yogurt was $8. I don't know how much the tea was. I had 2 teas. I just drank it. Sorry, shout out.
But the lunch was crazy.
The guy looked at me like he was gonna say something. But then he was like, I'm not going to even say nothing to this guy.
I mean, the lunch was crazy. They had a sign up and it said pizza, $40, and it was a slice of pizza. I mean, I don't know how the hotel can—
I mean, that slice of pizza better have been like this big.
It wasn't like— I don't know.
Yeah, no, I don't know what's going on. I asked this older, you know, someone that's older than me. Right. And I'm like, what is going on, bro?
Yeah, but remember we were at that hotel, what, 2 years ago for another conference?
But that tuna sandwich that we got was like $20.
I know, it was crazy.
That was like one of the cheapest things on the menu.
Right.
I went to, like I said, I went to Hallandale Beach for close to where we were at. Well, whatever, North Miami, right? Yeah, that's Hallandale Beach.
Well, we were in Hollywood Beach.
No, I'm saying farther south. Yeah, it was further south. So that's how I was. Yeah, so they had— yeah, I got a yogurt parfait. Yeah, that was $23.
That's ridiculous, man. I can't—
$23?
Restaurant food is completely out of control right now. I mean, we already see that the food and the groceries store. It's just in— it's literally—
I went to the Publix yesterday, grabbed some eggs. I mean, Trader Joe's. And for some free-range eggs, a dozen, it was back up to like 6-something.
You gotta go to— I'm telling you, Costco's got the— I know, but it has time to run down there, dude. Just tell me, I'll hook you up with some eggs.
I need 18 organic free-range eggs every time I go.
That's when I go, but I'll go pick you some up and bring them on Monday. So there was a story today in the news and we were discussing this, me and Justin, because we're always subject to food. Comes out.
Gotta eat.
There's a company and I don't want to say, we don't have to say the name of the, I guess we can say the name of the company. A giant food supplier who supplies food to Costco, Target, Trader Joe's is impacted and they have to throw— there's 10 million pounds of meat recalled for various— affecting hundreds of products across major retailers. In a newly released document from Bruce Pac, Bruce, B-R-U-C-E-P-A-C, company based in Oklahoma, is recalling 10 million pounds of ready-to-eat meat and poultry that's out there infected with Listeria. And it's literally, there's hundreds of products. The USDA released a document that's 326 pages, Justin, 326 pages. And also consumers are asked to throw away millions of eggs because there's an FDA recall on eggs also. So I looked it up. I'm like, and there's a variety of food sellers— 7-Eleven, Costco, Target, more. Something called El Monterey Mexican Chicken Grill and Cheese Taquitos. Don't eat them.
So there's 80— so it'd be there. So a semi-trailer holds up to 80,000 pounds.
So I looked this up and it said a semi-trailer can hold Yeah, that's include— hold somewhere between, depending on what it is, 30 to 40 tons of food. Yeah, in a semi-trailer. So there was 5,000— the 10 million pounds is 5,000 tons. So you're talking somewhere between 140 to 200 trucks full of food.
I wanted to put— because in my mind I was trying to put like, what is 10 million pounds food look like, right?
Yeah, well, it's like 100—
I know it's a lot of food.
150 trucks.
150 semi-trucks lined up full of food. That is shit. That's not good.
Yeah, Listeria. I don't even know what to say.
What does that do to you?
Apparently a Listeria confection can be— older American women, pregnant women, consumers with weakened immune systems— you can get fever, muscle ache, headache, stiff neck, confusion, loss of balance. Convulsions preceded by diarrhea or other stuff, probably throwing up.
And wow, bro, it's messed up, man.
I mean, that's just—
I mean, so someone at the plant had it?
No, it's whatever. It could have just got in there from some—
is it like a bacteria?
Yeah, it's a bacteria from maybe not cleaning properly or something. But I mean, it affects—
someone went to the bathroom and didn't wash their hands, possibly.
But I'm just saying, 10 million pounds of food, that's insane. I mean, it's 140, 150 or more truckloads of trucks of food, bro. Yeah, of trucks and trucks of food.
And at first I said that wasn't a lot, but I guess it's because kind of a lot.
Yeah, I mean, think about it. We have people in the United States now, like, and all those people in North Carolina, they need food. Don't give them any of that.
I went to the grocery store Saturday for real quick and that shit was empty as fuck. Like the shelves are super empty.
Well, people like drove, probably, you know, like a lot of people are affected in Orlando. There was—
oh, there's so many people that are staying down here right now.
Yeah, so people came down here. I know that probably we're gonna see rents are gonna, you know, apartments are gonna be all rented out because if you're out of your house for— you could be out of your house for months, a year. I mean, there's houses, there's the water still in the houses from the Hurricane in Florida. We saw videos of affected areas from, you know, from Cape Coral. All— I mean, I've talked to clients of ours from that live from Cape Coral up to Sarasota into the Tampa area. We talked to a guy today at the conference, he was from up there, and I cannot—
the He got lucky.
He got lucky, but he drew— he left his house, nothing happened to his house, but where he went to, he got hit with the storm.
Yeah, but still nothing happened to him.
Nothing happened to his—
he had two houses. Yeah, but I'm just saying, it's kind of crazy because he's, uh, I don't know, he said he drove because he thought it was going to be bad where he was, and he ended up driving to the eye of the storm. Yeah, like, that's messed up.
Well, you can't really outrun the hurricane when it's so big.
In other business news, uh, I was, uh, do you remember when I was talking about, um, Automattic and WordPress, the WP Engine thing, right? So WordPress, yeah, did the super, uh, F you and took control of their plugin, bro.
Uh-oh, really? How can they do that?
Like, they literally— no, it's in their terms of service. Like, they can, if they, if there's a public safety threat.
Yeah.
And so they said that their, uh, plugin, um, Advanced Custom Fields was the name of the plugin, um, had security vulnerabilities and they weren't addressing it, um, and said, yeah, no, we're taking that. And they renamed it to Secure Custom Fields. Wow. That's crazy. And it's in WordPress's, you know, agreement, I guess.
Well, I'm sure there's going to be a court case.
Oh, there's definitely— I mean, the dude said that the owner of WordPress or like the CEO is quoted as saying that he's going to take a scorched earth approach to this, to this fight.
Wow, that's crazy.
For real. I mean, I get it because his stance is that WP Engine is— makes it sound like it's affiliated with WordPress and it's not, you know what I mean?
Well, there's a lot of confusing companies. WordFence, WordThis, WordThat.
Yeah, that's kind of where it draws, you know, you kind of got to draw the line at somewhere where, you know, or people come out with things that are for WooCommerce and they use the word WooThemes. WooThemes. Yeah, well, WooThemes is dead.
No, but I'm just saying.
But yeah, WooCommerce definitely has the same issue, you know. Yeah. And I mean, I guess there's tons of cease and desist, and there's probably been a lot of back channeling between the two. Something that had to have happened though.
Yeah, something.
I was talking to my, to my sensei about this, and he was like, bro, I, I said the same thing. He's like, you know, 5 years ago whatever, something, a handshake had to have been made.
Exactly.
Somebody to use the name or something, something happened. And so, and the guy from WP Engine didn't follow through, you know, or some, something like that. Either that or there's some kind of infringement going on or, because I feel like, because WordPress is open source, so any, anyone and anybody can work on it and make suggestions and improvements, and it's a great community to be a part of. Like, I can't tell you how much support that I've gotten from pure strangers, you know, like if I'm having an issue, no matter what it may be and stuff. So, you know, the— our community is great. The WordPress community is great. So no one likes this at all, right? And with them just, you know, taking it.
Like, I'm surprised it's not more in the news because it's—
what's in the news is just in the tech.
Like, I know, but I'm just saying, like, it's not—
yeah, you know, because, you know, you're right, because, you know, but in the same sense, WordPress isn't talked about in the news very well. They just say— they just think the internet, you know, the internet, the internet, the internet. They don't really talk about the, the, the website or the content management systems behind Correct. But yeah, man, I hope they get it together and that this shit comes to an end because no one— it's just enough going on with AI and all the people, you know, fearmongering over they're taking people's jobs and, and it's just a lot of shit, you know what I mean? And now that WordPress just, you know, that's, that's, that's some wild shit, you know, hostile takeover. You know what I mean? And for them to do that, it's setting a precedent that it's not as friendly, community-oriented as it may be.
Well, we'll have to see how that plays out.
You know, we mentioned on the podcast, WWE is going to lose that shit because they can't— as soon as— I mean, I don't know. WP, the thing about WP is WP is literally WordPress's logo.
Right. That's a problem. You know what I mean? It's gonna be some infringements.
It's at the end of the day, I don't— I mean, we both, we were both on the same page when it's, when I, you know, it's like, what does that mean, bro?
I don't know.
You know what I'm saying?
We'll have to wait and see what shakes out in the courts.
Yeah. And then in WordPress's statement, they put out like, if anyone wants to help maintain the plug in, feel free to contact us. Like, you guys just rubbed all of us like really weird. No diddy.
Okay, so, you know, we were talking on the podcast about all the new stuff Elon Musk put out.
Yeah.
So now the guy who produced the movie I, Robot— yeah, he's upset with Elon Musk. He said the designs look very close to the a movie.
That's stupid. So what?
I don't know, he just made a big— made, you know, had to put his name, you know. Yeah.
Oh yeah, I get that.
You had to like throw it out there.
Cloud chasing.
Yeah, clout, you know, whatever. Anybody wants to, you know, whatever.
Trolling is, you know, kick—
he wanted to just, you know, kick Elon Musk in the shin.
So why he's down? No, Elon Musk isn't down, but I'm just saying, just the kick So I haven't heard not one good thing, any good, anybody say anything good about, uh, um, Elon Musk. No, the, the van.
Oh, whatever. I mean, I can tell you this. I mean, I saw Mr. Wonderful talking the other day and he said he can't wait for Trump to put Elon Musk in charge of some whatever, optimizing, auditing the government and cutting the fat. He said it's going to be game-changing.
Sure.
Well, just—
I don't know. This is— you're talking about a guy that fires whole, like, literally the entire Twitter team.
Yeah. Well, he said if you're not reading everybody's posts, you don't need that many employees.
That's what he said, bro. There's a— it's a lot more complicated.
I get that.
But I'm just saying, obviously, yeah, at the end of the day, I don't know.
I mean, figured out how to run the company with 80% less employees. So he obviously figured something out.
He had AI on his side too, though.
Okay.
Because I mean, how many, how many patents or whatever did he have with artificial intelligence?
Of course, we don't know what he's, what he's doing. The coolest thing he did, though, is, you know, these rockets like go up into the air and then they usually go into the ocean and they're scrapped, right? Well, for the first time, he had a rocket that— not the first time, but one of them, he— the propulsion, he landed it like in the holster. Yeah.
No, that's cool.
It is. So that was— I mean, that's fascinating. It's game-changing because before—
and he's going— and they said at first they weren't going to let Elon fly and go rescue those people, and then they really changed their mind and said Go get him, right? Of course you were gonna make— what the hell were you waiting for? Like, I bet those people were like, yo, I gotta get out of here, my kid's about to graduate, you know what I'm saying? Whatever, you know what I'm saying?
You go up there and get them already?
Not yet, I don't think so. I think they have November.
I think they have to get them— like, he has to get— they have to bring him like some new spacesuits and something else where they're building some kind of thing that's going to make it work in and the, you know, well, they go there all the time.
It's just got to be scheduled or some shit.
Yeah, they have to schedule.
You gotta call the Anunnaki and be like, hey yo, we gotta schedule the, uh, this, uh, rescue mission, man. Don't blow us out the sky. Anyway, that's the pod. Vote yes on 3 this November if you haven't already. The mail-in ballots, I think it's too late for that.
No, I think it's They'll do it.
I think it's too late to request.
Oh, request. Yeah, but do you got early voting? You can go vote early.
Vote early, vote often.
No, vote once.
No, vote once.
I'm kidding.
Yo, again, shout out to Damien from King Solomon. Shout out to the bros that connected. That's the pod for the day. Peace out.
Carpe diem. Peace, Willie Nelson, Snoop Dogg, and Chi-Chi-Chong. They're heroes to me.
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