Hawaii Cannabis Expo 2024 – Blaisdell Exhibition Hall (Honolulu, HI) February 2-4, 2024Â
Alexis Muller – BSBA, MS/owner of Hawaii Cannabis Expert Feb 2 – Room 1: 5PM – The Potency of Knowledge: Elevating Cannabis Consumer Value Feb 3 – Room 2: 3PM – The Potency of Knowledge: Elevating Cannabis Consumer Value Alexis Muller is the owner of Hawaii Cannabis Expert and a highly accomplished cannabis consultant, her expertise lies in providing specialized medical cannabis education for individuals, budtenders, organizations, and clinicians. She has a Bachelor of Science in business administration with a major in management from Hawaii Pacific University and recently earned her master’s degree in medical cannabis science and therapeutics from the University of Maryland school of pharmacy in 2022. She has over 25 years in the cannabis space from the ground up, dabbling in home cultivation and cooking with cannabis where her recipes have been featured on Levooil.com.
my name is Alexis Muller and I am the founder of Hawaii cannabis expert andI’m here to present the potency of knowledge so elevating consumer cannabis consumer value um I have a masters inmedical cannabis science and Therapeutics from the University of Maryland School ofPharmacy and our agenda today is um going to be meeting me so I’ll tell youa little bit about um myself um what is cannabis we’re going to go over the history of cannabis um Nature’schemistry we’re going to look into cannaboids and tpping um explore theEntourage effect um look into the indoc canabo system so how and why cannabisWorks in our body and then the art of choosing cannabis and we’re going to apply the Entourage effect and look atwhat’s the value of potency and then we’ll end in our summary of um our highpoints um so once again my name is Alexa smer and I’m the founder of Hawaiicannabis uh expert the reason why I founded a Hawaii cannabis expert is I noticed that there was a large gap um instandardized education in the Cannabis industry um we recommending providersand then we have them issuing 329 cards to patients and then that patient walks into the dispensary and they pretty muchdon’t have any knowledge about cannabis and and why am I choosing to use this medicine and what is its efficacy um webasically have just been told to just purchase cannabis based off of its THC potency and not really know why um sothat’s why I founded Hawaii cannabis expert um I’m just going to do a little bit of housekeeping um um I am not anurse I am not a doctor um I this is all public knowledge so I’m just here toagain elevate your experience as a consumer in the Cannabis industry so what is cannabis um we’re going to justgo ahead and start right off and get to the nomenclature in the Cannabis industry it can be reallymisleading um who here shopped in a dispensary before or bought a product umwho’s been told to uh look for an Inda or asativa or a hybrid right what do those words really mean well Inda sativa andhybrid really just identifies what the plant looks like while it’s growing so it represents what the genus looks likeso in the sativa plant we can see that the sativa plant’s going to grow talland be more like linky right it’s also going to determine its flowering time is that going to be a longer flowering timeor shorter flowering time um indicas are more short and bushy and they have ashorter flowering time so and then we have ruis um ruses are um not so much inthe um I guess I would say the legal or recreational or medicinal Market as much um who’s familiar with autofflowers so um autof flowering would be um a cross of aillis and a sativa or anindicia and the reason why we would use aillis is that um they basically justautomatically flower so we don’t have to control their environment um but so as aconsumer when you’re walking in and saying those words um they don’t really have any meaning except for what thatplant looks like what we really want to look at is the chemical makeup of the flour right cannabis is going to be madeof hundreds of compounds and we’re going to talk about those in this presentation that’s what’s going to bring value toyou as a consumer um to look today and where westand in the Cannabis industry I think we need to go back in history and this is really important because cannabiscomes with a stigma right and as Educators in this industry um I’m hereto break that stigma I’m here to normalize cannabis use and to make sure that everybody that wants to have accessto the plant has safe access to the plant um I’m very humbled to be in this industry um I never forget where I camefrom and that who is sitting in jail before me and who’s paved the path before me and that’s really important toremember because there are still individuals that are in prison or jail because of cannabis so we want to take alook at the history and cannabis is has a very Dee rooted history in our cultureum we know that cannabis has many uses it’s been used as fiber food and thenmedicine um we can look back and uh look at archaeological dig sites and we cansee that cannabis is present throughout the the world so it’s shown up in manydifferent cultures um the Chinese cultures Indian arcs Egyptians and Greekgods use cannabis and we know this because we can see it in their archaeological dig sites right um mostimportantly I think um the Chinese um they were the first to uh present awritten documentation of cannabis use as a medicine in the Chinese pharmacopia and that dates back to 2000 25 to 2800BC so that that’s really cannabis has been used as a medicine for thousands of years throughout cultures across theworld um primarily that we can see documented cannabis was used for the treatment of gout rheumato arthritismalaria this one really makes me laugh it was used for poor memory um eye pain inflammation and earproblems um moving forward into more recent times um there were two reallypowerful sources that contributed um to sideline cannabis as a medicine and thatwas anti-immigrant fever and the invention of the pill so if you think about it bear asterin was only inventedin the 1800s the 1890s so what did we use as medicine prior to that we’ve forgotten that as a culture of people inhealing um also uh again there’s a lot of information to say but um you knowHarry anslinger is the gentleman who was behind the anti-immigrant fever so cannabis and that stigma has been rootedin in racism and that plant has been um misinterpreted and misrepresented um in 1971 cannabis isclassified as a schedule one drug and that’s really important because that brings us to where we stand today it means schedule one means that it has ahigh potency for abuse and has no medicinal value and we absolutely knowthat cannabis has a has medicinal value and um the latter could be discusseddeeper um today um we know that there’s about in the US Alone um 35 millionusers a month of cannabis and I did a little bit of research and I found that they’re estimating maybe um youknow billions around the world who used cannabis um so wedefinitely know this medicine’s being used across the across the globe um right now we have 38 States and threeterritories that allow for medical use of cannabis products and some capacity and this numbers always changing Ididn’t fully update um I think Ohio is the last to go wreck um but there’s 24States plus DC in two teras that have enacted adult use for non-medical use so that means we have recreational use youknow in these uh more than half of the United States um so Nature’s chemistry so whatis cannabis made up of so we do know that cannabis is um a plant from Mother Nature and so that means that it ispretty much going to do what it wants to to do but we as humans have manipulated cannabis and that’s what you see incultivation today but we’re basically taking Mother Nature and we’re manipulating it into kind of what wewant it to be um but true and its true root is nature and we can onlymanipulate it so much so the cannabis plant is extremely complex and it’s a diverse organism um and its compositionincludes various compounds that contribute to its unique properties it’s made up of hundreds of compounds thoseinclude canabo Turpin polyphenols flavonoids lipids proteins and enzymesso it’s not just one compound medicine it’s very multifaceted there’s hundreds of them so the combination andconcentration of these uh components can vary between different strains and types of cannabis plants so that’s why you geta varied uh and a wide range of effects from um and characteristics associatedwith different plants um that’s another point to note again there’s a lot of information but um as a consumer it’simportant to know that each time that we Harvest a cannabis plant or a crop that chemical makeup is going to be differentthe cannabis plant is responding to its external um environment right so we wantto remember that it’s not a um we’re not going to have the same effect every time and so we want to remember that cannabisis a very individualized medicine it’s a personal Journey that we go on with medicine and that’s kind of part of thepsychoactivity as well right like how we look at ourselves as human beings how do we help ourselves on our healing journeyand that’s you know what this knowledge is important for is being in charge of our own health and our own medicine andwhat we’re what we’re putting into our bodies um so we’re going to take a look at one of the compounds that makes upcannabis and we’re all familiar with cannabinoids um cannabinoids are a classof chemical compounds that interacts with the endocannabinoid system in the human body and we’re going to talk about the endoc canabo system today um it’svery complex so we’re just going to go surface level um I have Booth 102 so if you have more questions we can dig aLittle Deeper um but that’s where I get chicken skin when we talk about the endoc canabo system because it’sabsolutely amazing um there’s three different types of cannabinoids I listedtwo and um the first type of cannaboid would be um endoc canabo so Endo meaningwe create them inside um how many people knew that the human body creates our own canaboso right when then in there that’s pretty magical so we’re creating our own canabo um and then there’s this plantthat’s been put on the planet Earth by whatever you believe in and it creates phyto canono so phyto canono are madefrom Plants the cannabis plant and the hemp plant make phyto canabo um sothat’s pretty cool so we know our human body is making cannabinoids and we know that we have a plan on this planet Earth that’s makingcannaboids um the third that I didn’t mention would be synthetic canabo um like I said there’s a lot of informationum but just to give that information they are out there synthetic meaning they’re created by humans a lot of thenegative news that we hear um or I guess uh I would say like adverse effects thatare that are great or sometimes lead in death are from synthetic cannabinoids they’ve been created from a human theyare not found in nature um so those two canabo that thebody creates um they’re known as anandamide the Bliss molecule or 2 a umso those are the two canono that have been discovered that our body makes and are beingstudied um the plant has over a 100 canabo found in it we’re familiar withlet’s say right 10 could we maybe say in this room we can list 10 I’m dying tofind out what those other hundred are I think I’ve seen a chart um but the mostknown and consumed phyto canabo are going to be THC and CBD which everyonein this room is familiar with correct um we’ll look at THC becausethat’s kind of what this presentation is about like what is the value of THC why do we focus so much on THC right um wellit’s the most abundant cannaboid found in the cannabis plant and it’s the main psychoactive chemical found in thecannabis plant and it’s the plant that makes you feel high so that’s pretty much why I think it’s focused on thatmuch it’s altering our state of consciousness right um what are the potential medical uses for THC so it hasbeen studied quite a bit um chronic pain pretty much is going to be number one umneuropathic pain it’s an anti-inflammatory it’s used as an anti-nausea agent it helps to relax yourmuscles it’s great for insomnia um Ms so spasticity of themuscles um glycom and cancer um let’s take a look at CBD becausethat’s also one of the most common cannabinoids that we’re familiar with and has been studied the most um it’sthe most abundant cannabinoid found in the hemp plant so that’s what makes hemp hemp it’s primarilyCBD um it’s non- intoxicating and so when I use that word non- intoxicatingit doesn’t mean it’s not psychoactive the definition of psychoactive is exerting a therapeutic effect in yourbrain CBD absolutely is psychoactive and is exerting a therap itic effect it’sjust non- intoxicating you’re not getting high from it um what are the potential medicaluses of CBD I think the one everyone’s most familiar with is going to be seizures and epilepsy um CBD is greatfor helping to treat symptoms of uh anxiety and depression it’s a majoranti-inflammatory um it’s great for pain relief and insomnia as well it’s a neuroprotective it’s been studied forindividuals that exper experien symptoms of PTSD um it’s been used as a substanceabuse treatment and um it helps a lot of patients that havecancer um what are the minor cannaboids so now we know there’s hundreds of cannaboids in the cannabis plant andthey’re being discovered um we focused on THC and CBD but there’s these arrayof these amazing minor canabo that a lot of people aren’t talking about and they as well have amazing therapeutic effectsand they’re found in the cannabis plant um one of them is going to be CBC um personally I’ve been using someTHC CBC gummies and um I wanted to kind of do a little test on myself and um ithas definitely helped a little bit with some Digestive Health it also happened to be a mood elevator um so that waskind of fun it was a fun to try something that put two canabo together and to see what therapeutic effect theyexert right um it’s used as an anti-depressant um it has anti-inflammatory effects umparticularly on acne I thought that was interesting um kind of looking at like teenagers or like topicals because as weuse these cannabinoids as medicines they don’t always have to be ingested there’s many routes of administration that theyshow efficacy for um it’s great for pain relief and again these are just studiesthat are coming out there’s very a very small amount of studies on a lot of minor canabo um but they’re starting tobecome more robust and more abundant um another one would be CBG CBG is reallyspecial um it’s the mother of all canabo um and so every canabo that comes fromthe plant as it matures comes from this canabo it’s an anti-inflammatory it’s aneuroprotectant um particular it’s been studied for efficacy with um hunting sin’s disease andParkinson’s um it’s an antioxidant so it helps to reduce and release stress a pain relief an appetite stimulant sothat’s really great if we’re using it as a medicine um and then anti-cancer potential I’m care careful for what Italk about because again um this is just science and we don’t want to say that cannabis can treat everything oranything right but we are definitely discovering and forging forward andshowing that these cannaboids do have efficacy for some um you know some pretty major disease States um CBN is umit’s the degration of THC so has anyone been told like not to smoke old weed right so actually old weed has somegreat therapeutic effects so um as these cannaboids degrade they degrade intoother therapeutic values and um CBN is one of those and so um we will see onthe market the CBN has been studied for sleep it’s a sedative right so we maybedo want to smoke or consume older cannabis right um it’s used for painrelief it also has anti-inflammatory responses and it helps with appetite stimulation um and then we have THC TVum this is another one that we’re seeing coming up um in the industry it is um being studied for um being used as anappetite suppression so we always know that we’re always here like cannabis gives me the munchies well we’restarting to discover that there are cannabinoids and tpping that actually help and Aid in suppressingappetite um let’s see it’s also a neuroprotectant um it’s been studied as ananti-convulsant and um it’s helped with a regeneration of bone health um I knowum we’ll talk about that in a little bit but cannabinoids contribute to um helping our bones to grow back ifthey’ve been broken and also helps with mood elevation and mitigating some of the symptoms ofanxiety um Turpin so again we’re looking at what are the compounds that are found in the cannabis plant um tpin are myfavorite I focus on tpin um a lot tpin are the natural aromatic compounds thatgive cannabis it’s Unique Aroma and flavors and turbines are not specific just to cannabis they’re foundall throughout nature and I think that’s really amazing when we talk about um aroma therapy with plant-based tpping Ilike to talk about walking through a Pine Forest right when we’re walking through a Pine Forest and we take a deepbreath we feel like we can breathe a little better right that’s the tping pining it’s exerting a therapeuticeffect in our brain making us breathe better it’s elevating our mood it’s making us creative I always get in thereand I’m like like oh let’s make a little Haku with all the clovers right so it’s exerting um an effect so tpin have beenused for centuries for their medicinal properties and they are um commercially used as ad additives and perfumes andaromatherapy products so we are familiar with them and there’s different kinds of tpin we’re talking about plant-basedTurpin so they come from nature um the cannabis plant has many varieties sochemo bars um I’m going to use the word choar instead of strain um again we’re kind of talking about the nomenclatureof cannabis and um in the scientific Community where I’ve studied and done a lot of my work um that would be a commonum word that we would use to replace strain it would be chemovar because it’s the chemical makeup of that flower thatparticular flower um they have unique tpine profiles that impact the body and varying mechanisms of action so we knowtpin they’ve been studied for their um therapeutic value all throughout in science we know they exert a therapeuticeffect in the body and the Brain um turbines are intended to work synergistically with the other plant uhcompounds so canabo and flavonoids and polyphenols and canif flavens um that inturn enhance their effects on the body and they often are referred to as the Entourage effect and we’re going to lookat what the Entourage effect is um on these next couple slides but basically what we’re looking at is again cancannabis is made of many compounds Turin are my favorite though because they um smellgood um I just wanted to list some of the common cannabis tpin that we see umparticularly in flour products on the market um beta cophine it’s also foundin Pepper and cloves so if you like to cook um you familiarize yourself with tpin because they’re found in a lot ofspices and herbs um those Aromas would be pepper wood and spice um betacaropine or for reducing inflammation um it also hasanti-inflammatory effects it’s great for reducing pain and reducing anxiety something special about beta cophine ismy favorite tpping because it also acts as a cannabinoid and it is the only tping that binds to your CB2 receptorwhich we’ll be talking about so it exerts a therapeutic a therapeutic effect on a receptor in your brain aswell help you information um other familiar canis Chapin we have merinewhich is found in mangoes and lemongrass it smells kind of musy and cloy andcitrusy um it’s great for sedating and relaxing um it enhances the THC psychoactivityfound in the cannabis plant so it gets you a little higher um has anyone ever tried to eat a bunch of mangos to gethigher no okay I don’t know what I don’t I I I want to see how many mangoes we’dhave to eat it’d be fun to do a test right but I think it would have to be an astronomical amount um but I’m just kindof curious I hear all or read about these different you know things that people try like I ate mangoes and got high and I’m like oh yeah okay tell meabout that how many mangoes did you eat you know um and maybe it’s a placebo effect and that’s alsopowerful right um so mercine is also a sedative it’s an analgesic which meansit’s a pain reliever um it helps with nausea and it’s a muscle relaxant um oneof our also favorite um chirping is going to be loning um so think of like lemon peel Citrus um its Aromas aregoing to be bright and clean it’s energizing it’s great for stress relief it’s great for mood and enhancement ofyour um of like your personality or day-to-day life um it’s ananti-depressant helps with a lot with gastric uh reflux so like gastrointestinal um discomfort um alsoit’s an antifungal and it helps a lot with reducing the symptoms of anxiety umpining think pine needles and conifers and Sage it’s got that pungent Woody pining smell um it helps with like alertESS and uplifting um pining is one of my favorite helps with stimulating yourmood um making you feel good and I think creative so pining I didn’t write creative on there but pining helps tostimulate creative um thoughts in our mind or creative tasks um it’s aneuroprotectant um it helps with memory retention and it’s a debron so when I’mlooking at all these medical benefits these are just again the beginning of studying these tpping and theirtherapeutic effects that they EX dessert um so it’s just science and and you knowit’s not a exact science nothing that I’m talking about is an exact science but at least knowing the therapeuticvalue of these tpin and these canono it gives us a little bit IDE a greater ideaof how is this product going to react in our body well if we know that it’s highimmersing right it’s possibly going to be more s sedating than this other flower that’s really high in pining orthis other product that’s really high in pining so a few of my other favorites um LOLOL I always go to LOLOL you knowevery every girl I know makes a lavender bath or has lavender somewhere in their house um that’s because it’s um asedating and calming tarpine um it’s been used and looked that as a anti-convulsant um and analgesic is a asa pain relief for insomnia and stress um and then we have hene which is also found in Hops and coriander it’s gotthat Woody earthy um smell um it’s an appetite suppressant so if you don’t want the munchies look for products thatare high in holine right um it’s also an anti-inflammatory antibacterial painrelief I shouldn’t probably list all these here’s another favorite tpine I have it’s osine um it’s found in orchidsand mangoes it’s like that floral zesty herbal and um it’s a stimulant right sosometimes when we see this in different products it gives you that energizing buzz and that good feeling um it’s alsoan anti-convulsant antifungal and V antiviral and then eucalyptol I’ve seen quite a bit um we’ll be talking aboutcertificates of analysis so when we test our flower um and that one’s kind of cool it’s found in like eucalyptus andtea tree and rosemary and Sage it’s got that pungent minty smell um it increasesyour respiratory and G gastric secretions so again it’s good for breathing and helping with those umstomach issues and it’s an antiseptic and antimicrobial um the Entourage effect soso we’ve talked about compounds that are found in cannabis we talked about cannabinoids and tpin and so what is theEntourage effect well this is a theory that was um presented by uh Raphael mumhe’s the father of cannabis and he adopted this phrase the Entourage effect to refer to the unique effects producedby the combination of cannabinoids and tpin and flavonoids each with their own unique biochemical benefits so basicallyit’s THC alone has amazing therapeutic benefits but when we add all the othercannabinoids we look at all the other therapeutic value of the cannabinoids and the turpins right together theyexert a greater therapeutic effect known as the Entourage effect so you’ll see that on products full spectrum productsright that means that all the canabo all the Turin are present in that product or that flower um the Entourage effect againjust a little chart that kind of shows how many flavonoids turbines and canono have been identified in the plant andhow they’re all synergistically working together um it occurs as um the Cannabiscompounds interact with the body and produce a stronger effect than any isolated cannabis plant on its Compoundon its own um as cannaboid receptors are stimulated a range of psychologicalprocesses follow right so we know that they’re exerting a therapeutic effect in our brain um turbines and cannaboids andflavonoids are intended are intended to work synergistically together to enhance their effects on the body and this isagain often referred to as Entourage effect I’ve learned in education if I keep repeating myself it becomes secondnature and then we start to like really understand and put it together um and then the Entourage effect Theory can beused as um a guide to help patients in purchasing cannabis by looking at the chemical makeup of the flower throughthe COA or the certificate of analysis or by smelling and getting a better idea of the possible therapeutic effects andwe’re going to talk about that the nose nose um this is where um my joy comesout and this is where um my love for the plant really comes forthbecause knowing not knowing for so long that weknowing that we were meant to use cannabis knowing that it had it worked in our bodies and in being in thisindustry and having the stigma attached to it and and keeping going forward pushing this narrative that like we aremeant as human beings to use cannabis why how right and so the discovery ofthe endoc canabo system um was revolutionary the endoc canabo systemwas found because of the study of cannabis and because cannabis is a schedule one drug the endocannabinoidsystem is not talked about and is not taught in medical school and I think that’s really important to remember umthat we have many clinicians um that are not being taught about the endoc canabo system and basically it is the mostimportant system in our body and it is responsible for every physiological response that we have in our body and weabsolutely need to know what it is and how it works um and again that is stillgoing to be forged forward with science so this is just what’s been discovered and I cannot wait to see what’s going to happen in the future but theendocannabinoid system is a complex signaling system responsible for regulating homeostasis or balance in thehuman body so I just want to say that one more time the system is responsiblefor creating balance in our body homeostasis the ECS is complicated butresearch shows it’s responsible for balancing the following processes and I just listed a few but it’s our mood ourmetabolism our inflammation and immune responses our pain response ourfertility our bone growth our gastro testinal system our hormones and ourmuscles so it is literally responsible for everything all of the all of theresponses we have in our body that’s magical right so what makes up the endoccanabo system well what primarily makes up the endoc canabo system are CB1 and CB2 receptors and those receptors havebeen the most studied our CB1 receptors are primarily found on our central nervous system and our CB2 receptors areresp are mostly found in our peripheral nervous system um that’s also somethingthat’s important to remember um no one’s ever died from using cannabis and I’m going to state that and stand by itnobody has ever died from using cannabis and that’s because we lack or don’t haveenough of these receptors on our brain stem and our brain stem is responsiblefor our heart and our breeding so we can never consume too much cannabis and dieit will never stop us from from breathing or stop our heart from beating that doesn’t mean it doesn’t come withadverse effects right and that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have interactions with Pharmaceuticals but it’s never going tokill you so we have the longest documented and safest relationship with cannabis of any medicine on the planetEarth right but when we look at where these receptors are located in our body we can see they’re everywhere right nowour body obviously doesn’t have the endoc canabo system because of a plant so we’re going to go back to the slidethat we talked about with our endogenous canono right so our body is creatinganandamide and 2ag to bind with these receptors and bring our body back tobalance so a good example would be um we’re feeling anxiety right we’re we’reheightened our body is responding it’s feeling anxiety our body then creates an anomid in 2 a it binds on thosereceptors and it slows down our anxiety feelings it brings us back down to balance rightnow scientists and doctors are looking at this and they’re seeing this large rate of disease states and why are wehaving such a an influx right and one of the theories is is an endoc canabo dislike disregulation we’re not creating enough anandamide and 2ag in our body to bring our back us back to homeostasisright so when we use cannabis it isbinding cd1 and cd2 receptors and it’s bringing our body back tobalance has anyone ever been curious like why cannabis works for so manydifferent like symptoms and disease States from anxiety to lupus toParkinson’s disease to pain to cancer this iswhy it is binding with receptors that are found all throughout our body regulating all of our physiologicalresponses and bring bringing us back to balance so whatever disease ordiscomfort we’re experiencing and we use cannabis it brings us back to balanceright and I’m just generally saying that we do know that we can take too much cannabis right and have adverse effectsand I was watching what kind of wordss I use and I wanted to be um use the nomenclature and be very like en Lanceterms but cannabis is biphasic and what that means is that in one dose it’ll elicit one response it’ll help mitigateyour anxiety symptoms and then if you take too much cannabis it’ll dowhat give you anxiety right so dose does matter dose does matterright um again I did talk but just to reiterate um ECS is made up of CB1 andCB2 receptors um they’re primarily cv1s are primarily located throughout the central nervous system whereas CB2receptor are primarily found on our peripheral nervous system our cv1 receptors are primarily located um inour brain right so cannabis does break the blood brain barrier um our bodymakes cannaboids they’re endogenous canono end canono 2 a and AE AA which isa bliss molecule those canono also bind with your CB1 and your CB2 receptorsexerting their therapeutic effects to interaction with the anav system system helping to createhomeostasis um the cannabis plant plant also makes canids that find cd1 and cd2receptors exerting their therapeutic effect through interaction with DCS helping to create homeostasis and G inthe body um the art of choosing cannabis this is the title of my presentation isthe value of potency right um now that we have a better understanding of thechemical compounds that are found in cannabis and and a generalization of their therapeutic effect how do we as aconsumer bring value to our purchase right because we’re just walking intothis dispensary or we have walked onto a farm and we’re just bombarded with allthese products what does it mean you know how do I choose the right productwell we can use a little bit of Science and we can use a little bit of therapeutic value and um we can chooseproducts a little bit more WI so the art of choosing cannabis and so the art of choosing cannabis usingEntourage effect is a nuance and holistic approach to cannabis consumption um so rather than simplyjust focusing on a single compound like THC or CBD the Entourage Theoryemphasizes the synergistic interaction of various cannaboids turbines and other compounds found in the canis PLS byselecting strains and products by the chemical makeup of that product and looking to harness the Entourage effectconsum consumers aim to achieve a more balanced and therapeutic experience um this approach considersnot only the canabo cont content but also the aromatic and flavor profiles ofdifferent strains easy to optimize the therapeutic benefits and to minimize potential side effects resulting in amore tailored and enjoyable cannabis experience because that’s ultimately what we want right we want everyone tohave a really positive experience with cannabis and if it’s a medicine for them to continue using it but using it wiselyand using it responsibly um so medical cannabis retail locationsum are required by law um to test all cannabis products by a third party umand this testing results in a COA or a certificate of analysis the COA addssignificant value to a consumer by providing detailed information about the Cannabis product so I’m a huge fan of aCOA um the COA will give a breakdown of the Cannabis products canav profile it’sTuring profile it’s potency level if there’s any pesticides residuals ormicrobial contamination in the presence of any heavy metals um cannabis is a bioabsorbent um so that means that it’s very good at absorbing everything around it and that’s why it is important totest cannabis because we do want to make sure that it’s not carrying heavy met we’re not smoking heavy metals we don’thave contaminants like um pesticides or bacteria or mold um consumers can usethe COA to understand the specific canono inter turpy profiles and the potency of the product um thisinformation helps consumers to make informed choices based on the desired effects and flavors associated with different strains and concentration ofcabon oids to gauge the strength and to make more accurate decisions about dosage right so if we know what’s in theproduct that we’re buying then we can make more informed decisions and bring more value back to our purchase so Ijust threw in an example of a COA um this is public knowledge um so if you dowalk into um a dispensary um you are allowed to look at this certificate analysis um but you’re not allowed tobring it home so usually a butt tender will help you to kind of analyze the certificate of analysis and make helpyou make a better informed choice I use the hemp COA um we can see over here it lists um what its potency is um we canlook at its chiring profile we can see that it passed all of its regulatory um safand um it’ll also throw in um the the moisture level of cannabis um I don’t mind dry cannabis but I know that wedefinitely want to have a certain moisture level and not just have it fall apart so this would just be an example of what you would see if you walked intoa dispensary um I wanted to also focus onum not just purchasing cannabis at a dispensary um there are um in the stateof Hawaii if you have a 329 card you are allowed to have a caregiver which means you are allowed to have some one personGR cannabis for you and um more so than likely that cannabis is not going to betested so I really wanted to highlight that the nose knows and this also plays a part in the dispensary it’s reallyimportant um if you have a good H butt tender or retail specialist they’re going to say to you smell this and yournose is going to know it’s going to be like oo I like the smell of that or that is not for me and if your body likes thesmell of it right it’s part of that process of using this as a specific medicine you know your body’s tellingyou yes I need this this is a medicine I need today um so the nose nose is a longV tool of the Cannabis connoisseur canister seur was cute um to gauge thearoma flavor and even the type of high they’re about to experience from their flour has anyone in this room ever usedthe nose noes have you hadsuccess there there was a few unexpected smells in there or smokes there wentdoctor um while nosing and I just thought this was so cute can certainly give you Clues as to why your experienceis going to be amazing it can also serve to give you key insight as to whether your cidis is fresh and in some caseseven consumable at all so again our nose is telling us if we smell something rancid or we smell something moldythat’s probably we’re not going to purchase that whether it is from a farm or whether our caregiver or whether it’sfrom with dispensory um many adjetives like earthy citrusy gassy and skunky andseveral others are used to describe the fragrance of cannabis these descriptors often match up with the type of turpyprofile one may find um when they consume it so recent studies suggest that online THC potencyPleasant Aroma is a a predictor of pleasant subjective effects so againusing that nose nose if we like this one we’re probably have a really good high good experience and we’re going to have the ficy that we’re looking for thesymptom relief we’re looking for um so let’s let’s apply the Entourage effect um I use this a lot ineducation because it’s one thing to look at a COA and have someone help you um so I chose deran poison which is awell-known chemo bar um its dominant turbines are line and beta carop umlet’s see the medical benefits of loning help with anxiety and depression gastrointestinal issues umdepression um beta caropine is used as an anti-inflammatory it’s an immunemodulator and of chronic pain and muscle spasms so we can kind of look at thatand determine oh well maybe the physical effects of these therapies when they exert their therapeutic effect are goingto be um an elevated mood and more stress relief um it’s going to exert atherapeutic benefit Bas carry offs and exerts therapeutic benefit on the CB2 receptor and it’s going to reduceinflammation and if you reduce inflammation you reduce pain um some of the qualifying conditions in the stateof Hawaii that this would be a good product to choose um would be ALS and Mssomeone who has muscle spasms um rator arthritis or lupus cancer Crohn’sdisease pain and PTSD um and then let’s apply that Entourage effect again we’re justgenerally speaking we’re generalizing but we can generalize that Gering poison will offer patients a relaxing upliftingmood that may help to alleviate symptoms of anxiety and stress while reducing inflammation from gastrointestinalissues and relieving chronic pain so um I listed some alternativeofferings because when we’re looking at if we’re using the Entourage effect to choose products we can then look at umother products that have similar chemical makeups and we can generalize that they will exert a similartherapeutic effect um so what’s the value of potencywell honestly the value of potency is you need to each consumer and it depends on our individual preferences um youknow you can highlight the significance of CH beIN and canabo and crafting personalized cannabisexperience um to sum everything up that wasn’t too too scientific I hope and umso I listed some of the high points of the presentation so we know that cannabis has served as a medicinal plantfor thousands of years we can see it um in archaeological digs um if you come bymy booth I have some really cool articles um one of them being the Siberian Ice Princess and um a few thatum they think that Italians were Recreation cannabis smokers and they found canono remnants in their bones socome on by the booth and check that out um we know that cannabis is composed of hundreds of compounds all workingsynergistically together to exert a more powerful therapeutic effect know asEntourage effect so this Collective interaction enhances the overall impact and benefits of the plant constitutesshowcasing the remarkable Synergy within the complex array of compounds found incannabis and um so cannabis acts on the same receptors um on our endoc canabosystem as our endogenous C cannaboids so as far as I’m concerned we’re meant to use this plan as a medicine there is noother plant on this planet Earth that interacts with our endoccanabidol um but the way that they’re used medically obviously differs fromCannabis but those would be the only plants on this planet Earth so we’re definitely meant to use this plant umthe alignment suggests that our bodies are naturally inclined to interact with cannaboids emphasizing the potential of therapeutic benefits and then um justdon’t forget cannabis is a personalized medicine um recognizing that what worksfor one person may not be opal for another person um you know it’s not a one siiz fits-all approach um but it’srather it’s a tailored individualized Journey towards well-being and um thatwas the uh I guess my conclusion of my present presentation is don’t forget this is your personal journey and I hopethat these uh this educational knowledge helped to elevate your experience and that you feel more educated when youwalk into a dispensary or you know wherever you’re getting your medicine um that you feel more empowered to knowlike this is why I’m choosing this medicine these are the therapeutic benefits and based off of either my nosenose or the COA I can make a better um you know decision that I’m going to buythis flower because High invaded caropine and I know it’s going to help with pain management or gastral issuesum so again just making sure that everyone has that knowledge and elevates their[Applause] experience anyquestions THC the is TC the standard still yetfor yes but the Entourage effect and the theorysuggests that the other cannaboids and turbines can enhance potency of THC so Ilook at and I know this is going to be recorded and I’m not a sports person but you can look at THC is like MichaelJordan like he’s the slam dunker he’s the God but he’s really nothing without his team he wouldn’t exist if he didn’thave everybody supporting him and making him greater than he already is yeahyeah so that’s the theory right you know THC has its potency it has value butit’s not the overall value of the plant you know it’s all the other like I always tell consumers don’t miss out onthe sail bin and and don’t just walk past it because you see 133% THC flourum say the Turing content of that flour is 2 to 3% the potency could feel like a 21%flour that you smoked because it’s enhancing that potency it’s enhancing that value that THC gives um I foundsome of my best finds in the salesmen thank you guys so much forsupport [Music]